Topical

Audio is take from Dr. Ryan Reeves of Gordon-Conwell Seminary

You can find this lecture and other lectures of his on his Youtube Channel which is

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrI5U0R293u9uveijefKyAA

Application is by Pastor Chris Freeman

Topical

Audio is take from Dr. Ryan Reeves of Gordon-Conwell Seminary

You can find this lecture and other lectures of his on his Youtube Channel which is

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrI5U0R293u9uveijefKyAA

Application is by Pastor Chris Freeman

Title: The Ones Religion Can’t Save

Text: Matthew 9:18-34; Mark 5:21-43; Luke 8:40-56

FCF: We often get wrapped up in our attempts to connect to God, that we miss His attempt to connect to us.

Prop: Because Jesus has authority over all that religion can’t help, we must depend on Christ not on religion.

Scripture Intro:

[Slide 1] Turn in your bible to Matthew chapter 9. Last week, we saw Jesus calling a wicked man from a wicked job to be His follower. That man happens to have written the book we are studying. We also see those who claim to be righteous, being rejected and corrected by Christ. He attempts to show them that there is something new coming. A covenant to fulfill and replace the last covenant. An agreement between God and man, where man no longer has a side to fulfill. God invades, God changes, God inscribes His law on their hearts and they obey Him for His glory. The new is better. Way better. And today, Matthew will give us the ultimate reason why. I am in Matthew chapter 9 starting in verse 18. I’ll be reading from the New English Translations but follow along in whatever version you prefer.

Sermon Intro:

[Slide 2] Now I am not a gambler. I don’t like wasting money. I’ve never been an overly lucky person. So gambling has never really been that much of a temptation for me. But Kadie and I noticed an interesting phenomenon a few years ago in our relationship. Every now and then. About once a month or so, we stumble upon some meaningless fact, some shred of inconsequential truth that we do not agree on. Now some couples would fight endlessly until someone won. Other couples would ignore it completely. Still others would look it up on google and be done with it. Well… we use it as an opportunity to gamble. The standard wager is when she wins she gets a massage equaling no less than the duration of whatever show we are watching at the time. And I’d say if I win, but really there is no need. 

What I find absolutely fascinating, is that each time we enter into this agreement, this contract… I am so amazed by how confident I am in my opinion. And then how quickly that vanishes when google tells me how bad my memory is.

[Slide 3 (blank)] I have to think that it is this level of confidence amplified to a million that 1st century Jews had in the law. They were so confident in the law, that even if they had google they would have closed the browser and pretended like they never saw the factoid. Do you know how I know that? Because they had Jesus- God in flesh in front of them, and they pretended that He wasn’t anything special.

As Jesus alluded to last week, we tend to get comfortable in what we know, and that comfort keeps us from what is new. Even if what is new is better. Way better. And this takes us to the age old problem of man. Man through ancient and modernized religions, make valiant attempts to connect to the divine, whether it be the God of the bible or otherwise. But in those attempts they have to walk right by the fact that God has already attempted to connect to us through His Son. They just aren’t listening.

What we will see today is that Jesus has authority over all that the Old Covenant and by extension, every other form of religion, cannot help. This will lead us to one inescapable conclusion, which we’ll talk about at the end.

Transition:

First we will see how Jesus has the authority to pierce through the law and help those who are religiously unclean. People who would have no hope under the law – but are now set free by Christ.

I.) Jesus has authority over those who are religiously unclean, so we must depend on Christ not on religion (18-26; Mk and Lk)

a. [Slide 4] 18 – As he was saying these things

i. It would be easy for us to conclude based on this phrase that the events that follow come immediately after he met with John’s disciples.

ii. However, when we compare these historic episodes to similar ones in Mark and Luke, we find that the events did not follow the teaching of John’s disciples, which happened sometime before preaching the Sermon on the Mount. But instead happened after the Sermon on the Mount and, more specifically, after coming to Capernaum after casting out the legion of demons in a man in Gadara.

iii. So why would Matthew say, “as he was saying these things” and deliberately lead us to believe that Jesus did these miracles immediately following the confrontation with Johns disciples?

iv. Remember, that Matthew is stitching these historic episodes together thematically. Systematically. He is unconcerned with chronological accuracy, but more about drawing thematic parallels between the events in Jesus’ life and His teachings.

v. Broadly we know that Matthew throughout chapter 8 and 9 has been displaying the authority and power of Jesus as the Messiah and Lord of the Kingdom.

1. Authority over disease

2. Authority over who can be his disciple

3. Authority over nature

4. Authority over demons

5. Authority over The spiritual nature of man

6. And last week we spoke of Jesus’ Authority over the Covenant of God with man, to make a new and better covenant that fulfills and replaces the old.

vi. So how can we harmonize these gospel accounts? Is Matthew being deliberately deceptive?

vii. Well I don’t have a great answer for you. In my research most ignored the question and some attempted to address it by simply stating that this is simply a transitional phrase and nothing more. But words have meaning. And saying – as he was saying these things, would have led the reader down the path of concluding that this happened right after what just happened. Unless…

viii. Matthew’s emphasis is not on time but content.

ix. Mark and Luke indicate that as soon as Jesus got off the boat in Capernaum, people were waiting for him. No doubt he began to teach them as he often did.

x. Then the events transpire as they do here albeit with more detail.

xi. So perhaps, since Matthew was present with Jesus during this time, he recalls exactly what Jesus was teaching. Perhaps he recalls that Jesus was instructing them with the same teaching that was just conveyed to John’s disciples.

xii. Indeed, the miracles that Jesus is about to do, would clearly demonstrate the limits of the Old Covenant.

xiii. So again, not a great answer, but this is perhaps why Matthew transitions this way. To clue us in on what to look for in the following historical episodes.

b. A ruler came, bowed low before him, and said, “My daughter has just died, but come and lay your hand on her and she will live.”

i. From Mark and Luke we find that the ruler is a man named Jarius who was an elected official in the synagogue. Not part of the religious order but instead a layperson who was committed to the administration of the synagogue.

ii. Matthew alone mentions that he bows low. Mark and Luke say he falls at Jesus’ feet. A sign of submission and faith.

iii. Mark and Luke talk about his insistence that Jesus help his daughter. Because in Mark and Luke, she was still alive.

iv. In Matthew, the ruler seems to have given up hope that his daughter is alive. Another contradiction? No. So what is happening?

v. Matthew is making it crystal clear that this is not about a healing, but about a resurrection. More on that later.

vi. Also, there is a point both in Mark and Luke when a servant comes and informs Jarius that his daughter had died. So at some point in the conversation, Jarius knew she was dead.

c. [Slide 5] 19 – Jesus and his disciples got up and followed him

i. Got up indicates to us again that Jesus may have been teaching for a bit before this happened.

ii. At first all the disciples go with him, and the crowds, but as he nears this man’s house, Mark and Luke tell us that only Peter, James and John followed.

d. [Slide 6] 20-21 – But a woman who had been suffering from a hemorrhage for twelve years came up behind him and touched the edge of his cloak. For she kept saying to herself, “If only I touch his cloak, I will be healed.”

i. Nearest we can figure is that this issue of blood is some kind of menstrual problem. Something that a hysterectomy would no doubt solve in our day.

ii. Mark and Luke indicate to us that she had spent every dime she had over the last 12 years trying to figure it out and was left poor and still sick.

iii. Why the edge of his cloak? Why the hem of his garment?

1. In Leviticus 15:25-27, God outlined specifically what happens to a woman who has an issue of the flow of blood. She is unclean. No one can touch her or they will be unclean until the evening. Even her bed is not to be touched by anyone else. If so, they would have to wash themselves and their cloths and be unclean until evening. She is not permitted in the tabernacle under penalty of lashes or even death. Why? Because she is unclean.

2. For 12 years. 12 years. Can you imagine not being able to touch anyone without them having to be unclean too for the rest of the day? For 12 years? Unable to go into the tabernacle and offer he own sacrifices. If she had a husband, every time they were intimate he would be unclean for 7 days and inherit the uncleanness she had.

3. Perhaps her logic goes something like this…

a. if I touch his cloak he won’t notice me.

b. Perhaps if I only touch his cloak, His purity and Holiness won’t destroy me. This one, this messiah, this Son of God, I am taking my life into my own hands, that someone as defiled as I am, may yet be cleansed.

c. I can’t go on anymore this way. I can’t continue to be unclean. And even if that means I am destroyed, then I will take that risk.

e. [Slide 7] 22 – But when Jesus turned and saw her he said, “Have courage, daughter! Your faith has made you well.” And the woman was healed from that hour.

i. Jesus’ words are loaded with meaning.

ii. First He confirms our suspicions that she feared for her life at his judgment because he says to have courage. Again a phrase used exclusively when people come into contact with the Holiness of God.

iii. Mark and Luke both record that Jesus felt power leave Him and he turned asking after who touched him. They also tell us that the disciples, specifically Peter, tried to point out the fact that he was in a large crowd and everyone was pressing in on him. The woman, realizing that Jesus was not asking because He did not know, but because it was her chance to come forward, came to Him in fear.

iv. He calls her daughter. To be called a child of God. To be called a son or daughter of God has remarkable New Covenant overtones.

v. Your faith has made you well leads some to conclude that healings of ailments can be achieved with the appropriate amount of faith. However, if that were the case she would have been healed prior to touching Jesus. Which she was not.

vi. Indicating of course that it was her faith in Jesus. It was not simply the fact of her faith that made her well, it was the object of her faith that made her well. As Matthew tries to lead us to by couching her healing after Jesus says it is so. Again, not to show chronology but to show Jesus as the healer.

f. [Slide 8] 23-24 – When Jesus entered the ruler’s house and saw the flute players and the disorderly crowd, he said, “Go away, for this girl is not dead but asleep.” And they began making fun of him.

i. Mark and Luke tell us that a servant comes to Jarius and informs him that his daughter is dead. At this they recommend that they do not trouble Jesus any more. Jesus then tells him to not be fearful but simply to keep believing.

ii. Perhaps this is when Jarius says – My daughter is dead, come lay your hand on her.

iii. They arrive to a rather disgusting spectacle. Flute players and disorderly crowds were making quite a commotion. These were hired mourners. Remember that they live in an honor shame culture. To have no mourners or very few mourners at your funeral would have been very shameful. So there were women who would be paid to go around wailing at funerals. It echos the fake and plastic nature of what the old covenant had become under the legalistic leadership of the scribes and Pharisees.

iv. Jesus tells them that she is only sleeping – when any old idiot would have known that she was not. Jesus was not a fool, nor was he actually saying she was not dead. He simply wished to convey to the people that death to life is as easy for Him as sleep to awake.

g. [Slide 9] 25-26 – But when the crowd had been put outside, he went in and gently took her by the hand, and the girl got up. And the news of this spread throughout that region.

i. In Numbers 19 we find that to touch a corpse would render a person unclean for 7 days.

ii. Matthew does not tell us that he spoke to this little girl as Mark and Luke do. Instead he puts emphasis on the touch by omitting the spoken words.

iii. His touch by the unclean woman and now by the carcass of this little girl should have made Him unclean.

iv. But it does not.

v. Why?

vi. Because He has authority over permanent ceremonial uncleanness. He has come to fulfill the old covenant and install a new one.

vii. The girl immediately got up. And no one kept the secret of this little girl being raised to life.

h. [Slide 10 (blank)] So we see that Jesus possesses authority to interact with what religion was unable to interact with, and to help where religion was left on the sidelines. The uncleanness of this woman with the issue of blood, and the corpse of this little girl, would have been beyond the scope of the Old Covenant, especially as it was applied by the Scribes and Pharisees. Yet, Jesus, being the executor of the covenant, is not bound by these restrictions. He usurps them. And instead of becoming unclean, He proves to be unable to be contaminated. Instead, His purity cleanses those whom He comes into contact with.

Transition:

So built into the fabric of the Old Covenant were ceremonial laws that made it impossible for many to have any sort of hope. The religion to its core had led to many being shut out. This should have been a sign that the law was not the end of the story. That there was something else coming. But their response was not to hope at the new covenant, but to abandon those excluded from the old. That is what we will see next.

II.) Jesus has authority over those who are abandoned by religion, so we must depend on Christ not on religion (27-34)

a. [Slide 11] 27 – As Jesus went on from there, two blind men followed him, shouting, “Have mercy on us, Son of David!”

i. As we have already stated, chronology doesn’t matter that much to Matthew

ii. As such, since Matthew’s gospel is the only gospel that has the next two accounts of the blind and mute, we cannot make a determination as to when these events happened. Matthew does bring up similar events later, which has led some to conclude that he repeats himself but applies the meaning differently in each place.

iii. Others simply conclude that this is one more historical episode and where it happens ultimately doesn’t matter – which is where I am.

iv. Son of David is an interesting title. We have seen it once before way back in Matthew 1:1.

1. This of course bears record of the lineage that Jesus has to the line of David.

2. However, this is also a reference to the ultimate lineage of David which is the promise of the Messiah. I Chronicles 17 shows us that a seed of David will rule forever and that there will be one in whom the mercy of the Lord will never be extinguished.

3. Another interesting tidbit is that these men were blind. They had literally never seen Jesus perform a single miracle. Yet they believed that He was the Son of David… and maybe more.

b. [Slide 12] 28 – When he went into the house, the blind men came to him. Jesus said to them, “Do you believe that I am able to do this?” They said to him, “yes, Lord.”

i. Do you believe that I am able to do this… what is Jesus asking here?

ii. Isaiah 42:7 – Says that God would send a servant to open the eyes of the blind

iii. We also know from other interactions with the blind, that the general consensus of religious leaders in 1st century Judaism was that those who suffered a permanent defect like blindness, deafness, muteness, and so on, were that way because either they sinned in the womb, or because their parents sinned.

iv. As a conclusion then, they were under the judgment of God and therefore, were considered outcasts. Not only can nothing be done for them… Nothing SHOULD be done for them.

v. This is why they ask for mercy and this is why when Jesus asks them if they think that He is able to do this… it is significant.

vi. Not only because it is a prophesy foretold of the Messiah Son of David… but also that He was God and able to cease their punishment and judgment. When Jesus says, Do you believe that I am able to do this… He is asking them, do you believe that I am God.

vii. They reply by saying, Yes – Lord – master – King. We are your slaves and we believe that you are God.

c. [Slide 13] 29-30 – Then he touched their eyes saying, “Let it be done for you according to your faith.” And their eyes were opened. Then Jesus sternly warned them, “See that no one knows about this.”

i. Once again, as we saw with the woman with the hemorrhage, it was not the fact of their faith, nor was it the quantity of their faith that was in view, it was the object of their faith that was in view.

ii. They believed that Jesus was God, the Messiah, and as such, able to rewrite the rules and undo their judgment.

iii. Once again, at the word of Jesus – they were healed immediately.

iv. And once again – because Jesus did not want to be known as a healer because that would distract from the message he taught, he tells them to not say anything.

v. Notice that he waited until they got into the house to heal these men, even though it is obvious that they met him outside the house.

d. [Slide 14] 31 – But they went out and spread the news about him throughout the entire region.

i. Well that didn’t last long did it?

ii. So this was direct disobedience. Jesus warned them. The word used there is also used for snort. Jesus snorted at them to not tell anyone. That is pretty aggressive. And yet they spread the news.

iii. Fake faith? Can’t be. Jesus said according to your faith you will be healed.

iv. Temporary faith? ABSOLUTELY! They sought Him for healing from their blindness. But not healing for their ultimate wickedness, nor unto righteousness…

v. They believed He was God and was able to remove their physical judgment – but not necessarily their spiritual judgment.

vi. In the end, we can’t know the spiritual condition of these two men, because Matthew doesn’t tell us.

vii. But that isn’t really the point anyway. The point is that Jesus has the authority over all that religion cannot fix

e. [Slide 15] 32-33 – As they were going away, a man who could not talk and was demon-possessed was brought to him. After the demon was cast out, the man who had been mute spoke. The crowds were amazed and said, “Never has anything like this been seen in Israel!”

i. So stepping out of this house and going away from here, a man is brought to them who could not talk and was demon possessed. Now why is this important?

ii. Exorcism was not unique to Jesus. Others were performing exorcisms or at least pretending to at that time. Apparently demon possession could be cured by knowing the name of the demon. If you knew its name, you had power over the demon. Possibly a superstition.

iii. There is only one problem. This man was mute. Caused by demonic possession. There is absolutely no way to get the demon to tell Jesus its name.

iv. Therefore, this man would have been abandoned by the religious authorities of his day, because in their minds, it was absolutely impossible to rescue Him from this. And yes, they probably would have concluded that it was God’s judgment on him.

v. But in a matter of fact sort of way, Matthew simply says – after the demon was cast out… no problem for Jesus.

vi. Then the man could speak.

vii. Never has anything like this happened in Israel before! Meaning not the exorcism, but the curing of being unable to speak.

viii. Isaiah 35 indicates that the lame will leap like the deer and the mute will speak. Of course this is language of a prophesy about the physical kingdom of God on earth – but we’ll find that the more we examine this Kingdom and its King – the spiritual Kingdom and earthly Kingdom are the same in more ways than they are different.

f. [Slide 16] 34 – But the Pharisees said, “By the ruler of demons he casts out demons”

i. Of course being unable to save this man themselves, the Pharisees, bent on disproving Jesus’ claims to this authority, have invented a clever lie.

ii. They claim that Jesus is actually an agent of the devil to cast out these demons and therefore trick people.

iii. Now this line of thinking will be addressed later, but for now, suffice it to say, this had become one of the ways the Pharisees would undermine Him.

g. [Slide 17 (blank)(end)] So we see another 2 episodes where people were given up for lost by their religious leaders, and where Jesus, with mere words, is able to do what they could not. He has authority religious leaders do not possess, to undo that which religion cannot undo.

Transition:

So Jesus is the answer. He is the answer to the problem of religion’s failures. So what does that mean for us today?

Conclusion:

Do not be a Pharisee when you look at this text this morning. Do not see the people in these verses the way the scribes and religious leaders did. You might say, “well what do you mean?”

The scribes and Pharisees and religious leaders saw these people in this passage, every one of them, as undesirables. Deplorables. Misfits. And they did not do it because they were out of touch with what the law said, they did it because they were out of touch with the God of the law. The Old Covenant made no provision for salvation for these people. The little girl and woman with the hemorrhage couldn’t be touched, and they couldn’t be healed. So what was their provision? Nothing. The blind and mute men were experiencing the judgment of God on their lives so they couldn’t be healed because they shouldn’t be healed.

The Old Covenant, especially the twisted version they adhered to, made no such provision for any of the people mentioned in these historical episodes. Why?

Because the Old Covenant was never meant to be permanent, and was never meant to lead someone to legalistic adherence. In the Old and the New we find the desire of God is to have a people who are absolutely dependent on Him so they can bring Him glory.

As Paul told us in Galatians, the Old Covenant was meant to provide a guide and safeguard against the wickedness of men until the time was ripe for the Messiah to come. In this purpose, the children of Israel could have been an odd people living differently than any other nation around them. Secondly the Old Covenant was to convince and demonstrate that as good as it was, it was ultimately unsuccessful at transforming them, because of the depth of their own wickedness.

Listen to me. The truth of the 12 year old girl… the truth of the woman with a hemorrhage… the truth of the blind men… the truth of the mute demon-possessed man, is not that they are some of the few that the Old Covenant could not save… But they are the few that prove that the Old Covenant could save no one. Especially the twisted version of legalism that it had become.

No covenant. No law. No religion can save anyone.

God is the only one who can save.

They had been convinced that this law could save them if they only followed it. But the truth had always been, that God was their salvation.

But for us today, we still default to religion.

For some we default to a religion that says that if I can just try hard enough I can earn enough to finally have peace with God.

For others we default to a religion that says that if I affirm certain truths and cling to a certain creed my peace with God is guaranteed no matter what I do on earth.

But either way you spin it, both of these are expressions of the same religion - humanism - where either our ultimate fate in this life or the next is in our own hands. In either case the goals of men are earnestly pursued and the goals of God are never considered.

This religion cannot save you. But it can make you feel as though you are saved. And that is why it is the most dangerous heresy we face in our modern world… the most fearsome idol there is has left our shelves and inhabits our mirrors

This path leads to judgmentalism, competition, confusion and damnation. As all other religions.

So where lies the truth? What is the New Covenant?

Friend it is the blood of Jesus Christ. To die with Him. To follow Him. To be clothed in Him. To take up his yoke. To disappear into His identity. And that is the only available response to the message we have seen today.

God is only pleased with His Son. Because all else has fallen and failed. But in His Son, after coming out of the waters of Baptism the Spirit of God descended and the Voice of God said – this is my beloved son in whom I am VERY PLEASED. And if you are IN CHRIST – You can hear the words WELL DONE. Not because you lived good enough, but because He did. Not because you have confirmed some creed but because the God of the universe wrote the statements of that creed on your heart.

You run to Christ because He is the only answer to the dilemma of your identity.

It is not what you do that defines you, it is who you are that determines what you do. We do not have a crisis of action we have a crisis of the heart. And it is only the killing of that heart and its replacement with a heart from God that we can be made new to live to glorify our Father today, tomorrow and forever.

And if that was all he offered, it would be enough. It would be enough. To finally be able to serve and worship Him.

And yet His love offers more. Forgiveness. Love. Eternal life. That we no longer must be bound to this body of death anymore, but be brought to new life with Him… forever.

The chief end of man is not to go to heaven or even to escape hell. It is to glorify God. And that is not religion. That is what was expected of humanity since God breathed life into us. And for those who are in Christ – it is our expected or reasonable service.

We are not Christians because we aren’t homosexuals, don’t cuss, or fight against abortion, or don’t get high, or don’t cheat on our taxes or our wives.

We are not Christians because our creed conforms to the creed of Christianity.

We are Christians because we are hopeless without Christ. So we follow after Him, because there is nothing else to follow.

Perhaps – your conversion was to a creed or to a law and not to a Christ. Perhaps you see yourself walking through life trying to do what God has asked in your own power and strength and find yourself always failing. Perhaps you have said you believed in a creed of good and wholesome truths but have not seen much change in your life. You are still the same person you were.

Demons and Pharisees believe in creeds and laws, but Christians believe in Christ. We depend on Christ. Are you a Christian? If not… why not.

Title: The Covenant Authority of the King

Text: Matthew 9:9-17; Mk 2:14-22; Lk 5:27-39

FCF: We often struggle understanding the depth of our wickedness and the inability of right living to change it.

Prop: Because we are wicked and no outward action can change that, we must have our hearts changed, not just our actions.

Scripture Intro:

[Slide 1] Turn in your bible to Matthew chapter 9. You can also write down the two other gospel accounts where these historical episodes are found; Mark 2:14-22 and Luke 5:27-39. Last week, Matthew attempted to convey to us the authority of King Jesus, to both be the judge of the quality of men’s faith, and have the right to determine if that faith was worthy of forgiveness. He is ultimately the judge of mankind’s spiritual condition. Today, continuing the theme of the spiritual condition of man, Matthew desires to show us how Jesus has the authority to update the covenant of God with His people. He has the authority to modify or fulfill this covenant because He and the Father are one. In two separate instances we will see today how Jesus rejects the principles of what Judaism had become – emphasizing the ceremonial and ritualistic elements of the Mosaic Covenant and abandoning the moral and even internally applied law of God. He instead shows the true reason for the Old Covenant, its purpose and plan, and what He is offering will not patch work this old covenant, but will instead fulfill and replace it. A message of great hope but also of great difficulty. I am in chapter 9, I’ll start reading in verse 9 from the Christian Standard Bible, but follow along in whatever version you prefer.

Transition:

[Slide 2] For the sake of time, let’s jump right to it. It is the plague of man to struggle comprehending both the depth of our wickedness and subsequently we also struggle comprehending our inability to live rightly enough to change the depth of our wickedness. What the Old Covenant was supposed to have taught the Jew and what it still teaches us today, is that God’s righteous standard is unreachable. And without sacrifice and rigorous ceremonial adherence, they would have no way to make uneasy peace with God for their failure to keep His law. But what the blessed New Covenant teaches, is that those covenant obligations have been fulfilled positionally in Christ and will be fulfilled practically in Christ as we are clothed in Him. What that means is that we can be forgiven of our sin and changed to be law-keepers and actually keep the law. Not in our own effort, but by the marvelous grace of our loving Lord. In the New Covenant the Ceremonial aspects of the Old are completed and shown to be beautiful prophesy concerning how we might be washed clean, once and for all. These two concepts relating to the Old and New Covenant are the subject of Matthew’s next 9 verses. First we see that for most Jews under the Old Covenant, they failed to see their wickedness next to God’s righteous standard. [Slide 3] For it is only those who see their own spiritual depravity that can be healed of it. Look with me.

I.) Those who are humbled to see their own spiritual depravity can be healed of it, so we must have our hearts changed, not just our actions. (9-13; Mk 2:13-17; Lk 5:27-32)

a. [Slide 4] 9 – As Jesus went on from there He saw a man named Matthew sitting at the toll booth

i. From both Luke and Mark we see this same account with a man known as Levi. Since the events are recorded almost identically, it is highly unlikely that this is another person. Therefore, it is most likely that Levi was the name of Matthew prior to his conversion.

ii. From Mark we also know that Jesus went to the lakeside and was walking and teaching while he went. So he didn’t just walk by Matthew’s tax booth, he was teaching too.

iii. Matthew was a publican. A publican was a Jew who bought a tax collection franchise from Rome. They would collect and over collect for the government. Rome wouldn’t have cared so long as the people did not revolt and they got their tax. Publicans would have been one of the most vile among Jews because not only were they stealing from the people, but they were traitors to Israel.

b. And He said to him, “Follow me,” and he got up and followed him

i. From Luke, a special emphasis is added that I think we need to take note of. Luke says that he left all, got up and followed Jesus.

ii. The other disciples could always go back to fishing because their job did not contradict scripture nor did it obligate them to a secular employer. But for Matthew, he could never return to collect taxes. He was changed forever and could never do this again. And even if his conversion was fake, the Roman government would not have allowed him back in.

iii. For Matthew, after hearing the teaching of Christ, and then being told to follow, it cost him everything.

c. [Slide 5] 10 – While he was reclining at the table in the house, many tax collectors and sinners came to eat with Jesus and his disciples

i. From Matthew’ gospel it seems a bit unclear in English how we got to a house eating at a table all of a sudden.

ii. However, in Greek, it is clear that this is Matthew’s house – in fact Mark and Luke make that much clearer.

iii. We also see from Mark that many tax collectors and sinners came to eat, because that was the majority of the crowd Jesus was drawing.

d. [Slide 6] 11 – When the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?”

i. Mark tells us that these were scribes that were Pharisees or scribes and Pharisees, in any case, the religious elite questioned Jesus’ choices here.

ii. If you are asking why would they do this again? – remember that this was before the Sermon on the Mount was preached. Keep that in mind. Matthew is trying to prove the authority of Jesus as King, and one of the ways he is doing that is proving that He has covenant authrity over the law of God. We are about to see the Old and New Covenant collide. Ready?

e. [Slide 7] 12-13 – Now when He heard this, he said, “It is not those who are well who need a doctor, but those who are sick. Go and learn what this means: I desire mercy and not sacrifice. For I didn’t come to call the righteous but sinners.”

i. We have an interpretational challenge here.

ii. IF we take what Jesus says at face value, we come away with the impression that the Pharisees were righteous and healthy people that Jesus didn’t want to spend time with because they didn’t need Him.

iii. From a linguistic perspective only, you could arrive at this conclusion. However, you would have to ignore the entire context of the New Testament, and more specifically, the context of the book of Matthew. And even more specifically, the context of the next few verses.

iv. So rather than seeing this as a statement of general fact, we should probably see this instead as a matter of perspective. What do I mean by that?

v. Jesus is saying that those who think they are sick, go find a doctor. But those who think they are well, have no need of a doctor. That doesn’t mean that the one who thinks they are healthy are actually healthy. It just means that they will not seek out a doctor, nor would a doctor come to them if they acted healthy.

vi. Jesus also includes a quote from Hosea 6:6 here which indicates that God desires the heart of a man to change and not just his actions. He is not concerned primarily that they offer ceremonial or ritualistic sacrifices, but that their lives would be full of loyal love toward others and toward God. Love that is faithful and forgiving. By saying “Go and Learn” it is a idiom to basically say – “you ought to know this, so before you step to me with your accusation, you better go back and review cause you are not prepared for this argument. You are gonna get destroyed”

vii. So to rephrase what He was saying with the illustration of a doctor, Jesus did not come to call those who considered themselves to already be righteous – because what is He saving them from? He came to call those who considered themselves sinners.

1. Now I had a question recently, and while I don’t want to get into Calvinism vs. Arminian debate today, the question did revolve around the concept of how depraved are we?

2. Certainly we see people do good things that are not Christians. Many in the Catholic Church are good and morally upright people. Mormons as well.

3. So how can we say that people are depraved totally? How can we say that people are wicked? How can we say that people are without any good in them? It seems counter to our experience with people.

4. Like so many things in this ancient debate, I believe it is simply a matter of perspective.

a. [Slide 8] From our perspective, walking through life, seeing the good and the bad that humanity offers, we see a balance. We see two opposing forces. This has been a concept of thinking for quite some time. The eastern symbol of the Yin-Yang that in all darkness there lies some light and in all light some darkness. Even a more western philosophy known as Zoroastrianism which compares two forces of good and evil which wage war against one another.

b. [Slide 9] However, from God’s perspective, as indicated in James 2:10, to fail in one chain link of the law of God, is to bring the whole law crashing down on you. From God’s perspective there are no shades of grey. You are wicked or you are righteous. Indeed, all our works of righteousness are like filthy rags to God Isaiah 64:6. And since none are righteous, all are wicked.

c. And purely from a scriptural perspective and not from experience, we see that God’s perspective and the bible’s perspective must be true, even if it disagrees with our experience.

d. So when people do good things, it is never enough to indicate that there is good in them or even that they are good people, because God is the one who defines who is good, and Jesus Himself said, that there is none good but God.

5. But why bring this up now?

6. [Slide 10] The word for sinner here is a word that elsewhere in scripture is translated depraved or detestable.

7. This is not a person who sees themselves as someone who has committed sins, but instead as a person who can only commit sins. Not a person who has missed the target, but a person who only had one arrow and missed the target. There is finality here. There is hopelessness here.

8. So a person who considered themselves helpless, sends for a doctor. Even the most stubborn of people, who avoid doctors like the plague, when they are in a situation that their life is at risk, they go to the hospital.

9. And Jesus did not come to call those who sit in their home and refuse to believe that they need Him… He came to help those who desperately need Him.

Application:

[Slide 11 (blank)] There is a phrase that has been floating around for a little while now. The phrase goes something like this…The Church is not a museum for the saints it is a hospital for sinners.

I whole heartedly agree with the first part. The church, the people of God, are not here to have empty faith that is dissected like a science project but yields no life change. However, I don’t think that the church is a hospital for the sick, but rather a Med School for Doctors. We come here to learn about our savior and King, and become more and more like Him every day. We then take that message, our life, to the rotting world that needs an transfusion of the life giving blood of Jesus. Which we should be a living example of. We are the church. Not this building. So the unsaved don’t come here to be healed. Doctors come here to be better doctors – Believers come here to be more like Christ the Great Physician.

But there is another application I want to draw from Jesus’ words here.

It goes back to Matthew 7:6 – Doctors cannot give the inoculation to those who are convinced that they are not diseased. When we preach the gospel we must focus our efforts on speaking condemnation to the proud and grace to the humble. Jesus preached condemnation to the Pharisees and grace to the Sinner. We should too.

As we leave the safety of the flock to administer the inoculation against sin (hows that for a mixed metaphor ) As we do this – we will encounter those who are convinced that they do not need the inoculation because they are not sick. Jesus’ only message to the religious and proud was condemnation. Why? Because they must be humbled to see their depravity before they can realize they need a savior from it. Jesus also encountered several who were at the end of their rope, they were humble and desperate. They were pagans. Tax Collectors. Thieves and adulterers. His message to them, was not condemnation, but grace. Not excusing the sin, but offering a solution for it. We must emulate our savior.

When we present the gospel we give condemnation to the proud and grace to the humble. The law to the arrogant and Jesus to the broken.

But so often we give Jesus to everyone and the law to no one.

Let us be like Jesus, even when and if we tell others about Him.

f. [Slide 12] The last item before we move on has to do with whether or not - To Repentance – In the text or no?

i. There is a textual variant that is included in some versions of verse 9, if you have a KJV or NKJV especially. It adds that Jesus is calling the sinners to repentance.

ii. In Luke’s account of this, there is no such discrepancy as to whether to repentance should be included. In Luke it is included even in the manuscripts that exclude it in Matthew

iii. So should it be in there? Who knows

iv. But let me just say this… if it is not obvious by now that the call of Jesus is to Repent and Believe then I have failed you as a pastor.

v. Regardless of whether the text includes it or not, it is true across the board that Jesus’ message was to repent and believe. And here it is obvious, whether you include it or not, that that is exactly what He means.

Transition:

[Slide 13 (blank)] So we have seen that those who know they are sinful can be healed of their sin, while those who do not know or worse, think they are fine, are not ready. This was, as Paul tells us, the intent of the Old Covenant. To instruct, as a school teacher that we are all sinners. Yet, obviously for many, they failed to listen to the teacher. Now we will see our King hint at the New Covenant and its relationship to the Old. How it will perfect and replace, fulfill and update the old covenant and produce a people who actually love God and serve Him in Love as they are infused and indwelt with His Holy presence. But this revelation comes with a stern warning. [Slide 14] That those who staunchly cling to religious ritual, are missing the blessed hope of this new covenant. Look with me in verse 14.

II.) Those who staunchly cling to religious ritual have missed the blessedness of the new covenant, so we must have our hearts changed, not just our actions. (14-17; Mk 2:18-22; Lk 5:33-39)

a. [Slide 15] 14 – Then John’s disciples came to him, saying, “Why do we and the Pharisees fast often, but your disciples do not fast?”

i. John’s disciples are, of course, John the Baptist’s disciples. This was probably all taking place while John was in prison.

ii. A question that I had to ask myself was, why did disciples of John exist? Why wouldn’t they have become disciples of Jesus?

1. From all the sources I could find I acquired some basic and discouraging answers.

2. John the Baptist’s job was to be the last prophet of the Old Covenant. So until he dies, he continues to be the messenger in the wilderness preparing the way of the Lord.

3. Before Jesus shows up, he amasses quite the following. But after the baptism of Christ, his disciples were supposed to follow Christ, while he continued to tell others about the Messiah.

4. What we have here then, is a bunch of people that are the forerunners of the Judaizer. Essentially, they continued to follow John the Baptist, knowing the Messiah had come, but trying to adhere to the practices of Judaism at the same time.

5. No wonder they fit in so well with the Pharisees. They were still steeped in their legalism.

iii. Fasting in 1st century Judaism was a form of mourning for sin and of seeking connection to God.

iv. Of course to many Pharisees and scribes, it was also a way to gain spiritual honor from the people, to look at them and consider them to be pious.

v. Jesus never condemns the act of fasting, in fact, his disciples fasted many times after the resurrection and ascension. And in chapter 4, Jesus fasted for 40 days in the wilderness while he endured the temptation of Satan. So fasting cannot be wrong, nor can it inherently woven to the old covenant.

vi. However, you’ll notice in the text the word often. You see the Pharisees and John’s disciples were fasting every week. What was intended to be a heartfelt and private activity to repent and recenter, had instead become a public ritual, perhaps to reconnect to God, but also to be seen of men.

vii. We might hope that John’s disciples were not doing it to be seen of men, nevertheless they had, at least to some degree transitioned it into an outward expression with little or no inward reality.

viii. In contrast, Jesus and His disciples did not mourn or fast and the reason is yet another testament to the great Covenant authority of the King of Kings – to update the agreement between God and Israel to a new and better agreement. Jesus answers John’s disciples by foreshadowing the great transition from old covenant to new through some illustrations.

b. [Slide 16] 15 – Jesus said to them, “Can the wedding guests be sad while the groom is with them? The time will come when the groom will be taken away from them, and then they will fast.

i. When a groom is with the wedding guests, everybody parties. When the wedding is over, everybody stops partying.

ii. So Jesus is indicating that there is absolutely no reason to feel sorrow or remorse right now. Why? Because God is among them. He is walking with them and His name means Yahweh Saves. He has come to break the chains of sin and free His people. So why mourn? Why grieve? Why try to reconnect with God? He is right there…

iii. But there will be a time when he will be taken away – crucified.

c. [Slide 17] 16 – No one patches an old garment with unshrunk cloth, because the patch pulls away from the garment and makes the tear worse.

i. What happens to brand new fabric after being worn and washed? It shrinks.

ii. So if you get a hole in an old pair of pants and you take a patch of perfectly fitting material from a pair of new pants, and you sew that into the hole of the old fabric, what will happen after you wear and wash it? It will shrink. And the threads holding it to the old jeans will cause the shrinking cloth to tear away from the old cloth.

iii. Jesus is saying that the Old Covenant had not accomplished the purpose that God intended it to, because of the hardness of the hearts of the people. And rather than try to smoosh the new covenant into the old and have them work together somehow… instead we need a full replacement.

iv. We don’t need Windows service pack 1,879 – just give us a new Windows

d. [Slide 18] 17 – And no one puts new wine into old wineskins. Otherwise, the skins burst, the wine spills out, and the skins are ruined. No, they put new wine into fresh wineskins, and both are preserved.

i. Ok, so being good Baptists we know absolutely nothing about wine right? Right. So let’s skip this verse… NO!!!!

ii. In case you didn’t know, grapes go into fermentation quite quickly. Yeast, mold and bacteria naturally grow on the outsides of the grape. When the exterior of the grape is mingled with the interior the yeast and bacteria begin to absorb the sugar of the grape. The byproduct is alcohol and carbon dioxide.

iii. So new wine is wine that has just begun its fermentation process. Now if you are thinking that New wine means it was grape juice, you are mistaken. New wine is not grape juice. It is wine, but wine with a low alcohol content. It would have been sweeter – not sweet like juice, but sweeter than old wine. However, the longer that the wine was kept without drinking it, and as long as it wasn’t exposed to extreme temperature, it would continue the process of consuming the sugar and producing a higher alcohol content and releasing more carbon dioxide.

iv. So how are you going to transport large quantities of new wine? In a day when there were no refrigerated vehicles and no pasteurization process. In the days when a trip to the city could take you a day or two round trip… you had to make beverages transportable.

v. So the tanned skin of an animal would be used to transport fluids since they would not easily be broken and are easier to strap to you rather than jars.

vi. But the release of carbon dioxide is inevitable. And with it the wine skins would be stretched.

vii. Early in the life of the wineskin, this wouldn’t be a problem. But after the leather became older and hard, the stretching would take its toll and eventually the wineskin would break open.

viii. You could store the old wine in the old wine skins to preserve it.

ix. But where do you store new wine? New wine skins. You don’t risk putting new wine into a well used wine skin. It will only lead to disaster.

x. And the Lord knows that His new covenant was not compatible with the old one. Because the old one could not contain the new.

e. [Slide 19] From Luke – only real difference – He adds a saying about no one having drunk old wine, immediately desires new wine because the old is better. Or perhaps another reading is no one having drunk old wine desires new wine because the old is good

i. The main take away from this is that there is no one who would sit down and drink from a glass of old wine and then desire to drink from a glass of new wine. Why?

ii. Because old wine, wine that has completed its fermentation process is the best, it is of the greatest value. It is of the greatest taste and highest alcohol content.

iii. Frankly, It is better at being wine. New wine is, wine in progress.

iv. So is Jesus saying that the Old Covenant is the best covenant? Of course not. Is Jesus saying that getting plastered on wine is good? Um… NO.

v. What He is saying that the Old covenant has been given great value. It had become comfortable. Jesus in a sense is saying, it is not odd that your are asking these questions. Of course you desire to keep the old. Because the old is what you have been taught is best, and of great value.

vi. But the new is better. The new is best. The new… is the best you’ve ever tried.

vii. He is simply stating that men tend to cling to what they are used to, and for these disciples of John the Baptist… that message really hits hard. Because they are standing on the fence of the new and the old. Jesus is saying, let it go. Something better has come. Go against your natural inclinations to cling to the old – and embrace the new.

Application:

[Slide 20 (blank)] God is not and never has been impressed by our rigid adherence to a moral code or ethical standard. It wasn’t true in the Old Covenant and it isn’t true in the new covenant. In fact every false religion that has ever existed has adopted this mindset of slavish adherence to a moral code or ethical standard set out by some higher power or being. Even Atheism boils down to slavishly pursuing what makes you happy in this life, whether that be knowledge, pleasure, or success because this life is all there is so make the best of it.

But how easy it is to go back to the old wine. How tempting it is to moralize and conform. If we can just try harder. If we can just do this, do that. Don’t do this. Don’t do that. If we don’t smoke, chew or run with those who do. If we don’t get divorced, if we go to church, if we read our bibles, pray every day… If we can just follow all of what God has given us we can be what God has called us to be… but friend. We can’t.

You say but Chris haven’t you been preaching on and off lately about the importance of obedience. Of course. Obedience is critical to living a life for Christ.

So… that seems like a contradiction.

It isn’t. I’ll tell you why. Jesus.

Nice Sunday School answer…

No really. Jesus.

In Christ we are made new. In Christ we can obey. In Christ we can be holy. In Christ we can change. We aren’t changing to be in Christ… we are in Christ so we change. You can’t be a good Christian by changing on your own. You surrender yourself to the leading and direction of Christ and he makes you a good Christian. Do you understand?

The old Covenant seems best. It seems best to try to do it on your own, until you realize that the Old Covenant’s purpose was to instruct you, like a school teacher, that you can’t do it on your own…

Then the whole system comes toppling down on your head and you realize that God was never after your actions, HE WAS AFTER YOUR HEART.

Wholesale, inside to outside, supernatural change. Not reanimating a dead body to some zombie state – but bringing you to LIFE AGAIN! Remaking you.

This legalistic way of viewing Christianity must end here folks. We need to stop trying so hard to obey Jesus and simply surrender to Him working in us.

That is what it means to believe. Perhaps you have repented. You thought… yes I am wicked save me. But you have never believed. You have never placed all your hope on being made new in Christ and Christ alone.

Salvation is by faith alone in Christ alone and that salvation is salvation to being made new. Not in the next life but in this one and continuing to the next one.

That is belief and that is the glorious beauty of the new covenant … fulfilling the old covenant and making people new.

Stop trying to be good for Jesus and cry out to Him in dependence on Him and let Him make you good. Then… in faith… clothed in His righteousness… dependent on His power… obey. If you fail, it is because you are like Peter and have taken your eyes of the Lord. If you succeed it is because the Lord has sustained you.

Transition:

So boiling all this down into one succinct take home point, what can we learn from today’s message to help us live more like our master?

Conclusion:

God from before the foundations of the world, set in motion a plan to make new those who had been spiritually dead. It was never His design to establish a written code of ethics whereby His people would be enslaved to follow it without error. He gave His law, only a fraction of what He could have given them , and He gave it so they would conclude that they need Him. That they can’t do it without Him. That something is wrong with them. That something, deep within is broken and defective.

And yet, they lied to themselves that they could keep it. Or ignored the parts they couldn’t. Even excusing it as a lesser command among greater commands. Character gave way to ceremony. Righteousness to Ritual.

God then gives a new Covenant where He replaces the broken and defective heart with one that is alive. He invades the soul of the dead to bring it to life again. His Spirit penetrates them and makes them new. Not to adhere to a law… but to be a people. To love God. To Love others. To be little Christs walking the earth.

But people don’t want to be little ambassadors for Christ They would much rather go to church, read their bible, pray every day and go to heaven. They would much rather check boxes off their list each day to prove to themselves, and maybe to others, that they are exactly what God wants them to be. So they can chase away the nagging thoughts of inadequacy.

But doesn’t dependence necessitate feelings of inadequacy? Doesn’t it take feeling inadequate to truly be dependent?

Our inadequacy without constant dependence on Christ should echo our wickedness without atonement from Christ. We are just as dependent on Him today as we were the day we converted. In fact, I take that back… We are MORE dependent on Christ now than when we were converted.

The New Covenant is not a dressed up version of the Old. We can’t accept Christ as our savior and get our bus ticket to heaven and expect to do His will in our own strength and power. And it is just as ridiculous to accept Jesus as our savior while still believing that we aren’t that bad of a person.

The old and new covenant operate hand in hand where one points to the need for a savior, and the other the changing power of that savior.

Only God – the creator of the covenant is at liberty to update and reform the agreement. And Jesus and the Father are one.

Are you still living a pre-new covenant life?

[Slide 21 (end)] If you are a partaker in the New Covenant there are two things that are and continue to be abundantly clear

1.) Outside of Christ you are desperate and wicked and unable to be who God wants you to be.

2.) In Christ you are adopted and righteous and able to be who God wants you to be.

So if one or both of these things have never been part of your faith – I’d ask that you come talk to me and learn what it is to be a New Covenant believer

But if both of these are absolutely proven over and over again to you – my conclusion is simply this… Do not waver from depending on Your King to continue the work He began in you.

Title: The Merciful King

Text: Matthew 9:1-8; Mark 2:1-12; Luke 5:17-26

FCF: We often struggle understanding the depth of our sin and the height of God’s Holiness

Prop: Because Jesus is the second person of the Godhead, we must depend on Jesus our King

Scripture Intro:

[Slide 1] Turn in your bible to Matthew chapter 9. If you are going only by chapters, we are almost 30% through the book of Matthew. Depending on your perspective that could be either a really great thing, or a really terrible thing. To me I was surprised to learn that we had gotten that far, but if you are the one thinking “we are only 30%” I don’t blame you. But in the words of another expository preacher, there is only one other speed at which I can go through this book, and that is slower. But for your sake, my friends, we will press on toward what Matthew and The Lord has for us in this gospel.

For the last several weeks Matthew has been trying to show us that Jesus has the authority that would only be given to the promised King of Israel. The Messiah. The Son of David. One thing I did not remind you of in the past few weeks, is that Matthew is not writing a chronological account of the life of Christ. Although it may seem like the events that continue here happen one right after another, you must understand that Matthew is writing with a purpose. That purpose is to show that Jesus is the Messiah, the Lion of Judah, the promised King of Israel. To accomplish this, Matthew has structured his book around 5-7 speeches of Jesus, depending on how you count them. After these speeches, called discourses, Matthew uses events in Jesus’ life to prove one or many points from the discourse.

So in the Sermon on the Mount Jesus is relaying what the Kingdom of God looks like. Who will be there. How they live. And that He would be the one deciding if someone was allowed to enter or not. For the past few weeks we have seen Jesus proving His authority to declare such things about the Kingdom of God.

[Slide 2] 8:1-17 – We see Jesus’ authority over disease, which Matthew says is fulfillment of Isaiah 53 about the promised Messiah. The historical episodes he gives us in this section happen both before and after the Sermon on the Mount

[Slide 3] 8:18-22 – We see Jesus’ authority to judge the hearts of would be disciples, proving Himself to be God, since only God can judge the hearts of men. These historical episodes happened after the Sermon on the Mount.

[Slide 4] 8:23-27 – We see Jesus’ authority over Nature proving at very least a connection to God, if not divinity. This episode also happened after the Sermon on the Mount.

[Slide 5] 8:28-34 – Last week we saw Jesus’ authority over the Spiritual realm, and who has the power to command the principalities and powers to do as He asks them to? God. This historical episode also happened after the Sermon on the Mount.

[Slide 6 (blank)] Today, Matthew will show Jesus’ authority over not just the spiritual realm and nature, but over the spiritual nature of man. Not just over disease of the body, but over disease of the soul. And not just authority to judge the hearts of men, but to change them. Today, Jesus shows Himself to be the Merciful King. I am in Matthew 9 and I’ll start reading in verse 1, I’ll be reading from the NKJV but follow along in whatever version you prefer.

Sermon Intro:

[Slide 7] When I was in high school, the sheriff’s department came to our school to promote a no drinking and driving program. They brought us outside during the last period of the day. We were led to a side parking lot that had been kept clear for us. As we approached the parking lot we saw a few golf carts and several orange cones set up. The officer in charge demonstrated for us what the object was. He got into a golf cart and drove back and forth between the cones. Based on the spacing, and the speed at which he was able to do this task, we concluded that it was not a difficult course to navigate. But he had a twist that he had not yet revealed to us. Each of us were going to wear what they called beer goggles. I tried looking up how these goggles work on the internet, but that was not helpful. So, I don’t know how they work, but when you put them on, you are immediately disoriented. It was hysterical watching my classmates attempt such an easy task and failing miserably at it. Luckily for me, the period ended before I got a chance to go… nuts!  But before class ended, one last person got to go, and for whatever reason, the goggles affected him more than everyone else. He wildly veered off course and to make matters worse, he couldn’t seem to figure out how to turn around. Eventually he had to stop completely, take off the goggles, and return the golf cart. Without the goggles he had no trouble at all comprehending where he was going. When he came back to the group I remember him saying – I don’t understand how I got so far away from the course? It didn’t seem like I was that far.

To a certain degree, all of us are born with goggles on. Not beer goggles. Much worse. We are born with depravity goggles. Through these goggles we perceive the world to be a certain way. We see ourselves and others through the lenses of our own finite depravity. Naturally we assume that we are good people and even that others are good people. We assume that if there is a god, he must be somewhat like us. Morality and ethics all swirl together into a relativistic lifestyle of almost anything goes.. George Orwell once said “The further a society drifts from the truth, the more it will hate those that speak it.” And to put that in a spiritual way, the longer a person or a society wears the goggles of depravity, the more hatred it has for what is holy.

But like the young man who took off the beer goggles … when that depravity is stripped away. When those goggles, even if only for an instant, are pulled away from our eyes. [Slide 8] We see two of the most terrifying truths you could ever find.

1.) That God is real and He is Perfect, Good, Holy, And Just, and hates sin.

2.) That we are wicked, to the very core of our being, to the extent that there is nothing good left of us – only filthy rags – of no value.

Today is the historical episode of a man who came to such a realization, and was immediately healed of his fear.

Transition:

How? How could fear of such things go away so quickly? How could something like these two truths end in anything but his judgment and death? Let’s look…

I.) Jesus has the authority to deem faith worthy of forgiveness, so we must depend on Jesus our King. (1-2; Mark 2:1-5; Luke 5:17-20)

a. [Slide 9] 1 – Getting into a boat, Jesus crossed over the sea and came to His own city

i. We need to understand that this is not a transition to the next chronological event.

ii. Rather this verse serves more as a closing line to the demoniac of Gadara event.

iii. It serves to show us that Matthew is about to move on to another aspect of Jesus’ authority.

iv. The city He was going to would be Capernaum, but those events that follow chronologically, we will have to wait until later in chapter 9 to see.

v. For now, Matthew chooses to double back to before the sermon on the mount was preached, and convey 1 final aspect of Jesus’ authority

vi. After that, and before he moves on chronologically, he wants to show his readers what it means to be a disciple of Christ. But we will get to that next week.

b. [Slide 10] 2- And they brought to Him a paralytic lying on a bed.

i. As with last week, we get a bit more context from both Mark and Luke regarding this event.

ii. He was back in Capernaum MK 2:1

iii. Many gathered to hear Him preach the Word of God MK 2:1 and LK 5:17

iv. There were many Pharisees and Scribes present from every village of Galilee, Judea and Jerusalem (which is a lot of representatives to gather in a little home. LK 5:17

v. God’s power was with Jesus to heal others LK 5:17 – up to this point Jesus had not healed anyone in the book of Luke, so Luke felt it necessary to remind his Gentile reader, Theophilus that God the Father gave the Son power to do this.

vi. 4 men carried this paralyzed man MK 2:3

vii. Both Mark and Luke record that the men could not get through the crowd with the man on the stretcher , so they went on the roof and took out some tiles (not vandalism, simple to fix) and lowered him into the room in front of Jesus.

c. 2 – Seeing their faith, Jesus said to the paralytic, “Take courage, son; your sins are forgiven.”

i. In all three gospels there is not a whiff of these men bringing this man to be healed.

ii. In fact, Luke and Mark emphasize that Jesus was there teaching and preaching.

iii. And Luke reminds Theophilus that Jesus had the authority to heal people, almost preparing him for the event that was about to occur.

iv. Meaning that no one expected Jesus to be able to heal such a permanent disability. Not even the men who brought him.

v. Jesus sees their faith. As only the eyes of the King of the universe could. The faith of the four men who brought him, but primarily the faith of the paralytic. Then having seen that faith, Jesus says something completely unexpected.

vi. Take Courage, son, your sins are forgiven. Everything Jesus says here is absolutely loaded with meaning so lets break it down.

1. Take Courage – The word means to be courageous, but not in a temporary surface level courage. This would not be an expression that you used to tell a soldier to get ready for war. This word is used of deep courage. Deep peace. To be comforted. To be hopeful. To be confident. It is something you would tell a soldier who has won the battle already. Someone who is horrified by the cost of the war, and you are telling them, be hopeful, because you won. Jesus sees the faith of these men. And woven to that faith, is the horror that they were standing before the God-Man, the Messiah, The Judge of the Living and the Dead, The Holy and Great I AM. And Jesus says… be comforted. Have hope. There is nothing left to fear.

2. Son – A word that a Jew having met the Holy God of Israel would have been starving to hear. To be called a son of God. A child of God. Such a statement after the horror of realizing his spiritual condition before the Son of God would have been a great comfort. But why is he told that there is nothing to fear? Why call him son? Because…

3. Your sins are forgiven – There is no greater gift Jesus could have given him. There is no greater love Jesus could have shown him. Even if He had left this man in his paralyzed state, THIS would have been all he truly wanted or needed, having come face to face with the Son of the Most High God. And this man had no need to fear anything any longer. His faith had been counted to him as righteousness.

4. This was his only real need. And Jesus met it.

d. [Slide 11] In doing this Jesus proves that He has absolute authority in a few things regarding the spiritual state of man.

i. He has the authority and ability to peer into the heart of men to see what they truly believe

ii. He has the authority to determine what faith is acceptable and what faith is not.

iii. He has the authority to grant forgiveness based on whether that faith is acceptable or not.

e. [Slide 12] We also learn a little something about what genuine faith looks like too.

i. We see that genuine faith must include fear of God.

1. Fear of His judgment.

2. Fear of His wrath.

ii. And a realization that you are absolutely spiritually bankrupt. And that bankruptcy leads to sorrow over your helpless estate.

iii. Finally we see absolute dependence on the Mercy and Grace of God to act independent of you to save you. Jesus met this man in his helpless estate and freed him of its chains.

Transition:

[Slide 13 (blank)] So Jesus claims He is able to peer into the hearts of men to determine the quality of their faith and forgive accordingly. That is pretty authoritative. No man enjoys such power. But was He telling the truth, or was this some kind of trick? The scribes and Pharisees in attendance wrestled with this question.

II.) Jesus, being God, has the authority to grant forgiveness as easily as He can heal the paralyzed, so we must depend on Jesus our King. (3-8; Mark 6-12; Luke 21-26)

a. [Slide 14] 3 – And some of the scribes said to themselves, “This fellow blasphemes.”

i. From Mark and Luke we understand that they were thinking this, or mulling it over in their minds. Matthew says the same thing but in a more difficult way, “said to themselves” maybe makes you think they were speaking with each other. However it is most likely that they were simply thinking.

ii. From Luke we know that it was not just he scribes but the Pharisees too.

iii. We know also from Mark and Luke the reason that these scribes and Pharisees thought it was blaspheme. Because only God can forgive sins. See how close they came?

b. [Slide 15] 4 – And Jesus knowing their thoughts said, “Why are you thinking evil in your hearts?”

i. At the end of Psalm 139, a psalm where David declares that the Lord sees all things and that He can see the wicked around him. He asks God to kill them. He concludes by asking God to test his motives. He says: “Examine me, and probe my thoughts! Test me, and know my concerns! See if there is any idolatrous tendency in me, and lead me in the reliable ancient path”

ii. Only God can know the thoughts of men. Only God can know the wickedness of our hearts.

iii. Even if the scribes and Pharisees didn’t get it, that He was God because He forgave sin… they should have got it when He read their thoughts and exposed them.

iv. Then He moves to challenge their thoughts specifically. Because it would be one thing to read their countenance and see that they were angry.

v. It would be another to address the unvoiced reason that they were angry.

c. [Slide 16] 5 – “Which is easier, to say, ‘your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘get up, and walk’?

i. Now on the surface this isn’t a difficult question. However, the more you think about it, the more difficult the answer becomes.

ii. To say to someone ‘ your sins are forgiven’ would be an easier task. Why?

1. Because you can’t know whether it is true or not.

2. Although we know that genuine faith produces genuine change in people. Therefore, we can know whether we have been forgiven.

3. Another layer of this, is that to actually achieve forgiveness for mankind, Jesus was going to have to be crushed under the wrath of God. That is anything but easy.

iii. To say to someone ‘get up and walk’

1. This would be a little more difficult in a sense because it is easy to disprove your authority.

2. But with faith as big as a mustard seed you can move mountains. Indeed Jesus gives authority to the disciples later to heal and cast out demons in His name.

3. And by comparison to being crushed under God’s wrath, healing someone doesn’t seem so difficult now.

iv. So which is easier to say? Neither. And I think that is Jesus’ point. Neither are easy to claim about yourself because both are going to require evidence and both are beyond the capability of mere men.

v. But to make sure they come away with the right idea, Jesus makes it easier on them.

d. [Slide 17] 6-7 – “But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins” – then He said to the paralytic, “get up, pick up your bed and go home.” And he got up and went home.

i. After He completely baffles them with a question that there is simply no easy answer for, Jesus then puts it all to rest – regardless of which conclusion they came to – and heals this paralytic.

ii. He commands him to get up, pick up his bed- just in case it was only his legs that got healed, nope his arms too.

iii. He got up and went home.

iv. Son of Man – as we have discussed before is a common phrase to talk about the humanity of a person. However, it is also linked to Daniel 7 as a specific reference to the Messiah of God.

v. On earth – An interesting phrase. When used in conjunction with the title Son of Man, it makes it all the more obvious that Jesus is referring to Himself as the Daniel 7 Son of Man and not simply human.

vi. The Messiah is said to be God among men. That God would walk among us. Therefore, to have authority to forgive sin on earth is just another way of saying – to prove I am the God-Man, the Messiah.

e. [Slide 18] 8 – But when the crowds saw this, they were awestruck, and glorified God, who had given such authority to men.

i. Awestruck – A good word to describe the Greek word. The word means fear. Reverential fear. And it is always used when someone comes into contact with God. They are in awe and fear. A line that isn’t that clearly defined.

ii. They glorified God because He had elected to give this authority to men. What does that mean? Well there are a few different options for us

1. Perhaps the people understood at least in part that God would be handing authority to His disciples to go about healing others. This seems unlikely that the crowd would just know that.

2. What is probably more likely is that the people misunderstood Jesus’ allusion to the Son of Man and understood it to mean that God was giving this authority to humanity. Which He would in a sense, but the point is that the Jews missed Jesus’ claim to divinity. AGAIN…

f. [Slide 19 (blank) (end)] Let’s make sure we don’t miss it. That Jesus is the only hope for all mankind. Being the judge of all mankind He not only doles out justice and wrath, but also forgiveness and compassion. That forgiveness is granted to those whose faith is in Him.

i. Faith that recognizes their helplessness

ii. Faith that yields to being irretrievably changed into what He desires that they be

iii. Faith that depends in the Words of God over the experience of men

iv. Faith that finds no other earthly comfort worth delaying their dogged pursuit of Him.

v. Faith that knows beyond all shadow of doubt that Jesus is the only thing worth pursuing,

vi. Everything since the Sermon on the Mount has led us here. This is what we believe.

vii. That we would be less than nothing without Him. We’d be hopeless rebels without Him. That we live for Him not out of payment for forgiving us but because as people who have been invaded by His grace, we taken off the goggles and can see that there is nothing else worth living for.

Transition:

So how can we apply this to our lives today? What did Matthew want the Jews to know and what does that mean for us?

Conclusion:

Matthew wanted the Jews to understand that Jesus was the Messiah, the God-Man, sent to be their guilt offering and provide a ransom for their sin. He would be their judge and their salvation all rolled into one.

And here we are 2000 years later, and the message is still the same. Jesus is still the anointed one of God. He is still offering forgiveness. He is still offering a substitute.

Who do you resonate with most in this account. Are you the crowd who doesn’t quite get it – that Jesus is just a man.

Are you the Pharisees and Scribes? Do you look at Jesus as a lunatic or liar pretending to be something that He is not.

Perhaps you are one of the onlookers that simply came to hear Jesus teach because that is what you did back then. You came and heard people teach.

Or are you the paralytic? Have you come face to face with The King of the Universe? Do you know how you can tell if you have? Are you gripped with fear? Are you awestruck? Have you discovered that you are spiritually bankrupt – helpless in your condition? That your wickedness is an abomination to the Great I AM?

Whether you have been a Christian for decades or have never been – this is the first great step in the process of genuine change. It is a step that the religious often neglect. Legalists and Libertines alike, neglect to recognize their fundamental barrenness.

But friend it doesn’t have to stop there. You’ve seen who you are, what you are before a Holy God. A God who hates sin, and would have every right to cast you into His lake of Fire, a place of refuge for those who cannot endure to be what God would have them to be nor can they endure being in His presence.

But you don’t have to stay this person. Do you see that Jesus is not just your judge, but that He is your hope. He is your stability. He is your all in all. He is your rock. He is your fortress. That He can put you on higher ground. He can move you to be a man or woman of faith.

He can forgive you. He can make you new.

Perhaps you’ve pretended up to this point. Perhaps you’ve always thought… yeah I’m a Christian. I go to church. I read my bible sometimes. I believe that Jesus came and died for my sin.

All those are very nice. But none of those are genuine tests for whether or not you are a follower of Christ.

The question is not do you know Him. It is does He know you? Do you encounter His holiness in the bible? Have you seen your wickedness in its comparison? Is your life a battle? Is everyday another day that you get up and cry out to God to save you from yourself. To keep you from messing things up …AGAIN!

Do you find His character in you? Do you selflessly love others, or are you all you think about? Are you joyful? Not happy. Joyful. Do you trust in the sovereignty of God to the point that all life is an opportunity to choose joy? Do you have peace with God or do you regularly chafe against His righteous expectations? Are you quick to pursue justice or to show mercy? Are you gentle, and kind –rarely harsh? Are you good to others? Do you treat them fairly or better? Are you reliable? Is your faith stable? Can you control your emotions to the extent that you don’t lash out at others? Can you be sweet, even in confrontation? Are you self controlled? Do you control your emotions or do they control you? Do you control your desires or do they control you?

This is the character of God in us. This is the Fruit of the Spirit. When you have them, you are walking in the Spirit.

If these have never been part of your life– then perhaps you have been a Scribe all your life but today you are a paralytic. Won’t you come and begin believing unto salvation? The opportunity is available to you today.

To those in whom the Spirit already resides – this passage of scripture is a great tribute to the divinity and love of our God. From this text we can leave knowing that when we sin, He will not let us get away with it. His holy presence will show us our inconsistency with the Spirit in us. We will come to Him in repentant honor and seek His forgiving love. A well which never runs dry.

When we come to Him the power of His Spirit renews and changes us.

Jesus has the authority over disease, destiny, nature, demons and even our depravity. He can reach inside that chest of yours and give you a new heart. Will you beg Him for that today? He is the hope. He is the comfort. He is the peace. He can make you new.

Repent and Depend on the Son of God to take away your sins and make you new – whether that would be the first time in your life, or your 100th time today, allow Him to make you new.

Title: What Keeps Men from Christ Part 2

Text: Matthew 8:28-34; Luke 8:26-37; Mark 5:1-17

FCF: We often struggle underestimating exactly what the cost of discipleship actually is.

Prop: Following Christ requires repentance, so we must be repentant people.

Scripture Intro:

[Slide 1] Turn in your bible to Matthew chapter 8. Go ahead and write down also the other two gospel passages that we will be referencing this morning. Mark 5:1-17 and Luke 8:26-37. You can look at those passages in more detail later today or this week. Last week we saw a few things that keep men from following Christ. We saw a scribe who was humble and understood that Jesus was worthy to follow, but valued comfort and honor, which are simply not part of being Christ’s disciple. We saw another disciple wish to follow, but desired first to financially prepare for the journey. But thinking you need anything plus Christ means you don’t understand what it means to follow Christ. We also saw a man want to follow but desired first to bid goodbye to his family. But seeing anything as worthy of delaying your obedience means you cannot follow Christ. Lastly we saw a group of men desiring greatly to follow Christ but were overwhelmed by fear at the first danger they faced with Him. Jesus makes it clear, that such faith is unable to save anyone since it chooses experience over theology. Today we will see yet another obstacle in the way of someone following Christ. Last week you could make the argument that each desire these men had were not altogether morally wrong, but were simply distractions. Today, we will see that even sin can be a distraction when we fight to keep it. I am in verse 28 of Matthew 8. I’ll be reading from the NASB but follow along in whatever version you prefer.

Transition:

So what else keeps men from Christ? Let’s look at verse 28 in more detail.

I.) Repentance is absent from demons, so we must be repentant people.

a. [Slide 2] 28 – When He came to the other side into the country of the Gadarenes, two men who were demon-possessed met Him as they were coming out of the tombs. They were so extremely violent that no one could pass by that way.

i. [Slide 3A] The other side of the lake. The eastern side.

ii. [Slide 3B] The country or region of the Gadarenes (Gah – Dare – Eh – Knees)- There is a city known as Gadara further inland, south east of the sea of galilee. Since it is the country or region of the Gadarenes, it seems that this is not talking about the city they were at, but rather an area. Why is this important?

1. Because in Mark they arrived and as soon as they stepped off the boat they were met with the demon-posessed. Which would have been impossible if it was in the city of Gadara since it is not on the shore.

2. [Slide 4] Also in Mark and in Luke the text says the country of the Gerasenes (Gare – ass –eh – knees) and indeed there is a very small village on the shore of the sea of Galilee known as Gerasa or Gergesa, which in modern day is a village known as Kursi.

3. [Slide 5] There is also a larger city known as Gerasa almost 40 miles south east of the sea of Galilee which obviously cannot be the location.

4. Some would suggest that this is a textual variant probably from a copyist who mixed up the letters since they are very similar. Because we do have some manuscripts that read Gerasenes.

5. Others would say, and I tend to agree, that this is probably simply a case of not understanding the context well enough to make an informed decision as a copyist. Meaning that the Gadarenes reading is right but has another explanation. Like what?

a. Are you from Columbus or are you from Port Huron?

b. Are you from St. Clair County or are you from Michigan?

c. None of these are untrue. Some are more accurate… more specific… but none are untrue.

d. Mark and Luke stated that it was a in a small, never heard of village known as Gerasa.

e. [Slide 6A] But Matthew writing after Mark and probably after Luke might have realized that that reference was too ambiguous since the reader may confuse it with the city of [Slide 6B] Gerasa that lay far to the south east. So Matthew placed it in the current cities occupancy in his time which was the [Slide 6C] Gadarenes, which would be part of the [Slide 6D] Decapolis. A coalition of originally 10 cities that formed against Jewish rule over the area.

f. [Slide 7A] Not only that but about this time that Matthew was writing, there was significant stirring of Jewish uprising coming from the province of Gaulanitis (Gaul – An – Ih – Tis) ruled by Antipas the II, which [Slide 7B] Gerasa the village is right on the border of these provinces. And perhaps at the time of Matthew’s writing, Gerasa was incorporated into Gaulanitis.

g. So it seems that Matthew is attempting to make it very clear that the location of this miraculous activity was part of the province of[Slide 7C] Decapolis. Why?

h. Decapolis was a region that had been dominated for quite some time by Gentile people. For reasons we will discuss later, I believe that Matthew is putting a different perspective on the location of this event to make sure that his Jewish readers KNOW that we are talking about Gentiles.

iii. [Slide 8A] Alas that is not the only issue we face in this text. Another issue is that Matthew is the only gospel writer that says that there were two demon-posessed men present on this occasion. [Slide 8B] Both Mark and Luke only mention 1. So how do we harmonize this?

1. First – Mark and Luke do not go out of their way to say that there was ONLY 1 man who was demon possessed. They simply talk about 1 man, who they both conclude the story with his experience after the miracle. So it seems that they were concerned about relaying this man’s story. Wheras Matthew is concerned about the perception of Jesus to Jews.

2. Secondly – Quiz – Of the 3 gospel accounts that mention this exorcism, how many of the writers were actually present for the exorcism? = 1 – Matthew. Now that doesn’t mean that we doubt the account of Luke or Mark. They are inspired just as Matthew was. But when we see extra details added by Matthew – we shouldn’t be surprised, nor should we accuse him of inflating the truth to make it seem grander.

3. Interestingly enough, Mark and Luke’s account of the end of the story differs slightly. In Mark, the former demonized man is told to go home to his people and tell them what has happened – which He does and goes to the region of Decapolis and the people he tells are amazed. In Luke Jesus tells him to go to his house or his family and describe what has happened, and the man returns to the city, one would assume Gerasa, and declares these things. Although it is probable that this is the same man that shared in Gerasa then further, perhaps this is the two men one to Gerasa and the other to Decapolis?

iv. Here we see the effects of demonization

1. Obsession with the unclean – living in the land of the unclean, inhabiting the unclean (gentiles) dwelling among unclean things (the dead)

2. Violent and vindictive against humanity.

3. From the other two accounts we see that these men were naked, they possessed incredible strength and were able to break free of bonds that no mere man could break. They would scream from the tombs and mountains at night, gashing themselves with rocks.

b. [Slide 9] Finally 29 – And they cried out, saying, “What business do we have with each other, Son of God? Have You come here to torment us before the time?”

i. The interaction between Jesus and the demons is abbreviated here in Matthew.

ii. Mark and Luke add significant detail.

1. The demons came to Christ. They saw him from a distance and ran to Him.

2. They bowed down to Him.

3. But they did not speak in reverential tones. They shouted at Him

4. Both Mark and Luke have Gentile audiences in mind, so the demon possessed man saying “Son of the MOST HIGH God” is a significance that would not have been relevant to a Jewish reader.

5. Jesus is begged, in God’s name, to not torment them. So we see a recognition of Jesus’ authority by appealing to a higher authority. God the Father.

6. Jesus asks for the name of the demon – the demon responds with legion for there were many – the exact number we cannot be sure, but some estimate that since the herd of pigs were 2000, which is a detail only in Mark and Luke, that it was at least that many.

7. In Mark, The demons beg to not be sent out of the country, In Luke they beg to not be sent into the abyss, in Matthew they beg not to be judged before their time. There is probably a de-escalation of imploring here. Like Abram asking God if there would be as little as 5 people righteous in Sodom that He would spare it. The demons, once they understand that Jesus is going to cast them out of the man, they are concerned about how far they would be cast. So they get a verbal commitment from Jesus that He won’t judge them before their time, and that he won’t force them to leave the region they were in, but they must leave the man.

iii. Application:

[Slide 10 (blank) ] One thing I’d like for us to see before we move on is something that is a little unsettling. I’d like you to glace back to verse 27. His disciples. The 12 that had committed to follow Him wherever He went. The 12 who sat under the teaching of the sermon on the mount. When the tempest rose, they panicked for their lives. And when He calmed the sea, they wondered at what sort of man was before them. And minutes later an entire legion of demons comes to Him, kneels before Him and calls Him the Son of the Most High God.

There is a subtheme in scripture of comparing the state of our faith to the faith of demons. And listen to me, if your faith has no differences to the faith of demons then it is not a saving faith. These demons believed He was the Son of God, and they submitted themselves to His authority over them. They bowed to His will when they had to, when He forced them to. But they did so with seething hate behind their teeth. They did not want to be near Him. They wanted to be released but not unto judgment. Why? They knew they were wicked compared to Him, but they loved their wickedness. And even though He was their judge, even though they begged him for immediate mercy, ultimately they did not ask him for eternal mercy. What we see in the demons here is the ultimate result of reprobation. When a person understands where they stand according to their judge and they DO NOT WANT mercy, they only want to delay justice. Why? Because they have no intention of changing.

Your faith can’t be about what you believe. It can’t be about what you do. Your faith must be about Jesus Christ, Judge, Friend, Savior, Lord. He is all or He is none. And that requires that your faith include repentance for your wickedness. Because if you believe He is Judge, Friend, Savior and Lord – you cannot come to Him. You can never approach Him, until your wicked heart is cut out of your chest and nailed to His cross.

When He is all of these to you, it produces a person who’s reasonable service, who’s expected life is lived in sacrifice to his King, willingly living to be acceptable and Holy before Him. When Jesus is all this to you – you will love righteousness and thirst for it. You will hate wickedness and desire it to be purged from every layer of who you are. Not as an end in itself, not just so you can be righteous, but so you can get closer to Jesus. Those who hunger and thirst after righteousness will be filled, and those who are pure in heart, those who are filled, will see God, without fear of judgment.

A faith that knows who Jesus is, wants to be spared judgment, but doesn’t want to be made different – is the faith of demons.

Transition:

But Matthew is not done showing how repentance is necessary to follow Christ. Next he will show us the exact same attitude of the demons, in the hearts of men. Look with me in verse 30.

II.) Repentance is absent from the Gentiles, so we must be repentant people.

a. [Slide 11-12] 30-32 – Now there was a herd of many swine feeding at a distance from them. The demons began to entreat Him, saying, “If You are going to cast us out, send us into the herd of swine.” And He said to them, “Go!” And they came out and went into the swine, and the whole herd rushed down the steep bank into the sea and perished in the waters.

i. Why the swine? Again most likely they preferred to possess things that were unclean. And perhaps, they were only able to possess unclean things. We are not exactly sure how the spiritual realm works. So perhaps it was between the swine and the abyss.

ii. Why did Jesus show mercy to demons? Why wouldn’t He have just cast them into the abyss? They were plaguing mankind. There is a really simple answer to that, and the demons alluded to it. Yes we are getting truth from the lips of demons. To put it simply – It was not God’s will for them to be judged in this way yet. Jesus was submitting to the Father. Why? Because His mission is for the Father not for us. He wasn’t lifted up to the position of authority and judge yet. That was a position to be granted to Him after He accomplished His mission.

iii. Did the demons die or the swine? Demons are eternal beings. They cannot die. And linguistically it is not possible for this to refer to the demons. It was the pigs that died.

iv. So why did the demons kill the pigs? Honestly – they probably were throwing a temper tantrum. Jesus spoiled their fun. So, to further cause pain and difficulty on the people of the area, they destroyed quite a large source of income for them. 2000 pigs is a lot of pigs even by today’s standards.

v. Why didn’t Jesus care about the herdsmen’s livelihood? Why didn’t He care about the pigs for that matter? Well Matthew tells us that the herd was feeding at a distance away. Probably to avoid the demonized from killing their pigs. So after all this happened with the demons being cast out, no one would have seen about it or heard about it. So Jesus casts these demons into these pigs, the herdsmen no doubt came to the group of people on the shore (at least 14 people) and ask what happened, and they see the demonized man… free. So the pigs were a means to an end here by Jesus. 2000 pigs are worth giving the entire city a chance to see the power of Jesus the Messiah.

vi. And I’d like you to take a mental note of something else. Matthew is taking a significant risk here though. Because his Jewish readers would no doubt look at this as Jesus reaffirming the Mosaic Law. Jesus used demons to destroy unclean animals.

vii. So what did these herdsman do after witnessing all this?

b. [Slide 13] 33-34 – The herdsmen ran away and went into the city and reported everything, including what happened to the demoniacs. And behold, the whole city came out to meet Jesus; and when they saw Him they implored Him to leave their region.

i. So the herdsmen, the people who profited from the sale of the pigs, ran into the city and reported everything. It is assumed that they reported what happened to their pigs. BUT- they also reported HOW it happened.

ii. One notable detail is missing from Matthew’s account. And it is the story of the 1 or possibly 2 men who had been exorcised. They were in their right mind, and wanted to follow Jesus. Being Gentiles, Jesus said no, but sent them to proclaim what they had seen to their family and people. He sent them as National Evangelists back to the Gentiles. Because God’s mission for His son was not to the Gentiles, but to the Jew first.

iii. So why does Matthew omit all of this? Jesus said no to a Gentile being a disciple that followed Him. How would that have gone for a primarily Jewish audience? Do you think they would have read into that a little bit?

iv. So the whole city comes out to meet Jesus, and based on Matthew’s description you’d think, perhaps, that they were coming out to worship or to get him to do more miracles or something.

v. Instead they begged Him to beat it. Why? I mean, He just did them a huge favor. No one could come that way without being attacked by these demon possessed men. Shouldn’t they have been excited to have seen these men restored?

1. Many conclude that they were angry with Him over their financial loss of the pigs. But I think it is a little more complicated than that.

2. If you take Matthew’s special emphasis on how they reported everything even the casting out of the demons, it has to be assumed that these people knew the demons killed their pigs. They knew Jesus freed the man. They knew Jesus was something different.

3. In Luke’s account, he tells us that the people were gripped with fear.

4. Can I suggest to you that It had nothing to do with the pigs.

5. It was a godless and pagan people, who saw the power of God manifested through this Jewish itinerate preacher. A wicked people who saw their wickedness judged through the eradication of meat illegal under Jewish Mosaic Law, God’s law. And rather than repenting and trying to find out more about this man… They wanted nothing to do with Him. They didn’t want to hear it. They didn’t want Him interfering with their way of life.

6. And, once again, in a disturbing comparison to demons, they said to Him, what have you to do with us Son of the Most High God? Get out of our land. We don’t want you here.

Application:

[Slide 14 (blank)] When people see Jesus, the real Jesus… it makes the wicked squirm. Although meek and mild, the flame of divinity in His eyes always pushes a choice upon those who see him. Either they can cry out for mercy or they can run as far away from Him as possible.

[Slide 15] Psalm 51:17 tells us that the sacrifice that God desires is a broken spirit. God will not reject a broken and repentant heart.

[Slide 16] Isaiah 57:15 - The high and lofty one who lives in eternity,

the Holy One, says this:

“I live in the high and holy place

with those whose spirits are contrite and humble.

I restore the crushed spirit of the humble

and revive the courage of those with repentant hearts.

[Slide 17] Isaiah 66:2 – My hands have made both heaven and earth;

they and everything in them are mine.

I, the Lord, have spoken!

“I will bless (SHOW GRACE TO) those who have humble and contrite hearts,

who tremble at my word.

Acceptance, forgiveness, Grace is all predicated on the repentant and broken heart. You cannot accept Christ with a heart that doesn’t loathe its sin. You cannot be in His Kingdom with a heart that doesn’t ache at the wickedness it possesses.

Repentance is not only necessary to begin following Christ – it is central to continuing to follow Christ. In fact, a casual, flirtatious relationship with wickedness, an acceptance that no one is perfect and therefore I was born this way, in fact any response to sin whatsoever that is anything but repulsion is a sign that your relationship to God is unhealthy if it exists at all. In short, if you do not hate your sin, not just sin in general, but YOUR sin, you cannot be a follower of Jesus.

Transition:

[Slide 18 (blank)] So repentance was absent from both demons and Gentiles. And there is one other aspect that I think we could easily miss here if we did not look at the broader context of the book of Matthew at this point.

III.) Repentance is required from all men, so we must be repentant people.

a. If you remember way back in the intro of the book we discussed the possibility that Matthew wrote originally in Hebrew even before Mark and Luke wrote their gospels. Then after Mark and Luke Matthew was inspired to write in Greek. If this is true, God obviously wanted to preserve the Greek copy because we have not found Hebrew copies of the book of Matthew.

b. All that being said, it is a clear Jewish audience that Matthew is writing to. Probably both to the Jew that claim to be believers but most likely he is writing evangelistically to Jews who remained steeped in their Judaism or a Judaized hybrid.

c. So the question remains as to why Matthew would risk telling his Jewish readers about a specific time when Jesus

i. Was kicked out of a Gentile country

ii. Forced demons into unclean animals which were destroyed

iii. Why would Matthew risk the misunderstanding?

d. Remember Jesus’ statement about the centurion?

i. No such faith exists in all of Israel.

ii. People from the east and west will dine with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom but many Jews won’t be in the kingdom

e. Even though Matthew is trying to be a little aggressive with the Jews and show them the harsh reality that their linage didn’t mean anything. The Spirit of God through Matthew also wishes to insure that the reader will not go too far with this idea.

f. As indeed some today have gone too far.

g. After seeing this story of the centurion and then being confronted with 3 separate instances of Jews not understanding what it means to follow Christ, a Jewish reader could conclude that God was changing his program.

h. That God had a new chosen people.

i. That God had finally given up on Israel.

j. Matthew, going out of his way to make sure we know that this is a gentile city, and then showing a people who wanted nothing to do with Jesus, proves that Jew or not – the path to follow Christ begins with forsaking sin and this world. And it doesn’t matter what race you are – repentance must be its beginning.

Transition:

Therefore I’d like to combine what we learned last week with this week, to understand at least partially what it means to be a disciple of Christ.

Conclusion:

[Slide 19A] Last week we learned how comfort, peace, family and security can all keep us from following Christ. This week we see that lacking genuine sorrow over your own personal wickedness and subsequently desiring mercy and righteousness, or, [Slide 19B] repentance, is required to follow Christ.

I’d love to deal with each of those separately but I think it would greatly benefit us for us to find the commonality found in all of them. Do you see what it is?

[Slide 20 (end)] Look with me again at chapter 6 of Matthew. Verse 33.

Comfort, peace, family, security are all not of the kingdom. They are concepts woven to the nature of this world, which is fading. It is a vapor. It is here today and gone tomorrow.

And holding on to our sin, never wanting to change, but pleading for earthly mercy – more time to be who we want to be. That is not pursuing His Righteousness at all.

All of this is addressed in verse 33. Pursue God’s Kingdom and Righteousness.

It is only those who pursue the Kingdom that can follow Christ. Because Christ is the King of the Kingdom. Nothing in this world matters when compared to the Kingdom of God.

Well what is the Kingdom of God? Your in luck. Because that is what the entire book of Matthew is teaching. But you want the short version?

The Kingdom of God is, for now, the spiritual utopia that is absolute peace with God. The Kingdom of God is when all forces lay down their arms and submit to the absolute authority, power, and rule of God and His Messiah. The Kingdom of God is when all things are as they should be according to the one who created all things. To put it succinctly as I can – it is when God has His way.

And one day that will be a literal, physical reality. He will rule through His Messiah, HERE on earth. And then later on a new earth. All opposition will be, FOREVER, put down. So what does it mean to pursue God’s Kingdom?

Living as if God is already under absolute control… because He is. That God is not getting what He wants is an illusion that will dissipate quickly.

Therefore, as an application of that pursuit – things like comfort here on earth, living the good and easy life, feeling safe and secure, being financially secure, finding satisfaction and even completeness in your family - these are all the opposite direction of the Kingdom of God. None of these are morally wrong or inherently wicked – but they ARE a distraction from a Kingdom, a worldview, that understands that God is in complete control of all, and that one day this physical life will all end and with it all the comfort, security, peace and even familial relationships we have gained here. What profit then is it to invest heavily in these things that are not eternal.

Pursuing God’s Righteousness is also listed in 6:33. So what is God’s righteousness? It is the moral law of God based on the holy Character of God that is lived to perfection by His Kingdom Citizens. Of course perfection is not possible, which is why Jesus took our place to be perfect on our behalf and to take away our imperfection.

Therefore, Kingdom citizens, to pursue God’s Righteousness, live in a constant pruning of all that is not morally consistent with God’s character and law – and depend on God working in them to produce all that is consistent with God’s character and law. This begins at conversion, continues through sanctification where we progress to a more and more Christ-like state, and is finally completed when we are released from our flesh and glorified by the Spirit of God.

So in application – to live in such a way that you believe that the kingdom exists, that Jesus is at its head, and that God’s moral law is good, but simply not for you… is completely contrary to what pursuing God’s righteousness would be.

We need the message of Matthew so badly today, because basically we are the same as 1st century Jews.

We have replaced being born into the line of Abraham with the sinners prayer and cheap faith. Matthew’s book and Jesus’ words and experiences from 2000 years ago are still incredibly relevant to us as we deal with gospels that are not gospels.

What Matthew is desperately trying to show his Jewish readers, is that it is not their lineage or their adherence to mosaic ceremonial law that God desires. It is a people who fulfill the image of God that was broken thousands of years ago.

Humans that love Him and Live for Him and His kingdom. That are made right and at peace with Him. Humans that are drastically affected by a grace that He gave them, A Faith that He gave them, A Savior He gave them. They are so affected that they live as if the Kingdom is already here. They live as if Christ is coming today. They live as if the end is mere moments away. They live in reckless abandon, caring not for their own lives but for the sake of the Kingdom they abandon it all.

So what do we do with such a message?

Naturally it changes everything for us. It should be a call for us to reprioritize our lives to be Kingdom pursuant and righteousness compliant.

We should be both repenting of what is disconnected from God and depending on God to raise up what is connected to Him.

It also changes what we preach. Not a message of superficial faith or even focusing on getting people saved. Both of which are never the goal of the apostles or Christ for that matter. Our goal is simply to bear witness to the life altering power of the grace of God demonstrated by our reckless and relentless faith. Jesus is the gospel and we are called to be clothed in Him. And when we are, we become His ambassadors. Our lives and words bear witness to His power and grace.

The world, our culture is dying all around us. They need Jesus! And the one real way they can catch a glimpse of Him is when we are clothed in Him.

Our message is to repent and believe. Our livestyle is full of compassion and power, forgiveness and authority as we speak the words of God to a lost and dying world.

And if the church would stop focusing so much on programs to draw people in. If we’d stop being so intent on branding ourselves and marketing what God has to offer. If we’d stop adopting worldly philosophies on selling this Jesus we have and would just start allowing Him to do what He wants when He wants with each of us, then perhaps we’d see Him move on this nation and there would be weeping as people would grieve their sin.

But how do we expect our world to weep over sin, when we don’t weep over our sin? How do we expect them to depend on Him when we don’t.

If we are no different than the world – then we are no help to the world. But we are called to be salt and light. To preserve and reveal. To heal and to guide.

When will the church be what God has called it to be? There is still time.

Title: What Keeps Men from Christ Part 1

Text: Matthew 8:18-27

FCF: We often struggle following Christ for various reasons

Prop: Because following Christ will change us forever, we must choose Him over all else.

Scripture Intro:

[Slide 1] Turn in your bible to Matthew chapter 8. Last week we saw Jesus healing several people, realizing of course that these were all attempts by our gracious Lord to display Himself as the promised Messiah who came to make everyone new. They should have seen Him as the answer to the question, how can I be perfect while spiritually bankrupt? Because He is the guilt offering for many. He trades His perfection for their depravity. Yet they missed it. And we could have easily missed it too. We could have talked about ministering to outcasts or helping the hurting. But instead, we, I hope, saw the Messiah, the anointed one of God who bears the sin of all mankind.

Today – Matthew shows that some are starting to get it. He will bring three separate examples to us to show that people are starting to see Christ revealed. But in that revelation He will also show what keeps men from Christ.

Today specifically we will see that Fear, comfort and peace all keep people from following Christ. And if you are not careful, they may prevent you from following Him too. I am in Matthew 8 and we will start in verse 18. I am reading from the NASB but follow along in whatever version you prefer.

Sermon Intro:

[Slide 2] Everyone here as seen cop dramas probably. I think my first one ever was law and order. It was on Law and Order that I was first exposed to the Witness protection program. If you’ve never heard of it, let me briefly explain. Our law enforcement agencies are designed to make sure that the law is abided by people. However, there is a general understanding that if given the opportunity, our justice department will sacrifice the prosecution of a lesser criminal if they will help to incarcerate a more dangerous criminal or criminal organization. Of course, sometimes when these small timers agree to testify in court against these bigger and larger organizations, there is a very real threat that, if discovered, they may be harmed, killed or otherwise convinced not to testify. That is why the US invented the witness protection program in the 1960s. This program protects these witnesses by relocating them, giving them new identities, new careers, in some cases they even protect the family members of these witnesses. For some it is a lifetime commitment since the criminal organization would still exist after the trial.

So a witness is offered a choice. They can either stay and possibly be harmed or killed for considering testifying against someone else. Or they can give up their life, possibly forever, to start a new life somewhere else. Some of them even undergo plastic surgery to change their appearance. So not only do they adopt a new name, but they adopt a whole new person. But the choice isn’t much of a choice. Either they stay who they are and lose their life. Or they lose everything they are and live. Either way they lose everything.

Perhaps you are already picking up on the correlation here.

Matthew has just demonstrated to us that Jesus is the answer to how we can be pure in heart yet spiritually bankrupt at the same time. How can we mourn our sin yet be hungering and thirsting after righteousness? These seeming contradictions are harmonized by Jesus taking our place, bearing our shame, and becoming a guilt offering for us. Therefore the gospel, the good news is not what Jesus can or even has already done for you… the good news is Jesus. He is the one pursuit of Kingdom citizens.

So what we have in the section to follow are examples that all communicate a sad list of things that Keep men from Jesus. As we explore these today and next week – we will be challenged to see and understand that like a person in witness protection, following Christ means that we will be changed forever. But also like the person who chooses to go into witness protection… there really isn’t another choice.

Transition:

In the next 17 verses we will see men faced with the other option besides Christ. And most of them, maybe all of them, choose unwisely. We would do well to listen and learn from them. Look with me at verse 18.

I.) Following Christ has a cost

a. [Slide 3] 18 – Now when Jesus saw a crowd around Him, He gave orders to depart to the other side of the sea

i. Of the sea is correctly added by NASB to help us understand that the North Western end of the Sea of Galilee is where they were and they were going to go to the eastern side or south eastern side. But why?

ii. He saw the crowd around Him. Jesus is Agoraphobic? Does He fear large crowds?

iii. It all comes down to His mission and His purpose. He came to proclaim the gospel, but with such large crowds surrounding Him, begging Him to do miracle after miracle– and furthermore – not listening to His preaching – He seeks smaller encounters with people who are ready to hear and listen to what He says.

b. [Slide 4] 19 – Then a scribe came and said to Him, “Teacher, I will follow You wherever You go.”

i. So before they are able to get into the boats, Jesus is taken aside by three people.

ii. The first of these is a scribe. A scribe is basically a lawyer of God’s law. We might call him a theologian. He was supposed to be proficient in the interpretation and teaching of the law of Moses.

iii. He calls him teacher. This is not slighting Jesus in any way. In fact, it seems that the scribe is willingly placing himself under the authority of Jesus. He is an instructor himself, but calls Jesus his teacher. So we see humility from this scribe. Something that scribes in the New Testament are not really known for.

iv. He shows belief or dependence. He seems to understand that where Jesus goes, is exactly where he needs to be.

v. But he lacks something. Something that only the Son of God could see in his heart of stone…

c. [Slide 5] 20 – Jesus said to him, “The foxes have holes and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to law His head.”

i. Foxes and Birds – creatures that you could probably go your whole day and never notice, even they have places to lay their heads at night. They are provided for.

ii. But the Son of Man has no such guarantee. And neither does any who follow Him.

iii. The Son of Man is Jesus’ most used title for Himself. It emphasizes the human nature side of the God-Man, but receives divine overtones from Daniel 7 which speaks of the authority that God will grant to the victorious Messiah.

iv. So what did Jesus see in this man? He was humble. He even understood that Christ was the answer. What He did not understand that the way was perilous. He did not understand that they weren’t going to be staying in five star hotels. He did not understand that it was not the path to glory, fame, or political triumph. He was not the Son of Man who would be given the sovereignty over the nations yet. Perhaps Jesus saw this scribe thinking He was going to get in on the ground floor of the fall of the Roman empire at the hands of the Messiah…

v. To him, Jesus said – That is not the path. The way is perilous for me, and is subsequently perilous for all who follow me. You must count the cost before you enter. Because you will finish the path a different man than you came in.

d. [Slide 6] 21 – Another of the disciples said to Him, “Lord, permit me first to go and bury my father.”

i. Whether this is one of the 12 or another person who had been following him up to this point, we cannot be sure. It does not affect the interpretation, since all the 12 disciples’ faith is questionable until after the resurrection.

ii. This no doubt is a euphemism, not to bury his father per se, but probably to receive the inheritance that his father would leave him once he was dead.

iii. Perhaps he overheard that Jesus had no place to lay his head. So he thought a cash infusion would allow the ministry to go ahead.

e. [Slide 7] 22 – But Jesus said to him, “Follow Me, and allow the dead to bury their own dead”

i. Jesus sees through this and cuts to the chase.

ii. Only the spiritually dead would allow such a trivial thing to prevent them from following God.

iii. Let those who’s destiny is destruction care for others whos destiny is destruction. As for you… follow me.

iv. To this man, who perhaps understood that the way would be perilous, Jesus communicates that the gate is narrow. That there is no room for a dependence on money. You must only depend on Him.

v. And I’d like to think that this is one of the 12 disciples. Do you know why? Because if it was – he obeyed Jesus. He followed. He didn’t wait for his father to die to fund his trip… He came anyway.

f. [Slide 8] The final person who speaks to Jesus is not recorded in Matthew but is in Luke. In Luke 9 the same events are recorded and are almost verbatim except for 1 additional interaction which Luke records.

i. A man says that he will follow Christ, only first, let him go and say goodbye to his family.

ii. Jesus tells him that a man who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is not fit for the Kingdom of God.

iii. In this encounter, Jesus confronts again that the gate is narrow.

iv. He corrects the man who thinks that saying goodbye to his family is a reasonable excuse not to follow immediately. What better testimony it would have been to have said, I’m sorry I didn’t say goodbye, but I just couldn’t keep my feet from following Him. The gate is narrow, and last goodbyes and family and friends cannot go through with you.

v. Then Jesus uses an illustration that we may miss. A person plowing a field by hand but looking behind them.

vi. A close comparison would be someone mowing their lawn while staring at what they have already mowed. It is a sure-fire way to have wavy lines in your yard.

vii. The gate is narrow and it will demand your full concentration. There is nothing worth looking back for to enter

Application:

[Slide 9 (blank)] We’ve talked about this before, so I don’t want to labor long on it. But the one thing that easy believism and prosperity gospel teachings have in common is that they reject Jesus’ words from the sermon on the mount, and have great difficulty understanding why Jesus is frequently chasing people away from following Him. Why?

Because Prosperity Gospel is the scribe. They see what they can get from a life devoted to Christ. The great life they can live NOW because they serve this powerful miracle worker. They will get wealth and prosperity. And one offshoot of that is what we dealt with a few weeks ago – which is this humanistic gospel that we hear preached all arounds us. Advertising and marketing the great benefits it is to serve Jesus.

One popular Christian writer once said “What you win them with, is what you win them to” If you win them with promises of an easy life with money and prosperity, then that is what they will pursue until it eludes them, they quit, or until they tragically find it. In the same way if you win them with promises of love and acceptance from Jesus, then they will pursue that until they find passages in scripture where Jesus is chasing people away – intentionally speaking parables to hide the truth, and actively judging people for their sin, or calling them to radical change. Then they will conclude that it is all lies, they will throw scripture out of their bibles, or worse… they will reinterpret it to mean what they want. And People are already doing this within Christianity to accommodate homosexuality. Because after all Jesus is loving and accepting.

And just as prosperity and me-centric gospels are the scribe, so Easy entry belief and no cost faith are the man who had to bury his father and the man who had to say goodbye to his family.

When we sell the gospel as a free gift that all you have to do is simply reach out and take it… it undermines what Jesus teaches. If that were all the gospel was, Jesus would have said to this man “don’t worry buddy, all you have to do is believe and then go back to your dad and wait on that inheritance. Listen… when you are ready to get serious about serving me, then I’ll still be here. But let’s make sure you are going to heaven first. “

But Jesus told him forget the money. Let the Spiritually dead worry about that kind of earthy stuff. Follow me and live. Depend on me and me alone!

But today – what this looks like is a man who has heard the gospel and they protest by saying “You know I want to get saved I really do, but I can’t serve God until I get out of college. I just need to be in a better financial position before I go all in you know?”

And do you know what churches mere miles from here would say to this man? They would say, “Don’t worry about that right now buddy. Just believe on the name of Jesus and He will save you, and then He’ll lead you to what He wants you to be and to do”

But if it were today, what would Jesus have said to this man? Let me translate it for you.

“I don’t want your money I want you. All of you. Now. You can serve me with or without a college degree. You can serve me with or without a wife. You can serve me with or without money. Let the unsaved worry about college degrees and petty cash. You Give me your heart and you give it to me now. Repent of your wickedness and depend on me”

Based on Jesus’ example, we should recognize that a man like this who understands what Jesus will demand of Him but looks back from the plow to care for a few things first, does not understand what salvation is. Jesus says they are not fit for the Kingdom. Not yet. He is close. But he does not understand the urgency that it is to stand before a Holy God condemned – because when you catch that truth – there is nothing on earth that is worth taking care of first.

Illustration:

There was a young man, fresh out of college that came back to his home church to teach what he had learned at bible school. So the leadership was quick to put him with the AWANA kids for a lesson on salvation, hoping that something he said would strike a chord with the youth. And it did. The young man was full of all kinds of insights and delivered the gospel message almost perfectly to this group of young children. After the lesson was over, he asked if there were any who wanted to spend a little more time talking about the gospel. Several hands shot up. Some did not. The ones that did not raise their hands stayed in the class room and the others were asked to follow the young man to an adjoining room. The young man again, presented the gospel as clearly and concisely as he could, but still felt as though there were some young children there that were there for the wrong reasons. So, before inviting them for some kind of decision, this young man, hearing the shouts from the gymnasium across the hall, made one final offer. He told the kids that if they wanted to, that he had a little bit more to tell them about Jesus and what He had done for them, but, time was running out and that there was a kick ball game going in the gym next to them that sounded very fun. He then said to the kids, if you want to, you can go ahead and leave and go play kickball. Several of the kids got up from their seats to go play kickball. Only a few remained to hear more.

Afterward, an observing volunteer in the church came up to the young man, and expressed her concern for his methods. She, almost scolding said, that he shouldn’t have chased off kids who perhaps, could have gotten saved.

The young man replied, “If they cannot choose Christ over kickball, then they were not ready for salvation in the first place.”

And this is, in a sense, what Jesus said to the second man. If you cannot choose me over riches, then you don’t know what it means to follow me.

And He is saying it to you too today…

Transition:

So following Christ will cost something to start and to continue. But not only will it cost you something, maybe everything – but it will also change you forever. You’ll be different. And one crystal clear example of how his disciples didn’t quite catch that yet, starts with a storm.

II.) Following Christ means faith overrules fear

a. [Slide 10] 23-25 – When He got into the boat, His disciples followed Him. And behold there arose a great storm on the sea so that the boat was being covered with the waves; but Jesus Himself was asleep. And they came to Him and woke Him, saying, “Save us, Lord; we are perishing.” And from Mark “Don’t you care that we are perishing?”

i. This is probably the 12 disciples who got into his boat. Mark tells us that others came out in other boats too, but in His boat it was probably the 12 disciples.

ii. Fierce and sudden storms are somewhat commondue to the sea of galilee being several feet below sea level. But even experienced fisherman were having issues with this storm.

iii. Jesus is unmoved by the storm. He is the example. There is no fear in Him. He knows that the storm is coming even, and yet He is sleeping.

iv. Save us, don’t you care we are perishing?

v. An interesting question. Did Jesus care that they were perishing? I’d say Jesus cared a great deal that they were dead. His mission was to make them alive again. And the mode would be His substitution and their faith in Him.

vi. Their faith in Him would save them… but it would need to be a certain kind of faith. A desperate faith. A wild faith. A faith that discarded experience and recklessly believed.

b. [Slide 11] 26 – He said to them, “Why are you afraid, you men of little faith?” and from Luke “Where did your inferior faith go?” and from Mark “How is it that you have no faith?”

i. You see the faith necessary to rescue them from the death of their sin, was a faith that they did not have.

ii. Their faith was deficient. It was ineffective. And it was proven deficient because it had evaporated.

iii. Their faith put experience ahead of theology. They claimed they believed He was the Messiah, but lived as though He wasn’t.

iv. Afterall, would God allow His Messiah to die in a freak storm before He accomplished His mission?

v. Looking at it in hindsight, I am sure they felt quite ashamed.

vi. Their faith evaporated when experience told them they were doomed.

c. Then He got up and rebuked the winds and the sea, and it became perfectly calm

i. The creator of the universe called on the carpet the forces of nature.

ii. I am your God – STOP –From Mark - Hush – Be still.

d. [Slide 12] 27 – The men were amazed and said, “What kind of man is this, that even the winds and the sea obey Him?” from Mark - They were afraid – “who is this that the winds and sea obey Him” and from Luke –They were fearful and amazed “who is this that he commands the winds and the water and they obey Him”

i. Wonder and Fear is their response

1. They were absolutely mystified. No one can say to the wind and waves stop and it happens.

2. They were absolutely terrified. If he can say to the wind and the waves stop and it happens, he is no mere man.

3. Matthew points that out by his inclusion of the phrase “what kind of man is this”

ii. Command over the wind and the waves = deity

iii. Wonder and Fear does not necessarily equal faith.

Application:

[Slide 13 (blank)] Our faith is challenged every day. And I am not talking about the pagan down the street or the atheist who challenges the legitimacy of the scriptures. I am talking about living as though all of this is true. That this book is true. That this God is real. That this Christ has done all that He claims to have done, that He is all that He claims to be, that this gospel is all that is says it is.

Every day we are confronted with experience after experience telling us that such things to believe are incompatible with how life actually is. That God must have gotten something wrong - or perhaps this book is outdated to the extent that things are different now.

[Slide 14A] We fear failure at work or in our homes. We fear being poor husbands or employees. We fear losing our jobs and homes. We fear raising kids who have no ambition or drive. We fear failure even though in Christ we have been made more than conquerors. That in Christ we can pursue the things of the Kingdom and not of this world. In Christ we find love, support and forgiveness. In Christ we find power, and self control. So why fear failure?

[Slide 14B] We fear lonelieness. We fear never marrying or worse, marrying someone who will grow distant from us, captivated by other things. We fear growing old and outliving our friends and family. We fear losing a spouse and dying alone. We fear never having a legacy, never leaving a footprint on this world, and having our name forgotten. But we believe that our names have already been erased. That our kingdoms have crumbled and His kingdom put in its place. WE believe that he is always with us because He lives in us. We believe He gives us power and love. How can we fear loneliness?

[Slide 14C] We fear rejection of men. We fear what others may think. We fear how others will perceive our parenting and our choices. We fear what they will say about our movies and our standards. We fear what they will say about our ideas and philosophies. Yet we believe that we are not of this world. WE believe that they can’t understand us – because We look less and less like them every day and it is in that difference that they will be confronted with their own wickedness. We believe that we are peculiar. Yet we fear being so?

[Slide 14D] We fear physical harm and financial distress. We fear thieves to the point that we develop well crafted action plans for killing them if they should attempt to take our tvs. We paint it in language of self-defense, but is it? We fear tiny microscopic monsters that could possibly snuff us out before our time and leave our family destitute. Yet we believe that our Lord owns the cattle on a thousand hills. We believe that if we pursue His Kingdom first he will supply our needs and we believe that He is sovereign over life death, nature and all things. Yet we fear losing our jobs? We fear thieves breaking in and stealing?

[Slide 15] Fear and faith are incompatible friend. Even fearing the Lord does not necessarily lead to faith, which we will see next week. To those who do have saving faith, The Spirit God that is placed within us when we believed is not a fearful Spirit. It is the Divine presence of the 3rd person of the Godhead who is full of power and love and able to keep us under control.

It made no sense for the disciples to fear that day… and it makes even less sense for us having been illuminated and changed by the power of the Spirit of the Living God.

Transition:

So let’s try to synthesize what we have learned today and figure out what it means for us.

Conclusion:

[Slide 16 (blank) (end)] We all know that it is by grace we are saved through faith. Meaning of course that God acts on our behalf to grant us favor that we did not and could not earn. That is how our salvation is achieved. Therefore it is of God. That grace is given or imputed to us through faith. Faith is pipe by which God’s grace is delivered to us.

But what is clear in the pages of the gospels and specifically Matthew, is that this is no run of the mill, bargain barrel pipe. This faith is a faith that can move mountains. It is a faith that can conquer fear. It is a faith that considers the cost and pays it gladly.

The Kind of faith that saves is a faith that recreates you. It is reckless. It is wild. It is devastating. This is the faith that sleeps on the boat during a catastrophic storm. It is the faith that finds power in the pain, gives love through the tears, and is self controlled though the battle rages around them. It is a faith that would forsake country, family, friend, comfort, power and honor if asked to do so. It is a faith that is focused and single-minded on Jesus and Only Jesus.

But in a Christian climate where any old faith will do, these teachings are cast aside in favor of seeing the wisdom of the teacher, and not the wisdom of the teaching.

Jesus through riddles, parables, and difficult expressions is leading us to the truth about His mission. And it was to show us what it means to follow Him. But I fear we have cheapened it.

Jesus came to change destinies not destinations. He came to transform not simply transport. He came to kill off sin and raise up His righteousness in us.

Do you see a growing hatred and sorrow over you sin? Do you see a growing thirst for righteousness? Is your faith what determines how you live, or is it your fears?

What do we do with a message like this today – I think the most basic thing to do is to examine ourselves to see if we entered the right gate. Did it cost us something to get in? We must examine ourselves to see if we are on the right path. Is living the Christian life an easy life for you? Finally I think we need to examine ourselves to see if our faith overrules our fears. Because our theology should govern our experience, not the other way round. When was the last time you wept over life not matching faith and begging God to keep you centered on His truth no matter what you feel.

But all too often we allow our fear, our anger, our rage, our sadness and our selfishness to rule over what we say we believe. God cannot possibly love us because we are in this situation. That’s Blasphemy! How dare we question God’s love because we are suffering! God can’t possibly be in control because I lost my job. Hersey! How dare we blaspheme for something as petty as a forced career change.

Jesus is giving us a portrait of His Kingdom, and who live there. Is it you?

There are many things that keep men from Him. Fear, family, comfort and peace are only a few that we saw today. Next week we’ll see another big one.

But for today – ask yourself – are your eyes fixed on the King? Or have they been diverted by a soft couch or tired knees? Are you running toward the finish line? Or have you stopped to check your balance at the ATM? Are you trusting the Spirit of power, love and self control within you, or are you afraid of all the storms around you?

Kingdom citizens have one pursuit and it is their King. And nothing else matters. If that is untrue of you today. Maybe you should speak to God about that. Put aside these silly things. And follow your King. Maybe, for some of you, it will be the first time.

Title: The Healer Behind the Healing Part 2

Text: Matthew 8:14-17 and Isaiah 53

FCF: We often seek healing and miracles and not the God of the healing.

Prop: Jesus has power and authority over all that plagues humanity, so we must depend on Jesus – only Jesus.

Scripture Intro:

[Slide 1] Turn in your bible to Matthew chapter 8. I must confess to you that I was frustrated this week, preparing this sermon. First of all it was extremely short. Especially by comparison to the first part of this message. Secondly, the brunt of the really hard hitting and insightful parts of this message were again, in the first part of the sermon. So I was really melancholy about it until Thursday. It was then that I realized that last week, was a long and draining sermon… really a long and draining day for me and probably for you too. So having a shorter sermon, that rather than leave you with Questions to ask yourself, leave you instead with worship on your lips, perhaps that is exactly the sermon we need today. Now since this is a part 2, let’s review where we have been.

If you remember, Jesus encountered two individuals in his travels around Galilee. A leper, whom Jesus healed by touching. And a centurion’s servant, who Jesus healed with a word. The leper who showed humility, faith, even surrender, after being healed he did not obey what Jesus had told him to do. The centurion also showed humility, faith and surrender, but obeyed what Jesus had commanded and trusted Christ to have healed his servant. What we really camped on last time, was the reason behind why these two individuals, among many others, came to Jesus. We saw how most of them, even those coming in faith, came to get something from Him. But what we were challenged with last time was to see the healer behind the healing. We saw how God uses our selfishness against us to draw us to Himself, but the more we see of His word and His glory the more we understand that all that he offers us pales in comparison to the true prize that awaits His followers, and that is His own glorious presence. We concluded by asking ourselves the question – if He gave you heaven, but wasn’t there, if He forgave your sin, but you would never see Him again, would you be ok with that? Or would you throw it aside and declare – I don’t want heaven if you aren’t there! Is your prayer give me Jesus and only Jesus? And today we will further explore this concept, and see that this is in fact, exactly what Matthew is driving at. He isn’t telling us a remarkable story, or showing us an example to follow – He is putting on display the Chosen Servant of God who came to bear our shame and disgrace, not as the endgame, but as a means to get to God being glorified. I’m in verse 14 of chapter 8 and I’ll be reading from the NET please follow along in whatever version you prefer.

Sermon Intro:

[Slide 2] Magic has a saying. “A magician never reveals the secret of his tricks.” I think I know the reason for that. You see I am a magician. Let me rephrase that I do magic. Let me be more specific – to my nephews, nieces, and daughters, I am the single greatest slight of hand magician that they have ever seen. Granted, I just may be the only slight of hand magician they have ever seen. But I am still the best. But someday, one of them is bound to figure out that I never put the object in the hand that it disappeared from. From there it is a short leap to figuring out that expanding my empty hand in front of their face to show that it had disappeared, is simply a ploy to distract them from me putting it in my pocket. When that day comes, it will be a little sad, because they’ll find out that I am just a huge fake. And I think that is why a magician never reveals his secrets. Because once they do, the magic stops. All that is left, is a clever, trick.

Oftentimes when we see the man behind the curtain or the strings suspending the actor – it is a huge let down. Why? Because we came expecting to be dazzled. Amazed. Mystified. And we didn’t get what we wanted.

[Slide 3 In a similar way, I fear that many who come to Christ for what they can get from him, will be sorely disappointed when they find who the healer is behind the healing. Where am I getting that from? Mainly, from the pages of the gospels. So many came to him for healing, for knowledge, vindication and even salvation, and what they found as they approached this meek and mild man, was that there was a Omnipotent God behind those eyes. That what He offered was hope – but not the way they wanted. And many went away, some got what they came for, others did not, but many went away without getting what He wanted them to have.

[Slide 4] Today Matthew will make it clear that Christ performed these miracles for a reason. It wasn’t simply because He wanted to show them compassion. He was attempting to show them… Himself – The answer to the problem, they didn’t know they had.

Transition:

Look with me in verse 14.

I.) Jesus has power and authority over disease regardless of the faith of the healed, so we must depend on Him. (14-15)

a. [Slide 5] 14 – Now Jesus entered Peter’s house, he saw his mother in law lying down sick with a fever

i. Mother-in-law – Very little is mentioned of the families of the disciples. Of course some of them were related to one another. However, although it is not mentioned anywhere else in scripture, we see here clearly that Peter currently was or at least had been married before.

ii. Interestingly enough, the Catholic Church believes that Peter was their first Pope, and yet they maintain that clergy must be celibate.

iii. Lying down – The word here, although translated similarly across most translations, does indicate something a bit more traumatic than simply lying down. It communicates the idea of something being thrown down violently.

iv. So although it seems like she would be resting from a fever, it seems instead that this could be a life threatening illness. Some have suggested malaria.

b. [Slide 6] 15 – He touched her hand, and the fever left her. Then she got up and began to serve them.

i. Unlike the previous two examples, Jesus did not wait for an expression of faith or dependence on Him to act. Instead he simply touched her to heal her of the fever.

1. Common Grace – We see Christ choosing to show love and grace to those who may or may not depend on Him as their Lord. God also allows rain to fall on the crops of the unsaved and the saved.

2. Sovereignty - In this we see the sovereignty of Christ, in that He is not governed to act only by faith or dependence on Him. As we had seen from the Leper, who’s faith was suspect, the faith of the individual does not seem to matter. Only the will of Christ.

3. Lastly, this puts a good sized hole in the boat of the faith healing movement. They site that when someone is not healed of their malady it is due to their lack of faith. We have seen the leper, who’s faith was questionable, and now Peter’s mother in Law, who’s faith was unavailable. And yet, at the will of Christ, she was healed. God’s will is not inhibited nor is it provoked by man’s faith.

ii. Another interesting tidbit here is so far Jesus has healed a leper (an outcast) a gentile’s servant (an outcast) and now, a woman (also an outcast). These three people groups were part of the lowest of the low in society.

Transition:

[Slide 7] Now we could stop here and apply this text to say that we too must go to the outcast in society. And that would be a perfectly legitimate application to make. However, I don’t think that is the application that Matthew intends us to arrive at. I think He has something else He would have us see. Let’s keep looking for it.

II.) Jesus has power and authority over affliction from the spiritual realm, so we must depend on Him. (16-17)

a. [Slide 8] 16 – When it was evening, many demon-possessed people were brought to him. He drove out the spirits with a word, and healed all who were sick.

i. Demonic possession is actually a poor way to understand exactly what this phrase means. I think when we hear demon possession, many images are conjured in our minds. Most of them include a person being 100% displaced and controlled by a demon.

ii. The more accurate way to see demon possession is instead that a demon has taken up residence in the person. Now in the New Testament this produces a wide range of side effects. From insanity, deafness, blindness, muteness, incredible strength and physical affliction.

iii. From each example of this occurring in scripture where it is demon possession and not simply demon oppression, it is clear that in each occasion the affected person is an unbeliever, or at least their spiritual status is not known to us.

iv. He also heals those who are sick around him too. This paints an interesting dichotomy between physical ailments and demonic possession. At that time and even enduring to today, there was a philosophy that equated all physical ailments with demonic influence.

1. If you had an ear infection, then you had a demon in your ear.

2. If you had a fever, then you had a demon in your head.

3. Even to today, there are those who would say that a demon is responsible for the physical sicknesses we are enduring. Even going so far as to rebuke the demon for healing.

4. Matthew separates the effect of demon possession and sickness.

v. Finally, as we alluded to before, Matthew has a point to get to. He is not giving us a bunch of wonderful healing stories just so we can see that Jesus was a pretty nice guy.

vi. No, He healed spiritual ailments and physical ailments for a reason, but what was it?

b. [Slide 9] 17 – In this way what was spoken by Isaiah the prophet was fulfilled. “He took our weaknesses and carried our diseases”

i. Jesus fulfills – or makes complete the prophesy made by the prophet Isaiah.

ii. In other words, Jesus healed these people out of compassion, but primarily to fulfill what was in Isaiah 53.

iii. Let’s go there to find out why Jesus healed these people. Let’s start in chapter 52:13 and read and point out some things as we go about this text.

1. [Slide 10] 52:13 – Pretty self explanatory – but…

2. [Slide 11] 14-15 –That his exaltation would actually be something horrific as well as something excellent. And it will be something that the nations will only figure out after the fact. Next The prophet comments on his own conundrum

3. [Slide 12] 53:1 –With the supposed answer of – we can’t remember when?

4. [Slide 13] 2-3 –He would be despised and rejected, considered an undesirable. An outcast

5. [Slide 14] 4-5 – And yet he lifted illness, carried pain, This is the quote from Matthew by the way. Now the Hebrew is grief and anguish. From New Testament eyes we see that this is probably referring to sin and wrath – but Matthew uses the exact words to refer to Jesus’ healing ministry

6. What people thought was his punishment for his own sin, was actually his punishment for bearing ours.

7. [Slide 15] 6 – We… We dumb sheep that don’t even know how to protect ourselves. We wander from the safety of the shepherd. Our sin, has become the catalyst for all that befalls this promised servant of God.

8. [Slide 16-17] 7-9 - Amid his harsh treatment, he uttered no words, like a lamb himself led away for slaughter, he was silent, his trial was lacking justice, but no one called for a mistrial, he was killed, WHY? Because of the rebellion of the other sheep. His own people. Their betrayal led to his execution. They wanted to bury him as a criminal in a criminal’s grave, but instead a rich man’s tomb would be used. He did not earn a sentence of death, nor burial as a criminal. Why? Why would God allow such a fate to befall His servant?

9. [Slide 18] 10 – It was God who willed it to happen! God crushed His own servant. God made the servant sick with wrath. So something greater could come of it. And the next phrase is incredibly difficult to translate. Mainly because the way the Hebrew words are written, it leaves a great bit of ambiguity regarding the subject of all this. The NET actually translates it “once restitution is made” which keeps the subject unknown. But we could also be left with 3 legitimate translations for the next line [Slide 19]

a. When You make His soul a guilt offering – The you would go back to God, and it is God who is making the very soul, not just the body and blood, but the very being of this servant an offering for personal sin. God makes the offering on our behalf.

b. When His Soul makes a guilt offering – This emphasizes the very life of the servant becoming THE guilt offering of His people. In place of an offering they could not provide.

c. When you make His soul a guilt offering – The you here, would address, not God, but the preacher, or all those in audience of this offering being made available. In other words, when you, sinner, take this soul that has been broken and apply it as your own guilt offering.

d. But which one is it? Can I submit to you that Isaiah probably didn’t even know. Because it is all three. God using Hebrew language loopholes to maximize writing space and communicate three truths in one. God is the provider of the offering, The offering is the broken life of His servant, and that offering is applied by us for our sins.

10. [Slide 20] And when this offering is applied, the servant will see His descendants, live forever, and He will be raised up again by the Lord.

11. [Slide 21-22] 11 -12 – Summery statement – out of the anguish of the one servant of God, the servant will see what he has done and he will be satisfied. His work will acquit many of their sins because He bore them Himself. Because He did this, God will raise Him up.

c. [Slide 23 (blank)[ Now I have a question. It is obvious that Matthew is identifying this suffering servant in Isaiah 53 as Jesus. That this servant is the Messiah that God has promised – of that, even Jews would have agreed, but specifically that this servant and Jesus are the same. He is Jesus Christ (the Greek word for Anointed one or Messiah – not his last name) So for those of you who thought the question was going to be who is the servant… my question is a little more challenging.

d. What is also obvious is that Isaiah 53 was written to Israel, specifically Judah during a time of great difficulty and coming exile. That this chapter was written to give them hope and inform them of God’s redemptive plan for them and all mankind is not debated. But here is my question.

e. [Slide 24] What is the significance of Jesus fulfilling this prophesy immediately after the Sermon on the Mount?

f. Matthew is making it clear to every single Jewish reader, that Jesus is the one that they have been expecting. And His power over demons and disease is small compared to his power and authority over sin and death.

g. And after the sermon on the mount, A sermon where the people should have been following Him and asking “Jesus! HOW CAN THIS BE?” A sermon He gave to draw them to Himself. To guide them to Him as the answer to the burning questions they SHOULD HAVE HAD! Now Matthew points out, that immediately after this, Jesus goes into His healing ministry. Why? Not to show us the grandness of the healing. It is not to give us the compassionate character of Christ or even to give us an example to follow.

h. It is totally fine for us to conclude that we must be compassionate like Christ was. It is totally fine for us to marvel at the glory of Christ’s healings of these people.

i. [Slide 25 (end)] But the primary purpose of Matthew writing what He just did, is because Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the Living God. Who can command the forces of darkness to leave, and they leave, and rebuke sickness and certain death, and they obey. And the bearing of our illness was accomplished, so that He might show to all the world that He is the Suffering Servant that would come and die for all mankind to be set free from sin.

j. He healed these men and women to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that He was the missing link between the perfect standard of God and their utter failure to be perfect. He was the guilt offering and worthy to be exalted! But…

Transition:

They missed it. And if we are not careful we will Miss it too! They had a 700 year old document telling them about His coming, and we have a 2000 year old one saying the same thing.

Conclusion:

For all those who are trying to earn your way to heaven through diligence and discipline. For all those who have decided that all roads lead to God and whether you are Buddhist or Baptist we will still find our way. For all who think that Jesus was a great prophet, a great teacher, a great example, and a great ticket to a painless heaven, I want you to listen to me. Jesus healed people with a word and a touch. If he can say to someone that their servant is healed and they are healed. If he can say to the demonized be emptied and the demon obeys. If he can touch incurable disease or life threatening maladies and cast them out. If the forces of nature physical and spiritual are under his control. Then, Jesus is this servant, prophesied about over 700 years prior to appearing, who will bear the sin and shame of all mankind. He isn’t just a great prophet. He isn’t just a wonderful teacher. He isn’t just a good example for us to follow. He isn’t a ticket to heaven. He is all of these things but also none of them if He is not first and primarily the second person of the Godhead, King of Kings, Lord of Lords.

Why does that matter to you?

Because if He is this servant, this exalted one of God – Then He is far more than society has made him out to be. He came in meekness already but soon He will come in judgment. And if He is all that He claimed to be, and that proved He was, then you will one day stand before Him. And if you have not made his soul a guilt offering for you, then you will be judged for the wicked heart you possess, because you will have only one offering to lay on the alter - yourself. And in that time there will be no mercy and no grace. In that time there will only be justice. In that time you will beg Him to send you to hell to get away from His Burning presence. Because in that day, make no mistake, though you have only seen Him meek and mild, you will see Him sitting at the right hand of God, adorned in glory and splendor, girded with power, and you will bow and confess that He is Lord of all as He says DEPART – YOU LAWLESS ONE.

You say “well, what can I do about it?” Nothing. You are without hope in and of yourself.

“No seriously, what can I do, change my ways, turn over a new leaf, start over?” Nope. None of that will matter. Putting aside the fact that no one can actually ever truly change to be perfect as God demands, all that is moot because your sin debt is too great to try to work it off now. You are in too deep.

“Isn’t there a prayer I can pray or a list of facts I can believe?” No. None of that will save you. But there is someone who can. The healer behind the healing can save you. If you want Him… that is a good place to start. If you are seeking Him and only Him, regardless of the cost to you – find me after the service. We’ll talk!

Now for those who are genuinely seeking Christ.

Last week we talked about why we seek Him. We asked ourselves some hard questions about whether we’d still want heaven if he wasn’t there. Whether we’d still want forgiveness if it meant absence from His presence. Challenging questions to help us understand that Jesus is the good news. Not what we get from Him.

So today we see this passage with a unique perspective. We see, not someone who we need proven to us that he is King, Messiah and Lord... but one that we have already given up our lives to follow. So we see our dynamic King displaying his authority and power. With spoken words and light touches he is able to chase away all that plagues mankind. And in doing this He proves over and over again to be the Suffering Servant from Isaiah. The servant that by laying His life down, he brought down our wickedness and by God raising Him to life, he raised us into a new life too. Because we are in Him. Our Hope is in Him. Our lives are in Him. Our existence is in Him. We, TRULY, depend on Him.

Our response today then, is simply praise. I’d ask the praise team to come on up again.

We are going to spend a little more time praising the power, majesty, glory and honor of our great King.

How could this not be our response? How could we remain silent when His works are so vividly on display today?

So we will praise Him! Let’s stand and praise Him!

Title: Church Discipline

Text: Galatians 5:22-6:10; II Timothy 3:10-17; Matthew 18: 15-22; II Thessalonians 3:6-15; I Corinthians 5:1-13

FCF: In an age of love, tolerance, and relativity, it is difficult for us to rigidly apply church discipline as Christ tells us to.

Prop: Because Church Discipline is absolutely necessary for the purity of the gospel, we must practice church discipline.

Scripture Intro:

[Slide 1] Turn in your bible to Matthew 18 – not 8 – chapter 18. If you have been here for any length of time, you know a few things about me, the direction we are going with this ministry, and the overall commitment we have to the truth of God’s Word, and living by that Word. These three items will collide today in what will be a difficult sermon for me to give you.

First because you know me, you know that I would not preach a topical message unless I thought it was absolutely necessary to do so.

Second, because you know that the church leadership has been trying to re-develop a strong and unyielding commitment to doing what God’s word instructs us to do.

Lastly, because you know that the church leadership, from preaching to teaching, has been trying to emphasize that the gospel is not about choosing between heaven or hell but between holiness or death.

All this adds up to us exploring a topic that is somewhat, uncomfortable. It is unpopular. It is neglected or ignored in most churches. And even the churches that do practice what we are going to talk about today, do it poorly, incompletely, or contrary to scripture. I am in Matthew 18 and I will begin reading in verse 15. I will be reading from the NET but follow along in whatever version you prefer.

Sermon Intro:

[Slide 2] We live in an age of tolerance, love and moral relativity. The moral compass of man is broken when he is conceived. Mankind is not good. They are not relatively good. They aren’t even relatively wicked. Men are desperately wicked.

All that has been turned upside down. Our world claims that men are good and that they are trustworthy to make their own decisions. Not just in the decisions that have no moral charge like what color shirt to wear or which protein to add to their meal – but even in moral decisions, because men are basically good, they are able to morally guide their own lives. But what happens when two men, who are good, disagree on a moral decision? That is when our world has concluded that the moral truth in question gains morality only to the person deciding. In other words – what is wrong for one person can be right for another. Indeed, they must conclude this, because they have already believed the doctrine of humanism. So to say that one man is wrong in his moral conclusion violates a core teaching of their faith. And as if that wasn’t mixed up enough… they add tolerance to the mix. Not only can there be different conclusions of what is true and morally pure – but we cannot punish, judge or otherwise shame any person who has chosen a different moral right than you. You must tolerate them. And even this will evolve, and is already, to eventually be that wrong will be called right and right will be called wrong.

I praise God today that He DID NOT TOLERATE MY SIN. I praise God that He gave us a book telling me, like a mirror, you are WRONG. You are out of order. You are messed up! I praise God that His Word is absolute truth. And in it we find a rigid moral expectation of all people.

Truth is not relative it is written.

Love is not natural it is chosen.

And tolerance for those who stand opposed to God’s Truth will eventually be denied.

[Slide 3] So in the church, as we are surrounded by teaching about love, moral relativity and tolerance, we are ALWAYS being tempted to incorporate such philosophies into our practice. But when we come to such passages in scripture, and we see intolerance. We see love through discipline. We see moral certainty… we say – surely not God. [Slide 4] Surely you would not have us kick people out of church? We have an epidemic right now of people not coming to church and you want us to kick others out? And in these statements we reveal yet another thing that we have gotten mixed up on. Because church is not a thing you come to it is a thing that you ARE.

[Slide 5] You see by what we are – we represent the gospel to a lost and dying world. But when people claim to be one of us, that do not live as though they are, the gospel is tarnished. And friend the gospel’s purity is more important than any person in this room. And one way to keep it pure is to keep the church pure through Church Discipline.

Transition:

[Slide 6] But what is Church Discipline. It sounds serious and indeed it is. It sounds confrontational. It can be. It sounds bad… Oh but it can be immeasurably good too. So what is church discipline, well for starters, we must turn to Hebrews 12. Verse 4-13. I should warn you that we will be doing a lot of reading today. So have your fingers ready. We will not look at single verses today. I want to make sure to give the context of each passage we go to. And in a section talking about Living a life of faith, the writer of Hebrews has this reminder of what it means to be a child of God.

I.) Church Discipline should be a normal means by which sinning Christians can be restored to spiritual victory or by which the church can be purified of pretending Christians, So we must practice Church Discipline.

a. What is it?

i. Training by means of correction

1. From God –Hebrews 12:4-13 [Slide 7-11]

2. From Leaders God has ordained – Hebrews 13:17-18 [Slide12-13]

ii. It is corrective discipleship.

b. [Slide 14 What it is not

i. [Slide 15A] Not a negative term – not even really a feared thing – painful… yes, but good

ii. [Slide 15B] Not for retribution –

1. The bible tells us not to stand in judgment over others

2. Therefore it is not a single person that decides whether or not church discipline goes to its final step, but an ever growing group of people who corroborate the same findings about the person in question.

3. The goal toward the sinning party is not to humiliate the person but to restore them through fear, Shame, and love.

a. Fear of God

b. Shame of sin

c. Love of God given upon genuine repentance

iii. [Slide 15C] Not abnormal to occur in churches

1. Church discipline should not be something abnormal in church

2. When we say church discipline, of course, many run to the final step when someone is excommunicated from the fellowship. Which is unfortunate.

3. Counseling is Church discipline. Correcting your children if they are believers, is church discipline. Any time you rebuke another person for a sin they have committed, that is you exercising church discipline.

4. Therefore, church discipline, in all its steps, ought to be a regular occurrence.

iv. [Slide 15D] Not only for big sins

1. Many falsely conclude that it is only big sins that need to be addressed.

2. Actually, the bible addresses anything from small offenses among brothers all the way to sexual immorality.

3. The implication is that there is actually no sin that is too small or too big to be taken all the way to the final step of church discipline if necessary.

4. Why?

5. Because the issue is never the sin itself… it is the unrepentant heart. A genuine follower of Christ make a lifestyle of repentance. So if that is absent from a person who claims Christ – Something is not right.

v. [Slide 15E] It is NEVER for issues of preference

1. Biblical church discipline is not used to enforce matters of preference or tradition

2. Biblical church discipline is not used to force someone to conform to a certain standard that is not explicitly advanced in scripture

3. Church Discipline exists ONLY to confront, expose, and correct someone in sin, or someone promoting false doctrine.

c. [Slide 16] Why is it needed? – Galatians 5:22-6:5

i. [Slide 17-18] The Fruit of the Spirit – Ultimately our goal is to be Spirit controlled people. When we are, we produce this fruit (singular) in our lives. 5:22-26

ii. [Slide 19] The overwhelmed Believer – However, occasionally we are overtaken by ambush or by slow slide 6:1

iii. [Slide 20-21] The Spirit of the corrector – 6:1-5

1. Gentleness and meekness

2. Caution

3. Fulfilling the law of Christ

4. Humility

iv. Restored to being able to produce the fruit again – 6:5

d. [Slide 22] What is its purpose?

i. [Slide 23A] Many have claimed that the purpose of church discipline is to restore the sinning believer. This is not entirely accurate. If this was THE purpose of church discipline then it makes little sense why God would command us to excommunicate them from the church. How can we restore them if we are cutting off contact? Wouldn’t we increase contact? Wouldn’t we wish to be around them even more? Wouldn’t we just smother them in attention and love and pursue them until we had them back? In fact many churches treat church discipline like this. People get more attention from their church family when they are wayward than when they are faithful.

ii. [Slide 23B] But can I submit to you that the primary purpose of Church Discipline is not about us at all. [Slide 23C] Instead it is about keeping the gospel pure, by keeping the church pure.

iii. Indeed, if this is the primary purpose of church discipline, we see that the restoration of the sinner is merely a means to that end. But if that fails, there is but one other option. And that is excommunication or literally a breaking of fellowship.

Transition:

[Slide 24] But in this we must recognize our own sin bent heart. Because if church purity is the goal, then our natural impulse would be to excommunicate people left and right. We naturally do not give people as much mercy as we allot ourselves. So God gave us a rather lengthy process to go through to both keep the church pure, but also keep us from making hasty and unmerciful decisions. This process is full of mercy and compassion but is guaranteed to render results.

II.) Church Discipline is a highly detailed and exhaustive process full of love and mercy and guaranteed render final results, so we must practice Church Discipline.

a. [Slide 25] What is the process? Galatians 6:5; II Timothy 3:10-17; Matthew 18:15-22;

i. [Slide 26] Step 0 – Self Discipline - Gal 6:5 and II Tim 3:10-17

1. The first step in church discipline isn’t church discipline at all. It is self-discipline. The Spirit guides us through the Word, confronting our inconsistencies. We continue to repent and continue to depend on and surrender to Christ as we live out the fruit of the Spirit.

2. The goal is to be people who can carry our own burdens in Christ. In the Spirit. READ

3. [Slide 27-30] Paul tells Timothy to press on and follow His example by using the Word of God to be taught what is true about God and himself so he can see his own wickedness and repent of it. So that He can instead follow what God would have him to be and continue on that path with discipline. Until he is a man that lacks in no area, and is fully equipped to do all God asks of him.

4. No third party is needed. Just Timothy and the Word of God.

5. Personal growth, discipleship and bible study are absolutely invaluable. In most cases, if a believer studied God’s Word, repented when they needed to, corrected their behavior when they needed to, and continued to, as Paul put it, beat their bodies into subjection – then Church Discipline would rarely be needed.

6. Occasionally though, we are caught off guard.

a. Either we are ambushed, and suddenly find ourselves in a situation of great temptation that we were not prepared to handle. Or

b. We are slowly lulled into a state of security and before we know it, we are ensnared.

7. That is why church discipline exists. And it starts with Personal, Crisis Discipleship.

ii. [Slide 31] Step 1 – Personal Crisis Discipleship – Matthew 18:15

1. In this section of Matthew, Jesus is speaking exclusively to attempt to answer the question posed to him by his disciples in verse 1. Who is the greatest in the kingdom? He has already answered this in chapter 5 – those who obey the least command in the law and teach others to do so also. Specifically what follows is Jesus describing character traits of Kingdom citizens.

2. Compassion and forgiveness balanced with commitment to godly living is one trait of a Christ follower which is demonstrated by the process of Church Discipline. So let’s read verse 15.

3. [Slide 32] One on one

4. The witness of the believer committing the sin goes to the them to show them their fault.

5. And as we saw in Galatians, They do so humbly and in the Spirit. Demonstrating the fruit of the Spirit – in meekness.

6. If the offender confesses their sin, rejects it, and surrenders to follow Christ recklessly uprooting the sin from their life… you have gained a brother.

7. The process ends. Until the next time they sin. If it is in the same way or different, the process starts over since they showed fruit of repentance.

8. What if they say that what they did is not a sin?

a. What if they argue that the bible doesn’t mean what I am saying it means?

b. What if they say that they have liberty to do such a thing?

c. That is why there are more steps than just 1 before they are excommunicated.

9. If they do not repent.

a. They refuse to reject their sinful choice.

b. They express guilt but produce NO fruit of repentance.

10. If they do not repent, we go on to step 2. Small Group Counseling.

iii. [Slide 33] Step 2 – Small Group Counseling – Matthew 18:16

1. [Slide 34] Two or three witnesses come along to witness the confrontation.

2. They are there to provide witness to the proceedings and evidence of the offender’s repentance or lack of repentance.

3. It is implied that the two or three witnesses go with the first person who did the confronting. The circle expands.

4. The witnesses confirm the original confronter’s assessment that such activity was sin or they could potentially deny it seeing it as a matter of preference or opinion.

5. Assuming they side with the confronter, they plead with and counsel the offender to repent and return. If they repent and show fruit of repentance, even if it is small, then you have won your brother.

a. Small fruit of repentance must include a rejection of the sin and attempts to live a holy lifestyle in Christ no matter what the cost

b. Small fruit has less to do with success and more to do with the heart.

i. When someone is repentant, they are sorrowful over their sin

ii. When someone is repentant they are humble and desiring righteousness

iii. When someone is repentant they recklessly trust in the Spirit to obey

iv. These are fruit of repentance. Therefore repentance is not simply stopping the sin – but a change of heart.

6. If, however, they do not repent, or show no fruit of repentance, the process continues to An added measure of mercy and unity.

iv. [Slide 35] Step 3 - An added measure of mercy and unity – No where…

1. While the bible does not include this step, it is probably wise to interpret this as a pre-church era command. Pre dating church leadership as a whole.

2. Adding mercy is certainly not unwise.

3. So the offender would be brought before the church leadership rather than the entire church.

4. Another good reason for this to be done is to insure that the church leaders are united. Having a split governing board may cause more issues. To prevent this, this added step can be easily implemented.

5. The board, the two or three witnesses, and the original confronter are all a part of this confrontation.

6. If they refuse to repent, or show no fruit of repentance, it carries on to the Fourth step. Which is Family Rebuke and Counsel.

v. [Slide 36] Step 4 – Family Rebuke and Counsel – Matthew 18:17

1. [Slide 37] Tell it to the church

2. The sum total of the church membership is made aware of the offender’s sin. The original confronter, the two or three witnesses, the church leadership all give account of their dealings.

3. The offender is invited and encouraged to attend this public service. And even encouraged to give an account.

4. If the offender does not repent, then the process progresses to one of two ends that we will talk about next

b. [Slide 38] What is the guaranteed end? - Matthew 18:17c; I Corinthians 5:1-10; II Thessalonians 3:14-15

i. If they are genuinely saved

1. Treat them like a gentile and tax collector - They are handed over to Satan, so their flesh may be destroyed but soul saved. Remove them from among you–

a. [Slide 39] So we are to treat him as a gentile and tax collector – the short version of this is to treat them as though they were never part of the community of Christ.

b. Flipping over to I Corinthians 5 now, in context we see Paul correcting various problems in the Corinthian Church. One of which is a distorted view of love and tolerance to allow a man who is sleeping with his father’s wife (step-mother probably) to remain in the church. Paul confronts this issue head on and paintas us a picture of what treating someone like a tax collector and gentile looks like. Let’s read verses 1-5 of I Corinthians 5.

c. [Slide 40-42] I Cor 5:1-5 Some say that this would mean that his flesh as in his sin nature would be destroyed

d. Others would say that it is referring to his physical protection would be removed.

e. I support the latter simply because Paul says turn him over to Satan. If the sin nature is to be destroyed he must be turned over to Christ not Satan. But we all know from Job that Satan can receive power to afflict our bodies.

f. Thus, the excommunication of a church member is not simply excluding them from the local church, but excluding them from the universal assembly of believers and the protection of God.

g. They are treated as if they were never a part of the community of Christ, and thrown back to the world of which they seem to desire, and if they are genuine believers, they will be exposed to the providential judgment of God as he allows Satan to destroy their entire life so there may yet be a chance for them to return before God's final judgment.

h. In other words, God is going scorched earth on them. He will not allow them to further defame His name. And He will do all that He must to prevent that

i. Achan

ii. Annanias and Saphira

iii. Corinthians who got drunk at Communion

i. Turn with me now to II Thessalonians 3:14-15

2. They are admonished as brothers – II Thessalonians 3:14-15

a. Paul is encouraging the church of Thessolonica to continue to stand firm in their faith against persecution. In that they may be tempted to let those living ungodly lifestyles to continue among them because they do not want to chase people off. Indeed, Paul reveals that he knows that there are some who call themselves believers but are not working and instead are mooching off the church. Paul then commands those claiming brothers to work for their wage and earn their keep. Then to the leadership of the church he has this to say. Look in verse 14.

b. [Slide 43] We are not to closely associate with them. We don’t play a round of golf or go out to the movies with them. We don’t invite them over to our homes for a board game night.

c. But they are also not our enemy. We don’t say good riddance or shun them. We don’t give them the silent treatment or never contact them.

d. Neither friend nor foe. They are a mission.

e. But we are to admonish them like a brother – or warn them as if they are a believer.

f. So we treat them as though they are unsaved, but when we speak to them about their sin, we do so as if they were a brother. In other words expecting them to yield to the authority of scripture and being compassionate and loving toward them.

3. [Slide 44] They will repent

a. Jude 24-25

b. Philippians 1:3-11

c. His true children never stay fallen away. He is much too sovereign to allow that to happen.

ii. [Slide 45] But if they were never genuinely saved…

1. They re-enter the world system and are like a fish to water. Now they do not have to pretend anymore. There may even be a sense of relief. And…

2. According to Hebrews 6 – they will probably never return.

Transition:

[Slide 46 (blank)(end)] So now that we have seen what Church Discipline is, and how important it is, what then must we do?

Conclusion:

I will tell you what we will do. Because we are a church who clings to the Word of God. Because we believe that it is the authoritative infallible words of the only living God, creator of the universe. Because we have submitted to following His Word with reckless abandon. Because we know that God demands that His followers live a life of repentance and belief, self-denial and surrender. I tell you that Columbus Baptist Church will practice Church Discipline. That is not a threat to fear the church leadership, it is a promise so that we all fear God.

Why do you need to know this?

Because you need to know that we a church leaders will not let the gospel be tarnished by any person’s life of disobedience. And we expect our church membership to desire the same for us. No person’s dignity is worth allowing sin to fester here. We will keep this church pure by removing all that pollutes it.

But I want to tell you another reason that you need to know that we will do this.

We will not abandon those that we once called brother to the darkness of sin. We will not cede our friends to their own wicked lusts. We will not desert those who once fought alongside us, so they can be brutally destroyed by their own flesh and the lies of this world. We will not allow sin to go unchecked here, because we will not allow you to face the judgment of God without doing everything we possibly can to turn you back. And again, as church leaders, we hope you would do the same for us.

You say well I am a believer, I am a member of the body of Christ… what does this mean for me? How do I live based on this?

If you know of someone who is living in sin. You cannot allow them to continue. In meekness, love and humility – RESTORE THEM! A moment of embarrassment in private is a worthy trade to one more day lived opposed to God’s Kingdom.

And Know that if you can’t get through to that person that others will help.

And know that if we can’t get through to them that God can providentially through pain and heartache lead them back to Himself.

And when we do this… when we execute church discipline to the final step, mourn. Mourn over the fact that either there is a brother who is going to go through hell on earth to be chased back to His King

Or

Mourn because the one you thought was a brother… was a beautiful coffin with dead men’s bones. Their faith was dead.

And pray for them either way. That God might providentially move quickly to bring the brother back – or that God would mercifully call the false brother to true conversion.

What would happen if we would do this?

I have two stories.

First is a story of a man and his wife who were, seemingly, the only two in an entire family, who wanted to live for Christ. They came to church each week. They had occasional issues martially, but not anything insurmountable. They had a couple of young kids, and brought them to AWANA and Sunday School.

All on the surface seemed fine – but they were hiding a secret.

Their home was filled with debauchery. A room away from where their children slept, the husband of that home engaged in adulterous relationships with prostitutes, while the wife of the home stood in full agreement.

They were confronted privately. Two or three witness were taken to confront them, but the husband attempted to defend his actions siting biblical examples of Old Testament saints that had many wives and concubines. They were brought before the church leadership to account for their actions, but they refused to come.

Finally, after many pleadings and urgings, they were disciplined out of the church. And they have not returned. And calamity did not strike them. They are still married. They still have two children. And to my knowledge. They still think they are believers.

The Second story is a similar one. Their family was attending a large church in the area. On the surface everything seemed fine. They were your average American church attender. Until one day, it was discovered that the husband was having an affair with his secretary.

His wife confronted him, but he told her that he did not love her anymore. That he loved this woman instead and that he wanted a divorce.

Three people stopped by the house the following week. The pastor and two elders of his church. They had a long talk, with many tears. The husband expressed regret for his actions and told the leadership that he would sever ties with the woman immediately.

A week later, his wife discovered, that the communication between him and the woman had not stopped. At that point the entire elder board was made aware of the issue. Each member of the elder board attempted to contact the man. However, he entrenched himself in his original position and would not stop communicating with this woman. He even started to defend his actions slandering his wife for all the bad things she had done to drive him to this.

Then the church met and invited him to attend a disciplinary meeting. He did not come. He was unanimously removed from the church.

For the next 15 years, this man lost everything. His marriage crumbled. The relationship with his secretary quickly disintegrated when it was not wrong or thrilling for them to be together any more.

Even though his wife was financially merciful to him in the divorce, he was already struggling financially due to some poor purchase decisions, when his job was sent overseas.

The process for looking for work was long and strenuous. He called his ex-wife a few times asking for financial help and to chat. By her pastor’s instruction she did give him some money to get him through the week, but did not speak long to him. The only words she said to Him was that Jesus’ name is still tarnished by his lifestyle choices. That He should repent and return to the Lord. He felt convicted by her words, but did not want to endure the shame it would be to return.

He managed to get a job in a factory but had to quit a few months later with difficulty breathing. It got so bad that he had to go to the doctor and it was there that he discovered that he had lung cancer. It was still early, but it was a very aggressive form and they had to begin treatment immediately.

As he sat in the doctors office enduring his second round of chemo, he had forgotten to bring a book. Thoughtlessly he looked in the drawer next to his bed and there lay a bible. Still feeling like he was a Christian he opened it up, quite thoughtlessly to Job. He read there about Job’s righteous heart being afflicted by Satan to prove that He was faithful to God.

He noticed that there was a footnote next to the section about God allowing Satan to harm Job. That footnote took him to 1st Corinthians 5.

He read about the incestuous man. He read about his flesh being handed over to Satan. All of a sudden he was overwhelmed. He saw that this man was him. It all came rushing at him at once. It was so heavy that he cried out NO! A nurse came rushing in to a weeping and broken man.

A week later he stood before the church and confessed his sin and asked for help to restore what he had broken.

He became good friends with his ex-wife again – but their marriage was never restored because she remarried.

He never went hungry but never got a job quite like he had prior to this.

And just a few years later, he died of the cancer that never went into remission.

But the breaking of this man by Satan, through the providential hand of God, ratified by the obedience of his church as they faithfully did what God had commanded them to do, led him to restoration.

We must trust the Lord and do as He has instructed with those who claim Christ, but refuse to live as the bible instructs.

Title: The Healer behind the Healing Part 1

Text: Matthew 8:1-13

FCF: We often seek healing and miracles and not the God of the healing.

Prop: Jesus has power and authority over all that plagues humanity, so we must depend on Jesus – only Jesus.

Scripture Intro:

[Slide 1] Turn in your bible to Matthew chapter 8. You know sometimes when I am trying to figure out how much scripture to select for a sermon I go over to Alistair Begg or John MacAruthur’s websites to see how they preached through each of these. When I went to Grace to You and saw that John MacArthur separated verses 1-17 into 3 sermons I thought to myself that He probably took that a little slower than he needed to. After dissecting this passage, I see now that he was actually blazing through it. Originally I planned to preach on 17 verses this morning. But we will be lucky to make it through 13 before you start looking at your watches.

I want to remind you of the structure of Matthew in that he has a section of narrative followed by a section of discourse. Events will transpire then Jesus will have a teaching time where only He is speaking. And always, the narrative of the following section, connects to the discourse of the previous section. So at the end of the Sermon on the Mount, we see Jesus claiming to be the judge and authority over the spiritual destiny of all mankind. Even the people recognized that he taught as if He had authority. Now we will see that power and authority demonstrated over the forces of the natural world. First, specifically today and next time, over the things that plague mankind.

We ended the Sermon on the Mount discussing the fact that people should have approached Jesus to ask Him more questions about this gospel. But they didn’t . What we will also see today is another danger, equally as devastating, which is not seeing the healer behind the healing. I’m in Matthew 8 and I’ll be reading in verse 1 from the ESV, but follow along in the version you prefer.

Transition:

[Slide 2] Due to the length and breadth of all we have to cover today, I’d like to jump right into the text this morning, with only this statement of introduction. Our take home point – the main body of all that we must apply today is simply this… We must depend on Jesus and only Jesus. We will see that this is the only inescapable conclusion after discovering both Jesus’ power and authority over incurable disease, and permanent bodily injury. First his power and authority over incurable disease.

I.) Jesus has power and authority over incurable disease, so we must depend on Jesus – only Jesus (1-4)

a. [Slide 3] 1 – When He came down from the mountain, great crowds followed Him.

i. Or rather they continued to follow Him.

ii. We already know that He was doing miracles in Jerusalem first then back in Galilee and people were following Him from all over the region. That is why He turned on the mountain and faced them on the plain to teach them the Sermon on the Mount.

iii. So after marveling over His authoritative teaching – they continue to follow Him.

iv. But the question is why. And we somewhat answered this question the last time we were in Matthew. They were following Him, for the show. Because they had illness that they needed to be healed.

b. [Slide 4] 2 – And behold, a leper came to him and knelt before him, saying, “Lord, if you will, you can make me clean.”

i. Leprosy was a broad term used to describe a number of different skin diseases. Some of which were mildly irritating fungal infections and others were highly contagious and deadly

ii. All of them would produce ceremonial uncleanness, and would require purification if and when they were healed.

iii. The Leper is an outcast in society. Excluded from the city. Even in a lower form of leprosy, according to Mosaic law, they would still be quarantined until the severity of their condition was determined. But I want you to notice the leper’s attitude when he comes to Christ.

1. He kneels. A sign of deep humility and worship. Adoration and love.

2. He calls Him Lord. Now this word can simply mean, sir. But in Matthew 7, we looked at Jesus’s phrase when he said many will come and say Lord, Lord – and we understood that this word can mean, and had come to mean by Jesus’ day, Master or King. Which is, I believe, exactly what the leper is meaning here.

3. He says, if you are willing – in absolute submission to the will of Christ, understanding that He is in ultimate sovereign control

4. Finally he doesn’t ask Jesus to heal him, but expresses his belief that Jesus can make him clean.

iv. The Leper humbled himself before Christ, called Him his Lord, surrendered to His will, and believed in the priestly ability of Jesus Christ to make him clean. A priestly ability that could only be given to him if He were the Messiah, since He was not in the line of Levi.

c. [Slide 5] 3 – And Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him, saying, “I will: be clean.” And immediately his leprosy was cleansed.

i. Jesus, as He will demonstrate in the next miracle, did not need to touch this man.

ii. In fact, according to the Mosaic law, to touch an unclean person was to make yourself also unclean.

iii. Nevertheless, Jesus touched him. Why?

iv. The law has been fulfilled in Him. He is the bridge from the old to the new covenant. He cannot be made unclean. By His wounds we are healed. What was once only ritual would, through Christ, become reality. All in Christ would be made clean forever.

d. [Slide 6] 4 – And Jesus said to him, “see that you say nothing to anyone, but go, show yourself to the priest and offer the gift that Moses commanded, for a proof to them”

i. Why would Jesus tell him not to say anything? Wouldn’t this have been an amazing demonstration of the divinity of Christ? Why hide it? There are a few possible explanations

1. He didn’t want the man to get distracted. There were ceremonial obligations that Christ has not come to destroy but to fulfill. Therefore the man would still need to be confirmed clean by the priests.

2. Perhaps if word got back to the priests that Jesus had healed him, prior to the man showing up for cleansing, that the priests would have lied to supplant Christ’s miracle.

3. Lastly, and I believe most likely, is that Jesus did not wish to be known as a miracle worker, or a political figure. He wanted to save men from sin, not sickness or oppression.

4. If word got around that Jesus could heal leprosy, which in its worst case was a death sentence, then His reputation would be tarnished. And people would seek Him for the wrong reasons.

Application:

[Slide 7] At this point I want to just step aside gracefully and comment on this. Is it possible to come to Jesus for the wrong reason and still get saved? Is it possible to come to Jesus for prosperity, wealth, health, happiness, fulfillment, encouragement, love or help? Is it possible to come to Jesus for what you can get from Him and not for what He wants to do to you, and still be saved? I believe the answer is quite obvious. And it will be proven when we get to Matthew 8:18 – Don’t look ahead yet stay with me…

The answer of course is both yes and no. The reason I say yes and no is simply this.

There are some who come to Jesus for what they can get from Him. They seek him for health, wealth, fulfillment and happiness. They seek him for heaven, blessing and love. But as they approach Him for those reasons, and they interact with His Word – they discover that health is not guaranteed to his followers, in fact it is almost denied. They find that wealth is not guaranteed. They find that earthly fulfillment is rarely what Jesus offers. They find happiness is rare while joy is constant. They discover that heaven, blessing, and love are all blocked from them because they are wicked before Him. Then they repent, and they cast themselves in reckless abandon at the mercy of Christ, pleading for CLEANNESS. Not salvation from their petty illnesses or earthly woes – but SPIRITUAL PURITY. Why? So they can be near HIM. And he cleans them. And in the kingdom health, wealth, fulfillment, and all the other things they wanted – are eternally woven to the Triune God which they have been purified to access.

But there are some who come for the coffee but never stay for the donuts. There are some who come to Jesus to get off drugs. There are some who come to Jesus to get heaven. And when they are confronted with passages of scripture that show them they are wicked, or that persecution is guaranteed to them if they bear the name of Christ – they balk. They turn. Or worse… they live with blinders on, as if they never saw that truth. They pretend to be Christians, that came to Christ for what they wanted from Him.

We must be so very careful to present Christ as what we are offering in our gospel presentations. We are not offering heaven, because He wasn’t offering heaven. We are not offering wealth because he wasn’t offering wealth. We are not offering earthly success, because He didn’t offer earthly success. We are offering a person Jesus Christ as their King, Lord, and Master – and if they do not want Him… they cannot be saved.

5. [Slide 8] The reason I believe Jesus wanted to hide his miracle from the general populace and only reveal it to those who needed to know about it, is because Mark 1 actually reveals to us that this leper, after showing humility, submission, and belief, disobeys Jesus and goes out and tells others. After which, Jesus could no longer go into the cities because the crowds would be too large. And His message would not be heard.

Application:

I don’t normally do this – but I’d like to stop again, and apply what we have heard from Mark 1.

As we have said before, our take home point for today is that we must depend on Jesus – only Jesus . And dependence of course is our reckless abandonment of every hope, every plan, all ownership and all autonomy of ourselves and our lives to be solely and completely dependent on Jesus.

Therefore, part of the definition of dependence is submission. It is obedience. To be dependent on oxygen we must draw it into our lungs. To be dependent on a chair we must sit on it. To be dependent on Christ is to obey Him.

And although we don’t know the spiritual condition of this former leper. We don’t know if he was genuinely converted. What we do know, is that the very first command His healer, Lord, and Master gave him – he disobeyed. And what happened? The message of Jesus Christ was hindered.

Now, it was not hindered to the point that it was ineffective. We know that the works of men do not thwart the work of God. But this man, probably inadvertently, worked against the plan of God for the Jews and really, the world.

[Slide 9] May I submit to you, Christian, that every time we live disobediently to our King we do the same. We, by our disobedience actively work against the nature and will of God in this world. All sin, from a little white lie, to the most vile sin of idolatry, and everything in-between, actively works against God’s plan. His Kingdom.

What did this leper do? He simply got excited about being healed. So he told some people. He told them GOOD NEWS. He gossiped about something that did not tear someone down but actually built someone up! But WHAT HAPPENED? It prevented Jesus from being able to enter cities. Now we know ultimately it didn’t do anything to hurt God’s plan… because quite frankly, we aren’t that important… but if you asked him today, if he would do it differently… I guarantee the former leper would have.

We naturally want so much to dismiss our sin as something that is small, and trivial.

Not only is it a direct affront to a Holy God – but we actively work against what God is doing in this world.

And on a positive side – it means that when we obey – we participate in what God is doing.

Perhaps that will creep into your brain the next time you are considering disobedience.

ii. [Slide 10] So to finish up what Jesus says to this man, lets get into what he says about Moses and the gift.

1. In Leviticus there was specific rituals assigned to priests to declare person healed of skin infection clean again.

2. Jesus was instructing this man to bring the offering described in Leviticus 14 so the priests could ceremonially let him back into the assembly.

3. So what is this proof of, and to whom?

a. Proof to the priests that Jesus is the Messiah? – That He was able to cure, the incurable and life ending disease of leprosy?

b. Proof to the people that Jesus is the Messiah?

c. Proof to the priests that Jesus has authority over sickness?

d. Yes – to all. Probably. Having authority over sickness, and spiritual darkness is a sign of the coming Messiah and a fulfillment of prophesy. After seeing this man, healed of the worst form of leprosy, the priests should have believed. But sadly, we don’t even know if the leper went to the priests, let alone if the priests believed.

Transition:

[Slide 11 (blank)] Jesus is the answer to disease and death. But if we don’t see the healer behind the healing, we have missed the point. This leper, this outcast, this dredge of society, is perhaps the first to experience conversion after the Sermon on the Mount even though he disobeyed Christ immediately afterward. But Jesus will further demonstrate His power and Authority over nature by reversing permanent bodily injury.

II.) Jesus has power and authority over permanent bodily injury, so we must depend on Jesus – only Jesus (5-13)

a. [Slide 12] 5 – When he had entered Capernaum, a centurion came forward to him, appealing to him

i. Capernaum is on the north west side of the sea of galilee. If you remember back in chapter 4:13, Jesus left Nazareth and made Capernaum His new home. And If we look ahead a bit to chapter 9, we understand that Nazareth had officially rejected Him and therefore he came to call Capernaum His home, although, spoiling even more for us, Capernaum also would eventually reject Him.

ii. A centurion is an uncommission officer in charge of 100 men.

iii. Capernaum was a garrison town. Rome did not keep official legionnaires in Israel, but this garrison of troops was kept at this far city and were probably made up of auxiliaries. Meaning that this centurion and the men he commanded were not Roman citizens but were trying to become Roman citizens by an auxiliary career. After 25 years they would earn their citizenship.

b. [Slide 13-15] 6-9 – Lord, my servant is lying paralyzed at home, suffering terribly.” And he said to him, “I will come and heal him.” But the centurion replied, “Lord, I am not worthy to have you come under my roof, but only say the word, and my servant will be healed. For I too am a man under authority, with soldiers under me. And I say to one, Go, and he goes, and to another, Come, and he comes, and to my servant, Do this, and he does it.

i. Let us look at the attitude of the centurion here

1. He calls Him Lord. Again a term hinting at the divinity, and authority of Jesus

2. He loves his servant. The word here used for servant is not the normal word used for a run of the mill slave, but is a word that denotes familial ties. This is a slave that he loves. Perhaps even a servant by choice. Which of course, hints at what kind of master he was.

3. He is familiar with Jewish laws that for a Jew to come into the house of a Gentile is considered unclean. He also understands the purity of Christ and the defilement it would be to Him to have him come into a sinner’s house.

4. He believes, being familiar with how authority works, that Jesus has the divine power and authority to heal his servant, by simply speaking it. There is no need to dishonor himself or expose himself to a sinner.

ii. Let us look at the nature of Jesus here.

1. Even though His mission is to convey the message of the gospel, He willingly pauses and offers to go to the house of this gentile man and heal his servant.

2. Knowing the “defilement” He would have at going to a gentile’s house and the further grief that may bring from the Pharisees and other Jewish religious leaders, He willingly offered to go anyway.

3. That is compassion.

c. [Slide 16-18] 10-12 – When Jesus heard this he marveled and said to those who followed him, “Truly, I tell you, with no one in Israel have I found such faith. I tell you, many will come from east and west and recline at the table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven, while the sons of the kingdom will be thrown into outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”

i. Having heard this Gentile refuse the social privilege it would have been to have such a person enter His home, and instead adopt a posture of humility and complete dependence on Jesus – Jesus MUST comment. And let me tell you, to a Jew, His comments are scathing.

ii. No one – not the religious leaders – not the scribes – not the priests – NOBODY has shown such faith in the power and authority of Jesus as the Messiah. Not even the 12, which they will prove in a mere 16 verses. No Israelite has the faith that this Gentile Roman Military hireling does. And if you think that hurt… He wasn’t done.

iii. This Gentile is not an anomaly. He isn’t weird. He isn’t strange. He is the beginning of a new era. This centurion, is the first sign of the new covenant folks. MANY will come from east and west – from Romans to Persians they will come and they will sit and eat at the SAME TABLE that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob eat at. Your patriarchs.

iv. Oh and by the way Sadducees – they are still alive – they haven’t been eradicated like you think they have.

v. And if that wasn’t enough lumps – he finishes by saying this…

vi. While these Romans and Persians eat with your patriarchs, you aren’t at the table. You are cast out of the assembly completely into a place of torment and anguish.

Application:

I gotta take another break here. We need to apply this for a second.

The way is perilous and the gate is narrow folks.

[Slide 19A] If I asked you to pick some of the two most hated and feared people groups in the world by American Christians, two groups that score consistently high on that poll would be the nation of Islam and China.

Meanwhile in our country we have rampant heresies such as prosperity self focused faith and easy believism that infest our churches and are leading people to hell.

What do you get when you add the two together? These hated people groups and our inability to get the gospel right?

Jesus’s words could be this…

[Slide 19B] Truly I tell you, with no one in American Churches have I found such great faith as this Chinese family who have awoken to the truth in this dark land. Truly I tell you that with no one in American Churches have I found such great faith as this little Arab girl who is risking everything to be a my follower! I tell you that many from Chinese and Muslim backgrounds will come and dine with Charles Spurgeon, Polycarp, The Apostle Paul and John Wycliffe in the Kingdom of Heaven, while those who call themselves Christians and having lived in America, have had the truth of the gospel vividly available to them for decades will be thrown in the fires of hell for their dead faith.

We look at these words and we think foolish Jews – when we should be crying out to Jesus and wondering are WE just as foolish? Have we adopted a gospel that is fake? Have we polluted the truth? Wake up O Sleeper. Wake up!

Are you a follower of Christ because of what He can give you or are you a follower of Christ because He is the only thing worthy to follow?

d. [Slide 20] 13 – And to the centurion Jesus said, “Go; let it be done for you as you have believed.” And the servant was healed at that very moment.

i. Like the leper Jesus issues a command. A command that is resulting from the belief and the faith of the person in question.

ii. Like the leper, the centurion showed humility, submission, and belief.

iii. So far, a leper (an outcast) and a gentile (an outcast) have followed what Jesus taught in the Sermon on the Mount, with one important difference. The gentile, believed and obeyed.

iv. He went, as Jesus had commanded, back to his house.

v. And by comparison perhaps we see some similarities in the commands of our savior to those who have expressed their faith.

1. What He asked of them was not overly challenging.

a. Don’t speak to anyone except the priest when you take the offering for the cleansing ritual

b. Go home knowing that what you believed is real.

2. In fact, what he asked of the centurion could be considered more challenging.

a. The miracle was completed for the leper. All he had to do was hold it in till he took care of what Jesus told him to do.

b. For the centurion, he had to simply trust that the miracle had happened.

3. Perhaps this is why Jesus marveled at the faith of this man.

Application:

[Slide 21 (blank)] Again I feel as though I need to interject some measure of teaching here that dovetails with our take home point of depending on Christ.

If we are truly dependent on Christ, if we trust Him as Sovereign Lord, then when He commands us to be someone or do something, or to not be something or do something, then we can trust that not only is what He telling us wise, not only is it trustworthy, but that it is not self-serving or without reason.

Furthermore, if we depend on Christ, we can confidently conclude that what He tells us to do as a command, He will supply us with the means to make it possible for us to obey him.

Indeed, He promised us the Holy Spirit, And the Spirit gave us the Word of God, and the Word of God shows us the mind of God and connects us to the heart of God so we can be the hands of God.

If you look at what is required of those who are to be followers of Christ – to crucify their flesh and be raised up in Christ – you can know with full assurance that he who began a good work in you is able to see it done, He can present you faultless, and in fact… He doesn’t stop at the possible but carries us on to the reality. If you are a child of God’s He WILL MAKE YOU LOOK LIKE HIS SON – because that is what He saved you for. He saved you for obedience. He saved you for holiness.

Like the leper so many of us, when we get what we want from Jesus, having expressed our faith in Him – leave without obeying. Don’t be like the leper. Be like the centurion!

You say well there are just some sins that I just cannot get victory over. Listen, can is a word of ability. So either what you are telling me is, that I cannot because I am not a follower of Christ and do not possess the Spirit of God in me or you are saying I won’t take the necessary steps to depend on His Spirit to kill off this sin and follow God’s will.

You see to say you cannot gain victory, is simply a lie. Christ has already won the victory.

So how do you get victory?

Depend on Christ, and use the things that He has given us.

The Spirit, His Word, And the church. With those three weapons, how can you not gain victory?

But we don’t depend on the Spirit because like Good Baptist’s we’ve been conditioned to mistrust all things mystical. We don’t use the Word of God to combat our sin, we just put our time in so we can check the box for the day, turning this mighty sword into a dull letter opener. And we don’t seek counsel in the church because we can’t let people know we have a porn addiction, or that we are holding grudges, or that our child is out of control and we are unable to parent them correctly. If we tell them these weakness they may think we are a sinner. Newsflash – WE ALREADY KNOW YOU ARE! BECAUSE SO ARE WE!

When can obey Jesus when we do not rely on ourselves, but depend on Him and all the weapons He has given us.

vi. Before we wrap up, I cannot in good conscience, neglect the other two gospel accounts of this miracle. But unfortunately we simply don’t have time to dive into them. So If you desire my notes on these two other accounts in Luke 7 and John 4, I’d be happy to give or show you how to get them. Or maybe you can just go to them too and see what you find 

e. We have two other accounts of this, one from Luke 7 and another from John 4. Both accounts present differences in the story.

i. In Luke’s account – Luke 7:1-10

1. Two Jewish Elders were sent – the centurion did not come to Jesus himself

2. The Jewish elders make the case to Jesus that this Centurion was Kosher certified.  Essentially – he is a friend to Jews so he is worthy for you to go to his house.

3. So Jesus did begin to come to his house

4. Friends of the centurion met him before He got there and conveyed the message that he was in fact, NOT worthy for Jesus to come in, nor was he even worthy to come to Jesus.

5. Also from Luke, the friends arrived back to find that the sick servant had been healed, whereas in Matthew we see that the very moment Jesus spoke he was healed.

ii. In John’s account we see even more discrepancies. – 4:46-54

1. He is called a royal official, not a centurion. A royal nobleman.

2. It is his son that is sick not his servant.

3. The sickness is unto death and not simply paralysis.

4. He begs Jesus to come to his home and Jesus kinda says no. He tells him to believe without signs and wonders.

5. In fact the one piece of similarity is that the very hour Jesus spoke, the son was healed. Making it seem that it harmonizes Luke and Matthew’s account.

6. John then tells us that this was Jesus’ second miracle since coming from Judea to Galilee.

f. So how do we harmonize these 3 accounts? We have to practice this stuff because people attack the bible all the time and the gospels are like a feeding frenzy for them because they see these three stories and there are so many differences that they can easily say – well they can’t even get their story straight…

i. So first in John 4, I think there are enough differences for us to conclude that this is, in fact, not the same story at all. Even though Matthew’s second miracle is the centurion’s servant, it doesn’t mean it is the second miracle Jesus did chronologically. Royal nobleman is not the same thing as a non-commissioned, non-Roman, auxiliary commander of 100 men. Those differences alone show me that these are two different stories.

ii. In Luke 7 I think the bottom line is the intention of the author. Matthew as we know if writing for the benefit of Jews to understand the gospel.

1. If they are believers – that Jesus is worthy of their dependence. To remind them that He is the Messiah and why.

2. If they are not believers – it shows them why exactly they missed their own Messiah and how the law has been fulfilled in Him and how they cannot just be born into the Kingdom as a Jew, but that they must be born again into a spiritual birth of the Spirit.

3. Therefore, to even mention that Jewish elders came first to Jesus to convey the words of this centurion, may have distracted them away from the faith of the gentile. That it is by faith not by birthright.

4. Every other discrepancy is easily explained as Matthew simply giving a shortened version of the events.

5. Luke of course is writing to a gentile, so it would be prudent for him to convey that even a gentile who is friendly to a Jew considered himself unworthy – further his worth to Christ was not in his affinity for “God’s people” – but his faith in Christ. Hence the reason Luke included all the details he did.

Transition:

Today I experimented in my sermon crafting with injecting application throughout the sermon. But I feel because I have a short attention span, and maybe you do too, that we should wrap all those applications into 1 specific thing that we can live out in the Spirit. So what is that one thing?

Conclusion:

[Slide 22] Specifically I feel like this passage is just screaming for us to depend on Christ and only Christ.

But I can say that, and you’d agree pretty quickly – but what exactly does it mean?

We’ve talked about it before and God just really wants to remind us of this, because He keeps showing it to me in scripture.

Dependence is when you get to the point that you cannot live without something. People say that. I can’t live without you. For most couples that is overstatement. When the other person leaves or dies they do go on. They live. But some couples, who have been married for several years, and their spouse dies, and they die months later of no complications…

My point is, I don’t think most of us really know what this phrase “I can’t live without you” means. That God’s words are our daily bread. To find pleasure in the Lord’s commands.

Is Jesus like oxygen to us? Is He like the sun? Gravity? Our atmosphere?

People say, believe on the name of Jesus and you will be saved… listen folks dependence is belief. Go ahead and draw an equals sign between those two terms. In fact, go through your bible and every time you see believe just replace it in your mind with depend.

The leper and centurion came to Jesus for a temporary problem. Serious? Sure. But temporary. Jesus was not overly interested in the temporary. But because He had compassion on them He healed them.

Both the Leper and the Centurion depended on Christ to change this physical issue in their lives. They both came humbly. They both understood that Jesus had absolute authority and power over their condition. They both surrendered to Him.

These are pictures of the redeemed. Whether these men were saved or not is really not, in my opinion, Matthew’s point. He isn’t assessing the spiritual condition of these men, He is pointing to the POWER and AUTHOIRTY of Jesus Christ. If this one can breathe healing into the air and cure the incurable with a touch – He can cast you into hell or free you from sin just as easily. If the physical laws of nature do not apply to Him, it makes sense that He is not governed but is the governor.

[Slide 23] But we live in an age where Jesus is merely a friend. Our homeboy that we get down with.

He wears a big cheesy grin and has his arms open wide to all who choose to nuzzle in. He’s a lover not a fighter.

But listen to me. You DO see compassion in this passage. You see the Love of Christ to heal people who frankly are a distraction from His mission. But if you miss the fierce untamable power of Jesus Christ – you miss the real Jesus.

Because He did not come to heal the hurting He came to save children of wrath. He came to quicken the dead. In short He came to restore the honor of the name of God.

When you understand Who He was and What He did – there is no one and no thing that could ever be worth your attention by comparison.

[Slide 24] But we come to Him for love as the unlovable. We come to Him for life but we are worthy of only death. We come to Him for wealth but we are spiritually poor. We come to Him for heaven, but we are sons and daughters of hell. We come to him for fulfillment but we are marred beyond fulfillment.

What I am saying is we come to Him for the symptoms of the problem and not for the root of the problem. The problem, the real problem is that WE DO NOT HAVE HIM.

Do we need Him today? That is my question.

If He gave you wealth but you never saw His face, if he gave you health but you never touched his pierced hands, if he gave you heaven but He wasn’t there, if He forgave your sin but you never got to look into His eyes, If He gave you satisfaction in this life and the next but could never speak to Him again – would you throw it all back at His feet and say NO I don’t want it without you!

I’d make my bed in hell if that was the only place you were!

What would happen if we needed Him like this?

Oh friend. The name Christian was an insult once. It was a name that meant to be a little slaves of Christ or a Christ-Obsessed-One.

If we needed Him – If we pursued the healer behind the healing- we could take up the name Christian once again and give it that old meaning.

It would be an insult again. And we’d be proud to wear it.

But we have found a way to see the healing without the healer. And we are infinitely less because of it.

May our prayer always be, Give me Jesus. Only Jesus. I won’t settle for the healing… keep the healing… Give me Jesus!