Matthew 12:38-50 - (Something Greater is Here)

[00:00:01] Speaker A: Good morning, church. [00:00:05] Speaker B: I am excited for our time today. So I got a call, like a text, I guess Thursday that poor Jim was sick with some kind of sinus thing. It like made his face swell up and stuff. He's here, so I guess he's starting to feel a little better. But it was a little quasimodo esque Thursday. [00:00:28] Speaker A: And so I get the joy of subbing in and preaching today. And so it's funny. [00:00:35] Speaker B: I normally am pretty slow in my sermon prep. I'd like to spend a lot of time thinking and praying, considering, and I. [00:00:40] Speaker A: Didn'T get that this week, and yet. [00:00:43] Speaker B: Man, I just have felt the spirit. [00:00:46] Speaker A: Moving and pushing and challenging me in this text. [00:00:49] Speaker B: And I think God has something good for us today. I am excited for this. [00:00:53] Speaker A: So if you want to get in your bibles and turn over to Matthew twelve, that's where we're going to be. Today, is Matthew twelve. You don't have a bible with you today? We have house bibles around the room. We really believe in the importance of access to God's word here at Emmanuel. [00:01:06] Speaker B: So I would say if you're here. [00:01:07] Speaker A: Today and you don't own a physical copy of God's word, take one of those pew bibles, or even better, grab one off the welcome table, that's a. [00:01:14] Speaker B: Little nicer, or even talk to one of the pastors, we can get you a better one. [00:01:17] Speaker A: But we really believe in that. While you guys are turning to Matthew twelve, I do need to remind you of one cool thing. So you may have noticed when you walked in a really big pile of books on the welcome table. That's because Lent starts this week. And if you grew up in a tradition where maybe you didn't observe Lent or maybe you grew up, like, Catholic and you don't associate Lent with a positive spiritual experience. It may be weird to you that we're engaging that, but I want to challenge you to consider joining our church family in Lent this year. Lent is man. [00:01:50] Speaker B: It's a set aside time that can. [00:01:53] Speaker A: Really be beneficial to help prepare our hearts for the Easter season as we approach Holy Week in Easter Sunday, Lent is an opportunity to slow down, to consider the reality of our own sin. [00:02:05] Speaker B: The reality of the curse, the reality of the weight of Christ's sacrifice on our behalf. [00:02:10] Speaker A: And so there's going to be several ways we invite you into that. One of the most practical ones is we bought you a copy of this book to seek and to save, which is a Lenten devotional that just goes. [00:02:22] Speaker B: Through 40 chunks that talk about preparing your heart to consider the cross and to consider the resurrection. [00:02:29] Speaker A: So there is one of these for each of you. So please, please, on your way out today, grab a copy of this. All our pastors will be going through this in our devotional time over the next month leading up to Easter. And we would love for you guys to be in that, like our church family to be in that together. So grab one of these on your way out. Another thing we're going to be doing is this. Next Sunday, it'll be our first Sunday of Lent. We're actually going to do something a little different. We're going to have a revive Sunday. And if you haven't got to be a part of one of those yet, it's where we essentially take our Sunday morning gathering and we reorganize it to be almost exclusively centered around worship and prayer. And so next Sunday we're going to take the entirety of this time and you won't see me very much. It'll be almost exclusively time for worship, time for us to pray and confess together. It'll be really life giving time. If you haven't gotten to be a. [00:03:16] Speaker B: Part of one of our revived services yet, I strongly encourage you to set aside time next week to come and join us for that. [00:03:22] Speaker A: I think it's going to be really life giving. But enough about Lent. Today we are in the book of Matthew and I want to make sure. [00:03:30] Speaker B: Man, we take the time we need to engage this. [00:03:33] Speaker A: I think what we're going to see in Matthew twelve today is we're going to see Jesus talk about a really hard truth that is an absolute gift to us. What we're going to see today is that Jesus loves his own glory and loves you enough that he's willing to. [00:03:52] Speaker B: Dethrone you from the center of your own life. [00:03:55] Speaker A: He loves you. He loves his own glory enough that he's willing to dethrone you to disavaluate the idea that you are the king. [00:04:04] Speaker B: Of your own life. [00:04:05] Speaker A: See, Jesus is God, and he's just. [00:04:08] Speaker B: Not willing to play second fiddle to the likes of you or I. [00:04:13] Speaker A: He's not a performer who entertains us. [00:04:15] Speaker B: He's not a magic Santa who gives us what we want. [00:04:19] Speaker A: He's our Lord, he's our savior, and. [00:04:21] Speaker B: Our job as his creation to seek him, to believe in him, to repent of our sins. And guys, guys, I think what we're going to see today that is so encouraging is that this God, Jesus, the center of the universe, the king of reality, when he meets us in this, he doesn't just save us. He doesn't just care for us. He doesn't just have mercy on us. He makes us his family, draws us into his own family. We have no right to expect that. Yet that is how good our God, how good his gospel is. [00:05:01] Speaker A: So, Matthew twelve, we're going to start in verse 38. We're going to look at this text in a couple of different chunks, or we're going to look at it together. But it is. It's a couple of different scenes in the text. We're going to start in verse 38. Read with me. Church says this. Then some of the scribes and pharisees said to him, him being Jesus teacher, we want to see a sign from you. He answered them, an evil and adulterous generation demands a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. For as Jonah was in the belly of the huge fish, three days and three nights, so the son of man will be in the heart of the earth. Three days and three nights. The men of Nineveh will stand up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it because they repented at Jonah's preaching. And look, something greater than Jonah is here. The queen of the south will rise up at the judgment of this generation and condemn it because she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon. And look, something greater than Solomon is here. When an unclean spirit comes out of a person, it roams through the waterless places looking for rest, but it doesn't find any. Then it says, I'll go back to my house that I came from returning. It finds the house vacant, swept, put in order. And then it goes and brings with it seven other spirits more evil than itself. And they enter and they settle down there. As a result, that person's last condition is worse than the first. And that's how it will also be with this evil generation. And while he was still speaking with the crowds, his mother and brothers were standing outside wanting to speak to him. Someone told him, look, your mother and your brothers are standing outside wanting to speak to you. He replied to the one who was speaking to him, who is my mother? [00:06:48] Speaker B: And who are my brothers? [00:06:49] Speaker A: Stretching out his hand toward his disciples, he said, here are my mother and my brothers. For whoever does the will of my. [00:06:55] Speaker B: Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother. And this, beloved, is the word of the Lord for us today. Pray with me, church Jesus, we need you today, Lord. We need you to be our discipler, to be our teacher. Spirit, we ask humbly that you would illuminate yourself to us through this text, through this moment, Lord, that you would help us to be quiet, to be present. And we pray that you would give us spiritually open eyes and ears, soft, tender hearts to receive. That we would be challenged by you today, encouraged by you today. That we would leave today having heard from you what our hearts actually need. [00:07:36] Speaker A: God, for those of us who have actually been pushing away. [00:07:40] Speaker B: And hardening our hearts to real repentance. That we know exactly what you're asking of us. And we are avoiding it. Spirit, I pray that in your grace, you would convict our hearts afresh today. Prick at that area of our heart. That we've worked so hard to callous over. And give us another opportunity to turn to you, Jesus. [00:08:03] Speaker A: We need you for this work. [00:08:05] Speaker B: So we pray this in your name. Amen. [00:08:10] Speaker A: Okay, so we're stepping into the middle of a scene. So before we dig into it, let's take just a second to kind of remind ourselves of the setup. [00:08:18] Speaker B: Right. [00:08:19] Speaker A: So Jesus has this growing conflict with the religious leaders in Galilee. Remember, this is kind of still near the beginning of Jesus'ministry and he's almost exclusively ministering in the town surrounding Capernaum in Galilee, the northern part of Palestine. He's been preaching the good news of the kingdom. The kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe. And he's been doing this miraculous ministry where everywhere he goes, people are bringing. They're sick to him, they're hurting to him. They're demonically oppressed to him. And Jesus is freeing and healing everywhere he goes. But these religious leaders are unhappy. They don't like Jesus'message. They don't even like his miracles. In fact, in the text just prior to this, they call Jesus'miraculous ministry demonic. Says it's by demonic influence that you're able to do these things. Jesus, in turn, just says, well, they're wicked. They don't know what they're talking about. There's this back and forth. And our text picks up with these religious leaders, some of the Pharisees and some of the scribes. Which are kind of these terms for those who were kind of operating as the scholars. And who were kind of operating as the pastors, the religious leaders in this region. They essentially say to Jesus, well, okay, prove it. [00:09:35] Speaker B: Prove it. [00:09:36] Speaker A: If you are the messiah, show us a sign from heaven. Now, here's the thing, guys. On the one hand, this is actually very reasonable. Because the Old Testament is chock full of examples of God's workmen giving signs to prove their connection to him. Remember, guys, remember stuff like Moses showing up to the elders of Israel with the tricks that he could do with his staff, right? Remember Gideon laying out the fleece before he led God's people? There is an obvious biblical precedent for folks seeking a sign from God so that they don't end up following the wrong, or even worse, a sinful voice. [00:10:19] Speaker B: Right? [00:10:20] Speaker A: The Pharisees are claiming that Jesus is operating out of demonic authority, so it actually makes sense that they would ask him to prove otherwise. [00:10:32] Speaker B: So then why does Jesus just shut them down? [00:10:36] Speaker A: It's a strange scene, right? Like, he just immediately calls them wicked and then specifically says he's not going to perform a sign for them. This immediately seems strange, I think, at least to me on my first reading. Like, wouldn't a sign, by the way, a sign that Jesus is obviously capable of, wouldn't a sign just solve the whole problem? [00:11:00] Speaker B: Right. [00:11:01] Speaker A: Instead, Jesus uses the story of the prophet Jonah to prophesy his own death, burial, and resurrection. The only sign they'll get, he says, is the sign of the prophet Jonah. Jonah was three days in the fish. Jesus will be three days dead. And just as Jonah was spit back out into the world, jesus will rise. Jesus'accomplished work on the cross in the tomb is the only sign of his authority and ministry that will be given. That's interesting. It's interesting because it kind of doesn't make sense. They have no idea what he's talking about. And also, it's not right, then it's in the future. And then he uses this story of Jonah's preaching to the ninevites and the queen of Sheba's visit to King Solomon to just really strongly rebuke these guys. And by the way, anyone who kind. [00:11:54] Speaker B: Of aligns with them. [00:11:56] Speaker A: Now, I don't want to assume that we all just know these Bible stories, right? So let's take a quick second and talk about these two stories. Jesus references to rebuke these people who are in front of him, because I think they're helpful. So first, Jesus references the prophet Jonah. Jonah is one of the most famous Sunday school stories. So most of us are probably at least, like, a little bit familiar. He's the one who got eaten by a fish, right? Like, we all know that part, right? But maybe we don't have much more than a passing understanding of it. So Jonah is a whole book of the Bible. It's one of the minor prophets. It only has four chapters. And as one of the prophetic books, it only has one line in the entire book, that's actually a prophecy. The rest of it is a narrative about this rebellious prophet who God used. [00:12:43] Speaker B: In spite of himself. [00:12:45] Speaker A: See, Jonah was a prophet to the northern kingdom of Israel. The more sinful, rebellious half of the nation of Israel's civil war split, and. [00:12:56] Speaker B: He seemed to be a nationalistic prophet. [00:12:59] Speaker A: The only other time he's referenced in scripture, he was speaking to the northern kings about how God would expand their. [00:13:05] Speaker B: Kingdom and their territory and their influence. [00:13:08] Speaker A: Which is all the more striking then. [00:13:10] Speaker B: When God calls on him to go to Nineveh. [00:13:14] Speaker A: Nineveh was the capital city of Israel's dreadful enemies, the Assyrians. Now, what you have to know about the Assyrians is that they were a brutal empire. A brutal empire. They invented new ways of brutality and torture. It's kind of how they're known in a lot of aspects in history. The prophet Nahum called Nineveh the capital of the assyrian empire, the city of Piles, because of the sheer amount of dead bodies stacked around their city gates. So Jonah, the nationalistic prophet who loves God and loves his people, is called by God to go to Israel's deepest enemy, who is a real existential threat to their existence. And he just says, yeah, I'm not doing that. I'm not doing that. He refuses and he flees. He flees from God. He sets out in the Mediterranean Sea, heading the opposite direction of the direction, toward Nineveh. When God catches up to him out on the open sea, Jonah is still so rebellious, he would rather be thrown into the sea and drown and die than face God's call to preach to his enemies. So when Jonah attempts to kill himself, God intervenes and saves him by having. [00:14:28] Speaker B: Him swallowed by a fish, where he sits for three days. And for three days, he's sustained by God. [00:14:34] Speaker A: And it culminates in this scene where he begins to actually pray repentance to God in the belly of the fish. And his prayer is so interesting because it's kind of this patchwork of different. [00:14:45] Speaker B: Psalms that are coming to his mind as he sings and prays and repents and ultimately submits to God's call in his life. So the fish vomits him up on. [00:14:54] Speaker A: The shore, he heads to Nineveh, and then, in spite of everything that has transpired up into this point, Jonah gives the most half hearted prophetic preaching that has existed in the entirety of the scripture. He essentially gets there and goes, okay, God, I'll do this, but I'm going to do such a bad job that. [00:15:11] Speaker B: You'Ll never ask me to do it again. [00:15:13] Speaker A: And so he does the worst job. [00:15:16] Speaker B: Of preaching the gospel to the ninevites. [00:15:19] Speaker A: And the amazing twist of the story is that this fish vomit smelling, rebellious prophet who hates them shows up and speaks the most half hearted and hopeless prophecy possible. And yet there is an absolute revolution. [00:15:37] Speaker B: Of repentance in NinevEH. [00:15:40] Speaker A: Jonah Four tells this story and says that they were so deep into repentance that they put their livestock into sackcloth and ashes as they cried out to God for mercy. There was spiritual revival in this city as folk fell on their feet before God, seeking forgiveness and mercy for their wickedness. These evil gentiles, who oppressed and who, by the way, eventually destroyed the northern. [00:16:09] Speaker B: Kingdom of Israel, turned to God at the preaching of Jonah. It's an amazing story. [00:16:17] Speaker A: The Queen of the south is a reference to the queen of Sheba. You can read about this in two chronicles nine. Ancient Sheba is modern day YEmeN. And this woman, this queen, heard of king SolomON the wise, who had led Israel to become a world power, who had built this temple that had become one of the wonders of the world. And so she traveled for months upon months to pick his brain and learn from him. If you go and read it, it's. [00:16:43] Speaker B: Actually a really beautiful story. [00:16:44] Speaker A: It's very kind. Like, he just welcomes her and teaches. [00:16:47] Speaker B: Her and shares with her what God has been doing. [00:16:50] Speaker A: It shows that this king, who God. [00:16:52] Speaker B: Used to build the temple, really did in his own life, in his own way, become this sort of lighthouse who brought outsiders to Jerusalem to hear of the wisdom and glory of Yahweh. [00:17:03] Speaker A: So these two stories combine to serve as both a rebuke and a further. [00:17:09] Speaker B: Statement of Jesus'own authority. [00:17:12] Speaker A: It's a rebuke to these religious leaders because both stories reference gentile unbelievers who recognized God's move and acted and responded radically. [00:17:23] Speaker B: Right. [00:17:23] Speaker A: The queen radically sought out God's wisdom through Solomon, and the ninevites radically sought out repentance through Jonah's preaching. These gentiles were able to figure out that God was moving without demanding a sign. [00:17:38] Speaker B: Right? But these religious leaders, they can't recognize. [00:17:42] Speaker A: God standing in front of their face. But it's more than that, because Jesus isn't just rebuking them. He's also making this further statement about his own authority. [00:17:54] Speaker B: See, Jonah was an Old Testament prophet. [00:17:58] Speaker A: Of Yahweh, and Jesus plainly says that. [00:18:02] Speaker B: He is greater than Jonah. [00:18:05] Speaker A: Jesus is speaking with a similar message. [00:18:07] Speaker B: And a similar expectation. [00:18:09] Speaker A: Right? He's proclaiming God's kingdom that demands repentance. [00:18:14] Speaker B: But he does so as one that is greater than the prophet. [00:18:18] Speaker A: And Solomon. Solomon is the double whammy. He was the anointed king, the literal son of David, but he also oversaw the construction of the temple. He was closely associated with the glory and ministry of the temple. He spoke the truth and the wisdom of God to his people. Jesus is similarly speaking the truth of the kingdom of God, but he is speaking as one who is greater than the king and greater than the temple. Truly, Christ is worth being sought out. His message is worth engaging and being drawn to repentance. [00:18:55] Speaker B: He's greater than the prophet, greater than the king, greater than the temple. So he rebukes them for their lack of repentance and their lack of seeking out God. [00:19:06] Speaker A: And all this, by the way, explains. [00:19:08] Speaker B: To us why, to back up about ten minutes, that Jesus doesn't give them a sign. [00:19:16] Speaker A: The reason he doesn't give them a. [00:19:17] Speaker B: Sign is because he sees their hard hearts. [00:19:20] Speaker A: I mean, think about this. Christ has been performing miracles for a good long time. At this point, there's plenty to choose from. It's not that Christ is not working in their midst. It's that they aren't seeing him. They're not seeing him in a spiritual sense. [00:19:37] Speaker B: Right. [00:19:39] Speaker A: Jesus essentially says to them, you haven't believed anything I've done up to this. [00:19:42] Speaker B: Point, so why would I perform for you? [00:19:46] Speaker A: I'll do what I set out to do. I'll die and pay for sin, and. [00:19:50] Speaker B: I'll rise again, and I'll take mine with me. But even then, you won't respond. You don't believe me now. You won't believe me then. [00:19:58] Speaker A: And then Jesus slips into this really. [00:20:00] Speaker B: Strange anecdote about deliverance ministry. [00:20:03] Speaker A: Did you catch this? It feels almost like a 90 degree turn, right? He tells this story that really amounts to a short parable about someone who's. [00:20:11] Speaker B: Delivered from a demon. [00:20:12] Speaker A: The demon leaves them. They wander around. They find nowhere they want to be. So they head back to the same person, and they find him cleaned up and ready. So he says, hey, this is great. And he brings his friends, and they move back in, and the person ends up in a worse state than when he started. Now, that might feel like a weird shift subject wise, but, guys, Jesus is. [00:20:33] Speaker B: Actually continuing the exact same thought here. Remember what Jesus rebuked these leaders and this crowd for. They aren't really seeking Christ. They aren't really seeking the wisdom of God. They aren't really repenting. What they're doing is receiving the benefits of Jesus'ministry. They're receiving the benefits of his teaching, his healing, his freedom. They're getting the free food, but ultimately they have hard hearts that aren't responding to what God is doing. And so Jesus is warning them that to receive the benefits of his ministry. [00:21:10] Speaker A: With no real change of heart is actually destructive. [00:21:16] Speaker B: Need to hear that piece. [00:21:18] Speaker A: This is kind of a hard teaching. [00:21:20] Speaker B: To wrap our head around. [00:21:21] Speaker A: The poor person in this story had. [00:21:23] Speaker B: A demon cast out. [00:21:25] Speaker A: That's awesome. They experienced real freedom, and you can see how it allowed them to get. [00:21:30] Speaker B: Their life in order. But they did nothing to fill up the space that was emptied out. [00:21:35] Speaker A: Their freedom didn't push them to seek out the spirit of God. [00:21:39] Speaker B: And so in turn, their life was immediately better. [00:21:42] Speaker A: Right there was swept, it was cleaned. [00:21:44] Speaker B: But it brought worse trouble for them in the end. [00:21:47] Speaker A: In the same way, following Jesus for the spectacle, following Jesus for the benefits. [00:21:54] Speaker B: With no real heart, to actually receive the gospel, be challenged by the gospel, respond to the gospel, to actually move toward Christ in repentance, to do so, to follow him without that will leave you in a worse position than before. [00:22:13] Speaker A: It's destructive. You may ask at this point, like. [00:22:16] Speaker B: How is that true? [00:22:17] Speaker A: How is that possible if you're receiving the blessing? Some blessing is better than no blessing, right? [00:22:25] Speaker B: I think the answer is no. No blessing and relief in this life. [00:22:31] Speaker A: Alone for this 60, 70, 80, 90 years, guys, that's false hope. It's false hope, and it can blind people to their real and present eternal peril. There is danger hiding in benevolence. [00:22:51] Speaker B: Ministry. That's a weird phrase, but it's an. [00:22:55] Speaker A: Important one because christians have always and should always do the hard work of meeting real people's real needs in the. [00:23:02] Speaker B: Midst of their hurt. [00:23:03] Speaker A: We should be those who combat the. [00:23:05] Speaker B: Curse, who seek to make the world a better place, to make it look. [00:23:08] Speaker A: More like heaven here on earth. [00:23:10] Speaker B: We can never do less than this, but we need to understand, to simply meet needs, physical needs, giving food, clothing, speaking to emotional health, to meet people. [00:23:23] Speaker A: In their sickness, doing these things, but. [00:23:25] Speaker B: Never actually letting it move to, speaking to them about their eternity with Christ can and hear. [00:23:33] Speaker A: This often does falsely reinforce the idea that this world is all there is. If the end goal of our love and our service is to make this. [00:23:43] Speaker B: Life better, then we subtly teach that this life is the one that matters. Beloved, how horrific. And I'm using strong language here, but how horrific is it to love and serve someone well enough to meet their immediate needs, but to do nothing to prepare them for the righteous day of judgment in the eternity that spreads out beyond it. That's horrific. [00:24:11] Speaker A: How terrible is it to send someone. [00:24:14] Speaker B: On their merry way to hell with a full stomach? That feels like help. That is not help. We must be on guard, on guard that our practical needs ministry is always partnered with the life giving truth of the gospel, always, can never move past that. While Jesus is still talking about this. [00:24:37] Speaker A: He'S mid teaching, he's interrupted, and he's informed that his family is here looking for him. Now, some of the kind of the subtlety of this scene and how kind of family ties and public respect and. [00:24:48] Speaker B: Rabbis like some of this can kind. [00:24:49] Speaker A: Of slip by us, because Matthew, in his telling of the story, assumes that we understand a few cultural things that would have been obvious to his audience. [00:24:57] Speaker B: But are kind of lost on us. [00:24:59] Speaker A: So the reality is we have to understand this intrusion is actually incredibly inappropriate. His family is forcing Jesus into a really awkward and uncomfortable and inappropriate position. This wasn't a matter of his family being like, impatient. Like, we need to talk to him right now, to interrupt a rabbi, a known rabbi mid teaching, and basically tell him, look, your mom's here. You need to go talk to her. Because this would have been considered a very public dishonor of that rabbi dismissing. [00:25:30] Speaker B: Their position, their honor, their role. [00:25:32] Speaker A: Mark is actually a little more blunt in his telling of this kind of series of stories. Just a hair before this, before he. [00:25:38] Speaker B: Gets in this teaching. [00:25:39] Speaker A: Mark says in chapter three, this is a quote from, he says when his family heard of this meaning Jesus'ministry, they set out to restrain them because they said he is surely out of his mind. His family is hearing about Jesus having these public confrontations with the religious leaders, the pastors and theologians of their day, and they go, oh, bummer. [00:25:58] Speaker B: Jesus went crazy. [00:25:59] Speaker A: We have to go get him and bring him home. And so they show up and Jesus is mid teaching, and they're like, hey, go get him. Tell him his mom and his brothers are here. [00:26:08] Speaker B: We gotta stop this right now. [00:26:11] Speaker A: But Jesus doesn't go. He doesn't go out to them, which, by the way, also would have been considered incredibly disrespectful. Familial connections and obligations were sacred in. [00:26:24] Speaker B: This day and in this culture. [00:26:26] Speaker A: But Jesus knows their hearts, knows what. [00:26:30] Speaker B: Has brought them there. And he makes this incredible statement. Incredible statement. [00:26:37] Speaker A: Matthew even gives you, like, the drama of it. [00:26:39] Speaker B: He sweeps his hand over the room, over his followers, over the twelve, over their extended group, and he says, this is my family. This is my family. Whoever is doing the will of God, whoever is seeking the kingdom, this is my family. Jesus is saying here that his followers aren't just his followers, they're his family. Some of you guys, most of us. [00:27:08] Speaker A: Weren'T here for this, but Craig's going. [00:27:09] Speaker B: Through this discipleship hour class right now and the idea of what it means to belong to a local church. And he was tapping into some of these ideas today in our time, talking about what it means that we are spiritually family, that to be bought by. [00:27:23] Speaker A: Christ means to be adopted into something. The followers of Jesus are not just. [00:27:29] Speaker B: Followers, but rather they've been brought into this space of deep connection and immense privilege. They've been adopted into a family they didn't belong to before. [00:27:41] Speaker A: Guys, I think it's so important for. [00:27:43] Speaker B: Us to really take a minute to see Jesus'heart in this text. I don't know if you had this experience reading it, but for me, my. [00:27:52] Speaker A: Immediate surface reading it kind of just. [00:27:54] Speaker B: Left me with a bad taste in my mouth. Jesus is being very blunt in this text. [00:27:59] Speaker A: He's being very specifically confrontational. [00:28:03] Speaker B: He's speaking in ways that were harsh and painful to hear. But there is so much love in this text. We have to see that. Have to see the love that exists in Jesus'confrontation here. [00:28:18] Speaker A: Ultimately, even though Jesus is calling these. [00:28:21] Speaker B: Leaders in this crowd out for a very specific reason and a very specific danger in their lives, right? He's doing this. He ultimately does promise them a sign. [00:28:33] Speaker A: Even in the midst of this rebuke, even in the midst of him coming down on them hard, he does promise them a sign. And, beloved, what a sign. The sign of Jonah is nothing short of Jesus's accomplished work on our behalf. Jesus says, here, you want to see. [00:28:52] Speaker B: A sign that I'm actually from God? Okay, how about this? [00:28:56] Speaker A: How about I die to take the wrath of God poured out for your sin on myself? How about I die a real sinner's death, even though I'm perfect into the power of the Holy Spirit? How about I just go ahead and defeat death and the curse and rise from the dead as the first fruits that you might find eternal life in me? Beloved, the sign of Jonah is Jesus'accomplished. [00:29:19] Speaker B: Work on your behalf. What a sign. A text like this reminds us just how amazing our Jesus is. He does such amazing work for us. He blesses us beyond measure. And here's the piece, guys. Here's the piece. This love is exactly why Jesus is so blunt and confrontational with these guys. He loves them too much, and his. [00:29:50] Speaker A: Work is too important for him to ignore the destructive path they are on and they are leading others on. You see, what we see in this text and the hard hearts of these. [00:30:03] Speaker B: Religious leaders is that they were the center of their own worlds. [00:30:08] Speaker A: Here they were in the presence of. [00:30:10] Speaker B: The God of the universe, and they were demanding that he perform up to their standards, that he submit to them and do what they ask, that he proved himself worthy to them, as though they were so important that Christ himself needed their affirmation to do his ministry. Beloved, that's not how it works. They wanted Jesus to conform to them and meet their whims. But he is God. [00:30:42] Speaker A: He's the ruler of the universe. He showed up to seek and save the lost, not perform. For every hard hearted Pharisee who didn't take the time to engage his message. [00:30:54] Speaker B: This speaks to Jesus's two fold rebuke of them. They didn't seek Jesus. They didn't repent of their sins, because even the pagans, when faced with God's move in the world, could seek him and could repent. Jesus just loved these guys too much to allow them to continue in this hard hearted delusion. So he's challenging them to repent because they were on a course that would leave them worse off. [00:31:22] Speaker A: They would receive the immediate benefits of Jesus'ministry. But without the continued presence of the. [00:31:28] Speaker B: Holy Spirit, they would only be all the more beat up and destroyed by the reality of the curse. They were headed for disaster. And Christ shows us they didn't have to. They didn't have to because Jesus doesn't leave people stuck. He takes followers and he turns them into family. He adopts them into his own. And we are, through Christ, given standing with Yahweh. We're giving an inheritance alongside Jesus. [00:32:00] Speaker A: Do you hear that? Christ makes a way for you to. [00:32:04] Speaker B: Have standing with the God of the. [00:32:06] Speaker A: Universe, to receive the inheritance of Christ. [00:32:09] Speaker B: To have the benefits, connection of obligation. [00:32:14] Speaker A: The stakes are so high, and it's so important. It's too important. [00:32:20] Speaker B: So Jesus does not keep silent. He rebukes and he challenges and he shows them that there is a better life available for those who seek him and repent. So what do we do with a text like this? Right? How do we bring this home to us today? I think there's a stark warning, but also a beautiful and wonderful hope for us here, because I believe we need to hear Jesus's rebuke. We need to hear this challenge, especially those of you who are well churched. See, the longer you've been involved in church culture, the more seriously you need to engage this rebuke. One of the reasons it was so easy for these religious leaders to miss Jesus is because of how pridefully confident they were in their own theological understanding. [00:33:17] Speaker A: We've read the book. [00:33:18] Speaker B: We've studied. [00:33:19] Speaker A: We've done the work. We understand this. We're good. Jesus, you don't fit the mold. [00:33:22] Speaker B: So you better prove yourself to us. [00:33:24] Speaker A: Or we're not going to give you. [00:33:25] Speaker B: Our time and attention. Theological pride caused them to miss God in front of their faith. And the longer you've been involved in church life, the easier it is to go. I've done like 45 Bible studies. I've been through gospel centered life 15 times. My life is gospel centered at this point. I get this stuff. It's so easy to slip into theological pride, and that puts you in danger of Jesus's exact rebuke here. It's a really beneficial question. [00:34:01] Speaker A: And by the way, when I say. [00:34:03] Speaker B: Are you seeking Christ? Are you repenting? I don't mean, have you repented and found salvation? Although that is a great question and you should consider that, I know there are those of us in this room who are still considering what it means to give our lives to Christ, to repent to him, to find salvation. Yes, please consider that. But don't think that that question is just for those who are on the outside, who are still considering what it means to submit their lives to Christ. This challenge is for each and every one of us. I mean you, right now, today, are you actively seeking Christ? Are you actively repenting of your sin? Is Christ the center of your story? Or are you. And I don't mean ten years ago, I don't mean your testimony. I mean right now in this space, are you the center of your story, or is Christ. Are you the main character of your own life? Are you seeking him and his kingdom, or are you seeking yourself and your own? It is important to consider this. So how do you actually answer this question? If you sit and you reflect on that and go, oh, no, how do you answer it? Because I think Jesus gives us a really practical measure by referencing us back to scripture. Look how the queen of Sheba sought Solomon. She sacrificed, she traveled, she lingered, she listened. It's a really good measure by which you consider your own pursuit of Christ. Does the word of God drive you to action? Do you prioritize time and spaces where you will hear and engage the word of God? Do you plug yourself into your church? Do you engage community? Do you seek out spiritual disciplines? Do you do this when they're convenient. [00:35:51] Speaker A: Or are these things important enough they. [00:35:53] Speaker B: Garner weight in your life? And your schedule is a very practical engagement. Are you seeking Christ because that does not happen by accident. It happens because you wrap your life around Christ, because you make decisions that move you toward him, because you prioritize things and your thought life and your calendar and the way you engage the world. How about repentance, guys? Look at Nineveh. When they were made aware of their sin, they stopped everything and engaged it before the Lord. So what do you do when you are made aware of your sin? Do you have a hatred of your sin that drives you to engage it radically, to engage it quickly as soon as you become aware of it? Or are you more of the mindset that kind of just avoids killing certain sins in your life? How often do you find yourself seeking to accommodate your sins and make as much space for them as possible? [00:36:59] Speaker A: You know what? [00:37:00] Speaker B: God is calling you to give up. [00:37:01] Speaker A: But you like that particular sin, so you'll seek to grow in other areas of your faith. [00:37:06] Speaker B: You'll put that one off for later. Some of us take those sins and we put them on our calendar. We schedule them, and we really don't want to lose it. So we look for these temporary or halfway measures to avoid really dealing with what we clearly know Christ is calling us to engage. Because I want you to hear this. It is important for us, seeking and repenting are immediate and very real measures by which we can think about our engagement in the kingdom life. They are real and they are immediate. They're ways for us to dethrone ourselves and remember that Jesus is the true king, the true center of our lives. At one point, when Jesus was talking about his coming suffering, he warned of how hard it would be to follow him. [00:37:56] Speaker A: This sign of Jonah comes at a cost. [00:38:00] Speaker B: In mark eight, Jesus says this to his followers. In that moment, he says, for what does it benefit someone to gain the whole world and yet lose their life? Beloved, you were not made exclusively for this world. In this life, you can gain everything this world has to offer. But if you don't have Christ, you don't have the kingdom of God. You have nothing. Take a couple hours this week and go read ecclesiastes. Read of King Solomon and how he gained everything the world had to offer. Righteous and unrighteous. He went through all of it. What does he say at the end? How does he conclude this book? After indulging in every pleasure and every benefit, he says, and none of it really mattered. The only thing you can really do is just fear God and trust him and seek him, because you can gain the world. But if you don't have Christ, you have gained nothing. What does this life possibly have to offer that somehow makes it worth it to miss Christ? [00:39:06] Speaker A: What sin or pleasure or comfort is somehow good enough to make it worthwhile to chase the world instead of chasing Jesus? Beloved, do not be deceived. [00:39:19] Speaker B: Jesus is Lord. He's God. He's king. [00:39:23] Speaker A: He will not be your performing monkey. [00:39:28] Speaker B: He will not be your magic Santa. He doesn't exist to accommodate your comforts and pleasures and desires and fulfillments. It's not who he is, and it's not what he'll do for you. But you need to hear this, church. What Christ will do for you is amazing. He'll adopt you. He'll draw you into his family. He'll make you his own. He'll give you all the blessings and benefits of being with him. He'll save you. He'll lovingly dethrone you from your own life, and he will reign. He'll forgive your sins. He'll take your wrath and your death, and he will give you his life. He adopts you, your family, your very own man. If you want to come back up. [00:40:19] Speaker A: Years ago, I had a friend and I were getting to know and minister. [00:40:21] Speaker B: To several mormon missionaries. This is when I was younger and single, and my friend was living in an apartment complex where they would stay. [00:40:28] Speaker A: And so he kind of got the. [00:40:30] Speaker B: Reputation for being the guy who was available to kind of share meals and give rides, right? [00:40:34] Speaker A: So one night over dinner, we were having this really blunt and, I think. [00:40:37] Speaker B: Kind of beautiful conversation about the differences in belief between orthodox Christianity and Mormonism. As we were talking about this gospel invitation, my friend was really clearly inviting this young man to receive the free gift of salvation from Christ. And I'll never forget his response. [00:40:55] Speaker A: We had kind of broken through some. [00:40:57] Speaker B: Of just the kind of immediate chatter and canned answers we all teach each other, right? And when he was given his gospel invitation, this guy challenged it. He goes, there's just no way. That's how it works. How could a gift that good simply be free? He thought it somehow diminished the gift of Christ for us to say that you don't have to do a bunch of good moral things to earn it, that you just receive it, that somehow diminished it. [00:41:28] Speaker A: I don't know whatever happened to that guy. [00:41:29] Speaker B: I don't actually even remember his name, to be honest. But I remember that conversation because it's so relatable, because the gospel is shocking. Christ is so unexpected. He's so unexpected. The idea that God of the universe would love us so much that he would die for us, that he would. [00:41:52] Speaker A: Raise from the dead, from us, that. [00:41:53] Speaker B: He would save us, that he would adopt us into his family, and that all of it is a free gift of grace. That is astounding. That is astounding. And, beloved, even though our action, our action does nothing to earn this free gift of grace, does not the sheer unexpected generosity of this gift, does it not inspire you to respond with your very life? Does not the love of Jesus draw you in to seek him all the more? [00:42:30] Speaker A: Does not the radical kindness of Christ draw you even deeper into repentance of your sin, that you might give your all to him? [00:42:39] Speaker B: Beloved, take the world. Take the world. Give me Jesus. You can have that. Give me Christ. He's that good. He's that good. Beloved, let's take a few minutes to respond in prayer. I want to encourage you guys to do what you need to do to meet with Jesus for a few minutes. I'm not going to give you a series of prompts. We have a couple things we'll put on the screen, but I want to really encourage you. Take a few minutes. We've got a few minutes, guys. Take a few minutes. Be slow and be with Jesus. See what he might say to you in this. Maybe you need to get up out of your seat and get on your knees somewhere and pray. Come to him in some real confession that's long overdue. Maybe you need to grab one of the pastors or one of your friends and have them pray with you. Maybe you want to grab a prayer card or a connect card and write something down so you can have a deeper, more intense conversation later. Whatever it is, I want to encourage you. Take a minute to actually seek Christ right now. Beloved, the invitation is here. Listen, I didn't even go over on preaching today. You got plenty of time. That never happens. I did that just for you. We got plenty of time. Be slow, be quiet with Jesus for a few minutes. Actually seek him, see what he might say to you, and then we'll end out our time with communion.