[0:00] Matthew, book of Matthew. Let's turn to the gospel of Matthew 10. So in case you're new, joining us, been away for a while, we are in the study of the life of Christ.
[0:15] The most exciting person who's ever walked the face of the earth to know and understand is our goal, right? He is our savior. He is the one who has died for us.
[0:26] These are the songs why we sing. So specifically in this study, we've been looking at the gospel accounts and kind of putting together the flow to the story of Christ, which I'm praying will help you when you do your readings.
[0:45] Because when we sometimes do our readings in the gospel, sometimes we don't know the exact setting. But understanding the context of where Jesus is in that time as a part of his ministry really speaks to us, right?
[0:59] It really connects the words that he shares and even gives some of the motivations as why he is speaking at that time and why the authors of the gospels put those aspects in the text at that specific time.
[1:17] Just in case you have forgotten, we're in the, it's called the Galilean ministry. So Jesus Christ's life is essentially divided into three or his public life into three phases.
[1:30] The first phase is the first year, which included his baptism, his time in the desert wilderness, and also some time down in Jerusalem and Judea in the area of southern Israel.
[1:41] And what he's doing at that time, he's kind of bringing together the people that were following John the Baptist. And if you remember who John the Baptist was, John the Baptist was the herald.
[1:53] He was a herald of a great king coming, who is Jesus Christ. So as he was calling these people to him, he was baptizing them, asking them to repent.
[2:04] He was laying the groundwork and that crowd who followed John were to shift over and follow Jesus. Because as John said, there is the king.
[2:17] This is the one I'm talking to you about, I'm preaching about. Here he is, he's walking this way. And then John baptizes him. And over that year, Jesus is kind of going about teaching and building into them.
[2:31] And then the Galilean phase, which happens in the northern part of Israel, where he grew up. For a year and a half, Jesus Christ is going to blanket that area with the good news.
[2:42] He's going to go through that land with that there is nobody alive during that time could say, I don't know Jesus, I don't know what he stands for, and I don't know what he said.
[2:54] He went, he followed people, talked, followed him. The text said that great crowds. It doesn't say crowds followed him. It said crowds. That word great is used in the Greek, is where we get the word mega.
[3:08] Remember when McDonald's was allowed to sell the mega meals, right? You know, the Big Mac had eight patties on it, right? Apparently that was unhealthy for you. So, you know, two tons of French fries, that good stuff.
[3:22] Anyway, that was the mega meal. But these are the mega crowds that are following Jesus. They're immense. They number in the tens of thousands.
[3:32] But what's interesting, so the first tour, he was preaching his gospel, following, and he was healing. Anyone who came to him, he would heal.
[3:43] Anybody who was come to him and challenged him that was demon possessed, he would drive out the demons. If people came to him that had leprosy, he would cleanse them. People who were deaf, dumb, blind, all these things.
[3:57] It was nothing that Jesus would not heal or minister in this way. The second tour, he starts to pick out people that are in the crowd to follow him at a more concentrated level.
[4:14] Eventually, we're going to see Matthew chapter 10 talks to us about that. That's the apostles. He calls 12 men to follow him, and they're going to be a part of his future ministry.
[4:25] And he starts building in, but he's still going out. He's preaching. And then we have this last phase. I'm going to say this is probably the last six months of the Galilean ministry.
[4:40] And Jesus is going to come to the conclusion that his message has been rejected. That even though there's tens of thousands of people following him, there are still people who are rejecting him.
[5:00] And we're going to look at kind of the final straw, as it were. The final act of rejection.
[5:13] And that's going to cause Jesus to shift his strategy. So the Galilean ministry, theologians call that the time of public proclamation.
[5:24] The time of public proclamation. But he's going to switch over to what's called private preparation. And what I mean by that is he's then going to privately spend more intense time with his apostles and some of the other followers, preparing them to take his message because he knows he's going to die, right?
[5:52] He gets that. The apostles, they have no clue at this time. Nobody has any clue that Jesus is going to die. But Jesus is going to strategically turn here.
[6:03] And we're going to learn the next couple of weeks as we go through the private preparation, how that news hits the apostles when they get the news that Jesus is going to die.
[6:17] And you're even going to see little bits where their faith starts to get rattled a little bit. They start wondering, did I get on the right train? One of the points that I wanted to bring up last week was, A, the Jewish leaders, as you remember, they kept challenging him on the Sabbath.
[6:40] They kept trying to catch Jesus doing some work on the Sabbath. And what was interesting as I showed you is that all those laws, those oral traditions that they followed aren't actually in the Old Testament.
[6:57] That the laws that these men were following were laws that other rabbis had written. And it became a part of what was called the oral tradition, which would eventually be codified in a book called the Mishnah.
[7:12] If I'm not mistaken, it's around 200 A.D. They finally write it all down. But what they're doing is by trying to hold Jesus into account to their traditions, is they're equating their traditions with the written Word of God.
[7:33] Get that? That's like us saying, you know what? But we want to, and I was just sharing this story with someone that a lot of people don't know, that there was this college in the States that, you know, men and women aren't supposed to have premarital sex.
[7:50] So at the college, they actually divided a sidewalk system. Blue sidewalks for boys, pink sidewalks for girls.
[8:01] That's what they did. And if you weren't on that sidewalk and you were a girl caught on the blue sidewalk, guess what? Punishment. Right?
[8:11] They started elevating these laws. You were never allowed to talk to a member of the opposite sex unless you were in a sanctioned time with a ruler over you.
[8:22] Right? So they start creating more and more laws trying to protect the holiness of the young couple, but they just go overboard creating all these rules that if you happen to be a girl who stepped on a blue sidewalk, guess what?
[8:36] You're in sin. And the text never talks about that. And that's kind of what the Pharisees did. They just kept making more and more and more of these texts. And we see how Jesus in the Sermon of the Mound started challenging their ways.
[8:51] He used words like, you have heard it said, but I say to you. He was building a contrast between what they were teaching, what he was teaching.
[9:04] Hey, they bring death. I'm bringing life. And then he just outwardly said, those hypocrites. And he showed, even in how they lived, it was against Scripture.
[9:22] And it was interesting. After he preaches the Sermon of the Mound, Matthew records for us in Matthew 7. I'll just read this for you. It's Matthew 7, 24. It says, everyone then.
[9:34] This is Jesus' challenge. And you're going to see, whenever Jesus has a relationship with someone, there is a challenge that goes out.
[9:45] And he says, everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock.
[9:59] And the rain fell. The floods came. And the winds blew and beat on that house. But it did not fall because it had been founded on the rock.
[10:12] Verse 26. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them, they will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand.
[10:26] The rain fell. The floods came. And the winds blew and beat against that house. And it fell. And great was the fall of it.
[10:38] So right there, he's building in a contrast. This Jewish system. This rabbinical. And I don't want to say Jewish system. I was just having a talk with a friend about this.
[10:50] A true Jew would have recognized Jesus because a true believing Jew would have understood the Old Testament, would have seen the prophecies, and connected. But they had created this rabbinicism that was above Judaism.
[11:05] And that caused so much confusion and blindness in the people as they were trying to make more rules for which they could exclaim their righteousness.
[11:16] And he's challenging this. And then the crowd reacted in verse 28 of Matthew 7. It says, So all those people that had been teaching to them in the synagogues, no one came close to the authority because Jesus is bringing in the true truth.
[11:50] So last week, I finished off my sermon telling that there was three reasons why they end up rejecting Christ. One, and we're going to look at this week how this looks.
[12:01] One, they had a corrupted view of the Messiah. They were expecting an earthly king, and yet they got a heavenly king. The second thing is they thought that God, the Messiah, was coming for Israel alone.
[12:18] And as we saw last week, right after the Sermon on the Mound, Jesus has this interaction with this Roman centurion.
[12:29] You know, he's the guy who represents this ruling nation that has Israel under its heel. And Jesus Christ literally says, No greater faith have I seen than is what is represented in this man.
[12:44] That would have been tear your hair out, burn your house down kind of anger for the Jewish people at that time.
[12:55] How dare he say they have a faith. They're them. This is us. We're not the prostitutes and the taxpayers that Jesus ate with.
[13:10] We won't even go in their houses. Don't you see us, Jesus? Don't you see my righteousness? Don't you see how clean I am?
[13:22] And in fact, the third reason they would reject him is they truly believed they didn't need to be cleaned.
[13:36] They're like saying, Jesus, we only need you to overthrow Rome. I don't need you to make myself right before God.
[13:47] Can't you see I am already right before God? I keep all these rules. I fast twice a week. You know, the Old Testament only says you only fast once per year, but I do it twice a week.
[14:01] I do all these things. Aren't you pleased with me? So what's interesting is the third tour of Galilee actually begins in Matthew 10.
[14:20] And this is where Jesus appoints the apostles. And there's another story you're probably quite familiar with. If you look at Matthew 10 and 5, he takes these 12 and he sends them out through all of Galilee.
[14:37] All right. So this is a change because it's usually been Jesus going out doing the preaching, but he's got these 12 and he's sending them off. Why? Because he needs to multiply his message as fast as possible.
[14:52] Because he knows his time is limited. Now, if you notice, it says verse 5, and then he sends them out through all the land. Now notice the special instructions that he gives them.
[15:05] They're not to go anywhere near the Gentiles. They're not to enter any Samaritan towns. They're only supposed to go the lost sheep of Israel.
[15:17] Think about that. If you were hearing that and you're a member of that Jewish group that wanted, you thought Jesus would invite you. If he was really the Messiah, he would invite you into his inner circle.
[15:29] And wait a second, you're telling me that my people are lost? We're the only one that's found. But they had their roles. And notice their roles.
[15:40] One, they were supposed to proclaim the kingdom of God that is at hand. That's the same message Jesus had. They were to heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, cast out demons.
[15:53] Those are the exact same thing that Jesus did. So what Jesus did is he gave these men during that time the power that he had to do what he had.
[16:05] And remember we learned about those miracles and those powers. And Jesus specifically says, take no money. Just think how easy it would be to take money.
[16:17] There's people today who do healing who don't heal, and they still take money for the work they don't do. Isn't that crazy? That's how desperate some people are for healing.
[16:30] But he's saying, don't take it. I don't want it to be clouded in anything because that will be a great temptation. But your role is to teach the same message, to preach and teach and reach out to the lost people of Israel.
[16:47] Now let's take a look at Matthew 11. And I want you to pay special attention starting in verse 20. And you can read along with me here.
[17:00] Jesus is kind of coming to the end of the line. And he's been here for a year and a half. And now verse 20 says, Then he, being Jesus, began to denounce the cities where most of his mighty works had been done.
[17:24] Why? Because they did not repent. Basically, they loved my works, but they rejected my message.
[17:38] Verse 21, Woe to you, Chorazin. Woe to you, Bethsaida. For if the mighty works done in you had been done in those Gentile towns such as Tyre and Sidon, they would have been, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes.
[18:00] But I tell you, it will be more bearable on the day of judgment for Tyre and Sidon than for you. You people who've seen the mightiest of mighty works.
[18:11] And notice he's saying mighty works. I'm quite certain there was people raised from the dead, cured of incalculable diseases over and over and over.
[18:25] If there was a hospital, it was empty. There was a little medical center, it was closed down. Jesus healed it all.
[18:39] And look at verse 23. This is his home base. And you, Capernaum, will you be exalted to heaven?
[18:49] You will be brought down to Hades. For if the mighty works done in you had been done in Sodom, which we knew God poured down fire from heaven to destroy because of their wickedness, he says, it would have remained until this day.
[19:12] But I tell you that it will be more tolerable on the day of judgment for the land of Sodom than for you.
[19:25] Think about that. Think about that. This was a city that was so evil at that time. Jesus purposely rained down fire to destroy it.
[19:35] You, Capernaum, where I live, where my family lives, who think themselves righteous, who go to synagogue, do all these things, it's going to be more tolerable for Sodom than it is for you.
[20:02] Last week, I used the word to describe their disbelief as determined disbelief. Determined disbelief.
[20:16] So let's take a look at Matthew 12, verse 22. This is the end. This is the end of the Galilean ministry.
[20:27] It's going to end right here. Simply begins, like many other stories, there's a demon oppressed man who was blind and mute was brought to him.
[20:41] And he, Jesus, healed him so that the man spoke and saw. Couple things that we can draw from this. This man has a horrible reality.
[20:56] Luke actually includes that he was deaf as well. He's blind. He's deaf.
[21:08] He's mute. And as if that wasn't hard enough to go on in life, he's demon oppressed. He's being tormented by demons.
[21:22] That is his existence. That is a hellish existence. And for some reason, someone still loved this person enough to take him to Jesus, right?
[21:39] Someone was there, whether it was his family members or his friends, knew that if there was any hope, any hope for their friend, it can only be in Jesus Christ.
[21:49] So they take him. And notice this verse. It doesn't tell us how he healed him. It wasn't with a word or put mud on his eyes or touched his ears. We don't know. It doesn't tell us any of this. Because that's not going to be the point that Matthew is getting at.
[22:02] But he's saying, as normal, Jesus healed him. Right? And it was so complete that the man spoke and saw right away. So, bing, bang, boom, full on healing.
[22:14] There's actually Old Testament prophecy that talks about only a man of God who could heal in such a way. All right? This was, this is, in some ways, I don't want to go out in the line and say this is equivocated with biblical truth.
[22:30] But of all the miracles that Jesus is doing, this one points to his Messiahship probably more than any other. Let's say top 10, just to be safe so don't get struck down by lightning.
[22:43] All right? So this is like one of the top 10 out of thousands of healings that he's done. This is right up there in the significance of healings and what he held, healed.
[22:56] Demonstrated complete authority over the spiritual world and it demonstrated complete authority over the physical world. Listen to the crowd and all the people.
[23:11] Now, it doesn't say and the people. I want you to pay attention. The author's been very succinct in the language that he's using.
[23:22] All the people. If you have an NASP, it says all the crowds. What he's communicating to us, the great masses of people are there.
[23:36] This isn't a small little group with his friends. This would have been the thousands around him. Someone brings this man to him. Jesus heals him and the multitude see this and what is their response?
[23:51] We're amazed. All right? That word amazed kind of doesn't do justice. The Greek means to being so astonished that you're losing your mind.
[24:06] Like it's something like, whoa! I've never seen that. I couldn't even imagine that happening. Right? I remember at this time, I'm at camp.
[24:19] They got a water ski program and they usually put this big thing on and guys are doing some really cool tricks. And I'm like, wow! It's really amazing. And I turned to the guy next to me and he goes, ah, not so much.
[24:31] And it turns out, the guy I turned to turned out to be the Canadian trick ski champion. Okay? So in his view, what they were doing wasn't so much. But me, you know, I thought it was fantastic.
[24:45] That wasn't going on there. Everybody, all the crowds, completely, utterly amazed, out of their mind, amazement at what Jesus did.
[24:57] One other author says it means to be transported beyond yourself. Okay? That's how incredible this is. And notice what they say.
[25:11] Can this be the son of David? Now, translate, son of David means Messiah. To say you were the son of David means you were the promised Messiah.
[25:29] Now, this is all the crowd seeing all the amazement and they've been seeing it for over a year. Let's be honest. Right? It's going on.
[25:41] It's nothing new. But there was just something special in this moment. All the crowds, all the people and the more people cannot deny the incredible, the incredible miracle that Jesus has done.
[26:02] But they have a problem. You see, they expected the king of David to come with an army.
[26:14] To come with trumpets and people announcing his presence. That wouldn't the king, the Messiah, have regal robes? come with, like on a big white horse.
[26:31] Soldiers, just very scary men at the forefront. Big.
[26:42] Have you guys ever been around big men? I went to amusement park during the Rose Bowl when I was in the States and the USC football team was there at the same time. there was no man there that wasn't, I don't think any of them had necks.
[27:00] It was just complete muscles. Like, they were all like 20-year-old massive, strong men and at no point at my age at 30 had I ever felt like a boy. But in that day, I felt like a boy and I was going to amusement park so it fits the profile okay, right?
[27:15] But anyway, just, those are the kind of people that they expected would be marching in with the king. But they don't have that. They have a man who shows gentle compassion.
[27:29] Who bothers the king with their deaf, blind, mute, demon, he's too crazy. Keep him away from Jesus. Keep him away from the king.
[27:42] But that's the first person Jesus is reaching out to. You bring him, I heal him. Right? Right? There's gentleness.
[27:57] Jesus is humble. And I don't know if you remember when we were going through the book of Ephesians, humility is a theme in there. But to the Greeks, to be humble was to be seen as a weakness.
[28:12] The idea was to be prideful, to put strong, arrogant. Those were the thing that we aspire to be. But when Paul starts teaching about humility, you know, and that other word is meekness, which I believe means power under control.
[28:32] Nobody had ever seen anybody act like this. And instead of having these massive football-like players next to him, he's got a bunch of uneducated fishermen, a tax collector, right, scum of that you wipe off your boot, you know, that kind of people.
[28:54] The kind of people you're around, even though you don't touch them, you wash your clothes off after you're away from them because you're quite certain something jumped on you. Those are the people with Jesus.
[29:06] So you're sitting there and you're seeing the most magnificent miracle. You're amazed. Can this be the son of David?
[29:24] Can this be the Messiah? Now, who do you think they're asking this to?
[29:43] They're turning and they're looking over, whether it's a corner, they're hiding behind a tree or over a hill, but it's the rabbis, the Pharisees, the Jewish leaders.
[29:58] And they're kind of like, I'm seeing Jesus, but I'm seeing them. I'm seeing Jesus, and I'm seeing them and I'm like, can't this be?
[30:10] Like, are you not seeing what I see, what we see? Now, you need to understand, Jewish leaders controlled pretty much all walks of life.
[30:28] If you were on the outs with your rabbi, you lost your whole community. It could cost you your job, it could cost who does business with you, who buys from you, sells from you.
[30:41] You would lose everything, and everything at that time was so small, there would be nobody in the town who would be willing to talk to you, to have anything to do with you.
[30:53] So, to cross the rabbis who saw themselves as the true saviors, Jesus. And if you don't believe me, there's a great story, and I preached on it once, it's John chapter 9.
[31:10] Remember the guy, he's blind, he's sitting there, Jesus heals him, and then he starts getting, they finally run into the guy, and they ask him, who healed you?
[31:20] I don't know, I was blind, how could I tell? Right? And they find out later that it's Jesus, and they go to the guy's parents, and they don't want to believe it was Jesus that healed them, so what they do is they're like to the parents, just you can admit it now, he was never blind, right?
[31:36] He was never blind, and John 9.22 says his parents said these things because they feared the Jews, and just so you know, when it says that word the Jews in your gospels, it's not talking about everyday Jewish people, it's talking about the religious leaders, alright?
[31:54] So this is just the leaders, and it says for the Jews had already agreed that anyone should confess to be Christ, he would be put out of the synagogue, alright?
[32:06] So even to admit that Jesus who did this incredible, this incredible miracle, if you called him the Messiah, the son of David, guess what? You're out.
[32:19] You're out. You disappear. You do not come to the synagogues, you don't come to my daughter's wedding next month, and I'm never going to go and buy coconuts from you again, right?
[32:30] Like, that was the end. So this is like this tension that people are living in.
[32:43] So when Jesus Christ says, follow me, they don't want to lose that.
[33:03] So they ask the leaders, can this be the son of David? Now I want you to see how they respond in Matthew 13, 24, verse 24 here.
[33:13] the Pharisees have seen the miracle. They can't deny it. But when the Pharisees heard it, they said, it is only by Beelzebub, the prince of demons, that this man casts out demons.
[33:37] That is the most tragic response that we can read in all of Scripture. they have just seen a complete act of God and they're attributing it to Satan.
[33:54] They believe Satan's got that power, so he must have that power as well. That's how much deliberate disbelief can overtake us in our lives.
[34:10] Do you know that? Sometimes we can see the truth, we can read the truth, we can be told the gospel over and over and over again, but we just don't want it.
[34:28] Verse 25, Jesus, knowing their thoughts, he said to them, and here he's just using pure logic, every kingdom divided against itself is laid waste, and no city or house divided against itself will stand.
[34:45] And if Satan casts out Satan, he is divided against himself, how then will his kingdom stand? And if I cast out demons by Beelzebub, by whom do your sons cast them out?
[35:00] Because there was people that were known to exorcists that would drive out demons. demons. And he's saying, well, which ones are you guys? Whose power are you guys doing it? Therefore they will be your judges.
[35:14] Verse 28, but if it is by the spirit of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.
[35:28] It's here. The kingdom of God is here, right here, right now. Verse 29, or how can someone enter a strong man's house and plunder his goods unless he first binds the strong man?
[35:53] Then indeed he may plunder his house. This demon that was just before me, Jesus didn't even need to talk to demons. Shut up, they shut up.
[36:05] Oh, gone they went. There was nothing they could do. He had absolute power of authority. There was no negotiating, no nothing. It wasn't like it was a struggle. Often he just ignored them.
[36:15] God, gone. And look at the judgment that we read in verse 30. Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters.
[36:31] therefore I tell you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven people, but the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven. And whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come.
[36:52] Either make the tree good and its fruits good, or make the tree bad and its fruits bad, for the tree is known by its fruits. You brood of vipers, how can you speak good when you are evil?
[37:06] For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. The good person out of a good treasure brings forth good, and the evil person out of the evil treasure brings forth evil.
[37:18] I tell you, on the day of judgment people will give account for every careless word they speak, and by your words they will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.
[37:35] You just called my works by Satan. This sadly is deliberate disbelief in their response.
[37:52] Take a look at verse 38. Ah, then some of the scribes and Pharisees answered him saying, Teacher, we wish to see a sign from you.
[38:07] Jesus has been doing signs for years now. Over two years, he's been doing signs. And that's the thing, when you have, when you know people you're trying to present the gospel and they do not believe, it doesn't matter.
[38:22] you can show them all the stories of the gospel, you can teach them all these truths, but they're still not going to believe.
[38:33] Even if you had the ability to do a miracle in their presence, they are still not going to believe.
[38:44] And then he said, an evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah.
[38:58] If you remember Jonah from a couple of months ago, Jonah went in to Nineveh, preached the gospel, and they all converted. That's it. He just had to present what God said, and that was it. Didn't have to do any proofing, didn't have to turn water into wine, or camels into horses or any of that kind of stuff.
[39:17] Why? Because they knew they were evil. They knew they were sinners.
[39:29] They knew they were far from God. The Ninevites were a horrible, wicked people. The people that Jesus is confronting are saying, no, no, no, we're good, we're good, we're good.
[39:41] You see, one of the signs of a desperate disbeliever is the desire to see more signs, more and more proof. My friends, the challenge that Jesus gave 2,000 years ago is the same challenge that he gives to us today.
[40:00] If you've been diligent coming to this church, you have been hearing the word of God unfolded for you for decades. these gospels that we're reading from are the eyewitness accounts of the life of Jesus Christ.
[40:17] And they are meant to put you to a point of choice. It was interesting, just the other week I had the opportunity to meet a new friend and I bought something online and he said, I had to sell it to you.
[40:34] He said, I had a lot of interest, but you're a pastor. So I had to sell it to you. So why should I be selling it to me a pastor? He said, something bad might happen to me. Which is true.
[40:46] If you guys aren't nice to me, something bad will happen to you. But anyway, he was talking about it and I said, tell me about your religious experience. He says, man, I love Jesus. Jesus is really great. He went on to tell me that he went to overseas to live as a monk, but it was a Buddhist monk that he lived with.
[41:05] But he made the statement, about Jesus. So I just listened to him asking him questions. And he said, so I said, why do you follow Jesus? And he simply said, because Jesus is enlightened. enlightened. He's preaching wisdom. He preaches wisdom.
[41:16] He preaches really true stuff. But that still isn't who Jesus is.
[41:31] You don't get to Jesus until you can finally say, no, no, Jesus is the Messiah. And not only that, Jesus is my Messiah.
[41:43] He's not the Jews Messiah. He's my Messiah. He saves me. Why? Because I understand that I am a wicked sinner.
[41:56] And I might not have committed adultery. I might not have killed anybody. I might not have stole. But I've looked lustfully at a woman. I've been jealous of some of the blessings my friends have had.
[42:11] Oh, anger? Oh, man. My kids don't do what I tell them to do. There's no shortage of areas where we fall short.
[42:23] We've broken God's law, every single one of us. And when we finally get to that point, it's not just seeing God as Messiah.
[42:34] Messiah becoming a church because he's Savior, the Messiah. The power is when Jesus becomes my Messiah. Because that's when we change.
[42:48] That's when God takes out our ugly, broken, sinful heart and puts in a new heart that desires the things of Jesus Christ. If it means being thrown out of the synagogue, so be it.
[43:02] If it means my parents not talking to me, so be it. I'm going to get to this in a why. Because you might be saying, you know, Jesus doesn't even ask that. But he may.
[43:17] Like I said, you know, the thing about Jesus' teachings are great, but it's also about coming to this understanding that it's not his moral lessons that save you, but it is him.
[43:30] It is the fact that Jesus came, lived on this earth for 33 years. He died on this cross to pay for our sins and then rise again.
[43:44] You guys ever heard of Jordan Peterson? Right? If not, I would encourage you to listen to him. He's a fascinating study. In case you don't know him, he's a Canadian clinical psychologist who has just recently been at the front of the news because of his views on politics and values and moralities.
[44:06] And it turns out his main background is understanding the Old Testament. And he looks at all the narratives in the Old Testament and the religious imagery.
[44:18] And this is the words that he says. He says, the Bible is the most influential stories of mankind. He says that knowledge of the stories is essential to a deep understanding of Western culture which is in turn vital to proper psychological health and social stability.
[44:40] So he sees the Bible in a really positive way. Right? But he's not a Christian. He's just looking at the stories. And I'm watching him in this interview. interview. And he's been interviewed by a Christian brother from Quebec.
[45:00] And the guy asks him, he says, let's talk about the person of Jesus Christ. And do you believe him?
[45:13] And Jordan starts crying. He's crying. He says, do you understand the implications of what you are asking me?
[45:27] If Jesus is who he says he is, that changes everything. My whole life changes. My whole perspective on money, life, marriage, everything changes.
[45:42] And he just cried. And he's not rejecting Jesus. He's very pro-Jesus. But he understands something that a lot of Christians don't understand.
[45:59] To follow Jesus means you turn your back on everything else. Now what's interesting, Matthew 13 is a mark.
[46:15] Remember I told you, so we're done the Galilean phase and he's going to go into this private discipleship phase. And this is where Jesus Christ introduces parables. You guys are familiar with parables, right?
[46:26] Parable of the prodigal son, parable of the lost Samaritan, parable of the lost coin, right? There's a lot of very popular parables.
[46:37] And I want you to understand because going forward we're going to look at these parables. But the parables teach us truths about the kingdom of God that weren't earlier revealed.
[46:49] Okay? So it's not like God is redefining, Jesus is redefining anything that he's taught beforehand. But you're going to see that a purpose, a parable is a very simple story, has a very simple meaning, and it draws from everyday knowledge that everyone pretty much understands.
[47:10] But there's a problem. The problem is if you do not believe in the kingdom of God, the parable will not make sense to you.
[47:22] But if you understand what the parable means, it means you understand the kingdom of God. I'm going to give you two really quick ones.
[47:34] And next week we're going to unfold the first parable that Jesus teaches, which is the parable of the sower, which explains to you what I just basically said.
[47:45] But in Matthew 13 verses 44 and 45 simply states, the kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field which a man found and covered up.
[47:59] Then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field. If you are a follower in Jesus Christ, you know exactly what that means.
[48:12] If you're not too sure about Jesus, you're on the fence about Jesus, you understand the words that I say, but you don't believe that. You might think Jesus is all good, he's all great, I've been coming to church for 30 years.
[48:26] Jesus. But if you know Jesus, you will sell absolutely everything you have in order to have him.
[48:39] And then verse 45, Jesus says again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls, who on finding one pearl of great value went and sold all that he had and bought it.
[48:59] You see, Jordan Peterson's right. The implications of Jesus Christ is to be life-changing. Jesus isn't an add-on. I'll have better friends, better business acquaintance to us.
[49:14] I won't get in it, you know, maybe I'll do better in Amway, I don't know. Some people really believe those things. But as we see to these first century Christians, can this be the son of David?
[49:35] It meant they were willing to leave everything behind. Let's pray.
[49:47] Dear, holy, heavenly God, I understand over and over in the pages of Scripture, you tell us to count the cost that Jesus at no point asked anybody to blindly follow him.
[50:06] there's a price to be paid for having you as our Messiah. It means my allegiance, my citizenship is now with you.
[50:24] I am yours to command and control, to do as you please. you are my king, my father. For some of us, Lord, we know all about Jesus.
[50:40] We know everything there is to know about Jesus. But for some reason or another, I still want to hold on to something that is, quote, unquote, my identity, that makes me feel authentic.
[51:07] That's not how you presented yourself. There's no part-time followers. In fact, over and over and over, the words used in Scripture are a slave of Christ.
[51:19] There's no time off. There's no choosing your hours. things. You are either in or you are out.
[51:31] And if you are in, everything changes. The most negative thing that we can think of not following after Jesus is based on our own fears about what may come.
[51:47] sometimes if we've had horrible people over us, we think that we think horrible thoughts.
[51:58] But everywhere in the Scriptures, Jesus, you are presented to us as the wonderful, joyous, loving shepherd who comes to care for us, to guidance, to give us new life, new attitudes.
[52:20] Just recently, watching someone become a Christian before my eyes and watching their life over the last several months, they made concerted decisions to turn away from their past life.
[52:38] Knowing to be a Christian is to be incompatible, it's incompatible to be a part of that life. Father, for those that are here, I pray that you would demonstrate yourself in a true and kind way that there is no reason to be feared, that to follow you is to cast aside our burdens for you promise to carry our burdens.
[53:05] Means not needing to be anxious over tomorrow because you've already got today taken care of for us. trust. But as all people do, we always struggle with trust.
[53:21] Just as we go through this next phase of the ministry of Jesus, it's amazing how wonderful, kind, compassionate Jesus is with these apostles. Making sure that they truly understand.
[53:32] And what's so amazing from that, it's the same, you're the same way with us. sometimes we commit the same stupid sins over and over and that you are there to forgive us, there to restore us, there to grow us.
[53:46] There's no punishment, there's no doghouse. We understand that if we choose to sin, we choose to suffer. We choose to follow you, we choose to be blessed.
[54:00] Father, I pray for everyone here and I pray that they would indeed choose to be blessed. blessed to ultimately follow you above all things. We ask these things in your most holy and precious name. Amen.