Matthew 22:1-14

Transcription

Matthew, Matthew 22. I'm going to read to you in a minute the 14 verses that we're looking at it. We're in the book of Matthew. If you're new to the Bible, Matthew is a biography about Jesus teaching his life and teachings that he did. It's a historic account that was made first century by one of Jesus's apostles. His name was Matthew. Before he met Jesus, he was a scoundrel tax collector, but he had a writing ability. And God used his ability to write to record for us. this account of the life of Jesus and his teachings. And the church has been reading the Gospel of Matthew for the last 2,000 years. And it serves as our template for worship. So, um, we're happen to be in Matthew 22. Just so you know, kind of a big picture, chapter 21 through 27 is the life of Jesus. Uh, the seven days where he goes into Jerusalem. He's crucified five days later. He rises from the dead on the seventh day on Sunday morning. So this is like Easter week. Some people call it Holy Week. We're looking at Jesus's life during that time. We happen to be on the third parable that Jesus told. He's in a public setting. He's in the Temple Mount. I don't know if you remember the slide where I showed you. It's a big open courtyard with colonad. and kind of shade um porches around the perimeter, but it's a big giant open space. And somewhere in in that space, the chief priests and the Jewish elders confront Jesus and they say to him, "Who gave you authority to teach in this way? Where did your authority come from?" And Jesus says, "I'll answer your question if you answer mine. Did was the ministry of John the Baptist Was it from heaven or was it of of men? And they ponder it and they're stuck and they're like, "Well, if we answer it one way, we're in trouble. If we answer it the other way, we're in trouble." And so they say, "We don't know." Right? They're trying to get away from it by, "Oh, we don't know. We don't know how to answer the question." So Jesus says, "Fine. I'm not going to answer your question." But then he goes on to tell three parables. The first parable was the parable of the two sons. All of these parables are a rebuke. They are a Um, they are a a they are stories that confront the very problem that these religious leaders represent. The chief priests, the elders are rejecting the work of God for the nation of Israel, for the world. They're rejecting Jesus. And they have a his history of rejecting Jesus. Maybe you have a history of rejecting Jesus. And Jesus, excuse me, Sorry, I'm getting passionate. Jesus is loving enough that he doesn't let you just sit in your rebellion. He doesn't let you just kind of go on in your rebellion against Jesus. He says, "Listen, I'm going to tell you a story, a story you can relate to because Jesus loves you and he wants to rescue you from your rebellion. And we're going to get the third story. The first story was about the two sons. And it's who's obeying, the first son or the second son. Then we had a story about the um land owner that leased his property out to tenant farmers. The tenant farmers are the chief elders in the story. Basically, he's like, "You've been entrusted with this vineyard to oversee, and they reject the um owners terms. They reject the effort to collect. Thank you. And so Jesus is just hammering these religious leaders with these parables to help them to see that their historic rebellion is ironic, shocking, foolish, and And there that there is a destination. And you just need to know that your historic and my historic rebellion to God is ironic, shocking, and stupid. And those of us that have come and we've surrendered our life to Christ, and all of a sudden the puzzle pieces come together and all of a sudden stuff starts to make sense in hearts are flooded with the peace of God and we know forgiveness. We know that God's forgiven us for the the crummy things that we've done and we experience just this flood even in even after we follow Jesus and we screw up our life. We know that we can return to him. We can play the prodigal and come back home. When that stuff when that happens, it's just like, oh man, it fits. How ironic was my rebellion. How dumb. was I to rebel against God. Let's look at this this parable. I'm going to read it to you. The first 14 verses of chapter 22. It says this. Once more Jesus spoke to them in parables. The kingdom of heaven is like a king who gave a wedding banquet for his son. He sent his servants to summon those invited to the banquet, but they didn't want to come again. He sent out other servants and said, "Tell those who are invited, see, I've prepared my dinner. My oxen, they're their fattened cattle have been slaughtered and everything is ready. Come to the banquet, to the wedding banquet." But they paid no attention and went away, one to his own farm, another to his business. And while the rest, seized his servants, mistreated them, and killed them. The king was enraged, and he sent out his troops, killed those murderers, and burned down their city. Then he told his servants, "The banquet is ready." But those who were invited were not worthy. Go then to where the roads exit the city, and invite everyone you find to the banquet. So those servants went out on the roads and gathered everyone they found, both evil and good. The wedding banquet was filled with guests. When the king came in to see the guests, he saw a man there who was not dressed for a wedding. So he said to him, "Friend, how did you get here without wedding clothes. The man was speechless. Then the king told the attendants, "Tie him up hand and foot. Throw him into the outer darkness where there will be weeping and the nashing of teeth. For many are invited, but few are chosen." Father, we pray that you would teach us through your word. We know that this this um historic document about Jesus and his teachings were not just for the first century followers of Jesus, but they're also for us and and they're to help us understand how to be a follower of Jesus, how to be a part of your kingdom, your new society. We pray Lord that your spirit would speak clearly to us like that song was that we were singing earlier. We're we're ready to listen. We're ready to listen to your voice. Please teach us. We ask this in Jesus name. Amen.

Amen. You ready to obey what the Holy Spirit speaks to you this morning?

Who knows what he's going to say? But this is the reality is that he knows your story. He knows where you're doing it wrong and he knows where you're doing it right. He knows your the anxieties of your heart and and we get to come and read this text and trust that the spirit of God is going to instruct us, correct us, rebuke us, and comfort us. Paul said to Timothy that that's what the word of God does. It works in that way in our lives and that's what we're anticipating. So, be praying. It may be that the Holy Spirit is speaking to you this morning something that doesn't even come out of my mouth, but it's it's it's in your heart. God's laying something on your heart. Let's look at the first three verses. We'll take this one little bite at a time. He it says that Jesus spoke to them in parables. You remember that a parable is a story that is used to bring a kingdom idea into just a real con. rete um you know you can sink your teeth into it. You can feel and and it just teaches one aspect. It usually emphasizes just one particular theme. I I would suggest that the theme one of the broad themes of this parable is just the invitation of God. Come in. You're w come in to the come in to the banquet. Come in. Be a part of what God's doing. That might be something You hear the Holy Spirit speaking to you this morning because it's it's right there in the in the text that we're looking at. This invit you feel invited in to the work of God. So Jesus is telling these parables and he says that the kingdom of heaven is like a king who gave a wedding banquet for his son. Let's go to the third verse. I'll read the third verse for you as well. He sent his servant to summon those invited to the banquet, but they didn't want to come. Jesus has been proclaiming the good news about his kingdom from the very beginning of his ministry. Just again, if you're new to the to the Bible and the message of Jesus, you you need to understand that when Jesus went and spoke to a crowd that looked like this, He often used this term kingdom. He he was essentially saying that there is a foreign kingdom that that I'm bringing to you. It it's it's at hands length. It's arms length away. It it's come near to you and um I I want you to receive the kingdom. I I want you to step in. I want you to enter into the kingdom. That was the language that he was using. Now, Now, you may have grown up in the church and heard that this idea of you need to have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. That's also in the Bible. Jesus teaches that to Nicodemus in John chapter 3. In John chapter 15, in John chapter 10, he's talking about having a personal relationship with him, a spiritual relationship where you're unified with him. Your life is hidden in him. But you don't you and I don't just have a personal relationship with Jesus. His message was this good news about a new kingdom, a spiritual kingdom that he wants you to be a part of. And so all throughout his ministry, he's preaching the gospel, the good news of the kingdom. And it means that re our relationships happen differently. Our relationship with God happens differently. Our relationship with this earth happens differently. our relationship with money and stuff happens differently because we are a part of the kingdom. And so Jesus is telling a a a parable about the kingdom with these religious leaders right in his face. And what it does what this kingdom parable does is it paints the picture of a wedding feast. A king hosting a wedding feast. In other words. God invites some people to a wedding feast and they reject the invitation. This parable, one of the crazy things about parables is that it doesn't describe heaven in the future, right? It doesn't say when you die and you go to heaven, here's what your life is going to be like. No, parables describe the history. the present moment and a piece of the future. Um, oftent times kind of bleeding into the second coming of Christ, but it's very much something now. And so this parable here takes the image of a wedding feast and it layers it on to the history of Israel and says, Israel's been in being invited to this wedding feast for a long time. You've been invited to the work of God, the me meic work. You go back to John the Baptist, you've been invited in. But it also seems like this parable, it kind of echoes or or hearkens back to like the prophets that God sent to the nation of Israel that God's been inviting his people into his kingdom work before John the Baptist, you could say. And the invited people, the the the the genetic descendants of Abraham have this historic relationship of being invited and rejecting. Now, some responded, but here this parable is highlighting those invited who don't respond to the invitation. And the beautiful thing, I don't know if you know the God of the Bible yet, but the thing you need to know is that the God of the Bible loves people. He's inviting them in. And he's been doing this incredible historic work going all the way back to the very beginning of your Bible, Adam and Eve. trying to rescue them from their own rejection of an invitation in the garden. They turned away from God and God's trying to pull them back and redeem them back to himself. But it's not just an invitation to a work party. It's not just an invitation to a birthday party. It isn't like a sweet 16 or a kinera. No, this is a wedding feast. And if you're an Israelite, if you're Jewish, you know that this picture of a marriage and a bride and a bridegroom has captured the prophetic imagination for centuries. God has been telling the nation of Israel that he is the groom and that they're the bride and that he loves them and that he pursues them and that it's not just a friendship that he has with the nation, but it is a marriage that he has called them into. The idea of a covenant and the covenants that were given Israel. All of this language, it's like high stakes, highlevel commitment, incredible romance and love. Let me give you just a sense of a wedding. A wedding banquet at the time of Jesus when he tells this parable. It was a festive occasion in the life in the Jewish life. A a wedding for a Jewish person in their town, it would typically last from 5 to 7 days. That's that is a long event. That's a long wedding. 5 to seven days. Though the full festivities, they could last up to 30 days. They were um filled with celebration, music, dancing under the stars, telling riddles, rejoicing. It was a villagewide holiday. oftent times autumn for them their autumn was a preferred season after the harvest. That would be what would be our kind of from my understanding of it. That would be like our May and June time when people could relax. They could relax. They could celebrate. They've got the harvest. They have uh they're done with the heavy labor. They've got a moment to breathe. The banquet proper often began in the evening on the second day of the wedding week with feasting that included separate servings for men and women in some cases and emphasizing communal joy and abundance. There was no formal religious ceremony at the banquet itself. Instead, it featured blessings from the family. Imagine like how your groomsmen in our weddings, they'll get up and give a speech. Your your maid of honor will give a speech. Your um best man will give a speech. This so they would include feature blessings from family and friends. We see this in Ruth 4:11 in the Old Testament. The songs would be drawn. They would sing songs based off of the book of your Bible, Song of Solomon. There would be a procession where the groom would fetch the bride from the father's house. The couple would sit under a canopy and a ruler of the feast. There would be like a a um somebody in charge of the feast would oversee the event kind of like an MC but also um a like a wedding coordinator MC type role. They would ensure that the guests had everything they needed um and they were directing this this person who was the ruler of the feast would direct the servants. There would be games, giftgiving, exalting the bride was common with an atmosphere of prizing hospitality and refusing um to participate or show disrespect was a major social phauxa. These banquetss they symbolized prosperity and divine blessing. Let me talk to you just a little bit about the invitations. The the way you notice here that in our text that the um that the king sends his servant to summon those who are invited to the banquet. So, you already have um invitations that were sent out. It's kind of like our save the date, right? You send out the cards, hey, save the date, your um invitation will follow. They would have something like that, but it was more of a general like you're on the list, you're invited, but because um of the nature of planning during this time and preparations, there was no ability to say exactly when the event would occur. It was just a general invitation and the summoning to the the feast would follow. So in the first century Jewish culture, invitations were like a modern-day RSVP without fixed times. An initial invitation was sent out in advance to gauge interest and allow preparation, but without a specific date or an hour. The timing depended on the home or when the feast was ready. Then when everything was prepared, the servants were sent to summon the already invited guests, essentially saying, "Come now. The banquet is ready." We're going to see this when we get to another parable of the 10 virgins in Matthew 25. The summoning was a call to immediate action, and to ignore that summoning was a profound rejection. It was like a massive no no to say to reject the summoning. This practice accounted for the unpredictability of the preparations in an agrarian society without modern communication. So in other words, you don't know when the food's going to be ready and and when the bridegroom will have built the chamber for his guest, right? So there's a bunch of preparations that are going on. And so it's kind of like, okay, Hey, the groom is now ready. Send out the servants and let's go. So, we see that they send out the summons and those invited did not want to come. Let's go to four through six again. He sent out, this is the second wave of invitations. He sent out other servants and he said, "Look, tell those who are invited, look, I've prepared my dinner, my oxen, my fatted cattle, even it has been slaughtered. Everything is ready. Come to the wedding banquet. So, there's more um details included in this particular invitation. And um here's what happens. They said they paid no attention. They went away one to his own farm, another to his own business. But this is crazy. This is almost like hyperbole. This would never happen. But it happened in the history of God relating into Israel. The rest seized his servants, mistreated them, and killed them. Like, when's the last time someone sent you a wedding invitation and you're like, I'm going to kill you for sending that to me. No. Right. That that's not how it works. You may just be like, I regretfully declined to attend. But here in this parable that Jesus is telling, he's like, listen, you got to understand the God of the Bible, God who is king, my father, he has been invited ing you as a people for years into my work. And this is the degree to which it's like the the meal is already prepared. All everything's everything's ready to go. Just just come and show up and they're not ready to show up. They're not ready to go.

You're lost. Did you Yeah.

Okay.

Okay.

But then threw him out. I don't understand that part.

Y

Okay. So, you have a problem with the end, which is the hardest part. So, let's unpack the first part because there's two invitations. There's going to The next thing that's going to happen is judgment. Okay. Um, so let's see what the um second invitation looks like or this is the second this is the first judgment. The king was enraged and he sent out his troops, killed those murderers and burned down their city. So again, if you know Jewish history, there was a season where Israel rejects God's work in their life. They totally rebel against God. God's given them a promised land. He's given them a kingdom. He's given victory over their enemies. He's given them prosperity. Maybe that's some of your story, right? God's done everything he could do for you and the people are still rebellious. Man, we're sometimes we're dumb. They were dumb. And God let God let Israel go through seasons where it's like, fine, I'm going to let your enemies come and attack, take you off captive. That happened during the exile um in 700 AD. Right? So, this this picture. These images are not all that foreign to um the those listening. Verse eight, then he told his servants, "The banquet is ready, but those who were invited were not worthy." So he's he's like, "Listen, the the meal is ready. We invited some people, but they just didn't want to show up. So what are we going to do? Go then where the roads exit the city and invite everyone you find to the banquet.

Okay. Yes.

I don't understand why

we haven't gotten to that part yet.

I understand. I understand. And I'm not I'm not going to tell you that. I fully understand it.

Okay. Yeah. We're still at the invitation part.

Yeah. He's So the the awesome thing here is that he says Um, well, who do you think in this story are the invited people?

Gentiles.

Well, before we get to the Gentiles, before this,

we've got the Jewish people, right? The Jewish people are the ones who are the official invitees.

They're the chosen ones, right?

But be careful about using the word chosen because we're going to use the chosen word at the end of the this section. But yeah, they're the ones that God um elect Ed and said, "I want to work through Abraham and through your descendants." But did God just pick Jewish?

Hold on. We didn't get there. I know you are jumping ahead. You've got to be patient. You got to be patient.

I know. I know you can't. Hold on. We're going to get there. We're going to get there. The people that are invited in the parable are Jewish, right? They are summoned. Now's the time. The Messiah is here, right? Jesus comes on the scene. They're summoned. Do they respond? No. Who's he talk? Who's the audience? Who's in front of him? Is this all the Israelites? No. Because there's Jewish people that are responding to Jesus. No. The audience that he's speaking to are these chief priests and elders, the ones who are rejecting Jesus. So, he's telling this parable to a specific audience. Keep that in mind. Okay. So, not everybody has rejected, but the people who obviously were on the invite list, the chief priests and the elders, they They reject the invitation. All right. So, we've rejected it twice. And even the second group was murdered. So, God's like, "Fine, we're going to those of you that killed it, we're going to like wipe you out." Then we go to the second the this third invitation that goes out. This is this broad invitation. Go out to the highways and the byways. Everybody's invited. Everybody can come in. Here's how he describes them. He says, "Oh, this is what a highway would look like at the time. This is what um these are like the main way areas where the the primary Roman roads would cross, right? So stand there. It's like go stand at Broadway and Eastern where the like there's a lot of traffic. Go stand where the squeegee boys stand and then just start inviting the cars in. Like that's that's the idea that he has here. So those servants, they go out to the roads and they gathered everyone they found. Look, they found both evil and good. The wedding banquet was filled with guests. When the king came in to see, okay, now we're going to get to this second point. Okay. When the king came in to see the guests, he saw a man there who was not wearing a proper wedding garment. Well, okay. So, we got to step out of our culture and we got to go, what are wedding garments, right? Wedding garments at this time are, let me find it in my notes. Essentially, a a wedding garment was a provided by the host of the wedding. If you're at like a really fancy wedding, they're going to provide you with special attire when you show up. I don't know what a parallel is to that in our culture. I know when you go to the hospital, you have to wear like something you wouldn't want to wear. So, it's not like that, but you go to the wedding and you're given like wedding attire. You have a formal uniform to participate in the wedding and he sees somebody this this king sees a guest who's not wearing the formal attire. So, he's like, "What are you doing?" The king told the dependence. Take this one who's not dressed right. Right. Tie him up hand and foot. Throw him into outer darkness where there will we be weeping and nashing of teeth.

All right. So, okay, we're in a parable, right? Parables use irony and hyperbole. So, we already had some hyperbole when we had people getting an invitation and they're like literally killing the servants. That's like a crazy Crazy exaggeration. Right here we have something that would be not normal. Like if you had a wedding that you held and your custom was you got to have a uniform for the wedding and somebody is just just ends up not wearing the uniform. Are you going to tie them up and throw them into hell? No, you're not. Right? So Jesus here is stretching what's normal to make a point because why would he use hyperbole? He wants your eyebrows to go up and go whoa wait a second this is like this is a weird scenario so the question becomes so first of all Jesus is telling it so it is like Jesus right you're like you you were saying this is not Jesus like no this is Jesus telling this so our heart needs to be like help me understand this because Jesus I know you as gracious and pursuing and loving and merciful and forgiving and you're telling a story You're telling us a story where you're tying people up and they're the the king is throwing people into a place of extreme suffering. Help me understand. Right? That's our prayer. That that's so remember the whole like when we're reading the Bible and we get to a a like a bump in the road, we don't cruise past it in our own Bible reading. We pause on it. We sit in it. Hold on just a second because I'm I'm going over time and this is really really important. So we ask we start asking questions like what what does this mean? When Jesus says this, what is he telling to these indivi these religious leaders that are standing in front of him? And I'm going to take a stab at it. Okay? I'm going to show you Revelation 19 in a second, but I'm going to take a stab at it. There are plenty of people that stood in the crowd when Jesus is talking about the kingdom. They got fed loaves and fish. They got healed. They got the blessing of the kingdom. We've talked about it. We got people that show up on a Tuesday and Friday. They get the blessing of the kingdom. They show up for this kingdom work of a food distribution where you're getting free food. Okay. But does that mean that everybody who is there participating in the kingdom is a part of God's kingdom? Are they God's people?

No, they're not. Mary, could you hold off for Hold on. Hold on for a second. Okay.

How do you weed them out?

How do you weed them out? Yes. Who's the judge? That's an important question. How does God know out of everybody that comes and gets food from us on Tuesday and Friday? Because that's a kingdom work, right? That's that's Jesus's kingdom working through people to distribute food. Out of that group are all of those people born again in love with Jesus. following him. No, but how who knows which one is which, right? God's the judge of that in the end. God's the one who's going to judge which ones are reconciled back to him, who have surrendered their life to him, they're born again, and which ones are not. Those that are not, the Bible is explicitly clear, and you all need to understand this. God makes it very clear the terms of salvation. that Jesus is the only way to the father. You can't go and follow Muhammad and live eternally in God's presence. Muhammad is not going to save you. You cannot follow um the Buddha and be live eternally in God's presence because the Bible teaches that Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. Nobody comes to the father but through him. It is an exclusive claim. And God in his love makes it very clear that unless you are reconciled back to God through his son Jesus Christ, you're going to go to hell. Now, God doesn't want that for you. He's the God that invites. He's the one here who opened up the invitation to everybody. Come on in. The normal regular people, they rejected the invitation. Come on in. But then Jesus makes this weird point in the end of the parable that says, "Well, this guy is excluded because he's not wearing the right clothes. Let me read to you from another writer from the book of Revelation. This is a vision that John the Apostle has of something that is yet to happen. This is the this is the wedding feast of the um of the groom. Then I heard something like the voice of a vast multitude, like the sound of cascading waters and like the rumbling of loud thunder saying, "Hallelujah! As our Lord God, the Almighty reigns, let us be glad and rejoice and give glory because the marriage of the lamb has come and his bride, who's his bride? We are, right? If we are followers of Jesus, we are his bride. His bride has prepared herself. She was given fine linen to wear. light and pure. Are you seeing the par the parallel here? You're given wedding garments. The bride is given wedding garments for the fine linen represents the righteous acts of the saints here. This um messenger of God who is either an angel or another human that's helping John understand this vision that he's seeing. Right? This messenger says that the the clothing that the saints are wearing are the righteous acts of the saints. So there is a I I don't want I I I want to just basically make this really clear for you. The clothing that the is in this parable that was missing from the man that was cast out, it is either that he is not in Christ, he's not a Christian. He's not clothed in Christ. He hasn't put on Christ. He's participating in the kingdom, which you can easily do, but he doesn't have a relationship with Christ. Or it's what we see here in Revelation 19. That the clothing that we wear is a life evidencing the internal relationship we have with Christ. That Jesus makes us righteous and the things coming from our life are righteous acts. So, you're now no longer a gossip about your friends, but you're a trutht teller. You're no longer a um complainer, but you're an encourager. You're no longer a thief, but you're a hard worker. You're no longer a victim, but you're you are taking responsibility for your own story. All of those things are a part of like the righteous as Jesus transforms your life, you are changing. Does that make sense? So Jesus again, the the the problem would be to to read this and to see the guy wearing the wrong clothes and be like he was a victim. He um he just got blindsided by wearing the wrong clothes or that Jesus has something against like the dress code of people. That that totally if that's how you read this, you're totally missing it. You got to put it back into the framework that listen When that guy walked in to that wedding, he was handed an outfit and he rejected that outfit. He said, "I don't want to wear that clothes." And the king after the fact is like, "Well, why why is he not wearing the outfit?" And and it would have been that he made a decision to not wear that outfit.

He rejected he rejected it. He's like the last step of rebellion. So broad picture In this parable, we've got people rejecting the invitation of God, and then we have a an individual who rejects the clothing offered to the wedding guests. Does that make sense?

Felicia, does that help at all or are you still up mad at Jesus?

You're okay.

Okay, good. Yes, I know.

I know. Well, I appreciate you saying it.

Well, the funny thing is you always ver you verbalize what we're all feeling. We all know that that's a strange part of the text.

It just comes out of your mouth.

That's right. Yeah. And the beautiful thing, here's the beautiful thing. Let's let's turn this into a gospel invitation because not everybody here is wearing the garments that God offers you,

right? The beautiful thing is that you're invited to a wedding feast and at the door Jesus is like, "Here's the outfit. My righteousness. Here's my righteousness. Do you want a accept it or do you want to reject it? Yes.

No, he's merciful.

He's merciful and he's just.

He's merciful and he's just. Listen. Listen. Hold on just a second.

I just want to make this really clear because we're going to do communion. Yes. Go. I know you had your hand up. Yes. The only way to go to paradise is to say who is raised in the

sure.

Yeah.

That's a great question.

Or the guy on the island, right?

The guy on the island. Like who doesn't never heard about Jesus? Okay, we'll do the Amazon. Okay, I I got the Amazon. Okay. in the jungle all their life.

Yes.

How can they go to paradise

if they don't know Jesus?

They don't know.

Okay.

Jesus, never heard nothing about the right things.

Yes. Children, they feed their family. They do things.

Yes. What What's your name?

What's your What's your name? Yes.

My name is Image.

Image. Okay. Image. All right. I'm going to answer your question. Okay. So, your question is, could God be just and fair to send somebody to hell who never even had an opportunity to hear the name of Jesus, whether that person's in the Amazon or on an island. If you read through the book of Romans, Romans 1:5, Paul Paul is a lawyer. He acts like a lawyer defending God as the one who is on trial to determine is God fair or un unfair to send people to hell. And Paul explains that God sends people uh God judges people sends them to hell. But he judges people according to their response to revelation. And he says that the heavens declare the glory of of God and that the truth about God is written on people's hearts and that people are going to be held responsible to respond to the degree of revelation they received. And so there's going to be many many people who are in heaven who never knew the name of Jesus. Well, because why? Because they were born before the time of Jesus, right? There was people who lived at the time of Jesus in the Amazon who are looking at the clouds. They're looking at trees and they're like, "There has to be a God. I don't know who he is. I don't know what his name is, but that God I want to live for, worship, and serve." And so Paul as the defense attorney for God says that God is right and just because he judges people for their response to revelation. And he says that it's the Jews who have special revelation of God in the scriptures through the prophets, through the covenants, and they're going to be held. So, they have special revelation. So, their degree of responsibility before God is all that much more. So, I don't you don't have to worry about the person in the Amazon. You don't have to worry about the person on the island, but we do want to proclaim Jesus to as many people as possible because it's not just about living eternally in the presence of God, but Jesus comes back and says, "I want to bring you my kingdom and I want to bring I want to start this path of re um restoring your life. Does that make sense?

Okay. So,

okay.

Good. Can I can I just go one step further? And I'm already like way over time, right? But this is really important image. You're not going to get into heaven based off the good things that you did. You know this. You're going to get into heaven because of your response to the message about Jesus. And G when you say yes to Jesus, he gives you the wedding garment and you belong there at the wedding feast. Do you understand that?

Okay.

Matthew 21:33-46

Transcription

Awesome. Matthew 21. Open up your Bibles

to Matthew 21. We've as a church we've been going through the book of Matthew. It's if you're new to the Bible, it's a biography about Jesus. Jesus lived 2,000 years ago. He was born of a Virgin Mary. He died on the cross and then he was raised from the dead. And we're interested in in looking at what he taught because he claimed uh to be the Messiah of Israel. And uh he claimed to be God. And so um we're looking at his teaching and his life. And we happen to be at a point in Jesus's life. We're in the last week leading up to the crucifixion. And there are three parables that we have been looking at. Last week we looked at the parable of the father who had two sons and told them to go do a job. And um one of the sons said, "No, I don't want to do it but then changed his heart and he went and did it. The other son uh he said sure dad but then he never went and did it. And Jesus used this to rebuke the Pharisees and to say do you see that there are uh prostitutes and tax collectors that are going into the kingdom before you guys. Well, that probably didn't go over very well with that crowd as you can imagine. That's kind of an offensive thing to say. But Jesus is speaking the truth to try to make it clear. Hey, you've got to know you. You've got to respond to God, not playing games. I mean, who likes playing games, right? Who wants to be in a relationship where you're playing games?

No. No. We don't want to be in that kind of relationship. Like, we want to run away from those types of people. And Jesus is dealing with these religious elites in his day and saying, "Stop playing games."

But just because the church started and those Pharisees died doesn't mean that the attitude and the behavior of Pharisees had died. You and I can be a Pharisee. We can start to think that spiritually we are the stuff that yeah I went to church. I you know I went to church. I got baptized. I know my Bible. And from that point like we can start to think like well our actual life doesn't matter. like that we don't need to obey. And that's what Jesus is addressing here. Jesus is going right for the jugular saying, listen, you need to be a people who are in line with what the father is doing. And so you have an invitation. You have a a personal invitation to enter in to the kingdom of God and to participate in um what God is doing in the world. Now, listen, God's going to work whether you're on his side or not. I got news for you this morning. God's going to win. You have an open invitation to be a part of what God is doing. But you also can make a choice like, you know what, I don't want to turn I want to turn my back on God. I don't want to have anything to do with him right now in my life. And the only loser in that scenario is you. You see, God's going to win. God's going to march forward. In fact, in your rebellion, think of Judas the Assarian. who betrayed Jesus, got Jesus um turned over on the night of his um on the night of his betrayal. Judas is right there in the midst of that. You can't have greater rebellion to the plan of God. And yet, does God win in the end? Yeah. God takes the greatest moment of human evil, taking the son of God and crucifying him, and he turns that into our resur our resurrection, our redemption. And so, I would plead with you as your pastor that you would the disposition of your life would be to surrender your life to God. Stop trying to put the pieces together. Stop trying to figure it out. Stop trying to have enough energy, enough strength to put it all together. I know Baltimore is hard. I know that you're taught like, "Hey, you've got to you got to pull yourselves up by your bootstraps. You got to put in your effort." And and we're active in the process of God, but You just need to know that God is inviting you to surrender your life to him and to let him lead you and empower you and provide for you and guide you and to graft you in to the story that he already has planned. And so we come to this second parable. This is the parable of the tenant farmers. This is found in Matthew 20. where we're at. But it's also recorded in another biography about Jesus in the book of Mark 12 and Luke 20. In a minute, I'm going to read to you from Isaiah 5, which was a um a very common um passage known if you're Jewish, you knew that passage from Isaiah 5. But before I read from Isaiah 5, let me read to you from Matthew 21. I'll put it up there on the screen. Matthew 21 says, "Listen to another parable. There was a landowner who planted a vineyard, put a fence around it, dug a wine press in it, and built a watchtowwer. He leased it out to tenant farmers, and then he went away. When the time came to harvest the fruit, he sent his servant to the farmers to collect his fruit. The farmers took his servants beat one, killed another, and stoned a third. Again, he sent other servants, more than the first group, and they did the same to them. Finally, he sent his son to them, "They will respect my son," he said. But when the tenant farmer saw the son, they said to each other, "This is the heir. Come, let's kill him and his take his inheritance." So they seized him, threw him out of the vineyard, and they killed him. Therefore, when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those farmers? He will completely destroy those terrible men, they told him, and lease his vineyard to other farmers who will give him his fruit at the harvest. Jesus said to them, "Have you never read in the scriptures, the stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone?" This is what the Lord has done and it is wonderful in our eyes. Therefore, I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people producing its fruit. Whoever falls on this stone will be broken to pieces, but to but on whomever it falls, it will shatter him. When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard his parables, they knew he was speaking. speaking about them. Although they were looking for a way to arrest him, they feared the crowds because the people regarded him as a prophet. Let's pray together. Father, we ask that you would teach us through your word this morning. We want to open up our hearts and take a posture where we're ready to obey. We're eager to jump up and like, yes, I want to obey you, Jesus. And so, um, speak to us personally, not not to the person next to us. You can speak to them in their hearts. We want you to speak to us individually. We want to hear what you have to say about our life. And we know that you don't just come in and you don't hammer us. Even your correction is this gentle correction. You don't beat us up. You you're loving and kind. But but you don't just correct. You also give just clear instructions and and encouragement and comfort. And so Lord, would you do that work as we are looking at this text this morning? We pray this in Jesus name. Amen.

Amen. I I promised you that I would show you just the passage from Isaiah that um gives this and and and I'll do that in just a second. I want you to be able to see um what this looks like for somebody who is coming from a Jewish perspective. But but again, let's look at verse 33 before we look at um Isaiah 5. Let's just look um at the context here. So this is the second parable again. We'll have a third parable next week. And he's right there probably on the temple mount. Um he has access to a crowd. He's teaching um in a very public setting. And he says he asks them to listen to another parable. And he lays out this idea of a landowner who has a vineyard and put a fence around it, dug a wine press in it, built a watchtowwer, um leased it to a tenant farmers and went away. So we have somebody with means somebody who um is uh entrepreneurial. He's got this business of a of a vineyard and he and he sets the whole thing up. He doesn't just have like a blank piece of property, but he goes in and he sets up a a vineyard. In in modern days, when you go and you start a vineyard and you want to plant uh an acre of grape vines, it costs about um $20,000 to put that one acre under vine. Um but that yields um uh usually between 3 to five tons of grapes per acres. So if you're measuring they they didn't have glass bottles of wine like we do today, but um and we don't have a measurement, but we know that he puts a fence around it to to protect it and and so it's of some size. And then he goes to the next step and he he makes the wine production process where there's this ability to crush the the grapes. And so he sets it up and then he turns it over to some tenant farmers. He he signs a lease with some tenant farmers who are going to take care of the land. This whole parable is intended to be a correction aimed at the leaders who were supposed to be fill-in leaders for the nation of Israel. Let's let's just step back for a second. You you guys know the Bible. You know that in Genesis chapter 1, it gives us the account of God creating the heavens and the earth, right? All right. So, you know that part of the Bible. And and on the sixth day, what does he create? He creates the humans, right? He creates the animals and he creates the humans on the sixth day. So he populates the land. He says to the humans, he gives the humans special instructions that he doesn't give to the animals. He doesn't give special instructions to the birds. Um he gives these special instructions to the humans that they would rule over the land. So they would take a leadership role in what God has created. That they would rule that they would subdue it. So that subdue is the idea of taking something that's radically chaotic and giving it order. Like like take your your junk drawer at home. You dump it out and it's like once every five years you organize your junk drawer, right? And it's like, okay, here's the rubber bands. I'm going to put all those together. And here's all the the coinage that I've collected. And here's all those little twist ties that go on the top of the bread bags, you know, or the little plastic things. That's what's in your junk drawer, right? Yeah.

Yeah. Exactly. So you take the chaos of your junk drawer and you give it order. That's That's the idea of subduing. And so these humans, Adam and Eve, they're created. They're put here into this garden and they're told, "Hey, take the the chaos of this and give it order." They're told to be fruitful and to multiply. That phrase fruitful and multiply, it occurs more than just in the beginning of of Genesis. It occurs when we're talking about um uh Jacob. It talks about his business that he was fruitful and he multiplied. He was successful. It's a it's a term generically that that can refer to success. It can refer to having babies. You're literally um being fruitful, the fruit of the womb, and you're multiplying uh the size of your family by having kids. But the term be fruitful and multiply applies way beyond um childbearing and it's used to refer to just being a successful business person, a person who's successful in life. And so God creates these humans and then he calls tells them to do what he's been doing, right? Because God is the one who rules the universe. But he takes the humans whom he's created in his image and he says, "I want you to rule over this thing." In other words, be my representation here as kings, as priests, leaders in this space. This is a pattern that begins in Genesis 1, but it continues on. God is taking out humans. He's like, humanity rebelss and goes off and does its own thing. Doesn't want to follow God. And yet God's not content with that because he loves humans. And so he starts a redemptive process where he raises up leaders who will operate in his behalf on his behalf to try to rule, subdue, be fruitful, and multiply. He He raises up kings. He raises up prophets. He raises up generals. He raises up judges. He allows for these Pharisees to take that position. They're they have a leadership position in the nation at the time of Jesus. Do you know that the Bible says of you and I that we are kings and priests? In in fact, the nation of Israel was called a a royal um priesthood. There they were called a nation of priests. There's the idea of reigning like and and um leadership. That's the um royal terminology. But then there's the priesthood idea, the idea of um connecting and advocating for the spirituality of mankind, the closeness that others feel towards God. And so God is doing that picture over and over again. And we have a um parable that that Jesus tells that illustrates the picture. He's got a a vineyard that he plant pants and he put some tenant farmers. Adam and Eve were tenant farmers in the garden. When Saul was picked to be the king o over the nation of Israel, he's a tenant farmer. When Samuel is the priest over Israel, he's a tenant farmer. When you do life, you're a tenant farmer in God's garden and he entrusts stuff to you. That's where this idea of stewardship comes in and the question is is what's the vineyard that God has you over that's just a fun we live in a crisis of meaning in in society as AI takes off and technology emerges emerges there is this crisis of meaning what's the purpose of my life what should I be doing right well God's got a plan and he says right from the beginning this is the template you're a tenant farmer I'm putting you in my garden to steward over some stuff. You're always going to be steward stewarding over resources, relationships, and opportunities. You want to do it, do sit and just take account. What are the relationships that God's put in my life that I'm supposed to steward over? What are the resources that he's put in my life that I'm supposed to be stewarding over? What are the opportunities that he's put in front of me? You don't need to worry about the next. You don't need to worry about your spouse, your kids necessarily. You got to first deal with you. What is my garden where I'm the tenant farmer? And Jesus has some strong words for some men who did not want to handle the opportunity in the right way. And this parable is meant to correct. We talked about so we would say that a pattern or it's a motif, right? We could layer it on top. It's like a map that layers one on top of another over and over again. It's this idea of entrusting a leadership position or stewardship to a individual or a group of people. God created humans and told them to rule over and be fruitful in the creation he made. So let me show you Isaiah 5. Here is this is if you're Jewish, put your Jewish hat on for a second. Imagine before Jesus ever came along, you were going to synagogue every Saturday. You were hearing the reading of scripture and you read Isaiah 5 and you saw this story. It says this, "I'll sing a song song. I will sing about the one I love. A song about my loved ones vineyard. The one I love had a vineyard on a very fertile hill. He broke up the soil, cleared the stones, he planted it with the finest vines. He built a tower in the middle of it, and even dug out a wine press there. He expected it to yield good grapes, but it yielded worthless grapes. So now, residents of Jerusalem, men of Judah, please judge between me and my vineyard. What more could I have done for my vineyard than what I did? Why then why when I expected it to yield good grapes did it yield worthless grapes? Now I will tell you what I am about to do to my vineyard. I will remove its hedge and it will be consumed. I will tear down its walls and it will be trampled. I will make it a waste land. It will not be pruned or weeded. Thorns or briars will grow up. I will also give orders to the clouds that rain should not fall on it. For the vineyard of the Lord of armies, is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah, the plant he delighted in. He expected justice, but saw injustice. He expected righteousness, but he heard the cries of despair. And so, you see, Isaiah is given the spirit of God works in Isaiah about 700 years 6 700 years before the time of Jesus to give this picture again he says you're a vineyard Israel I'm expecting of you to grow fruit but when I come and check there's no fruit where I looked for righteousness I heard cries of despair crazy picture right and So Jesus has this in mind as he tells his own parable. Let's look at this conflict that arises in the text. When the time came to harvest fruit, excuse me, he sent his servants to the farmers to collect his fruit. So evidently they're supposed to work the harvest, but then he wants the fruit from the harvest. The farmers took his servants beat one, killed another, and stoned a third. This is where all of a sudden you get the the shock value. Um there could be an aspect in this where you have um a Jewish person who owns a vineyard and is angry with the Roman government. So there may be a sense where this behavior in a Jewish mind is thought to be justified because remember For the Jews who are listening to this, you don't own your land. Rome owns your land. You're a part of the Roman government. You pay heavy taxes on the fruit of your land. And so this idea of like mistreating a representative of the leadership might have seemed appealing to some in this audience, but for us it's shocking. Like you would never go and kill your landlord's servant, right? you would not beat your landlord. Like you're going to like get in a lot of trouble for that. If you didn't know that, that's your little like that's your freebie for the day. Don't kill your landlord's servant. Okay? It doesn't go well. Again, he sent other servants more than the first group and they did the same to them. Finally, he sent his son to them thinking they're going to respect my son. So Jesus here is giving this window into how the heavenly father has worked with the nation of Israel for years because what have they done to the prophets? Like they've killed the prophets. They've they've killed the messengers that God sent. What happened with John the Baptist? The guy get got beheaded. Isaiah literally it said that he was sawn in half at the end of his life. His message was rejected and he was murdered in like a horrible way. You read through the book of Hebrews and you see just some of the suffering that's mentioned at the end there. The the people of God have not always received the messenger that God sent to them. And so the father thinks, well surely if I if I move from sending, you know, Joemo, my servant, to collect on the land, instead I send my son, they've got to respect him. I It just makes so much sense. But when the tenant farmer saw the son, they think, well, this is the heir. In other words, this son when the the landowner dies, this guy who's here is next in line to get the property. So if we kill him, we can just take the inheritance. The the father like how the economy worked, it's like you would pass stuff to your kids. Like you would have a farm and land that you inherited and you'd give it to your son. So if you eliminate this done then this actually this plan kind of makes sense. You you there's there's no one even if the um the land owner is upset who he's going to pass he's got to pass this the property off to somebody. So it's like well let's just kill the son who's the heir and if we wait him out we'll get the inheritance. So they seized him threw him out of the vineyard and they killed him. Jesus is speaking through this prophetically of his own death, right? He's the son. He gets killed. Therefore, when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those farmers? You get to this inflection point. This is the the moment of conflict in the story. What's going to happen? Well, he's going to completely destroy those terrible men. They told him, and lease his vineyard to other forms farmers who will give him his fruit at the harvest time. So Jesus asks what's going to happen. The crowd responds back. He's going to change the management structure. He's going to get rid of these terrible men and find some actual good tenants. Well, if these were the Pharisees that are answering the question, didn't they just hang themselves? They they've indicted themselves. haven't they? They're able to look at this story, but here they are in this position. They're the guilty party. They're the ones that are about to kill the son in about 5 days from this story being told. And Jesus says to them, "Haven't you have you never read in the scripture the stone that the builders rejected has become a cornerstone?" Remember Matthew, who's compiling this story for us, Matthew's helping the Jewish reader that those were the primary initial group that he wrote to. He's like, "Wait, Jesus quoted this next this psalm. The the um the stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone." This is what the Lord has done. It is wonderful in our eyes. It's obscure in the Old Testament when it's in the Psalms. It becomes clear as Jesus is the cornerstone that is rejected. Therefore I tell you the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people producing its fruit. So Jesus gives the application. You get a parable. Jesus takes the parable and he says the kingdom of God is taken away from you and it is now given to a fruitful people. A people producing fruit. Let's go to the end of the text and then we will just draw out some simple application for our own lives. Whoever falls in the stone, Jesus being that stone will be broken into pieces. But on whomever it falls, it will shatter him. Some of you in the last year or so, you've fallen on the stone Jesus. And you feel like, "Oh, my life my life is turned upside down. I met this Jesus guy and my life is kind of now a mess. I used used to feel so comfortable with, you know, lying to my friends or having this group of friends, but now I feel deeply convicted about almost every word that comes out of my mouth. This is so hard. I, you know, and your life is kind of shattered by Jesus. But the only other option is that the stone falls on you and you are crushed by Jesus. You're in this place of judgment. Those are the only two options. You you can either be in a place where you allow Jesus to reorient your life life and and you learn who he is and you and you begin to pattern your life after him or your life is going to look like just smooshed by doing life wrong. It it's amazing just the the the illusion that Jesus makes throughout this text to like listen, you don't want to do it God's way, you get cast out, you get put out. Jesus is about a fruitful kingdom, a fruitful people. He goes on, "When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard his parables, they knew he was speaking about them." That's good because sometimes the parables were tricky. Remember Jesus's parables sometimes were difficult to find out. But these ones the Pharisees got. He knew these were pointed at him. Although they were looking for a way to arrest him, they feared the crowds. because the people regarded him as a prophet. So we we stop there. Next week we'll look at the pro uh the parable of the marriage feast. You're going to be invited to a wedding feast next week. But today you're invited to be a fruitful tenant. A and here's what you need to here's what you need to know. There's some responsibility that is in um this text to to be fruitful. But do you see in Isaiah that it's God that plants the vineyard? Or or go back to Genesis. Did God did the humans create themselves? No. God created them. Did did the humans plant the garden? No. God made the garden. In this parable, it's it is the owner, the land owner that is doing all this work. And he's asking these tenants to simply partic participate in the process of what naturally happens when those vines sprout their they those vines sprout their um branches out by my house. We've got we're I'm surrounded by beautiful vineyards, right? And and these vineyards, they have baby fruit on them. The little grape bunches that are green. They're not full of um of juice yet, but the the fruit is on there. the branches there. But I'll tell you from my friends that own those vineyards, they are not doing a whole lot other than making sure they keep pests away, protecting, they're trimming the branches, they're making sure like this lawn mower guy here, they're like kind of mowing the grass around it. But but God's the one that's even causing the fruit to grow. Here's what the Holy Spirit wants. for you and I. He wants you and I to let him sew into our hearts this grand vision of potential. If you look at a field and you're like, I want to have a vineyard there, you've got vision, right? The the thing that the Holy Spirit does in our life is he gives us vision for fruitfulness. But the fruitfulness, you'll notice at the end as Jesus talks about this um setting right. See if I can find it. I can't remember what verse it was in and I want to quote it exactly. So, give me a second to find it. This one. He expected justice but saw injustice. He expected righteousness but heard cries of despair. This is the fruit right in in our lives. We are primarily relational souls. We are designed to to be about other people. Now your personality you may tend towards getting your energy from aloneeness and quietness as an introvert or you may get your energy as being kind of an extrovert. But all of us, all of us are called to be in relationship here. And he's looking for justice and righteousness. This is the word sedaka and mishpot in the um in the Hebrew language. It's it's it's what a a follower of Jesus does is they they are in relationship where they are um they're fair and they're just they're handling relationships well. I've been convicted of this like I'll just give you a personal example and you can kind of analyze in your own life. I've been really feeling convicted recently about as from my perspective of leading the compassion center. Um we have an amazing team of volunteers. Many of those volunteers are undocumented immigrants who if they weren't working in the center they would go get work but probably not even get paid minimum wage. and I'm responsible for them. And there has been a sense in my own life just feeling convicted of like I've got to do a better job. I've got to be more more just in um serving them, helping them. Yeah, they get to they get fed out of that place. Their their families are cared for, but I need to like I need to raise some more money so that their volunteers are taken care of. Some of them have some medical stuff going on. Some of them are close on immigration and need to get process with their immigration papers and they just need some legal help. We could help them out with that. So, so we're each in our garden. My garden includes the compassion center, includes the church. And I'm looking, okay, how am I am I being just and righteous in my dealings with other people.

And that's for you and I, for you as well. This is where the Holy Spirit, we don't have to like, you know, squeeze our fist and quench our eyes and try to figure it out. No, the Holy Spirit just wants to talk to us. Hey, you got to make this relationship right? Make this a little bit more of a balanced relationship. Another one that came to mind, I it was um maybe it was this week or it was like late last week just all of a sudden I had all these memories of people that have worked for me, worked really hard. I started a Bible college when I was 25 in Hawaii and I had a bunch of interns that lived in tents, worked all summer to build this Bible college and it was awesome. But I was looking at the pictures of these guys who are just like sweating living in tents in Kawaii and I was just like Man, those guys worked their tail off for me. What did I give back to them? Did I Did I take care of them in the right way? Did I honor them in the way that they they came and served me? It made me think like, yeah, I don't owe them. There was no agreement that I was going to pay them anything. I I technically fulfilled like whatever agreement was there, but did I honor them? Was I righteous in that relationship? That that's how the Holy Spirit works in our life. He just wants to come along and just say, "Hey, are you doing relationships well.

Are are you treating people well?

And Jesus is looking at these leaders and saying, "You're not. You're not. You have this elite position in Israel. You're not doing it right. And I'm going to kick you out. And the kingdom is going to be given to a people that's fruitful, man. So, may we be a fruitful people." Amen.

Let's pray. Father, we thank you that the Holy Spirit comes into to our lives and that you just you do the fruitbearing in like you just ask us like abide in me have a relationship with me and then the fruit just grows out of our life it's this crazy thing that you do and so I pray Lord that we as a church people as a people that follow you that we would be in that relationship hearing your voice responding in obedience just in the moment Help us to love people. I just think of the compassion center and just the the turmoil of of people who come to get food and just the the roughness of some of those lives and how easy it is to just be like kind of hard-hearted and just stand off. Lord, give us a deep reservoir of love to care for our neighborhood, but our family and our friends, people that are hard to love. Lord, give us a deep reservoir of love that we would bear that fruit in your name. We pray this in Jesus name. Amen.

Amen.

Matthew 21:28-32

Transcription

Matthew 21:28-32. As a church, we're reading through Matthew. It's a biography about Jesus. All right? If you're new to the Bible, the book of Matthew, it's one of 66 books in your Bible, and it's all about Jesus, the life of Jesus, and the teachings of Jesus, and the story of Jesus dying on the cross and rising from the dead and then ascending back up to the father. And so, 2,000 years after that, historic event. We're now reading Matthew's account of the life of Jesus. Um it was written in that first century within just a couple of decades of Jesus's um life. And what we want to know is how do we follow Jesus based on the material that we're reading there? How do how do we assimilate it? Because it wasn't just for the people that when you you think of Matthew who was a tax collector. He sat down at some point to write this letter so that um Jew Jewish people who became followers of Jesus. He wanted to help them understand how Jesus was like the fulfillment of their historic faith, how Jesus is the Jewish Messiah and um and just to inform them. But it was for more than just that first century set of Jewish Christians. The the church kept saving and making copies of the book of Matthew over the centuries and it was included in our canon, our 66 books and it's considered scripture. That means that we believe the Holy Spirit led Matthew to write this book and every word he wrote on that page was guided by the Holy Spirit. It was originally written in Greek and then for us translated into English by u men and women who deeply understand Greek syntax and language. And so we're reading through it as a church trying to understand Jesus. What does it mean to be a follower of Jesus? And so each week we're taking a section out of Matthew, just one section after another, just unpacking it, reading it together, and thinking, how do we apply this in our life? To set the stage, um, I want you to imagine that you're going to move next week and you ask your friend, "Hey, could you come and help me with my move?" And they enthusiastically volunteer to help you. They say, "I'll be there first thing in the morning." And you're counting on their word to for help. You rearrange your plans and you wait. But as the hours progress there, There's no call, no text, certainly no help lifting boxes. What would you call that? Left high and dry. There are no show.

Yeah. What?

No call. No call.

That's right. No show, no call. You've been in that place before, right? Where somebody said they would be there and yet they didn't keep their word. And um different cultures handle this in different ways. In our culture, we prize this quality of being a person of your word. What do we what do we say to kids when we're training this character quality? What is the language that we use to teach them? We say you want to be a person of your word, right? You want to follow through or somebody that keeps their word. How would we describe them. What What would we say about them?

They're dependable. What else?

Reliable. They're honest. They're uh trustworthy, right?

They're sincere. They're not just giving you lip service, but they're actually doing it. I I worked with this one guy when I was in my 20s who was the opposite, and he seemed like such a friendly guy when he was brought on staff to work, you know, with me. I was I was working at a college and so friendly. Hey Josh, how's it going? Let's get coffee sometime. But as the weeks and months and years progressed and there was actually no coffee date, I realized this guy knows how to talk but he has no followth through, right? And what does that tell you about a person's character, right? It means that they are they're using their mouth, but their mouth and what they're saying is divorced from their life. Well, Jesus is going to tell a story which I want to read to you. But before we do that, I want to ask this question. How often do we as Christians say yes to God but fail to act in accordance with his will?

All the time.

All the time. time. That's right. That's right. And we do this to God. But don't we also do this to ourselves?

We do this January 1. We make what we call resolutions and then we fail to carry out our resolutions. We even lie to ourselves, right? Which is one of the worst. I mean, that's one of the things that I hate the most in my own life is like when I make a commitment to myself and I don't keep it. I hate that. Like I just feel like ah I why did I do that? You know well Jesus kind of dips into that this space and we're going to see how he talks about this idea um that we call it like the follow through um but he's going to talk about it in terms of um your salvation justification. We're also going to apply it to the arena of sanctification and our growth or our maturing. in our relationship with Christ. Let me read you the text and then we'll unpack it. Starting in verse 28, he says, "What do you think?" A man had two sons. He went to the first and he said, "My son, go work in the vineyard today." He answered, "I don't want to." But later he changed his mind and went. Then the man went to the other and he said the same thing. And the son said, I will, sir, he answered. But he didn't go. Which of the two did his father's will? And they said, the first. And Jesus said to them, truly I tell you, tax collectors and prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God before you. For John came to you in the way of righteousness and you didn't believe him. Tax collectors and prostitutes did believe him, but you when you saw it, didn't even change your minds then and believe him. Let's pray. Father, as we look at this text, we want to open up our hearts so that we're we're listening from this posture where we're ready to obey. where we're ready to to receive what you have for us. And we know that we don't have to be braced. You're not mean when you talk to us. You're not like an abusive parent or an abusive friend where we have to brace ourselves, but we can in a safe way let down our guard and listen to you. And so, Lord, would you find in us, help us to have this ready response where we say, "Yep, God, I'll obey you. I receive it. I'm ready to listen. We ask this in Jesus name. Amen. And so, let's look and walk through this text starting back in verse 28. The context, you'll remember last week that Jesus is on the Temple Mount in the last year and last week leading up to his crucifixion. He's had ongoing conflicts and fights with the chief priests and the Pharisees, but it's coming to a head. There's a lot of conflict in the last week um that Holy Week between Jesus and these religious elites. Imagine a society where the most important the people who kind of are the heroes of society are the ones who are these Pharisees and chief priests. They are spiritual elites. They're looked up to and they're the ones who feel threatened by Jesus. They're challenging Jesus. They're trying to catch Jesus in what he's saying. And last week we closed with this question that that they posed to Jesus. And they asked him, "Who gave you the authority to do what you're doing?" And Jesus asked them a question. And he said, "Well, I'll I'll ask you and if you answer my question, I'll answer your question. Who um who who gave authority or where was John's ministry from? Was it from heaven or from from men? In other words, did God send John the Baptist or did John just kind of come up with this ministry idea on his own? And this stumped the Pharisees because they were like, "Well, if we answer answer the question and say that John came from God, then everybody's going to be like, "Well, why didn't you believe him?" But if we say that John is from Earth and he had an earthly ministry that he just came up with, well, then the crowd's going to be against us. Everybody here is celebrating Passover because the crowd did believe John. And and so Jesus is basically continuing that thought into the text we're looking at here this morning. And he asks them, "What do you think?" That's the opening question. Now, some of you are on a spiritual journey, and I want you to see how approachable the Jesus of the Bible is. Look at this for a second. Do you see it? What's the question? What do you think? What do you think? You see, the God of the Bible values your intellectual capacity. He wants to engage your brain. He wants you to use your brain as he's presenting ideas. He doesn't just come like Zeus and be like, I'm going to strike you with lightning if you don't believe this. He says, "No, what do you think?" That is goes back to the garden and how God created humanity. He gave you autonomy. He gave you independence. He says, "Here's my plan, my my good plan for you and my love, but you have freedom of choice." So here he says, to his enemies essentially. He says, "What do you think? Let me tell you a story. A man has two sons and he goes to the first. He says, "Go work in the vineyard today." So obviously this is a a guy that owns a vineyard with grapes. He he owns a winery essentially and he asks his first son to go and work. And um We'll stop there for just a second before we get to the second son. Go work in the vineyard today. We're going to see that there's this first son. Then we're going to see that there's a second son. Um, and we'll see the response from both. And then the last two verses is really Jesus applying the story. So, we get the parable. A parable is just a story. that's meant to teach a spiritual truth. Right? So, we get first son, second son, and then Jesus on this one, he's going to bring it back around. He's going to make a point out of it. So, we see the first son and here's what happens once he says this. This first son says, "I don't want to." You ever had a kid where you told him to go and do something and they say I don't want to. That's a pretty easy to relate to, right? But it says later he changed his mind and went. Then the man went to the other son and he said the same thing. The other son responds and says, "Yes, sir, I will." Right? Lip service. He answered, "But he didn't do it. He didn't go and do it. So we end up in with two people, two sons and we have this contrast between words and actions. The first s son has the words I will not but then changes his mind and does it. The second one says I will and he doesn't do it. Both are saying one thing and doing the opposite. of what they said. I I want to for a second show you um this well this is a vineyard just in case you were wondering this maybe what it looked like for the sons. Um I I want to look at this phrase be because I'm going to put some pieces together. So I need to kind of deposit for you for a second some pieces is some words that Jesus uses when he tells the story and it'll come together. We'll tie a bow on it on the end. So this first son, he answered, "I don't want to." But then later he changed his mind. That word he changed his mind is a single Greek word to change your mind. And it isn't just about changing your thinking, but other places it's translated regret, uh feeling sorry, uh feeling remorseful. And um the the idea is that um there's an internal change. You got to remember that Jesus is dealing with people's hearts all the time.

So with this with these sons and with your kids when you've talked to them or your employees or your friends, you know that the the real human the good human experiences is when their actions flow from their hearts,

right? That's that's what um Jesus wants for you and I. And that's um what we pride in our friendships. The word is closely related to the idea of repent. It It's important because when we get to verse 32, the word is going to be used again. And um what it's going to say of the Pharisees is that they didn't change their minds and believe. So this word is used twice within the same cont. context. Let's go to this next section. This question, which of the two did his father's will? And we know which one was it? First or second son?

The first son, right? The son who said, "I don't want to work in the vineyard today is the one who changes his mind and does the father's will. will there is here this establishing in asking this question Jesus is establishing with these Pharisees a uh baseline truth of who's obedient. It's the first son who actually does the will of the father. If we go a little bit further to verse further in verse 3 1 Jesus says to them, "Truly I tell you, tax collectors and prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God before you." So, he's told a story. He's gotten agreement from the crowd on the story. Having set that foundation, that logical foundation, he now turns a corner and applies it to his audience. Do you see what he's doing? It's a great communication technique. We can agree on the story of the sons since we believe that's true. Now, we can move into this kingdom of heaven conversation. So, he says, "Here's what's true." That's what truly means. Here's what's true. I tell you, tax collectors and prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God. When he talks about tax collectors and prostitutes in that day, what's he talking about? Were tax collectors and prostitutes the heroes of society?

No, they weren't. Right. These were the these are the people who we all collectively agree that these are the people who are kind of bad for society. What would the modern day like tax collectors and prostitutes be?

What?

Crooks. Okay. So, we got Uh, thieves,

lone sharks, what?

Lone sharks.

Lone sharks.

Low lives.

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Totally. People that are doing things that don't contribute to the well-being of society, right? And they're kind of everybody looks at them, right? So, um, if you walk over to Broadway there's, you know, like a pimp that is kind of known on the street and and you walk up to Joe Schmo and he lives in the neighborhood and he knows that that guy is a pimp. There's going to be an agreement of like that person is bad for our neighborhood. That that person is just not a good a low life, right? They're not contributing to society. And yet Jesus here is taking the low life lives of society and is saying they're going to enter the kingdom of God before you Pharisees. Well, that kind of blows the the paradigm. So, the heroes of society being the Pharisees and chief priests are getting second place, second entrance into the kingdom. And here's now what is what what's going on here? Does does is does this mean that Jesus approves of the behavior of tax collectors and prostitutes?

No. Right. We got to go a little bit further into the next verse to see that. But I before we get there, I just wanted you to see that there's some fundamental concepts in this verse, right? There is and it's it's here. Entering the kingdom of God. How many of you ever have gone to church and heard the the the saying you got to get saved? You ever heard that saying before? You ever heard the saying, "You must be born again."

Yeah. Um or have you heard somebody say, "I became a Christian." Yes. You've heard that, right? Have you ever heard somebody say, "I entered the kingdom of God?" It's the same thing. It's the same. It's synonymous. The same idea I entered the kingdom of God. This is this is what Jesus is talking about is this entrance into the kingdom. We talk about in our culture. We've been so heavily influenced by the Protestant Reformation, Billy Graham. We talk a lot about having a personal relationship with Jesus.

I'm going to ask you at the end of the service to to to make a personal decision. in your life if you have not already that you need to personally decide if you want to be a follower of Jesus. But here is Jesus laying out the same idea using this language entering the kingdom of God. And what you need to understand is that not only are you invited to have a friendship with God, which is a beautiful conversation and it is absolutely true, you You're also invited not just individually to have that relationship, but when you become a Christian, you're born again, you're saved, you enter into the kingdom of God. Did you know that?

Yes.

Lifestyle changes.

Your lifestyle changes. Yes. We're going to talk about We're going to close with that. We're going to talk about what happens, right? But here we're talking about entering in to the kingdom of God. And what's the order? Who's getting in first? Tax collectors and prostitutes. Wow. We better keep going because it almost sounds like Jesus is prioritizing the tax collectors and prostitutes. So he says in verse 32, "For John," who's John,

the Baptist, we were talking about him last week, and if we just kept reading, we would run into this a couple verses later. He says, says, "For John came to you in the way of righteousness." He came to you in the way. That hearkens back to Isaiah 40, you know, to make way for the Messiah. That's what John's job was. He came to you in the way of righteousness and you didn't believe him. So Jesus here, he's now hammering the Pharisees. These are people These Pharisees have rejected Jesus outright and Jesus is coming down hard on them and he's saying, "You didn't believe John when he came to you." But tax collectors and prostitutes did believe him. But you when you saw it, you didn't even change your minds. That's this idea of you were not remorseful leading to a change. You didn't change your minds then believe in him. So that's the that is the dynamic that Jesus is laying out here. Just a few simple verses but but um very clear that Jesus is trying to appeal to these Pharisees and it ends up he's kind of successful with a handful of them. There's a few Pharisees that do receive what Jesus is saying and they change their minds and they believe. But do you see the working components here? Here's the tax collectors. They're entering in because they believed. They changed their minds and believed in the message that John brought. And John's message was about Jesus. And they received Jesus. And because they received Jesus, there's changes occurring in their life. They are like the first sons who were rebellious. who rejected but then they changed their minds and they went and they did what the father asked them. And so Jesus is saying it's not good enough to be like the second son giving lip service to the request of your father. That's not good enough. You need to respond with a change of mind and an action. What's the action. I'm going to believe. You see Jesus and James, his brother, and the New Testament church, like belief is a packaged idea that your life of that your life of obedience flows out of that belief. Like you don't get to say, "Yeah, yeah, I I I believe in Jesus." But you keep doing the low life stuff. It results in change. So in closing, let's just talk about this from a Justification point. Justification is a theological term that refers to being saved, being born again, entering the kingdom of God. We call that justification. You only need to be justified once in the sense that you make a decision. You're going to follow Jesus and the and your life, it says, goes from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of light. You get translated converted over to God's kingdom. You enter into it. And the way that this text talks about that is it says that John started the ministry. Jesus is the fulfillment of that ministry. And you can respond to God's work and enter into God's kingdom by changing your mind. But what's not good enough to get saved? What's not good enough for these Pharisees?

What?

Not to believe him. But what's the lesson? The second son in this story, he's told what is the right way to do it. And how does he respond? He says, "Yeah, yeah, that sounds good." He gives lip service, but that's not good enough, right? Because Jesus asked the question, who did the will of the father. It was not good enough to say, "Dad, I'll go and do it, but then not do it, right?" That's not good enough in your friendships, right? When you need to go and move and you're like, "Hey, could you help me?" And the guy's like, "Yeah, yeah, I'll I'll help you." That's not good enough. You need them to show up Saturday morning with their sweatb on, ready to haul boxes to that truck, right?

Otherwise, is they're no good.

And Jesus is driving this home with people who think they're good. They think they are the stuff.

They think they are the spiritual stuff of Israel. They're the spiritual elites. And Jesus is peeling back their hypocrisy and saying, "See, you rejected John. You rejected John and now you're rejecting me. You are way far away from from the kingdom of God. And meanwhile, who's passing you by? Whoops, there goes the tax collector right in the kingdom. Whoa, there goes the prostitute right into the kingdom. Passing you by. Can Can you believe that? There he go. There's that other low life, the one. Oh, he just got in behind be before you did. What's going on?

Shocking. It's a shocking moment. These outcasts of society, the people we're looking, they're just flying by right into the kingdom and meanwhile these spiritual elites are rejecting the work of God. So the first thing that this text says to you and I is listen, if you're not yet saved, if you're not yet justified, if you're not yet born again, you need to change your mind about the direction you're going and believe in Jesus because This Bible verses tells us you'll enter the kingdom of God if you do that. Super simple. So today is a good day to decide that you're ready to change your mind and believe in your heart that Jesus is the Lord and that you're not. Right? That's the that's the first thing. But a lot of us have already been justif ified. We're already followers of Jesus. This idea doesn't stop because Jesus doesn't just give us instructions about entering the kingdom. He gives us instructions about living in the kingdom. And he expects us not to just come to church and be like, "Jesus, that is such a great thing you said. You're so smart." And then we go out and live the opposite. Instead, he wants us to live live as a people of the kingdom who are hearing it. In fact, James says it's like this. You wake up in the morning, you look in the mirror, and you've got like just this big hair piece just like sticking up this direction. Now, none of you have that. Now, maybe you woke up like that, but none of you came to church like that. What do you do? You look in the mirror and you fix it. James, in chapter one of James, who happened to be Jesus's brother, he said, "Listen, that's It's like reading the Bible. You go read the Bible, it's like looking in the mirror and it shows you what needs to happen. If you if you read it and you don't do it, it's no good.

It doesn't translate into your life. We're we're only reading these things so that we can be an obedient people. Those that So, we constant J in Romans 12, it says that that we have our minds transformed that that God's working in us to transform our thinking. So part of what we're going to talk about next week with this launching of like a growth track for our church is that we constantly need the Holy Spirit to change the way that we think about life. And it needs to translate not just in our minds, but it it deals with our hearts that there's remorse over like, man, I'm remorseful about how I thought like that. I'm ready to change. Yeah.

Without money.

Yeah. It's good. to stay on the path. I just want to show you one real basic example of this in the life of Paul. Paul was an apostle and he would travel all over southern Europe and uh Asia Minor, Turkey, modern day Turkey, planting churches. He would start churches and then he would write letters back to those churches to check in with them, to help correct them, to teach them more stuff, uh to figure out disputes. But he wrote this letter um to the Corin Ian church. This was the um third letter actually, but we call it second Corinthians because we only have the first letter and we have I think the third letter uh or we have the second and the third. So we call them first and second. Okay, you don't need to know that he writes at the end of chapter 1 these things. Now you need to know that he's laying out his travel plans and they're in the southern of Greece. And one of the things that has to happen is that he wants to to visit them. And he said he's going to visit them. But meanwhile, in this church, there's some bad Christian leaders that have come to town and they're trying to undermine and belittle Paul the Apostle that started the church. They're trying to trash talk Paul. And Paul knows this. And one of the things that his these guys are trash talking about is like Paul doesn't keep his word because Paul said he was going to come here. Look, he's not here yet. He didn't show up. And so Paul in his letter to the church, he says this, because of this confidence, I planned to come to you first. So he's making a plan. Paul filled with the Holy Spirit, a Jesusfilled man, the greatest missionary ever to live, is making plans. So don't ever think that being filled with the Holy Spirit spirit is in um conflict with um making plans. He planned to come to that church first and it would had a purpose so that you could see a second benefit. You could be benefited from me coming to you again and to visit you on my way into Macedonia. In other words, I'm going to pass through you to Macedonia and then to come back again from Macedonia and to be helped by you on my journey. So, I'm going to pass through and then I'm going to come back again. Look what happens though now. When I made this plan, did I was I doubleminded? Oh, that's another good word for these people that say one thing and do something else. Doubleminded. Okay. He says this. Was I of two minds or what I plan? Do I plan it in a pure humanly way? Like am I just pulling stuff out of my brain, you know, for ideas? Are my brain are my plans just like something that I came up with in the shower or was it like this is the Holy Spirit that was leading me? That's his question to the church. Yes.

God is merciful, but if you don't go by his plan in the Bible,

you're going to have problems. Right. Exactly. So here Paul is talking about how he is planning. He's asking the question, do I come up with human plans or spiritfilled plans? What do you think is the case?

Spiritfilled plans. Right. Do I plan in a purely human way so that when I say yes, yes, and then no, no at the same time. Do you see he's characterizing human plans? When people make human plans, they tend to be two-minded, double-minded. They tend to not follow through because they're not doing their life based off of God, right? They're just coming up with their purely human plans. And Paul's like, when I wrote this to you. Did I write this as a plan that was human or was it from God? Characterized in that way. As God is faithful. So he's going to answer his own question. He says, "As God is faithful, our message to you is not yes and then no." Right? Do do you see he's saying I didn't just give you my plans, but the importance of Christian communication. You you don't just make plans and then reig on your plans because Paul's job is to communicate the message of the gospel. But what if you're taking God's message to people, but then your life is characterized by being double-minded and you never follow through? Who's going to listen to you?

Nobody's going to listen to you, right? Do you rely on your friends that talk a lot and never show up?

No.

No. They may be fun for the barbecue, but you don't make your plans based on them, right? No. And so Paul is telling this church, listen, I don't make double-minded plans. That's a characteristic of of humanled people, purely human people. No, a a follower of Jesus, somebody who's making plans based on the Holy Spirit, it is yes and yes. So he says, as God is faithful, because is God say yes and then no? Does God say one thing and then change his mind? No, no, that's it's impossible for God to do that because he's absolutely true infinitely. He cannot take and change his words. He keeps going. He says this, "For the son of God, Jesus Christ, whom we pray proclaim among you, Sylvanas, Timothy, and I," that's his teaching team, "we did not become um did not be uh be I did not became Yes. And No. On the contrary, in him, it is always yes. It is always yes. The the message is consistently yes. It's not this going back and forth. For every one of God's promises is yes in him. Have you ever heard that before? You're familiar with that verse, right? Everything that God says he's going to do, he cannot make a promise. promise and then not keep it. Therefore, through him we also say amen to the glory of God. Now, it is God who strengthens us together with you in Christ and who has anointed us. You see, for those of us that are followers of Jesus, one of the things that characterizes our life is that we're careful about our words. We're careful about what comes out of our mouths and then we keep what we say. We do we we follow through. In fact, there's a proverb that says, "Blessed is the one who swears to his own hurt." Sometimes we say stuff and make promises where for us to follow through on that promise, it's going to actually hurt us. But there is for some reason in the Proverbs this idea of like, listen, there is a blessedness to you keeping your word. There's a life of faith like when you say something and you keep your word. That's the idea of vows in the Old Testament. The people of God are a people who are careful with their words and then they follow through on what they say.

And so this week we we said at the beginning, what does it mean for us to follow Jesus? This week it means that we're thinking about the words we use

and we're following through. We're keeping our commitments to people. Maybe do an audit this afternoon. Just think through, am I have I promised anybody anything and not followed through? I need to go do that. I needed to take care of it. Okay. Lord, we thank you for your word.

Thank you for being the third son who said yes and did it. And we're going to celebrate that this morning at the table here. We're grateful for the work that you accomplished on our behalf, your obedience to the Father. Thank you for going into the vineyard and doing the work. Thank you for redeeming us, bringing us back to yourself. Lord, would you work in those that don't know you this morning a change of mind and a belief in you? And for those of us that are following you and have made that commitment to you that we're saved. We want to live as a people with our minds being changed believing in you that we are doing what we say. Help us Lord. We pray in Jesus name. Amen.

Matthew 21:18-27

Transcription

We've come to Matthew 28:18-27. The psalm that um we read this morning, Psalm 1 is perfect for this section because what we're going to see is a story about um Jesus cursing a fig tree. And then the second scene that we're going to take up and look at briefly is the religious elite, the chief priests and the scribes asking asking Jesus, who gave you the authority to be here? Um, beneath this scene of the fig tree lies a profound spiritual diagnosis, one that speaks directly to our hearts. Um, oftentimes we find ourselves looking the part of a Christian maybe or somebody that's religious or spiritual, maybe productive, busy, um, But if we're honest, there is maybe a barrenness, an emptiness about our life. And outwardly our life may seem like it's in order. Um but innerly there's this struggle with doubts, apathy or genuine faith. And like this fig tree, we can appear that to be healthy but distance uh healthy from a distance and yet bear little fruit in our lives in the light of God's expectations. A living trust is what God wants for us. He wants for our lives to be fruitful. To be fruitful. And so let's look at these set of verses um and we will make our way through it. Let me just re reorient myself so I can see what is going on on this screen. There we go. So, starting in verse 18, he says this. Early in the morning, as he was returning to the city, he was hungry. Seeing a lone fig tree by the road, he went up to it and found nothing on it except leaves. And he said to it, "May no fruit ever come from you again. At once the fig tree withered. When the disciples saw it, they were amazed and said, "How did the fig tree wither so quickly?" Jesus answered them, "Truly I tell you, if you have faith and do not doubt, you will not only do what was done to the fig tree, but even if you tell this mountain, be lifted up and thrown into the sea, it will be done. And if you believe, you will receive whatever you ask in in prayer. And when he entered the temple, the chief priests and the elders of the people came to him as he was teaching and said, "By what authority are you doing these things? Who gave you this authority?" Jesus answered them, "I will also ask you a question, and if you answer it for me, then I will tell you by what authority I do these things. Did John's baptism come from heaven or was it of human origin? Well, they discussed it amongst themselves. If we say from heaven, he will say, then why didn't you believe him? But if we say of human origin, we're afraid of the crowd because everyone who considers John uh because everyone considers John to be a prophet. So they answered Jesus, we don't know. And he said to them, neither will I tell you by what authority I do these things. So, we're looking at this book of Matthew because we want to understand what is Jesus about. One of the main things, one of the main verbs that Jesus calls us to is to follow him. We often talk about, hey, you need to believe, you need to Repent and believe. That's important. It's important to repent and believe. But one of the things that Jesus asked for the most often was just, "Hey, follow me." And so the question that we're asking as we go through Matthew is, well, what does it mean to follow Jesus? And we happen to be now in a section where we're in the last week before Jesus is crucified. We've already seen what happened on Palm Sunday. We've seen kind of the activity of Monday and these events probably occur on Tuesday. And I showed you last week a picture of the Temple Mount where there was teaching and he was doing these miracles and there was um just these observation of the wondrous signs that Jesus was doing. And Jesus had turned over the tables and the and the chairs of the uh money exchangers and those buying and selling. He attacked basically the commerce going on. on in the worship space. And he said, "This is supposed to be a house of prayer, and you've turned it into a den of thieves." And so now we progress in in this story, and we're um probably on Tuesday. Friday night will be when Jesus is crucified. And so this account, Jesus has been staying in Bethany out of town, and he comes into Jerusalem during the day. Bethany, that's where um uh Mary and Martha and Lazarus lived and Jesus was probably staying over at their house with his disciples and then during the daytime he's coming into the city. And so let's look at this first um account of Jesus coming into this city. The first thing that we are told is that he is hungry. He's hungry. He um had been staying in Bethany and now he's returning to the city. And all that I want you to notice because some there have been um groups who call themselves Christians who have trying to take take away from the body of Jesus. It's very important understand that Jesus was both God and fully human. And so here we see the humanity of Jesus coming forward. His body is talking to him and saying, "I'm hungry." And um we saw back um or if you go early on in his ministry in John, we see that Jesus has a um encounter with a woman at a well. And it says there that he was thirsty. So the humanity of Jesus comes forward. And we see in verse 19 that he on this road sees a fig tree and he found nothing on it except for leaves. Maybe let me just show you for a second this um what this would have looked like. This is a fig tree in the region of Jerusalem. May maybe even on the road from Bethany to Jerusalem. Here's um what the figs would look like if the figs were growing on the fig tree. And so Jesus has this experience of seeing a fig tree um with leaves but no fruit. Before we get to the curse that he calls down on this or or gives to this tree, One of the things that you need to understand is that if you go back to the very beginning of your Bible, uh trees are a type or a metaphor for humans. There and there are many different ways in which um people are spoken of as a tree. One of my favorites is in Isaiah that talks about how you'll be like an oak that is a strong, sturdy oak rather than a scrubby brush out in the desert. Yeah,

Felicia tree doesn't produce much fruit.

That's right. We covered that already, right?

And where was that at? That was Matthew 7, right? When we were I think that was Matthew 7. And end and in Matthew 7. Yeah. So, this idea is pervasive not just in Jesus's teaching, but Jesus is just carrying on uh the story of scripture and the n sometimes The nation of Israel is spoken of as if it were a tree. But it is a common metaphor for you and I. One of the most famous passages about being like a tree is both Psalm 1 and John 15. In in John 15, you have a vine. You have this vineyard picture. And so you have the core trunk of the vine and then it has branches. And you're told that you're like a branch and that the um uh vine itself is the father and that you are as long as you're that branch connected to the father, you're able to be fruitful and and you're called to stay connected to the vine so that you can bear fruit. But I I want you to see here the fig tree is a common metaphor for humans. And so Jesus in the state of hunger sees a fig tree but it doesn't have figs on it. There is this expectation. In fact, let me show to you John 15:8. My father is glorified by this that you produce much fruit and prove to be my disciples. What does that mean? Let's talk about that for a Second, let me I'll I'll just show you 16 as well. Jesus says to his disciples, this is at the he says this here on Thursday night, right? So just a couple days later in his own life, he's teaching his disciples in the upper room and these are the things that he says and he says, "You did not choose me. I chose you and I appointed you to produce fruit that your fruit should remain so that Whatever you ask the father in my name, he will give it to you. So, let's just talk about this for a second. When when we're in this passage and we're seeing Jesus talking about and seeing this unfruitful tree and then John records Jesus's teaching about, hey, I expect you to be fruitful. What would be fruit in our life? in the name of Jesus.

Okay. So, good good things like um Jesus teaches how to live and then we do what he says. What are some of the things that he said to do

to honor the mother and father and to not kill?

Okay. So, in the ten commandments we have a do not to honor your parents. Yep. So, that you have those types of commands. What else?

Yeah. To love one another. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. What else?

Yeah.

Yeah. To share like to to be a witness to talk about who Jesus is. Yeah. That would be something that he instructed. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. God's the one who's saving them. But yeah, we're sharing about here's what Jesus is doing. Here's his plan for your life.

Jesus Christ.

Yeah. Yeah.

So somehow though we have to understand this without it being um this idea that we're earning our salvation. So, so some people think that um to be a follower of Jesus means that you earn your way into heaven by doing good works. Maybe that conversation comes up when you have a conversation with somebody. You're like, "How do you know God's going to let you into heaven?"

Faith.

By faith. We know that it's through faith. But you'll hear people oftentimes will say, "Well, I God's going to look at the good things that I did and he's going to let me in as if you earn your way into heaven." But that's not what Jesus taught at all.

So, so it is by faith like the response to Jesus that that we are not saved by our works, our good works. While we are called to do good works, that doesn't save us. So, if you're on your spiritual journey and you're trying to understand who Jesus is. You need to know here that the expectation for your life is that you will be fruitful. But in your being fruitful, that's not saving you.

Does that make sense?

And so your design, if we go back to Genesis 1 and 2, we see God making Adam and Eve and saying to them, Adam and Eve, I want you to be fruitful, multiply, subdue, and rule in this garden. I want you to tend to the garden. In fact, it says that there was no fruit coming up out of the garden because God hadn't caused it to rain on the ground yet and he hadn't tilled the ground. And so there from the very beginning, humans were called to do, right? And our brokenness, the the problem that we have separated, alienated from God, not yet saved is that our doing is broken. Now, now we can kind of get in the right direction. We can think well, but our doing does not it it doesn't really f round out the picture of the garden. So, we can do the things that humans are supposed to do, but those things don't last if you don't have a relationship with Jesus. Now, somebody who doesn't know Jesus can be loving, right? They can love their neighbor. The difference between us as followers of Jesus and somebody who is not a follower of Jesus us is that we would say we're forgiven. We wouldn't say we're better. We would say we operate from the position of our sins are forgiven and we've been united back with the life of God. And so as we do good, we know that the Holy Spirit, the spirit of God animates the things that we do. He leads us into the good we should do. He leads us and he is literally bearing the fruit through us. In fact, it says in Galatians that there's fruit root of the spirit being in your life. So when you and and hopefully if you haven't done it already, today is your day. When you say to God, I'm ready to receive Jesus into my life and you step into the life that God has for you. One of the things that happens is he gives you his spirit. The spirit of God comes into you and begins to create the fruit that he has for for you. And so here we have a story of a fig tree where Jesus is hungry hoping to get some figs and there's no figs there that look like that. And so he says, "May no fruit ever come from you again. At once the fig tree withered." So he sees it, he curses it, and immediately it's withered. And what we see is um that the disciples saw it and they're amazed. How did the fig tree wither so quickly? It's like it's one day it's good and the next day it's all scrawny. What happened? What happened? So, the the this question is posed and let's look at how Jesus answers the question. How did it how did the fig tree wither so quickly? So Jesus answered them truly I tell you if you have faith and do not doubt you will not only do what was done to the fig tree but even if you tell this mountain be lifted up and thrown into the sea, it will be done. So, here's the disciples. They're just like, "What is going on?" And Jesus uses this moment not to interpret the metaphor, but instead to say that look, if you have faith, if you have faith, if you have faith, if you have faith and don't doubt, You're not only gonna do what happened to the fig tree, but there's this mountain. What is he talking about? The mountain. Here's one of the hypothesis when Jesus is saying this. About seven miles away was this mountain. It's called Herodium. You could see this this mountain peak from where Jesus was teaching there on the on the outskirts of Jerusalem. That is a man-made mountain.

Herodiius Herod made that. mountain. Herodium is a it's like a pyramid. It was a place that was created to uh to mark his death. Here's another view of it. The circle, you can see it in the through the haze in that circle. This is from the sea of Galilee. Or maybe it's a Dead Sea. What does it say there? Yeah, from the Dead Sea. You can see this mountain. So Jesus is saying now, now Herod who put this mountain there before the time of Jesus. This is a different Herod than the one that Jesus interacted with. Right? There was a animosity, a hatred from the Jews towards this type of thing because Herod represented the Roman Empire. They were these foreign occupants in um Israel and they were keeping the Jewish people. people from being able to be completely liberated and have their own land. In fact, here is this Roman leader who goes and messes up the topography moving and creating a mountain. And so when Jesus says, "If you say to that mountain, be moved, it will be moved. It'll be cast into the sea." It's probable that this is the idea that he had in his mind. But he's he's calling his disciples. Who here is a disciple of Jesus? If you are a Christian, then you're a disciple. Who here is a follower of Jesus? Same thing. It's all the same thing, right? It means that you have a a personal relationship with the one who's talking in our text. And so, you join with the disciples. They represent you in this text going, "What is going on? That fig tree just withered when you talked to it. That's crazy. and and they speak on your behalf asking a question. What why did it wither so fast? And then Jesus responds to the disciples so that you can understand something. And this is again what he says. If you have faith and do not doubt, you'll not only do what's done to the fig tree, but even till this mountain, be lifted up and thrown into the sea. It will be done. Okay? So, That's a problem. Who says that kind of thing? Who says that? That's That's pretty bizarre. That's pretty pretty wild. Now, notice notice, too, that he's not saying, "Bow your heads and close your eyes and pray to God the Father that the mountain will be moved." Do you notice? How did Jesus interact with the fig tree? What did he say? Okay.

He just commanded it

and it withered.

I just want you to know this is deeply troubling to me because I don't have that kind of faith. Now, I have enough faith to pray for you if you're sick, but I am not going I am don't have enough faith to walk up to you and be like, "Yo, be healed." That's weird. But, but I just want you to notice that when Jesus teaches on this. He is he is transferring what he's done over to his disciples and he's saying not just the fig tree that you're talking to but mountains being moved. So do do you feel the the tension there in your own life as a follower of Jesus? Like isn't the cry for us like just for a moment like God strengthen my faith. Help me to know know like without being a total weirdo around my family how to know how to like operate with that kind of faith where I'm saying to the mountain be moved now what would change in Baltimore if we follow Jesus the Holy Spirit's animating our life and we're exercising faith faith in that way. I don't know. I don't know. But but Jesus is walking. He's not like, "Yo, yo, yo, this is just for me because I'm the son of God, right?" He could say that. He could have been like, "Yo, yo, disciples, like, pretend you didn't see that. That was just like God stepped out of heaven for a second and and was frustrated with the with the fig tree." No, he's like, "That was an illustration for you, man. I I don't know if we can go on. That's that's quite a quite a scene to encounter like what does that mean? So you have been redeemed from sin like the God of the universe sent his son into the world to die on a cross so that your guilt could be completely removed. And then you're invited into his kingdom and he tells you pray that his kingdom would come on earth as it is in heaven. And then he says I do not pray that you'd take them out of the world because God could just like elevator like he could do the start thing like beam you up Scotty you met Jesus you're saved like get you out of here but he doesn't you're still here and he's telling you to pray that his kingdom would come and then he gives you these kind of stories what does it look like to be a follower of Jesus like what does it look like for us to follow Jesus and to obey what he says here

this is pretty crazy stuff. So, he's not done yet, unfortunately for us. He goes on a little bit further. He says, "And if you believe, you'll receive whatever you ask in prayer." Do you ever gone to a a car dealership or signed a contract for a phone and there's like the big front cover page that sums up everything and there's like eight pages of small fine print? I always see these kind of verses and I think, well, there's got to be the fine print. There's got to be all like the little like, well, it works here and here, but it doesn't work in these other 15 other scenarios. But I got some news for you. If we go to the next verse, there ain't no fine print. Jesus just says this, if you believe, you'll receive whatever you ask in prayer. Now, we know from James, he says you're lacking things in your life because you don't ask for it. And then you don't have it. Maybe you do ask for it, but you don't receive it because you ask a miss or you you ask for it in the wrong way. It's like you're like, "Oh, wow. Jesus said that, so I need to go ask for a Ferrari." No, no, that's not how prayer is supposed to be, right? Prayer is just a a word that describes you're having conversations with God, right? you talking to God regularly. That's that's what prayer is. And and there are ways that are appropriate to talk to somebody. And Jesus expects that, hey, when we talk about communicating with God, there's there's an appropriateness about it. There's a that this is an informed conversation, but he just lays it out there. He says, "Believe and receive whatever you ask in prayer." So listen, most of us are Christian. Most of us have made a decision to follow Jesus this I mean it's very clear that this text is telling us that we need to do this next week from a position of faith and we really need to see the things around us here's the humanity of Jesus engaging a fig tree is like curses it I don't know what your week I don't know what tomorrow holds what's your Monday going to be like but if you're a follower of Jesus the spirit of God is in you. And this is a symbolic act that Jesus does. It accomplishes a purpose. It's prophetic. It's judgment. Essentially, this is a week to be praying, to be walking by faith. Let's go to the next section just so that we cover it. This this um section where the he goes into the temple and the chief priest the elders um of the people they come to him in the midst of him teaching and they ask a question by what authority do you do these things who gave you this authority so the idea in in this time was like here's the religious elites the Roman government gave um these chief priests the um authority to operate in their position does that make sense

yeah So, so they have their authority and then they have public support. So, if you were to ask this question of a chief priest, they would say, "Well, I have my authority to be a chief priest because one, I'm a Levite according to the Torah, my family lineage gives me the authority to be here. Second, the Roman government gives me the authority to be here. And third, I have the popular support of the nation to hold this position. But so they pose this question to Jesus because Jesus, you know, he's casting he's turning over tables. He's throwing out the money changers. He's healing people. He's rebuking this fig tree. It's like, well, what is what's your authority for what you're doing? Because it stood out. And so Jesus turns it around on him. This is probably Tuesday. Jesus uh turns this around. He says, "I'll answer your question. question if you answer mine. That's one of my favorite parenting uh techniques right there.

Because the answer is contained within his own question. He's because remember he's not just factual, right? Because it Felicia, you didn't decide to follow Jesus because you got information. There was a part in your heart where you had to surrender to him. him, right? There was information, but there was just like an opening of your heart. That's what happens in all of us. And they have hard hearts. They're challenging. They're not just like, "Hey, give us the facts. Who's your authority?" They're watching. And the expectation is that they should know better. They should know better. Now, there was some well-meaning Pharisees like Nicodemus that we see in John 3 who's just like how do I how do I get saved? And Jesus has a very sincere conversation. He says, "You need to be born again." And so Jesus isn't kind of playing these games. But what Jesus does is this is like playing chess this question because by in in answering this question or by asking this question, the answer to this question is the very same answer to their own question. So let's look at this. I'll ask I'll ask you the question and if you answer it, I will tell you by what authority I do these things. Did John's baptism come from heaven or was it from human origin? What's the answer?

Heaven. Right? Because you all have read Isaiah chapter 40 and you know that God promised that he would send his forerunner to um prepare the way of the Messiah. Right? And and when God promised to John the Baptist parents that this um child would be born, he keyed him in to Isaia. chapter 40. So, so it's it was known like this should have been obvious to the Pharisees that John was the fulfillment of Isaiah 40. But he puts the question to them and they discussed it amongst themselves and he says we have a problem. So here's our problem. If we say it's from heaven, they're going to ask us, "Well, why didn't you believe what John was saying?" That's a that's a problem. But if we say it's of human origin, we're afraid of the crowd, right? They only have their position of influence because the crowd's supportive of them. It's because everyone considers John to be a prophet. And so they're stuck and they end up saying, "We don't know." And so Jesus says, "Okay, I'm not going to tell you by what authority I do these things." You see, he answers the question by asking a question. Yeah. And don't you appreciate their wrestling because they're stuck. He he he puts them in this checkmate position. We can't fess up to who John is or we'll indict ourselves.

Yeah. Yeah. It's pretty cunning. It's pretty cunning because Yeah. He could have just been like, "Oh, yeah. This is I'm I'm working on behalf of God the Father." And in other points he does But he does this kind of thing because he loves people. And if he just gives these guys information and he doesn't ask a question to surface their hypocrisy, then he's he, you know, he's bringing he's he's engaging them in a loving way. And so, just in closing, what is this spirit of God asking you? Like what's what is how's How's the spirit of God engaging you this morning? Because just like Jesus here is able to engage these religious elites and their hypocrisy for you and I, the spirit of God comes and he says to you and I like, listen, I don't want you to just have another sermon. I don't want you to just have the facts or the information. No, I want you to have life. I want you to have be I want you to be the source of fruit for your family. I want you to be a source of fruit for your co-workers, for your neighbors, like you're this tree, but you need to know, you need to know that what's standing in the way of the work of the spirit of God in your life are these barriers that you you and I put up. And the best thing that could happen to us is that the the spirit of God in accompanyment with the word of God asks us questions that puts us in a corner that pins us that says, "Hey, listen. What are you doing? What are you doing?" And and I would just encourage you to let God win in your life so that you can be like that tree. We we read about it in Psalm 1 that you're like a tree planted by streams of water who yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither. Whatever he does pro prospers. Do you want to go into this week and and prosper? Live a prosperous week. Yeah, I want that for you as well. God wants that for you as well. He wants you to be that fruitful tree. And it's not really all that complicated other than being in relationship with him. So even with the stubborn stubborn religious elites, he's asking questions, getting to the root of the problem. And I'd encourage you, friends, family, Christians, let him get to the root of the problem in your life so that you can be fruitful. Father, we thank you uh for your word this morning. Thank you for wanting us to be like that tree that yields fruit. In John 15:16, it says that you picked us to bear fruit and to produce fruit that's not just momentary, not flash in a pan, but longlasting fruit. We want to cooperate with that vision of life. Find in us a willing companion. Find in us, Lord, a tender heart, willing to be fruitful with you. Thank you, God. Thank you for your patience with us. We pray this in Jesus name. Amen.

Amen.

Matthew 21:12-17

Transcription

All right, we're going to be in Matthew 21. So, you can find that in your Bibles. Matthew chapter 21. If you are visiting with us for the first time, we want to welcome you. We're um grateful that you would come and check out a new church. If you've never been to church before, um well, welcome. That can be kind of scary, but we're glad you're checking it out. What we do in the latter half of our church after we sing um um is we study the Bible together and what's happening. So the the worship continues. We we call this a worship service because the state of our hearts is inclined toward God and we're saying God we want to worship you um both with songs but also we want to worship you um with our obedience and with living our life in a way that honors you. And so, we're reading our Bibles to understand how to do life. What does it mean to be a follower of Jesus? So, we're actually studying through a book of the Bible in Matthew that is a biography about Jesus. And we're just going um verse by verse through Matthew. So, we've been on this journey for a good year now. And we will um finish Matthew probably by the around the end of this year, early next year. But we're in in the section of Matthew where it's the last week of Jesus's life. And so last week we saw Jesus arriving into the city of Jerusalem riding on a donkey and uh the cult was there as well. And now we're going to see this was taking place probably on a on a Monday, probably Monday. Um although this seems in Matthew's account to blend with the Sunday part of the story. But really, this is probably Monday. Jesus comes and um he's going to turn over the tables um of the those buying and selling and the money exchanges in the temple. And so we're going to go through this and the the question that we're going to be asking ourselves as we go through this section is what does this teach me about following Jesus in my life during this season? Not what does this teach my wife or my husband or my kids. kids or my neighbor or my co-workers, we're asking for ourselves, God, what do you want to teach me? And so that's why we read the text and then we pray and we we one of the things we say when we pray is, God, we give you permission to speak to us. Now, it's not on us to come up with some great application, but we believe that God's going to be faithful to what he promised, that his spirit is at work teaching us. And so, let me read to you from Matthew's account here starting in verse 12. You'll notice we're just covering verses 12-1 17. It says that Jesus went into the temple and he threw out all those who were buying and selling. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the chairs of those selling doves. He said to them, "It is written, my house will be called a house of prayer, but you are making it a d men of thieves. The blind and the lame came to him in the temple and he healed them. When the chief priests and the scribes saw the wonders that he did and the children shouting in the temple, hosana to the son of David, they were indignant and they said to him, do you hear what these children are saying? Jesus replied, Yes. Have you never read? You have prepared praise from the mouths of infants and nursing babies. Then he left them, went out of the city to Bethany, and he spent the night there. Let's pray. Father, we ask, would you please open up our eyes to understand how this section of scripture, how it teaches us, how it wants to correct us, Lord. What What do you have for us personally from your word this morning, for us as a church? We ask for the work of your Holy Spirit in our lives. We give you permission to speak to us and to guide us this morning. Lord, would you let there be a a a holy moment for us in our own lives? We pray in Jesus name. Amen.

Amen.

So, some of you are familiar with this account. Pretty pretty radical, right? That Jesus is literally overturning tables and chairs and um rebuking those that are doing business in the temple. Now, this morning, I'm going to try something new. Um I'm going to show you a lot of slides so that you kind of got a sense of where we're at, and we're going to take this one little piece at a time. Okay, let's start in verse um Verse 12, it simply says that Jesus went into the temple and be easy to go past that section. But you need to know this was not just any temple. This wasn't like Jesus going to the church because if you're Jewish, there are two different places where you go to worship. There's the Saturday Saturday place that you go on Shabbat, the Sabbath, and that's called your synagogue. That's where you would go and meet with your local gathering of Jewish people. Kind of like a a gathering of church. But the Jewish people had a central location where they worshiped God. And it was called the temple at this time. But the meeting place with God was not always the temple. And I want to walk you through just Genesis through Revelation, the place where God's people met with him. And so, and I'm going to use some some images to show you this. Let me just when we talk about the temple that Jesus came into. This is what it looked like. This is actually a micros on a small scale that you can see. This is Jerusalem surrounding it. And this is the um the temple mount, this temple area. So, somewhere in here there was these money changers. And we'll talk a little bit more about that. This is modernday Jerusalem. You see that there's a mosque now um in the center where the temple used to be. And this is the Kidron Valley. Over here is the the path that Jesus took to get into. He was riding the donkey over here um into uh Jerusalem. Here's another angle um from uh yeah, a different angle um of the temple. Again, looking kind of from this side here would be the um uh Kiddran Valley and the Mount of of olives is over here. But let me walk you through um just a some sketches, okay? And I put this here to illustrate the point. When Adam and Eve were created by God, did they have a temple to go to? No. The the place of meeting with God was there in the garden. It says that God walked with them in the cool of the day. When God created humanity, he wettered fellowship. It was just so natural. to be a friend of God. Just like you have some of the close friendships in your own life, the way that God designed you and I created humanity in the beginning was to just have friendship with God. Just like a human has a friendship with another friend, you were designed to be a friend of God. But then in Genesis 3, sin came in and broke the relationship. And so God begins this p process of trying to bridge the gap and come back into humanity's world. But sin is the real issue that comes up. And so these meeting places, there's no more garden to meet with God. There becomes these places where where people are meeting with God and they're building altars and sacrificing to God. So we see that um uh Adam and Eve's sons um Cain and Abel make an offering and offer sacrifices to God on an altar. And God receives Abel's sacrifice but rejects Cain's. Um, we see Abraham sacrificing to God. Isaac and Jacob, they're all doing this altar worship where they're at meeting with God. But then we go a little bit further in the story and God calls his people, Israel, to himself out in the wilderness and he gives them instructions about a tentlike structure called the tabernacle. And the tabernacle is this um mobile meeting space that could be set up in different locations and the presence of God would come and rest upon the tabernacle. And the Levites were the priests. Um the Levites were a tribe of Jacob. That this tribe was the the tribe of priests that would mediate on behalf of the rest of the nation to meet with God. And that was the meeting place with God was the um tabernacle. Now God gave the instructions to Moses on how to set up the tabernacle. One of the interesting things was the decorative design resembles the garden. And so as we go through these these um different meeting places with God, it hearkens back to the very beginning of your Bible, Genesis 1 and two. There's pomegranates woven into the tapestries. There's nuts. There's there's leaves. There's just the beautiful artwork that was um put all around the tabernacle resembled a garden. And then you get into the nation being established and um David has it in his heart to make a fixed structure to get the nation out of the tabernacle and into an actual building called the temple. And so he prepares all of the materials and the plans and then his son Solomon builds the temple. And so they worship God in the temple for about 400 years, but they're a rebellious people and they keep rejecting God and turning away from God. And so the nation itself gets exiled out to Assyria and Babylon and this temple gets destroyed. And then after 70 years, well actually be while they're in exile for 70 years, God appeared to some of the prophets through vision. So this is a vision that Ezekiel has. on the river going out of Jerusalem on their way into Babylon. Ezekiel has this vision. So God again is found in the place where his people are at. Just because the building's gone doesn't mean that God's presence can't be found. They come back into the land after 70 years of exile. God brings them back into the land. Um Ezra uh leads and organizes the people and some other leaders are a part of this to establish a new temple that is smaller and that's the temple that Jesus would have seen. But I want to go beyond Jesus. Jesus's time to Jesus himself. Jesus is the very presence of God. And so while we have Jesus in our story, he goes into the temple. Jesus is the person of God amongst his people, which is in and of itself is incredible. But that's not the the end of the story, right? Jesus ascends up to the father in heaven and we have the day of Pentecost. And on the day of Pentecost, Acts chapter 2, these followers of Jesus, 120 of them are in an upper room praying together. And they have uh all of a sudden there's an earthquake and there's little flames of fire that appear over the heads of these believers just like the tabernacle had a flame of fire over it in the wilderness. Now you have these little flames of fire over the heads of the believers signifying now each of you are a temple for my spirit. And so now we're living in this age where we are the we are the dwelling place of God. God we are the temple of God. In 1 Corinthians it also says the church gathered together is in and of itself like a temple. Ephesians chapter 2 and 3 talks about how or a building built one stone next to each other as the house of God, the temple of God. And so there is this now sense where you and I individually and corporately we are the temple of God's presence. But then the Bible continues on and it talks about a heavenly temple where Jesus is at where Jesus mediates on our behalf where the very throne of God is at. And we are called in Hebrews to go before the thr bone of grace to find help in our time of need to boldly go into that heavenly place where God's presence is because Jesus mediates as our priest on our behalf. But that's not the end of the story. The final end of God's place is that he dwells. It says, "Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man." God is always intended to be in our midst, in your midst. At the end of our service in a few minutes, we're going to take communion. We're going to hold up the cup and we're going to follow what Jesus said to take this cup in remembrance of him. But we're remembering that that cup signifies his blood shed so that a new covenant could be made. That new covenant, part of it is that no longer do you need your neighbor to help you to know God. You each know me individually. You see, God wants you to know him directly through his son, Jesus. You don't need me to mediate your spiritual situation. I play a significant role in your life as a pastor. That's a gift that God gives to his churches, pastors, evangelists, prophets, and teachers. I play a role in your life, but I'm not your priest. I'm a teacher. I care for your soul. I'm trying to help you separate your life from sin to get a vision for your flourishing that God intended for you. All of those things that I do uh on your behalf, they are not a priestly role like Jesus does because God wants to have a personal relationship with you. Not only are we going to take communion at the end of their service, but I'm going to ask you if you've never made a decision to let God be your friend to never that you've never turned to Christ. You've never had your come to Jesus moment. I'm going to ask you to make that decision this morning. I'm not going to ask you to to do anything fofy or weird, but I'm going to ask for you to make a decision in your heart where God wants you to decide where your will is that you're ready to turn your life over to him. But what I want you to see through all of these different cheesy images is that God is about being in your midst. And so Jesus going into the temple as he does here in this verse 12 is this awesome moment because what does he do? Let's let's keep going. Let's see what does he do? It says he goes into the temple and he throws out all those buying and selling. He overturned the tables of the money changers. and the chairs of those that sold doves. Well, that's not very nice. Why are people buying and selling? People are buying and selling in the temple courts because pilgrims come to Jerusalem for Passover and other feasts and they need to purchase animals to make sacrifices. Many were traveling from long distance is all over Israel. They're coming to celebrate Passover and and they want to buy an animal so that they can make a sacrifice. This marketplace activity, however, it had become uh it had moved from the city outskirts into the very tabernacle itself or t temple itself into the very courts where people were supposed to just be able to to be without dest distraction meeting God. They had turned this place, this this temple into a noisy commerce hub. Imagine I told you, hey, listen, I want you to go and I want you to to to go and read your Bible and spend some time praying and just meditating on the presence of God. But I want you to go and do it in the middle of a water park. Yesterday, we took some of our kids to a water park cuz we're celebrating a birthday and it was cra you can imagine all the kids screaming and having fun and it is it was chaos. Or imagine I told you, hey, I want you to go in the middle of um Black Friday to Walmart, stand right there at the the entryway. I want you to just spend time enjoying God's presence. That would be really tough, right? It'd be like this crazy, frenetic, energetic, loud, you know, un un um uncomfortable setting and and that's what had happened was there were people who were industrial. Jesus isn't against business and entrepreneurialship. What he's against is the fact that this business is taking place right in the temple there and and the dealings that were going on were not necessarily above board. So we have the buying and selling that's taking place and and they're not selling for a reasonable price. It's like when you go to like a stadium and you pay $7 for a bottle of water, right?

Yeah. You You've had that experience, right? Yeah. And how do you feel? You feel like worshiping God in that moment, don't you? Right. You're like, "Thank you, God, for the $7 water."

Me neither, man. I I hear you. Yeah. Like, I'll be parched.

That's right. That's right. But yeah, that does not put you in that position where you want to worship God, but that's they're marking up the price on these goats and these sheep and these doves. Yeah, there's gouging, money gouging that's going on. But that's not all. There's also the money changers. The money changers are individuals who are taking the foreign currency. Remember, people are the Jews had been spread out because of their earlier rebellion. The Jewish people were spread out all over southern Europe, nor Africa and Egypt. Uh you had people over in modern-day Iraq and Syria. So these Jews would pilgrim over to Jerusalem to celebrate and they would come with their foreign uh their foreign currency and um the Jewish law required every male to pay a half shekele temple tax, but only certain coins were acmp accepted in the temple. And since these pilgrims were coming from many different regions with different currencies. The money exchange would go on to provide this service, but it was often again through a high profit margin on the exchange. Their presence was necessary, but the system was prone to exploitation and corruption, especially when it was conducted in this sacred temple space. And the doves, let me just And you see the doves that are being sold. The doves were sold because they were prescribed as an offering for those that were poor. You see the easiest you you had an option when you went to go give a sacrifice to God in the temple. You could give like a bull or you could give like a um a sheep or a goat. But if you're if you're poor, you don't have enough money for a sheep. Like the going rate right now is like 12 to $1,800 for a Imagine offering a full bull or or a full cow uh in the temple like you know and that and that's gone like um you offer that sacrifice. It's not like tithes and offerings at church where you know the money leaves you and it goes towards paying for the ministry. No, this is like God, I'm going to just take this cow. I'm going to give it to you. We're going to just burn it. We're going to just burn it up. It's going to smell good and that's it. That was like the that was the that was the act of worship that they were doing. So, some people didn't have the money to do that and they were poor and so you had these doves that were sold. You can read about in uh Leviticus 5 and Leviticus 12. Uh and so their sale of these doves in the temple courts ensured access for all, but it also opened up the door for price gouging and commercial exploitation. And Jesus condemned it by turning over their tables. Let me just show you a few. This is a um an image that we've found through archaeology in the 3rd century AD um of a money changer servant counting the daily income. Here's another um relief of money being exchanged um in the scene. And again another some more money um money changers. Here's a you know more recent like money. This is like a money exchange that you'd find in Jerusalem. And this is a second century chair um that you could have found a second century chair. So just as you're imagining Jesus turning over the tables, this is the kind of thing that you um would have seen. So Jesus says in verse 13, he says, "It is written, my house will be called a house of prayer, but you are making it a den of thieves." Do you see? here that Jesus is not just doing this act of turning over the tables and chairs, but he's explaining that it's written, this is literally in Isaiah 56:7, that his house will be called a house of prayer. Let me read read that passage to you. I will bring them to my holy mountain and let them rejoice in my house of prayer. That's what this place is supposed to be where Jesus is that and he's like, "You've made it a den of thieves." You want to see a picture of a den of thieves? Since I'm on a roll, I might as well show you. This is what this is what the um Jesus had in mind because the road going up to Jerusalem, you would have um roads kind of down here and then you'd have these like little dens and robbers would hang out in in these caves and ambush you on the way. Here's another one. So Jesus is saying, "You've made the temple mount as dangerous and crooked as the road back there that we just got off of, you know, and and it's interrupting what people are trying to do, which is to worship God and to be in his presence. You see, God is passionate for his people to be near him. So much so, like I don't think we see Jesus doing anything like this. He does this early on in his ministry in in the first year in John we have this record early on in his ministry that he takes and he um ties some cords together. He literally creates a whip and starts turning over the table. So he does this in the first part of his ministry and then three years later he does it again. But it punctuates the fact that God is passionate for you and I to be near his presence. He's passionate for there to be this unfettered fellowship that you can enjoy with him. That's why when we come into the church and I say, "Hey, let's silence our phones and let's try to not be a distraction." These are the ideas here because when God wants to meet with you, that's important, right? Like like what is God saying to you right this very minute? Like what's what does he want to say to you? The last thing I want is somebody next to you distracting you from what God might be trying to communicate to you. And so Jesus goes to town on these individuals and and what's taking place because he cares deeply for this idea of prayer and nearness to God. But that's not the end of the story. It continues over here in verse 14. The blind and the lame came to him in the temple and he healed them. The blind and the lame came. Who who when we say the blind and the lame, what are we talking about? Obviously, people that can't see can't walk. But what is what do they signify? Like why can't they see? Was that God? Is that how God created humans to not see and not be able to walk? No. They're in that they're experiencing that ailment because the world is broken from God's original design. This week you went through things where you were limited in your capacity. There were things that were confusing, frustrating, hurt, disappointing. There was a lack of resources. Not because that's how God designed the world to be, but because you're living in a world that is broken. And that's why when we see in the next verse these children singing hosana, which means save now, that's our cry. God, sometimes this sucks. This is hard. Life is hard. But that's not how you want it to be. We need you to rescue us. Right? But we all know that people experience hardship and they chase the rescue, the hosana, from something other than Jesus. So maybe they're trying to pick up chicks and they're like, "You're my hosana." Or they're going to get, you know, their next bump and they think, that's their hosana or they're finding the bump or they're finding their hosana at their workplace and they walk in the door and they're like hosana. But all of those things fail. They never take us and bring us back to what God originally designed for you and I. And if that's your course of life and you're like, "Look, Josh, I didn't need you to stand on that stage and tell me that life is painful. I know that already." I'm glad we're on the same page on that. But maybe what you need to know is that when you're trying to fix the brokenness in your life, you're running further away from God's good rescue. And so here's Jesus in the temple, the meeting place where people come to meet with God, and he's healing them in that place. Ain't that beautiful? You've got all these overlapping images like the temple was like a recreation of the garden. Here's God in the flesh. there, you know, inter interacting with the broken people that are there. Incredible moment. And Jesus is is healing them. In other words, he's taking away the brokenness that they've experiencing and he's bringing to bear the kingdom is literally coming on earth as it is in heaven. You know that prayer. If you grew up in the church or the Catholic church or you've been around religion for any bit of time, you know that prayer. Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Right here, the kingdom's coming.

The kingdom's coming into the temple space. The kingdom's coming to this blind person. The kingdom's coming to this person who's lame. And this is what you're praying when you pray that prayer every day. Father, your kingdom come in my life. I would encourage you to don't just say it, but say, God, I need your kingdom to come in this particular relationship. I need your kingdom to come in this job assignment. I need your kingdom to come here in this place where I live. I need your your kingdom to be present in this ailment, in this sickness, in this cancer, in this handicap. Lord, I need your kingdom to come because when it comes, if it's your kingdom come as it is in heaven, then these things go away. Now, not everyone is healed. Paul had an ailment through his whole life with his eyes. Not every ailment goes away. But there is this invasion of the kingdom into our life. And I'll tell you this, Jesus would not have told you to pray that if he didn't want it to happen, right? Do you think Jesus would come to you and say like, "Hey, pray the king your kingdom come." And he doesn't want his kingdom to come. No. So, we don't get to dictate the terms, right? These guys didn't get to dictate that this was when they would be healed. But the reality is is that this is the kingdom coming to bear. And Jesus tells you and I to pray, "Your kingdom come, your will be done." And so he heals them. And then we And so again, more pictures. Do you like the pictures? You okay with the pictures? So these are some um a group of handicapped beggars outside of uh Jerusalem. Here's a blind man. um being led. This is in Tiberius, a mission hospital in Tiberias. So um in verse 15 it says, "When the chief priests and the scribes saw the wonders that he did healing these people and and then they they not only hear but then they see the children shouting, "Hosana to the son of David." They are so excited for Jesus. Yeah, it doesn't say that. It doesn't say they're apathetic. No, they're they're shaking with anger. That's what indignant means. Shaking in their anger. They're so angry they're having a physical response. It's important for a couple reasons. An our anger does not always register, is not always justified. Some of you wrestle with your own anger and and And I hear I've talked to you about some of it and and you've said like, "Well, I you know, that's just who I am." No. Here's these guys just being who they are. Were they right? No. No. Our emotions do not our emotions are fallen. And so they don't always line up accurately. Just because you feel something, just because you're shaking in your anger does not mean you're feeling how you ought to feel. Just because that's your true self, you maybe need to like smack smack yourself on the cheek and be like, "Cut it out. This is not a moment to be indignant. This is a moment to be rejoicing in Jesus." But the way that these men think and who they are as the religious elite, they're threatened by Jesus's goodness and his kingdom. It threatens their authority and their position. And so, they're indignant. They're wrong. They're wrong. And you need to know that it's easy to be in the presence of God and be wrong. You can be in the presence of God working. You can be in the presence of people who know Jesus being kind to you, feeding you, loving you, and you can be wrong as wrong could be. And these guys were wrong. They're indignant. And Jesus has a word for them from Psalm 8. Here's a scribe, just in case you wereing. what a scribe looks like. That's the only one I can find a picture of. Jesus says to them, "Do you hear what these children or or they say to him?" They say, "Do you hear what these children are saying?" Like, "This is um so wrong. This is a scandal." And they and Jesus says, "Yes, I do hear it. I hear it. Have you never read? You have prepared praise from the mouths of infants and nursing babes. Jesus points these scribes, these religious elite, the ones who knew the Bible professionally. He says, "Go back to Psalm 8." Psalm 8 should give you all the information you need to know about this moment right here. I think that reading our Bibles ends up with these kind of responses. I talk to you guys about life. You tell me your story. stories. I appreciate the it's it's really an honor to be invited into your life and to hear the things going on the painful things going on in your life. I hope you don't stop doing that. I want to pray for you. But I just want you to know that I can pray for you. I might be able to give you some advice. But Jesus comes to us and he often says, "Have you never read?" And and church, that's my question for you this morning. Have you never read? You see, all these guys needed to do is go back back to Psalm 8 and they would have been locked in. They would have known where they they how to respond, but but they were not tracking with the moment because they weren't reading their Bibles. Their hearts were caught up with themselves. They were just so off. And Jesus makes it simple enough of like, "Yo, just go back to the Bible." Like all the things Jesus could have said to them that would have been justified, but he simply says, "Yo, you didn't read your Bible this morning, did you? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So Jesus's response is to go to Psalm 8. I sent you a video this morning. As long as you get emails from the church, I sent you a link to the video from Psalm 8 from the Bible project. It's a 7 minute video that explains all of of Psalm 8. And you'll see if you watch that video why that was the perfect scripture for Jesus to quote here. It's like so good. That video is awesome. And it shows that that the the work of God, the triumph of God, the frail, the weak, the small, the the those that are not powerful, even babies and children are participating in the coming of this kingdom and the power of God. So Psalm 82 says, "From the mouths of infants and nursing babes, you've established a stronghold on account of your adversaries in order to silence the enemy and the avenger. He closes the the our passage closes with this. Then he left them and went out of the city to Bethany and spent the night there. So he goes back out over the Mount of Olives over to Beth Page and Beth Bethany about an an a mile mile and a half away from Jerusalem. He's got friends there. This is where Lazarus the region where Lazarus and the rest of the family is at. Um and he stays the night there. In closing, I want to read to you a passage out of second Corinthians because we talked about how you and I are the are the dwelling place of God. And Paul uses this picture and he says some pretty radical stuff. And I want you to listen to this with a tender heart per just for yourself personally. I'm not going to apply this to your life, but I want you to listen to this. You've got to respond. You've got to figure out how you want to respond in this moment. Here's what it says. Do not be yolked together with those who do not believe. For what partnership is there between righteousness and law lawlessness? Or what fellowship does light have with darkness? What agreement does Christ have with bale? What does a believer have in common with an unbeliever? And what agreement does the temple of God have with idols? In other words, you are the temple. We are the temple of the living God. As God has said, I will dwell in them. I will walk among them. I will be their God and they will be my people. He wants to be your people. We say that sometimes, right? That's kind of a saying that's taken hold like you're my people. Jesus wants to say that about you that you're my people. And so the question that Paul is asking of this church is like, come on guys, why are you mixing your life with evil and good? Why is there like why are you letting junk into your life? when you are the place where God is at. Therefore, come out from among them. Be separate. Be different, says the Lord. Don't touch any unclean thing. And I will come to you. I will welcome you and I will be a father to you and you will be sons and daughters to me, says the Lord Almighty. So then, dear friends, since we have these promises, let us cleanse ourselves from every impurity of the flesh and spirit bringing holiness to completion in the fear of God. Our job as we are following Jesus is to let him put his finger on the stuff that doesn't belong in our life. One of the things that should be going on is that God's saying, "Hey, that's not for your good or my glory." And and maybe it's permissible. This would be the areas where it's not a hard line, but it's like maybe it's your fin ances, right? Maybe it's there's no rule in the Bible that says, you know, you can't have a credit card, but you personally struggle with racking up debt. And so maybe for your good and God's glory, God would have you cut up your credit card so that your relationship with money is simplified and you can't go and rack up that credit card debt and it hinders who you are. There's no Bible verse that says don't have a credit card. But the Holy Spirit puts these things on our hearts in individually. Maybe it's with your diet. Maybe it's in the way that you dress or the music that you listen to or or the films that you watch. All of those things are where the spirit of God works in us personally and says, "Hey, be different. Be separate. Set yourself aside for me because you're my temple." And you need to give permission for the God of the Bible to come into your life and turn over some tables. Not because he doesn't love you, but because he wants to be in your presence. He wants to give you his goodness. He wants to teach you. Let's pray. Lord, we thank you for your word. We do give you permission to work in our lives. We want to be that cleansed temple where we are setting aside the things that are not for our good or your glory. And Lord, we don't want to be legalistic or or have a bunch of rules for rule sake. We just want to walk with you, God. Let that be the motivation for the changes in our life that we just want to walk with you. I pray for each of my brothers and sisters that you would work in their life to set them apart from sin and the things that trip them up. Bless them God. I pray in Jesus name. Amen.

Matthew 21:1-11

Transcription

So, we're um in Matthew 21. We've been going verse by verse through the book of Matthew and it brings us to the um triumphal entry and uh we're going to look at the first 11 verses there. I'll read them to you. We'll pray and then we'll try to unpack it asking the Holy Spirit to really teach us from this text. So, um let me read to you verses 1- 11. When they approached Jerusalem and came to Beth page at the Mount of Olives. Jesus then sent two disciples. Telling them, "Go into the village ahead of you. At once you will find a donkey tied there with her colt. Untie them and bring them to me. If anyone says anything to you, say that the Lord needs them, and he will send them at once." This took place so that what was spoken through the prophet might be fulfilled. Tell daughter Zion, see your king is coming to you, gentle and mounted on a donkey and on a colt, the full of a donkey. The disciples went and did just as Jesus directed them. They brought the donkey and the colt, and then they laid their clothes on them, and he sat on them. A very large crowd spread their clothes on the road. Others were cutting branches from the trees and spreading them on on the road. Then the crowds who went ahead of him and those who followed shouted, "Hosana to the son of David. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Hosana in the highest heaven." When he entered Jerusalem, the whole city was in an uproar, saying, "Who is this?" Then the crowds were saying, "This is the prophet Jesus from Nazareth in Galilee." Let's pray. Lord, we thank you for this text that we um get to walk through this morning. And we're really grateful for just the presence of your spirit in our lives. And there are some in this room that they they've not yet surrendered their life to you. They're not in a personal relationship with you, but you've promised that your spirit would be at work even in their life, convicting them of sin, of righteousness, and judgment. And for those of us that are followers of you, you've given the seal of your spirit on our life and you want to teach us, leading us into what is true. You want to use your word to comfort us and to correct us, to instruct us in righteousness. And so, Lord, as we look at this text, this narrative here, we ask that you would connect the text with our personal lives. And we just want to tell you upfront, God, that that you have permission to speak to us. You have permission to lead us. and and we are in desperate need of your wisdom and guidance in our lives. So have your way with this time. May you find in us just hearts that are ready to leap up with a response of yes, God, I'll obey.

We give you this time in Jesus name. Amen.

So we're looking through the book of Matthew. If you're new to Matthew, it's a biography about the life of Jesus composed by one of Jesus's disciples, an apostle named Levi. Also the name Matthew. And Matthew before he knew Jesus, he was a tax collector. And he was radically converted to be this follower of Jesus and an apostle. And he um made this historic account of the life of Jesus, his teachings, his death, his resurrection. And and we're going to see Matthew the writer coming through even this morning as we look at this text. For years, Jesus um has been doing ministry We're in the third year as we get into this text. We're in the third year of Jesus's ministry. And he's been quietly healing people and teaching about God's kingdom. Almost like he was keeping his true identity under wraps. But now as he enters Jerusalem, the gloves come off. He stages a bold public statement riding a donkey and not a waror. In the This was not random. In that culture, donkeys were a symbol of peace and service while the warhorse screamed military power. Jesus was shouting with words, without words rather. He's shouting without words essentially saying, "I am the king that you have waited for, but my throne is a cross and my battle is a against sin and my victory looks like surrender. The crowd goes wild waving palm branches and cheering. Yet they are missing the point. They want a political hero to overthrow Rome. Jesus plans to overthrow death itself. Their shouts of hosana which means saves us. It rings with irony. They are praying for deliverance from soldiers while the deliverer rides towards a different kind of rescue, one that will cost him everything. And so let's look at these first three verses. We will see that um verses 1-5, we could basically break the text into two pieces. 1-5 is the instructions that Jesus gives um about the donkey and the colt. And then 6 through 11 is the act of getting the donkey and colt and the response of the crowd. So verse one again talks about them approaching Jerusalem and coming to Beth Page on the Mount of Olives. This um location, I figured I'd show it to you. We're about um a mile outside of um the temple.

We're a mile side of the temple. So, we're here in between Bethany and Beth Page and um this conversation goes on between Jesus and these two disciples that he sends. Now, we've been riding with Jesus on this journey for um a few weeks. You remember that Jesus healed um the two blind men? Do you remember the location of where he healed them? It was right on the suburbs, right outside of Jericho. And Jesus was leaving Jericho where there was often times uh people that were poor asking for money. It it was a common location for the poor to ask for alms. And Jesus encounters these two blind men. But Jesus is with the crowd. It said he's moving with this crowd up to this high holy day in Jerusalem. And um they're getting ready as a nation to celebrate Passover. This was one of the five um holy days in uh Israel for the Jews. And it meant taking this pilgrimage to Jerusalem to celebrate Passover. And so this was not a normal crowd that we're encountering in the text here. It and the journey that they're on approaching Jerusalem is not just an average visit. it. But Jesus and the disciples are participating with what is happening nationally for the Jews. And so there's this ant there's this religious anticipation for us. You think of like a holiday that we might come into where you know like the next big holiday um well we have Junth and then we have the 4th of July and there's kind of this like sense of patriotism as we get into Fourth of July. When we get into close to to Christmas time there's this sense of like we're going to celebrate Christmas and it becomes Christmy and there's a debate of when can you start playing Christmas music right but for the Jews there was these these high holy days Passover being one of the most significant and so the crowds are traveling with Jesus and and at points Jesus is pulled his disciples off to the side he says I got to tell you guys I'm going to Jerusalem I'm going to suffer and then I'm going to be raised um from the dead so there's different things that have been taking place on this journey. And now they get to this mile outside of Jerusalem. And this is where Jesus says to his disciples. He sends two of his disciples. And he says this, "Go into the village ahead of you being Beth Page. At once you will find a donkey tied there with her colt. Untie and bring them to me. And so, um, this location, some other significant things about this location is that it's a it's a Sabbath's day journey from Jerusalem. So, it was almost considered a part of Jerusalem because you could be celebrating um the Sabbath and still be wi kosher and walked to on the Sabbath to Beth Page. Very close. And so, he tells them to go into this village. He says, "You're going to find a donkey tied there with her colt. And um he gives these instructions in advance saying if anyone says anything to you, say that the Lord needs them and he will send them at once. He's anticipating that there's going to be questions because you don't just go and take somebody's donkey and colt, right? Like that's not usually allowed. And so Um some of the things that we see here just in these first three verses is that Jesus knows that there is a donkey and a cult. So the Jesus of the Bible, the Jesus that we are learning to follow is the one who knows the um case before it happens. So so this very moment Jesus knows the small details of your week. If he knows that the donkey and the colt are there tied up. He knows what's going to happen tomorrow in your life. One of the one of the great benefits of being a follower of Jesus and being filled with the Holy Spirit is that God is guiding us into what is already known. And so here he is just in this small way, he's telling his disciples, hey, go in and you're going to find this you're going to find this donkey there. And the second thing is that he delegates this task I know sometimes sometimes people have trouble figuring out how to turn off the the sound is and it's okay.

We have people that know how to how to work it. So, just notice this one little thing that Jesus is delegating delegating the t. Now, Jesus could have just walked up and done it himself, but again, here he is. He's giving the task to his disciples. And I know that that's small. I know that's relatively small, but but this is the thing you need to understand as a follower of Jesus is that he happily is giving to us small tasks to do on his behalf. Being a follower of Jesus is is um has some grandiose beautiful vision right of eternity and God you know saving the world and rescuing the world. But so much of our following Jesus is going to be just obedience in the small things. And here for these disciples it is like go and get a donkey in the colt that's tied up. You know, if you get this question that comes to you, just feel, you know, give them this response that the Lord has need of it. Jesus is not a passive victim as we go into the Holy Week. Just so just so you know the timing. We've talked about where this is happening and who the crowds are and why the crowds are coming into the Jerusale into Jerusalem, but just so you know the timing of this in Jesus's life, this is Sunday. the Sunday before the resurrection. So, um five days from the day we're on here, Jesus is going to be crucified. And um so this is a an occurrence that happens um just five days before the crucifixion. And as we go in and we spend the next few weeks as a church studying this Holy Week, there's going to be some major teaching with parables kind of between here and chapter 26 when the story continues. So Jesus in that last week, it seems like he's teaching quite a quite a bit and that's recorded by Matthew. But we see that he's not a passive victim in the events of the Holy Week. He is the Lord who orchestrates and in and directs even the small events of like getting this donkey and cult. He's in command. He isn't hoping they'll find a donkey. He knows guys go into the city. you're gonna find this donkey and colt. We also see that following Jesus means trusting his word even when the task is unclear or the outcome is uncertain. So these guys receive this instruction and there's a bunch of unknowns that come with this instruction. Is the person going to be mad at me that I'm taking their donkey? Um what am I going to do? Like with the donkey? Do I need to pet its nose? Like, you can think of all these different funny things that happen when you Yeah. What What do you think of

s

Yeah, you could ride it back. Should I ride it back or walk it back? Right. You should ride it back. Is that what you would do? Yes. I wish I could see that. That sounds like a lot of fun. So, there's a bunch of unknowns in this text, but Jesus is giving these instructions that are meant to be obeyed. And so, in verse four, it says, "This took place so that what was spoken through the prophet might be fulfilled. So Matthew who's the writer of this book he steps back as the narrator and he gives us an insight. So he's just get told us the story but he steps back. He says let me give you some commentary on what's going on and that this scene this event takes place so that what was spoken through the prophet might be fulfilled. What does that mean? What's he talking about? Yeah,

about the world.

He's talking about like the Old Testament, right?

He's talking about the Jewish Bible. They could go back and they could see that the prophets gave clear um there is clear written messages by the prophets. Now, the prophets are unique genre of scripture. We have the major and minor prophets. It's kind of how we divide it up in the um the Protestant Bible. But These prophets were messengers sent by God to just speak very truthfully to their moment to say this is God's word for the nation of Israel right now. And sometimes they spoke to the nation of Israel. Sometimes they spoke to Judah. Sometimes they spoke to the surrounding nations. But God was faithful to to speak. God, the God of the Bible is is a communicator. And he spoke to through these prophets. But sometimes the prophets wouldn't just speak to their contemporary setting, but they would also speak to a future day. Oftent times that future day would be about the Messiah, how the Messiah would come. And so here we see um Matthew giving us a why Jesus did this. Why is Jesus designating and saying, "Hey, go get this donkey in the colt." Was it a cultural practice or was he connect connecting himself with prophecy and it's the latter. He's connecting himself with the prophetic message about the Messiah. When we see Jesus riding in Jerusalem on a donkey and a colt, it may seem as if it's an odd deep detail, but it is actually the fulfillment of deep and ancient promises in the Old Testament. Genesis, Zachchariah, Isaiah all speak and sometimes in a mysterious or poetic language about a coming king who would arrive in just this way. Can I show you those three passages? If we go over to Genesis, this is the scene of Jacob blessing um his sons and the sons of Joseph, his grand two grandsons. And um he proclaims a blessing over each of his sons. But when he gets to Judah, he says, "The scepter will not depart from Judah." The scepter is the royal um barbell or what would you call it? Like it's the staff. Yeah. The royal staff of um the king or the um leader of the nation. So the scepter will not depart from Judah. In other words, um the leadership of the nation will originate from Judah or the staff from between his feet until He whose right it is comes and the obedience of the peoples belongs to him. There's one more verse here. He ties his donkey. Do you see this? J this is Jacob thousands of years before he ties he he um he's speaking and Jesus is fulfilling this. He ties his donkey to a vine and the colt of his donkey to the choice vine. Crazy, right? Crazy that this is a a word that Jacob as an old man is speaking with Judah right there. Imagine he's just praying and blessing, giving this blessing over Judah and God gives him this word about a donkey and the cult and being the royal lineage. Okay, but it continues. If we go to Zachchariah, who's a a prophet much much later, he's uh Zachchariah prophesies after Israel returns from exile, the 70-year exile into um Assyria or into Babylon. One of the obscure prophecies is rejoice greatly, daughter Zion. Shout in triumph, daughter Jerusalem. Look, your king is coming to you. He is righteous and victorious, humble in riding on a donkey, on a colt, the f of a donkey. Crazy, right? Isn't that interesting? There's one more in Isaiah. It doesn't talk so much about the donkey and the colt, but it it has the same language about calling the audience to look. He says, "Look, the Lord has proclaimed it to the ends of the earth. Say to daughter Zion, look, your salvation is coming. His wages are with him and his reward accompanies him." So, here we have daughter Zion again that's being referred to. And so all of those prophetic messages are in view as Jesus stands there on this dusty road outside of Beth Page. And so you imagine for a second being one of these 12 apostles of Jesus and he says, "All right, you know, let's kind of do a sidebar here. I want you to I want you to go there into that village there and I want you to untie by a donkey in a colt. And if anybody asks you a question, just tell them, "Hey, the master has need of it and it's all going to be good, right?" And and Matthew reflects on this having been one. Maybe Matthew was even one of the guys to go and get the cult. We don't we don't know who they were. Um but Matthew reflects on this and he goes, "Hey guys, this is that those this is Old Testament prophets who were led by God, their words being fulfilled in this normal day. And here's what I here's what I want to bring home. This sense of like we Paul talks about how we we see through a glass dimly and and our spiritual experience as followers of Jesus is sometimes kind of this obscure experience where you're you're like, "Maybe that's God working. Maybe that's maybe that's him. How's God going to put the pieces together? But then after the fact, you look back and you're like, "Whoa, God did it." Paul talked to the Corinthian church about how we um we don't look at the things that are seen, but we look at the things that are unseen. How we walk by faith and not by sight. And there is this there is this way of following Jesus where you're operating getting out of this obscurity and foggess. You ever driven through the like a foggy day where it's just like, man, I don't know if I what's out there. Like, who knows what's just like 15 feet away and it's just this eerie sense of obscurity of like what could just like pop up in front of me, right?

I never parked.

You know what?

I never parked a car.

Oh, you have not?

No, I never parked.

You never car.

Another car.

Another car. Yeah.

That's right. Another car might be right up there in the fog and you might get like Yeah, exactly. That's what I'm saying. And so sometimes like when we're following Jesus, there is this sense of like, man, I wish I had it all laid out. And it's so interesting to have these types of narrative moments from a Matthew where he's like, wait, this is what this fulfills. those prophetic messages. Like if you go and look at look up Zechariah like or look at Isaiah 62 or you look back at um look at look at like Genesis 49 as here's Jacob praying over his 12 sons and God's like working in that moment which is kind of a like pretty normal moment to bless your sons at the end of your life. And God's giving this prophetic word that ends up being this thing about Jesus as he's coming into Jerusalem is crazy. So you you may be doing your life now and sincerely desire to to please God and to know like what does God have for me? But it sometimes it feels like you're driving in that fog. And you just need to know that that you're not the first one who's been in that experience. And the um thing that we're asking God for is the types of directions that he gave to these disciples. Like a good way to pray is to pray, God, what what do you want me to do today? And then be learning to listen for his voice as you spend time reading the Bible. Your senses, it says in Hebrews, your senses are exercised so you're more attuned to like, oh, that I think that that's God's guiding me. God's directing my steps. The The more you do that, the more reps you have of listening for God's voice, the more you realize, wow, the voice of God in my life is strangely normal. It It's almost as if like that's just kind of like, you know, I've talked about like how I was diagnosed with attention deficit. So, my brain wonders in really weird directions. And I used to think of that as kind of like a as a handicap. And so, I would second like, "Oh man, I wish you know, I got me in a lot of trouble when I was a kid. It took me like twice as long to finish home. homework assignments cuz I was like thinking about the squirrel out the window. But as an adult, I've learned that like sometimes the things where it's like seems like, wow, that's like why am I randomly thinking about that? Many times it's God just intervening in the course of my thinking, laying ideas on my heart and in my mind and guiding me. And how do I know that that's the case? Well, just lots of reps of like thinking it through because God usually doesn't speak one time. He's confirming it multiple times and giving you grace to take steps of obedience, but you don't know if you don't really engage the Lord, if you're not praying and asking, "God, guide me like you did with these disciples." And so, it's this beautiful moment where he's God's guiding these individual disciples. And just notice notice that back in this text here, um, um that it's your king is coming to you gentle and mounted. That word right there also could be translated humble or lowly. Your king is coming to you humble and lowly mounted on a donkey. He didn't come on a waror. He didn't come to overturn Rome. He came and his method was subversive. He continues to surprise his followers. He continues to do things in a way where it just like wow that's not how the world executes on a plan. That is not the normal conventional path to change the course of history. He comes gentle. Let's keep going. I uh Matthew 216 says, "The disciples went and did just as Jesus directed. them a simple statement of their obedience. And you see we're now in that second section where we go from instructions now to action. And the disciples went, right? What did Jesus asked them to do? He said, "Go." What did they do? They went, "Man, that we would just be a people that are obedient." Then they brought the k the the donkey and the colt. What did Jesus tell them to bring?

Hey, look at that. They did it. They brought the donkey and the colt. And then they laid their clothes. So now they take over. They embrace their culture um with the clothes and um the branches that get cut down in a second. All of these are an embrace of a cultural significance saying you are royalty. So they brought the donkey and the colt. They laid their clothes on him and they sat on them. And a very large crowd spread their clothes on the road. All of this would be an act of honoring royalty. So the so the crowd is keyed in. It isn't like hailing a taxi to go and grab a donkey. This is a significant moment that the disciples and the crowd recognize as a um uh pointing towards royalty. Others are cutting down their branches from the trees and spreading them on the road. And then the crowds who went ahead of him and those who followed. So imagine just a giant crowd in front and in back. So he's like surrounded by this crowd. They're shout shouting hosana to the son of David. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. So hosana is this cry of save now. Save now. It's it's this cheer asking for rescue. And then son of David is a reference to like the Genesis passage and the messianic line that that that this individual here, David, is of a royal lineage. So, they're keyed in on some stuff. And then we have Psalm 118. We Marvin read let us in the reading of Psalm 118, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. And then we have hosana again. Hosana in the highest heaven. So, the crowd is participating now. But interestingly enough, they're asked as they get into Jerusalem um who this guy is, who is this? And the crowds were saying, "This is the prophet Jesus from Nazareth in Galilee." So, he's he's not the Messiah Jesus. To the crowd, he's the prophet Jesus, but they get the his origin story right. He's from from the Galilee region. Um, and there's a lot of people in this crowd who don't know Jesus. They're like not keyed in on what's going on and they're asking. This is the same crowd that will participate in just 5 days in crying, "Crucify him! Crucify him." And so, there's a fickleness about the crowd, but maybe because they're anticipating and longing for a political revolution. They're longing for a king that would liberate them from Rome. and they have this inability to see the role of the Messiah in his first coming. And so we get the privilege of having this text before us after this. Um the next step is we're going to go into the temple and Jesus is going to cleanse the temple. We'll see some other stuff that takes place. Matthew kind of mingles Monday and Sunday together in his narrative. Um but this takes place on the Sunday. Um, what I want to encourage you with, especially if you're new to church or you're you're thinking about your own spiritual capacity and who God might be. The the book of Matthew is written for you and for me. It's written for us so that you know who Jesus is and that Jesus is a historic figure, not just a prophet, but he came into the world as the Messiah to hosana. you to save you now to rescue. You may say, "Well, Josh, what what do I need to be saved from?" You know, I know I've got issues in my life. Well, the the Bible teaches really clearly that humanity has fallen from the way that God originally designed for us to be. He designed for us to be these people that are fruitful and multiplying, subduing and ruling in the garden, in in in our own garden. He he designed us to be in in perfect fellowship, totally dependent on him as our source of wisdom in life. In in fact, the Bible says that you're created as a shell to house the presence of God to be the temple where God dwells. And yet there is this rebellion in humanity against the purposes of God. Our forefathers Adam and Eve re they were the first to rebel to take and hear a clear instruction to say God I want to do it my own way. And God said listen When you do that, in the moment you turned from me, you're going to introduce death into the world. And we see immediately upon the rebellion of Adam and Eve that they felt a sense of their own nakedness and shame. There was a psychological death that they experienced in feeling shame for the first time. They began to blame each other for what was occurring. And they hid from God. Rather than enjoying this perfect friendship with God, they were running away, hiding from the presence of God. And at that point, God begins this hosana mission to to save now to bring humanity back to their original design. And he promises them there there in Genesis 3 that the seed of the woman, a descendant of the woman, would crush the head of the serpent. The serpent was the one there that tempted Eve and and and lied to her, manipulated her and and and got her to give in to temptation, participated in this fully. And yet God is promising that moment of rebellion, the ongoing rebellion and the fallout, the devastating fallout that humanity has experienced is going to be um overturned. And Jesus is sent by the father into the world, his only begotten son, son. So a to die, to rise from the dead, his death was a payment for the guilt of humanity. All that rebellion had to be reconciled within the perfect justice of God. And so Jesus died on the cross so that humanity's guilt could be paid for and so that you and I could have this opportunity to to enter back into this friendship with God. And you may have a spiritual thing going on in your life where you're like, I know there's a God. I I that's undeniable. You you may have had your own spiritual experiences, but but you need to know that Jesus said to his disciples in John 13 that no one comes to the father but by him. That he is the way, the truth, and the life. No one can get to God and be a friend with God Without Jesus, there are not multiple um paths to get to God. There's no way for multiple religions to be right and to all end up in the same place because they all make claims of exclusivity. You cannot come and say, "Well, I like Jesus and I also like the Buddha and I like Confucious and I like Muhammad." Each religion makes its own exclusive claim. You can appreciate the things of Jesus, but that will not secure your eternal destiny, and it will not reconcile you back with the God who made you. The only way to be reconciled to God is through his son, Jesus Christ. And the invitation that this book, Matthew, that we're studying makes to you is it proclaims to you the new society, the new kingdom that Jesus inaugurated and brought in. It proclaims to you a new covenant that God has made between heaven and earth to all who would accept it. And it proclaims to you Jesus as the Messiah, the one who came to be the king, who's gentle. He came to be the gentle king in your life. But you can choose to reject him. The beautiful thing about the God of the Bible is he gives you full permission to reject. He he leaves it in your he he he lays he does the work. He's going to go to the cross. He's going to do the work of the cross, the resurrection. He's going to suffer uffer on your behalf, but he's not going to force you. He's going to do the work and he's going to say, "The door is open. Will you receive that work?" And so, if you're still in that place where you're considering how do am I a friend of God, you you need to boil it down to the question of your relationship with Jesus. Have you done what Jesus asked the crowds, which was to repent? That's that's this word that means turn the orientation of your life towards him. Turn away from serving yourself. Repent in the direction of Jesus and then place your faith in him. Believe in him. It means this internal surrender and it means an absolute um acceptance and um trust that what Jesus has done on the cross is sufficient for your salvation, for your a moment. And so I invite you that that today would be your hosana now. It's not just saved, but it's it's save now. And my hope for you, my prayer for you as as your pastor is that you would experience hosana in your life. That you would experience the salvation of God on your behalf. He died on the cross. We'll see it in in a matter of a couple months. We'll be looking at the cross and that part of the story. But before we're even there, You just need to know he did that part of the story so that you can be reconciled to him. So hosana while the crowd didn't understand it, we can look back with the clarity of Matthew and be like, hey, it might have been obscure to that crowd, but it's very clear to us now what this what the stakes are, what the offer on the table is. It's for you and I to decide what do we want to do. So if if that's you, if this morning you're like, "Yeah, you know what? I I have never really prayed to God in told him that I want to repent and I want to believe in Jesus. If if that's where you're at, there's you know how to talk. I've talked with most of you. You know how to talk. You can talk to God. A and you put it in your language. You you talk to him and just tell him, "God, I'm ready to receive your son, Jesus. I'm ready to turn from my way of doing life. I'm ready to turn it over to you. I'm open." That's what we prayed at the beginning when I prayed. I I said I prayed that we would have open hearts and I've laid it out for you who Jesus is, but it's on you to have that sense of openness. I know some of you know of our church because you come to just get free food after church. And I love that. I'm glad I get to feed you. I'm glad our team gets to feed you. I really love that. But but I would be so devastated if you die with a full belly and an empty heart.

I want you to know I want you to know how God designed you for so much more. so much more. Love you so much. We love you so much. And I know that there's things going on. There may be questions that you still have, but God's able to answer those questions. Let's pray. Lord, we love you and we thank you for being our hosana. Thank you for saving us in the moment. Thank you for continuing to save us. Thank you for the future salvation, the the ultimate rescue from from all of the calamity. Lord Jesus, we are so grateful for what you accomplished. Lord, I pray for those that are still wrestling with they're having a relationship with you and they're thinking through their own spiritual their own spiritual journey and their destiny. Lord, you've got to be the one that opens up. It says in 1 Corinthians 2 Corinthians 4 that you cause light to shine out of darkness. You cause light to shine in our hearts. And I pray for each person here that's that's wrestling with what is true.

And that you would flip that switch on in their life and they would know you that you would be very clearly the light of the world.

Lord, thank you for our salvation and you we pray as we go this week that you would continue that saving work, that rescuing work. We pray this in Jesus name. Amen.

Amen.

Matthew 20:29-34

Transcription

We're going to be in Matthew chapter 20, kicking off where we left off last week. Um, we're in verse 29. Are you ready?

Find it in your Bibles. All right, let's talk a little bit about um Oh, you know what? My iPad's got to connect to the internet or I don't have a sermon notes. Let give me a second. I'm going to connect it real quick. Um, I told you that I would mention to you a little bit about um space and obviously we're not in our space that we've been in for the last 7 and 1/2 years and uh here we are. So um it turns out that there's not a lot of space in the neighborhood uh to just all of a sudden find a a church building in. Um but here we are. It's awesome

and there's not Yeah. So here we don't have a place to park cars, right? And don't have a great place for our kids. And

what

was empty?

There's there's a one that's really in bad shape and then there's some there's like a independent Catholic one. Yeah, this is a lot of innovation. A lot of innovation, renovation called tearing it all the way down and like rebuilding the whole thing. Well, let let me just kind of explain. So, when this happened, I've I've kind of my emotional like response on Monday afternoon was excited cuz I felt like we've been maxing out new city new century for a while now. And uh there's a rule for churches that's like listen when you get to like 80% capacity you really should go and look for a bigger space cuz people when they come into a room that's 80% full they really don't want to join or get involved because they feel like they're pinched in terms of the space. Does that does that make sense? And so we've been at that place for almost a year now and it's been it's been tough. So, um we need to find another space, right? But let me just kind of work with you on just some of the numbers. So, hold on just a second, David. I'm going to answer questions in just a second. The um the rent that we pay over there is $365 per week. Okay, which is a great it's a great deal because the market rate is about1 50 per hour for an event space. So, we've got a great deal over there. Um, if we were to try to get a bigger space just for Sundays, we would be looking at um any paying anywhere between $34,000 a year, which would double that would double where we're at, right? Um, but it's it's likely that it would be triple where we're at if we were to find a space. I think we need about seating for about 200 people. Okay. Uh we're looking we would be looking on the low side 4,000 square feet, high side like 7,000 square ft. Okay. For a church space. So um right now um we can afford uh and so when we came here and we were talking about terms, they were willing these these people are so gracious that let us rent this. They're like ready to let us do it and they're ready to let us um rent this space at the same price as New Century, which is amazing. So, they're ch charging us less than what they would normally charge us. But as we as a church begin to pray about, look, what is a long-term home look like for the church? You and I need to be realizing that we're talking about even just for a Sunday rental, it's probably three times what we currently are paying. If we were to have a church full-time, um like a building full-time, We would be talking closer to like lowend $85,000, highend $140,000 a year in terms of rent. Okay.

Yes.

It's triple net. So there's tax

and insurance and utilities, right? Yeah. So all of those things factor in to make it even even more expensive. Um so as we pray, so I I realized I had I realized a lot this week in this process is It's been a very good journey um seeing God provide, but also just walking through the mental exercise of like, well, where would God have us be? We're committed to the neighborhood, right? Because we're we like we are pretty much in the neighborhood. Some of you are outside the neighborhood, but pretty much committed to the neighborhood. Um we serve a demographic where um we don't have a ton of money. It's not like we're super rich, right? You're not super rich. rich. No. And um uh let's see what else was I thinking about. Yeah, like more space. So in this area, more space, parking space for kids, um and then being in closer proximity or in the same space as the compassion center, running the relief center at the same place where we do church. Wouldn't that be great? So um I realized though that I had made a mistake in this process that I really love going on like Loopnet and Zillow and looking at properties. But I have the same conversation over and over again with people. Well, what's your budget? And we don't have a budget. We have a little bit of money in a church savings account from when we did a capital campaign to try to raise money to buy a truck. Remember, we raised half the money for a truck and then we went into a a lease and we've kind of protected most of that money has been has stayed there and it's protected. Um but it's not like we have, you know, $600,000 to make a down payment on a on a building or um the monthly revenue. to um cash flow or or to to afford a place. So um rather than looking for a space, we're in a season where we need to begin praying for money. And so um we have the terms on this place are for um 6 to 8 weeks. Basically, that's the conversation. We we may be able to go back over to News Century at the end of that. But I I I believe, you know, and I'm open to your input, but I believe we're in a season where we need to be looking for something bigger. And so something better without leaving the neighborhood. And in order to do that, what we will need is a um we'll need a a a pot of money. And so um one of the things I'm going to come back to you for is we'll do a some kind of structure. So the way it works with church finances and financing a a facility is we is churches will do like a pledge. And so um it's a it's a basically like a promisary note where you say, "Hey, over the next 18 months. This is what I want to contribute. And I can take pledges from our church as a part of a package of like raising money from other churches like we've been doing. And I can go to a bank or to a a buyer and uh do a private loan and say, "Here's the pledges that we have from our congregation. Here's the money from um our other partners." And that's kind of the the financial deal that we put together. So, I'm I'm going to put that together. Um a bit more and then I'm gonna come back to you and the question that I I'll have for you is what can you out of your finances besides tithes and offerings, how would you like to financially participate in that? And um it'll be like a pledge that we'll do through the website where you can say, "Hey, here's what I think I can give on a monthly basis over the next 18 months towards Haven City Church's new facility." Does that make sense?

Yes.

This is such a miracle, right? It's so so crazy. He said it's a miracle we got this place. Do you agree?

It is. It's awesome. And I think we should be able to be in here uh for the next um few weeks. Um for those that are handicapped and can't get down, I called called the uh people that are in wheelchairs before we came today. Um we have the popup tent and next week we'll have a speaker that will go out there um so that if we are here and we don't have a more ADA accessible space, case. Um, there will be amplification out there in the courtyard to be able to hear what's happening down here. That's the accommodation that we can make. I want to share with you one other really encouraging thing. I I haven't looked recently with our accountant at um giving. So, when our accountant works through our financial statements as a church, we classify the giving that comes in through Sunday tithes and offerings. We classify it as internal giving versus external giving. So, we in this room are the internal givers. People that come on a regular Sunday and are part of the church. We're the internal givers. But then there's churches. There's three churches that send checks to us every month. One sends $300, another one sends $500. And they are our external givers. There's individuals that send checks. I told you about that one um a few weeks ago where somebody gave an anonymous $2,500. All of those are external givers. So, one of the things that I've been tracking is out of our budget of $12,000 a month, how much of that money are we contributing and how much of that money is coming from outside giving? And I was I haven't updated that number in a while. The last time I looked at it, we were maybe at 60% internal giving covering our budget. But after I reviewed the the numbers this last um week, what I found is that we're at this last month, we gave 82% of our budget. Isn't

that awesome? Yeah. Good job, guys. We're doing it. It's like a kid that's like growing up, you know, and it's like we're being able to take care of oursel and uh that's encouraging. So, um thank you. Thank you for giving. Thank you for being a part of that. That's just such a blessing to to see see that giving take place. All right. Yeah, David.

Beans and bread.

What?

Beans and bread.

Beans and bread could help us. Maybe. Maybe. I don't know. Maybe they would be willing to help us out.

Are you in Matthew? Did you find Matthew chapter um Matthew chapter

20? There you go. You got it. All right. Let's see if it shows up in my app here. My sermon notes. Matthew chapter 20. Faith. Faith and compassion. Since I gave a any sermon earlier we will um go a little bit shorter right so the Gospel of Matthew the first book in the New Testament it's a biography about Jesus and Matthew who is the writer he is um showing that Jesus is not just a moral teacher or a good example to follow but that he is the long awaited Messiah. He's the king who fulfills all hopes and promises of the Old Testament. Matthew constantly point is pointing us back to the story of Israel because he's writing to a Jewish audience and he's showing how Jesus is the true and the better Moses, the true son of David, the one who brings God's kingdom to earth. We've seen all of those things. As we've gone along this morning, we're going to look at this passage from Matthew chap 20. You also have this um passage in Mark chapter 10. There um in Mark um the blind man, one of the we have just one blind man in Mark and he's named blind Bardameus. Here Matthew just calls him says there are two blind men. So let me read the the text to you and then we will um we'll look at it together. As they were leaving Jericho, a large crowd followed him. There were two blind men sitting by the road. When they heard that Jesus was passing by, they cried out, "Lord, have mercy on us, son of David." The crowd demanded that they keep quiet, but they cried out all the more, "Lord, have mercy on us, son of David. Jesus stopped, called them, and said, "What do you want me to do for you?" Lord, they said to him, "Open our eyes." Moved with compassion, Jesus touched their eyes. Immediately they could see and they followed him. Lord, we want to look at this passage for the next few minutes. And we want your spirit to teach us from what is here in the text as we consider these words, would you would you open up our hearts and our minds to understand it and then connect it with our very real lives. Um Lord, we give you ourselves. We we pray be our teacher in Jesus name. Amen.

Amen. And so the first there's just two points that I want to highlight. There's many things that we could look at from this text. The first is this idea that the kingdom turns on desperate faith. We've been talking about the kingdom and Jesus has been proclaiming the kingdom and and what we see in Jesus ministry is the kingdom erupting into the Jewish culture. So there's a clash of cultures that's occurring. You have historic Judaism and then you have Jesus talking about the kingdom and he's presenting the kingdom to uh his followers. And so it's not like Jesus just it's not like a miracle of the blind just accidentally slips out because he's like a genie in the bottle or he's some supernatural worker. No, the the kingdom is being um demonstrated here. And and you you have to go back to the beginning of the Bible to understand the kingdom concept because when God created the worlds and when he created the heavens in the earth and he created Adam and Eve, humanity in the garden. Everything was good and humans were flourishing. They had their work to do to tend to the garden, to reign, to rule in the garden and u to be fruitful and to multiply, but they rebelled and the curse came upon humanity and stuff's broken. And so, as Jesus is doing ministry and going through just the world that he created, he healing people. And when people are healed, it's the kingdom marching forward. It's not just the blind men getting their sight, but it's the kingdom coming to bear upon the situation. That's really important because we pray this prayer. Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven. We're praying that the kingdom of God would come to bear on on different circumstances, right? I almost said circumcisions, which would have been a horrible mistake. I'm glad there's no video of this sermon now. No, it comes to bear on circumstances. The kingdom's coming to bear on circumstances. And so here and and we get all these different like little settings where the kingdom's at work. And so here is Jesus kingdom coming and just crashing into the world of these two men. that are disabled. And and what we see is that the kingdom turns on desperate faith. So again, let's let's look here. So in verse 30, there's these two blind men sitting by the road and when they heard that Jesus was passing by, they cried out, "Lord, have mercy on us, son of David." This is uh they're they're just recognizing that Jesus is the Messiah. I mean, there's no way around it. They're not looking at Jesus as like some random miracle worker or a genie or a magician. Like, they're acknowledging that Jesus is the messianic figure that that David wrote about, that the prophets prophesied about. And and they're asking that he would have mercy upon them. But then there's something interesting that happens. The crowd demanded that they keep quiet, but they cried out all the more the same thing. Lord have mercy on us, son of David. And so the kingdom where Jesus is king, it turns on the desperation that is expressed by these blind men. It means when we say that it it turns on their desperate faith, it means that that the culture of the kingdom values um it means that The culture of the kingdom values and responds to the authentic cry of desperation and of need when it is paired with faith. We're learning about the kingdom. We're learning about Jesus's kingdom. And and one of the things that that we're we're seeing is that when Jesus comes and these desperate men cry out in faith that the kingdom responds right now. The kingdom responds, but the crowd objects. Le let's talk about the blind man for just a second. They're they're cut off from their full human experience because of the handicapped that they have. They um are desperate to be healed. They need Jesus to be the one to heal them. Um, why why is this a principle in the kingdom? Like why why did Matthew put this in here for us to understand Jesus better? I'm I'm going to answer that question, I think, more fully in a minute. But I I first want you to be able to relate to the blind man better. Okay? When when we talk about these blind men, we're talking about men that had a a disability. That that's the language that we use in our culture. Their disability is obviously blindness. It's an unfixable handicap. Uh the they're in a a dire situation. If if they were to go and fill out their Social Security um disability paper, here's the kind of questions that would come up. What's your disability? They would say blindness. When did your condition begin to affect your ability to work? They would say, "I've been unable to see and work for so many years. Are you still unable to work? What would they say? Yes, I'm still unable to work due to blindness. What doctors treat you for this condition? I've not been able to afford or access regular medical care is what they would probably say. What kind of treatment or medications do you receive? They would say none due to the lack of access. Have you had any hospital admissions or ER visits for this condition? Well, they may say no. They may say yes. And then there's would be the question on on the disability form about which is the function report. How does your condition affect your daily activities? What would they say? I'm unable to see so I cannot perform basic tasks such as reading, writing, cooking, cleaning, or traveling independently. Do you need help with your personal care, dressing, bathing, and eating? They would say yes. I require assistance with many daily activities. Can you prepare your own meals? No. Can you go out alone? No. I need somebody to guide me. How does your condition affect your ability to interact with others? They'd say, "I rely on others for help and cannot participate in a normal social activities." These were disabled. Some of you have filled out that form. Many of you have seen those types of questions come up as you've filled out your disability form. You can relate to this sense of limitation of handicap and Jesus is asked for mercy. These men come to him and they say please have mercy on us. But the response of the crowd is saying you guys need to be quiet. You need to be quiet. So, let's let's talk about the crowd for just a second. Do you remember in verse 29, it says that this crowd is the crowd that's following Jesus in the suburbs of Jericho. The suburbs of Jericho was a common place for people to ask for um um alms um or to, you know, have their cardboard sign asking, you know, could you spare some change? That's what was going on. there. And so Bardeameus, one of these blind men and the other unnamed blind man was standing there. And this crowd is following Jesus. They would represent for us society's response to disability. While they're following Jesus, they're not speaking on behalf of the kingdom. We're we're saying the narrative says they're following Jesus, but the way that they communicate to the blind men doesn't really look like a follower of Jesus or sound like what a follower would say. We oftentimes live in a world that wants to silence desperation. Your desperation is an inconvenience. Have you heard that before? It's like we don't want to hear from you. That's kind of how our culture might treat you. They may say something like, "Don't make a scene. Handle your problems privately." Or they would talk maybe about self-reliance and strength and and position your handicap, your your neediness as a identity weakness, right? Society handles um disability in in a variety of ways. Our culture is particularly cruel. to the disabled and and the um position that that our American society, which is a kind of an amalgam of cultures, it oftentimes tries to isolate and put the disabled off to the side. Um I've done this before, but I I've got to just do it as it comes up. Some of you come from a culture like the Filipinos who don't do this, and your expertise and your gifting, your cultural gifting is rather than to isolate is to care for. You guys go and you're nurses and you work with the elderly and it's this beautiful part about your culture and some of you come from that kind of culture as well. But unfortunately in in a kind of western culture there is this tendency to kind of just isolate, put people off to the side even in religious spaces. raw vulnerability. Raw vulnerability can be met with discomfort. So sometimes people will come in and they'll like spiritualize their pain, right? And they'll kind of use their spirituality to mask the desperation, the handicaps in their life, the weakness in their life. Or they'll compare their struggles with others. Um at least I'm not like them. U might be kind of something that happens in a church setting or they'll hide their brokenness behind piety or productivity. There's there's a way that even in the church where handicap is not embraced and cared for with the compassion that Jesus shows in the text. There's a whole bunch of different ways in which weakness, handicap, and disability is dealt with in our culture. And this text brings it to the surface. It causes us to kind of reflect on that as we see the crowd saying to these blind men, "Hey, shut up. Be quiet. Stop stop making a scene." And that's not what Jesus does. The the crowd doesn't represent Jesus well. Again, the first principle here is this idea that genuine need in faith should not be silenced by culture or religious presence. It is it is what the c the kingdom turns on. Why? Why is this something that is valuable to Jesus? Yeah. Why does Jesus I guess can I put the question another way and then I'll let you share.

It is what it is.

It is what it is. But let me ask the question this this question. Why does Jesus's kingdom why does he um take a different approach from the crowd and value those that are handicapped.

He does the best he can do.

He doesn't do the best. He can do the best. But why? Why is this something that's in the kingdom? What else?

He wants to help the broken. But why do the broken have such a place in the kingdom? Like why are they so accepted?

Yeah.

They're more humble. That's half of it. Yes.

What? What? Jamie.

Giving the meek. the meek and the lonely. Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. Yes.

He does. And let me tell you how his love moves through his kingdom to all people. And you'll love this. Okay. The the there are two passages in the Bible that explain how the power of God flows to humanity. One is through humility and the other is through faith. Hum. is this sense of dependence, meekness. Um like these blind men, like if you don't have mercy on me, we're we're going to remain in our state of handicap and limited human experience until you work. That that's this expression of humility. And it says in in the Bible in Proverbs and James that God resists the proud, but he gives grace to the humble. So in in this kingdom, this new society that Jesus springs forward. He He wants to work, but he can't work through the proud. You see, he he can't work through the self-sufficient. He He can't He can't work through the people that that think they have their act together and who are all tough. He his response to them is like, "I can't partner with you." You see, we're designed to partner with God. He can't partner with the self-sufficient. He can only partner with the ones who's dependent on him and open and recognizing their own weakness. and and open to this beautiful um working that he wants to do. So humility is not a a secondass citizen. It's returning to the first class citizen that that God created in the garden. You see the brokenness that we experience in our sin is that we want to be independent. We we want to be self-sufficient. We don't want to rely on other people. We don't want to look like we're weak. And yet we're lying to ourselves. not recognizing how we're designed by God to be a people dependent upon God. And so whether it's an attitude of great pride and arrogance that kind of comes out of our words or it's just an the intent of our hearts, it it it gets in the way of the the grace, the love of God flowing in the kingdom. Does that make sense? But then there's this this also this other side besides humility. There's the side of of faith. Faith is is um what these blind men are saying they're saying, "God, we trust in you. You are the Messiah. You are God's chosen one. You're the one who can give out mercy to us." They're going to respond to the question that's posed to them in just a second. And in Romans chapter 5, it says that we have grace wherein we stand through this faith. Read the first two chapters of Romans 5. You'll see it there. That's the second way that the grace of God flows. And so Jesus here is is using these blind men. He's healing them, but he he's teaching through it. And what he's saying to you and I this morning is that this place of disability that these blind men are on in is a place of receptivity where they're they're they're staged for the grace of God. They're staged for the kingdom to move in their life. What does it take for God to be staged in your life. Sometimes it means you get a call on a Monday afternoon. It's like, "Hey Josh, we're sorry you can't have church there anymore." It's like boom, put you right into that place of like, "God, what are you going to do?" And I liked this week because of just the being because external circumstances forced us into that place of total dependence, right? It was it was a very spiritual week for me that I enjoyed. But but I I think what we want to be moving towards is where we're experiencing this internal humility and faith where it's not the external circumstances that push us there, but we're naturally dependent upon God. And he doesn't have to use difficult circumstances to put us there. If you have difficult circumstances, embrace it. Know that God's moving you just like you would move a rocket ship to the launch pad. If you are facing difficult circumstances, he's moving you to the launch pad where he can launch you in life through grace. God God will give you a hope.

Give you a what?

Give you a hope.

Give you a hope. Yeah. As I think as we're hearing this and we're seeing what Jesus does for these blind men, doesn't it give you a sense of hope in your own life of like, wow, God, this is what God, this is the Jesus I serve. This is the one that rescued me. We have there's a second point I want to make. I I'll just say this in in wrapping up in wrapping up this point. There are many times where Jesus teaches this same idea of perseverance in faith. In fact, there is this this Luke 18 passage where there's a parable and he teaches the parable. He just te trying to teach us to pray always and to not give up. And we see that in these blind men that they they cry out once. I mean, wouldn't you say that these blind men are praying? Because what is prayer? Prayer is communicating to God. Is Jesus God? Yes, he is. Right. Thank you. You guys are so smart. And So he's saying um they they're praying to God. The crowd around him is like stop praying and they pray all the more. So here's a place in Luke where Jesus is teaching keep praying and don't give up. There's a judge um in a certain town who didn't fear God or respect people. And this widow in the town kept coming to this judge saying give me justice against my adversary. Do you think the judge is going to listen to woman.

No. And the widow in that town keeps coming and saying, "Give me justice against my adversary." For a for a while, the judge was unwilling. But later he said to himself, "Look, even if I don't fear God or respect people be this woman keeps pestering me." Do you love how Jesus tells the story? This woman keeps pestering me. I will give her justice so that she doesn't wear me out by her persistent coming. And then the Lord said. Jesus says to those he's teaching, he says, "Listen to what the unjust judge says, will not God, if the judge does it, will not God grant justice to his elect who cry out to him day and night? Will he delay in helping them? I tell you that God will work swiftly and grant them justice. Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, he will find will he find faith on the earth?" It's a question. Will he find faith on the earth? Remember humility and faith? Here it is. This persevering in that attitude that Jesus is teaching and Jesus is asking his followers, will the son of man when he comes again, will he find that attitude amongst us? Are we persevering? Yes, Harrison. No, there's nothing about purgatory in our in our Bible.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Let me show you um the whole thing put together. Genuine need and faith would not should not be silenced by culture or religious pressure. The kingdom is for those who refuse to let go of Jesus even when others others try to quiet them. That's the kingdom for you. Jesus is inviting you to take that posture of faith and humility, dependence upon him and see what happens. I I just we have time for one more principle. Principle number two. Principle number two is um Sorry, I've got to skip a bunch of stuff here. We have this question that is put to the blind men. In verse 32, it Jesus stopped, called them, and said, "What do you want me to do for you?" This is kind of like the climic climax of the text. Hold on just a second. This is the climax. When you read this, there is this just like sense of anticipation with this question. How are they going to respond? On one hand, it's like, well, he knows what they have need of already. It's obvious, but he invites them to ask. He he he invites them to tell him, "What do you need?" And again, if we're just looking at this to understand for us, what does it mean to be a people of the kingdom? One of the things that we see over and over again is that God, even though he knows the answers, asks questions of us. And those questions are an invitation to be honest with ourselves. God asks questions as a form of invitation. He does this so that we will engage honestly with ourselves and with him. We see this in the Garden of Eden. Adam and and Eve rebel. They go and try to hide themselves. They run away from the presence of God. And God comes to them and says, "Where are you?" Is it because God can't find them? No. Yeah. Why?

Yeah. God is in our hearts, right? But he's asking Adam and Eve, "Where did you go?" When he asks that question, does he not know where they're at? No. He's inviting them to confess their sin. He's inviting them to be honest. Right? So when when Jesus comes to these blind men and turns to them and asks them, "What do you want?" He's inviting them to respond. In John 5:6, he says to um someone, he says, "Do you want to be healed?" In another passage um or rather in with Elijah in First Kings 19 um God asks Elijah What are you doing here? Elijah had ran away from the presence of God. And God's just like, "What are you what are you doing out here in the wilderness? Why are you hiding in this cave?" Now, God has all the answers. But the way that God works with us is he asks questions. And so, one of the things I want you to to work on this week is what are the questions that the Holy Spirit is like seeding into your heart? ask really good questions and know that the Holy Spirit might be leading those questions. The questions that you're asking actually might be God just like in a really normal way guiding your thinking so that you're getting to the point he wants you to get to just like he does with these blind men. Let's just close with this um these verses here. Jesus stopped called them and said, "What do you want me to do for you?" And then um they say, "Lord, open our eyes." And it then it says he's moved with compassion. He touched their eyes. Immediately they could see and they followed him. There it there it is. That's that action word. One of the most common action words associated with Jesus that he wants he wants follow. followers and they follow him. But notice the the cause and effect. They're crying out. Jesus responds with a question. They answer the question asking for healing. Jesus is moved with compassion. He's not irritated that they're making a scene. He's not irritated with disabled people. Those of you that are disabled in this room, Jesus isn't irritated with you. He's super. He loves you so much. So much. cares for you deeply here. He's moved with compassion. He touches their eyes and they're able to see. And so this is the kingdom we're invited into. I just want to remind you of one little scene. There's another scene where there's these great cries in the Bible and it's Jesus on the cross and he cries out. One of the things that he cries from the cross is, "Father, forgive them for They don't know what they're doing. Another thing that he cries out is that it's finished. The work is is finished of redemption. And so here we have blind men crying out, but your Messiah cried out from the cross on your behalf. That the work of redemption would be accomplished so that you could be accepted into his kingdom to receive his healing touch to heal your blindness. In Revelation Chapter 3, Jesus spoke to one of the churches and he says, "You think that you're wealthy and that you're well off, but I tell you that you're blind and naked. I invite you, come to me, receive eyes that will heal your eyes." You see, the relationship that God wants to invite you into is this is all about like healing, restoration, restoring you back to this original design. And the path begins on a path of brokenness, but it doesn't change from brokenness to pride. died. It stays this humble process of being totally dependent upon him, continuing to cry out for him. Master, have mercy upon me. Son of David, you're the Messiah. Lord, we thank you for your word. Thank you for this scene that we've getting gotten to to reflect on and meditate on and think about this morning. The the the incredible love that you demonstrate here in this passage. We're just um amazed by your love. and we would just ask that you would help us to be like you with the disabled. Um help us to to not push them away or silence them, but to be moved with compassion. Um we we pray that in our own position of disability that we wouldn't um think that we need to just pull ourselves up by our bootstraps, but we'd recognize that you lead us to our place of disability so that we can be dependent upon you. It stages us for your work, Lord. Just we pray that you'd work through us this week, God. Thank you for the the the principles, the ideas that are communicated just in this short story. We love you. We pray that you would uh just bless us now as we receive the elements of communion. We pray this in Jesus name. Amen.

Matthew 20:1-16

Transcription

We're going to be looking at um some parables. We're going into a section in Matthew where um Jesus is going to teach six parables. And over the next few months, we will go through that material. But what I want you to understand is that these parables are being taught. They're material, core material in this book about Jesus. This is a biography about Jesus. The book of Matthew is a biography about Jesus. And it's teaching us how to follow him. One of the primary verbs throughout the gospels that Jesus asks of people is to follow him. It's also one of the primary verbs used to describe what his people did. And so we use that term a lot here in our church that we want to follow Jesus. We want to be his followers. And one of the things that he taught was that it wasn't just just a personal relationship with him, but he's inviting us to have a per personal relationship in the context of his kingdom. And so, as you go through the book um of Matthew or let me just show you out of Mark after John was arrested and Jesus went into Galilee, he was proclaiming the good news of God. And what he what did he say? He said, "The time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe. receive the good news. And so Jesus is inviting you where wherever you're at in your spiritual journey. On the table this morning is an open invitation from Jesus to enter into his kingdom through him. He is the gate. You don't get to have the benefits of the kingdom without coming through him. But he says that his kingdom is near. It near enough for you to reach out and respond to it. But he doesn't force you. He He He tells you what it is. And I I think, you know, as we work through the material this morning, you're going to see how he's teaching on the kingdom. But but this is something you have to receive. The invitation that you have to receive. It's nothing that you're going to be forced to do. But it is critical that you understand that the the option, the invitation is there on the table. So these six parables that we're going to see, what they're going to do is they're going to teach us about the kingdom of heaven for us now while we wait for Jesus to return. So the kingdom parables interact in a fascinating way. It's this alien invasion, this outside society that Jesus brings to bear on the earth. It's really his reigning and ruling infecting a group of people who are coming under his dominant control is the is the kingdom. of God. And so what we're going to see in the parables is just some interesting principles about how the kingdom is different and inverts some some structures that are normative within society. Let me read to you um the parable that we're going to study and then we'll work our way through it. This is the question though that I I I do want you to be asking yourself. How does this reshape my choices, my values, and my hope. This this question will come up again as we're going through these six parables over the coming months. How does it reshape my choices, my values, and my hope? Here's the parable. For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire workers for his vineyard. After agreeing with the workers, on one daenarius. He sent them into his vineyard for the day. When he went out about 9 in the morning, he saw others standing in the marketplace doing nothing. He said to them, "You also go into my vineyard and I'll give you whatever is right." So off they went. At about noon and about 3, he went out again and he did the same thing. Then about at about 5 in the afternoon, he went And he found others standing around and he said to them,"Wh have you been standing here all day doing nothing?" And they responded, "Because no one has hired us. You also go into my vineyard," he told them. When evening came, the owner of the vineyard told his foremen, "Call the workers and give them their pay, starting with the last and ending with the first." When those who were hired about at about five came, they each received a daenarius. So when the first ones came, they assumed that they would get more, but they also received a daenarius each. When they received it, they began to complain to the landowner. These last men put in one hour, and you made them equal to us, who bore the burden of the day's work and the burning heat. He replied to one of them,"Friend, I am doing you no wrong. Don't you agree with me? Didn't you agree with me on a daenarius? Take what is yours and go? I want to give this last man the same as I gave you. Don't I have the right to do what I want with what is mine? Are you jealous because I am generous?" So, the last will be first. and the first last. Let's pray. Lord, as we look into this text, we um want to have an open heart before you uh to be teachable. Uh because there's some things in here that seem unfair and in the way that we handle work and the way we get paid for doing work, uh this story seems unfair. And so, you're trying to teach your followers something about the kingdom. And and we ask that we would have hearts that are tender to hear what you have to say this morning. So help us as we wrestle with this text. We pray that you would win in our hearts. And we pray this in Jesus name. Amen.

Amen. It's a fascinating fascinating parable. There are three parts that um come up here. The first seven verses we have the hiring of five groups of workers to do work uh in the vineyard. So they're hired it five different times. Then you have between verses 8-10 the paying the workers in reverse chronological order. The ones that came at five get paid first. And then in verses 11- 16 we get to the crux of the matter. Jesus is responding to the complaints and the grumblings of those who were the first hires. So let's walk through this. We read through it and Let me just highlight a couple of verses here in our text. In verse two, we see that um after agreeing with this first set of workers, it's on one daenarius and he sends them off to work. So, their day starts around 6:00 a.m. and there is an agreed upon wage. In this culture, a workday is a 12-h hour workday. It starts at 6:00 a.m. and it ends at 6:00 p.m. And a daenarius was an average wage. for a worker at that time. And so what's agreed upon and and in Jesus's story as he's trying to teach something one of the what um he's pre premising this story with a fair work context that you have you have laborers you have work to be done and you have an agreed upon wage that was a standard wage. Um then if we go forward we see that there are um some people that are picked up as uh employees at 9:00 a.m. and some at noon and 300 p.m. And then we're given this last group at about 5. Um and he went and he found these he says standing around. He says, "Why have you been standing here all day doing nothing?" And their reason for it is that um no one had hired them. So they're not necessarily lazy, but they just hadn't picked up a job. And so He sends them off to also go and work. Um, the pieces of this story are are fairly simple. They're easy to relate to. Day laborers doing a job for a standard wage. Once we get to verses 8-10, we come into the material that um begins to parallel um where we've been at. You see, Jesus Jesus isn't just, you know, we have these artificial chapter breaks. So in your Bible, and my Bible, it says chapter 20 and then we have the little one in our Bible. But originally when Matthew wrote this biography of Jesus, it was in a scroll. And what was in chapter 19, he didn't create the chapters. We put those in, you know, thousand years later. What was like the preceding this was Jesus teaching saying that the first will be last and the last will be first. Um, and now we go into chapter 20 and Jesus is illustrating this point. A, and this is a key thing for his followers to to grasp. It's repeated a few times here. He he says it at the end of chapter 19. Then he tells the parable to illustrate it and he ends in verse 16 with it. And we literally see here in the middle of this um, story the order at which he wants these guys to be paid. When the evening came, the owner of the vineyard told his foremen, "Call the workers and give them their pay, starting with the last and ending with the first." And so there is this reverse order that goes on and it sets up. So, so this is there's some parts of the story that are easy to relate to and there's other parts of the story that are unlikely, but it's it's what we call pet pedagogical, right? It's a it's a story that um is unlikely to have been a real scenario because who goes out and hires five waves of workers? It's not all that often, but it's kind of got these nuanced details to bring forward a tension that you and I easily feel, which is that these late workers are going to get paid the same thing as the first workers. It was the wage that the master had agreed upon for the first workers that he is about to pay them. So you see I just want you to see as we put I put in front of you verse 8 that this theme of first and last again is repeated. Verse 9 says when these those who were hired about at about five they each received one daenerius they're receiving a full day's wage a known full day's wage for having worked for one hour and the response comes up. So when the first one came, they assumed they would get more. Which do do you fault them for assuming that? No. No. If it's like, well, we agreed upon a wage and and how many of you have done these kind of jobs? Probably when you're younger, right? Where you do a job and it's kind of like the pay is a little bit fuzzy. You're like, I wonder what this is going to end up like. And then you start to kind of get these data points coming in. And for these guys, the data point was like, oh, these guys got like what we originally talked about you ever done a job where you're like you did extra and you're like oh maybe they're going to pay me more but you don't have a guaranteed like so we can relate to kind of this dynamic and so there's an underlying assumption that they have that they would get more based on what they're seeing kind of playing out but they each receive a daenarius and so we go into this next section and this next section um starts off with grumbling or I think in our version here um we have the word complaining. This is the translation. Um some of you in your Bibles it may say grumbling or murmuring, right? It's like what's going on? There's this complaint that they have a and maybe they're talking to one another. They're complaining to each other about um what they received and um they verbalize this complaint. by saying, "These last men who were hired at five, they only put in one hour, and you have made them equal to us." That's key. You have made them equal to us who bore the burden of the day's work and the burning heat. You see, the the wage that they're receiving communicated more than just a um a a value transfer. It it to them signaled a um uh it had this significance for them of like um this is not fair because these people didn't work as hard as we worked and it's not an equal scenario. And what Jesus is doing here by telling this story story is he's beginning he He's fine with you and I feeling uncomfortable about this because what comes it's it's like the when you go and you refine gold, you heat it up and the dross or the the the yucky stuff, the impurities surface. They come to the top. And so a story like this, Jesus is telling a parable that kind of starts to cook in our heart and it's bringing some stuff up in our hearts about about work and um uh the idea of meritocracy or getting what you worked for and um and systems of pay. It brings all that stuff up to the surface. So what I want to invite you to as a follower of Jesus or one considering the person of Jesus is to let that discomfort come to the surface. I feel frustrated. I feel frustrated with these along with these workers that they are getting the same amount of pay as the people that only worked for an hour. That's that is the the tool the instrument of this parable since they were little but then the person that committed sins after life that starts following they're still he takes them both in and they're equal.

That's right. So Mike

almost analogy of the story.

That's right. So, Mike, if you can't hear Mike in the back, he's saying it's similar to people who some people become followers of Jesus when they're little kids. And then there's others who have deathbed conversions and they're all they're all led into the kingdom. That's good. I'm going to I'm going to get to something similar to that in just a minute. What I want you to remember as we're looking at this is that Jesus all throughout Matthew Especially those of you that have been with us for the last year, year and a half, like we've been going through this material for a while. And one of the things that we continue to see with in Matthew and in Jesus's teaching is that he cares about our hearts. And the grumbling complaints of these workers is coming from their processing through a moment in their hearts. And and and Jesus is really wanting to work in our lives not at a behavioral level like he cares about us getting the work done in the vineyard, but he also cares about our hearts as we are engaged in life. He's he's he's looking for us to live a life that flows from a transformed heart. So when he changes us, he doesn't just change our behavior, but he changes the character of our heart, the value system. Remember at the beginning I said when we look at the par parables. I I want you to consider how does this parable change us in terms of our values and the things that we care about. And so we know how Jesus works, right? We've been looking at this at his teaching for a while. And here is an a parable that that really goes in and kind of begins to mess with our our hearts. Notice the structural flow. They received exactly what they agreed upon. Yet the moment they witnessed generosity, others turn they witness generosity that it turns toward from a contentment is turned to a complaint. They agreed on this wage at the beginning of the day. They were content to do the work for a arius. But the moment in which they see this generosity of the master towards the people who only worked for an hour, they begin to complain. Again, this is a heart heart issue. Go from contentment to complaining. And what's the master doing? He's being generous. This reveals three things about our parts. The first is what we would call an entitlement trap. You you know, especially in Baltimore City, the idea of entitlements, right? Entitlements are like the check you get every month, something you're entitled to. Social Security benefits or um food stamps, SNAP benefits, right? You got these entitlements. Well, there's a trap. There's an entitlement trap that goes on in our hearts where we feel entitled to something. It is my right to this. And in these workers, they move from a place of gratitude for what was an agreed upon wage to feeling entitled to more based on a comparison. This person over here gets this much. How come I don't get that much? There's a famous preacher named Charles Spurgeon who says, "As soon as the penny was in their hands, A murmur was in their mouth. The problem wasn't the payment. It was their expectation of preferential treatment. I worked for 12 hours, so I should get preferential treatment. They don't have a they don't have a um clause for generosity within this setting. They're thinking purely in terms of work and wages. Here's how many hours I worked. Here's what I deserve. And then all of a sudden it gets blown up as they're looking at what these late workers receive. So you have the entitlement trap. The second aspect of this that's their fallen nature is a scarcity mindset. Their complaint assumes that the master's generosity towards others somehow diminishes what they received. But nothing is taken from them. It reveals how envy poisons even legitimate blessing. Envy poison. So here's this master being generous to these late workers and this scarcity mindset it it poisons their ability to appreciate what the master is doing. The third aspect of the fallen nature here is it merit-based heart. Uh having a merit-based heart where you calculate worth based on the hours worked and the heat endured. But Jesus shows that in God's economy, it operates on grace, not on merit. The early workers represent all of us who struggle when God's generosity doesn't match our scorekeeping. You see, in the kingdom of God, we are not working to earn the grace of God. We work now like all of the concept of work and behavior and um yeah our behavior is now offered up as a

as a blessing. Yeah. But in a as a um outflow of our redeemed nature. The the idea of working to earn something goes away and instead we are the recipients of grace. So our relationship with work changes and we are no longer trying to earn or merit the grace of God. So Jesus kind of throws a bomb into the room through this parable that upsets the this meritbased system. He he's not he's not accusing he he's not diminishing a system of working and receiving wages. In fact, Paul tells the church in Thessalonica, you need to work and provide for yourselves. He says it to the Ephesian church as well, work so that you can be generous with others. You don't steal from other people. So, so the kingdom of heaven is not against work and being paid for work that you do. But when it comes to receiving the generosity, the grace of God, you you need to understand that that working for God's blessing and favor, it just doesn't factor into the the economy of the kingdom. His grace exposes here our performancebased hearts. The early workers are angry. Their anger reveals the deep human tendency towards a merit-based righteousness where I'm going to earn my righteous standing before God. The parable exposes that even faithful service can become a form of self-justification. The early workers weren't upset about being cheated. They received exactly what they were agreed upon. Their anger came from witnessing the unmmerited general generosity towards others. In our modern context, we are all prone to spiritual scorekeeping. Whether in our careers, our relationships or faith, we are good scorekeepers. The parable reveals that performance-based living ultimately will breed in our hearts a resentment. Even when we're doing good things, the early workers complaint is, "You have made them equal to us." It exposes the pride that lurks beneath our religious duty. The pride that lurks under our religious duty. One um author, I think it was Tim Keller, he says, "Religion and irreligion both avoid grace. You see grace is this economy where the idea of grace is God's ability given to us, God's power given to us and it is not deserved. And both the religious and the irreligious avoid the idea of grace. The religious person who is doing their religious um system trying to earn the favor of God, they avoid grace because they want to earn it. They want to say, "Look at how good I am." The irreligious person avoids grace because they don't want to change. They don't want grace to go to work in their life. So grace is this offensive kingdom concept because we want to work for it or we want to avoid it alto together. But the story isn't over. We go to verse um 13. He says he replied to one of them, "Friend, I'm doing you no wrong. Didn't you agree with me on a daenarius? The parable doesn't just pit justice against mercy, but it shows how God's character transcends our limited understanding of fairness. The vineyard owner operates with perfect contractual justice while extending radical generosity. So Jesus or or the the master is fair to these workers on the agreed upon amount and he is also radically generous. It isn't an arbitrary unfairness. It's an abundant grace flowing from divine character. Jesus is the first when we talk about the last. Right?

Jesus deserves deserves to be the first. He was the first born. He was the firstborn of all creation. It says this parable anticipates the cross. Jesus who deserved the ultimate first place chose to become last so that we could receive the full inheritance of sunship. The equal pay payment in the parable foreshadows the equal standing that all of us have in Christ. Not because we've earned it be but because of the substitutionary grace. Both progressive in a political sense and conservative approaches to fairness fall short of God's radical generosity that maintains justice while extending mercy beyond human calculation. I'll comment on that a little bit more, but let me read the the a few more verses. Take what is yours and go, Jesus says to them, I want to give this last man the same as I gave to you. Don't I have the right to do what I want with what is mine? Are you jealous because I am generous? This parable points toward kingdom community that operates very differently from worldly systems. The early workers grumble. Grumbling represents a scarcity mentality that assumes someone else's blessing diminishes theirs because they got paid what I got paid, but I did more work. it diminishes my work. But in God's economy, it operates from a position of abundance rather than scarcity. Jesus is creating a new kind of family that is ordered in a Jesus style, redefining power. When we truly understand that we're all recipients of unmmerited favor, it transforms how we view others success, blessings or spiritual growth. You see, in our life, there are going to be Christians around us in our spiritual community where those people, they're just going to be like free of from the hardship that you're facing. There'll be people that that are doing really well. And the temptation is to think, man, what did they do to deserve that? Why is God letting that be their story? And the and And we see that across culture, right? Just this pervading jealousy. In fact, there's been over the last couple of decades a move to like reorient society, to give those that are diverse uh more opportunity. Let's re-engineer so society to try to to favor those who who may be different. But Jesus's kingdom is able to rejoice with those who receive unmmerited favor. We're able to appreciate the grace and the generosity that others receive practically. I think I have this on a slide here. Gospel- centered communities celebrate rather than resenting others blessing. When we see other people receiving just this tremendous blessing. We don't compete with them. No, the kingdom should take out of us our competitiveness and it should give us instead a sense of rejoicing in others blessing. It's because they understand that God's generosity, it isn't a zero- sum game. Whether someone comes to faith at an age of 80 or eight or 80, whether they serve for decades or months, we all are late. in receiving more than we deserve. You see, we're all the late workers.

None of us have worked, whether you got saved when you're a little kid or you're 80 years old when you become a follower of Jesus, we're all deserving grace and the generosity of heaven that none of us deserved.

We are all the late workers in this story. The parable ultimately calls us to move from comparisons to celebration, from mer based thinking to gracebased living, creating communities that reflect God's generous character rather than human systems or earned rewards. Let me kind of make this really practical for us for a minute. We a lot of us do life together. Some of you live in close proximity, live in the same apartment with others, and you know the dirty little secrets about one another. That person is out partying. That person is like an addict over here. This person is doing this crazy deal over here, right? You know each other. Then you come to church and those things are hidden. from me and you're thinking in your heart, man, if the pastor knew what I know about that person, he certainly wouldn't let them at church. And then we leave here and we go and your grocery carts get filled up with food over there at the center and and you're like, "Man, if they knew what I knew about that person, they would never let them in this building." Right? That's how we think. That's how We think we make comparisons in our heart rather than just letting God be good.

Letting God be good. We we start thinking, man, that person, they didn't merit that. They didn't deserve that good thing. And here's Jesus like saying, what are you going to you going to get in my face for being generous? Like, aren't you just happy that you're receiving the goodness yourself? It's an insidious part of our hearts that we start making these comparisons. We start looking at other people's food baskets. Do you really need all that food?

Wonder how many kids they have. Do they have grandkids like me?

And who are who are they to get all that food? Do they really need all those frozen pizzas?

Come on. They even have a fridge freezer big enough to hold all that food. What are they going to do with all that food? Right? You've been there, right? You've been there. You know what I'm talking about. Those of you that haven't been to the center. You don't know what I'm talking about.

But it's easy. It's easy to judge and criticize one another as we're getting the food after church, right? To start like to resent the blessing as if you don't know how big the stinking warehouse is at Amazon. Do you know how much food is over there?

Yeah, we got tornadoes that come through and still it ends up over here.

Listen. Yeah. Yeah. That's what Jesus is talking about. He's addressing again our hearts. Our hearts res we feel like well it starts with that desire like I earned this like and and once we start feeling like I earned the grace of God then our hearts get all messed up and we can't enjoy the blessings that other people around us are receiving. The parable ultimately calls us to move from comparison to celebration from meritbased is thinking to gracebased living, creating communities that reflect God's generous character rather than human systems of earned rewards. The parable suggests that both the DEI movement and now we have a mo a swing culturally, politically towards meritocracy In other words, earning your position. They both miss something radical. Pure meritocracy assumes a level playing field that has never existed. While identity based systems can perpetuate the very divisions that they seek to heal. The vineyard owner's approach offers a different model. First of all, he maintains standards. Work has to be done. He's not just giving the guys at 5:00 in the afternoon a free Daenarius. He's like, "No, come and work." Second, he addresses real need. The unemployment unemployed workers genuinely needed an income. Third, he operates from an abundance rather than scarcity. His generosity doesn't diminish others. And fourth, he refuses to let comparison poison the community. He says this, he asked this question. Don't I have the right to be generous?

Yeah. Yeah.

I'm not saying generosity towards the land owner.

Okay.

How many people came the next day to work for 12 hours to one of them?

None of them probably came because generosity should have been the one people that worked the 12 hours. He kept saying, "I'm generous. I'm generous. I'm generous." But he kept smacking him in the mouth. I've given them nothing they deserve.

That's exactly how Jesus wants you to feel. He wants you to feel like this is not fair because you're used to a merit-based system.

Did so.

That's right. That's that is the discomfort. That's the discomfort he wants you to feel. He wants you to feel like this is not fair because He wants you to know, hey, when you come into my kingdom, some stuff changes. Now, in a couple of weeks, we're going to see that Jesus has this tells a story of the parables where he entrusts a certain amount to some guys and then he expects a return on his investment, teaching a totally another set of principles. The key, the key here is to receive that sense of like, oh, this is not fair and to understand that Jesus's economy of grace of blessing and generosity is not framed up in the same way that a work work and wages system is framed up. Okay.

What you got back?

I know. So, you got to sit. So, this is this is the thing. Remember I I I tell you when we're studying the Bible, we read the Bible. Sometimes when we're reading it, we feel the speed bump that we go over.

Yeah. Exactly. This is one of those where you're like, "That's not fair." And that's that's not like you're a bad Christian for feeling that speed bump as you're reading the Bible. No, that's that's where the Holy Spirit intersects with us. And it's like, okay, I want he wants to teach us in that place. He

blessing means just that blessing

and and this is and part of it is that it's because what does Jesus demonstrate, right? What does he demonstrate? That he goes from being the des he If anybody deserved and merited to be the favored one, it was him. But he stepped out of heaven, made himself like a servant so that we in our rebellion against God could be redeemed and elevated as sons of God and be with him, enriched by him. So, it's a good thing that the system of the kingdom doesn't work like our here. Oh. this is what you um worked for. This is what you earn. Because if we're getting what we deserve, what does Romans 3:23 say?

The wages of sin is death. Or is that 6:23? That's 6:20. That's 623. Yeah.

So the w if we get what we worked for, we would get death because of our sin. But instead in the kingdom, we don't get what we worked for. What we get is this abundant grace. we get this like, hey, you only you were only in the you were only in the the vineyard for an hour and you're still going to get grace.

I I'm humbled as I as I look at like as we were getting all this food coming in this week off this truck and just looking at like this is like thousands and thousands of dollars worth of su food coming from Amazon and and the question I'm looking at this and I'm just like I'm wrestling with it because I'm like what what do what do we do, you know? We we didn't do anything to deserve this. I can't look at our story. There's no secret. I have done nothing. Nothing. I didn't come to Baltimore and think, "Hey, this would be a good idea. Let me try to do this." I didn't I didn't even have this idea. Like, we fell into this. The the whole food thing with Amazon, like, I didn't even call Amazon. Some random volunteer that was only volunteering in the compassion center for like three weeks, she's just made the phone call on her own. and then told me like, "Hey, if you go over there, they'll give you a bunch of food."

And that turned into millions of dollars worth of food. Like, there's nothing in that scenario where we can look at it and go like, "Wow, we really did a good job. We just get to participate in it." Like, we just all we get to do is like show up with a truck, be like, "Load us up." Now, there's work that goes on. But the mistake is if we ever take and we start saying like, "Look at the great thing we did." Like, if anything, our boast is like, "Can you believe what God is doing. That's crazy,

right? Yeah. Yeah. There's really no boast in it. And then and then you see and and I know like not every church gets to do that. And how humbling is that that we get to be like a part that God lets us like who are we? Like I know you guys. Nothing special here. Like including me. There's nothing. You thought that was funny, Marian, didn't you? All right. Well, we're over time. Let's let's pray. Lord, thank you for um your generosity towards us and uh we're really really grateful. We we we there's nothing that we've done to deserve your kindness. There's nothing that we've done to to to receive your grace. As we come to the table and receive communion, Lord, we um just ask for that humility of heart, just a deep humility and a trust in you. you. We just demonstrate a deep gratitude for the work of the cross. I ask this in Jesus name. Amen.

Matthew 19:27-30

Transcription

We're in Matthew 19. Last week, um we looked at the story of the rich young man who was told to sell his goods and give the proceeds to the poor. And then Jesus talked to his disciples about how hard it is for rich people to get into the kingdom of heaven. And what Jesus is bringing to the surface is that to enter the kingdom of heaven is a heart matter, right? That Jesus is dealing with people unlike the Pharisees. He's dealing with people at the heart level and he's calling them to respond to the message of the kingdom in their hearts. And he's showing that listen, rich people have it particularly difficult because of how riches play with their hearts. It makes it difficult for them to let go of their autonomy and their love, their um leadership of themselves and to surrender the leadership of their life over to God. Jesus is in no way condemning wealth. What he is condemning and he is bringing to the surface is that money gets a hold of our hearts in a very unique way and it keeps people from being able to surrender their life to Jesus and to give their life to Jesus. And so yeah, it's a it's a false love. And so one of the things that Jesus is doing with the disciples is he's saying this is the difficulty that exists because of wealth. And the disciples go well then who could be saved? And Jesus finishes off what we finished it with was Jesus saying, "What is impossible with man is possible with God." And so God is a able to overcome even these barriers that are difficult in our hearts, which should give each of us a sense of hope. Whether you have already made a decision to follow Christ or you h have made that decision, but you're praying for your friends and your family and your neighbors and it just seems like, man, they're a tough cookie. I can't imagine them ever coming to Christ. This is the beautiful thing that Jesus says that what's impossible for man is possible with God. God is able to save you and I. Even though our hearts are hard, even though there are things between us and God, God's able to overcome our objections. And so, we keep praying and we keep sharing the gospel knowing that God is at work in the world to bring bring people to into his kingdom to bring them into a personal relationship with himself. But we're going to continue on this theme because we've been talking about the surrender of stuff of leaving stuff to become a disciple to become a follower of Jesus. And I want to show you here's what Peter says. We're going to look at these four verses 27 through30. He says, "Then Peter responded to him, see we have left everything and followed you. So what will there be for us?" Jesus said to them, "Truly I tell you, in the renewal of all things, when the Son of Man sits on his glorious throne, you who have followed me will also sit on the 12 thrones judging the 12 tribes of Israel. And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or fields because of my name will receive a hund times more and will inherit eternal life. But many who are first will be last and the first and the last first. Lord, as we spend some time looking at this text, we ask that you would be our teacher and that the Holy Spirit would take this text, cause it to intersect with us in in our life that we're living right now. We understand that you taught these things 2,000 years ago and we're living with this large um uh time gap between when you taught it in our life now, but we we pray you'd apply it in a particular way into our lives. Give us that tenderness of heart to receive what you would say to us this morning. And we ask this in Jesus name. Amen.

Amen.

And so we start with this statement from Peter. He says this, we have left everything to follow you. So what will there be for us? What did Peter leave when when Peter became a follower of Jesus? What is he talking about when he says that we have left everything? Let me show you a little bit of Peter's story. It says in Matthew 4:18, we covered this about a year ago, that he's he's walking along the Sea of Galilee. Jesus is walking on the Sea of Galilee. And he saw two brothers, Simon, who is also named Peter, and his brother Andrew. And they're casting a net into the sea, for they were fishermen. And Jesus said to Peter and Andrew, "Follow me. I will make you fish for people." Immediately they left their nets and followed him. So when when Peter is talking about leaving everything, He is calling to mind his leaving of his profession. For for Peter, he's there fishing and Jesus says to him, "Follow me." It means stop being a fisherman and become a follower of me. Now, you remember Jesus has just had this interaction with the rich young ruler who's asking about how to get eternal life. Jesus is talking about entering into the kingdom and he's talking about um having treasures in heaven and following him. This is all synonyms, right? He's using language to talk about this new life. That's what you're invited into this morning. You're you're invited to join Jesus as a follower of him, to have treasures in heaven, to in to inherit the kingdom of heaven, and to have eternal life. All of those things go together for Jesus. And Peter, he le left his nets. Remember the rich young man, he Jesus said to him, "If you want to be perfect, I want you to go and sell what you have, give it to the poor. You'll have um treasures in heaven, and then I want you to follow me." You see, Peter was willing to respond to Jesus when he's fishing and he's told to follow him. He leaves it all to become a follower of Jesus. But look, it he doesn't just leave his profession to follow Jesus, he also leaves his immediate family. If we go to Mark 1, it says of um Jesus's story that he left the synagogue and he went into Simon and Andrew's house. Remember, Simon's other name is Peter. So, he goes into Simon and Andrew's house with James and John. But look at some of this little passing notes. Simon's mother-in-law. How do you get a mother-in-law? you get married. Right? So, here's Peter, also named Simon. His mother-in-law was lying in bed with a fever, and they told him about her at once. So, he went to her, took her by the hand, raised her up, the fever left her, and she began to serve them. So, we see that Peter not only was a fisherman when he came to follow Jesus, but he's also married. married. Later on, we'll see that he has daughters. Uh he's got a mother-in-law. So, he leaves his family for a time being to become a follower of Jesus. So, when Peter says to Jesus in our text, um Jesus, what do we get? We've left everything to follow you. Like, there's some significant things that he's left. His immediate family, he's left his job. And with those two things, he's left an identity. He's left a hometown. I mean, there's some significant leaving that he's done. But you'll notice that Peter doesn't just say, "I've I what I've left." He uses this plural preposition. He says, "What we have left." They this group of disciples in following Jesus, they've left their jobs. their families, their stability. They've left everything. Matthew leaves his attacks booth. There's others that have there's um uh there's Judas the Zealot. Um he's a who's a kind of a religious fanatic, right? He he he's left a political movement to overturn the Roman government. You have all these individuals that have left and made a a costly decision to follow Jesus. But then the question comes up, is that what we're all called to do this morning? If you're on your spiritual journey and you decide, okay, I I've been listening to Josh preach now for a month or two and I'm ready to follow Jesus. Does that mean for you that you need to go and sell all your stuff, give it to the poor to follow him? am. Does it mean that you need to stop being a fisherman? Does it mean that you need to stop collecting taxes? No. In fact, I want to show you a passage out of 1 Corinthians 7 because that question was a question that the early church in Corenth dealt with. What do you do? Like what changes in your life when you become a follower of Jesus? And and what we see here with this text in Matthew 19 is that Jesus is he's not calling the rich young man to sell his stuff because that's the only way to become a follower. He's dealing with hearts. And what you need to know is as Jesus is inviting you to be a follower of him, he is appealing to you in your heart to be radically committed and to leave it all on the line to be one. 100% ready to follow him whatever he asks of you, but it's going to be different from your neighbor. It's going to be different from your sister. It It's going to be contextualized. Why? Why, Josh, is it specific to you? Because the Holy Spirit is leading you in what it looks like for you to follow Jesus. So the So, Mother Teresa Right? I don't know her story all that well, but I know that the Holy Spirit led her to have this deep sense of compassion for the poor and God called her to go to India and care for the poor. Now, he doesn't call everybody to that, but what he does ask of you and I is for a radical obedience uh that you're totally 100% sold out. So, if you're David as a young shepherd boy and you're guarding the sheep and Samuel comes and anoints your head with oil and calls you to be the king of Israel, then you're in. You're like, "God, I'm all in. I'll obey you." And you see the the giant in front of you and you're like, "I'm all in, God. I'm going to obey you. I'm going to take this giant on." If you're Abraham and God says to you, I want you to go to a new land that I'm going to show you. Then you say, God, I'm all in. I'm ready to leave my family and go to this promised man. And God says to you, "I want you to sacrifice your one and only son." Then you say, "God, I'm all in. I'm trusting that you're going to provide a sacrifice in the place of my son, but I'm going up to that mountain and I'm ready to sacrifice my son to you." The story of scripture is men and women who are all in. And God over and over again is testing faith. He's giving opportunity to participate in his story by saying, "Hey, you want to be here? You want to be back in the garden? You want to experience the human flourishing that I've designed you for?" You're going to have to lay it on the line. You can't hold on. You don't get to hold on to your life and experience the garden at the same time. You've got to be willing to let go. Remember when um Tarzan used to swing from the vines? He couldn't get to the next vine unless he was willing to let go of the last one. And that's what he asks of you and I. that we would be willing to obey him by taking steps of faith. But let let's look at this in Corenth because Paul's dealing with this question with the church. He says, "Let each one live his life in the situation the Lord assigned when God called him." This is what I command in all the churches. Remember, Paul's this missionary. He's establishing these churches. He's helping people find find Jesus as the Messiah and follow him. And he says, "This is what I tr this is part of my training in every church. Where were you at?" So what does he mean by situation? Well, let's look at one of them. He says, "Was anyone already circumcised when he was called?" In other words, what were you were you Jewish when you found out about Jesus the Messiah? Then what? That's your situation that you're in. He should not undo his circumcision. In other words, don't stop being Jewish when you find out about Jesus. Stay where that's where God called you. You were Jewish. You were circumcised. Then stay right there in your Jewish Jewishness.

I hope you'd laugh at me on that one. Yes. Was anyone called while uncircumcised? In other words, Were you a gentile when you found out about Jesus? He should not get circumcised, right? Don't go and get circumcised now that you found Jesus. No, just stay right where you're at. He goes on in the section, if you want to read more of that material, just go to 1 Corinthians 7. What the reason I want to put you there in that place because the other group, one of the groups he talks about is slaves. Were you a slave when you were called? Don't try to undo your slavery. He says, then he does give a caveat there. He says, though, but if you can obtain your freedom, by all means, take it. But he says, don't try to throw off culture. Just follow Jesus right where you're at. The reason I put this in front of you is because we're engaging with people who are either called to make radical sacrifices to follow Jesus and they reject it, that's the rich young ruler, or we engage with people like Peter who have made great sacrifices to follow Jesus. And I want you to see that what it is about in following Jesus is how we obey from that position. Not just a radical, I'm going to throw off everything that's normal. And sometimes we see that sometimes people are like, "Wow, Jesus is blowing my mind. I'm going to go to like Ethiopia and I'm going to serve the poor." Which is awesome if the Holy Spirit's leading you. But what Paul taught in each one of these churches, he said just like stay right where you're at. Obey the commands, he says, and live as a slave of Jesus, fully sold out for Jesus, right in that setting. Remember there was that um demon-possessed guy at the tombs and uh Jesus shows up in Genezaret. He casts out the demons into the pigs. The pigs run off down into the hill and the pigs drown. You remember that story?

And the guy goes back and he tells the town, here's what happened. And a bunch of people in, you know, come back to Jesus and they're like, "Please Jesus, leave us." And this demon been freed. The guy who had been been freed from these demons, he begs Jesus, "Can I go with you?" And Jesus says to him, "No, you need to stay here and you need to testify about what has happened to you." Fascinating, right?

So Jesus is not, you know, Jesus could have like gotten another recruit. He could have had a bigger crowd. He could have had like a little roving circus. Here's the guy who was saved from a demon, you know, here's the guy that got his ear grew back. Here's the guy that now is walking and was like um a parap paraplegic, you know? I mean, he could have had like this kind of whole show and gig that he did, but he says to the guy, "No, stay there. You have an important testimony amongst your people." Those are sometimes the hardest people to stay with, by the way. Right? Sometimes the easiest thing to do is to like follow Jesus and just drop everybody you knew. It's like I was in Dundock, man. I'm free from Dundock. I'm out of here. here, right? I'm going to go hang out with those other Christians. No. And Jesus is like, "Yo, stay right there. Stay amongst your people. Stay there in Baltimore. Stay in that job. Whatever it is, but it comes down to the spirit of God guiding you and I." So, Peter left his nets. Matthew left a tax booth. But Paul, the Apostle Paul, he continued to um he says he was he was a tent maker. He continued his job mending tents. That was his like side job, side hustle that he had. Even though he became this great missionary, he supported himself by mending tents. There was another woman that came to Jesus. She was named Lydia. She was a seller of of purple cloth. And her coming to Jesus didn't mean that she got rid of her business that she started. She continued in her her incredible like she was wealthy as this uh trader in purple cloth. which was like a a really special cloth in her time. There's a Roman jailer who we find out about um who guarded um Peter and and we also have some with Paul and they come to Jesus. They the the the people that they're the the men that they're guarding in prison are miraculously released. And yet that Roman jailer doesn't quit his job to follow Jesus. He started treating prisoners differently. The radical call is to leave behind control, identity. Let me see if I have this. I don't. The the the radical call is to leave behind control, identity, and allegiance. Not necessarily your physical station where you're at. We desperately, one of the the problems. So, I went to a Bible college when I was 18. 18, 19 years old. One of the problems with that Bible college was the teachers at that Bible college were pastors who had experienced a call from God to be become a pastor and go into ministry. But the way that they taught their class was as if, you know, the 250 students in a Genesis class as if they all were going to become full-time pastors in their future. And really less than 10% of those students went into full-time ministry. Most of them went into the the workplace or they bec became moms or um and they lived like what we call regular lives and and the training was not really training people to stay in this their station of life and to live out the gospel in their context. And so I think that it's important to understand that as Jesus is saying hey if you want to follow me you want to be a disciple you need to be ready to leave it all but you may be leaving it all but staying right in the exact same place where you're at because it's about our hearts. When Peter said, "We've left everything," he meant that his life no longer belonged to himself. That's true of every disciple, whether you're a fisherman or a federal worker. Paul says, "You don't have to run from your life to follow Jesus, but you do have to surrender ownership of it." That's the true cost of disciplehip. Nothing is held back. back. Nothing is held back. Everything is reoriented towards him. Whether you stay or go, you're no longer the Lord of your own life. Jesus is the Lord of your life. For some of you, you're in the process of recovery. You're you've struggled with addictions in your life and you're giving a season to just being free from addiction, which is awesome. And and what you need to know is that Jesus is asking for that piece of your life. That's what needs to be laid down as a disciple is your use of substances for whatever reason. And a part of your recovery process, you may be going through therapy. You may be engaged in just searching out your own inner pain and and why you do this. But no matter what, here's what you need to know is that Jesus wants to be the Lord of your life. He doesn't want a substance to be the Lord of your life. And one of the reasons why you're going to into recovery and you're in recovery in the recovery process is because you don't want that substance to be the Lord of your life and you need to let the Holy Spirit continue to work in you to set you free from the things that you've been enslaved to.

And so the actual qu Peter says to Jesus, we've left everything to follow you. And he asked this question, so what will there be for us? Remember he said we left at all. But the question is is what do we get out of it? It's refreshingly honest. It's one we will ask even if we don't say it out loud. What is in it for me? Jesus. Most of us don't leave careers, comfort, or habits without asking if it's worth it.

The amazing thing is Jesus doesn't rebuke this question. Instead, he dignifies it. He answers with a vision of reward that goes beyond money or comfort. Jesus is not opposed to Peter asking this question. Do you notice that Jesus is not opposed to you saying, "What's in it for me?" He answers with a vision that aligns with his vision for their life. The reward for following Jesus isn't just heaven. It's Jesus himself. And he gives far more than we could ever ask. So we get to verse 28 where he says to them, I tell you in the renewal of all things. Now he's going to talk about in the renewal of all things, how he himself is associated with this. But I got to point out to you something really cool just right here in this section. When when Jesus says in the renewal all of all things, he uses a Greek word that he uses nowhere else. It's palenosia. Palenia. It's literally the word again palen. And then what does genia sound like?

Genesis. It's in the again Genesis. That's literally if you were to break apart the word palenia. It's it's two words again and genesis in the and and so it's translated here renewal. It's also translated uh regeneration. Jesus says that there is a renewal. time coming or a regeneration coming. What does that mean? This is really important in as you understand Jesus because we're often times looking backwards at what Jesus did on the cross and the resurrection

and a significant work was accomplished there. But the Bible says that the story is not over and there is still a future work and it is this idea of renewal and regeneration. You see, we're living in a tension As we believe the gospel, the good news, we're living between the redemptive work of Christ and the renewing work of Christ.

In fact, we're seeing him making all things new. He's changing us. He's making us new. But that is just a down payment, a little drop of making all things new. And Jesus is speaking when he talks about the regeneration or renewal here in this text. He's talking about future day where there is a new heavens and a new earth.

This is called by Paul in Romans 8:23. It is called a um redemption of our bodies. He calls it the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage uh to decay. Revelation 21 talks about a new heaven and a new earth that the old will pass away. So in Matthew Matthew 19, Jesus is talking about the moment when heaven and earth are renewed and restored, made what they were meant to be, how um what they were meant to be. So Jesus references this time. He says here that I tell you in the renewal of all things. Okay, what's going to happen in the renewal of all things? Well, we have this verse here. When Then the son of man sits on his glorious throne. Do you see that? It's not just that the heaven and earth are going to be made new. But that in that new heavens and new earth, Jesus sits on a throne. The the authority in that space is Jesus on the throne. Now, this seems like Christian language. If you've been around the church for years, it's just you could just blow right through this. But here's Jesus talking about being the king. He's talked all about the kingdom. He said, "The kingdom is at hand. Here's how you inherit the kingdom of heaven." And he's talking about a future day when he is the king. But what happens when this is the case? We see this new world order. He's answering Peter's question. He says, "You who have followed me will also sit on 12 thrones judging the 12 tribes of Israel. So here's the 12 apostles told that at this future date when all things are made new and Jesus is on the throne that they are going to sit on thrones judging the 12 tribes of Israel. Fascinating. This is why when Judas betrays Jesus and then commits suicide, the early church goes, "We need a 12th guy because we're all going to sit on a throne." And Judas was um Judas's anathema. He's not one of the guys that's going to sit on the throne. We need somebody else to sit on the throne. So in Acts chapter 1, you have the appointment of Matias to be one of the 12. And as you go further in the New Testament, there's a reference back to the 12 that adds Mias in. Some people say Paul's the the 12. I don't think he is. I think Paul even talks about the 12 in 1 Corinthians 15 being a witness to the resurrection. I think as is one of the 12. And so Jesus answers Peter's question by saying, "This is what you have to look forward to, Peter. You're going to reign with me." Isn't it interesting that we have the palenosia, the renewal of all things, Genesis again, and what do we have being spoken about? Reigning and ruling. What do we have in Genesis chapter 1? We have God making humans and telling them, "I want you to reign and rule. in the in this garden, in this space, God's work and use of humans doesn't change. It doesn't change your call. The reason why you're invited into Jesus, the Jesus story to follow him is so that you can bear out the image of God ruling and reigning in the midst of the garden he's given to you. You're called now empowered by the spirit to be one who is reigning and ruling in your sphere. When Roman uh centurions, army officers for the Roman army were taught to fight, they were given an imaginary six-foot box. Imagine like this rug I'm standing on was the box I was trained. And what they were told was when something comes into that that box, that's for you to take care of. You don't need to worry about somebody else's box. That's your box. And that is a biblical principle throughout scripture. God continues to give us us our box. But he doesn't say you need to fight in that box necessarily. He says you need to rule. Rule with me. This is we'll see when we talk about stewardship. He says, "Here, I'm going to give you this money. I want you to steward over it." And he gives this parable about what that looks like and the reward for stewarding. Well, God continues to take humans and put them into gardens and say, "I want you to be fruitful. I want you to multiply. I want you to subdue and rule." And so Jesus here is talking to these disciples saying, "Yo, we're not going to be up playing harps, sitting on clouds at some renewed date. No, there's going to be a new heavens and new earth. You're going to be sitting on thrones, and you're going to be reigning and ruling, having a place of leadership amongst the 12 tribes. That's crazy, right? That's crazy. Who knows what that's all going to look like? I don't know how that all comes together." But that's an amazing thing that Jesus But he doesn't just stop there. He Well, we don't have time to look at this is all the stuff about the new heavens and new earth. We'll move past that because I'm out of time. Let's go a little bit further into verse uh 29. And everyone so so so he's talked about the future. Now he's going to talk more about the present. He says, "Everyone who's left houses or brothers or sisters or fathers or mothers or children or fields because of my name will receive a hundred times more and will inherit eternal life. So there's a you're going to give it away, you've left it, you're going to get it back, but even more. Doesn't that remind you of Job where Job goes through this horrible suffering and loses a bunch, but that at the end of his life, he gains back all that much more? Somehow there's this exchanged life that that God engages us in where and this would have been the promise that he would have given to the young rich young man, but the rich young man left there. Again, it's not to get even more, but the question for you this morning, the question for me is, are you willing to surrender to Jesus? Are you willing to give up the thing that you desperately want so that he can give something back to you? It's an amazing picture here that he gives. Let's look. They are promised thrones and then they are promised many times as much compared to what was left behind. Here's the same thing. Remember I was talking to the class this morning. We were talking about how Mark tells the same story as Matthew. Here's the same story in Mark, but I just want you to notice um truly I tell you, there's not no one who's left house or brother or sister or mother or father or children or fields for my sake, for the sake of the gospel. But look at this next part. who will not receive a hundred times more. So it's got a little bit more granular detail. He says you're going to receive a hundred times more. Now at this time houses, brothers and sisters, mothers and children and fields, but it's with persecutions. So Jesus is not preaching like, hey, you're going to get rich following me. There is this bloody mess of a life that follows in following Jesus. You're giving up everything. He's giving you back stuff. You're experiencing persecution. There's a whole lot that is going on and it's eternal life in the age to come. So, I just put that in front of you for the Bible class this morning because we were talking about how Mark tells the same thing as Matthew, but but it's told with some new pieces, right? Let's go to verse 30.

Verse 30 says, "But many who are first will be last,

and the last will be first."

Now, it's really important that you remember Remember this because when we come back next week, we're starting chapter 20 in Matthew. Can you believe we've already gotten to chapter 20? I know you're like, "Oh my gosh, I can't believe it took us this long to get to 20." Okay, next week we're starting 20. And 20 is going to be a parable that illustrates this point. It's important to see that there's a continuation of thought between what Jesus is teaching here and the parable that he's going to teach and we're going to look at next week. It's this idea of inheriting the kingdom. Like, aren't you curious? Okay, we're going to follow Jesus. What do we get? Jesus is going to continue to answer this question. So, here's your homework for this week. What do you get from following Jesus? Why are you following Jesus? It's it's the right thing to do, but what do you what is in it for you? Maybe the better question to ask first is, are you willing to surrender everything to him? And then, what do you think? What is he going to do? What's he going to give back? wrestle with that this week. Think about it.

How are we supposed to go or do things without expecting of a reward or something like that? I mean,

I know what you're saying. I know what you're saying, but I think Jesus um is not afraid to both talk about legacy, reward, but looking for the right reward. So, he he says to disciples in the sermon on the mount, "Stop seeking the things that decay, that decay with rust or that the thief can come in and steal, but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven."

Smile from somebody.

A smile from somebody. Is that your treasure in heaven?

Like like positivity from people.

Yeah. Maybe. Maybe. Yeah. We wrestled through as we went through the kingdom like the treasures in heaven. We talked about how there that is a not a future thing to inherit. but a present living reality because heaven is something that overlaps with earth. But it's still it's still this intangible like what is that? What are the treasures in heaven that we have now as we seek the good, right? And and so you know you can go back and listen to that, but I don't think that God appears afraid to put the carrot on the stick and to um offer us motivation. That does not seem to be um something that God's afraid of. I think what he's trying to say is like it look at what's going on in your heart. Be truthful with yourself. Evaluate the motivations of your heart, but be motivated by what is good and what I have. Right? So, we want to be motivated for his story to be accomplished, not ours. Right?

But he has no problem with us benefiting from that. He invites us to be beneficiaries. When he created Adam and Eve, it wasn't like I'm creating you guys to suffer at my expense. It was a good thing in the garden. It was beautiful. And so the goodness of God is that as you make these sacrifice, as it is costly to follow Jesus, if you can trust him that he is good, you will receive, you will walk it out, you'll live by it. So, The the problem is is life just is tough. What we struggle with is not motivation so much as like giving up and following him in obedience because we like to be like Adam and Eve like I'm going to take the fruit. I know what's best. It's not that we lack motivation. So yeah, please don't don't think that God is afraid to motivate you. He's not calling you to a dower. Remember uh Dennis the Menace how he had this like miserable neighbor called Mr. Wilson. So there's some forms of Christianity that kind of take on that form where you think like, oh, to be a good Christian, I got to be just dower and down. No, no. There's there is this incredible fruit of the spirit. What are the fruit of the spirit? Love. Who doesn't want love, right? Who doesn't want joy? Who doesn't want peace, right? Who doesn't want we well like like riches in heaven? Whatever that is, if we can quantify it. No, God God definitely appeals. Carrot on the stick, whatever analogy want to use. He appeals to us to be motivated and obedient. Does that answer the question?

It is interesting because there is that part of me that kind of hesitates like that as well. All right, we're we're running out of time. Mary, yeah, one more question. Mary,

question is commit suicide.

Yeah.

Thank you. for remind him. Yeah, we're going to pray for their family. And you're going to have to remind me of their name as well.

It's like Taniqua or something like that.

Chaquanda. Yeah. So, Chaquanda uh committed suicide yesterday. So, we're going to pray for her family. Um so, Satan is definitely involved in that. And then we have our own valition like we have our own autonomy, right? We make decisions on our own. So, Satan is happy to cooperate with despair to give us a sense of despair of hopelessness and um and she gave into that despair and it's horrible.

Yeah. Yeah. I'm not a I'm not um a Catholic. So, Catholics believe that that's the unforgivable sin. If Chaquanda had a relationship with Jesus, I think that she's in heaven. But it comes down to like her personal relationship with Christ. And so, we just need what we need to pray is for her family and her friends that they would recognize that Satan wants to steal, kill, and destroy that God want that that Satan wants to seed our hearts with despair, take away hope, and instead God wants to give us a future and a hope.

Amen.

He wants to work in our life. Lord, we um just pray for Taquanda's family. Lord, we mourn for um over the despair that she felt and that she gave into that despair and God, we pray that you would take away just the spirit of despair. I know that we've had someone in our church that have struggled with suicidal ideiation and just that those strange ideas that float through our heads just to end it. And Lord, you have redeemed us and saved us and given us hope.

And we pray Lord that you would um just continue to affirm that that that would be a reality in our felt um experience in our emotions, not just our heads. and that you would just shut down Satan's lies

about and despair. We pray for Cha's family. Give her give them encouragement and hope. Give them peace as they mourn the loss of their daughter and their friend. Um Lord, would you please uh just in your great mercy be in the midst of that tragedy to draw people to yourself and to change to change what's going on. Lord, just destroy all of Satan's works like that. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.

Matthew 19:16-26

Transcription

Get your Bibles ready. You can turn in your Bibles to Matthew 19. Matthew 19. We're going to pick up where we left off last week from Matthew 19. We're going to be starting in verse 16. So, I just want to encourage you, find Matthew in your Bibles. We're going to read it together in just a minute and let everybody get settled. Again, I'll give my little announcement about turn off your beeps and buzzes on your devices. Everything that makes noises, turn it off. We've been reading through the book uh the biography of Jesus through the Matthew lens. It's a gospel. It's in the New Testament of the Bible. If you're new to the Bible, that's fine. There's there's uh midway through we get to the life of Jesus. And there's four accounts of the life of Jesus. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. They're all telling the um historical account of Jesus from different angles. And we're learning what it means. What is it? This is the actually the question. The question that we're looking at is what does it mean for me to be a follower of Jesus in my life? And so Matthew's giving us the life of Jesus and the teaching of Jesus all with the intent that we would learn to be followers of Jesus. This this book of Matthew was written for people who were hearing about Jesus and it's just a um it's a tool that was used. It was a it was a record that was put down by an eyewitness of Jesus, one of the disciples, so that new Christians understood who Jesus was and how to follow him. So, so we're going to read through 10 verses together, 16-26, and we're going to be asking that question, what does it look like based on this text for me to follow Jesus? The story that we're going to look at this morning is about a rich young man who comes to Jesus with a question, what good thing must I do to have eternal life? So, we're we're given an account of of a conversation that Jesus has. And in going into this conversation where where we're kind of like watching Jesus talk with this guy, we got to be honest with ourselves that that most of us us if not all of us are not wealthy young men. Right? So, so there is a bit of a gap between us and this story.

So, we're going to be looking and engaging in this story trying to understand like the disciples like where where do we fit in? What what is this story as Jesus is working with this guy? What does it mean? Most of us don't feel rich. We know what it's like to count every dollar or to to wonder where the next meal is going to come from. And as we're going through this, you may hear and think, how is this relate to me? But Jesus's words are for all of us, especially those who feel left out, overlooked, are weary in their struggle. He's not just talking about bank accounts in this text. He's talking about what we hold on to for security, for hope, and for meaning. For security, for hope, and for meaning. And that's the question I want to open up with for you as you consider your own life and and a paradigm shift of of being a follower of Jesus. Um, What is what is at stake in your life to lose? You see, this young man had a decision to make and it upset him because he realized between the eternal life that he so desperately wanted and himself was this object of security. His hope, his identity, his sense of meaning came from his wealth and it was put on the line by Jesus and this was upsetting to him. And so the question is what do I cling to? What do I think if I lose this I'm going to lose everything and it's too costly for me to give this up in order to know Jesus? It may be an identity. It may be um something that we derive a sense of security from. It may be it's like that one thing. This is that one thing like it's like I like those Christians. They're interesting. I like the things that Jesus talked about. I mean, loving your enemies and fairness, the value of human life. I mean, there's a lot of good things in the Bible, but there's just this one thing that I'm not willing to surrender in my life, and it's keeping me from Jesus. And so, that's going to be the interaction. Let me kind of give you the story here. I'll read it to you and then we'll we'll unpack it a bit. Just then someone came up and asked him, "Teacher, what good must I do to have eternal life?" Why do you ask me about what is good? He said to him, "There is only one who is good.

If you want to enter into life, keep the commandments." "Which ones?" he asked him. And Jesus answered, "Do not murder. Do not commit adultery. Do not steal. Do not bear false witness. Honor your father and your mother. Love your neighbor as yourself. I have kept all of these," the young man told him. "What do I still lack?" If you want to be perfect, Jesus said to him, "Go sell your belongings and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come follow me." When the young man heard that, he went away grieving because he had many possessions. Jesus said to the disciples, "Truly I tell you, it will be hard for a rich person to enter the kingdom of heaven." Again, I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God. Well, when the disciples heard this, they were utterly astonished and they asked, "Then who can be saved?" Jesus looked at them and said, "With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible." God, as we go through this text, we want to listen for the work of your spirit. You know, the voice of your spirit, just like brother Nate was talking about your spirit working in us. that that we would see how you're wanting to crucify, put to death our flesh, and you're wanting to lead us into life. So Lord, as we walk through this text, give us understanding. Lord, you know our specific story. And the the dangerous territory is that you will speak to us individually and we give you permission to do that. We give you permission to work in our lives. We pray that you, Lord, you'd get through the hardness, the unbelief, the things that separate us from you. We want to give you permission to work. We pray this in Jesus name. Amen. And so, let's let's walk through this. Starting in verse 16, we have this person, someone, and and and if you want to look at this account, you can go to Mark and Luke. So, you have it in Matthew, Mark, and Luke. They all give different different um pieces of the narrative. It's not in conflict, but there's different ways that the guys each biographer tells their story.

But here it's someone came up and asked him, "Teacher, what good must I do to have eternal life?" Now, we already know from the text that he's already doing the ten commandments. We're going to walk through that in a minute. But he's asking for what do I do that is good to have eternal life. And this question, even those who do everything right can feel like something is missing. This guy has money and he's ethical. He has this moral, he's following the ten commandments. I mean, this is like you would want this person as your friend, right? Or well off. They follow the 10. I mean like that's a good person, right? And yet he has for whatever reason engaging watching Jesus. He comes and he's asking how to get eternal life and he knows that there's like a good that must be done and yet it's it's missing there. This man's question echoes a deep human longing for meaning and security. And you may be able to relate in some way or another with this sense of like, man, you know, I do good things in my life. Like I'm not screwing over people and and I'm, you know, I'm generally a good person. And then maybe like, you know, you you have what you need to live life. You got housing and clothes and food and but yet there's this sense of like no, there's more to it. And that's what this man represents. And so Jesus replies to him in verse 17, "Why do you ask me about what is good?" He said to him, "There is only one who is good." Now, Now, as the story continues, he's going to he's going to show that he's a kind of a good we would say that's a good person versus like a rotten crummy person, right? Because he's following the law. But Jesus challenges him right off the bat on his his paradigm. This is really important because, you know, the last verse of this, it's this like, yeah, what's impossible with man is possible with God.

And so, what we're seeing here is God in the flesh interacting with somebody who it's very difficult for him to enter the kingdom and and there are things in your life that keep you from Jesus. Maybe you're maybe you're in a place where like you're you haven't yet become a follower of Jesus and you're just kind of on a spiritual journey and you're just like stuck on whatever it is. I want you to watch how Jesus works with this young man because we're getting this window into the process that God takes a person through in order to bring them to the to the gate, the narrow gate entering into the kingdom of heaven. For the rest of us who are already followers of Jesus, we have relationships with people. When we look at them, it's just like, man, they are a tough cookie. I don't know how they're ever going to become a follower of Jesus. man, I just don't even I don't even know what's going to happen with that person. And so here in the beginning stages of this, Jesus is upsetting the very premise of what is good, right? And and and so one of the things you need to be open to whether you're on your spiritual journey or you're a follower of Jesus working with other people on their spiritual journey is like the premise of what is good. How many times have you um heard heard people say, "Well, well, God is gonna I'm going to get to heaven if there isn't an eternal life. Like, I'm going to die and go to heaven because I've been a relatively good person." And then they're kind of comparing themselves to others. Have you heard that before? The idea of like, you know, if you if you weigh out all the good things I've done versus the bad things I've done, you know, it's like I'm a good person. So, so Jesus here in this text, he's confronting that misconception because many people just think they're standard of good is good enough. But Jesus is like, "No, no, no, no, no. You need to understand that no one is good but God. There is only one who is good." In fact, in Romans, Paul writes, it's a letter written by Paul. He says that everyone has sinned. They've violated God's holy standard in one area of their life or another. Everyone has sinned and they fall desperately short of God's glory.

And that goes back to the very beginning of the Bible that humanity is in this state of rebellion against the good. Do you remember in Genesis 1 when God creates the heavens and the earth and then he creates the land and the sea? After the end of every day, what does he say about the things he created?

It's good. It's good. And yet you get to chapter Three, and humans are not willing to stick with what is good in its way. And humanity is like, "No, I want to reject God and his instructions for how humanity ought to be. I want to do it my way." And humans universally, no matter what gender or race or has been saying to God, I want to do it my way. I want to reject the good. And so, it doesn't matter if you go before God and say, "Look, I'm better than this guy over here." That's not God's standard because the standard for good according to God is that he is the only one who is good. So Jesus starts there, but then he progresses and he says to this young man, if you want to enter into life, keep the commandments. So he's saying, okay, there is, if you're Jewish, you go back to the law. And we see this long, beautiful history of the good of um the good life that God prescribed for the nation of Israel. He says, "Enter into life. Keep the commandments." And then he's going to walk them through it. Um he says, "Well, which ones?" And Jesus says, "Well, do not murder. Do not commit adultery. Do not steal. Do not bear false witness. Honor your father and your mother. Love your neighbor as yourself. So Jesus goes through this, you know, a number of the commands, both prohibitions and then um admonitions or commands of what to do in response to this young man's question. We see this this um we see this long list that Jesus gives here and and this standard of righteousness and the interesting thing is his response is to say what I have kept all of these I have kept all of these what do I still lack? So Jesus is has engaged he's continuing to gauge the morality of this man his sense of morality and the fact that there's a lack A and this is really important as we go through this process of understanding what it means to follow Jesus. It doesn't mean being a better person. If you're coming to church and you're thinking that this idea of how to be a how do I become a follower of Jesus is like, well, I need to clean up my act. You're totally missing it. You're totally missing it. The invitation of Jesus is this invitation to become a follower of him. Everything else is downstream. And what needs to be in a sense deconstructed in the way that this man's paradigm is deconstructed is this notion of of good of doing good. He's doing all the ten commandments and he's rich and he's like, I'm still lacking. Like what what is lacking from my performance? What's lacking from my performance that's keeping me from eternal life? Okay, good. So, we're moving. This guy's moving a little bit closer, right? We're like we're checking off stuff. So, we get to Jesus's response. He says, "What do I still lack?" And Jesus says to him, "If you want to be perfect," Jesus says, "Go and sell your belongings and give to the poor and you will have treasure in heaven. then come and follow me. What is in this passage essentially is this man's what we say would say is his one thing. You see, he's happily not killed people. He's happily remained faithful to his spouse. He's happily honest. But his possessions, his wealth, that one he's holding on to. And Jesus here brings it up and he says,"I want you to take what you have and sell it." Notice it's not just garage sale it, but it give it sell your belongings and then the proceeds are going to go to the poor and and then you're going to have treasures in heaven. But then do you see he says, "Then come and follow me." We often talk about and and we did it last week in our class. We talked about how do you become a follower of Jesus? Listen. We use the term repent and believe. Re repent is this word that means make a U-turn in your life. Reorient your life back towards Jesus. This man needs to It's not so much an issue of his possessions as much as that the orientation of his life is that he has a lot of stuff and that that he likes having a lot of stuff. It's his identity. It's his sense of comfort. It gives him a place in society. And for him, repentance means go and sell all that stuff, give it to the poor. And then faith for him is this following, coming to Jesus and following Jesus. Let's see how he responds. When the young man heard that, he went away grieving. He went away grieving because he had many possessions. This struck at the heart of the man because of uh it wasn't like Jesus was asking him to double down on this good stuff that he was already doing. It it it went to the heart just an idol that he had in terms of his wealth. And our hearts John Calvin said that our hearts are idol factories. We are good worshippers. Now you may come in here and be like I don't like singing. I'm not a worshipper. I want to just get to the sermon or I just want to get to the food after church or I just like hanging out with people. But here's the here's the reality. When we're not here, we're worshiping other stuff. We are inclined to be worshippers. And the things that we worship are a rival to the authority of God in our life. They are competing for God's role in our life. And what Jesus is asking asking of this young man is to just to recognize that he is a worshshiper of his own wealth and to relinquish that and to turn the orientation of his life to Jesus. And the question of the that that the spirit of God poses to each of us this morning is in the core of who we are. What are we worshiping? What is what is rivaling a life fully dedicated to God? Jesus has this interaction with others. He's a little bit more successful with two others that come to mind. One is the woman at the well. She's there. She's a Samaritan woman. She's getting um some uh water and Jesus asks this woman for a drink and it engages her in this spiritual conversation where he says to her that I will give you um water, living water that flows up from your innermost being. I'm going to I'm going to give you a drink where you'll thirst no more. She said, "I want that." And he says to her, "Well, go and call your husband." And she says, "I don't have a husband." And Jesus is like, "You're right. You've had five husbands and the one you're with now, you're not even married to him." Jesus has this spiritual insight into her private life that she's had a tumultuous set of relationships. And so, as as Jesus is engaged ing her in this invitation. As he's engaging her in this invitation, he's putting his finger on the one thing in her life that is is keeping her or it is distracting her or it is um an obstacle in the way. And Jesus kind of highlights that. Well, she receives this like prophetic word that Jesus Jesus speaks to her and she's like, "Man, you you know everything that I've done." And so she goes and tells the town, "This guy told me everything I've done. He must be the Messiah." And it ends up that a bunch of people in this town become followers of Jesus because they're like, "Man, if he knows her secrets, he must be God."

There's another guy who's also uh rich who was a tax collector named Zakius. And he hears Jesus coming and he's tiny. He has to climb up to a tree to to see and to hear Jesus. And he's hearing the message that Jesus preached and it affects his heart and he's like, I'm ready to turn. I'm ready to repent. I'm ready to turn. He invites Jesus to his house and he tells Jesus in front of his like friends and his family, Jesus, I am going to repay back the people I cheated, what I cheated them and more so. And he demonstrates this in incredible repentance in his life. where he is not in he's not acting like this young man. Instead, he's fully receiving and there's this demon there's this just demonstration of repentance that occurs in his life. But we have this guy, he leaves grieving. Now, we don't know the rest of his story. Maybe this was it. Maybe he just was like, "Nope, stakes are too high. I like my money too much. I can't I can be an ethical guy. I'm going to take my chances and just hope my good is good enough to get me into heaven. Was it good enough? If that's No, because God's standard is perfect. We cannot. And and here's the problem. If you think that you're good enough to get yourself into heaven, then Jesus didn't need to die on the cross,

right?

Like that would be a foolish sacrifice for God to send his son into the world to die on the cross when it was just like, well, you just be good enough, we all get in th those terms don't work, right? We are in this impossible place in our guilt, our moral guilt before God where we need it. We needed a payment for our sin. And that's what Jesus provided. And so again, we're watching Jesus walk a young man who idolizes his wealth, walking him through a process to the heart of the matter. And that's what you and I need. That's that's what you and I need really. A spiritual experience is when the spirit of God interacts with our hearts and we just get to the heart of the matter. And let me tell you, we need that every day. And this is not just for like the decision of like, am I going to follow Jesus or not? What we need to do every day is we need to wake up and we need to say, spirit of God, confront me. Just like just like Nate was saying, that flesh that we have is at war against the work of God in our life. And we need to just say, spirit of God, confront the things are that are at war in my life with your plan. Because man, when I do it my way, it just produces death. But when I'm willing to surrender my life to Jesus and to let his plan occur in my life, flourishing, life, healing occurs. So we go on in verse 23. Jesus now turns to his disciples and he's going to say the same thing twice. He says, "Truly I tell you, it'll be hard for it. It will be hard for a rich person to enter the kingdom of heaven." And then we're like, "Well, well, how hard? What what what kind of hardness are we talking about?" And he says, "Again, I tell you, it's easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than a rich person to enter the kingdom of God." I mean, how often do camels go through eyes of needles? They never do. It's impossible. And so, we get this type of response from the disciples. The disciples hear this and what do they say? They're utterly astonished and asked, "Well, then who can who can be saved?" Like, I mean, you just basically discounted everybody in in how they hear it. And Jesus's response is to simply say, "It is impossible with man.

It's impossible with man, but with God all things are possible." It's interesting, and we'll close with this. We live in a very capable society. We we live in a very wealthy society. The um abilities like people get stuck or have problems. There's different things that come up but we are a very capable society when it comes to sickness or illness. I mean we have select diseases that kill us but generally like lifespan you know is increasing. Um the opportunities that people have are increasing the the freedoms the liberties that people have are are increasing. Um educational levels of people are increasing. I mean, we just live in a very capable society and yet Jesus is creating a category of what's impossible and it is essential. One of one of the aspects I mean remember the question at the beginning, what does it mean to follow Jesus? One of the things that's essential is to recognize that as capable as we may be, there are categories of the impossible but yet good. There are things that you're intended to experience and yet it is impossible for you to experience them. That is important for you to understand because if you're locked into the pursuit of the next good thing and you just think it's another podcast or another self-help book or it's just a productivity system that you may inherit and then it's just like, okay, I've I've got it. I'm on my way to eternal life. You're missing the picture. Jesus rightly identifies there are the things that are impossible with man but they become possible with God.

Yes.

A rich man can give us things to contradictory.

possible with God but not with Yeah.

Okay. There's two parts of the question. Okay. So, first of all, the that's the remember we talked about this. When we go through the Bible and we're reading through the Bible, all of a sudden we feel like a speed bump, right? So, you're verbalizing for.

Okay. So, you're.

Yeah. Exactly.

Yeah. Okay. Before I answer the question though, before I answer the question, just want to affirm that you're reading it well. You're reading the Bible or you're at least like my experience of reading through this text is like your experience where I'm reading along and I feel this speed bump of like well why why am.

okay so here's the thing okay let me try to answer the question and my own wrestling with this okay so Jesus says look it's impossible for a rich man to enter right.

why yeah so are you asking so the question are you asking asking the question, why is it impossible for rich people? Or why would Jesus engage the guy in a conversation if he already knows it's impossible?

So, Bill Gates can't go to heaven because he's French.

Yes, that's exactly. He's saying it's hard.

He's saying it's hard for him. Why is he saying it's hard? I appreciate you asking the question because that's the question is why is it hard for Why is Jesus saying it's hard? being rich.

You can be giving like be generous, right? You can be Yeah. Yeah. But that's not how you get into heaven. Yes. What were you going to say?

You.

worshiping the thing. Yeah. So, the thing becomes an idol in the heart. Here's what I think. Listen, Felicia. Here's what I think, Felicia. Is that um Jesus is saying here's the gap between entering the kingdom of heaven and the and the human being. There's a reason why wealthy people have a problem. They have a particular problem because they're self they can be self-sufficient. They can rely because you got to wait till next week because in next week when we get into the the the text we're going to read next week, there's a whole bunch of people including Zakius who do overcome their personal um obstacles. There's two sides to this. Man, I was Hudson and I we we were talking about this all the way in this morning as we're driving into the city because you've got the sovereignty of God at work and then you have the whole category of where's humans participating in this. Notice the question. Um if we go back here in the text, no, that's the song. Okay. Do you see this? It's harder for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God. It reminded me, I was thinking about this because early on, Felicia, when you came to church, we were going through the narrow, the wide and narrow gate. Remember that passage? And it says, "Broad is the gate that leads to destruction. Narrow is the path. Narrow is the gate that leads to life." Right? And so Jesus has been teaching that there is this narrowness to the gate. There is this challenge. There is this hardness to entering into the kingdom. Here Jesus is he's calling out wealth and saying the wealthy person has it harder. I think.

because I think think about like a wealthy person. Okay.

Yeah. Because look at this guy.

It's not fair to college and doing the right thing and doing the right thing investments and I make my money. I should be able to go to heaven just like this other guy.

I think he wants you to go to heaven. Yes. Yes.

Okay. Hold on just a second. Hold on just a second. We got Kathy's gonna share her testimony.

This is important. Hold on.

Okay. Go ahead.

My testimony.

Hey, Felicia. Hold on just a second. Give her a turn.

When I when I was making about $100,000 a nice car, nice house and stuff like that. I didn't go to church. I didn't read my Bible. But when all of that stuff away.

My income is like $20,000. And that's what he want. He wants us to depend on him. When you have a lot of material things, you're like, "Oh, okay. Well, I need this. I'm going just go get it." I'm just go get it. So those things became my worship. I worship how much money I had in the bank. But now everything that I thank God for. And that's where the difference.

That's beautiful. I mean, That's that says it. I think that that says it exactly because I and I know in my own personal experience. Yeah. Amen. I know in my own personal experience and it's this is frustrating like I don't I'm not frustrated with Felicia's internal angst. I'm frustrated at myself with what Felicia is saying because when I'm doing good, I don't feel close to God. But when I'm suffering or things are hard, I just bring me right back close to God. Why am I Why am I like that?

God wants you to do good though.

He does.

He wants you to do.

and and I'm not going to go so far as to say that he wants you to be wealthy, but he's going to teach and we're going to get into the proverbs. He's going to talk about stewardship, stewarding over stuff. So there's no prohibition. He's not prohibiting wealth accumulation here. What he's saying is that the rich person has a peculiar challenge in entering the kingdom because the cost to them of entering the kingdom is like this young man. It's going to cost him like you need to be willing to let it go. Now I have we have in our church people who are um well off they've done well in life. They follow Jesus and they have not worshiped they've made a choice. I'm not going to worship my wealth. I'm going to worship Jesus. So So this text is not not saying look if you want to be a follower of Jesus you got to let go of all your money. It says you need to make Jesus the primary thing that you worship. You need to change the orientation of your life. There is many things other than wealth that we worship where we get hung up on where we're like man I don't want to follow Jesus because it's going to cost me this thing over here. And Jesus is engaging his disciples. He's highlighting this one scenario but with this woman at the well. It was another scenario. He's he What Jesus is doing is he's I I guess the word process comes to mind. What does it look like for God to work with us and process us? He doesn't just come and like slap us over the head. He asks us questions like he did with this Rick Jung ruler to highlight to bring to the surface where we're at. And that's what the spirit of God's doing in in your own life, wherever you're at on your spiritual journey. God's interacting with you and he's putting his finger on the one thing that's that's tripping you up that's keeping you from entering in fully to what he has.

We're going to have to stop there. I love the interaction. Oh my gosh. We could you guys get me started and oh my gosh, it's so fun. Let's pray. Lord, thank you for your word. Thank you so much for letting us read your word. Lord, what you need of us is what we were singing this morning of just soft hearts, surrendered people. Not not you don't care about what's in our bank account. You care about our hearts. That's what you want is you want to get to our hearts. Lord, I pray that you would look into this room and you would see a people whose hearts are yielded to you. Lord, are we surrendered to you? Are we willing to let go of the things that we hold on to? Please, Lord, let it be the case that we are. Help us to let go of the things that that keep us. We ask this in Jesus name. Amen.

Amen.

Matthew 19:3-12

Transcription

Matthew 19. We looked at this two weeks ago. We started um and we saw that there were three questions that were posed to Jesus. Two by the Pharisees, one by the disciples. We got halfway through the second question. Um and so we're going to work our way back through that text. Um you'll recall that the first question that we looked at was this question, is divorcing your spouse for any cause acceptable or should there be some restrictions on um what um what the cause for the divorce is? Then there was a follow-up question by the Pharisees based off of Jesus's response to the first question and they asked why did Moses allow for divorce? Um and then the third question that's going to be posed to Jesus is should we avoid marriage altogether because the standard is so strict that Jesus um gives. And you'll remember that in our discussion two weeks ago, we talked about the difference between the ideal that Jesus responded with when he was posed with the first question and then um the response to this question about Moses in Deuteronomy 24. He said Moses made some accommodations. And I'm going to walk through some of that material. again so that it's refreshed in your memory. But I want to put the text in front of you um just so that you again see exactly where we're at in Matthew 19. Starting in verse three, it says that some Pharisees approached him to test him and they asked him, "Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife on any grounds?" "Haven't you read," he replied, "that he who created them in the beginning made them male and female. And he also said, "For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two will become one flesh." So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore, what God is joined together, let no one separate. Why then? They asked him, did Moses command us to give divorce papers and to send her away? He told them. Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because of the hardness of your hearts, but it was not like that from the beginning. I tell you, whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality and marries another commits adultery. His disciples said to him, if the relationship of a man with his wife is like this, it is better not to marry. He responded, "Not everyone can accept this saying. but only those to whom it has been given. For there are Unix who were born that way from their mother's womb. There are Unix who were made by men and there are Unix who have been made made themselves that way because of the kingdom of heaven. The one who is able to accept it should accept it. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for your word and it's um that it speaks not to big the seems unrelated to us but gets into the nitty-gritty of our lives, marriage, relationships, singleness, um our sexuality. And Lord, as we are studying um your words, the words of Jesus, we ask that you would teach us how to be followers of you. We want to learn from you this morning and learn from this text. We ask this in Jesus name. Amen. And that is our goal as we're going through the text, we're really listening to the teachings of Jesus with a desire to learn what does it mean for me to follow Jesus? What does it mean like like you know we talk about becoming a Christian and we we we use a lot of um or we place an emphasis on maybe praying a prayer or some pastor may say repeat this prayer after me and and it's said well you know that's the moment at which you became a Christian and that's well and good. There is a point where you need to decide. You need to make a personal decision on where you stand. Are you willing to be a follower of Jesus? But that's just the beginning. And and that beginning is called conversion where you convert from being in the kingdom of darkness and you're brought into the kingdom of light and you've accepted the work that Jesus has done on your behalf. half through the cross to put away your moral guilt. But but God doesn't just save you through his son Jesus so that you're changed from one kingdom to another kingdom, but he saves you so that your whole life is radically changed so that you know how to do a Monday morning and a Monday lunchtime and the workplace and neighborhoods and relationships and navigate your own personal health. uh with the victory of Jesus that he's purchased for you. And and God wants to get all into the nitty-gritty of your life as your friend, as your advocate, and lead you into those green pastures that Psalm 23 speaks of to lead you into a life of victory. And that's going to mean some changes occur, but it's all based on the goodness of God that God has a greater vision for your life than any anything you could ever dream up. And so on Sunday mornings as we're going through Matthew, we're we're here gathered like, "Wow, God, what's the next thing you have for us?" as we're developing this catalog of lessons of what does it mean to be a follower of Jesus? And so in these two parts here in Matthew 19, he's talking and responding to a question about divorce. And he's giving um a vision for marriage. And what we saw last time was that when Jesus is posed with a legal question about when can I get divorced, Jesus talks about marriage and the ideal. Again, what what Jesus is doing is he's taking his followers and he's pointing them back to the perfect before the fall. He's saying, "No, the the ideal is the state in Genesis 1 and two from your holy scriptures. And that is that's that place where what God has joined together. Let no man put us under. God's put you together as a husband and wife. Don't break it apart. And so Jesus, when given the opportunity to talk about marriage, he points us back to Genesis 1 and two, which is very important. It's really important because as we're trying to understand like what is this vision of the kingdom? If Jesus's standard is Genesis 1 and2 that informs us about a lot more than just marriage, it teaches us about work. That work came before the curse and that work is a part of our our uh process. It teaches us about our relationship with God. It teaches us about our identity. I mean, there's so much in Genesis 1 and 2. If Jesus uses that as the ideal then man we need to go and read it and read it and read it some more because that is what Jesus does with his with this crowd as he's helping them understand the kingdom that he's the king over and that we're now in and trying to follow him in. And so we got through that first question and we saw that he pointed them back literally to man God made them male and female and he says what you know and then um he gives the instruction from the end of Genesis 2 that um a man should leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife and then he gives an application what God's joined together let no man put us under and so the Pharisees put to him this question well then why did Moses in Deuteronomy say that you can give a letter of divorce that you can end a marriage and um Jesus says, "Well, it's because of the hardness of your hearts." So again, here's the question uh from the Pharisees. And then um we have Deuteronomy 24, which we looked at last time, and I'm going to come back to that in just a second. And then he says this. Jesus says he told them, or Jesus told them, Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because the hardness of your hearts. But it was not like that from the beginning. So Jesus acknowledges that this is scripture, but Jesus says, here's why Moses gave this accommodation. Um he says it's not the ideal, but it's a carve out because of the hardness of human hearts that the after Genesis 3, after humanity rebelled against God, the world became broken. in and we've got hearts that are messed up. And so Moses, as God is setting up this um societal law, he gives an accommodation for divorce. Now, we read that last week and there was some questions about this which I want to address uh for just a moment. You'll see here this is Moses writing to the nation of Israel. This is what Jesus and the Pharisees are referencing. If a man marries a woman but she becomes displeasing to him because finds something indecent about her, he may write her a divorce certificate, hand it to her, and send her away from uh his house. What's indecent? Yes. So, that's the next vers jelly sandwich, right? That's right. And so, we have these two. That's exactly right. So, we have these two different Jewish traditions. We have the um uh the school of uh Shemi and the school of Hel. And one school is very strict about this idea of indecent. And they're like, well, indecent should just be um adultery. That that that unfaithfulness to the marriage covenant breaks the covenant. They've unified. That spouse is created a new union with another party other than their spouse. And so the original covenant is been broken. And so the divorce just uh ratifies that act. that the spouse has done through adultery. But then you have the house of or the tradition of uh Hel I think is what it is. And um he would say he was very liberal in saying well look if you you know she burns the toast or makes the peanut butter and jelly sandwich bad then you can divorce her and you get rid of her. You're just unhappy you can end the divorce. Um which side does our culture what what happens in our culture which which which is the case? Adultery. The adultery side. Yeah, we definitely have adultery, but we got people that get divorced all the time, right? What do they call We call it irreconcilable differences, right? What adultery? Adultery. Yeah, that's what it means. Yeah. So, adultery is like Yeah. So, adultery is a long word. It is. It Well, I And I've I think what we're talking about is sex with somebody other than your partner. So adultery. Yeah, that is if you divorce women, you're adulter. Yeah. So that's in Mark. So that's to me it's ludicrous. Oh yes. Yeah. So that's why that's exact. I feel like we're stuck in the same place we were last time we talked on this. So yes. Okay. So in Mark in Mark it says so as you understand divorce divorce and remarage, both divorce and remarage. It's important to take all those different verses and put them together. So Mark does like they Mark as he talks and retells Jesus's teaching, he says, listen, if you get divorced and then remarried, um you've committed adultery. And so it's like, well, that seems like that seems real. Well, then you got to go back over to Matthew. Matthew 19. You go here. You go to um Romans. Go to Romans 7. There's other passages. So, and I'm going to show you 1 Corinthians 7, too. So, let me develop it. Let me develop it a little bit. The question though, I want to go back to the question that came up here because there was questions about how Deuteronomy is written in that um it says that this woman once she is divorced, if she goes and gets into another marriage um she um if after leaving his house, she goes and becomes um another man's wife. So, she gets remarried. And the second man hates her. She's got problems here. Her and gives her a divorce certificate. So, she's on the second divorce. Hands it to her and sends her away from his house if he dies. That the first husband who sent her away may not marry her again after she has been defiled. Right? Remember this? So, we had this question. What does that mean? That she's defiled through this process. So, can I just have a a minute to answer that question. The defilement is not about the mor the woman's moral filth. The Hebrew word is te. It's used for ritual or legal impurity, not necessarily spiritual guilt. So, she's not defiled um in a sin way, but there is this series of covenants that she's been in that have been cancelled. The defilement here refers to the fact that after the second marriage returning to the first husband would be a violation of God's order for marriage and would be considered an abomination which is a strong word. So why why does he say this first? It's to protect the woman from being uh from being mistreated. It it's trying to keep her treated properly. In ancient Israel, men could easily dismiss their wives and then potentially reclaim claim them at will. So this this law makes it so that this woman is not jerked around back and forth. She's not divorced, sent away. She and and society marriage was a safe a primary safety net for women, right? It was not an option to be single. Like it was a shame culturally and then it was uh dangerous to be single because you had no way no so safety net to like take care of you. And so um what is happening here is uh it because the re way it reads it looks like something negative is happening to the woman. This is actually structurally protecting the woman so she's not being put out and then brought back and put out and brought back. It's making it um well the second reason why is to prevent musical chairs with marriage. You know you ever play musical chairs? Yeah. So, it's all what use the word defiled at all? Well, yeah, I I I know I know you have a problem with that. It is you got to go you got to take you got to get out of like American word defile. You you do your your translate. You learn Hebrew and you you give me a better word. Let me give you the second reason why. The second reason is to prevent musical chairs with marriage. The passage is less about divorce itself and more about prohibiting a cycle where the woman could be repeatedly divorced and reclaimed which would undermine the seriousness and the um sanctity of marriage. And the third reason the third reason is that it would discourage rash divorce by making remarage to the original husband impossible. The law would make men think twice before divor divorcing their wives in the first place cuz again if it's only the man that can divor get divorced he's making a calculation like I'm not happy she burnt the toast I'm going to put her away well he's got to really think like is this my best is this my best option right he's no what what did I hear I heard somebody said something okay what about I mean the woman Okay, hold that question. We're getting there. That's a good question. Last last little piece. La last little piece here. We're going to get through Deuteronomy 24. Not Okay. Why is the woman called defiled? Right. Is there more? Does anybody beyond Felicia have that question or Okay, good. Okay, I have one other person. It's not because she sinned, but because of the changed marital status. The defilement is is a legal condition. It's a reference to her legal standing after a second marriage. The original marital bond is considered permanently broken. To return would be to treat the marriage as a casual contract, not a sacred covenant. Okay? It's about the integrity of marriage, not personal shame. The law is designed to uphold the seriousness of marriage vows. and to prevent exploitation, not to shame the woman. Okay, I know you may not like the word. That's fine. I kind of don't like the word either, but it is referencing law, not moral code. Okay, so that is the that's the Now, y'all are Hebrew experts in in um Hebrew social code. Jesus is referencing this the uh Did you say no? the the the Pharisees the Pharisees are referencing this like why so let's talk about this for a second because this is this I rushed through this at the end last time these are these are some of these carveouts these accommodations so again God gives the ideal in Genesis 1 and two but then we see the um accommodations as we go through scripture we brought this up some of you brought this up I think we had um who was Mustafa was with us last time I taught this, right? He was talking about in Islam how you can have four wives as long as you treat them well. And then we see David like had seven wives at least. Yes. He said as long as you can afford as long as you can afford them. Yes. So polygamy. Why do we have polygamy? This is one of those areas where you have the multiple wives among patriarchs and kings. God regulated it. If we went to other parts in um uh Deuteronomy or in Leviticus and Numbers, we would see some some regulations, not prohibitions against polygamy. Why? Well, it's because it's God is regulating it rather than immediately prohibiting the practice. The ideal is one man, one woman as established in Genesis 2:24. So God somehow in his economy, what he's doing is he's saying, "Look, I'm going to accommodate the brokenness of this. But then Jesus as he's teaching, he's giving the ideal. This is the target. So if you look at history and the abolition of slavery, it originates out of a a a Judeo-Christian ethic where people are understanding the dignity of human life and they're growing in their understanding of just theology and what's happening. It's untenable to keep a slave, right? Th this so the idea of somebody having their freedom restricted becomes so untenable that it's like this cannot stand within society. So if even people who are not Christians have um are acknowledging um the the value of an individual life and saying making a moral decision this is incorrect and so society is kind of catching up to God's ideal. Another carve out or accommodation is slavery, which I mentioned again that we have Old Testament regulations to protect slaves rather than immediate abolition. But the ideal is human dignity and equality as image bearers of God. And then the monarchy was another one um with the Israel demanded to have a king. God grants the request while warning of its consequences. But the ideal is that God would directly rule as their king. The way in which the law was written was for it honored this autonomy, this this self-governance that you're going to just follow this social code that God gave to the nation of Israel through Moses and that um people are just going to do the right thing in society and there's not a need for a king. We'll just have the priesthood. We'll worship God and but God did give this carve out this accommodation and he gave warnings with it. There's one other one here which is food laws and dietary restrictions. I'm going to move on past that to verse 9. I tell you, whoever divorces his wife, so Jesus is continuing his teaching through Matthew 19, congratulations, we made it to verse 9. I tell you, whoever divorces his wife except for sexual immorality and marries another commits adultery. Right. So, this is where it's confusing. Yeah. Okay. And and I I agree this is part is confusing. What Jesus is doing is he's saying the what's the ideal? You tell me. We've had a lot of discussion so far this morning. What's the ideal? Stay married. You get married. You stay married. Right. Okay. You stay committed. That's the ideal. What God's joined together. Let no man put us under. Yes. Okay. But and he's saying you You're bringing to me this question about the grounds for divorce. Moses talked about it. So Jesus is saying whoever divorces his wife except for sexual immorality. So he's giving the carve out, right? The accommodation is like well a marriage can be ended in the case of infidelity, adultery. And then in that scenario, if there's, let's say you just go get divorced and then you marry somebody else, then you're committing adultery. What is Jesus doing? He's saying that original marriage, that original covenant is sacred. Okay? It is sacred. If you're just divorcing and you didn't have grounds to get divorced and you got remarried, then you're engaged in adultery. Now, we may have people in this case in our church a second time adulterous any way you look at it. Say it again. Say it again. This is It's okay for us to have the discussion because this is one of the things about Jesus's like um kingdom especially around this is like this is real life. Like we either got people married in here, want to be married, or we got people that are single. So I'm totally fine with get being messy in this setting and just talking it through and um so feel free to shout out your questions. So your question Felicia is why get married again or why is it why is it either way? Why marry anybody again? single do. So, so you're saying the person who gets divorced is going to hook up. What's the benefits of marriage? Be adulterous either way. What's the benefit? That is a very cynical view of marriage. I think the ideal that Jesus is like, "Hey, if you're a follower of me, you're going to get married. You're going to be faithful." Right? Again, so why are you an adulterous, right? You're married to the woman you were having sex with, right? You're married to the person you have. That's right. Let's say that person is unfaithful to you. Right? And they commit adultery, then Jesus is saying, "You have grounds to be divorced." And if you get remarried after that that divorce, you are not committing adultery. You had legal grounds to get divorced. Yes. Is that adultery, too? If you go and get remarried, only sexual immorality is considered adultery. No. I'm going to give you No. Remember we talked about this two weeks ago. I gave you two others. You remember the two other grounds for divorce besides adultery? Abandonment. That's right. Abandonment. What else? Abu Abuse. Abuse. Yes. So we have children is not grounds. What? No. Children. That is not grounds. No. No. So again Good, good questions. But what's the ideal? What's the ideal? Marry somebody and stay married. And what is Jesus doing here? So, this is not the only thing Jesus taught about marriage. There's other teachings on marriage by Jesus that's recorded in Luke and in Mark. I'm not going there this morning. I'm just giving you what we have in Matthew. The important thing for us, so again, who who are the Pharisees. When when we read verse three, what does it say that the Pharisees did? The Pharisees came to Jesus because they were desperate for an answer. No. What did they come to Jesus to do? To test him. To trick him. That's right. Right. So, as followers of Jesus, are we just trying to test Jesus on the limits or we are like, Jesus, teach us the ideal. Right. Know the ide. Yes. So, real life happens. Okay. You may end up in a marriage. Let's take like let's take the scenario already. You've been in a marriage that was difficult, but you don't you didn't have the three those three grounds. You didn't have adultery in your scenario. You didn't have abuse and you didn't have abandonment. Okay, let's say that you but you ended up divorced. Okay, what is the Bible teaching? That is what Jesus is teaching here. Yes. Okay. But what if what if that happened before you were a follower of Jesus and you got re and you got remarried. I'm just giving you the difficulty of this is p this is what pastoring is like. You get all these different scenarios of people are like look I just I already divorced the person you know I it already ended. What? Yes. My question is talk loud so everybody can hear. My question is It says about the man divorcing the woman. Okay. Yeah, that was Devon's or that was Mary's question too. Okay. So, in this culture when Jesus is talk, he's talking to a Jewish audience, their law was that only the man could issue the uh certificate of divorce. But Roman society, which they're inside of, either the man could divorce the woman or the woman could divorce the man. It could go both ways. Does that answer your question? So, if the woman divorces the adultery in that relationship. Yes. Then the woman can get remarried again. Yes. Yes. Yeah. Can I show you? Um let me see where we're at. Okay. We've got six minutes. We're doing pretty good, but we haven't talked about singleness yet. Um okay, let me let me show you. Can we do go to Psalms real quick? Because we looked at this verse. I feel like I feel like How about this? I have a YouTuber named is it Mike Winger? Is that his name? I can send you a video from Mike Winger that's a three and a half hour long YouTube going through every verse about divorce and remarage in the Bible where he he does the whole thing three and a half hours different ways that inter because like some of you come from a Catholic background and they believe in in in Catholicism that first person you marry you're married married through the rest of your life, there's no grounds for divorce. You've got some Christians that look at like this verse and they're like, "Yeah, if you have one marriage that ends, you can never be remarried." So, there's a lot of different like there's a bunch of different verses you got to patch together to understand this. Yes, Mary. I'm You can did not convert to me. Yes, I understand that. You're right. That is true. Okay. There is a lot of different the the reason I I think the video would be helpful for those of you that want to do a deep dive. I'll put it up. I'll send it out by email or something like that if you want to go through it because it's a good resource and I agree with his conclusion. He has 11 points. Okay. Let's go to I want to show you something though because here's the thing. We're not going to clear up all all the questions or the scenarios this morning. Okay. But what I want what we cannot miss is the the Jesus pointing his followers to the ideal like when it when the question comes up he's like look at Genesis 1 and 2. If you don't get anything else out of this morning that's I think the core of what Jesus is trying to teach. What did how did God design marriage? Let's aim for that. Let's try to honor that instead of being legal and trying to like look for the loopholes or whatnot, right? Let me read to you. Let me hold on that that question. Let me read to you Psalm 15 1-4. Lord, who can dwell in your tent? Who can live in your holy mountain? That's the question. Who can be in the presence of God? So the psalmist David when he writes this, he's like, who does God accept into his presence? What does their life look like? So he begins to name off some of the qualities of that kind of person. The one who lives blamelessly, practices righteousness, acknowledges the truth in their heart, they're honest with themselves, right? That's the qualities that God values. But he goes on, the person who does not slander with his tongue, in other words, going around and lying about other people's character in their sphere of influence. God doesn't like that, right? That person doesn't belong in the presence. He doesn't get to enjoy the presence of God is what David's saying. Who does not harm his friend or discredit his neighbor. So here David is saying look it the one who enjoys the presence of God is welcomed in is this person who's behaving themselves in society. Do you see that? I love that part about who God is. But this is the verse. This is really the gold. Who despises the one rejected by the Lord but honors those who fear the Lord. Right? So there's a you're calling what is evil evil, right? So you're literally despising the one who rejects the Lord. Now that means that you're like not trying to be their best friend, but you're wishing for them to know Jesus, right? That's the Old Testament language around enemies and friends. But this is the this is the part this is the other part I want you to see. Who keeps his word whatever the cost. And if you have a King James version, it says swears to his own hurt. You see, a person who is a Christian, a follower of Jesus, is somebody who when they talk, they keep their word. A person that's welcome in the presence of God is somebody who keeps his word, whatever it costs. You see, the disciples hear Jesus teaching and saying marriage is like a covenant. There's only a slim selection of ways that you can end a marriage legally in the kingdom of heaven. And they're like, "This is a tough thing to receive. Maybe it's better not to even get married." The reason why they say that, the reason why they say that is because in their culture, they had arranged marriages. It was culturally unacceptable to be one- on-one in private with your future spouse until after you're married. So, the disciples are hearing this about marriage that you can't get out of it unless your spouse is unfaithful or there's abuse or abandonment. And they're like, "Well, shoot, that's like a high bar. Maybe it's better not to even get married." And Jesus's response to that is then that's that third question. They say, "Maybe it's better not to marry." And Jesus responds by saying not everyone can accept this saying but only those to whom it is given. There are two possible things that Jesus is referring to and nobody that I read in preparation for this message like could like concretely say this. Okay, the Jesus is saying look the bar I'm setting for marriage commitment is hard and it's only for those who can receive it. Or he could be saying singleness is is hard and it's only for those who can receive it. It could be going either way. He goes on and he says and he substantiates this statement and he says for there are Unix who were born that way from their mother's womb. So um no sexual desire um for whatever reason not interested in being married because of their biology from birth. Right? So they're a unic from birth. Then there's a second group that are made unix or they're castrated which was a common practice in this time because you would have men who would be like caring for the king's harum or something like that and you wouldn't want them to have any sexual desire in that role. So you have men made um who are made by men unix made by men and there are Unix who have made themselves that way because of the kingdom of heaven. There are people who decide to remain single because of or for the sake of the kingdom. Those are the three reasons Jesus says that there is singleness. The one is who is able to accept it should accept it. Jesus is um again he could be saying accept this idea of singleness if that's your calling by God or he could be saying accept the high bar of marriage if you decide to get married. But the body because the at the end of the day, you don't have to go get married, right? You just need to know if you're a follower of Jesus and you do decide to get married, Jesus is teaching you that your way out of that marriage is very, very limited to a few select instances. You need to be like Psalm 15:4, where you've sworn to your own hurt or you keep your word no matter the cost. And I've I've I've said this to you in this setting before. Marriage is hard. It's the fire. It brings to the surface your selfishness. It brings to the surface your own personal desires. It's this incredible furnace that really can refine who you are and accomplish God's purpose in your life. But that can be a miserable process. And at the end of the day, you may be married to somebody who is very difficult, but they are not abandoning you. They're not committing adultery and they're not abusing you. And if you're a follower of Jesus, it says you need to stick it out. You need to obey and believe what Jesus is saying that God's ideal is the best. When we decide to be a follower of Jesus, one of the things that we're saying is, I'm going to follow God and I'm letting him lead me in my life and I'm not going to make those decisions. just willy-nilly on how I feel. That's called surrendering your life to the authority, the king. Because this is the thing in our culture, we got lots of people who love what Jesus talks about, feed the poor, you know, be kind to your neighbor, but it's just like, yeah, I want the I want the society that the kingdom talks about, but man, I don't want Jesus to be the king in my life. But no, if you're a follower of Jesus, what you are saying is, I'm ready to follow these hard instructions. They may be hard for you, but I'm ready to follow him. Okay, here's what we have not covered. We haven't looked at 1 Corinthians 7. We're out of time. We haven't looked at 1 Corinthians 7. We haven't looked at Romans chapter 7. And we haven't looked at First Timothy 5. All three of those passages are so critical in this whole arena. Maybe we'll come back to it in a in a few weeks. In a few weeks, especially 1 Corinthians 7. There's that's been a passage I've loved for the last couple of years and I'd love to cover that. But we got to stop there. Lord, thank you Jesus so much for letting us sit in this setting and wrestle with your words. You're not freaked out by us asking these questions about Deuteronomy 24 or, you know, feeling uncomfortable or feeling like, man, this is tough. You you meant for it to be provocative and tough because you care for people. You care about families. You care about women just being thrown away like garbage. You care about people's lives. And and you have set this standard in Genesis 1 and two. And and you're not ready to just let people's lives be wrecked at the whim of somebody else. So, thank you, God, for giving structure. Thank you for giving these laws, these um these clear boundaries that shouldn't be crossed. We pray God in our own lives that you would help us to be following hard after you and to honor honor you and what you teach. Bless each person here this week as they with sincerity go into their week stepping in how can I honor you? And I pray this in Jesus name. Amen. Amen.

Matthew 19:1-12

Transcription

We are in Matthew 19. And so, let me cap for you just kind of where we're at in the broad picture of Matthew. We looked at Matthew 18. He talked about, hey, if you want to be great in the kingdom, you need to be like this little child, demonstrating a heart of humility and dependence upon God. And then he goes right into this theme around offenses. And he says, look, if there's things in your life that are offending God, You need to cut it off. If you're going to be in my kingdom, your disposition to your behavior, the behaviors in your life that don't belong, they need to get cut off. Then we go into the section about listen, if your brother is offending you and sinning against you, here's the path to restore your brother. The whole conversation there is again And it relates, it orbits around this idea of sin being a reality. Sin is a reality in the kingdom, but we're putting it off. We're helping each other put sin off, right? We're cutting it off in our life. When somebody's sinning against us, we're in a gentle way trying to correct them. But man, if they're not receptive to correction, we're saying, "You don't get to have the privilege of church life any longer. You need to take a break until you're ready. ready to separate yourself from your sin. And then last week we looked at forgiveness and this whole idea of listen when your brother is ready to repent of their sin and they're saying to you please forgive me. I am so sorry and they're confessing their sin then forgive them. Forgive them over and over and over again and over again some more. That is a part of the kingdom and the basis for it is how was the king? How did Jesus worked with you, he forgave you. And so you have this wellspring of forgiveness that you can extend to others around you. And we're going to continue um in this kind of this social ethic. Imagine that you were going to start your own kingdom. And one of the things that all of a sudden you'd end up with, let's say you had a a big property and you ended up with 500 people living on your property and you had a vision of like this is how we're going to do life. One of the things that you would have to do is you'd have to say, "Listen, here's how we work with each other. Here's how we relate. Here's how we treat one another." And so in this section of Matthew, um Matthew says, "I want to tell you about an incident that occurred between the Pharisees and Jesus." Do you remember who the Pharisees were? The Pharisees were the ones who were talking and challenging and testing Jesus over and over again. They hated Jesus because he challenged their authority. He was a threat to their position of influence within the Jewish culture. And Jesus just did things so differently from how they wanted it to be done. They could not surrender to his authority. And so what we're going to see is that these Pharisees bring to Jesus a question. And I'm going to read the text to you. and then I'm gonna ask you a question based off of what we read. So, it's 12 verses. So, pay pay attention here as we go through this and uh see what's going on. When Jesus had finished saying these things, he departed Galilee. That's important. He departed Galilee. He went into the region of Judea across from Jordan. It's important because we've been in Galilee for a long time in Matthew. It's where he spent a lot of his time doing ministry. But he's leaving Galilee. He's heading towards Judea, which happens to be where um closer to where Jerusalem is at. Large crowds followed him. And he healed them there. Some Pharisees approached him to test him and they asked him, "Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife on any grounds?" "Haven't you read," he replied, "that he who created them in the beginning made them male and female. He also said, "For this reason, a man will leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two will become one flesh." So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore, what God is joined together, let no one separate. Why then, they asked him, did Moses command us to give divorce papers and to send her away? He told them, "Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because of the hardness of your hearts, but it was not like that from the beginning. I tell you, whoever divorces his wife except for sexual immorality and marries another commits adultery." His disciples said to him, "If the relationship of a man with his wife is like this, it is better not to marry. He responded, "Not everyone can accept this saying, but the only those to whom it has been given, for there are unics who were born that way from their mother's womb. There are Unix who were made by men, and there are Unix who have made themselves that way because of the kingdom of heaven. The one who is able to accept it should accept it." All right. So, what is this text about? What is this text about? What's the question that the Pharisees ask? Is it okay to divorce your wife on any grounds? And we're going to talk about where that question's coming from. Okay, that's that's the you guys are tracking. Good. Okay, here's what I want to suggest to you. The Pharisees in this context want to ask Jesus about divorce. Jesus is going to respond by talking about about marriage. So, this is incredibly practical. Some of you uh there's a number of you that have uh are divorced or have gone through divorce or remarried. There's some of you have never been married. So, this is going to be an extremely practical conversation about what does marriage look like in the kingdom of heaven. So, let's we're going to talk about that, but let's pray. What? That's right. We're going to talk about that. That's in my sermon cuz We're in Baltimore. Let's pray. Lord, we are so grateful that you care deeply for us and that you give a grand vision for life. And we pray that you would just inform our hearts with your vision and that you would soften our hearts that we wouldn't be people who are hard-hearted, but instead would be open to your beautiful vision, your original design. And so lead us as we go through this text. Guide us. We pray for clarity and wisdom that you would be our teacher and we ask this in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Amen. So here we are. We find ourselves in verse three with this teaching um and this question by the Pharisees and they pose a question to Jesus based on a cultural issue. So this is the first question. Can you get divorced on any cost? cause. Can you get divorced on any cause? Again, here's it. Here it is. Is it lawful for a man divor to divorce his wife on any grounds? So, we we understand that qu that question in our context. If we were to, you know, turn on Oprah and see, well, what's Oprah got to say about this? She may have some opinions on like or Dr. Phil may have some opinions on here's the good time to get divorced and who's not, right? But But our job as we read the Bible is not to read it through the lens of Oprah. Our job is to understand back here when um Jesus is having this conversation what was going on there. So once we understand that then we can bridge the gap and jump over into our culture. And there's some really important things that you need to understand about the Pharisees and a debate that was going on. There was a debate that existed between two schools of thought. There was one group that was the school of Shemi. He was a um scribe, kind of a theological teacher for the Jews. And he had a very strict view about Deuteronomy 24 where Moses talks about divorce. He had this strict view that divorce was only permissible in cases of sexual immorality where the the man or the woman uh in this case it would have been the woman was sexually unfaithful. to the man. Now, in this culture, it was only the man that could go and file for divorce. The wife did not have any rights to file. But God's law did say, "Hey, listen. Either way, unfaithfulness either way violates that law." But there's another school. There's a school of Helio. He took a more lenient and liberal approach allowing divorce for various reasons, including trivial matters like like burning a meal. So, let's just say, you know, your wife burns the toast and you're like, "Hey, listen. I'm not happy with her. She's just a serial toast burner. I'm filing for divorce." Right? So, those were the two grounds, right? Those were the two basis. Okay? That's a big difference, right? But here's the thing you got to understand. This is the debate. This is the de This is the debate that's going on at the time. And and here's what you got to understand. This is the arena where the debate is going. Is Jesus going to answer this debate by jumping into it or does he have something totally separate to say? He's got something totally separate, right? He's not even going to start by answering this question. He he he's going to get he's going to get into the debate a little bit later on. He's going to reference this debate. He's actually going to quote Shimi. But he doesn't start there on answering the question. He actually says in his response, he says, "Haven't you read?" Again, here's Jesus. What we're talking about in our church is being followers of Jesus. And when we have questions about how to do life, about relationships, because listen, marriage relationships are some of the hardest relationships that you can be in. It's the fire. It's the f I did I heard a hallelujah on that, right? Yeah. It's the fire because it's the truest version of you. Now, you can go down and talk to your neighbors. You can go work with your co-workers and put up a mask, but man, you're the person you're married to knows who you are. They know who you are. They know who you are on your worst day. And it is a difficult setting. And if we're going to be followers of Jesus, he's not asking you to, hey, follow me. and fake it in the rest of the world. He wants you to be a follower in your home. And that's one of the most difficult places to be a follower of Jesus. You can come and play church ever all you want, but my heart for our church is that when we leave here, this is nothing like my passion, my heartbeat is like what happens tomorrow morning when I wake up, you know? What does my life look like to my kids, to my wife? Could Do they see me as genuinely wanting to follow Jesus? That's all that really matters. I love you guys and I care what you think about me, but I really don't. I really care about the people who really know me. That's right. Do they know me as somebody who genuinely wants to follow Jesus? And what does Jesus say in answering the question? He says, "Haven't you read?" There's a correlation. Hey, If you're a follower of Jesus and you've got questions, Jesus is going to ask you, "Have you been reading your Bible? Have you been reading your Bible? Have you read?" Right? Are you living your life saying, "I got baptized. I want to follow Jesus, but I really have no idea what the Bible says." Amen. That then you're living an impoverished life like you like are saying you're following Jesus, but you're really ignorant of what's been written. So he says, "Haven't you read that he who created them in the beginning made them male and female?" What is what's he talking about here? What's he That's right. And where's Adam and Eve at in your Bible? In the very beginning. So let's say you got your reading plan and you're like, "It's a new year. It's January 1st. I'm going to read through the whole Bible." But you know, they give up. You know, people give up by the 18th of January. It's like, but listen, Even if you only read it for 18 days of the first of the first part of the year, you got to these verses. You covered this material in your Bible reading. At least you got through the first two chapters, right, of your Bible reading plan. And he says, "Haven't you read this from uh Genesis that he who created them in the beginning, he made them male and female?" Then he's going to quote from chapter 2. And he also said, "For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife and the two will become one flesh. Right? So he pulls this from Genesis 1 and2 and he is I'm going to give it to you. I'm going to put it up here on the screen here in just a second. But he's going back. So the debate between Heliel and Shimi is from Deuteronomy. before, which I'm going to read to you in a minute. But Jesus goes before Moses, right, in the Bible, right? He goes back before the the uh fifth book of the Bible. He goes back to the very first book of the Bible where God creates male and female. And then he in that chapter 2, there's the account of God saying, "It's not good for the man to be alone. I'm going to make a helpmate, a companion. for Adam, for this man who's going to be a perfect companion because the animals who had already created the animals were not a perfect companion. I know a dog is a man's best friend, but they're not a companion as God designed companionship. God God created like the heavens and the earth after each day he said, "This is good. This is good. This is good." The first time he says it's not good is when he s looks at Adam and Adam doesn't have a companion. He doesn't have this suitable partner, this perfect puzzle piece fit for his life. He says, "Nope, that's not good enough. I'm going to create the woman." And so he takes Adam, he h puts him basically anesthetiz him, put him into a deep sleep, takes half of Adam, we say it's a rib, but literally it's a half of him. And he creates the woman from the half of Adam. And now you have the woman and you have the man. He's created two from one. And he says this is um and Adam sees her and says this is bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh. You're going to be named woman. And so we have male and female. But then we have this from chapter 2. For this reason, a man will leave his mother and father. Now Adam and Eve didn't have a mother and father. But there's this um uh narration here as the story is being told. It's saying this is what will go on. The the man will leave his parents and be joined to his wife and the two become one flesh. So Jes Jesus as he's answering this testing question from the Pharisees is like, I want you to see the original design. The original design pattern. This is what it was supposed to look like again. So, um, we'll get to verse six in just a second. We'll come back to verse 6 because this is his, um, takeaway from quoting from Genesis. But again, Genesis 1:27, God created a man in his own image. He created them in the image of God. He created them male and female. So Jesus is saying this was the design. And then you go a chapter later. This is why a man leaves his father and mother and bonds with his wife and they become one flesh. So Jesus here wants to put in front of his followers and these Pharisees the original design. The Um, there's a couple of things that are significant about this. If you read Genesis 1 and 2, it's like there's two accounts of creation and Jesus is pairing the two together. And so, if there's any question, sometimes there's scholarship that says, you know, these are two different versions of the creation account. Jesus sees it as one story. Um, we see him saying referring to that there's male and female. He's emphas izing the strong separation between the two almost setting up this idea of the two becoming one in the next verse. They're radically different but capable of becoming one flesh. And then when he talks about Genesis 2 and the oneness of the one flesh, he's highlighting the profound unity that marriage creates. So we have this divine design. We see marriage's divine design. We see um the nature of marriage that it's this one flesh bond. We get this um definition of marriage that it is um not a human thing that's created, but that it is God's creation. So imagine if you don't believe the Bible and you're looking at people entering into marriage. You think, okay, well, this is just a cultural custom. But the Bible says to us that marriage is something that God made to occur. And what's marriage's purpose? It's to fulfills God's creative intent for human relationships. So, there's this fulfillment that exists. Now, many in our church are not married, either have been married or would like to be married but are not currently married. And he's going to teach about that. That's the signup sheet I did not make. So here's what Jesus says. Here's his takeaway. So they are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore, what God has joined together, let no one separate. Okay? So Jesus says, here's the ideal from the beginning. Therefore, since God joins them together, don't separate it. That's the ideal. Okay, that's the answer. That's how Jesus answers this first question. What are the grounds for divorce? Don't separate it. God put it together. Don't separate it. Well, the Pharisees actually have some more questions. And the second question is, well, then why did Moses allow for divorce? Here's the question. Why then? They asked him, did Moses command us to give divorce papers and to send her away? So if God makes it and you're saying to us Jesus, what God joins together, don't separate, then why did Moses have this instructions to give divorce papers? Yes. Okay. Yeah. Uh Yeah. Wow. Okay. And each one. Okay. Yeah. What happened? It happened for a long time. Yeah. And it happened in Europe too after the second war. because a lot of men died in the war. He figured Yeah, I appreciate you bringing that up because we're going to talk about because in in the Old Testament, some of the heroes have multiple So they're they're in polygamous relationships. So you're talking about in Islam, it is lawful to have up to four wives if they're provided for. That's a carve out. Yeah. And so what I'm going to do is I'm going to push back on that a little bit because what and what Jesus would say is like this is the way that God designed it. The ideal was one man and one woman. But you get to Deuteronomy 24, you get to 1 Samuel and we have David having seven wives. At least seven wives. We have what? Yeah. Yeah. And so the question is, is that right? Yeah. Angel, what's your question? Yeah. Angel, go ahead. What? In Africa? Yes. My dad and our family lived in Africa. And the question that the pastors there had is when somebody becomes a follower of of Jesus. When they have their three wives, what do you do? Do they continue having sexual relations with all three? Do they just have sex with one and but be responsible for the other two? How do you handle that? Right? Life is messy. Baltimore is messy. Your lives, your lives might feel messy. But here's the thing. Here's the good thing. Listen. When Jesus wants to talk about marriage, he says, "Let me point you back to the original design. Let's go back to how it was designed in the beginning. But then we're grateful that the Pharisees have this question because what's going on in Deuteronomy 24? If if the ideal is don't separate, then why is Moses saying you can get divorced, just give these divorce papers? Are you ready to see Jesus's answer? Well, let's go into Deuteronomy. Let me read to you the Here's what Moses says. If If a man marries a woman, but she becomes displeasing to him because he finds something indecent about her, he may write her a divorce certificate, hand it to her, and send her away from his house. If after leaving his house, she goes and becomes another man's wife, and the second man hates her, writes her a divorce certificate, man, that's rough, hands it to her, and sends her away from his house. Or if he dies, the first husband who sent her away may not marry her again after she's been defiled because that would be uh detestable to the Lord. You must not bring guilt on the land the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance. So what in the world is going on there in Deuteronomy? Well, first of all, you can divorce her, but you can't bring her back if she's gets done with her second marriage. We don't fully know why. One of the reasons though that it's thought is because in their culture, they would practice a dowy. You there would be this ex monetary exchange and it would be kind of cheating the system. If you were to bring her back again a second time, it would be unfair. I see two questions. Yes. Why is she been defiled? She got married two times. She didn't commit adultery. She had So why was she defiled? I don't know. I don't know. I don't have a good answer to that question, but I can send you a link to a really good podcast because that language is used elsewhere. But it's this I think the language goes back to the um relationship is so important. That marriage relationship is so important. You go and you're with somebody else because she was divorced. Yeah. And she and she had sex with the second with the other guy. Yeah. She wasn't basically I feel she wasn't faithful to that original. She divorced him. Well, he divorced her. He divorced her. Yeah. She even divorced. I think they would say, "Well, you know what? You can't go with someone else. She's not trash. She got married a second time. Yeah. So, why couldn't she marry? The question the real question is why did God say you can't go and remarry her? And there's something there. There's something there's something there that needs to be kind of like unpacked and I'll try to I'll try to work on it. I'll send some links out if you want on that. I What I want you to see though is this is the context that the Pharisees are referencing back to. And so they're saying, "Wait a second. God gave us the law through Moses. You set up the society of Israel and you're letting us get divorced." So why is that the case? Right. Yeah. I I'm I'm going to need some time to work on why he says she's defiled. I'm not going to even I'm rubs you the wrong way. And it does. I think that that's not I don't think that's your problem that it rubs you the wrong way. Those one of those things where it's like let's wrestle with with it. Look at what Jesus says. Look at the answer. So, we're asking the question, why did Moses allow for divorce? Here's Jesus's reply. Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because of the hardness of your hearts, but it was not like that from the beginning. There's a really important principle here. What God is saying or what Jesus is saying, who is God? He's saying, listen, Moses provided you with an accommodation. When Adam and Eve were created, they're brought together as a husband and wife. They're in a sinless state. They're not fallen. World is not under this curse of death and decay. But now the world is. So Moses is coming along creating society. And he flat out said, Jesus is like, "Yeah, you want me to tell you why Moses gave you that accommodation? It's because you have a hard heart. You have a hard heart. And if you go and you look at marriages that fall apart, how oftent times is it that there's just a hard heart? There's not a willingness to follow Jesus. Somebody in that or both parties had a hard heart. I'm going to say something that's maybe sometimes a little bit offensive, okay? But just, you know, I love you. There are some people that I've known that have been single for a long, long time because they have a hard heart. They're just not tender. They're not open to who God might bring. It's easy to get a hard heart. It's easy to get burned. Some of you have been married and you're like, "Never again. Never again." And that is kind of funny to a degree. I was trying to be serious, but you guys are funny. It's okay. It's Baltimore. I know it's like, isn't that life is messy. Life is messy. But listen, listen, we've talked about this a lot of times on Sunday. How much does Jesus want us to have soft hearts? And Jesus is like, "Yeah, Moses had this carve out, this accommodation because your hearts are messed up. There's a hardness of heart there. And so I just I just commend that to you just as you're thinking. Oh man, I didn't realize we were almost Are we already at 11:30? Okay, we're going to have to wrap up here pretty quickly. Did you want a couple more? Yeah, take some of those. Yes, Angel. Thank you. I know. I love my wife. People do change. That is right. Yes. I knew this was going to open a can of worms and I love it. I love it. This is uh this is what I'm here for. for let's see how we're going to truncate this sermon. Okay, here's what here's what we're going to end with. Here's what we're going to end with. So, Moses gives this carve out and what here's what I want you to know. The Bible and Jesus's ministry, Jesus doesn't come, you know, and die on the cross because we're all perfect. Jesus enters into our mess. And so a lot of the wisdom of scripture is counseling us and advising us in the midst of the mess. And it's not the ideal. So I want to show you I think it's either four or five different areas where there's accommodations but not the ideal in scripture. Okay. The first is this area of polygamy. We see that people that wrote the Bible were in polygamous relationships. David for one. Solomon for another multiple wives the accommodation God regulated rather than immediately prohibiting the practice. So he said here's the guidelines here's the parameters on how you do marriage. There's a carve out there but the ideal is one man one woman as established in Genesis 2:24. That's the ideal. Somebody's getting directions already. They're like, "Get me out of here. Here's another one." Okay. Slavery. Now, this is not racebased slavery. Can you marry slave? You can. You can. That's in there, too. Well, someday we're going to go through the Old Testament if we ever make it out of Matthew. The practice. So, there's widespread slavery in ancient cultures. The accommodation of scripture. It regulates and protects slaves rather than immediately abolishing slavery. So, it accommodates it. But the ideal is human dignity and equality as imagebearers of God. The more you understand the Bible, the more you're like, man, slavery is untenable. There's no way to be a follower of Jesus and have slavery as a society. Yes. I'm assuming that there's a class system in the Bible, right? Kind of. Yeah. Can a man up here marry a slave? So, that's culture. Yeah. No, you can marry a woman. Yeah. What? Can a woman marry a woman? No. Man and woman. We have man and woman. Man and woman, right? Marry. Man and woman are getting married. That's the idea. That's what I'm trying to show you. I'm trying to show you that God has a plan. That God has a plan. He has a design, but he's giving structure within society that accommodates for hard hardness ness of heart and fallenness. Okay, I know this is this is kind of crazy territory. We might have to preach on this like multiple weeks. Okay, and here's another one. The monarchy in Israel, right? So God so we had Israel had its kings. God allowed for them to have kings. He grants their request but warns them of the consequences. The ideal though is that God wanted to be their direct ruler as their king. That's his That's the ideal. But he accommodates their heart, their fallenness, their brokenness. Here's the last one. Food laws and dietary restrictions. There's detailed regulations about clean and unclean foods. The accom accommodation is temporary distinctions for Israel's separation, but the ideal is that all foods declared clean under the new covenant. So this idea of um the the ideal versus the accommodation. That's what I want you to see, Jesus. So, you're stepping into the the kingdom of God, right? You're like, "Jesus, I'm ready to follow you. Teach me about relationships. I'm in a hard marriage. What do I do?" I think maybe maybe what I'll do over the summer, maybe I'll take a couple weeks and we'll teach on marriage because this is not the only place. There's all 1 Corinthians 7, there's Ephesians 5. So, maybe we'll cover this in a future date because I know y'all live in different kind of scenario you interact with this. Maybe you had a like parents that were a mess. I don't know. But what I want you to see is Jesus is trying to give his followers. He's trying to give us a vision for what is good. And he's saying based on the vision like go for what's good. Have a tender heart. But there's these carveouts. There's these. So yeah, I will come back to like let me just give you the three, right? So if if you come to me, if you come to me and you're like Josh Can I get divorced? Right? The um that's a good question. Right? Jesus here in this text gives adultery or sexual immorality. You violated sexually violated the marriage. That's one grounds for divorce. In 1 Corinthians 7, abandonment is another. So, let's say your uh husband or wife um commits a crime and they get incarcerated for their lifetime. They've essentially abandoned you in the marriage and you have ground for divorce. But in the passage in 1 Corinthians 7, it says um in such cases plural, there are other cases similar to abandonment which I would say one clear one is abuse. Um where abuse not not um you know he was mean to me but like malicious ongoing abuse is going on that is also a grounds for marriage. Those are the three common ones in in the church where we say yeah the marriage has been violated serially and there's grounds for divorce. Okay. Outside of that, we need to work on our hearts. 1 Corinthians 7 says, "Listen, if you're if you're a Christian and they're not a Christian and they're willing to stay with you, you stay with them because God's going to use you in their life. That's a possibility. Marriage is hard. Don't bail on your spouse just because it's hard. If they're cheating on you, they're abandoning you, or they're abusing you, you can go. I'll help you. I've helped other people in the past, but outside of that, stick with it. I I I told a friend, I'll close with this. I had a friend called me really having a hard time in his marriage, but he didn't fit those three criteria. And I told him, listen, God can work in the most amazing way through your marriage, even if it never gets better, because marriage is the fire. And you were chosen by God to be shaped into the image of Jesus to re be redeemed. out of sin and to experience the kingdom now as you anticipate the kingdom future. And in your marriage, you have this ability to just depend upon God for grace, to work on your character, to endure hardship, to have this just incredible experience with God in the midst of a very difficult setting. Don't run away from junky, hard settings. Embrace the tough. Embrace the pain. Let God shape you into who he wants you to be. And who knows what's going to happen in your difficult marriage. And I pray I pray that you end up with a beautiful, awesome marriage. But that's hard. It's hard to get there. All right. So, I know I'm totally leaving a bunch of open-ended things. I realize as I'm standing here, we need to come back to it, but we're not going to cover it all this morning. All right. Yeah, we'll have Well, next week is Easter. We're not going to cover divorce next week on Easter Sunday, but I will I see that this is helpful and we will we will try to revisit sooner rather than later. We're going to take communion together in just a minute. Let me uh pray. Lord, we thank you for the opportunity to um learn from you and we ask for wisdom. We want to we want to be getting closer and closer to the ideal. We don't want you coming up with carveouts and accommodations. for our stupid. We really want to be a people that obey you. And we're getting closer to just that that garden experience of the kingdom. So Lord, thank you for your word. I pray for every marriage here, every broken marriage here, every person that's divorced or every single person that wants to get married. I pray Lord that you would work in this way, in this context towards the ideal. We commit our marriages to you that you would work beautifully. We pray this in Jesus name. Amen.

Matthew 18:21-35

Transcription

Bibles, turn to Matthew 18. Thank you, buddy. And hit the record button, too, if you can. Um, Matthew 18. We got some good ground to cover together. We are in a section of Matthew where we're talking about um themes that relate um to offenses. Uh the Bible uses the word sin. Sin is kind of kind of a um a King James word that we don't usually use, but we we often talk about, hey, um I got beef with this person. This person wronged me. Um there's conflict. So, the Bible talks about a a sense of morality and that the standard of morality comes from God. So, as Christians, we believe in a an in an objective moral standard and that God is the one that sets that standard. So I don't decide what's sin. You don't get to decide what's sin. We know that God is holy and the things that he says are sin are the things that are wrong. He is the moral lawgiver. That's how we would say it in theological terms. Now there may be things that I don't like preferences that I have. But really the when we're talking about um moral guilt and what is wrong, God is the one that decides what is right and is wrong. And so in Matthew 18, we've seen um these themes of like, look, if you've got stuff that you're doing in your life that God has said is wrong, you need to be aggressive in cutting that off because you're a follower of Jesus. If you if you want to say, "Hey, I'm following Jesus," then your um response to those things, whether it's your tongue is lying, your heart is lying, you're doing something with your body that's wrong, we have this aggressive stance towards those things where it's like, "Nope, that doesn't belong in my life. I'm getting rid of that." And then last week, what we looked at is look, if somebody else who's in the church, a a brother is um sinning against you, they're wronging you, the way that you're supposed to handle that is you go to them privately and then it escalates from there. And the goal is that you'd get them to listen to you and that they would repent, that they would change. So, now we're going to the the the third kind of theme. We'll finish off 18 and we're going to talk about well what do you do when somebody comes to you and they say I'm sorry I was wrong or and and what do we expect in that situation? Imagine that you and this is not hard to imagine the older you get that you have been wronged by somebody and there's something that has gone on where every time you see that person it just is there. This is what they did to you. you maybe that your response is to shut down and like cut them off or maybe you're more confrontational and and you're ready to just bring it up every time. It's like a thing like you know and it's some way you're poking them with what they are doing to you. Or maybe you're you're slandering or gossiping that person when they're not around you and and you're just like spreading their garbage and what they did to everybody else in the community. No matter what you hold on to the wrong in your heart feels as if you if you release the thing justice is not going to be served. There's this question that you may ask. If I let go of the matter, if I let go of this thing, I will be allowing injustice to run free in the world and they're just going to get away with it. So, we have a our hearts. We hold on to the things in the ways that people wrong us. And yet Jesus is telling his disciples in multiple instances that we are a people that forgive. Forgiveness is a kingdom reality. It's it is the warp and woof of being a follower of Jesus is that we're forgiving. Now, we're going to need to really kind of get into this because forgiveness has a lot of baggage and can you can you can start to think about well you know what about in this case or what about in that case. So my goal this morning is to really be a teacher and try to unpack the sticky parts of forgiveness so that we really have identifying what is Jesus asking of us. The Bible tells us to forgive and this is the question how many times should we forgive someone who hurts us? A especially when they keep hurting us. How many times? So maybe we forgive, but do do we forgive again? Because remember we just talked about if you have a brother that wrongs you, you go to that person and you tell him his fault between you and him. And if he listens to you, it says we've won a brother. Well, in the process of winning our brother, there's forgiveness that's going on. That person has listened to the correction and they're like, "Okay, I'm ready to change course." And in changing course, we're forgiving. But then what if they do it again? How many times do we forgive? And here's here's the text. I'm going to skip over I'm going to give you four verses and we're going to skip over the parable. I'm going to come back and we're going to kind of exposit that. We'll go through it verse by verse in a second. But here's the gist. Peter approached him and said, "Lord, how many times must I forgive my brother or sister who sins against me?" As many as seven times. I tell you, not as many as seven, Jesus replied, but 70 times seven. For this reason, the kingdom of heaven can be compared to a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. And we're going to go into that whole story, but let's jump to 35. He finishes off the parables by saying this. So also my heavenly father will do to to you unless every one of you forgives his brother or sister from your heart. Lord, as we look at this text this morning, would you um please be with our hearts because this is really hard territory. We've been wronged in some ways and and we're good at holding on to those things and and uh we care about justice. We know you care about justice and we don't think you want us to just be wronged. over and over again, but you just want us to forgive. And so, Lord, help us understand how do we do this? How do we follow you as a people that are forgiving? Well, we pray that you would teach us this morning. We ask this in Jesus name. Amen. So, how how do we do this? What is what does this look like? What does it mean to forgive? And how do we do it? Let's look at um these vers is I just right here Jesus's response to Peter because Peter's like, "Okay, well, how about seven?" Right? It seems like Peter is asking a question in the context of Jesus's teaching about conflict. And Peter's trying to be like a nice guy. And he's like, "How about I forgive seven times?" And Jesus says, "I tell you, not as many as seven, but 70 times seven." Now, you Bible scholars know that 70* 7 has already been referenced in Genesis chapter 4. You remember there is a a man who's the son of Lamech. His name is Lamech. And um he saw Cain kill his brother. He saw how God interacted with Cain that God told Cain that he would um forgive what Cain did but and mark him out kind of defend him and if any body took Cain's life that God would avenge the death of Cain. So there's this cultural social protection that God gives to Cain. And then you fast forward to a guy named Lamech who is murderous and he is um killing people and he says um he says this, "If Cain is to be avenged seven times over, Then for Lamech it will be 77 times. 77 times playing with the same numbers. And so here in Genesis 4 it's all this context around um vengeance and getting back at the person that wronged you. And Jesus is flipping this on its head and he's saying no in my kingdom we forgiven 7* 70. In other words an innumerable in able amount of times we are a forgiving people there is this um common misunderstanding that Peter had it seems like where it's there's this limited number of forgiveness now I know there's some of you who are like wait how if how do you forgive li limitlessly if and doesn't that set you up to be violated well that's where We need to actually define what forgiveness is, and we're going to get there. But you need to understand that Jesus, as he's teaching his followers, he's saying that forgiveness is an unending resource. And the reason why this is possible is because when you become a follower of Jesus, one of the things that God does is that he places his spirit inside of you, giving you the limitless resource of forgiveness. And so let's look at this parable and talk about true forgiveness. True forgiveness. For this reason, the kingdom of heaven can be compared to a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. And so Jesus here is beginning a parable to teach about this idea of forgiveness. And you'll see that he says that the kingdom of heaven can be compared to. Now I just want to pass to point this out in passing because if you've grown up in the church and you've heard a lot about the kingdom, it's easy to think and put the kingdom of God into this category of when I die, I'm going to be with God in his kingdom. But yet Jesus is teaching about the kingdom is it's now. Come and participate in my kingdom right now. And so Jesus is telling a parable and the parable is going to illustrate a present reality. about the kingdom, which parables do, which is really fascinating to me. Maybe just it's me, but I it's it's it's interesting how Jesus is going to talk about the kingdom now using this metaphor. So, the king wanted to settle accounts. There's debts in this kingdom. And so, he calls his servants to him. And when he began to settle accounts, one who owed him 10,000 talents was brought before for him. So the 10,000 talents is about $6 billion. Okay? $6 billion. When he began to settle accounts, one who owed 10,000 talents was brought before him. Since he did not have the money to pay it back, his master commanded that he and his wife and his children, everything he had, be sold to pay the debt. So he was going to become an indentured servant. Take everything, liquidate it, and then he becomes a ser servant basically attempting for the rest of his life he's going to be paying off this debt. So verse 26 at this the servant he falls face down before the king and he says be patient with me I will pay you everything. Then the master of the servant has compassion released him forgave him of the loan wipes out the loan. Six million dollars. That servant went out and found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred daeneri. That's about 20 bucks. Okay? He grabbed that fellow servant and he started to choke him and he said, "Pay what you owe me." At this his fellow servant paid down and began to beg him, saying, "Be patient with me. I will pay you back. But he wasn't willing to be patient. Instead, he went and he threw him into prison until he can pay back what was owed. How can this is not the text, but this is my question. How can somebody who is forgiven so greatly forgive so little? How can somebody forgiven so greatly forgive so little? the as we go through this story and we'll see what's going to happen next. There is this shock value to the way Jesus tells the parable and it's obvious to the people participating in the parable of like this is not fair. How could you take somebody that owes you 20 bucks and throw them into prison? You know, normally somebody that owes you 20 bucks, you're like you put them on a payment plan or you say, "Hey, pay me back when you get a chance." Or sometimes if If we know the context, it's kind of like, well, you know, don't worry about it. You know, I gave you something I don't expect to get paid back. And that's the question here that arises. How can somebody forgiven a debt of $6 billion be unwilling to forgive something so little? Look at verse 31. When the other servants saw what had taken place. They were deeply distressed. So their peers see what goes on. They're they're upset. Would you feel upset? Yeah, I'd feel upset. Be like, "What in the world is going on? You just got this debt forgiven. How could you do that?" And they went and they reported to their master everything that had happened. Then after he had summoned that servant to him, his master said to him, "You wicked servant, I forgave you all that debt because you begged me, shouldn't you also have mercy on your fellow servant as I had mercy on you?" And because he was angry, this is the master, his master handed him over to the jailers to be tortured until he could pay everything that was owed. Crazy crazy story. You'll notice here, do you see the um the mirroring? So he is we earlier on we talked about on earth as it is in heaven. Right? Matthew s the Matthew 7 prayer um let your kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven. We've seen this go on and here the parable is also using that mirroring. You have the picture of a a relationship with the heavenly master who is forgiving us so great a debt and then we have this small interpersonal debt that's going on this onetoone relationship um and there's a lack of forgiveness. So here is um Jesus wanting for you to have at the four of your mind the framework for forgiveness is the massive debt that we each have before heaven that God is legally able to forgive because of what Jesus did on the cross. So God went to bat for you when you were still a sinner. When you're in rebellion against God before you even born, God knew that you were going to come on this earth and that you would rebel in your own special unique way. you would rebel. And he sent Jesus to die on the cross so that your moral debt could be taken out of the way. And that being the framework of how forgiveness works, he's like, "Okay, let's talk about your relationship with your fellow servants. Let's talk about how that works. How do you relate to one another?" Here, this servant, his inability forgive revealed that he had truly not grasped or experienced the king's mercy. So as we approach this conversation around forgiveness and the thing that dominates our head is that one person. I can't forgive that one person because what they did. The problem is for you and I is that we have not meditated on we have not let the forgiveness of God invade our hearts and minds. We think that the big issue is what that person did wrong to me. And you may have had some grievous things. You may have been molested as a kid. You may have been um you may have had a parent walk out on you. You may have been wrongfully accused of a crime. There's all kinds of things that happen in life that you're wronged by other people. But for the follower, of Jesus. The dominating theme is that we are a forgiven people. We were talking about this on Friday because you were saying somebody was saying, "Oh, you know, just sinners are the ones that go to church, right? And that hurt your feelings, right? It hurt your feelings." Somebody would say to you, "Oh, it's just a bunch of sinners." And I said, "No, no, no. That's right. The church is full of sinners." If you ever start thinking that the church isn't full of sinners, you got it wrong. The thing that sets us apart as goers to church, as followers of Jesus, is not that we're sinless, but that we're forgiven, right? We're a forgiven people. Not a better people. We're a forgiven people. So if anybody ever tells you, oh, you know, I thought you went to church. Why are you acting like that? Say, man, I am so sorry. I am wrong. I am wrong. I'm trying to grow. I'm trying to change. Jesus is working. in my life. But here's the reality. Jesus has forgiven me of my sins. And that's what I get to hold on to. I'm not trying to put on some kind of like sinless perfection demonstration before you. I'm clinging to the mercy of God. And that's why I go to church is because I celebrate the mercy of God with my peers. And so we have this final princip ible at the end of the last verse here of the chapter verse 35 he says so also my heavenly father will do to you now remember the the servant was thrown into jail right so Jesus says hey this same treatment my heavenly father will do to you unless every one of you forgives his brother or sister from your heart super important so he says listen the way that God is going to deal with you is according to how you deal with your peers. And so you you don't have room you and I don't have room to be a people who think well forgiveness is this optional thing. No, this is a a mandatory thing because we can't afford to be thrown into prison by our heavenly father. We can't afford to be in this place where we're on the the receiving end of God's judgment. We want to be a people who are forgiving and our father and Heaven is forgiving us. So the stakes are high. But do you see the locust? The location of forgiveness. Do you see that? It's a matter of the heart. This is all about the heart. It's something that's going on in our hearts. It's something that's going on in our hearts. So what is Let's get a little technical here. What is forgiveness? What is forgiveness? I'm going to give you a passage that I believe perfectly articulates the idea of forgiveness. Okay? And the word forgive is not even in the passage. It's not even in the passage. Romans 12:17-21. He says, "Do not repay evil for evil." Somebody gives you evil, don't repay it. Give careful thought to what you do uh to to what is honorable in everyone's eyes. To do what is honorable in everyone's eyes. If possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. Friends, do not avenge yourself. Instead, leave room for God's wrath because it is written, "Vengeance belongs to me. I will repay, says the Lord." But if your enemy is hungry, feed him. If he's thirsty, give him something to drink. For in doing so, you'll be heaping fiery coals on his head. did not be conquered by evil but con be conquered but conquer evil with good. So what is Paul saying here in Romans? He's saying listen in your heart in your heart you need to not pursue revenge or vengeance. You need to not repay evil for evil. You need to give place for God's wrath. If you and I were to go um Let's say that Albert here was the a judge in the circuit court of Baltimore City and I got accused of a crime and I went before the court and Albert's there in his robe. He sees me walk in. The one of the things that Albert would do very early even before he saw me in the courtroom is he would recuse himself from the case because he knows me personally and he couldn't be a fair judge in this case. because of the personal relationship that I have with him. We have a friendship and it wouldn't be right for him to be a judge. So, we have this legal term that's called recusing yourself. We're going to move this case here, he would say, we're going to move this case to another court. And what I think Paul is saying here in Romans that when we have wrong done to us, we need to move the case. out of the courtroom of our hearts into God's courtroom. We recuse ourselves from the case. We are our hearts are not made to be a good courtroom. We're biased. We're emotional and we're also guilty. And God is the just judge of the whole earth. And so forgiveness in this sense of Romans is here where We say, "God, I'm entrusting to you the justice that needs to go on." Jesus is in that midst paying for sin. God's able to um let people reap what they sow. He's able to dole out mercy. He's able to do what I'm not able to do. He is the just judge of the whole earth. And so what I want to do when there's wrong done against me, I want to move it out of the courtroom of my heart into God's courtroom. I believe that that is in the best way possible what forgiveness is. It does not mean that that person is no longer your enemy. You have people that are your enemy where you're like, I wouldn't want them to be my enemy. I'm trying to get along with him, but they make themselves your enemy. Here in Romans, he calls them still an enemy. Jesus had enemies and he was perfect. So just because somebody is your enemy. It doesn't mean that it's on you to get it all worked out. It's as much as it is in your in your in your jurisdiction. Live at peace with all men. Pursue peace, right? Try to be a peacemaker. But we're moving it in terms of justice. We're moving it over to God's courtroom. So if you're struggling, so so that is at that point when it's moved out of the courtroom of your heart. over to God. It's like now I'm now you in terms of our relationship, you're released. Okay? I'm I'm releasing you from the debt that you have to me. Now, let's we'll talk about consequences in just a second. Okay? Should there still be boundaries in some relationships? I'm going to explain that that we're going to go we're going to spend maybe even go a little bit over time just because this is so important. Okay? But in terms ter terms of that relationship, it's like, hey, I'm wiping the slate clean. So that um you're just dealing with God now. Okay. I feel like I'm empty and there's no there's no legal language that's left. So how do we do this? There's I'm going to give you a chart that has four quadrants. In essence, there's an x- axis and a y- axis on this. chart on this side we have conditional or unconditional forgiveness and across the top we have consequences for the wrongdoing. Sometimes the consequences remain and sometimes the consequences are removed and this gives us four quadrants. There are times when forgiveness is conditional upon repentance and it removes the consequence. So, I'm waiting for the person to come to me and say, "I'm sorry. Would you please forgive me?" When they do that, then then there's the real world consequences go away. Okay, let me give you a couple of verses about that. So, let's So, here we are. Quadrant one. Here's an example. Luke 17:3 and 4. Be on your guard. If your brother um sins, you rebuke him. And then it's if he repents. Do you see the repentance? It's if he repents then you forgive him. So here forgiveness is spoken o as something that follows or is conditional upon repentance. And if he sins against you seven times in a day and comes back to you seven times saying I repent, you must forgive him. So here this forgiveness is interacting with this condition of repentance. Another example in 2 Corinthians 2 5-8 If anyone has caused pain, um, he's caused pain, not so much to me, but to some degree, uh, not to exaggerate, he's he's hurt all of you. So, this is referring to the guy I talked about last week, the guy sleeping with his stepmom, and he's hurt the church. And Paul's saying he's hurt he's hurt all of you. Um, as a result, you should instead forgive and comfort. Otherwise, he may be overwhelmed by excessive grief. So, we know, I know it's not clear in this verse, but we know in this story that there is this repentance that he has demonstrated. He's been put out of the church. He's remorseful. In chapter 7, Paul lists here's everything this guy has done to make it really clear that he's repented. He's turned in the opposite direction. And he and so Paul says instead, now you should forgive and comfort him. Otherwise, he's going to be swallowed up or overwhelmed by excessive grief. Therefore, I encourage you, reaffirm your love to him. So the the consequences he's saying, take away the consequences, you know, bring him back into the church. He doesn't need to be put outside of the church like he was before. We're going to take away the consequences. We're going to reaffirm our love to him. Okay. So that is that first quadrant where there is conditional forgiveness and the consequences are removed. Let's go to the next quadrant where we have conditional forgiveness but the consequences remain. Here's some verses where we see that David responded to Nathan. This is you again this you got to here see the context in 2 Samuel 12. But David sinned he numbered the people and um uh God speaks through the prophet Nathan to him and he says I have sinned against the Lord. Oh no this is not the story of numbering the people. This is when he sinned with Basheba. He says I have sinned against the Lord. Then Nathan replied to David and the Lord has taken away your sins. You will not die. Okay. So, here he is. He's repented before Nathan. He and Psalm 32 is one of those expressions of repentance that he says. And here's God forgiving him. But it goes on, however, because you treated the Lord with such contempt in this matter, the son born to you will die. So here we have the consequences remaining. So God says, listen, you've repented. I'm going to forgive you. And um but there's going to be um consequences that still follow this act. So we have conditional forgiveness or forgiveness that follows forgiveness that follows a condition of repentance but and the um consequences remain in place. Another example of this is in numbers 14:20 through23. The Lord responded, "I have pardoned them as you requested." So Israel is making a mess of it. They're sinning. and and and Moses intercedes on their behalf. And God says, "I re I have relented. I've I've forgiven. Yet, as I live and as this whole earth is filled with the Lord's glory, none of the men who have seen my glory and the signs I performed in Egypt in the wilderness and have tested me these 10 times and did not obey me will ever see the land I swore to give to their ancestors." So, they um God basically responds to the sin of the of Israel when they're in the wilderness, he says, "I've forgiven you, but there's still going to be consequences. You're not going to be able to go in and see the land." All right? So, that's the second quadrant. Third quadrant is unfor conditional forgiveness and the consequences are removed. So, here we don't have somebody expressing repentance. They're they're just being forgiven and the consequences don't exist. Now, this would be this verse. is not up here, but this would be that whole passage out of Peter where Peter talks about love covers a multitude of sins. People sin against us all the time and just love covers over it. We're forgiving and we're not holding it against them or or not not just holding it against them, but we're not giving it's not impacting the relationship. So Luke 23:34, then Jesus said, "Father, forgive them because they don't know what they're doing." He's speaking of this crowd in front of them as they're crucifying him. They're not repenting before him, but Jesus is asking for their forgiveness and um he's interceding on their behalf that there would not be any consequences. There would not be um a a limiting factor to them. He's just asking for their sake that they would be forgiven. Another example, Luke 759 and 60. This is when Stephen is being he's literally being stoned to death. And Stephen cries out to the Lord in the midst of being stoned. He says, "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit." He knelt down. He cried out with a loud voice, "Lord, do not hold this sin against them." In other words, forgive them. After saying this, he fell asleep. One of the people that was standing there was Paul. Saul, who became Paul the Apostle, and God honors this prayer of Stephen. And and Saul becomes this bornagain follower of Jesus in this incredible act of God's mercy and he goes on to be the greatest missionary ever. Last quadrant where we have unconditional forgiveness but the consequences remain. Is are you tracking with my quadrants here or am I like way over your heads because this makes sense in my head because kind of it kind of gets weird sometimes, right? It gets weird of like what about when somebody hurts me and But I want to forgive them, but does that mean I have to just let them, you know, keep violating me? All right. So hopefully this is answering some of that question. So this is that category where we forgive unconditionally, but consequences remain. So Romans, we just read this. Don't repay evil for evil. Be careful not to uh uh give careful thought to do what is honorable in everyone's eyes. If possible, as it depends on you, live with peace with everyone. Uh friends, do not avenge yourself. Instead, leave room for God's wrath. So here's God's consequences. There's still I I'm forgiving unconditionally forgiving people, but I'm still letting giving room. God may put impose consequences for this person and I'm not going to rescue them. I'm going to let God work in his justice in this scenario and I don't know what those consequences are going to be. So, which c which quadrant do we choose? And we'll we'll end here. I I recognize I'm a little bit over time. We'll give you five five ways that we for how do we know where we're at in a relationship? What do we do? So, first we need to we need to pray. Forgiveness always begins in prayer and this reflection on what God forgave me of. We're asking God for wisdom and we're we're honestly we're reflecting on the situation. Am I holding bitterness or am I open to God's leading? Getting our hearts right before the Lord. Second, we consider the offender's heart and their readiness. Has the offender genuinely repented, acknowledged the offense, and shown sincerity? Where are we at in this? Like do an analysis, an assessment. Where are we at? Has this person said they're sorry already? Maybe you're still holding it on holding on to it. Think and just like having a hard time of letting it go and they've repented before you. So get an assessment. Where are where's their heart at? Are they ready? And so if they're if yes, they've already shown sincerity and and acknowledge the offense, then we're in quadrant 1 or two where we have um conditional forgiveness. Um if it's no, then um we're and or we're unsure, then it's quadrant three or four where we have unconditional forgiveness. Then we get to number three. Evaluate the nature and the severity of the offense. Does this offense carry serious long-term impacts? or risks. That's huge. That's really important. If restoring trust poses significant risk to safety or emotional well-being or moral integ uh moral integrity, co consequences might need to remain. If the offense is relatively minor, removing consequences might be more appropriate. We end up in in quadrants one or three. So, we want to determine um is this person an ongoing threat to me or society or the people that I love. And number four, seek wise counsel. This is where we're not gossiping about others, but we do want to ask people that are wise, follow Jesus, and are trustworthy. Hey, how should I handle this? What should happen here? And then five, examine our own hearts and motives. Be cautious of decisions motivated by vengeance, fear, or pride. Your decision should be guided by love, grace, and a sincere desire for God's glory and true healing for both parties. So forgiveness is related to but not consequences. So in the story of Matthew 18, this church was giving this person three chances to hear what they were doing wrong. And if they were unwilling to respond. If the offender was unwilling to respond, they were put out of the church. Well, that doesn't seem like it's forgiving, right? No, those are the consequences. But the station, the hearts of the church remain in this place of we want to remove that consequence as soon as you're willing willing to repent. We want to welcome you back in, right? We want you back in the family as soon as you're willing. to repent. So, I I know that's not a comprehensive treatment of forgiveness, but I know in our conversations with just one-on-one, some of you have talked to me. I have a really hard time forgiving this person. And so, hopefully as you're hearing this, you're working it through a little bit better in your own life, following Jesus. We want to follow Jesus, know we're forgiven, and that we're honoring him as we give forgiveness to others. Lord, um continue to teach us. We're not anywhere near being a master of this. And um we're really good at holding on to things in our hearts. I know I am, but we need to learn how to forgive as we've been forgiven. And so teach us um forgive us for getting this wrong. We recognize that it's from the heart that we forgive. We recognize our hearts are really bad courtrooms. Our hearts aren't set up for being a courtroom. You are a good and just judge and we can entrust the wrongs done to us to you. We can turn it over to you. Pray that you'd help us as a church to continue to just recuse ourselves from the case to let go. We pray this in Jesus name. Amen. Amen.

Matthew 18:15-20

Transcription

I have a trivia question to start off with. It's going to relate to what we're talking about later on. Um, here's the trivia question for you. Are you ready? What is the one thing that cannot be restrained, stuck, limited, chained, tied up, or made a prisoner?

Yes.

Okay. I like that. That was not my answer. But but

yeah,

the power of Jesus Christ.

The power of Jesus Christ. Okay, that's good. That's good. What's another one?

Faith.

Yes, Deon.

The um

Oh my goodness.

Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit. Yeah. He can't be restrained. Yeah.

Believe in God.

Perseverance.

Perseverance. Okay.

The one that I'm thinking about is the verse in the Bible that says that the word of God cannot be restrained. It can't be no. Nobody can take and limit the power of God's word. So what we're doing what we're doing is we are um taking God's word and we're letting it um impact us. Now we can resist what God wants to do in our life, but that's our loss. Nothing's going to restrain what God wants to do. Nothing. Nobody can bind the word of God. So in Matthew 18, we find Jesus teaching his disciples about life in the kingdom. We've been talking about that that um and if you're new new to the Bible, you're new to kind of like um what it means to be a Christian or to read the Bible, what you need to understand is that God made you. He loves you. And um humanity is in rebellion against God. So While he loves you, we're born in the state of rebellion against God. And it causes all this destruction. And he's inviting you to um be restored, to leave that place of destruction and to experience his restoration in your life. And what he calls this thing that you're invited into is this new society. He calls it a kingdom where he's the king and his kingdom is described beautifully. If you if we just went and walked out the door here and just talked to somebody kind of walking through Fel's Point and we we described the kingdom, they would be like, "Yeah, I want love. I want peace. I want I want a a setting where there's, you know, a welcoming atmosphere and there's provision and yeah, I want all those things." But then you say, "Well, you can't have the kingdom without the king." That's the sticking point and that was a sticking point during the time of Jesus as he's coming and he's teaching all about his kingdom and he's inviting people into his kingdom. He's inviting you this morning, hey, follow me into my kingdom. The sticking point for you is that in order for him to be king, you can't be. You have to relinquish the government of your own life and you have to say, "Jesus, I'm ready for you to rule and reign in your life. to bring your kingdom here on earth as it is in heaven. It's a good thing that he wants for you, but you have to be willing to receive that kingdom from him. So, we've been talking through Matthew 18, we talk about humility like a child. He used this term of of hey, what does it mean to be great in the kingdom? You need to be like this child in its humility, its humble dependence. And then he talked about the ser iousness of sin in your own life that that the society that you're welcomed into his kingdom that sin itself is so serious that if your hand causes you to sin, you should cut it off. Not literally, but you need to have this disposition towards your own rebellion against God where you're just like, I'm dealing with that. This isn't just like, oh, you know, ah, Jesus died, rose again, like, you know, it's going to be okay in the end. He he gets me. No. The things that we're doing wrong that don't line up with his kingdom, we cut them off because we want to experience all the life that he has for us. And he what he wants for us is good. And then he talked about the seriousness of causing other people to stumble where we're living in a way where it hinders and disrupts the closeness that the people around us feel to God. And so there's things that we may do where it's not just us privately sinning against God, but it's behaviors towards others where we're stumbling them. In other words, they're walking along enjoying their relationship with God, but then they come across us. And when they come across us and what we're doing, it causes them to all of a sudden stumble and feel separated from God. And God says, "Look, if that's you, it'd be better off if you had a millstone tongue hung around your neck and you were c cast into the sea. That doesn't mean that you're not necessarily saved, but this society, this kingdom that he's welcoming you and I into is a sacred space where you know the God of the universe and your life is flowing from what he's pouring into you. And so if there's other people around that are getting in the way of that closeness to God, Jesus uses some of the most strong language to say those people ought to be basically killed in a in a judgmental way. He turns to a topic that now affects all of us and it is how do you handle the repeated rebellion of another Christian? So, we're we're going to talk about being welcomed into this kingdom, this society, and um what do you do when you have somebody that you're with who is a Christian who's just saying, "Hey, I'm a Christian." But the thing in their life is continuing to be just open rebellion to God. We call that sin. So, what do what do we do when somebody else around us is continuing to sin? And Jesus is going to give us a stepbystep process in how do we how do we help other people in that setting? And then we're going to talk about a related um theme of the authority as we're making those determinations. So, let me read the text to you. I'll put it up on the screen so you can see it. Matthew 18:15-20 says this. If your brother sins against you, go tell him his fault between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have won your brother. But if he won't listen, take one or two others with you. So, that by the testimony of two or three witnesses, every fact may be established. If he doesn't pay attention to them, tell the church. And if he doesn't pay attention even to the church, let him be like a gentile and a tax collector to you. Truly, I tell you, whatever you bind on earth will have been bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will have been loosed in heaven. Again, truly I tell you, if two of you on earth agree about any matter that you pray for, it will be done for you by my father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered together in my name, I am there amongst them. Let's pray together. Father, thank you for your word and that we get to um read it and then integrate it into our lives. We ask that you would teach us from this text and that the wisdom wisdom here would um be useful as we do our own lives, the lives that you've given to us, that you've called us to. Help us to be obedient and receive all that you would say to us this morning. And we pray this in Jesus name.

Amen.

Amen. So, there's two sections here that are related to one another. The first is this brother of yours, this Christian sibling, somebody not just like your physical sibling, but somebody who identifies as a follower of Jesus sinning against you, what do you do? And then from there, it goes on to talk about the church agreeing and binding and loosing. So, we're going to talk about those two things this morning. We'll walk through the text as we do on most Sundays, starting with this verse 15. And he says, "If your brother their sins against you. So this is sin. This is not, hey, I don't like how my Christian friend um drives their car or I don't like how they dress or I don't like the kind of music they listen to or I don't I don't think that they should eat that kind of food over there. That's not those are all um called Christian liberties. Those are things that we make decisions on that are not governed by scripture. They're governed by our conscience and our relationship with God by the Holy Spirit. So, we're not talking about um matters of conscience or Christian liberties. Well, we're talking about things that the Bible clearly articulates. Here's the line. Don't lie. And you have a brother who you've known now for you know, a year or so, and in your relationship with them, you see them as they're speaking, they're constantly lying. You know, they're being dishonest with you. Or maybe it's this, you know, don't slander or don't gossip. And every time you're hanging out with them, they're over the line here. Um, gossiping and slandering, right? Or it could be any other. So, first of all, in order to do what this passage is teaching. You got to know your Bible. And what does the Bible say are the lines? Right now, you may know what the lines are for society. You may know what the rules, you know, are for living in America or living in Baltimore City. You may know your culture that you grew up in. You may know the things that your parents told you are right or wrong. But this passage requires that you understand what is sin. And the only way that we know what is sin is from God. He is the authority. He's what we call the moral authority. He decides our ethics. So that's the first thing you need to understand. And the sin then is directed at you. Okay? So this is an ongoing repeated rebellion by this other person against God but hurting you. They're doing something something that is injuring you, that is um uh a violation of God's law against you. And so what do you do? You go and you tell him his fault between you and him alone. So you're going privately to this person. Now, maybe they did something in a public setting. Maybe they've done it repeatedly. But the instruction here that Jesus gives to his disciples He says, "Listen, what you're supposed to do is you need to go to them and you need to tell them their fault." Now, notice he doesn't say, "Go to them and explode all over them in a heated rage." No, he says, "You need to articulate for them the fault." And you need to say, "Here is what I'm identifying as a ongoing sin in your life." So, this doesn't happen a lot. Okay. So in first Peter, one of the things that it says is that love covers a multitude of sins. So it's not like we're taking every sin that's done against us and we are telling those faults to our brothers. No. Generally, just in life and in family, we're letting love cover over a multitude of sins. We're trusting that the Holy Spirit is at work in the church. He's convicting people of something. So, this would have to be something that got to an elevated point where it can't be ignored. Love can't just cover over it. It needs to be addressed. And normally the way that you're able to identify those things is that there is a just a sense in your heart that this is an open wound. It's um continues to get in the way of the relationship that you want to have with that person. And there may be there may be a concern that this thing they've done to you is also affecting other people. And so you care about them because when people are crossing that line, it's not just hurting you, but it's a demonstration that that person is not living in that way in the kingdom. They're living in a way that is um just beneath their heavenly calling. God's designed you. We know from Genesis 1 and 2 that you have this beautiful mandate to be to be this fruitful person. The person that's doing this sin against you. Let's use the example of lying or slandering or gossip. That thing that they're doing with their mouth ought to be being fruitful. That God gave you and I a mouth so we can bear the fruit of God's kingdom with their mouth, but instead what's going on, what's coming out of their mouth is garbage, poisonous fruit, and it's not the the life that God intended. And so, we we want to identify those things because we love one another, and we want to go and tell them their fault, but it's between you and him. Now, what's missing from this? This doesn't say you go and you talk to everybody else around them. Right? It doesn't say that you go and have a pow-wow. It just says you go to them alone. Now, you're going to see there's three steps in the process. And what you're going to see is that it's a graduated process that is not about limiting you in terms of how to handle a problem. The reason why it's between you and him alone is to it's this graduated prophecy uh process of um privacy to openness because when you love a person, you don't go take their fault and share it with everybody else. You

what? You don't put them on blast. You don't put them on blast in front of everybody else, right? What we're doing because we love people is that we're handling the matter first privately. So, there's so much care and love that's demonstrated here. And you'll see Key here, if he listens. This is the if then statement and it's repeated in each stage. In fact, this word here, if he listens, we're going to see it three times. How many times?

We're going to see it three times. This is the objective. You're not just sharing an opinion. This is one of those things where you can go, "Hey, this is the pattern in your life. You said this. Here's what the Bible says. Your life doesn't line up with the Bible, it's clearly sin. And your the objective is for them to listen. And if he does listen, you've won your brother. You've not won the argument. You've won this brotherhood, their kingdom status. You You've won a victory in their life. You The Holy Spirit's used you in their in in their life to help them not to be dominated by this sin. Isn't that beautiful?

It is. So the so we we care about the person. We're handling it privately. We're making sure it meet meets this criteria of it's really disrupting their fruitfulness. And we're only hoping that we can win them. But that's if they listen. But what if they don't listen? We go to the next step, which is with two or three witnesses. Two or three witnesses. And um what we see here is he won't listen. So there's that word again. If he won't listen, take one or two others with you so that by the testimony of two or three witnesses, every fact may be established. So at this stage, what we're doing is we are um we are trying to establish that hey it's not just me coming to you and saying I think this is sin but we're um getting we're saying hey let's just create a little courtroom you see the language here what what Jesus is doing is he's borrowing from the Old Testament law that if in society in Jewish society if there was a um a court case that arose in order for the um elders to determine the guilt of the person, there needed to be two or three witnesses. You couldn't just come and accuse somebody of something in the courts uh in the court of law in Jewish society. There needed to be two or three witnesses. God told the nation of Israel that. And so Jesus is taking that very phrase word for word and saying in interaction with this person, you need to take two others with you so that by the testimony of two or three witnesses, the facts may be established. Does that make sense? And so the goal here is again, we're keeping it relatively private, but we're involving some other people just to verify what we're saying. Again, hoping that we can restore this person. God's standards for justice remain consistent. We've we're using this o uh wisdom from the Mosaic law. It's still guiding the church practices and we're using multiple witnesses.

No, I'm sure they'll find their phone. It's okay. We don't get them in church. We just we just give announcements and we the the witnesses serve multiple purposes, right? So here's these two or three people. So there's four things that the two or three cuz so so you may be called upon you may be called upon to participate in this process to verify like um to somebody like and so this is just life like some of us like me like we don't like conflict. We'd love to go through life without conflict but there are times where we're called upon to participate in helping some brother who's not living up to their kingdom potential and yes

is that why John the Baptist lost his head because following these rules

no this was this was teaching happened after John the Baptist

now for him to have another man's wife

Oh yeah so John was very bold he was willing

was a wrong thing to do

that's right yeah yep yeah so I think

tie this into John the this

I think so I think you could I think if you take John as an example of boldness Jesus is calling upon his followers to be bold

not play games right

now you got to create a you got to create a a climate in a church so so here's what it takes to be a church like this right we we've got to agree that we want to be a kingdom people that we're we don't want to play games we also have to agree that we hate sin and that we recognize that our own sin is getting in the way of our fruitfulness.

And so, um, there's this there becomes an open invitation of like, hey, look, if you see me in the way I talk, in the way that I act, like not living up to my fruitfulness that God's called me to, call me out on it.

So, so that, so that becomes that that's something where it's like, wow, we've spent some time time together, right? We have a we trust one another. This breaks down once you have a church where people don't really know each other and there's not close relationships and and um there's open hypocrisy because it then it becomes like, well, why are you picking on me? Why don't you go pick on the five other people that are over there screwing up? You know, so there's a there's a a high relational nature, right? The the fabric of the society has to really value the king kingdom, personal growth, leaning forward, have an opposition to sin. And then you the the one way way this doesn't apply to John is that um Herod, who John called out, Herod was not a follower of Jesus. So he's just saying in society, what you're doing violates God's law, which is fine and is very bold, but there is no path for um it falls kind of in another category where we may see like in society like um the govern the governor or the the mayor may do something where it's just like that's wrong that that violates God's law. I'm going to publicly speak about it, but I'm not trying to go through this these steps to restore the brother, right? So there is there is uh all throughout scripture this value on bold like speaking the truth, but this is this loving like hey I want to restore a brother um back to the Lord. The problem that Christians have like with the John the Baptist scene is that if our disposition towards modern-day Herods that are screwing up and all we're doing is like sin sniffing and like saying, you know, you are a horrible person, then what we're doing is we're kind of highlighting a morality and not the redemptive work of Jesus. So, what we want to be able to communicate to somebody who's completely, let's say there's somebody like like I I have um friendships with the guys that drug deal drugs up in um Douglas because I I've taught a Bible study up there, right? So, my my work with um those guys up there that are actively involved in the drug market is to to say to them, you're killing society. What you're doing is wrong and God has designed you for so much more

to live this beautiful, flourishing life. And so, rather than feeling like I'm condemning them and saying they're without hope. I'm trying to invite them into God's great purpose for them. And at the same time, I'm saying what you're doing is in total violation of how God's designed society. Okay? So, in this second step, we're establishing it with two or three witnesses. And again, the hope is that they will listen. Let me give you four four purposes for the two or three witnesses. First of all, they verify the facts of the situation. Second, having them there provides godly wisdom and counsel. Third, it establishes legal testimony if necessary. So, let's say, heaven forbid, we find out that there's like a kid that's been messed with by a parent or a sibling or an uncle and it's like, "Hey, this is happening in the church." Well, man, having another couple of adults there in that conversation, that's really important because we're going to establish it. It's on record. Here's two or three people that are there. And by the way, if that ever happens, we're calling the police. We'll skip some of these steps. We're just going to go to the police, but we will also work for their restoration, but the police get called as soon as I find out. There's no like hoping to win a brother early on. It's like, we'll win you after you're doing your prison time. I'll come visit you and we'll get we'll get you into fellowship in the prison there. Um, and then they help mediate towards restoration. So, there's a wisdom in in bringing in those two or three witnesses. Okay. Okay. So, he doesn't listen. And so, we got to move to verse 17. And here's what he says. If he doesn't pay attention, if he doesn't listen to the two or three witnesses, tell it to the church. So, this is where it becomes like a church matter. Okay? And this is where we just we we come before the church. I've we've done this, I think, only on one occasion when when the guy was screaming at me out front. Um, and I I and because of the nature of it and his refusing to receive correction, I said, "Look at this guy is um has open wounds with people in the church. He's violated. He's living in sin in the way that he treats other people. He is not a part of our church and we do not fellowship with him. We but we do the second half of this it says if he doesn't pay attention even to the church, let him be like a gentile and tax collector." So, What do we do? We put him, this is the idea of excommunication. The person's put out of the church. But then what does it mean to treat somebody like a gentile? How does Jesus treat Gentiles and tax collectors? Answer my question then I'll get to your question.

Question about the last part of it. The gentile and the tax.

Yes. Okay. How does Jesus look like Jesus like Gentiles or tax collectors?

But how how did he treat Gentiles and that's that's what I'm that's where I'm going. How did Jesus treat Gentiles and tax collectors?

He was a Jew, of course, but he didn't like Gentiles and he recruited a tax collector to be one of his disciples once they repented. Zakius who was a wee little man and a wee little man was he

what

Matthew was one they hated him

they hated him but the way that Jesus treated Gentiles and tax collectors was he was evangelistic. So what Jesus is saying is you look at them you look at them and they're the ones that are um violating societ the tax collectors are violating society. Jesus's stance was look you repent I'm ready to welcome you back in. I'm going to your house. And then with Gentiles, he's having relationships with them, giving them a vision for the kingdom in an attempt. Come and be in the kingdom. Come and follow me. So, what Jesus is saying is there's this clear relational break. I don't look at you and you're going to want to hold on to your sin. You don't want to listen. Then I'm going to say I'm going to put you into a new category. It's this category where you're still an enemy of God, but I'm going to want for every time I see you, I'm going to be like, "Hey, are you ready to follow Jesus? Are you ready to let him restore his work in your life? Are you ready? Are you ready to let him unleash his fruitfulness in your life? We love you. We miss you. We want you back at church, but until you get this sin figured out, it's until you're ready to let go of it, you got you can't I can't hang out with you."

Yeah. Yeah. So, you want to know how this worked with in the church in Corinth? There was a there was a man that was a part of the church. Every Sunday he was there. He would come to the the potluck meals and everybody at church knew that he had taken and was sleeping with his dad's wife. So his stepmom

and it was just this known thing that this is this is what this guy is doing. And the church was patting itself on the back for being so accommodating. Like look how look how gracious look how loving we are that we're still letting him come to church. And Paul says, "Listen, I've heard about this story. And when you gather together, I'm there in spirit with you. You need to put this person out of the church, and you need to turn him over to Satan

for the destruction of the flesh." So, he moves from being a brother in our midst and getting all the benefits of church. Like for our church, what are the benefits?

An outcast.

He's an outcast. What are the benefits for being in our church. You get food after church, but other than that, you get some new you get some new friendships, right? You got people there's a bit of a safety net that forms like we I've helped out people with rent and with their electrical church.

Yeah. There's there's these like this closeness, this friendship that we develop with one another, right? And and what Paul's saying is, look, you don't get that benefit anymore. You need to be put outside of the church. You will get all the benefits of church and get to hold on to your sin. And it's interesting, he says, when you're put outside, you're turned over to Satan. Satan gets to destroy your flesh, not your soul, but you're exposed to the destructive work of Satan because you're outside of the church covering.

Sort of like being put on parole

kind of. Yeah. Yeah. But that's more on the back end. So So yeah, kind of kind of. So we've got some principles here. We we're moving from privacy to a more public addressing of the sin. And then um the other core here, the the other core principle is um that the severity so the severity of it increases. Um what is my last the third one here? So and then the third is that it relentlessly It it shows the relentless pursuit of God. Like we don't give up on people because God doesn't give up on people, right?

And so, um, there is this, it's not that we're mean, right? It'd be easy to do this in a mean way, but but we don't do this because we're mean. It's because we love people. Jesus loves people. He doesn't give up on people. And he's not okay with you or me just sitting in open rebellion, coming to church in on Sunday, and then just openly rebelling against him. That's not what he wants for us. He wants us to identify that sin and cut it off in the most severe way. That's how we're supposed to do it. Okay. In the last few minutes here, let's move to this next section about authority, binding and loosing. So he says in verse 18, truly I tell you, whatever you bind on earth, so this is all a part of the section. Whatever you bind on earth will have been bound in heaven. Whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. So if you go and look up this word binding, it's used when um people are thrown into prison, put into jail, and then it's used in terms of um Satan bound a woman spiritually and she was um uh disabled because of uh this something spiritually going on in her life. And then we also have um the idea in Romans 7 that if a woman is married, she's bound under the law to her marriage. So it is this idea, the word literally means um to restrain or it can mean to obligate somebody with a duty. Um so when Jesus brings this up, he's bar borrowing heavily from the reban the rabbitic tradition where authority authority is described um as declaring here's what's forbidden and here's what's permitted. So in this context Jesus is saying the church is speaking authoritatively based on God's word to say this is the things that are forbidden and then these are the things that are permitted. So, so that's the idea here behind a binding and loosing. There is this um interesting like what you do um what is bound in uh on earth will be bound in heaven whatever you loose. So do you see the parallel that as as we are acting

as we're working and doing life doing church there is this correlation between on earth as it is in heaven. Right? So that's Jesus's prayer, right? Your kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven. So there are things where we just decide as a church like this is this is what we're for what's forbidden. This is what is out of bounds for us. These are the things that are permitted. And so Jesus is saying, "Hey, there's this shared authority that you have. This goes um really well with this idea out of Genesis 1:26-28. When God made humans, he said, "Let us make man in our image be uh according to our likeness. They will rule the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, the livestock, the whole earth, the creatures that crawl on the earth." So when God made the heavens and the earth, Earth were created in his image and with these first humans, he's saying, "Here's here's the the designated role for humans to take this authoritative position within creation that you're going to govern on behalf of God over Earth." So God created man in his own image. He created him in the image of God. He created them male and female. Look at this. God blessed them and said, "Be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth, but subdue it and rule. Subdue, rule the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, and every creature that crawls on the earth. So from the very beginning of the Bible, God is saying to humans, I'm giving you a designated role. You bear my image, and I want you to act authoritatively within the world. Here's Jesus saying to the church, you're now a part of my kingdom. And what I want you to do is I want you to bind on earth as it is in heaven. I want you to loose on earth as it is in heaven. This is this cannot be done unless you have a vibrant spirituality which is what he talks about in verse 19. He says I will give you or this is what he told Peter rather. This is the first time we see this going on. Peter was told that he would be given the keys of the kingdom of heaven. Whatever is bound on earth will have been bound in heaven. Whatever is loosed will be on earth will be loosed in heaven. We've seen this before. Jesus is repeating it in our text. Here's verse 19 again. I tell you, if two of you on earth agree about any matter that you pray for it, it will be done for you by my father in heaven. So, here's it being here's it practically being out when we're praying together about the things um we are agreeing together in prayer and God's acting upon it in heaven. He says, "It will be done for you by my father." This is not like you're just entrusted with the ability to do like hocus pocus magic like Harry Potter. This is this is the followers of Jesus who are in the kingdom understanding more and more getting a vision for kingdom society, kingdom life, and we're agreeing on earth. And Jesus is like, "I'm going to do that. I'm going to take more of heaven, bring it to earth.

I'm going to take more of heaven and bring it to earth. So, something comes up in your life where there is an issue of sin that's going on. Somebody stumbled, limited in their fruitfulness, and we're praying, "God, set this person free. Turn them loose so that they can be fruitful." That's the dynamic here that Jesus is talking about. And so, we get to verse 20 and he says, "Where two or three are gathered together in my name, I am there among them. Many of you know this verse, right? You've seen this verse. Sometimes you start your prayer with this verse. Just remember that when Jesus says this, he's talking about the discipline season of the church. Now, it's a reality that Jesus is in our midst, but Jesus is the reality is Jesus is going to go with you out that door, not because two or three are with you.

Yeah.

So Jesus says where two or three are gathered together in my name. I'm there with my authority as you are putting people out of the church because of their sin. I'm there with you. I am putting people out of the church because of that sin. Um here's the little part you need to know about in how this worked out in Corinth. So the guy's he's sleeping with his at mom. The church obeys Paul, says, "Hey, you can't be in church anymore. I'm going to put you out." Listen, they're they're trying to turn it off. He's trying um the What happens to that guy? That guy has this deep sense of remorse to the point where Satan's eating him up and he's upset and he's just like, I he feels so condemned about what he's done. Paul has to write in his second letter. He has to write in his second letter. He has to say, "Welcome him back in. Bring him back. He's demonstrated repentance in his life. He's cleared his life entirely of this matter. We don't want him to be swallowed up by sorrow. Bring him back. Restore him back into the church." That's the heart of God

to

forgive him because he's he's there at that place where it's like, "Look, you've turned away from that sin. So again, please don't go and do this with a mean heart or evil intentions or I got you. All of this is with this heart of like, I'm so deeply sorrowful. In fact, that's what Paul told the church. You ought to be upset, sorrowing that this person has this ongoing sin in their life,

and I'm longing for you to be back. But the kingdom of God is special, and we don't get to just tolerate and just keep going. an open rebellion against God. The church has a mandate from God to deal with those things. Lord, we thank you for your word. God, we pray that you would help us to lean in and to really root out the sins in our own life where we're just like, I want to put it away. I want to get rid of it. Um Lord, we just ask that you would um work in us to give us just that victory over sin. Help to love one another so much that we could with deep care and concern talk to somebody that has sinned against us. That we could help restore them to win a brother. Lord, we pray that you would accomplish these things in our life that we would just be so so loving. We ask this in Jesus name. Amen.

Amen.

Matthew 18:1-9

Transcription

At that time the disciples came and they asked Jesus, "So who is greatest in the kingdom of heaven? He called a small child and had him stand among them. Truly I tell you," he said, unless you turn and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever humbles himself like this child, this one is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. And whoever welcomes one child like this in my name welcomes me. But whoever causes one of these little ones who believes in me to fall away, it would be better for him if a heavy millstone were hung around his neck and he were drowned in the depths of the sea. Woe to the world because because of offenses. For offenses will inevitably come, but woe to that person by whom the offenses come. If your hand or your foot causes you to fall away, cut it off and throw it away. It's better for you to enter life maimed or lame than to have two hands or two feet and be thrown into the eternal fire. And if your eye causes you to fall away, gouge it out and throw it away. It It's better for you to enter life with one eye than to have two eyes and to be thrown into hellfire. I'm going to ask you to pray with me. We want to ask that God would open up our eyes to understand this text. Lord, we just we are given this gift as a text. It's in our language. We get to read it in English. We don't have to read it in Greek how it was originally written. And God, we pray that you would connect what's being written here to our hearts and minds that you would be our teacher. Speak to us we pray in Jesus name. Amen. Amen. And so Jesus here is again teaching about the kingdom and we've been going through this identity material, identity material about Jesus um over the last couple months for us in the past few chapters. And Jesus has been establishing who he is in the kingdom, that he's the Messiah. And remember the transfiguration where Peter, James, and John saw him up on a mountain. He's literally his his visage was changed. His light, his face is like shining like the sun. So So we see this material all about identity and it brings about this question of greatness. So the question of greatness in verse one, the disciples came to Jesus and said, "Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?" Now, it's easy to be critical of the disciples and be like, well, you know, why are you so worried about greatness? Like, you know, who really cares? But this is a good step for the disciples. This is a step forward from where they were. They're catching on to some stuff about Jesus because notice they're asking a question about the kingdom of heaven and not about the Roman Empire, not about Jewish society. So they're now they're curious. They're tapped into a new society, a different reality. And that's what we want as followers of Jesus where we start to get preoccupied and curious about, well, how does this work in the kingdom? Because man, I know how Baltimore City works and I know how the United States works. I know how my family society works or my culture works. But oh that the Holy Spirit would give us this inspired curiosity about God's kingdom where we'd be wondering how does this work in God's kingdom. Now now if kingdom this whole conversation is new to you Jesus is not saying the Bible does not teach that you die here on earth and then you go into his kingdom. Jesus is telling his followers, "No, I want you to step into my kingdom." In fact, when he sent his disciples out, he said the messenger to bring is say that the kingdom of heaven is at hand. You can reach out and grab it. And he's inviting people into the kingdom to experience it now. So, when you walked in that door and you're around a bunch of Jesus followers, you're getting a glimpse of the kingdom of God because the Holy Spirit is making this these these ethics, the social fabric of the kingdom, a reality that we get to benefit from. When we get dumped uh on by Amazon with a whole load, that sounded wrong. When Amazon dumps a bunch of food on us, that's like that's a miracle, right? It's this crazy thing that happens. It's like a glimpse of like God, your kingdom's breaking out in Fel's Point. When we experience somebody a being healed of of a sickness or we see miraculous provision in their life. It's like, wow, that's the kingdom of God breaking out. And so, oh, that we would have a just a fascination and a curiosity and a hunger for God's kingdom in our own life. And that's what these disciples, they're wondering, who's the greatest in the kingdom of God? or the kingdom of heaven. Well, Jesus is like, I'm glad you asked. So, we get this object lesson. He takes a small child like Manny's age right here, Emmanuel's age. He takes a small child, puts them in their midst, and um that's the working example. Okay. Now, culturally, children were um hardly recognized hardly recognized in society. Um there was a high mortality rate. Um they could they were not very productive. They were a drain on the system. It wasn't easy to care for a a child. It was this it was this investment of like I'm going to invest in this child. They're going to take a lot from me and hopefully someday they'll take over my farm. Now that's similar somewhat to parenting, but in that setting you know, you don't have any help. It's like you're really hoping this kid um is a financial benefit to your family. And so this is shock material. There's there's some shock value in this in a different culture. Um and he sticks this child has the child stand among them and he says, "Truly I tell you, unless you turn and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. So, here is the second time that we hear this word kingdom. And he explains really clearly that you need to turn and become like a little child. That is the key. Turn and become like this little child. Now, if this is where the the the teaching ended, if the teaching ended here, we would be like, well, what um what what should it be like to be a little child? This on Friday night, uh my my youngest son had a um elementary school dance and it was basically like the cafeteria was open for snacks and they brought in a DJ and she had all these elementary kids running around in the dark with fun lighting in this gym. It was like the happiest room I was in for the whole week. All these like squealing and happy kids just freaking out over the music and having so much fun. It was like it was it was really sweet. But I was looking at it and I was like, you know, it's easy when you're reading this, it's like, well, what's the quality here that when Jesus places this kid in their midst, what's what does he want his disciples to learn from this little child? Because he stakes the entrance into the kingdom. Now remember, the question was about greatness in the kingdom and he's saying know if you want to enter the kingdom, you've got to turn. That's interesting. And you got to become like little children. It's almost uh what was that movie that like the the guy like reversed in his age? Benjamin Button. Yeah. It's that kind of idea, right? You need to turn stop aging and you need to turn and become like a little child. There's this funny thing about that room on Friday night. You got kids just going crazy with their friends, running all over. I I I wanted to take a picture, but I didn't want to be the creepy guy taking pictures of like little kids that I didn't know. But it was so much fun. Like there was so much joy in that room. And around the perimeter are all these grown-ups kind of with their leaning against the wall afraid to dance. It was a a couple bold ones like they took like a couple of steps off the side of the wall and they were kind of like moving their hips a little bit. We needed some more black people to be honest. I live like in a very that's just that's just that's just how it was. I was I literally thought that I was just like man this is too many white people in here. But there was like there's this funny thing about the just getting older. It's just like how did how did how did it go from like just this elation and the innocence and the joy of these kids to like kind of like arms crossed just kind of like watching get get me out of here, you know? It was interesting. So Jesus is saying like he's he's prizing he's putting um he he's essentially saying like do do you want to understand my kingdom? Then you need to understand the value system. Like for example, like in the United States, we have like a monetary value system. Like if you wanted to like buy my car and you're like, I have three bags of pinto beans. It would be like that's not the value that we trade in. Like we use dollars um is our monetary system, right? Magic pinto beans. Magic pinto beans like you'd have to show me. You'd have to prove it to me, right? A society has has values like what is what's important, right? A culture has what's important. And Jesus is saying, "Listen, you've got to understand that you've been living in this culture here, Jew, both Jewish society and the Roman Empire. And I'm introducing you to my kingdom, the kingdom of heaven." And the value system here is personified. This child is the object lesson for you. And so what I need is this action here. I need you to be able to turn away from what you've learned. And I'm asking you to adopt this childlike behavior. But he goes on, he goes on and he says, "Therefore, whoever humbles himself like this child," so he not only says to us, "Be child child like, but he identifies a quality in the child that he's really going after. Okay, this isn't the only thing that he's going after in this idea of childlike um a childlike nature, but he's really highlighting this um humility. He's saying, I want you to humble yourself like this child. This one is the greatest in the kingdom. So, there's the answer to the question, who's the greatest? what innocence and no sin. Yes, there's there is this innocence. Yeah, there's this this ready readiness to like um there's like a purity, right? A simplicity. What were you what were you going to say? Humility. Yeah. This beautiful humility, right? There's a vulnerableness. You don't have all of life figured out, but you're but you're not so self-concious. ious too, right? Because all those adults on the edge of the room are not dancing because they're super self-conscious, right? They don't want to get out there. So, there is in this child this humility here that he is emphasizing and saying, "That's what I want you to revert back to. I want you to go back to that place." Let me pull up in my teaching notes. Make sure I'm not missing anything here. So the child this is this is going to be important. So we have this child the object lesson coming from this child number one is that you want to follow Jesus into his kingdom. You need to turn away from pride and embrace a humble disposition. But what you need to know is that for the next couple of weeks. I think it's at least next week, maybe the week after. This idea of the child, he's going to continue to talk about little ones. Little ones. He's already said it in chapter 10 when he told sent out his disciples and he said, "Whenever you give a drink to these little ones in my name, you do it to me." And so, what you're going to need to do as the reader of the text is understand that Jesus is using the child as an object lesson and then he's assuming that you're going to obey what he says here and you're going to be the little one because he's going to talk later on in verse six uh five and six if you offend one of these little ones he's not talking about the child he's talking about you being the little one a child of God this goes back to Zechar IA when it talks about um the shepherd there in need for a shepherd because the sheep are scattered and the shepherd comes in and he cares for the little ones. Jesus is in Matthew 10 he's called his disciples or those that the disciples care for little ones. When you go and you read the book or the letter that John the Apostle wrote, it's called First John. All throughout five times he calls followers of Jesus us little ones. Okay? So, even though we have this child as the object lesson, you need to understand that he's mapping that child onto your life. He's asking for you to Benjamin Button like reverse your aging. Go back to this childlike state in the kingdom with a humility, with this innocence, this openness, this dependence upon God. Okay, let's keep going here so that we have this idea of the radical responsibility towards others. So greatness in the kingdom is the ones who are humble. The second thing that we see is this some stuff about society. How do we treat one another? How do we treat one another? He says, Whoever welcomes one child like this in my name welcomes me. Right? It's at this point that Mark, when he's recalling the same thing in Mark's book about Jesus, he stops here and there's a there's a couple verses that are slotted in right here. Matthew just keeps going into the next material because it there's a break that should be right at this point. or kind of around this point. It's all the same teaching, but there's more material in the middle of the text in Mark and in Luke, but he says, "Whoever welcomes one child like this in my name welcomes me." So, he's mapping it on. If you do this, if you're welcoming, then you're welcoming me. So, the kingdom of heaven is a welcoming space. There is this generosity that we extend with an openheartedness towards others. Hopefully, you've experienced here as you've come to church in that um there is this kindness. I'll give you a chance. I'm openhearted to you. Now, look, when you're an adult and you've done some life, especially life in the city, you gotten hurt many times. those calluses start to build up and the idea of welcoming somebody else becomes more and more of a foreign concept because you got to protect your heart. But you see, Jesus followers are filled with the love of God and recognize that they've been welcomed in even though they're an enemy in rebellion against God to begin with. They see that Jesus died on the cross for their sins. They're welcomed in and we become a community that's just welcoming, welcoming. And Jesus says, "When you're welcoming, you're doing it and you're welcome in my name, you're welcoming me." But let's contrast that. Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to fall away, it would be better for him if a heavy millstone were hung around his neck and he were drowned in the depths of the sea. Okay. So, here we're we have these little ones. They're the ones that are fall finding out about Jesus. They're they're coming to faith in Jesus. They're starting out their relationship. And he says, "Look, if you cause one of these believers to fall away, it would be better for you if you were just drowned with this heavy rock around your neck. He's he's creating a a standard. So on one hand, he's like, "Hey, we're welcoming, but you come into that kingdom and the way you behave around one another, you're causing somebody else to get upset. You're causing somebody else to stumble. This is how serious it is." So in other words, the relationships that we have with one another are very important. And the The way we treat one another is not just this flippant like, oh, you know, whatever. We love one another. We're very careful with how we treat one another. We're making sure that the way that we treat one another is not going to throw that person off this week. This idea of falling away is is it's to fall away and feel separated from God. So, we got to think, is there anything that I'm doing that's making my friend Christian, the person at church that I go to church with feel separated from God? Am I hurting their relationship with God? Because Jesus says, "It would be better for me to be just thrown in the water and drowned." I had a time in my life where I worked for a pastor who I thought was amazing at when I was 25. Um, and I came to find out that he was highly abusive to people in his church. He was incredibly destructive. And I watched for three years as he messed with people and uh he asked I was on the board of the church and I was really young and there was stuff that was happening where I was just like this doesn't seem right. But I was I was just filtering. I was trying to I I was still trying to get my bearings as a as a Christian and I was just like, "This doesn't feel right. This doesn't seem like how we should treat people." And um I at that time had a young family. I was praying like, "Let get me out of here. Get me out of here, God. Let me just escape from this. I was afraid he was going to hurt my family and hurt my career." And so my whole thing was like this self-preservation. After I left, I felt convicted like, man, I was in a position of authority. I should have really kind of stood up for the people in the church. and I had an opportunity to and there was a 11 other former board members that wrote letters and made it really clear like you're doing the wrong thing. You're hurting other people and he was willing to have a meeting. Um I flew all the way across the country to back for a full day's meeting. I was unrepentant. He pretended that he was repentant and he he played the games that we had seen him play over and over again. We left and ultimately the decision of some an outside church group was that, hey, listen, we don't want you to we don't want to be affiliated with you. We think you should resign. Your whole ministry team should resign and we'll put somebody else over the church. And they said, if you don't want to do that, just change the name of your church. Don't be affiliated anymore. So, he continued on for a couple of years. He reached out to me early on when I moved to Baltimore in 2016. And I wrote him a letter and I said to him, "You have been corrected publicly. Why would I come back to your church and pretend that we're reconciled, that things are okay when you have left like a trail of bodies of people you've hurt? You have an opportunity now to repent and to turn. And he didn't receive that letter. And literally the next day, it was one of those times where I wrote a letter and I like read it. I still have it. And I've read it and I was like, "Man, God helped me write that letter. speaks specifically to this man. The next day after I wrote that letter, he was diagnosed with terminal cancer and he died. He probably died I think 20 years earlier than he should have. He's in incredible health. Incredible health. He died in his like late 50s. And I looked at that and I I felt like as I watched this, this is God taking somebody who is causing little ones to stumble and he's just saying, Hey, it's better in your situation that you just aren't you're not alive anymore. I think he's in heaven. And I wrote to him in my letter and I said, I think I said, I can't wait to be with you in heaven where these things are going to be gone where God's justice is going to be, you know, it'll have dealt with this stuff. It'll evened out all this stuff, but please repent. And he didn't. He didn't. In fact, on his deathbed, the last week of his life, he continued to hurt Christians around him. So God is is serious about this stuff. He's serious about his kingdom. You don't get to just come in to church and play games and hurt the people around you. And I don't know each God deals with people differently, but like if you're in your in your life, if there's like ongoing suffering, one of the first things when I'm suffering that I ask is like, am I hurting somebody? Am I hurting the body of Christ in some way? Is there something that I need to deal with in my own life? Well, we need to keep going. on to finish this up. He says, "Whoever welcomes one child like this in my name welcomes me." And then we we read verse six. And then here's this final warning. Woe to the world because of offenses for offenses will inevit inevitably come. But woe to the person by whom the offense comes. We don't use this word very often. I mean, I don't ever use that word, but it's like the um it's the sign when you go to the gas station, they have a propane tank and it's a big like yellow sign that says don't smoke right here. Next to the propane tank. That's what the woe means. Like warning, this could blow up. Right? So, he's saying warning to the world because of offenses for offenses will inevitably come. But warning to the person by whom the offense comes like take it really seriously. Take account of your life. Is there stuff in your life that is doesn't belong in the kingdom? You're in Jesus's kingdom, but you continue to practice stuff that's offensive to either him or the people around you. Get it out of your life. Just like you wouldn't smoke by the propane canister at Mobile or Exxon. Get that offense out of your life because it's going to make a mess. It's going to blow stuff up. If your hand or your foot causes you to fall away, cut it off and throw it away. It's better for you to enter life maimed or lame than to have two hands or two feet to be thrown into eternal life. He's using he's making an a an example. He's speaking figuratively to show you and I this is how serious patterns of sin in our life are. And here's the thing, church. God puts in our life family, wives, husbands to help us see the junk in our life that's going to keep us from the flourishing and the fruitfulness that God's called us to. God's put friends in our life that are bold enough to say, you know what, you keep doing this thing and it's really not helpful. It hurts. And I would just encourage you to listen to those people and to take a severity, a stance towards your own sin or your own thing that causes the fall away. Think about, okay, what things do I do? that makes me feel further away from God. That's what falling away means, right? What is it? Is it anything? And let me deal with it severely. Now, you can relate to this, but you didn't have your leg cut off because of it was causing you to sin, but I find it ironic that you had your leg amputated on the only week without glasses. Well, here. We love you. We love you. I don't know how to tie the amputation of your foot in with this text, but I did find it highly ironic. Physical mind and spirit are the same. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. We love you and we're sorry. We That's right. You can't. You can't. And he says, he continues in the same vein. If your eye causes you to fall away, gouge it out. Throw it away. It's better for you to enter your life with one eye than two eyes. to throw it into hellfire. Again, the severity of sin in our life. If you're in Jesus's kingdom and you identify as a citizen in his kingdom, then you are taking account of your life and you're going, you know what? This doesn't belong. This doesn't belong. I'm going to war with these things. But here's the thing. Here's the beautiful thing about being a follower of Jesus is that Jesus wasn't just amputated. for your sin. He died on a cross for your sin. So we contribute a sense of severity and a desire to mortify our flesh. That's John Owen's famous Puritan. That's his name of uh a book. That's the title of his book. Mortification of the flesh. I love that title because that's the idea here. Jesus is like put it to death. But know this that the spirit spirit of God is at work in your life to put to death the deeds of the flesh. You're just cooperating with him. Now, do you know the Catholic Church did not want to translate the Bible into English be and didn't want to give you a copy of the Bible because they were afraid that you go start cutting off pieces of your Bible. Thank you very much. Isn't that funny? So, the debate was the Bible was in Latin or in Greek. or Hebrew. And there was this resistance of like, well, if we put the Bible in everybody's language and everybody can read the Bible, people are going to go start cutting off their arms and jabbing out their eyes. They they didn't believe that you could read the Bible and understand that there's figurative language in it. So, thank God that Tinddale and Wickliffe decided to translate the Bible so that we could have it in our own language. The idea is that severity of sin a kingdom people look at sin in their life and go, "Nope, I'm cutting it off. We're getting rid of it. It has no place. No place here." So, we're going to celebrate what Jesus did that he was cut off on our behalf. We're going to take communion together. Before we do, before you come forward and and receive the elements, um what I want to do is I want to just uh pray. When I pray, I think of like cement that like solidifies. We've had a moment with the Lord. We've been able to read his word. We We've The Holy Spirit's been knocking on our hearts with different things. And I I just want to pray. And as I'm praying, I want you to just agree just like, "Lord, yeah, do those things in my life, Lord. We We've sat before you. We've submitted ourselves to your word. We pray that Lord, you would work it into us. Work it beyond just our heads. work it into our hearts. Give us a desire for these things. Give us an anticipation that this is how you want to work. Bring forth fruit in our life because we walk in obedience to what we've heard your spirit saying. Lord, we love you. Thank you for being such a good teacher. Thank you for teaching us this morning, for speaking into our hearts. Lord, have your way with us. We pray in Jesus name. Amen. Amen.

Matthew 17:22-27

Transcription

Matthew 17, we'll look in verses 22- 27. Verse 22- 27. Um, it's going to be a fun text to be able to look at and hopefully it'll be practical um, in your own life as you're kind of figuring out kind of where to land on different things that come up in your life. There are these two there are these two extremes. Um, as you do in life. Um, on one hand you could be very principled. Um, and on the other hand, you could be pragmatic. Principled and pragmatic. The one and some of you are on that spectrum. You're like more on the principled side of like, well, these are my principles. I'm sticking with it. This is, you know, life's just black and white. And then some of you are more pragmatic of like, you know, well, this seems to be the quickest route. there and things are a little bit more negotiable. Well, what does it mean to follow Jesus? To be a follower of Jesus, to have him giving you principles but then navigating life where things are not explicitly spelled out in scripture. And Jesus faced one of those types of situations. Um you you uh face these things when you're at work or you're navigating relation relationships. Um, you're just doing life, interacting with people who maybe are not following Jesus. And it's just like, well, you know, how do you how do we do this? So, that's kind of what we're going to encounter as we go through Matthew 17. Matthew 17 22- 27. Let me read the text to you. We'll pray and then we'll begin to unpack it. As they were gathering together in Galilee, Jesus told them, "The son son of man is about to be betrayed into the hands of men. They will kill him and on the third day he will be raised up." And they were deeply distressed. When they came to Capernaum, those who collected the temple tax approached Peter and said, "Doesn't your teacher pay the temple tax?" "Yes," he said. When he went into the house, Jesus spoke to him first. "Um, what do you think, Simon? From whom do earthly kings collect tariffs or taxes? From their sons or from strangers? From strangers, he said. Then the sons are free, Jesus told him. But so we won't offend them, go to the sea, cast in a fish hook, and take the first fish that you catch. When you open its mouth, you'll find a coin. Take it and give it to them for me and for you. Let's pray. Lord, we come before you and Lord, would it be the state of our hearts that we are willing to submit to your word, that your word is authoritative over our life and we take up a posture of humility and obedience and readiness to say yes to what your spirit shows us this morning. As we're going through this text, we We recognize that you know our story even better than we can recall our own story and you have a plan and we ask God that you would graft us again into your good plan by your spirit. Speak to us Lord we pray this morning in Jesus name. Amen.

Amen. So as we're going through Matthew which is just a biography about Jesus, right? It's a early record of what Jesus did and what he taught. We come to this story in Matthew. Now this the there there are two parts here that I've combined together. We're we're looking at the second um prediction that Jesus gives about his death um in Jerusalem that's coming and then the bulk of the text is about this idea of the um uh the bulk of the text is about this idea of paying taxes. And so um we're going to we're going to look at both separately but we'll spend most of our time in this second question. Now if you go to Mark, Luke or John, you will not get this second section. Only Matthew records for us this interaction over the temple tax. This is going to be our thesis statement as we move forward. Jesus provides a pattern for Christian cultural engagement, maintaining our identity as God's free children while responding responsibly, navigating cultural obligations for the sake of our witness. Again, navigating cultural obligations for the sake of our witness. So, we've read through the text. Let's look first at this section. um verses 22 and 23. It says that as they gather together in Galilee, Jesus told them, "The Son of Man is about to be betrayed into the hands of men, they will kill him, and on the third day he will be raised up." So this is the second time. Just a few weeks ago, we saw the first time that Jesus predicted his death. And so again, for those of us who have chosen to follow Jesus, what can we learn from this? One of the things that we have been seeing is that um Jesus is um not opposed to giving his disciples a heads up on what's coming. One of the benefits of walking with Jesus listening to the Holy Spirit, reading your Bible, and developing, cultivating your relationship with God is that God often times speaks in advance about what's going to happen.

So, we see this with Abraham, right? God says to Abraham before he gives Abraham a miraculous child, he says,"Abraham, this is what I'm going to do for you." Right?

Um, we see this in um the life of Joseph. When Joseph is a young man, he has these dreams that basically predict his future that taps him into this is God's plan worldwide. He he um has this vision of all of his siblings bowing down to him. And then what do we see with Pharaoh and the dream and then his interpretation? We see that God is giving to his people this insight into what is about to happen. The way one of the ways this has worked out in my own personal life, like as I went into this year, there was a passage of scripture that God um I felt was just like the Holy Spirit highlighter was pointing me to just saying, "Hey, this is for you this year." And it became like just a way to frame up my thinking about the year. And so, look, It is not a strange experience for Christians to have a sense of direction and anticipation about what's coming to be prepared. I remember I remember um before um 9/11 happened. Some of you are old enough to be alive when 9/11 happened. I had a dream

um about this horrible accident, this bloody situation. where people were being carried out on CS and um they were triaging this whole scene and there was this in the in the background of my dream there was this um there was the Manhattan landscape um and I I saw it I woke up there was this sense of like something's going to happen

and it was only a few weeks later that 911 happened and I forgot I I forgot that the about the dream but then after 911 Five or six months later, they were doing these like all kinds of remember how Time magazine used to do like commemorative editions where it was just like a photo display of like crazy pictures.

And I turned to one page in this Time magazine thing. I think I still have it. And it was literally the image from my dream. It was like the picture, the triage picture. They're carrying this woman who is all bloodied.

And it said in the description like, "Hey, this, you know, this is a woman being carried in the triage section. That's not special. That that that can be a normative experience. At least as we look at Christians, godly people, as we go through Old and New Testament, we see it as a familiar experience that God is giving a heads up to his people. And so what does that mean for us practically? It means that we are we want to have a tender heart and be listening being those people who are can be entrusted with that heads up. Like, why would I give you a heads up if you're forgetful? You don't write stuff down, you're kind of flippant with what's going on. No, those things are things to be stewarded over. And so, here we see Jesus telling his disciples, "This is what's going to happen".

Now, you would think, okay, well, well, what if they mess it up? Like, what if they step in and they try to thwart what's going to what's going to occur. Jesus isn't afraid of that. Jesus is fine with just saying, "Here's what's going to occur." And their response is they they were deeply distressed. Well, that's not very loving. That's not very loving. Why would Jesus say something to them that would cause them to be deeply distressed? It seems like It seems like it just makes sense that Jesus is okay with giving his his closest followers, his his future leaders a heads up about something that would cause a deep sense of stress. Yeah. Smiley.

Yeah. Um does it mean that he's also preparing them for what's to come?

Yeah, I think so. I think this is an an opportunity for them to prepare their hearts for something that's tragic. Now, their response is kind of messy. Kind of messy. But they um they're able to look back on it and see like, wow, look at look at how Jesus he warned us about this thing that was going to occur. That's a good observation. Thank you for that. So, let's keep going. Let's look at um this second section starting in verse 24. It says that when they came to Capernaum and and what we already saw there in Galilee and you you'll remember like Galilee is really important in the book of Matthew because a lot of the ministry that Matthew explains to us about Jesus. It's happening in this northern area um around the Sea of Galilee. So there's all these small towns and one of them is Capernaum. And those who collected the temple tax approached Peter and said, "Doesn't your teacher pay the temple tax?" And the response that Peter gives is yes. Now, we'll go on into the rest of verse 25 in a second, but let's just look at what this temple taxes like. What is what's the cultural context? Why are they asking this question? So, in Exodus 30, Exodus 30-16, it says, "Everyone who is registered must pay a half shekele. according to the sanctuary shekele 20 garas to the shekele. This half shekele is a contribution to the Lord. So when we go back to Exodus, what we're looking at is when God gave instructions to Moses about setting up the tab the tabernacle, excuse me, the tabernacle worship. And so he says this half shekele is to be paid as a cont contribution to the Lord. Each man who is registered 25 years old or more or 20 years old or more must give this contribution to the Lord. The wealthy may not give more and the poor may not give less than half a shekele when giving the contribution to the Lord to atone for your lives. Take the atonement price from the Israelites and use it for the service of the tent of meaning. It will serve as a reminder for the Israelites before the Lord to atone for your lives. So, there's a couple different purposes for this tax. It's a flat tax. Doesn't matter if you're poor or you're um poor or rich. It is everybody pays just a half shekele. uh and it would be used in the future to get a count um on how many men were 20 years old or older. It was a an instrument for almost a census in a sense. It was used to um help keep you know it's the community taking care of their worship space together but then it also has this spiritual um reminder of atonement um of being bought back. Um so there's this spiritual engagement that's going on. So this has been a part of the the culture uh the Jewish culture for years all the way up until the time of Jesus. And um the question that is posed, those who collect this temple tax ask Peter, well, you know, does your master, does your teacher pay the temple tax? This could have been a trap to test Jesus's loyalty to the Jewish tradition. um it or it could have just been just a simple question of like, well, do you pay? Um and Peter without really talking to Jesus, he just jumps out there and he says, "Yeah, this is what happens." So, let's that sets the stage. Let's look at this next section, part three, the first principle. It's the sons are free. So, we get into verse 25. Peter's already said yes. And then in your version, uh it should say something like this. When Peter went into the house, Jesus spoke to him first. And he just asks this question. "What do you think, Simon? From whom do earthly kings collect tariffs or taxes? From their sons or from strangers?" So Jesus is going to use the example of earthly kings to teach a principle about the heavenly kingdom. Okay? So he's saying, Peter, in the world that you know of in the culture, Who is it that kings are taxing and levying uh tariffs to? Is it their kin? Is it their kids? Or is it to those who are strangers? And Peter's response is that it's from strangers. And so Jesus then says um the sons then the sons are free. So he's again using this example that's like Roman Empire, you know, historically who gets taxed and then he's layering on to that and he's saying good. So, we have this working idea that the kids of the king, they don't pay taxes. They're free. They're exempt from that tax. What Jesus is doing is he's establishing a what we call a first principle. He's establishing this um idea that is um applies to himself. There is um not just the idea of a there's not just the idea of um Jesus being the son of God and therefore free from paying the the tax on his father's house, right? So, um that's why we saying father's house, by the way. So, um there is not just that sense of freedom, but there is this bleed over into the idea that when you become a follower of Jesus, your and my life is seated in Christ. The book of Ephesians talks about this at length. It is this idea that um we become co-airs we become identified with Christ. So what Jesus gets in terms of being a son of the father, we get that identity too. So there is this establishing of a first principle, this freedom, this this privileged position as a son of the king. So So that's the underlying principle. And by implication, you would think like, well, because I'm a son, then I'm free. I don't have to pay the tax. But there is this practical concession that we see in verse 27. And here's how Jesus explains it. He says, "But so we won't offend them, go to the sea, cast in a fish hook, and take the first fish that you catch. When you open its mouth, you'll find a coin, take it and give it to them for you and me." So, the coin is enough for it's a full shekele. So, you've got a payment for two people that is going to be found. Um, but what I want you to notice is that Jesus gives a reason for the concession. So, he says it's so that we won't offend them,

I want you to pay the tax. And then there's this crazy part where a miracle is done. There's a miraculous provision of the tax money to pay it, right? Which we'll talk about in just a minute.

But I want to spend a minute just looking at this this um what we would call like a paradigm because the early church and this this um as I was studying this this week I was appreciating the way that this is laid out and I would call it what we call like an interpretive key. Um, or you remember when back in the day when we used to take tests and we'd fill in the dots, you fill in the dots and then the teacher would have like the you would lay like the key the answer key over the dots and and it would tell you like okay what questions you got right. This is kind of like that in that Jesus is not just teaching in the moment, but he's providing an interpretive key for how to how do we handle first principles that may be in tension with the cultural realities. These things pop up all the time um as we're as we're doing life. And I'm going to give you some examples of of this from other places in the New Testament in um in 1 Peter chapter 2. 1 Peter chapter 2 we have um this idea of this is 216 Peter tells these Christians to "live as free people" very similar to Jesus's teaching "live as a free person" but then he calls upon them to "submit to the authorities for the Lord's sake". So he establishes that look, you are a free people. He tells this to slaves. He tells this to Roman citizens. He says, listen, your true identity is that you are a person that is free. No one lays claim to your life. But because we are a people on a mission, We we live in this disposition where God is is bringing the good news of his kingdom to people all around us. Like we were talking about Jimmy earlier, you know, God's like God's carrying the message, the good message of his kingdom through us, to people all around us. And if we just start standing on our principles, our identity, we're going to take off a bunch of people and offend a bunch of people unnecess necessarily. Does that make sense? And so if these slaves were to just say, "Listen, I, you know, I follow Jesus now, so you know, screw you. I'm not going to follow you master anymore." That would get in the way of that master receiving the kingdom message. So Jesus, it's subversive. What Jesus is doing and what then Paul and Peter teach is um a message that upholds human dignity where you give it enough time and the Christian message, the kingdom message infects the world enough that slavery becomes untenable to a culture that embraces even just the the the basic idea of human dignity. And so, but it is it is tactful of the Christian to say like Jesus, we don't want to offend In this moment, we are not looking to unnecessarily offend even though there is a first principle that that gives us an excuse for not paying the tax. Now, there is this temptation as we engage life and we learn about who Jesus is and what he's done for us. You can abuse that liberty, that freedom, and you can say, "Well, I'm at liberty. I'm I have my freedom." Like, forget everybody else. and and all of a sudden you start having an interactions with others that are offensive in the name of now my life's changed I'm a follower of Jesus and it becomes this upside down backwards sense of following Jesus it it's not recognizing no wait Jesus saved you so that this mission can be um carried on through your life. there's another example of this in the early church um in Rome. The early church in Rome was a mixture of of many Gentiles, some Jews who were becoming followers of Jesus. And there were some in that um church, many in the church who had come out of paganism. And a part of the paganism was taking and offering your meat to idols um and just kind of um in the process of acquiring your meat, it would go through a offering to the pagan idols process. And so there were Christians who were becoming followers of Jesus and they were like, "Wow, I don't want to have anything to do with paganism or meat sacrificed to idols." And so they would just decide, I'm going to be a vegetarian. I cannot culturally have anything to do with meat sacrificed to idols. And there became this dispute. There was a fight in the church over this stuff because there are other people who are like, "No, let's go back to first principles. Like if we if we understand who God is and what those idols are, they're nothing. They are not gods at all. They are just statues that have no meaning. And so them being offered meat being offered to an idol and then being sold at a discount rate in the marketplace, that's just a good deal on meat and it has no spiritual significance.

So you had this fight between people who in their conscience they didn't want to eat the meat because what it had gone through and you had other people who were like, "No, I'm free in Christ." Well, Paul says to the people who are exercising their liberty and eating meat. He says, "Hold on. Those you're strong in your faith. You you're theologically you're right that those idols are nothing and eating meat does not separate you from God. You've got the theology right, but the way you're treating your vegetarian brothers and sisters is absolutely wrong. and you're getting in the way of them feeling close to God and you're bringing this meat that the to the barbecue and it's interrupting the fellowship that's going on amongst the church. And so Paul says, "For the sake of not offending your brother, stop. Don't eat meat because I care about the person more than my barbecue." Okay? I care about the person more than my barbecue. It this comes up in 1 Corinthians 8-10. The same thing is there. In 1 Corinthians 9, there are people who are accusing um they're slandering Paul uh for uh being financially supported and they're saying it's less spiritual to be financially supported by being a church planter and a pastor. And um and Paul has to defend himself there in 1 Corinthians 9. And he says, "Wait, don't I have the right, that's the first principle. Don't I have the right like Peter and others to lead about a wife?" In other words, to get married. Don't I It's not unspiritual if I wanted to be married. Don't Don't I have the right to be paid for uh being a pastor and the obvious answer is yes, you have the first principle right to those things. He can you could back it up with scripture until your face is blue. But then Paul says, "But I've decided I've decided to not take a salary because I don't want to get in the way of you receiving the gospel." Now, that was a specific decision he made with the church in Corinth. Now when he was in um imprisoned and he was working with the church in Philippi, he took he gladly took support. But in that season of life, he opted out of financial support because he knew it would mess with his message. And the gospel message is more important than standing on your rights. Now listen, we as Americans have this long history of like, I'm going to stand for my rights. dog on it. I'm going to stand for my rights, my liberty, you know.

Amen.

But the follower of Jesus has a story that they understand they're a part of. They see God at work and they make a conscious decision sometimes to put their rights aside for the sake of not offending because it's, hey, I want to see you come into the kingdom. This also comes up in the household codes or as we look at like gender roles. Um we see that um Paul h Paul explains gender roles within the framing of culture so as not to give an offense. And unfortunately some of Paul's passages on gender have been abused throughout the years as like no see Paul said you know women should just keep silent in the church. Well if he said that then why a few verses earlier did he have women praying and prophesying in the church you know

but this is the thing Paul gave guidance that was targeted into the culture so as not to give an offense because the culture sometimes broken and sometimes people's hearts are broken people's conscience like the vegetarians in in Rome not vegetarians today but the vegetarians in Rome their theology was kind of broken but that was okay. It was more important to set those rights aside because I want to love my brother and I want to strive for the unity of the church. So, let's just in the last couple minutes here, let's just kind of bring this home in some practical ways. There's a number of different areas where there's the first principle There's the theology piece and then there is the okay but then there's what's going to offend this idea of um your kingdom identity and understanding um your position in Christ is taught throughout the New Testament and there is this underlying idea that that we want to be a people that are holding in intention both what is true about our identity, our freedom in Christ, our the fact that we're forgiven, the fact that um that God's going to take care of us and provide for us, right? There there's that reality, but then there's our human engagement. So, one example is this idea of we live in an urban context. Many of you live in this urban context. Um, some of you struggle with poverty. You may go into like a social security office and you know, you know that, hey, the Bible says that I have dignity, that I am created in the image of God. And that means that I should I hold a position of honor. Not only that, but as a follower of Jesus, that I'm forgiven. I'm a son of God. But the person across from you behind the plexiglass there, is rude and demeaning. And you've got a decision to make. Am I going to stand on the principles that I know or am I willing to be mistreated in the moment? Because being pounding somebody over the head with my Bible is probably going to keep me from the check that I need, but it's also may get in the way of a future witness to this person, an opportunity for a conversation about the gospel.

Amen. We want to engage um there are times where you may feel like your rights maybe Christian rights you may feel like your American rights are being trampled as Christians we can engage in that conversation not as like I'm going to stand for my rights but I'm going to stand for the mission of the kingdom the message of the kingdom and We want to see people through this lens of what's going to get you closer to God.

So when it comes to like Christian liberties, um you know there there there may be somebody let's say that after church today there's six or seven of us who are like you know let's go out for lunch but somebody is new in our group and they may come out of a um let's say a setting like Eastern religion setting and uh Buddhism and they may be like, "Look, I can't go and eat at that Chinese food restaurant because there's a little Buddha back there." And they're offering sacrifices in that place. And and they may feel like, "Look, that's that's I can't do that. That's that's going to violate my conscience." Well, the the Bible informs the rest of us to not be like, "Oh, you know, come on, grow up." No, the Bible teaches the rest of us as a group to love that person. and to be like, "Okay, we can find another place to go and eat at. We can go and eat at ECU or something like that," which would be which would be my choice, you know, 100%. Um, the same thing comes comes up with like content. Let's say we're all going to go out for a movie, but but somebody in our group feels like, "Look, you know, I have this conviction about the kind of movies that I watch." And so rather than demeaning that person, we want to um we want to care for that person. The two principles that underlly this is is I don't want to take Christians that I'm around and do stuff that makes them feel like they're further away from God. Does that make sense?

I I don't want to do stuff that keeps people feeling like they've now all of a sudden been separated from God. I want people around me to feel closer to God. Amen.

The second principle is there's people around me that don't know God yet.

And so I want to not do anything in my life that's going to keep those people from knowing God. Anything that's going to disrupt my witness to them. The beautiful thing in this section is that one you understand your kingdom identity. The second is that you consider the gospel witness. But this is the third awesome thing about this story is trust in God's provision. You know, when you put your when you put your rights aside, you take the hit. You decide that you're not going to stand up for your rights. The temptation is in that moment to feel like you're going to be the one poorer in the moment. You're going to be the one that gets ripped off. You're going to be the one that gets the short end of the stick. But what we see in this story is that Jesus miraculously provides the temple tax.

And as you're making these decisions of like, you know what, I'm willing to take the loss strategically so that the gospel can move forward. I'm going to hold on to verse 27 that God can just stick a coin in a fish's mouth. Right.

Amen.

The painful thing in this setting was for Jesus would have been like, "Dude, that's my house." Like, "Why am I paying taxes on my own house? You know, that's my father's house."

And Jesus, "No,

I don't want to offend him."

Just go fishing and pull the pull the coin that's under there and that fish is mouth.

How much is a shepherd?

I don't know. It's small. It's like a small amount. I don't know. Can I look it up and get back to you?

I'll look it up.

The the the currency in Israel is still a shekele, but it's would be different.

I know. I would imagine if God's telling both the poor people and the rich people to give half a shekele, they'd be a small amount.

Oh, yeah. Could you look it up and let us all know?

All right. Okay. So, I don't know. I don't know what the holy spirit's speaking to you through this text.

But there is a sense of let's trust in God.

Let's put others first,

right?

Let's understand better and better. What are those first principles? What's our identity? Like how beautiful to all of a sudden see taxes through this lens of like I'm the son of the father. That's awesome. And then from that position to to operate in differentiation and say I'm still though even though I have the right to not pay the tax I'm still going to do it. Just beautiful the way that it's laid out. Let's pray. Lord, we um we love being able to sit and just sit in your word for a few minutes. There's wisdom here. This is interpretive key. You're giving us guidance on how to do life. And um it's it's not a rule, but it's it's some guard rails. It's some principles to follow. And I pray, Lord, that you would just embed these types of things, these wisdom principles in our life. that we could honor you, Lord Jesus. Make yourself known in and through our lives. We pray and we ask this in Jesus name. Amen.

Matthew 15:21-28

Transcription

So we're in Matthew 1521 through 28, Matthew 15, 21 through 28, and I'm going to read the text to you in a minute, but I want to ask you this question as we open up. What if the kingdom of God is bigger than just this church? Right? It is right. It's broad, it's big. And the followers of Jesus, the disciples needed to have their perspective broadened. And so the way that Jesus didn't teach his followers in a classroom, he brought them with him as he did ministry all over Israel. And today we're going to see that he's going to go into what's now modern Lebanon. So there's a lot of teaching that Jesus is doing as he's doing ministry.

What if those invisible walls that separated us from them have no place in the heart of God? Today as we look at this passage, we'll see how Jesus not only heals a woman's daughter, but he also expands this vision for his disciples and ours showing us that true faith, it transcends those us versus them borders. We're going to see just how Jesus doesn't play by the US versus them rules. And in a fascinating way, Jesus is challenging those boxes, those invisible boxes that can be put up. Now, some of us have followed Jesus and walked with Jesus for a long time. Maybe you're familiar with this story and all that I want to encourage us at a minimum is that we want to be praying as we go through this text. Holy Spirit, show me, am I limiting the extent of your work? Am I believing you for all that you want to do as a kingdom work around me?

Or am I pigeonholed in a comfort zone or am I limiting the work of God in some way? That's the underlying principle that exists here in this text, is just this idea of that the kingdom is limited and Jesus is taking those that are following him and he's saying, let me push you a little bit further. And so we want to say Holy Spirit, we're willing to be pushed in that way a little bit further. Let me read the text and then we'll pray. When Jesus left there, he withdrew to the area of tire and inside and just then a Canaanite woman from that region came and kept crying out, have mercy on me, Lord, son of David. My daughter is severely tormented by a demon.

Jesus did not say a word to her. His disciples approached him and urged him, send her away because she's crying out after us. He replied, I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, but she came knelt before him and said, Lord, help me. He answered, it isn't right to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs. Yes Lord. She said, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master's table. Then Jesus replied to her woman, your faith is great. Let it be done for you as you want. And from that moment, her daughter was healed.

Father, we just ask that you would speak to us. We are followers of you. Many of us are actively wanting this morning and this new year to just lean in and again to hear your voice. We want to be obedient to your voice. And so Lord, as we surrender ourselves, submit under this scripture, this text, this teaching this morning, we pray that you'd personalize it into the nitty gritty of our life, the warp and wolf into where only and where you can go in our lives. We give you permission to speak to us. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. And so we have what is admittedly a difficult text. Here we have Jesus using a kind of metaphor or a riddle that calls this woman a dog. I mean, let's not beat around the bush. I mean, that's kind of what's going on. And so let's wrestle with this. This is one of those texts where you kind of read it and it feels like you're driving along on the road and all of a sudden you hit a speed bump. Or in Baltimore, you hit like a pothole, right? Which by the way, can I just say if Baltimore, instead of just fixing all the potholes, what they should do is we should just invent inverted speed bumps and we could just call the potholes upside down, inverted speed bumps and just put signs up. We would be like, brilliant. Forget. No, okay, you try.

So the text feels like driving down the text feels like you're riding down the road in Baltimore, and all of a sudden Jesus the Messiah calls a woman a dog. And so we got to sit here with this text and see what in the world is going on. So let's start in verse 21. When Jesus left there, he withdrew to the area of tire inside. And now you remember you guys have been here, most of you have been coming for a while. Jesus is doing most of his teaching in a northern region of Israel called Galilee. There's a major body of water there. There's a bunch of little towns around the sea of Galilee. So Jesus is going around, he's healing people. He's a guest speaker in the synagogues, which are Jewish little churches. He's speaking there on the Sabbath m mornings teaching and healing people, and he's gathering a crowd.

And he has just recently, where we laughed off at the end of November was there was a conflict that Jesus has with the Pharisees where they're going at him for the behavior of his disciples and they're saying, why don't your disciples wash their hands? And Jesus just drops this bomb in the room and he says, look, it's not what goes into a person that defiles them or, yeah, it's not what goes in. It's what comes out of the person that defiles them, what comes from the heart. So it is what's going on inside of you and then comes out of your mouth and comes out in your actions. That's what's defiling. That is what is sin giving into that temptation. And so it's on the heels of that teaching that Jesus then leaves imagine on a map or you can pull it up on Google maps because these two cities are still there on the map in Lebanon.

He goes north to tire and seden. In Mark's account of this story, he says, it's just tire. It's this region. But we've already come across tire and seden in the text tire and seden are these two notoriously gentile pegan cities. They're not Jewish cities. This is Jesus leaving Israel proper and going to a gentile area, which in and of itself is fascinating because you go back to chapter 10 and Matthew says that Jesus brought his disciples together and he had them go out preaching the gospel message about the kingdom healing, casting out demons. But he specifically tells his disciples, don't go to the Gentiles, go to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. This ministry, this Messiah ministry is for, it is specifically intended to be for the Jews. And that is the moment that we're in. God has promised the Jews a messiah.

The Messiah has come and the epicenter of that ministry is focused in on the Jews. And yet here's Jesus taking his physical body and he's leaving Israel and going to tire inside him, which is pretty an interesting moment. It's kind of this curious moment. We don't get a lot of commentary, but we get this one, this story coming from that region. And I will say this though, we have at the beginning of Matthew, early on, Matthew four, Matthew's telling a summary statement of Jesus's ministry in Galilee. He says that Jesus is preaching the good news of the kingdom, healing people casting out demons. And it says in that context, and the end of Matthew four, I think I have it in my notes or my slide deck somewhere, that there were those who were from Syria that heard this message early on. And so Jesus wasn't there yet, but what he was, there were people from this region that were hearing this kingdom good news, Jesus's journey to this region.

It demonstrates his international movement beyond traditional Jewish boundaries. This location emphasizes the radical nature of the encounter. Jesus meets a woman of faith, a woman with faith in the most unexpected places, and it foreshadows the gospel's expansion to the Gentile territories. If you're not familiar with the scope of the Bible is that God creates the whole world. He loves humanity, but he zeroes in on his rescue mission through the nation of Israel and the nation of Israel was intended to be ground zero for God's work that was intended to spread out to the rest of the world, that it was through them that this blessing would come on the whole world. Now, they failed as a nation and as individuals to be the blessing, and ultimately that promise is fulfilled through Jesus. But he doesn't want to just personally, Jesus doesn't want to just personally be the blessing to the world.

He wants his followers to carry the blessing to the world. And so the expansion of the vision that has to take place now, if any of these individuals had read through the latter portions of the book of Isaiah in their Bible, they would've known that God is the God of the whole earth. And there's plenty of times where in the Old Testament, the Hebrew scriptures where it talks about God caring for more than just the nation of Israel, but the process by which God is going through the process that Jesus is following here and speaking to is this one that starts with Israel and then spreads to the surrounding nations by choosing to travel to tire inside. And Jesus was making a powerful statement about the expanding scope of his ministry. This geographical detail sets up the theological lesson about faith, transcending ethnic and cultural boundaries.

One commentator says this passage, it's a turning point from a Jewish based mission, which we see in 10, five and six to a universal mission to all nations, Jews and Gentiles hinted at in eight 16 and 17, 10 18, in the context of 10, five through six and made explicit in 28 19 at the end of Matthew, Jesus', go and preach the gospel to all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, son and the Holy Spirit. I just wanted to show you quickly, here's that passage out of Matthew four where Jesus, it's summarizing what Jesus is doing, but you see in this text that actually I put in here the wrong text, it's verse 24, which talks about him going into Syria. Let's go to verse 22 in our story. So Jesus is in this gentile region. Just then a Canaanite woman from that region came and kept crying out, have mercy on me, Lord, son of David.

My daughter is severely tormented by a demon. So this mom who is a Canaanite, finds herself in a desperate position. Many of you are parents, some of you are older parents, but you can remember having young kids and when anything goes wrong with your kids, you know that it puts you in just the most helpless vulnerable position. Sometimes it even feels just socially embarrassing to just have your own inadequacy, your own ability to fix something with your kids is just tough. You want to be like the one that is taking care of everything. And so this woman, this mom finds herself in a very painful position where her daughter is tormented. Literally the word is she's demonized. There's just this demon that's harassing her. I wish we had more of an explanation of how that manifests itself or what it looked like. How did she know he was a demon?

But that's as far as the text goes. What I want to draw your attention to though in this text do you see here that it says that she's a Canaanite woman, which who are the Canaanites in the Old Testament? These are the enemies of God. So God sends Israel into the Promised land. The Canaanites are those who are in the land of Canaan. So when Matthew writes this and records this story from the life of Jesus, Matthew identifies this woman with a different term. Then Mark does in his so in markets, she's a cyro Phoenician woman here. Matthew says, this is a Canaanite woman. This is saying this is a term if you are Jewish of saying this is not the politically correct way of referring to this group. Let's say that right? It's almost like a slur to call her a Canaanite. This just shows how she's totally other than the lost sheep of the house of Israel. So this Canaanite woman, what is she doing? She comes to Jesus, but she keeps crying out. She keeps crying out. One of the qualities that Jesus praises in his ministry is persevering faith. This woman is going to be a good example of this persevering faith. This is a theme. So again, for those of you that are learning, what does it mean to follow Jesus? One of the qualities that is a repeated theme for how to be a follower of Jesus. Sorry, that was a lot of spit. It's a good thing you're way back there.

One of the qualities that Jesus praises is this idea of persistent faith. Okay? He talks about this with a persistent widow in Luke 18, one through eight, Jesus tells us parable. Now he tells parables to teach lessons. So Jesus tells a parable about this widow who persistently pleads with a judge for justice basically is harassing this judge over her case. And the judge, even though he's not, he's an unrighteous judge. He eventually gives in and grants her request because of her persistence. Jesus tells that story to encourage his followers, keep persevering, keep being persistent with your requests of the Father. There's another one in Luke 11, the Luke 11, five through 10. Jesus describes a scenario where a man persistently is knocking on his friend's door in the middle of the night asking for some bread, though the friend initially refuses. Eventually the friend's like, okay, fine, he, he opens the door and he gives the bread to his friend because of the persistence of this man.

You can look that story up in Luke 11. But again, Jesus is telling those stories to just go, look, perseverance is an essential peace of being a follower. You want to follow Jesus. You need to be one who is persistent. I guess the word is like dogged. Do you use that word or what other qualities? Relentless. Relentless. That's good's a good word for it. Yeah, that's relentlessness like pushing forward. Some of you have watched other people maybe start a business or you've started a business and you come up against hard things. You just keep pushing forward and pushing forward and pressing in. Some of you have faced difficult legal challenges or maybe you've been incarcerated for a long period of time and you had to be dogged and relentless with your case to get your freedom to get out in your own context, what the word, relentless or dogged, the question is, the question that the spirit may pose to you this morning is what are you supposed to be holding onto in the kingdom holding out for?

What does God want you to be relentless and dogged for and persistent with? What is it? What is it that he has for you that he wants you to persevere on? In Matthew chapter seven, in Matthew chapter seven, Jesus is teaching from the Sermon on the mount and he says, ask, seek and knock. He encourages, keep seeking, keep knocking, keep asking, yes. Does God know everything? Absolutely, but there is this process. That's the thing to understand is when you're a follower of Jesus, you don't get it all in one day. There is a method of God. There is a plan of God that transpires over this timeline. When Adam and Eve screwed up in the garden, they fell. God didn't just immediately step in and fix it. No. He initiated a process of redemption, and we are the microwave generation. Like stick it in, stick those frozen burritos in the microwave, put it on two minutes and boom, they're ready to go. They're from Taco Bell, right? That's how we handle stuff. Forget cutting up, de thaw the meat and then make it all tasty and then add it to the tortilla and then add the cheese, and then you add the sour cream and then a little bit of salsa. You guys are getting hungry. I knew you were getting hungry, right? But that's a process, right? We are not into process. We're like, give it to me now.

That's how we work. That's how we want things. Even Jesus told this parable about the sower who goes out. He sows seed and there's some people that respond. The seed is the word of God going out, and the soil represents hearts. People are responding to this message of the kingdom and they're like, I love it. And you've known people that get excited about Jesus and they're passionate, they're pumped up. Woo. I love it. But they don't account for the process. They don't account for like, oh wait, you got to go through some hard stuff. Character formation, just the process of living by faith. It is a thing that unfolds over a period of time. You can't get away from that. You can't get away from that. And so what we see here in this story, because Matthew could have picked a lot of stories, there was a lot of things that were going on with Jesus.

But here we have this story of this Canaanite woman representing kind of the enemy of Israel coming and being persistent with Jesus, crying out, have mercy on me, Lord, son of David. My daughter is severely tormented by a demon. Alright, we got to go on to the next section and the next verse, Jesus, it says, Jesus did not say a word to her. Now, what is our term for this? We left her on red. Jesus left her on red. You know what that means? If you're a little bit older, you have the little thing where you text message and it says that your text message got read, but you don't get a reply back from the person. That means you were left on red. You got to be a little bit younger to understand that, yeah, you don't do that. That's not, that's not very polite to leave somebody on red.

But here Jesus is refusing to respond. He's not responding back to her. And so his disciples step in and they urge him saying, send her away because she's crying out after us. So the followers of Jesus just asked, could you just get rid of her? Right? So Jesus responds to, well, before we talk about that, let me just say on Jesus not responding. He doesn't say a word to her. This isn't the only time. Again, we're talking about the, I think we would like it when we read the Bible. We encountered a Jesus who was the best customer service ever. The nicest, happiest. It just goes not to a like you got to talk to a machine or anything, but it's like the happiest reception person ever. That's what we have in our head for Jesus. But Jesus is silent. Interesting, but it's not the only place.

Jesus with Lazarus, he finds out that Lazarus is sick and he intentionally delays going to heal Lazarus, and Lazarus dies and he explains, I put a pause on going to heal Lazarus so that the power of God could be demonstrated so that the power of God could be seen. And in another time, in Mark chapter four, there's this Jesus and his disciples, they're in this boat and a horrible storm comes up and the disciples are like, we're going to die. And these were not amateur sailors. These guys were fishermen. They knew the water. They knew a bad storm versus a good storm, and it was a bad situation. And they're like, we're going to die. And Jesus is just sleeping up at the front of the boat. And it seems like he's not responding to the immediate need. And again, the Holy Spirit would say to you, and I as we see this is sometimes it feels like God is not responding to you, that Jesus is silent to you. You will go through seasons where you feel like God's not talking to you. Now, anytime you want to hear God, you can pick up your Bible, right?

Yes.

But there is this experience in our relationship with God that is beyond just academic reading. It's this relationship. And there can be seasons in our relationship with God where it just feels like, man, I'm not getting anything. I'm just not feeling it,

Man.

I don't know. I don't know if God's up there or if it's just like, yeah, it's just like a cement ceiling that my prayers are bouncing off of. And the psalmist, the psalmist says sometimes, why are you so far away from me? Why have you abandoned me? And that was the prayer of Jesus from the, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? There are times where God is silent, and if you want to be a follower of Jesus, you have to be comfortable with that fact. You did not sign up for that perfect customer service experience. This is not the Four Seasons hotel that you're following or that you're enrolled in. You're a follower of Jesus and he has a process, and that process is for your good and the good of the kingdom. And he promises in James chapter one that the testing of our faith, that's that period where it's silent.

The testing, the trying of our faith produces perseverance. There's a production that goes on. There's a growth that occurs in our life as we go through those types of difficulties. If you're going for it with the Lord, if you persevere as this woman did, so they ask Jesus, send her away because she's crying out after us. It's disruptive. It's kind of messy. And so Jesus replies, and it seems like Jesus replies to the disciples, maybe to her as well, but this is the initial, this is kind of this whole first scene of the story. He says, I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. Now, this is almost a word for word quote from Matthew chapter 10 when he sends his disciples out and says, only go to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.

Again. The work of God is happening through the nation of Israel, spreading out through Israel to the rest of the world. And he's in this season where it's Israel now. That's who I'm sent for. Is Israel going to respond to the promises, to the work that God is doing? Ultimately, we know because we've read it. They don't respond, right? They reject Jesus as the Messiah. They crucify him. He's raised from the dead, and then he commissions his disciples, wait in Jerusalem. But then I want you to take this message after you're filled with the Holy Spirit. We're going to go from Jerusalem to Judea to Sumaria. Those are half Jewish breed to the rest of the earth. But for right now, he's like, Nope. I'm called to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. This is that text from Matthew chapter 10 where he gives the instructions, don't enter any Samaritan town.

Instead go to the law sheep of the house of Israel. But the woman going back into our story in Matthew 15, she came knelt before him and said, Lord, help me, Lord, help me. He answered, it isn't right to take the children's bread and to throw it to the dogs. So Jesus is already said, I'm only called to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. That he may be giving that just as a boundary to say, okay, nope, it's not your turn like we do with food distribution. It's like, nope. Now is not your turn yet. You got to wait until it's your turn. But it could be. And what one commentator says is there's a test going on here. And that first statement there is it's if Jesus said that to the disciples, if you're a disciple here, you're saying, okay, this woman is a nuisance.

She's making, she's just a racket. This is a mess. And Jesus is like, I'm sent to the sheep of the house of Israel. If you're a disciple, you're like, yeah, okay, but then he's going to heal her. So there's this thing that's going on with his followers that's really kind of like he's not following his own rules, essentially. Are you tracking? It is like Jesus is saying, this is what the process is, but then he's going to break his own process to heal this woman's daughter. And in that process, it's going to add a new puzzle piece to the picture for the disciples. They're going to be like, oh, wait, wait. So God has this thing with Israel, but this woman has faith and she gets, so let's keep going. Okay? So he says to her, it isn't right to take the children's bread and to throw it to the dog.

So the children's bread, so the children would be the Jews, the bread would be the ministry that's being given to the Jews and the dogs would be everybody outside of Judaism, the Gentiles, right? He's saying in the home scenario, especially if you have stray dogs or dogs that are not like your pets, even for us, we've got some dogs. If I make a meal for my kids, I don't take that meal and just give it to the dogs. That would not be appropriate. And so Jesus is using this picture saying, it's not appropriate for me to take what is for Israel and give it to the Gentiles.

Here's this quote from Craig Blomberg. He calls this a test or a prompt of some kind, designed to draw out the woman into further discussion to see what kinds of belief this woman has. And so she responds to Jesus. She says, yes, Lord, that is true. So she agrees with Jesus, but she says, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master's table. Jesus gives a lot of these kind of challenging sayings in his ministry. This is one of the few times where somebody out riddles Jesus, she rises to the occasion of this test, and she plays off of Jesus's own metaphor of the children's food and the dogs. And she comes in, she goes, yeah, but there is even a place where sometimes the dogs get the food, and it's when the kids drop the food on the floor.

There is in this response humility, there's this recognition that God, you get to decide what the process is for the humanity being rescued and redeemed. Yes, you have chosen the nation of Israel to be your special people with a promised land and to receive the covenants and to receive the law from Moses. They are special. But there is also this scenario, if you want to use this picture of food and dogs, there is this scenario where sometimes the dogs get some food. And so this woman embodies the Quint essential attributes that access the grace of God. If in your life you're like this woman, maybe you don't have a demon harassed child. Some of you may feel like your child is demon harassed, but maybe that's not your issue. Maybe whatever issue you have, whatever problem you face, you need God's grace. And the Bible says there's only two ways to get the grace of God.

One is through humility, and the other is through faith. The Bible says that God resists the proud. So if this woman came to Jesus and said, I'm offended. How dare you call me a dog, which she could have done. She could have misunderstood the scenario. She could have said, I don't like the way you're packaging the process. You're explaining the process. She could have responded to Jesus with pride. Her pride could have been offended, but instead she embraces humility, which recognizes that God makes the plan that God determines how things work. And she fully embraces this position of humility when she says, yes, Lord. But then she also embraces this idea of faith because she pushes the matter forward. She's already been crying out repeatedly. She has already knelt at the feet of Jesus saying, Lord, have mercy and help me. And now Jesus is engaging her and she's responding to this riddle saying, I've got a riddle back for you.

I've got a scenario where my case works. That's faith. That's that perseverance, that pressing in of faith, standing and saying, God, I'm going to hold out for that grace that I need. And so here's Jesus's response. Well, here's a commentator who says the woman's humility is striking. She willingly admits and accepts her secondary status to the Jews and shows a perfect willingness to partake of the crumbs left over from Jewish preeminence in the kingdom. The woman is certain that Jesus is more than enough authority and power to care for her daughter with what is left over. It's not like there's a rule that Jesus can't heal this woman. He's not forbidden, but there is a work.

It's like when you go to a special event and they say it's a block tie event, so there's a dress code that's appropriate for that event. So if you come dressed not with your black tie on, you got baggy jeans in a sweatshirt kind of like me, then you aren't being inappropriate for the moment, right? Jesus is essentially saying, it's not time. It is not the time for this to occur. Something else is the focus of God's work. And yet this woman presses in and finds this incredible response from Jesus. She replied to her woman, your faith is great. Let it be done for you as you want. Do you see that? He identifies what she's doing as faith? If you want to know what does it look like for me to live by faith? There is a bit of obnoxiousness here, not rudeness, but really this relentless perseverance with God, that God you've promised you're able, I'm asking you have not.

What could this woman stand on? What are the promises that she could stand on when she's got this daughter being harassed by a demon? That God, you didn't design this little girl to be her fruitfulness, to be disrupted by a demon. You didn't design her to be the object of a demon's torment. That isn't what your kingdom is about. You have the authority. You have the power to heal this little girl. All of those things this woman is tapping into, pressing into. And Jesus identifies this and says, that's faith. It's great faith. Let it be done for you as you want. And from that moment, her daughter was healed. The Bible tells the story in a way that is almost offensive. It tells the story in a way that you have to be willing to follow the master. Remember the karate kid? It's like, what is it?

Wipe on, wipe off. Wax, waxer, wax. Yeah. Oh, good. You've seen the movie. Yeah. Thank you. You guys are always so helpful. There was a sense in that kid. What was his name? Daniel. Daniel, right? Was it Daniel? Yes, I think so. Daniel's son. That's right. That's right. It's coming back to me. I should remember not to use illustrations. I can't remember half of it from, but there's an offense in it, right? He's offended. Why are you having me wax your car and paint your fence? What does this have to do with karate? This is slave labor. The same thing is the case with following Jesus. There is a part of these stories and a part of our life where it just is like an open loop where it just feels like this doesn't fit God with your kingdom. And I want to just encourage you, there are pieces of your life right now where it's like, that doesn't look like the kingdom of heaven.

It could be a character quality that you're working on. It could be a habit that you're trying to break. It could be a relationship in your life. It could be your finances, it could be your health. But you look at that thing in your life and you're like, man, that sure doesn't look like Jesus' king in my life. And I just want to encourage you based off of this woman's story, to persevere for the grace of God to press in, to go through the process as a follower, not as the dictator of how the process should be. You can either, she could be offended, she could have just been like, I'm out of here. Right? We do that with people sometimes. She could have done that, and she would've not had a daughter that was healed.

And so Jesus is wild. This is one of the stories why I wanted to go through Matthew and the Gospels is because these stories are weird. This is wild. This is how Jesus is. But I commend this text to you, whether you're a new follower of Jesus or you've been walking with him for a while. As we go through this year, we go into this year, we may want something to happen faster. We want something different. And Jesus wants his kingdom to come on earth. That's what he tells his disciples, pray. Pray for my kingdom to come on earth as it is in heaven. He wants that. So when you look at those things in your world where it doesn't reflect the kingdom, you need to press in for the grace of God and be relentless in your praying for those things. Don't give up.

Respond back to the riddles that Jesus throws to you and go for it with him. He loves you. He absolutely loves you, but he loves this type of dynamic where he gets to put on display your faith in him and his response back with his miraculous power. Lord, we just commit this reading of the text to you and our meditation on it. Thank you for being so different, almost offending our sensibilities. We repent and say that sometimes we make demands of you for the nice pretty Jesus or the nice customer service, Jesus. And we're putting you in a box and you are the king, and we're your followers. And Lord, there are things that are also in our life where it could be a demon. It could be Satan's kingdom showing its head rather than your kingdom, or it could just be us or some other human's. Kingdom just, but you're missing from the picture. And Lord, we pray and ask that you would help us to develop habits and rhythms and character like this Canaanite woman that presses in, that presses forward, that embodies faith and humility that you would work by your grace. And we ask this in Jesus' name. Amen.

Matthew 15:1-20

Transcription

Let's do Matthew, Matthew 15. If you're new with us, we're going through the Bible, we're studying through the Bible. We happen to be in Matthew. We're not going book by. We're going verse by verse. Really, I'm thinking we're at the point now where I'm beginning to think about what book we'll do next. And I'm thinking, not going to guarantee, but I'm thinking about doing the book of Revelation. Daniel. Daniel and Revelation go together as a church. A few years ago we did Revelation one, two, and three, and we looked at the letters to the seven churches. But then you get in, this is the last book in your Bible and it is a wild book. There's all kinds of, it's the genre of writing is apocalyptic, so it's a crazy set of material. But I think it would be good. I think it would be fun. I don't know. So you can begin to think about that if you have any special requests for what book we go through next, let me know.

Everybody set. So Matthew 15, Matthew 15 is where we're going to be at. Have you ever noticed how much we rely on rules and routines to feel accepted or secure? Think about that for a second. Rules and routines. Recently we moved our family, moved houses, and it took me a good couple of months to get into a routine where it just feels like I'm at peace within myself. Sometimes we rely on rules and routines to feel secure and accepted. You think about people who obsess over diets, fitness trends or their professional habits. They cling to them because they promise control or a sense of accomplishment, and ultimately the hope they'll, that will measure up whether it's our own standards or someone else's. This need for control isn't just cultural, it's deeply wired into us. Psychologists say that when life feels uncertain, humans naturally listen. They naturally create rules.

We naturally create rules or rituals to give ourselves a sense of security. We convince ourselves that if we just do everything right, check the right boxes, follow the right steps, we'll avoid failure or rejection. It's like if you're a fan of baseball, you know that there's all these different kind of rituals that baseball players will engage in. They'll wear the same socks for every game. They'll make sure not to step on the foul line as they're crossing onto the field. It's not about logic. It's about a desire to feel, a sense of control or to feel accepted or to feel safe. And we all have these things that we put into our life artificially, kind of based off of our own psychology, but also be based off of that sense of tribe to fit in. And so this morning in our text, we're going to see some traditions that the Pharisees had built in to give themselves a sense of righteousness, to give themselves a sense of superiority, moral and like religious superiority to substantiate this idea that they were the religious elites.

And we're going to unpack that because embedded in the Pharisees is a principle that you and I can tend towards, and God wants our hearts. He doesn't want us caught up in some kind of set of rules or artificial set of rules to just try to make ourselves feel more spiritual. He wants to genuinely have us feel spiritual because we're near him, because we're accepted in his presence. And so again, as I do every week, I'm going to ask you to look in your own mirror to reflect on your own life, on whether or not you are leaning into a sense of acceptance that you feel okay with God, that God's okay with you because some set of artificial routines or rituals, or is it because you know that the God of the universe sent his son Jesus Christ to die on the cross for your sins and that he's actually in love with you without your ritual or routine or your law?

The Pharisees obsession with traditions wasn't just about religion, it was their psychology. Their rules gave them a sense of control. In a chaotic world, they thought, if I can control the small things, I will feel clean, worthy, and accepted by God. Those are key words, clean, worthy, and accepted by God. And this morning, if you're doing anything in your life to try to make yourself feel clean, worthy, and accepted by God other than your faith in Christ, then you're not understanding your own state. We're going to talk about obedience and how it fits in. Jesus talks about that here. But we're going to look at this question that the Pharisees ask and how it reveals just their own artificial reaching for a cleanliness or a cleanness or a sense of acceptance in God's presence. Jesus is going to confront this in Matthew 15. Let's look at the first nine verses.

We're going to walk through this actually because I'm not going to read the 20. We're going to do verses one through 20. So it's a lengthy section. There's four scenes. What I think we should do is we should pray because I'm not going to read all 20 verses. I'm going to just read 'em to you and then we're going to explain it. Okay? So let's bow our heads together. Let's ask God to speak to us. God, we thank you for your word. You caused Matthew, the former tax collector, one of your apostles to write down this biography about your life and what you taught. And we're going to look into this record of your teaching, this encounter with the Pharisees and the crowds, the disciples, and with Peter. We're going to look at it. We want to hear how you want to use this in our life.

And so right now, we agree together that we're going to listen for your voice as we're going through this text that you're going to speak like illuminate, like open up our eyes to see what we need to see from this text. Thank you for loving us, that in your love, you want us to connect with this passage and we pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. So verse one in Matthew 15, it says this, then Jesus was approached by the Pharisees and the scribes from Jerusalem who asked, why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders for they don't wash their hands when they eat. So you'll notice here that the Pharisees come from Jerusalem. They come up to this. The last thing we saw was that Jesus was over in the region of Ezra. So imagine the nation of Israel. You have these two significant bodies of water.

The northern body of water is the sea of Galilee and it's got a bunch of small towns around it. This is where Jesus grew up and now he's teaching in this region down south you have the capital city of Jerusalem. And this is where the Pharisees hung out. It was the locust of power, the center of power, religious power, and that's where the Pharisees were. That was their headquarters. And they go up to Jesus. They approached Jesus and they ask him this question about their washing of their hands, but they say, your disciples are breaking a tradition of the elders. Now, the tradition of the elders, it was a set of oral laws. You see at this time, Judaism and what we call Torah, Moses' books, it's been around for 1500 years. And so there's been a number of different oral traditions that have risen up to help the Jewish people understand what did Moses' laws mean?

The 10 commandments and the 600 plus other commands that were there, what did those things, how did it work itself out? And so one of the traditions that had developed was this tradition around washing their hands. These traditions were meant to help the people follow God's law. They were often became burdensome and overshadowed the actual command. So imagine you have at this layer here, you have God's command. You can open up your Bible and you can find the command, but then you have another Jewish teacher that comes along and explains it and they add a layer of teaching, and then there's another layer that's added by another teacher and another layer. So finally you get this whole robust set of traditions that are burdensome, difficult to follow, weird stuff. Even to this day, Jewish people followed. Have you seen the fishing line that goes around New York City?

Have you heard about that? There recently was a cyclist that got clotheslined riding his bicycle across Manhattan, and it was because one of these Orthodox Jewish communities sticks up this little fishing line all around New York City because one of the rules is on the Sabbath, you're only allowed to go so far. You're only allowed to walk so far on the Sabbath day. But if you can put this fishing line up around New York City, it technically extends your property because the fishing line originates from your property, from your community, and it extends your community further. So as long as you're within walking distance of the fishing line, you're still observing the Sabbath until the guy gets clotheslined riding his bike along there and breaks your fishing line. But those are the types of traditions that we're talking about. That's what Judaism looked like at the time of Jesus.

And there's this ceremonial handwashing, now ceremonial handwashing. This isn't like hygiene stuff, right? It was a ritual that would signify spiritual cleanliness, an outward act that they believed made someone acceptable to God. There was a specific way to wash your hands. The water would run off your hands in a particular way that would drip off your hands, and it was just this tradition to symbolize that you are ceremonially clean and evidently the disciples were not doing it in the way that they were supposed to do it. And the Pharisees kind of put this question to Jesus. Now notice they're focused on an external behavior and it is a manmade rule. There's nothing in the Bible about washing your hands before you eat. Now, your mom may say there is, but you need to tell her there is no rule in there. It might be good hygiene, but it does not make you closer to God.

Do you understand that? It does not make you closer to God. Now, let's look at verses three through six. Verses three through six. He answered them. Why do you break God's commandment because of your tradition? Now, this here, this is Jesus that is responding to the question that has been put to him. Why do you break God's commandment because of it? Now, where's he going with this? This is pretty interesting, right? Because the question is posed to Jesus. Jesus turns around and he says, I've got a question for you, and he starts with this, why do you break? Well, what's he talking about? What is the commandment that they're breaking? Check this out. This is crazy. Look at this one. Okay, verse four, for God said, honor your father and mother and whoever speaks evil of father and mother must be put to death. What commandment is that?

That's a fifth commandment right out of the 10, out of the 10, this is easy. This is low hanging fruit. Every Jewish person knows this is the command of God. Jesus goes on, but you now imagine Jesus like he says, but you, Pharisees, whoever tells his father or mother, whatever benefit you might've received from me is a gift committed to the temple. Okay? What's going on here? You had Pharisees, the most religious people who had aged elderly parents, and they may have because of their nice cushy religious job, maybe they got little bit of extra savings on the side. Maybe they had some saved up money, and instead of taking that money and using that money to take care of their parents, instead what they were doing was they were saying, oh, this money here, it's called Corbin. The word Corbin means it's dedicated to God.

They were saying, yeah, I've got a savings account over here of $5,000, but I can't use it to help you because it's dedicated to God. Now I'm still using it. It's still there, but I can't take from those funds and help you out because it's dedicated to the temple. It was a cheeky way to get out of genuinely caring for your parents. Isn't that bad? Yeah. Isn't that horrible? Yeah. Whoever tells his father and mother, whatever benefit you might have received from me, oh, sorry, that's a gift dedicated. Now that sounds super religious, right? Oh wow, you're dedicating your stuff to the temple, but this to me looks like tax loopholes. Like how in America we kind of avoid our taxes in particular ways. They just found a loophole of like, well, I'm going to just call it Corbin, therefore I don't have to help my parents out. You got to be coldhearted not to help your parents out and to do something like that. It's so sad.

The Pharisees tradition made them feel clean, but in reality, they were using their religion to sidestep the commands of God. Do you see that? They were using this tradition to get out of following God, and they somehow were able to do this shady deal, and they seemed to function as if and still think I'm a good religious person, and Jesus is calling them on it. It wasn't just a mistake, it revealed a deeper problem. Their hearts were far from God. Imagine someone in our culture who's like they say they're really passionate about the environment. They're committed to recycling. They meticulously sort their paper and their plastic cans every week and proudly avoid using single use plastic on the surface. They feel like they're doing their part to save the planet, but that same person regularly flies around in a gas guzzling, private jet leaves the lights on all day, takes long, wasteful showers.

They feel good about themselves because of the small visible act of recycling, which is a cultural rule that symbolizes environmental care, but they're ignoring the bigger, more impactful behaviors that contribute to sustainability. It's that kind of thing, right? It's that kind of behavior trying to, we call that virtue signaling is usually the term that we use, but if you peel it away, there's hypocrisy there. Now, look at this in verse six, he says, he does not have to honor his father in this way. You have nullified the word of God because of your tradition. This is really important. You've taken basically and you've deleted the word of God. You've nullified, you've voided the word of God because of your tradition. All these layers of traditions have been stacked up, stacked up where it's like, where is even God's word under all this? Can you find it? Is it in there? Listen, religious people, us religious people, Christians, we are good at doing this kind of thing of having all of this kind of these traditions and get wrapped up in traditions. Some churches, they get all wrapped up in what's the color of the carpet going to be? There was churches that got divided over mask mandates back in Covid, and it's just like, okay, it's like all this stuff we can get caught up in, but where's the actual thing? The heart of God that's revealed in his word.

So Jesus goes, he's not done with the Pharisees yet. By the way, we're still in scene one. This is scene one with the Pharisees. He says, hypocrites, okay, if you have a painting on your wall of Jesus with that nice little lamb around his shoulders and he's like meek and mild, this is not the image you get, right? It's important that when you understand who Jesus is, sometimes he talks like this. Do you understand that? Okay. The important thing to understand and see about that is that when Jesus left, he said, I'm sending another like me, the Spirit, the Holy Spirit, and sometimes the Holy Spirit says to you and I, you're a hypocrite, and that's okay. That doesn't mean that God's unloving. It means that the most helpful thing that we need at that moment is to hear that kind of truth. So Jesus speaks to these Pharisees and he says, hypocrites, Isaiah prophesied correctly about you.

When he said, what did Isaiah say? This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is from me, but that's not it. They worship me in vain teaching as doctrines, human commands. They worship me in vain teaching as doctrines, humans commands. I want to look at this for just a second. This whole idea of human commands, human commands, Dr. Phil, Oprah, social media, influencers, self-help books offer advice. They often sound practical and wise, but this is the danger. We start treating human teaching as if they're biblical truth and they creep into how we as disciples care for one another. This is what I mean. We have in our culture, we have mass media where there's chicken soup for the soul. There's Oprah, there's podcasts that are out there. We are inundated with a lot of different messaging about how to do life, and then you have the Bible, and then we get into a setting like this and people start sharing their life in a little while.

We're going to eat together and hopefully there's some vulnerability sharing the things that are going on with sickness in your health or your search for a job or the things that are difficult in your life. Maybe some of you will share your stories, and that's a real gift. If anybody does that for you today over lunch, would you just say thank you to them? Because nobody told them they had to share a little bit of their life with you, and that's a very generous thing to do. It's called being vulnerable. You're opening yourself up. Now, I want to encourage you as a church that as that happens, make sure that you're not giving out human commands as doctrine. Doctrine is God's teaching, right? Doctrine is God's teaching, and if you take and give advice, it's important to say when you're giving advice, this might be an idea. I don't know if it's in the Bible or not. The best advice you can give is, Hey, I know the Bible says something about that, but maybe you don't know everything about the Bible. Maybe you're not sure, okay? It's really important when you're around church people and you're giving advice that you're not taking your advice, Oprah Chicken Soup for the soul. You're not taking it and turning it into doctrine. Do you know why?

When you're in this setting, this is for you to come into this place is a step of vulnerability. You're in a place where we prayed a minute ago, holy Spirit speak to us. In order for the Holy Spirit to speak to us, we have to open up our hearts that that's a step of vulnerability. Some of us have been hurt deeply and we're like, the last thing I want to do is open up my heart, because the last time I did that, I was wounded, but here you are, you come into a place where God's at work and then you are around other Christians, and if the other Christians around you start giving you advice and they start telling you, this is what it means to be a follower of Jesus, but really it's just a little bit of Oprah is a little bit of chicken for the soup, for the soul.

You're giving bad advice. You're pairing, it might not even be bad advice, but there's this spiritual, what we call spiritual OT that's paired with it and then start, people start feeling like, man, I can't do what that person said. Well, it was just Oprah's advice, but it wasn't the Holy Spirit's advice. But they start feeling like, well, I heard that at church, and so that must be from God. That's dangerous. It's very dangerous because we start messing with each other's relationship with God. We were talking about this a couple of weeks ago. There was in the early church, they had this problem with getting meat. If you lived in Rome and you wanted to have a steak, a T-bone steak, you would go to the marketplace, but the meat that was being sold in the marketplace before it sold there, it was offered up as a sacrifice to a peg in God. And so you had this moral dilemma as a Christian, can I buy a piece of meat that was offered to an idol? What do you think?

Some people said, no, and so what you ended up with is by being a follower of Jesus and deciding, I can't eat meat offered to an idol. I need to be a vegetarian. So half the church was vegetarians. The other half of the church looked at that peg, that pegan offering, and they said, you know what? That idol isn't anything. It's just make believe. There is no other God, but the one true God, and offering something to that idol really doesn't make any difference. So Paul writes, and they're judging each other. There's a conflict going on in the church over this issue. Should you be a vegetarian? Should you eat meat offered to an idol? Here's the interesting thing. Paul says, listen, everybody needs to stand or fall based off faith. He says, the person who's a vegetarian, they're weak in faith. They need to be accepted, they need to be loved, but they're not out of yet where their faith is strong enough to believe that that meat offered to a idol is meaningless.

So Paul would've eaten the meat, but he said, I'm not going to actually eat the meat in front of my brother who's a vegetarian because I don't want to mess with their relationship with God. I don't want to hurt and I don't want to cause them. Let's use a modern example. Let's say that we have a Christian who's very sensitive. Their conscience is really sensitive about meat offered to an idol, and after church we say, Hey, let's go out for Chinese food. But we get over there to the Chinese restaurant and there's the little Buddha and they're offering incense and stuff to the Buddha, and our friend that's come with us, they're like, that's idolatry. That's paganism. I don't want to have anything to do with that. Now, Paul would have no problem eating at the Chinese food restaurant, but he wouldn't do it because the last thing he wants to do is be a part of this person who's sensitive feeling separated from God.

You see, if I go and do the things that I'm at liberty to do, but it then causes my brother in Christ to do that same thing, but then after the fact, let's say they eat there at the Chinese food restaurant and they're like, oh, man, I feel farther away from God. I ate there from this Pegan restaurant. Paul says, listen, don't eat there. Don't eat there. So here's the thing, we do a lot. We're going to do life together. We're doing a lot of life together. We're going to have whole meal together. Your relationship is so important with God. It's so important that we're not judging each other. It's so important that we're not trying to influence it. If somebody's sensitive to someone, we're not saying, oh, come on, get over it. Get over. It just toughen up. That's not what Paul did. Paul honored the weakness of their conscience.

He said, it's okay to be a vegetarian. That's okay. That's okay. You're weak in the faith, but that's okay. I love you. I don't judge you. You're still loved by God. Okay, so Jesus tells these Pharisees, he says, listen, you guys are hypocrites because you're taking this tradition that came along years and years, millennium later, and you're saying this is what it means to be clean and accepted before God, and you're nullifying the word of God. You're turning a human command into a doctrine, and that's wrong. Now, one of the obvious things from this is, man, it would be good to know what does God say? And he doesn't say, because we all listen to each other. We listen to Oprah, we listen to Dr. Phil, we listen to podcasts, we read books, and you got to be able to know, Hey, is this line up with what the Bible says or does it disagree with what the Bible says?

Some of the things you might hear is, have you ever heard people say, Hey, you need to cut that person out of your life. They're toxic. That's a common piece of advice. It's rooted in a cultural obsession with self protection, but it might ignore the ideas of forgiveness, reconciliation bearing with one another in love. It's more nuanced than just this kind of like, oh, cut those people out of your life. No, there's this Holy Spirit filled Holy Spirit led way of relating to other people. How about this one? You can't love others until you first love yourself, and while self-care has its place, scripture emphasizes loving God and others is the greatest command. It seems like our problem as humans is that we love ourselves too much. Now, there's a difference between loving yourself too much, putting yourself first and your conception of self, your self-identity.

Maybe that needs to be worked on some more. I think we all need to have the Holy Spirit really give us truth so we understand who we are, but we're all pretty in love with ourselves. I mean, we like ourselves a lot. I can see you guys all dressed up nice. You are not slobs. You look great, right? The Bible says, Hey, we need to love others more than ourselves. Or you watch any Disney movie, you hear this advice, follow your heart. It will guide you. Well, the Bible warns in Jeremiah says, are that our hearts are deceitful and God calls us to follow him and not our hearts, not our own feelings. So I want to keep encouraging you as followers of Jesus, that you're not making, that we are not making, that I'm not making the mistake of the Pharisees by just leaning into traditions, whether it's a Christian tradition, a cultural tradition.

What we want to lean into is what does the Bible say? What did Jesus teach? That's what it means to follow. Jesus is like knowing him, knowing his word, right? Amen. Okay, let's go to scene two. The crowds, the crowds, verses 10 and 11. Jesus calls the crowds together and he calls them to listen and to understand, listen and understand. He says, it's not what goes into your mouth. It defiles a person, but what comes out of the mouth, now we're going back to handwashing, okay? We're going back to handwashing, and you've got the disciples who didn't wash their hands and they're, they're eating the food and the problem, the mistake that is going on is that they're thinking because they wash their hands, they are clean, and Jesus says, look, it's not about what goes into the mouth, that defiles what comes out of your mouth, that defiles a person.

That's it. That's what he teaches the crowd. Okay? Now, let's go to scene three verses 12 through 14, the disciples. So we go from the crowd. So we have Pharisees, we have the crowd. Now we have the disciples. The disciples came up and they said, do you know? Did you know, you know that the Pharisees took offense when they heard what you said, they're all ticked off. I don't know what the motivation was, whether the disciples are like, man, you can't isolate and get the religious elites ticked off. We're going to have a PR problem. But they bring this to Jesus, and here is Jesus's response. He says, every plant that my heavenly Father didn't plant will be uprooted remind you of some of kind of the parables that he's been teaching. And he's like, look it. He's basically saying, look, my father didn't plant the Pharisees. They're not my plant. They're self manmade religious characters in the story, but they're not from the father. Now, there are Pharisees who turn to Jesus and they become plants planted by the Father, but Jesus is helping his disciples look around the room and go, wait, those aren't, those aren't on my team. Those guys aren't on my father's team.

Them being upset is not a problem to me. That's not my crowd. Does that make sense? Yes. Alright, let's keep going. One more verse. Leave them alone. Here's the deal. They are blind guides and if a blind guide, and if the blind guide the blind, both will fall into a pit. He just is basically saying they're leading. They're leading, but they're blind. And you got to love his humor here. Think of the image of a blind person leading a crowd. That's not a great strategy, right? But Jesus is saying, this group of Pharisees, they're misguided. They're blind leading the blind. Okay, let's go to the fourth and final scene with Peter. Peter said, explain this parable to us. Help us understand what does this mean? And Jesus says, do you still lack understanding in this question? Again, this is one of those times where it seems like Jesus is being kind of harsh, but you got to appreciate from Jesus just his expectation.

Do you lack understanding? He's like, don't you get it? There is this, as we read through Matthew and Luke and through the gospels, it seems pretty clear that Jesus expects his followers to be mentally engaged. And I don't know what you do to stay mentally sharp and to be tracking with what's going on, but Jesus' expectations for his followers were high. Now, he recruited a bunch of simple fishermen. He didn't recruit the intellectuals of the day. He recruited fishermen, but the way he interacted with his disciples was this expectation that you're tracking, that you're getting it. Now, he gives his Holy Spirit and he talks about this in John, I'm sending my spirit and he's going to guide you into the truth. So you may feel like, look, I don't have a strong iq. I didn't do well in school. Hey, I'm one of those guys.

I didn't do well in school either. But here's the crazy thing, the spirit of God, if you're a follower of Jesus, the Spirit, the spirit of God, not like some fluffy Casper the ghost, but the spirit of God lives in you and can work in the midst of your brain cells and leads you in how to think. And so here, can I get an amen for that? Amen. Amen. Thank you. Yes, because we can be wise. We can be as simple people made wise by God, and we don't have to have some great pedigree, but the Holy Spirit and Jesus expects that you are learning and that you're getting it and you're tracking now, he says, don't you understand? Do you still lack understanding? Verse 17, do you realize that whatever goes into the mouth, passes into the stomach and it's eliminated? This is the digestive track.

How would they know that? Well, they've butchered animals. They maybe seen a dead body. They've seen kind of open it up and it's like, wow, there's all these systems in here and food is eliminated, right? You go to the bathroom and you're done with it. That's how food works because he's tapping into this idea that it's not what goes into your mouth that defiles you, it's what comes out of you. And so he says in verse 18, but what comes out of the mouth comes from the heart, and this defiles a person. Here's some examples from the heart. Come evil thoughts, murders, adultery, sexual immoralities, thefts, false testimonies and slander. These things that make life horrible, that make people horrible. I mean, some of you have been hurt by the evil thoughts of others, the murderous intent of others, adultery, sexual immorality, theft. I mean anybody had anything stolen before? Okay, yeah, yeah. Testimonies. Anybody ever gossiped about you? Yeah. Okay. Yep. Slander. You ever been slandered? Somebody says, spreads a false report about you. He says all that stuff. It comes from the heart. It doesn't come from not washing your hands right before your meal. Jesus is like, your spiritual elites are blind leading you blind. I've come to redeem your heart. That's what we're after, we're after what's going on in the core of who we are.

These are the things. These are the things that defile Baltimore. These are the things that defile a person. These are the things that defile a family. But eating and with unwashed hands does not defile a person. Don't tell the C, DC what Jesus said now, but he's talking about that idea of closeness. He's talking about this idea of closeness being accepted before God. And you see that. He's saying, look, listen. How do you treat your parents? How do you treat your parents? How are you engaging with your words? How are you dealing with your community? Those things flow from the heart. Look, if the things that's coming out of your mouth or wicked, then you need a heart transplant. And the amazing thing is that Jesus came to deal with hearts. You see, God's already been working before Jesus came on the scene. We go back to Moses and the commands, the problem with Moses' commands is their external.

But the beautiful thing for us as followers of Jesus is, and what we celebrate when we take that cup, when we drink that cup, we say, this is the cup of the new covenant. The new covenant is literally a contract between heaven and you, that God is going to work in you no longer writing on a tablet of stone that you've got to memorize the 10 Commandments. But literally God has permission. God can now go to work inside of you and I to transform us, to take us from being, having these evil hearts, to having hearts that are tender and soft. And so Jesus here is pleading with his. Again, let's go back. Let's not hang out with the blind. Let's not hang out with the blind. Let's be with Jesus. Let's be with Jesus and let him deal with our hearts. Amen. Lord, we thank you for your word this morning. We're so grateful that you instruct us, that you teach us that you care, not about the external washing of hands, but the more important stuff of what's going on in our hearts. And God, we give you permission like Lord, go to work in us. Help us Lord to obey you. Help us to obey you. God, thank you for loving us enough that you work in us. God forgive us, cleanse us, and work in us by Your spirit. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.

Matthew 14:22-36

Transcription

We come to the story of Jesus walking on the water. Are you ready for that story? Do you know the story of Jesus walking on the water? Yes. Okay, good. We are going to cover it together. Here's what it says. Immediately he being Jesus, he made the disciples get into the boat and go ahead of him to the other side. While he dismissed the crowds after dismissing the crowds, he went up on the mountain by himself to pray well into the night. He was there alone. Meanwhile, the boat was already some distance from land battered by the waves because the wind was against them. Jesus came toward them walking on the sea very early in the morning when the disciples saw him walking on the sea, they were terrified. It's a ghost, they said, and they cried out in fear. Immediately Jesus spoke to them, have courage.

It is I don't be afraid, raid Lord if it's you. Peter answered him, command me to come to you on the water. He said, come and climbing out of the boat. Peter started walking on the water and came to towards Jesus. But when he saw the strength of the wind, he was afraid and beginning to sink, he cried out, Lord, save me. Immediately. Jesus reached out. His hand, caught a hold of him and said of him, you of little faith, why did you doubt? When they got into the boat, the wind ceased. So let's go through this text a bit, but before we do, let's pray and just ask that God would speak to us through this text. Lord, each of us and our stories, we want to ask that you would take this text and that it would intersect with our lives in a deeply personal way.

Each person that's come through that door over there this morning, the concerns, the storms, the doubts, and God, we ask that we would encounter you, the living God, as we look into this text this morning, we're ready to obey you. Are we ready to obey? We're ready to obey what you say to us. And we pray this in Jesus name. Amen. Amen. So as we look at this text, we see that it opens up this idea of immediately, immediately He made the disciples get into the boat. Now if you're with us, last week we saw the story of the feeding of the 5,000. Now the feeding of the 5,000 happens in the midst of Jesus trying to take his disciples away to a quiet place because they just found out that John the Baptist had been beheaded by Herod. And so there is this tragedy that looms over Jesus and his followers.

Jesus is caring for his closest followers trying to get them away so they can just rest, which is awesome. But when Jesus gets to the other side of the lake of Galilee, the sea of Galilee, here's this crowd and Jesus has compassion on them. He heals them, he's teaching them, and it becomes evening time. And the disciples say, well, you should send them away to get food. And Jesus says, no, no, no, you feed them. And they're like, we don't have any food, especially not enough food for 5,000 men plus women and children. And Jesus says, well, what do you have? And they say, well, we have these five loaves and these two fish. Jesus is great. Give them to me. So he takes them, breaks them and begins to distribute the bread and loaves two so that everyone it says is satisfied. Everybody was full.

It's like Thanksgiving afternoon like I'm stuffed on bread and fish. Amazing, amazing that we get to this point of just having everybody completely full, but not only full. They go through and they gather up 12 baskets full of bread, crazy. And so on the heels of that story, we get this story and it looks like Jesus is still trying to move his disciples to a place of being alone, being isolated so that they can just recoup. So Jesus takes the disciples and he tells them, go get into a boat and go ahead of me to the other side. We're dealing again with the Sea of Galilee, the Galilee region still there today. We still call it Galilee. And he dismissed the crowds. So these crowds having been fed are sent on their way and the disciples are getting onto a boat. And then after dismissing the crowds, Jesus goes up onto a mountain by himself to pray well into the night he was there alone.

So in a minute it's going to say that deep in the night or early in the morning between 3:00 AM and 6:00 AM it's on the third watch is what your text may say. The CSB version that we're CSB says it was early in the morning, sometime be three and six. So Jesus is on a mountain by himself just praying. And he did that often. This was kind of an expected behavior from Jesus. He as busy as he was, he found time to get away and pray and he's there well into the night praying. Meanwhile, the boat was already some distance from land battered by the waves because the wind was against them. What I want you to see as we go through this and what I'm going to bring to the surface is the idea of fear and how God interacts with our fears. There are two moments of terror in this story, two moments of terror, and then we see Jesus responding to the fears of humans.

So meanwhile, they're in the boat already some distance from land and it's being battered by the waves because the wind was against them. So it doesn't necessarily say that it's a horrible storm here, but it does say that they just can't make headway because they're trying to go into this storm and Jesus came towards them walking on the sea very early in the morning. So imagine it's like 5:00 AM maybe there's dawn, but not enough light to really be able to identify Jesus. Maybe it's moonlight, but they see Jesus walking on the water. Now, I don't know how much swimming you've done or how much water you've been around, but normally you can't walk on water. That's a joke. You can't walk on water. So this is just kind of thrown in there that Jesus is using water almost like a path. He's walking across the top of it. And so the disciples see him and they're, they don't recognize him. They identify this thing that they're seeing. This has to be a ghost. It has to be a ghost. Now you'll remember we are in this ghost section of Matthew because we just had Herod hearing about Jesus healing people, and he's like, it's the ghost of John the Baptist. Come back to haunt me like ghosts are a thing and it's a ghost. They said they cry out in fear. This is what I want you to interact with.

What are your fears? Okay, here we have these disciples in a setting that is terrifying and many of the followers of Jesus were fishermen. They're used to being out in boats at night, but this moment is terrifying and they're panicked. I mean, they're crying out. And immediately Jesus spoke to them and calls them to courage. He says, it is I don't be afraid. Strong command. Here's the thing. In your life you have these different things that cause greater levels of anxiety, fear, and panic than others. There are things that they get in there and they work. I feel like the older I get, the more I'm able to really identify like, oh, you know what? I'm anxious. I am eating full bags of Doritos because I'm kind of anxious. And it takes a little bit of maturity to go through that process and realize you get in touch with those underlying fears and anxieties that you have. And the Bible has this reoccurring theme where God is interacting with humans, calling them to have courage. But notice here he says, have courage. It is, I don't be afraid because look, if it's a ghost, then your fear is legitimate.

But if it's Jesus who's walking on the water, then you're going to be okay. This is like the best day ever. I just saw Jesus walking on the water to my boat. We're in the middle of this crazy windstorm and I can't get anywhere. Now in the Greek when he says it is, this is ego, me, me is the Greek word. When you go over into Exodus chapter three, and Moses is at the burning bush and he says to God, when I go to Israel and I tell Israel, who sent me back to you? God says, I am tell Israel I am sent you. If you read that in the Greek, it is me. It is this very phrase, it is I.

Jesus comes to his disciples and he says to them, have courage. It is I am. Don't be afraid. You have a choice. You and I have a choice. Life doesn't discriminate in terms of you don't have fears, but you do. We all just a human experience. Whether you are a church going person or you've never been to church before, fear is a very real human experience and you have a choice. You can do life and try to cope with your fears on your own. And there's all kinds of ways. If you go to your shrink, your therapist, they're going to use exposure therapy like okay, let's say you have a phobia of fears. It's like, okay, well why don't you just be in the same room as a spider and we're going to kind of work you closer. No, I want you to look at the spider, right?

And we're trying to kind of cope with fears, but being a follower of Jesus is this idea of be in relationship with me. In one John it says that perfect love casts out fear, perfect love cast out fear. So the way that the Bible deals with our fear and anxiety is it says, I am Jesus declares. And he wants to come into the midst of your life experience and say, I am, I am. And that is to be the X factor that takes away, that casts out your fears and you are able to respond to the command of Jesus. To have courage Now is courage, fearlessness. No courage is this disposition that you take up in the face of fear. You think of the soldier. Some of you may have fought in a war, you may be a veteran. And I cannot imagine the terror of bullets flying past me of the idea that a mortar could be launched up in the air. And if they get that azimuth angle right, it's going to land right near me. Blow me up the uncertainty. Now we've got these drones that kind of can zoom in and I've subjected myself to watching some of these videos of drones blowing people up over in Ukraine and Russia on both sides, and it's terrifying. And you see the terror that these soldiers fear feel.

It takes great courage to be in a setting where you're under threat, where you feel like there's uncertainty. I don't know what's going to happen. And Jesus calls his disciples to have courage. Christians are courageous people. You think back to some of the pandemics that have occurred, and you go back to the black plague, it was Christians rather than packing up and fleeing town and trying to isolate, it was Christians that stayed and buried the dead and they took courage in the face of a very scary situation because of who their God is. You see, we, when you don't have a relationship with God, if you're running away from God, you have a calculation around how to do life. You know that you are born, you're doing life now, and someday you will die. You're not going to outrun death. There might be medical advancements.

Maybe you'll live longer than the generation before you, but you're not going to outrun death. And so if you're not a religious person, a follower of Jesus, then you're doing life on that timeframe. And it's kind of dumb to be courageous. Really the smart thing is to do everything you can to protect yourself and to make sure you're safe so that you can live as long as you can. And then you want to live like a happy life. And that's kind of how you do life. If you are secular, and that makes sense. If you're secular, you have no real hope of a future beyond your death, you might as well do life like that, right? I mean, doesn't that make sense? You tracking? But you see, as a Christian, we believe what the Bible teaches, that we are created as eternal beings in this body.

Now, presently we will experience a physical death because of a symmetry between universal human guilt that the wages of sin is death. So humans in this body die, but there is a resurrection where we're given a new body and we will be eternally in the presence of God. Does that make sense? So if that is the reality and that the Bible promises that future state of glory is going to be better than the present state of suffering, then we're able to live with a different calculation. We can do the math on our life. We can have a different strategy than somebody who is secular. We are able to take courage in the face of threat because we know that God is in control. So the way we make decisions about our careers and relationships and our money is different from somebody who is not including God in the calculation.

And so here God is interacting Jesus, God in the fleshes, interacting with his disciples, calling them to courage. Now, not to say that somebody who doesn't follow Jesus can't be courageous, but I just have a question for you. What is the basis for your courage? If you are going to die and you don't know what happens after death, you don't know where you'll go, you don't feel reconciled to God, the impending sense of guilt that you're living with, that maybe not everything is okay and you need a person to deal with your guilt through like Jesus did for us. You can't have a basis for your courage. If you are not a follower of Jesus, you can be it, but it's baseless. He goes on and he says in verse 28, Lord, if it is you, Peter answered him, command me to come to you on the water.

So we go from the general group of disciples. Now we're going to zoom in on Peter. We're going to particularize. That's what this part of the text is. We're going to zoom in and Peter is going to represent the rest of the disciples in his activity. Super interesting. Okay, courageous. It is it courageous. I love Peter. He said. So he says, Lord, if it's you, ask me to come. And Jesus has come and he climbs out of the boat and he starts squawking on the water and comes towards Jesus. So I don't know how far this is, it's far enough to kind of be able to hear Jesus's voice where it's windy. So imagine it's like from here to the back of the room, maybe that far. So he hops out of the boat, and Peter, the only other human I know of to walk on water, starts walking on the water, amazing.

But then when he saw the strength of the wind, he was terrified and beginning to sink, he cries out, Lord, save me. This is the second time we see fear in this story. And the fear, there's a causal relationship between the fear and the activity of Peter. It says that he saw the strength of the wind and he was afraid. And with that fear, as he gives into his fear, he begins to sink. Isn't that interesting? So before he's afraid, before he's looking at the wind and the waves, he's just tracking with Jesus. I'm going, I'm marching on the waves. And then he starts looking and he starts taking in other data points about the wind. Man, it's really windy out here, and that's when he starts to sink. Are you applying? Because here's what I'm praying as we're looking at this, what his faith got lost.

His faith diminished. Yeah. And so here's what I'm praying when we're looking at this. I don't know your story. I know that you've experienced moments of faith, and I know that we've already read a lot about faith in our Bible in Matthew, that Jesus is working where there is faith and trust in him. And now we bump into it again, and here we see faith diminishing and the guy starts to sink. The Holy Spirit is speaking to you right now. I don't know if you hear it, but the Holy Spirit is speaking to you in your life about your fears and the fact that you need to keep your eyes on Jesus and not take in the other data points. You may have friends and family who are talking to you and saying, listen, that thing over there, you should be afraid of that and you should be afraid of this and you should be afraid of this.

But the real voice that matters is Jesus. And Jesus said, have courage. It is. And the Holy Spirit comes to you this morning and he says to you, it is I, God is in your midst. God is in your midst. Yes, Mary. What it's is doubting if you have doubt, you give that opportunity for the devil to preach in there and be away at that doubt that you're having instead of giving all your faith through the Lord. Yeah, yeah, yeah. What we learned from this, because can't you sympathize with Peter? I mean, this is the most human verse in the Bible. I feel like we are so prone to look at the other data points. We're so prone to kind of take in the context and be like, no, I'm afraid I can't. And the faith diminishes his fear, his faith, the fear starts creeping in.

I love there's a shirt out there somewhere. Someone's like faith over fear. You got it. I love that shirt. I love that because that's how it's supposed to be supposed be faith over fear. We just went through a political season and a lot of different politics going on, but one of the strategies on both sides of politicians, Democrats, republicans, independents, one of the strategies as a politician is to amp up the fear, right? I'm going to amp up your fear and then I am superman that's going to take care of the thing you're afraid of. And it works with humans. They tend to fear the boogeyman, whatever it is. But listen, again, we are Christians. We follow Jesus. We don't give into our fears, right? No, we're not a fearful. We are not a people that are giving into our fears. Instead, we're looking in the face of fear.

We're saying, I am going to have courage because Jesus is with me. He's promised he'll never leave me or forsake me. It says in the book of Hebrews, he has promised he will never leave us or forsake us. Therefore, I can say, I will not fear what man can do to me. That's literally the writer of Hebrews saying, I'm going to take for you this quote out of the Old Testament, this promise of God that he's never going to leave me or forsake me, and then I'm going to give it an implication in my personal life, which is I do not have to fear what man will do to me. So Peter here is terrified. He's afraid. He's beginning to sink and he says, Lord, save me. Immediately. Jesus reaches out his hand, caught a hold of him and said to him, you of little faith, why did you doubt?

And Peter's like, well, I never walked on the water before, and it's kind of windy out here. That's why I doubted. But the interesting thing, do you see the expectation of, because this kind sounds harsh to me, to be honest, this sounds harsh. It's not every day you go walk on the water and it's like Jesus, how can you be that harsh on him? But it tells you the expectation of Jesus. Jesus is not being mean. He's like, I'm me. I am the great Yahweh I am. I'm the God who brought the children of Israel out of Egypt under Pharaoh's rule. I sent the 10 plagues part of the Red Sea. I am in the midst. Why do you have such little faith? Again, may the Holy Spirit apply this in your own life that it's like, God, I just want more faith. I want to ramp up.

I want to trust you more. I want to be more in love with you. I want your love to cast out every fear that I have in my life, when they got into the boat, the wind ceased. So that's the end of this story. They got into the boat. As soon as Jesus gets into the boat, the wind goes away. Now, to me, that looks like God's kind of orchestrating something and we learn a lesson from this because God works in our life just like a teacher or a coach. And what do you do with a teacher or a coach? You repeat stuff, right? You repeat stuff. Yes. I think it was a test that he was testing the disciples on their faith. Yep. I think it's a test, not sink or swim. I like those glasses, by the way. Those are nice.

It is a test. It's a training. It's a training of like, Hey, this is what you're going to, because they're about to go to Jerusalem and going to face this storm of persecution. In fact, their whole story, they are going to bring the gospel of the kingdom to their generation. Most of them will be martyred, most of them, according to church history, get to a place where they're killed because they associate and identify with Jesus. And so here on the boat, Jesus is teaching them some lessons about fear. And I don't know what your life holds, but I know the world needs more courageous people. What a gift of the kingdom to take you and to have the Holy Spirit this morning just kind of increase your faith, to lift you up, to remind you that you can trust in God, that you don't have to give into fear like everybody else. What a gift of God's kingdom working through you because you live in a scary place. I don't know if you've seen the news about Baltimore city, but it isn't always the safest place.

But what a gift that you are able to be a Christian in the face of fear to trust God. What a gift to the people around you that you can authentically say, I have courage. I'm taking a position of courage in the face of devastation, in the face of things that are scary to other people. I feel fear too, but I'm having courage. I'm choosing a position of courage, not because I'm great, but because God is great and he's my God. Alright, the end of this text is here. When they had crossed over, they came to the shore of Gez. Now, this is the second time they've been to Gez. When the men of that place recognized him, they alerted the whole vicinity and brought to him all who were sick. Remember Jesus already was there. He healed a demon possessed guy, and he told that guy, you can't come with me.

You got to stay here. Tell the rest of the town about what's going on, about how you're healed from this demon possession. So he comes back, and then they hear that he's back and they bring all those who are sick. They're like coming to see Jesus. They begged him that he might only touch the end, that they might only touch the end of his robe, and as many touched it were healed. This is like when we sing that song, reckless Love, where we talk about indiscriminate love. The healing power of God is just flowing out of Jesus. Kind of reminds me of some manga comic or something like that where you've got the emanating energy coming off of Jesus. He's just like, they're touching his robe, they're being healed, and it's awesome. It's an awesome moment.

Let's pray and then we'll take communion together. God, we've looked at your texts this morning for us, and we confess where we're at. We don't want to be those of little faith. We want to be those where our faith is increasing more and more and more. Your word says that faith comes by hearing the word of God. And we've sat here this morning and we've heard the word of God. We ask that the Holy Spirit would author in our lives faith, like increase our faith in you, that we would believe in the one who says, I am that I am Yahweh. We want to place more and more faith in you. Lord, take away the doubts that plague us that cause us to sink when we're in the storm. Lord, what kind of walking on water do you have for us this week? What is that going to look like for us? Lord, we give ourselves to you. We're so glad that we go from this place in the power of the Holy Spirit, and we are going to have our eyes on you. We're looking with anticipation. What do you want to do in our lives? We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.

Matthew 14:13-21

Transcription

If you have your Bibles, you can turn in your Bibles to Matthew chapter 14, Matthew 14. We've been going through Matthew, the book of Matthew. Last week we saw the scene of John the Baptist being beheaded. We saw the death of John the Baptist, which is important because the first verse, we're going to look at verse 13 this morning, picks up with that context. Jesus is going to withdraw from the crowd because he hears about John the Baptist death. Before we get to the text, lemme just kind of set the stage with talking a little bit about the idea of scarcity versus abundance. In our society, we're often told there's no such thing as a free lunch. This phrase is popularized by economist and it encapsulates a deeply ingrained cultural belief that everything comes with a price. Now, our city here relates to this idea in an interesting way because we have an addiction in our city not just to drugs, not just to substance abuse, but to dependency, and we have generations of people who grow up dependent upon a scarce resource, whether it's food stamps or going to be on SSDI or some other kind of fixed income.

There is this meagerness about a life only having that as your source. Now, some of you have had horrible things happen and the wonderful thing about the country that we live in is that there are these safety nets that exist where when everything hits the fan, you have at least some kind of check that's coming in or some kind of resource that's coming in. But what I want to do is I want to take, I want to contrast that life of living in a way where you're living off of a scarce resource and turn your attention to this story in the life of Jesus. We're going through this, one of the biographies of Jesus' life, which is the book of Matthew, and it's giving us these different scenes of where Jesus is doing ministry. He's got his 12 apostles that follow him around that are learning from him.

He's got his crowds that he's teaching, and he has this scene that we come across with the feeding of the 5,000. The mindset of scarcity can permeate our daily lives. We're skeptical of free offers, always looking for the catch. We guard our resources carefully afraid that we won't have enough. Even in our relationships, we often operate with a transactional mindset keeping score of favors given and received a again, the idea of just scarcity and that there's not enough man, we know that idea in Baltimore city, but what we're going to see in our story this morning is not just enough but a super abundance. What is going to be challenged here is not just the resource, the idea of resource, but your perspective on resource, and so I hope that this sermon this morning is deeply personal for you. This text is deeply personal and I want you to think about the resources in your own life.

Matthew 25, when we get there, it's a whole passage about stewardship and there's this idea that we have entrusted to us relationships, opportunities and resources, and there seems to be this expectation from heaven that we will do much with those three things, relationships, opportunities and resources. So this sermon in this text this morning is about this resource of food, and so let's look at the text a bit more. I'm going to read it to you and then we'll go through it verse by verse unpacking it. Matthew 14, verse 13 says this, when Jesus heard about it, he withdrew from there by boat to a remote place to be alone. When the crowds heard this, they followed him on foot from the towns. When he went ashore, he saw a large crowd had compassion on them and healed their sick. When evening came, the disciples approached him and said, this place is deserted and it's already late.

Send the crowds away so that they can go into the villages and buy food for themselves. They don't need to go away. Jesus told them, you give them something to eat, but we have only five loaves and two fish here. They said, bring them here. Jesus said to them, then he commanded the crowds to sit down on the grass. He took the five loaves and the two fish and looking up to heaven. He blessed them. He broke the loaves and gave them to the disciples and the disciples gave them to the crowds. Everyone ate and was satisfied. They picked up 12 baskets full of leftover pieces. Now, those who ate were about 5,000 men besides women and children. Crazy, crazy miracle that we see Jesus do in the midst of the death of his friend. Let's just talk for a second about this moment that we're brought to here. Jesus heard about it. What's the it?

Yeah, John who got beheaded, John the Baptist, got beheaded and John was a relative of Jesus. He was the forerunner for Jesus, and he ends up brutally murdered and Jesus hears about it and what does he do? He withdraws from there by a boat to remote place to be alone. I love that phrase because it gives me as a follower of Jesus to want to be alone sometimes, and I especially appreciate that because I'm an introvert and I like being alone, and sometimes when junk happens in your life, you don't really want to be the life of the party. You don't want to be up at the front of the crowd. You don't want to have all the attention on you. You just want to get a boat in a boat and go away for a little while and Jesus did that and that must be okay.

Now, he doesn't get to have the alone time that he wanted. There's another occasion in Mark chapter six where it relates to the same time, but Matthew doesn't give us these details. Mark tells us that he takes his disciples to be alone for a little while. He's caring for his disciples, he's trying to get them to a place of rest, and there's this moment to do it. Now, they don't get their alone time. They, they probably get their time in the boat, but when they get to the other side, here's this crowd that has followed them on foot from the towns. We're dealing with the Sea of Galilee, this northern body of water where Jesus does most of his ministry. He's interacting with the normal people, the blue collar people of Israel. That's primarily where he is at because when he gets to Jerusalem, make it gets hot up there with the persecution and the elites, the spiritual elites and just the animosity that's thrown.

So Jesus ends up in Galilee most of the time, and that is where he's at in our world of scarcity and self preservation. Jesus responds to this grief with verse 14. He went ashore. When he went ashore, he saw the large crowd and he had compassion on them. Do you remember the last time we read that Jesus had compassion on the crowds? It said that he saw the crowd, they were like sheep that had no shepherd and he had compassion on them. Here Jesus is got to have that just hollowed out pain in his soul over the death of John the Baptist, he felt deep sorrow. It says in Hebrews chapter two that he was a man and in all points tempted, he felt the same type of pain you feel when you're going through it. He felt it, felt it, and yet in this moment he has compassion on them.

Despite his personal loss, he has moved with compassion. This compassion wasn't diminished by his own grief, but rather overflowed Jesus' response to challenges. Jesus' response. It challenges our notion that personal pain limits our capacity for compassion, but no it doesn't. Some of the most compassionate people that I've met over the last decade are the people that are living with so little and are suffering immensely. I don't know if you guys know Mike, who is in our church. He's deaf because he had, what was it? It starts with an M. I did this on Tuesday night, meningitis. Meningitis. He had meningitis in 1993, lost his hearing. He has horrible diabetes. He's had half of his foot amputated now he's had the other half of his foot. Basically his bones, his words, his nonmedical diagnosis of it is that his bones are all just floating around in his foot, and so he's got pins and a boot and he's in recovery for the next two months, and yet you go and you see Mike and he tries to stay positive.

He tries to not play the pity party. He tries to say, you know what? I'm going to be an encourager. Some of you have spent time with Mike and you know that his life, his story is a story of immense suffering. It's a part of his life and I don't know how that works where some people just live incredibly painful lives. Others of us pass through seasons of intense pain and then pass on to good seasons. Either way, you should know from your own human experience that sometimes it's surprising who is compassionate on us. It's not. Sometimes some of the meanest people are the people are well off, they're doing well. It seems like they have everything you could ask for and they're cruel, they're not generous, and then it's the people that are hurting that are so kind. Anyway, here's Jesus. In his moment of pain, having compassion, Jesus healed the sick in the crowd demonstrating that God's compassion is active and it's transformative.

In second Corinthians, Paul has gone through one of the darkest moments of his life. He's traveling. If you were to look at a map, he's traveling kind of around Macedonia, modern day Macedonia. He's left Turkey, gone into Macedonia and then kind of come down the coast into Greece and he's running for his life. He doesn't know where his friend Troas is and he describes the pain in his life. Imagine there's no cell phones. You go traveling. How do you know? Find somebody, right? You're sending letters. It's like that would be really hard to find somebody else, and yet he's responsible for all these baby churches that he's planted. He's getting persecuted. He's got people attacking like false Christians attacking his baby churches that he started and he says in Second Corinthians chapter one that he despaired of life. It's the language of almost being suicidal, almost out of hope, and he says that God is the God of all comfort who comforts us in our suffering, that we may be able to comfort others with the comfort that God has given us.

Do you see that the God of all comfort is your God and he pours comfort into your life so that you can then turn and comfort others and here's Jesus. Rather than saying, Nope, I need to just put my own self-care first. I need my spa day. I need to get away, and I need to just take a break from all you crazy people trying to get healed. I need to be emotionally healthy so that I can then have compassion. No, here, Jesus, and I'm not saying that that's bad. All I'm saying and showing here is that Jesus, your Jesus has this infinite resource of compassion. That doesn't mean you always do, but it does show us that the God we serve and the spirit that indwells us is like this. Our life can resemble these patterns as the Holy Spirit is at work in our life.

When others would say, man, you should be out of the game. You should be done for the count. We're able to keep going and showing compassion towards others. It's amazing, and Jesus is that resource for us. It challenges us. These two verses challenge us to reconsider our view of God's compassion. It's not limited by resource that can be depleted by tragedy or personal suffering. Instead, it is ever flowing stream of love and care that can transform lives even in the darkest moment. Spend time this week, would you just spend a moment this week letting God love you? Spend just a moment just instead of trying to bring to him the good things that you've done or the things that you need, just would just spend a moment just gazing at him in the way that you can, in a way that is just beyond what you can see, but what you can imagine who Jesus is and who he's presented here. Would you just spend a moment quietly letting him love you? Let's go to the next section verses 15 through 17. When the evening came, the disciples approached him and said, well, this place is deserted.

I wonder where they got off the boat at. There's nothing around out here. It's like those trips you ever drive across Texas and it's like, well, this is deserted. There's nothing out here but windmills. This is deserted and it's already late. Send the crowds away so that they can go into the villages and buy food for themselves. What a caring gesture from the disciples. They're away. You could be thinking like they're just all about themselves trying to whip up a crowd. Just a few more people. We'll get the crowd to its all time high. Get a personal record for Jesus in terms of his God. No. The disciples is like, these people are going to be hungry. We need to send them off to go get some food. Send them into the surrounding villages. This is a practical need brought before Jesus, and so Jesus replies, they don't need to go away.

You give them something to eat, you give them something to eat and they say, but we only have five loaves and two fish here, five loaves and two fish. How many of you heard this story before? Okay, good. You've heard this story. You know where we're going, right? Yeah, I read it to you a minute ago, but Jesus challenges the disciples limited perspective with a seemingly impossible task. This is important because when we say that we are a Christian, we're taking on the term that was given. It was a label given to Christians. Really what Christians were called were disciples. You go read the story of the first generation of Christians were called disciples, and what that refers to is just being a mentor, a follower, an apprentice of Jesus, and so here is how Jesus does stuff, and if we're apprentices of Jesus, it's important for because it's like just because Jesus is in heaven, if we're a follower of him, it doesn't mean he does stuff different now that he's in heaven.

So the patterns, these stories are helpful because it's like, oh, okay, that's how Jesus works. Sometimes he asks me to do stuff that seems impossible, that challenge a perspective of limits. This command from Jesus, it reveals Jesus's desire for his followers to participate in his ministry of compassion. It also sets the stage for this demonstration of his abundant provision because Jesus could have said, Hey, Peter, that's a great idea. Yeah, okay guys, we're going to be done. We're all going to go. You all go and find some food in the surrounding villages, and Jesus is like, nah, we're not going to do that, and that's kind of crazy, and I love Jesus for that. I love the fact that he's like that because he is willing. Do you remember when the children of Israel were set free from the children of Israel, were set free from Egypt and God sends them across the Red Sea into the wilderness, or he sends them not across, he sends them right up to the Red Sea and they're at the wilderness and Pharaoh decides to chase 'em down.

So you've got Pharaohs right on their tail with his army coming across the desert, but then you've got two mountain peaks on the sides and you've got this sea blocking them in the front and the nation of Israel, the children of Israel, they feel trapped. They're like, God, what do we do? You brought us out here to die, Moses, what's going to happen? And Moses tells them, stand still and see the deliverance of the Lord, but the narrator who writes Exodus Moses who's telling us the story, he says, God intentionally stuck them in a place where it was impossible. God set them up. God set them up so that he could demonstrate his power. When Jesus says to his disciples, Hey, you go and find something to feed them, and they're like, we only have these five loaves and these two fish. This is not the last time that there is a setup, that there's a setup.

There is this point in history where God sets the stage with the greatest setup and it's when he has Jesus who is the perfect man and is God at the same time, and he allows Jesus to be betrayed and to be crucified on the cross. It is the perfect setup. It is the backdrop in which redemption, resurrection, justification, the defeat of evil, the defeat of death occurs. God is all about this pattern. I guess that's what I'm trying to say is this is not just God's setting up his disciples for something impossible is not like a one-off. You look throughout the Bible over and over again. God really likes this idea of the impossible and then working through humans to overcome the impossible so that everybody else is like, whoa, you got the coolest God. Your God's amazing. How can I know your God? Right?

It is important to know this. Sometimes you get in your life and you're like, it's impossible. I don't know how we're going to get out of this. This is an impossible situation and you should be like, oh, yeah, I heard that song before. It's in the Bible. That tune, you ever hear a tune, he gets stuck in your head. This should be one of those tunes that's stuck in your head. The impossible tune that God sets people up, not because he's cruel, but because he loves to deliver and he loves to show his strength and his power in these impossible settings. Now, the disciples respond and they say, we've got these five loaves and two fish. It's meager, right? It's not enough. The disciples are focused on what they lack rather than what Jesus can do with it. This is all we've got, and again, map it onto your life. Sometimes all you've got is the five loaves and the two fish, and you're just like, see, this is how impossible it is because this is the resource.

The moment of tension invites us to consider this. Do we trust in our limited resources or in God's unlimited power? Can I ask you this? Because I know that many in our church are on a fixed income. We have this beautiful pleasure of being a church that majority of people are either on food stamps or disability or on social security, and you don't have anything else, and the scope of your vision of thriving and flourishing and being fruitful is intertwined with a narrative around that monthly check. You even have a pattern of doing your month to month based off that check and what's going to come in, and I just want you to at this moment hear in the story. I just want to ask you, is your vision is your trust? Is your focus on those limited resources or are you open to God doing more with your life?

Are you, you're open? Good. I don't know what that means, but I would dare you to not be defined by that check. Don't be defined by those limits, but say offer yourself to God, which is the next section that we come into verses 18 and 19. What does Jesus say to them? He says, bring them here to me. In other words, bring the bread, bring the fish to me. Then he commanded the crowds to sit down on the grass. He took the five loaves and the two fish and looking up to heaven. He blessed them. He broke the loaves and he gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds.

We get these four verbs, taking blessing, breaking and giving, taking blessing, breaking and giving. In the taking, he physically takes the bread and the fish. It symbolizes his willingness to work with our meager offerings. It reminds us that God doesn't need much to do great things. Would you be willing this week to just have a conversation with God and say, God, maybe you just even pull it up on your phone. God's not afraid of looking at your cell phone and just say like, God, here's my bank account. Here's the latest letter that I got from my doctor. Here's my condition, and just say, God, here's what I've got.

Would you take it? The second thing that he does is this blessing. Jesus looks up to heaven with the bread and he gives thanks. This action acknowledges the Father as the resource of all provision. It challenges our self-reliant culture and reminds us to seek God's blessing in all that we do. So again, let's just keep using the analogy of the check, the paycheck, the social security check, the SSDI check. You get that. I want to encourage you. Take that check to the bank, put it in your bank, but besides that, pray, say, God, would you thank you for this? Thank you for providing me with this paycheck, with this money, everything that I have, it comes from you. You are the one. The next action is that he breaks it. The act of breaking the bread is preparing it for distribution. It foreshadows Jesus's own body being broken for us, and it suggests that our resources often need to be broken or transformed by God to be most useful.

And then the giving. Jesus gives the bread to the disciples to distribute. This involves the disciples in the miracle, making them active participants. It demonstrates how God often wants to work through human hands to distribute his blessings. God works through us. Your life is not a cul-de-sac. You are this pass through of the power, the love, the patience of God, the comfort of God, all that God can do. You are this pass through of blessing to the people around you. That does not mean that you take your check, your social security check and you give the whole thing away, but it means that you're operating from a position where you understand that, God, I'm doing life with you. The money that I interact with, I'm doing it in relationship with you, and you can take this thing here that I have and you can multiply it. You can use it for the good of others. The key here is this, the importance of bringing our inadequate resources to Christ and what do we see? We see this just abundance that flows out. Everyone ate and was satisfied. They picked up 12 baskets full of leftover pieces, and then it gives us this count of 5,000 men as well as women and children.

Everyone was eight and satisfied. Isn't that awesome? This was not like rations. This wasn't like in World War II where we had to have those stamps where we rationed out supplies. No, this was the abundant provision where everyone is sitting there. Do you see that? They're all eating and they get to the point where they're satisfied or we would say, I'm full. And then they go through and they pick up 12 baskets full of leftover pieces. Amazing, amazing thing that God does. It demonstrates that with God, scarcity becomes abundance. God's resources are limitless. What seems impossible to us is easily accomplished by God. God provides abundantly. He doesn't just meet our needs, but he goes above and beyond our expectations. He doesn't waste anything. The leftover fragments are carefully collected. He teaches. He's teaching good stewardship through this. God often works through human participation. We see that all through the text. It's just this incredible story about God's provision in the midst of great lack. Can I show you a pictures?

I want to show you a couple of pictures, and this is a picture from 20 17 20 17. This is on the second floor of the Compassion Center. If you're new with us, A Compassion center is a relief center that we run. It's three blocks from here down Eastern Avenue, and it's a storefront, and it was owned by the Lutherans for 60 years. It's still owned by the Lutherans. We just kind of run it for them. And I came in and inherited, this is the food pantry, and we would do a Wednesday morning chapel for people that were homeless and we would have on this paper right here was a list of what could go in each person's grocery bag. You could have two cans of beans. You could have one thing of peanut butter, you could have a rice eroni and maybe one can of Vienna sausage, and that's what we would give out to those that were homeless.

So that's where we started. And then we started talking and finding out that grocery stores were donating Food. Trader Joe's was the first one, and we could drive down to Trader Joe's in Columbia and they would load up our minivan full of groceries and we could bring that back. And with that on Fridays, we were able to feed about 35 to 40 families. But the problem was that I was working on a team in the neighborhood here with Wolf Street Elementary School and with City Spring Elementary School and with Catholic Charities and with the Assisi house and some other stakeholders in the neighborhood around food. And there was just more than 40 families in this neighborhood that were facing food insecurity. Yet all of Perkins Homes was over there too. And so 40 wasn't enough. So we started to work together with the local government to get Whole Foods right here to see what are you doing with your old food? Would you give it to us? And through a little bit of use of a really nice lawyer that worked at City Hall, they sent a semi threatening letter on our behalf to Whole Foods and said, how dare you throw any food away that could be given to the neighborhood, which was good.

They shouldn't throw the food away. They should collect it in baskets like we see from Jesus. So they said, Hey, come on over on Saturdays and Sundays. And then it was Tuesdays and we started collecting food and we are building relationships. And then March, 2020 came, do you remember what happened in March, 2020? The whole world shut down Covid birthday party. It was crazy. Crazy. And so we became, because of those relationships, our center, we started getting phone calls. You got all these restaurants down here that are closing with fresh food in their refrigerators and freezers. Where do we donate it? Come and pick it up? There was a restaurant up in Towson, a chicken restaurant, and they were like, coming, we're just going to go out of business. They just kind of threw in the towel. They gave us all their inventory, they gave us all their everything.

It was crazy. And then we had a volunteer that she said to me on one of those days, she said, listen, if you take your truck that you've been picking up food with just to rent a small 16 foot truck, take it over to Amazon and they're going to give you some stuff on Friday. I talked to them. I talked to a guy over there on the phone. So I said, okay. So I go over there with the truck. This is the first load that we picked up. You see the yellow tubs? It was about enough yellow tubs, kind of half full, some bread racks to fill up the bottom of a 16 foot box truck. And this is great. Okay, so I'll come back next Friday. Yep, I'll see you next Friday. So he came back next Friday. That Friday he said, here's my number.

I said, okay. We exchanged numbers. Well, the next week, I missed his call on a Tuesday. I only got the call. I got my voicemail. I looked at it on Thursday. So by the way, don't ever leave me a voicemail. I'm not going to get it right away. So I got it on Thursday and he's saying, Hey, we got some extra food over here. Can you guys come over? Well, I missed that. So I was there the next day with the truck and I said, Hey, I got your voicemail about some extra food. What happened? And he said, yeah, we had $17,000 in steak that we had to throw away. Nobody came to get it. And I was like, well, where's the person scheduled to come on Tuesday? He's like, oh, there's not many of you. There's only a few of you guys that come over with a truck right now and get food.

And nobody was able to come over From that moment, Adolfo and I made a pact that we would never say no to them when they called. From that point of May, 2020, to this day, we have been going to that Amazon as well as 11 other sources for food. And so as of last week when I checked that Amazon has as of this month for this year, year to date, has given us 6 million worth of food. That crazy you guys have been over there. This is kind of like what it looks like as we're setting up tables. This is a couple years old now. We fill it up more than that. Amazon's our biggest source and we don't really like, there's no real official relationship that exists there. So that's really, it's a hidden secret. I'd rather you not tell everybody and their mother that we get all that food from Amazon, but we're very grateful for it.

And we feed every Tuesday and every Friday we feed between 300 to 400 families out of the Compassion Center. We now work with the First Foods farm. So three years. I guess the rest of the story, and I know I'm a one minute over my timer here, but the rest of the story is that three years ago we're a little church. So we went from renting, renting the truck. We would get a call from Amazon, they're like, Hey, we got food. Come get it. So I'd have to call Penske, do you have a truck? They say, yes. Okay. We would run to Penske, pick up the truck, drive to Amazon, get this stuff, unload it here, go back to Amazon, drop off the truck, get our vehicle and come home. Because we thought it was just a covid. Crazy. I've never seen this kind of thing before.

Who gives away 6 million of food that's not normal. Like mid covid when everybody's out of paper towels and toilet paper. We had it on our pallets. It's coming in shrink wrapped, all the Clorox. It was crazy and piled up to the ceiling in that center. It was insane. And so three months. So we've been leasing a truck, we signed a lease, but our costs incurred, it's not like a normal little church. This could pay for a truck and the fuel insurance, commercial insurance is like $900 a month. I did not know that until I did this. I didn't learn that in seminary. $900 a month for commercial insurance. But we got to this point where we are getting just loads so much that we couldn't even fit it into the center. So I talked to my friend Matt, who's been a pastor in the city for a long time.

He works with the chaplains. He's got a bunch of relationships. He's like, Josh, you have what other small churches need, which is the food, and they have some money they can help pay for the transport of the truck. So we created this cost sharing program where now we fill the compassion center first. It's usually between 15, 16 to 23 pallets of food goes into the center. And then once we're overflowing, we know when we get a call and it's coming in from Amazon, we tell Carlos, our driver, we say it's got to go somewhere else. And we have all these partner, little food banks, 45 food banks across Baltimore City where we can take food to and they pay us a transport fee per pallet, super cheap. And so it's this cool thing that God's done, amazing thing of God, just this abundance. Super abundance. Yeah. So we've got, now we have a warehouse that we work with Matt on and that warehouse last year, this time it was empty. Now the warehouse is overflowing. So we don't have just the compassion center. We have an overflowing warehouse. We sent 27 truckloads, semis down to North Carolina for the hurricane destruction. Isn't that crazy?

And it's way bigger than our church. It's just this big, all these people working together and God's providing the finances. So I love the story of feeding the 5,000 because I feel like we get to participate in it. And we'll take that center on Tuesday. If you come over there today, you'll see we've got some good food in there and we're going to give it away after church. So our church, if you're new with us, we give away. We do a distribution right after this. It's the only group that gets to actually go into the center and receive food and pick their own food. Everything that happens on Tuesday and Friday is us filling bags with food and handing it out the door. If you go over there today, what you'll see is we've got a ton of food and it's all going to get distributed on Tuesday, and we're going to clear out all that whole front area and probably within a couple of hours, the whole thing just fills back up with food.

It's just this amazing, crazy miracle. I dunno, maybe that's normal in your world, but with food prices, how they are, that's insane. It's crazy. Yeah. So all that to say, I just wanted to encourage you in your own life, we have a nickname in the Latino community. I don't know how to say it in Spanish, but they call us the little big church. The little church that can do big things. Isn't that awesome? It's really God that does these big things. He lets us just be a part of it. So let's do this. Let's pray. And let's just say, Lord, we, we offer ourselves to you. And sometimes we look at it and it's just like, man, that looks like five loaves of bread and two fish. And that's not enough. There's not enough that can be done with this. And yet, God, you are this God that just, you blow the top off with resources and you let us steward over it. And so, Lord, where we look at our lives and we just are looking at limits and lack scarcity, God help us to change the perspective. You may be working through scarcity, maybe that you're redirecting and you're doing something, but it doesn't reflect your ability. It doesn't reflect your provision, what we lack in our life. And so God, we just offer ourselves to you and what we've got, and we pray that you would show yourself strong in our lives, glorify yourself in and through our lives, and we pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.