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.

Matthew 13:53-58

Transcription

Turn in your Bibles, turn on your Bibles to Matthew 1353. What we are going to do is we've been looking at the life of Jesus, going through the book of Matthew. The last three weeks we've been in parables, and now we're going to get two narratives, two scenes that are going to be presented to us. Jesus has finished his teaching about the kingdom of God through a series of parables. Now the parables are over and we're going to these two scenes. The first is this scene in Jesus's hometown of Nazareth where he faces outright rejection. The second scene is the story of how John the Baptist died and how he was executed by Herod the big idea. The big idea is this, human resistance to God's work often comes from familiarity, fear or misplaced allegiance. Human resistance to God's work. My resistance. Listen, let's personalize it, okay? Listen, personalize it for yourself, your own resistance. My own resistance to what God wants to do in my life can come from familiarity, fear, or a misplaced allegiance. Let's look at this first one, this idea of familiarity. And you've heard this phrase before, familiarity breeds contempt. You've heard that saying, right? This is what we're going to see here that happens with Jesus's life and we'll walk through it. But let's pray first, Lord, we ask that you would teach us through your word. Our hearts are open to you.

We want your spirit to teach us this morning. I recognize God that not everyone here has become a follower of you yet. And so whether a person is seeking this morning or just interested in hearing more about your teachings, or God, if we're a follower of you, Lord, would you just meet us in this time? Teach us, Lord, thank you for these two different scenes we've asked that you would bring home to us what is personal and what's needed in our own lives? And we ask this in Jesus' name. Amen. So let's look at this text together. It says that when Jesus had finished these parables, he left there. Now remember, he's teaching around the Galilee in the area of Capernaum, and he leaves there. He went to his hometown. His hometown, remember is Nazareth. That's where he grew up. And he began to teach them where?

Where's he teaching them? In the synagogue, right? So that would be a place, a Jewish gathering place on a Saturday morning on the Sabbath. And he's teaching him so that they were astonished. And they said, now you'll notice the things that the people in the synagogue are saying are questions. We're going to see a series of questions. Are you ready? Here's the first one. Where did this man get this wisdom and these miraculous powers? Next question, isn't this the carpenter's son? The next question, isn't his mother called Mary and his brother James, Joseph, Simon and Judas and his sisters? Aren't they all with us? So where does he get all these things? So these are the questions and underlying these questions, which we'll see in the next section, is this sense of like, because of the answer to these questions, he can't be the Messiah. It's like, don't we know his family, his brothers and sisters? Don't we know who his father was and don't we know who his mother was and we're just familiar with him? He's the carpenter's son.

It's these questions that all relate to aren't we familiar with him? And despite Jesus's wisdom and miracles, Jesus' identity as the carpenter's son, it hinders their faith familiarity blinds them to his true identity. And right away, just think about this, okay? Sometimes we overlook the presence of God's work because it appears ordinary or comes through familiar channels. The very people who should have had the easiest access to Jesus's message struggle to accept it. There are people around you who have, they may hear about your own transformation, your spiritual journey, and meeting Jesus. And they may say to you, I would give Jesus his shot if he poked his head out of the clouds. And he said, here I am. And yet they're missing the miracles all around them, the very things that seem ordinary that they take for granted that are familiar, and they're just kind of looking past those things and completely missing the work of God.

That's what was happening in Jesus's hometown. This happens in another place in the Bible. If we go back to one Samuel, there's a character named David. And when David was young, he was the youngest in his family. His dad sent him with supplies to furnish his brothers that were in the military fighting off the Philistines. So you imagine back to the time of judges, and you have these enemies of Israel that are attacking, one of them are the Philistines and the Philistines have this champion soldier named Goliath. And Goliath would come out every day on the battle line and would just taunt Israel and just trash talk Israel. So David shows up at the battle and he hears Goliath's trash talking of Israel. And David spoke to the men who are standing with him and he says to kind of the other soldiers that are there, remember this is a guy that's younger.

He's not yet qualified to be a soldier himself. He's just there with the supplies. He says, what will be done for the man who kills that Philistine and removes this disgrace from Israel? Just who is this uncircumcised Philistine that he should defy the armies of the living God? So David has his own set of questions for these guys. Like, what's going on here, David? He shows up at the battle and he's shocked that this is going on. And he's like, well, who's going to get the reward when this guy's defeated the troops told him about the offer, concluding that is what will be done for the man who kills him. Here's the reward. And then look at this. David's oldest brother, IAB, listened as he spoke to the man and he became angry with David. Why did you come down here? He asked, who did you leave those few sheep with in the wilderness?

I know your arrogance and your evil heart. You came down here to just watch the battle. You're just coming to get your kicks to see us get our rear ends kicked by this guy Goliath. This is entertaining to you. Now the rest of the story, the rest of the story is that David's going to destroy. He's going to take on Goliath single handedly, and he's going to kill Goliath with a slingshot and a stone. Not even the typical spear or sword or the armor that a normal soldier would have. David becomes the champion. Now, his brothers can't see that. They're like, you're the youngest runt in our family. They are so familiar with David that when David shows up, they're like, what good's going to come from you? You're the shepherd boy that we left back at home. They can't handle. David. This whole idea is it is a phenomenon that exists. I'm sure you've dealt with it in different ways in your own life, and yet sometimes there is this overlooking of the presence of God's work. David, David is God's anointed king. So he's not just called to destroy Goliath, but he's the future king of the nation. But IAB is looking at David and this is like, nah,

Nah,

Can't happen. Right? He

Didn't do a single handedly though. He had God behind him.

Exactly.

Yeah, that's right. They couldn't see that God's hand was on David. They saw David the little shepherd boy, they didn't see. But when God looked at David, what did God see? The future king, the warrior that could defeat Goliath, the empowered God is not limited. I guess the message here is that if your perception of yourself is that, look, I am useless because of I'm the shepherd boy, or I'm the youngest in my family, or I don't have the pedigree. I didn't graduate from high school or people told me that I had this learning disability, or I don't have much money or I am ugly. Or for me, you know what it was when I was a kid, I was in ninth grade, I got teased for my voice. I would have people walk up behind me and they thought for some reason it was funny to go, it's funny now.

But I took that to heart. I took that to heart because I had this funny voice. So when I was 35, I got asked to be the host of a national radio program and I was like, oh, I can't do that. I got a funny voice because you believe these things about yourself. I think I hit pure puberty already. I don't know. I don't know. But you believe those things, right? You believe those things. And it's this kind of like with Jesus, it's familiarity. They believed a particular story. You're the carpenter's son, so your future's probably you're going to be a carpenter. Maybe you're not going to be a carpenter, but you're probably going to do something like everybody else in Nazareth does. We know your brothers, we know your sisters. We know who your mom is. How could you be the one who's dropping all this wisdom and doing these miraculous things? They just were generally skeptical. Yes. And now here you are speaking to all of us. Here I am like, isn't that crazy? Put his hand on you. And now here you are speaking to us and down.

And that's letting God do his work, not believing the condescension or the teasing. And how many of you were teased when you were in school, right? And it's easy. I was talking about this this week with my wife, about our kids. There are things that are like teasing. You're teased and you end up believing that story about yourself. And here's a part of following Jesus. And when we pray, remember when I prayed just a couple minutes ago, I say, God, we're ready to listen to you. And there's a part, there is a part of following Jesus where you say, I'm willing to let go of the stories I've believed about myself that are shaped up and formed by a life of experience, right? You are called, you and I are called to walk by faith in Jesus and follow him in whatever he calls us too.

And Jesus is the champion of that. He's our champion. So we're called to be with Jesus, the Messiah, and we're called to learn from Jesus, to be walking kind of shaped into his image is what it says in two Corinthians. It says that in Romans eight we're shaped into his image. And so the experience that Jesus has in this story could be your experience. You could have people who are like, nah, nothing good could come from you. You shouldn't even call yourself a Christian. I know your story. I know what you have done. Yet if we follow Jesus, we let God determine our calling. Do you know what it says in Ephesians That God has prepared for you the good works that you're supposed to walk in before the foundation of the earth. God already has a plan for your life, and that plan is a part of his redemptive work.

So when you look at this city, when you look at your neighborhood, when you look at your family, God has this good plan not just to rescue you from that junk that you've known and seen and been a part of, but to rescue you and graft you into this good story that God's doing. You have to be willing to believe and trust what Jesus is doing. So back to Matthew, Matthew 1353. Despite Jesus' wisdom and miracles, Jesus' identity as the carpenter's son, it hinders their faith, familiarity blinded them from Jesus's true identity. They missed it. Let's go to this next section. It says this, they were offended is back with the residents of Nazareth in this synagogue. They were offended by Jesus. And Jesus said to them, A prophet is not without honor. So in other words, a prophet has honor, right? He's not lacking honor. That's an honorable thing to be a prophet, except there's one exception, his hometown and in his household.

It's just this thing. It is kind of like a rule, right? It is a rule where it's like the people around you kind of know you, and those people just don't have the ability to see you in a new light. And some of you, as you're being transformed, there's a new dynamic and understanding the relationships around you, some of you, you need to stay right there in those relationships because you're called to be a witness and share what Jesus has done in your life to those old friends. But then some relationships, you need to just turn your back on and move forward because those people, they just can't accept what God's done in you. Yes, Mary. How can you be sure who you should

Help, who you shouldn't help? And if you help that person, how do you know the right thing to do? Because sometimes you do the right thing and you said to God once, you still get damage done to you. You know what I mean? How do we know the right thing to do and when to step away? We help as once we could.

Yeah, no, that's a great

Just talking to you about this.

Yep. Yeah, I think that's a really good question. And I'll give you a couple of things. When you look at Jesus, you see that Jesus understood what he was called to do. And so one of the things you want to ask and what you want the Holy Spirit to show you is what does it mean for you to be fruitful? So we know when we look at the humans that God made in the garden, at the very beginning of God's story, they were called to be fruitful, to multiply, to subdue and to rule. And so every human that's been born is intended to be fruitful, multiply, subdue and rule. But since Genesis three, all humans are fallen from the plan of God and are broken. There is a dysfunction. So there's an internal rebellion against God, and they live and operate in a world of other humans in rebellion against God.

So every once in a while they're functional, and whether they're a follower of God or not, they do what is right and good, and they're fruitful, but not on a consistent basis and not in a way where that fruit lasts. They're not connected. So the first thing you have to do is you have to be reconciled back to God. That's what Jesus. So we talk about being a follower of Jesus and you get baptized. So now once you do that, now you're in a relationship with God. One of the things that happens when you enter into that relationship is that the Holy Spirit is given to you. So the spirit of God is in you. Your body is a temple, meaning it's a house. The spirit of God lives in you. And so one of the things that the Holy Spirit begins to show you and to speak to you about is this is what it looks like to be fruitful for you to do, to do good.

And so he gives you his word. So we look through the Bible. The Bible teaches us, here's the guardrails. These are the commands of ethics. But that's only 20% of your life. You only need to know what's good and bad a fraction of the time. Really what we need to do, life is wisdom. And so we go to the Bible, we meditate on the Bible, we're thinking and wrestling with scripture because it gives us wisdom, principles on how to do life, and it's chiefly found in Jesus. So I know this is a long answer, but I'm trying to break it down in steps. So the Holy Spirit needs to show you what it means to be fruitful. And then at that point, and one of the things he's going to show you is the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, self-control, right? That's the fruit of the spirit. I have a problem with self-control. My temper gives the best of me, and I try not to, but

It's very hard because you see the position I'm in,

I

Still let that temper try to rule me, but I've had God with me. Sometimes when it starts to come out, I pour it back in.

That's good. That's the Holy Spirit. So once you're a follower of Jesus, the Holy Spirit fills you. And now you have two voices in your life. You have your old nature, which is called the flesh. That's what the Bible calls it. Your old person yelling at you, Hey, rebel against God, fulfill your desires. Put yourself first. You also have the spirit as a dominating voice in you saying, Hey, this is what it means to be fruitful in the world, to be beyond mission, to be a child of God. Here's the love of God. So the spirit is speaking in you, but then you also have this other part of you that doesn't go away until you die. Okay? So you have these two things. In Galatians chapter five, it says that the flesh is at war against the work of God's spirit in our life.

The flesh looks like this, and the spirit looks like this. So the spirit is at work though, that we want to just keep saying yes to God's spirit at work in us. So how do you make a decision about relationships? Think that for you and I, you go Bible, holy Spirit, and then from there you're making your own personal decision. You're praying. And God, show me, teach me, guide me. That's exactly what you want to do. And I think the wisdom comes from Jesus. We look at Jesus. Jesus was so on mission that there were cities where he's doing miracles and he's preaching, and the people in that city are like, Hey, stay here. Jesus. And what does Jesus say? Nope, I got to move to the next city. So Jesus was so on mission that nobody was getting him off mission. Now, his mission is the most radically loving mission ever, but it doesn't mean that he's always making people happy.

When he left that town, I'm sure those people were bummed. There was another guy that was demon possessed that he healed, and the guy's like, I want to go with you Jesus. And Jesus is like, Nope, you need to stay here and you need to tell the town there all that Jesus has done for you. You need to bear witness in me. You don't get to follow me right now. You don't get to go with me. But then he's got other people where he is like, Hey, follow me. Come and follow me. When it came to the rich young ruler, what does he say? Go sell all your stuff and give to the poor. So there is this personal work of the Holy Spirit taking the Bible, of applying it in our lives, showing us this is what it means for you to be fruitful.

We know that it's guaranteed. He wants you to be fruitful to walk in the good works that he's prepared from the foundation of the earth, but you have to personally determine what does that mean? Does that make sense? Okay. Yeah. And then there's going to be times, there's going to be times where it doesn't feel good, where it's just like, man, I had to create that boundary and that person's upset with me. I don't like conflict. I'm like that. I'm one of these people that avoids conflict, but sometimes I got to, for the sake of what God's called me to do, I got to put down the line and be very direct and say, Nope, not happening, right? So yeah, it's not always pretty, right? Sometimes it's a little bit of a mess. But I think you look at Jesus' life like we're doing, we get some really good wisdom, principles and some comfort. Okay, let's keep going. We've got just a few more minutes before we're going to run out of time, okay? Here is what Jesus says. They were offended by him. Do you see that? They're offended by him? Jesus offended people.

Okay? Was that wrong? Did he sin? No. No, he didn't. He was just doing his mission. He's on mission. He's following God. He's obeying God in what the God the Father has called him to do. They're offended. There's going to be people who get offended. Wait until we get to the next story about John, right? He wasn't offense. He ended up with his head cut off, right? Sometimes as you follow Jesus, it's an offense. So Jesus says, A prophet is not without honor. In other words, a prophet lives an honorable role, but there is this exception to the rule his hometown and his household rejects him. But look at this. He did not do many miracles there because of their unbelief. The city, the town of Nazareth missed out on just this abundance of miracles because of their attitude of unbelief. Look at how Mark talks about this.

Mark tells the same story and Mark says he was not able to do a miracle there except that he laid his hands on a few sick people and he healed them. So here's this city that misses out on Jesus's ministry because of the condition of their faith. And I want to spend a little bit of time on this, okay? Jesus is limited not because he is powerless. He doesn't lack power in Nazareth, but it is the lack of faith. The offense they take is rooted in their unbelief, which prevents them from experiencing the fullness of Jesus's power. And this is a theme throughout the gospel. So we had the story of the centurion in Matthew chapter eight, verse five through 13. There the centurion expresses his faith to Jesus. And Jesus says to the centurion, your daughter's going to be healed. Let it be done according to your faith.

Jesus says, I'm going to do this powerful work, but your faith is involved in that. Then you get the story of the woman who is hemorrhaging. She had the issue of blood. In Matthew chapter nine, she grabs the hem of Jesus's garment. Jesus talks with her and she responds, and Jesus says, it's because of your faith that you are healed. You have the healing of the demon possessed boy in Matthew 17. We haven't gotten there yet, but it's Jesus sends the disciples out and somebody can't get healed. And the disciples are like, why can't we heal this man's son who's demon possessed and has these epileptic seizures? Why can't we do this? And Jesus says, it's because of the lack of your faith. It's doesn't come out without fasting and prayer. Their faith was not corresponding to the moment and what needed to occur. And then Jesus has this teaching in Mark 11 about a withered fig tree.

And he says, look, if you have faith like the size of a mustard seed, mountains are going to move. And so this question arises, what does it mean? What does it mean to have faith? Let me show you that passage out of, and Jesus is teaching early in the morning as they're passing by, they saw the fig tree that was withered from its roots. Earlier in the story, Jesus had cursed this fig tree because it wasn't fruitful. And then Peter remembered and said, look, rabbi teacher, the fig tree that you cursed, it's withered. And Jesus replied, have faith in God. Truly, I tell you, if anyone says to this mountain, be lifted up and thrown into the sea and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says will happen, it will be done for him. Therefore, I tell you everything you pray and ask for, believe that you have received it and it will be yours.

So Jesus is encouraging his disciples to have an attitude of faith. I want to spend a moment just kind of warning you about some of the teachings that exist about faith that you may see on TV from Christian preachers on tv. It's called the word of faith movement. And one of the pieces of the word of faith movement is you need to name it and you need to claim it. And it's based off of some of these teachings of Jesus about faith, but it's taking what Jesus teaches about faith and twisting it just a little bit. The word of faith teaches that word of faith teaches. It says that words have spiritual power. If believers speak faith filled words, they can create or manifest blessings, healings, wealth or success. The proponents of this teaching would be somebody like Creflo Dollar or Benny Hin or Kenneth Copeland. They're some of the most popular teachers of the word of faith teaching. And I'm going to explain to you why this is not the teaching of the Bible about faith. Faith is important, but how these guys are teaching it is not accurate. Name it and claim. It is a slogan within the word of faith movement or their circles. And it emphasizes this idea of naming or declaring a specific desire like financial provision, healing or success. And then you claim it by faith.

You claim it by faith, expecting God that God will deliver it. The problem is that it encourages believers to boldly declare what they want in Jesus' name based on a conviction that God wants them to have it. And it often extends to material wealth, physical health, and personal success. It teaches that if a believer's faith is strong enough and their words are enough, God is obliged to grant what is claimed. So here's the concerns, okay? First of all, it is a misrepresentation of faith. It often distorts the biblical concept of faith, making it more of a technique to get what you want rather than a relationship of trust in God's will. So it's like you got to declare God, I want that Lambo. I want that Lambo. I want that Lambo in Jesus name. Give me that Lambo. And it's like if you just have enough faith, you're going to get it.

And it's taking away this aspect of relational trust and this idea that God is the one who has the plan. You didn't become a Christian just to rub a lamp and have a genie or like a end of heavenly vending machine. That's not why we became Christians. The second concern with the word of faith movement is this focus on material blessing. It tends to overemphasize earthly blessings, sometimes neglecting the broader biblical teaching on suffering, humility, and a surrender to God's will. It oftentimes short circuits, it's like, God, just make me rich. Make me rich, make me rich. I claim it in Jesus' name. Make me rich. But it doesn't take into account the wisdom of scripture, which teaches that if you work, you will make money. If you have good friendships and you hang out with the right people, your life will be happier than hanging out with the, it takes away just the wisdom, embedded wisdom principles of scripture around material blessings and the idea of stewardship and that God entrusts material blessings to us so that we can be a blessing to others.

It just is this the word of faith? It really flourishes and takes hold in the midst of poverty where people are struggling and it's just like, man, maybe this guy, Kenneth Copeland, look, he's got a jet and he's got a runway and he's got this massive property, and maybe I just need to name it and claim it and claim it in Jesus' name and think positive thoughts and I'll get it. And that's not what the Bible teaches. That's not how we become rich. That's not how we become happy or lived a blessed life. What we are invited to is into the kingdom of God. And it's not opposed to your material blessings, but material blessings are not the end. It's a part of the wisdom of God and following God. And if he blesses you with material blessings, that's awesome, but it has a purpose. It serves a purpose in your life.

So that's the second concern. The third concern is the manipulation of God. It risks treating God as a means to fulfill personal desires rather than as the sovereign Lord who acts according to his wisdom and his purposes. Again, the genie in the bottle type teaching. And that's not how we treat God, right? That's not how we want to treat God. We don't want to interact with him as if he's a genie in the bottle. He loves us, he wants good for us. So lemme give you five principles about faith. Okay? Five principles about faith in five minutes.

Principle number one, faith creates an environment, an open space or context where God can work. So think of an arena. When you place your faith in God, you're creating the atmosphere where God can work. So in Nazareth, they didn't have faith in Jesus, and it says that that limited Jesus from what he could do. Jesus is still just as powerful as any other day, but it wasn't mixed with faith and they missed out. So faith creates an environment where God can work. Principle number two, faith is always proportional to the degree of God's revelation. What should I believe when I want to place my faith in Jesus? What should I believe? Will you believe as much as he's shown you? Here's the idea. Biblical faith responds to what God has already revealed, whether through scripture, personal conviction by the Holy Spirit or clear expressions of his will.

It's not about wishful thinking, but about responding to God's promises, commands, and character. You are the responder, not the initiator. You're not going to God and saying, God, I believe you for Lambo. You're listening to God's direction, his will, the work of the Holy Spirit in your life, and you're saying, God, I trust you for that. You're responding in faith to what God's showing. You're the responder, not initiator. Principle number three, true faith always aligns with God's character and his kingdom purposes. True faith always aligns with God's character and his kingdom purposes. Here's what that means. Faith is not merely about what we want. It's about God's redemptive plan. When Jesus speaks of mountain moving faith, he is talking about a faith that cooperates with God's mission on earth, faith that seeks his kingdom. First, you can look at Matthew chapter 6 33. You could look at Matthew seven, the Lord's Prayer, or Matthew six earlier on with the Lord's Prayer.

Your kingdom come principle number four, faith is about deepening trust in God, not using him as a means to an end. It's about deepening trust in God, not using him as a means to an end. At its core, faith is relational, an expression of trust in God's goodness, sovereignty and wisdom. It's about walking closely with him even when the outcomes aren't what we expected or desire. And principle number five, faith holds both confidence and surrender, acknowledging that God's ways are higher than ours. While faith can be confident in God's revealed promises, it also submits to his mysterious ways when he doesn't act as expected. Think of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane when he says, not my will, but yours be done. Jesus is praying, Lord, if there be any way, take this cup from me, and yet then he prays, but not my will. Your will be done.

Those are the four or five principles of faith that I want you to hold on to. What was happening in Jesus's hometown is they were just missing the work of God in their midst because they were familiar. It was too common. It was like, that's the carpenter son. And listen, the living God is in our midst. The living God, the Spirit of God is in you. He's He's around you. There are angels around you. God's in the midst of Baltimore. Do you know that God is working right now in Baltimore City? There's crazy things that God's doing right here in our neighborhood, and he is not asking your permission, and it's okay if you don't see it. It doesn't get in the way of him. He's just doing it. All that you have this morning is this invite, Hey, come and see. Come and be a part of it.

Come and be about what I'm doing. But in your personal life, it is possible. It makes you wonder, right? Are you missing out on the power of God? Because you're not creating that arena of faith where you're just trusting. You're like, God, I trust in you. I don't know. Ask that question. Ask that question. Am I rising to the occasion with my faith? On one hand, you don't want to name it and claim it and be coming up with crazy stuff, but man, we want to be responding to God and all that he is and all that He's capable and all that He's shown us. We want to be saying, yes, God, you can do it. The perpetual optimist, the one who's believing that our life is a part of this plan where God's at work.

Well, we don't have time to get into the story of John. We don't have time. Yeah, so next week, next week, next week, we're going to have to look at the story of John. You can read ahead. I'm saying you can read ahead through the first 12 verses of Matthew 15. Matthew 15. Let's stand. Let's stand and pray. You guys are awesome. We're going to sing in this song in a minute, but let's pray. Lord, thank you. Thank you, God for your goodness. Lord, we pray. We want to respond to you in faith. God, we want to trust in you fully what you're showing us. We want to believe it in faith. We don't want to be getting out in front of you, but God, we want to be those that are just believing that you can do it anything you want, and man God, we don't want to miss out on your work like the people in Nazareth because we're familiar, or it seems too common, or it's like, oh, yeah, yeah, that's the carpenter's son. God. Would you give us just a fresh optimism and belief and trust that God you are at work and that you want to work and you can work in us? Lord, we believe in you. Thank you. Thank you, God.

Matthew 13:1-9

Transcription

We're going to start in chapter 13, Matthew chapter 13. So that means we got through chapter 12. Today we come to Matthew 13 where Jesus introduces parables as a central teaching tool. This is a new section in the book of Matthew. If you've been following closely, you notice a shift in how Jesus communicates. He has been very direct up until this point, but now he moves into teaching in parables, stories that invite people to dig beneath the surface. And this is on purpose. This is intentional. Jesus is doing something both brilliant and challenging by using parables. It's not just storytelling device. It's a way of revealing truth to those who are open while also obscuring it from those who aren't really listening. What we're going to do, there's three things that we're going to do. We're going to read the parable right off the bat this morning.

Then we're going to spend a good bit of time talking about this question. Why did Jesus choose to teach in parables? We don't have to ask the question. Jesus is asked the question by his own disciples. And then finally, we'll explore how this parable invites each of us to reflect in our own hearts and the responses to the message about the kingdom contained in these parables. So let's look first at these first nine verses. They'll be up here on the screen. This is the Christian standard Bible version. It says this. On that day, Jesus went out of the house and was sitting by the sea, such a large crowds gathered around him that he got into a boat and he sat down while the whole crowd stood on the shore. Then he told them many things in parables saying, consider the sower who went out to sow.

As he sowed, some seed fell along the path and the birds came and devoured them. Other seed fell on rocky ground where it didn't have much soil, and it grew up quickly since the soil wasn't deep. But when the sun came up, it was scorched. And since it had no root, it withered away. Other seed fell among the thorns and its thorns came up and choked it. Still other seed fell on good ground and produced fruit. Some a hundred, some 60, some 30 times what was sown? Let anyone who has ears, listen, Lord, we have ears. Think everybody here has ears. And I pray that you would give us the ability to hear what you're saying, help our hearts to hear what you're saying. Help us to wrestle with this whole idea of parables and why did you change from being so direct to then using these parables as a strategy to communicate?

God, would you teach us what we need to hear this morning? Lord, the very message of this parable of being this soft, good, rich soil that produces fruit. Lord, we want to be that, but we also, Lord, we want to just in a broad sense, understand what you're saying to us in our lives. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Now, I recognize that in this church and this morning, there are a whole bunch of different people coming from different backgrounds. You may be just kind of exploring religious systems and spiritual ideas and hearing about Christianity for the first time or early on. And there's some stuff here for you from Jesus's teaching and for the rest of us, many of us we're already followers of Jesus and we've been baptized and there's stuff in here for us as well. We see that this story occurs right on the heels of this scene.

Remember last week, we looked at how Jesus was healing and teaching in this house, and the disciples came to him and said, Hey, your mother and your brothers are outside. And Jesus said, well, no, my mother and my brothers are those that obey me, that listen to my words and they obey me. And he reframes the idea of a spiritual family. And the text says it's on that same day that Jesus went out of the house and he's sitting by the sea and there's large crowds so large that he gets into a boat and he goes out in the boat while the whole crowd stood on the shore. So he's teaching from this setting. He tells them many things, and then he goes into this parable. And what I want you to see is a couple of things. One, I want you to see this word here.

He calls upon the audience to consider. He calls for them to call to contemplate this picture, this agricultural picture. And then we see it. Now, how many of you have heard this parable before? So we've got some people that are familiar with this story. So we see that it's a picture of a farmer who's tossing seeds out there into the field, and some of the seeds fall. They fall in different settings. And so we've got seeds that are falling on the path and the birds are eating those seeds. And then some seeds are falling where it's really rocky and they kind of spring up, but they can't really get their roots down into the ground because of how rocky the soil is. Have you ever planted carrots? And when you plant carrots, you got to make sure that there's no rocks in there, right? Because otherwise it just kind of gets all splintered.

You can't get a good carrot. Well, in this case, we have this rocky soil. It's not cleaned out of the rocks. And then we have another scenario where the seeds fall amongst thorns and there's this competition and the thorns are kind of choking out the good plant that wants to grow up. And then the fourth soil is good ground, and it's possible for this plant to grow up and to produce its fruit, and not just a little bit of fruit, but some says it's a hundred some 60 and some 30 times. So imagine putting one kernel of corn into the ground and then that stalk comes up and you have these two cobs of corn or three cobs of corn growing off of that stalk, and you open up the stalk and how many different kernels are just on that one piece of corn? And then you have three of 'em.

So that's where you get this idea of a hundred fold. It's this one seed has become so much, but this is what I want you to see. He says, let anyone who has ears listen what I'm trying to, so he says, consider this to this broad audience. And he says this, if you have ears, listen. Now, do they listen? Do they all get it? No, they don't. Because the next section that we're going to see is this wrestling. This wrestling with the text. So when we get to verse 10, the disciples come to Jesus and they speak to, and they ask him, why are you speaking to the crowd in parables? Why are you doing this? And so Jesus answered, because the secrets of the kingdom of heaven have been given for you to know, but it's not been given to them. For whoever has more will be given to him and he will have more than enough. But whoever does not have even what he has will be taken away from him. Now, what kind of answer is that?

One of my spiritual heroes said to me, look, you feel like it's contradict. One of my spiritual heroes said to me, pastors shouldn't preach the parables until they've been in ministry for at least 30 years. So I've been in ministry for 20 years and I'm violating his rule a little bit. And I'll tell you I'm still wrestling with this, but let's wrestle with it together because one of the things we'll spend some time on the question of from the disciples in the gospels, Jesus tells around 30 to 40 parables depending on how you categorize a parable. 30 to 40, these parables make up a significant portion of his teaching ministry, especially in Matthew, mark and Luke. In Matthew 13 alone, we see several parables starting with a parable of the sower. So in other words, when you come back next week, when you come back next week, when you come back next week, you're going to come back next week.

When you come back next week, we're going to go to the next parable and we're going to see, he's going to talk about hell. That's an important week to come to because hell is not very popular in our culture. The fact that Jesus loving Jesus would explain hell in the way that he does, it's like, whoa, that's crazy. So let's come back next week and let's wrestle with the idea of hell from Jesus's teaching about the parables. But he says this, he has this here. This is his response. Jesus is explaining that parables are designed to reveal truth to those who are spiritually opened and those who have ears. But there are two problems that arise, okay? This is at least the two problems I see. And if you're new to listening to me preach, God is a big God who can handle our questions and us feeling frustrated when we're reading the Bible is not an offense to him.

In fact, I go back to that very first command that he said, he says, consider, he asks, Hey, I want you to consider this, and I think he also wants us to consider this here. The Bible is not written to be just an instruction manual. The quick guide that you get out, not even the instruction manual, the quick guide, the one that you just kind of flip open when you get a new device, it just shows you here's how to turn it on. That's not how the Bible's written. The Bible is written not as an instruction manual with all the technical jargon, but it is written in an intricate, beautiful way, maybe good literature that's meant to be chewed on and wrestled with and read over and over and over again. So here are the two problems that arise when I read this. The first is, this doesn't seem fair.

How can Jesus include some and exclude others? Because he says the secrets of the kingdom have been given for you, but it's not been given to them. And you assume when he says this that he's saying, you disciples, you get to have the secrets of the kingdom, but the rest of this crowd, they don't get to have it. Now, that doesn't seem fair. It also seems like it kind of contradicts what he's been doing because he wants people to come into the kingdom. And so it's like, well, what's going on, Jesus? What's that? Okay. The second issue that comes up is this doesn't seem to account for those who do become new followers of Jesus. If he says it's not for them, but new people do come in and they receive it, then it's like, well, does that violate? Does that contradict what he's saying here?

So those are at least two of the kind of speed bumps that we hit when we read this. So let's talk about it doesn't seem fair first, okay, it doesn't seem fair. How can Jesus include some and exclude others with this whole idea of parables in mind? And I want to spend a minute on this because we're going to do a lot in parables, and this is the only time, one of the only times when Jesus says, here's why I talk in parables. It's an important thing to him. So it may feel uncomfortable. It seems like Jesus is being selective, revealing the truth to some and not to others. It feels like favoritism or exclusion, but that's not really what's happening here. Jesus isn't arbitrarily excluding people. The issue lies with the condition of their heart. In other words, it's not that some people are pre-chosen to understand and others are locked out forever, forever.

Instead, Jesus is speaking to a principle about spiritual openness. So let me interrupt my own notes here and just say, the issue does not come down to Jesus being like, I'm intentionally trying to hide this from you. What he's saying is, if your heart is in the right place, you'll be able to receive this. If you are a follower of me, this will be for you. But this is intentionally hidden and not for you if you're not willing to follow me. He's weeding out people, he is weeding out people, and we do that in our own lives. Sometimes we work with people in a way where we don't just expose ourselves to anybody with friendship. Can I use just an example really quickly? I'll just keep them anonymous from Felicia, and we had a person who was homeless. You can use me. Okay? So Felicia had somebody who was homeless that she was trying to work with, and she hired the person to do a little bit of work and was trying to, she helped him out a little bit and gave the person an opportunity to prove themselves.

And the further along that she went in that relationship, the person ended up proving out that they were unreliable, probably dishonest about substance abuse, but there was an opportunity there to see what's the condition of this person's heart. And so Jesus is doing ministry in a way where he's revealing the kingdom. He's teaching something awesome about the kingdom of how it works and how the word of God works if you're tender hearted to him, if you're, but it's not for you like, Hey, hey, you don't have to worry about the kingdom of heaven. If you don't want to follow Jesus, you don't have to worry about this parable. If you don't want to follow Jesus, it's not for you. You get to decide. It's kind of like you get to decide whether you're a beneficiary of this or not. So in verse 12, he says, for whoever has more will be given to him and he will have more than enough, but whoever does not have even what he has will be taken away.

I am going to leave 12 for another parable because this principle comes out more. If you place yourself in a position where you're receptive and you're receiving, it just grows like the principle of the kingdom. One of these underlying principles is that you have, you keep gaining more based off what you have and the condition of your own heart. It's like my dad, when he was trying to teach me about money, he was like, money makes more money, right? Did you ever hear that from your parents? Like money, money begets money. Money, you make money. Yeah. And exactly. It takes money to make money. You put money in the market, it should, if you're wise with your money, it brings back a return. Essentially. Jesus is saying the same idea here, but in terms of spiritual principles, so going back to my notes, instead, Jesus is speaking to a principle about spiritual openness. The parables reveal truth to those who are humble, seeking and willing to listen.

Those who already have a desire for God and who are hungry for the kingdom will be given more. Those who resist, who have closed themselves off to God will find that even the little under the understanding that they have, it slips away. So let's say you talk to somebody a little bit in a conversation and the disposition of their heart is they're just closed, but maybe they're tracking in that conversation a little bit about Jesus, but because of the condition of their heart, they go away. They just totally forget about it. And so in that sense, what they have is even taken away from them the condition. It's a heart condition. Parables. Listen to this. Parables are like a mirror reflecting the heart of the listener. The more a person resists God's truth, the more they become spiritually hardened. But the invitation is still there.

Anyone who seeks will find anyone who knocks will have the door opened. The key difference is in the response of the listener, not in Jesus deliberately excluding them. Because what does he say? He says, if you have ears, listen, he says, consider this right at the opening, right? He says, consider this. So Jesus is asking for everyone to engage it, but the only ones that benefit from it are the ones who are willing to be a follower of him who are open to his leadership. So listen, if you're on your spiritual journey and you're like, I don't know about this Jesus guy or church, or Who's this guy? You're talking up front, that's fine. You just need to know. One of the things that the Bible says is that you have this. It affirms your autonomy and your agency. There's nothing about Jesus that's trying to cram stuff down your throat.

He says, I'll package the principles of the kingdom in these beautiful parables that are like treasures. If you'll go after it if you're tender hearted, but if you're hardhearted, you just going to be calloused. You're going to lose out. Now I'm getting a little bit ahead of myself now. It's like this. Here's an illustration. Light is available to everyone in this room. If a person chooses to close their eyes, the light does not benefit them. Jesus's parables are like light. They illuminate for those who are open, but they illuminate for those who are open. But for those who are closing their spiritual eyes, they remain in the dark. Okay, let's talk a little bit about this second issue that comes up as we're looking at it, that it doesn't seem to account for those who become followers of Jesus after. It's like, wait, if it's only given to the disciples, but it's not given for those who are given after them, how does that work out?

Why would that statement be there? It's a good question. I'm glad you asked it. Thank you. You're welcome. You're welcome. If Jesus is saying whoever will be given more, where does that leave? Those who have little to no understanding of the kingdom? Jesus's invitation is always, it remains open. The parable doesn't lock people into their current state. They can awaken a curiosity and spark a desire for truth. These parables can spark a desire for truth even if they were in an indifferent or resistant state. And so that gives you hope because many of us have friends and family who we long for them to be spiritually connected in with God who made them. We've been talking about how we're a house made for God. We are intended to be in constant relationship with God, and that's why Jesus died on the cross, so that for ourselves and our friends and our family and our neighbors and our coworkers, they could be connected back with God.

But the question, the fear is, well, maybe are they locked out? And we know because we weren't locked out. We were those that kind of came along and benefited after the fact. We know that even those who are indifferent and resist, that their hearts can be softened. If we go a little bit further, we'll see this throughout the gospels. We see people encountering Jesus in a way where their hearts change. Think of Zacchaeus the wee little man. A wee little man. Was he none of you grew up in Sunday school, did you? Okay. You never heard that song? We got to sing that one. Okay, thank you. You heard that song way, yes. Way back, right? That's been around for a while. We should sing that. Okay, so Zacchaeus or even the apostle Paul, right? He was a hardhearted fellow. He heard the gospel, and yet what does Jesus do knocks him off his horse with a bright light and says, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?

Right? God gives Saul an opportunity to repent even in his hardness. So Zacchaeus and Saul, these men, literally, they weren't receptive to Jesus's message, but when they encountered him, they were transformed. So when Jesus says whoever has be given more, he's speaking to the reality that those who respond to him in faith, no matter when they come to faith, they will receive an abundance of understanding and grace. In a sense, parables are both an invitation and a filter for the disciples and those who are genuinely seeking to know God. These stories unlock deeper truths about the kingdom of heaven. They require engagement, reflection, and a willingness to seek understanding. What I don't want you to do is to read this and think that God's trying to put distance between you and himself. What I want you to see is that this is an invitation to come in close and to chew on it.

It's not written. The Bible is not written so that you can just have some tight systematic theology and be like, yep, I know my facts and figures. No, you're invited to have a relationship with God through his word. And this is one of those sections of the Bible that speaks to that so clearly. So Jesus continues and says, that is why I speak to them in parables, because looking, they don't see and hearing. They don't listen or understand. And then he's going to quote from Isaiah six, nine through 10. So Jesus says, look, this method of mine is based on what Isaiah said. Now, who's Isaiah? Isaiah's a prophet who speaks to rebellious Israel. When they're caught up in their pagan idolatry, they've rebelled against God. And Isaiah the prophet is telling them, listen, God is inviting you to repent, to turn, and there is going to be a future hope.

The whole first 39 chapters of the book of Isaiah is doom and gloom. Y'all screwed up. He says, you as a nation are like an un bandage pussy wound. That's what he says. He says, you are like a stubborn mule that won't return to its pen. That's just chapter one. He goes 39 chapters calling out the nation of Israel for their stubbornness. But even in that, you get to chapter 40 and we get all this hope of John the Baptist, the Messiah, the suffering servant is coming. See God is He knows how to work with those of us that are stubborn. I know none of you are stubborn, but if you happen to be stubborn, he's really good at working with the stubborn ones. He says, looking, looking. They do not see hearing. They do not. They don't listen or understand. Isaiah's prophecy is fulfilled in them, which says, you will listen and listen, but never understand. You'll look and look, but never perceive for these people's heart has grown callous. Their ears are hard of hearing, and they have shut their eyes. Otherwise they might see with their eyes and hear with the ears, and understand with their hearts and turn back, and I would heal them. Do you see the scenario here, the hypothetical? He says if they would listen, let's start here. Their ears, otherwise they may see with their eyes and hear with their ears. This is the hypothetical. It's possible. And if they were to do it, he would heal them.

They would have understanding and turn back and God would heal 'em. There is this possibility that even Isaiah says to this nation, it is possible for you to turn, but the state of your heart is one where you're completely callous. Do you have calluses on your hands? Usually guys have calluses more than, oh, you do? Okay. Yeah, I got one right here. Do you have one right there too from cleaning? Yes, mine's from the lawnmower. I feel like I've had it since I was 13. And this is the thing, how do you get a callous work hard work over and on the same spot right over and over and over again? And he says, your hearts because you don't listen, your hearts have a callous on it that keeps you from knowing God.

Have you ever watched seven year olds on the playground at school how much fun they're having, the light that's in so many seven year olds lives? Have you ever gone to a middle school and seen them? This is kind of like what middle school is. I have had some before. They're kind of like the light's gone out. What happened between seven and 14? Yeah, a little bit of life. A little bit of life has happened. A lot of us have had a lot of life. We've had God working in Psalm 19 that we didn't read. The first half is that God's been in love with you from when you were born. He's been revealing himself to you through creation, those beautiful sunrises that you've witnessed, those quiet moments in your life, the moments where he's provided for you, the sweetness of friendships and relationships. God's been talking to you through your whole life, but some of you have kept saying no.

And what's developed is a little bit of a callous there, and it's keeping you from being able to hear these stories that Jesus tells. And the good news for you this morning is that he's challenging you. He's kind of poking you a little bit in saying, will you turn? Will you turn? Are you willing? Are you willing to run after it or are you going to just kind of listen to another sermon and just walk out the door? And he says, it's okay. You have your freedom. You have absolute freedom, but do you have treasures that are offered to you this morning if you're willing to have a tender humble heart? Okay, let's go on to the last part of this.

We will go through 16, 17, and then we'll go to his explanation. He says to the disciples, blessed are your eyes. And I don't have time to get into all the parallels between Isaiah, but it's so beautiful because the front half of what Jesus just said, it seems so harsh of like, yeah, well, they're just not listening. They're blind, they're stubborn, they're callous, and it just seems like, oh my gosh, they're under judgment. But then you get this, blessed are your eyes. And that's exactly how the, that's the framework of Isaiah Isaiah's written to pound you over the head with a hammer. Not because God wants to just be mean to you, but because he cares so much about the rotten state you're in and he wants to shock you basically and use graphic language. We need our mouths sometimes to be cleaned out. But I'll tell you, you read through Isaiah and some of the language that's used there, God's pretty okay with shocking verbiage to try to get people out of their rebellion to hear them.

Yeah, God cares for people. But look at what he says when he gets to verse 16. He says to the disciples, blessed are your eyes because they do see your ears, because they do hear for truly, I tell you, many prophets and righteous people longed to see the things you see but didn't see them and to hear the things you hear but didn't hear them. This moment that the disciples get, he explains. He could have just left it there. But he goes a little bit beyond his explanation of parables and he just says, you guys are just blessed. You are a blessed people because you see, you hear there are many prophets and righteous people. Even the prophet Isaiah, the prophet, Ezekiel the prophet, Hosea David himself. They had a sense God was working through them. They had this sense of God's going to work in the future, but they didn't get the details.

They didn't get to touch Jesus. And so Jesus says to his disciples, many prophets and righteous people long to see the things you see but didn't see them and to hear the things you hear but didn't hear them, just this amazing blessing. I just would challenge you with that because there's people that don't know how to read. They don't have the Bible in their own language. They don't have access to a Bible. They don't have a space like this where they can worship. You are counted amongst those who are blessed. God has done something amazing in my life and your life that we're even in this space. This is amazing that God broke in to human history and allowed for you to understand his great love for you. Now, you may not receive it, you may not want to have anything to do with God, and God gives you the freedom to decide that. But what we are witnessing is absolutely amazing that God is this kind. Jesus quotes from Isaiah six. It's a striking image of spiritual blindness and deafness.

It's amazing just the condition of these hard hearts like in the Pharisees, but then just what the disciples get to receive from is such a blessing. Let's go to this last section all about the fulfillment and the explanation of the actual parable. So listen to the parable of the sower. When anyone hears the word about the kingdom doesn't understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what was sown in his heart. This is the one that was sown along the path. So again, to set up the scene, Jesus tells this parable to the crowd. Then he talks with the disciples, and now he's explaining to the disciples, here is what this parable means. Now, Jesus isn't going to do this with every parable. He isn't going to walk through each parable and say, here's what this means and here's what this means. This is a bit unique to the parable of the sower.

And he says this first seed is the word about the kingdom. It comes to the person, they don't understand it, and the evil one comes and snatches it away. Who's the evil one? The devil, right? So Satan comes and snatches what was sown into his heart. So this is a scenario, okay? God is putting out there. So the question that you may have is, is this for people who are just learning about Jesus? And then if I'm a Christian already, and that means that the word has gone into my heart and it's producing fruit, here's what you need to know about parables. Parables teach principles. So yes, this is talking about you. No matter what season you are, maybe you're still just the message about Jesus's kingdom and your invitation into it. You need to receive that and you need to be soft soil. But this is also possible to be a principle in just, I get up tomorrow morning, I'm reading my Bible, and God teaches me something, speaks something to me.

Maybe I have a little bit of a hard heart and I just don't receive it in, and it just kind of gets snatched away. Satan's able to just kind of have his way, distract me, get me into a bad attitude, kind of tempt me with something. Who knows? It is possible that this scenario can play out for those of us that are also followers of Jesus. So we have the word about the kingdom is the seed sown into the hearts, but then snatched away by Satan, not understood, snatched away, distracted by Satan. The second seed is the one sewn on rocky ground is the one who hears the word immediately receives it with joy, but he has no root in short lived. When distress or persecution comes because the word, because of the word, immediately he falls away. So this is the person they hear about Jesus, they hear about the kingdom.

They're like, yeah, that's awesome. Kind of have an emotional response with joy. But they didn't have roots. They got excited early on, but they didn't really keep going. In that case, they face distress. Life starts to happen. I know none of you know what distress or persecution is. No, they start to have life. They start to experience things that are difficult, and it's because they're starting to obey the word. Okay, lemme break it down like this. Some of you have recently become a follower of Jesus, and all of a sudden you're like, man, I really shouldn't do that anymore in my life. And so you start following what your conscience is telling you, and the spirit of God is activating your conscience and you're obeying the Bible and all of a sudden people don't want to be your friend anymore. Or people say junk to you and it gets a little bit and then all on top of your friends rejecting you, your car breaks down or something else happens. It's difficult and distressing. And there's this possibility, there's some that fall away. I've had that. I got people that have, we've been here, what, six and a half years. I got people who come in, they have this awesome Sunday morning, pastor, I love what you're doing. Haven City Church to the moon.

I'm going to be all involved. And then next week, wow, where'd that person go? Next week we have, they're not coming back anymore. Crazy, crazy, crazy, crazy. Listen, that's not how it's supposed to work. So that's the second seed. The third seed. Now the one sewn among the thorns, this is the one who hears the word, but the worries of this age, the deceitfulness of wealth, they choke the word and it becomes unfruitful. Here you've got somebody, I don't know any, listen, if there's anybody here that's got the deceitfulness of wealth in your life, you ought to be tithing more. Okay? Lemme just say that straight up. I don't think that's talking to a lot of people in this church, but if for some reason you win like a million dollars in the lottery, please tithe some of that to the church. I appreciate it. But let's say hypothetically that that person is here and you get some money, right? And you get some money.

In this scenario, this person's hearing about Jesus, but they're also just distracted by the worries of this age. They're just kind of caught up, caught up in what's going on, distracted, and it just kind of chokes out that good thing. I think if I was going to look at any one of these, the mirror, like we were talking about before, this is the one that I think I'm most in danger of on a regular basis. Just like so much stuff's going on in life. You got this phone, you can pull it out, and there's just so much information in there. And so I might sit in the morning and have my quiet time and read the Bible and God's speaking something in my life, and I just go through the rest of the day and it's like I just kind of gets choked out by the rest of life.

And what that choking does is it keeps me from being the fruitful plant that God wants me to be. I don't know. You got to look in the mirror of this parable on your own and see where are you at? But I'm just telling you, I think this is the one where I'm at, but the one sewn on good ground, this is the one who hears notice. He hears and understands the word and does produce fruit and yields some a hundred, some 60, some 30 times what was sown. That's how it's supposed to work. God gives us his word. He speaks into our life. It's supposed to be heard, understood, obeyed, and then fruit comes from our life. If you don't yet have a relationship with God, you haven't been reconciled back to God because your heart's been hard. You didn't know you got to turn to him.

The first thing you need to do today is you need to say, God, I'm ready to accept what Jesus has done on my behalf. I'm ready to turn my life over to you. For the rest of us that have already taken that step, we've been baptized, we're following Jesus, but we need to be those who are taking in the word of the kingdom on a daily basis, letting it affect our hearts, letting it change our hearts so that we can be a people that are fruitful. 2024. The theme of this year for me has been this idea of fruit that I'm designed to bear. Fruit, your designed to be fruitful. That's a broad category. It's this category of doing life well, neighboring well, loving your family well, doing your job with excellence, bearing, having peace in your life, loving the people around you. All of that is like the fruit of God coming from your life as if you were a tree, but we are designed to be fruitful.

Genesis chapter one, you're created in the image of God. He commanded you, be fruitful and multiply, subdue and rule. You all are in this garden. You're intended to be fruitful trees, and Jesus says the word of God, it comes into your life. We have soft hearts. It produces this fruit. Let's pray. Lord, we ask that you would work in our lives in this way. It's our jobs to have this soft soil. You speak the word into our lives. We've got to respond to you with this tenderness, this softness, this ready to obey. Lord, we pray that you, we want that fruitfulness in our life. We don't want to look at our life and go, man, I got ripped off by the devil over here, and I was distracted by the weeds over there, and there was just the soil and the hardness of life just smoked out the opportunity for fruitfulness over there. No God, we want to be fruitful of fruitful people, fruitful people. Lord, I pray that over our church. Let that be the case for us. Lord, let that be the case for us. We agree with your word this morning. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.

Matthew 12:38-50

Transcription
We are in Matthew. We've been going through the book of Matthew as a church for a little while. We're in the middle of, we're going to finish chapter 12 this morning, and this is Jesus is just in the middle. Jesus was born of a virgin Mary. He grew up 30 years of age and he got baptized by John the Baptist. The Spirit came down upon him at the end of that and said, this is my beloved son and whom I'm well pleased. That was the beginning of his public ministry. And he had 12 disciples, the apostles that followed him around, and he just went through the region of Galilee teaching in synagogues and from town to town. He would teach the gospel message about the kingdom and then he would in turn heal people. And he was doing different miracles from town to town, and he was attracting these huge crowds of people that were listening. And as he gained more and more of a following, there were the religious elite of the time became jealous because they were the epicenter. They were the influencers. If you've ever seen an influencer lose their position of influence, they go through this issue of being jealous of the people around them and start, they can get nasty. And the Pharisee started to get nasty because they were losing, their power was threatened.

They were no longer the influencers. They were no longer the influencers that they once were, and Jesus was now the new kid on the block. In a sense, it had been John. So there was this whole wave of stuff going on with John the Baptist, and people were flocking to John the Baptist. They were getting baptized, and now it's Jesus, because John was preparing the way for Jesus. Now, Jesus is preaching, he's healing and he's gathering a crowd. So that's going on. And so this guy, Matthew, is one of those 12 apostles, and he's after the death, the resurrection of Jesus, he puts together this account of the story of Jesus' life, death, and resurrection for the early church. And that is what we are reading this morning and we're seeing some of the teachings of Jesus. So we're going to look at three specific sections here.

And I've entitled this signs Spirits and the Family of God. And let me just start by saying this. We live in a culture where Christian language and ideas are pervasive. You can watch a sitcom on TV or on Netflix, and you'll hear terminology that actually comes from the Bible. Maybe the writers didn't even know that they're borrowing imagery and language from the Bible. But our culture, we live in a culture that is just rooted in Christian influence. And you'll run into people who will say like, Hey, I'm a spiritual person, but I'm not really religious. In fact, the Pew Research Group did a survey of American culture and found that there's 22% of people surveyed said that they're spiritual but not religious. People feel comfortable identifying as spiritual, yet many misunderstand what true faith is. You'll hear people say they're spiritual. They'll say, oh, I'm a person of faith.

But there's so many misunderstandings. I think the text here is going to confront three misunderstandings about faith. Some people demand of God that he give more proof of his existence. Have you ever ran into anybody that would say, well, I would believe in Jesus if he would just show me a sign, or I would believe in God if he would just show me a sign. Or you, maybe there's this focus on being good when it comes to faith. It's like I've got to clean up my act and they assume that good morals will earn them the favor of God, and that it's just I need to clean myself up, get rid of my demons, and then God will will bless me. Or there's another misconception where people trust in their heritage, and if you ask them about their spirituality or their faith, they'll say, oh yeah, I grew up in a Christian home or I grew up Catholic.

And their assumption is that they're good with God because their family was religious and they have this background or heritage. They assume their religious heritage is what puts them in a good place with God. But all of these approaches miss the heart of what faith and obedience to God is really about. And Jesus confronts these misconceptions as he's doing his ministry and they come up through the Pharisees or they come up through the crowd that's listening. And so we're going to see a bit of conflict. Jesus being a little bit confrontational in our texts this morning. We're going to start in verse eight. We'll go all the way to 50 verse 50. We'll see that Jesus starts by confronting the Pharisees. Again, those are the religious elites and he demand who are demanding of Jesus, a sign he warns about superficial spirituality, and then he's going to redefine what it means to be a part of the family of God.

So let's pray and then we're going to start in verse 38. Let's pray. Lord, we ask that you would speak to us this morning through the text. Thank you for Matthew and the record that we have here of your teaching, and we pray and ask that it would be razor sharp in our own life, not to hurt us, but to help us just like a surgeon would cut in and take out what's bad in our life. Use this to correct us, to instruct us to help us to do life. Lord, meet us. We pray by the power of your Holy Spirit. We ask this in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Let's look at verse 38. Verse 38. We'll talk about signs then some of the scribes and the Pharisees said to Jesus to him, teacher, we want to see a sign from you. He answered them an evil and adulterous generation demands a sign, but no sign will given to it.

Accept the sign of the prophet Jonah as Jonah was in the belly of the huge fish, three days and three nights. So the son of man will be in the heart of the earth three days and three nights. The men of Nineveh will stand up at the judgment with this generation and will condemn it because they repent it at Jonah's preaching. And look, something greater than Jonah is here. The queen of the South will rise up at the judgment with this generation, and she will condemn it because she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon. And look something greater than Solomon is here. We have this request from the Pharisees for a sign. And you see there that they are saying, teacher, we want to see a sign from you. Now, we know this story that Jesus has been doing a bunch of signs, like he's done a bunch of stuff already and he's teaching with authority already.

So the fact that they're like, well, we want to see another sign is kind of weird doing that already. He's going to continue to do it, but it seems like they're just, well, Jesus kind of calls him on it. He says, it's an evil and adulterous generation that demands a sign. And he says, no sign will be given to it. Accept the sign of the prophet Jonah. So what is this whole thing, prophet Jonah? Well, if you know your Bible, you know that there is a book in your Bible called Jonah. It's in the Old Testament. He was a Jewish prophet, so his genes were Jewish, he was Hebrew. And God spoke to Jonah and said, I want to send you to Nineveh. Now, Nineveh was not Jewish. This is a pagan city that was massive, and they were evil. And God said, Hey Jonah, I want you to go there and I want you to tell them that if they don't repent, I'm going to judge them.

I'm going to destroy that whole city. And Jonah's like, yeah, no, I'm not doing that. I'm out of here. He hops on a boat and he's heading to Tarsus and he's in the middle of the ocean. And all of a sudden this huge storm starts and the sailors on this ship start throwing stuff overboard and get rid of stuff. And still they're sinking and they're freaking out and they start praying to their gods and still it's going down and it's sinking. And they're like, something's got to give. Who else is missing? And they're like, it's Jonah. He's down under the boat and he's asleep. And they say to Jonah, Jonah, what have you done? And Jonah's like owns it. He says, I'm running away from God. I'm in rebellion. It's my fault. Just throw me overboard and everything will be all better. And they're like, no, no, there's got to be some other way.

Jonah says, Nope, it's my fault. I'm the responsible party. Throw me overboard. So Jonah gets thrown overboard and the calm, the sea is just calm. The storm goes away. And then the next thing you know, this giant fish swallows Jonah and he finds himself in the belly of this giant fish. And for three days he's in the acidic fluids of this giant fish. And finally on the third day, he finally decides, okay, my heart is soft. God, I messed up. I'm going to pray. And so we have in Jonah this prayer of repentance. God, forgive me if you let me survive, I'll obey you. So he gets barfed up. Can I say that in church? He gets barfed up onto the beach and he goes into Nineveh and he delivers the message on God's behalf, kind of bitter, but he says, listen, if y'all don't repent, God's going to smoke you.

And you know what happens? Nineveh repents. They listen to Jonah. And you know what Jonah thinks? Jonah's all ticked off. He goes and has a pity party up on the hill because he didn't like the Ninevites. He's kind of a racist, and he didn't like them as a people group. And he's mad that God had mercy on him. He's like, God, you knew they were going to repent, and here they, they're repenting and you're having mercy on 'em. That's not fair. And that's how the story ends in Jonah. Now, Jesus uses that story and he says, listen, this wicked and adulterous generation is going to get the sign of Jonah, the son of man, just like Jonah's in the big fish for three years, the son of man's going to be in the heart of the whale, or the son of man's going to be the heart of the earth for three nights just like that.

And so Jesus is talking about his resurrection that's going to take place. Then he's contrasting these Pharisees. He's saying, you are like Nineveh, and he's showing them that Nineveh was willing to repent, but they're not willing to repent. So there's like, look at the Ninevites. Do you see the Ninevites? Were willing to listen to Jonah when they had this crazy sign of it. Imagine being in the heart of the belly of a whale for three days. Guys was probably bleached white, maybe his hair was falling out. He was a mess, probably stank. But here he preaches and Nineveh repents, and yet here's the Pharisees. The point is Jesus is like, here you are as Pharisees. You are the ones who know the Bible.

Your genealogy should make you the most receptive to the work of God through the Son of man. And yet you're rejecting this thing that's greater than Jonah in your midst. And then he tells, he talks about Queen Sheba. He calls her the queen of the South, the queen of the South. Lemme go backwards here. Oh, let's go backwards here. No, that's not backwards. This is backwards. Okay? The queen of the South is from one kings. Now Israel, the nation of Israel had its high point, its financial high point, its geographic reign and territorial high point in the reign of Solomon. It's kind the golden era of Israel. And so Solomon is this wise king. He has just opulence and the surrounding nations came and one of the people that came to see Solomon was this queen Sheba, the queen of the South. And Jesus calls these pharisees to remember Queen Sheba and says, the Queen of Sheba, she will rise up at the judgment this future time.

Remember we talked about judgment last week, and I told you this is a running theme from 10 to 12 chapters, 10 to 12. Here it is again. She will rise up in the judgment with this generation and she will condemn it because she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon and look something greater than Solomon is here. The point is, there are these people like the Magi who came and gave gifts when Jesus was born, when he's like two years old, they brought gold, frankincense and Mer, right? There are these other strangers even during the life, the ministry of Jesus who participate and they're tender hearted towards Jesus, and they're getting it. They're tracking with it. And then you have the Pharisees, the religious elite who have hard hearts and are not receiving what Jesus is doing. And so this is the point.

This is the point, and this is the question that we need to ask ourselves. How often do we demand signs or proof from God before we are willing to follow Him and the spirit of God? You may be on this spiritual journey where you're kind of questioning and testing out, and this would be God's question to you this morning is how many more signs do you need? How much more do you need for God to do other than dying on the cross for your sins and caring for you and taking care of you? How much more evidence do you need of the love of God before you're willing to turn your life over to him?

How often do we demand signs or proof from God before we're willing? We can do this even as followers of Jesus where it's just the right thing to do, but it's like, God, could I just have one more sign? And what is required of us is obedience. Do the good, follow the commands, do what the Bible says, and stop waiting for some kind of sensational thing. This is pretty popular amongst our Christian culture where people do they do Christianity, kind of like the stepping stones of their spirituality is from one kind of goosebump experience to the next of it's just like, oh, that moved the needle with my emotions and I feel kind of tingly and excited. And so that was the last significant thing that God did. No, the last significant thing that God did for you is he gave you his word. He died on the cross for your sins.

He filled you with his spirit. He wants to have a personal relationship with you on a daily basis. Our emotions go up and down. And the point here that Jesus would be making through this text is stop living off the signs. Stop basing your religious experience off of emotional experiences and just go for it with the Lord. Now, it's not wrong to feel moved emotionally, but that shouldn't be the metric that we're going after. We shouldn't need anything else to trust in the Lord or to obey him. Let's talk about the spirits. This whole idea and this teaching of Jesus about spirits, he says this, when an unclean spirit comes out of a person, it roams through waterless places looking for rest, but doesn't find any rest or doesn't find any. Then it says, I'll go back to my house that I came from returning it finds the house vacant, swept and put in order.

Then it goes and brings with its seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they enter and settle down there as a result. That person's last condition is worse than the first. That's how it will also be with this evil generation. So there's some continuity here just a bit here. Again, he's talking about an evil generation. He's kind of rebuking the crowd or the Pharisees and just saying, Hey, this is a problem. But he says this in an interesting way. Have you ever read screw tape letters by CS Lewis? CS Lewis was a philosopher that lived probably 60, 70 years ago, and he became a Christian and he wrote this fictional story about Satan and wormwood and some of these other demons. And so he told the story of the earth through the lens of how he imagined demons and evil spirits work in the world.

So it's this fascinating kind of fictional imagination of like, Hey, this is how Satan and demons are working in the world. And so here Jesus is talking about people, but through the lens of demonic spirits. Isn't that interesting? So we've got to kind of pick up on what Jesus is teaching through this. It's like, Hey, let me talk about people, but let me tell you the story about people and their spiritual condition through a conversation that demons are having. I don't know of any other material off the top of my head like this in the New Testament where we're getting the language and the activity of demons and their thought process. And so Jesus is very clear that in his teaching, and one of the contributions that Jesus made in his teaching that's very helpful that it's not very clear in the Old Testament, is this whole teaching around demons and Satan and demonic powers.

And so here we have this unclean spirit or demonic spirit who comes out of a person and is, well, let's go. Actually, yeah, it starts in 43. So it comes out of the person, and then it's kind of like this demonic spirit is looking for somewhere else to stay, but can't find a place to stay. This is weird. We just admit this is kind of weird. This is how demons, demons need a place to stay. Now we saw that with the demons that were cast out of the guys in Ezra that were demon possessed, and they're like, can we go into the pigs? So it seems like, and you may have animals like this where you're like, man, that animal has a demon. But no, the demons got cast into the pigs and the pigs jumped into the water, which is also weird. But here Jesus is like, no, this person had one unclean spirit who's like leaves is looking for a place.

And then that demon says, I'm going to go back to my house that I came from. I returned to it and finds the house vacant, swept and put in order. So what's going on with the person? So you have a person who demon was possessed, or we could say the demon was living in the person, but then the demon goes away and the person kind of cleans up their act. That seems to be so the house is the person. So it seems like in the absence of the demon, the person metaphorically is cleaning house. Now we use this language if you're in rehab, we talk about people who they're fighting their demons. I'm going to get clean and sober, and there's this effort of I'm going to clean house in my life. And we use those types of metaphors to talk about our own self-improvement.

And so Jesus says here, he says, look, then it goes and it brings with it this first demon brings with it seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they enter and they settle down. They're like, oh, good, you cleaned house. It's set up for us perfectly. Let me bring my friends. And as a result, that person's last condition is worse than the first. That's how it will also be with this evil generation relapse relapsed. Yes. Okay. When I was like 20, I did some ministry in Hawaii, and a lot of the people that I ended up kind of near the church, they were hippies. And these hippies would talk about how they would carry around these glass bottles full of a bunch of junk in the water, and they would talk about how I'm going to do a cleanse and I'm going to go out into the mountains and I'm going to just kind of cleanse myself of everything, all the evil toxins, and I'm going to empty myself.

And I would always think of this passage because Jesus is like, it's not about emptying yourself. It's not about being just cleansed of evil. No, it's about being filled with the right spirit. That is the key. It's not about being just emptying yourself. That was the language that these hippies would use over and over. I got to just empty myself. No, that's the most dangerous thing you could do is empty yourself because there's demons looking for houses, which are people or animals that they can reside in. Now, why do demons need people or animals to live in? I don't know. But Jesus is Jesus teaching and giving us a window into the spiritual realm. There is quite a bit. There is this self-improvement movement that exists, and there's a lot of wisdom that exists within the whole realm of self-improvement. But if you're not filled with God's spirit, then you're just an improved empty house.

The moral reform, the moral reform comes in when people attempt to clean up their lives on their own without relying upon God. There are people who try to go through a moral reformation. They may rid themselves of certain behaviors. You think of Ben Franklin and how he had a list of things that he was intentionally working on. He'd had this journal of like, I don't want to be mean, and there's nothing wrong with that, but you just have, if Ben Franklin is not understanding that he was designed to be formed and to break bad habits that are then replaced by good new habits, that process is to be done in partnership with a spirit, the spirit of God. They rid themselves of certain behaviors or influences, but unless they are filled with the Holy Spirit, they remain vulnerable to even greater spiritual attacks. Tax. The danger of superficial change is so real.

Jesus warns against shallow moral reform. Many of us think that external behavior tidying up our life or moral self-improvement is enough. Did you hear that? Many of us think that external, I think I have a slide that says this. Many of us think that external behavior tidying up our life, our moral self-improvement is enough. If you're coming to church thinking that you're in church so that your behavior changes, but there's not a true heart change and encounter with the living God, it leaves you spiritually empty and vulnerable to greater problems. You could be in this place where you're like, yeah, I finally am not like that anymore. I am not addicted to that thing anymore. The Bible teaches that that's not good enough. You have to be in a relationship with the God who created you. You are a house in one Corinthians. It says you're the temple, and then it says you're the temple of the Holy Spirit because he's teaching Christians, but you're a temple.

When you were born, you were born as a house ready to house some spirit. It's either going to be demonic spirits, you're going to be an empty house or you're going to have the spirit of God. Those are your three options, demonic spirits in you, an empty house or the spirit of God. And Jesus says, listen, the latter condition is going to be worse. So again, Jesus is confronting a misconception about religion and faith. This isn't just about getting bad demons out. No. This is about having a indwelling of the spirit of God. So this is the last one here, the family of God, 46 through 50. He says this, while he was still speaking with the crowds, his mother and brothers were standing outside wanting to speak to him. Someone told him, look, hey, your mother and your brothers are standing outside wanting to speak to you.

And he replied to the one who was speaking to him, who is my mother and who are my brothers? I feel like I read that Dr. Seas book stretching out his hand towards his disciples. He said, here are my mother and my brothers, for whoever does the will of my father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother. So this is just some time in this Galilee region. In the midst of teaching, the place is packed. This story is also found in the Book of Luke, and they say, Hey, they're here to see you. And Jesus uses this real moment where his family's there to explain family. Jesus's family comes to see him, and he redefines what it means to belong. It's not about a heritage or a tradition, but about obeying God's will. And some of you may have grown up where it's like you've got your family cress and you've got these sayings of like, oh, you're a Smith and us Smiths. This is what we do and who we are. And Jesus is like, listen, when you become a follower of me, your heritage changes. Remember he's using, usually he's using the language of kingdom and society that he's inviting you to come into a kingdom. Here He's talking about, Hey, look, if you obey, if you obey, then you're my mother and brother. Whoever does the will of my father in heaven is my brother and sister.

Some people rely on their religious upbringing thinking it guarantees favor with God. But Jesus says, truly true family is defined by obedience. This is one of those sections that confronts the Catholic idea about Mary and Mary being a co redemptus. Jesus is not necessarily rude to his family, but he reframes. It's just like no family and those who are in, it's not Mary, it's not Jude, it's not James. It's those who aligned themselves with me and they were his family, his spiritual family, but it had nothing to do with heritage. None of these things signs moral improvement. Family heritage can truly bring us closer to God. I want to close with these few statements that should bring to mind what we've covered. Jesus is the true and greater Jonah. I told you the story of Jonah. Jesus is the true and greater Jonah. The ultimate sign he gives is not another miracle, but his death and resurrection.

The resurrection is the definitive proof of who Jesus is. The sign of Jonah shows that it is not about external signs, but the transformation brought by the gospel. So Jesus is greater than Jonah. And this morning you are invited to look at that sign to look at Jesus, the one who was in the belly of the earth for three days and was raised from the dead. That person, Jesus is the one who has come to redeem you, and his message is a message of hope and invitation that you would enter into a new life with him.

But there's also this idea of true heart change. Jesus doesn't call us to clean up our lives superficially. He calls us to deep transformation. Only by the power of the Holy Spirit can we be filled with God's presence, preventing us from falling back into worse spiritual states. Jesus performed the miracle of Jonah, but then he is invested in your transformation so that the story of your life is an ongoing story of his good transformative work in your life. The last idea here is this. Jesus redefines family, not by birthright or heritage, but by faith and obedience to God. The gospel opens the door for all to enter the family of God through faith in Jesus. You didn't have to be born of the lineage of Jesus to be in the family.

The whole Old Testament is a story of God's special care for a genetic race, the nation of Israel. And God does these special things for that racial group, not just as a dead end, but to bring a blessing on the entire world. But there is something special about being born a Jew, but to inherit the blessings of Jesus, you don't have to be born at you. He says, look, you're in my family. If you're placing faith and demonstrating obedience, you're in by being one of these that received the invitation, you're responding to the invitation. So we need to stop demanding signs. We need to pursue heart change in partnership with Jesus, and we need to live as God's family in obedience to his will. He's greater than Jonah, greater than Solomon. He offers a new identity as part of his family. So how will you respond?

Will you continue to look for signs trying to clean up your life superficially or relying on your family background? Or will you embrace the true sign of the resurrection, true change by the spirit and live as a part of God's family? Lord, we ask that you would work in our lives in that way. We want to receive the Jesus agenda, and sometimes we get it wrong. Sometimes the world around us just gets this idea of faith and spirituality wrong, and we received the correction from your word this morning that it would line us up, line us up with the work that you have done and want to do in our lives. I pray for each person here that they would step into and respond in faith to this message that they would not hold out waiting for another sign, but that they would surrender to you. Thank you for your love and your kindness towards us. We love you Jesus, and we pray this in your name. Amen.

Matthew 12:22-32

Transcript

Going to be in Matthew chapter 12. Matthew chapter 12, verse 22 through 32. This is a awesome section with a bunch of important principles in it. Let me read the text to you and then we'll kind of unpack it together. So it's Matthew 1222 through 32. Now again, if you're new with us, what we do on Sundays and the way I preach is we just go through books of the Bible. So last week we were in the verses before this, so if you ever want to know what I'm going to preach the following week, unless it's like a holiday, I'm pretty much going to preach the next, and we're going to go into verse 33 into the next section about trees and bearing good fruit. So it's really simple and we spend about 35 minutes where I'm just kind of walking through the text and we're seeing what Jesus taught, and my job is to just help you understand what Jesus is saying, and then we want to apply it to our lives.

So what you need and what I need this morning is just to have a soft heart and at least see what Jesus is saying and be like, okay, this is what Jesus is teaching. How does this apply to my life? So here's what we're going to look at today, these 10 verses. Then a demon possessed man who was blind and unable to speak was brought to him. He healed him so that the man could both speak and see. All the crowds were astonished, and they said, could this be the son of David? When the Pharisees heard this, they said, this man drives out demons only by BALs above the ruler of demons, knowing their thoughts. He told them every kingdom divided against itself is headed for destruction and no city or house divided against itself will stand. If Satan drives out Satan, he is divided against himself.

How then will his kingdom stand? And if I drive out demons by beals above by whom do your sons drive them out? For this reason, they will be your judges. If I drive out demons by the spirit of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you. How can someone enter a strong man's house and steal his possessions? Unless he first ties up the strong man, then he can plunder his house. Anyone who is not with me is against me. Anyone who does not gather with me scatters. Therefore, I tell you, people will be forgiven every sin and blasphemy, but the blasphemy against the spirit will not be forgiven. Whoever speaks a word against the son of man, it will be forgiven him. But whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit, it will not be forgiven him either in this age or in one to come.

Lord, we pray that you would teach us through your word, instruct us Lord, we ask not just that we would comprehend this with our minds, but that your spirit would open up our eyes to see spiritual truths for us. What do you have? What wisdom do you have for us in our lives? God, you've been with us from when we were put together in our mother's wombs. You were there. You know our story. And God, we pray that you would speak into our lives through this text. Thank you for dying on the cross for our sins and making it possible for us to have a relationship with you. We pray that you would instruct us and teach us in the context of that relationship this morning. Teach us we pray. In Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. All right, so there's some stuff probably that you've heard before as we look at this text.

And so here's how this breaks down. So we have the story about Jesus healing this guy who's got this demon that's possessing him. We'll talk a little bit about that. The Pharisees who are the religious elite of the day, they kind of are threatened by Jesus performing this miracle. And so they throw out an interpretation on how Jesus healed the guy. They say, Hey, he's casting out demons by Satan's power, by the power of beals above. And so Jesus responds to this in three ways. We're going to look at the three responses from Jesus, and then Jesus goes into this section that's like, listen, he kind of warns and it seems because of the context, it seems like he's warning about this unforgivable sin against the spirit, this unforgivable sin against the spirit. So let's go through, we'll unpack this one piece at a time.

Look at the contextual narrative first. In other words, we're going to look up at this. We're going to look at the story, the story that kind of leads into Jesus's teaching. So we see that there is a demon possessed man who was blind and unable to speak. Now if you're just joining us, the ministry, so Jesus is traveling around the northern region of Galilee. This is his hometown region. This is, he knew people in this area. He'd go from town to town. He would teach in the synagogues and he was healing people, and this was causing a bit of a stir in that it was upsetting the Pharisees. So here's a demon possess man. What does it mean for a person to be demon possessed? Here's what the Bible teaches, okay? So the Bible doesn't start with demon possession. This is one of those teachings from the Bible that you have to decide, do I trust the Bible?

This is weird, right? Anybody think this is weird? So if you don't believe, well, that's good. I'm glad you don't think it's weird. I think it's weird. So the less you can think it's weird is good, but this is kind of one of those sections where it's just like, wow, there's demons, there's spirits. What does this mean? What does it mean for there to be evil spirits or a demon? So here is this man who's possessed. Now, if we look through the Bible, one of the things that we see is that God created humans and he created humans to be spiritually connected to him. From the very beginning, God was in a relationship with humanity and he said, look, this is good. If you want to be in relationship with me, you live in the garden, you till the ground, you do the work I gave you, but don't eat from that tree, the tree of the knowledge of good and bad.

In the day you eat that you're going to die. Well, humanity rebels the man and the woman, they eat the fruit and they die. They die. They are on their journey to a physical death, but they face immediate shame, a sense of shame. So there's psychological death. They're in conflict. The husband and wife are in conflict, so there's relational death. They are sensing their nakedness again, which goes back to this psychological breach that they don't feel comfortable with their own nakedness any longer. There is an ecological death that occurs where they're now at war with creation and there's this animosity and this broken relationship or component to the relationship with what had been created. But the most important thing is they died spiritually. They're cut off from the presence of God on that day and God says, where are you at? What are you doing?

He's inviting them to confess their sin and to enter back into that relationship with him. But the reason I bring that up for you to know is that humanity was designed to be spiritual humanity. You and I were designed to be in relationship with God, and the Bible says that we are like a vessel or it says you're like a house or you're like a temple that is meant to be filled with the spirit of God, but if you're not filled with the spirit of God, there are these cases in the Bible where people are filled with demons and demons need houses basically. I don't know why. Don't ask me why, but it seems like that these demons can go in more than one demon can go into a person and possess them and they have some control over their physical body. Jesus healed a man that was a demoniac on the other side of the Galilee Sea, sea of Galilee and the demons before they're cast out, they're basically talking through this man's body and they say, if you're going to cast us out of this man, could you cast us into those pigs that are over there?

For some reason, demons need vessels to be in. And so Jesuses go and they go and they jump into the demons, and then the pigs jump off of a cliff as demon possessed pigs. Sounds like a scene from Minecraft to me, but so here we have this man who's possessed by a demon. I just want you to know that it is important for you to understand that the Bible informs our anthropology, like our human existence and how we do humanness and says that there is a spiritual component, and it's not just cupids and angels, but there are fallen angels now called demons that are at war against you and I and the plan of God, and those demons are capable of possessing a person. Now, there is the question of can a demon be inside of if you're a follower of Jesus, can it possess you?

And I personally don't think it can. I think a demon cannot reside in somebody that's filled already with the spirit of God, but demons still can, and it's very clear it happened to Paul the Apostle. It happened throughout the book of Acts. They can still oppose you. They can still attack. There is this whole section out of Ephesians chapter six, where Paul says, you need to put on spiritual armor because you're in the midst of this spiritual battle where there are demons that oppose you. Now, if you're not a follower of Jesus and you're kind of like, I don't know, this is not the core thing you need to believe. The first thing you need to understand about what the Bible teaches is that Jesus loves you died on the cross to pay for your sin and invites you to be reconciled back to God so that you can be in relationship with him so that you can be spiritually at peace.

But it is important to know that these are the things that the Bible teaches, and Jesus here is demonstrating his power by healing the man because do you see that the result of his demon possession is that he's both blind and mute? He cannot speak and Jesus heals him and he speaks and sees. So this is a radical healing that occurs. Now, the next thing that happens is that the crowds, those that are witnessing this miracle are astounded and they ask a question. This is a very Jewish question. This is not a polish question. This is not a Filipino question. This is not a white gringo question. This is not a Latino question. This is a Jewish question. Could this be the son of David? Well, what are they asking? Why are they saying that? Well, if you're Jewish, you know that David had this promise from God that there would be this eternal ruler that would rule from his throne, and there's this promise of this person, this Messiah character that would act like a prophet, who would act like a priest, would act like a king.

All of those things have been a part of your Jewish heritage and you're anticipating the Son of David. And so this question here, what they're saying is, is this the guy? Is this that Messiah, the one that when we read the Psalms like we did at the beginning of our service, there's this question, is God coming? Is he going to come in the flesh? They're asking, could this be that guy? We call him the Messiah, the anointed one, the Christ. Now, there were some others there that were in the crowd, and again, these are the Pharisees. These are the religious elites of the day. They heard the crowd asking this question about the Messiah and they say, well, let me interpret this for you. This man, Jesus, he drives out demons only by Bab, so they're acknowledging the miracle that happened. They're not trying to say that a miracle didn't occur.

They're just trying to reinterpret it. They're spinning it. They're saying, Jesus did this only by Balah another name who for the ruler of the demons. We call him Satan, the devil, Lucifer, all of those terms. The Bible uses to talk about this chief angel that fell and rebelled from heaven probably before humanity was created, and God cast him out of the earth. You've heard me say this before, but I believe that it's very likely that this war between Satan and God existed before humanity was created and that God created humanity as a part of his war strategy against Satan. That you and I are dropped in the middle of that battlefield, and this is important for the lesson. Today, you and I are dropped into the middle of that battlefield and you are only on one side or the other, and that God is demonstrating and working out his victory over Satan, through humanity.

In fact, he comes as a human right? Jesus takes on flesh to ultimately have victory over Satan, and he is the victor in Revelation 19. Jesus, the human God, say again, but then you wouldn't still have a lot of karma in our lives. That's right. Exactly, man, we cannot get to the book of Revelation fast enough. You have determine whether, yes, okay, so what you're saying, what's you're verbalizing is a theological principle throughout the entire New Testament that is called yes, but not yet or yes, it's true now. So you are the temple of the Holy Spirit, yes, right now, but there's even more to come. So we're living in between the first coming of Christ and the second coming of Christ. So Jesus has won, but it's not actualized yet in every way. So you have the Holy Spirit and there's this internal work, but this whole idea, this whole idea of victory and seeing victory out from you, it's still slowly unfolding.

So the kingdom of heaven and the redemptive work of God, it starts in you. So Jesus is winning in your life. One of the greatest things to pray is the Lord's prayer because there's a lot of things outside of our control that we can't change. Like Joe was talking about, somebody who sideswiped him in his car the other day and this lady was road raging on him. Those things are irritating, right? That's horrible when that happens. Felicia had some guy with dogs trying to attack her last week. We have all these crazy things that are outside of our control that happened to us, but one of the things that we can control is this prayer of like, God, I give you permission. I want your kingdom, your will to be done in me as it is in heaven. So there's this internal work that's working itself out into the world and this foreshadowing of victory, the ultimate victory over death and sin is seen in our life, so we're talking earlier about Mary, right?

Mary, you're able to stand and take some steps and we prayed for you a few weeks ago for your healing and now there's this little bit of healing that's gone on in your life that is the idea in a little drop sense, like a little dropper of the kingdom of heaven where he's healing us in little ways. He's providing for us in little ways he's working, but it's just this teaser of the great victory that is to come this right? You have to have that feeling. You can do it if you can't do it, and people keep telling you, because I keep people telling me I cannot do it. That makes me stronger because I'm prove wrong and I'm going to do it because God said I can do what I do. Yeah, I love that idea of working together with him, right? Because God's not expecting us.

He's not expecting you. He's not expecting, he's not coming to you and like, Hey, I died on the cross for your sins. Now pull yourself up by your bootstraps and get your act together. No, what does he do? He saves you and then you're the temple of the whole. He gives you his spirit. So if you are a follower of Jesus, he places his spirit inside of you and you have this what we call, it's the word grace. It's this grace to do what he wants us to do and what we aspire to be loving. And so all of a sudden these things that kind of are flowing out of us, this victory of God, it's demonstrated in our life. It's the kingdom of God coming about in our life as we give them permission, as we're working together with 'em. That's why I'm always talking about, Hey, let's get up in the morning.

Let's read our bibles, let's pray. Let's be connected to the vine. That's John 15, right? Let's be in relationship so that the victory we long for is carried out. Some of you I know, know you're stories and you're struggling in a place where you're struggling with addiction, you're struggling with defeat, you're hopeless, you're upset, and the thing that you need is not to pull yourself up by your bootstrap, but you need your relationship what? Clear your head, not just clear your head. Sometimes you do because you got your head of other negativity. That would help. That would help, but that's not going to produce. It's not. It's not going to produce the fruit that you need. You can have a clear mind, but you need the power of God in you. The spirit of God is what you need to empower you. Okay, so we have 15 minutes left and I keep going down these bunny trails, so you guys got to keep me on track here, okay?

We have not really even gotten into much of the story, okay? So you're dropped into this battle field where there is a war going on between Satan who's rebelled against God and God who is demonstrating his victory over Satan through you, which is weird, but he's doing it through you. And so why does Satan hate you? Because you're a part of the victory of God. Read Hebrews chapter two. He's placed all things under his feet, but we do not yet see all things placed underneath his feet. Go read. That's a good one for you to read. Felicia, we don't see it yet. Read Hebrews chapter two because that's exactly what the writer of Hebrews says. Okay, now let's go to the first. I told you there's three responses. This is the first one. The first one is the principle of the divided kingdom. So remember the context here is that the Pharisees are like, oh, there you go.

Just don't even worry about this. This guy, he's only has power to cast out demons because he is empowered by Satan to do it. And so Jesus responds by saying this, knowing their thoughts. He told them every kingdom divided against itself is headed for destruction and no city or house divided against itself will stand. So what Jesus is saying here is that this is a principle, or we could call it an aphorism. It is a simple statement of a principle and it is this, that if you have a kingdom and it is divided, eventually it's going to fall, eventually it's going to fall, and he gives this example a city or a house divided against itself. It will not stand. It's not going to stand.

That's the first response that Jesus gives every kingdom divided against itself. So listen, he's going to apply this. He's going to apply this principle to this idea of being accused of being on Satan's side, and he's saying, look, that's dumb. Satan's not casting out himself. That's not how it works. If he was casting out himself, he'd be working against himself. This whole idea of divided it falls is all the way throughout the Old Testament. You see, Adam and Eve, when they're created, they're fruitful as long as they are obeying God and they're working together, he takes two and he calls them to be come one flesh, and that leads to their fruitfulness literally saying like, go have babies together. Your oneness brings about fruitfulness, but what happens? They are divided against each other and it begins, it's this.

It reflects the fall that is going on. This disunity leads to death. Just the next chapter over chapter four, you have the two sons of Adam and Eve, one murders the other Cain murders. Abel. When you get further in Genesis, we get to the Tower of Babel. This is humanity's abandoned God. They've basically stuck up their middle finger to God essentially, and they're doing life on their own and they're trying to build a tower to heaven. And God looks at that and he says, look, if we leave humanity unchecked and we just let humanity continue on in this path, then there's not going to be anything kept from them. They're going to become more and more evil. And so it says that God came down and he confused them by giving them different languages. So God supernaturally gave and created these different languages and the world is becomes divided and they're not able to work together.

So there's this dispersion that takes place from the Tower of Babel. This idea of unification leading to the downfall of efforts is a principle that Jesus acknowledges, and it's important for you and I because when we get to the book of John and we get into the New Testament, the thing that Jesus emphasizes over and over again is this call to unity. He wants his followers to love one another, and so we need to be on guard against a disunity. We need to be on guard against being unloving towards our brothers and sisters in Christ. That doesn't mean we agree with the irritating things that they do or their views at all. It means that we make as a priority a sense of unity and love and care for the people around us. Why? Because no city or house divided against itself will stand. This is fundamental to progress.

If you think, look, I can be divided up. We can be a divided house, we can be a divided town, we can be a divided institution, and we're still going to be fruitful. You are kicking against a principle that Jesus lays down and that is his first response. The second response is this, or before we get to the second response, we have to see, he takes this first principle and he applies it in this scenario. He tests it out. I put it here trying on the principle with the Pharisees hypothesis. You want to say that I'm doing this by Satan. Here's what this would look like. If Satan drives out Satan, he's divided against himself. How then will his kingdom stand? So he's using a very logical argument. Let's look at the second response, and he talks about casting out demons by the power of Bab or by the power of the Spirit, God's spirit.

Verse 27, he says, and if I drive out demons by Beelzebub, by whom? Do your sons drive them out for this reason? They will be your judges. Evidently, there were some Pharisees sons or followers who were casting out demons, and the question was like, Hey, you're going to throw that at me. What is empowering your sons? That's always a good way to kind of put it back on them. Is it by the power of balah or is it by this? Now, this is interesting. How is a son of the Pharisee, and I'm going to prime the pump here, how is a son of the Pharisee who maybe is not yet a follower of Jesus casting out demons? It's interesting, right? Well, we got to go further in the text, but keep that one stored away. Think about somebody. So think about a young man who grew up in a religious home, a religious elite home, and somehow he or she is empowered to exercise demons from somebody who's possessed, and yet maybe Jesus hasn't even come on the scene yet.

How is that going on? What's going on there? Well, hold on to that one. In verse 28, he says, if I drive out demons by the spirit of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you, so Jesus is now saying the other option, there's only two options. It's either by the power of Satan or it's by the power of God, the spirit of God, and if it's the spirit of God that's driving out these demons. Then linked to that is this idea that the kingdom of God has come upon you. The kingdom of God has come upon you.

When you're looking at what's going on around you, there is what's happening, and then there's the interpretation of what's happening, and here in this particular story, the Pharisees want to avoid the king, and so they are manipulating the interpretation. They're not denying what's happening, but they're telling a different story about the scenario. They're twisting it so that Jesus is not the king. Now, let's apply that in our world. We've watched a miracle happen for the last four years as a church when a million dollars worth of food is given to a baby little church, the church this size every month, month after month after month, I've heard all kinds of interpretations about what's going on only to avoid the fact that God is the one who's doing a miracle. I've heard all kinds of interpretations. I've heard all kinds of people be like, oh, this is because Amazon is so generous and Whole Foods.

I've seen it, experienced it, and you've seen it, right? Yes, from heaven. It pretty much is, but it's funny. It's funny. I'll tell people, I'll tell people, I'll be like, listen, here's what's going on, and God's just doing this amazing miracle. Woo, man. You talk about people feeling uncomfortable when you say that. It's like, no, no, no. I can find an alternative narrative to back this one up because I don't want to keep God in my story. I want a different way of telling the story. It the power People don't want. People don't want to include God in the story. Why? Because they want to live independent from God. They would rather live their own life, but here's what you have to see, and if we don't, we got four minutes left. So here's what he says. If I drive out demons by the spirit of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.

When we are watching that truck roll up and unload 12 pallets of like $40,000 worth of groceries, I hope that you guys go, wow, that's the kingdom of God coming upon Fell's point. When you walk into this room and you see the fact that we're gathered here, do you know that we're the third attempt at starting a church in this space? The fact that you're here, this is God that got you up this morning. He knows how much we love to sleep in, and so you may look, this is what I'm saying is brothers and sisters, as you watch life unfold, give God the credit, give the God the credit, what's due his name, that he's the one that's at work and let God keep working, give him permission. The thing that's going to quench and take away from what God wants to do in your life is if you're going to take the credit, there's this awesome story we don't have time to get into and acts where this guy doesn't.

He like this King decides to take the credit for himself and he gets eaten by worms. I'll let you read that one in Acts some other time. It's pretty awesome. He gets eaten from the inside out of worms because he takes the credit. Okay, let's keep going. Okay, so Jesus's miracles are not just displays of power, but they are signs that God's reign is being established. We need to see God's work in the world around us as part of this larger kingdom reality. Guys, this is why the kingdom idea is so important when there's healing, when there's provision in your life, when the truck rolls up and it unloads all these free pallets, you can draw a straight line from that to the work Jesus did on the cross because Jesus is the king who introduced his kingdom and he said, I want you to come into my kingdom.

I want you invited into my kingdom. I want my power to be on display through your life, and then God's working in the midst of the world and it's his kingdom coming down honoring these little drops and drips, and it's his kingdom. There's people who are like, ah, I don't want to be a follower of Jesus. I need proof. You know what? There's a lot of proof. There's a lot of proof that God is at work all around us. Yet there's a stubbornness and a hardness of heart where people are like, no, I want to be like a Pharisee. I want to tell a different story. Okay, third response, third response, an illustration stealing from a strong man. If you're going to go steal from a strong man, you got to tie him up. Jesus says, how can someone enter a strong man's house and steal his possessions?

Unless he first ties up the strong man, then he can plunder his house. In other words, listen, I'm coming to destroy the strong man Satan, and when I'm casting out demons, I'm tying up the strong man so that I can steal away from him what he has had control over. Do you know as God has done his work in your life, that God has been working to defeat the agenda of Satan for you? Satan had a plan from you from the very beginning that you would be destroyed, that you would be stolen from the goodness of God, that you would be meager, fruitless, confused, lost, and ultimately reduced to nothing, and yet Jesus came and he bound the strong man so that you could enter into a relationship with him, and the work that God is doing this very day is to defend you and to protect you from the agenda of Satan.

You may not see that. You may not know what that looks like entirely, but it is the reality that the Bible bears witness to, and so that is the third response. Now, you got to pick a side. Jesus says, anyone who is not with me is against me. Anyone who does not gather with me scatters. This is like you go to a football, you go to a Super Bowl party in early February and you're sitting there and your friend says, Hey, who do you want to win? And what do you say? Neither of these are my teams. I just want a good game. You ever heard that? Yeah, that doesn't work with the kingdom of heaven. It doesn't work in the kingdom of heaven because of this reality that you were created in the middle of a binary war. There's two sides. There's Satan's side and there's Jesus's side.

Nobody's watching on the side for a good game. Jesus doesn't allow it. He says, you are either with me or you are against me. Anyone who does not gather with me scatters, remember the Pharisees sons who are casting out demons? He says, essentially, those are on my side. Those guys are participating in the kingdom of heaven coming on earth. He says in verse 31, therefore, I tell you, people will be forgiven every sin and blasphemy, but the blasphemy against the spirit will not be forgiven. Whoever speaks a word against the son of man, it'll be forgiven him, but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit, it will not be forgiven him either in this age or the one to come. This is an ongoing. Jesus is saying There is this. There are people who live their life and continue to reject the work of the Holy Spirit in their life over and over again, and ultimately when they die and they face God's judgment thrown, they will not be forgiven because they've rejected the work of the Spirit in their life.

Jesus says, look, you can say a word against the son of man. How many in that crowd, how many of the Pharisees were a part of this, and then after Jesus' death and resurrection, those Pharisees who had spoken a word against the son of man repented and turned to the Messiah, acts tells us there were many priests that came and placed their faith in Jesus and their sins were forgiven, but the ones that are not forgiven and the ones in this room who will not be forgiven are the ones who live their life rejecting the voice of the Holy Spirit in their life over and over and over again. The Holy Spirit is at work, and he's saying this to you, Jesus loves you. He died on the cross for your sins, and all you have to do is repent and believe, turn your life back over to him.

You will be saved. You have freedom. You have absolute freedom to either reject that message or to accept that message. He's not going to twist your arm. He's going to demonstrate his goodness right in front of you, a miracles right in front of you, but he still gives you the autonomy and the agency to decide are you going to accept him or are you going to reject him? If you reject him, he makes it very clear it will not be forgiven in this age or the age to come. You've made your decision to reject God and what is Hell? It is an eternal existence verifying what you wanted. You wanted to live your life independent from God, and Hell is going to be a place eternally independent from God without his intervention, without his help, without his friendship, without his love, and that's what you wanted.

He's not mean to you by sending you to hell. He's given you the freedom to go there. He's said, listen, this is the way, the truth, the life. It's through me, but I give you the choice. You have agency. You have freedom. Let's bow our heads. Lord, thank you for that freedom. Thank you for your love. Thank you for your victory. Thank you for binding the strong man, for coming and doing your work on the cross, the sacrifice on the cross. Lord, I pray and ask for just that. All of our hearts would be just saying yes, God, we're sorry for our sins and we accept you. We accept what you've done through Jesus, your Son. We want to confess that we're wrong and we don't even know how to fix ourselves, but we trust your word, that you have your spirit, that you'll put in us, that you'll give us grace, and that you give us hope and mercy and love. God. I pray for each person here that that surrender would occur and that there would be just a fresh yes God, we receive Jesus. Amen.

Matthew 12:15-21

Transcript

Here's what I want to do. We're going to be in Matthew, but I want to start in the book of Revelation. Are you okay with that? We're going to look at Revelation, revelation 19, verse 11. And so Revelation is the very last book in the Bible and Revelation is this vision that God gives to John the Apostle, not John the Baptist. John the Apostle has this vision late in his life, probably around the year 96 ad he's isolated. He's been basically punished by the Roman government and isolated on an island called Patmos, and he has this vision from Jesus of basically what's to transpire over the ages basically and the end times like how does the story end? So we get in Genesis, we get the beginning of the story, but God gives this vision to John of what's going to happen in the future.

Now, Daniel in the Old Testament, he's already had some of these visions. So it's not like this is the first time that God speaks of the last days and the end of the earth. There are, Jesus talks about it, and we're going to cover some of that in Matthew, but John the apostle gets a heavy dose of here's what's going to happen in the end, and I want you to see this because I want to show you Jesus as the warrior King, okay? I want to show you Jesus as the Warrior King. So let me read this to you. This is Revelation chapter 19, verse 11. I'm going to read all the way down to verse 16. Here's what it says. Then I saw heaven opened and there was a white horse. Its rider is called faithful and true. And with justice, he judges and he makes war his eyes. This is Jesus's eyes. He's riding on this horse. His eyes are like a fiery flame, and many crowns were on his head. He had a name written that no one knows except himself. He wore a robe dipped in blood, and his name is called the Word of God. The armies that were in heaven followed him on white horses. That's you, okay? If you're a follower of Jesus, you've died, you've gone to heaven, you're with him, you come back with him. When he's riding this horse, he comes back to the earth. Okay?

So the armies that were in heaven, starting back in verse 14, the armies that were in heaven follow him on white horses wearing pure white linen. A sharp sword came from his mouth so that he might strike the nations with it. He will rule them with an iron rod. He will also trample the wine press of the fierce anger of God the Almighty and his name written on his robe and on his thigh is king of kings and Lord of lords. So that's Jesus the victor at the end, he's not messing around, right? He's coming back to win the day leading up to this point. There's rebellion, there's Satan at work in the world, there's humans rejecting God. There's a whole bunch of other scenes that transpire. But I want you to see that Jesus, when he comes back the second time, he comes back to win.

But the way that he wins the first time, that's what we're going to look at this morning. He wins in a different way. So let's turn our attention back over to Matthew. Matthew chapter 12 is where we're at this morning, and we see this idea of the gentle victory of the chosen servant, the gentle victory of the chosen servant. Let me read the text to you. You'll recall. What's important to understand is that the verse right before this, verse 13, or this is I mean 14, this is the context, I forgot I put it into my slide deck. The Pharisees went out and they plotted against him how they might kill him. So that sets the stage we're going to be in 15 through 21, but that's what we ended with last week. The Pharisees are making plans. How do we get this guy? So here's what it says.

Jesus was aware of this plots and planning, and he withdrew large crowds followed him and he healed them all. He warned them not to make him known so that what was spoken through the prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled. Here is my servant whom I have chosen my beloved in whom I delight. I'll put my spirit on him and he will proclaim justice to the nations. He will not argue or shout, and no one will hear his voice in the streets. He will not break a bruised reed and he will not put out a smoldering wick until he has led justice to victory. The nations will put their hope in his name. So let's pray and then we'll kind of work through the text piece by. So Lord, we thank you for just these set of verses. We pray that you would teach us from your word, that you would open up our eyes to see wonderful things from your word. We ask this in Jesus name.

So the section where we're at, it all hinges, and it is this basically Matthew's taken and gives us these different scenes based off the material from chapter four through chapter eight. And in that material we have Jesus preaching across the Galilee region from little town to little town. He's teaching in the synagogues, he's healing a lot of people. And then we have people asking about what does it mean to be a follower of you? And he's defining that. He's teaching about the kingdom. And now Matthew is giving us these different scenes, and one of the things that we're beginning to see is that the Pharisees are no longer just curious, but they're deeply offended by Jesus. Their control is threatened and they're making a plan to destroy Jesus. And so Jesus, it says here is aware of these plans, and the moment comes where there is a real threat.

Jesus, here in our text, he's in this moment of conflict and danger. The Pharisees are plotting against him and his life and ministry would appear to be at risk. Now, living in Baltimore, we know nothing about danger or risk or conflict, so it's hard for us to relate. But no, the scene is and where it's easy to kind of relate to that underlying anxiety or tension that you feel when there is a threat, when there is. I know when we had Dave Philpot when he was killed just a few weeks ago, and then the video came out and you saw that video, there was this underlying sense of like, wow, that could be me. Now, not all of us are as frail as Dave was, but this idea that life is that fragile, that you could be pushed off of a curb and it could lead to your death that caused for many of us this sense of risk and threat and frustration and anger that that kind of thing could happen. And so here Jesus is living, it says in verse 15 that he knows he is aware of this threat and he withdraws.

And so the question that I have for you and I this morning as we just look at this text and kind of consider the moment, why does Jesus withdraw instead of fighting? What kind of Messiah is this? Who avoids conflict? Isn't the Messiah supposed to be strong and powerful? Now, I just read to you from the book of Revelation where Jesus is riding on a white horse and he's trampling the wine press of God's wrath. He's got blood on his robes. He's got a sword coming out of his mouth. It's not like Jesus is wimpy, nor is he afraid of conflict. But yet at this moment, he is aware of the threat and it says that he withdraws. In our world, power is often seen as forceful, loud. And so what does it mean for Jesus to be a messiah who withdraws and remains quiet?

When you are threatened, you may have, even based off your childhood, you may have learned some coping techniques when it comes to threats. And yet here we see the most competent warrior withdrawing, being quiet and not responding. It is a fascinating moment. And so let's explore for just a moment the surprising nature of Jesus's response. He doesn't fit the expectations of a political or a military leader Instead of seizing power, we see in verse 15 that he is healing the sick and he is instructing those he heals not to make him known in verse 16. So he's withdraws. He continues to heal the sick, and he says, do not make me known again. If you're Jewish and you're interacting with Jesus, you have been trained to anticipate the Messiah. You've been living nationally for 400 years as a minority people group that has lost its royal right to the throne you have been under for the last 40 years.

You have been under Roman rule, and the most pressing issue of being under Roman occupation for a Jew was the incredible tax burden there was. You were limited from your financial freedom or the ability to really have a financial hope because of the heavy tax burden. And so what you would see is that some people would align themselves with the Roman government. There were these sellout Jews basically that would become corrupt, and they would go and align themselves with Roman government to enrich themselves. Or you would have people like Matthew who would participate in this heavy taxation. And then you had another disciple like Simon, the zealot who would try to be a political opposition and they would try to be kind of like political terrorists to unseat the Roman. It would be to make it painful for the Roman government to occupy. So you had all these different kinds of approaches to the very real pressing moment of Roman occupation.

And then what you see is this Jewish hope for a Messiah. And so if you're Jewish and you're acquainted with your history of David who fought Goliath or of Solomon who brought about this golden era of just wealth and building an opulence to Israel, and you're thinking there's going to come a Messiah, then it makes sense. It makes sense that your hope is in this strong political leader that when he's threatened he's going to push back twice as hard. And we know sometimes in our political arena that those are the attractive leaders. Somebody who's going to hit me, I'm going to hit you back twice as hard. And we see that or we're able to sympathize with that sentiment and with the Jewish audience that Jesus is ministering to here. And so he does something that is unexpected. He steps back and he does not engage.

Instead, he withdraws. Now, Matthew tells us this story and he says, I want you as the reader, I want you to understand what Jesus is doing in this moment. In light of Isaiah 42, I want you to understand Jesus the Messiah through the lens of this Old Testament prophet named Isaiah. So Matthew says this, so that was, was spoken through, the prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled. Now, I got a chance to read through Isaiah 42 this morning and earlier this week as just kind of a refresher. And Matthew's going to quote it for us here, and that's what we're going to read here in just a second.

I have a question in the

Yes. Yeah, please.

What do you think se about the conflict between Palestine and Israel right now?

Yeah,

50,000 Palestinian killed.

Yeah.

And few is right, kill. What do you think about?

What do I think about it?

Yes, come back to resolve the problem.

Yeah,

I believe about he come back.

Yeah.

Yeah. So I think that God loves both the Palestinian people and he loves the Jewish people. And any death that happens is a tragedy. And I think from our perspective when we're looking at it, there's a fragmentation of the story, and the story is super sad. And I think that the Palestinian leadership has misled its people many times and they've had opportunities to flourish. And I think that Israel and how they've worked with the Palestinian people at times has been harsh. And I think the path towards peace is very difficult. And I think that if we go back to Genesis chapter four was the first time, so in Genesis three, we have Adam and Eve and the fall in the garden, and the first thing that happens as soon as there's sin and human rebellion, we have brothers that are at war. And so what we're seeing in the Middle East between the Palestinians and the Jews, but really it's national war because Arab Israelis as well, it's a family fight. And I know that my hope is that politically there'll be the ability to bring about some kind of peaceful coexistence so that humans can flourish. I think that there's been opportunities for that, but it's very difficult.

I'm not qualified to have a strong opinion about the strategy of Israel right now. Should they have gone in and just blown up all of Hamas or a Gaza in an attempt to destroy Hamas? Some people say it's heavy handed. I know if 4% of America got killed, I would be pretty upset. So I have a hard time judging it in the immediate presence, but I think, yeah,

Yeah, because already it's just innocent people who killed.

So sad,

Innocent people from both sides.

And

I hope government said government did, don't do anything about this, have more than have the Palestinian government.

Yeah,

That's the problem.

It is

Not equality, equality, no equality United States. Now I live in this country. I'm American citizen

For

A long time. I am a teacher here to teach United State government. They have a wrong way. And now people try to help the rights for, right, because medicine as Israeli people took the land from Paris for a long time in 1947, and if you took my land, he took my house. You have to give it to him. That's the situation. That

Problem

Like want. But he was only the land because he took many land from that. A big problem

From Morocco.

You're from Morocco,

Yeah. Yeah.

We have big Jewish community. I have a lot of friends, cousin Morocco in Morocco. They are my friends. We eat together. Me, I'm a Muslim and I eat with Jewish people in the same, they are very good people, but the government, asylum government and United State government, they're not safe.

That was the other thing that I was going to say is that for us as Americans, as we look at it, we need to put through our mean, our political means, and putting pressure on our government to not try to monetize war. And so we want to make sure that our political engagement and our, what's it called when we, our ambassador and what's that called? Diplomacy. Diplomacy, yeah. We want to make sure that our diplomacy is fair and that we are not intervening and something it's got to get worked out by the people that are there. Yeah, there's so much history there and there's so much conflict. Thank you for that question though. Thank you. Yeah. And the reason I took time on it is because a few different people have asked me, and it is so complex and there's so much history that is there, and we're obviously, we're looking at Isaiah 42 and Isaiah as a Jew, he's going to sit there in the land, he's going to talk to the Jewish people, and he's going to say, look, God gifted you this land as the promised land, but you've disobeyed God.

And now because of your rebellion, you don't get to have this land for a time, you're going to be taken into exile. And really your hope is for a Messiah. So our focus is not so much land because, and what is Jesus? When Jesus comes on the scene in Israel, he's not engaging in the current political conversation because in Jewish's Jesus' day, like a Mustafa would come up to him and say, what do you think about the Roman government? What do you think? Do you think we should fight against the Romans? Should we try to make an alliance with the Romans? And Jesus is just like, no, it's about my kingdom. My kingdom has come in. And then his kingdom is this strange, subversive kingdom where Jesus doesn't fight against Rome, and I'm going to give away my kind of secret at the end, but Jesus's most subversive act is that he submits to the cross.

So in the midst of this political tension over land and who's the government and who should have authority and how should this be figured out, Jesus is operating off of this whole idea of I'm the king of kings, I'm the Lord of lords, and I'm welcoming you into my kingdom. And there's an internal work that then works its way out. So remember with, I know I'm kind of getting off track and I'll try to be careful with my time, but remember, God's work with the nation of Israel was outside in this sense that there are people and he says, I'm going to make you a nation. I'm going to put you in the land, so you're going to be in the land, and then I'm going to give you a set of laws and they're outside and it needs to work its way into your heart.

And was Israel obedient as a nation to that? No. The Jewish people rebelled. And so when Jesus came, he talked about, no, I'm going to make a law that's written in your hearts. Now we're going to start inside and it's going to work its way out. And so that's transforms the way that I see my neighbor now. I love my neighbor and I care for my neighbor. Now I am turning the other cheek. I'm not fighting for territory or my rights. Instead, here we have Jesus saying, I'm going to withdraw. I'm going to heal. I'm going to ultimately lay my life down so that the world can be redeemed. Can I read to you Isaiah 42, through the lens of Jesus, here's what Jesus, or here's what Matthew quotes. This is through the lens of Matthew, rather he's quoting from Isaiah 42. And it says this, here is my servant whom I have chosen my beloved in whom I delight. I'll put my spirit on him and he will proclaim justice to the nations. He will not argue or shout, and no one will hear his voice in the streets.

He will not break a bruised reed and he will not put out a smoldering wick until he has led justice to victory. The nations will put their hope in his name. There's three things here. There's three things in the text. The first is that Jesus is chosen and beloved. So Isaiah prophesies about this servant. He doesn't say this is the Messiah. He calls Jesus the servant. So the way that prophecy worked in the Old Testament and in the new is it alludes, but it's indirect. It kind of points in the direction, but it doesn't necessarily fill in all of the details. And so here he's called the Lord's servant, and it says of him that he is chosen and that he is beloved. That's the first thing. The second thing that we see is that he is a spirit filled servant. His power comes from the spirit of God, not from military might.

So when you look at this prophecy out of Isaiah 42, Matthew wants to hold this up for you to see, to show you like, look, when Jesus is facing, when he is facing a moment of conflict, this is who he is. He's the one loved by God, filled with the spirit, and he is proclaiming justice to the nations. Or you can put in here, he's proclaiming justice to the Gentiles. We've talked about it here on Sunday morning. Sometimes it's like, why is Jesus so focused on the Jews? Where do I fit in? Because very few of us in this room are actually Jewish. Most of us are Gentiles. Well, here Matthew is saying, this is what Jesus is about. He's proclaiming justice to the nations. Jesus did not just come for the Jews he came to. His mission extends beyond Israel to the Gentiles offering hope to the nations. But again, he doesn't accomplish this through loud public declarations.

Some people call this a subversive approach. It's subversive. It's is not a direct approach. It's not in your face. And what does it do? Within 350 years, the Roman Empire becomes a Christian nation. Constantine says, we are going to be a Christian nation. Now, there are a lot of that that was bad and political, but you take this teachings of Jesus, the followers of Jesus go from being this minority sect that are persecuted and martyred within 300 years to becoming the official religion of the government. It shows you that Jesus's approach was not a bad approach. It was led by the spirit. Now, let's talk a little bit about this idea of disclosing and revealing here, this whole idea why Jesus did this, the nature, and we'll talk about the nature of true justice and power. In verses 19 through 20, he says He will not argue or shout and no one will hear his voice in the streets.

He will not break a bruised reed and he will not put out a smoldering wick until it is led justice to victory. Have you ever had a set of chopsticks and just kind of snapped it in half or a pencil and snapped it in half? That's about the diameter of a reed, a reed, though it's filled. It's almost like it's got foam on the inside of it and it can just so easily just snap. And the prophet Isaiah, he says that this servant, this servant is so gentle that he's not going to take and just, he's not going to break that bruised reed. A bruised reed is the one that's kind. It's already tilted over a little bit, and the gentleness of Jesus is he doesn't come along and just rip it up. And then the smoldering wick is the idea that the candle's almost gone out.

There's just an ember there, and it's not like Jesus is going along and just pinching out wicks. Now, sometimes you may feel like you are that bruised reed or that smoldering flag, and you're like, I don't know if I'm going to make it. And Isaiah the prophet says, this is the servant Messiah. This is the one who's come, who is going to be victorious, but not like other leaders. He's the one who doesn't need to go shouting out in the middle of the street or arguing or shouting in the streets, and he's not breaking off Bruce reeds or putting out smoldering wicks until he has led justice to victory. Do you remember revelation? He comes on his white horse and he's talking about justice. There are things that have happened in your life where the scales are not fair, where you can look and you're like, this is not right, this is not fair, and you're powerless to change it.

I think that it's misguided. We live in a city that is addicted to victimhood in the sense that sitting in your place of victimhood and looking to the government to actually change that and to take away injustice is not a failed path, but it is rarely successful. But if you anchor your life in Jesus, he is the one who is bringing about justice. He's the one who He is your deliverer. He is the narrative that you want your life to be grafted into. And man, the faster Baltimore city can be delivered from dependency and victimhood, and it can begin to take personal responsibility and then step from personal responsibility and maturity into, I'm going to love my neighbor as myself. This city would change. And so the way that the gospel message, the way that Jesus changes Baltimore is by being its messiah and saying, look, you don't need to keep waiting for the next election cycle.

The next mayor, the next city council, the next president, the next governor, those are not your messiah. Jesus is your Messiah. At the end of days, he puts the pieces together and he invites you into a subversive kingdom where you can live as one who withdraws and lives as a proclaimer of peace of reconciliation. You can be wronged and still win because you are in Jesus's kingdom. Jesus's way of bringing justice is through gentleness and mercy, not through coercion or violence. He doesn't trample on the weak or overpower the oppressed. Instead, he nurtures the broken and he lifts up the weak, the bruised reed. He will not break the image highlights. Jesus's care for the, and those whom the world might discard as too weak to be useful. When it talks about a smoldering wick, he will not quench. He doesn't snuff out even the faintest hope. Instead, he gently nurtures it back to life.

It closes out with this verse, verse 21, the nations will put hope, put their hope in his name. Jesus embodies a different kind of victory, one that is rooted in compassion, healing, and justice for the oppressed. You all are living examples of that. A lot of us, our fellowship is around this idea of compassion, and we actually have a building named the Compassion Center, right? This idea of being generous and radical with food and just radically giving away thousands and thousands of dollars worth of high quality groceries every week, and then volunteering and caring and being in that ecosystem is in of itself. It is disruptive. It is infecting people's lives because it is both upsetting individuals as they encounter their own greed and their relationship with food, and then they are given opportunity to give that food away to others. I think what we were talking about this morning of just taking the food that we're giving and then turning it into peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for other people, right? Y'all are taking the food I give you and giving it away to somebody else. There is this beautiful thing that is happening as we participate in the Jesus Way. Here's the gospel reality. This passage, I may have this bite in slides.

This is the good news. Jesus embodies a different kind of victory, one rooted in compassion, healing, and justice for the oppressed. His kingdom is for those who feel broken, weak, and overlooked. His victory isn't loud or forceful, but it is enduring and filled with hope. Embrace Jesus's way of gentleness. In a world where power in loudness seemed to rule, Christians are called to follow Jesus' example of humility, service, and quiet strength. So these are some questions I want you to consider this week. How do we respond to conflict? Do we seek to overpower or to heal in our interactions with the weak and the vulnerable? Do we reflect the gentleness of Jesus? There is this term that we use around the Compassion center for programs. It's this word, this old kind of King James word called bulwark. A bulwark is this protective force against violence and against conflict.

My prayer and hope for us as a church is that we are a bulwark for individuals as we serve and care for people in our church that we're a bulwark. One final cool thing, our church is named Haven City Church. A haven is a place where ships go when the storms are coming in. Historically, Fell's Point was the choice anchoring point in this Patapsco river area because of the depth of the water. It was a safe place rather than going inland to where the inner harbor is at. Docking right here as a boat was a safe, secure place. It was a choice place to put your boat. And my prayer from the beginning, as with that name for the church, is that our church would be this place where people are anchored in Jesus and they're finding refuge. They're finding a haven for their own life.

So let's follow Jesus. He's the suffering servant. He's the one that leads the way. He's the one who provides us with peace in our life. And then we get to take that idea to those that are around us, into our neighborhoods, to our families, to our workplaces. Let's pray. Lord, we thank you for being the suffering servant, the one who was anointed by you to have the power to bring about justice, the protection for others. Lord, we pray that we would be a church that speaks up on behalf of the vulnerable that calls people to personal responsibility and to just root themselves into your kingdom. Lord, we pray that you would bring about peace like Mustafa was asking earlier. Lord, we were looking at just this horrendous, the death of so many innocent people, and we long for the day when you'll come back on a white horse and you'll bring about peace, and it won't be about Gentiles or Jews or Arabs or Palestinians, but it'll be Jesus for the nations. We long for you, Jesus, to be the king, the one who brings about peace, and that you would be that prince of peace that you would bring about a blessing over the nations. Lord, as we sing this song and take communion, we pray that just that theme of blessing and peace, we'd be reminded of that this morning. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen.

Matthew 12:1-14

Transcript
Alright, Matthew chapter 12, Matthew chapter 12, one through 14. You can turn there in your Bibles. We're going to cover 14 verses, which is a little bit much for us on a Sunday morning. So we're going to get a good chunk of Bible this morning and we'll break it into two parts. It's great to see you if you're visiting with us. Hey Reggie, good to see you. Good to see you. So

We do have extra Bibles. If you need a Bible, raise your hand. Ms. Kathy has a couple. Here we are in the book of Matthew. So Matthew chapter 12 is where we're at. We're getting close to the halfway point going through the gospel of Matthew, and it's been a great journey for us together as a church. A couple of things before we get into Matthew chapter 12. Next week is going to be the last week to sign up for the class that we're going to do, which is a Old Testament survey. We're going to spend 12 weeks going through an online class together with a guy named Daniel Block. He's a famous Old Testament scholar. An Old Testament survey is this idea of, Hey, we're just going to survey it from a high level, so by the time we're going to go through the entire Old Testament in just 12 weeks.

So when you look at your Bible and it's this big intimidating piece of your Bible, it's a bigger section than the New Testament. You're like, what's all that about? Well, we're going to cover it all in 12 weeks. So if you take the class, you're going to come away from that time with a sense of the history that's there, what God's trying to communicate. That part, while it's big like that part of your Bible is Jesus's Bible, right? Jesus didn't have a New Testament. It was written after him. So Jesus's Bible is the Old Testament, so it's worth knowing and understanding. And Daniel blocks. Great. So the way that it's going to work is that you're taking the classes on your own. We'll give you a schedule and then we meet on Zoom for 30 minutes every Tuesday night, just for a few minutes just to check in to make sure you're doing your homework, see if there's any questions. Usually we pray for each other. So it's a great opportunity and we did it last fall. We did another class last fall, and we're going to do one this fall. So I just want to encourage you, it's going to go out by email. There's going to be a to RSVP if you want to participate. Yes.

Are we going to do a forum study group where people can study together?

You can line

Together in a free space where they can ask questions of

Other people that are doing it. There'll be some questions on Tuesday, but yeah, that'd be a good idea. Yeah, we can create a space.

Everybody else is stupid before

You do. Yeah, yeah, that's a good question. Did you have a question? Okay. Okay. Yeah, I think that would be good. It's going to be a great opportunity to just grow in your understanding of the Old Testament. So I want to, but you have to understand it's being taught at a graduate level, which shouldn't be that. I know all of you. I know all of you could handle it, but it's going to be able to challenge you, right? It's going to challenge you. It's going to challenge you. All right. So listen, next week, next Sunday is going to be the last chance to sign up for it because we're going to start, I don't even have a link for you to sign up for it yet. So it's going to start next week now. And then also before we wrap up, we're going to pray for Beverly.

She's having a surgery this week, so we're not going to see Beverly for at least four, maybe six weeks. She's got a knee replacement surgery, which is a huge answer to prayer for her. She's to be commended, she had to lose weight to be able to get it. She worked hard and she got the approval for it. So we're excited for her to be able to get a new knee. Yep. But she's done it. She's done this before on the other knee and the recovery is brutal. So we want to pray for her. And then also Angels getting into surgery this week or on the 13th in a couple of weeks. So we will pray for her as well. Alright, let's jump into Matthew, and we're looking at Matthew chapter 12 this morning. Here's my opening question for you. Have you ever felt overwhelmed by rules?

Rules that seem to miss the point entirely that forget the very people they are supposed to protect and help. For example, sometimes in the healthcare system, you ever go and you try to address some kind of healthcare need and you get just bogged down in the bureaucracy where there's policies, paperwork, regulations that seem to overshadow the patient care. Or another example is that a patient might be denied necessary treatment or medication because of a technicality or a bureaucratic rule, even when their doctor believe it's believes it's in their best interest. Another example is during Covid, we had lockdowns of outdoor activities that were heavily restricted in some areas despite being low risk because it's outside or businesses were forced to close while other similar businesses remained open. These inconsistencies sometimes made people feel like the rules were more about control than actually keeping people safe.

We know kind of in our own world about this idea of rules where you sit there and you're just like, what's the purpose even behind those rules? And that's exactly what was going on in Jesus day with the Sabbath. There had been this loss. The whole idea of a purpose was long gone, and there was just these really strict rules around the Sabbath. It's the tension that we're going to see in the passage this morning where Jesus challenges the rigid legalism of the Pharisees with a powerful display of compassion and authority. Now, this is part two. Now in your bibles, when you look at your Bibles, you have a chapter 11 and chapter 12. But when that book of Matthew was written, there was no verses and there was no chapters. It was just a long document that a thousand years, 1500 years later, there was these chapter verse markers that was put in there so that it was easier for a pastor to say, okay, turn in your Bible too.

And there was this ability to reference the specific pieces so can communicate, here's where we're at. So the references are helpful, but you need to know that it's not how is originally written. So this is actually continuing the theme from last week. Last week, Jesus invited those who were weary and burdened to come to him and find rest. Do you remember that part? Those of you that are weary and heavy laden, come to me and I will give you rest. So with that invitation, we go into this section in chapter 12 where there's this conversation about the Sabbath day. The whole idea of the Sabbath is it is a day dedicated to rest. So think in your mind that this is part two of something we started last week. The Sabbath day, a day meant for rest had become a burden due to the Pharisees interpretations.

Today, when we look at Matthew 12, one through 14, Jesus redefines what it means to truly observe the Sabbath. He shifts the focus from legalism. You know what I mean by legalism? Legalism is like just focus in on the rules, trying to do the rules and to kind of prove your worth. Just follow the rules and it gives you earn some either an identity or you earn some kind of favor. And Jesus is saying, let's get off legalism and let's go to compassion. Let's move over to mercy. Let's move over to a goodness of humanity. That comes from the principle of the Sabbath. So he moves from strict rules over to the heart of God. So the big idea here is going to be, well, I don't have a slide for it. We'll get there though. A big idea is what does it mean to honor God with our actions? I think that's, yeah. What does it mean to honor God with our actions? Is it by following the rules to the letter or is it by understanding the heart behind those rules? In this passage, we will see that Jesus is not just a teacher of the law, but he is the Lord of the Sabbath. He calls us to prioritize mercy and goodness over rigid legalism.

So let's look at this first section verses one through eight before we do this. So normally I'll read the text and then pray. But because the text is longer, let me pray and then we'll read the text together. This first section, Lord, we pray that you would teach us, Lord, we don't want to be a people that are just following rules to try to be better than everyone else, to look down our nose or be condescending. We want to have structure and parameters and limits in our life to honor you. And so we pray that you would guide us this morning through the text. It may not be an issue of Sabbath, but it may be some other just warping the rules, having a bad relationship with rules where we just need your correction. We do pray that as we talk about the Sabbath and your purpose for the Sabbath, that you would lead us again into that place of rest.

Give us rest, we pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Let's look at the text here. It says this. At that time, Jesus passed through the grain fields on the Sabbath, and as disciples were hungry and began to pick and eat some of the heads of grain, when the Pharisees saw this, they said to him, see, your disciples are doing what is not lawful to do on the Sabbath. Let's stop there. So this sets up a response that Jesus is going to give to the Pharisees about the Sabbath and the legalism that had developed. But in order for us to get there, we need to kind of go back a little bit and just explain some of the pieces that are included in this text. So first of all, this idea of the grain fields. Do you think that these disciples were stealing grain from somebody else's property?

The fascinating thing is you go back to the book of Leviticus and you go back to the book of Deuteronomy. There is literally a provision in God's law for the nation of Israel that you can do this. You can't go in with a sickle to your neighbor's property. You can't be cutting down big chunks of grain out of your neighbor's property, but you are allowed to take a little bit like a handful of grain as you're passing through somebody else's field. And so God laid out this law for Israel. So what they're doing is allowed, but the question is, is can they do this on the Sabbath? What's the Sabbath? Well, God had given specific parameters to the nation of Israel all about the Sabbath day, and it was to the seventh day of the week. So you'd have Sunday would be the first day, Saturday would be the seventh day of the week, and that would be a day where you would stop working.

Everybody in society, the Jewish society was to shut down, stop working, and it was a day of rest. When God explained this to the nation through Moses, it was a sign of the covenant. Remember when God made a covenant with Abraham? The covenant with Abraham was, I'm going to make you a great nation. This is the Abrahamic covenant and the sign of the Abrahamic covenant. What was it? Does anybody know what the, what was the sign of the Abrahamic covenant? It was male circumcision. So that was the evidence that it's like you are supposed to do this. What? You're supposed to do this. This is a sign. What was the sign of the noic? God made a covenant to Noah. I'm never going to destroy the earth with a flood. What was the sign of the noic covenant? The rainbow. That's right. So the sign of the mosaic covenant was this sabbath day.

The Sabbath day was to be this ongoing reminder of the old covenant or the mosaic covenant that God made with Israel, but there was already a Sabbath in place. The concept of the Sabbath goes back to Genesis chapters one and two, because God created the heavens and the earth in six days. On the seventh day it says that he rested, and that was the framework for when God spoke to Moses, said, this is what you're supposed to do. It was like, yeah, you're supposed to rest on the seventh day because that's what God did on the seventh day, six days he labored. On the seventh day he rested. And so this was central to society and it was key to their religious practice. And anybody who violated the Sabbath day, it was so important that if you were found violating the Sabbath day, it was a capital crime.

You could be killed for working on the Sabbath day. That's how central it was. Now, Israel failed in their history to keep the Sabbath day as you go deeper into their history. Those of you in the Old Testament survey class, we're going to see one of the problems that Israel had was they were disobedient when it came to the Sabbath day. They violated the Sabbath day and God was upset with them as a nation. And so by the time we get to Jesus's day, 1500 years of history has passed, and you have all of these traditions related to the Sabbath, the Pharisees who were one of the religious elites, one of the religious elite groups during the day, they saw these disciples taking the grain from the field and eating it. And they say, your disciples are doing what is against the law or not lawful to do on the Sabbath. They're referencing now. They're not referencing Bible. They're referencing another layer on top of the Bible that interpret it. So some authoritative figures had given definition of like, here's what it means to not work. You can go this many paces from your home on the Sabbath day, and then you need to stop. You can do this with your hands, but you can't do that. Well, all of those traditions had been built up and they confront Jesus with it. Sabbath days

That what it was,

No fasting, but no cooking. There was no cooking. So you prepare your food.

They were only eating, they weren't working. They were walking

By. You prepare your food Friday night, and then when the sun goes down Friday night, you basically have your provisions all Friday night through Saturday until Saturday dinner. But yeah, it was not a day of fasting, but you were not allowed to cook. You were not allowed to make a fire. So if you go back into Leviticus, you can see some of the, you can't go and collect sticks, and one guy does get in trouble for that.

They weren't obedient.

That was so strict. It was strict. It was strict. So this is where you get into the interpretation. They're trying to figure out, well, what does it mean to not work? So Jesus is bringing in correction to their concept of being so strict that there is only just a set of rules and parameters, but the heart of it had fallen out. So the Pharisees are there going, look at your disciples are breaking our rules, our traditions by taking, there's no verse that says you can't take grain on the Sabbath. That was the Pharisees tradition and the tradition of the day. So here's what Jesus says. He said to them, haven't you read what David did when he and those who were with him were hungry and how he entered the house of God and they ate the bread of the presence, which is not lawful for him or for those with him to eat, but only the priests.

Okay? Do you know what story he's referencing? Some of you do, many of you don't. Right? This is Jewish tradition. This is back in one Samuel one, Samuel 26. One Samuel 21 is where this story comes up. So let's go back. I know not everybody here is deeply embedded in Old Testament history. He's talking about David. David was a patriarch for Israel. He was the second king of the nation, but before he became king, he was on the run from the current king named Saul. So David has been anointed. He's been promised you are going to be become king. But in the meantime, Saul's king and Saul is trying to murder David. So David's running away all over Israel from Saul early on in his fleeing from Saul, he goes to the tabernacle and there's a priest there who takes him in. And what he does is, so he entered the house of God.

That's a reference to the tabernacle. And the tabernacle was in Bethel. So it was during Solomon's day. So David makes Jerusalem the capital of worship and the national capital, but that happens when David is king. So before David becomes king, when he's still on the run, the tabernacle is still in Bethel, and that's where worship is taking place. So David runs there, he interacts with the priests, he says, do you guys have any food? And the priest says, I don't have any food, but I do have this bread. That was a part of the offering to God. If you go back to Leviticus, the Levites were to take this bread. This is a part of the bread that would be offered to God as a sacrifice. And at the end of the day, it was able to be eaten only by the priests, not by anybody who is not a Levite.

David's not a Levite. He's from the house of Judah, right? Well, he gets to the house, he's fleeing for his life from Saul. He interacts with the priest. He says, it's me and my guys here. I'm on the run and do you have any food? He says, all we have is the bread of the presence. That's the name of this offering. And Jesus says, look, it was not lawful for him. The Old Testament law did not give him permission to eat that, but it was only for the priest. That was the clear instructions out of the Levitical law. What happens? Well, Jesus doesn't fill in, he just asks the question, here's what happens. The priests give him the bread, David eats it. He gets the sword that had been stored there from, or no, that's dag takes the sword. So he takes the bread and then he continues on his way and he continues to flee.

David does not get in trouble for eating the bread. Are you tracking kind of with the story here? David does not get in trouble for eating the bread. And so Jesus is using that as an example to show what's more important here in this story following the structure of the Levitical law with the bread of the presence or the preservation of David's life in nourishing David. Obviously what Jesus is saying is there's this higher order, there's this priority of like, yeah, it's okay for David to take that bread. In that particular instance, are you tracking? Because we've got a law here about the Sabbath. We've got all this legalism with the Pharisees kind of looking down their nose, condemning people about what they're doing on the Sabbath, and Jesus is going, wait a second. There's a different way to relate to the law. There's a different concept that's going on.

So that's the first example. The second example that Jesus gives is in verse five, he says, or haven't you read in the law that on the Sabbath days, the priests in the temple violate the Sabbath and are innocent? So here's what he's talking about. If you're coming to worship God on the Sabbath day and you bring your goat, who's going to kill the goat or who's going to kill the lamb or the turtle doves or it's the priests. The priests are actively working, doing their job on the Sabbath day. Jesus uses the term here, violating the Sabbath, and yet they're innocent. So Jesus here is He's pushing back against this framework that the Pharisees had established because here's the thinking of the pH, and this is what you got to understand. The Pharisees were following the rules thinking that God was happy with them.

They're following the rules thinking that that is what makes them acceptable in God's eyes. That is the problem with legalism. God is happy with you. Why? What makes God happy when you're, yes, he does delight when you're happy. There is an aspect of that, yes, what delights God? Obedience. Obedience, but who led the way in obedience? Yes, repentance is huge. That factors into it, and we're going to go a little bit deeper to see some more, but how many people do you talk to? We go and just do a survey on the street and we say, if you were to die right now, why are you going to be led into heaven? How many people out there are going to say followers? Yeah, believers are the ones that are going to be accepted. But how many people in their mind, they think it's like scales that they have more good than they've done bad, right?

Have you heard that? How many people think, well, more of my life is composed of good things that I've done. I've followed the rules here. Or have you ever heard sin? Well, I'm not killing, I'm not out killing people, right? Have you ever heard that one? God's of course going to let me in heaven. I'm not Hitler, right? Have you heard that one? People have this relationship with rules where they think that God is just about following the rules, and that's not what it's about at all. Jesus is saying, or when God gave the nation of Israel these parameters, they were supposed to be for the good of the people, but instead they became this burden, this heavy burden to follow that weighed people down where it was just like this, trying to navigate life without screwing up and messing up, violating one law or another.

So the Pharisees were the ones that were preaching legalism. And this continues even after Jesus dies. There's people who are just like, they start saying, yeah, follow Jesus, but you also need to make sure you go get circumcised. You're not a real true follower of Jesus unless the men are getting circumcised. You have all these different kinds of legalism that came in. That's what the whole book of Galatians is about, is there's this bad group of Christian leaders that come into the church after Paul leaves and they're like, look, yeah, it's about Jesus. You have to have faith in him, but you also got to follow all of Moses' law if you really want the blessing. And so Paul writes his letter and he says, where'd the blessing come to you from? It came because you had the hearing of faith. You listened, and Jesus is the one who obeyed the law perfectly.

And when you go and place your faith in Jesus, you're like a Russian doll embedded in Jesus's life. And his obedience to the law is what is granted to you as a, it is put to your account, right? So here's the thing. Some of us have a deep sense of shame in our life because we don't follow the rules perfectly, and we think I need to make God happy so that I can have blessing in my life. So I need to obey the rules better. That is the embedded concept of legalism in our life. Sometimes it happens with professionals in the workplace where they think, I've got to just work harder and earn favor, and then other times it happens in our, it's like, well, I'm having a bad day. I must have done something to take off God and he's against me. Nope. That's not how following Jesus works.

God is absolutely happy with what Jesus did, and you're embedded in his life. When you placed your faith in him, the favor of God, the love of God is towards you. Bad things aren't happening in your life because you ticked him off at some point. He is working in your life. He's working around your life. You can pray. We're called when we do the wrong thing. We're told, Hey, confess your sins and he's faithful and just to forgive your sins and to cleanse you from all unrighteousness. Okay, so here we have Jesus giving two examples. This is the second one. And he's saying, look at the priests. They are violating Levitical law by working on the Sabbath day, and yet they are innocent. So all that Jesus is doing, he's kind of throwing bombs into the Pharisees world. He's blowing up their legalism and their religious framework.

He says this in verse six, I tell you that something greater than the temple is here. So he's going to lay down principles here. He's referring to himself and the kingdom something at greater than the temple is here. If you had known what this means, I desire mercy and not sacrifice, you would've not condemned the innocent. So here he's saying, go back to Hosea six, which is this where it says, our English here says it's mercy there, it's hasad, this faithful love. God desires, mercy, faithful love and not sacrifice. If you understood that, you would've not condemned the innocent. Here's what Jesus is saying. Do you understand who God is? Do you understand that God cares about people not rules? God creates rules because he loves people. Those rules are meant to serve the flourishing of people and society. So think of parenting, right? We set up rules in our houses so that society functions and we can love one another, but we're not following those rules just for the sake of following rules.

And when a rule is dumb, we get rid of it. We get rid of it. So here Jesus is saying, I desire mercy, faithful love and not sacrifice. Felicia, a second ago mentioned repentance. What does God say to David in Psalm 51? He says, I desire repentance and a broken and a contrite heart. I will not despise. And the verse after that, which I cannot quote from memory, but it is that idea that he desires this broken and contrite heart, a repentant heart more than just go and kill a goat at the tabernacle. Okay? Alright, let's keep going here. For the Son of man is Lord of the Sabbath. Who's the son of man? Jesus. Jesus is the Lord of the Sabbath. Okay? So he's the boss. He's the one who is, when we get to Hebrews, he takes us in. He becomes our Sabbath.

He becomes really the fulfillment of the entire concept. So that's the first part. Okay? So we have the grain that is being eaten. This is the first interaction with the Sabbath. The second, well, here's the passage out of Hosea where he says, I desire faithful love and not sacrifice. That's what Jesus is quoting back to the Pharisees. Let's go into the second section verses nine through 13, because it's another debate over the Sabbath. Moving on from there. So he goes from the fields into the synagogue. He entered their synagogue, and there he saw a man who had a shriveled hand. And in order to accuse Jesus, they ask him, this is probably the Pharisees or the followers of the Pharisees. They ask him, is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath? What do you think? Are you allowed to heal on the Sabbath? That's work, isn't it? Maybe it is. This is the question of the day. So he says, who among you, if you have a sheep that fell into a pit on the Sabbath, wouldn't take hold of it and lift it out, right? Good question. You're going along. You got a sheep, your little sheep gets lost, you're going to pull it out of the pit

Maybe. Well, you might've break there. Well, I don't think it was against the rule. I think he's giving them an example of something that wouldn't have been against the rules. A person he says is far more than a sheep. So it is lawful to do what is good on the Sabbath.

Why have a Sabbath?

You're getting ahead. You're getting ahead. That's right. That is the question. Why have a Sabbath? Right? Exactly. That's what he wants you to ask. Why have a Sabbath if you can do all this other stuff on the Sabbath, the Sabbath

Don't

Save people lives. Here, let's finish and I'm going to give you the principle. Then he told the man, stretch out your hand. So he stretched it out and it was restored as good as the other. So he heals the guy, but the Pharisees went out and plotted against him how they might kill him. Crazy. Okay, so this is the second section. We have, again, this conflict over what can you do on the Sabbath? We are 2000 years removed from these stories. We don't know what it was like to be in Jesus's day and to have these intricate interpretations of the Sabbath, but this is what we do have. We can go to Israel today, or you can go up to Reers Town Road to a Jewish community, and you can see all of the provision that exists that have you ever been in a Jewish building on a Saturday and seen the elevator?

They make it so that you don't push the buttons on a Jewish elevator. Did you know that? I don't remember what the provision is in that setting, but there's a way to work the elevator without pushing the buttons, would it? Oh, it stops on all floors. That's right. I knew it worked somehow. That's right. It stops on all floors on a Saturday. That would be rough if you have a hundred floors, right? You got to be really patient. All that to say, the question is, is what's the purpose of the Sabbath? Okay, so I grew up, lemme give you a little bit of just my own personal story about the Sabbath. So many Protestants, we read about Jesus being the Lord of the Sabbath, that Jesus fulfilled the law, and we are, I'm not Jewish, and so my family did not have a Sabbath day. There are certain Protestant groups, like the Seventh Day Adventists, they will celebrate a Sabbath day. They worship on a Saturday and not on a Sunday. So they're a Protestant group that observes a literal Sabbath day. So

Chantel stay on Sunday?

No, that's a good question. That's a good, so the Puritans did that. The Puritans saw their Sabbath on Sunday because it was the day of the resurrection. They weren't Jews. They weren't Jews. And so if you go into church history, the people that found, or the religious, a lot of the religious groups that kind of came over to the Americas, they would call Sunday a Sabbath. So that's one way that it's been interpreted in church history. Day of Pentecost. Say again? Pentecost. Pentecost. Yeah, that's a part of the church. Church history. The church like calendar is the day of Pentecost.

But in my own personal story, we didn't have a special day to rest and it was because we don't want to be legalistic. But the more I've gone along and some of the people that have influenced me, there's been kind of a recovery of saying, no, the Sabbath isn't just a Jewish thing. There's an underlying principle that Jesus is teaching here. Is Jesus saying the Sabbath is bad? No, what he's saying is the legalism of the Pharisees is what's bad, right? Because the law was getting in the way of his disciples being able to eat and he was getting in the way of a guy being able to have his hand healed. And so Jesus is throwing these bombs into the traditions. Yeah, he's throwing bombs into their thinking and saying, wait, you're not seeing the Sabbath as something that serves humanity to give humanity a rest day.

Instead, you're seeing it as just a set of rules to do to kind of be puffed up and proud. So we go back to the Old Testament, go back to Genesis one and two. God, does God need to rest? No. And yet he still is the one who rests on the seventh day. So when you think about your own relationship with rest, which is the theme we are continuing from last week, the question is, is God formed the nation of Israel and he said the Sabbath is super important. My question for you is how important is it for you? We in America, we are this working crazy group of people. Our work ethic in America is often this work, work, work, work, work. And yet there seems to be this principle that God is teaching his people that there is a important role for rest.

One of the things that would happen when the children of Israel were in the wilderness, they were fed by manna. Do you remember the story of manna? It was this miracle bread that would appear on the ground every morning when you would get to Friday, you supposed, so you were only supposed to collect enough bread for each day. You couldn't go and hoard the manna or it would rot on the second day. You couldn't. You had to get it each day except for Friday. On Friday you could collect two days worth of manna so that you could Sabbath. You could take a rest day on Saturday. And the miracle that God did was it wouldn't rot on that second day. If you took two portions on a Thursday, your Friday amount would ride. But if you took two days worth on Friday, God made it.

So it miraculously lasted all the way until your Sunday morning you would have this provision. That was the principle. That was the idea is like, look, don't collect, trust God. Now how much faith does it take when you're in the compassion center to just take enough for this week? That's hard, huh? It's hard for you. It's hard for me when I see all that food there, it's like, oh man, this is an opportunity. I got to take this out of here. I got to because who knows when this is going to be here again? Right? Can you relate? So if you could relate to that feeling, that's how the Jews felt on Monday morning. They were like, oh my gosh, look at all this, man. We should collect it. And yet God wanted them to have this principle of faith. So you reverse that also.

And you realize like, wait a second. When you take a break, when you take a break and you force yourself to stop, you're always afraid of what something's not going to get done. Part of the job, some of the work isn't going to get if I take a day off. And yet what God is trying to teach his people is this idea of you trust me with your schedule. You've got to trust me in your schedule. So the only piece I want to add to this is Hebrews chapter four. When you go over to Hebrews chapter four, it says that Jesus is our rest. He's the one that leads us into this place of rest. That does not mean that we get rid of the actual scheduling rest for ourselves, but we get to, unlike the Jews, we get to enter into this principle of rest, unlike any other generation before Jesus.

Because we not only get a physical rest, but we get this spiritual rest where Jesus leads us in. It says in Genesis or Hebrews three, it talks about how Jesus is like our Joshua who led his children into the land, the promised land of rest. Jesus is the one that leads us into the promised land, our own promised land, and he gives us rest. That's what he's inviting you into. That's what he's calling us to. So a lot of different themes kind of woven together in the text. The thing that I want you to think about this week, the primary thing I want you to consider is, is there in your heart or in my heart a sense of rule following to try to earn God's favor If that is there, you just need to know you're not going to earn God's favor through following the rules. That's not how it works. The favor of God is on your life. Only if you've placed your faith in Christ and you're hid in him. He is the one. Jesus is the one who fulfilled the law perfectly, and then he welcomes us into his family and he says, I now you inherit from me the favor of God. So that's the beautiful principle that underlies this crazy text. Do you see how upsetting it is to the legalistic heart?

There is murderous animosity towards grace, the human heart. The human heart cannot handle grace very well. There is just this, why would somebody be so in love with law keeping and traditionalism that somebody comes along and says, there's grace. That's what Jesus is saying. There's grace and you want to kill him. And before we are too harsh on the Pharisees, we got to check ourselves. Are we legalistic? Are we so in love? Rich, the Pharisees rich, they were rich. Yeah. Then they were elite and their power

Was Joe want to train and they

Didn't want it. And their power was challenged, right? But he was inviting them in. He was inviting them in, right? He was saying, come on in, come in. But you got to let go of this legalism. Anyway, we have this awesome covenant of grace that we've been given, and that's what we're going to celebrate with the Lord's Supper. So let's pray and we will take communion together. Lord, we thank you for the war that you go to against legalism, just the battle that you put up to fight against just that legalistic pride. Lord, would you usher us into just a life of grace where structures the aath, where those structures are for human good and human flourishing, and not just some law to keep. Lord, teach us about your rest. Teach us about entering into your rest. We want to be a people that take full advantage of what you have purchased for us. I pray that you bless each person here with that sense of peace and rest over their life this week, and we pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.

Matthew 11:25-30

Transcript

If you are visiting us with us for the first time, welcome. We're glad you're here. We are a ragtag, crazy group of people that meet and love Jesus in Fells point every Sunday morning. And we have been going through the book of Matthew and we were before Matthew, I think we were in Hebrews. So we just go kind of book by book verse by verse, and so you know where I'm going to preach next week if you were here this week. It's kind of that easy, right? So we're going to pick up next week with chapter 12. We're going to finish chapter 11 this week. So if you want to read ahead or you want to go backwards and read up to where we are at, we're just going systematically through the gospel of Matthew.

So last week what we saw was Jesus rebuking the crowds, and he made this comparison. He used comparison as a tool to rebuke the crowds. First. He said, you guys are like kids who don't want to play. I'm here. I'm ready to play and you don't want to play. You're unresponsive. Then he even went harder at 'em and he said, you know what? In the day of judgment, it's going to be better for Sodom and Gamora and tire and Sidon than for you all. Because if those cities had seen what you are seeing, they would've repented a long time ago and you are unresponsive. And so there was this strong word that came to us from the text that just basically said, you need to respond. You need to respond to the gospel message. And the cool thing was we had our baptism and there was this response of like, I got to get baptized. And so now we're going to see a prayer of Jesus for a minute, a prayer of Jesus, and then we're going to go into just one of the most beautiful invitations found in the New Testament. So we've got some really great material ahead of us. Let's read this. Let me read this to you. We'll pray and then we'll get into it.

He says this, at that time Jesus said, I praise you, father, Lord of heaven and earth because you have hidden these things from the wise and intelligent and revealed them to infants. Yes, father, because this was your good pleasure. All things have been entrusted to me by my father. No one knows the son except the father. No one knows the Father except the son and anyone to whom the son desires to reveal him. Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me because I am lowly and humble in heart and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is a light. Lord, we ask that you would speak to us this morning through this text. Lord, take the material of our hearts, take the thoughts the way that we put our thoughts together, our logic.

Lord, would you work right in the core of who we are, that you would intercept us by your spirit, that you would teach us, that you direct us, that you'd correct us, give us instruction and righteousness through this scripture we pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. So there's three sections here. There is this first section in verses 25 and 26 that is about revelation for the least. And then we have one verse verse 27, which is a continuation of the thought but really brings to the surface the mediation of Christ. Then the third section, verse 28 through 30 is this invitation to rest. So let's look at it in those three sections, starting with this whole idea of the revelation for the least, revelation for the least. He says in verse 25, at that time Jesus said, I praise you, father Lord of heaven and earth because you have hidden these things from the wise and intelligent and revealed them to infants. We'll look at verse 26 in a second, but do you see the nature of the text? Who is doing the talking?

Jesus is doing the talking. Who is he talking to? The Father. That's right. Thank you. I hear you in the back. He is. And so when you're talking to God, we call that prayer. So this is a prayer of Jesus. I don't want that to pass, okay? Because Jesus is God, and yet here is Jesus praying to the Father. Now, one of the most mysterious aspects of the New Testament is this idea of Trinity three distinct persons, father, son, and Holy Spirit. But those three are one, and here he is. What kind of prayer is this? Is he asking for something? No, not particularly asking. He is praising God. He's expressing to God his gratitude, his enthusiasm, right? It's like somebody, you see a kid and they do good in their sports game and you just say, wow, you did so great in your soccer game today.

That's praise. So Jesus is directing his praise to the Father. Notice he's called Father, but he's also the Lord of heaven and earth. And then we have the word because. So he's going to say, here's why I praise you. And the reason is is because you've hidden these things from the wise and intelligent and you've revealed them to infants. So we have contrast in play here. We've got the hidden things and we have the revealed things. Some set of things are hidden and those same set of things are revealed. We also have on one side we have the wise and intelligent, and on the other side we have infants. Jesus is thankful that the Father has revealed spiritual truths, not to the worldly wise or the intellectual elites, but to those who are humble, childlike in their trust and dependence on God. Do you find it here?

As you're reading through the text, he says that you've revealed these things to infants. Now, when you read that, do you feel like you went over a speed bump in your reading? In a sense it does, right? Because it's like, wait, who's, who's the infants that he's talking about? Disobedient. What? Disobedient. No, not the disobedient. That's not right in this section. Followers, it's the yes what? The followers. The followers, yes. Thank you. It's the followers that he's calling infants. These are the ones who are like children. He's saying, you have to be like a child to come to me. He said that you have to have faith as a child. You have to be like a child to, and you think about this, I was meditating on this week as I was thinking about people who are intellectually elite or people who are powerful or wealthy and their own process of coming to Christ.

You really have to be broken in order to come to Christ. You cannot hold on to really your own strength. It's not like you can be the most known for your intellect and be a powerful person and without any kind of humility, turn your life to Christ. There is over and over again. As you hear the testimonies of elites and powerful people coming to Christ, they express this reduction in their own personhood, that their pride came down, that they came to a place of humility where they were like, I don't know all the answers. I'm not able to put it together. I'm ready to turn to Christ. There is nobody that has come to Christ without that posture. And you need to understand that what may stand between you and Christ this morning may be your own pride. It may be a sense of strength, self-sufficiency, that you've got it all together, that you can figure out your life, that you are intellectual enough to get out of the hole, the spiritual hole that you're in, and that may be keeping you from Christ.

And yet Jesus is watching the kingdom of heaven be communicated and revealed, communicated through his mouth, but revealed through miracles. He's watching it happen and he's watching people light up. Have you ever seen that? Have you ever been in church where all of a sudden somebody gets it, it's like you've been teaching and all of a sudden they just grab a hold of spiritual truth and it's like a light goes on and Jesus is looking at this crowd and he's seeing some in this crowd are becoming genuine followers. People who are like, I'm ready to genuinely turn from everything I've been doing in my own way of doing it, and I'm ready to turn to you, Jesus. And so he has this moment of just praising the Father, that the Father is the one who has hidden these things from the wise and intelligent, but he's revealing them to infants.

And not only that, but he says, yes, father, he like agrees with himself. He says, yes, father, because this was your good pleasure, father. You love it this way. This lights you up. You're happy to see this kingdom message revealed to the childlike, the humble, the lowly, the vulnerable. This makes you happy. And so Jesus is in this moment of prai, and here's what I want you to see this morning. This goes back to the very beginning of the Bible. In fact, I'm going to read to you from Genesis in just a second, but this is a theme, this idea that the people that receive Jesus trend, they trend, they're not only but they trend towards the more vulnerable, the down and out, the blue collar, the poor, the weak of society. Those are the ones that tend to receive Christ. Let me show you this.

In Paul's letter to the Corinthian church, he says, look around the church. Look at our church for a second. You could turn, you don't have to pay attention. Look around our church for a second. Look at yourself for a second. Okay, now look at he says, but brothers and sisters, consider that's the look around. Consider your calling. Not many were wise from a human perspective, not many powerful, not many of noble birth. In other words, look around. Who's here? It's not many wise people or noble people or powerful people. It's the broken people that are here, right? Don't you want to have a party now? Instead, God has chosen what is foolish. Did you hear that? Read that out loud. Read it. What does it say? God has chosen what is foolish. He has picked you and me.

People don't realize God put us all together for us to learn from one another. I learned that when I was young.

It's beautiful, isn't it? Yeah, but you can't support

Me around a bunch of nationalities. When I moved to the city when I was 22, I was culture shocked the way people treated people in 1985. They still had a barrier. I went to the barrier.

I've heard that story over and over again of people in our church. Our church is composed of a bunch of people that cross barriers early on. That's pretty awesome. Listen to people

Where I'm to,

But you can't cross those barriers. You can't be this community without a sense of humility. So he has chosen what is foolish in the world to shame the wise. This is why Jesus is so excited, because the proud in society, the ones that are poking their finger at God are the ones that are being put to shame as God is picking and the foolish, and as he is taking those who are weak in the world to shame the strong, the work that God is doing in the world is not like, it's not according to the stratosphere of normal society. It's this beautiful thing. Last verse here from Corinth Corinthians. God has chosen what is insignificant and despised in the world. What is viewed as nothing to bring to nothing? What is viewed as something?

If you feel like you are insignificant or like you are a nothing, you need to know that you are the object of God's affection and that God loves to pick you work in your life so that he can shame the powerful and the strong and the influential. He loves you and he loves to work through you to do this work in the world that just reshuffles everything. All you have to do is let him do his thing. You have to know this morning, what may be in the way of God's thing in your life is if you have pride. Now, some of you are blessed with incredible intellect and your influence and you're shaping future generations through the work that you're either doing research or you're doing engineering and you're welcome in God's kingdom, but you're only useful in God's kingdom as you take the posture of a child and you say, I give to you, God, I give to you my ability and I depend upon you, not on my great intellect, not on the wealth that I've accumulated, not on my social status or my looks, but I lean upon you as a child leans into their parents.

So that's who's welcome. But listen, listen, that's who's welcome. But let's talk about this idea of hidden verses revealed because if you get this, you're going to get the whole Bible. A big theme in the Bible, this idea at the beginning of the Bible, Genesis is at the beginning of the Bible, Genesis two and three, when God put Adam and Eve in the garden, he wanted for them to be dependent on him for knowledge of good and bad. He didn't want them to take from the tree of the knowledge of good. You call it evil. It should be good and bad. It's this idea of being able to know what is good and bad. That's what that tree represented. It's in the center of the garden. God says to Adam and Eve, I don't want you to take from that tree the implication. The assumption is that he didn't want them to be ignorant and stupid.

No, the assumption is that he would be their source of the knowledge of good and bad. He's got that trajectory. You follow the rest of the Bible. We see God moving people in the direction of wisdom. You look at the proverbs, it's like lady wisdom screaming in the streets. Come to me. I want to give you wisdom. Wisdom is this ability to know good and bad. That's part of it. It's discernment. But for Adam and Eve, it was like you have an option you can go and take from that tree and you can just short circuit it. You can just go eat that fruit and you're going to have the knowledge of good and bad, or you can walk with God in the cool of the day. You can meet with him in the garden and he can be your source of the knowledge and good and bad he will reveal.

So in our verse that we're looking at, it's this theme of there's things that are hidden and revealed, hidden and revealed. Who's doing the revealing God the Father is revealing to these childlike followers of Jesus, all about the kingdom. That's how it should be, and Jesus is rejoicing that it's hidden to the elites. So if we look here at Genesis, look at how this works. This is Genesis two, nine, the Lord God caused to grow out of the ground, every tree pleasing in appearance and good for food, including the tree of life in the middle of the garden, as well as the tree of the knowledge of good and evil or good and bad. Jump down a little bit to verses 15 through 17. The Lord God took the man, put him in the garden of Eden to work it and to watch over it.

And the Lord God commanded the man, you are free to eat from any tree of the garden, but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil for on the day you eat from it, you'll certainly die. So what Jesus is saying here is that this is not the tree for you to take from. So Satan on the next chapter comes to Eve and tempts her and says, you will not die if you eat from that, you're just going to be like God. And so Satan tempts the man and woman to disobey and to short circuit the process, and death does come across all of humanity. The curse comes over all of creation, not just over humanity, but it says that the world is groaning waiting for the redemption that Jesus is going to bring about. So I want you to see that as Jesus is rejoicing in what's happening right in front of him, he's excited about this thing that God's been wanting to do since the very beginning, which is revelation.

What's God going to show you this week? What revelation is God going to show you this week? In the book of Ephesians, Paul praised this prayer for the church. He says that the eyes of your understanding may be enlightened, that you would know what is the hope of your calling. Paul uses the word cardiac, which is where we get the word cardiac or heart. And he says, your eyes have, as it were, a heart, and that Greek word for eyes is photo. So think of how a camera works and how the shutter opens for just the briefest second and lets the light in. And then if you have an old fashioned camera, the film is kind of exposed for a second. That is Paul is saying your heart is like, and his prayer is that the shutter of your heart would open up and the light of God's revelation would just come flooding in, and you would just have this awakening to know the hope of your calling, the fact that there is this beautiful hope that you have.

But that's his prayer for the Ephesians. In Psalm one 19, the psalmist says He prays, oh God, let the eyes of my understanding be open that I may see wonderful things from your word. All throughout the Bible, there is this spiritual experience that is enjoyed, that's called revelation and a part of your spiritual journey. A part of your following Jesus is that beyond what you can see with your eyes, there is the work of the Holy Spirit to give you spiritual understanding that may be of the moment. So just like this, where you are given God's interpretation of your very own moment, it could be just you're opening up a scripture and you just get this one phrase from your Bible reading tomorrow morning, you're sitting there with your Bible in front of you and just one phrase just jumps off the page and you're like, wow, I get it.

That applies to my life. And it's that sense of revelation. Other times it's like you're in conversation with other Christians around you after church or throughout the week and they're sharing something going on in their life, and you just kind of sense the Holy Spirit saying to you, they're sharing that for you. That's an example for you. Or maybe you're listening to some worship music and there's this sense of just God quickening your heart to the themes that are in that worship song. All of that is this idea of revelation. And you just need to know that as a human, you were not created just to go off of what your eyes can see, but you are designed to be in relationship with God, and God loves. What does it say here it is His good pleasure to give this revelation again. What's the revelation that God has for you today?

This is the cool thing about being past the cross because when we drink that cup, we're going to talk about the new covenant. We're going to say that that's a symbol of the blood of Jesus that enacted the new covenant and central to the new covenant. The promise of heaven for you is that no longer will your neighbor teach the Lord, but he says, you will each know me. The Holy Spirit is your teacher. So what he's going to teach you this week is different from what he's going to teach me. Now, listen, you may be listening to this and go, I don't really go to this church thing, this religion thing. This is a lot for me. I don't know. I just want you to know you were designed for more than just your physical existence. You were designed to be in partnership with God nonstop, and that's what this next section is about, is that Jesus's full-time job is to mediate your relationship with a father. You see, God loves you. He designed you to have a relationship with him. He wants you to give you spirit, special supernatural powers to have revelation and see things in a crazy way. And then Jesus is the full time mediator. In other words, Jesus's job is to make this real for you and for me. Verse 27 says this, all things have been entrusted to me by my father. No one knows the son except the Father, and no one knows the father except the son and anyone to whom the son desires to reveal him.

Again, here's our word reveal. So the father entrust. So this is the government of God and the Trinity the Father gives and entrust to the Son everything the other place. Do you know where you Bible scholars? Where else does this whole idea come up? Where does it say it was all entrusted? Everything was put into Jesus' hands. There's a couple places. Yeah, John, it may be there. It may be. That's not the one I'm thinking of, but it's probably there. Yeah. Yeah, that's a great verse. That's a beautiful verse. I love that verse. Where does it say that All things are put into Jesus' hands, where he's given authority, where he's in charge. Do you remember in John 13, it says that all things being put into his hands, he disrobed himself, put on a towel and he washed the disciple's feet. Isn't that a beautiful thing?

It also says it in Matthew 28, that all authority has been given to me on heaven and earth. You see, Jesus has been entrusted with authority so that he can accomplish the redemptive work that you and I need. And here he says, here's the work that he's doing. As he is revealing, the son is being revealed to us, anyone to whom the son desires to reveal him. So the Son is the one who is the revelator of the Father. That's one of the key things that we see. We saw in the book of Hebrews. This is that theme of mediation. It's that idea that Jesus is our high priest. He's making this close relationship with the Father real. He is the one who stands. This is why kind of the Protestants jump ship on the Catholics because there's this sense that the Catholic priest gives themselves too much authority in that structure.

They put themselves in a mediatorial position that the New Testament does not give to a human. Jesus is our mediator between us and the Father. That is not a role that a priest can play. We are brothers and sisters. The Bible says that we are the priesthood of believers, that we all play a role as priests towards one another, helping each other in community, like Loretta was saying, where we're in community together, but we do not mediate each other's relationship with heaven. We're all with heaven. We're all personally responsible to relate to God. So this verse highlights the unique and exclusive relationship between the Father and the son. Jesus has authority over all things and only through him can anyone truly know the Father. It emphasizes Christ's role as our mediator and revealer of God. Let's go to the next section here. This last section of the yoke verses 28 through 30.

It says this, Jesus says to the crowd, come to me, all of you who are weary or burdened, and I will give you rest. Is there anything more beautiful than that? I mean, if you're not weary and you're not burdened, then maybe it doesn't apply to you. But I think that we can fall into that care category, right? That we are weary and that we're burdened, right? There are many things that can tire us out and weigh us down. And Jesus says to you and I, Hey, come to me. Come to me and I'm going to give you rest. He says this, take my yoke upon you and learn from me because I'm lowly and humble and hard, and you will find rest for your soul. So this verse explains the previous verse. He invites you to come to him in your state of weariness and burden this, and he says, you'll find rest.

Then he says, yolk yourself up with me. Let's look at a yoke here for just a second. This is a yolk. This is the two oxen. One oxen would put his head through here. The other oxen would put his head through there. It's a agricultural tool so you can keep your oxen plowing together, walking next to each other, side by side, and then you would hook up whatever instrument you have to the back of your or to the center there of your yoke. So Jesus says, I want you to yoke up with me. I want you to yoke up with me, but you just need to know this. Take my yoke upon you. Learn from me because I am lowly and humble in heart. You will find rest for your soul. So he says, just connect yourself to me, yoke yourself up with me. Other times in John 15, he says, abide in me.

There's all these relational terms that get used, these relational terms that get used, but essentially this is the bottom line. You got to get connected to Jesus. If you're burdened and you're weary and you want rest for your soul, you got to get connected to him. Whether it helps you to think of those yoke in the oxen together and you're here and Jesus is right there, and that thing's on your neck and you're kind of doing life together or the image of the branches being in the vine, and that image helps you, whatever it is, you need Jesus because he's the one that gives you rest for your souls. And then he says this, my yoke is easy and my burden is light. If you're thinking about being a Christian, but you're not there yet, or maybe you are a Christian and you're just like, oh my gosh, this is such a burden, then you're not quite got it right.

There's something missing. There's something that's not quite right because the burden of Jesus is light. It's easy, and he's asking for you. He's inviting you to come into his rest. So there are forms. There's perceptions of like, okay, well, to be a follower of Jesus, it means that I've got to clean eyes. I've got to act clean my act up, and all these things are going to have to change, and that's going to be a heavy burden. It's going to be hard. There may be some pain involved. There may be some death and dying to yourself, but when you're doing it with Jesus, if you're yoked up with Jesus, he makes these things easy. He promises that. And so again, just do a self-check. Look yourself in the mirror. Am I going around just going, oh, this Christian thing, this following Jesus. It is just too hard.

It is so heavy. Well then something's wrong on your end. Something's wrong on your end because Jesus promises that it is His yoke is easy and his burden is light. In fact, he gives life. He says, I came to give you life and that more abundantly I came to give you life and that much more life. He didn't come to subtract from your life. He's like, you think you're living now? Come and follow me. I got life for you. I want to pour life into you. So listen, it's not Josh preaching it's Bible. Are you going to listen to what Jesus is saying? He's saying to you, I'm not saying it. He's saying, I'm just reading it. He says, come to me all you who are weary and who are burdened. It's on us to obey what the Bible says. He describes it in a beautiful way.

He says, this is life in Matthew 23. In Matthew 23, there is this opposite idea. He says, of the Pharisees, these are these religious hypocrites that would go around. He would say, they tie up heavy loads. Jesus says that they tie up heavy loads that are hard to carry, and they put 'em on people's shoulders, but they themselves aren't willing to lift a finger to move them. You see, there is this conception of religious duty that is burdensome and the phar at Jesus time, it was the Pharisees that we're creating all these rules that just were impossible. They even themselves didn't carry them.

Jesus says, come to me, you who are weary and who are burdened, I will give you rest. It is not a heavy burden. This morning. We are reminded of that true spiritual wisdom is not attained by our intellect or achievements, but through childlike faith and humility, are we open to learning from God like little children, or do we rely too much on our own understanding? Do you know what Proverbs three, five and six says? Do not lean on your own understanding, but in all your ways, acknowledge him and he will direct your paths. He'll make your path straight.

The second thing is, in today's culture, there are many who are weary and burdened by expectations, religious obligations or life's struggles. Jesus offers us rest, not just physical, but deep, soul level, peace. This passage invites us to bring our burdens to him. Are we still carrying our burdens we are never meant to carry? How can we better rest in Jesus' finished work? Think about that this week. What does it mean to just let Jesus take over to finish the work? And last of all, Jesus calls us to take his yoke, which implies discipleship, submission and learning from him. Yet his yoke is different. It's not harsh or burdensome, but it is filled with grace. What does it look like for us to embrace Jesus' yoke in our daily lives, to do life with him? Let's pray. And with your head bowed, I just want to you to just kind of check in with God.

Maybe you don't feel like you've ever made a personal decision to receive what Jesus did for you. Jesus died on the cross to pay for your guilt, but you haven't as of today said back to God, I receive it. I'm ready to turn my life to you. If you haven't done that yet, today's the day to have that simple conversation to receive the work of Christ. He wants you in his family, in his kingdom. And for the rest of us that have made that decision, we've been reminded of the God who reveals things to the humble. We've been reminded of a gentle and like yoke, and I would just encourage you to say to the Lord, God, I'm ready to go with you, yoked up this week together. Let's do it together. God, we receive that word, Lord, we want to be those that obey you. We pray this in Jesus name. Amen.

Matthew 11:1-6

Transcript

All right, we're going to be in Matthew chapter 11, Matthew chapter 11 verses one through six. We'll talk a little bit about doubts. We'll talk a little bit about doubts, so if you want to get your Bibles out, you can turn to Matthew 11 as a church. We've been going through the book of Matthew. There's a couple of big sections that we have already covered in this book. We've seen the life of John the Baptist, seeing the birth of Jesus, John the Baptist, Jesus baptized by John Jesus going into the wilderness to be tempted, coming out of the wilderness and then commissioned to go and do ministry in the region of Galilee.

And then we go into a long discourse of Jesus called the Sermon on the Mount where he is teaching ethics. He's teaching kind of what it's like to be a part of this kingdom. What does that mean? Then we looked at verse chapters eight and nine where there's nine different miracles that take place, nine different miracles that take place, and throughout that section Jesus is talking about here's what it means to be a disciple. We oftentimes use the word apprentice. If you want to become an electrician, you apprentice as an electrician. You're getting trained by somebody who's already licensed to already is experienced in that field, and so Jesus had these apprentices. They were called disciples, and in chapter eight and nine he explains, here's what this means. Then we got in and we've been looking at for the last few weeks, this we're kind of set up by this statement where Jesus sees the crowd and he has compassion on the crowd, and then he tells his disciples to pray to the Lord of the harvest, that the Lord of the harvest would send the laborers into this crowd, into the field.

And then right on the heels of that prayer, we have Jesus commissioning his disciples, his apprentices, to go and preach and to heal, to do basically everything we've seen Jesus doing. They're given that ministry to go and do. He empowers them, it says, and then he sends 'em out and he's been giving instructions about what they will encounter, where to go, what to do, what to bring. All of those instructions we have covered, and the section actually ends in verse one because it says after he sent them out, he himself went to their towns to preach and to heal. We'll see that in just a second, but to of set the stage for this morning, I want to kind of prime the pump a bit by this quote, mother Teresa. She says, I know God will not give me anything I can't handle. I just wish that he didn't trust me.

So much pain in our lives can lead us to a lot of wrestling, and we're going to look at John the Baptist at a very painful point in his life and the wrestling that he went through. Let me read to you verses one through six, and then we'll come back and we'll walk through the text in verse one. It says, when Jesus had finished giving instructions to his 12 disciples, he moved on from there to teach and preach in their towns. Now, when John heard in prison that the Christ was doing what the Christ was doing, he sent a message through his disciples and he asked him, are you the one who is to come or should we expect someone else? Jesus replied to them, go and report to John what you hear and see the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, those with leprosy are cleansed.

The deaf here, the dead are raised and the poor are told the good news and blessed is the one who isn't offended by meme. Let's pray together. Lord, we ask as we look at this text that you would teach us by your spirit, we believe that not just the words on the page will impact us and change our lives, but that these are your very words that you inspired Matthew to make this record of Jesus's teaching and to give this account and that your spirit can take and apply this text to our lives. Lord, I ask for each person here, Lord, you know our story. You know what we walked in that door with and I pray, father, that you would work in our lives in a deeply personal way, Lord, that you would meet us through this text and we ask this in Jesus' name. Amen.

So let's look at this text together. One of the things that we see is that Jesus finishes off this section of commissioning his disciples, and then he himself goes around the region of Galilee to preach and teach. And so that closes out this section. So imagine with me for just a second, and I'm going to put it on the screen in a minute. Just this region of Galilee, this northern large body of water, a lake, and the disciples, the 12 disciples have been sent out around the towns to preach and to teach. And so Jesus is kind of on his own for a minute and he's going now to preach and teach in some of those surrounding towns, and then Matthew turns his attention to John the Baptist, and that's where we'll spend a good bit of our time. When John heard in prison what the Christ was doing, he sent a message through his disciples.

So you see that the word disciple there, this is not just a Jesus word. It's not just a Christian word. It's a cultural construct where we have the idea of an apprentice. These in this time, you'd have these Pharisees or Sadducees or John the Baptist, each one of them, they had their sets of disciples, their adherence, the most zealous followers that would follow their teacher, their rabbi around, and John had his, but John is in prison hearing about the Christ. That's the Latin word for Messiah. It means the anointed one. John hears about what he's doing and he sends a message through his disciples, and we will look at the question in just a second. I want to just set the stage here about who John is. So John has been doing ministry here in this region of Galilee. This is the northern body of water.

If he go south below this map, the Jordan River here runs through Israel down to the Dead Sea. Jerusalem is down over here, not on the map. Jesus's hometown is here in Capernaum. You see some of the other kind of, this is the Samaritan side. This is where we saw earlier, Jesus encountered the demon possessed guys there on this side over here on the northern side. So John did much of his ministry and engaged, and he found himself in prison because of the Roman, not Jewish, but the Roman government that was overseeing Israel at the time.

Here's kind of a refresher because some of you are new with us and you weren't here when we studied Matthew three. Here's a little bit about John from earlier in Matthew. In those days, John the Baptist came preaching in the wilderness of Judea. So that's South Judea is kind of south here. Judea goes back to when the nation of Israel was divided up and you had, Judah had an area, Judah, the tribe got carried off in captivity for 70 years in around 700 bc. Then when they returned, it was primarily the Judean tribe that came back into Israel. They became the largest tribe, and so Juah became Judea, and that's where we get the word Jewish from Judah. So John is here in this Judean region around the Jordan River baptizing, and this is his message. He was saying, repent, because the kingdom of heaven has come near. Now we've gone another seven chapters deep into Matthew. How many times have we seen Jesus's message summarized as this? The kingdom of heaven has come near. I mean, this is the message of Jesus. That's

The Messiah's message,

Definitely. Yeah. That's the Messiah's message, the kingdom of heaven, and that's what he told his disciples to preach, right? The kingdom of heaven has come near, and I just keep pointing that out to you because we talk about so much about becoming a Christian and entering into a personal relationship with Christ, which is very much a Protestant recovery of the New Testament message of Jesus. So there's a very good recovery that happened through the Protestant reformation where Martin Luther and John Calvin and those theologians were saying, listen, you're not to just know God through the church and through your local priest. No, you can personally know God. You should have the Bible in your own language. So all that is well and good, but in that whole move through Protestant reformation and the personal relationship with Christ, what gets downplayed and diminished is this theme of this kingdom and Jesus is really teaching.

Look, I've come to bring this new society, which means there's community. There's an aspect of following Jesus and being a disciple where it puts a new lens on your concept of ethics and interpersonal ethics. It reframes the value system of your life. It gives you, you have a new society, you have values, you have authority, you have rules. And so the message of Jesus and John and the disciples all saying, the kingdom of heaven is at hand. So I digress, but that is John, and we continue here in chapter three. He is the one spoken of through the prophet Isaiah who said, a voice of one crying out in the wilderness, prepare the way of the Lord, make his path straight. So John the Baptist is preparing the nation really preparing their hearts for the coming Messiah. So we're already prepared for that, and John is doing, this is Isaiah chapter 40, by the way.

So John the Baptist is doing what he's called to do from Isaiah 40, and again, this sets the stage for him being now in prison. We'll go a couple more verses. John had a camel hair garment with a leather belt around his waist. His food was locust and wild honey. So he's like this crazy character, crazy preacher. Then people from Jerusalem and all Judea and all the vicinity of the Jordan were going out to him and they were baptized by him in the Jordan River confessing their sins. So if you want to know who John the Baptist is, that's kind of the summary, okay? This is what John is doing. He's baptizing them saying, repent, because the kingdom of heaven is near. And then fast forward here they are getting baptized and they're confessing their sins. Have you ever told somebody, you know what? I was really wrong when I did that.

There is this dramatic thing that happens in our hearts when we confess our sins, our mouths are miraculously connected to our hearts where it's just this kind of almost esoteric experience, like other weird aspects of being human, having the hiccups or something like that, right? It is just like it is weird how there's this connection between confession and our hearts just being softened, and that's what's happening here with the nation. Their hearts are being softened, prepared for the Messiah. I say all of that because when we come back over to this story here, we have John and he's going to ask a question that almost contradicts this whole ministry that he's been doing. But before we get there, I just want to show you the last thing that we read. This was chapter four verse 12, when he heard that John, this is Jesus. Jesus heard that John had been arrested.

He withdrew into Galilee. So in the other gospels, there's other more details about this, but Jesus is deeply impacted. John, John the Baptist is one of Jesus's relatives, and Jesus and the disciples, his followers are in a sense, upset. There's this moment of grieving, I think it's in Luke where it's in detail and they're really busy, and it's right around the time where they're feeding the 5,000 and they're just going and going, and Jesus takes his disciples and says, come away. Let's just rest for a minute. Let's pause for a minute. Because of the arrest of John, here's a bit more of the story. John had been telling Herod, it is not lawful for you to have your brother's wife. So Herods held a grudge against him and wanted to kill him, but she could not because Herod feared John and protected him, knowing he was a righteous and holy man.

When Herod heard him, he would be very perplexed, and yet he liked to listen to him. So what's going on? So Herod and I put this in Slack as a church, we use Slack as a group communication tool. If you're not on it yet, the invite is open. You can either use the QR code that the Usher team gives out or you can ask Marvin or Joe to invite you to it. But in the general thread, there is a timeline of Herod and his family because there's multiple Herods in the story of Jesus, and it kind of gets a little confusing on how to parse it and to figure out what is going on with Herod. But essentially this Herod takes his brother, Philip's wife. Her name is Odious. She wanted to be taken, but it's an incestuous adulterous relationship. And so John being this fiery preacher, he's like, look, she shouldn't be your wife.

That's wrong. And the wife is upset with it. And so Harus ultimately is the one who gets Herod to be head John. But what we see here in verse 20 is that John's kind of like perplexed. He's interested in this guide, John, he's kind of probably put off a bit by John saying he's doing something immoral through this relationship with Herods, but at the same time, he's kind of putting up with him because he's fascinated by John the Baptist. Here's what one commentator writes. He tells us of Josephus. Josephus tells us that Herod anus imprisoned the Baptist, John the Baptist in his fortress at Urs east of the Dead Sea, and he was there for about a year before his death. So that is the scene with John in prison. Now, let's look at John's question for a second. Now, when John heard in prison what Christ was doing, he sent a message through his disciples and he asked him, are you the one who is to come or should we expect someone else?

Now, again, this is written to a Jewish audience, so there's some shorthand that's going on here. John is saying, are you the one who is to come? Is that like Santa Claus? Who's to come? Is that the Easter Bunny? No. If you're Jewish, the one who is to come is deeply embedded in the warp and wolf of your life. This is culturally like, oh, yeah, there is the one who is to come. John actually uses this phrase earlier on in Matthew chapter three. John says, I baptize you with water for repentance, but the one who is coming after me is more powerful than I am not worthy to remove his sandals. This idea of somebody who's coming is the Jewish hope. It's fascinating. I just continue to be amazed by the Bible and how the Jews lived in anticipation of the coming of Christ, and then Jesus comes as the Messiah and he fulfills part of the prophetic hope of the Old Testament, but then Jesus teaches his disciples, I'm going to come again. And so there is for us kind of the Jewish experience maps onto our life because we also are waiting for one who will is yet to come, but we know better than the Jews know. Now we know that that's Jesus who will return again. So there's a bit more clarity, but how it's all going to happen, we don't know. We don't know what that will look like.

That's right. That's why we shouldn't judge people. The phrase, the one who has to come is a Messianic title, the one who has to come. It's a messianic title drawn from various Old Testament prophecies that spoke of a coming deliverer, an anointed one, literally anointed one Messiah means anointed one who would fulfill God's promises to Israel. Now, look, I know, I know that we have in this room people who are not yet born again and you're not yet decided to follow Jesus. I know we have some that are with us who you're just starting out in your relationship with Jesus, and as you read the Bible, you are reading different verses where it just gives you the warm, fuzzy feelings. You don't necessarily know how that verse connects with the ones around it, but you're like, I love how that says that. I love that.

I love that verse. But here's what you need to understand is that as you grow as a follower of Jesus and you're reading the Bible more and more, what you're going to see is that it's like this beautiful tapestry with all these connected dots where it's just like all these hyperlinks back to the different parts and it's like, oh my gosh, this onto this and this is connected here and to that there. And so this idea of the Jewish tradition and experiencing being one where you're waiting for the Messiah and how it comes to pass through Jesus, this is one of those things where you just get to enjoy it as it unfolds and you pull back layers. But so I'm going to read to you some of these Old Testament prophecies that primed the pump that got the Jewish heart racing with hope for this one, who is to come look at Isaiah nine, six and seven.

So Isaiah prophesied about 650 years before Jesus, and he said this, to the nation of Israel, a child will be born for us. A son will be given to us, and the government will be on his shoulders. So this child's going to be given and he's going to have a political position, a government authority position. He's going to be named wonderful counselor. So imagine having a president or a king where you're like, he counsels me wisely. He's going to be called mighty God. He's called eternal father and the prince of peace, the one who brings about peace, the dominion, this dominion that he has, the space, the geography that he reigns over is going to be vast and its prosperity will never end. We talk about economics and national economics and GDP right here for Israel, for Isaiah, he's talking about the Messiah. He's saying the geography and the economy of this kingdom is going to just, it's going to blow everything else out of the water.

He will reign on the throne of David. So literally it's going to be this. The throne of David is this Jewish position for the nation of Israel. So he's going to be a Jewish king and over his kingdom to establish and sustain it with justice and righteousness from now and forever. So he's going to have this eternal reign. The zeal of the Lord of armies will accomplish this, so God's armies are going to accomplish this mission. So if you're Jewish, you're reading that, you're like, wow, there's going to be some king in Israel that's going to have this massive rain, but you're waiting, right? You're waiting. What's that going to look like? What's it going to look like? Look at Isaiah 35, 5 and six. Then the eyes of the blind will be opened and the ears of the deaf will be unstopped. You got to go back and kind of read this in context, but Isaiah is just speaking of sometime this is going to happen.

Then the lame will leap like a deer in the tongue of the mute will sing for joy, for the water will gush in the wilderness and streams in the desert. So these prophets would be filled by God's spirit. They're prophesying 650 years before the Messiah. They're talking to a nation that's rebelled against God and is about to get carried off into captivity, and God gives these prophets words about the future as well as truthful words about their time. So would oftentimes their primary ministry would be like they would call the kettle black. This is what God has to say about you today. You think you're righteous, but you're actually violating your neighbor and stealing from the poor, right? That's how the prophets would oftentimes riff. But then they would say stuff like this about some future moment where the lame or leaping like a deer in the tongue of the mute are singing for joy.

All of those things, you're kind of like, it's fuzzy. It's like you can kind of see like, wow, where does that line up with? When's that going to happen? Look over at Jeremiah 23, Jeremiah 23, 5 and six. Look, the days are coming. This is the Lord's Declaration when I will raise up a righteous branch from David. So he's using the picture of a tree, the metaphor of a tree, and there's a branch that is going to come off of or grow out of David's family line in He will reign wisely as king and administer justice and righteousness in the land. In his days, Judah will be saved and Israel will dwell securely. This is the name he will be called. The Lord is our righteousness, man, we don't have time to get into all of this, but you can see it's just, again, there's a king coming. There's somebody that's coming in the future who's going to, he's going to be our righteousness. He's going to bring security. He's going to bring salvation. All these incredible things, this crazy passage. Look at one more Isaiah 59 20, Isaiah 59, 20 says, the redeemer will come to Zion and to those in Jacob who turn from transgression, this is the Lord's declaration.

And then Isaiah 61, 1, and two, the spirit of the Lord God is on me because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He sent me to heal the broken hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and the freedom of prisoners to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor and the day of our god's vengeance to comfort all who mourn. Now, if you're in Isaiah's Day reading what Isaiah writes here, he's writing it in first person, and you're like, is this Isaiah's ministry? Is Isaiah going to do all these things? It doesn't seem to map onto Isaiah's life perfectly. Well, Jesus comes on the scene early in his ministry. Jesus walks into a synagogue, takes a scroll on a Saturday morning on Shabbat. He goes to this passage, he reads it, and then he tells the crowd, this passage has been fulfilled in your hearing today.

And they're like, what? You can't say that? No, because they're already tuned in. This is the Messiah who's going to bring these things about all of this to say that the nation of Israel has been primed and prepared for the one who is to come. And yet you have John the Baptist sitting there struggling with his own circumstance, locked up for a year hearing about what Jesus is doing. Remember, that was kind of the context it's given to us for the question John's hearing about the Messiah, but yet he's questioning, are you the one who is to come? I want to just stop for a second. I want to talk about doubt because this is a moment of doubt in John's life, and we're actually starting a section in Matthew that's going to go up to chapter 13, verse 53, 13 53, and we're going to see the idea of doubt and rejection come up multiple times throughout this section of a couple of chapters.

And the idea of doubt is something that we see repeatedly throughout the old and the New Testament. Look at the story of Abraham and Sarah. God comes to Abraham and says, I'm going to make of you a great nation. And yet they struggle with believing God that God's going to bring this about. There is doubt. Now, what in the end happens with Abraham? Well, one, Abraham and Sarah have a son named Isaac, but not only that, Abraham's nickname is that he's the father of faith. Abraham becomes this paragon of faith for us to emulate. And yet when we go and read it in Genesis chapters 12, 13, 14, all the way up through 24, we see a man who struggles and his wife struggles deeply with doubt, and they make bad decisions along the way. Or take for example Moses. Moses encounters God at a burning bush, and God says, Moses, I want you to go back to Egypt and I want you to set my people free.

And Moses really has some objections to God. He says, God, I am a horrible communicator. You got the wrong guy. Send my brother Aaron to do it right. And he's struggling with his own ability to speak. He doubts God's call. Or if you go to judges chapter six, there's this character named Gideon. And Gideon is, we first see him, he's hiding kind of in a hole on the side of a mountain threshing wheat, which is really hard to do because you need kind of a breeze to thresh wheat to get the chaff to come off. But there's this constant attack that's coming in from the enemies of Israel, and Gideon is hiding there. And God appears to Gideon and says, Gideon, I'm calling you to be the deliverer for Israel. And yet Gideon asks for multiple signs to confirm God's will. He doesn't just take God at his word.

He says, okay, well, let me put a fleece out, and if there's water on the fleece, but the ground is dry, then I will trust you. And God patiently responds to his request. Here's the thing, doubt is a very real piece of our human experience, and it is often the result of pain in our own lives. Doubt isn't so much an apathetic disbelief as much as is an internal questioning and a wrestling. You remember the story of the parable of the seed that falls on the rocky ground and the sun comes out and beats that seed with the bright heat and it kind of withers away. There is this reality in our lives of going through experiences that are painful as if the sun was just beating down on us where it's life's miserable for a moment and doubts crop up. Some people respond to those doubts and go, I can't handle this Christian thing.

I'm out of here. But there is another group of people who realize that doubts are just an organic part of the process that often does lead to spiritual breakthrough. In my own personal experience, my own faith journey, angst and doubts and wrestling oftentimes lead to these incredible like, whoa, I can't believe it. Uncertainty at its core is at the core. Doubt is the feeling of uncertainty or lack of conviction about a particular idea, belief, or claim. This uncertainty can stem from a variety of sources such as a lack of evidence, conflicting information, personal experiences that challenge previously held beliefs pair that idea of uncertainty or lack of conviction with curiosity and a dogmatic belief that God is light and that he wants to be our source of wisdom. It will lead us into amazing answers. What I want to do is I want you to feel comfortable with that wrestling.

Don't feel like you're a bad Christian for asking God difficult questions. The problem comes up is when you let doubt lead you to falling away. When you let doubt lead you away from a pursuit of answers. Instead, let your doubt if you go into doubt, in fact, embrace doubt. Look for those challenges of, because I promise you, in your spiritual experience, it will lead to, it will lead to the spiritual breakthroughs. Oftentimes, doubt is associated with pain. And CS Lewis said this, we can rest cont contentedly in our sins and in our stupidities, and anyone who has watched gluttons shoveling down the most exquisite foods as if they did not know what they were eating, we'll admit that we can ignore even pleasure. But pain insists upon attending to God. Whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains.

It is his megaphone to rouse a deaf ear. Our pain can be God's instrument to lead us into the answers God so desperately wants to provide. So let's see the answer that Jesus provides. Jesus' reply, Jesus replied to them, go and report to John what you hear and see the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, those with leprosy are cleansed. The deaf here, the dead are raised. The poor are told the good news. So if you take and combine Isaiah 35 and Isaiah 61, you almost have this list perfectly. I think you have five out of the six things that are listed here. The premise of John's question was not was the Old Testament prophecies about the Messiah. And Jesus points back and says, well, what's set of the Messiah? What is set of the Messiah? These are the things that are set of the Messiah.

So he says, this is what you need to tell John that you are seeing in our own culture. I was recently having a conversation with somebody that I'm close to, and they're not a follower of Jesus. I would put them in the camp that they're kind of a hostile critic of Christianity at this current point, and yet they want to live in a society where there's fairness, where there's peace, where there's harmony, where there's equality, where there's human dignity. And so we were talking the other day, and he was kind of mocking Christians a bit about how they hope for Jesus to return. Oh, Jesus is going to, oh, Jesus is coming back. And I said to him, I said, it's funny because the Bible describes what it will look like when Jesus comes back a second time. And what we saw the first time was these incredible societal acts where people are healed, people who had systemic, systemic, chronic illnesses.

Those illnesses were reversed. Who doesn't want that? Right? But the funny thing is, Jesus, the person was rejected. So we live in a society that wants the kingdom. They just don't want the king. And so this mourning, this text comes to us as it does John the Baptist, and it says, here's the kingdom. Here's the kingdom. Are you ready to accept that Jesus is the one who was promised to come? He's the one that was anointed by the Father. He was commissioned. It was said of him, you are my beloved son, in whom I'm well pleased. He preached about this kingdom. He did these kingdom works, and now he says, the kingdom is open to you. The kingdom is open to you. And so my invitation to you is to step in with your doubts, to step in with your doubts, and to let the king answer your questions, to heal, to resolve.

I've gone a little bit over time, we're out of time. So the rest of the sermon can't be preached, but we do get to take communion together. So let's pray though. Let's see these elements. Lord, we thank you for being our Messiah. Thank you for being the one who rescues us, who takes away our blindness, who flips the switch on in our souls and says, let there be light. I pray, Lord, for each person here this morning that you would give them life. Give them the kingdom, Lord, as they follow you, give them the kingdom realities as they step and walk in as disciples of you. Lord, as we take communion together, remind us of what you've accomplished on the cross. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.

Matthew 10:21-42

Transcript

Amen. Amen. Can you stand and greet the people that are around you? Say hi to those that are around you. We're going to dismiss our kids over to their class. They can go hang out over there. Alright, good morning, good morning, good morning. Okay, you may be seated all you extroverts and no, you'll have some more time later on to say hi to each other. We may have, did we give away all of our Bibles? All right, welcome, welcome. Go ahead and find a seat

If you happen to be new with us. And you want kind of like the inside track, a couple of things like the list of songs that we sing at church and you're like, I don't know any of those songs, but I want to learn them. Well, you can listen to 'em for free on YouTube. There's like a YouTube playlist. You just scan this link here. It'll take you to a page where you can sign up to get emails. You can join our Slack group messaging platform. We were doing that before church. I know some people are like, what is that? It's like a new, it's new for me. And so we are trying to mix both people who are technical and know how to download an app with people who don't know how to find the app store. We will help you, but if you want to message one another, if you want to get ahold of me throughout the week, I'm on Slack. If you want to get emails from the church, you can get that. So all of that, basically this little paper here, you scan this QR code, it takes you to a bunch of helpful links and it explains a little bit more about the church.

As a church we've been gathering for about six and a half years here in this space. We feel like God's called us to be a church that embodies Jesus's Kingdom king, Jesus's kingdom here in Fells Point. So we believe that each of our lives each are called into a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, but not so that we can be fat and happy and hide from the world, but that God's blessing can come through us to the people around us so that the kingdom of God is erupting from our life out into the place where God has put us. And so it's not about necessarily working in the church or even working in our relief center off Eastern Avenue. It's really about that being joined and reconciled back to God through Jesus Christ and then receiving from him just a sense of purpose and direction and what you're supposed, what does it look like for the kingdom of God to be made real through your life.

Some of you grew up in a Catholic context and the Lord's prayer very well, but let me preach from it for just a second. Jesus taught his disciples to pray, which was our Father who heart in heaven, hallowed be your name. That word hollowed is this idea of famous. It's a prayer that God's name would be famous when I was growing up. One of the most famous names was Michael Jordan, right? Famous name. And yet the prayer is that the name of God would be more famous. It would be the name that is set apart and then the next part of that prayer, what is it? Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Yeah, that is what Jesus told is disciples to pray. The greatest way for that prayer to be answered is in your life because this is the secret.

You have a willfulness, a will, and you can surrender your will to God and say, God, I'm ready for your kingdom to come in my life and for your will to be done in my life in the same way as it is in heaven. And so as a church, we've been trying to live that out and God knows that we're just kind of stumbling our way along, trying to figure it out. In the middle of planting the church, covid hit cut us down, and yet we have the relief center. So we've doubled down on food and we've been given away a million dollars of food every month out of the relief center. And many of you kind of serve in there or fed or both and it's awesome. And then we gather on Sundays, it's kind of simple. We're kind of a simple church where we give away free food and then we come together and worship on Sunday.

It's not too fancy, but it's good. It's good what's going on Sundays, and many of you know this, on Sundays we just pick a book of the Bible and we study through it. So what book of the Bible are we in now, Matthew? We're in Matthew and this week we're in Matthew chapter 10. We're going to try to finish Matthew 10 all the way up to verse 42. We're in the middle. This is a lengthy section where Jesus is teaching. Remember back in chapter five, six and seven, Jesus taught this. We have this long recording of Jesus teaching what we call the Sermon on the Mount. And really the Sermon on the Mount really deals with ethics of how we treat one another. What does it look like for followers of Jesus to live out socially, this spiritual reality? How does it manifest itself? And he's talking about anger going away.

He puts anger. Jesus literally puts anger on par with murder. He puts lust on par with adultery. So Jesus raises the ethical bar, but he says it's all together different from many of the customs you learned from the religious leaders. You've got to be perfect as your heavenly father is perfect. And then we spent a couple of chapters in Matthew seeing Jesus doing these miracles where he is healing people. He's casting out demons, he's raising the dead and he's proclaiming, he's going from town to town all around this region called Galilee. It's still there to this day going from town to town, and he's proclaiming the kingdom of heaven. His message was this, the kingdom of heaven is at hand. In other words, it's close enough to reach out and touch it. You see, he's speaking to a Jewish audience that has been primed like a pump for years to think in terms of kingdom.

There was the kingdom of Israel, there was royalty and priesthood for generation after generation. And Jesus comes on the scene as the king and as the priest, and he's proclaiming the kingdom of heaven is at hand and he finds opposition pretty quickly from the religious leaders of the day, from the Jewish religious leaders of the day. And so he's contrasting the kingdom of heaven with the Jewish customs that existed. So we're in chapter 10 and we're in the middle of this lengthy teaching by Jesus to his disciples. And Jesus is teaching these disciples as they're heading out the door. These 12 apostles of Jesus are being sent out to do the very, they're being commissioned, they're sent out for just a short period of time to go across this Galilee region across Israel and to do exactly what they've been watching Jesus do for the last few months, maybe a year.

And he tells them, he empowers them. It says in the beginning of chapter 10, Jesus empowers his disciples to heal the sick, to raise the dead, to heal the lepers and to cast out demons. And he says, your message is to go and proclaim that the kingdom of heaven is near. So Jesus sends them out specifically to the Jews and he instructs them to go without provisions. Last week we saw, he says, don't take a money belt. Don't take an extra cloak. Just go and proclaim this message and find the house that's welcoming to you, whatever house it is that's welcoming to you, and stay there while you do this work, this kingdom work, and they'll provide for you. And then he gives them a scenario that it's kind of scary. He says, there's going to be some times where you're going to come into a town.

There's not going to be any worthy house. They're going to reject you. And what I want you to do in that setting is I want you to take the shoes off and I want you to shake the dust off your shoes on the way out of town. Now, that was a Jewish custom that was used as a rebuke to Gentiles. And so Jesus is kind of blowing the minds of Jewish people because he's saying, listen, I want you to do this to Jewish towns. I want you to go and preach to these Jewish people the fulfillment of their own religious system, that Jesus, the Messiah and his kingdom has come. And if they reject you, I want you to do what you do with Gentiles. Shake the dust off your sandals. So today we're going to explore how the mission, this mission applies to us as modern disciples facing our own set of opportunities, our own set of opportunities.

So one of the things that we have been talking about as a church is that we are born disconnected from God's design. We long for the beauty of the world, the love that we are desperate for. There's a sense in us, an innate sense in us that we are designed for something more. And the Bible says that it is only our sin that separates us from God's design and that no matter how good we are, it's not enough to balance the scales of justice and in God's courtroom if we have sinned once, we are not perfect and our imperfection separates us from the presence of God. And yet God in his love for us, sent his son Jesus into the world 2000 years ago to pay for our guilt on the cross. He took on his own body, our guilt so that we could be forgiven by the just judge of the whole earth.

God the Father, God the Father looks at what Jesus did and he attributes the work of Jesus's cross to our account so that we can be innocent. Are you tracking with me? I know that's complex, but I'm putting it in the language of a judicial system because some of y'all have been there before and you know what I'm talking about, right? Thank you. I know you can laugh along. God rescues us all from different places. Okay? So Jesus takes away our guilt. He's washed us of our guilt. He's cleansed us by his blood so that we can be reconciled back with God. And that is not the end of the story. That's only the beginning. And some of you, I've had the privilege of watching you step into that reality and say, I believe it. I believe that what Jesus did is for me and I'm willing to accept that work on my behalf.

And that begins the funnest thing to watch. And you guys are on your jury, you're wrestling with God and you're trying to figure out what does it mean to be a disciple? What does it mean to follow Jesus in my context, in my neighborhood with this crazy group of friends that I've had and this family that I was born into? What does that mean? What does it look like? And so this morning what we're going to see is Jesus is just saying, Hey, as you're going, here's some of the things that you need to observe. I believe that there's five things that we're going to see this morning and they are somewhat related, but what we're going to do is I'm going to read the text to you and then I'm going to explain it. I'm going to read the text and explain it. Let's look first at this idea of an endurance amidst persecution.

Now remember, this is Jesus teaching his disciples. And so what we are going to find as we read it is we're going to see that there are principles embedded in Jesus's conversation with his disciples. He says, brother will betray brother to death and to father his child. Children will rise up against parents and have them put to death. You'll be hated by everyone because of my name, but the one who endures to the end will be saved when they persecute you in one town, flee to another. For truly, I tell you, you will not have gone through the towns of Israel before the son of man comes. Let's just stop there for a second. Do you see some of the ways that Jesus is telling his disciples? He's saying, here's the reality that you're going into in my kingdom as I'm sending out people who are rescued.

So imagine when you go to school, let's say that you're in third grade and you go to school and you're stepping into, you're still you. I would be me, Josh. I'm stepping in there, but I'm taking on the role of a student. When I go to third grade, I go to the elementary school and the same is the case for a follower of Jesus. They don't stop being themselves, but they take on a new role, a new reality in their context. And so here he is talking about family relationships and he says there are going to be instances where a brother betrays a brother to death and a father, his children, his child, children are going to rise up against parents and have them put to death. Why is that happening? It's because the message of God's kingdom invades and intersects with lives right in the middle of their life.

So some of you are in your fifties, some of you are in your sixties, and you just found out about Jesus and God came like crashing in like a wrecking ball. I heard that song once, right? He came crashing in and it interrupted your life and you have existing relationships with people around you. And the reality is some of you have lost your family relationships because you identify with Jesus. You have the betrayal of a brother, you have a father betrayed by his children, children rising up against their parents. There's these internal conflicts that are occurring and Jesus is doing what a good leader does. He's saying, you're going into this. Well, Jesus isn't saying, I'm inviting you to be followers of me and it's going to be pie in the sky, peaches and cream. That's not Jesus's message at all. He's saying, I'm telling you about a kingdom.

I've reconciled you back to your creator and there's going to be fallout. There's going to be fallout. He goes on in verse 22, you will be hated by everyone. There's probably more like all kinds of people is probably a better translation of that. And why are these people going to hate you? It's because of the name of Jesus, because now you're identifying with Jesus, but there's a contrast. So you're hated, but the one who endures to the end will be saved. Here's the principle, here's the principle that I want you to see. Followers of Christ can expect persecution even from those who are closest to them. And endurance in faith is crucial. Endurance in faith, and I have the privilege, I have the privilege of knowing many of you, and I cannot tell you how much of an honor it is to hear your endurance.

I was reminded of this morning, I'm listening to stories of this week and things and your own personal stories, and many of you are in this position where you are facing great opposition. Your physical body is breaking down. It's your worst enemy at this point, right? You are going through hardship, looking for housing, looking for work, struggling in the workplace, and this is the word that characterizes so many of you. You are enduring and Jesus says that your endurance, that is what is critical. Your endurance, your endurance in faith is crucial. Endurance doesn't mean that all the answers, right? Endurance is this stubbornness to keep going, there's a story about King David. Before he was king, he was running away from the current king who is Saul? So David's running all around Israel being chased because Saul was jealous of him and Saul's going through and just killing people.

And there's one point where David is camped out in this place called Ziklag, and while David is out fighting this battle with his troop of like 700 guys and their families and all their possessions are back in Ziklag gets pillaged by a foreign nation. It was some pagan, it was maybe the Philistines or something like that, right? They came through and they basically burned ziklag down. They stole everything, took all the women, took all the servants and ran away. David comes back with his men, they see what's happened. The men are distraught, they're upset, and David prays and God says, go and chase them. It says there in the passage there's one verse where it says that David set his heart, he determined in his heart to go on to endure. Do you know the crazy thing about that word? That's the same word about Pharaoh in the story of Exodus three through eight where it talks about Pharaoh hardening his heart.

It's this internal resolve. It can be good or bad, but listen, if it's an internal resolve that's saying, Jesus, you're stuck with me. I'm placing my faith in you. I don't understand all the pieces. I don't know what's going to happen in the future, but I am going to endure and I'm going to beat my head against this wall over and over again because I am in this. I trust in you and I don't know how it's going to work out. I don't know what the future holds, but I'm going to endure. Have any of you been watching the Olympics, gotten a chance to watch a little bit of the Olympics? A little bit, yeah, not much. Okay, but in the Olympics, it's this thing where there's a bunch of people that compete together in sports and some of them are endurance sports. And the idea behind endurance sports is that it's a long way.

Yesterday I turned on one and it was s Skulling rowing, right? One guy rowing and we started watching and I was watching these guys, I was watching it with one of my sons and we're watching it and a minute passes and the guy's still rowing. All five guys are rowing, and then another minute passes and he's still rowing, and then three minutes passes and they're still rowing. And my son says to me, he goes, this is boring. And I know at about three and a half minutes in it was only the half mark, I was like, yeah, this is kind of boring. It's just rowing in a straight line for a long time going, and I didn't want to give seven minutes of my life to watch how that race ended, but that's called an endurance sport. You just keep going. And Jesus tells his disciples that you can expect persecution even from those that are closest to you.

Endurance in faith is crucial. In the Book of Acts, in the book of Acts, there is this section where we read of a persecution that happens to the early church. Do you know that Paul, the apostle who wrote part of the Bible before he was a Christian, he was beating up Christians. Did you know that his name was Saul? He was persecuting Christians. His name was Saul, and he agreed with putting Stephen to death. You got to go read chapter seven if you want to hear that story on that day. So this is all in Jerusalem. This is after Jesus has ascended and gone back up to heaven. It says on that day a severe persecution broke out against the church in Jerusalem, and all of those disciples had been prepared because Jesus had told them persecution is going to happen even from those who are close to you.

Persecution broke out against the church in Jerusalem and all except the apostles were scattered throughout the land of Judea and Samaria. Okay, so here's all these followers of Jesus getting beat up, getting kicked out of Jerusalem, running away from Jerusalem. Let's jump over to verse four. It says, so those who were scattered, they went on their way preaching the word. They weren't hiding in holes. They were like, okay, well, Jesus warned us about this. We're got to go, but we're going to keep preaching the message. This is exactly what Jesus talked about. And then it says, Philip went down to a city in Samaria and proclaimed the Messiah to them. You got to go read the rest of the story in chapter eight if you want to see what happened, but this is the thing, lemme close with this on just this first point. We need to remain steadfast in our faith despite opposition, knowing that enduring to the end is a mark of true discipleship.

Endurance is a mark of true discipleship. Keep going, keep going. Not on your own strength, but keep going in relationship with God. You've been reconciled back to God. The Bible gives you all these promises about your future, about getting a new body, about reigning and ruling with Christ. Some of you are in the latter season of your life and you need to just keep going with the Lord and be ready to receive all that God has promised for you. The inheritance, it's laid up. He says, this is just the shadow. This is the shadow of a future reality that is going to be so good. Keep going, keep going. Let's go to this next section. Emulating Christ, emulating Christ. There's two verses here on this. He says, A disciple is not above his teacher or a slave above his master. It is enough for a disciple to become like his teacher and a slave like his master.

If they called the head of the house Alba, how much more the members of his household. So remember Jesus is sending his disciples out and the language, literally the words that are used to tell these disciples what to do is the exact words that describe what Jesus had been doing. It's a copycat mission. Jesus sends these guys out to imitate him. The principle here is the disciples are called to emulate their teacher Jesus and to share in his sufferings. There's this verse in Romans again, this is Paul wrote this. He says, for those God, for new it's God here. If you go and read it in context for the ones God for knew he gave them a future destination or predestined in them. Think of a train that has a destination for those He for knew. He predestined to be conformed to the image of his son.

When you stepped into this new reality of the kingdom and following Jesus, you already had a destination of where you're heading. Did you know that you don't determine your destination? Now there's things that you're doing along the way that the Holy Spirit's leading you into. It says literally in Ephesians that there's good works. You're called to walk in that are prepared before the foundation of the earth, but there's a future. There's an ultimate destination and this is it. You are destined to be shaped or conformed into the image of his son. It's literally the idea of pressing a coin. You can think of how a coin the hot metal is poured into a mold and then it's pressed into the image of something you are designed. You're predestined to be be that poured into that mold, but the mold is Jesus to look like Jesus.

And here Jesus is telling his disciples, you're going out and you just need to be like me, right? He says, A disciple's not above his teacher or a slave above his master, it's enough for a disciple to become his teacher. So when you're trying to sit there tomorrow morning, you're like, what does it mean to be a Christian? It means being like Jesus. That's why we're reading Matthew. That's why when we're done reading Matthew, we're going to read something else about Jesus from the Bible. Whatever book it is, we're going to keep learning about Jesus because that's your destination and my destination. And the cool thing is we're all different and weird, and somehow we all get to look like Jesus in our weirdness, which is a lot of fun. And I get to, it says in John, do you know this? Listen, listen. In one John, it says, no one has seen God, but it's kind of like this idea of, but we see each other as we're walking in love.

There is this refraction, these glimpses of God through us right now, your friends and your family, the closest they're going to get to seeing God is seeing you love them. When we took those four pallets and felicia's like dumping that food over there on the street over there, that was crazy, right? I right doing that too. Yeah. That's the closest people got on. Was that Tuesday? That was Tuesday, yeah. No, that might've been Monday. I think it was Monday. It was Monday. That was the closest people around you that don't know God yet, haven't read the Bible. That was the closest they came to seeing God that day. I seen people I knew where the building come out. Wasn't that crazy? You got to give content because there's like 300 coming out like cockroaches, cock.

Just don't call him cockroaches, but yes, that's right. I love it. But that's the reality is that God is making himself known. God is making himself known through your life and through my life. We looked at that. Before we get to this is the application. Just really quickly, let me challenge you to embrace the lifestyle and teaching of Jesus, understanding that suffering and opposition are part of following him. Okay, let me help you get this. Okay, so many people, people become followers of Jesus and think, I'm in crisis just if God would just rescue me from my crisis, right? That's the prayer. If God would just rescue me from my crisis, and it's like maybe if God would just give me this money or God would just give me this marriage or God would just give me this job or God would just give me this housing or God would just give me this vehicle, then, then I'd be happy.

But you need to understand that that's not what you're predestined for. Those things happen on the way there. What you are predestined to is this idea of living a lifestyle like God has so much more for you. He's like, look, I can take care of that stuff. I want the people around you to know about Jesus, and I want you to be formed into the image of Jesus and what does he say in Matthew six? Seek first the kingdom of heaven and all those other things, they're going to be added to you. Seek his kingdom. Seek his kingdom. Know that the kingdom, how did you see that clip this week? There was was it? Where's that? Is it Yellowstone that had the geyser that exploded more than normal? Was it Yellowstone? Did you see that? It was like this eruption where it blew up more than normal.

Go and look it up. It was crazy. It broke the boardwalk there. It was scary how big it was. When I say the word eruption, that's what we're talking about. The kingdom of God wants to erupt out of your life in these acts of love and generosity and forgiveness and patience and joy and kindness and radical eruptions of peace. That's the work of God's spirit inside of you. Okay, I'm starting to preach. You better keep going here. This is the next section. This is the next section. So a little bit longer. I see that verse 26 through 33, overcoming fear. Now, I know nobody in this church struggles with fear, so we just skip this over this section. No, just kidding. Verse 26. Verse 26. Therefore, don't be afraid of them since there is nothing covered that won't be uncovered and nothing hidden that won't be made known. What I tell you in the dark, speak in the light, what you hear in a whisper, proclaim in the housetop. Don't fear those who kill the body but are not able to kill the soul. Rather fear him who's able to destroy both the soul and body in hell.

Aren't two sparrows sold for a penny yet? Not one of them. Not one of them falls to the ground without your father's consent, but even the hairs of your head have all been numbered. So don't be afraid. You are worth more than many sparrows. Therefore, everyone who will acknowledge me before others, I will also acknowledge him before my father in heaven. So in this section we have the word fear mentioned at least four times, four times. He's saying, don't be afraid. Fear, don't be afraid, don't be afraid. And he gives three reasons, three reasons why you do not need to be afraid. The first is this disclosure is inevitable.

If you are operating off of your fear and you're not sharing the message of the kingdom, Jesus says, listen, what has been hidden? And he's like, imagine him there sitting with his disciples. Maybe they're around a fire and he's been telling them about the kingdom, right? He's like, these things that have been hidden and have been our conversation, these things are going to be disclosed. It's inevitable that these things are going to be known. The kingdom of heaven is breaking out. The hidden and whispered nature of the kingdom is not the natural state of things. The kingdom of heaven is breaking out. It is inevitable. So there's going to be fallout from that. Don't think that operating off of your fear of the Jesus reality is really going to be like what protects you. Don't be afraid. The second reason not to be afraid is man's destructive.

Power is limited at the body. They cannot kill the soul, right? Man's destructive power is limited. So this is the section where he says, don't fear the one who can kill the body. Fear the one who can destroy the soul. What's he saying? He's talking about God, who's the one to be feared? Right? In the book of Proverbs, it says, the beginning of wisdom is to fear God, right? Because God is the one who is the ultimate decision. If you're going to fear anything, it's to fear God, and yet who is the one who loves us? God. Yeah. So there is not a place. So the calculation I enjoy, there's a bunch of podcasts that I enjoy listening to, but they happen to be people who aren't followers of Jesus. And so one of the conversations where we kind of veer in our philosophy of life is that you have some people who are, they're looking at the end of their life, their existence in this body as kind of their time horizon, and so they make a plan about their life that will end when they physically die.

And yet the Christian is called to understand that the death of your body is equivalent to taking a nap because God has created you to live eternally in a body. And so the Bible teaches that the body you're living in right now is affected by the fall of Adam and Eve, that you are living in a sinful environment with your sin and the sins of others, and everything is broken, and death is the payment, is the punishment for sin, and yet Jesus has taken away the ultimate punishment of sin, which is eternal death. Are you tracking with me? So there's two deaths. There is the physical death of this body, and there is the death of your soul, and yet, if you are a follower of Jesus, you have been preserved and protected from an eternal state of death. You are going to live eternally, and so you do not have to fear you die.

If I die right now, if I die today, the Bible says to be absent from this body is to be present with the Lord, and so we have this hope laid up for us in heaven, that we will live eternally and be in the presence of God, that we will realize our inheritance, that we will step into a greater reality than the reality we are experiencing now, but we hold onto that by faith and we do not give into fear. The third thing is you're operating in an economy where God cares for sparrows and you are more worth more than sparrows. We're able to see that sparrows are cared for, that God has made systems, ecological systems where sparrows are able to grow up and live and do life, and sparrows are beautiful. They're amazing little birds that fly around, and yet Jesus says, your life is worth more than the sparrows and so saints, here's the application.

Well, there is no application to put up there on the screen. I'll give you the application. It is this, let the facts build your faith and shrink your fears. Did you hear that? Let the facts of your Bible, let the facts build your faith and shrink your fears, build your faith and shrink your fears. In other words, we do life not based on fear, but based on faith in the facts of the Bible. There's a lot, we're going through a political cycle. Yesterday I was listening to one of the political candidates in our area and what the strategy of this political candidate was. They were trying to get my vote by stoking my fear and political candidates do that. Here's what the world's going to look like if this other person becomes X, Y, or Z, but listen, we follow Jesus. We don't give into our fears.

We're trusting in God. Our fears do not determine the way that we vote. Instead our fears, we can check those at the door. We say, listen, we trust in the Lord. Okay? We've got one more section or two more sections here that we can quickly cover radical loyalty to Christ. Let's look at these verses. Don't assume that I came to bring peace on the earth. I did not come to bring peace but a sword for I came to turn a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law and a man's enemies will be the members of his household. The one who loves a father or mother more than me is not worthy of me. The one who loves a son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Whoever does not take up his cross and follow me is not worthy of me.

Anyone who finds his life will lose it. Anyone who loses his life because of me will find it. Okay? We could preach a whole thing on this section here. Oh, here's what I want you to know. Jesus, when he says this, he's having a conversation with the prophet Micah. Go back to Micah seven and read what Micah is saying. Micah, the prophet is lamenting the state of his contemporaries. He's saying, look, what's going on in my Jewish society? We're at this state where father hates child and child hates father brothers turned against brother and Jesus. As he's speaking here, he's saying, these are realities. This is a reality of living in a fallen world, but you need to know that you are called to make me first and preeminent. Jesus isn't saying that you're to turn away from your family or hate your family. He's saying, I have to be the primary value in your life.

Everything's downstream from this relationship with Jesus Christ. Everything and the amazing thing, it's kind of like going to a chiropractor. You get lined up with Jesus and everything else gets lined up after that, but it's got to be Jesus first. He's got to be the one that is a priority. I'm going to leave it at that, but I would say if you really want to go look it up, go to Micah seven and you'll see some fascinating material. True discipleship may cause division even with families, but loyalty to Christ must take precedence. Must take precedence. Okay, let's go to the last section. Let's go to the last section number five. This is just three verses, okay? You've stuck with me this far. Let's just pay attention to these last three verses, receiving and rewarding, receiving and rewarding. Verse 40, the one who welcomes you welcomes me.

The one who welcomes me, welcomes him, who sent me? Anyone who welcomes a prophet because he is a prophet, will receive a prophet's reward and anyone who welcomes a righteous person because he's righteous will receive a righteous person's reward. Last verse, and whoever gives a person a cup of cold water to one of these little ones because he is this disciple truly, I tell you, he will never lose his reward. The idea is this, supporting God's messengers and fellow believers is equivalent to receiving Christ himself and it carries a promise of reward. This is a biblical reality. You ever play with those Russian dolls where one nests inside of another? That concept is all the way throughout the Bible. I've used the term of something maps onto something else. If you look at, you're like a cartographer, and you look at a map, it used to be on Google maps that you could kind of turn it to satellite view and turn the roads on and off, so on Google Maps, it would take and lay actual outlines of the roads on top of a satellite image of the road, right?

It maps it on there. The same is the case with biblical principles and relationships. Jesus is saying, when you receive me, you're at the same time receiving the one who sent me, which is God the Father. When you deal lovingly to a brother or sister, spiritual brother or sister, you are being loving. To me, there's this interconnected mapping on It's all connected. It's kind of like the crazy guy with the pins in the signs in his room, right? It's kind of like that. It's all connected, but in a beautiful, holy Spirit inspired way, Jesus is saying, again, supporting God's messengers and fellow believers is equivalent to receiving Christ himself and it carries a promise of reward, so participate in hospitality, participate in hospitality support for one another. There is an eternal significance tied to these things. In fact, in Hebrews, it says, sometimes you've been showing hospitality and you have hosted an angel and you've been unaware of it. The Bible calls us to be those who are hospitable.

Let's close there. I do want to just read to you this last passage out of the book of Romans, because Paul takes this and we read verse 29, but I just want you to hear this in closing, given all that we've studied, listen to Paul's words, we know that all things work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to His purposes. For those God for knew. He also predestined to be conformed to the image of his son so that he would be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters and those that he predestined, he gave that destination to. He also called, and those he called, he also justified, and those he justified, he also glorified. What? Then? What are we to say about all these things? If God is for us, who's here going to be against us? Who's going to be against us?

He did not even spare his own son, but he gave him up for us all. How will he not with his son? Jesus, grant us everything who can bring an accusation against you? God's elect. God is the one who justifies, who is the one that can condemn? The only person that could condemn you are me, is Jesus, but Jesus is the one who died, but even more He's been raised, he's also at the right hand of God, interceding for you and me who can separate us from the love of Christ. Can your affliction or your distress or your persecution or your famine or your nakedness or danger, distress or sword as it is written because of you, we're being put to death all day long we're counted as sheep for the slaughter. No. In all of these things, we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.

For I am persuaded. This is Paul writing. He says, I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus, our Lord. There is nothing. There is nothing that can separate you from the love of God. You may feel like you're a sheep that is being slaughtered, and Jesus said, persecution, hardship is to be anticipated, and here's why. He's still loving giving that explanation because he is the God of resurrection. God is able to raise you from the dead. He's got a story bigger than your pain. He invites you into a story bigger than your suffering. That is who your Lord and Savior Jesus Christ is.

Guest Speaker Adolfo: Jonah

Transcript

All right, so it gives me great pleasure to introduce today's guest speaker. He is no stranger to Haven City Church. He is a faithful servant of God. He is also a self-proclaimed sheep dog. Please help me welcome our guest speaker today, pastor Adolfo.

Thank you. Thank you.

It's always kind of weird coming up here. I'm usually like to be level with everybody. So my name's Adolfo Ibarra. Praise the Lord. I probably know most of you, and if not, we will eventually we'll get together and hang out. And so we got a blessing to have both churches come together, the Spanish church, and then of course you guys is the English church, right? So I'm going to try to do the study bilingual, so I'll have Christian read it in Spanish after I read it, but hopefully to be able to bring out those points. We're going to be in Jonah, Jonah, chapter one, but before you guys are there, I want to show a small video. So the Lord uses us right now as a missionary. A missionary is a soldier of God, and he just goes wherever the Lord says, the bags are packed and wherever he says, that's where we're going.

If he says go, we're going. It don't matter where, when, why, or how or what. He says, go. So the bags got to be packed. So I was out there in Mexico for two and a half years, and this is kind of two and a half years crammed into five minutes. Wasn't able to get everything, but I'll kind of walk you through it. This is Erta, if you guys are familiar. We went to skate parks. We went to nine schools, if you know of the whosoever, kind of reaching out to the kids, the juveniles and just get it like a concert setting. This is Mi Morelia where we started a Christian school. This is a pastor there, and just kind of teaching them this is toco of giving them something that they're not used to. So we made it kind of like a night of dessert, something that they're not used to, and just a few of the members there.

We also did events. We got a Christian rap group clowns and be able to give testimony passed out close. The Lord has opened the door to preach the word in a local radio station on Saturdays. We also do different things like this. We were teaching on the fruits of the spirit, so we made a display of fruits, right? This is Tijuana, a orphanage, and going out there and teaching them, loving on them. Also, we're out there cleaning the community as we teach them to, just like the Lord is cleaning our hearts. We also physically got to clean the community. So we had different classes, leadership classes with activities, and so we were able to do that there. We also did pr, which is public relationships with the community, and we just kind of just different landmarks. We would go and just upgrade it. We also, she wanted to get baptized. We found a little baby pool and we got a baptism, so it was not too far from the ocean. So there took the kids out to do an activity for Mother's Day and picked up a lot of seashells. We got connected with the community, did a basketball team and be able to give them, this is sco, the different discipleship homes that we go to and we teach members that want to stop doing drugs and alcohol.

We go to different radio stations and just kind of promote the events. The focus is to glorify Jesus Christ. We had the juveniles, we fixed this wall and we put a message. Jesus Christ there is, and everybody put joy, happiness, love and so forth. So they were able to help me. We did a lot of drama plays with the kids and we were able to perform in different churches and different events throughout the community there. Samaritan Purse, if you guys know, aware of that. That also was, we did that every year playing with the kids youth ministry there with the kids, different activities. We would take 'em out, play basketball, volleyball, eat pizza. As you can see, things that they're not accustomed to teach 'em how to play volleyball and basketball and just different things. We also went to Sonora cio. We got a church, we got a community. We gave out backpacks and gave him Jesus. There's Leon Gu, a different ministry that we're part of. It's just different areas. This is Gu Jalisco where we go to hospitals where the kids have cancer and we go give them joy with different ways. That's Calvary Chapel Guadalajara, and they have a feeding program that they feed the kids that are going to school over. Their education is not a priority and they do not get in trouble if they don't go to school. So we try to give 'em, I think it froze Hayden.

Yeah, no. Can you fast forward it? Yeah. Go, go, go, go, go, go, go. Oh, I think it cut it off right there, huh?

Yeah, for some reason. Sorry about that. We'll try to figure that out. But anyways, so it was tough to do two and a half years in five minutes, but you get an idea if it's a constant go events or not there vacationing or they're doing God's work. So every day there's something to do there. And of course you're dealing with the opposition. You got cartel. That's a whole different story as well. But we know that greater is he who's in us than he who's in the world. And I think that's the number one, the fear. And it's very evident there. Trust me, it's very evident. But at the same time, we have to make a decision. We got to make a choice and then we choose to follow Jesus. And if he tells us, go, we're going. Amen. So we're back. We've been here about a month, so we're helping out in any way, shape, or form. So helping out. We were here for three years, so we're blessed to be back. I consider this home. I was born and raised in California all my life and been out here on the east coast since 2019. And I love it and I want to continue to keep coming back and we're here for good six months to a year. And then we'll see when the Lord says it's time to go right. But till then we're here. Amen. So we're going to go in the book of Jonah, Jonah, chapter one. Okay. Jonah chapter one.

So we're going to read verses 1, 2, 3. I'm going to read it and then I'll have Christian read in Spanish says, the Bible says as follows. Now the word of the Lord came to Jonah, the son of Amai saying, arise, go to ve that great city and call out against it for their evil has come up before me. But Jonah rose to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. He went down to Choppa and found a ship going to Tarsus. So he paid the fare and went down into it to go with them, to tars away from the presence of the Lord Christian.

So we see that right here. We see Jonah flees or tries the flee, the presence of the Lord. And I think we all can relate to that, yes or no in one way or another. We've been fleeing. We are fleeing and be careful. We could be fleeing in the future tense. It's something. And we see in verse one it says, now the word of the Lord came to Jonah. The question for me, you, us is what is that word for you today? That the Lord is speaking to you right? Today the Lord will speak to you through his word, right, through others, through circumstances. Right here. Clearly the Lord is speaking to Jonah. Jonah is a minor prophet, is known as a prophet or minor prophet in this time he says the son of Amate. Something that's very interesting in the Old Testament. It's really they focus on the name and who's your dad or who's your daddy, right? Why that? Because understanding and knowing that is what is your inheritance? Who are you representing us as? New believers, who's our daddy? God. So we would have to be representing him in that faithful matter. Amen. So it's something that the word of God gives us.

So this is the question or this is the response. In verse two it says, God told Jonah, arise, go to nve, that great city. So you might say, well what is NVE today? It's present day Iraq. Just for you guys to kind of just put your mind to it. In that time it was nve. Today it is Iraq and since it was a great city, call out against it for their evil has come up before me. Okay? Just a brief summary of NVE is described as a bloody full of lies, always violent and an evil city. Okay? NVE or the empire of Assyria, when they would capture communities or areas they would want to make a statement. And the way they would do that statement, one of the ways is they would like to skin their enemies and they would put that skin up on a trophy.

And it was a sense of fear us. It was something that was in that time we think about like, wow, that's some Jeffrey Dahmer stuff or some crazy serial killer that we might take. But in that time it was very common because it was that fear tactic. I'm going to put that fear tactic just like we see in Mexico and not just in Mexico in various places. Does not that fear try to dominate us every day one way or another. But what does the Bible say? The Bible's very clear in Timothy says, God has not given us a spirit of fear, but a love power and a sound mind. So we have to remember, if God doesn't give us that fear, the question is who is then? Because it's not God. So we have to remember our identity in Jesus Christ. Alright, I'm human. I'm not going to say when I went to Mexico and things are happening, there was no fear in me. I would be lying to you. There was that human fear inside of me, but I did not allow it to dictate what the Bible says, what the Lord has established.

It's something that we have to understand and we have to know. And I know that I'm going on and on and it's kind of hard to, what I told them is I'm sorry that I'm not really really translating what I'm saying, but I think most of them get the point. Okay? So we see at this point, Jonah gets a message just like today, we will get a message from the Lord through his word to go. The Bible says in verse two it says arise, go to innovate. So the word arise represents what? It gives us the point of we have to be active right to arise, right Today, you got up, yes or no. Praise the Lord, you're here. The message came to the Lord, I got to be in service, right? I got to start the week off, right? Okay, all arise, go to heaven city church. That was the message that you got today. The question is, I remember in various churches in California, and maybe you've seen it in the inside of the churches, before you depart, it says You are now entering your mission field. Okay? So right now we're getting fueled up. We're at the gas station, Royal farms fueling up.

And when we leave those doors, we are entering our mission field. What is that mission field that the Lord has for you, for me, for us. Spread his word. Amen. Spread his word and it starts one soul at a time. It starts thy neighbor, it starts thy block. It starts thy community. We think that we need to go to Africa, we need to go to Mexico, we need to go to Hawaii. No, we need to go here. Our neighbor needs help. And it's something that's very important that we're all missionaries to one point or extent or another.

But the question is, are we listening? Because the Lord says he told Genova, arise, go and innovate. Great city. Call against it for their evil has come before me. So we see verse three, but Jonah arose to flee to what? Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. In other words, what is the Bible telling us? Say for example, we're in Baltimore. Let's say NVE was New York City and Tarshish is Florida. So he's saying, go to New York, but where is he going? He's going south, going against what the Lord has told him. And I believe I know I have tried to flee the presence of the Lord many times for many years to be exact. 22 years. I had 12 years in my filthiness with drugs and then 10 years in prison. So I know very clear of who? Jonah, because I used to be that Jonah.

I used to be that Jonah. Amen. The Bible says whoever's in Christ is what? A new creation. The old man is gone. The new is what? Here. Here, right? So I don't identify myself on who I used to be. The world still calls me who I used to be. The world still says this and that. But my father calls me by my name says Ado will rise up and move forward. It's something. Once again, our identity in Christ is very important. So we see right now, Jonah is rose up in going fleeing contrary to where the Lord is sending them. Okay? It doesn't say why, it just says that he's just rebelling. And I think we all can associate to that. Yes or no. We've all rebelled, we've all been Jane Dean, yes or no, the rebel without a cause of one form or another. Maybe right now we are in that state of rebellion right now.

All right? But praise the Lord that you're here and we're able to embrace what the Lord has for us. Says verse three, it says to Choppa and found a ship going to Tarshish. So he paid the fair and went what down into it to go with them, to Tarshish away from the presence of the Lord. So we see that he paid and he went down. Think about this family. When we involve ourselves sin, we pay the price, yes or no. And what happens? We go down downtown, Julie Brown, yes or no? So we're understanding and it's just opened up. We're like what Jonah is doing, of course he will pay the price and he is going down and it says us away from the presence of the Lord. One thing that we have to understand, family, there is a phrase that says, sin will take you farther than you want to go. Sin will keep you longer than you wanted to stay, and sin will cost you more than you wanted to pay.

That's something that alone right there, I at first just wanted to be a weekend warrior. Hey man, I work 40 hours, I work 60 hours. I deserve me a little cold one, I deserve me a little bit, taste of whatever. But that weekend took me further than I wanted to go and kept me longer than I wanted to stay because when I just wanted Fridays and Saturdays, it turned into addiction or I was addicted for 22 years. So I longer than I wanted to stay, correct? Took me further because all I wanted to do was just drink a little bit, smoke a little bit of reefer, and before I knew it, I was slamming heroin. How is that what happened? All I wanted is just have fun on the weekends, and I paid more than I wanted to pay. I paid 10 years of my life and not only that, I lost my wife, I lost my kids, I lost my house, I lost everything.

It's something that we have to understand. Family familia, right? Verse four, it says, but the Lord hurled a great wind upon the sea and there was a mighty tempest on the sea so that the ship threatened to break. Okay? So they're in the ship, put yourself inside that story. They're in the ship, they're going and they're on their way. And all of a sudden, who that says, the Lord hurled a great wind. Okay? It wasn't oopsie, it wasn't mother nature. It says it was the Lord. That's what the Bible says, hurled a great wind upon the sea and there was a mighty tempest or violent storm on the sea so that the ship threatened to break up.

So here comes this. The other day we were watching the perfect storm. I dunno if you've seen that the perfect storm is violent causing a lot of havoc or any movie of such at this point. There's a lot of panic. Let's read verse five, then the Mariners were afraid and each cried out to his God, little G, and they hurled the cargo that was in the ship into the sea to lighten it for them. But Jonah, where was he at? Had gone down into the inner part of the ship and had laying down and was fast. What asleep. So that's very interesting. When everyone's running around a chicken without a head, I don't know if you've ever seen that. The body keeps on running left and right. Where's John at,

Right? How is that possible? Number one? Well, that tells me that sin blinds you. Sin puts you to sleep. Sin. When we're involved in that sin, you're blinded to the reality. But we see that the mariners were afraid. I'm pretty sure it's not the first barbecue. It's not the first out to sea. So it tells me that these mariners were such afraid because something about that storm, something about that storm abnormal. Think about that familia. Think about that family. Think about those storms that come into your life. Sometimes something strange about them, it's abnormal. Wow. Maybe even we can put it in a sense where maybe it wasn't even the season for storms and all of a sudden you got this violent storm. What is happening?

Their profession is mariners fishermen. So they know, but we see that they're afraid. They're afraid. Before I came over here, I went deep sea fishing out in San Diego Bay, and of course the brother, he's an avid deep sea fisher, and he sees me and I'm scared, man, my knees are buckling. He like, are you having fun? I'm like, yeah, yeah, but I'm scared. And he sees that. He recognizes that. He says, Adolfo brother, I do this every weekend. I'm the captain of the ship, bro. If you see me panicking, then you better panic. But until then, enjoy it didn't help nothing. But it was cool to, I got his point, right? I got his point. So we see that the mariners, the avid fishermen there are panic in their lives. What does it tell us? Remember observing the details in the text, he says in verse five, and each cried out to what? His God, little G. So what does that tell us? They were not believers.

They were not believers. So they're crying out to different things. However, that is whoever that was. But they weren't crying out to the all powerful, the Almighty. That's for sure. So what did they do? It says in verse five, they began to hurl the cargo that was in the ship to lighten the boat up, right? Because we're sinking, right? So whatever you think is heavy, this is the problem. So they would throw it out. You know what, it's the piano. Come on, help me out real quick, Paul. Let's throw this out of the boat. This is what's going to sink us. This is the problem.

We're going to come back to that right now family. Because think about it. We represent that boat and we always think, well, the type of piano is the problem. If I take out this piano out of my boat, the boat's going to lighten up. But we're going to see something, and I'm going to highlight something right now when we get a little bit further. So just hold that thought right there and let's keep going. So it says, but Jonah had gone down once again, sin is taking us down into the inner part of the ship and had laying down was fast asleep, right? So think about that.

It's like his life is good, right? Or so he thinks. Verse six. So the captain came and said to him, so we see the captain, he's a panic. He came and said to him, what do you mean you sleeper, right? What do you mean you sleeper? Arise, call out to your God. Perhaps the God will give a thought to us so that we may not perish. Remember that said the story of the brother. He says, if you see the captain freaking out, you better start panicking. It's something that's very interesting because the captain, he's responsible for who for the whole ship.

And once you see family, we are that captain, that type of captain in your household, within your community, maybe organization, different locations, you are the captain. How are you leading that ship? How are you leading it? Family? Because if you are panicking as a leader, guess what the other people are going to do? They're going to panic as well. So it's a great responsibility as a captain, yes or no? When you lead your household as husbands, maybe single mothers, you are the lead of your home. How are we leading our home? So we see the captain gets to him, he says, what do you mean you sleeper? In other words, you should be up and Adam, bro, call out to your God. Why are you asleep? Family. That's a cry out to us as well as this church. We need to be the light of what The world.

We cannot no longer be asleep. We need to cry out. We need to shout out Jesus Christ. Amen. It's something in those areas. I don't know how it is or where it is, but you do. And of course the Lord does speaking to us every day. It might be your neighbor, it might be your coworker. So he says, call out. What's going on? Why are you asleep? What does that tell us? Family? He's a nonbeliever. What? Shameful thing. Jonah is a prophet. Sometimes the Lord uses unbelievers to put us in our place. Yes or no? Right? When it should be the other way around. The world's actually putting us in our place. And that's very shameful because as soldiers of the Lord, our responsibility is to be light of the world. Amen? That's an encouragement. But understand that that is the case here and possibly in our lives. Amen. We go verse six says, and they said to one another, come let us cast lots that we may know on whose account this evil has come upon us. So they cast lots and the lot fell on whom? Jonah? I always think of casting lot as a spin the bottle. For some reason it always comes to mind, and that's me, right? And it landed on Jonah like, ah, you're it.

But we know that the casting of lot of lots, it was a very common practice. It was two rocks, a right rock and a black rock. But they really focused on it because they said, you know what? We've tried everything. Let's try this last thing here. Let's try this, man. Let's flip a coin, if you want to put it that way. Let's draw. Draw straws possibly see who it lands on. The Bible says in Proverbs 1633 says, man, cast out lot, but it's the Lord that does the decision. That's what Proverbs 1633 says. So it wasn't an oopsie that it landed on Jonah. It was a direct command from the Lord Jonah, you have to face which you're being disobedient about. Alright? So the lot lands on Jonah verse eight. Then they said to him, tell us on whose account this evil has come upon us.

What is your occupation and where do you have come from? Or where do you come from? What is your country and of what people are you? So he's being basically interrogating, right? Tell us, we need this information. So it shows us that their faith or their casting of lot is something that they're depending on, they're trusting in. So they're interrogating Jonah and verse nine, and Jonah says, and he said to them, I am a Hebrew. I fear the Lord, the God of heavens who made the sea and the dry land. Verse 10. Then the men were exceedingly afraid and said to him, what is that that you have done? Why are you doing this to us? What did I do to you? Why have you caused that upon us for the menu that he was fleeing from the presence of the Lord? Because he had told them. Okay, so we see they're interrogating them there. They're asking them an opportunity that we see. Jonah is proclaiming what I am a Hebrew, and I fear the Lord, the God of heaven who made see in the dry land. So he's basically proclaiming, proclaiming what the Lord has done in his life.

Then the men were exceedingly afraid because of what he had told them. Okay? Verse 11. Then they said to him, what shall we do to you that the sea may quiet down for us? So they're asking, so what do we do from this point? For the sea grew more and more contemptuous. The Bible says that the storm was so violent that the ship was threatening to break down. I always tell everybody, it's kind of like my life broken down, but I'm still moving. Yes or no? We're broken down one way or another, but we keep on trucking as they say, right? For the sea grew more and more contemptuous, more violent. Verse 12, he said to them, pick me up and hurl me into the sea. Then the sea will quiet down for you, for I know it is because of me that this great tempest has come upon you. So let's talk about a little bit of that. Okay? If I would tell you, lemme start with this question. If Jonah knew that the reason why this violent storm was in their mist and he knew that he was the target, the problem, why ask the mariners to throw 'em over the ship and not throw himself over?

So let me put it in my sense. What if I tell you right now, church, Hey guys, cartel's coming because they're looking for me and they're looking for me. But you know what? They're going to kill all of us. I'm here.

What would you tell me? Get out. Hey bro, get out of here, brother. I mean, why are you putting us in the mix? Just doesn't make sense. Adolfo, what do we do to you? Why are you doing that to us? The piano? Yeah, why the piano? Right? Throw the piano because remember, they were throwing all the heavy stuff out the boat. Yes or no was heavy. Okay, question, family. We see something very great here is this, that the Lord, even though Jonah's being disobedient, he's working through his life to get to the Mariners, okay? He's going to take care of Jonah, but he's also taking care, loving on the Mariners. Okay? So remember I told you we were coming to come back to how they were throwing away the stuff that would lighten up the ship, right? Family. Where that ship, okay, and I'll put the example in my life. In my life, I always made excuses that this is the problem. If I throw this away, I'll be good. Oh, no, no. If I throw this away, I'll be good. No, no. You know what? If I throw this away, I'll be good. When the Lord all along is telling us, son, what is that type of Jonah in your ship that you need to throw away? That's the problem. The problem is here, right? The problem is here, we have to deal with us.

Now, of course, we see by faith because we're going to see something, the reaction or what they do. The mariners is this, that the Lord is also because their faith is in who they cried out to, who they're false gods. So the Lord is working in their lives. I need to teach you who the real God is. I need to break you from following those false gods and follow Jesus Christ. It's something that's very important in the Mariner's lives. So Jonah tells him, Hey, throw me over and everything will calm down. All right? Verse 13. Nevertheless, the man rode hard to get back to dry land, but they could not, for the sea grew more and more contemptuous against them. So in other words, what do we see by the detail is that those people were not believing Jonah, they weren't killers. They're not going to, dude, you're crazy, bro.

I'm not going to throw you over the boat. That's insane, brother. Because think about it. If they were quick to the trigger, they would've got Jon and threw 'em out the boat. Oh, is that it? Okay. Bam. But they said, no, that's crazy talk. Did you eat a bowl of captain crazy? Because you're talking crazy right now. Right? So what do they do? Come on guys, one more. One more hoorah. If we work together, we could make it to dry land. But who were they fighting? They're fighting God. How many times have we fought the Lord? Thinking If I try it this way, I'll get it. No, no. If I try it this way, see, I learned better. Lemme try it this angle. No, no. If I try this way, no, no. If I try this way, when in reality, brother, you can run, but you can't hide.

You're fighting the Lord. That's who you're fighting. So we have to understand that and see. So they tried with their strength, a lot of like, why can't I quit? Because you're trying in your strength. The Bible's very clear. Zacharia four, six says, not by Mike, nor by power, but it's by my spirit says the Lord of hosts my spirit. Amen. Not because a doel goes to the gym and he drinks protein shakes or whatever. It's by the spirit. It's something that we have to understand. Who is our identity in family? Know where our strength comes from. Amen. Verse 14 says, therefore they called out to the Lord. Oh Lord. Now who are they calling out to? The Almighty. Oh Lord, let us not perish for this man's life and nay not on us. Innocent blood for you. Oh Lord, have done as it pleases you. So verse 15. So they picked up Jonah and hurled him into the sea and the see what sees from its raging violent storm, it's like, so it was true what he said, right? But it's by faith. Think about that. The Lord is working through those mariners. Do you really? Believe me, Adolfo, do you trust me? But Lord, how am I going to survive in Mexico? That's not even my nation. I've been born and raised in California. That's a whole different, do you trust me? Do you trust me? Adolfo?

And I think we've all been to that fork in the road where the Lord's asked us the same thing. Do you trust me? Or is it something cliche that we say, I trust the Lord, but in reality we don't remember this family. Trust is a big word. And if trust has been violated, it's because that person trusted in someone or something so much that once they got violated, that word went down the drain as well. So when you say trust in the Lord, I know the Bible says that, but you got to understand what if that person doesn't know how to trust? It's simple. Just trust. We need to get taught how to trust. We need to learn how to love again or no when those things have been violated for whatever reason. So just consider that. That's all. Because for whatever is easy for us, simple for us could be the hardest thing for thy neighbor.

All right? That's why the Bible says, know the condition of your flock. Know the condition of your flock. I have to get personal. I don't have to know everything, but we have to get personal with one another, helping each other. What are our strong points? What are our weak points? How can I come alongside you and lift you up? Right? That's where the Bible says, know the condition of what the flock. So we see that they cried out to the Lord. It says, Lord, what we're about to do, may this not beat on us, man in Jesus' name. And they picked up Jonah and threw him out the boat. And what happened? The storm calmed down. So he wasn't lying.

But the Lord a lot of times asks us things. It just doesn't make sense. Like, son, my ways are not your ways. My thoughts are not your thoughts. I'm not asking you to know everything. I'm asking you to be obedient. Do you trust me? Right? And it's like, man, okay Lord, teach me how to trust Lord. Teach me how to follow because I don't. And that's something that comes every day. Every day today we made that decision to be here. Praise the Lord. And we're following his voice. Alright? It's something that we have to understand. So verse 15. So they picked up, Jonah hurled him into the sea, and the ccs from its raging. Verse 16. Then the men feared the Lord exceedingly, and they offered a sacrifice to the Lord and made what Vows.

So in other words, what happened to the mariners? I believe right? They got saved. They sacrificed to the Lord. They knew now the Lord at times needs to use events in our lives to catch our attentions. Yes or no? Can you hear me now? Like Lord, but why? She's like, son, that's the only way you're going to hear me. I try to talk to you, but you don't hear me. Can you hear me? Now, I don't know what that is, but the Lord is very clear. The Bible says that my sheep hear my voice. So it says, the men feared the Lord exceedingly, and they offered a sacrifice to the Lord, a maid vows. Today we have offered a sacrifice. You say, well, dfo, we're not in the Old Testament. Well, you've sacrificed one hour of your life, two hours of your life, yes or no. Praise the Lord for that. We are dedicating, glorifying who? Jesus Christ. That's the requirement. Amen. So that's something that's awesome and I thank you.

And then it says verse 17, to finish it up. And the Lord appointed a great fish to swallow up Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights. So in other words, it wasn't the end of the day, it wasn't over for Jonah, there's still more to come. So he saved Jonah, grace and mercy, and we see the grace and mercy in the mariners as well. So the question family that I have for you, for us, for me, what is that type of Jonah in our lives that we need to throw out our boat that's causing that havoc, that's causing that violent storm in our lives? I don't know. I know. What's that type of in my life? And just so you know, there ain't no secrets in heaven. I know and Jesus Christ knows. So there ain't no secret. And the one that's he's the final authority that we have to look at. It's something that we have to understand and know family. Think about the faith that these men did in their lives. Just think about that. What is that action that the Lord is asking you to do today? To take that leap of faith for him?

To make that difference. To make that change. And sometimes it's not that easy, of course, but it's not impossible, right? Bible says all things are possible with who in Jesus Christ, right? Once again, it's the Lord. The focus is Jesus Christ. So family, I beg, I ask if we're in that moment of fleeing from the presence of the Lord, come back. Come back. Because today what we're receiving is grace and mercy. Think about that. Many did not wake up today. Family, many did not wake up today. What did you do to wake up? Did you pay anything? Did you sacrifice anything? Did you do anything to wake up? Nothing. It was the Lord who woke you up. Keep that heart pumping. Why? For his love, his grace and his mercy. Many did not wake up today, family, but he did wake you up. So let's go forward glorifying his mighty name. Amen. Glory be to God. Thank you. I hope each and every one of you got a word, a verse, the message. My prayer is that each and every one of you do not leave these doors the way you came in. Why? Because of the word of God. Amen. Praise the Lord. Thank you. God bless family.

Matthew 9:35 - 10:15 Part 2

Transcript

So we're going to be in the book of Matthew. We're in Matthew chapter 9 35 through 10 15. This is a section that we're spending three weeks on, and so you can open up your Bibles there. I'm going to put the text on the screen as well. So the book of what is the book of Matthew? The book of Matthew is about Jesus. So if you've heard about the person who's Jesus and you're like, wonder who that guy is, Matthew's a good place to start. Matthew, mark, Luke, and John all tell us the story of Jesus and so we've been studying this book together and learning about Jesus is a lot of fun.

We've covered a lot of ground and we happen to be in this point in the story of Jesus where he's preaching and teaching and doing miracles in the region of Galilee. Galilee is a, it's still there in Israel. You could go there today. There's a bunch of little fishing towns around this body of water and that's kind of where Jesus is from. It's just one place in Israel out of many, and it happens to be where Jesus did a lot of his ministry. And so let me read to you this section I'm going to read to you through this section. We already looked at the first few verses last week out of chapter nine. We're going to focus on 10 this week, a few verses out of 10, but I want to give you the context. Okay, are you ready? Here is starting in verse 9 35.

It says, Jesus continued going around to all the towns and the villages teaching in their synagogues, preaching the good news of the kingdom and healing every disease and every sickness. When he saw the crowds, he felt compassion on them because they were distressed and dejected like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, the harvest is abundant, but the workers are few. Therefore, pray to the Lord of the harvest to send out workers into the harvest. Summoning his 12 disciples, he gave them authority over unclean spirits to drive them out and to heal every disease and sickness. These are the names of the 12 apostles, one Simon, who is called Peter and Andrew, his brother James, the son of Zee and John, his brother, Philip and Bartholomew, Thomas and Matthew, the tax collector James, the son of Alpheus and Thaddeus, Simeon or Simon, the zealot, and Judas Iscariot who also betrayed him.

Jesus sent out these 12 after giving them instructions. Don't take the road that leads to the Gentiles and don't enter any Samaritan town. Instead, go to the lost sheep of the house of Israel as you go. Proclaim the kingdom of heaven has come near. Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those with leprosy and drive out demons freely you received freely give. Don't acquire gold, silver, or copper for your money belts. Don't take a traveling bag for the road or an extra shirt, sandals, or a staff for the worker is worthy of his food. When you enter any town or village, find out who is worthy and stay there until you leave. Greet a household when you enter it and if the household is worthy, let your peace be on it. But if it is unworthy, let your peace return to you. If anyone does not welcome you or listen to your words, shake the dust off your feet when you leave the house or town, truly I tell you, it will be more tolerable in the day of judgment for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah than for that town.

Let's pray together. God, we are going to study a few of these verses now and we ask that you would teach us specifically about your plan in regards to our lives. We want to be followers of you. We want to be connected in with what you're doing in the world. For many of us, there are others of us here that are just kind of like listening and questioning and evaluating. And God, we thank you that your spirit comes and opens. The eyes of our understanding turns on the spiritual light in our lives, and so we just invite you to come and be in our midst and to be our teacher. We want to submit under the authority of scripture this morning and we pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. So this morning we're going to just look at verses one through six of chapter 10.

The central part of this text is this whole discussion about and this list of the 12 apostles. There are a few questions that I think are important that will lead us into being able to apply this text to our lives. Who were these 12 apostles? Why did Jesus pick these 12 men? Why were there no women? Why weren't they supposed to go to the Gentiles or the Samaritan towns? Those are some good starting questions. And again, I've been doing this every week as I'm preaching and just kind of trying to teach you how to study the Bible. And one of the things that we've been saying is that God's not afraid of your questions. In fact, one of the best ways to study the Bible is to just write out your questions. There's a famous Bible professor at Dallas Theological Seminary, Howard Hendricks, and he would have his students come in to the class and on the first class he would give them assignment.

He would say, I want you to take I to take Acts one, one, just one verse, and I want you to go and I want you to write 50 questions on that one verse. And these students would go out and they would be pulling their hair out. How in the world are you going to come up with 50 questions about one verse? And so they'd come back in and they report back and they really felt accomplished about all of these questions that they had managed to come up with. And then Howard Hendricks would say, great, I want you to go find 50 more this next week. What he was trying to do was he was trying to teach them to be curious to come into the scriptures and be curious, ask questions, try to figure out what's going on. And so we're going to ask just a couple of questions this morning and we're going to work through those questions.

And then I think that those questions are going to lead to some things that are kind of clear and exciting to me in my head, and I'm praying that I can kind of pull the pieces together for us this morning. Yesterday we were at the pool and I was watching kids kind of jump into the deep end and I kind of feel like some of the stuff that's in my heart and in my head is a bit of the deep end theologically and man, I'm just praying that I can convey those things and at least maybe I can bring you along in my own wrestling and considering and give you a good push in the right direction with this text. A little bit of context, a little bit of context. Last week we saw that Jesus said to his disciples about this crowd, he observed the crowd and he had compassion on them because they were distressed and dejected.

That's why he felt compassion for them. And then he said this, the harvest, speaking of this crowd, the harvest is abundant, but the workers are few. Therefore pray to the Lord of the harvest to send out workers into his harvest. So we get emotion, or actually we get observation. Here's this crowd, and we get the emotion of Jesus literally in his guts feeling compassion. Then he gives instructions to his disciples and says, I want you to pray with me that the Lord of the harvest would send out laborers into the harvest. And then what happens? Well, then Jesus sends them in. He commissions them, right? We're going to get there. In fact, that's the last verse we'll look at this morning, but I want to spend a minute just looking over the framework of this text. We see first that he commissions and he empowers his apostles.

So he's just observed here this whole crowd that's not in a good place. Humanity itself is not in a good place, and he empowers them to do not something new, not like a circus act, but he says he empowers them to do what he has been doing to heal, to preach, to deliver. Then he gives them instructions or we're given the names of these apostles, but then he gives them instructions in verse five and he sends them out. Now we'll focus on that. There's some really awesome stuff next week that we're going to look at. There's kind of some underlying principles about in verses five through 15 about the guidance of God. I can't wait to preach that sermon. Lord willing, I'm here and I can preach that because it's going to be fun. I've been thinking about it for a few weeks now, but this is kind of the framework and what we're going to do is we're going to kind of pause on just this long list of apostles, the 12.

So we're given the 12 apostles, and I want to ask this question, who were the 12? And let's just run through these very quickly. Okay, here we have Peter who's listed. His background is that he's a fisherman from Beth Theta, the brother of Andrew. His significance is that he's often considered the leader of the apostles because he was so outspoken. He's prominent in the gospels and acts outspoken, impulsive, and became a pillar of the early church. That's what Paul says of him in Galatians chapter one and in Acts 1, 11, 12 chapters, we see that as well. Then we see Andrew, who's his brother, that's his background. He's also a fisherman. His significance is known for bringing people to Jesus, including his brother, Peter James, who's the son of Zey. His background is that he's a fisherman, the brother of John, and his significance is that he's a part of Jesus' inner circle.

So Jesus had his 12, but then he had this circle of Peter, James and John, and so he's in this inner circle known for his zeal and fervor, and he was martyred according to early church history. John, his brother was a fisherman, also a part of the inner circle, referred to as the beloved disciple traditionally credited with writing the gospel of John and three epistles, first, second, third, John, and the book of Revelation. Then you have Philip, who's from Beth Sada, possibly a follower of John the Baptist, and his significance, he's known for his practical and questioning nature. He asks a really, really important question in John 14. I love that. It's one of my favorite questions that's posed to Jesus. Bartholomew Little is known about his background. He's known for his initial skepticism about Jesus, which turned into a firm belief upon meeting him.

This is also Nathaniel, that's his other name. So Matthew, he's also known as Levi. He's a tax collector. And his significance, his calling is notable because of tax collectors were despised, traditionally credited with writing the gospel of Matthew Thomas, also known as Dims. And so Matthew, in Matthew, we have particular names, and then when we get over to Luke, we have a different set of names. They had different, you have like Peter, his name Simon, he's also known as Peter Thomas, was also known as Demis. He's known as doubting Thomas. He's famous for his doubts about Jesus's resurrection, which turned into a profound declaration of faith when he saw the risen Christ James son of Alius. His background was, he's often identified with James. He's identified as James the Less, or James the younger, not the brother of John. And little is known about him, which underscores the diverse background and personality of the apostles.

Thaddeus also known as LABAs, Judas, son of James also called Jude. His significance is he's traditionally credited with writing the epistle of Jude and Simon the zealot, a member of the zealots, which was a political, he was a political zealot, Jewish revolutionary group. His significance is his inclusion signifies the diversity again of those who followed Jesus. And then Judas Scat, the one who would betray Jesus and his significance is the betrayal was foretold and played a crucial role in the passion narrative. So these are the 12 that are listed here in the gospel of Matthew. I have a question. Okay, you can ask a question. Yes,

I know why there were 12 apostles. I know that

Because

Israel had 12 sons. I already know that. But why did they pick this average people and not Pharisees and people that were into religion? Why pick the average Joe to do the job?

I don't think we are necessarily told, and that's a really good question. I don't think we know necessarily, so it would all be conjecture, but it seems like the people that are most responsive are these blue collar, not elites. So Jesus says in terms of it's for the wealthy, it's harder for them to enter the kingdom of heaven than for a camel to go through the eye of a needle. We see that there are so Nicodemus in John three apostles, I dunno, I have no idea. I don't know, but I know this in Luke, that Jesus. So there's a crowd of people following Jesus bigger than these 12. Another time we see that they're 72, these 12 here are called apostles, and in Luke, I think it's Luke 11, it says that Jesus spent a night in prayer, and these are the ones that God guides him to pick these 12. Why they are who they are. I don't know, but I think it is significant that it isn't the elites. A

Lot of it ties into the Old Testament.

It does.

It all ties into the Old

Testament. That's what we were talking about, and

It all clicked.

One, Jesus

Was brought in the world.

Yeah, yeah. Our discussion on Tuesday got me so excited about this. That's what we're going to look at next. I'm going to give a little bit of Old Testament, and that was the question. And Felicia, you asked that question last week specifically about why were there no women in this group, which we will look at next. So why did Jesus pick 12 men? Why did he pick 12 men? And I think that we've got to go back into the Old Testament, and here my slides start with Genesis 12. But listen, it goes before that. It goes back to Genesis one and two. When God made humanity, what did he make? He made male and female in his image. He created them in his image, and he commissioned them for a work. What was the work? Sub the garden, multiply, be fruitful and multiply the garden, tend the garden. Subdue, subdue rule, right? Be fruitful and multiply. Subdue rule. And there's, what's one other word that I'm missing?

What rule? Subdue, fruitful, multiply. I'm missing one of the words there in Genesis, but essentially this is the command given to them. Do they obey? They do not obey. So we get Genesis three. Humanity decides I'm not going to obey God. So we have Adam and Eve, they decide I'm going to rebel. We're going to take the fruit, we're going to eat. And from that point, we have, what is it called? The fall, right? So humanity falls from God's purposes. And imagine, I was trying to find my board to write on, imagine this giant cavity like this hole or an empty swimming pool, like the side view. Basically humanity does not continue on the trajectory where how God's designed it. But instead, humanity falls and there's all this fallout. There's physical death, there's psychological death. We see immediately there's shame. We see that the husband and wife are blaming each other.

They become almost enemies in a sense. They're not taking ownership of what they did. They're like it was him. It was his fault. And it just becomes, and from there we have chapter four is the first murder, and we go right into 6, 7, 8, and all of humanity is wicked, and God's like, I'm going to wipe out humanity except for Noah and his family. We're going to start all over again. And so from Genesis chapter three, we have this chasm. All of humanity is broken and the systems are broken. So there's still a resemblance of the garden. So you still bear the image of God, you bear the image of God. You're designed to be a friend of God, just like Adam and Eve were designed. You have an identity, but there's broken parts about you. There's broken parts about your psychology, your relationships, some of your bodies, you know it better than anyone else.

Your bodies are breaking down. It's like, yeah, I'm living in that cavity of humanity now. God did not leave us in that place. He loves you. He has a plan for you. He wants to rescue humanity. So the rescue mission of God begins as soon as before even Genesis three is over, God comes to Adam and Eve and he says, I'm going to cover your nakedness. He gives them animal skins as clothing. He makes promises to them that he's going to crush the head of the serpent, that the seed of the woman is going to crush the head of the serpent. There's this promise that God is going to intervene. And so at Genesis three, the story of God's redemption begins, but it is a long, slow story of God's redemption unfolding in the world. He keeps sending people to save the day, but they fail.

So he sends, he's like, let's start over with Noah. But by the time you get to the end of Noah's story and Noah's kind of like a new Adam, by the time you get to the end of Noah's story, he's failed and there's shame and there's nakedness, and there's covering of nakedness, and there's broken relationships, and there's offspring that are cursed, then we go to Abraham. So I want you to see the 12 apostles understanding. The 12 apostles really goes back to understanding this guy Abraham. So in Genesis 12, Abraham has this account. So his name's Abraham. He's not even Abraham yet. God hasn't changed his name yet. So God says to Abram, go from your land, your relatives, and your father's house to the land that I'm going to show you. So God says, Hey, go to this new place. I'm going to make you into a great nation.

In other words, your offspring are going to become a nation. I'm going to bless you, and presumably I'm going to bless this nation. I will make your name great and look at you will be a blessing. Now, he's speaking to not just Abraham, but to his offspring. He says, I will bless those who bless you, Abraham. In other words, the rest of the nations that bless your offspring, I'm going to bless them and I'm going to curse anyone who treats you with contempt and all the peoples of the earth will be blessed through you. This is really, really important. So God picks one guy, Abraham, and he says, I'm about to bless you, but is it just so that he can be an elite? No, it's so he can be a conduit, right? Do you see that? So God picks Abraham and he says, you're special, but you're special because humanity is special and through you begins a redemptive process, and all the peoples on the earth will be blessed through you.

Abraham's like, great, alright, there's a famine. I'm going to go to Egypt and I'm going to lie. I'm going to lie. I'm going to cheat. I'm going to take a Egyptian slave. There's going to be abuse of that slave that occurs. Abraham fails within the first chapter. I mean the story of failure repeats. Here's the thing. God picks broken people to carry out his purpose, and by the time you're done and you get to Jesus, you're kind of done with humanity. Anybody do life where you kind of get old enough with life and you're like, wow, people are deeply flawed. Even some of the people closest to me are able to hurt me. You get, it's kind of like that's how reading the Bible is good. People have good days, but then ultimately they fail to be God's full redemptive purpose leading up to Jesus.

So that's Genesis one through three then or Genesis 12. Then if we fast forward a couple of generations. So Abraham has a son named Isaac. Isaac has a son named Jacob. Jacob has 12 sons. So the 12 sons, Jacob was, had his name changed to Israel. Yeah, his name was changed to Israel. Okay? So that's Genesis 32. Go back and read that. That's when he gets his name changed. So here's the 12 sons. This is the 12 sons of Jacob. These are the names of the sons of Israel. Now this is interesting. So remember we're reading Matthew, we're reading Matthew Matthew's Jewish. He's helping Jewish people understand their Messiah. Jesus, over and over again, we've seen that. He talks about Jesus and he says, this is what to fulfill what was written, but then he's telling the Jesus story and it maps on to the life of, so Jesus was in the wilderness for 40 days.

Oh wait, I know somebody that was in the wilderness 40 days, Israel was in the wilderness for 40 days tempted, right? So Jesus is the embodiment of Israel. So it just so happens in the Hebrew scriptures, you have this list that looks exactly like our list in Matthew chapter 10. These are the names of the sons of Israel that came who came to Egypt with Jacob, each with his family, Ruben, Simeon, Levi, anybody named Levi here? Yeah, that's right. I told you you were going to be in the sermon today. And Judah, Issachar, Zein and Benjamin, Dan and Naftali, GAD and Asher, the total number of Jacob's descendants were 70. Joseph was already in Egypt, so he's Joseph's the 12th, okay? Joseph and all his brothers and all that generation eventually died, but the Israelites were fruitful, increased, rapidly, multiplied, and became numerous so that the land was filled with them. Now, we just talked about Genesis one and two.

What was Adam and Eve commanded to do? Be fruitful, multiply the Bible's using the same language. Here we're talking about Israel. They're being fruitful, they're multiplying, they're extremely numerous. The Bible is written. God's story is not accidental, right? The fact that God is picking flawed people does not reflect upon his nature in a negative way. It tells a good story that you should this morning feel like I feel welcomed into this story that God tells. So we have these characters. We have these 12 sons. Now were these 12, these shining bright, exemplary men. No, go read like they're murderers. Two of the brothers go and murder an entire tribe in vengeance because that one of the guys in the tribe violent violated one of the sisters. You have one of the other brothers sells his brother into slavery, Joseph into slavery. This is a ragtag kind of bad group of people that are the 12 sons, but nonetheless, they're the 12 sons.

Those 12 sons become the 12 tribes of Israel. Okay? Are you tracking? So Israel is down in Egypt, and then Moses delivers them, sends them out. So we jump four, 400 years, and we have Moses in the wilderness with 2 million, maybe one to 2 million people who have left Egypt as the nation of Israel, and you have the 12 tribes now, and God makes a covenant with these people. Here's the covenant. Now, if you'll carefully listen to me and keep my covenant, you'll be my own possession out of all the people. So God's still saying, Israel, you are mine. You are my people. You are my people's, although the whole earth is mine and you'll be my kingdom of priests and my holy nation. These are the words that you are to say to Israel. So he makes a covenant with this baby nation that's being established in the wilderness.

He says, you are a special nation for me, and you are going to be an entire nation of priests and you're going to be a kingdom of priests. What do priests do? They mediate people's relationship with God. They stand in the gap, mediating the relationship with God. Their full-time job is to help other people be closer to God. That's Israel's calling. Do they fulfill that? No, they don't really fulfill that, but that's what God calls them to. Then we go further in the story. We go to Isaiah, which is a thousand years later in Jewish history. They're now in the land. They've rebelled against God again, which is typical for humanity. We're good at rebelling. They rebel against God. And so God sends prophets. So Isaiah is one of those prophets. Here's what he says. A child will be born for us. A son will be given to us, and the government will be on his shoulders.

He will be named a wonderful counselor, mighty God, eternal father and prince of peace. The dominion will be vast. So this is the dominion of his reign. His dominion will be vast and its prosperity will never end. So this kingdom that he's talking about, he will reign on the throne of David and over his kingdom to establish and sustain it with justice and righteousness. From now on and forever, the zeal of the Lord of armies will accomplish this. So this prophecy is hinting that God's still not done. You've failed as a nation, but God's still going to send this individual to accomplish. So if you were Jewish and you take all your history, you take the Psalms, you take the prophets, you have been primed, like you prime a pump, you've been primed for this person, this prophet, this messiah that's going to come on the scene and he's going to reign as a king, but he's also going to be a priest that mediates man's relationship with God and he's going to fix the problems.

Who's he going to be? So then we fast forward and we get to the 12 apostles. So Jesus comes on the scene and he chooses. He chooses these 12. They symbolically, here's the thing, these men symbolically represent these 12 tribes of Israel. That's all they do. Now, I grew up thinking that the 12 apostles were basically the vice presidents of the organization for the church. You have Jesus as the CEO, and then the apostles are, they're the vice presidents to kind of get the church started. Actually, they play more of a symbolic role pointing backwards at God's faithfulness to Israel than they do in regards to a forward mission. Only a couple of them write scripture, John and Matthew. Maybe Jude is the one that's spoken of, maybe that Jude is another brother of Jesus. So they don't all write scripture. They do go carry the message out according to church history, but they don't act like vice presidents. In fact, after the death and the resurrection of Christ, they're there together. They're formative, but some of them die early on within a couple of years, they're dying off. They're getting martyred.

This is the thing that is mind blowing, and I've only been understanding this recently, is they represent God's faithfulness to the nation of Israel. They're partnered with Jesus. They are commissioned, but they are a part of this. What we see here go and carry out this mission to the nation of Israel. So when you look at the instructions that Jesus gives them, before we look at the instructions, look at the fact that they, in verse one, chapter 10, so go back to Matthew 10, one, Jesus takes these 12 and he says, now I'm empowering you as my 12 to preach about what the kingdom. That's not some foreign concept that Jesus introduced. No, this is language of thousands of years of Judaism. Come now. Now the kingdom is come near and I'm going to empower you to do this redemptive work to literally heal and to overthrow the demonic powers like Jesus in his ministry is pulling back this curtain on more than just physical, but there's these spiritual powers that have been at play in the world, and he's like, no, we're going to cast out demons. And then he sends them out and what's the instructions? He sends them out after giving them instructions. He says, don't take the road to the Gentiles. Don't enter any Samaritan town. Instead go to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. Do you see that? That it's like it is this faithfulness, God is being faithful to Abraham's covenant thousands of years earlier.

That doesn't mean that you and I, as I'm assuming that we're Gentiles, that doesn't mean that God is like, well, you're a second class citizen. What you and I should read into this is that thousands and thousands of years later, God is faithful to this man, Abraham. God's faithful to this, and even before Abraham, he's like, know the redemptive purpose of rescuing humanity out of the pit is going to continue. And so here he's zoomed in specifically on Israel. The Israel's been primed. They're waiting and they are given the gift of having the Messiah sent to them. So all throughout the gospels, we see Jesus focused in on Israel saying, Hey, I'm here. He doesn't openly claim to be the Messiah, but he does the works of the Messiah, and then when he's asked, he doesn't deny it. So then you continue just a little bit further in the story and we get to Revelation.

I got to just show you Revelation 21. So this is not yet happened. This is a scene in heaven. The city had a massive high wall with 12 gates, so this is the new heavens and new earth. 12 angels were at the gates. The names of the 12 tribes of Israel's sons were inscribed on the gates. So Israel is still included. Do you see this? Israel's sons were inscribed on the gates. So the people of God that were included in this story that failed, they're included in this future reign and rule of Christ. The plan of God is still being carried out. There were three gates on the east and three gates on the north and three gates on the south, and these three gates on the west. The city wall had 12 foundations, and the 12 names of the 12 apostles of the lamb were on the foundations.

The point is this, it's not that, and I'm skipping ahead here because of for the sake of time, oh my gosh, there's so much good stuff here. Don't leave out anything. This is the point. If we're going to go like Jesus, that's not fair that you picked 12 men as your apostles. We could say like, well, where's the white guy? Where's the Chinese guy with the freckle on his forehead? Where's the women in this mix? No, these were Jewish men from the region of Galilee pretty much all around the same age. Jesus was highly selective in this process, and it fulfilled this beautiful plan of God. How does that transpose onto our life? Let's jump over to Isaiah 49, 6. In Isaiah 49, 6, he says, it's not enough for you to be my servant raising up tribes of Jacob and restoring and protecting ones of Israel.

I'll make you a light for the nations over and over again. Even as God's talking to Israel, he's saying, I'm doing this work through you so that the nations can be saved. Look at revelation Romans 11. This is Paul explaining the guts of this in Romans 11, 11 through 13. Paul says, I ask then have they being the Jews? Have the Jews stumbled so as to fall and to be completely lost, Paul's question, are the Jews cast away from God's plan? Now, this is being written by Paul the Apostle, after Jesus is up in heaven. So this is being written in the first century. This is in the Bible, and Paul says, no, the Jews are not. They've not fallen on the contrary by their transgression, by their rejection of the Messiah, salvation has come to the Gentiles. Why? So that Israel will be jealous. So the attention turns. Once Israel transgresses and rejects the Messiah, it opens up the gate. So God turns and opens up what we call the age of the Gentiles.

Now, if their transgressions, if the Jews transgressions brings riches for the world, in other words, the message of the gospel, their failure, the riches for Gentiles, how much more will their fullness bring? In other words, when the Jews are brought back in, when the story, because God's not done with Israel. When God works on behalf of Israel again, how awesome is that story going to be? He says, now, I'm speaking to you Gentiles, insofar as I'm an apostle to the Gentiles, I magnify my ministry. So you got to go and read Romans 9, 10, 11, where he kind of surgically explains the whole thing. But this is the point, right? And this is where we kind of got to land the plane. I know you always love when I get to that slide conclusion, what is the conclusion?

This is the point When we ask why were there no women that were chosen? We could ask, why were there no black women? Why were there no white men? Why was there no Chinese or Latinos? The point is not diversity or representation from broad categories. That's not how God is carrying out his plan. The point is the redemption of humanity through a faithful mission that began with one husband and wife, Abraham and Sarah. These 12 apostles were Jewish men, primarily around Galilee, having been born within 10 to 15 years of each other. It's highly selective. The God of redemption is faithful over thousands of years to bring about this plan, I just want to show you again, Matthew 10, one, he summons his 12 disciples. He gives these 12 guys authority over unclean spirits to drive them out and to heal every disease and sickness.

This is what God has been doing be even before Abraham. He's been picking people, he's been commissioning people, and he's been saying, Hey, go. Go and be fruitful, multiply, bring the kingdom. When we get to next week, he's going to say, the message you're supposed to preach is the kingdom has come near. I had you write on your card your name. When we went through the different apostles names, the formatting was the same. It was like their name, their background, and their significance. As we look at the New Testament and we carry on the story of Jesus, you could have one of those cards you should be looking at. Put your name on there, what's your background, and then what's your significance? If you join in with the story that God is carrying out, you have significance. You have identity. The background that you have is not by accident.

When we look at these 12 guys who are picked, who seem so random, what it screams at us in our faces is that God is faithful. That God can take what seems like minutia and incidental people and people that seem cast away, and he weaves them in to his plan. The wisdom of God unfolds over millennia. Do you think that your gender or your ethnicity or your nationality or your generation that you were born in or your socioeconomic status are outside of God's redemptive plan? No. It is our job to come. It is not our job to come up with the grand plan. Being a human and being reconciled to God means that our ways come from him. He is the source of our wisdom. He is the one that directs our steps. So fundamental to being a follower of Jesus is that you are willing to join God in his plan, and you're not trying to recruit him to yours.

God has a good plan. Heaven doesn't have a DEI department. I hate to break to you, but he has a good plan. He has a good plan, and it's better than the human plan. And what we see as you follow this trajectory of, remember that pool, the empty swimming pool that God goes into, and he starts the redemptive purpose. This is written into that pool, and he's bringing about this redemptive purpose for you and I, so you and I are still living in that cavity. The people around us are still living in that cavity, but what we're beginning to see, what the word redemption means is not that you're fully delivered, you're not fully delivered out of that cavity, but the trajectory of your life. There's like this foreshadowing, there's this evidence of rescue. Salvation pieces start to come together. It's like, oh, that's why God did that there. Oh, that's what God did there, and he's putting the pieces back together, and then we already He, not only that, but he comes along and he says, here's what the end will look like. Jesus is going to be the king. He's going to be faithful to you. He's going to be faithful to Israel. He's going to be faithful to humanity, and you're invited in to be a part of that story. There is, yeah, that's good enough for this sermon.

There's a lot of pieces there that come together. There's a lot of pieces that come together, but it is easy to feel like, how is God going to use me? How does my, and sometimes in the church that I grew up in, it's like, well, God can use you when you volunteer for the welcome team, and he can. But God's plan, the people that God uses is like, God's going to use you tomorrow in the normal boring relationships that you have. He's going to use you in the job that maybe you think, I don't see how this connects. No, it does connect. God is at work. He's working through humanity in very normal ways to accomplish his purposes, and it's good. It is good. He invites you. He asks you to not only accept him as your redemption, but he asks you to accept him as your source of wisdom, as the one who's rescuing you and has a good plan for your life. Let's pray together. Lord, thank you for your faithfulness over a long period of time.

Thank you for these patterns that you're faithful in the template. That rescue is not a foreign idea to you. You've rescued in the past, but today, rescue is still just as real, giving life, resurrection from the dead, healing, giving, victory. All of those things are just as real today as they have ever been. God, we ask that you would work in our life and continue that good work. Thank you that like you say in one Corinthians seven, to the slave that was saved in their slavery, remain where you're at. But if you can be free, take your freedom. You put those saved slaves on this trajectory of go for it as much as you can. Go for it. Go for it. But even if you're not, then you are the Lord's free man. God, I pray that you would teach us. I pray for each person here that they would experience your freedom, your identity. They would be grafted in, have a sense of direction, your purpose in their life. Lord, continue to unfold your plan in our lives. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.

Matthew 9:35 - 10:15 Part 1

Transcript

Well, we're going to be in Matthew chapter nine, verse 35 through chapter 10, verse 15. This is a bigger section, and so we're going to spend the next two weeks, maybe even three weeks in this section because there's a lot of really important principles that we can apply to our own lives as we're talking and thinking about what does it mean to be a follower of Jesus. So this morning, we'll probably just make it through the end of chapter nine. Maybe we'll talk a little bit about 10, but it's really a unit that belongs together. If you're new to the Bible and new with us, this is kind of the material that we've covered because we're in the book of Matthew, and Matthew tells the story of Jesus when Jesus was born, Jesus and both John the Baptist birth, and then we looked at John's ministry where he's baptizing all of Israel.

The Jews are coming to John to be baptized, and the role that he plays is to prepare the nation's heart for Jesus. The anointed one, the Messiah. Messiah is like the concept of both Royal King and priest and Superman all wrapped together. And if you were Jewish at the time of Jesus, you were anticipating this Messiah. Moses had talked about it. It was there even in Genesis chapter three, there's David talked about his son, one of his offspring being this Messiah. So if you're Jewish, you're like prime. You're waiting for the Messiah. And God sent John as a prophet to prepare the way. And it was cool because there was this act that you would do to really say, okay, I'm on board with God's plan. I'm going to get baptized by John to just say to God, God, here I am. I'm ready for a new fresh start in my life.

And maybe some of you are at that point where you're not ready with Jesus yet, but you're ready for a new spiritual work where you're like, man, I know what it's like to do life my way and I'm ready to turn my life over to Jesus. So John's baptizing and then John baptizes Jesus. And there's this really cool scene at the end of Jesus's baptism where there's this dove that comes down and lands on Jesus. It's the form of a dove, but this is the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove. And then there's this voice from heaven saying, this is my beloved son in whom I'm well pleased. So we have there, God, the Father speaking from heaven. We have the spirit coming upon Jesus, the Son, right? So Father, son and the Holy Spirit in that scene. But Jesus doesn't just become the king of the world at that point.

What happens? Jesus is led by the Spirit into the wilderness where he's fasting. He doesn't eat for 40 days and the devil tempts him in the wilderness. Now again, if you're a Bible scholar, 40 days, and there's another group that was for 40 years in the wilderness who was in the wilderness for 40 years, Moses and the children of Israel, the Jews, how did they do when they faced temptation and they were tested in the wilderness 10 times they failed. Now, mind you, God poured 10 plagues on Egypt through Moses onto Pharaoh. All of those people witnessed those plagues, went out into the wilderness, were tested by God, they failed 10 times, and yet God still kept him as his people, a loving God, a gracious God who's got a plan. So Jesus comes as a better Jew. He goes into the wilderness, tempted for 40 days, doesn't eat, and he does not give in to temptation.

Isn't that crazy? So we saw that scene. So after Jesus comes out of the wilderness, he does this ministry. We're in, this is chapter four of Matthew. Jesus is all around this northern area of Israel called Galilee. There's fishing villages up there. There's like common folk, right? Kind of like us. Nobody, not many of you came rolling in some fancy car, right? We're kind of common people, right? Blue collar, that's what Galilee is. There's all these little places up there and Jesus is doing this ministry of healing and preaching. And then we got to the Sermon on the Mount, and the sermon on the mount was chapter five, six and seven, and it's Jesus talking about the kingdom, the kingdom. And that's what's important for you to understand as we kind of progress through Matthew, that the good news, the gospel is about Jesus's kingdom.

Jesus is the king and he's inviting you into this kingdom, not just it's to say that you're invited into a personal relationship with Jesus is true, but that's not it. That's not the only thing. There's so much more you're actually invited into a new society where Jesus explains, here's what righteousness looks like. Here's how you do spirituality. Here's who's welcome in my kingdom. And it's an upside down kingdom where the last or first and the first or last, and God's looking at the hearts of people and he's saying the blessed ones are the ones who are the downcast and the down and out and those who mourn. So that's the sermon on the mountain. Now after the sermon on the mountain ends, we have chapters eight and nine. We're in nine today, chapters eight and nine is nine different miracle scenes where Jesus is healing people or he is calming the waters and he's demonstrating his power.

But it's not just sequential, nine miracles. There's these other vignettes, these other scenes where Jesus is teaching about, okay, you want to be in the kingdom and follow me. Here's what that looks like. Here's what it means to be a follower of me. Yes, David. Number 10 next week, but a little bit today, we're actually going to read 10 in just a second here. Yeah, so you have these nine miracle scenes. We have these teachings on discipleship and we are now coming into a new section. The important thing for you to understand this morning is that we've spent probably a month and a half kind of just amazed at the power of Jesus that here's a man, a common man, not a king, not a powerful religious leader. What looked like a common man named Jesus, grew up in Nazareth, a no man's land, town was a carpenter, and he's raising the dead and he's healing people of leprosy and he's calming the storms and he's casting out demons.

It's mind blowing that he has this kind of authority. So let's read starting in verse 35 together. He says this, Jesus continued going around to all the towns and the villages teaching in their synagogues, preaching the good news of the kingdom and healing every disease and every sickness. When he saw the crowds, he felt compassion for them because they were distressed and dejected like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, the harvest is abundant, but the workers are few. Therefore, pray to the Lord of the harvest to send out workers into his harvest, summoning his 12 disciples. He gave them authority over unclean spirits to drive them out and to heal every disease and sickness. These are the names of the 12 apostles, one Simon, who is called Peter and Andrew, his brother James, the son of Zeb and John, his brother, Philip and Bartholomew Thomas and Matthew, the tax collector James, the son of Alpheus and Thaddeus, Simon the zealot, and Judas Iscariot, who also betrayed him.

Jesus sent these 12 after giving them instructions. Don't take the road that leaves to the Gentiles and don't enter any Samaritan town. Instead, go to the lost sheep of the house of Israel as you go. Proclaim the kingdom of heaven has come near. Heal the sick, raise the dead. Cleanse those with leprosy. Drive out demons freely you received, freely give. Don't acquire gold, silver, or copper for your money belts. I think that's a fanny pack. Don't take a traveling bag for the road or an extra shirt, sandals, or a staff for the worker is worthy of his food. When you enter any town or village, find out who is worthy and stay there until you leave. Greet a house when you enter it, and if the household is worthy, let your peace be on it. But if it is unworthy, let your peace return to you.

If anyone does not welcome you or listen to your words, shake the dust off your feet when you leave that house or town, truly, I tell you, it will be more tolerable in the day of judgment for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah than for that town. Let's pray together. Lord, thank you for your word. We ask that you would teach us through the Bible this morning. You've made us to be spiritual. You've designed us to have a relationship, not just a relationship, but a friendship with you. You designed us to be filled with your spirit. And Lord, we pray that you would unite us with yourself this morning that you would overrule our distraction, overrule the things going on in our hearts. Allow us to just receive from you. We want to be followers of you. We want to learn from this text this morning, so we give you our ears.

We want to hear and we want to say yes as soon as you speak to us. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. So let's look at this text together. We're going to start in verse 35. He says, it says, Jesus continued going around to all the towns and the villages. Now remember, he's still in the region of Galilee. Maybe your Bible has a map in the back, or you could pop open your maps app and it'll show you see if Galilee, it's still there. There's still little villages all around that area. You could go to 'em today. And so Jesus is going around to these Townsend villages and he's teaching in their synagogues. A synagogue is like a community center for Jewish people in these little towns. This is where on the Sabbath day you would go and you would get some teaching. Your kids would be taught in the law. It was a gathering place for worship. It's not the temple. It's different from the temple. It's kind of like a church or a community center for Jewish people in each of these little villages. And what Jesus is doing there is that he's preaching the good news that you could put in there. This is evangelian. It's kind of like your name, right? It's, it's literally the same root word. He's doing evangelism, but it's the word that we get gospel from. He's telling them the good news. He's not singing like he's in a choir.

He is telling the good news of the kingdom and he's healing every disease and sickness. Now, for all of you Bible scholars that have been with us since chapter four, I want to show you something cool. And if you've been here, you know that I'm trying to teach you to be able to study your Bible on your own and get stuff from it. And so here's one of the things that I noticed as soon as I jumped into this text was, wait a second. I actually thought I printed out the wrong Bible verse when I was reading this because I'm like, I taught this already is no, actually, when you go back to Matthew four, it's actually almost the exact same statement. So chapter four is right after the wilderness, Jesus comes out of the wilderness temptation and Jesus is in Galilee and he is doing this very thing.

So Matthew, as he's telling the story of Jesus, he's doing what we would call bracketing or this is a literary technique to really kind of grab your attention. So you would say, oh, I heard that already. I heard that already. And what happened in Matthew 4 23 was the Sermon on the Mount and there was some significant teaching that unfolded. And so if you think from going from Matthew 4 23 all the way up to 9 35, what we've seen is teaching, and then Jesus operating with his power and talking about his authority. Now, what's going to happen after 9 35 in chapter 10 is you're going to see, and we read it a second ago, Jesus takes these followers that have been going around with them. There's 12 of them, and he is going to give them authority to go and do this very thing. So the reason why Matthew is he doesn't have the ability to give you a bookmark or do something like we would do maybe digitally.

He's a literary technique, so that you go, wait, I read that already. Because he wants you to kind of all of a sudden snap to attention and go, oh, what's going to happen next? Are you ready to see what's going to happen next? Let's just look at this before we actually read what's going to happen next. Let's just see the activities for a second that Jesus is doing here. We see that he is moving around these different villages, and he is teaching in their synagogues, preaching the good news and healing every disease in sickness. I said this when we looked at 4 23. I'll say it again, how many, just guess for me, just throw out a number. How many people do you think if it's said in eight, one large crowds followed him, and here it says that he's going from village to village? How many people do you think are hearing this message? 10. You think 10 I think more because there's multiple how many? Hundreds, right? Thousands. Probably thousands. Yeah. I would think probably thousands of people are witnessing Jesus healing people, casting out demons. This is quite a scene that's happening now.

Miracles got to crucify.

Yeah. Yeah, they did. And we're going to get into that. This chapter 10, we go 10 and 11, it's going to get these religious leaders more and more upset. But the common people who are not the religious leaders, they're soaking it up. They're taking it in. They're like, whoa, this is crazy. This guy, Jesus who's healing people. So Jesus is about to give authority and power to his followers, but before we get that, we see

Power authority. What do you mean by authorities?

Yeah.

I could touch Matthew's road to be healed like

Jesus. Yeah, yeah. That's what it's a miracle

Worker. He was like, Jesus, then all strong does.

Yes, but we're going to get interior

For him to pick them. Why these people? All people.

Yes. Next week. You got to save that one. Until next week. I'm not going to get to that one next week. But there is a criteria that's really important because one fails, and so the early church has to decide what's the criteria? How do we find that next guy? Right? So can you save that question? Because in Luke, he talks a little bit about it too. I don't have time. I only have 16 minutes left this morning from according to my timer. But that is an important question. And what, because you have apostles and then you have disciples. We often call these 12 disciples, but actually they're the apostles. Why

Wasn't there a woman picked?

Thank you. Yes. There were a

Lot of women followers too.

Why wasn't one? Do I have to cover that next week? Please do. Okay. Yeah, that's fair. That's fair. I know. Now you're, you're going to double the ons. You're a man. That's right. Yes.

Talk about men all the time in the Bible, but not women.

I know, I will. Loretta wants to hear that sermon too. It's coming. Those are fair questions. Can you keep those written down? Yeah. Where are the women apostles?

Mary Magdalene should have been one picked definitely. She followed into the very end and got no reward for

That. Oh, she did. She did. I got this. I got you. I got you. Keep that angst for one more week. Hold on to that. Hold that angst. Okay, take you. Let me hold on a second. Lemme take you back into verse 35, so we see what he's doing. We're going to go to 36. Okay. Verse 36, when he saw the crowds, he felt compassion for them because they were distressed and dejected like sheep without a shepherd. What psalm did we read? Psalm 23. We read Psalm 23. Here it is. I told you it was coming. Right? Jesus sees the crowds. Now in chapter eight, verse one, it tells us that large crowds were following Jesus. Jesus sees these crowds and what does he feel? He feels compassion. He feels compassion. There's two words in the Greek. Now, what we're reading here was originally written in Greek, and it's been translated for us over to English by some Bible scholars in the Greek.

When you read the New Testament, there are two different words for compassion. This one here is Splunk. It's like it little sounds kind of German, right? Splunk. What it means is guts. S, it's guts. You have guts. You ever had indigestion stuff going on in your guts? You ever had emotion that you kind of feel right in here? This is the idea of having pity or sympathy right here. Right here. Yeah. David, take that pink, right? You got to take the pink medicine, right? But not for compassion. This is a good, well, maybe you do have to take the pink medicine for that. I don't know. But Jesus, it says that when he sees the crowds, he has this almost this physical feeling of pity for the crowds pity. Why did he feel this verse is written as a substantiation? Again, I want you, when you're reading the Bible, I want you to see how the logic of the verse is written out.

Matthew has written here a substantiation. The reason we know is because there is a flag word in the middle of the verse. It's the flag word. Because what this means is that the effect is at the beginning, the effect is Jesus feels compassion, right? Jesus feels compassion. Then he's going to give us the cause. Why Jesus, do you feel compassion? Well, he's like, thank you for asking me, because when he looks at them, he says, he sees that they're distressed and dejected like sheep without a shepherd. Let me just give you, I don't know if I have a slide for this or not, but this word distressed. Well, here's the substantiation. Distressed. This word means to be troubled or to be bothered. Jesus looked at this crowd and they're troubled, they're bothered. The other word that is used there is that the, they're dejected. This word literally means to be thrown down, dropped like you would drop an anchor or you toss something. When Judas took those 30 pieces of silver that he used, he got paid off to betray Jesus. He took that. He did. He threw those coins down. That's this word, dejected. He threw it down. Have you ever felt like you're thrown down by life? That's what Jesus saw. He looked at this crowd and he says, you are troubled and you've been tossed down by life. But then he uses a comparison and he says, you're like sheep with no shepherd. You're like sheep with no shepherd.

We'll see in chapter 10 that he calls them the lost sheep of the house of Israel. When we looked at Psalm 23 at the beginning of the service and Marvin was reading it, God says, the Lord is your shepherd. God uses this picture all the time to just demonstrate his care. In fact, the word pastor is another word for shepherd. Pastor is not really the term for a church leader in the New Testament. Usually the term is elder in America and in the West we call the guy that does what I do. Sometimes we call him pastor, but really the New Testament uses that word as a verb. So when I pray for you or I preach to you, or I call you and say, how are you doing? That's Josh pastoring you. And so here, when Jesus looks at this crowd, he's like, you don't have a pastor.

And so he has compassion upon them. He literally, he feels it another time when Jesus felt compassion. Yes, where he got a hug. I bet he gave people hugs. Isn't that awesome? Yeah. Another time where he probably gave some people some hugs is when Lazarus died and Jesus already told his disciples, Lazarus is going to be raised back, but when Jesus gets to Bethany and he sees Mary and Martha sad about their brother having died, and they're like, Jesus, why didn't you get here earlier? And they're kind of upset with Jesus even knowing the future. Jesus had compassion and he wept In that moment, he had compassion on these women. He had this ability even knowing the future, knowing the facts of what was going to happen, he felt in his guts, this sense of compassion. They a song about passion song, they, can you show it to me afterwards?

You're going to sing it for us. Listen, I'm going to preach to you for just a second. Okay? Our culture is moving away from the idea of compassion. We turn off this inward response of care. We're tempted to, we don't let our guts be moved with sympathetic pain. There's different reasons for this. One of the reasons is sensory overload With global news, you can turn on your phone and you can see something horrible that happened in China or India or Texas or The Bahamas, and to summon the compassion for that many different tragic events is not humanly possible, and yet, if you turn on the tv, we have this ability to have instant feed, an instant feed of tragic events, and so it's like, man, since I can't show compassion on all these things, maybe I might as well just take the position of stoic and show no internal sympathy, no compassion, no pity.

Yeah, and then there is pain that happens in our own life where we've kind of opened up our hearts to this sense of sympathy, and we've gotten hurt by people, and so it's just this decision. You know what? I'm going to not show compassion because I've been hurt when I've been open-hearted enough to show pity. Other times, we can be selfish and lost in our own world. It's just too inconvenient to care about other people's needs, and so that's one of the realities why people are just like, man, I don't want, I was talking to somebody this week about just doing ministry in Baltimore, and I think that Baltimore is inconvenient to people who don't live in B people. It is more convenient just to ignore Baltimore and its problems than to actually engage it, because once you take that step and engage it and you realize what's going on, it's like how can you be a good person and just turn a blind eye to the immense need all over this city?

It's crazy. The last reason is political. We feel like our political allegiance may be compromised by caring for a character that our party told us not to care about. So maybe you see somebody, let's say you're a Democrat and you see somebody who's got a Trump shirt on and that person is down and out and hurting, and you feel like, man, if I show compassion towards that Trump mega supporter, I'm going to violate my political party and so I can't do it. Or maybe you're a Republican and you see somebody who's pro-choice or L-G-B-T-Q or some position like that, and they are hurting and they're suffering, but you may feel like, man, my allegiance is to my political party. I can't afford to have compassion on that other person that's in that other party or represents a difficult view, but Christians, as Christians, we're supposed to be different.

We can afford to respond with compassion because we believe that God cares. Jesus modeled it, and we are recipients of compassion, so we can do something because we know the broader story and we know the compassion that we ourselves have received. We can afford to show compassion. Let's go to verse 37, the abundant harvest. Then Jesus said to his disciples, the harvest is abundant, but the workers are few. The harvest is abundant, but the workers are few. Isn't it interesting that, did you see we just covered this material? He's looking at the crowd. He's likening them to sheep, and now all of a sudden he jumps over to agriculture and he says, this is a booming crop. Imagine with yourselves that a farmer goes and he stands on the edge of his field and he's seen the perfect timing of the rain, and he knows what a normal yield is, and then he's looking out at his field.

He's like, this is a bumper crop. This is going to be a good year. There is an abundant harvest. When Jesus looks at this crowd, he's like, this is a harvest waiting to come in. So they're distressed, they're troubled, they're dejected. They feel tossed away by life. They're like sheep without a shepherd, and Jesus is like, this is an abundant harvest. Isn't that an interesting perspective? This is why we follow. This is why we say, God, give us your heart. Give us your eyes to see what's going on because I don't know for you, but when I look at a crowd that's distressed and dejected and upset, I'm like, man, I hope the police are close by because I don't want to have some riot breakout. Or I'm like, how am I going to feed all these people on a Friday? But no, Jesus is like, whoa, this is a bumper crop.

This is amazing. But then he has something else to say while the harvest is abundant. What else? The workers, the workers to work this field are few. Oh, man, I cannot tell you how much I appreciate those of you that have come and helped us with the crowd on Friday and on Tuesday and just been a part of caring. You've been a worker in the field in this abundance that we have. There's this crazy opportunity to just love people. We had a missions team here on Friday. Kathy helped us put together and coordinate with this church, Trinity life up in the county. They came down and just to go out and be a worker caring for people that are in a bad place. Did any of you guys get prayed for? Did you come through? You got prayed for? Wasn't that sweet that they came through?

They were willing to. Some of those people took off the day from work. They sat, we got you into air conditioning. We didn't have prayer outside, and it was just awesome. I think we had 75, maybe 75, maybe about 70 people, maybe a little bit like what? 72 people. Thank you. That came through, received prayer that we were asked how they're doing. It was awesome. So Jesus looks and he says, here's the reality with this crowd. Think of like Lemko, like Felicia. You've been talking with me about lemko and just when Jesus looks at lemko, when Jesus looks at the crowd of people that are being fed, people that we don't even speak their language because they speak Spanish. Jesus sees their sheep that need a shepherd. He sees the distressed. He sees those tossed away by life, the dejected, and he sees an opportunity where it's like, where's the workers? What does he say? What does he say in 38? Therefore, pray to the Lord of the harvest to send out workers into his harvest. He calls. Jesus tells his disciples, listen. Listen guys, we need to pray that the Lord of the harvest, the ones who's in charge of the harvest, that he would commission workers to go out into the harvest to go participate in the work.

What are we called to do to pray? Who are you praying to? The Lord of the harvest? What are we supposed to ask Lord? Send out workers, send out workers. In closing this text, these few verses, it asks us to take our eyes off of ourselves. It asks us to join Jesus in his compassion for the crowds. This crowd, some of this crowd was fickle because how many in this crowd were followers of Jesus after he died and was raised from the dead? How many people were gathered together in the upper room? Do you know how many?

120, 120. Now the disciples, the apostles, preached the gospel and thousands got baptized and became followers of Jesus. But here's the reality. Jesus is doing this ministry to thousands of people. He asks. He asks for his disciples to just engage this whole thing. He's going to teach 'em. He's going to send them out, and the results initially are meager. They're meager, and yet being a follower of Jesus means that you're willing to let your gut turn as you look at the crowd, this text that we have read, it asks us to see the crowd as an abundant harvest. That means there's opportunity for Jesus to do redemption. It's not a crisis for Jesus. It's an opportunity. It's the bumper crop. This text asks us to pray in this regard, and this text asks us to pray for workers who will engage the dejected and the distressed rest, and so just the simple obedience for us as a church this week.

It means that you and I do a heart check. Am I willing? Am I willing right here to feel the call to Jesus? Am I willing to let, thank you, David? Yes. Yeah. Am I willing to feel it right? Am I willing to go there with him? Now, remember his spirit when we talk about this type of obedience, this is not like muster up the energy, come on, beat you over the head. You got to feel compassion. No, this is like, God, I give you permission to have your way in my soul. I give you permission to cause me to feel like that towards the hurting, and I know you do. I have so honored to watch so many of you in so many different ways. Filipinos, Mia, you would just have a heart for people that are older and just caring for people. Some of you're caring for your family.

Felicia, you got a heart for people in Lemko. Let's feed 'em. Let's take care of 'em. You've got, we're caring for people over the compassion center. I look around this room and some of you like your full-time jobs are just caring in this way for other people. It's beautiful. Let's keep letting God work in our lives in that way. Lord, we thank you for your word. Thank you for Jesus being the forerunner, the example, the good example. And you didn't just, Jesus, you didn't just have that pity for us, but you literally took your body and you were crucified for us. You are crucified on our behalf. You are pierced for us. Lord, thank you for being willing to give your body up so that we could be reconciled back with you. Lord, would you find in us a willingness, an obedience, a surrender to you, surrendering to your work in our life in this way? We pray this in Jesus name. Amen.

Matthew 9:27-34

Transcript

All right, so we're going to be in Matthew. If you're new to the Bible, the book of Matthew's in the New Testament. That's the part of the Bible that talks about Jesus. So you get a lot of history in the Old Testament. We get over the book of Matthew, Matthew, mark, Luke, and John all tell the story of Jesus's first coming on Earth. His birth Virgin Mary, having the conception of Jesus, John the Baptist is in there. All that stuff is in there. Then you get through the gospels and you get to the Book of Acts. That's the story of the church, and we get into the epistles. Those are letters written by either Paul or some of the other apostles. Okay? So we're happen to be studying through the book of Matthew, just little section, one little section at a time. This morning, we're going to be in Matthew 9 27 through 34.

You ready? You ready? Are we ready? All right, let's do it. Okay. Yesterday I got a call with my business, my landscaping business, and the lady said, I need to get my lawn cut, but if I don't get it cut pretty soon, I'm going to get a fine by the association. But me and my husband were blind. And so normally when people call me, I give 'em a quote by email. They hit approve, they sign it, and it was this fascinating conversation about how is this lady who's blind, how's she going to approve this quote? And we were talking, she was telling me about how her iPhone kind of helps read the emails to her, and then she was telling me about, well, I need the lawn cut. But then on the back fence, there's some overgrowth, and I don't know how long it is, but I know it hits me in the face every time I'm walking out, and I'm like, okay.

She's like, could you just cut it? I'm like, well, how big is it? She's like, I don't know. I'm blind. And she's like, all I know is it hits me in the face when I'm walking by. And so I'm like, okay, well, I will come over. I'll look at it. She was open. It could be included in the service, but if it's too big, it's like, well, that's a separate job and I'm going to have to charge you extra for that. Well, I get all the way through this conversation. It's not like I have blind customers every day. I get all the way through the conversation, all the way through my day. Yesterday I go and I'm finishing off my sermon this morning. It's about two blind guys, and I didn't even make the connection. I didn't even make the connection. I thought, man, this is, I was just so dumb.

I don't know how you guys put up with me. This would be so broad. Thank you. Listen. But this woman, this woman, as she's telling me and we're working through her disability and how she's going to still, she's doing a great job navigating life, and I was just so impressed with her ability to, you still use technology and use her iPhone, but she was suffering from an FCF. You know what an FCF is? No, that's good because I'm going to tell you this morning, okay? And FC, F, well, you got to wait a little bit. I'm going to get to it, but let's read the text together and we'll pray and we'll get into it. As Jesus went on from there, he's still in Galilee, guys. He's still way up north. When he went on from there, two blind men followed him, calling out, have mercy on us.

Son of David. When he entered the house, the blind men approached him and Jesus said to them, do you believe that I can do this? And they said to him, yes, Lord. Then he touched their eyes saying, let it be done for you according to your faith. And their eyes were opened. Then Jesus warned them sternly, be sure that no one finds out, but they went out and spread the news about him throughout that whole area. Just as they were going out, a demon possessed man who was unable to speak was brought to him. When the demon had been driven out, the man who had been mute spoke, and the crowds were amazed saying nothing like this has ever, ever been seen in Israel. But the Pharisees said, he drives out demons by the ruler of demons. Let's pray. Lord, this is your word and this is what you did, and we ask that you would speak to us through this text, these two stories.

You did a lot of stuff. In fact, John said, if everything was recorded, not all the books could contain it. It'd just be volumes and volumes and volumes of all that you did. But we get these stories and we ask that you would teach us. We recognize that the Holy Spirit is our teacher, and that while I have put some time into studying this text, and I'm going to lead us through it, the real teacher in the room this morning is your spirit. And the powerful thing is that your spirit has been with us from the very beginning, our personality, you know what motivates us, our wounds, our needs, and our future. And so we want to have ears to hear, what are you saying to us this morning? What are you saying to us? Lord, speak to us. We pray in name. Amen. Yeah.

What's showing you already this morning? What are some things that you're hearing at least you think, I mean, you don't even have to know whether it's God or not, but what are you hearing? What are some of the things that God's putting on your heart this morning already? Patience. Patience. Yeah. That's good. What else? Mercy. Mercy. Yeah. God doesn't judge. What else? Wisdom. Faith. Okay. Yeah. Love and trust. Yeah. Yeah. Those are good. Those are good. I know there's a lot. I always think when we walk in that door on Sundays, we walk in with a lot. We live in just a crazy set, a lot of stuff going on in each of our lives. And the awesome thing for me as a pastor is I care for you care about God's work and your life is, I get to trust that God knows all that stuff, all the secret stuff, all the overwhelming, all the burdens that you have, he knows about it.

And then I think of this intersection, kind of like over where the compassion center's at, or even this intersection right here. You have two intersecting roads and it's just like, man, God, we're this going this way, and your spirit and your word intersects with it. We want to be right there at that intersection of God speaking to our lives. May God just speak to us during this time. Let's talk a little bit about the FCF. The FCF. It's not a football league. It's not a secret government organization. It's not a disease. The FCF stands for the fallen condition focus. Can you say that with me? Fallen condition focus the FCF. Why am I putting this up in front of you? Here's why is because I want to teach you how to read the Bible on your own, okay? And this is one of the things when you get to the Bible, this is one of the things you need to be looking for is the FCF, the FC, F.

What is the fallen condition in this text that we're looking at? Here's a definition. I'm going to give you some definitions for this idea. I don't just expect you to understand it. Here's what fallen condition focus is. It is the mutual. That means you and me, the mutual human condition that contemporary believers, right? Are we contemporary? Yeah, we are. We're contemporary as in living all today. Yes, yes, contemporary. We're contemporary believers. We share this condition with those to or about whom the text was written. That requires the grace of the passage for God's people to glorify enjoy him. So whenever you open up your Bible, you have something in common with either the people that you're reading about or the people who that was written to. So if you're reading the epistles, Paul's letters to Galatia or his letter to the Corinthians, you have something in common with them, and that is the FCF, the fallen condition.

And it's a focus we want to focus in on it. That's where the word focus comes in. We want to look at that for a second in the text. What is the mutual human condition that the contemporary believers share with those to or about whom the text was written? And it requires the grace of the passage for God's people. So it's like something Swiss cheese. What is Swiss cheese? What do you know about Swiss cheese? Exactly, exactly. It smelled okay. That was not the part I was thinking of, but it does smell. This is the thing, right? When you go and you look at fallen condition, it's the holes in your condition. It's the holes of those who are in the Bible, right? It is this shared common ground of just brokenness, tears in the fabric, holes in the way that life happens. Here's another, okay, so this is Brian Chapel.

Give you another one. Okay? This is Zach Swin, same material. He takes he riffs on this. He says, expanding the FCF reveals that the biblical text will demonstrate four varieties of the fallen condition focus that human beings experience and express in a fallen world. Consequently, the FCF can stand for one fallen condition, as already stated, two finite condition. This is like you don't know everything. You don't know the future, and you can feel sometimes you don't know what to do. And sometimes when you're reading your Bible, you're reading about somebody who's just confused or limited in their finite nature. You have that and you have common ground with that person. Sometimes you're reading the text and it's fragile condition. This is just that you can get sick, that you don't have the resilience that you were originally designed with before Adam and Eve fell. And then there's the faltering condition focus.

What I can do is if you're on Slack, I'll post a longer version of this so you can see each one of these four, because here's why I'm putting this in front of you, kind of like a teacher. I'm not really preaching at you this morning. I'm kind of more teaching you, because what I want you to do is when you're reading the Bible, I just want you to see, oh yeah, they are having an experience that I can relate to. And if you could identify that in the text, then that's a beginning stage for you to apply it to your life. Because some of you come to me and you're like, I don't know, man. This book was written 2000 years ago, and these are Jews like, I'm like a gentile over here in the US of A, and they're over there in Israel, and I can't really relate to this, and I don't know how God, you talk about God speaking to you through this.

I don't know. Well, I'm giving you these nuggets. Here's how you apply it to your life. As you realize you do have common ground, you have a condition that has fallen that these people also had. So last little piece, let's wrap it together here again, a third definition, the FCF is the common or the human condition that makes God's grace necessary. It highlights our brokenness, need or sinfulness that the passage addresses. Okay? So that's the FCF. Now, having said that, we just looked at the text. You want me to read it to you again or do you have it fresh in your mind? You have it probably in front of you if you have a Bible. We've got two blind men that come to Jesus asking for mercy, and then we have a demon possessed man who's mute. What is the FCF in this passage? The disability? Yeah. So we have a blindness is a fallen condition. It's like it's being fragile right now. That does not mean that these guys are blind because they're sinful, but it does mean that their blindness is the result of living in a world that is in rebellion to God. Because if we go back to the very beginning of the Bible story, we go back to Genesis one and two, we see that God designed humans to be good, and he designed them well. Yes, Michael, just

Tell them blind, they can still follow. They have to be bad. They can still do the right

Choices. That's true. Yes, they're blind. Or your handicap, your physical limitation does not mean that you have to be bad. I appreciate that. Thank you. Yes. So when we look at the beginning of Genesis, we see that God designed humans to be in perfect union with him, derive the knowledge of good and bad from him to occupy that garden to be fruitful, multiply and rule over the earth. This is the earth where Satan had been subjected because he had rebelled against God before he humans were created. And Satan shows up in the garden and gets humanity off track. He gets humanity into the state of unified rebellion with him. But God had originally designed humans to basically play on the battlefield and to bring into subjection these rebellious angels and to fulfill God's purpose as his friend and image bearers in the garden. Okay? So all of Genesis three through Revelation chapter 19, all of that material, we have people experiencing this fallen condition. So let's look at this with the blind men, 27 through 31, as Jesus went on from there, two blind men followed him, calling out, have mercy on us, son of David.

Before we get to that quote, let's just talk a little bit about just some context. Whenever we study the Bible, one of the things we want to do is not take the verse in its isolated form. We want to see, well, where does that verse fit into the rest of the context? And so what we've been saying is that from Matthew chapter, remember we finished Matthew seven, the Sermon on the Mount, then we went into Matthew eight, and right away we ran straight into Jesus healing. People remember that? Healing people, healing people, healing people, and talking about discipleship. Follow me. Here's the cost of discipleship. You need to radically be a follower of Jesus, healing more people healing, more people follow me, healing more people. So we've been in this section where Jesus is calling people to follow him. Now, if you've grown up in the church, you've heard about this idea of the gospel of proclaiming the gospel, and we often talk about the gospel as Jesus is at the center.

He's the solution for our brokenness, our fallen condition. He brings in the grace of God into our life, and he's legally allowed to do that because of what he did on the cross. So the cross is where he died to pay for our guilt, and then he was raised from the dead by God the Father, God raised him to vindicate him and show that was a sufficient payment for humanity's sin. Now, when we go back to Matthew four, we see that Jesus is proclaiming the gospel. But this is what's important to understand is that the gospel in Matthew is more than just a call to follow Jesus and place your faith in him. But it is a call to adopt a new society, to come into the society where he's the king. But relationships change. Ethics change the way that we relate to God changes what is right and how right and wrong is determined, and the level of spirituality and how God judges people, all of that stuff comes into focus.

So the gospel, so there's this preaching, this gospel message that's been being proclaimed by Jesus. And so when Jesus is healing people, this is the point. Jesus is moving on, and he's just healing people and teaching about entering into this new kingdom, this new society, and these two individuals, Matthew just tells their story, right? Matthew, the tax collector tells their story. Now, blindness, we think of blindness as just one of many disabilities. If you go on your phone and you turn on accessibility, it's going to help you. Like if you're hearing impaired or if you have a problem with your eyesight, it's going to help you with that. But there's all kinds of disabilities. But for the Jews, blindness was regarded as a punishment of sin. Blindness was a unique disability. If you were Jewish, you can look up some of these other passages here. But blindness was a form of, in the Old Testament, it was a form of judgment sometimes. So God would inflict blindness, and he would rarely, if you go look at the Old Testament, find for me, and I mean this didn't actually do this study, but I don't think you can find people in the Old Testament being healed of blindness. There is an account where Elijah's servant is.

He is freaking out, and Elijah says, God, open his eyes and God gives him the spiritual eyes to be able to see all these angels that are surrounding Elijah and his servant to protect him. But that wasn't a physical healing. That was like this ability to see, am I missing something? Is anybody a Bible scholar? Can you think of an Old Testament blindness healing? I'm going to look it up though. Okay? Yeah, crosscheck me. So there is, I know you will, but there is many instances of God inflicting blindness. So if you are Jewish, God never said like all blindness is associated with sin. But when you go into the gospel of John, you see that there's literally a man who's born blind and Jesus's disciples ask Jesus, who sinned? Was it this man or his parents? They just associated his blindness with direct sin, direct guilt. And Jesus is like, no, no, this is like God's going to accomplish his purposes in this disability here. This is not the result of a direct association with guilt. But I just want you to know the context. As Jesus is here proclaiming a new society, calling people to follow him, and then he's engaged by these men who are outcast by society because of their blindness. They would have difficult time worshiping in the temple. They would've been considered. They could have been considered ceremonially, unclean. This was not a good place that they were in.

They come to Jesus and they ask for help. Now, where is, okay? Here's what they say. Have mercy on us. Son of David, okay, son of David. What is going on here? Have mercy on us. Son of David. What does it mean? Son of David, who's David? If you're he's king. He was the king. That's right. So if you're Jewish and you're talking about David, you're thinking for us as Americans, you're thinking of George Washington. But if you're Jewish, you hear David, you're like, oh, one of our patriarchs. This is the writer of the book of Psalms. This is the guy who received this promise of a eternal reign. God made a covenant with David said, the S sector will never depart from your throne. So there's all this hope wrapped up in David and his lineage, because it's from David that the eternal reign of God and for the people for the Jews is going to be accomplished.

So when these blind men come and say, have mercy on a son of David, they're talking royalty. They're acknowledging the royal lineage of David, and they're saying, they're basically saying it. You're the king, like you have the rights to the throne, and they're asking for mercy. Look at these other passages from the Psalms. Look, if you're Jewish, here's what you know of God. Here's the devotional material that you've been trained by in the Bible. Answer me, when I call God, who vindicates me, you freed me from affliction. Be gracious to me and hear my prayer. If you're Jewish, you're used to asking God for gracious help and mercy freedom from affliction. Here's another one, Psalm six, two, be gracious to me, Lord, for I am weak, heal me Lord, for my bones are shaking. This is familiar material. If you are a follower of Jesus who is the fulfillment of Judaism, he is the messianic Jewish king, then this is your material.

Do you understand that? You've been grafted into this being belonging to you. You have every right to pray this to God, but it's even more real for you because we're now have seen Jesus come the first time. So if you're a Jew reading this in Solomon's day, you're praying these things reflecting on God's deliverance through the story of Moses. You're thinking about the ways that God's helped you win and in battle and maybe the victories of David, and that's awesome, and you're leaning in and hoping for God's help. But for us, we get to sink our teeth into Jesus. The historic Messiah, God put on flesh, come to earth, died on the cross, rose from the dead. He's the one who is gracious. He is the one who can help the weak. He is the one who can heal. He is the one who knows your bones are shaking and he can help you. Amen. Amen. Amen.

So these blind men come to Jesus saying, Lord, or have mercy on us, son of David, did he dress like a king? No, no, no, no, no. This guy was a carpenter up until he was 30, right? And so the faith of these two blind men, I guess they couldn't see how he was dressed, right? But he's a commoner, right? He's a commoner. There is nothing that Isaiah said there is nothing about him that made him look like a GQ model or anything like that. He was a common man. He was a Jew Jewish man who had been working for 20 years of his or 15 years of his life before he started his ministry when he entered the house. So that going back to Matthew, Jesus entered the house. The blind man approached him, and Jesus said to him, do you believe that I can do this?

And they said to him, yes, Lord. Then he touched their eyes saying, let it be done for you according to your faith. The important thing here to notice is first the question that he engages with them is just like we saw last week. Do you believe so? He could have said like, okay, well, let me get your demographic information here. Are you a minority? How long do you qualify? There's all kinds of questions he could have asked. Instead, he asks, do you believe, right? He solicits their faith. Do you believe that I can do this? And he says, yes. Then when he does touch their eyes, his statement is let it be done for you according to your faith, according to, it's the Greek word kata. Okay? When you go and you build a wall, like you're building one of these, putting a brick facade on the front of a house, or you got a cinder block wall that you're going to put up in your backyard, your brick layers are going to do something.

They're going to use probably a level nowadays. They're going to make sure that something is telling you that this is straight up and down. It's not leaning right. It used to be that you'd hold up a plumb line, which is just a string with a heavy weight at the bottom of it, and you would hold up that string against your wall kata, according to down against is what the word means. Hold it up against to see how does this compare to that? And Jesus says to them, let this act be done to you according to down against your faith. You've got faith. Let this act be done for you. He's really highlighting, yeah, what were you going to say?

Your man, he went to

Jesus. Exactly. He was saying

Something about his church. He said, you don't have to come to his house, but with the faith that he had, Jesus, the faith that he had his son already here service all. Yep.

Amen. Right? That's right. We saw that We were just there a couple weeks ago. It's the exact same material, but I appreciate you bringing that up because this is Jesus. He just preached the sermon. He said, this is my society. This is my kingdom. He's going through these different towns around Galilee. People are getting healed like this, and he's inviting people to follow him with really a high bar. There's a lot of things going on here, but it is really important to see. It seems like Matthew, who's writing this for us, tell me if you agree. This is my hypothesis. Matthew's writing for this for us, and he's saying, faith is really an important piece of this. Like you as a follower of Jesus need to be ready to count the cost. But if you want to experience the power of God's kingdom in your world, you need to be providing faith as the arena where God can work, right?

You go to arena. Laurice likes that back there. Okay, thank you. Thank you. I got one person that agreed with me. Look, when you go to the Baltimore stadium, you go to the Orioles Stadium, Cameron Yards, or you go to the Raven Stadium. It's an arena. I like that as the concept of faith, that when we place our faith in God, we're creating this arena where God can work. We're not putting rules on him. We're saying, Hey, I'm bringing the faith to the table. You bring the power. I'm going to trust in you, and I want you to work. And so here is Matthew telling you and I this story, just saying, listen, I want you to understand here's how this occurred. Here's how these two men were healed. He brings forward their faith, their eyes were opened. Then Jesus warned them, Sterling, be sure that no one finds out.

Why does he do that? Why does he tell 'em to not tell anybody else they would. He knew they would. Yeah. Okay. So the, to be so honest with you, super honest, I don't know why he said that. I don't know if it was good. So they went out and they did tell everybody. I didn't know if Matthew's like, oh, they really disobeyed, or if he's like, well, it was inevitable. It was it reverse psychology. I don't know. But the point right now, Jesus is not trying to be the, it's not all about a personality. It's about this message, right? So it's like, yes, follow me, but I want you to come into this new kingdom, right? He's not looking for groupies. In fact, he's going to keep talking in a way that is off putting with a high bar so that he doesn't just have a bunch of sycophants that follow him around just kind of riding an emotional high.

But he's saying, no, you're making a life decision. You're making a whole life decision. The trajectory of your life is now going to change. If you're ready to follow me, and I don't want you to understand the Messiah as just the one that's healing. I want you to understand the Messiah as the suffering servant, the king. Maybe that's it. I really don't know. That was an interesting idea. If you come up with a great idea, then let me know. After church, just as they were going out, as you're going, and I assume he's going out of the house, a demon possessed man who was unable to speak was brought to him when evening came after the sun. Oh, okay. Yeah, no, before we go to Mark, let's just go back here. So he sets the stage demon possessed man, who's unable to speak was brought to him.

Now, lots of, does anybody have a lot of questions about this? How do we know the mutants is associated with demon possession? How do they know? Is this Matthew telling us after the fact? Well, it must've been demon possession because when the demon came out, then he could talk again. I don't know, but this is the interesting thing, and the reason I've got Mark here in my slide deck is because this is Mark talking about Jesus in ministry, and Mark writes really fast, and so he's talking to a lot of people. He's kind of covering a lot of ground, and he says that they brought to him all those who were sick and demon possessed, all that who are sick and demon possessed.

Jesus is healing. That's easy for us to wrap our heads around the whole part about demon possession and then how demon possession manifests itself in terms of physical ailments. That's not a very strong Western theme. In fact, there's a whole group of even Christians who are like, well, this was like a misdiagnosis. It's like a psychological disorder. It's kind of like he called it demons, but it's more of depression, anxiety, and that kind of thing. I don't think so. I think there is a distinct teaching here about Satan and demons, and it seems to be throughout Jesus's ministry. So what is a demon? I just want to put this in front of you. Just so you understand. The Bible teaches that demons are understood to be angels who rebelled against God and were cast out of heaven along with Satan. This is suggested in passages like Revelation 12, seven through nine, which describes a war in heaven and the expulsion of Satan and his angels.

So demons are created by God. Angels. Angels are created by God. There is a third of angels that rebelled, and they were subjected. They were sent from heaven. They're cast out of heaven to the realm of the earth. Satan leads them, but they're organized. Ephesians says that there's powers, principalities, hosts of wickedness. So they're organized in the same way that an army might be organized in John Tent says that the thief meaning Satan, he comes to steal, kill, and destroy. The objective of Satan and demons is to thwart the work of God through humans. And the reason for that is because of jealousy. The demons are jealous of the special role that God has given you in creation because you are created. It says in Hebrews chapter two, a little lower than the angels. You are not as powerful as an angel, but yet you have been bestowed with an authoritative role in creation.

And so in the redemptive purposes of God, God's redeeming you not angels, even when you rebelled, he didn't go and die for angels. He died for you so that you could be restored back to your original purpose in God's world, and that's going to continue to play out. So if you've thought that you're going to die and become an angel, the Bible doesn't teach that the angels are a totally different category, a different type of being. And so Jesus here is encountering a man who is possessed by a demon, and this means that this person is fully owned. Now, how can a demon dwell in a person? Well, it's very clear that you and I, the Bible teaches that we're temples, we're houses, we're tents. You and I are containers for spiritual work. So you have a spirit that gives you the communicative ability. You have the ability to communicate with God because you have a spirit, but you are also a container for either God's spirit or other spirits.

Now, when you're born, you are born in rebellion to God because you have a fallen condition. You have this sinful condition that separates you from God, and you need the work of Jesus to restore you back to him. But no matter what, you're this container, right? You're either going to be filled with nothing, you're going to be filled with a demon or demons, or you're going to be filled with the spirit of God. Those are your three options, okay? Jesus taught, and there's stories where individuals had not just one demon but many demons dwelling in them, and Jesus talks to him, he and the guy says, my name is Legion. He had a whole legion of demons filling his body. In this particular case, it's the singular, the singular demon, and it's causing a physical manifestation here with mutants. Now, as we read, we're going to see more people who they're being filled with demons causes physical manifestation.

This is important for you and I to recognize that the Bible teaches this. It's important for you to understand that you are a house that Jesus has paid for. So when Jesus died on the cross, he paid to purchase you. Once you consent to that purchase, you become the temple of His spirit. I don't hold to the position that you can be the temple of the spirit of God and a temple for demons. At the same time, you can't have demons living in you if you are a follower of Jesus because Jesus owns you. He's purchased you by his blood, okay? If you have not yet become a follower of Jesus, it seems like your fair game, how demons decide who they're going to and how that works. We don't know. The Bible doesn't tell us that part, but it does seem as if the occult and people can kind of open themselves up to demons and kind of invite demons into themselves.

So we'll talk about this some more. I think the thing that you need to see here is that this person being healed in this instance does not require, it doesn't require the man's faith. Jesus here just intervenes. There's no, according to faith, in order for this guy to be healed, when the demon had been driven out, the man who had been mute spoke and the crowds were amazed saying nothing like this has ever been seen in Israel. So we're going to continue to see that Jesus comes in with authority over demonic forces, and they know who Jesus is. Like they're talking back to Jesus saying, tell us what to do, where to go. Please don't give us the final judgment. They know their future, that there's a final judgment that's coming. They know it even faster than Revelation reveals it, which is fascinating. I dunno how they have the inside track on this. Alright, let me conclude with this. You and I have this fallen continue an FCF parts of your week. Were not the Garden of Eden this week, right? You were not living in the garden at points throughout this week. There were things that were painful, frustrating, and yes, the FCF parts of your week were their problems to solve their character building. You were in need of patience and endurance.

But Jesus, the son of David, the king, the Lord has mercy on you, and he patches the holes with his grace. This story is basically two guys that are blind and a guy that's demon possessed having their holes patched. The kingdom of God comes and intersects with their specific need. And when you and I read this, and what I want you to do this week as you're reading the Bible is I just want you to look and see where is this fallen condition that you can relate to? We've got a fallen condition, right? We got stuff that was hard this last week, and we can come to the Lord and say, son of David, have mercy on me. Have mercy on me. You see this. Do you understand that in our culture we are fixers or sometimes we take our fallen condition and we play the role of victim and we tell everybody about our fallen condition so we can milk the system, or we've got our fallen condition and it's just like, you know what? I'm going to just hunker down and I'm going to just charge. But this is the thing is the observation recognizing, oh no, this is my fallen condition that God's allowed for me to experience so that he can patch it with his grace.

You got to recognize it. Recognize your fallen condition. That's my first admonition. The second admonition that I'd give you from this text is this responsive faith. Understand that faith allows you to experience that grace, the meeting of your fallen condition with the kingdom of heaven. That intersection is called grace. When we come to Jesus with our fallen condition, we say, Lord, have mercy on me. I trust you. And what follows is the grace and the kindness of God. Our trust in God gives space. We're almost there. We're almost at that point in the service with worship, but not quite yet. Our trust in God gives space for the experience of grace. So your faith, your faith doesn't earn you the miracle, but your faith provides the context where God can work and where you can experience that grace. It says in Romans chapter five, that we receive grace.

We receive grace through faith we receive. There's only two ways to get grace, humility and faith. Humility is this thing where it says to God, I can't do it. Faith expresses itself by saying, God, you totally can do it. What did Jesus ask them? Do you believe I can? And they said, we believe it, Lord, we believe it. Lord, we come before you. We ask that you would strengthen our faith, that you would strengthen our faith. Lord, would you work in our life? God, would you stir in us? Speak to us, Lord, we ask for that work this week. Pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.

Baptism: Acts 2:22-30

Transcript

Listen, we're going to take a break from Matthew for this morning because as a church, and as I was saying at the beginning of the service, there is just this organic growth. Like right now, my grass needs to be desperately cut in my yard. Some of you don't have a yard, you have a patio in the back. I have a yard and there's grass that's just growing up. That's called being organic. There's this organic spiritual thing that's happening in our church where we're reading through the Bible, we're coming together on Sunday, and without me giving you permission or asking anything of you, stuff's going on in your own hearts. And so the baptism is a part of that. The volunteering and the compassion center is a part of that. The giving is a part of that. There's just a lot of things going on where it's like, hey, this is is the one who's at work. God's the one who's touching your heart. So this morning we're going to do a baptism and I'm going to walk you through just the Book of Acts, the first baptism that the church did. Does that sound good? The first baptism, okay. So what I want you to do is I want you to look in your Bibles at the Book of Acts. So the way that your Bible is organized is you have the New Testament, you have the book of Matthew, mark, Luke, and John. Those are the gospels.

And then you have the Book of Acts. And so we're going to look at Acts 2 22 and I want to get into the thirties. And what we're going to do is, and this might be different for some of you that haven't been to our church before, but we're small enough where there's a little bit of discussion that can happen in here. So if we have questions that come up, that's okay, we can answer some questions because what I want to do is just we believe that the Bible is the word of God and that God speaks to us through the Bible and the way that we do life and do church is based on the Bible. So we're going to just see, well, what does the Bible say? Why do we do baptism? We're going to look at it this morning. Does that sound good?

Does everybody have So I have it behind me. Can you see it? You want me to try to make my, can you see that very well or is it small? Alright. Lemme see if I can make it any, it's as big as I can make the letters. Okay, let's pray together. And what we're going to do when we pray is I'm going to ask for God to speak to us individually. Now, I'm up here talking, but God's spirit is able to speak to us individually in our hearts, and he's able to kind of connect the dots in our brains as we're looking at this to work in our emotions. And so that's what we want to pray. We want to basically give God permission to work in our lives. God, we do yield this time to you. We pray that you would speak to us and that you would teach us.

Thank you for what you're doing in our church. This is exciting. I feel like a spectator as I watch just your spirit working in hearts. Thank you for the obedience of those that are going to get baptized today. I pray that you would just bless them this morning as they take this step of obedience. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. So Jesus dies on the cross, is raised from the dead, and then after 40 days what happens to him? The ascension. That's right. So he's on a mountain with his followers, with his disciples, and all of a sudden he goes up into the clouds and there's some angels that are there and they say, why you look it up in heaven? Go back into Jerusalem. Wait for the promise of the Father. He's going to come again, just like he told you, right? So the disciples go back to Jerusalem and they're praying together for 10 days because all they know is that Jesus told them, wait, excuse me, wait in Jerusalem until the promise of the Father comes, the Spirit is given to you.

Then 10 days later, you have the day of Pentecost. Now, it just so happens that today is a celebration of Pentecost. It's been 50 days since Easter. And on Pentecost, it's a celebration. It's a celebration of the Holy Spirit coming down on those first believers. And now, I don't know, some of you grew up in different church settings, but the Holy Spirit is God's spirit that comes upon followers of Jesus to empower them to be a witness of Jesus. It's not so you have tingly skin or what do you call that? Or magical powers. It's not so that you can turn your fillings into gold or have feathers come down. It's not about that. Jesus was really clear. I'm going to send you the Holy Spirit. And the Holy Spirit is so that you can accomplish the mission, the purpose for why you were saved.

Anyway, this crazy thing happens and all of a sudden the people in Jerusalem hear the disciples speaking about God's glory in their own language. Now, whether they're speaking Aramaic and it's being translated, we don't know, but somehow this crazy God thing happens and everybody there in Jerusalem is hearing about God and they come running together. What is this now? This is in the morning. It's at the temple where everybody's praying. So there's a whole crowd there and there's some people in the crowd going, this is kind of crazy. It's a little, maybe these people are drunk. And so Peter stands up and he goes, listen, it's nine in the morning. That's not usually unless you got a real bad drinking problem, that's not usually when that happens, right? This is actually, God is at work. This is the spirit of God working and empowering his people.

And he quotes from the book of Joel, he says, this was already prophesied about, this was already guaranteed to happen. So Peter becomes the pastor, right? He begins teaching. He has a sermon. And what I want to do is I want to pick it up in verse 22, where he says, fellow Israelites, you Jewish people listen to these words. This Jesus of Nazareth, he was a man attested to you by God with miracles. So in other words, the miracles that Jesus did, those were a testimony. They were a witness to you by God. There was miracles, wonders, signs that God did among you through him and you know it. So God kind of put his stamp of approval on Jesus, the Son, through those miracles. Are you tracking with me? Okay, good. Verse 23, though he was delivered up according to God's determined plan and foreknowledge, you used lawless people to nail him to a cross and you killed him. So Peter, this is called Peter's going for here in this sermon because he's saying you are the ones that crucified him. You're the ones that nailed him to the cross. But that's not the end of the story, is it? Because what happens in verse 24, God raised him from the dead ending the pains of death because it was not possible for him to be held by death. Here's my first question. Thank you so much. I appreciate that.

Thank you. Why was it not possible for Jesus to be held by death when they killed Jesus? Why didn't he stay dead? Because God raised him up because he was the satisfactory payment. So Jesus was perfect. We are not perfect. We've talked about this over and over again as a church. The Bible says that everyone who is born has sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. Now, that doesn't mean that you're all bad. You've done good things this week. There are very good things that you've done this week, but you're not perfect. In fact, the Bible says nobody is perfect. Only Jesus was perfect. And so when he was offered on the cross for our sins, when he died on the cross, it was not possible for him to be held by death. Because what's death? What is death? Wages of sin. That's right.

The wages of sin is death, right? So people whose sin die, right? People whose sin are dying, that was Genesis chapter three. In the day you eat of it, you will surely die. Did they eat of it? Yes. Did they die? They began to die. They didn't just die physically, they died spiritually. They're separated from God hiding in the garden from God's presence. They're separated, their relationships died, right? You had all of a sudden animosity between Adam and Eve because Adam's blaming Eve saying, she fed me. It is her fault. And she's like, well, it's a serpent's fault. They're blaming each other. There was psychological death that occurred because there's shame. So death has reigned through humanity. And so God sends his son Jesus and God attests or bears witness to his son Jesus through these miracles and wonders, he has allowed him. It's according to God's determined plan.

God planned and allowed him to be crucified by lawless people. Nailing him to the cross. But God raised him from the dead. Now, who's this sermon for? Who's it addressed to? The Israelites? So the audience is very Jewish. Are you very Jewish? Last time I checked, there's not many Jewish people that come to this church. Maybe in the future, but not today. Now. So what Peter does when he's preaching this sermon is he goes through and he quotes from the Psalms about what David says, and that Psalm is a prophecy about, listen, Jesus is not going to stay dead. The Messiah who's coming is not going to stay dead. We're going to skip over that and we're going to go to verse 29. So Peter says to these Israelites, he says, brothers and sisters, I can confidently speak to you about the patriarch David. He is both dead and buried and his tomb is with us.

To this day, since he was a prophet, he knew that God had sworn an oath to him to seat one of his descendants on his throne. So this is all Peter talking about the prophecy from Psalms that he's just quoted now, verse 31, seeing what was to come. He spoke concerning the resurrection of the Messiah, and this is the quote again from Psalms. He was not abandoned in Hades and his flesh did not experience decay. So here's what Peter's doing, okay? Listen, Peter is coming to his Jewish brothers and sisters and he's saying, the Messiah was promised to us as a people. Now we've talked about the Messiah, but the Messiah is this Jewish hope, not just a king, not just a prophet, not just a priest, all of it packaged together. It is the hope of the world packaged into one person that's the Messiah.

And the Messiah is prophesied to not stay dead, to be raised. And so Peter's saying, listen, listen, my brothers and sisters the Messiah, Jesus has been raised from the dead. Now, those of you that are getting baptized, this is really important because when I put you in the water in a few minutes, I'm not going to leave you in the water. You should say amen. Amen. Because you don't want to stay in the water. You want to come back out of the water, right? You see, baptism is a reenactment of what God did with Jesus in raising him up from the dead. That resurrection symbolized it was real, but it also symbolized the end of death's reign. And so when you come up out of the water, it is a symbol and it is a reenactment and a testimony to all of us that are watching that death no longer reigns over your body.

You were born a sinner. You have violated God's will and you're guilty before God. But when you prayed and you had that conversation with God and you said, God, I'm ready to repent and turn to you, he forgave your sins. And when you get baptized in a few minutes and you come up out of that water, you're telling everybody else, look at me. Look at what God's done in my life. Death no longer reigns over me. Do you understand that there's pieces of death that has its hold on you. There's pieces of shame that's still there. There's still conflict, but those are just shadows that are fleeing away as God has more and more and more control over your life. Amen? Amen. Should we keep going? Yes, I think we should. Okay. So here it says in verse 32, God has raised Jesus. He has raised not just any because Jesus was kind of a popular name.

So he says he's raised this Jesus, and we're all witnesses to this, okay? We've seen it. Therefore, since he has been exalted to the right hand of God, remember he was raised, Jesus was raised, he's ascended, and now at the right hand of God and has received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit. Okay? So here's the trinity. Okay? So Jesus ascends to heaven. He's seated at the right hand of the Father, right? The Father gives to the Son the Holy Spirit, right here He is received from the Father, the promise of the Holy Spirit. And this is Jesus has poured out what you both see and hear, what you both see and hear. What do they see in here? Remember, he's preaching this sermon. He's preaching this sermon on the day of Pentecost. He's preaching this on the day of Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit has been poured out, he has been poured out.

So what is being said here is that this is the Lord who's poured out the promise of the Holy Spirit and you've seen it. So he's helping these Jewish people to understand this is a work of God. This is the Lord for it was not David who ascended into the heavens, but he himself who says the Lord, it's declared to my Lord, sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool. Here's the second thing you need to understand. This morning David died and his tomb at Peter's time, he's like, you can go and still see his tomb. But Jesus, look what Jesus has done. The Lord declared, sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool.

This is the beautiful thing for all of us, but especially those of you that are going to be baptized today, the enemies to your flourishing, the enemies to the life that God has designed for you to live, he has placed those enemies under the feet of Jesus. Like the footstool. The footstool. That's what the enemies are to Jesus. So there is this beautiful, as you come up out of the water, you're raised to victory. Basically, you're raised to a position of continual victory, one after another after another. Okay? But here's where we get to, okay? So verse 36, therefore, let all the House of Israel know with certainty that God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Messiah. So this is the deal. Now, remember we said broad road, narrow road, right? Tree of Life, tree of Death, curse tree, tree of fruit, all that stuff, right?

We talked about that as a church, and we said He gives freedom, but this is the truth that Jesus is Lord and Messiah. Alright? So here's the fun part. He just told all these people, you killed the Messiah. The Messiah was everything that the Jewish people were waiting for, and he's just told his audience, you killed him. Now, you can imagine that that is kind of a bold thing to say. Here's the response. When they heard this, they were pierced to the heart and they said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, brothers, what should we do? That's the question. What do we do? Okay, so you hear the truth, you hear the truth. And then the question is, how do I respond to the truth? God's been working in some of your lives recently, and you've been discovering that Jesus is Lord and Messiah, that God sent his son Jesus for you, and that he loves you and you're open to it and you've prayed and you've said, I'm ready.

I'm ready to receive. Jesus, what do you do? And so here's the response. Peter replied, repent and be baptized. That's simple. Oh, well, what about the other stuff that all the Christians don't I have to vote this way or that way and I have to stop smoking? Or don't I have to dress up nice to go to church? Peter, what about all that stuff? No. Here's what you need to do with Jesus. You need to repent and be baptized. What's repent mean? Repent means you're going in this direction. And now I'm ready to turn around to Jesus. I'm ready to surrender my life to him. It's the orientation of your life changes. We've talked about this, but then what's the second thing that we do? We get baptized, each of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you'll receive what the gift of the spirit for the promise is for you and for your children, and for all who are a far off. Are we in Jerusalem right now? No, we're not. We're not in Jerusalem. How far away are we from Jerusalem? We are far off.

Peter put you in there this morning. Did you know that he had this sermon for you too? This promise is for you, your children, and for those people over there in Fells Point. Yay. Yeah. Amen. Yeah. As many as the Lord our God will call with many other words. Peter testified strongly urging them saying, be saved. Or in other words, be rescued. What are you rescued from? Death, destruction, sin, all that stuff be saved. Be saved from yourself and from this corrupt generation. So what happened? So that's the message, that's the sermon. What happened? It says, so those who accepted his message were baptized, and that day, about 3000 people were added to them. Do you see that? Isn't that crazy that there were 3000 people that were added to the church in one day? Do you see that? Do you see though that word right here added they were added to the church?

So as you're baptized today, you're being added to the church, not just our haven city church, but to God's big family. And God's family is really big, right? It's awesome. There's some people that are worshiping, they're all dressed up. There's some people that are casual. There's churches in prisons this morning with guys that have come to Christ in prison and they're worshiping in their church. In prison. There are people in Argentina and in Russia and in China and in Mexico and in India, all over the world, people are worshiping. And that's the church that you're added to. That's the family you're being added to. And so it goes on, and this talks about just what they did as a church. They devoted themselves to the apostles teaching to fellowship, to the breaking of bread. Now, how much time passed? Here's my question for you, and I think we need to, whoever's by that door, if we could just bungee that door and close it, because those guys out there don't know that the sound travels in so much.

But how much time passed between this question here in verse 37 and verse 41, when they heard this there pierced to the heart and they said, what must we do? Peter gives a reply. And then verse 41, they're baptized. How much time passes between that? Not a lot. Not a lot. This is the point, okay? This is the point. You don't have to have your act together to come to Jesus. You don't have to have your act together to get baptized. It's a first step. It's a first step. You're not going to come out of that water all shiny and new and be perfect. You're still going to have all the same temptations that you've had, but you have taken a step of obedience before us and you've said, God, I'm yours. I'm yours. I want to obey you. Okay? What we're going to do is I'm going to have those of you that are going to get baptized and need to get changed.

Now is your chance to get changed. If you want to go and use one of those two bathrooms, it's going to take a minute. So I know, Cheryl, you asked for that opportunity. Go ahead and get your stuff and get changed. You're ready to go, Felicia, you're ready to go. I think we got not Barry out there. You guys are going to get baptized too, okay? Go ahead and get changed and get into whatever you want to get into. Just don't get into something skimpy, get into your ahead and get changed so that you're ready to get baptized. And for the rest of us, I'm going to walk you through the rest of this text, alright? When we go into verse 41, and I'm going to give you guys about five or six minutes, five or six minutes to go ahead and get to get changed. When we go into verse 42, when we go into verse 42, what it says is that this group of 3000 Christians, they did four things, four things in this one verse. They devoted themselves to the apostles teaching. What's that? What's the apostles teaching?

Just whatever Jesus taught them, right? They're taking the Bible, they're taking the Bible and they're explaining it to this crowd. So there's Bible teaching. What do we do every Sunday? We spend a little bit of time in the Bible, right? That's why we do it. That's why there's a sermon is because we're looking at the Bible. What's the next thing that they did? Fellowship. Fellowship. What's fellowship is being together, spending time together, being a community, being a family, giving each other. So that's why this has been one of the hardest things for us to do as a church because we're all over the place and we don't have this building. We have this building now. So we have an opportunity after church today for some fellowship around food, alright? Breaking of bread, which is the other part of it. It's eating meals together, right? They're breaking bread.

And then the last thing, what's the last thing that they did? They're praying together, spending time praying together. That's the basics, right? Churches can do that in a bunch of different ways, but those are the basic things. Now, there's some amazing things that I've been seeing after that. So everyone was filled with awe and many signs and wonders were being performed through the apostles. So Jesus is away, but the church is still experiencing these miracles. We've been experiencing some miracles amongst us. One of 'em is that we give away all this food and then the next day it's all back there. That's a miracle. It shows back up the next day. Now, some of you are heavily involved in that miracle where you're actually loading the food or driving the truck or whatever, but it's miraculous the fact that in the middle of inflation and crazy costs of everything, excuse me, that we would have that food. So anyway, there's signs and wonders being done through the apostles. Now, the believers were together. They had everything in common. Can you imagine the unity?

They're having everything in common. There's this family spirit, a good family spirit. They're sharing stuff together even to the fact that they sold their possessions and their property and they distributed their proceedings to all as many as had need. And every day they devoted themselves to meeting together in the temple. It was just was this crazy amazing experience of God just working by his spirit and just leading these people to this crazy generosity into this crazy place of generosity. So what I want to encourage those of you that some of you are watching and you're not ready to get baptized yet, you're just still on a spiritual journey and you're like, I don't know. I'm not sure, that's fine.

But for the rest of us that have been baptized, that are following Jesus, this is the template. This is what we want to be. We want to be these kind of people where we're generous, where we're together, we're praying, we're studying our Bibles together. Super simple, right? Do you know with that template that this was repeated, not just in Jerusalem, but it happened in Ephesus, it happened in Corinth, it happened in Rome, it happened all over in small little towns to the point where so many people in these towns were becoming followers of Jesus, that it upset everybody else. It put the idol makers out of business. It was just this crazy, crazy moment of God working.

So what I want to do is we're going to pray and then going to have those of you that are getting baptized, I'm going to have you come up talk. We're going to kind of interview you guys a little bit, let you share. You don't have to say anything if you don't want to, but if you want to share and talk and share about why you're getting baptized, I'm going to give you an opportunity to do that. And then we're going to make our way out. Alright? Let me pray. Let me pray. Lord, thank you so much for letting us gather together and for being the God who cared about the reign of death over our life and that you were willing to send your son to rescue us from that condemnation and from that place of death.

Lord, we want to be a people that walk in the life that you have for us, the abundant life that you promised. It's promised by your spirit. And so Lord, teach us how to hear your spirit, how to be in tune with the work of your spirit in our life. We ask that your spirit would just work in our midst and we pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Amen. Alright. All right. So for those of you that are getting baptized, and there's some people that are still getting changed, so you got time, keep working on getting changed, but I want the rest of you that are available and that are getting baptized to come on up and just stand up here so everybody can kind of see who you are. Kathy, come on up and stand with me. Right over here. Right here. Everybody else. Who else have we got? Mary, you're going to get baptized.

What I got.

That's fine. We will let you get baptized in what you got on? Come on up. There you go. Come on up, Cheryl. Come on up here. Awesome. Good, good. Okay. Kathy, do you want to share anything?

I do. The reason why I

Decided to give my life to crisis, because I'm would say, God, he provides for you. He gives you the things that you want and he puts you on a high ped store. So at one point in time in my life, I felt as though that I had everything, had a decent amount of money, had a nice home, a lot of things, great jobs, so forth and so on like that. But I was not 100% living for Christ. I had some doubt, some things that I felt as though that should not be happening in the world. And I had my own personal opinion about it. And God said he ripped me from all of that, just instantly. So living from a nice community, nice job, dealing with some other emotional things physically, my body just was going through some stuff. And when he took all that from me, it just made me just like 100% depend on him, just 100% depend on him.

And he led me to the meeting. Some people that led me to the Compassion Center and Smiley, he invited me to come to this church. And then I didn't know that the Compassion Center was there to help me for the time that I needed for to help me. And the church just all was one combined together. So I started coming to church and listening to Josh and the way that he preached and this understanding why things happened the way that they happened. And I knew at that time, the only way for things for me to have peace in my life, peace in my home, peace is just around me, is to follow God 100%. So a lot of things, it was not easy, just had to think about it, make the decision and say, Hey, this is the way that I want to go. When I look at myself in the mirror, I'm not the same person that I used to be last year this time, and I just want to continue on taking this walk with Christ and I know it's not going to be easy and just keep moving from that way.

Amen. Amen. Mary, do you want to share?

I guess a little bit.

Yeah, you can. You have to hold it up to your mouth though.

I lost my husband 2019, my son, 2021, I was in a hole. I went paralyzed on my left side, my left leg. I could not walk. I prayed and prayed. And what my daughter does not understand is I'm not afraid because when you go to get operated on, it's not the surgeon. It's God who is guiding his hand to take care of you. I'm not fully able to walk. I I have two hips that knee down and two knees, but I'm going to there and I'm not letting no one say that I can't do it because it's up to him. And I was told about 30 years ago that I was going to die in a year. I'm still here.

It's the Lord who does it. And I was born Catholic, but talking to Josh and he got on my butt the other day last week. Yes, he did. And he's right because my mind and body sometimes does not work together. My mind says, no, you're not going out that door. But my mind today said, Josh said, get your butt down there and there is a reason for me to come today. And that was to give myself back to God the way I was before. And I pray to him every single day. I talk to him every single day. People think I'm crazy, but I talk out loud to him and not just in my mind, in my heart and out loud to him. He's the one that gives us space.

Amen. Amen. Thank you May Cheryl.

I just, oh Lord, I just want to thank his church for everything. I know there's something missing in my life. I know it's Jesus. I'm happy to have my family join me and my girlfriend. It's been everything to me, and I just want to continue to come here and learn about Christ and live a godly life. And I wanted to thank Josh for having this church and these people that are so understanding and friendly and it's just the kind of church that I feel like I want to continue to come to. Me too.

Me too.

Thanks Trina. And Paul, did you guys want to share why you want to get baptized or a testimony or anything like that? Otherwise, I'm going to have you wait right here because we're going to go out here. Wait right there. Okay. Felicia wants to go last. So is there anybody else that is going to get baptized that wants to share? Okay. Felicia, come on over here. Don't make me cry.

I am here to do a testimony and you're all going to hear me because I'm loud. I'm loud and I'm proud and I'm glad I'm here today because I never wanted to be in church because my dad was a born again Christian and my family was a born again Christian. And I didn't believe that I was righteous enough for my lifestyle to be a Christian. I didn't think God loved me and that reason, I went down the narrow path the wrong way. I ran away from Jesus with one leg. I didn't care. I ran. I hobbled away because I wasn't righteous enough. I was a sinner and I was proud to be a sinner and I'm not proud anymore, but I'm not perfect and I'm here to have a baptism to start over again because believe me, that road was long. It was narrow and it wasn't greener on the other side.

But I learned from that mistake and I'm here to correct it. I'm talking about resurrecting me because I was down on my knees 10 years ago, stricken with cancer at death's door at the gate, and the gatekeeper was Jesus, and I thought everybody else was going to judge me. Jesus is the gatekeeper. I'm at the gate. I'm at my final stages of my life. I'm testifying. Dad's here. Dad's here proud. I'm at the gate, open the gate. I don't care how narrow the gate open is. I'm ready. I'm proud to be at that gate. I'm humble. Jesus kept me here for a reason. I'm not ready to go yet. I'm praying to Jesus. He gives me another 10 or 15 years here. I want to do the righteous thing this time. It's never too late, and I'm here to testify to that. I've had guns put to my head. I've had homelessness, hunger and everything. I'm here. I'm not hungry. I'm not homeless. He listens to people that ask for help and salvation. I'm here. Jesus is here, and he lives. He's the answer. And he is the question.

Amen. Amen. Amen. I love Felicia. Oh man, I just love you. I'm very grateful for you. She came up to me. We were doing what we were doing narrow. We were doing the sermon on the narrow road and the broad path, and she's like, but who's the gate? Who's the gate? I was like, well, look at John 10. Look at John 10. We look at John 10 and what it say, it says, Jesus is like, I am the gate. And she's like, he's the gate. He's the gate. Yeah. Let me in. I love it. I love it. Thank you. I love the fire. One more. Okay. Come on up. It's Bryce. This is Bryce. Bryce. There's some spiritual stuff going on in your life too. Why don't you share with us why you want to be baptized?

I've actually been baptized before when I was 13. It wasn't really my choice. I didn't really know enough about the path back then. And now I'm making an active, knowledgeable choice to do that and step forward and just trying to better myself and stay on the way.

Awesome. Amen. Amen.

Matthew 7:13-23

Transcription

The narrow gate. We as a church are in the book of Matthew. Matthew is one of four books that talks about Jesus, right? So this is in the middle of your Bible a little bit. Maybe the latter third of your Bible starts the New Testament and everything before that has been leading up and preparing for Jesus. And then we get into Matthew, mark, Luke, and John. We're in Matthew seven, so if you have your Bible, you can turn there. Matthew is all about Jesus. And then we've been in this section of the Book of Matthew that's called the Sermon on the Mount, the Sermon on the Mount. It's a famous sermon. Some of the material you'll see in there, you've heard it in pop. You may have never been to church before, but you've heard things from the Sermon on the Mount just by watching TV or reading books or living and breathing in our culture.

So we've been studying through the Sermon on the Mount for the last few months and we're coming to the end. We are at Matthew seven in verse 13, and there's 11 verses 13 through 23 that talk about both the broad path and the narrow gate. And last week we talked about the broad path and some of the characteristics on the broad path that everybody's doing it and it's the easy street and it's the popular place to be, and yet it's the path that leads to destruction. So we looked at the broad path last week. This week we're going to talk about the narrow path. So let's read the text. Let me read the text to you. We'll pray and then we're going to look at it. We're going to study it a bit. I'm going to teach through it, and we're going to be asking God's spirit to really teach us and speak and preach into our hearts what we need to hear this morning.

All right, so starting in verse 13, Jesus says this, enter through the narrow gate for the gate is wide and the road broad that leads to destruction and there are many who go through it. How narrow is the gate and difficult, the road that leads to life? And few find it be on your guard against false prophets who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly, they are ravaging wolves, you'll recognize them by their fruit. Are grapes gathered from thorn bushes or figs from thistles in the same way? Every good tree produces good fruit, but a bad tree produces bad fruit. A good tree can't produce bad fruit. Neither can a bad tree produce good fruit. Every tree that doesn't produce good fruit, it's cut down, it's thrown into the fire, so you'll recognize them by their fruit. Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven.

On that day, many will say to Melo, Lord, didn't we prophesy in your name, drive out demons in your name and do many miracles in your name? Then I will announce to them, I never knew you depart from me, you law breakers. Well, let's talk to God about this for a second. Lord, we're going to read and study through these verses here that you spoke 2000 years ago and you promised that the Spirit would be with us. Even though you're up in heaven, your spirit is with us, and we ask that your spirit would teach us right now. Help us to understand you've been with us this week. You know everything about us, our entire story, the state of our heart and our minds, and we just ask right now that your spirit would teach us. We also want to pray for our kids. We're so grateful that we have a lot of kids and we know, Lord, that being a kid is difficult.

Getting into those teen years is difficult, and man, if they would have a relationship with you from a young age to know the Bible, it would save them so much pain. And so we pray for them this morning as they're studying at their level and they're trying to understand about the Bible, and Ms. Crystal is teaching them this morning, we pray, Lord Jesus, that you would bless them and that their hearts and minds would be open to what you want to teach them as well. And we pray that in Jesus' name, amen. Our upstairs resonant is vacuuming upstairs. So you hear a little bit, that's not some large mouse. That should be just a vacuum. Just a vacuum. Okay, so last week we talked about the broad path. So we're talking about two paths, right? It is just like the matrix. You got the blue pill and the red pill.

Jesus is saying there's two paths, right? And you need to choose, and we talked about the characteristics of the broad path last week and this week we're going to talk about this narrow gate. Oftentimes in culture, we talk about people being on the straight and the narrow. This is one of those Bible ideas that has just jumped off the pages of the Bible and it's embedded itself within our culture. Sometimes it's used to describe, you'll see it in a TV show like Law and Order, where the rigid law, there's a rigid law enforcement officer who has morally upright character and always will play by the book. You're familiar with this character, Lonnie Briscoe, who's the detective Lonnie Briscoe. He was known for having alcohol in his past and just kind of a checkered pass, and he went through recovery and he was sober and he was constantly making this decision that he would be kind of on the straight and narrow.

We might say it's this cultural idea where we talk about somebody who's not living a life that is loose or corrupt or lawless. Instead, that person got their act cleaned up and they're doing the right thing. That's kind of how we use the term culturally. But our question is, Hey, Jesus is the one who said it. So what did Jesus mean? What does it mean when Jesus says that you need to take the narrow gate, that that's the gate that leads to life? So we're going to just look through this, and one of the ways that we like to study the Bible is like, let's just write on the surface. Jesus says right at the opening to take the narrow gate, and then he goes on and he explains it. And so we're going to be kind of like that guy that goes around the beach with the metal detector and he's digging down deep.

Well, sometimes you don't even have to dig deep in the Bible to get what's Jesus. He's just like, Hey, here's right on the surface. Here's the good stuff. Here's what it means to be on the narrow path. So let's look at this together starting in verse 13. It opens up with a command, right? This whole section that we've been studying for two weeks, it opens up with this statement, enter through the narrow gate. Jesus just says the narrow gate, that's the right gate. Now he goes on from there and he gives a substantiation or he explains it because we see this word here. Now, if you're learning to study the Bible, this right here, this is a flag word. Sometimes the word four, it should kind of put off an alarm in your head when you're studying the Bible and you should say, okay, this is a structural law.

This is a grammatical structural law that indicates a substantiation is about to follow. You're like, well, Josh, what are you talking about grammar for? Okay, here's the thing. When the Bible or when in any language, when you're trying to make a case, sometimes you'll make a statement and then you'll back it up with proof, right? When you go to court and somebody charges you with a crime, it's the job of the prosecutor substantiate the claim. Well, Jesus did that in his teaching. Paul the Apostle did that in his teaching. And here Jesus doesn't just say, enter the narrow gate, but he says, let me explain to you why. Let me substantiate for you my claim. So the first characteristic that we see about the narrow gate, it's the right way. It is the one that Jesus says to use, enter through the narrow gate. That's where you're supposed to enter.

But it doesn't only say that it's the proper entrance. It also says some other things. Here it says the gate, there is a wide gate and a broad road that leads to destruction. There are many who go through it, but then we start going to talk again a little bit about the narrow gate, how narrow. He says, how narrow is the gate that leads to life? How narrow is the gate and difficult, the road that leads to life and how few find it. So we see that he doesn't just characterize it as the right gate, but he also, he says that it is narrow. We talked last week about the compassion center, our relief center off Eastern Avenue and how it has just one door and it's like a bottleneck of it's tough to get in and out in Jesus' time. Cities would be built if they had a sense of their setting was precarious and they wanted to guard their city, they would make the gate more narrow so that if they were attacked, only a small number of opponents could get through the gate at one given time.

And so Jesus says that narrow gate is the gate that is difficult and it leads to life. It's interesting how this is. The second idea here is that it's both narrow and that it is difficult. We see that this same idea is recorded in the gospel of Luke. In Luke 13, he says this, not only is it the proper entrance, but he says in Luke 1322, he went through one town. This is speaking of Jesus. He goes through one town in a village after another, one village after another teaching and making his way to Jerusalem. Lord, someone asked him, are only a few people going to be saved? And he said to them, make every effort to enter through the narrow door because I tell you, many will try to enter and won't be able. Once the homeowner gets up and shuts the door, then you'll stand outside knocking on the door saying, Lord, open for us and he will answer you.

I don't know where you are from. And so when this question is posed to Jesus, Jesus says, he's basically saying, no, not everyone will be saved. There are these two paths. There are these two ways of entrance. One entrance is narrow, one is broad, and the narrow path it leads to life, but it is also a difficult path. The question that we then ask is, why would God, the God of love, make it difficult to get in? Why is he the God of love? Why is he leaving people out? If he wants people to be in his kingdom, why does it have to be so hard? Is that a fair question? I agree. Thank you, Felicia. You're always, you always agree with me so

Narrow. Why is he telling us to header if we can't get

In? Exactly. Exactly. We need to

Show effort and police,

Yes, it's

Easy to walk down the road and make the wrong choices, but when you're thinking of that narrow path, you're making better

Decisions. Yes, exactly. 13

Confuses me.

He's telling us, Luke 13, narrow

On the path, but the path is so thin. He wants all his people in the kingdom,

Right? He does. He's a god of love.

Longer and bigger the

Bigger. So can I make the case? Why is it too narrow to get inside? Exactly. Exactly. Okay, so you've set me up. Well, you would think I paid you. I'm sorry, Felicia, I can always count on you. I don't know. I know that's why we're studying this together, right? Because it looks like it's like, wait, you're the God of love. God so loved the world that he sent his only begotten son so narrow. But why is it narrow? Okay, good. Thank. Okay, so let's look at this for a second. First of all, when we look at the Bible, we see that God, in Psalm 19, it says that God makes it clear that he exists. Now, does everybody believe that God exists? No. No, not everybody. There are people that are atheists and agnostic, and atheist is someone who is absolutely sure they believe. They're absolutely sure that God does not exist.

And there are people that are agnostic who are say, I don't think that it can be determined that God exists. And yet Psalm 19 says that God makes himself known. He makes it clear that he exists through creation. You should be able to look at creation and the design of creation. Does anybody ever go along and let's say you found in a field a Rolex watch. Do you look at that Rolex watch and go, man, I'm glad there was a big bang, and that thing just evolved into being a Rolex watch out here in the middle of the field. Is that your response? No. We look at the design, right? We look at the design of that watch and we go, somebody designed it. And so when we look at the intricacy, some of you are in the medical field, and you look at just how the eye works and what it can take in.

Right now, we're in the middle of the AI boom with technology and the processing power, the more powerful we can make these computers and the compute power is going to translate over to the speed in which these large language models can process the prompts that are put into the ai, and we're trying to scale up the processors. The amount of data that the optical nerve can receive and process is mind boggling. And yet there are people who want to say that, Hey, it just happened. It just kind of evolved into that state. The Bible in Psalm 19, it says that God made it clear through creation that he exists. So it should not be difficult to acknowledge that there is a God. But not only that, he left a witness. He picked a people called the nation of Israel, and he worked miraculously on their behalf.

He kind of held them up as a trophy and said, this is what it looks like to be my people, and you're all invited to follow my covenants, my law. He set up that nation. He said he built into the nation of Israel laws that said, welcome in the non, non Hebrews, the aliens are welcome. Let him worship. Let him be a part of what's going on as my, so he left a witness with a, and then God sent prophets to speak on behalf century after century. So God makes himself known, and he is the God of communication even before Jesus comes on the scene. But then finally, Jesus does come on the scene 2000 years ago, and one of the names of Jesus is that He is the word of God. That word in Greek is the logos in Greek logos is not just, he's just like a phrase.

He's not just like a slogan of God to be the logos. The word of God means to be the full expression of God. Jesus came to the world to be the full expression of God, and he's communicating through the Sermon on the Mount, he's preaching these message. He's saying, here's what the kingdom of heaven is. Here is the offer. Then, if it wasn't enough for him to just communicate about the kingdom of Heaven, he goes to the cross sacrifices his own life on our behalf so that people, he didn't even interact with face-to-face could be forgiven and accepted into the family of God. So God has done all of this to clear the path. So why is the path difficult? The reason why the path is difficult is because of human nature. Human nature. Maybe somebody comes along and says, well, maybe it's narrow and difficult because of all the steps you have to take. Maybe that's what Jesus is talking about. Maybe there's some manual Yes, man, is it

Because,

Yeah, yeah. That human nature. Yeah. You're kind of jumping ahead of me. You're preaching my sermon, but you're right. No, no, no, that's that's right. That's right. Yes, Felicia. I

Think it comes down to free wheel and free choice. It gives you the choice, the narrow path or the harder

Path. You

Choose the right path. You go to heaven. If you choose the wrong best, you go to hell.

Good. I, I think you're right. I think you're right. It not, but some people think of, well, to become a, maybe it's like one of those big fat user manuals, or it's like an Ikea, put it together where it's just like, if this ever going to end, one time I moved and I spent 10 days doing Ikea furniture. It was like purgatory. It was the worst thing ever, right? But no, look at this. Look at, you're right. You guys are both right. That it is the human condition that because God's done everything he can do. Here's this beautiful thing. If you go over to Isaiah, right in Isaiah, God tells the nation of Israel, he's like, you guys are like my vineyard. I plowed the ground. I weeded it. I put a whole fence around the thing. I put a tower in the middle of it so a guy can watch out for the enemies.

I've done everything that I could do to make you a beautiful vineyard, and yet you're bearing bad fruit. And that comes down to that human, that freedom that God's given to everybody and the ability to choose what is bad. But look at these verses. This is in Acts which comes, it's a fifth book of the New Testament. This is an interaction with the Apostle Paul. You probably heard of the apostle Paul. He was a follower of Jesus, and some people asked him, sir, what must I do to be saved? That's the question. How am I to be saved? Can I be rescued? How can I be forgiven of my sins? How can I enter into the kingdom of heaven? Right? That's the question. Here's what Paul said. Believe in the Lord Jesus and you'll be saved. Where's the big fat manual in that there is none right?

The way to be saved. Is it that easy? Is it that easy? That's what it says. It says, believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved, you and your household. Wow. Is that just a fluke? Maybe that, is that all in the Bible? Well, let's look at another verse. Look at Romans 10. Romans 10, nine. It says, if you confess with your mouth, Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised him, who? Who are we believing? That God raised Jesus? Jesus. If we believe that God raised him from the dead, you will what? Maybe saved. No, you will be saved.

And that's why the road is so narrow, because you don't need as much baggage.

It's simple. Maybe that's right. That's a good point. Yeah. Maybe it is that simple. Maybe it's narrow because there's a simplicity about it, and it's just difficult because of the human will. Jesus is talking about when he says that the gate is narrow and the path is difficult. What's he talking about? There it is the human experience. Here it is. Here's what I put down in my notes. It's our nature that makes it difficult. We're our worst enemy sometimes, right? Anybody been your own worst enemy? Oh man, I'm good at that. It's also the people around us make it difficult and the brokenness of systems and

Everybody don't choose the

Right path. That's right. That's right. Because the broad path is the popular path, right? And Jesus is saying though, this path, this straight and narrow path, this is the one that leads to life. I want to show you a picture. This is a, does anybody know this guy? This from Baltimore. This is WMAR too. Did a little story about Justin Wilkes. He lives off Wilkins Avenue, and he responded to the mayor's office of Neighborhood Safety, and there was a letter that was put because there were some shootings that had gone on in the neighborhood over there, and they put out leaflets and just kind of encouraging the residents there to choose something different from violence. It says in the article, he says, I was about to go back to hustling. I wasn't working. It was hard for me to get a job. I was about to give up and go back to something I knew.

In this article, it talks about how Wilkes chose it. Literally, they use the phrase, the straight and narrow path. He made a decision that he would not do what is widespread in his neighborhood there, the path of violence, the path of hustling on the corners. Sometimes life is hard, and there is the easy street like we talked about last week, and difficulty comes up. We see this in the parable of the sower. Remember when Jesus talked about the guy who sowed the seed, and there's some plants that grew up, but then were choked out? Look at this one group. He says, the one who's sowing on the rocky ground, that seed that was sown on the rocky ground, this is the one who hears the word. They immediately receive it with joy. They're excited. They're like, oh, yeah, I want to hear about Jesus. That's awesome.

They receive it with joy. It's like the little plant starts to come up, but that plant has no root. Like they haven't read their Bible. They don't understand how the Bible affects him. They're not going to church. They're not hearing the sermons. They're not understanding it right? When distress or persecution comes because of the word, immediately he falls away. Here's the thing. Here's the thing. Life can be difficult. And Jesus is saying there is this narrow gate that you need to enter through, and that is the path it leads to life. But you need to understand that that is also a difficult path. These types of things happen, and there are those people who initially they choose, I'm going to go down that narrow path. They face difficulty and they fall away. I spoke to one of my friends this week. He's in his fifties.

His life has been turned upside down over the last couple of years, and he's facing a set of moral dilemmas that are normally faced in your late teens and early twenties. It's like he's had just a reset on most of his life, and basically he's facing a series of choices over what door, what path he wants to walk through, and you all are in those that kind of place too. We are all making a decision. Ultimately, what are we going to do today? Are we going to follow Jesus? Are we going to take that narrow path, that path, and we're going to use our autonomy and our freedom to choose Jesus? Or are we going to use our autonomy to take the broad path? So we've seen that the narrow gate, it's the right entrance, it's narrow and it is difficult. Let's keep going. We also see in our text, the narrow gate leads to life in the kingdom of heaven.

Super simple, right? We said we were going to keep it simple. In verse 14, he says that this road, this narrow road leads to what? It leads to life. It leads to life. And if we jump over to verse 21, he's talking about these people knocking on the door who are claiming to have done things in His name, and they want to have this entrance into the kingdom of heaven. So this whole section here, these 11 verses are talking about the entryway into life, the entryway into the kingdom of heaven. If you don't choose God's way, you're choosing the path of death. The narrow gate leads to life, and it is the entrance to the kingdom of heaven. Look at this awesome verse. Can you look at this? Look at this. Let's read this out loud, right? Let's read it out loud together. Jesus says, I have come so that they may have life and have it in abundance. Isn't that awesome? Who wants abundant life? Nobody, right? Yeah. I want abundant life. Jesus came. That's right. Jesus came so that we would have life and that more abundantly, there's one of my favorite.

Jesus is instructing. He's instructing the crowd, inviting them to find life. The Bible describes the Bible, describes the human experience. When you're separated from God, if you have not yet received Jesus, then you're not a friend of God. You can't be in a relationship with God if you've rejected Jesus, and if you have not entered through the narrow gate, then you, the Bible describes you as a dead person walking, okay? Do you hear that? If you have not accepted Jesus, then the life you're living is you're alive, but you're dead. One of my favorite Christian movies is the Pirates of the Caribbean.

You didn't know I was a Christian movie. It had to have been written by a Christian because you've got the pirates. The pirates who look like you and me, right in the normal day, but in the light of the moon, what happens? They look like this. And so here's Barbosa. He says, I the gold. 10 years we've been searching for it, and when we finally set hands on that treasure, we cursed ourselves. You see, the moonlight shines so clearly through our bodies. The food we eat won't nourish us, nourish us. The drink won't quench us. We are cursed men. Ms. Turner condemned to eternal torment and hunger. Elizabeth replies, this is a nightmare. And Barbosa says, welcome to the Caribbean, my love.

That is who you and I are. When we are separated from God. If you're on the broad path, if you're on the broad path, then you are a dead person walking, but you're invited. You're invited to have that curse broken over your life through Jesus so that you can have life and that more abundantly. Jesus came, died on the cross, rose from the dead so that you and I could have life. He canceled the curse and brings life within. He says, listen, the kingdom of hand, it's at arm's length. It's right there. It's ready for you to take a hold of and receive. So we've seen that the narrow gate, it's the right entrance. It's narrow and difficult. It offers a life and an entrance into the kingdom of heaven, and then the narrow gate leads to good fruit. I've been tripping out on this in a good way.

This whole fruit thing, man, I am just seeing it all over the Bible right now. When I'm reading the Bible in the mornings, it's like you and I are designed to bear fruit. And here's the thing, you don't even have a choice. The Bible says you're either bearing good fruit or you're bearing bad fruit. And we see here in verses 16 to 20, he says, you'll recognize them by their fruit. Here's the thing, remember just 14, 15 verses before this, you had Jesus saying, don't judge lest you be judged. Now, that same Jesus is saying, listen, evaluate their fruit. So when Jesus says, don't judge, what he's saying is, don't condemn people as like you're going to hell. There's you are hopeless. No. So he's saying that in verse 1, 7 1. What he's saying here is, look at people's lives. Look at the fruit coming from people's lives. You'll recognize them by their fruit. Are grapes gathered from thorn bushes and figs from thistles? Try to say that five times fast in the same way. Every good tree produces good fruit, but a bad tree produces bad fruit. That makes sense, right? We've got a couple of landscapers in here. Good fruit comes from good trees. Bad fruit comes from bad trees.

But if you nurture the soil, it won't.

If that bad tree is bad, is going to be bad fruit. You are not changing that bad. If you got a weed in your yard, Loretta, change it. What? You can

Always feed organic

Food and change the tree. You think? Yeah, I don't know. We'll have to go gardening together. You and me go Gardening. The fed fruit can turn into good fruit. Yes, that's right. If we jump over the metaphor, yes, you cut the fed piece off and store fresh, okay? Okay. Yes. Jesus has opened up a can of worms here amongst us. We have a good debate going over good and bad fruit. Let's see what he says. In 19 and 20, every tree that doesn't produce good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire, so you'll recognize them by their fruit. Here's the thing, and we are totally out of time, otherwise we could keep going, but Jesus says, look, you're designed. We are designed to bear fruit, and he says, you're a branch in God's vineyard. You just need to abide in me. Take your life connected to me.

Be in me, be in relationship with me, and your life will produce fruit, which is awesome because the very last thing that he says here is that the narrow gate means obedience because of a relationship with God. I'm just going to show you this verse because we've run out of time, and I promised you that we would close and not do church all day, but he says, not everyone who says to me Lord, Lord will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven. On that day, many will say to me, Lord, Lord, didn't we prophesy in your name drive out demons in your name or do many miracles in your name? All that stuff's good, right? But here's the point. Here's the point that Jesus is making. You did the good stuff, but they were not in relationship with him.

He says, then I will announce to them I never knew you depart from me. You lawbreakers. Do you see, this is the key word. This is the key word for you and I. It's relationship. We are designed to be in relationship. Fruit of our life comes from relationship who you're in relationship with. The good thing about us humans. So you go and you get in relationship with God. The good fruit comes from us, the other in landscaping and trees and all of that. Horticulture, thank you. Thank you so much. Yes, in that arena, so whoever has to listen to the audio of this is going to be like, what? They're only going to hear half the conversation, right? Here's what Jesus says, listen, you need to be in relationship with me. So Jesus here in his teaching, he's honoring your freedom. He's not forcing you and I to do anything.

He's saying, you're loved. You're invited into the kingdom of heaven. You're invited into relationship. He's not even saying, listen, you need to go and do all these. Check the boxes on behavior. He's like, I just want you to obey. I want you to have behavior that flows from relationship, relationship. That's the invitation of this text this morning. If you don't hear anything else this morning, know that Jesus is here making it very clear from a position of love, inviting you into a relationship with him, and some of you are there. You're just starting out. You're like This Jesus thing, this church thing. This is crazy. They're giving away all this food, and how does that fit in? Listen, if the only thing that you understand from this morning is you are invited to be in relationship, to be that branch that's connected to the vine, let's pray together.

Lord, we thank you for your word. There's so much here. There's more than we could ever cover in 35 minutes together, and God, I just pray for each person here, thank you for the freedom that they have, the love that you have for each person in this room. Thank you for dying on the cross for our sins and rescuing us, wanting to rescue us. Lord, I pray for anyone here that doesn't know you, that Lord Jesus, you would work in their hearts and minds. There's some stuff here to ask. There's some good questions that we're wrestling with here this morning about your love and that freedom and all of that stuff. God, I pray that you would be answering. You'd be the God that just answers the questions this week and that you would just open up spiritual eyes and that people would be just taking that next spiritual step of following you. Thank you for the ability to take communion together too, and pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.

Matthew 7:7-12

Transcription

So if you are new to the Bible, you're going to want to turn to the middle and turn right. Matthew is the first book in the New Testament. The New Testament starts with the life of Jesus. And then everything that happened from the life of Jesus on the Old Testament is the story of Israel and how God worked in the nation of Israel and primed the world for the Messiah to come through the nation of Israel. So the Bible is about Jesus. The Old Testament talks about what happens before Jesus. The New Testament talks about Jesus and what he's done for the world. So we as a church are going through one of the books in the New Testament called Matthew, and Matthew is just recounting and telling the story of Jesus and Jesus's teaching. So we're in this famous section called the Sermon on the Mount.

Have you ever heard of the Sermon on the Mount? Show of hands? A few of you, yes. Okay. So Jesus, this is a teaching that Jesus gave to a crowd sitting by the Sea of Galilee. So he's about 30 years old and he's been teaching in these Jewish sites called synagogues all around this region of Galilee. That's a big body of water. There's these little towns along around this big giant lake and Jesus has been teaching from town to town and he's been healing people. So he's becoming popular and people want to know where's this guy get his power from? And he's teaching with authority. So there comes a point where Jesus teaches from a hillside this message. So we are over two thirds of the way through this because it starts in chapter five. We're in chapter seven. It goes, and one of the things that we've seen is that Jesus is describing the society, what he calls the kingdom that he's bringing to account, that he's bringing into the world. So we've talked about these parallel kingdoms, the idea of how we live in America and we kind of have our culture and there's a lot of things that make up our culture that we have subcultures within the American Western culture, but we generally have just kind of like western society or western culture. Well, Jesus comes in and he says, I'm bringing to bear, I'm bringing onto the scene the kingdom of Heaven. And he's the king of that kingdom, but he has a kingdom, doesn't just have a king, but it also has a value system.

It has an ethic of what's right and what's wrong. And so Jesus has been teaching all about his kingdom throughout the Sermon on the Mount. So we're in chapter seven last week. We looked at this whole idea of judging and we looked at that famous verse that says, judge, not lest you be judged. And we kind of walked through that text. Now we're getting into this section about prayer, which is a section just about talking to God. We talked about prayer already one time, but this is going to kind of cover some new parts about prayer, super practical. So all of us, at any point in the day, the amazing thing about prayer is that you can talk to God anywhere. You could be in prison, you could be locked up and you could be stuck in traffic and you could talk to God. You could be waiting in the grocery store at Walmart in those long lines that they have, and you could talk to God, right?

Yeah. And so Jesus is like He is a great teacher, all about prayer. And the great thing about the last book that we studied together as a church was Hebrews, is that Jesus' full-time job is to help you and I be spiritually connected to God the Father. That's his full-time job. So Jesus is deeply invested, right? What's your full-time job? Maybe you're a student. Maybe you're looking for a full-time job. Maybe you work for the government or maybe you, whatever it is, whatever your full-time, Jesus has a full-time job, but he never clocks out his full-time. Job is to help you and I be close to the Father. He's even tells us, look, there's a throne. It's a throne of God's grace that God sits on. And he says, I want you to boldly approach that throne. I want you to come into the presence of God and just be able to talk to God, not like a shy little mouse, but with boldness.

Like you can talk to your heavenly Father about anything that's on your heart, if you're upset, if you're angry, if you're confused, all that is with inbounds because of who Jesus is, what he's done. Okay? We're going to get to that in just a second. I'm going to explain a little bit. I'm going to use my iPad and draw up here the three circles so that you can kind of understand how this all works together. But let's, first, let's look at this text. Now imagine that you are a parent, okay? Imagine that you're a parent and you have little Susie or little Jimmy comes to you and says, could I have some bread? Or he says, could I have a tuna fish sandwich right now, any kind of parent, you don't really have to be a special kind of parent to feed your kid, right?

Take for just as an opposite example. Here's a parent, a sadistic parent who this poor boy has asked his dad for some bread and he's feeding him some stones, or this parent who's decided instead of giving his child a fish, he's giving him a snake to eat. No parent would do that, right? That would be horrible. I've worked with a lot of parents where the bar's really low and we've got some parenting issues in this city, but pretty much most of the parents I run into at least are trying to get their kids some food.

Well, Jesus is going to borrow from that image of what's just common sense to explain your heavenly Father. But here's the thing, here's the thing. Some of you, in your own experience of talking with God, you may feel like that's how God is, that you've asked for things and instead you're getting back snakes and rocks, and Jesus is coming into your world and into my world and he's saying, listen, I want you. It's really important for you to understand who God is when you come and pray, when you come to talk to him. So let's read over this text together and then we're going to try to understand it better. See what Jesus is talking about. So Jesus is this. He says, ask and it will be given to you. Seek and you'll find knock and the door will be open to you. For everyone who asks, receives, and the one who seeks finds and the one who knocks the door will be opened.

Who among you, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, we'll give him a snake. If you then who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your father in heaven give good things to those who ask him? Therefore, whatever you want others to do for you, do also the same for them. For this is the law and the prophets. Let's pray for a second and let's ask God to help us understand this text. God, we pray and ask your son, Jesus taught this to his followers. It's recorded for us, and now we're reading it and we ask that your spirit help us to understand these things and apply them in our lives, and we ask this in Jesus' name, amen.

When we look at a text like this, there's a number of different objections that people come up with. The first objection may be this objection around unanswered prayer. You may say, I've asked for things in prayer and I haven't received them. Why didn't God answer my prayer? People may feel like their experience contradicts this promise of receiving what they've asked for. Other times, people struggle with this idea of understanding God's will. What should I ask for? And then other times people are wrestling with the idea of timing. I've been seeking and knocking for a long time. People will say, and yet there is no answer. God will not respond. The issue of divine timing versus our expectations can be a significant hurdle for our faith. And then the nature of good gifts, that's another objection that people have. What exactly are the good things that God gives?

So let's look at this because this is part of Jesus's teaching, part of teaching on prayer. If we were going to break this text down, verses seven and eight is this command to ask to seek and to knock. And then there is an explanation around it of here's who that person who does this, here's who they will be. And then in verses nine through 11, we have this earthly illustration that makes the point all that much more clear. And then verse 12 is this famous what we call the golden rule. Let's look at verses seven and eight. Ask, seek and knock. So Jesus, look what he says. He says, ask and it will be given to you. Seek and you will find knock and the door will be open to you. So Jesus is teaching. Imagine Jesus is up on a hillside and he's teaching his disciples to ask and to seek and to knock, and do you see what he promises?

What does he say will be for the one who asks? What are they going to have? It will be given to them. If you seek, what are you going to find? You're going to find, right? You're going to find and if you knock, what do you get? The door will be open. This is one of those where I've said to you, sometimes I feel like Jesus is a bit or God himself is overextended in his promises because all of a sudden you go like, wait a second, can I ask for anything? What if I want the Lamborghini that is that included in this picture? Can I ask for a mansion? And so it's like, what is Jesus doing here? Well, first of all, we've got to remember the context. Who's He teaching? It says in Matthew five, one and two that it's his followers that he's teaching.

So there is probably the crowds that are listening to this, but Jesus is specifically teaching people who have committed their life to him, so they're in a relationship with Jesus. There is a loyalty and commitment and really a surrender. You know what the word surrender means? When one nation is at war with another and they decide to surrender, they give up their stake in the fight and they throw up the white flag and they say, I surrender. That's kind of the relationship that a follower of Jesus needs to have where you say, I surrender to you God that you would win in my life. I'm giving my life over to you. Jesus is teaching those kind of people to pray and he's saying to those people, I want you to be the ones that are asking and the ones that are seeking and the ones that are knocking. One of the things I think that's surprising to me, and tell me if this is surprising to you, you go through this teaching by Jesus and the spirituality that Jesus is teaching is very proactive.

It's pushing into this spiritual realm beyond this position of just kind of like Buddhism. Buddhism is very much be water and just kind of flow, right? Is that right? You have a background in this is my Buddhist expert down here. He studied Buddhism quite a bit, right? And it's very much like passive. Whereas here Jesus is saying, no, I want you to be askers. I want you to be seekers. I want you to be knockers. And then he's attaching. And still this blows my mind every time I see it. I mean I've seen this for I am 42 and I've seen this for a long time, and yet it blows my mind that he says it will be. It's not. It might be it will be.

You will find the door will be opened to you. Now, I am naturally skeptical and so I come to God and I read these things and I think of purchasing a car and all the 15 pages of fine print of like, I'm sure God, when you wrote this, there's some page in the Bible with all the fine print where it's like I'm missing something where that kind of explains away how this can't mean what it says and our human tendency, why do we want to expect that? Because we want to protect ourselves, right? When we read this, rather than just taking it for what it says, we want to look for the fine print in the exceptions to the rule so that it doesn't mean this grand like ask, seek and knock, but Jesus doesn't just say this here. He says this many times to his disciples.

If you take all of the times, Jesus teaches about prayer in Matthew. And then another book about Jesus is the book of Mark and then Luke and John, those are four different books that are telling the story of Jesus and his teachings. All of those books give these kind of promises and they should push us as followers to be actively asking, seeking and knocking with full expectations that God's going to work. So he says, I want you to ask. I want you to seek and I want you to knock. And then if this wasn't enough, he has another part of the teaching and he says, for everyone, everyone who asks, receives and the one who seeks finds and the one who knocks the door will be opened. This is a substantiation where he is just coming along and he's saying, why am I telling you to do this? I'm telling you this because the one, everyone who is an asker is also a one who receives, and the one who's a seeker is one who finds and one who's a door knocker is the one who has the door opened to them.

So Jesus presenting his kingdom a saying, come and live in my kingdom with me. Come be a follower of me. Come let me wash away your sin. Come let me just adopt you into my family. Let me just give you fresh vision and give you eyes to see how I designed you. Let me love you and bring you into this new kingdom. This is who I want you to be living in my kingdom, asking, seeking and knocking. You got to have a tender heart. You can't be the skeptic. You got to just go with God and let him reveal what this means. Okay, so you come back at me and you're like, but I've prayed and God didn't answer that prayer. I asked for this and it didn't happen, and how does this reconcile with the lived experience? I don't fully know. I know that in James, James says that you don't have certain things in your life because you don't ask, and then there's other times where you're asking for stuff, but you're asking for it so that you're asking for it.

He says, this is James for if you want to look it up, he says you're asking for it in the wrong way because you just want to use it, right? You want to use it for in a selfish way. So there are reasons why God maybe says no, but Jesus here he is not dealing with that In this text here, he really wants you and I to be asking, seeking and knocking. Then he's going to illustrate it. He's going to illustrate it by saying this. Who among you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? Right? Who's going to do that? Or if he asks for a fish, we'll give him a snake. The clue. Here's the idea, the clue to understanding our struggle with prayer. It doesn't lie in the method, but it lies in the relationship. Jesus is bringing forward this idea of this. He's your father. You are a daughter or a son in this kingdom, and God is going to deal with you according to his kindness.

If

We go back here in verse 11, he says, if you then who are evil? Now, when you hear that, does that kind of rub you the wrong way that you're evil here? Jesus is saying if you being evil and then he's going to make his point. But doesn't that hurt a little bit? Here's what Jesus is saying. You're not perfect. You don't line up with God's standard of holiness. The Bible teaches that none of us are that all of us have sinned. We've all fallen short of God's perfect standard. Now, are there people who are more evil and more wicked like a Hitler than others? Yeah, there are, but Jesus is saying, look, you generally are just selfish. You're generally bent towards sin and yet, and your parents were, and yet they fed you. He says, if you are evil and you know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your father in heaven give good things to those who ask him?

Do you see how he lays out the logic here? He's moving you from just this earthly layer. He's taking you from where you are at and your relationship with your parents and maybe the way that you parent your kids. He's saying, look, if you provide for your kids, how much greater is your heavenly Father that he wants to give you the good things? Your Father in heaven will give you good things to those who ask him. This is the kind of logic that the New Testament use all throughout. If this is your normal experience with parenting, how much more so is God a good heavenly Father?

Listen, the teaching here from Jesus is simple. Assimilating it into your experience is difficult because you and I have gone through things in our life that are painful and it is easy for us to associate those things with God saying, God, if you are a good heavenly Father, why would you let that happen to me? Why would you let me get sick? Why would you let that person treat me in this way? Why would you let me make that mistake over here? And it is easy to stack up these things in our minds and say, well, if God's good, why would he allow this to happen? Well, the Bible addresses that. The book of Job is the most important philosophical treaties on this. You look through the book of Job and one of the things that you see is that God allows people who are generally good to be tempted by Satan and to go through difficult things.

It's a horrible account, this thing that God allows job to go through. And yet at the end of the story Job, in his conversation with God, job has held onto his faith through a very difficult trial, and God answers job's questions in a sense, or basically responds back to all of the angst that Job feels. And God just says, look, I'm bigger than all of this stuff, and rewards Job for his integrity having gone through his trial and blesses him like 10 times more. But it's a process where the goodness of God is in question through his life. Jesus is teaching, Hey, listen, the world that you live in is broken, but my people, I'm calling my people to be asking, seeking and knocking. What has Jesus been doing? Why does Jesus have this huge crowd that's listening to him on a mountain side because he's been teaching and he's been healing, he's been taking people who are injured and sick and suffering, and he has been doing these miraculously good things and he's anticipating the breaking out of his kingdom just completely overruling the darkness in the world.

And then he says, I'm here. Jesus comes on the scene to basically rescue broken, hurting, sinful humans from evil and bring them into his kingdom. What I want to do is I want to spend a minute just kind of drawing out for you what this looks like. So I'm going to take over the screen, Hayden with my iPad, and I'm not sure if we'll be able to get it back for the last song, so if you just be ready to move forward. But what I want to do is I want to draw for you the three circles. So let me find a blank page here. And if somebody asks you comes to you and they just ask you, how do I have a relationship with Jesus? This is one of the easiest ways to explain it, and I want to explain to you, how does prayer fit into this?

Because sometimes the Bible, if you just have a Bible, it looks gigantic and kind of confusing, and you're like, what's going on here? What is all of this stuff? So this is what this diagram is called, the three circles, and I'm going to put up here in this left hand circle a heart, and this circle represents what you long for when you wake up in the morning or when I was driving into the city, there's this just beautiful sunrise and there's this sense of, yeah, that is just beautiful when you're loved by somebody else and you have that sense of being accepted and welcomed in, there's a sense of, yeah, this is what life is about. This is what's good.

The reason there's a heart there is because being loved is so central to who we are as humans, and we're going to call this God's design. When you look at the Bible, especially the first two chapters of the Bible, what you see is that God created the world and it was really good. It was like everything that you long for, of being loved and being in good, healthy relationships, and there's no more pain and death. That's how God designed the world. But at the same time, our lived experience is not over here in God's design. Instead, we live in this world where there's brokenness and brokenness would include pain, it would include sickness, death, what else? What else would broken relationships hurt?

Scars, hate. Yeah, all of that is very real, right? This is where we want to live. This is what we know. This is what we feel like we were designed for, was this world of love, of acceptance, of purpose. And yet, for so many of us, our experience has been this experience of deep pain. The Bible says that while we were created to live according to God's design, the first humans and every human since them have actually ran away from God's design in rebellion away from God. Here's a guy, he's running as fast as he can, little stick man, and this is called, this is what the Bible calls sin. It's just basically running away from God's design in disobedience, not living how God designed us, but instead living over there. And our experience is just, everything's broken. Now, nobody wants to live a broken life. Nobody wants to hang out over there with hate and death. And so the human experience is how do I get back to God's design? And one of the things that we see is that people are trying really hard. People will run hard by, maybe it's through romance, romance or maybe it's through drugs trying to run away from their pain, alcohol. Maybe it's work, maybe it's religion.

People are running away trying to run away from their pain, but the further they make these efforts, the further they're getting away from God's design. The Bible teaches that this is the human experience, but God didn't make the world to be like this, to be stuck in this place. And so the Bible says that God sent his son Jesus. He sent him down into the world, his only begotten son, and Jesus died on the cross. And the reason Jesus died on the cross was because this sin is legal guilt. So there's an accumulation of guilt. This is the punishment, and this guilt needs to be taken away. It has to be dealt with. And God's like, look, I want you to live over here, but you can't fix it because look it, the more you try to fix it, the more you're running away from God.

So he sent Jesus into the world. Jesus died on the cross. The cross was a death. Jesus died the death that you and I should have died. But Jesus, when he died, because he was perfect, he was the substitute payment for our guilt. We have an accumulation of guilt. Jesus took on himself our guilt so that we could be reconciled back with God. So the only way to return back to God's design is through Jesus. Why do Christians talk so much about Jesus? It's because Jesus is the answer. Jesus is the answer to all of the sin and the death and the brokenness that we've brought into the world that we've brought on ourselves. And so the response to this is to do two things. One is to repent. That means that you're ready to turn away, you're ready to turn away from your guilt, and you're ready to believe in Jesus.

Those are the only things. Now you say, well, what about cleaning up my act? I have to get rid of my drugs, or don't I have to stop lying? Yeah, those things are good to do, but the only thing that's going to reconcile you back with God is if you are willing to repent and believe in Jesus and make him the king. Let's put a crown here. Let's put a crown on Jesus. Make Jesus the king in your life the reason, look, you and I can't fix it. We've tried to fix it. Chased relationships, drugs, alcohol, jobs, religion, all kinds of efforts to fix the problem. Once you believe in Jesus, he begins to take you and restore you back to God's design. Some of you have gotten there where you're like, you've gotten to that point and you decide, okay, I'm ready. I'm ready to repent and believe in Jesus.

Here's what I want you to know this morning. If all of this kind of passes you by and it's like, I don't know about this church thing and I don't know what's going on, but you know this, that your life is characterized by pain and death and suffering. Jesus is speaking to you through the Bible this morning and he's saying, listen, I've made a way for you to have a relationship with me, and I want you to talk to me. I want you to seek, I want you to ask. I want you to knock because I haven't left you here. I came into the world to restore you back to this place. And for those of us that have made that decision, we are on a journey where we have a bit of it now, where we're experiencing God's design a little bit. We get into this space here, and there's people, this hopefully is a place where you're loved and you're accepted and it's like, yeah, maybe you had a bad attitude this last week.

Maybe you got in trouble this last week. Maybe things were not good, but you're loved here. It's a little taste of the amazing future that we have because of what Jesus has done for us on the cross. The invitation is yours. Jesus comes along and he makes this invitation clear to his followers. He says, listen, I want you to be restored back to this place of love. If you'll just accept it in a minute, we're going to take a communion, communion for the church. This is, it's like a symbolic meal. It's a meal that we share together. Remembering what Jesus did here on the cross, how he died for us on the cross, and he was raised to give us new life. I want to invite you as you take the communion elements that if you have not yet had that conversation with God, where you say, I'm ready to turn from my sin and I'm ready to believe, then now's the time to do it.

This meal, this celebratory meal, it's a celebration because we're being restored. We're being restored back to God's design. We are being given new life. It's beautiful. So let me pray, and then we're going to sing a song, and as that music is playing, I'm going to encourage you to come and receive the elements. Lord, we thank you this morning for the fact that Jesus came into the world to die for our sin. Thank you for giving us new life. We're so thankful for just the life and the hope and the future that we have in you. We pray that you would teach us to pray. Teach us to pray in the way that Jesus, you taught your disciples to pray. We want to be those that ask, seek and knock, and we want to find and receive and see the door opened this week. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.