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2 episodes with even john the baptist
3 episodes with even john the baptist
2 episodes with even john the baptist
2 episodes with even john the baptist
2 episodes with even john the baptist
2 episodes with even john the baptist
Discussion QuestionsSermon Overview Respond to Jesus' authority and compassion with humble faith.Digging Deeper Read Luke 7:1-351. Why did Jesus marvel at the centurion? 2. When the centurion sent the elders of the Jews to Jesus, they touted the centurion's worthiness, but the centurion himself recognized that he was truly unworthy. Consider your own heart. Do you feel the need to defend your worthiness before God or do you see your unworthiness and trust in Christ like the centurion?3. The compassion of Jesus is eager to help all who are in need: whether Gentile (centurion) or Jew (widow), rich or poor, male or female. How does Jesus' broad compassion speak to our tendency to show favoritism to our “tribe” (i.e., those we align with or are like us)? 4. Woven throughout the storyline of the Old Testament is a theme of restoration to life (see Elijah (esp. 1 Kings 17:8-24) and Elisha (esp. 2 Kings 4:18-37). How is Jesus the ultimate Restorer-to-life in ways other great “men of God” (like Elijah & Elisha) could never be? 5. Jesus didn't respond to John the Baptist's question in verse 20 with a direct “yes” or “no.” Instead, he quotes from Isaiah in the Old Testament, showing he's the fulfillment of those promises (see Isaiah 26:19, 21; 35:4-6; 61:1-2). What difference does it make that Jesus fulfilled passages like the ones mentioned above? How does it impact the way we approach the entire Bible?6. Even John the Baptist had doubts and questions. How might Jesus' response to John and his words about John comfort you or another believer with doubts or questions about God? 7. Who in your life does not believe that Jesus is “the one who is to come?” As a group, pray for opportunities and courage to share the gospel with them and pray for their salvation. Prayer
Even John the Baptist had doubts. Are doubts sinful? May God bless you as you engage in worship. Please feel free to leave feedback/comments to let us know you joined in worship. If you’d like to contribute to the ongoing ministry of Two Rivers Community Church of the Nazarene please use this link: paypal.com/us/fundraiser/charity/64291
Cynicism can build walls, brick by brick, around a weary heart. Even John the Baptist, the one who prepared the way, found himself questioning when the story didn't unfold as he hoped. But Jesus, in His gentleness, always comes close to meet our doubts. This week, we'll discover how Christmas calls us to lay down our skepticism and trust again in the God who makes all things new.
August 29, 2024 Today's Reading: Mark 6:14-29Daily Lectionary: 1 Kings 11:42-12:19; 2 Corinthians 7:1-16“When his disciples heard of it, they came and took his body and laid it in a tomb.” (Mark 6:29)In the Name + of Jesus. Amen. John the Baptist is dead, beheaded at the order of King Herod. John was the last of the Old Testament prophets, and like many of the prophets of old, he was killed for being a faithful voice of God. He preached the law in its fullness; “repent” was his cry. Yet John was unique among the prophets, for he was able to point to the one who came to fulfill the law and usher in the Gospel of the Kingdom of God - “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29b). By this, John fulfilled his calling to be the one to pave the way and prepare the people for the coming of God's Messiah. People didn't know what to make of John. He was a radical in the way he dressed, how he lived, and the message he preached. It didn't matter who stood before him; his message was the same, “bear fruit in keeping with repentance” (Matthew 3:8). He was a law preacher who frightened some and angered others; however, his voice wasn't meant to be the last one heard. One was coming after him, who would proclaim and give the very forgiveness that law-breaking people need. People didn't know what to make of Jesus. Some thought the miracle-working preacher was John the Baptist raised from the dead. Others thought he was Elijah or a great prophet. Even John the Baptist, his cousin, sent some of his followers to ask Jesus, “Are you the one or should we look for another?” Jesus' reply leaves no doubt what we should make of Jesus, “Go and tell John what you have seen and heard: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, the poor have good news preached to them.” (Luke 7:20, 22-23) God sent John to be a witness. He did so through his preaching, his baptizing, his finger pointing to the Lamb of God, and even through his skeptical question, “Are you the one?” The Good News that Jesus preached is God's answer to John's “repent.” There is no sin Jesus's blood does not cover; there is no person whom God's Lamb did not die for. Jesus' death and resurrection is our hope for everlasting life. John is dead. His body was laid in a tomb. His bones are still there. But the tomb of John's Savior and yours is still empty. Jesus is risen! So will John, and so will you! In the Name + of Jesus. Amen.John confessed Him as the Savior– “Look, the sinless Lamb of God!” Yet he dared not loose the sandals Of the One God's love had shod. Oh, how fair the feet of Jesus, Bringing news of peace to us, Christ, the herald of salvation, Preaching mercy from the cross: (LSB 404:2)-Rev. Darrin Sheek, pastor at Prince of Peace Lutheran Church Anaheim, CA.Audio Reflections Speaker: Pastor Jonathan Lackey is the pastor at Grace Lutheran Church, Vine Grove, KY.The new Guiding Word series takes you through all the books of the Bible in six volumes. Starting with the Books of Moses—Genesis through Deuteronomy—you will explore every passage of every chapter of each book with the help of maps, diagrams, links between the testaments, and clarification points.
Even John the Baptist wondered about Jesus and had some doubts. And in Matthew chapter eleven sent some of his disciples to ask Jesus if he was indeed the expected Messiah. Today on A Daily Walk Pastor John Randall continues his study of Matthew's gospel, and we'll be in chapter eleven. To support this ministry financially, visit: https://www.oneplace.com/donate/1368/29
Even John the Baptist asked Jesus if He was the One that everyone was waiting for. Jesus can handle your doubts!
Do God's promises seem like they're not being kept? Even John the Baptist doubted. But Pastor Jon reminds us that what we see with our eyes does not compare to what God tells us to believe.Pastor Jon shares with us how John the Baptist prepared the way for Jesus—and how we must continue preparing for Jesus today.Check out our other podcasts! Search for these on your favorite podcast app.– The Nonmicrowaved Truth with C.L. Whiteside– Little Things, with Amber Albee Swenson– Bible Breath, with Pastor Jeremy– Bible Threads, with Dr. Bruce Becker– Evening Encouragements With Pastor Jeremy– Time of Grace With Pastor Mike NovotnyIf you have questions and want to know more about God, like what does he think of you, what exactly was Jesus all about, how do you get “saved” and just what exactly does it mean to “get saved,” and what you should do next, we want you to download this free resource Pastor Mike wrote called, The Basics: God. You. Jesus. Faith. Get your free download at timeofgrace.org/thebasics.OR, you can listen to the audio version of The Basics! Just search "The Basics With Pastor Mike Novotny" wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts. If you enjoy this podcast and make it a regular part of your day, would you consider helping us with your regular support? We can't do any of this without you! Consider becoming a regular supporter with our Grace Partners program! https://timeofgrace.org/gracepartnerpodcast
Read the blog here: http://dougapple.blogspot.com/ +++++++ I’m Doug Apple...and my heart is on fire. (Luke 24:32) What do you do when you doubt? Did God ever do anything for you? Did He save you? Did He spare you from the net of the fowler? Did He forgive you and shine His grace upon you? Did He give you wisdom when you lacked it? Did He ever bring conviction on you that led to repentance? Did you ever read the Bible and feel like God was speaking directly to you? Did one of God’s people ever minister to you at just the right time, like they were on a mission from God Himself? This is what you do when you doubt. You go back and remember what God did in the past. Maybe you aren’t feeling His presence right now. Maybe He seems far away. Maybe He let you down. He didn’t do what you thought He should. Maybe you are starting to believe those who say there is no God at all. What should you do? Go back and remember what God did in the past. Or as one old Gospel song says, go back to the old landmarks. There’s another old Gospel song called Jesus Gave Me Water. The chorus says, “Jesus gave me water and it was not from the well.” It’s based on the story from John chapter four about the woman at the well. Jesus and His disciples went to a city of Samaria called Sychar. Outside the city was Jacob’s well. Jesus sat by the well while His disciples went into Sychar to buy food. Then a woman came out to draw water from the well. Jesus asked her for a drink, and ended up talking to her about “living water.” Jesus told her that whoever drinks the water from the well will get thirsty again, but whoever drinks God’s living water will never thirst because it will “become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life.” That goes along with what Jesus said in John chapter seven. “If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.” Then verse 39 explains that when Jesus said living water He was talking about the Holy Spirit, “whom those believing in Him would receive.” The woman at the well believed in Him. And she brought a bunch of people from Sychar and they believed in Him as well. And those who believe in Him would receive the Holy Spirit, which is the living water. Did you ever have the living water of the Holy Spirit flowing like a spring of water within you? Maybe it is hard to remember, so go back to the old landmarks. Think back to what God has done for you in the past. What do you do when you doubt? Think back! Back to the song Jesus Gave Me Water. Later in the song there is a line about doubt. It says, “every time she doubted.” Now you’d think the woman at the well would never doubt, right? I mean, she talked in person to Jesus and He read her mail. He prophesied to her. What’s to doubt? Or maybe she never did doubt. It’s just a song, right? But doubt has a way of creeping into everyone’s life at one time or another. Even John the Baptist in prison sent a message to Jesus saying, “Are you the Coming One or do we look for another?” And that’s the same John the Baptist who announced, “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” So back to the song. What did she do every time she doubted? It says… “Every time she doubted, she’d start to think about Him, The Man that gave her water, and it was not from the well.” When you begin to doubt, go back to the old landmarks. Think about what God has done for you. For the woman at the well, at least according to the song, she would remember when the Lord had her shoutin’ and there was no room for doubtin’, that Jesus gave her water and it was not from the well! May God bless you today. I’m Doug Apple.
Have you ever been frustrated with God? Ever felt like He wasn't there when you needed Him the most? Do the claims of Jesus make you uncomfortable? Do you find Jesus offensive?Many people in the world today too. And if we're honest - as Christians - it can be equally as hard to reckon with the words of Jesus when they target an area that we struggle in. What do we do with our grievances against God? Can He handle them?In Matthew 11 - we see that we aren't the first to be "offended" by Jesus. Even John the Baptist - the "forerunner" of Jesus was confused and hurt by His ministry. But what did John do with his hurt? How did Jesus respond?Take a listen, and be encouraged to deal with your difficulties with God in an honest, productive way.
Matthew shifts his focus to the how people respond to Jesus. Most reject him. Even John the Baptist becomes confused, because Jesus is not acting like the Messiah he expected.
Matthew shifts his focus to the how people respond to Jesus. Most reject him. Even John the Baptist becomes confused, because Jesus is not acting like the Messiah he expected.
Matthew shifts his focus to the how people respond to Jesus. Most reject him. Even John the Baptist becomes confused, because Jesus is not acting like the Messiah he expected.
Have you ever dealt with doubt? Even John the Baptist dealt with it. In this passage, we see how Jesus responds to doubt and learn how we can deal with it in our lives.
Pastor Andy Davis preaches on the Parable of the Mustard Seed, Mark 4:30-34, and unfolds Jesus’ developed manifesto for his plan of worldwide gospel advance. - SERMON TRANSCRIPT - Prayer: Father, we thank you for the life that we have together, the life that we share. I thank you for the way that we are a family of families and singles who know and love you. And we are involved in each other's lives. I thank you for the Monteros and just the things that we just heard. I'm grateful for their example, role models on how we can use our home as a basis for the gospel. I'm grateful for that. Lord, we thank you for this opportunity in our secular society, this is a designated Father's Day, but we know what a rich, full, beautiful theme fatherhood is. And the fatherhood of God is in the Bible. And Lord, for me, I always think about the father of the prodigal son, who is so filled with love and delight at his sinful son, repenting and coming back and wanting to be with his father. In this cycle of parables that Jesus told of the joy in heaven, over one sinner who repents. Lord, I pray that we who are fathers would be that kind of a father, a loving, merciful, strong, godly man pointing to the fatherhood of God. God, who is a loving and tender hearted father, who is the perfect father. And I pray Lord that we who are fathers would be recommitted to that powerful ministry. Lord, we know that we can't be perfect, but as Jesus himself said, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” And Jesus' whole ministry is to bring people to the Father. We also know that the sign of the new covenant is the spirit of adoption by which we cry out “Abba Father” within us. And we look forward more and more to the delight of that relationship with you, our heavenly Father. And now Lord, we ask that you would send forth that same spirit who ministers to us, testifying with our spirits, that we are children of God. But I pray that now that specific ministry would be in the illumination of the Scripture, the enlightenment, that the eyes of our hearts would be enlightened so that we would understand this parable of the mustard seed, and that we'd be able to understand how it applies to the growing kingdom of God around the world. I pray that you give me special insight and special clarity and special ability to speak in a way that brings about that illumination, that enlightenment. So Lord, speak to us by the Spirit. May the eyes of our hearts be enlightened to understand this passage. And Lord, help us to put into practice the things that we can do in terms of the spreading of the gospel. You've given us a role to play in this cycle of parables in Mark four helps prepare us for that, to help us today to understand. In Jesus' name, amen. I. The Fruit of the Mustard Seed Remembered Turn in your Bibles to Mark 4. What an incredible journey we're making through the Gospel of Mark. It's the great privilege of my life to be able to get up here week after week and exalt Jesus Christ in front of you, to speak of the greatness of our savior of Jesus Christ based on the words of the Gospel of Mark. It's just a great privilege of my life and I'm delighted to do it. Today we're going to look at this Parable of the Mustard Seed. Think in your mind, go back in time to a day, I don't know what month it would've been, maybe April, maybe May, 1989 years ago, maybe almost 2000 years ago, to the most powerful man on earth, the Roman Emperor Tiberius. Imagine him having a meal with some of his close friends or maybe family members. Suddenly, a messenger comes rushing in breathlessly and begs for immediate attention. The room becomes eerily silent. The guests apprehensively put down their goblets to listen to this vital message. Tiberius Caesar Augustus beckons the man forward. The man bows and says, "I have news, almighty Caesar. A Jewish carpenter was crucified in Judea. Furthermore, a small group of 120 Jews who were following him are praying in a small upper room in the city of Jerusalem." Imagine the mighty emperor staring blankly at him. That's it? His Roman empire was the largest the world had ever seen, almost 2 million square miles; as much as one quarter of the world's population, perhaps as many as 60 million people under his daily domination. He commanded the mightiest and most dominant military the world had ever seen, over 300,000 Roman legions that kept a forced peace and Roman rule on all those conquered territories. At Tiberius' slightest word, the world trembled. His policy shaped the lives of all the people who lived under his crushing domination. Why would he possibly care about something so insignificant as the death of a single Jewish man in one of his smaller provinces 1,450 miles away from Rome? Why would he have any interest at all in some tiny band of 120 Jewish fanatics who were praying and waiting in some shabby, second story room in a dusty city of the far east? Why would he possibly care about that? Yet, from that tiny beginning, from a small black granule called a mustard seed, He has spread a mighty kingdom that will outlast every human empire. It came from a microscopic beginning and has come into vast immeasurable glory. That's what today's parable is all about. Jesus' death was the mustard seed, as were the sacrifices of all his courageous servants to advance the gospel step by step from Jerusalem through Judea and Samaria to the Gentile worlds north, south, east, west from Jerusalem, so that's my approach to this parable. Centrally, it is about Jesus and his death and his growing kingdom. But secondarily, also as a pattern that Christianity follows again and again and again, of small seeds planted that start out insignificantly and grow explosively. Mustard seed after mustard seed dying and causing growth, all of that mysteriously building a spiritual kingdom of genuinely converted souls so vast you can scarcely imagine it. Within three short centuries, and the world moved a lot more slowly back then than it does now, Christianity would explode from the upper room in Jerusalem and conquer, spiritually conquer the mighty Roman empire. So vast and powerful and rapid was that spread that a Roman emperor, Constantine, declared himself to be a worshiper of that Jewish carpenter three short centuries later. Now that would've been inconceivable to Tiberius, but Constantine, whatever he actually believes saw it beneficial. But King Jesus had much bigger designs than the confines of the Roman empire and the limits of just a few centuries. The kingdom of God has grown in every generation, vast, hidden, powerful, eternal life and growth surging through it, so vast it's almost inconceivable how big his kingdom really is. We can't even picture what a multitude greater than anyone could count would look like from every tribe, language, people, and nation. Today's parable predicted that staggering, stunning, glorious earth-shaking growth, the Parable of the Mustard Seed. Simply put, the lesson of this parable is this, the kingdom of God starts small and grows large. In the words of Zechariah 4:10, “we should not despise the day of small things.” Before I go on into the rest of the sermon, I just wonder if we could take a poll worldwide of 7 billion people plus. How many do you think know Tiberius today? How many people know Jesus Christ today? How would you compare the fame on those two? Just an interesting question. You ought to do that this week. Ask 20, or 30 people that you know, and say, "Have you ever heard of Tiberius", and see what they say. Come back and give me some stories on those conversations. It'd be interesting where they lead. The context here in Mark 4 is a series of parables. At the end of the section that you just heard read, this was a strategy that Jesus gave of teaching in parables. He did not say anything without using a parable, but when He was alone with his disciples, He would explain everything. So again, as with all the gospels, we're only getting a small sampling of Jesus' teaching, ministry, and of his works. John said that he didn't share everything in his writing because if he did the whole world couldn't contain the books that would be written. So we just have a small sampling of Jesus' teaching ministry and much smaller in Mark than in Matthew and Luke and John. Less of the verbiage of Mark's gospel is given to Jesus's teachings than to any of the other gospels. But we have this in Mark 4, this cycle of parables. In Mark 1-3, we have the growing spread of the kingdom of God through the ministry of Jesus Christ resulting in huge crowds, overwhelming crowds, crushing, pressing in on him. They're attracted by Jesus' message, but especially by his stunning power over demons and disease and death. But very few of that huge crowd are genuinely converted, very few were there for the true food of the word with hearts and fire for Christ, entering the kingdom of God by faith. Very few. To make matters worse, the official Jewish religious leaders position on him was that He was doing all of these amazing signs by the power of Satan, that He was a blasphemer and a fraud. Jesus says this is blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. The authorities hated Jesus. He certainly was not winning them as friends or influencing them as people, not at all. As an act of judgment then, Jesus taught the crowds in parables that He never explains, then He withdraws in secret with his tiny band of followers. The parables themselves were not the judgment, the lack of explanation of the parables, that was the judgment, just giving the parable and walking away. Along with this was the seeming failure of Jesus' kingdom to take genuine root in very many hearts. Jesus didn't seem to be winning, the kingdom didn't seem to be working. Jesus' disciples, reading various key passages in the Old Testament, had every reason to expect a vast worldwide messianic domain. Isaiah 9:7 spoke of a kingdom that would last forever, “Of the increase of his government and peace there will be no end. He will reign on David's throne and over his kingdom, establishing and upholding it with justice and righteousness from that time on and forever. The zeal of the Lord almighty will accomplish this, an eternal kingdom.” Isaiah 49 speaks of a worldwide dominion that would extend to the ends of the earth. Isaiah 49:6, God says to Christ, “It is too smaller thing for you to be my servant, to restore the tribes of Jacob and bring back those of Israel I have kept. I will make you a light for the Gentiles that you may bring my salvation to the ends of the earth.” —so to the end of time, Isaiah 9:7, to the ends of the earth, Isaiah 49:6. Isaiah 60 also speaks in glowing terms of the wealth, the richness of the worldwide dominion of Messiah. In Isaiah 60: 3-5, “Nations will come to your light and kings to the brightness of your dawn. Lift up your eyes and look around you. All assemble and come to you. Your sons come from afar. Your daughters are carried on the arm. Then you will look and be radiant. Your heart will throb and swell with joy. The wealth on the seas will be brought to you. To you, the riches of the nations will come.” Solomon's majestic Psalm 72, a messianic Psalm, exults in the eternal glorious reign of the Messiah. In Psalm 72: 5-11, speaking of the Messiah, the Christ, “He will endure as long as the sun, as long as the moon, through all generations. He will be like rain falling on a mown field, like showers watering the earth. In his days, the righteous will flourish. Prosperity will abound until the moon is no more. He will rule from sea to sea and from the river to the ends of the earth. The desert tribes will bow down before him. His enemies will lick the dust. The kings of Tarshish and of distant shores will bring tribute to him. The kings of Sheba and Seba will present him gifts. All kings will bow down to him and all nations will serve him.” These are just some of the Old Testament prophecies that gave the Jews a very powerful expectation of what the messianic kingdom would be like. There are many others I could read. But instead of this glorious kingdom, most of the Jews at that time, led by their unbelieving jealous, power-hungry leaders were rejecting Jesus as the Messiah. Jesus responds by telling these parables with no explanation, leading many of his enemies to say He was demon possessed or out of his mind since these unexplained stories made no sense. Now, privately his disciples were probably wondering similar things. If we just boil it down to, “Is this really it? Is this it? I mean us?” In Luke 13:23, “Someone asked him, ‘Lord, are only a few people going to be saved?’” Think about that question. What's behind that question? “Lord, are only a few people going to be saved? Is it going to be a real small kind of ragged band here? Even John the Baptist at the end of his life, wondered the same thing. He's in prison waiting to die, and “When John heard in prison, what Christ was doing [Matthew 11:2-3] he sent his disciples to ask him, "Are you the one who is to come, or should we expect someone else?” What is motivating that question? A number of things. But some of it must have been a sense of disappointment at what was happening. It didn't seem like it was big. It didn't seem glorious. Jesus is in some house surrounded by a small, weak band of common people who loved his teachings, and those were the best of the vast crowd that surrounded him and mobbed him day after day for healings. This hardly seemed like the beginning of a vast, glorious Davidic kingdom, a messianic kingdom in which the Gentiles would come and bow down before him. In Mark 4, all of the parables taken together are a glorious, very efficient manifesto on what's going to happen with the kingdom and with the gospel. It includes explanations for people's rejection of the gospel, as well as their acceptance of it. It begins with the parable, the seed and the soils, which we went through. In this most important parable, Jesus gives indications that it's really a gateway parable, that if you understand that parable, you'll understand them all. If you don't understand this parable, you won't understand any of them. So the kingdom of God is like seed that's spread on different soils. Three of the soils produce no final harvest at all. The path, the rocky soil, the thorny soil, they produce no final harvest. Three of the soils produce a harvest of varying levels, 30, 60, even a hundred times what was sown, so do not despise the day of small things, we're getting to that with the mustard seed, instead be very careful what kind of soil, your own soul, your own heart is. That's what matters. Be very careful what kind of soil your heart is. Jesus says the explanations are for the insiders, not for the outsiders at the present time. But the day will come, when the light of the word of God will shine brightly for all to see. Jesus is the light of the world and God did not bring that light into the world to hide under a bowl or a bed. Look at verses 22-23, “Whatever is hidden is meant to be disclosed and whatever is concealed is meant to be brought out in the open. If anyone has ears to hear, let him hear.” In other words, for now, in the context of Mark 4, “for now, my teachings are secret and hidden, but they're not meant to be that way ultimately. We're going to bring them out and it's going to be shining throughout the world. So the real issue is, you better look after yourself. Look after how you hear the word of God. You better be very careful what's going on inside of you when you hear the gospel.” Verse 24-25, “Consider carefully how you hear. With the measure you use, it will be measured to you and even more. Whoever has, will be given more. Whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken from him.” If you receive the word of God, the gospel, if you grow in it, you're going to accelerate in that growth, you're going to produce more and more fruit. The measure you use will be measured to you and even more. But for those who hear and do nothing with the word, even what they have is going to be taken from them. So they may have some early understanding of the gospel, some basic understanding but after a while, their hearts will be so hard they won't get anything out of it. Last week again, in verses 26-29, we had an agricultural parable and there the sower is scattering seed everywhere. We end up focusing on one plant and the dynamics of the growth of that one plant, this was last week. He said this is what the kingdom of God is like. A man scattered seed on the ground. Night and day, whether he sleeps or gets up, the seed sprouts and grows though, he does not know how. All by itself, the soil produces grain. First, the stalk, then the head, then the full kernel in the head. Then as soon as the grain is right, he puts the sickle to it because the harvest has come. The basic idea is this, people are responsible to spread the word of God, but God alone can make it grow. They can't do anything to the actual individual inside their heart to bring them to faith in Christ. They can't save them. They can't bring about life. They don't know how that happens, they can't make it happen. They're limited in knowledge, they don't understand the process. They're limited in power. They can't make it happen. But what they can do is they can scatter the seed and then they can take part in the harvest of bringing somebody to Christ. So that was last week. Now in today's parable, Jesus is saying, no matter how apparently small the beginnings, the kingdom of God in the end will be immense and spectacular. Wait for it. Don't give up on it just because it appears small. So that's what we're getting to now. Let's dig in and look at it, the Parable of the Mustard Seed, verses 30- 32. Again, He said, what should we say the kingdom of God is like, or what parable shall we use to describe it? It's like a mustard seed, which is the smallest seed you plant in the ground. Yet when planted, it grows and becomes the largest of garden plants with such big branches that the birds of the air can perch its shade. So what is a parable? What does that mean? The Greek word means “to lay alongside,” simply put, it's “this is like that.” We're taking the invisible, mysterious, difficult to understand kingdom of God and we're explaining some aspect of it by something in everyday life that you are very familiar with. So it means to “lay alongside”, the kingdom is like this thing. Jesus was fond of agricultural parables. He used a lot of them. They weren't the only type, but they were the most dominant type, seeds and soils and plants and things growing. In general, in terms of interpretation of scripture, parables are best when you focus on the main idea and don't go down rabbit trails of details. Although, I think we can even take that idea too far and say the details are in no way important. You still want to be careful with the details. Don't allegorize, them something like that. So the details are important, but really you want to start with the main idea. And what's the main idea of the parable of the mustard seed? It starts small and gets big. That's the basic idea. Don't worry about the apparent failure of the gospel. The kingdom of God has a small beginning, but in a measurably, glorious and big way, it's going to be really big. Friends, this thing's going to be big. I'm trying to picture. Can you picture what hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of millions of genuine born again people look like in radiant robes? What's the biggest crowd you've ever seen? It's not hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of millions. So it's going to be really big, but there's going to be a temptation to be discouraged, because it so frequently looks so small and unimpressive. That's what we're getting at here. “The kingdom of God has a small beginning, but in a measurably, glorious and big way, it's going to be really big.” Now we have a problem with this whole mustard seed thing. R.C. Sproul spoke of his involvement with the Council for Biblical Inerrancy and he said in that process, he interacted with a former evangelical scholar who is no longer evangelical. He had abandoned his commitment to biblical inerrancy, specifically on the issue of the mustard seed. Jesus was wrong about the mustard seed, so He must be wrong about everything else. I'm like, “oh my goodness.” All seeds are small, but they weren't impressively, staggeringly small. So I get it. I get the problem.However, I think we should be astounded that an scholar would give up his commitment to inerrancy on this issue. Would you agree with me on that? First of all, what Sproul says is we should not take Jesus' words and extend them to some universal laser accurate statement in every case. They don't work like that. Jesus' statements don't work like that. The gospels don't work like that. For example, in Mark 1:45, it says people came to him from everywhere. Stop right there. Did anybody come from Durham, North Carolina? How about Antarctica? Anybody from the moon? There, that's a place. Look, nobody reads it like that. It says people came to him from everywhere, we kind of just know what that means, from wide areas around. It wasn't just that one town. I think we get it. Secondly, we don't actually know for sure what species of mustard seed he was talking about. We don't know that the seeds in my wife's spice cabinet are the same as what he was dealing with. They probably weren't. Maybe a completely different genetic category. An expert on YouTube was saying that there are different types of mustard plants, and he actually had in his hand, a cluster of black mustard seeds. They were unbelievably tiny. They look like black powder. They would be the smallest seeds I've ever seen. They didn't look like seeds. Like I said, they just looked like black powder. He pulled a seed off to the side or a little cluster of them because you couldn't get just one. And the camera zoomed in and I'm telling you, these seeds were smaller than the tip of a pin. It was not smaller than the head of the pin, it was smaller than the pointy tip. That's how small the seed was. So I'm going with that. Thirdly, we need to understand in Jewish rabbinic speech, this was a common aphorism. It's like “small as a mustard seed.” It was actually known, Jesus wasn't the first to use it, it’s something really small. So there's like small, smaller and smallest and the mustard seed was how the rabbis talked about smallest, so this was actually common. The point here is it starts small and grows, the growth of the seed. Jesus says it grows and becomes a small tree, the largest of all garden plants. So no, it does not get as big as a Cedar of Lebanon, but it gets really big. We're talking about the kind of plants that a family would have in a family garden. You can imagine something like that. Research shows that these types of mustard plants would grow as tall as a man, or taller. That's very big for a small garden patch. Jesus says that they become a tree with such big branches that the birds of the air can settle down perhaps or nest or at least perch in the shade. So they're very big, strong branches. Translated, the kingdom of God is going to start very small, almost microscopic, very small and grow to something vast and broad and dramatic and amazing. In my mind, I connect this to the story of Nebuchadnezzar's dream in Daniel 4. What happens is Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, has a dream. Let me read Daniel 4:10- 12, “I looked and there before me stood a tree in the middle of the land, its height was enormous. The tree grew large and strong and its top touched the sky. It was visible to the ends of the earth. Its leaves were beautiful, its fruit abundant. And on it was food for all. Under it, the beasts of the field found shelter and the birds of the air lived in its branches. From it, every creature was fed.” It's a dream, a vast fruit tree, but very tall, very strong, with big branches and lots of shade. Animals were coming in the shade on the ground, birds on the branches, people eating from the fruit of the tree. Daniel then interpreted the dream. Daniel 4:20- 22, “The tree you saw,” [he's speaking to King Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonian empire], which grew large and strong with its top touching the sky, visible to the whole earth with beautiful leaves and abundant fruit, providing food for all, giving shelter to the beast of the field and having nesting places in its branches for the birds of the air. You, oh king, are that tree. You have become great and strong and your greatness is grown until it reaches the sky. And your dominion extends to the distant parts of the earth.” So Nebuchadnezzar as the head or the king of the Babylonian empire is represented by a vast fruitful, huge leafy tree and everything is clustered around it. In the dream, that tree is condemned to be chopped down, its branches stripped off, the fruits stripped off. The whole thing's laid to waste in that dream. But the tree of the kingdom of God will never be chopped down, it'll never be stripped or laid to waste. Going back two chapters before that in Daniel 2, a different image of the statue with the head of gold, and chest and arms of silver, belly and thighs of bronze, and legs of iron feet, that whole thing represents a series of empires. Then a stone comes, cut out, but not by human hands, strikes that statue, crushes it, and then it becomes a mountain that fills a whole earth, the kingdom of God. It says in Daniel 2:44, “In the time of those kings, the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that will never be destroyed nor will it be left to another people.” Or as Nebuchadnezzar would say himself, as he wrote chapter 4, as he gave his testimony in Daniel 4, speaking of the kingdom of God, “His dominion is an eternal dominion, his kingdom endures from generation and generation.” So here's the thing, back to the mustard seed. The kingdom of God will be a mighty tree with a vast root system with innumerable leafy fruitful branches that will last forever. It represents people who come together and bring all of their riches and their glories and all of their salvation stories and all that together in one place, the kingdom of God, the new Jerusalem, the new heaven, new earth. That's what we're talking about here. II. What is the Mustard Seed? Now, what is the mustard seed? I believe we'll start with Jesus. Jesus is the first mustard seed, his life, his death, his resurrection represents that. We see this again and again with the lamp. Jesus is the lamp, and then we are the lamp. And so again, my approach on this parable is Jesus is the mustard seed, then we are the mustard seed. But first and foremost, we start with Jesus. We see that with the lamp in Mark 4:21, “Do you bring in a lamp and put it under a bowl or a bed? Instead, don't you put it up on its stand?” What's the lamp? Jesus is the lamp. He says in John 8:12, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” Or again, Isaiah 9:2, “The people walking in darkness have seen a great light and those living the land of the shadow of death, a light has dawned.” But then Jesus said, we are the light of the world. So He's the light of the world, and we’re the light of the world. Matthew 5:14-16, “You are the light of the world. City on a hill cannot be hidden, neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.” So Jesus is the first great light of the world. Then we, following his example, we are also are light to the world. Same thing with the seed, the mustard seed. Or again in John 12:24-26, Jesus said this. “I tell you the truth. Unless a kernel of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains by itself a single seed. But if it dies, it brings forth much fruit.” What is the seed that falls in the ground and dies, and if it dies, it brings forth much fruit? Jesus' own death is the first fulfillment of that. But you know this is a pattern that He is commending, that we would all follow going forward. He makes that plain by the next few verses in John 12. “Unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains a single seed. But if it dies, it brings forth much fruit. The man who loves his life will lose it while the man who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, my servant also will be. My Father will honor the one who serves me.” That's pretty obvious. He's calling us to be seeds that fall in the ground and die. If you're willing to do that, if you're willing to fall into the ground and die, you're going to bear much fruit. I'm thinking about hospitality. You say, "But Pastor, I'm an introvert." Well, just practice saying that to Jesus on Judgment Day. “Jesus, you know I'm an introvert. I couldn't do that hospitality thing.” Just picture how that will wash on that day. Once you conclude that will not wash on that day, then be hospitable. “It feels like death to walk across the street and meet my neighbor.” We’ve got to talk about that at a lot of levels. I understand that feeling, but the fact of the matter is I believe John 12:24-26 is talking first about Jesus and then about all of us. It's pretty obvious. He died and rose again and look at all the fruit that's come from that. Therefore, if we die, fall into the ground and die, look at the fruit that'll come from our lives. Let's bring that back to the mustard seed. Jesus lived a life, very short ministry time, could have easily never been noticed, falls in the ground and dies, rises again from the dead and establishes the beginning of the kingdom. One hundred twenty believers, a little mustard seed. Then he is calling on us to do the same thing. Guess what's going to happen? We're going to go and minister and the stuff we do is not going to be very impressive initially. But don't be disappointed, don't be discouraged, don't despise the day of small things. Those things start small, but they can get really big. Jesus is going to use the mustard seed analogy later to talk about small acts of faith. They come to him and say, “Oh Lord, increase our faith.” Jesus said in Matthew 17:20, “I tell you the truth, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, move from here to there and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.” The smallest things we do can have an eternal impact. Church history's full of seemingly minor movements and moments that end up having a massive impact even for all eternity. We can easily become discouraged and say what difference does anything I do make at all. We can despise the day of small things[ Zachariah 4:10]. The Jews had come back after the exile, they're in rubble-filled Jerusalem. They got to rebuild the wall, but they also have to rebuild the temple. It's the center of the Jewish religion, the old covenant religion. They eventually do rebuild the temple, but the old timers remembered Solomon's temple in all of its glory, and they weeped and moaned and lamented over this small shabby looking substitute temple. Zachariah 4:10 says, “Do not despise the day of small things. God has the power to take small acts of obedience and make something great of it.” “Don't be disappointed, don't be discouraged, don't despise the day of small things. Those things start small, but they can get really big. … The smallest things we do can have an eternal impact." What are some examples of mustard seeds that we can plant? I think about the daily work of a mother singing, “Jesus Loves Me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so,” to her baby, and just doing that night after night, after night, after night, singing that song. Then all the other things that the mom does to pour the gospel into the growing child over the years. I'm telling you, she has some hard days. It doesn't look like the kingdom of God is growing inside this child. But don't despise the day of small things, the little beginning, you don't know what that child's going to grow to become. Or imagine a man who just makes it a habit to go to a certain coffee shop and get to know the baristas there and has a particular relationship with one of the baristas and feels led to just keep saturating that relationship, that conversation with gospel things like something we heard in church, or I'm praying for you or just different things. You can imagine one time making a comment and you don't have any idea that comment reminds that person of something that was said to them by a Christian relative or by a Christian roommate or friend years ago. You had no way of knowing what that comment would do. You had no way of knowing that they couldn't get to sleep that night because they knew something was up and the person comes to faith in Christ. But it's just some comment you made, you didn't even know the power of it, the impact of it. Little moments of faithful service, write an encouraging note on the bill and leave a good tip. You can leave a generous tip with something that you write to encourage the person. You never know if that comes at precisely at a time somebody's hurting for cash. You follow an inner-prompting from the Spirit, calling a lost friend from college, just to say hi, and you didn't realize that she was sliding toward suicide, toward depression. You had no idea. You didn't know what was going on. You just wanted to call and say, hello. A little thing, a little act of obedience. Or secret patterns of prayer for missionaries. We have missionaries that are serving on the field. You could just say on that day, I'm going to pray for this missionary family. We're going to lift them up and pray for them. You don't know, but that is exactly the moment they needed prayer, where there's something going on in their city, something with the security. Maybe their position's compromised or they're in some danger from persecution, or it could be just an opportunity like coffee shop or a person that they're meeting., and that's the time that you are praying for them. Like the widow giving her two tiny copper coins and then together make up a fraction of a penny. How many children put in money in the offering plates going by? You don't have any idea what that pattern of giving is going to grow to in their lives, how generous they're going to be when they're adults, because they early on had that pattern of giving. The mustard seeds of faith, mustard seeds of sacrificial service, growing into big things later. A word, a prayer, a gift, an act of kindness, a gesture, encouraging note, or a Bible study you start and there's two people that show up. Don't worry about the numbers, just be faithful and teach God's word to the people that show up. Don't despise the day of small things. How big is this thing going to get? Really big. The glorious consummation of Christ kingdom. Of course, there's this famous verse Revelation 7:9-10, “After this, I looked and there before me was a multitude greater than anyone could count, from every nation, tribe, people, and language standing before the throne in front of the lamb wearing white robes and they're holding palm branches in their hands. And they were saying, ‘Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne and to the lamb.’” Awesome. Picture it. It started shabby and small, one hundred twenty people in an upper room. That's it. Look how big it's going to be. In the language of Daniel 4 and Nebuchadnezzar's dream, “these are the fruit and the animals and the birds from the ends of the earth that come to live under the shade of Christ forever.” You know what I think? It's never going to stop growing. I think procreation will end, there won't be new people added to the kingdom, but it does say in Isaiah 97 of the increase of his government and peace, there will be no end. So just go with increase that never ends. How is that? In the estimation of the greatness of Christ in what he did to build his kingdom forever, that's a dynamic heaven. That's what I would commend to you. From Jerusalem to the ends of the earth, the death of one man, Jesus Christ, changed all of human history. So also the tiny cluster of ordinary people, twelve apostles, and a few other people there in the upper room. Then the Holy Spirit poured out on them in the day of Pentecost, and they poured out in the streets to change the world. They moved out in Jerusalem. They spread out boldly from there through Judea. Philip and some others brought the gospel to the Samaritans and they won the Samaritans to Christ. Then Philip was led by the Spirit to go talk to an Ethiopian eunuch and led him to faith in Christ. He goes down the Nile river, the upper Nile and lives out his Christian life there in Ethiopia. Merchants and tradesmen and travelers and caravans and soldiers posted to different places in the distant places in the Roman empire, going along ancient trade routes, coastal traders poking along the inlets and cliffs and coastlines of the Mediterranean Sea and the east coast of Africa. Apostles took the gospel as far as India and probably as far west as Spain. The tiny mustard seed of one hundred twenty believers began to turn the world upside down for Christ, and this amazing pattern has continued to our day. You got Moravians that have the idea of winning slaves on plantations. In the early 18th century, they began the Protestant missions movement. William Carey, a Baptist, took the gospel to India. Just one man, Adoniram Judson, and his wife, Nancy brought the gospel to Burma, and led tens of thousands of Burmese Christians. Just one person getting off a boat, starting small. Hudson Taylor, going to the inland regions of China. By the end of his life, the China inland mission was responsible for 50,000 -75,000 Chinese believers. Just the vision of one individual. David Livingston in the heart of the dark continent, an explorer and missionary. Christianity claims hundreds of millions of converts from every nation on earth. The church of Jesus Christ is bigger than you think it is. And it's not just famous missionaries, unnamed evangelists have walked courageously across the street or across the office space. You're like, “Man, that takes courage. You don't know my boss.” No, I don't know your boss, but I had one of those bosses, and you feel led by the Lord to go share your faith with your boss. It takes courage, but the Lord can bless it. “From Jerusalem to the ends of the earth, the death of one man, Jesus Christ, changed all of human history.” III. Application So what lessons, first and foremost, come to Christ. If you don't know Christ, if you haven't trusted in him, just let me tell you simply, your sins can be forgiven right now. All you have to do is call on the name of the Lord. Jesus. You've heard the basic facts of the gospel. Jesus died. He rose again. If you repent and believe, your sins are forgiven. So come to Christ, let the gospel start in your life and then spread and take over. What about you Christians? Don't despise the day of small things here in Durham. As we look at our city of Durham, it's easy to get discouraged. I mean, we're greatly outnumbered. Have you noticed? We are greatly outnumbered here, but it's an opportunity. People are pouring in. God's bringing them here. They're living, they're putting up apartments and houses and condos and they're pouring in. Don't you want our church to be part of God's solution to that? Don't you want us to be among the answers that He knows we are going to not just have people come here and they'll hear the gospel, but that we pour out like they did in Pentecost, out into the streets and they'll hear it from us. Let's not despise the day of small things. Finally, look forward to the consummation of the kingdom, feed your heart. Read Revelation 21 and 22, read it regularly. Feed your heart with how big this whole thing's going to get. Close with me in prayer. Lord, thank you for the power of the word of God. We thank you for the Gospel of Mark for what it teaches us about Jesus as the son of God and the kingdom of the son of God. And I pray that we would learn this parable of the mustard seed, that though the seed was so tiny, you could barely see it, it had an amazing impact in the end. I pray that we would trust you for big things, that we would pray that you would work big things in our midst. Give us courage to be hospitable, courage to share the gospel at work, at home, in different places. And we pray in Jesus' name, amen.
If baptism is for SINNERS, then why was JESUS baptized? Even John the Baptist didn't understand this one. John told Jesus that he needed to be baptized by Him, not the other way around. So why did Jesus do it? In this sermon, we learn the answer.
If baptism is for SINNERS, then why was JESUS baptized------Even John the Baptist didn't understand this one. John told Jesus that he needed to be baptized by Him, not the other way around. So why did Jesus do it-- In this recording, we learn the answer.
If baptism is for SINNERS, then why was JESUS baptized-----Even John the Baptist didn't understand this one. John told Jesus that he needed to be baptized by Him, not the other way around. So why did Jesus do it- In this recording, we learn the answer.
If baptism is for SINNERS, then why was JESUS baptized? Even John the Baptist didn't understand this one. John told Jesus that he needed to be baptized by Him, not the other way around. So why did Jesus do it? In this podcast, we learn the answer.
If baptism is for SINNERS, then why was JESUS baptized? Even John the Baptist didn't understand this one. John told Jesus that he needed to be baptized by Him, not the other way around. So why did Jesus do it? In this podcast, we learn the answer.
If baptism is for SINNERS, then why was JESUS baptized? Even John the Baptist didn't understand this one. John told Jesus that he needed to be baptized by Him, not the other way around. So why did Jesus do it? In this podcast, we learn the answer.
If baptism is for SINNERS, then why was JESUS baptized? Even John the Baptist didn't understand this one. John told Jesus that he needed to be baptized by Him, not the other way around. So why did Jesus do it? In this podcast, we learn the answer.
If baptism is for SINNERS, then why was JESUS baptized? Even John the Baptist didn't understand this one. John told Jesus that he needed to be baptized by Him, not the other way around. So why did Jesus do it? In this podcast, we learn the answer.
If you are often puzzled by the events and circumstances in our world, take heart. You're not alone. When Jesus sent His disciples into the world, He prepared them for the worst. Even John the Baptist was confused. Take Jesus' instruction to heart in our study of Matthew 10-11.
If you are often puzzled by the events and circumstances in our world, take heart. You're not alone. When Jesus sent His disciples into the world, He prepared them for the worst. Even John the Baptist was confused. Take Jesus' instruction to heart in our study of Matthew 10-11.
Even John the Baptist had doubts, but may the words of Christ in response instruct us as we deal with our own!Reading Plan: Old Testament - 2 Chronicles 5-6Psalms - Psalm 86:8-17Gospels - Luke 7:18-23New Testament - Ephesians 4:1-16Visit https://www.revivalfromthebible.com/ for more information.
Matthew 11: Rebellion Against the King | Jesus didn't fit into people's expectations of what the Messiah should look like. Even John the Baptist began to wonder if Jesus was the one they were looking for. Journey 15 | Savior. Journey Fifteen focuses on our great Savior, Jesus Christ. The book of Matthew reveals Jesus as the Promised One of the nation of Israel and the coming King of Kings. Hebrews connects the OT to the NT and reminds us that Jesus is better than whatever we left behind. Then James teaches us how to live in light of the Kingdom of God. In the OT, we look at romance in Song of Solomon and a falling empire in 1 Chronicles and Nahum. (89 days)Teacher: Kris & JonathanAbout TTW: When the Bible is confusing, Through the Word explains it with clear and concise audio guides for every chapter. The TTW Podcast follows 19 Journeys covering every book and chapter in the Bible. Each journey is an epic adventure through several Bible books, as your favorite pastors explain each chapter with clear explanation and insightful application. Understand the Bible in just ten minutes a day, and join us for all 19 Journeys on the TTW podcast or TTW app!Get the App: https://throughtheword.orgContact: https://throughtheword.org/contactDonate: https://throughtheword.org/givingMatthew 11 Themes: Jesus, John the Baptist, repentanceMatthew 11 Tags: John, John the Baptist, blind, leper, lame, kingdom of heaven, kingdom, woe, Tyre, Sidon, Sodom, Gomorrah, weary, burdened, come to me, I will give you rest,Key Verses: Quotes: Audio & Text © 2011-2021 Through the Word™ Inc. All rights reserved worldwide.Bible Quotes: The Holy Bible New International Version® NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission of Biblica, Inc.® All rights reserved worldwide.
The title for this week's message by Pastor Andy is “Seeing Jesus for who He is”. This is in theme of celebrating our children. Matthew 19:13-15 (NIV) says” Then people brought little children to Jesus for him to place his hands on them and pray for them. But the disciples rebuked them. Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.” When he had placed his hands on them, he went on from there”. Maybe we do not prevent children from coming to Jesus physically but perhaps by not allowing them to have real encounters with Jesus. We can learn from watching the way children are with Jesus. They have no agenda, but a child-like purity. In Matthew 18 Jesus tells his Disciples that if they want to become great in the Kingdom, they need to become child-like (not childish!) in our approach to God. When we are walking with the Lord, we need to have a child-like faith in acceptance of what he says. Adults often become sceptical but this robs us of receiving Jesus, but Jesus actually encourages us to be child-like in their approach. Children see and want Jesus for what He is. Often we see and want Him for what He can do for us! We need to see and know Jesus for what He really is. Jesus is a God of much more than what we usually see Him for. Even during Jesus time on earth, people missed Him because He was not what they were looking for. When the Messiah came, many could not see Him as He didn't look like they expected or do what they thought He ought to. Such preconceived agendas are only one aspect of a hugely bigger God. The children of Israel in Exodus 24 were busy melting jewellery to make a representation of God as they wanted; meanwhile Moses was on the top of the mountain having a life changing experience! Many of Gods people could not see Jesus even when he was in the room with them as they were looking for a warrior character to overthrow the Roman Empire. Others looked for a ruling king like King David to rule as he did, but rather missed the point that Jesus' throne was a heavenly one! Being saved from their own sins was more necessary than being saved from the Roman rule but this passed them by. Even after Jesus had died and risen before their eyes (Acts 1) the disciples ask if He was going to restore the kingdom to Israel. Their preconditioned thinking was of a Messiah coming to overthrow natural rule, missing the point of who Jesus was and why He had come to earth. Even John the Baptist got confused for a while because what Jesus was doing didn't register with his expectations - (Luke 7:19 NIV) says “Are you the one who is to come, or should we expect someone else?” John had also thought Jesus should be overthrowing Rome, not sitting with children, healing people, forgiving sins. Children tend to have an attitude of “we want to know you as you are”. Adults tend to want to fit Jesus into their self-made boxes. Jesus was God on earth, the full and total manifestation of everything God the Father was and is. Colossians 2:9 (ESV) states “For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily”. Jesus is not just a representative of heaven; He is the fullness of God in every respect. All we need to know about God we can see in Jesus and His Word. Let us see Jesus for who He really is. Let us have a child-like faith and a child-like approach. Support this podcast
The title for this week's message by Pastor Andy is “Seeing Jesus for who He is”. This is in theme of celebrating our children. Matthew 19:13-15 (NIV) says” Then people brought little children to Jesus for him to place his hands on them and pray for them. But the disciples rebuked them. Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.” When he had placed his hands on them, he went on from there”. Maybe we do not prevent children from coming to Jesus physically but perhaps by not allowing them to have real encounters with Jesus. We can learn from watching the way children are with Jesus. They have no agenda, but a child-like purity. In Matthew 18 Jesus tells his Disciples that if they want to become great in the Kingdom, they need to become child-like (not childish!) in our approach to God. When we are walking with the Lord, we need to have a child-like faith in acceptance of what he says. Adults often become sceptical but this robs us of receiving Jesus, but Jesus actually encourages us to be child-like in their approach. Children see and want Jesus for what He is. Often we see and want Him for what He can do for us! We need to see and know Jesus for what He really is. Jesus is a God of much more than what we usually see Him for. Even during Jesus time on earth, people missed Him because He was not what they were looking for. When the Messiah came, many could not see Him as He didn't look like they expected or do what they thought He ought to. Such preconceived agendas are only one aspect of a hugely bigger God. The children of Israel in Exodus 24 were busy melting jewellery to make a representation of God as they wanted; meanwhile Moses was on the top of the mountain having a life changing experience! Many of Gods people could not see Jesus even when he was in the room with them as they were looking for a warrior character to overthrow the Roman Empire. Others looked for a ruling king like King David to rule as he did, but rather missed the point that Jesus' throne was a heavenly one! Being saved from their own sins was more necessary than being saved from the Roman rule but this passed them by. Even after Jesus had died and risen before their eyes (Acts 1) the disciples ask if He was going to restore the kingdom to Israel. Their preconditioned thinking was of a Messiah coming to overthrow natural rule, missing the point of who Jesus was and why He had come to earth. Even John the Baptist got confused for a while because what Jesus was doing didn't register with his expectations - (Luke 7:19 NIV) says “Are you the one who is to come, or should we expect someone else?” John had also thought Jesus should be overthrowing Rome, not sitting with children, healing people, forgiving sins. Children tend to have an attitude of “we want to know you as you are”. Adults tend to want to fit Jesus into their self-made boxes. Jesus was God on earth, the full and total manifestation of everything God the Father was and is. Colossians 2:9 (ESV) states “For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily”. Jesus is not just a representative of heaven; He is the fullness of God in every respect. All we need to know about God we can see in Jesus and His Word. Let us see Jesus for who He really is. Let us have a child-like faith and a child-like approach. Support this podcast
The title for this week's message by Pastor Andy is “Seeing Jesus for who He is”. This is in theme of celebrating our children. Matthew 19:13-15 (NIV) says” Then people brought little children to Jesus for him to place his hands on them and pray for them. But the disciples rebuked them. Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.” When he had placed his hands on them, he went on from there”. Maybe we do not prevent children from coming to Jesus physically but perhaps by not allowing them to have real encounters with Jesus. We can learn from watching the way children are with Jesus. They have no agenda, but a child-like purity. In Matthew 18 Jesus tells his Disciples that if they want to become great in the Kingdom, they need to become child-like (not childish!) in our approach to God. When we are walking with the Lord, we need to have a child-like faith in acceptance of what he says. Adults often become sceptical but this robs us of receiving Jesus, but Jesus actually encourages us to be child-like in their approach. Children see and want Jesus for what He is. Often we see and want Him for what He can do for us! We need to see and know Jesus for what He really is. Jesus is a God of much more than what we usually see Him for. Even during Jesus time on earth, people missed Him because He was not what they were looking for. When the Messiah came, many could not see Him as He didn't look like they expected or do what they thought He ought to. Such preconceived agendas are only one aspect of a hugely bigger God. The children of Israel in Exodus 24 were busy melting jewellery to make a representation of God as they wanted; meanwhile Moses was on the top of the mountain having a life changing experience! Many of Gods people could not see Jesus even when he was in the room with them as they were looking for a warrior character to overthrow the Roman Empire. Others looked for a ruling king like King David to rule as he did, but rather missed the point that Jesus' throne was a heavenly one! Being saved from their own sins was more necessary than being saved from the Roman rule but this passed them by. Even after Jesus had died and risen before their eyes (Acts 1) the disciples ask if He was going to restore the kingdom to Israel. Their preconditioned thinking was of a Messiah coming to overthrow natural rule, missing the point of who Jesus was and why He had come to earth. Even John the Baptist got confused for a while because what Jesus was doing didn't register with his expectations - (Luke 7:19 NIV) says “Are you the one who is to come, or should we expect someone else?” John had also thought Jesus should be overthrowing Rome, not sitting with children, healing people, forgiving sins. Children tend to have an attitude of “we want to know you as you are”. Adults tend to want to fit Jesus into their self-made boxes. Jesus was God on earth, the full and total manifestation of everything God the Father was and is. Colossians 2:9 (ESV) states “For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily”. Jesus is not just a representative of heaven; He is the fullness of God in every respect. All we need to know about God we can see in Jesus and His Word. Let us see Jesus for who He really is. Let us have a child-like faith and a child-like approach. Support this podcast
The title for this week's message by Pastor Andy is “Seeing Jesus for who He is”. This is in theme of celebrating our children. Matthew 19:13-15 (NIV) says” Then people brought little children to Jesus for him to place his hands on them and pray for them. But the disciples rebuked them. Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.” When he had placed his hands on them, he went on from there”. Maybe we do not prevent children from coming to Jesus physically but perhaps by not allowing them to have real encounters with Jesus. We can learn from watching the way children are with Jesus. They have no agenda, but a child-like purity. In Matthew 18 Jesus tells his Disciples that if they want to become great in the Kingdom, they need to become child-like (not childish!) in our approach to God. When we are walking with the Lord, we need to have a child-like faith in acceptance of what he says. Adults often become sceptical but this robs us of receiving Jesus, but Jesus actually encourages us to be child-like in their approach. Children see and want Jesus for what He is. Often we see and want Him for what He can do for us! We need to see and know Jesus for what He really is. Jesus is a God of much more than what we usually see Him for. Even during Jesus time on earth, people missed Him because He was not what they were looking for. When the Messiah came, many could not see Him as He didn't look like they expected or do what they thought He ought to. Such preconceived agendas are only one aspect of a hugely bigger God. The children of Israel in Exodus 24 were busy melting jewellery to make a representation of God as they wanted; meanwhile Moses was on the top of the mountain having a life changing experience! Many of Gods people could not see Jesus even when he was in the room with them as they were looking for a warrior character to overthrow the Roman Empire. Others looked for a ruling king like King David to rule as he did, but rather missed the point that Jesus' throne was a heavenly one! Being saved from their own sins was more necessary than being saved from the Roman rule but this passed them by. Even after Jesus had died and risen before their eyes (Acts 1) the disciples ask if He was going to restore the kingdom to Israel. Their preconditioned thinking was of a Messiah coming to overthrow natural rule, missing the point of who Jesus was and why He had come to earth. Even John the Baptist got confused for a while because what Jesus was doing didn't register with his expectations - (Luke 7:19 NIV) says “Are you the one who is to come, or should we expect someone else?” John had also thought Jesus should be overthrowing Rome, not sitting with children, healing people, forgiving sins. Children tend to have an attitude of “we want to know you as you are”. Adults tend to want to fit Jesus into their self-made boxes. Jesus was God on earth, the full and total manifestation of everything God the Father was and is. Colossians 2:9 (ESV) states “For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily”. Jesus is not just a representative of heaven; He is the fullness of God in every respect. All we need to know about God we can see in Jesus and His Word. Let us see Jesus for who He really is. Let us have a child-like faith and a child-like approach. Support this podcast
The title for this week's message by Pastor Andy is “Seeing Jesus for who He is”. This is in theme of celebrating our children. Matthew 19:13-15 (NIV) says” Then people brought little children to Jesus for him to place his hands on them and pray for them. But the disciples rebuked them. Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.” When he had placed his hands on them, he went on from there”. Maybe we do not prevent children from coming to Jesus physically but perhaps by not allowing them to have real encounters with Jesus. We can learn from watching the way children are with Jesus. They have no agenda, but a child-like purity. In Matthew 18 Jesus tells his Disciples that if they want to become great in the Kingdom, they need to become child-like (not childish!) in our approach to God. When we are walking with the Lord, we need to have a child-like faith in acceptance of what he says. Adults often become sceptical but this robs us of receiving Jesus, but Jesus actually encourages us to be child-like in their approach. Children see and want Jesus for what He is. Often we see and want Him for what He can do for us! We need to see and know Jesus for what He really is. Jesus is a God of much more than what we usually see Him for. Even during Jesus time on earth, people missed Him because He was not what they were looking for. When the Messiah came, many could not see Him as He didn't look like they expected or do what they thought He ought to. Such preconceived agendas are only one aspect of a hugely bigger God. The children of Israel in Exodus 24 were busy melting jewellery to make a representation of God as they wanted; meanwhile Moses was on the top of the mountain having a life changing experience! Many of Gods people could not see Jesus even when he was in the room with them as they were looking for a warrior character to overthrow the Roman Empire. Others looked for a ruling king like King David to rule as he did, but rather missed the point that Jesus' throne was a heavenly one! Being saved from their own sins was more necessary than being saved from the Roman rule but this passed them by. Even after Jesus had died and risen before their eyes (Acts 1) the disciples ask if He was going to restore the kingdom to Israel. Their preconditioned thinking was of a Messiah coming to overthrow natural rule, missing the point of who Jesus was and why He had come to earth. Even John the Baptist got confused for a while because what Jesus was doing didn't register with his expectations - (Luke 7:19 NIV) says “Are you the one who is to come, or should we expect someone else?” John had also thought Jesus should be overthrowing Rome, not sitting with children, healing people, forgiving sins. Children tend to have an attitude of “we want to know you as you are”. Adults tend to want to fit Jesus into their self-made boxes. Jesus was God on earth, the full and total manifestation of everything God the Father was and is. Colossians 2:9 (ESV) states “For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily”. Jesus is not just a representative of heaven; He is the fullness of God in every respect. All we need to know about God we can see in Jesus and His Word. Let us see Jesus for who He really is. Let us have a child-like faith and a child-like approach. Support this podcast
The title for this week's message by Pastor Andy is “Seeing Jesus for who He is”. This is in theme of celebrating our children. Matthew 19:13-15 (NIV) says” Then people brought little children to Jesus for him to place his hands on them and pray for them. But the disciples rebuked them. Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.” When he had placed his hands on them, he went on from there”. Maybe we do not prevent children from coming to Jesus physically but perhaps by not allowing them to have real encounters with Jesus. We can learn from watching the way children are with Jesus. They have no agenda, but a child-like purity. In Matthew 18 Jesus tells his Disciples that if they want to become great in the Kingdom, they need to become child-like (not childish!) in our approach to God. When we are walking with the Lord, we need to have a child-like faith in acceptance of what he says. Adults often become sceptical but this robs us of receiving Jesus, but Jesus actually encourages us to be child-like in their approach. Children see and want Jesus for what He is. Often we see and want Him for what He can do for us! We need to see and know Jesus for what He really is. Jesus is a God of much more than what we usually see Him for. Even during Jesus time on earth, people missed Him because He was not what they were looking for. When the Messiah came, many could not see Him as He didn't look like they expected or do what they thought He ought to. Such preconceived agendas are only one aspect of a hugely bigger God. The children of Israel in Exodus 24 were busy melting jewellery to make a representation of God as they wanted; meanwhile Moses was on the top of the mountain having a life changing experience! Many of Gods people could not see Jesus even when he was in the room with them as they were looking for a warrior character to overthrow the Roman Empire. Others looked for a ruling king like King David to rule as he did, but rather missed the point that Jesus' throne was a heavenly one! Being saved from their own sins was more necessary than being saved from the Roman rule but this passed them by. Even after Jesus had died and risen before their eyes (Acts 1) the disciples ask if He was going to restore the kingdom to Israel. Their preconditioned thinking was of a Messiah coming to overthrow natural rule, missing the point of who Jesus was and why He had come to earth. Even John the Baptist got confused for a while because what Jesus was doing didn't register with his expectations - (Luke 7:19 NIV) says “Are you the one who is to come, or should we expect someone else?” John had also thought Jesus should be overthrowing Rome, not sitting with children, healing people, forgiving sins. Children tend to have an attitude of “we want to know you as you are”. Adults tend to want to fit Jesus into their self-made boxes. Jesus was God on earth, the full and total manifestation of everything God the Father was and is. Colossians 2:9 (ESV) states “For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily”. Jesus is not just a representative of heaven; He is the fullness of God in every respect. All we need to know about God we can see in Jesus and His Word. Let us see Jesus for who He really is. Let us have a child-like faith and a child-like approach. Support this podcast
The title for this week's message by Pastor Andy is “Seeing Jesus for who He is”. This is in theme of celebrating our children. Matthew 19:13-15 (NIV) says” Then people brought little children to Jesus for him to place his hands on them and pray for them. But the disciples rebuked them. Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.” When he had placed his hands on them, he went on from there”. Maybe we do not prevent children from coming to Jesus physically but perhaps by not allowing them to have real encounters with Jesus. We can learn from watching the way children are with Jesus. They have no agenda, but a child-like purity. In Matthew 18 Jesus tells his Disciples that if they want to become great in the Kingdom, they need to become child-like (not childish!) in our approach to God. When we are walking with the Lord, we need to have a child-like faith in acceptance of what he says. Adults often become sceptical but this robs us of receiving Jesus, but Jesus actually encourages us to be child-like in their approach. Children see and want Jesus for what He is. Often we see and want Him for what He can do for us! We need to see and know Jesus for what He really is. Jesus is a God of much more than what we usually see Him for. Even during Jesus time on earth, people missed Him because He was not what they were looking for. When the Messiah came, many could not see Him as He didn't look like they expected or do what they thought He ought to. Such preconceived agendas are only one aspect of a hugely bigger God. The children of Israel in Exodus 24 were busy melting jewellery to make a representation of God as they wanted; meanwhile Moses was on the top of the mountain having a life changing experience! Many of Gods people could not see Jesus even when he was in the room with them as they were looking for a warrior character to overthrow the Roman Empire. Others looked for a ruling king like King David to rule as he did, but rather missed the point that Jesus' throne was a heavenly one! Being saved from their own sins was more necessary than being saved from the Roman rule but this passed them by. Even after Jesus had died and risen before their eyes (Acts 1) the disciples ask if He was going to restore the kingdom to Israel. Their preconditioned thinking was of a Messiah coming to overthrow natural rule, missing the point of who Jesus was and why He had come to earth. Even John the Baptist got confused for a while because what Jesus was doing didn't register with his expectations - (Luke 7:19 NIV) says “Are you the one who is to come, or should we expect someone else?” John had also thought Jesus should be overthrowing Rome, not sitting with children, healing people, forgiving sins. Children tend to have an attitude of “we want to know you as you are”. Adults tend to want to fit Jesus into their self-made boxes. Jesus was God on earth, the full and total manifestation of everything God the Father was and is. Colossians 2:9 (ESV) states “For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily”. Jesus is not just a representative of heaven; He is the fullness of God in every respect. All we need to know about God we can see in Jesus and His Word. Let us see Jesus for who He really is. Let us have a child-like faith and a child-like approach. Support this podcast
TAKEAWAYS:1. Never give up hope. God does not let us down, even when things don't happen on a timeline that we would have it happen.2. Even John the Baptist had his faith tested. If even he can have doubt, never feel down about your own faith.RESOURCES:Mark 5:21-43Faith confession from Bill Winston Ministries
In Matthew 11-12, opposition to Jesus steadily increases. Even John the Baptist—who is clearly Jesus's ally—is tempted to doubt him.
Matthew 11: Rebellion Against the King | Jesus didn't fit into people's expectations of what the Messiah should look like. Even John the Baptist began to wonder if Jesus was the one they were looking for. Journey 7 | Promises Kept. Journey Seven returns to Jesus' story, as Matthew presents Christ as the coming King and fulfillment of God's promises. In the Old Testament, Deuteronomy brings us to the edge of the Promised Land as Moses reminds Israel of God's faithfulness and challenges them to trust God for the road ahead. Then Hebrews connects the dots between the testaments, and 2nd Corinthians digs in to the heart of ministry. (91 days)Teacher: Kris & JonathanAbout TTW: When the Bible is confusing, Through the Word explains it with clear and concise audio guides for every chapter. The TTW Podcast follows 19 Journeys covering every book and chapter in the Bible. Each journey is an epic adventure through several Bible books, as your favorite pastors explain each chapter with clear explanation and insightful application. Understand the Bible in just ten minutes a day, and join us for all 19 Journeys on the TTW podcast or TTW app!Get the App: https://throughtheword.orgContact: https://throughtheword.org/contactDonate: https://throughtheword.org/givingMatthew 11 Themes: Jesus, John the Baptist, repentanceMatthew 11 Tags: John, John the Baptist, blind, leper, lame, kingdom of heaven, kingdom, woe, Tyre, Sidon, Sodom, Gomorrah, weary, burdened, come to me, I will give you rest,Key Verses: Quotes: Audio & Text © 2011-2021 Through the Word™ Inc. All rights reserved worldwide.Bible Quotes: The Holy Bible New International Version® NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission of Biblica, Inc.® All rights reserved worldwide.
On this First Sunday After The Epiphany we celebrate and remember The Baptism Of The Lord, which raises for us the question, "Why Baptize Jesus?" Even John the Baptist seemed troubled at the prospect of baptizing Jesus! Matthew seems to view the baptism of Jesus as an event in which the Messiah stands in for the true people of Israel as their representative, signifying their repentance and their re-creation to follow their true purpose - to bring about the salvation of the world!
On this First Sunday After The Epiphany we celebrate and remember The Baptism Of The Lord, which raises for us the question, "Why Baptize Jesus?" Even John the Baptist seemed troubled at the prospect of baptizing Jesus! Matthew seems to view the baptism of Jesus as an event in which the Messiah stands in for the true people of Israel as their representative, signifying their repentance and their re-creation to follow their true purpose - to bring about the salvation of the world!
Were people of habit. We like to do things the same way. We have our routines. We have our ruts as they are called, but there is a resistance to change. Its just part of our nature. Its how we are wired. There are also those who want to be agents of change and want to see change happen. So, they work against one another. Theres a tension there. I remember one of the funniest vacations we ever had was when we took a little trip to Door County. We went bike riding through Peninsula State Park. When we finished, we went to this little hamburger joint. We wanted to get something to eat. I remember that guy [who worked there] because it was so unique. I dont know if he was the owner or who he was, but he was fighting me on everything I ordered. I said, Id like the pork tenderloin, and I want to have ketchup, pickles, and onions please. He said, Ill put the works on there for you. I dont want the works. I just want it this way. He said, We serve it best with onions, mustard, mayonnaise, and lettuce. Im going to fix you up. I dont want to be fixed up. This is the way I want my sandwich. I would like to try some of your baked fries. Ive never had the baked fries before. I think Im going to try the baked fries. He goes, Ill get you some French fries. I said, I dont want French fries. I want to try something new. I want to try something different. He says, Those arent very good. Let me get you the real thing. I know what the real thing tastes like. I just had this healthy bike ride. I want to be healthy. Im going to try your baked fries. Ill get you the real thing. There was just this tension going on with him trying to impose change upon me and my resisting that change. All around our world, we have churches where theres that dynamic going, where there are those who say, Hey, Ive got this idea. Ive got this thing I think would be really cool. Leadership goes, Thats not the way we do things around here. Were just going to kind of keep it the same. They say, Over here, God is doing this wonderful thing. What do you think if we just do this wonderful thing? What do you think if we just do this and make this change? I dont think so. This is the way we do it here. Change happens. Jesus was an agent of change. One of the things He did is he brought about change and how we interpret Scripture, the meaning of things. He was constantly butting heads with the Pharisees and scribes and teachers of the law because He said things that you normally didnt say. He did things you shouldnt do. He bucked their traditions, but never Gods Word; so there was friction-there was tension-taking place. One such time is what weve been talking about in Luke 5, if you want to turn there. Remember, Hes already criticized for hanging around with tax collectors and sinners. As we go through this Book of Luke together, were going to find that criticism rendered quite a bit. Thats not the way spiritual leaders do things. One thing they noticed about Him was He didnt fast. They didnt pray like they saw other religious groups doing and other religious leaders doing. So they were judgmental of that. In Verse 33 (of Luke 5, page 1020 of pew Bibles), it says, They said to him, Johns disciples often fast and pray, and so do the disciples of the Pharisees, but yours go on eating and drinking. [The Pharisees were thinking], Do you know what? When You think about it, You must not be too spiritual because Youre not doing all the spiritual things. Youre not doing things You should do if Youre going to be a spiritual leader. Even John the Baptist, he fasts and prays. What Jesus is going to say in the next verses here is, basically, John the Baptist was praying and fasting for the coming of the Messiah, and Im here. Im the bridegroom and Im here. Therefore, theres coming a day when Ill be gone. You can fast then, but Im here now. Things have changed. When I was in school, there was always a threat of the new math coming. One of the things I liked about math was that it was always the same. Two plus two is always four. You can count on it, and there are not a lot of things I liked about math, quite frankly. But we were always threatened with the new math. I dont know if the new math ever came. I dont know what the new math ever was, but we were always threatened by that-that and the metric system. When you grow up, youre going to be using the metric system. Wrong! I dont. But I was always threatened with this new math, whatever it was. Im going to give you the new spiritual math today. Im going to give you some equations that are truth, that are always true, some equations that I discerned from this text. The first equation, lets put that up, is that the disciplines minus Jesus equal abuse. The Pharisees thought that if they just did the right things, that was what made them righteous-that fasting, in itself, was righteousness. Studying the Bible in itself was righteousness. Giving and praying were righteousness. Actually, those things are what are designed to lead us to righteousness, to lead us to Jesus-to lead us to a deeper path, a deeper walk. Take Jesus out of the equation; its abuse. These men did the right things, but they did them for the wrong reasons. So, theyre studying lead to arrogance. Their fasting and praying lead to their own self-advancement because they would do those things for all to see and all to hear. Jesus says, You have your reward. When you fast, do it in your closet. Dont put on a sad face. Put on a happy face. Clean and wash up. Shower, comb your hair, put on a smile, and dont let anybody know. When youre praying, go in a room, and shut the door. When youre studying, He said to them one time, you diligently study the Scriptures-Ill give you that-you diligently study; but the Scriptures bear witness of Me, and you refuse to come to Me that you might have life. Misuse, abuse. How many of you know what our horn is for in our car? Our horn is for warning people and protecting ourselves or protecting others. How many of you know that thats not always what the horn is used for on the road? I was driving this week on a service road trying to get on to Milton Avenue, by the Applebees side there. Do you know how it is sometimes you have to go up a few intersections before you can finally break through the traffic and get on Milton Avenue? So, thats what I was doing, going to several stoplights and trying to break in there. I ended up all the way to the mall before I could finally get on. I noticed somebody hitting their horn incessantly, just non stop, Beep, beep, beeeepp. Isnt that awful? Thats just annoying. Thats what it was like. I was really getting mad. Im like, Who is doing that? The next intersection, it would start all over again, and the next intersection it would start all over again. I finally figured out that the car in front of me was honking at the car in front of them-for some reason I dont know about because whatever happened between those two cars happened before I got there. I finally got on Milton Avenue. I was just curious as to who these participants were, the honkee and the honker. So I drove by the first car, the one that was being honked at. Im guessing because I passed that one first, they were being honked at because they were so slow or something. I noticed as I drove by, the car that was being honked at for minutes, non-stop, was a little old man and a little old lady, about 157 years old. They were just little tiny things. He is doing like this (Pastor shows what a little old man behind the wheel would look like), and you can barely see her all shriveled up in the seat next to him. They looked at me with just this saddest puppy dog face like they were just traumatized by what had taken place. So I went by to see who in the world would honk at old people like that; 157 years old, leave them alone! I drove up there, looked, and there was this middle-aged lady just with a frown on her face, still angry, with her teenage boy sitting next to her. I thought, You know what, maybe I should just get behind you and start honking at you. Thats what I wanted to do, but instead I gave her one of those looks like, Whats the matter with you? I heard her shout something back to me. I thought, Well, Im probably next. But she was abusing the horn. Thats not what its intention was. What these people were doing, pun intended, was they were using the disciplines to toot their own horn. They were misusing the disciplines. They were saying, Look at me. Im righteous. Im holy because I fast. Look at me. Im righteous and holy because I pray. Look at me. Look how much I give. Look how much I serve. Look at my clothing. Look how fancy it is. Look how righteous I am. These things are righteous, arent they, and Jesus says, No, theyre not. Those things are designed to lead you to Me, to lead you to righteousness. They are not, in and of themselves, righteous. If you take Jesus out of the equation, its abuse. It leads to arrogance, pride, and self-centeredness. You say, Well, look. You dont even pray. You dont even fast. You must not be spiritual. Its not even a question. Theyre not asking a question here, if you read it. Theyre making a judgmental statement toward Jesus, and Jesus is going to go on to say, in Verse 34, Can you make the guests of the bridegroom fast while he is with them? But the time will come when the bridegroom will be taken away [from them]; in those days they will fast. Jesus was not saying the tradition was wrong. He was saying eventually the tradition will be resumed, but for right now-for always-I am greater than the tradition. Thats important. The next equation is that when we have the tradition being greater than Jesus, it equals imbalance. Any church that tries to put man-made traditions over Jesus is in trouble. Theyre in trouble. Thats not the way its intended. Jesus is bigger than our traditions. Jesus is greater than our customs. No matter how good our customs are, He is preeminent. Its important that this church makes the primary the primary, the main thing the main thing. Anybody who does this…its out of whack-its not right. Businesses sometimes can do this. You and I have all been to restaurants where they have great advertising campaigns, great atmosphere, slick menus, and you get your food, and its sub-par. Its just not that good. Isnt that the main point of the restaurant? You want good food, good service? No matter how good the advertising is, and how good the menu looks, if the food is not good, and the service isnt good, youre probably not going to go. Id say that restaurant is in trouble. I remember in Rockford when the ad campaign for Wendys was going on-the Wheres the Beef? there was this Marys Kitchen [sign out front that read], Wheres the Bun? They had this poor location, photo-copied menu, greasy spoon diner-no advertising, but the place was packed because they made a good burger. They had generous portions at a reasonable price. They made the main thing-the main thing. Our church, in our early days, we didnt have a very good location. We were way south of town, or we were in between Janesville and Milton. We were in a hotel, or we were in a school, in a gym. These were not the best locations. We often didnt have the best conditions. Our air conditioning would go out in the summer, and our heater would go out in the winter. The room was musty; it was inconvenient. We had to set up our chairs, take down our chairs, set up our sound and lighting every week, and tear it down. We didnt have all the amenities, but one thing we knew we had was we had the Gospel. We could minister and we could have the Gospel. We know we have that; keep the main thing, the main thing. Teenagers, some of the cars just crack me up. Somebody will pull up to you at an intersection, and the muffler is loud. The brakes are squeaking, the body is rusted, and you wonder how the thing ever started; but, boy, that stereo works. When things come out of there, its enough to raise the dead. Youd think if you looked at an average teenagers car, what goes inside the car is the most important thing; but if they put more time and money into the stereo and the interior than they do the mechanics of the car, eventually, thats going to lead to a problem, isnt it? Because the main thing about a car is does it start? Does it drive? Does it get me to where I want to go safely? The main thing has to be the main thing. When it ceases to be the main thing, you have problems. In any church, Jesus must be the main thing. When Jesus is the main thing, when Jesus is greater than our traditions, greater than our structures, it leads to unity within the body. Thats true. One thing I love about our church is we come from all different backgrounds: Catholic, Lutheran, main-line, some from revivalist kinds of backgrounds, Baptist, whatever-you name it; yet, we all get along because the main thing is Jesus and His word. So we focus on what we agree on, rather than what we disagree on. I was bragging on our church just recently to some believers who werent experiencing this. They said, How in the world does your church do that? You guys should write a book or something. I said, You know what? God is so good because [with] such [diverse] backgrounds, and some with no church backgrounds, we get along well. We function well because Jesus is what its about. Now, the remaining verses here-lets take a look at those. He says [Verse 36], No one tears a patch from a new garment and sews it on an old one. If he does, he will have torn the new garment… because the old fabric wont bend with it. It wont shape with it. Plus, the new one will not match the old one. …no one pours new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the new wine will burst the skins, the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined. So the wine was put in animal skin because the animal skin was pliable, flexible. What happened is as the wine fermented, gases would be admitted, it would expand, and the new wineskin could adjust to that expansion. If it was an old wineskin that was already stretched out and expanded, it couldnt adjust. It would actually burst, and the wine would come out of the wineskin. The wineskin would be ruined. No, new wine must be poured into new wineskins. And no one after drinking old wine wants the new, for he says, The old is better. Manmade structures have to change. The wine doesnt change, but the structures do. We think of the wineskin as the container. Its how the Gospel comes in contact with the world. That changes with every generation, but the wine doesnt. The wine is whats sacred. The wineskins are important; but theyre not sacred-theyre secondary. They have to change. If they dont, theyll burst. Years ago, we watched a movie I really enjoyed called Sister Act. In Sister Act, Whoopi Goldberg comes into a church as a nun and ends up directing a choir, among other things that go on in the movie. The choir sings the same old songs in the same old way, and the church is dead. The priest gets up to speak, and there are just a handful of people every week. The choir is very bad and out of tune. She comes in and she gets them in tune. She gets them to sing and sound right. Then on their debut Sunday, they get up to sing. They sing the normal song, but they sing it a whole lot better than they usually do. Then after theyre done singing it the old way, they start singing it a new way. This new way causes waves because change causes waves. In this clip were going to see, well see the choir already well into the song in the new way. Watch their faces as they sing. What does it communicate? Watch the face of the Reverend Mother as she hears this new way. Watch the face of the priest, watch the congregation, and watch how it affects the outsiders as God wants to bring change in this inner-city Catholic Church. God wants to take the same Gospel and put it in a new wineskin to reach a new generation. Did you see the dynamic there? The choir is singing [and thinking], Are we sure this is okay? Sometimes when you make changes, you think, Is this legal? Boy, we really enjoy this. Its really effective. The Reverend Mother wanted nothing to do with that, but the priest, he saw, that this was something God could use. This is something good. He saw that that was a wineskin. The wineskin wasnt sacred. The Gospel is sacred. This will enable us to communicate more effectively. He saw the impact on the congregation. He said, Gods doing something new. In our church, its okay to do something new. Its okay to think outside the box. One of the things Ive enjoyed about ministering here is when we do make changes, people might [think], Oh, boy, Im not sure, but you know what? We dont hear that excuse and say, Well, thats not the way weve always done it, so we cant do it that way anymore. Theres another formula I want to leave with you. It is [this]: the Gospel plus new wineskins equals a healthy church. When the church says, You know what? The Gospel has to be protected. How we communicate that…its okay that that changes if its effective. It doesnt mean the old is bad. Music is one of the greatest sources of tension in churches. Contemporary churches are churches that are traditionally trying to transition into contemporary and basically kick the old stuff out, or occasionally throw them a bone. Most people were kind of cast aside. At our church, we started off as a contemporary church, but we recognized that those traditions are so important that we started a church just for the tradition, for the old wineskin, because its important. Its not that its wrong or bad, but that God also does new things too, so we use culture in our congregation. We will do dramas, media, or music where we can attach the Gospel to it to communicate effectively to our people. The church doesnt have to be archaic, boring, and dull to be exciting and life-giving. Change, if its done correctly, is a good thing. In organizations and ministries that refuse to adapt, the wineskin bursts, and eventually they die. I did a wedding in Rockford years ago, and a buddy of mine was there. I asked, Do you go to church here? Youre having the wedding here. He said, No, I dont go to church here. Man, its the most boring place in the world. It hasnt ever changed since I was a little kid. There have been some people who have tried to do some new things and tried to do some good things, but its always been turned away. As a result, over the years, the people have left, and new ones arent coming in. I said, Well, thats sad. I started talking to the minister before the wedding, just making small talk. I said, How many people do you have here that visit on a regular basis? He said, Well, you know, I think two. We have two. I said, Two? Thats not bad. We usually get about six, Im going to say, in the average weekend. Sometimes we get more; sometimes we get fewer, but two a week isnt bad. He said, No, no, I didnt mean two a week. I meant two a year. He said, We had two visitors last year. I said, For the entire year? Yeah, we had two. Thats not good. What was happening is that was the congregation where God was doing some new things, but they refused to change. By the way, some of you get nervous and say, Hes going to make some changes. I just know it. No, Im not thinking about making changes. Dont worry; this is not a prepare-you-for-something kind of a talk. What this is saying is that you know what? We are open to new wineskins in this church. The way were doing ministry, over the years, theres going to be some new wineskins. There are going to be some creative ways, some out of the box thinking, and thats okay. Were not going to fight that; were going to embrace that. If it honors God, its effective for the Gospel, we welcome that change. Everything Jesus did and taught was about change. The communion table in front of us, this morning, is about change. It is about looking at life a new way. The bread was no longer going to represent the old, the land that was slain at the Passover. The cup was no longer going to represent the blood of the lamb. It was going to represent the Lord Jesus because He was going to do something unthinkable. He was going to do something man could not even conceive. Every year, theyd come together; theyd commemorate the Passover. Theyd sacrifice the lamb. Theyd have the Passover meal. Theyd remember what God did. Jesus said, Thats going to change. From now on, when you observe this meal, youre going to think of Me because Im going to become the lamb of God. Im going to give of My blood. Im going to give of My body to set man free. The wages of sin is death. Jesus Christ was going to serve that sentence. He was going to die. He was going to become a curse in order that you and I could have forgiveness of sins and eternal life. That was something so radical, something a man could not have conceived in his wildest dreams. It took years for us to figure it all out. It took many explanations of Jesus to His disciples after the Resurrection, explaining from the Scriptures that the Messiah must suffer and die. It was a new way. It was a new covenant. The old covenant was going to go away, and the new covenant had come. This morning, as we receive communion, just prepare your hearts. Just thank God for the new things He is doing. Thank God for the things He wants to do in your life that are new. Be open and receptive to that. Were going to have some music playing in the background as we prepare our hearts to receive, and then after weve all received, just hold on to the elements and well partake together. Father, we thank You for the lesson today from Luke, the importance of the new wineskins. We said that change is difficult for us. We like the old better, and thats true. The same token that we need to have open minds, open hearts to see the new things Youre doing in our lives, the new things You are doing in our church, that You break through our traditions and our structures because You are bigger than them, so we might have a sensitivity to Your voice and to Your leading and always recognize that You are greater than the structure, that we might always keep You at the forefront as our top priority. You are what we are about, what this church is about. We pray that we might preserve unity in the faith. In Jesus name I pray. Amen.
What is the Context of the Parables in Teaching? Matthew 13 is one of the great chapters in the Bible, a series of seven parables of Jesus Christ. Parables are mysterious and sometimes hard to understand. I don't know about you, but sometimes I wish that He had given a careful interpretation of each of the parables, and not just two in this chapter. But He's given us the Holy Spirit and through that Spirit, we have the ability to be led into all truth and so we can understand. In this great chapter of seven parables we're immediately struck with a question of methodology; Jesus, why did you teach in parables? Isn't that question voiced for us by the disciples in verse 10 when the disciples came to Him and asked, "Why do you speak to the people in parables?" That is the question before us this morning, why did Jesus use parables. For me, as a verse-by-verse expositor going through the Gospel of Matthew, I'm struck immediately by a methodological challenge as well. Do I immediately go into the parable, "The Seed and the Soils,” and give you the interpretation, or do we deal with the question of why did Jesus speak in parables? The first thing we have in this chapter is the parable, "The Seed and the Soils," uninterpreted, and then the discussion on why Jesus spoke to the crowd in parables. We're going to begin with that second question first. Nest week we’ll interpret the parable, "The Seed and the Soils.” Let’s look at this first question asked for us so beautifully by the disciples: Why do you speak to the people in parables? As with all things in the Scripture, we need to understand the larger context. We're coming here to a new phase of the Gospel of Matthew. We've seen different phases throughout. In chapters 1-3 we see the credentials of Jesus Christ to be the Son of David, to reign on the throne of his father, his ancestor David established through the genealogy. Also, His unique existence as the incarnate Son of God through the virgin birth, and then the visit of the Magi and the flight to Egypt. All of that established his uniqueness as both son of man and son of God. He alone is fit to be the king of the kingdom of heaven right from the start. Also His Heavenly Father testified from heaven that Jesus was His Son. We have the credentials of Jesus. Then we see the beginning of his ministry, in chapter 4, as he preaches that central message in verse17, "Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." Jesus has come to proclaim a kingdom, He's going to preach it. Then in the Sermon on the Mount, chapters 5, 6 and 7 we have unfolded for us, so beautifully, kingdom life. What does it mean to be in the kingdom of heaven, right from the start? Matthew 5:3 says, "Blessed are the spiritual beggars for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven." Jesus gives the kingdom to beggars, and then explains so many aspects of the kingdom life, in straight teaching, directly to his disciples in a beautiful way. In chapters 8 and 9 He gives one miracle after another, a display of kingdom power, unlike any that had ever been seen before. There had been miracles before Jesus, but nothing like this. A river of miracles, flowing through Christ, nothing that he could not do. No sickness he could not heal, no demon too powerful for Christ. The evidence of Christ's authority as king is flowing through. Then in Chapter 10, He sends out the Apostles as messengers of the kingdom. They're going to go out and preach, and proclaim. In Chapters 11 and 12, we start to get feedback on the kingdom. People are responding, they're beginning to answer back, they're beginning to see about the kingdom and the responses are negative. Even John the Baptist did not fully understand. "Are you the one who was to come, or should we expect someone else?" Shattering question, really from somebody like John the Baptist. And then the Jewish cities that he lived in, his home town, his home area, Capernaum, and Chorazin, and Bethsaida, rejecting him. Apathetic, marveling at his miracles, but not coming into the kingdom. Perhaps bored or hard-hearted in some way. But rejecting, definitely. Then the Scribes and Pharisees, rejecting actively, aggressively opposing the kingdom. Hating it, fighting against it, saying that Christ is coming in the name of Beelzebub, rather than in the name of His Heavenly Father. Even his own family didn't believe in Him. His own family didn't accept him. At the end of this chapter, Jesus says, "Even in his hometown and his own house is a prophet not without honor." Jesus is rejected by those who knew Him the best. They did not fully understand. Mercifully, God would work in their hearts later, and that they would come to a living faith in Christ, but the returns were not good. Now, we're turning, in chapter 13, to the parables. In understanding that, we can start to see why He was teaching and why Matthew brings these seven parables to us so that we can understand because this kingdom, which is advancing, is a misunderstood kingdom. They didn't understand its internal spiritual nature. The parables are given to teach us, this kingdom which is proclaimed, it's here now, which is advancing, is misunderstood, and therefore rejected. Jesus is going to give these parables in a context of rejection of his message. The immediate context here in Matthew 13, is a large crowd. Verse 1, "That same day, Jesus went out of the house and sat by the lake, such large crowds gathered around him that he got into a boat and sat in it while all the people stood on the shore. And then he told them many things in parables, saying, A farmer went out to sow his seed." That's the immediate context, a huge throng of people. We tend to forget how popular Jesus was through His healings. You wouldn't have been able to get close to Jesus. You wouldn't have been able to get in and have a personal interview with him, probably, because there were so many people. Jesus found this to be a physical issue as well. So he got into a boat and separated himself somewhat from the crowd, so that He could have, I think, the benefits of the acoustics across the water. Have you ever heard somebody out in a boat, and they're able to speak in almost a normal speaking voice and it can just carry very well across the water? There's a kind of a scientific explanation for why Jesus did this, but also it's kind of a symbol in a way that there's a problem between Jesus and the crowds. They're not understanding or accepting His message so He's going to speak to them in parables, this mixed group. The Sermon on the Mount is given to his disciples, but these parables are given to a mixed group of disciples and just people who are there. He concludes, in verse 9, with a challenge. “He who has ears, let 'em hear." He's talking spiritual. It's a challenge. Everything therefore in this is somewhat mysterious, laden with mystery. The disciples don't understand it. I think they probably thought it was a missed opportunity. "Here's all these people, a huge crowd, and you give them this? Parable, the seed and the soils, and then you don't even explain it, you don't tell us what it means. Why do you speak to the people in parables?" I think right there, they're displaying their nature as disciples. They have a problem, there's a mystery concerning God, and what do they do as disciples of Jesus Christ? They go to Jesus and ask Him. They are spiritual beggars, and they go to Christ, and He's going to lavishly bless them for that asking. That ends up becoming a key concept. What is a Parable? What is a parable? In order to understand why Jesus spoke in parables, we have to understand what a parable is. The definition John MacArthur gives is right from the Greek, "parable" is the English transliteration of "parabolé", which is made up of two Greek words; "ballo", which means to throw, or cast, or lay down. And "para", alongside. Basically, one thing is being cast out alongside something else. What's going on here is that the physical worlds and those things that we can interact with physically are laid down alongside a spiritual kingdom that we can't understand without its help. The parable is some kind of an analogy from the physical world that helps us understand the spiritual world, according to Christ. The dictionary says that a parable' is a form of speech, a story, a saying used to illustrate a point that the speaker is trying to make. Therefore, because God, because Christ, wanted to communicate spiritual truth, He's going to give us these analogies, these illustrations to help us understand. We see a great example of it with Jesus and Nicodemus. You remember when Nicodemus came to Him in John 3, and he's interested in spiritual things. Jesus says to him, "I tell you the truth Nicodemus, unless you are born again, you cannot enter the Kingdom of Heaven." Nicodemus did not understand this figure of speech. He said, "How in the world can somebody my age get back up inside my mother, and be born again? It's not possible." Jesus says something very interesting in John 3:12, He says, "I have spoken to you of earthly things and you do not believe, how then will you believe if I speak of heavenly things?" What is He saying there? He's saying, "I've used an earthly figure of speech to help you understand what must happen to you to enter heaven. You must be radically transformed by the Spirit, much like it was when you were born the first time." He's saying, I'm using what you're used to, physical things, to explain something you couldn't understand any other way, namely heaven, spiritual things. This was a very common form of Jewish teaching. Forty-five times in the Greek translation of the Old Testament we have the word, “parable.” Rabbis used them again and again. As a matter of fact, one rabbi was asked, "Why do you speak so much in parables?" The same kind of question. The Jewish rabbis used parables also. Jesus said, "I'll answer you with a parable." He said, "A boy went out to shoot his arrows, and as he was shooting, somebody who came along later noticed that on every tree in the forest where he was practicing, there was a target, and the arrow was right in the center of every target." The man said, "I've never seen such a display of shooting. How do you do it?" He said, "Well, I shoot the arrow first, and then I paint the target around it." That's very clever. Actually, illustrations are important parts of sermons. Charles Spurgeon said, "A sermon without illustrations, is like a house without windows." But he also said, "You can take illustrations too far. If it's all illustration, all story, there's no structure, there's no foundation, there's no truth, there's nothing there but glass, the house will be destroyed." There's a blending, therefore, of a structure, a foundation of strength, something that will last; and then of windows to let light in so that we can see what's going on. There's a balance there. I think about that arrow and the trees and the target and all that. I saw a cartoon recently in a pastor magazines, they do this kind of thing. There was a pastor on his knees in his study, preparing for his sermon and he said, "Lord, please give me a great sermon to go with this incredible illustration." The sad thing is that that's kind of what's going on in pulpits all around our denomination, and many other places. We'll find a great story and try to find some biblical truth to put around it. Jesus never did that, and that's not what the parables were about. The parables, when finally and rightly understood, become some of the most perfect forms of teaching you could ever have on the kingdom. But they must be interpreted properly, they must be interpreted by Christ Himself. A parable takes what we're familiar with, the physical world, something like yeast and dough, or a seed planted in some soil, or a fishing net pulled up, filled with all kinds of fish, a treasure or a pearl. It takes something we know to explain something we don't know, and we wouldn't have any other way of understanding it. There's great riches here. "The parables, when finally and rightly understood, become some of the most perfect forms of teaching you could ever have on the kingdom. But they must be interpreted properly, they must be interpreted by Christ Himself. " There are in Matthew 13 seven parables. From the seed and the soils, which you've already heard, to the parable of the wheat and the weeds, in which there is seed of wheat mixed together with the weeds. They all grow together, and there's a tangled mess. The harvesters want to pull out the weeds and the master says, "Let both grow together until the harvest." What does this teach us about the kingdom? It teaches that the kingdom advances in a mixed setting. We're constantly surrounded by unbelievers, and we have to make our way in a tangled mess of a world, in which we can't tell the difference, frankly, between the enemies and the friends of the kingdom. Some enemies look like friends and some friends look like enemies. That's the way it's going to be with the kingdom. Or the parable of the mustard seed and the yeast. Two parables, which basically teach the same thing, namely, that the Kingdom starts small, and grows larger and larger, but there's a difference. With the mustard seed, the growth is obvious and evident. It's outward, you can see it. The yeast, it's hidden, and permeates and moves through. "The Kingdom of Heaven is like yeast, which a woman took and mixed into a large amount of flour until it permeated through the dough." This is my favorite parable. Nineteen words in the Greek, and it explains all of human history, and my life too, that the Kingdom can come in small, and after a while, dominate, and yet, that whole advance is hidden and mysterious. You see what I mean? The parables end up becoming some of the clearest windows you will ever have to understand spiritual truth. Or, "The Kingdom of Heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, or a pearl of great price. It's worth selling everything you have to gain it." But there's a difference again. In one case, the man stumbles across it, wasn't really looking for it, and it takes over his whole life, he's willing to sell everything. In the other case, the merchant is searching his whole life for something. And when he finds it, he recognizes it. We kind of come at the Kingdom perhaps different ways, but both of us ultimately recognize the value, we're willing to sell everything. And the key word is "for joy". We are glad to make the trade because of the value of the kingdom. Finally, the dragnet parable: "The kingdom of heaven is like a net let down until late; catches all kinds of fish. And when the net is full, the fisherman sit down and collect the good fish in baskets, then they throw the bad way." The advance of the kingdom and the history of the kingdom ends in judgment day. At that judgement day, there will be a great separation between those who have entered the kingdom, who are transformed by the grace of God, and those who have not. Seven parables. And when understood properly, they illuminate the kingdom. Why did Jesus speak in Parables? Why did Jesus speak in parables, why did he teach? The first answer I get out of this text is that Jesus taught in parables to fulfill prophecy. The prophets said he would. He fulfills prophecy in Isaiah and He fulfills prophecy in Psalms. In verse 13 and following, "This is why I speak to them in parables, though seeing, they do not see. Though hearing, they do not hear, or understand." Verse 14, "In them is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah. You'll be ever-hearing but never understanding, you'll be ever-seeing, but never perceiving. For this people's heart has become calloused, they hardly hear with their ears, and they have closed their eyes. Otherwise, they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts, and turn, and I would heal them." He fulfills prophecy in Isaiah, it's directly quoted by Jesus, Himself. Matthew quotes it also later on, look at verses 34 and 35. Jesus spoke all these things to the crowd in parables, he did not say anything to them without using a parable. Verse 35, "So was fulfilled what was spoken through the prophet. I will open my mouth in parables, I will utter things hidden, since the creation of the world." According to Matthew, Jesus spoke in parables to fulfill prophecy. Matthew is always doing this, by the way. He's always finding fulfillment: “So was fulfilled,” or “thus was fulfilled,” “what was written”, here and there. Here he finds Psalm 78:2 where it says, "I will open my mouth and parables, I will utter hidden things, things from of old." If you look to that context there, you would see that basically it has to do with the transmission of the tradition of Israel to the next generation, and it's going to be through all kinds of teaching techniques and some of them would be parables. If you look in the Old Testament, there's going to be a whole wealth of teaching types. There are Proverbs, wisdom literature, history, prophecy, and law. All of it comes together in one central message fulfilled in Jesus Christ. For Jesus, the perfect teacher of Israel, it made perfect sense for Him to use parables as well, in direct fulfillment of Psalm 78.That's reason number one, Jesus taught in parables that He might fulfill prophecy. Secondly, Jesus taught in parables that he might conceal and judge. What do I mean by that? That He might conceal kingdom truth, and judge the hard-hearted. There is a tone of judgment here. “I’m speaking to the people in parables in order that I may judge them." Look again at verses 13-15, "This is why I speak to them in parables. Though seeing, they do not see, though hearing, they do not hear or understand. In them is filled the prophecy of Isaiah. You will be ever-hearing but never understanding, you will be ever-seeing, but never perceiving. For this, people's heart has become calloused. They hardly hear with their ears, and they have closed their eyes. Otherwise, they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts, and turn, and I would heal them." This is a quote from Isaiah 6. “And the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord,” and he got his commission." In Isaiah 6:8 God says, Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?” Isaiah says “Here am I, Lord, send me.” Isaiah wants to know, “What shall I tell them?" "Tell them that they're not going to understand your message, tell them that they're going to be judged for their hard-hearted-ness, tell them that you'll have a whole life of preaching and they will not get it. As a matter of fact, Isaiah, they're going to reject you, they're going to spurn you, and tradition has, they're going to saw you in half because their hearts are hard and they're not listening." And it happened. In Isaiah 28: 9-10 he talks about some of the feedback he was getting on his message. The people were offended because he had gone from one level of speaking to a more simple level. He says, "Who is he trying to teach, to whom is he explaining his message? To children weaned from their milk, to those just taken from the breast? For it is do and do, do and do, rule on rule, rule on rule, a little here, a little there." They're mocking Isaiah because of the simplistic way that he was teaching them at that point. What doesn't come across in the English translation is the Hebrew and the way it sounded. It was, "Kabbalab, Kabbalab. Sabbalab, Sabbalab." It's like babble, they were mocking the preached word. God said, "Very well, then... " Stop there. When God says that, sit up and take notice. "Very well, then. If you don't accept my plain, simple teaching, I will speak to you through the lips of a foreign language." Isaiah says, "Very well then, with foreign lips and strange tongues, God will speak to this people. When the Babylonians are walking down the street of Jerusalem, when the temple is burning, when everybody's either dead or deported, and you're hearing the babble of the Babylonians, Kabbalab, Kabbalab. Sabbalab, Sabbalab, and that's what it sounds like, you will know I have spoken to you. Because through those foreign lips, I will communicate that your time has come and judgment has fallen." That's what's going on here. Jesus is saying, “You didn't understand the simple, plain message. Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Therefore, I will speak to you a little bit more obliquely. And there's going to be a division between insiders and outsiders.” This division is very strong in Mark's Gospel. In Mark 4:11-12, when Jesus explains the parables, He tells his disciples, “The secret of the kingdom of God has been given to you. But to those on the outside, everything is said in parables, so that they may be ever-seeing, but never perceiving, and ever-hearing, but never understanding. Otherwise, they might turn and be forgiven." Do you see that? Inside, outside. The outsiders get the parables, the insiders get the secrets. There's a strong element, not just of judgment, but of election,of choice, on God's part, and of hardening of the outsiders. What ends up happening is that the parables are told so that the people may be ever-seeing, but never perceiving. Do you see it? The purpose statement's right in there, the parables are told so that they won't get it. The idea is if Christ had not told parables with no explanation, they'd be better off. Now, they're actually even worse. They're actually hardened now, because Jesus told a parable without explanation. A very clear example of this is in John, chapter 10. When Jesus, after He gives the figure of speech of the good shepherd, "I am the good shepherd," He picks up on these themes in the Old Testament. After He gets done speaking about the good shepherd who lays down his life for the sheep, "And my sheep hear my voice and they follow me and I give them eternal life." The reaction to all of this beautiful sheep and shepherd language in John 10: 20-21, is that many of them said, "He is demon-possessed and raving mad. Why listen to him?" But the others said, "These are not the sayings of a man possessed by a demon." Do you see the division? It's so plain. The parable hardens one group and makes them say, "Jesus is insane,” and it opens up another group that says, "I've never heard teaching like this." It's incredible. Do you see what happens? There's a wider gulf as a result of the parable. As a result, the people who are on the outside actually understood less about God in Christ after he had gotten done with the parables. They had a worse assessment of Christ because he taught them in parables. Therefore, secondly, Christ told parables to conceal his truth from his hard-hearted enemies as an act of judgement. "The parable hardens one group and makes them say, "Jesus is insane,” and it opens up another group that says, "I've never heard teaching like this." It's incredible. " Amazingly though, the exact same words, the same parables were given for a third reason and that is to reveal spiritual truth and to bless His disciples. It's that incredible, the two-edged sword. The same words become a source of revelation, of insight, of windows, that let light into the kingdom so that we can see the truth. And as a result, we know more about the kingdom now, and we are blessed because of it. In verses 10 through 12 the disciples came to Him and asked, "Why do you speak to the people in parables?" Verse 11, He replied, "The knowledge of the secrets of the Kingdom of Heaven has been given to you, but not to them." Then in Verse 12, "Whoever has will be given more, and he will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what he has, will be taken from him." In Jesus' time, and really in our time as well and throughout history, there have been things called "mystery religions". Mystery religions work this way: If you were one of the initiates, one of the insiders, you had the secret passwords of knowledge that would enable you to make progress in the religion. Gnosticism's a great example of this, comes from the Greek word, "gnosis", which means "to know". If you have the little key of knowledge, you can open doors and make progress in the mystery religion. Mormonism has an element of mystery religion in it. There's growth and progress if you're one of the inner initiates. Also in the time of Christ, there was the cult of Osiris and Isis, Egyptian deities. Again, if you had the inside knowledge, you could see the significance to the whole mythological story there, and you would make progress in the religion. Jesus picks up on this word, using the word "Mysterion". The knowledge of the secrets, or the mysteries of the Kingdom of Heaven has been given to you, but not to them. There's nothing you can do, it's just knowledge that is given by grace. Jesus, of His own grace, of His own mercy, is willing to just give you the knowledge. "The knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of heaven has been given to you, but not to them. Whoever has will be given more, and he will have an abundance." He says, "I'm just here to give it to you, freely." Terefore, He lavished wisdom, and lavished blessing on His chosen disciples. Verse 16-18, "Blessed are your eyes because they see, and your ears because they hear. For I tell you the truth, many prophets and righteous men long to see what you see, but did not see it. And to hear what you hear, but did not hear it." Do you see what's going on here? Not only do you get the knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom, but you get parables personally explain to you by the incarnate Son of God. You get a private tutoring session with Christ, Himself, as he sits down with you and says, "This is what it means. I'll give it to you." The Old Testament prophets and righteous men didn't have that kind of privilege. Whoever wrote Psalm 78 didn't understand fully what he was talking about. I don't think he was able to project to the future and say, "This is about Christ," he just wrote it led by the spirit. They longed to know more, but they couldn't figure it out. They know now, praise God. They're in heaven, and they have fuller knowledge. But he's saying, "You have a great advantage." We 21st century Christians have an even greater advantage. We can look back on 20 centuries of yeast spreading through dough and we've seen fulfillment. Even the apostles didn't have that advantage. We've been able to see the kingdom grow from almost nothing, to take over the world. It's almost finished, too, praise God. We're in a great time to live. We have been given the secrets, we've been given the inside information by Christ, Himself. The parables become a rich and lavish storehouse of blessing. Listen, then, to what the parable of the sower means. Tell me,Jesus, what it means. Tell me what the wheat and the tares, thing. What is that, what's going on with that? The treasure in the field. Tell me, Jesus. And so that's the fourth reason, too, that he's given the parables. He wants to make you a dependent spiritual beggar. He wants to make you non-self-sufficient, he wants to make you puzzled, he wants to make you troubled sometimes, so that you will come and ask him. Not just the parables but the Bible, as a whole, is filled with mysteries. Hard things to reconcile, how one thing could be true in something else and how do we put that together, how do we wrestle with the truths of the Bible? We're troubled by it. Sometimes even new denominations start over those things. We should be humbly, submissively, like servants going to the master, saying, "I don't get this. Tell me what it means, tell me what it means." The parables have a humbling effect on you. They make you humble, they make you ask. "Blessed are the spiritual bangers for theirs is everything," “I’ll give you the secrets, if you just come and ask me." That is something hardened enemies will never do, they'll never go to Him after the Good Shepherd parable and say, "I don't understand, tell me what it means. They won't do that because if they would, they would be told fully and they would rejoice and they'd fall on their face, and say, "Thank you for being my good shepherd." So in the end, this kind of teaching, the parables, divides. Good fish, bad fish. Wheat and weeds. Because we are humble enough to come and say, "I don't get it. Tell me what it means,” He tells us. The parables were given, therefore, number one: To fulfill prophecy. Number two: To harden and judge enemies. Number three: To reveal and to bless disciples. And number four: To make us humble spiritual beggars. Application The first one should be obvious, humble yourself and ask. If you don't understand anything in the Bible, or the parables, come to Christ on your knees in your own quiet time, and say, "Lord Jesus, teach me the truth." Do that for years, and He will. Anyone who lacks knowledge, He will give it to them. He is, it says in the Book of Isaiah, "A rich store of salvation and wisdom and knowledge." You come to Christ and ask Him, humble yourself and be a spiritual beggar. Secondly, just marvel. These seven parables are like seven gems, each one of them teaching something about the kingdom. Marvel that He's given us this kind of wisdom, this kind of insight. Thirdly, rejoice in your privilege as a disciple, that you have the right and the freedom to come any time and ask Him for truth and insight, and He will give it to you through His indwelling Spirit. Marvel at this privilege as a disciple. Then, study. Learn each parable, learn the difference between the parable of the mustard seed and the yeast. There is a difference and there's a similarity. Learn the difference between the treasure hidden in the field and the pearl of great price. Work on it, think about it. Finally, some of Christ's parables were given to make you come to faith in Christ, to make you realize you need to enter the Kingdom. You must respond to the Kingdom, you must bear the fruit of the Kingdom or you will be lost. You must have a heart that is soft and yielded to Christ. If you have never given your life to Christ, don't leave without talking to me. Talk to me, "How can I enter? How can I be one of His disciples, how can I have saving faith?" And He will give it to you.
Introduction We're going to look primarily at one verse this morning, Matthew 12:20. I'm sure that many of you were following the events of this week. When the coalition forces moved into Baghdad, they did so on the strength of over-powering military force, M1A1 Abrams tanks, total air superiority, and Marine detachments and all of that. The reason is because that’s the way that earthly empires rise and fall. That's how it happens. And so, it has been. We saw the toppling of a regime this week, the pulling down of Saddam statue, a good indication of that, but that's how the coalition forces rode into Baghdad. How did Jesus ride into Jerusalem? Interesting, isn't it? The contrast. I've said before, "You can't do much militarily from the back of a donkey." It's really not much you can do, you're pretty low to the ground, you don't move fast. They're not very smart or willing, and so it's really not a good tool for conquest that way. Yet there was a greater force in the gentleness of Jesus than in all the military force that we've ever seen in history put together, greater force for the conquest and the pulling down of an evil empire. "Do not be afraid O daughter of Zion; See, behold, your King comes to you gentle and humble riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey." A gentle conqueror. Now, that's an anomaly, something we can't figure out, but he has that kind of power, doesn't he? I have the great joy of standing before you, proclaiming one of the most encouraging messages I've ever heard in my life. I've thought about this for 18 years and feasted on it all this time. I related two weeks ago that I used to go out on Sunday afternoons and just find a pleasant place outside under a tree maybe, and I would just read the scripture. but I'd read other things. One day I came across a sermon by a Puritan named Richard Sibbes called,” The Bruised Reed and Smoking Flax." I've never forgotten what I read there because there is portrayed a gentle Savior who doesn't give up on sinners like me. He works with weak building materials, like me, to build an empire, a kingdom that will last forever and ever. That's encouraging because I see my sinfulness, I see my brokenness, I see my weakness and to know that there's a savior who can use someone like me, and that He doesn't give up on me. He's so wise and careful and perfect in how He deals with me in my sin, and how He works with me is encouraging. Do you ever feel, yourself, like a failure, in your Christian life? Do you ever feel the weight of your own sin like you're useless to God, that you're going to be disqualified, that God could never use someone like you? Do you ever wonder how you're going to survive decades more temptation in this wretched world and make it through? Do you ever wonder about those kinds of things? Have you ever been grieved to your heart over the mixed nature of your walk with Christ? Has it ever bothered you that you're not more undivided in your attention for him? That's wonderful, as a goal, but let me tell you something, I am not totally consumed for Christ. There's not much “totally” in my life, not the way it should be. It bothers me. It bothers me that I'm not totally sold out for Jesus. The Gentleness of Jesus This text is for you, the savior of this text stands here for you as your gentle conqueror, as your Savior. It's a triumphant message, "The bruised reed, He will not break, and the smoldering wick, He will not snuff out until He leads justice to victory. In His name the nations will put their hope." What a message, what a message. We could never have put this together, could we? This is not coming from the imagination of a human being, it's not the way we do things. But it is the way God does things. The basic idea in this text is that Christ is powerful enough to be gentle with sinners like us and triumphant in the end. He's powerful enough to use broken, sinful people, like you and me, to build a kingdom that will last forever, but there's a little secret in here that isn't obvious in the text. He is our Savior, an oasis of gentleness in a harsh world. It is a harsh, world isn't it? Governments are harsh, sinners around us are harsh, false religious systems are harsh and tear us down. The devil and his angels are harsh and vicious, relentless. It’s a tough world, and Christ is an oasis of gentleness. He stands before you and says, "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, for I am gentle and humble in heart". “That's the way I conduct my business. You'll find that my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” That same Savior says this: “A bruised reed I will not break, a smoldering wick, I will not snuff out, until I lead justice to victory". What's the context? We looked last week at it. I'm not going to spend a lot of time this week on context, but I just can't preach on a single verse without setting it in context. The context overall in Matthew's Gospel is the kingdom of heaven, and Christ is being portrayed right in the center, as the king of the kingdom of heaven with his credentials laid out before us. We've talked about it, his genealogy establishing him as the son of David, his baptism as the son of God, and the miraculous events of his birth also as the Son of God. He's the son of David, the son of God, he calls himself son of man. We have the incarnation, the God man who is setting up a kingdom, and He does it by means of miracles in Matthew 4, and then again in Matthew 8 and 9, just one after the other. There seems to be nothing he cannot do. His is incredible teaching as we had in the Sermon on the Mount, the greatest sermon that's ever been under Jesus' proclaiming. The Sermon on the Mount beginning right from the start, "Blessed are the spiritual beggars for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.” Right from the start, speaking this way. We see that He's the king of the Kingdom of Heaven. But then in chapter 11 and 12, we begin to get returns. We begin to get human responses back to that kingdom. How are they responding to Jesus? It's not good. He's being rejected actually. Even John the Baptist doubted and wondered if he was really the one who was to come. Chorazin, Bethsaida and Capernaum, Jewish cities rejected him, not interested, even though all of his miracles had been done there. Then in Matthew 12, we have the religionists, the Jewish leaders, the Scribes and Pharisees, these powerful people attacking him because he's too gentle on the Sabbath. He's breaking their rules. He's healing people on the Sabbath and they're attacking him. In verse 14 of Matthew 12, you'll notice that they, on the Sabbath, plot to kill him. They're going to seek to kill him. As I've mentioned before, they will succeed, won't they? That's what we think about this week, the death of Jesus on the cross. There was a human aspect to that, and it was the hatred and the jealousy and the opposition of these Pharisees, so Jesus aware of their plot, withdraws. He pulls back. He doesn't go on the offensive. He doesn't attack. If he had wanted to do that, he could have done it right from the start. Twelve legions of angels would have been sufficient to wipe them out. He didn't need the angels, but that wasn't his approach. Instead, he's gentle and as he pulls back, all of these sick people come to him and he heals them. Matthew, with the eye inspired by the Holy Spirit, sees their fulfillment. He's always seeing fulfillments. When Jesus rides on the donkey, it's Zechariah, that's being fulfilled. When Jesus heals all of these weak and sick people, Matthew sees a fulfillment. In Isaiah 42 he said, "Behold, my servant. Look at my servant, my chosen one, the one I love and whom I delight. I will put my spirit on him, and he will proclaim justice to the nations. He will not quarrel or cry out.” No one's going to hear his voice in the streets. "A bruised reed, he will not break and a smoldering wick, he will not snuff out until he leads justice to victory in his name in which the nations will put their hope.” Jesus is not behaving the way you're supposed to behave. If you're going to set up a big powerful kingdom, it's not the way it's done. And as a matter of fact, his brothers struggled over this, didn't they? They gave him some PR advice. “The things you do, Jesus, come here, Jesus, the things you do are amazing, but let me tell you something. You don't seem to realize how people think. If you want to set up a kingdom, this is not what you do. This is the big feast time." [John 7] “You go down to Jerusalem, to the big population center, and you find the strong movers and shakers. You get them into a coalition, and you move and nobody's going to be able to stop you. We've seen what you can do. We've seen the power you have. Nobody who wants to become a public figure act like this." Even his own brothers did not believe in him says the scripture. They didn't trust him, not just in terms of his miracles, but in how He's going about building his kingdom. He's not doing it that way, and He's pulling back. He's doing it a different way. He says, "My kingdom is not of this world. I'm not going to enter Baghdad or Jerusalem or any other city the way that the armies do. That's not what I do. I build my kingdom a different way and I'm going to win. I'm going to be triumphant. I'm going to do it with gentleness," and so He does. The Bruised Reed & Smoldering Flax Now what is a simple explanation of the one verse? There's the context. "A bruised reed he will not break, and a smoldering wick he will not snuff out." What does that mean? We have to understand what a bruised reed is and what a smoldering flax or wick is. Simple description is, we've got descriptions here of worthless, useless frailty, isn't that what you've got? With a bruised reed and a smoldering wick, these are pictures of worthless, useless frailty, obnoxious frailty even. Reeds were used for many things back in Jesus's day. They would use them for writing because they had little tubules. Or you could use them for playing music, a musical instrument. But I can tell you right now, they will not function well in either way if they're bruised, creased or maybe ripped a little. I was speaking earlier to somebody who knows some things about finances. What do you think is the market value for a bruised reed? It's a picture of worthlessness. When you have a bruised reed, what do you do to it? You throw it out and you get another one, one that works. Jesus doesn't throw it out, he works with it. He doesn't break it. It's not completely severed in the end. He uses it, works with it. What about a smoldering flax? A ceramic dish, which would have a combustible oil, olive oil perhaps, and then there would be the wick and the wick would go down... Have you ever... You've seen a hurricane lantern, perhaps that would wick up the oil, take it up and then you would light it and it would glow and it would give lights to the house. Well, what is a smoldering wick? It's one it seems in which there's impurities. Something's wrong with it. It's not just giving out light, it's giving out obnoxious fumes, smoke. It's smoldering. Now how expensive do you think a new wick would be? Throw it out. Stamp it out, throw it out and get a new one. It's a picture of worthlessness, of rejection and of frailty and uselessness and he doesn't do it. He doesn't throw it out. He doesn't extinguish it. He works with it until it's not smoldering anymore because he's going to bring justice to victory. He's going to keep working with it. That's the idea. The idea is of Christ's gentleness and patience. You really think we're talking about bruised reeds and smoldering wicks? We're talking about people, aren't we? We're talking about people, and he works with sinners who are very much like bruised reeds and smoldering wicks. He works with them until he's finished. And when he's finished, his kingdom has come, and it's glorious. That's the basic idea. He's very patient. He's wise and gentle and working with sinners until he's finished with them. And what is his destiny in the end? He's going to succeed, isn't he? Until He brings justice to the nations, He's going to win, He's going to be victorious. He's going to do it His way, in a way that we never would have done. He's going to do it His way and, in the end, He's going to be victorious. Last time we focused much more on the big picture, worldwide. I want to zero in on you as a child of God. He's going to win in your life, isn't that encouraging? He's going to keep working on you until He's finished with you, if you're a child of God. We're going to look at four encouraging doctrines. First whom Christ chooses, secondly how Christ bruises, thirdly why we smolder now and fourth how we will shine forever for eternity. We'll look at that and that's going to be the meat of what we're going to look at. And then we'll go briefly into some quick descriptions of Christ and of us and apply it. Whom Christ Chooses First: Whom does Christ choose for His Kingdom? The basic idea here is that Christ chooses worthless, broken people to enter His kingdom, and He gently binds them up and uses them to advance His Kingdom without destroying them. A bruised reed He will not break. The Scripture here, I believe, is calling us bruised reeds. That's what we are. In a way it's offensive if you really stop and say, "I don't think of myself that way, I don't like to think of myself as a bruised reed." Well, that's what you are. You're not a mighty oak, a strong redwood. No, not at all. You're a bruised reed. Think of what Paul wrote in first Corinthians 1:26, "Brothers think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards, not many were influential, not many were of noble birth, but God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise. God shows the weak things of the world to shame the strong. He chose the lowly things of the world, and the despised things, and the things that are not to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before Him." Is there going to be any boasting in the Kingdom of Heaven? Oh yes, there'll be boasting, but it won't be about us. We'll be boasting about our Savior Christ. The one who can build a kingdom out of bruised reeds and smoldering wicks. They are feeble, they are weak, they're bruised reeds, no one enters the kingdom, healthy, strong and mighty. No one. How do you enter the kingdom? Blessed are the spiritual beggars, the destitute, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Jesus said it this way, it's not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. What kind of surgical precision would it take to work with a bruised reed and not break it? Isn't that incredible? We've already decided we're not going to throw it out, but now we need to work with it. How are we going to bind it up? How are we going to make it right again? The wisdom, the gentleness, the precision to work with sinners until they're strong and healthy, this is incredible. Christ chooses bruised reeds. He chooses to work with them. And if you say, "I'm not in that category," then you don't need a savior. You don't need a savior; you don't need Jesus. But you know you do. You know you do. How Christ Bruises Secondly: How Christ bruises. Now you say, "Wait a minute, I thought we're going verse by verse. Show me how Christ bruises in this text." I'm telling you already, it's not there. But I know from scripture and I know from personal experience that He's the one that does the bruising. He is the one that bruises. Christ is the one who works in us and He does it for our own good. He does it to break us of that wretched demonic pride that will sink us to hell if it's not broken. That self-reliance, that has us able to do it on our own, where we don't need a savior. He's got to bruise us, He's got to pierce us, He's got to wound us, so that we give it up. So, we stop relying on ourselves and what we can do and our good works and all that. He's got to bruise us. We are kind of in the machinery of this sinful world bruised by sin, aren't we? There's just a machinery, you imagine farm equipment and just getting wrapped up and just bruised by the sinful machinery of the world, it happens, and it hurts, sin bruises us. We can be bruised just by being in this sinful world. We can be bruised directly, individually by the sins of others, other sinners can bruise us. An abusive spouse could bruise us. An abusive tyrant, dictator who's ruling, your nation can bruise us. A wicked criminal who puts a gun to your head and steals all your possessions can bruise you. Ordinary sinners day after day in the office, in the neighborhood, they just bruise us. But then again, we bruise them too, don't we? We're bruising each other, and this is what sin does. But I want to look beyond that to look specifically into how Christ bruises sinners. What does He do? Well, He does it for a different reason. He does it to save us. He does it to break us down so that we recognize we need a savior. We must be in effect stricken in our hearts or we will never turn to Christ. We need to be somewhat pierced; we need to be made spiritual beggars. You have to realize that you are a ptochos, a beggar. [Matthew 5:3], or you won't come to Christ and ask. Luke 18:13, "The tax collector stood a distance, he would not even look up to heaven but beat his breast... " [There's a piercing there] “and said, "God be merciful to me, the sinner." That's not our natural state, is it? You have to kind of be worked to that point. That's not where we usually are. He went home justified. So, He's got to bruise us to get us to that point. Through the convicting work of the Holy Spirit, Christ bruises us most severely. In John 16:8 it says, "When He, the Spirit comes, He will convict the world of guilt in regard to sin and righteousness, and judgment." And He bruises us when we read the scriptures, as unconverted people. We're reading the scriptures and we begin to see the sin in our lives, and we begin to cry out against our situation. We feel the wrath of God, the condemnation for our sins, and it's pressing on us like a weight, a sense of guilt. Bunyan and Pilgrim's Progress begins with Christian with a heavy weight on his back and a book in his hand, and he cries out, with a lamentable cry saying, "What shall I do?" There's a sense of that bruising that's going on. He's hurt because of his own guilt. Well, who's doing the bruising? It's Christ through his spirit. He bruises us when he makes it clear how devastating sin is by not shielding us and protecting us from its devastating consequences. The Prodigal Son, when does he come to himself? When he's slopping pigs and they won't even give him any of the pig food. That's when he says with enlightened self-interest about to kick in here. “This is a terrible way to live.” Well, that's a bruising isn't it? You just go down and down, until you hit rock bottom and you begin to say, "I need a Savior. What's going on in my life?" It’s Christ that's bruising you, he's waking you up to the damage that sin does. When it's time to convert us, He lays us low again by the preaching of the Word. Peter stood up at Pentecost, and proclaimed a powerful message of salvation through faith in Christ and also of the threatened wrath of God against those who would not repent and when his neighbors, fellow Jews, heard him, they said, in Acts 2:37, “They were cut to the heart.” That's a kind of bruising, isn't it? Who did that cutting? It's the cutting of a surgeon. They said, "Brothers. What shall we do?" And Peter said, "Repent and be baptized." This is very noticeable, especially during times of revival. During the Great Awakening, George Whitefield went out into the fields to preach and he went down to the coal miners. I've told you this story before, I just love it. They are not used to going to church. You need nice clothes and all that. It's just for wealthy people. They didn't go. He went out to them out in the fields and began to preach and these were some of the roughest toughest, hardest characters you'll find anywhere in England. They were drunkards, they were violent men, criminals, many of them, and yet they wanted to hear Whitefield. Anybody who'd come out and preach in the field is at least a spectacle. Well, as he would preach, the fear of God came upon them and the conviction, the work of the Holy Spirit, and as they heard him, you could see the tracks of their tears, literally, on their soot-covered faces, the breaking and the pain of conviction of sin and a yearning for forgiveness. That's a bruising work, isn't it, that Christ has done? He's made them ready, and they want Christ. So then, we came to faith in Christ. Is the bruising work over? No, really just beginning, in some ways. Now He really starts to work on us. By the indwelling Holy Spirit, He begins to make us hate sin. How does He do that? He bruises us. He convicts us. He does it primarily by means of the Word of God. Hebrews 4:12-13 says the Word of God is living and active, sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates. It pierces us, even to the dividing of soul and spirit, joints and marrow. It judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. Nothing in all creation is hidden from God's sight, everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of Him to whom we must give an account. That makes me feel uncomfortable with sin. He's piercing, he's bruising us so that we will hate sin working on us. He bruises us through His providential control of circumstances in our lives, He's controlling, he's got all the knobs and levers at his disposal. He can do anything he wants to your life. And so therefore, if you love perhaps material possessions, too much, does He have the power to tweak something here, so that you don't love them as much? Yes, he has the power to do that. He bruises us through control of circumstances. Are we given to anger, and conflicts and temper? Maybe we have an interaction, we lose a good friend. We come back to God and we say, "What happened there?" and He convicts, He bruises. Yet Christ is very wise in how much and how far He bruises us. It says the reed will bruise but it will not break. He knows how far to go, doesn't he? He's very wise in this. Deuteronomy 32:39 says, "See, now that I myself am He. There is no God besides me, I put to death, and I bring to life, I have wounded, and I will heal." Did you hear that? Deuteronomy 32:39, "I have wounded, and I will heal." Christ bruises us, He works on us so that ultimately, we rely only on Christ. Sibbes put it this way, "Like a frail vine leaning on a mighty oak, so are we trusting in Christ." Why Do We Smolder? Thirdly: why do we smolder now? First of all, you can't smolder if you're not on fire. There's got to be some spark, there's got to be some light, and so we've got to have the light of grace, we've got to have come to faith in Christ, to smolder. He who said, "Let light shine in the darkness," made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ. We have the light of grace, the fire is on, He's ignited us, but we're smoldering. There are impurities there, there's a mixed alloying element in there. Now, grace starts small, doesn't it? In the soul, it starts small and then it grows and grows. The joy is that nothing can extinguish that spark, nothing. Christ started it, and Satan can't put it out, but he’d loved to do it. He'd like to take your spark and just stomp on it. He'd love to pour water on it. Remember at Interpreter's house in Pilgrim's Progress there's an image of a bowl. I've talked about this before with fire and it's a picture of the work of grace. There's this fire and there's the devil pouring water on it, a fire hose, just anything he can to put it out, but it just won't go out. Why not? Because behind the wall there's Christ feeding oil into the bottom and He keeps it going. The grace of God, nothing is going to extinguish it. A bruised reed, He will not break, and the smoldering wick, He will not snuff out, but yet we smolder. why? Because we're in a mixed condition. We want to pray, that's the spark of grace, we get tired of prayer. That's the smoldering. We want to give financially, and then some thoughts creep in, and we don't give like we would like to. The spark of grace and the smoldering. We want to witness, of course we do, so we go to witness training, and then the time comes to share our faith and we pull back. That's the light, the spark and then the smoldering. It's just the way it is in our Christian life and it's in the Bible too. Remember the man who came to have Jesus heal his son, and He said, "Do you believe I can do this?" And he said, "Lord, I do believe." That's the spark of grace, what's the next thing he says? "Help my unbelief." There's the smoldering. That's us. "Lord I believe, help my unbelief." Remember in the Book of Revelation. To the church at Ephesus, He said, "You have right doctrine, you're living well, you're doing all these good things, but I have this against you, you've abandoned your first love." So, there's a mixture going on there. Peter says, "You are the Christ, the Son of living God." "Blessed are you, Simon, son of Jonah." A moment later, he is rebuking Christ for wanting to go to the cross. Isn't that us? Isn't that you? Spark of grace but then some smoldering. Christ is very skillful in dealing with you. Are you at present totally consumed with Christ? Totally consumed. That's what you've been talking about, are you? Or are you smoldering? Are you some fire and then some smoke? You see, but Christ is able to work with you until you are totally consumed. Because the fact of the matter is, He's not going to stop, fourthly, until we shine forever. He's going to keep working on you and in you until you shine like He does. It says in the Book of Hebrews that our God is a consuming fire. Christ prophesied and said, "Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father." He's going to work with your fire until it's glorious, until it's perfect, and there's no smoldering left. We will shine forever and ever. Seven Aspects of the Savior Now, briefly, what can we see in our Savior? Seven aspects, first Christ is gentle. Only a gentle savior could properly deal with a frail reed dangling by a thread. If you feel like damaged goods, know that Christ is gentle enough to take you in His arms and bind you up. Only a gentle savior could blow lightly on a smoldering wick until it's a stronger flame. He's the only one that can do that. And so, Christ is gentle. Second, Christ is patient. Only a patient savior could put up with us mixed, smoldering half-hearted creatures who sometimes love and serve Him and sometimes rebel right in His face. He's the only one that can do that and put up with us, only a patient savior could stay with such a gentle approach to worldwide conquest until he wins in the end. Thirdly, Christ is wise. Only a wise savior knows how to deal with each one of you individually, dealing with you perfectly like a skilled surgeon to know what you need right now. He's the only one that can do that, He knows what you need. Sometimes He knows that we need to be gently encouraged and sometimes He knows we need to be thrashed soundly, and He knows the difference. I don't as a pastor. I pray for wisdom but only Christ has that wisdom, He knows what to do. Fourthly, Christ is gracious. Only a gracious savior could be willing to die on the cross for all of your smoldering sin. He's the only one who'd be willing to do that, to suffer under the wrath of God and shed His blood for sinners like you. Only a gracious savior would be willing to work and put up with us moment by moment, even long after we've come to faith in Christ until He leads justice to victory. Fifthly, Christ is powerful. Only a powerful savior would be mighty enough to use a frail bruised reed to conquer the evil empire of the devil. You will be perfect, you will be righteous, and He sees it, He sees you differently than you even see yourself. He's essentially optimistic, hopeful, looking ahead, because He knows nothing's going to stop the work that He's doing in your life. Seventh, Christ is holy. Only Christ, a holy Savior could refuse to allow you to stay bruised and smoldering. He's not going to leave you there, He's not going to keep you there, He's going to keep working with you until you're holy. Seven Characteristics of the Saved Now, seven characteristics of the saved. What are we like? What does this teach us about ourselves? First of all, that we are naturally worthless apart from Christ. I stumbled over that word a little, I thought, "Do I need to change that?" Until I found it in Romans Chapter 3, "There is no one righteous, not even one. There is no one who understands, no one who seeks God, all have become worthless." That's what sin leaves us, it leaves us of no worth to God, worthless. I know that Christ said, "We are worth more than many sparrows." So, in one sense, we are worth much, and so He died for us. But in terms of what we intrinsically are as sinners, worthless to God, that's the way we start naturally. Secondly, we are feeble or weak because of sin. We are actually very poor building material. It's not top-grade A quality stuff off the top shelf, that's not us. So, we are too feeble and weak really to build a kingdom out of on our own. Thirdly, we are unimpressive for building a kingdom, we're not a promising building site. Christ said, "A fool builds on sand." Well, He built on us. He's the only one that could do that. Fourth, we are mixed, for we burn by grace. We have a spark of grace in us if we're born again. Now, don't misunderstand me, if you're not born again, none of what I've said applies to you except the things that He does to bruise you to bring you to Christ, now that applies. But if you are a child of God you are mixed, that means you have a spark of grace and nothing will put it out, nothing, and so we burn by grace. We love God now, we love His heaven, we love the Word of God, we love His people, we love to pray, we love to worship, we love these things. But fifth we are mixed, because we smolder with impurities. We don't love God enough; we don't love to pray enough. We don't love the fellowship of the believers enough. The very things that we tell God we hate, and we'll never do again, we do again later that day. That's grievous, isn't it? That's just the way it is. And so, we're mixed. Sixth, we survive, we're still here. I came to Christ 20 years ago, and I'm still a Christian. Why? Because I'm so strong, so mighty, so powerful? This text tells me the truth. No, because He is determined to save me, and He's never going to let me go. I'm still here. Praise God, I'm still a Christian, because of His grace in me. Seventh, this is my favorite. Do you see it? We're destined for glory. He's not going to give up until He leads justice to victory, He's going to bring us to heaven, and nothing's going to stop it. Application What applications can we take from this? First of all, be humble. Look at that list of characteristics of the saved. It's not a great resume, is it? So, be humble. You are a bruised read, you're not a mighty oak, you're a smoldering wick, you're not a raging fire totally consumed "for Christ". Although, we want to be, it's not what we are and so be humble. Part of being humble is stop looking to yourself to accomplish anything. We'll get to it in a minute, trust in Christ, but be humble enough not to look to yourself. Secondly, be essentially optimistic about yourself, not about what you can do, but what Christ is doing in you. Do you realize how important that is? The devil wants you discouraged so that you give up, stop fighting sin, but you need to be essentially optimistic, because He is going to work in you and will never stop working in you. You can take on any sin in your life, with Christ's help, and conquer it. There's no sin in your life that's not part of your inheritance to have it gone. It’s just not part of the deal that Christ says, "Well, I can conquer every sin, but that one in your life”— no way. So, be essentially optimistic. In the end, all of your sins will lie dead at your feet; you'll be sinless and pure in heaven. Praise God, it's encouraging. Thirdly, be trusting completely in Christ. First of all, don't rely on yourself. You can't do anything. We already covered that one. But second of all, trust his wisdom in doing things to you. When you have financial troubles, you lose a job, realize this is not an accident. It's come to you through the wisdom of God. When you are having other struggles, family difficulties, problems raising a child. Seeing something you really want and you're praying, and you're just not getting the answer that you want. Health problems, it just goes on and on and it doesn't end, and you keep asking. Trust that Christ is doing something in you, trust Him completely. Let Him work his work in you. He's not going to break you. He's not going to say, "Oh, I went too far on that one. How did that happen?" It's not going to happen. He knows how to work in you, pushing you farther than you'd push yourself, that's true, but He knows what He's doing in your life. Fourth, be gentle with others. Christ is gentle with you. Be gentle with others. Be gentle. I want us to be a church that gets involved in helping other people to grow. I do, I think we need to get involved, but let's not be an in-your-face church, a harsh kind of church that's in your face. Every time we're told to go to a brother or a sister in sin, we're told to be gentle, every time. It's like taking something from somebody's eye. "Hey, let me get that out you." "Oh, no please, I want your help but be gentle with me." Christ is gentle. He's gentle with you, be gentle with others, as you help grow. And join in Christ's work in your life, be tougher with yourself, than you've been in terms of sin, you're not going to break. Paul says "I beat my body and make it my slave; I'm not going to tolerate any sin. I'm going to be strong with myself as Christ is and, in the end, he's going to be victorious so I'm going to stand firm against sin in my life." One final thing be holy. Can I tell you something about a sermon like this? It's dangerous actually, isn't it? You know how this sermon is dangerous? ‘Because we sinners take... this is like $100 check from our father, and we go out and blow it on sin. It's true, be warned that the devil will use this kind of an encouraging message to make you want to say, "Well, I can live any way I want. I'm going to be victorious in the end". How tough a path does you want in order to get to victory? How much discipline do you want from your Heavenly Father? Okay? No, be holy. That's what he's working in your life. Don't use this and trade it in for sin. But just know how much God loves you, and how gentle he is.
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