Two Journeys

I want you to picture yourself now, just this morning in your mind's eye, moving away from a home that you've lived in for 40 years. You're elderly now, feeble, unable to care for your home with all of its constant needs. You've buried your spouse a couple of months ago. Your children are all grown and gone now. It's time to move to a smaller simpler place, and that means packing up. You rummage through drawers and boxes and something catches your eye. It's a note of encouragement that you started to write to a friend who was dying of cancer. The friend died three years ago and you never finished the note. You'd forgotten that, and stumbling across it now, the sight of it brings somewhat of a stabbing pain, like a splinter in your hand, announces its presence by pain. 

Well, you continue to rummage and you come across a brochure for a missions program designed for retirement age couples. Now you and your wife had talked seriously about doing it. You prayed about it, you promised yourselves that you would do it, but then things got busy, time slipped away. She got sick and you couldn't do it and now you're too old to go. Your rummaging fingers pull out a prayer card for a missionary. It's old now. The missionary has since left the field, that was over 20 years ago. The card was a reminder to pray daily for him and his wife, that missionary couple. You remember distinctly the service at which the man spoke, how the Lord spoke to you. He asked people to come forward and kneel at the front of the church if they would just commit themselves to pray daily for him and for his wife as they served the Lord in a hostile Muslim country.

The service was very moving. You were emotional, you cried, you went forward. You received the laminated card. For a while it was on your refrigerator and then it was on your nightstand. Now it's buried under a pile of bank statements and other flotsam and jetsam from your daily life. You realize with some regret that you prayed for him daily for a month or so, weekly for a few months after that, monthly for a few months after that, and then eventually you stopped praying for him all together. He left the mission field 10 years after you stopped praying for him.

A pile of papers. Pro-life appeals to write to a congressman about an important bill that was in front of Congress, information on AIDS orphans in Africa, handouts from a personal evangelism course that you took at church. So suddenly, you just sit back and look at it, all these papers you kept for some reason. It's evidence of a life of promises made to God and promises not kept.

Dear friends, this is one of the great dangers of our deceptive hearts, that it is enough just to promise God that from now on, we're going to do right. That it's enough just to intend to do right. And then who cares if you actually see it through? Well, the scripture says that God cares if you actually see it through. To obey is better than to promise to obey. When God sends forth his word, it produces conviction of sin. When conviction occurs, God wants us to repent. Repentance is only genuine if we then obey what that word had commanded that we do. Promises, vows, intentions, desires, are all good things. They are wonderful things, but they are not enough if they're not followed up by obedience, by action. And, dear friends, this is precisely why God sent His Son, Jesus Christ, into the world, because we are like that. Because we are in the habit of promising things to God and not doing them.

All the best intentions of our hearts, all our best plans and dreams for how we serve the Lord, we're going to serve the Lord, many of them come to nothing. Now, in the parable we're studying today, a father has two imperfect sons. One talks a good game but doesn't live up to it, he doesn't back it up. The other one has clearly a rebellion problem, an attitude problem, but he ends up, through repentance, doing the right thing. Now, Jesus clearly puts the priority on in the end, doing the right thing. Now this parable I think, has three different applications for us today. 

First of all, I think it is a warning to any that there might be here today, in the category of a self-righteous religious person who thinks that their outwardly compliant religious lifestyle will compensate for the fact that they really don't obey God on what matters, they're trusting an outward religiosity, an outward yes to God without anything behind it. It's a warning to such people. That's exactly why Jesus told the parable to the chief priests and the elders. 

Secondly, it's a warning to us who make promises to God when moved by moments of conviction or emotion, but who consistently fail to follow through. We make resolutions, we have good intentions, we make promises to ourselves and to God, but we don't do what we have resolved.

And for both groups it is, I think in the end, a sweet encouragement that God accepts our repentance and actually works our repentance, and gives us a fresh start to obey him. This, I think in the end then, is the purpose of this parable, is the power of genuine repentance. The people who excuse themselves from needing to repent get nothing from this. But the people who know that they need to repent, it's a sweet invitation to you to do so and then bring forth fruit in keeping with repentance. 

So let's understand this parable in context. The context of the parable of the two sons. This is, as we've mentioned many times, in Matthew's gospel. This is the final week of Jesus' life. We've already seen, in Matthew's gospel, the triumphal entry. Jesus has entered Jerusalem on the back of a donkey, in fulfillment of prophecy from Zechariah, to the accolades of the people who are shouting “Hosanna, blessed is he comes in the name of the Lord,” and in he comes. He looks out, he looks around in the temple and then goes home because it's late. He goes back the next day, curses the fig tree on the way: “May you never bear fruit again.” There's no fruit on it. He curses it, goes in and cleanses the temple. An act of holy anger concerning the religious system of the Jews.

Jesus' enemies, seeing all the things that he's doing, they attack, they come after him openly. It's going to be, basically, open conflict between Jesus and his enemies during this final week, until finally they conspire to kill him. That's what's going on this final week. And so, this parable is in the context of conflict between Jesus and his opponents. And so they come and they ask him by what authority does he do these things, and who gave him this authority. 

And Jesus, as we saw last time, answers with a question, his own question. He said, “I'll also ask you a question. If you answer me, then I'll tell you by what authority I'm doing these things. John's baptism, where did it come from? Was it from Heaven or from men?” So they pull off into that little huddle off to the side, they're unable, unwilling to give a direct and clear answer. They've got to figure out what to say. And so they discuss it among themselves and they say, “If we say from Heaven, then he will ask ‘Then why didn't you believe him?’ But if we say from men, we're afraid of the crowd, for they all hold that John was a prophet.” 

So having finalized their discussion, they go back to Jesus and they give him this cowardly, unbelieving answer. Dishonest answer. “We don't know.” Well, they actually did know that John's baptism came from the devil. They said that John had a demon. But they were just afraid to say what they truly believed. Of course, they would've been wrong. The real question there is, did God have the right to send a messenger directly to the people of God, the Jews, without going through their schools of training, without submitting to their authority in that way so that they received the training of the Sanhedrin. Did he have the power to do that? The answer is yes, He can raise up a John the Baptist and he can send his only begotten Son without their permission. And so Jesus tells this parable on the heels of that. Of their refusal to answer the question, when they say, “We don't know.” He said, “Neither then, will I tell you by what authority I'm doing these things, but I will tell you a parable.” And so he tells them this parable.

So the immediate application then, is to the chief priests and the elders, who seem outwardly obedient to God. They say yes to God in an outward and visible way, a showy kind of way. Their lifestyles have an aroma of religion, of obedience to the laws of God. But at their core, Jesus is implying, these men are saying no to God. They're not obeying him at the core. We'll get a fuller exposé of their religion and of their hearts in Matthew 23, the seven woes. “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites. You're like white-washed tombs. You look beautiful on the outside, but on the inside you're full of dead men's bones and everything unclean. In the same way you, on the outside you appear to men as righteous, but on the inside are full of hypocrisy and wickedness.” And so, this parable, the parable of the two sons, exposes a class of religious people that spends their whole lives outwardly saying “yes” to God, but then not obeying what he's commanded. It seems they feel that God should be grateful for their seemingly willing responses to everything he commands.

But then there's this second category of people, Jesus refers to them, the tax collectors and the prostitutes. They represent people who become convicted of their openly rebellious lifestyles against God, who repent, who turn in their hearts and then go to serve the Father. And Jesus says they're entering the kingdom ahead of these elders and these priests. So this is the parable. Look at it in verse 28. “What do you think, there was a man who had two sons, he went to the first and said, ‘Son, go and work today in the vineyard.’ ‘I will not,’ he answered, but later he changed his mind and went. Then the father went to the other son and said the same thing. He answered, ‘I will, sir,’ but he did not go. Now, which of the two did what his father wanted? ‘The first,’ they answered.”

Now frankly, both sons needed to repent. I actually think that's key to the parable. It's not okay to do what the second son does, or the first son, saying “no” to the father and then changing your mind later. Neither is it okay to say “yes,” and then not do it. So, both of them need to repent. So Jesus begins by probing their minds.

He says, “What do you think?” All of Jesus' parables are designed to make you think. They're taken from daily life, little vignettes from daily life. A woman mixing yeast into a large amount of flour or a farmer scattering seed or a fisherman throwing a large net into the lake. It's just everyday life scenes. But they have, at the core, a single spiritual lesson. And you have to think about it in order to get it. And so, this lesson is that actions speak louder than words. It is better to obey than simply to promise to obey. That's what he's saying. 

Now, the basic facts of the parable are about as simple as they come. There's a father, he has two sons and, it seems, a vineyard. And he wants the sons to work. He goes to the first son and says, “Son, go and work today in the vineyard.” The first son, shockingly, refuses. “I will not,” he says. Now just freeze that at the moment. That is a shocking moment. It is not acceptable for a son to say that to his father. The Ten Commandments teach us that we should honor our fathers. We should seek to obey them. And so, this first son is clearly rebellious. But then he changes his mind and goes. More on that in a moment. Then he, the father, goes to the second son. Verse 30, “He went to the other son and said the same thing. He answered, ‘I will, sir,’ but he did not go.” So initial respectful assent it seems, but he doesn't do anything about it.

Then Jesus points to the key issue with this question in verse 31. “‘Which of the two did what his father wanted?’ ‘The first,’ they answered.” Now this is the point. In the end, who obeyed? That's what Jesus is getting at. In the movie made in the 1970s, Jesus of Nazareth, directed by Franco Zeffirelli, he actually uses this parable. He uses a number of others, but he chooses this one. And it's really quite remarkable how he shoots. It's not exactly how it happens here in the text, but as he's telling this parable, he asks, “Now, which of the two did what his father wanted?” And so there's this little, little kid about four or five years old, this little boy, and he looks up and says, “The first.” It is just obvious. This is a simple parable. And yet it's lessons are profound. 

Oh, to be able to teach like Jesus, to be able to tell parables like this. To get at a simple point so clearly that a little four or five-year-old could get it. Bottom line, God desires a life of obedience that comes from a broken and contrite heart, from a repentant heart. A proud heart that thinks it needs no help from God and certainly has nothing to repent for, then, is worthless in God's sight and can do nothing for God.

So, let's apply this parable. Jesus applies it directly to them. Look at verse 31-32. “Jesus said to them, ‘I tell you the truth, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God ahead of you, for John came to show you the way of righteousness and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes did. And even after you saw this, you did not repent and believe him.’”

So Jesus makes a very stunning assertion here. These chief priests and elders, as we've noted before, spent their full time studying the laws, the commands of God. They counted the letters in every book of Moses, as I mentioned. They knew the middle letter. They were meticulous in their study of the commands of God through Moses. They were the most sanctimonious and outwardly religious men in Jewish society. However, the tax collectors and the prostitutes were the most despicable two categories of people in Jewish society. And Jesus here, is actually claiming that these most despicable sinners, tax collectors and prostitutes, are actually entering the kingdom of God ahead of the chief priests and the elders. Now the tax collectors, as you know, were despised because of their collaboration with Rome. Rome had conquered Palestine, had conquered the Jews, was in charge of the Promised Land, the land that God had promised to Abraham and to his descendants as a permanent inheritance.

And here were these Gentiles, and they were in charge. Just another in a series of Gentile rulers over the Promised Land. But these tax collectors were actually profiting from the Roman occupation. They had obtained a franchise from the Romans to collect taxes from their own Jewish neighbors. And they had the might and the power of the Roman Empire behind them, along with their undefeated legions. And if any should harass the tax collectors or conspire to assassinate them, the full wrath of the legions of Rome would come down on that village or on those people, and they knew it. And so they were a protected class of men, these tax collectors. Even worse, the tax collectors habitually collected more taxes than they were supposed to, and kept the profits. It was a very lucrative business. They were wealthy. And even worse than that, they used that extra money, those ill-gotten gains, for throwing lavish sensual and immoral parties for themselves day after day. To a law-abiding Jew, then, no class of people could have been more spiritually repulsive than a tax collector.

And what of prostitutes? Well, if tax collectors were the worst of men, then in their mind, prostitutes were the worst of women. There is no need to go into any detail describing the immorality of these women. Day upon day and night upon night, it seemed impossible that such a woman could ever be holy and blameless in the sight of the God before whom we must stand and give an account, the God who is holy, holy, holy.

Habakkuk 1:13 says, “His eyes are too pure to look on evil. He cannot tolerate wrong.” And so how can he look at tax collectors and prostitutes as holy and blameless in his sight? And yet, these sinners, these tax collectors, these prostitutes, Jesus said, were entering the kingdom of God ahead of the chief priests and the elders.

And Jesus points to John's ministry as a chance for the elders and the chief priests to see what God was doing. John came preaching or walking in the way of righteousness, he came in the way of righteousness. He was living an outwardly holy life himself, not in any way a sensual life. He wasn't living like the tax collectors and the prostitutes. He was a man out in the desert eating locusts and wild honey and wearing camel's hair and a leather belt. Just like Elijah, a stern austere life in the desert in the way of holiness. And he was proclaiming a baptism of repentance for sinners so that they might repent and come back to God in a way of righteousness.

The key to John's ministry was a simple proclamation, Matthew 3:1-2, “In those days John the Baptist came, preaching in the Desert of Judea and saying, ‘Repent, for the kingdom of Heaven is at hand.’” This is the central concept. All human beings are sinners. All of us are sinners, and God is a holy King and God has the right to give laws by which we should be governed. And we must obey God's laws. He is a king.

In the parable of the two sons, this image, this idea, is set in a family context, of father and two sons, but … the father representing God giving commands to the human race. All of us, however, have broken his commands, we have violated and transgressed them, and we stand guilty before him. And John came in the way of righteousness preaching that they should repent. And he was very clear with the tax collectors in Luke 3:13. He told them to stop collecting more money than they should. He didn't tell them by the way, to give up tax collecting. Jesus did say, “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, there's nothing wrong with collecting that tax money, to some degree you would rather have a godly Jew collecting just the right amount of tax money, no more and no less from you than some Roman who might bully you and dominate you. So John didn't tell them to give up tax collecting, he just told them to repent and stop collecting more money than they were supposed to. And then Jesus came and preached the exact same message. Matthew 4:17, “From that time on, Jesus began to preach ‘Repent, for the kingdom of Heaven is near.’”

So here's the basic concept, friends. God is a king, he has a kingdom, in that kingdom, inside that kingdom, everything gladly, delightedly serves Him the sovereign Lord. We as sinners are naturally outside that kingdom, and we must through repentance and faith enter the Kingdom of God. No one is born into it, people are born again into it by the power of God. And so look what Jesus says here, “I tell you the truth, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God ahead of you.” It's just like Jesus has said in the Sermon of the Mount, “Enter through the narrow gate,” we are naturally on the outside of this kingdom. We must enter. Now don't misunderstand God's sovereign power extends beyond these boundaries of those that, with a glad heart serve Him. And he is sovereign over kings whether they are righteous or wicked, the king's heart is like a water course in the hands of his sovereign Lord, he can direct it whatever way he chooses. But now he's talking about repentance and faith and entering that kingdom, where God's servants are delighted to serve him, where they are joyful in service to him, like a son would be in love to his father. 

And so these chief priests and the elders they represent someone on the outside who did not through repentance and faith decide to enter the kingdom of God. And the fact that the tax collectors and prostitutes in large numbers were entering the kingdom through John's preaching, and through Jesus' preaching, should have been assigned to them that they also needed to repent.

So that's the parable, applied to them. What about the parable applied to us? Well, as we've already said, first, no one is righteous enough to enter the kingdom of God. The chief priest and the elders felt that they were righteous enough, they were essentially prideful, they trusted in their own righteousness. But the Scripture says, “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” The scripture also said, “There is no one righteous, not even one.” And so, they outwardly said, “Yes, yes,” to God, but in their hearts, they disobeyed him. And so John the Baptist called on them to repent, for the kingdom of Heaven was at hand. Jesus called on them to repent for the kingdom of Heaven was at hand, but they did not obey these commands because they didn't think they needed to. The biggest problem you can have as a sinner is to not think you're sinner. The biggest problem you can have is to think you don't need to repent, and enter the Kingdom of God if you never have. That's the biggest problem you can have.

The second lesson as we apply this to us, is that true righteousness is a gift from God and it comes only through the finished work of Jesus Christ. Now, I've already told you these sons are no great shakes either one. I mean, seriously, what would you rather have? The first son that's just telling you no, and then later when he feels like it, when it feels good to him, when it's his right time decides to go and do it. It's rebellion friends, it is, it's disobedience. Oh, what about the other one, the kind of goody-goody two shoes, looks good on the outside, kind of teacher's pet kind of thing, but the reality is different. Neither one is truly godly. Can I say to you that only one Son in all history has perfectly said, “Yes,” to God and perfectly backed it up with obedience, and that's Jesus Christ. Jesus said, “Yes,” to his Heavenly Father, in entering the world through the incarnation. He said, “Yes” to God every day of his life by obeying the law of Moses. He was born under the law, he lived under the law. Every one of its strictures, every one of its commands and prohibitions, Jesus perfectly obeyed all of them. Every jot and tittle fulfilled in the life of Jesus. He said, “Yes,” every day of his life.

And then in Gethsemane, when God offered him Hell and death in a cup, metaphorically, to drink. He said, “Yes,” to God and took the cup and drank it, then ultimately said, “Yes,” to God. And you need to understand that every moment that Jesus was being mocked and flogged and spat upon and beaten, every moment that he was being crucified, every moment he was dying, he could have stopped, he was the Son of God, he was sovereign in his power, he could have ended it at any moment. So it was a moment by moment obedience to his Father. “The world must learn,” said Jesus, “that I obey my Father and do everything he has commanded me to do.” And so he became obedient to death, even death on a cross, and it says very, very plainly in Romans 5:19, “Just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous.” Oh, you ought to circle that word in your Bible, in Romans 5:19. Righteous. Through the obedience of Jesus, I am righteous.

Now, I knew the beginning of my sermon would be a bit heavy-handed. That you would have the feeling of guilt, of all of the promises you've made to God, but isn't that the truth? Isn't that how we really live? We make promises to God, we mean well, we wanna do better. We wanna give to the poor and needy, we wanna be better witnesses for Jesus, we wanna be better in our prayer lives, we wanna do all of these things, but it never quite adds up to what we wish we could have done. And if it doesn't look perfect in our eyes, how much less would it look perfect to God on Judgement Day? We must have this gift of righteousness, we must have Jesus just give us his righteousness and that is the gospel. God made him who had no sin. What does that mean? He was the perfect Son. He said, “Yes,” to God and He did it. God made him who had no sin to be sin for us on the cross. So that in him we might become the righteousness of God. Oh, how sweet is that righteousness?

Thirdly, true repentance is necessary in entering the Kingdom of God. If you're going to enter, you must repent of your own righteousness. You must see that you do make promises and don't keep them, that you're not righteous enough, you're not good enough, nothing you do will ever be enough. Even now, you must turn away forever, from the flesh and from all it can achieve, it cannot be good enough. So what do we mean by repentance? We look at verse 28 and 29. “[The father] went to the first and said, ‘Son, go and work today in the vineyard.’ ‘I will not,’ he answered, but later he changed his mind and went.” Changed his mind, thought differently of it, came to a different way of thinking, a different understanding.

In the parable, a different parable of a father with two sons, the parable of the prodigal son, the younger son is out there and squandering his father's money in riotous living with prostitutes and until it's all gone, and then a famine comes, and he is starving and he is feeding pigs, and he longed to fill himself with the pods from the pigs, but no one gave him anything. And Jesus said in Luke 15:17, “When he came to his senses, he said, ‘How many of my father's men have food despair and here I am starving to death? I will set out and go back to my father, and I will say to him, “Father, I have sinned against Heaven, and against you. I'm no longer worthy to be called your son. Make me like one of your hired hands.”’” So that's just a different way of saying repentance. “He came to himself,” he saw things the way they really are. “I'm distant from my father, I'm slopping pigs, I have sinned against him, and against Heaven. I need to go back.”

Repentance then is coming to your senses about sin and about God, dealing properly with your heart before God. But I believe it's not just something you do right before you come forward at the altar call. I've actually had some Baptists tell me this. “Well, I remember repenting years ago. I remember it distinctly. I even have the card and the date. I remember that day.” Very much like the husband who tells the wife, “I told you the day we married, I loved you. And if anything changes I'll let you know.” Well, the wife wants to hear it sometimes, maybe even every day. God wants to hear from you the truth about yourself every day. All that happened, if that was the day you were genuinely converted at that revival or at that meeting, whatever, all that happens, that's the first time you really came to your senses about your sin and you repented. That's just the first time.

And since that day you have repented and believed more times than you can count if you're a genuine Christian, you know what I'm talking about if you're a true Christian, how many times have you repented? How many times you just said, “You know, Lord, that was wrong. I am sorry, please forgive me.” You've turned away from sin. Whole life repentance. Luke 18:3, another parable Jesus told of the Pharisee and the tax collector. And the tax collector beat his breast and would not even look up to Heaven but said. “Be merciful to me. Oh God, the sinner.” Can any among you, even if you've been a notable saint for 40 or 50 years, say, “I don't need to hear that anymore. I'm past that now. I no longer need to beat my breast, and say, ‘Be merciful to me, oh God, the sinner.’ No longer, I'm past that now.” No, the notable saints who have been walking with the Lord for 40 and 50 years know that God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble, and they can see how far even still they are from Jesus and his perfection. And so they repent all the time, at every moment. Every moment, God's commands, the father and the two sons, God's commands stand over us and beckon us to go work in the vineyard. Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other just as in Christ God forgave you, God's inviting you to come and do a work. It stands over you all the time, and we fall short of it, every day. Therefore, our whole life is a life of repentance.

Thomas Watson, a Puritan, gave us six elements of true repentance. I just wanna mention them to you briefly, so you know what I'm talking about. First of all, sight of sin, that you can see it by the Spirit of God and know what the lying or the deceit or the covetousness or idolatry or greed was. Secondly, sorrow for sin. That it actually makes you grieve that you have sinned, it brings sadness to you. And so Jesus said, “Blessed are those who mourn for they will be comforted.” Thirdly, confession of sin. You speak the truth to God about your sin. I did such and such, and it was wrong and I hate it, oh Lord, please forgive me. Fourth, shame for sin. There's a burning reaction within your heart saying, "I am not worthy to be called Your son or you won't even lift up your eyes and say, to Heaven and say, “Be merciful to me,” you have a sense of shame over sin. Fifthly, hatred of sin, you don't just hate the consequences of sin, you hate it, itself. It is the virus that has unravelled, this beautiful world that God made, and you hate it and you hate the specific sin that you have in mind now as you're confessing it. And then sixth, turning from sin. Turning from it. Turning away, a U-turn. 

True repentance, then always results in an obedient life. Jesus said, “Produce fruit in keeping with repentance." 

Now, one of the sweetest things in the Christian life, is this grace of repentance. Michael Card, who does a number of Biblical songs in which he sings about genres of Scripture, he did one on the Pentateuch, and it was called, “The Beginning.” And the song about Genesis is called also “The Beginning,” and he hearkens back to when God created everything out of nothing. God said, “In the beginning, God created the Heavens and the Earth,” and Michael Card in his song says, concerning the Christian life, “He hands us each new moment, saying, ‘My child begin again... You're free to start again.’” So in this parable, you are both sons actually at different times. And sometimes you said, “Yes,” to God and you're not out working. And in effect, you become every bit like the one who said, “No,” to God initially. You know what God's handing you right now? He's handing you a moment saying, “Start over.” Start over.

If there was something in my initial illustration that caused you some pain, if there was some letter you were supposed to write or some ministry you were supposed to do or anything that God was calling on you to do, he's handing you this moment saying, “Here try again.” Try again. It's a new chance, a fresh start. Actually, he does that every day, his mercies are new every morning. He hands you a clean slate, he says, “Here, walk with me today.” Do today's good works today, you can't do yesterday's good works, feel conviction, feel shame, remorse if you didn't do it. But today, today, if you hear his voice, now, follow me. Follow me every moment.

And so Jesus, at the end asked that key question in the end. Did you obey or not? I think many people don't understand what Judgement Day is gonna be all about. We cannot be justified by works. Our good works can never be used to pay for our sins. I can't say it more clearly, but God will assess us by our works. He will evaluate us by our works. He will assess the tree by its fruit. Make a tree good, and its fruit will be good. Make a tree bad, and the fruit will be bad, for a tree is known by its fruits. Jesus is the fruit inspector, he's going to look on that leafy tree, he's gonna lift the leaves and see if there's fruit. If there's fruit, then he knows there is faith. And so these verses teach this, again and again. Romans 2:6-10, “God will give to each person according to what he has done. To those who by persistence in doing good, seek glory, honor and immortality, he will give eternal life.” That's the Christian life there, those who, by persistence in doing good, they sought glory, honor, and immortality. “But for those who are self-seeking and reject the truth and follow evil, there will be wrath and anger. There will be trouble and distress for every human being who does evil: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile; but glory, honor and peace for everyone who does good: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile.”

We will be assessed by our works, God will give to each person according to what he has done, Revelation 20 teaches the same thing, “The dead are judged according to what is written in the book. According to what they had done.” John 5 Jesus said, “Do not be amazed at this. The time is coming when all who are in their graves will hear his voice, Jesus’ voice, and come out. Those who have done good will rise to live, those who have done evil will rise to be condemned.” And so, on Judgement Day, friends, it's going to come down to this, not those who say, but those who do. Matthew 7:21, “Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons, and perform many miracles?’ Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord’ then will enter the kingdom of Heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in Heaven."

Dear friends, as a pastor, I stand onto this more than any of you. Every week I get up and tell you the way of righteousness, I tell you about prayer, I tell you about evangelism, I tell you about tithing, I tell you about Christian living, I tell you about being a good parent. I tell you all of these things. God is going to hold me accountable for the things I've taught to see whether I have lived up to what I have taught. Do you know what that makes me do? That makes me run back to the cross and back to imputed righteousness, and cling it and say, “Oh God, be merciful to me, the sinner, and work in me more and more obedience than I've ever lived before.”

Now, God has a harvest, I preached that whole sermon last week. There is a vineyard. Last week, a good number of you filled out yellow cards. Maybe you made some promises to God concerning evangelism. You know what you did this week, concerning that? Can I urge you, don't wait for the elders to call you back in reference to that yellow card. We've already actually made some calls, based on folks that wanted to get involved in urban ministry and some other things. You didn't need to have filled out that card by the way, to be under God's requirement to evangelize. I guess you know that, don't you? So those of you that didn't fill out a card, fine with the card. It's alright about the card. God still wants you to evangelize. You know that. Say, “Yes,” to God, and then go do what he has called on you to do, be faithful in that area. And don't wait for us. We are organizing the Church for ministry, we are calling on people to various ministries, but just be faithful in the way that God's called you to do.

One final point of application and we'll be done. Today is Father's Day. This parable, as so many Scriptures, sets our relationship with God in a family kind of setting. Children learn about their relationship with God first and foremost from the relationship with their father. So fathers be faithful to display Jesus' Christ’s love, the love of the Heavenly Father for them day after day. Teach them the Word of God. Saturate their lives in scripture, have daily family devotions. Pray for their little souls, pray for their growing souls, pray for them even when they're out of the house. Be a godly father to them, set an example for them.

And sons and daughters, if I can just urge you, be the kind of son or daughter that says, “Yes,” that's a sweet moment for dad. Okay, we're not into, we don't delight in, “I will not.” Alright, that's not a special moment for us. Alright, we don't delight in that. “Yes, but in the parable... “ Yes, I know, but I said both of them have problems. Okay, it's better to say, “Yes,” to your folks and then go do what they said.

But in the end, I wanna end with this. The righteousness of Jesus alone, the righteousness of Christ alone will cover us, he is the only begotten Son of God, who said, “Yes,” to his Father. And who did it perfectly for us. Close with me in prayer.

Pastor Andy Davis preaches a verse-by-verse expository sermon on Matthew 9:36-38. The main subject of the sermon is how Jesus inspires us to complete the Great Commission with His observations about the crows who rushed to Him.

So ordinarily, I'd be preaching the next passage in Matthew, parable of the two sons. God willing, I'll get to it next week. I'll allude to it this morning. But this past week, I saw a new film from South Africa called Faith Like Potatoes, what an odd title. It's about a simple South African farmer, a man named Angus Buchan, he's of Scottish descent. He was a man characterized by racism and anger and frustration, brawling, smoking, drinking. A man about which the Scripture says he was without hope and without God in this world. Then he heard the gospel clearly explained, and he gave his life to Christ. He began reading the Bible, praying and seeking the Lord, growing in his new faith. He was struggling to wrestle a livelihood out of the wilderness of the KwaZulu-Natal portion of South Africa. It's a rugged area, and very difficult to make a living there.

And soon after his conversion, he found himself in an absolutely desperate situation, working with his foreman, a Zulu man named Simeon, they were purposely burning some grassy areas to clear it out, and the fire got away from them. Started to spread and was spreading at an alarming rate, and there was no water to put it out. They were just beating the bushes ahead of the fire to stop it from spreading but they were losing the battle and he was getting burned. He desperately jumped in his vehicle and drove to get some help and a few more people came in, but it was not enough. And even more terrifying as the fire started to burn out of control, it was heading toward the largest match factory in South Africa, The Lion Match company. And he realized that if it went up and it was his fault, he would be financially ruined, not to mention the danger to human life. He was absolutely desperate.

And that day he had read the scripture verse that I preached on a couple of weeks ago. “If you believe, you'll receive whatever you ask for in prayer.” “Lord, we need rain. It's the only thing that's gonna put this fire out, we need rain.” He calls out to Simeon, his Zulu foreman, says, “Simeon, pray for rain. We need to pray for rain.” He said, “But it's not the rainy season.” “I don't care. We need to pray for rain. The Bible says if you believe, you'll receive whatever you ask for in prayer.” He just started praying, “Lord, send rain. If not, we're ruined.” Fire's out of control, it's spreading, but then suddenly out of nowhere, come rain clouds gathering right over this man, and the downpour puts out the fire.

Now what would something like that do to your faith? Say, “Oh, Lord, send it, and I'll be a great man or woman of faith. God do that.” I mean, he's in a situation where there's nothing else he can do but trust God. And he just prays. He's not some great man, he's just in a great situation, and he's asking God to do something incredible, send rain. From that moment on, this man Angus Buchan gained a reputation in the area of being a great man of faith and of prayer. Isn't it funny how these things work? And just a short time after that, as his wife and he were preparing to go to bed, some Zulus from the area came in desperation, they're banging on his door. “What is it? What's wrong?” “Portia, our sister has been struck by lightning. Please come and pray for her.” Well, he finds out as he's going there, she's actually dead. And he gets there and she's lying dead on the ground, and he's saying, “What do you want me to do? I don't know what to do.” And no one was with him, he was just there with her and they were on the outside. And he said, “I don't know what to do.” And so he just prayed, mumbled some prayer about her healing, that God would raise her up, and she stood up on her feet.

Now again, if you were put in that situation, event one and event two, what would you do? Wouldn't you do the exact same thing the second time? And as soon as she stood up, he said, to her, “I didn't do this, God did. I didn't raise you up, I just prayed a little prayer. It was all I could do, just to pray that prayer.” Soon Zulus pushed in, they were amazed. And one old woman falls at his feet and begins grabbing his leg and he said, “Get up. Get up. I didn't do anything, I just prayed.” Well, in the movie he doesn't do any more faith healings, God doesn't make him a great faith healer, but these two things happen at the beginning of his life. And he realized that God was calling on him to go from place to place and tell them about Jesus Christ. He wasn't a man trained in evangelism. He wasn't trained in doctrine or theology, he was just a simple man and yet he had a vision, and that was that he would go out and begin telling people about Christ.

And he had a vision of gathering all the South African farmers in the area to the largest soccer stadium in South Africa, a place that could hold over a hundred thousand people. Ordinarily, he'd have to rent it for about a million dollars. Biggest rock stars would come there, etcetera. And he met with this man, he was sympathetic to what he wanted to do, gathering all the South African farmers to pray for rain. It was the middle of a drought and there was tremendous racial tensions there in South Africa, as you can well imagine, and that they would pray for peace. And also that God's work would be advanced. But God does amazing things and they get the stadium for nothing, just about nothing. And they fill it with tens of thousands of people, and he preaches in a very simple way, of the need to repent and believe in Jesus, for the forgiveness of sins, and simple prayer for rain, and for peace in their country. That's all.

But God didn't answer the prayer for rain, at least not right away. And as the time for planting came and started to move on, the land around them was dry as powder. You can imagine the effect of not having rain for that long period of time. And he realized that they were in a desperate situation. And he felt the Lord leading him to plant a crop of potatoes. And his friends and his banker all told him that he would be facing financial ruin if those potatoes, if that crop didn't come up. But as he prayed and he sought the Lord, he just felt this is what he had to do. And he invested all of his worldly wealth into this one crop of potatoes. And then just prayed. Prayed that God would, against all odds and against all science, to some degree, without rain, without water, with the ground as dry as dust, produce a harvest. And it's really kind of amazing, because, unlike wheat or corn where you can see the progress, you just have to wait. You have no idea what's going on below the surface of the ground.

And the time came for them to find out what God had done. And he goes out with Simeon, his foreman, and they pray. And Simeon reaches down under the ground, and pulls up a beautiful yellow potato, big round potato. Where the moisture came from only God knows. And there were thousands others just like it. And his wife, in faith, had gone to the village and brought them out to watch the harvest, if there was one. And out they came, and there was in fact a great harvest. And it's a climactic point in the movie, and he's sitting there with some children, some other people, he's holding one of these potatoes, and he quotes that which became the title of the movie. “You need to have a real faith. A faith that connects to real life, that actually produces real things in your life, as real as these potatoes.” Quoting the King James version of that definition of faith, “faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” And so there was substance. The potato is substantial. There was something there, something came as a result of faith.

Now, faith has to do with invisible things, trusting invisible God. But it produces visible effects in this world. God has used this man Angus Buchan to start a men's ministry in South Africa that has grown and grown and grown. The first year he just had a vision of having men come to his simple farm there, in that province of South Africa, and 240 men came for prayer and Bible teaching. And the next year, 2007, the number grew to 7,000 men. Last year 60,000 came. They set up the largest tent in the world, a 16-pole tent called Tensile 1. I was interested in that. I studied the tent - you're not interested in the tent, but I am very interested in the tent. Big tent. And if they don't have the side flaps down, they were able to go out to about 40,000. It still wasn't enough. So there are people sitting out in the sunshine, just listening to the preaching and the teaching, 60,000 men. This past May they had 190,000. They're just there to pray and to grow in grace and to see people come to faith in Christ, etcetera, just a simple farmer.

After the film was over, and the next day as I was praying, I started thinking about FBC. Started thinking about my ministry here, thinking about you and me. Thinking about what I preached on two weeks ago, “if you have faith and do not doubt, not only can you do what was done to the fig tree, but you can also say to this mountain, move from here to there, and it will move.” Nothing will be impossible for you. “If you believe, you'll receive whatever you ask for in prayer.” Well, that was two weeks ago. Have you asked him for anything? Remember I told you the great danger of that verse is not name-it-and-claim-it and health-and-wealth. It's a danger but not the great danger. Great danger is you will not ask anything based on that verse. You will not know whether you have or not, asked anything based on that verse since then.

So I was going to preach on this parable, the two sons. God willing, will do so next week. You know the parable. There's a man who has two sons. “He goes to the first and says, ‘Son, go and work in the vineyard.’ ‘I will not,’ he says. But later he changes his mind and goes. Goes to the second son and says, ‘Go and work in the vineyard.’ ‘I will, sir,’ he says, but he does not go.” I was starting to think of it in terms of my relationship with God, God as a father, he has a vineyard. He has a harvest field. He comes to me and says, “Go and work in the harvest field.” Which of the two sons am I? It seems to me that I'm more like the second son that says, “I will go,” but I don't go. I'd like to see God do something incredible here. I'd like to see him do something that none of the church growth people say ever happens. I'd like to see a multi-generational fruitful evangelistic ministry here. I'd like to see senior adults leading others to faith in Christ and bringing them for baptism and discipleship. I'd like to see people my age or a little bit older, people just about retirement age doing the same.

I'd like to see career people, people in their 30s and 40s, people with growing families, leading people to Christ, men and women. I'd like to see singles who haven't gotten married yet. I'd like to see young mothers of preschoolers leading others to faith in Christ, bringing them here to have him baptized and then discipled and trained. That's what I'd like to see. I'd like to be involved in a work like that. I'd like to kinda prove that you don't have to have all of the trendy, hot cultural stuff and the music and all of that in order to see something like that happen. If they're right in their theology, they're gonna tell you it's the gospel that converts them anyway, not all that other stuff. I'd like to at least try. My sense is that I feel that if we trusted the scripture and trusted the gospel, we could actually see that happen and we could disprove all the experts.

I'd like to at least try because my instinct here is that we're not trying like we could. We haven't really trusted Matthew 21:22 or Romans 1:16 that the gospel is the power of God for salvation. Let's go ahead and give it a try. And then when we disprove that. Will we? We will not. But when we disprove that, then we'll start bringing in all the glitzy cultural stuff, and then they'll be proven right. I don't think that's gonna happen. I think that the gospel is, in fact, the power of God for salvation. And I'm excited to see what God can do here. And I've been here about 10 and a half years, and I think God's done incredible things here. There's no other church on earth I'd rather pastor than this church. I wanna be right here. I wanna be here when God does these things. He's cleared a lot of stuff out of the way. He has established a lot of good things here. Everything's in order, friends. Except this one thing, a regular pattern of people being baptized and then taught to obey everything Christ has commanded. That isn't here yet, not like it will be. And I'm trusting God that it will be.

But it's so beautiful. We see the elders, plurality of elders have been established. It is a delight to work with these men, it's a joy. We see the deacons now in place and godly leadership, excellent leadership, getting them out into ministry teams, that's all in place, everything's in place. I kinda liken it to like a pick-up truck by the side of the road with its hood up, and now the tinkering's done under the engine, the hood's down, and we're moving. Okay, but where are we going? Where are we going? And I think we ought to go where Jesus has commanded us to go. We talk about the two infinite journeys, internal journey of holiness, external journey of disciple-making worldwide. And I've said, and I'll continue to say, you can't pick and choose. They have to be done together. If you just do one, you will not have the one you do. You won't have it. Not for long. And so we've got to move out, without giving up our commitment to sanctification, to holiness, growth in grace, we've got to see people brought to faith in Christ, and started on their internal journeys of holiness. 

That's what I wanna see happen and I think it's going to happen. We've already seen some remarkable conversions this year, especially in the international student ministry. We've seen a husband and wife couple brought to faith in Christ. You have to go minister in Japan to realize just how unbelievably rare that is. Praise God that we're here when God's doing these things. I just want more of it, don't you? I'd like to see those kind of testimonies week after week. I'd like to kind of sit over there in my pew and none of you watch me. I wanna just sit there and cry. I wanna sit there and cry at the goodness of God in that person's life. And then the next week cry a couple more times. Don't you wanna see that? I wanna be part of that. I wanna be part of a church like that.

I want 2009 to be the year that this church broke free from its shackles of fear of man. If you were totally free of fear of man, you would be bolder in evangelism than you are. And you say, “Is it really even possible to get that free?” I think it is, I think it is. That's something worth praying for. I'd like to see this be the year in which we grow in this kind of way, in marvelous ways, with people being brought to faith in Christ and baptize them and teaching them to obey everything that God's commanded. I believe that if God enabled us to baptize, what number could I put to it? Does it matter the number? I don't even wanna say a number. But baptize some remarkable number of people. Far more than we've ever baptized before. I don't know if this is a true statement, but for me, I think it would be a greater miracle than if we went down to Duke cancer ward and emptied the place through faith in prayer.

Frankly, I think it would be of more eternal consequence, don't you? These are people brought to genuine faith in Christ who will spend eternity with God in heaven. And a greater miracle. That's a mountain-sized, mountain-moving kind of miracle right here at this church, in 2009. Won't you pray for me and pray for us that we would see that happen? I would like to be the son that says “Yes” and then goes and obeys the father. That's the best of both, isn't it? That we would actually assent to what God is telling us to do and then go do it, and see God be powerful. Now, I'm in a group of pastors called The Gospel Coalition, these are some of the great men in gospel work in the US, and it's a privilege to be part of them. One of the pastors, a man named Mark Driscoll, he's pastor of one of the most extraordinary churches in America. Somewhat controversial guy, but he preaches the gospel, he’s reformed in his theology, believes in regenerate church membership. Very, very careful on church discipline, plurality of elders. Remarkable ministry among people that most of us could never reach. These are the unchurched in the most unchurched city in America, Seattle, Washington.

Not at all the Bible Belt friends, up there in Seattle. Very interesting city. This past Easter, they baptized 400 people on Easter Sunday, 400 people. They baptized them. I watched some of them on the internet, some of the baptisms. Wow. Now I was talking to somebody and that person said, “Yeah, but how many of them are genuinely converted?” Friends, I don't know. I don't know. But I know him and I know his seriousness and I know he will not baptize anyone who doesn't give a credible profession of faith in Christ. 400 on one Sunday. His church has gone from zero to 10,000 in 13 years. Started in his living room, now it's 10,000 people. Is that gonna happen here? I don't even know that that's a good thing for it to happen here. I know this, it's a good thing for us to see more people baptized than we do and growing in grace in the knowledge of Christ.

So I wanna just give you a quick sermon with four brief points. I wanna talk about our motivation, I wanna talk about our message, I wanna talk about our method and our multiplication.

First of all, what is our motivation? Well, what is our motivation for everything? Is it not the glory of God? Isn't that why God spoke this universe into existence? We are here to glorify God. But I believe that the conversion of a sinner from rebellious against God to a son or daughter of the living God, glorifies him greatly. And so it says in Isaiah 43:6-7, “Bring my sons from afar and my daughters from the ends of the earth, everyone who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory, whom I formed and made.” Bring them. I created them for my glory. Or this in Ephesians 1:11-12, “In him we are also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will, in order that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be for the praise of his glory.” That's why we're here. 

So we evangelize that God might be manifest or glorified in us, that we might display the goodness of God and the love of God. We also evangelize because Jesus has commanded us to do it. So simple obedience to Jesus, simple obedience to Jesus would have us out evangelizing, trading with the gospel. Jesus said, “As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you.” “All authority in heaven and earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.” Jesus said, “If you love Me, you will obey what I command.” So just out of love for Jesus, we would evangelize.

And out of love for others. The second great command is that we would love our neighbor as ourself. There's no greater love that you could show for a neighbor, a lost neighbor, than to share with them the gospel of their only hope of salvation. Joyful rescue of lost sinners. Apart from the gospel, they're doomed to spend eternity in torment under the wrath of God. Let's not forget that for a moment.

It says in Revelation 14, If anyone disobeys. If anyone disobeys the gospel, “he too will drink of the wine of God's fury, which has been poured full strength into the cup of his wrath. He will be tormented with burning sulfur, in the presence of the holy angels and of the Lamb. And the smoke of their torment rises forever and ever. There is no rest day or night” for those who do not believe in Jesus, and who die in that Christless condition. Oh, that should motivate us, that we could be involved joyfully in rescuing them. Snatching them, as it were, from the fire, it says in the book of Jude, and being a human instrument to transfer them over into the kingdom of the Beloved Son. Where they will spend eternity serving God, it says in Revelation 22, standing in the presence of God, seeing his face filled with an in-expressible joy.

Oh, what could be better than that, to be involved, to actually be materially involved in that transfer. Oh, how exciting could that be? Joy, it's the greatest joy in life. Third John 4, “I have no greater joy than this, that my children are walking in the faith.” Now, you might say that's a parenting verse, and fine. Fine enough. In any case, it ends up with people walking in the faith. But I actually think John's talking not just, or perhaps even about biological children, but about people he has led to faith in Christ. He is in some sense their father in the faith. He says, “There's no greater joy in my life than to know that they're walking genuinely with Jesus.” It's the greatest, most joyful life there is. 

And motivation, eternally satisfying rewards. First Thessalonians Chapter 2, the Apostle Paul said this to the Thessalonian church, “What is our hope, our joy, or the crown in which we will glory in the presence of our Lord Jesus when He comes? Is it not you? Indeed, you are our glory and our joy.” When Jesus comes back, Paul says, I'm going to be wearing a crown and the name on that crown will be you, people I led to Christ. You are my crown and I'm gonna glory in it when Jesus comes back. Oh, that'll motivate you.

Alright, what about the message? What message? Well, we have only one, we have only one. God's given the church two great powers to accomplish the conversion of lost sinners. The first is the power of the indwelling Holy Spirit. Acts 1:8, “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you. And you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth.” If you lack power, then ask God and he'll give it to you. You have, if you're a Christian, all the power you need through the indwelling Holy Spirit; power to be a witness. But there's a different power, another power, very much related, but the power for them, for the dead in transgressions and sins, they are dead in their transgressions and sins. The only power there is to raise them from the dead is the gospel of Jesus Christ. Romans 1:16, “I am not ashamed of the gospel because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile. For in the gospel, the righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that is from faith to faith, just as is written: ‘the righteous will live by faith.’” A gift of righteousness through the gospel message, that is the power of God for salvation. And there is no other. That's our message. So we have the gospel. What is the gospel?

Well, some said, “All you have to do is memorize John 3:16, ‘For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him, should not perish but have eternal life.’” Well, those are most of the salient points of the gospel. But as I've trained people about what is the gospel message, I've broken it into four main headings: God, man, Christ, response. God is the creator of the ends of the earth, created all things visible and invisible. Therefore, He has the right to make laws by which we should live our lives. He has made those laws. The ten commandments, the two great commandments, that we should love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, and we should love our neighbour as ourself. He is a lawgiver as a king, and he will also be our judge. Someday, we'll stand before him and give an account whether we have obeyed those laws or not. That's God. 

What about us, man? We are created in the image of God, and therefore, capable of having a relationship with God. But we are sinful, every last one of us. All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. We have violated those ten commandments. We have violated the two great commandments, to love God with all we are, and to love our neighbour as ourself. We stand condemned. And if God doesn't save us, then we'll spend eternity in hell. That's man.

What about Christ? God sent his only begotten Son. He became a human being, he took on a human body. He lived an ordinary human life except in one thing: He never sinned. But he was also God in the flesh. And so, He demonstrated this by great miracles: Walking on water, feeding the 5000, raising the sick and the dead. He could do anything, but most of all, he came to die in our place, that he would be our substitute, taking our beating, walking with our cross up that hill, getting struck by the lightning of the wrath of God in our place, that we might be freed from condemnation. Jesus, in our place, taking our wrath, and him offering a perfect righteousness to us.

And what of response? We have to believe. By simple faith we can receive this righteousness and we can have all of our sins removed from us. And Jesus having died in our place, we will not be condemned, but we have to repent and we have to believe the good news. There's the gospel, friends. You should be able to share that message in one minute or one hour. God, man, Christ, response. And if you can't, then train yourself. Get yourself ready. Get yourself ready like an athlete, to go out and be used by God. That's the message.

What of our method? Well, I want to give you three quick things. Daily life, visiting visitors, and our structured ministries. First of all, daily life. Every day, seven days a week, you interact with non-Christians. Every day. Could be the workplace, could be in your neighborhood, could be at the supermarket, gas station, every day. Ask the Lord every day to give you an opportunity to witness today. Ask him. There's a great thing. D.L. Moody said he made a commitment, he would not go to bed every day, would not go to bed until he had witnessed to at least one person. Now, I'm not saying that you have to make that kind of commitment, but God may lead you to do that for a week or a month, something like that. Try it out. And begin reaching out, speaking to somebody. You could be there at the watermelons in Kroger. You're standing there and you're looking at watermelons, and someone else. That's a human being standing next to you. Look at them, they have a face. They might talk if you talk to them, they just might. They might not, but they might. Strike up a conversation. You say, “About what?” I don't know, about watermelons, something. Talk to them.

Now, you might say, “Well, I'm ashamed. I'm afraid something might happen, they might persecute me.” Hey, look. If they persecute you, what's the worst that could happen? You'd become the only martyr in church history who died by watermelons at Kroger's. You'd be the only one. And you'd be there in heaven, and you'd be able to say, “Here I am Lord, the only martyr that died at Kroger, near the watermelons, as I tried to share the gospel with that unbeliever and they pulled out a knife and stabbed me.” But, you know, if that individual, through remorse of killing you near the watermelons, ends up coming to faith in Christ, you'll say it was all worth it, and so will God. What are you afraid of? What are you afraid of? Yeah, they might be rude, they might turn away, but God's called on us to do this. Let's get active in our daily life, our witnessing. 

What about visitors? Well, praise God. Every single week, God brings lost people here to this Church, and I try to preach the gospel every week. But my basic thesis is that more people come to faith in Christ not at church, than at church. Do you think that's true? I think it's true. I think more people come to faith in Christ on a Tuesday afternoon, or Wednesday morning, whatever, than on Sunday, for what I used to be told by my pastor in Louisville, “This is the most important hour of the entire week.” I didn't know whether that was true. If someone was predestined to come to faith in Christ on Tuesday afternoon, that was the most important hour of the week for them. The bottom line is we are called on to get out, to go, but God brings visitors here and you can be involved. Just reach out, say, “Hey, I haven't seen you here before.” “Well, this is my first time.” Take them out to lunch, find out what their spiritual background is. Talk to them, or get involved in our structured ministry to visiting visitors, called Connection Partners. Say, “I wanna be part of that.” Tell Eric Campbell. Say, “I wanna be part of The Connection Partners. I wanna reach out.”

Or it could be, thirdly, the organized ministries of the church, our urban ministry. You heard Matthew at the beginning. It was an announcement, but he was saying he needed people to go out with him, inviting people to go to VBS. Those are witnessing opportunities. Matthew has a lot of great urban ministry opportunities going. He needs laborers for that harvest field. And there are other opportunities here in the urban area. Diana Lyle works at the Club Boulevard School. School's out for summer, but she has a tremendous heart for children, and she displays that by being active in child evangelism fellowship. They do backyard bible clubs all summer long. Talk to Diana. Say, “I wanna get involved, I wanna be part of witnessing to children.” Maybe that's what you have a heart for.

Our Caring Center has a ministry with clothing, in which we bring clothing and it’s just incredible. I think more could be made of that ministry. If we went out on the streets and say, “We probably could meet all your clothing needs, but we can do more than that. We can help you come to faith in Christ. We can see you clothed with the righteousness of Christ on judgment day.” I think we can do far more with that ministry if we just had more laborers for that harvest field.

It could be medical ministry. Ron Halbrook was talking about how we could use the dental bus year-round. We need more workers, though. Imagine if every month, we had a dental outreach. We could make incredible connections with people in the community here. They frequently don't get good dental care. And share the gospel while they're waiting. Tell our dentist, “Hang on, don't be too quick 'cause we're right in the middle of good gospel conversation here. Forget the teeth, let's look at the soul.” Share the gospel. 

So there are structured ministries that we could be involved in. Prison ministry. You heard we need people to go out and share. We have the privilege in one prison, 'cause we've been there for decades, of going from room to room and inviting prisoners to come to the Bible study. They won't give any other ministry that freedom. We have that freedom, but we need more workers. There's also a woman's prison ministry, as well. You could get involved in that. International student ministry needs your help. It's been one of our most wonderfully fruitful ministries we have. They teach English to people that are yearning to learn English. But we also share the gospel. And we've already seen, as I've mentioned, some fruit coming from those ministries. 

Finally, multiplication. Well, this is the way that the Lord has ordained that we should spread the gospel through to the ends of the earth, that we would be able to lead an individual to faith in Christ, train them up and then send them out that they themselves would also be able to lead others to Christ. And so, we could become spiritual grandparents and great grandparents and great, great grandparents in the span of five years or 10 years. Multiplication. But it's only as we take that first step of saying, “I am committed to being willing to suffer for the gospel, whatever that means here in America. To lose some of my own comfort of my own pleasure and ease and convenience so that I can share the gospel with somebody today.” If we are willing to do that, we're gonna see God do extraordinary things.

Now you have in your bulletin there, a yellow card. It's the homeliest card you'll ever see. We threw it together on Wednesday. We didn't get it professionally printed. It's just a card, is all. But if God has spoken to you today and you wanna be involved in witnessing, if you feel like you need more training that's fine. Our tendency is always more classrooms, more training, I think you probably know enough to already be active in evangelism, but if you feel like you wanna go through God, man, Christ, response, with me or learn some things, whatever. We're willing to do what we can as elders and ministerial staff to get you ready to be witnesses. If you know you already know enough, but you just wanna be held accountable. You say, “There's some people at work I wanna witness to, will you pray?” Whatever. All you have to do is just fill out your name and email. You don't even have to check a box. If you're specifically interested in one of the ministries, check that box. But if God's leading you to do that sometime between now and when we leave in a handful of minutes, just fill out and please write legibly. It's no good if we can't read it, friends, you know that.

But just write your name, your email, and say, “I wanna be involved in reaching out with the gospel, I want to be evangelistically fruitful. I don't wanna stand before God on judgment day empty handed. I wanna have some people there that I actually brought to faith in Christ.” Write it down. We'll begin at least, by praying for you. And then as the elders lead, as we think of how best to use the laborers, we're gonna use you. So I like to ask the elders to come forward now, if you would, and stand in the front. I've asked them to come and pray for this church, that we would be fruitful in evangelism, that God would use us in a mighty way and while they come, I'm going to pray first. Let's pray.

Father, thank you for this day. Thank you for the joy of seeing these high school graduates, for all the labor that has gone into shaping and molding them and preparing them. And Lord, I thank you for godly parents in this church that have a vision for sending out their children, who have been brought to faith in Christ that they would be world-changing disciples of Jesus. Thank you for that, I pray that that would never be diminished by this additional appeal to reach out to the unchurched, and to be father to the fatherless and others, Lord. Help us to be committed to our own children, our families. But God, I do pray that you'd move us out. Make us fruitful. Help us to be bold in evangelism and God, that we would see large numbers of people converted. God, do an astonishing work in our midst here, that we would see many brought to faith in Christ.

Andy Davis preaches an expository sermon on Matthew 21:23-27. The main subject of the sermon is the authority of Christ demonstrated in His encounter with the disrespectful Pharisees.

So we come today, in Matthew 21, to the question of Jesus' authority. And we have to begin by asking: what is authority? It is, I think, the power to influence or to command thoughts or opinion or behavior, it's the right to rule or the right or privilege to act in a certain way. These words all tend toward the understanding of the word authority. And I remember eight years ago I had the privilege of attending an inaugural to the President of the United States. I got a ticket from a friend, to stand there at the mall there in Washington and watch the president get inaugurated.

Now, if I had been a dignitary from a foreign country, I would have had a better view. I would have been able to be up on the steps of the capital. If I had been a representative, I would have had an even better view. And a senator, even better than that. If I had been a Supreme Court justice, I would have been able to sit right there just a few rows back, unless of course I was the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, in which I would be front and center and get to stand up at a certain point and pick up a Bible and face the president-elect. And yet I wasn't any of those things, I was a peon, and my ticket enabled me to go into a cordoned area and stand on muddy ground in the drizzle and look 300 yards away at the only live view I've ever had of a president. That's what my ticket got me. And there were people there checking tickets and checking credentials and passes and all that. And you were not getting further than your credentials allowed that day. It was impossible.

I think we bump into the issue of authority every single day. We may not even realize it. You walk into the bank, and there's some bulletproof glass and there's a little spring loaded swing gate there and some people can go behind there, the tellers and the bank employees, and you can't. And you know it, and you don't have the right to go back there. You just understand that.

Parents have the right to discipline their children. They have the right to train them in godliness, to correct them when they're wrong. Others don't have that same right. We don't have the right to step in and interfere. We can give advice, we can pray, but we don't have that right. It's not given us by God. A little over 10 years ago, this congregation voted me as a senior pastor, and gave me the right and the privilege of preaching here week after week. And it's a great privilege, and I consider it a great responsibility. That's something this congregation had the right to bestow on me. However, if I were to go to another Baptist church in this city next week and just at a certain time in the service just get up and presumed to preach, I would not have that right, it wouldn't be my responsibility, I wouldn't be my right. I haven't been given that credential to do that. 

Recently, I served as a juror in a court trial right nearby here in Durham. And I was chosen to be a juror, and for a short period of time, for two days, I had the right to walk into a certain place in the courtroom and sit in a certain seat. And when the trial was over, the judge very graciously dismissed the jury and that right evaporated at that moment. If I had been there the next day and tried to walk in there, the bailiff would have arrested me probably, if I had persisted. I didn't have the right to be there. So, we bump into this every single day.

Now, in our passage today, Jesus' enemies come to him to question him about his rights, what right he had to do the things he had been doing. And what's amazing as I consider it as a Christian, stepping back, taking in the full biblical instruction about who Jesus is, who he was, it's astonishing to me the unbelief that led them to come and do this and to treat him as they did. Because I say two things to you about Jesus and authority: No man in all of human history has so completely lived his life in submission to authority so perfectly as did Jesus. He lived a whole life in perfect submission to God-ordained authority. And secondly, no one in history has had as much authority as Jesus Christ. And so these two themes will be in our minds as we look at this text today, and as we consider the authority of Jesus.

So what we have here, the chief priests and the elders of the people come up to Jesus. They are the leaders of the Jewish nation. They also happen to be Jesus' most determined opposition. They are constantly challenging him, constantly opposing him, laying traps for him, Debating with him, scheming behind his back. Ultimately plotting to take his life.

Well, here they try the frontal assault method. And this time the topic is authority. Look at verse 23, “Jesus entered the temple courts and while he was teaching, the chief priests and the elders of the people came to him. ‘By what authority are you doing these things?’ they asked. ‘And who gave you this authority?’” Now, certainly I think they have in mind here Jesus' recent and, to them, shocking actions. The riding on the donkey, the triumphal entry, coming in with kingly accords coming to him: “Hosanna to the Son of David.” The cleansing of the temple in which Jesus overturns tables and benches and sets doves free, and he's doing all of these things and saying amazing things like, “Get these out of here. How dare you turn My Father's house into a marketplace, a den of thieves?” His acceptance of worship by the children. That's what we talked about last time. 

And just the fact that he would presume to stand up there in the temple area and teach. All of these things were very offensive and very shocking to these Jewish leaders, and so immediately the chief priests and the elders had one question in mind, the question of authority. By what authority are you doing these things, these shocking things? Now, the Jews were people under authority, and they sought to respect authority. Now here the chief priests and the elders assumed, I think, that they were operating from a position of strength as they came and attacked Jesus. In their way of thinking, all actions should be done under authority, done by the will of someone who has the right to grant a privilege. No one acted as a free agent. There must be some superior human rule that gives someone the freedom to act in these kinds of ways. And as they believed, they were the religious authorities in Jerusalem, the authorities of the Jews. There was no higher religion authority than them.

So if Jesus claimed to be acting under human authority, they would be able to pull the rug right out from under him, and say, “We never gave you that authority. You have no right to do this.” By the way, even the Romans acknowledge this. Josephus tells us that when Pontius Pilate came to his rulership as governor there, he made some serious blunders and greatly underestimated the religious zeal of the Jewish people and got into great difficulties. To the point where it seems, I think, that Caesar commanded him to back off on religious issues, and so signs were put up around the temple area meant for Romans, saying that if any Roman soldier even, or a Gentile at all, would go into the area that they were not permitted go in, they would suffer the penalty of death. The Romans upheld Jewish authority over religious things. And so in effect, Jesus having cleansed the temple without their permission, teaching in the temple area, they wanna say, “Show us your credentials. What right do you have to do this?”

Now, I think the Jewish leaders felt they had Jesus either way. Either Jesus would say, he would have to acknowledge he had no human authority to do this, no right to do it, in which case he would be discredited in front of the crowd. Or he would be, as they have supposed he would, claiming to be acting under God's direct authority, in which case they would have him on blasphemy. This is exactly how they killed him. Either way, they figured they had him. Jesus seemed to them, I think, like a loose cannon, somewhat like an anarchist operating under his own whims and overturning not just tables but authority itself. And their unbelief clouded their minds from seeing the truth, that no one in history has ever submitted as perfectly to authority as Jesus did, and that no one in history has ever had as much authority as Jesus does. 

So, as we come to this question of authority, we've already had a definition from the dictionary. What does the New Testament teach us about authority? Well, Romans 13:1 says that all authority comes from God. Ultimately it comes from God. Romans 13:1, “Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God,” says Paul. And so this sets up, very much, a hierarchical view of the universe. God is the ruler of all. God Almighty, sitting above these ever-ascending spheres of influence and power. God sitting on his throne. He, the King of Kings, he, the Lord of Lords, ruling over all things. And everything below him exists to serve his pleasure and to do his will. That's the Almighty God, but the scripture reveals that God in his wisdom and for his pleasure, ordained that created beings would be given measures of authority under him. They would be rulers under him, so that the title King of Kings means something. There are kings under the ultimate King, there are lords under the ultimate Lord. And they're given dominions, they're given spheres of influence.

And so, God created for example, spiritual beings, angels. And they're called powers and principalities and rulers and all that, and they're given spheres of influence. Some of them, of course, rebelled and went wicked. And that's a topic for another time. But he did create, therefore, archangels or ruler angels, who are given authority over other angels. God also created human beings with the same pattern in mind. Human beings were established to rule over physical creation on earth. And so it says in Genesis 1, “God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, after our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, and over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move over the ground.’” And so we were established physically over the earth, to rule over it. And in the pattern of things, and more explained, I think, by the Apostle Paul in 1 Timothy 2, by creating Adam alone for a time, and then Eve later to be a helper suitable for him, he created an order within the family. And so, the husband's the head of the wife because the wife was created next. And so there is an order within, let's say, families.

So that Joshua can say in Joshua 24:15, “As for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.” He has the right to say that. He is the father, he's the head of the house. He has the right to say, “We are not going to be Buddhists here.” And so I’ve said before, to my children and to others, we do not practice religious freedom at the Davis home, okay, we're going to be Christians here. We're gonna pray in the name of Jesus, we're gonna go to church and not temple or shrine, etcetera. We're going to be Christians. And I have the right to say that, it's an authority given me by God. And so on down. There are governmental leaders and all that, and all of them have their spheres and it is godly and right for us to submit to that established structure. Now in this matter, authority over spiritual issues, the chief priests, the elders, the scribes and the Pharisees, were in fact the spiritual leaders of the nation. And ordinarily in every other sense, they would have the right to rule. And interestingly, in Matthew 23, Jesus upholds it. In Matthew 23:2-3 Jesus says, “The teachers of the law and the Pharisees sit in Moses' seat. So you must obey them and do everything they tell you. But do not do what they do for they don't practice what they preach.”

The issue there is they have the right to speak truth from the law of Moses and tell you what to do. But don't follow their example, because they're not obeying under authority themselves. But he established his authority. He upholds the authority of his enemies, not their personal practice, but their authority. He upholds all authorities, all genuine authorities, because he created them. And he proved this by being submissive to his own parents. When he was growing up in their household, it says in Luke chapter 2 that Jesus was submissive to his parents' authority. Even though he was their Creator. And he proved this throughout his entire life, by his submission to the law of Moses. And right to the end of his life by not resisting those who were seeking to kill him, and who, in fact, in the end did kill him. He went like a sheep to the slaughter. He went meekly and submissively. But Jesus especially submitted to the authority of God the Father at every moment of his life, by never sinning. And so I say, no one has ever shown as much submission to authority as Jesus had. More on that in a moment. 

But at the same time Jesus wielded authority more than anyone that has ever lived. What is the authority of Jesus? Well, we see throughout his ministry remarkable displays of authority. Let's start with His teaching. Jesus was there in the temple area teaching. But whenever Jesus taught, the initial reaction of people who heard him said, “No one ever taught like this man.” It's funny because these same enemies, finally they had decided the time had come to arrest Jesus. And so they sent the temple police to go arrest him. You remember this story. And the temple police go and they don't see a good moment, and so they just stand and listen to Jesus teaching for a moment. Bad mistake, at least in terms of their mission. Because they're listening and they're just overwhelmed by his teaching. They're in awe. I think they were gonna become Christians, I think it's what's gonna happen. And so, they go back to the ones who sent them and they say, “Where is Jesus”" And they said with, it seems, stars in their eyes, “No man ever taught like this man.” And so Jesus, in his teaching, it was always authority, a sense of the authority of God, in his words.

Now the Jewish leaders did not value creativity and innovation in teaching. That's not what they loved, they didn't embrace it. “Teach us something new.” No, not at all. When you were a young man being trained by the rabbis, you were taught to learn what the other fathers and forefathers said, and said, “Rabbi so-and-so, in commenting on this passage and quoting Rabbi such-and-such, said this and that.” And the more you could do that, the more trained you were. But along comes Jesus, never having studied in their schools, and he says things like this: “You have heard that it was said ‘you shall not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment,’ but I tell you that anyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment.” “You have heard that it was said ‘you shall not commit adultery,’ but I say to you anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery in his heart.” You have heard that it was said, but I say to you. Doesn't it beg the question, “Who are you? Who are you to say these things?”

And so at the end of the Sermon on the Mount, the crowd's reaction in Matthew captures it. In Matthew 7:28-29, “When Jesus had finished saying these things, the crowds were amazed at His teaching, because he taught them as one who authority and not as their teachers of the law.” But He did many other things to display his authority in his actions, his miracles. He had authority over demons; he would give a command and the demon would obey. He had authority over sickness; he would rebuke a fever and the fever would leave. He had authority over fish. Though I never heard him give a command to a fish, it's kind of implied when they all swim into Peter's net. And so Jesus could just command fish without a word and they would obey him. He had authority over the winds and the waves, he did command them verbally, “Peace, be still,” and immediately they obeyed him. “What kind of man is this?” they asked, “Even the winds and the waves obey him.”

And he had authority over life and death. He had the authority to stand in front of Lazarus' tomb after four days, and command him to come out, and life came into him and he came out. And so in his actions, we see that. The way that he dispensed with the traditions of the elders that weren't biblical. The hand washings and all of that, just didn't worry about it, wasn't concerned with what they thought. The way that he would heal consistently on the Sabbath. His actions were actions of authority, but how much more, then, his words. He claimed authority. Not just that he taught with authority, he claimed authority. For example, you remember the story when they brought the man who was paralyzed and they couldn't get to him so they dug a hole in the roof and lowered it down in front of Jesus. And Jesus, seeing their faith, says in front of them all, says to this man, “Your sins are forgiven.” And they say in their hearts, “This man is blaspheming. Who can forgive sins but God alone?”

And Jesus, knowing their thoughts, said to them, “Which is easier: To say, ‘Your sins are forgiven' or say, ‘Rise and walk’?” No problem to say them, the question is, is there any power behind it, any authority? “But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins,” he said to the man, “‘Rise and walk.’” Just pause for a moment there. Sinner, any sinners here today? I claim to be a sinner. That is your great hope: That Jesus, the Son of God, has the authority to tell you that your sins are forgiven you. And they are. Oh, how sweet is that? It's the center of the gospel promise: Jesus' authority to forgive sins. But he claims other authority as well. He says, “The Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath. I get to interpret Sabbath laws and you're wrong and I'm right, and I can heal people on the Sabbath.” He has the authority, he says, to judge the world. In John chapter 5, it says, “The Father judges no one, but He's entrusted all judgment to the Son, that all may honor the Son even as they honor the Father who sent Him.”

He has the authority to raise the dead. Again, John chapter 5, “Just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, even so the Son of Man has authority to give life to the dead.” And he has the authority over his own life and death. He said, “No one takes my life from me, but I lay it down freely of my own accord. I have the authority to lay it down and I have the authority to take it back up again. This command I received from My Father,” He said. So he has the authority to resurrect himself. He has the authority to give eternal life to whoever he chooses to give it to. And to reveal the Father to whomever he chooses to reveal the Father to. He has this kind of authority, John 17:2, “You granted him authority over all people that he might give eternal life to all those you have given him.” This is the kind of authority that Jesus has.

And so Jesus makes this incredible statement to Pontius Pilate. You remember how at one point He gets silent before Pilate? Doesn't say anything. Pilate is getting very frustrated. He's afraid, he's frustrated and finally he lashes out at Jesus verbally. He says, “Do you refuse to speak to me? Don't you realize I have the authority to crucify you and I have the authority to set you free?” Remember what Jesus said, “You would have no authority over me if it were not given you from above.” What kind of statement is that? It's astonishing, Jesus' claims to authority. And so what is the authority of Jesus? Well, at the end of this gospel he tells us, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me," Jesus says. Ephesians 1 puts it this way, “God raised Christ from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every title that can be given, not only in the present age but also in the one to come. And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the Church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way.” Jesus is infinitely above every other name that can be named, and every other authority there is. That is the authority of Jesus.

So, let me ask you a question. Did Jesus have the authority to cleanse the temple? Oh my friends, yes, he did, He had every right and privilege to cleanse that temple.

Well, what's the second question they asked? Who gave you this authority? Now, that's a fascinating question. You already have enough. And with the scriptures I quoted to answer. God the Father gave that authority to Jesus. And Jesus did nothing apart from that. Everything Jesus did, all the wielding of his own authority, he did in submission to the authority of God the Father. Again, the great commission, “then Jesus came to them and said, ‘All authority in heaven and earth has been given to me.’” I have infinite authority and it's been given to me. So therefore, the one who gives it is above the one who receives it. 

Over and over Jesus links his authority to God the Father. Matthew 11:27, “All things have been committed to me by My Father.” John 5:26-27, “As the Father has life in Himself even so he has granted to the Son to have life in himself," stop there. In other words, I wouldn't be alive in a body, if the Father hadn't given me authority to do it, I wouldn't have been incarnated, I wouldn't have come to the earth if God the Father hadn't commanded it. And as we mentioned about the resurrection, I have the authority to lay down my life and I have the authority to take it back up again. This command I received from My Father.

And so Jesus as a matter of fact, does nothing apart from submission to the authority of God, the Father. John 5:19, “Jesus gave them this answer, ‘I tell you the truth, the Son could do nothing by himself; he can only do what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does, the Son also does.’” And then, in John 14:31, “The world must learn that I love the Father and that I do exactly what the Father has commanded me.” John 14:31. The world must learn that because we are rebels, dear friends. We do very little with a conscious awareness of submission to authority, and we ought to do everything with a conscious awareness of submission to authority, we ought to do everything that way. You wanna know what my application is, it is to do everything you do with a sense of submission to God's authority through Jesus Christ. That's the application. I'm gonna unfold it a little bit, but that's it. Jesus did nothing apart from that.

So as he entered Jerusalem on a donkey, He had the authority from God to do it. And as he cleansed the temple, he had the authority from God to do it, and as he stood up to teach the way of God, he had the authority from God to do it, he had the authority to do all of the things he was doing. This is the answer to their question. So by what authority do you do all these things? By my own authority. And who gave you that authority? God the Father did. So that's their question. Do they get a simple answer from Jesus? No they do not. Jesus was infinitely tricky for them.

Now, for us, I think the more you go on, he becomes simpler and simpler. Pure God. I'm not saying that that's simple. And I'm just saying he is who he claims to be, but for them, they're never sure what they're gonna get from Jesus. They thought they had him. You never have Jesus. Not in that sense. You can't pin him in a corner, and now he's frantic, wondering what to do. You can't debate with Jesus and win the debate. You can't play chess with God and win. And so they're coming in intellectually and they've got it all figured out, they're gonna pin him just like they're gonna do later with taxation, they're gonna try to pin Jesus, you don't pin him. He is the greatest intellect that ever lived.

And so he brilliantly asks them a conditional question. He said, “I also have a question to ask you. And if you answer me,” interesting statement there. “If you answer Me, then I will tell you by what authority I'm doing these things.” Notice how he already anticipates that they're not even gonna answer him. You can't get ahead of Jesus, he knows exactly what's going to happen. 

So He sets this condition. And the question is, the origin of John the Baptist's authority. Look at verse 25, John's baptism. Where did it come from? Was it from heaven or from men? Now, in a debate there's something called the red herring. Alright, you throw it in as a distraction. Alright, you don't know what to do, so you do something over here and they're like, “What do we ask? I don't know, it's over, he's gone.” This is no red herring friends. This is right to the kernel of the nut. He goes right to the core of the matter here to ask this question, he's just doing it in a different way than they expected.

This question about John's authority really comes down to this: Does God have the right to raise up a spokesman, apart from the existing human structures that have become corrupt, and prophetically speak to those corrupt structures? Did he have the right to do that? The answer is, yes he does, He has the right to do that. So who is John the Baptist? Well, he is an enigmatic, shocking, divisive prophetic figure. He appears in the foreboding spirit of Elijah, dwelling in the desert wearing camel's hair and a leather belt around his waist, and eating locusts and wild honey. And like Elijah, he is therefore utterly devoid of love for earthly pleasures. It's not why he's alive. And like Elijah, he is utterly fearless. A preacher of truth, no matter what. He's not afraid of kings, he's not afraid of Pharisees and Sadducees, he will say the truth, no matter what, to anyone. Even if it costs him his life, which it did. And like Elijah, his words are fiery and strong and true filled and prophetic.

What of the baptism of John? Well, it's a specific aspect of his ministry, but it really kind of summarized his whole approach. It was new. It was something they'd never seen before. Baptism isn't commanded or even exemplified in the Old Testament. Scholars tell us it arose somewhat in the inter-testamental period, between Old Testament and New Testament, as a way to get Gentile converts that are starting to come in through the diaspora. The Jews are scattered all around and some people start to wanna become Jewish. And so they washed them in water, in addition to circumcising the men. A sense of saying, “Put off the old filth of your Gentile way of life and come into Judaism.” But now here's John and what's he doing? He's baptizing Jews. Shocking, and in fact saying, “You're all Gentiles to God. God can raise up out of these stones, children for Abraham. Don't boast about that.” It's unheard of. And so immediately, these same elders and rulers of the people, are thinking the same question about John that they would later about Jesus. “Who gave you this authority to do this?”

John 1 gives the conversation on this very point. Verse 19 and following it says, “Now, this was John's testimony when the Jews of Jerusalem sent emissaries, priests and Levites to ask him who he was. He did not fail to confess, but confessed freely. ‘I am not the Christ.’ And they asked him, ‘Then who are you? Are you Elijah?’ He said, ‘I am not. ‘Are you the Prophet?’ He answered, ‘No.’ Finally they said, ‘Who are you? Give us an answer to take back to those who sent us. What do you say about yourself?’ John replied in the words of Isaiah the prophet, ‘I am the voice of one calling in the desert, “Prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths for him.”’ Now, some of the Pharisees who have been sent questioned him, ‘Why then do you baptize if you're not the Christ nor Elijah nor the prophet?’ ‘I baptize with water,’ John replied. ‘But after me, comes one more powerful than I, who you do not know. The thongs of his sandals, I am not worthy to untie.’” And so that was the conversation that had happened years before, a handful of years before, as they confronted John concerning the authority of his baptism.

Now, look at the trap of Jesus' question. His enemies tell us very well what the trap was. They pull off into a little unholy huddle, they get off to the side. They say, “Boy, we're in trouble now. This is unexpected. God doing unexpected things in our lives. This is something different.” “If we say from heaven, then he will ask, ‘Then why didn't you believe him?’ And if we say ‘From men,’ now we're afraid of the crowd for they all hold that John was a prophet.” So that's the problem.

So Jesus' enemies at this particular moment, in this exchange, are revealed as unbelieving, dishonest, cowards. First of all, they're unbelieving, they did not believe John the Baptist, they didn't. Believe what? Well, what he taught. Three things in particular, number one, that he was a prophet, sent from God. That he was as Isaiah said, “The voice of one calling in the desert.” Sent by God, that he was a prophet, sent by God. They didn't believe that. They didn't believe what one of their own, a priest named Zechariah, John's father, had said about him. “And you my son will go on in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to their children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous, to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.” They didn't believe what that priest said about John, that he was sent from God, as a prophet. 

Secondly, and perhaps most poignantly, they did not believe that they were a brood of vipers who needed to flee the wrath to come. They didn't believe that. When John saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to where he was baptizing, he said to them, “You brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? Produce fruit in keeping with repentance. And do not say to yourselves “We have Abraham as our father.” I tell you out of these stones God can raise up children for Abraham. The ax is already at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.” They didn't believe that applied to them. It wasn't them and so they were brutally offended by that. They didn't think they needed to repent for the kingdom of heaven was at hand. They didn't think they needed repentance at all. I tell you, even John the Baptist knew he needed to repent, when he saw Jesus he said, “I need to be baptized by you, and you come to me?” Every sinner needs to repent. They didn't think they qualified as a sinner and so they were really offended by this.

And thirdly, they didn't believe that the one who came after was, in fact, the Lamb of God whose death would take away the sins of the world, or as John clearly testified in John 1, “The Son of God, on whom the Spirit descended and remained.” They didn't believe his testimony about Jesus. So they were unbelieving. 

Secondly, they were cowardly, they were cowardly, as they pull off to the side and discuss it. Look, when you're asked a question, answer it. Where is the courage? These were not men of high principle, they were not men who said, “I'm gonna speak the truth and we'll let the chips fall where they may. I think that John was demon-possessed and I think that you're from Beelzebub.” If that's what you think, say it. But instead, they're having a little discussion, a little political conversation. “Well, if we do this and that'll happen and... “ Look, that's the trickiness of being a liar and a coward. And so, they're not willing to just say what they thought.

Now, they were afraid of the crowd. They held the mob, as they called them, in contempt. In John 7, they said, “Have any of the rulers believed in him? But this mob that knows nothing of the law, there's a curse on them,” that's their attitude toward the crowd, but yet they were afraid of them. They were afraid that they would riot and that they would lose their position. And so, in Matthew 26:4-5, “they plotted to arrest Jesus, in some sly way ... ‘But not during the feast, ... or there may be a riot among the people.” So they're afraid of the people, they're cowards.

And thirdly, they're dishonest. What was the answer they gave? “We don't know.” Okay, that's not what they thought, if you asked them what they thought, they'd say, “We think that John's baptism was from men, actually we think it was from the devil. And we think that you're from the devil,” they should have just been honest. But instead they were dishonest.

And so what did Jesus do? Well, he kept his promise. He said, “If you answer me, then I will tell you by what authority I'm doing this. If you don't, I'm not gonna say anything to you.” He gives them silence. He said, “Neither then will I tell you about what authority I am doing these things.” So, in the encounter between the two, who do you think has the real authority? Isn't it obvious? They come with a question, they're gonna orchestrate the whole thing. He takes control and it goes entirely his way. He's a King. he's a ruler, and he's not gonna be dominated. 

Before we get to application, I wanna lay out what I think is the pride for logic of unbelief. This is how it goes, the prideful logic of unbelief. These rulers and elders of the people started with this supposition, “I am righteous, and God is therefore pleased with my life. I have no need of repentance.” They start there. “Anyone then, who tells me I need to repent is from the devil, or wrong. John tells me I need to repent, he's of the devil, he's wrong, Jesus tells me I need to repent or I'm going to hell, he's of the devil, he's wrong.” I believe, in every unbeliever who hears the gospel they basically run through the same logic themselves, they don't need a savior, they don't need to repent. And so they don't come to Christ.

So what application can we take from this passage? Well, I think we need to know our culture. They accepted authority, they just didn't believe Jesus had any authority. We question authority itself. We question authority itself. We have been sold a lie that we can somehow live our lives free from any authority except our own. That we can live completely free from all authorities. So when Joshua says in Joshua 24, “Choose for yourself, whom you will serve.” He meant this deity or that deity. Alright? "As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord." He assumed we're gonna serve somebody. We are gonna serve some master, we're gonna submit to some authority, we're gonna, he assumed that. We have thrown off that concept and we are trying to live our lives free from any authority. And so we question authority. We have been told that we don't need to serve anyone. And you know what happens if you're given a choice between serving Jesus, and not serving anyone? Do not be deceived in thinking you will not serve anyone. You will be serving Satan, you'll be serving evil. There are no options, we were created to serve, and so therefore we must choose whom we will serve.

Can I commend Jesus to you, as a King then? Can I say serve him because his yoke is easy and His burden is light, and his laws are righteous, and everything he commands is good and upright and holy, no matter how difficult to obey. Can I commend to the authority of Jesus, the Son of God? The Bible says that someday he will obviously be sitting on a throne and reigning over all things. And he will judge, as I've already mentioned, over Judgment Day, and all nations will be gathered before him and he will separate the people one from another, as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. And everyone who gladly by faith, submitted to his authority on Earth, he will say to them, “Come into the kingdom prepared for you. The one you've been getting ready for, you're excited about a kingdom, it's ready now, come in and submit to that kingly authority, for the rest of your happy existence for eternity.” But those that thought to throw off all authority, that thought that they would rule their own lives, their lot is eternal condemnation in hell. 

So therefore, I just urge you, now, come under the authority of the King, come into the kingdom, enter that kingdom through the narrow gate. Submit humbly to his rule. Confess your sins, recognize that Jesus is in fact who John said He was, the Lamb of God, whose death atones for the sins of the world, that you give your life to him, and you will receive forgiveness of sins. If you've already done that, I praise God for you. I praise God that you've already come under the authority of the kingdom of Jesus Christ. But I still wanna challenge you on that very issue. I think we know enough in this church to not separate Jesus as Savior, and Jesus as Lord, that whole thing. “I accepted Jesus, my Savior. And then seven years later, I accepted him as my Lord.” Did you know that Jesus isn't schizophrenic or bipolar? Were you aware of that? That he actually is both Savior and Lord, all the time.

And as I was talking in the Bible study on Romans, I asked this simple question, “What is Jesus a savior you from? Is he not a savior from rebellion? Isn't he a savior from sin?” And so, if you've been saved from sin that means you're now humbly submissive to God the King. That's the salvation he offers. Alright, you accept that. Jesus is going to get more and more invasive as you grow in your Christian life, more and more to you initially intrusive. So that you're gonna kind of act like the same ruler saying, “by what authority are you asking me how I spend my money? By what authority are you asking how I spend my time or what I do with my recreation? By what authority are you getting involved in my thought life? By what authority are you telling me that my marriage needs to improve?”

Now, you would say now, “I would take it a lot better if it would come from Jesus coming down from heaven, shiny and glowing, and I would do it then, but if it's just a pastor or a Christian friend, it's harder to take.” Oh, friends, listen to what God is saying through the Word, let's challenge one another, grow in grace and godliness, let's realize there is an authority to the Word of God, and that God means to get in our business. And to command us to obey.

And I say something to high school graduates. Just be aware of the fact that God has the right to tell you what to do with your life. He has the right to command you in a vocation, that's what it is, a calling from God. Seek a vocation from Jesus Christ. Say, “Lord, You are not irrelevant. You are relevant to my choice of a major. You are relevant to what I do in college.” Submit your life fully to him.

All of us, we need to live every moment as bondslaves of Jesus Christ and recognize that his yoke is easy and his burden is light, and it leads to glory in the end. Close with me in prayer.

“If you believe, you'll receive whatever you ask for in prayer,” those words were projected up on the screen as we came in, I looked at them again. They've really been challenging me. And I wanna begin by saying that there are two errors that we can fall into in understanding this text, this mountain-moving faith. If you believe you’ll receive whatever you ask for in prayer, two very different errors. One of them is that we should ask for the wrong things with misplaced confidence, and that would be the word of faith people, the name-it-and-claim-it people that take verses like this out of context, and ask for fleshly things so they can enjoy a fleshly lifestyle in the name of Jesus. And I'll talk about that later in the message. That's one error. By far the more prevalent error and the more serious and the more damaging to the body of Christ, is that we will ask nothing based on the Scripture that we won't really look at it very seriously at all, that we'll think that our prayer lives are fine the way they are, that we will not ask for much, if anything at all, and we will not ask with the confidence that the Lord is intending by giving his disciples this statement here. That we will be mediocre in our asking and mediocre in our Christian living and we'll have no grand and glorious plans that we're asking for, nothing worthy of his omnipotence, that we'll in short ask for nothing based on the Scripture. 

That's by far the greater danger to us today. And so I wanna talk about this, this verse. Has God given you a grand, glorious plan for your life? A great work to do? Something worthy of him? Worthy of the calling with which you've been called? Maybe he has and maybe as you thought about a work that's worthy of your life and worthy of Christ, you've started to hear words in your mind, echoing in your mind. Like “It can't be done,” “it's impossible.” “What can you do to make a change? What can one person accomplish?” And all these kind of echoes of unbelief, come in your mind. Perhaps God's calling on you to act in some mighty way on the issue of abortion, that you would step out in faith and just do something for the pro-life cause for women that are in crisis pregnancies. Maybe he's laid that on your heart to do something on the political side or on the fundraising side. But you’re just stymied, because you think, how could anything ever change? It's the law of the land, it's been that way for decades. Nothing can change. Or maybe God is calling on you to quit your job in midlife and go get some Bible training and go overseas to reach some unreached people group, some grand, glorious thing.

And again, these phrases come in, how can it be? “It's impossible.” “I could never do anything like that.” Or maybe, God's calling on you to sell your nice home and move to the inner city and do some work for the urban poor, maybe he's calling on you to work with single moms and their kids or maybe he's calling on you to do something for the urban scene. People have different callings in life, but God may have laid that calling on you and you're trembling in fear and you think, how can I do that, how can I live such a radical life? And so it just stops there. Well, I think this text is for you, and for me, so that we would stop dreaming small and start dreaming big. It was William Carey that said, “Expect great things from God and attempt great things for God.” Well, what great thing, are we expecting from God? Or what great thing are we attempting for him? And he was a man that took a text like this, this idea of, if you believe and don't doubt you can even, not only can you do what was done to the fig tree but you can say to this mountain, go throw yourself in the sea and it'll be done. So you get this expression, “mountain-moving faith.” And it's picked up even by non-Christians, they use that expression, “faith that can move mountains,” this kind of thing and...

Well what are these mountains? William Carey faced obstacles in his calling. And so I don't think it's wrong to see it in terms of obstacles, that God could actually move a pile of rocks and shrub and all that and throw it into the sea. Yes, he could do that. But I think Jesus is speaking metaphorically here about obstacles to the Kingdom of God, something that Satan erects in your mind or in your life, the course of your life that stop you from doing what God is calling on you to do. And it's faith that overcomes it, moves it out of the way and throws it into the sea, so that you actually can do what God has called you to do. William Carey had middle school education, taught himself Latin, then Hebrew and Greek, and six other languages, and eventually translated the Bible into 29 different languages. Six complete and then 29 portions of the New Testament in different languages.

The guy was incredible, amazing, the obstacles that faced him: his own lack of education, his own poverty, his status in English society. He's a shoemaker. He overcame all that, he overcame the obstacle of other Christians who were anti-missions and who just poured buckets of water on his dream and his vision, he overcame that. He overcame the laws of the British Empire that made evangelism in India, mission work in India, illegal… 'Cause of the trade and the commerce that they're trying to establish, it made... And he overcame that. He overcame an insane wife who sought to kill him, several times with a knife. She had to be restrained with chains for the last 12 years of her life. Frequently while he was translating the Bible into Sanskrit or Marathi or whatever, she'd be screaming at him from the other room. Overcame that. He overcame social issues that just broke his heart. Like the fact that they would burn widows didn't matter how old, sometimes 12 years old burn widows with their deceased husbands. And he labored in law and in persuasion until that law was overturned. They used to burn lepers, living lepers so that they'd be purged from their leprosy and be reincarnated to something better, worked against that or they would leave their babies out as an offering to the gods, Infanticide. He made that illegal, labored and labored. And after all of his labor six years at least into his ministry, there wasn't a single convert. So I think one of the greatest mountains you have to move is just discouragement, is anything coming of all this? Overcame that, just mountain after mountain after mountain. And I don't have - who can say, how many people there will be in heaven that are there now, or will be, as a direct result of William Carey's life, his willingness to attempt great things for God and expect great things from God?

My fear is that that won't be said of me or of us, this church, that there are many here that attempted great things for God because he's a great God. So my prayer for today, my mountain-moving prayer is that God will actually use the foolishness of preaching some sermon that you're sitting and listening to to actually change the way you pray, and from that, the way you live. So if you just sum it all up, as I look at the barren fig tree, cursed, withered, then the teaching on mountain-moving faith and then in the statement, the promise, “if you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer,” you put it all together, it's fruitfulness, by faith through prayer, that's the point of the whole thing.

And the idea of the withered, fig tree to me, especially having gone through two funerals now in the last week or more. And I realize our time, friends is short, it's not long before we ourselves will wither because the breath of the Lord blows on us and our time will be gone. Are there not twelve hours of daylight? You have that long to work. And when the night comes no one can work. So you have a time to produce fruit, you have a time. And as I look at that withering, I just meditate on the word wither and it comes up in some key places. ... I'm just killing this sermon 'cause I don't even know where I'm at, I'm preaching just ideas, but keep going. Isaiah 40, in Isaiah 40, it says, “All men are like grass and all their glory is like the flowers of the field, the grass withers, and the flowers fall, because the breath of the Lord blows on them.” Everyone dies because God says it's time for you to die.

So God's breath blows on you, and you wither and you die and the time is over. And so what Jesus did to the fig tree, he does to every living thing. He gives life and he takes life away. He gives you your time here on earth, what are you doing with it? Are you bearing fruit? That's the pressure of the passage here is fruitfulness by faith through prayer. So, bottomline: ask for great things. What I'm about to say is good, sound exegesis, an explanation of the text. It needs to happen and I'm gonna do it, but if you can just get one thing, it's change the way you pray, pray for great things because God can do immeasurably more than all you can ask or imagine.

That's an image that came in my mind as we were praying at 9 o'clock this morning. Taking Ephesians 3, that God can do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine whatever you ask God could answer. He didn't say he'll do it or not, whatever you ask, but he said, I can do immeasurably more than that 'cause you just imagined it. Alright. So whatever you ask, he can do immeasurably more. Let's see God's omnipotence work in this church, let's see, his omnipotence put to work in this community, with the international students, in the pro-life issue. Let's see his omnipotence move. And it happens through faithful people who pray. That's what it's about.

Well, from this text we get lessons about Christ, his humanity, we start there. Jesus was hungry. Like you get hungry. Now I know you can say, “Well Jesus was a man, unlike any of that.” Well, he was a man, unlike any other man. And he certainly got hungry after fasting 40 days in the desert, but this was just run-of-the-mill hunger.

This was just morning, I'm hungry, kind of hunger. Now you shouldn't think poorly of his hostesses Martha and Mary, they're in Bethany. I'm sure they would have taken care of him but you know how Jesus used to get up a great while before dawn. So we're not gonna fault the ladies. My guess is, he got up early and made his way back into the city and he hadn't had anything to eat at that particular moment. And that's a remarkable miracle really, if you think about it, because as far as I can see in his first coming, his first advent, this is the only destructive miracle he does. Every other miracle in some way, enhances life or blesses somebody etcetera. This is a destructive miracle. Now I say in his First Coming, in his Second Coming, he will do all kinds of destructive things by a supernatural power.

But here in the First Coming, this is the only destructive miracle there is. Jesus came not to destroy, he didn't come to bring judgment, he didn't come to bring wrath in his First Coming. In John 3:17, it says “God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.” And so Jesus' miracle is generally of this way, but this was a destructive miracle, and I think a foreshadowing of the judgement that will come when Jesus comes the second time. And there in the Second Coming, you know the Book of Revelation speaks of seven seals that are broken and just wrath poured out on the earth, and seven trumpets that blow and wrath all over the Earth, and seven bowls that are poured out and destruction, all over the Earth. And everything is destroyed by the power of Jesus Christ. So this is, I think, a foreshadowing of that.

And so Jesus goes out and he's hungry and he sees this fig tree by the side of the road, and it's in leaf. Now, Mark tells us, it's not, it wasn't fig season. But the way it worked and agricultural experts that know about fig trees say that when the leaves are out by that time already, there's some early immature fruits and while it might not be delicious it’s certainly nutritious and edible and so if the tree has leaves on it, the fruit had already been there and so Jesus went with that, at least outwardly, with the expectancy to lift up some leaves or look around and find something to eat, but there was nothing there. 

And so as a result, Jesus says in verse 19, “May you never bear fruit again!” This is a curse. And the response is immediate. Though I think you have to put it all together with Mark's gospel. They don't see it immediately, but it withered, immediately the fig tree withered. And so Jesus puts on display his power and his humanity, the deity of Christ on display in the humanity.

Now, the fig tree itself I think is a symbol of prosperity for the Jews. Fig trees are plentiful around the Mediterranean and they're called “the poor man's food” because you just go up and eat as he was expecting to do there. And they can grow to a height of over 20 feet and they're leafy so that it's a good place to sit in the shade. Remember, in John 1, Nathaniel was sitting under a fig tree when Jesus called him. And so they become a symbol of prosperity. It says in 1 Kings 4, “During Solomon's lifetime, Judah and Israel from Dan to Beersheba lived in safety each man under his own vine and fig tree.” So it became a symbol of prosperity. 

So also Zechariah figures, pictures, the fig tree as a symbol of prosperity, of the future, messianic reign. In Zechariah 3:9-10, the Lord Almighty says, “I will remove the sin of this land in a single day.” How can you hear that and not think about Jesus? Oh, what a mighty work that was, Jesus dying on the cross, removing the sin of the land in a single day, Zechariah 3, “I'll remove the sin of this land in a single day, … and in that day, each of you will invite his neighbor to sit under his vine and fig tree declares the Lord Almighty.” So a symbol of prosperity. Therefore a cursed, withered, dead fig tree, a symbol of judgment from God, a symbol of judgment.

Now, what does this fig tree represent? I believe to some degree this is a living parable. Jesus told parables. This is kind of an acted out parable. So I think there's a symbolism to this action. We should not imagine that Jesus was just irritable that morning, not having had breakfast yet, and just got ticked at the tree and used his power to just wither something, and it was just a slip, it was just a moment and then he reverted back to his usual ways of healings and teaching and all that. Jonathan Edwards, when he was 20, wrote a bunch of resolutions and one of them resolved never to show the slightest motions of anger toward inanimate objects or irrational beings, okay. Edwards at 20 knew that Jesus certainly lived it perfectly, he wasn't irritated in a flip and sort of way at this tree, and curses it, wasn't like that. No, there's a symbolism here. And we have to understand the context of when this happened. Matthew is not carefully giving us a chronology here. Mark does a better job with chronology, Matthew, I think is keeping stories together. So if you put it all together, we've already had the triumphal entry.

Jesus, according to Mark's gospel, then goes into the temple, looks around, sees everything there, goes home for the night, comes back the next day to cleanse the temple. This is when he sees the fig tree. He hasn't cleansed the temple, yet, he's going back to cleanse the temple which we covered last time. And he sees the tree and therefore the tree, I believe, represents Israel as a nation and their fruitlessness. I don't think it's wrong to see it this way, because the people are filled with religiosity, there's all kinds of activity, it seems like there should be fruit. 

They are streaming in their quarter-of-a-million-strong to worship God as the Passover time and to offer sacrifices and there's all kinds of leaves but the fruit is missing. Jesus said in Matthew 15:8, “These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me, they worship me in vain, their worship is just rules taught by men.” In another place in Luke 13, Jesus told a different parable that helps us interpret this action. Luke 13, “A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard and he went to look for fruit on it, but did not find any. So he said to the man who took care of the vineyard, ‘For three years now, I've been coming to look for fruit on this fig tree and I haven't found any. Cut it down! Why should it use up the soil any longer?’ ‘Sir,’ the man replied, ‘Leave it alone for one more year, and I'll dig around it, I'll fertilize it. And if it bears fruit next year then fine, but if not, then cut it down.’” Boy this is a powerful, powerful parable. Basically it's that judgment on fruitless on a fruitless nation, and I would also add a fruitless individual doesn't come immediately, but God is patient waiting for us to repent, and bring forth the fruit of the kingdom. And so, he fertilizes, he puts around that tree what is necessary to bring forth fruit, and if it brings forth fruit fine, if not, then judgment comes.

And so we have time, we have time to repent, we have time to bring forth fruit, but we don't know how long it is. And so I believe that the tree, the cursing of the tree represents God’ stance both toward an individual and toward his people, collectively, the Jewish people. And the issue is the same no matter how you look at it: God demands fruit, and if no fruit comes then judgment comes.

Now, Israel has a long history of fruitlessness. Later in this chapter, Jesus is going to redo Isaiah's song about the vineyard and we'll talk about that in due time. But you remember that song? I preached about it within the last year in Isaiah 5, the prophet said this, “I will sing for the one I love a song about his vineyard: My loved one had a vineyard on a fertile hillside. He dug it up and cleared it of stones, planted it with the choice vines, he built a watch tower in it and dug out a wine press as well. Then he looked for a crop of great good grapes, but it yielded only bad. Now, you dwellers of Jerusalem and you men of Judah, judge between me and my vineyard. What more could have been done for my vineyard than I did for it? When I looked for good grapes, why did it yield only bad? Now, I'll tell you what I'm gonna do to my vineyard: I will break down its wall, and it will be trampled. I'll take away its hedge and it will be destroyed. I'll command the clouds not to rain on it.” Does that sound like withering to you? “I'll make it a wasteland, neither pruned nor cultivated, and briers and thorns will grow in it.”

Then Isaiah tells us what he's talking about. “The vineyard of the Lord Almighty is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah are the garden of his delight. And he looked for justice but saw bloodshed; for righteousness, but heard cries of distress.” And I'm not gonna say any more about the song of the vineyard 'cause we'll get a chance to look at it again as Jesus revisits at the end of the same chapter, but again and again, the prophets cried against the fruitlessness of the Jewish nation. And therefore, Christ cursed the fig tree as a symbol of Israel's future judgment. The wall, the protective wall would be removed. And the Romans would come in and they would destroy the city. They would lose their place in their nation, and judgment would come.

But friends, it's always dangerous to keep that judgment theme, and that warning theme out there. Bring it right home. Because the nation of Israel is made up of individual people, who are living their lives the way they were living. And each one of us is gonna stand before the judgment seat of Christ to give an account for our lives. We're going to give an account for how we lived here on earth. And the Lord demands fruit from us. He wants fruit, so that's the parable. Has to do with God and the individual or nation and fruit.

Well, at this point, the fig tree withers immediately. It says in Matthew, he's kind of conflating. I think it started right from the roots to wither at that moment, but the full effects of the withering weren't obvious until, I think, the next day. And they're walking in Mark's gospel, they're walking by, and then there's that same tree, and it is just dead in one day. Now, the withering of a fig tree isn't in itself a miracle.

Many of Jesus's miracles have to do with timing, and words that are spoken. Okay, so just the withering of a fig tree isn't a miracle. There are lots of withered fig trees in the world, none of them miracles. However, when a prophet of God, when the Son of God speaks like he does to a tree, and within one day, it is completely dead, friends, that is a miracle. It is a display of the power of God. And Jesus seizes that moment and their astonishment. They're astonished, they're amazed. They're always amazed at the power of God, and I think we should be amazed at the power of God, but there's a certain level of amazement that isn't appropriate for the children of God.

It's funny, after Peter and John healed a man at the temple and they're preaching based on that, and he says, “Man of Israel, why does this surprise you?"” I love that statement. You just have to meditate on it. Someone was healed. Why does this surprise you? Think about all that Jesus did and now we are his apostles, and we're here to preach in his name. Shouldn't surprise you at all. Well, in effect, Jesus could somewhat say this to them. “Why are you surprised?”

And then he teaches them lessons about faith and prayer. Look at verse 21 and 22, “I tell you the truth, you have faith and do not doubt. Not only can you do what was done to the fig tree, but you can also say to this mountain, ‘Go throw yourself into the sea’ and it will be done. If you believe, you'll receive whatever you ask for in prayer.” Really an astonishing statement similar to the one Jesus makes in John 14 in verse 12, when he says, “I tell you the truth. Anyone who has faith in me will do what I've been doing. In fact, he will do greater works than I've been doing because I go to the Father.” Now, that's an amazing statement. Jesus makes these kinds of statements, but they're all true.

So it's an issue of faith and the power of faith, of believing in Jesus as the centerpiece of what Christ has come to do in our hearts in the world. It's the centerpiece that we would believe in Jesus. That's why he came. And so, they came to him in John 6, and said, “What must we do to work the works of God?” And Jesus said, “The work of God is this: To believe in the one he has sent.” That's the work of God. Everything else flows from that.

First, believe for justification. Believe that you might be saved, believe in Jesus and you will be saved from your sins. Perhaps you need that. Perhaps you came here, you're invited, and you've never been saved. You've never trusted in Jesus. The work of God for you is simple. Trust in Jesus to save you from your sins. But after that, everything flows from that. All the good works and it's the same thing: believe in the one that God sent. Believe in Jesus.

Now, what is the nature of faith? Well, perceiving and receiving, I'll put it that way. A lot of different things I could say, but perceiving and receiving is in the nature of faith. Perceiving the invisible spiritual truths, the reality of God on his throne, his nature, his purposes, his plans, what he is doing, seeing what really is in the invisible spiritual realm. And then receiving from God what he is willing to give. That's how I define faith. Perceiving what is in the invisible spiritual realm, and receiving from God what he has promised to give.

Faith, then, is just a humble avenue by which the omnipotent God does great things. It is not faith that moves the mountain. It is God that moves the mountain by faith. That is an important distinction. It is God who moves mountains, not faith. I think we should take this metaphorically because Jesus uses the expression “this mountain.” You can say that “this mountain” be removed and thrown in the sea and it will go. “This mountain” is the Mount of Olives, about which it's spoken in Zechariah that Jesus would have a second coming there. Okay. So I don't think God intends for the Mount of Olives to be removed and thrown in the sea.

I just mentioned this because our asking must be constrained by the Word of God. We have to ask for what God has commanded and what he is doing. So we learn from Scripture what to ask for, and then we be incredibly bold in faith based on those things. And so, I must say this, then, about faith. Faith is not some independent creative force in the universe, that God must bow his knee to. You understand what I'm saying? It's not some independent mindless creative force that we tap into, and then by that electrical kind of force, we then compel God to do something he didn't intend to do. That's the word of faith approach.

It's a major heresy, that whole name-it-and-claim-it, confess-it-and-possess-it, all these rhymes. It is really clever. And it really does pander the whole prosperity success thing. It really does pander to the people's lusts, but how sad it is when people don't understand what God really wants to give us. He wants to give us himself. He wants to give us the fruit of the Spirit. I'd rather have that than a Lincoln Continental town car, or something like that, but I was reading one of these men, name-it-and-claim-it guys. He's saying, “Hey, the Mafia drives around in a Lincoln Continental town car. Why shouldn't the King's kids?” Well, it sounds attractive but I'd rather have the fruit of the Spirit. Wouldn't you?

I think it's helpful to have a car that gets you from here to there, but the bottom line is, I'd rather have the fruit of the spirit. Now, these folks, you know how they talk? I'll say one of their names. Creflo Dollar. Maybe you've heard of him. He said this, “When you pray the word in faith, God has no choice but to do what you say.” Oh friends, we don't talk like that. We don't talk like that. And they'll even talk about how they ask for a king and God didn't wanna give 'em a king. Remember that whole thing? And so, “God will give you what he knows isn't good for you, because he's got to. You asked in faith.” And that's not how it works. It's not how it works. And there are lots of people doing this.

In effect, you become like a little God creating your own beautiful universe as you see fit. That is not faith. Faith sees what really is in the invisible realm, and fits into what God is doing. And the more faith you have, the more clearly you can see into that invisible world. And then you ask according to it, and the asking you do is remarkably blessed by God 'cause that's what he was gonna do anyway.

Alright, so what applications can we take from this text for ourselves? Well, let's just marvel at Christ's power. He can do anything. Just meditate on that. He can do immeasurably more than all you can ask or imagine. I don't know. I can imagine some pretty great things. Do you really wanna take that text on? Take it on then, because God is omnipotent and anything that can be done by power, God can do. So marvel at that.

And let me give again a warning to non-Christians. Flee the wrath to come. Flee to the cross of Christ. The greatest curse is not a curse on the fig tree. It's withering and dying Christless and going to hell. That's the greatest curse, flee to Christ. He died on the cross for you, he died on the cross for sin. Trust in him, you need a Savior. You shed his blood, that you might not have to suffer that wrath from God.

All you have to do is believe in him. And if you believe, then you'll do those great mighty works I've been preaching about today.

But I also wanna give a warning to Christians. If God did not spare the natural tree, he'll not spare you either. Quoting Romans 11. Are you bearing fruit? Is there fruit in your life? A fruitless person is not a Christian. Simply put. Let me quote John 15: “I am the vine and you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit. Apart from me, you can do nothing. If anyone does not remain in me, he is like a branch that is thrown away and withers.” Sound familiar? It withers. “Such branches are picked up and thrown into the fire and burned.”

So, again, I say, a fruitless person is a Christless person. If Christ is in you, you will definitely bear fruit. Well, what is the fruit then? What is the fruit? Well, we talk a lot here in this church about internal journey and external journey. There's fruit of different types. In the internal journey, it has to do with who you are, what kind of person you are. And so, there are different aspects. It's fruit to God, to see brokenness, genuine heartbrokenness over sin, at levels you've never seen before. That's fruit. He sees that as fruit. Do you see how he's humbled himself?

“Do you see how Manasseh has humbled himself?” He says, in one place, there's a brokenness inside and God sees that, a broken and contrite spirit, that's fruit. So there's internal to have a stronger faith, a stronger sense of the greatness of God. As you're listening to this sermon, if your faith is getting strong, that's fruit and you're alive. Nourishing sap is flowing through you, and you just have a stronger faith than you did when you walked in here. That's fruit. Or how about your heart? What you love and what you hate, if you love Jesus, more than you ever did before, and then that's fruit.

Come tonight to our concert of prayer. We're gonna focus entirely on love for Jesus. We need to love him. We need to express our love for him. We need to pray together about our love for Jesus. We need to stimulate ourselves, lest we be like that church in Ephesus, that had forsaken its first love. We don't wanna be like that. Love or die. The book is about that, and God will bring judgment on the church that forsakes its first love. So Let's love Jesus. That's fruit.

But then there's action fruit that just flows out, the fruit of lips that confess his name for you to worship and praise God. Say, “Thank you, Jesus.” That's fruit. It's just evidence of Jesus in you, you're speaking praise. Evangelism is fruit. If you just speak the word of God to a lost person, just speak to them, that is fruit, even if they never repent and believe. You stepped out in faith, you acted, you did something. If it's hard for you to invite someone to church and you do this week, friends, that's fruit. Is there fruit in your life?

Now, I wanna push you a little further and go back to where I began. The great danger of this text for most of us is that we will ask nothing based on this text. Just another sermon, just another day at church. And you ask nothing based on this text. If you believe, you'll receive whatever you ask for in prayer. I think you know what kinds of things you ought to be asking for. Let's ask him for those things, shall we? Let's pray for them. Let's start with love for Christ. Let's go and say, “Lord, I want this church to be openly, clearly, passionately in love with Jesus.” I want us to talk about it. I want our affections for Christ to be very clear and powerful toward Christ, vertically. Horizontally, I want us to be characterized by a genuine sacrificial love for one another.

It grieves me when I hear that people don't feel loved. “People didn't call. I was going through this in my life, nobody called, nobody came.” That grieves me. I take it personally. And if I didn't call and I feel grieved about that, and I need to repent sometimes from that. Sometimes I did call, but no one else, etcetera. I want, horizontally, I want our church to be a loving church, pray for it. That's a great thing. More than that, though, I want our church to be a bright shining light in a dark city. I don't mean to insult Durham at all, but Durham's a dark place, they all are, all of them. But this is at our dark place, and we need to shine like the sun in this place.

So we have an urban ministry going on. Pray that God would make it evangelistically fruitful, that we would see people come to faith in Christ through it. We have an international student ministry. Pray that God would make it eternally abundantly fruitful. Lots of baptisms. We had some this spring, didn't we? Marvelous. Pray for more. We've got friends out on the mission field in unreached people group areas that are counting on us to pray. Pray specifically. Ask what they're doing this week, what projects, what programs they're doing. Pray powerfully for that.

And then one final challenge. Look at the overall general direction of your life, what you're living for, what you are. What could be said briefly at a funeral, in reference, you don't get much time.

Longest funeral I've been to was 75 minutes, alright. And that was long. It was longer than most. Most of them are shorter than that. They will sum up your life, your children, your friends will sum up your life in a few phrases. Alright. What great thing do you want to dominate their mind? He or she was the person who did this. They stepped out in faith with a... William Cary, it was India. He did great work in India. We just know he did that. Hudson Taylor, China Inland Mission, prayed until thousands and thousands of inland Chinese came to faith in Christ. We know his great work. What is your great work?

We're about to go to the Lord's supper. As you do, I just urge that you... That you get your heart right. You may know right away that some pattern in your life is hindering you from full fruitfulness. It's just sin, and you need to confess it. Confess it then, and receive the forgiveness from Christ. And if you've been baptized as a believer, you're welcome to join with us in the Lord's Supper. We want you to partake. It's for sinners. There are no perfect people here. The Lord meant it for that. So use it as an opportunity to reconcile with the Lord, to confess sin. Also, use it to look for opportunity to look forward to when we get to sit at table with the Lord Jesus and feast with him. And then piggyback on what I preached, as you're sitting there waiting for the elements to come, say “Lord, give me a great thing to live for. Something, some great thing I can expect to you to do great things about. Give me a great life work. Give me a ministry here in this church so I can use my gifts in a glorious way.”

Let's pray. Father, thank you for this time of hearing the word of God. Thank you for the power of Matthew, Matthew's gospel, and thank you for the incredible power of God expressed in faith-filled prayer. Oh God, make us fruitful. We don't have long. Our time here on Earth is short, oh God, that we would not die before doing the great works you have in mind for us to do. Clear out the sin, clear out the weakness, clear out the selfishness and worldliness, clear it all out, that we might be maximally fruitful for you. Pray in Jesus' name.

Andy Davis preaches an expository sermon on Matthew 21:14-17. The main subject of the sermon is that God has ordained that He will be praised, so it is sure to happen.

So I constantly marvel at the providence of God. We did not orchestrate that the children would sing this morning. We didn't plan that out that that would line up with the sermon, but so it is. And so I get to preach on this very text, which fits well with the display you had earlier of those joyful little faces as they were singing praise to Jesus. So that's a wonderful thing. Another plug for expository preaching, amen? But this morning, we're looking at Matthew 21:14-17, and I wanna begin with a word about praise. 

Now again and again, we have established in scripture that we were created to praise and worship the living God; that's why you draw breath today. That's why God created you, that you would praise and worship him; that's why God sent his Son into the world, to redeem us from our sinfulness that we might worship him in spirit and in truth. And praise is again the focus of this passage this morning.

"We were created to praise and worship the living God; that's why you draw breath today."

Now when Jesus' enemies refused to give him glory themselves, they were especially offended at the worship that the children were giving to Jesus and offended that Jesus didn't rebuke those children who were praising him but actually accepted that worship. And so that's the passage we're looking at today, so the glory of God and the praise of Christ is a central theme of the Bible, and of our lives, and also of our text today. 

And I wanna begin with an extended quote from C.S. Lewis on praise. It's one of the most influential things ever written about praise, and I'd like to read it to you because it changed my life, the things that he wrote. It was a sermon and he entitled it, “A Word About Praise.”

This is what he said, “When I first began to draw near to belief in God, and even for some time after it had been given to me, I found a stumbling block in the demand so clamorously made by all religious people that we should ‘praise’ God; still more in the suggestion that God himself demanded praise. We all despise the man who demands continued assurance of his own virtue, or of his own intelligence, or delightfulness. We despise still more of the crowd of people around every dictator, every millionaire, every celebrity, who gratify that demand. Thus a picture, at once ludicrous and horrible, both of God and of his worshippers, threatened to appear in my mind. The Psalms were especially troublesome in this way. ‘Praise the Lord, O my soul,’ ‘O praise the Lord with everything that's within me,’ ‘Praise him,’ say the Psalms. Worse still for me was the statement put into God's own mouth, ‘Whoever offers me thanks and praise honors me’ (Psalm 50:23).

“It was hideously like saying, ‘What I most want is to be told that I am good and great.’ ... [Furthermore], more than once the Psalmists seemed to be saying something like this, ‘You like praise, O God. If you do this good thing for me, I'll give you what you want, namely praise.’ It was extremely distressing to me. It made one think that what one least wanted to think. Namely, gratitude to God, reverence to him, obedience to him, I thought I could understand, but not this perpetual worshipping, this perpetual eulogy. Now, part of my initial problem,” said CS Lewis, “is that I did not see that it is in the process of being worshipped that God actually communicates himself to us.

“It is not of course the only way, but for many people at many times the ‘fair beauty of the Lord’ is revealed chiefly and only in times of corporate worship. The miserable idea that God should in any sense need or crave or yearn for our worship like some vain woman wanting compliments on a new dress, or a vain author presenting his new books to people who have never met or heard him, that unworthy idea of God is answered in that same Psalm. Psalm 50:12. ‘If I were hungry, I would not tell you.’ Even if such an absurd deity could be conceived he would hardly come to us, the lowest of rational creatures, to gratify his appetite. I don't want my dog to bark his approval of my new books. But the most obvious fact about praise - whether of God or anything - strangely escaped me. I thought of it in terms of compliment, approval, or the giving of honor; I had never noticed that all enjoyment spontaneously overflows into praise unless shyness or the fear of boring others is deliberately brought in to check it. 

“The world rings with praise - lovers praising their lovers, readers their favorite poet, walkers praising the countryside, players praising their favorite game. There's praise of weather, praise of wines and dishes, of actors, motors, horses, colleges, countries, historical personages, praise of children, praise of flowers and mountains, rare stamps, rare beetles, even sometimes politicians and scholars. I had not noticed either that just as men spontaneously praise whatever they value, so they spontaneously urge us to join them in praising it. ‘Isn't she lovely?’ ‘Wasn't it glorious?’ ‘Don't you think it magnificent?’

“The Psalmists in telling everyone to praise God are doing what all men do when they speak about something they care about. My whole more general difficulty then about the praise of God depended on my absurdly denying to us as regards what is supremely valuable, God, what we delight to do, in fact, what we can't help doing about everything else we consider valuable in our lives. I think we delight to praise what we enjoy because the praise not merely expresses, but actually, in some sense, completes the enjoyment. It is its appointed consummation. It is not out of compliment that lovers keep on telling one another how beautiful they are; the delight is incomplete until it's expressed. It's frustrating to have discovered a new author and not be able to tell anyone how good he is, or to come suddenly at the turn of a country road, upon some beautiful mountain valley, something of unexpected grandeur, and then I have to keep silent because you know the people that you're with and that care for you care no more for it than for a tin can in the alley or in a gutter. Or to hear a good joke and not have anyone to share it with.

“If it were possible for a soul, a created soul, fully to appreciate, that is to love and delight in, the worthiest object of all and simultaneously at every moment to give this delight a perfect expression, then that soul would be in the highest form of happiness imaginable. To see what the doctrine really means we must then suppose ourselves to be in perfect love with God, drunk with, drowned in, dissolved by that delight and then have it flow out from us like some river, a river of praise. The Catechism says. ‘Man's chief end is to glorify God and enjoy him forever.’ But we shall then know that these are really the same thing. Fully to enjoy is to glorify. Therefore in commanding us to glorify him, God is inviting us to enjoy him.”

Well, Jesus knew all of this, and he knew the hearts of these enemies, the hard-hearted enemies of Jesus, and he knew the hearts of the children that were praising him that day, and he knew what it was all about. And so therefore Jesus upheld the worship of these children and basically implied that that was the reason that they existed in the first place.

Now, let's get the context of this encounter. There is, I think, a beautiful progression, a symbolic almost parable-like progression of Jesus' entry into Jerusalem as he begins the final week of his life. Everything's moving rapidly to its foreordained conclusion that Jesus would die for our sins on the cross that week.

And so, events are moving ahead to what God had ordained before the foundation of the world. And here we see this perfect progression. Jesus enters. Jesus assesses. Jesus purifies. Jesus heals, and then Jesus is worshipped. It's a beautiful progression, really. I think I probably should have turned it into the sermon, but I didn't. This is just an aside, but I'm just setting the context. Jesus enters in the triumphal entry, and they're all celebrating. He goes in; they don't understand what they're celebrating. He goes in and looks at the temple area, he looks around, he scouts it out, and goes home for the night since it's already late.

He comes back the next day and purifies that temple, cleansing it from all of its impurities. Then in our account here as we begin, Jesus does this healing ministry, this river of healing, just yet another summary statement of multiple healings, and then Jesus is worshipped. I think it's somewhat a parable of what he does in our individual lives as well. Jesus enters our hearts meek and lowly, humble like a king, but he is a king, but that's how he comes. “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened and I'll give you rest. Take my yoke, my kingly yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.”

And so Jesus enters, humble meek, and lowly, but king-like as well. He assesses us perfectly, scouts our hearts, looks around, sees what there is there, and then he begins to purify our hearts, purified by faith from everything that would defile. Jesus heals us so that we may see his glory, like he healed the blind man to see the physical glory of God. He heals our legs so that we can walk in obedience to his commands. And then in the end, and all along too, receives our heartfelt and child-like worship. So, that's setting the context.

Look how it begins in verse 14, it says, “The blind and the lame came to him at the temple and he healed them.” This is the final mention of healing in Matthew's gospel.

Jesus' final week in the city of Jerusalem, characterized by yet another summary statement of his healing works, of his many miracles; the blind and the lame here, come to Jesus at the temple. And what better place for them to be healed. This is the place representing God dwelling with man on earth, the place where God is worshipped, the focal point of all of Israel's worship. And how easy it is, even though we've never seen Jesus do these miracles, how easy it is for us to become blasé. Oh yes, more miracles. Oh yes, more healings. More blind people healed, more lame people healed, how easy it is. Friends, there was not a single record in the Bible in history ever of the healing of a blind man before Jesus. It had never been done before.

God forbid that we should ever be blasé about this, the blind and the lame came to him at the temple, and he healed them. And Jesus does all of these things effortlessly. He does all things well. It says that in Mark 7:37, “They were astonished beyond measure, saying ‘he has done all things well. He even makes the deaf hear and the mute speak.’” There was nothing that Jesus could not do, and he does it effortlessly. There's no trouble with it. 

And so I think since this is the last record of Jesus' healing ministry in Matthew's gospel, let's survey it just from Matthew's gospel. First of all, we should understand that none of the gospel accounts is complete. Even if you put Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John together, it still is not a complete record of all that Jesus did in those three years. 

John put it this way in John 21:25, “Jesus did many other things as well. If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written.” And so what the Gospel writers have chosen to do, what Matthew does is give general summary statements in which huge crowds are all healed. He gives seven of those, and then he gives 14 specific healing accounts so that you get a sense of what it was like for an individual or a couple of individuals to be healed. It's a very powerful combination, a very beautiful approach. 

So the summary statements in Matthew 4:24, it says, “News about him spread all over Syria and people brought to him all who were ill with various diseases, those suffering severe pain, the demon-possessed, the epileptic, and the paralytics, and he healed them all.” That's a summary statement. Huge region healed. Matthew 8:16-17, “When evening came many who were demon possessed and were brought to him and he drove out the spirits with a word and healed all the sick. This was to fulfill what was spoken through the prophet Isaiah: ‘He took up our infirmities and carried our diseases.’” Matthew 12:15-16, “Jesus withdrew from that place. Many followed him and he healed all their sick, warning them not to tell who he was.”

Matthew 14:14, “When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them and healed their sick.” At the end of that chapter, Matthew 14:34 and following, “When they had crossed over the they landed at Gennesaret, and when the men of that place recognized Jesus, they sent word to all the surrounding country and people brought all their sick to him and begged him to let the sick just touch the edge of his cloak, and all who touched him were healed.” Mathew 15:30-31, “Great crowds came to him bringing the lame, the blind, the cripple, the mute, and many others, and he healed them. The people were amazed when they saw the mute speaking, the cripple made well, the lame walking, and the blind seeing. And they praised the God of Israel.”

And then Matthew 19:1-2, “When Jesus had finished saying these things, he left Galilee and went into the region of Judea to the other side of the Jordan, large crowds followed him and he healed them there.” Those are seven general kinds of summary statements of huge crowds. Everyone healed. But there are also individual miracle accounts like the leper who comes to Jesus and Jesus is so moved with compassion that he says, “I am willing, be healed.” And he touches him and immediately he is healed. Or you've got the centurion's servant who's lying at bed paralyzed and in terrible suffering. Jesus says, “I'll go and heal him.” Centurion says, “You don't need to come under my roof, just say the word and my servant will be healed.” He gives the word and the servant is healed, from miles away.

Peter's mother-in-law lying in bed with a fever, Jesus touches her and the fever leaves and she gets up and begins to serve them. Two demon-possessed men in the region of the Gadarenes so violent that even chains couldn't hold them, out there howling at the moon and naked. Jesus in the Matthew account drives out the demons with a word, “Go,” and they go into a huge herd of pigs and the pigs all rush down and drown in the lake. Then there's the paralyzed man lying on a mat, and they carve out a hole in the roof, and lower him down to Jesus, and Jesus to prove that he has power on earth to forgive sins, says, “Rise and walk,” and the man rises and walks. 

There's a woman subject to bleeding for 12 years, spending all that money on doctors and she never got better, only worse. Then she pushes her way through the crowd, she says, “If only I touch his garment I'll be healed.” She does. Jesus feels that power is gone out. It seems that God the Father has healed her directly through Jesus' power without him knowing it, finds out who it was and says, “Your faith has healed you; go in peace.” Then there's Jairus' little daughter. Jesus was on his way to heal her, she was sick when he began going there, but by the time this encounter with the woman with the issue of blood happened, she's died now; she's dead. “Don't bother the teacher anymore,” and Jesus goes in and says, “Don't be afraid she's only sleeping,” but they laughed at him.

Jesus put them all outside, goes in and just with a word, “Little girl, I say to you, get up.” Jesus restores her to her grateful parents. Then there's two blind men. Jesus says, “According to your faith, it will be done to you.” And immediately they were healed. There was a man with a shrivelled hand there in the synagogue and Jesus' enemy is watching to see if he would heal on the Sabbath and Jesus touched his hand, and immediately his withered or shrivelled hand was restored and made whole. There was a demon-possessed man, blind and mute, and Jesus healed him, so he could both talk and see and it was at that moment, Jesus' enemies decided to say it's by the power of Satan, that he heals, and Jesus said the sin would never be forgiven.

Jesus walked on water during the storm, invited Peter to come out, Peter starts to walk and he starts to drown, and Jesus reaches out his hand and pulls him up, “You of little faith,” he said, “Why did you doubt?” There was a Canaanite woman who wanted healing for her daughter, demon-possessed daughter, Jesus doesn't answer her a word. “I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel,” he said. When she comes and confronts him, he says, “It's not right to take the children's bread and throw it to their dogs.” She said, “Yes Lord, but even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from the master's table.” And by faith, the daughter was healed.

After the Mount of Transfiguration, Jesus comes off the mountain, and there's a frustrated father, the apostles haven't been able to drive out the demon. Jesus says, “Oh unbelieving and perverse generation. How long shall I stay with you? How long shall I put up with you? Bring the boy here to me.” And he rebukes the demon and drives it out. And then there were the two blind men, Bartimaeus and his friend, outside the city of Jericho, and Jesus says, “According to your faith, it will be done,” touches their eyes and they are healed. Fourteen individual healing accounts. Seven summary healing accounts. This is the God we worship. This is Jesus' power. Is there anything he cannot do?

The children, they could see it; they saw him healing. They had learned what to say, the heart was there, they just didn't know what to say, so they learned, I think from the triumphal entry, always say, “Hosanna to the Son of David,” that's what they said, so they're praising Jesus, “Hosanna to the son of David.” Now Jesus already has repeatedly extolled the virtues of little children. He said in Matthew 18 to his own disciples. “I tell you the truth, unless you're converted and become like little children, you will never enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Therefore whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven. And whoever welcomes a little child like this in my name welcomes me.”

So, all true disciples, Jesus is saying, are children at heart. That's the message of this sermon: You will not praise Jesus unless you become like a child, self forgetful, humble, aware, willing to worship Jesus for what you see, and not afraid of what anybody else is gonna say when they see you worshipping. It's like a child. Jesus also repeatedly defended children from all attackers, protecting children. In Matthew 18, he says, “Woe to the man through whom any of these little ones who believe in me should sin. Be better for him to have a millstone hung around his neck, be drowned in the depths of the sea then cause one of these little children to sin.”

He even had to protect children from his own disciples, as they didn't really understand what he was doing and the parents were bringing little babies for Jesus to place his hands on them, pray for them, and the disciples were rebuking those who brought those little children, and Jesus was perplexed with them, distressed with them and said, “Let the little children come to me and do not hinder them, for is such as the Kingdom of Heaven.” In a moment, he's going to defend them again against his own enemies, but he defends these children. Now, these children in the text, I think, are actually boys. The gender is pretty clear in the Greek, and so they're probably 12-year-old boys who had made their Bar-mitzvah and they're there in that area of the temple, and they are perhaps worshipping there as Jewish young men for the first time, just like Jesus did when he was 12.

And so they are there to worship God, but there's Jesus doing all these miracles and isn't it obvious just like the man born blind, now this is remarkable, he does things that no one else has ever done, and you don't know where he's from? Isn't it obvious? Isn't it obvious who he is? He must be worthy of worship and so they're praising him, “Hosanna to the Son of David,” they're saying. Pure simple hearts, giving sweet, simple praise to Jesus. How wonderful is that?

Well, the enemies attack, they move out and they attack. Verse 15 and 16 tells the whole story. “When the chief priests and the teachers of the law saw the wonderful things he did and the children shouting in the temple area, ‘Hosanna to the Son of David,’ they were indignant. ‘Do you hear what these children are saying?’ they asked.” Now, who are these enemies? They were chief priests responsible for the sacrificial system; they were scribes or teachers of the law responsible for the transmission of the Law of Moses in its faithful teaching. So they were copyists; they would literally copy the Law of Moses, and the Psalms, and the prophets so that there would be copies for the synagogues. That's what they did. They were scholars; they were meticulously careful men.

When I was studying Hebrew I found out that they knew the middle letter of every book of the Old Testament, the middle letter. Would you like to spend your time finding the middle letter of the Gospel of Matthew? Not I, but that's what they did. They were counting from the front and from the back and there it is, and if it was off a letter, they knew they'd missed a letter. They spent their whole time staring at these letters like getting a magnifying glass and staring at a piece of bark on a redwood tree and not looking at the greatness, the glory of the whole forest. I don't think there's anything wrong with looking at a detail. I think details are good, but what is the big picture? Is it not the glory of God in the face of his son, Jesus Christ, the Savior of the world?

And so Jesus says in John 5, “You diligently study the scriptures because you think that by them you possess eternal life; these are the scriptures that testify about me. And you refuse to come to me that you may have life.” These are his enemies; these are the ones. They've been in opposition to Jesus the moment that his miracle working gained him a greater favored name than they had, and they were jealous. Pilate knew it. Pilate said, “It's out of jealousy that they handed Jesus over;” they were jealous of Jesus. 

They hated Jesus for what he did. They were expert religionists, they should have seen in Jesus' healings the coming of the Kingdom of God. They should have been among the first to acclaim his rights as the son of David, but their hearts opposed, in their hearts they did not love Jesus. They hated him, and they became indignant. The word implies a fierce anger, perhaps even a rage. The fact is, they're already angry at Jesus and hated him before this moment. And so, they asked this question, “Do you hear what these children are saying?” The implication is that, “Jesus, this is your fault. You are leading our children astray. You ought to rebuke the children. You have to stop them from praising you.” Jesus never stopped anyone from worshipping him. That should tell you something right there. Many great figures in the Bible, whether angels or men, stopped others from worshipping them. Jesus never did. He had come for that. He had come to be worshipped, to be acclaimed, and so he did not stop, he defended it.

So they asked, “Do you hear what these children are saying?” “Yes,” replied Jesus. Just stop there. There is nothing wrong with Jesus' hearing. His ear is not dull to hear; he can hear you praise him. When this morning you got up, as I hope you did, and you began your day with praise and worship. Get down on your knees and say, “Jesus, thank you for going to the cross for me. Thank you that you shed your blood for me. You died for me, thank you.” He heard you. “Yes, I hear. Yes, I hear him.” Of course he hears. He hears everything. 

And then he defends them, and how does he defend them? Well, how would you expect Jesus to defend? With scripture. Has anyone in history ever used scripture as perfectly as Jesus? I mean, he was amazing, he just always had just the right scripture. When Satan tempted him in the desert, he's got three scriptures from the book of Deuteronomy ready to go, all three of them, just perfect. When the Jewish leaders attacked his refusal to the ceremony to wash his hands like they did and all the rules and regulations, Jesus defended it, and attacked their hypocrisy through the book of Isaiah.

When they came to attack his disciples picking grain and rubbing it together and eating like poor people do on the Sabbath, he said, “Haven't you read what David did when he and his companions were hungry?” He defends it from scripture. So he uses precept, he uses example. When they came to ask him about divorce, he answers with scripture right from the book of Genesis. 

Frankly, this flowing of scripture from Jesus' mouth will actually only increase over the last week of his life. He is going to defend, by the end of this chapter, the doctrine of ... He'll expose their rebellion by scripture. He'll defend the doctrine of resurrection from the flames of the burning bush, in the next chapter, and finally the culmination of this as he's standing on trial for his life and they charge him under oath by the living God to say, “If you are the Christ, the Son of God.” He answers, “I am.” Exodus 3.

“In the future, you'll see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One and coming on the clouds of heaven.” Daniel 7. Then they nail him to the cross, and he says, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Psalm 22. It's astonishing. A river of scripture flowing through us. Now here, it's Psalm 8. He pulls out Psalm 8, “Do you hear what these children are saying?” “Yes.” What about you? Do you hear what the Lord is saying in Psalm 8? Are you listening to God? I'm listening to the children, are you listening to God? This is what it says, “O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory above the heavens. From the lips of children and infants you have ordained praise because of your enemies to silence the foe and the avenger.” Didn't you read that part? The basic idea then is that God's name, his presence, his person is majestic and glorious.

His glory is infinite and we are supposed to look up at the heavens, the constellations, the stars, and we're supposed to feel really, really small; we're supposed to feel, “What is man that you're even mindful of us, the son of man that you even care about us.” You're supposed to shrink in your own estimation when you look up at the stars and see them all. “When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place. What is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him?” His fingers set the stars in place; the meticulous tiny little workings of God's fingers. How great then is God.

So when these feelings of weakness and smallness come over us, we are most fit, then, to praise God, that's becoming like a little child. You are nothing in your own estimation; you're not a worthy topic. We're not gonna spend eternity talking about each other; we will talk about what God did in each other's lives. We'll see the glory radiating from each other that's Jesus' glory, we'll do that, but Jesus will be the topic. And so God has literally ordained or set in order or prepared praise from the lips of children and infants; he has prepared it. He has ordained it. Even nursing infants. So, when humans have a humble meek child-like heart then we are ready to praise God. 

Now, the grown-ups, please don't be offended. I'm a grown up, too, here, but grown-ups with all of their intelligence, and all of their education, and all of their attainments, and achievements, and possessions, and power, and positions are not fit to praise him because they're so self-absorbed. Jesus said, “You have to be transformed, you have to be changed and become like a little child to enter the Kingdom of Heaven.” And so also, I think to praise him. And notice that God has ordained praise from the lips of children and infants to silence the foe and the avenger, the enemy; the ultimate avenger or foe is Satan, the Accuser. Satan is silenced by the mouths of children and infants who praise him. What can he say? Because God's strength is made perfect in what? In weakness. And he will defend them as he's doing here.

You know, it's a famous statement, “From the lips of infants, from the mouths of babes.” You can find all kinds of fun statements. It was tempting for me to just give you a bunch of fun stories of fun things that little children say. It really would be fun, but it be beside the point. Afterwards, we can talk about all the fun things that our children say and they do say lots of fun things; you know what I'm talking about. It's a public gathering, it's a party, something like that, and they just speak what everybody's thinking, and they don't get in trouble, everybody else just kinda looks away, etcetera. But you know what I'm talking about. Hans Christian Anderson wrote a parable around that concept entitled “The Emperor's New Clothes.” You remember that? A couple of unscrupulous con artists come in and convince everyone that they are the finest weavers, tailors in the world, and they're gonna make for the emperor a piece of clothing, so perfect, so light, so airy that he couldn't even feel it on his body.

It also had a kind of a magical quality that only if you were competent and fit for your job, would you be able to see it. Other than that it would be invisible to you. Well, this is a really elaborate con isn't it? The emperor can't feel it; he apparently can't see it either, so what is he gonna do? If he acknowledges that he can't see it, he's gonna say, “I'm not fit to be Emperor,” so, he says, :This is the finest piece of clothing I've ever put on.” Well, the counselors around him are starting to pick up on it and they say, “Oh Majesty, you've never looked so wonderful. Look at those robes, the train of robes. Look at the colors, look at the weave,: and the word gets out that that's what going on with the emperors new clothes and soon all the adults, they're all doing the same thing.

“Oh, he's magnificent; he's wonderful.” That is until the child comes. You remember what the child says? “The emperor is naked. He's not wearing anything.” What's funny in the story is the story ends and the emperor actually ignores the child and keeps right on going. Well, what else can he do? So he just keeps right on going in his charade that he's covered with the most majestic clothing ever. Now, I think that this story about Jesus is the same thing only in reverse. Jesus is the emperor, he's clothed in majesty and splendor. And the only ones that can see it are the children.

And the adults who are afraid to lose their position because it's already been decreed by the Sanhedrin that if anyone acknowledge that Jesus was the Christ, they be thrown out of their position. They will not praise him though their eyes show them that he's doing things that no one else could do. And so, they join in, in condemning Jesus, the Sanhedrin does; even Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus, they did not vote. They were not in favor, but they couldn't speak up because it says in John that, “they loved the praise of men more than the praise of God.” They were afraid to lose their position, that is until Jesus powerfully moved on them to bury his body, what a moment to declare their allegiance to Jesus. Only the sovereignty of God could see that happen.

This is the Emperor's New Clothes in reverse. Only the children can see the glory and majesty of Jesus and say he is arrayed in splendor. Are you like a child? Can you see his splendor? Can you see his majesty? He's invisible; you've never seen him, and though you've not seen him yet what? You love him like a child. And so they speak fearlessly, the children, “Hosanna to the Son of David.”

Well, the account ends in verse 17. “He left them and went out of the city to Bethany, where he spent the night.” It's a subtle but profound statement. These Jewish leaders represented the official stance of the Jewish nation; pretty soon, they would make it official, by condemning him to death.

And Jesus goes. And where does he spend the night? In Bethany with his friends, Martha, Mary, Lazarus and those that were child-like and around him and knew his glory and could spend time with him and so it will be that way for all eternity.

What applications can we take from this passage? Well, first, do you not see how right it is to praise Jesus? Are you like a child? Have you been converted? Oh dear friend, if you've come in here full of yourself, unable to see the glory of God, can I urge you to look to the cross? Look to Jesus, shedding his blood on the cross, see the glory of God there and say, “That is my Savior; he's dying for me, so I don't have to go to Hell.” Trust in him; see with the eyes of a child for the first time. And escape the wrath to come by seeing in Jesus the glory that is his. Oh God, give them eyes to see that they might be converted.

But do you not see how right it is to praise Jesus? Revelation 5 pictures cascading worship coming down on Jesus. You remember in Revelation 5, how he takes the scroll from the right hand of the one who sits on the throne. No one was found in heaven, earth, under the earth, worthy to take that scroll, but Jesus came and he takes the scroll and after he takes the scroll the 24 elders and the four living creatures say, “You are worthy to take the scroll and open its seals because you were slain, and with your blood you purchased men for God from every tribe and language and people and nation. You have made them to be a kingdom and priest to serve our God and they will reign on the earth.” So the 24 elders and the four living creatures, but then 100 million angels join in. “Then I looked and I heard the voice of many angels, numbering thousands upon thousands and ten thousand times ten thousand; they encircled the throne and the living creatures and the elders and in a loud voice they sang, ‘Worthy is the lamb who was slain to receive power and wealth and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and praise!’”

Finally, every living creature in heaven and earth join in. “I heard every creature in heaven and earth and under the earth and on the sea, and all that is in them singing: ‘To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be praise and honor and glory and power forever and ever!’” Do you not see how right and perfect it is to worship Jesus, to give him honor and glory and praise? The children in the temple are doing what was right. They were fulfilling their destiny; they were doing the healthiest thing you can possibly do and that is worship Jesus.

When we get to heaven, we will be busy, we will be active, we will sing with a loud voice and skilfully too. I sang with a loud voice earlier today but not skilfully. Alright, those of you sitting around me don't say anything, but you know the truth. But we will sing with a loud voice and we will sing skilfully. What's said? A new song to the lamb. No one's ever heard it before, but I think there's a place in our beings ready to hear that melody, and it will be just so perfect. It wasn't given to Handel when he saw heaven open... That was, “Messiah,” very good, very good, but not the new song.

Alright, and we're going to sing and we're going to worship in a beautiful way. We will be active, yes, we'll be developing the new earth; we'll be doing all kinds of things, but the home base will be around that throne seeing the glories of the risen Christ and giving him thanks and honor and praise.

So, what's the best thing we can do here on earth? Do it now as much as you can. Stir up your hearts through meditation on scripture, go to Revelation 5, go to Revelation 14, go to different passages that show the glories of God. Go over these healing miracles and praise him for it. Go over all he's done in redemptive history and praise him for it.

Teach your children to sing and to praise. How sweet was that, wasn't that wonderful? Teach your children to speak these words, “Hosanna to the Son of David,” to know what it means. Teach them to praise Jesus, and then don't forget to be child-like yourself. Don't be so adult that you can't praise Jesus. Close with me.

In the book of Revelation, the Apostle John had a vision of Jesus as both lion and lamb. The lion is characterized by strength, power, and regal bearing, the ability to tear his enemies limb from limb. Utter fearlessness, decisive action, a powerful roar, that is the lion. The lamb, by contrast, is characterized by meekness and lowliness, quietness and submission to being led, and in the Old Covenant, by slaughter and blood and death. Jesus is both lion and lamb.

And last week in the triumphal entry, we saw Jesus in his lamb-like demeanor. We saw his lamb-like qualities. He was humble, he was meek. He was lowly. He was riding on a donkey entering Jerusalem. He was weeping over it. He was tender-hearted and gentle. In today's text, I think we see Jesus in his lion-like bearing, powerfully cleansing the temple, fire in his eyes, zeal in his heart, fearlessly taking on the most powerful and the most corrupt men of his nation.

Now both the lamb-like and the lion-like aspects of Jesus' ministry tend toward the same end, and that is the purity of his people, the purity of his dwelling place where he will spend eternity together with us. Christ, like a lion in this text, purifies the temple, cleansing it from all defilement. Like a refiner's fire, he comes. And so it's spoken in Malachi 3. “Who can endure the day of his coming? Who can stand when he appears? For he will be like a refiner's fire, or a launderer's soap. He will sit as a refiner and purify our silver. He will purify the Levites and refine them like gold and silver. Then the Lord will have men who will bring offerings in righteousness.” Malachi 3.

So in his lion-like bearing, he's heading toward the purification of his people in his dwelling place, and also as a lamb. Jesus humbly shedding his blood for the sins of his impure and guilty people, in his humble death on the cross, working a perfect purification for sin, for you and me. So that we might stand before God, holy and blameless, and we might offer up to him, sacrifices of praise for all eternity. Both the lion and the lamb of Jesus' tending toward the same thing, the purity of God's people in his presence. So last week, we saw Jesus humble as a lamb, and this week, we see Him powerful, like a lion.

And this is really, I think, a stunning beginning to Jesus' final week on earth. We've already seen the triumphal entry, we've talked about it. And immediately after entering the city, he doesn't go to the palace or the praetorium to discuss power and kingly rule and all of the things perhaps we might have done to negotiate with kings or governors. No, he goes right to the temple. For his will be a spiritual reign, a spiritual kingdom, a supernatural kingdom, and the essence of it is a right relationship with Almighty God. Again, a different kind of kingdom than they supposed. 

And we see here also, in Jesus' actions, His passion for purity. “God is light, and in him, there is no darkness at all,” the Scripture says. Heaven is, therefore, a perfectly pure place, but earth is not so. Earth is corrupted beyond all measure, and so also our hearts. And I think earthly religion among the most corrupted of all human endeavors, among the most corrupt in God's sight and detestable aspects of human life.

Now, I believe that Jesus cleansed the temple twice. Some commentators think he did it just once, and John put it, for some reason, at the beginning of his gospel in John chapter 2. But all the others, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, put it at the end in connection with the triumphal entry in his first entry into Jerusalem final week of His life. But I think the events described in John chapter 1 through 5 are so unique and special and not recorded in Matthew, Mark, and Luke, for example, the changing of the water into wine and other such things. I really do believe that he has it right and Jesus entered Jerusalem and the temple there at the beginning of his ministry. And you remember what it says there, Jesus sat down and formed a whip. He made a whip and He cleansed the temple, and drove out all who were buying and selling there, and overturned the tables, scattered the doves. Did all of that in John chapter 2, the beginning of Jesus' public ministry.

And here at the end in Matthew 21, he does it again. How grievous it is that he has to do it twice. How grievous it is that this noxious stinkweed of bad religion grew up again, because Jesus hadn't pulled it out by the roots yet. It was a symbolic action at the beginning of his ministry and a symbolic action again here and now. Now, Jesus promised, in Matthew 15:13, “Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be pulled up by the roots.” He means to root this out entirely. But Jesus said in his parable on the weed and the tares, he said to the servants, “Let both grow together until the harvest time. At that time I will tell the harvesters: First collect the weeds and tie them in bundles to be burned, and then gather up the wheat and bring it into my barn.” At the end of the world, he's gonna root it all out. He'll root out of his kingdom, the scripture says, everything that causes sin and all those who do evil, and throw them into the fiery furnace. Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. But the root haven't been rooted out yet, and so Jesus has to do this twice.

And so he comes to the temple, what he calls God's house. “My house will be called a house of prayer.” Now, the temple was a sacred space, a sacred place on earth. And that there would be such a sacred space, or a sacred place on earth, was predicted at the time of the song of Moses. You remember during the Exodus, they were coming out of bondage in Egypt and they had just seen a mighty miracle, the crossing of the Red Sea, where the water walled up to the right and to the left, and they passed through on dry land, but then suddenly, the water came crashing down on Pharaoh and his horde and they were destroyed. And on the other side of the Red Sea, then Moses led them in a time of worship and praise, the song of Moses celebrating redemption. 

And this is what it says in Exodus 15:17. Moses singing, he says this. “You will bring them in and plant them on the mountain of your inheritance -- the place O Lord, you made for your dwelling, the sanctuary, O Lord, your hands established. The Lord will reign forever and ever.” So God has a vision of God dwelling together with his people in this sacred space, the sacred place, where they would dwell together. 

And it's pictured later in Exodus in the construction of the tabernacle. God commanded that a tent, a kind of a temporary dwelling would be established and all of the rules and regulations of the tent were set up. And in Exodus 25, it says, “Have them make a sanctuary for me and I will dwell among them, and make this tabernacle and all its furnishings exactly like the pattern I show you.” So the indication from scripture is that God gave Moses a kind of a vision of heaven, and what heavenly worship was like in the perfect order and beauty and holiness of heaven. And that was reflected in a shadow form in that tent, that tabernacle.

And so it says in Leviticus 26, “I will put my dwelling place among you,” God says, “and I will not abhor you. I will walk among you and be your God, and you will be my people, the place the Lord your God will choose from among all your tribes as a dwelling place.” So God is gonna dwell together with His people in this thing called the dwelling place. Now, this special place was mentioned over 20 times in the Book of Deuteronomy. In Deuteronomy 12, for example, it says, “You are to seek the place the Lord your God will choose from among all your tribes to put his Name there for his dwelling. And to that place, you must go; there bring your burn offerings and sacrifices, your tithes and special gifts, what you had vowed to give and your free will offerings, and the firstborn of your herds and flocks. And there, in the presence of the Lord, your God, you and your family shall eat and shall rejoice in everything you have put your hand to, because the Lord your God has blessed you.”

Oh, how much God desires to sit at table with us, to dwell with us, to walk together with us, to have a relationship with us. And this sacred space, this place that would be chosen from among all the twelve tribes, would symbolize that deep desire of God. And so in Deuteronomy 16, it says, “Sacrifice as the Passover to the Lord an animal from your flock or your herd at the place the Lord will choose as a dwelling for his Name.” So that's where you're to go to offer up that Passover sacrifice.

Well, later on, in redemptive history, David thought it would be best to have a more permanent structure, a temple, a building, and so he had it in his heart to do this. Nathan, the prophet, said, “You are not the one to do this, but your son after will build a house for me.” And so, I think God gave to David also a vision of heaven similar to what Moses had, a vision of that holiness and that beauty in that order of heaven, and it was reflected in the plans for the construction of the temple. And David entrusted those plans to his son Solomon, along with all kinds of material possessions of gold and silver and everything he would need to build the temple. And Solomon built the temple, and God descended in the Shekinah. The dwelling glory of God came down in the cloud and God took his place there, a symbol of the place, that sacred space where God would dwell with his people. 

But sadly, over the years, the place became corrupted with sin, especially in the fact that the people did not seem to understand the lessons of the sacrificial system. It's not a trade-in sin that God's doing. If you commit a sin, just do this thing and it'll be fine between us. But the sacrificial system with all of its blood was to teach how much God hates sin and how costly it is and how we deserve to die for our sins. And those sins must be atoned for, but they had reduced it to a machinery. So that in Isaiah 1, he said, “Stop all this blood, all these animals, this trampling of my courts. There's no repentance. There's no brokenness in your hearts over sin.” And so, even the temple itself had been corrupted by that point. And in Jeremiah's day, they looked on it somewhat like a lucky talisman, that they had the ark of the covenant, and they had the temple. And if they had that, that God would never allow some foreign power to come and destroy Jerusalem. And so, they were confident and they said, “The temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord. We're fine.” We'll come back to that thought in a moment, but Jeremiah preached against it. And God shocked them and all the world by destroying that temple through Nebuchadnezzar, crushed it, burned it, destroyed it completely.

After 70 years, God in his mercy and his goodness restored the Jews back to the promised land and one of the first things he wanted done was the rebuilding of another temple. And so it was done under Haggai. Unfortunately, the glory of that temple was greatly reduced. It wasn't as beautiful, it wasn't as pretty. And so while the younger people were celebrating, some of the real older people at that point, remembered what Solomon's temple had looked like and they were mourning loudly at how sad it looked by comparison. And then they said, you couldn't tell the difference between the mourning and the celebration, it was just all mingled together there. In the course of time, Herod and all his wealth and pomp and power greatly enhanced the temple and put lots of big stones and all kinds of other structures around it, and it was a very imposing place. And that was the temple that Jesus came to that day, the dwelling place of God with man.

Now, by the time Jesus came, the temple system was seriously defiled by its primary human caretaker, Annas. Annas was the high priest during Jesus' boyhood years, the most powerful Jewish man in Jerusalem, and he controlled the temple's sacrificial system, the center of Jewish religion. And as you know, according to the law of Moses, three times a year all Jewish males, adults, had to appear and come to the temple and none could come empty-handed. They had to bring their animal sacrifice to that one place that God shows to the temple. Now there was some practical wisdom in the book of Deuteronomy. If you couldn't bring your tithe or your offering because the temple was so far distant from where you lived, in Deuteronomy 14, God made provision for exchanging your tithe for money. And you could carry the money with you and then change it back for whatever you wanted to buy at the temple grounds. And so, this was just a practicality, God, very practical in His advice to us. So the buying and selling of animals for the sacrificial system, and for the tithes and offerings, all of that was perfectly fine. The issue here was the root motive and what was going on and how close the proximity the buying and selling was to the temple. The covetousness and the greed of the hearts of the men that were involved, that was the problem.

Now, I've never heard a clearer description of the extortion going on in the temple than from Pastor John McArthur. I heard a sermon that he gave on this, it really opened my eyes to what was going on with Annas. Annas probably legitimately had the right to be high priest, probably from the line of Aaron. We don't know for sure, but probably. He was high priest from the year AD 6 to 15, again, the boyhood years of Jesus. In the year 15, he was pressured out of office by the Romans, because they wanted to control the high priestly office. It was too powerful a position in Jewish culture, and so they forced Annas out. But Annas was still very powerful and his successor, he himself chose. And frankly, the next six successors were all closely related to Annas, and Caiaphas was, in fact, his son-in-law. So Annas was the real power behind the whole religious system of Israel.

To become a high priest under Rome, all you had to do is kneel down and kiss the hem of Rome's garment and pay a lot of money. And Annas was willing to do both, and he had the money to pay. Now, you may wonder, where does a high priest get all his money? Well, that's the very issue I think that Jesus is dealing with here. It was from the temple concessions, the system of concessions there at the temple. Now, when I say concessions, you ought not to think like the Durham Bulls concessions, where you get hot dogs, and hamburgers, and sweatshirts and all of that kind of thing. No, these were religious concessions. These were animal sacrifices that were being sold there. Again, nothing wrong with that. 

But when people came to make their sacrifices, they would first enter the outer courtyard called “the Court of the Gentiles.” And in this court, concession booths have been set up for the exchange of money because people had to pay a temple tax. Anyone who came possessing foreign currency, their currency could not be accepted. It had to be exchanged. And Annas also had a monopoly in the sale of sacrificial animals, because according to the law, they had to be without blemish and without defect. So you can imagine an Israelite man will leave his field and he would bring his little lamb under his arm and maybe it wasn't so distant for him to travel. And he would come and as he would enter the court of the Gentiles, he would meet there, Annas' inspector. And he would present his lamb, and guess what? It just wasn't good enough. It never seemed to be good enough. And the land would be confiscated as a blemished animal, probably sold again the next day.

But over there, there would be temple sacrifices that were pre-approved, and five times as expensive as any lamb you'd ever find anywhere else. Furthermore, his money was no good. He had to exchange it, and over there is the money changers. And again, for a fee, five times the amount. And as we noted from Josephus, we're talking about over quarter of a million sacrifices annually. Can you imagine the kind of money that was rolling into Annas' coffers? The Jews hated Annas. They call the temple grounds “the bizarre of Annas.” And in the Talmud, it says of Annas, “Woe to the house of Annas! Woe to their serpent's hiss! They are High Priests; their sons are keepers of the treasury; their sons-in-law are guardians of the Temple; and their servants beat the people with staves.” They had a monopoly. They were in control of everything. And so the Talmud gives indication of the Jewish hatred of Annas and of his house. This, my friends, is the “den of thieves,” the den of robbers that Jesus has spoken of. They turned the sacrificial system into a huge machine.

Our sins should cause us grief. They should cause us to weep. It should break our hearts when we sin. And in the Old Covenant's sacrificial system, the sacrifices of God were a broken and contrite spirit. And it was just a symbol of a sacrifice yet to come. They should have known this. The giving of an animal, a blood sacrifice should have been a cause for weeping and brokenness of spirit. But for Annas and his henchmen, it was a business opportunity. Can you imagine what was happening inside the heart of Jesus as he saw that?

And so, we see the zeal of Jesus, perfect purity. Look at verses 12-13: “Jesus entered the temple area and drove out all who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves. ‘It is written,’ he said to them, ‘My house will be called a house of prayer, but you are making it a den of robbers.’”

Now what's fascinating to me about Jesus, is just how he goes about everything he does. In John chapter 2 before cleansing the temple, he makes a whip. I don't know how long that would have taken, but it would have taken a while. In this case, you have to put together the different accounts of Mark and Luke, as well as what we have here in Matthew, but in Mark 11:11 it says, that after the triumphal entry, Jesus entered Jerusalem and went to the temple. He looked around at everything, but since it was already late he left, he went out and went to Bethany and spent the night with the 12. He did this the next day. Oh, how different is the anger and the wrath of God compared to ours. We just react. Our anger is so prideful, it's so sinful, it's so selfish. And so, we're told in James that we should be slow to become angry. God is slow to become angry, and Jesus pictures this. He goes home, perhaps He wakes up, he has his time with the Father, he has his prayer time, and then he goes in and does this. It wasn't an accident, it was nothing he would repent from later, as so often happens with our anger. How perfect a picture of God's patience is this. It says in Psalm 145:18, “The Lord is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and rich in love.”

Now back in John 2, the reason for the cleansing of the temple was given, His disciples remembered later that it was written, Psalm 69, “Zeal for your house will consume me.” What is zeal? Zeal is a passionate fire, burning in the heart of Jesus. Jealousy for the glory of God and the holiness of his name and of his people. That's what zeal is. It's like a fire. And John tells us that's why He did it, that's his motive. It was zeal that did it.

Interesting in John 2. You could translate it a little bit different way: “Zeal for your house will devour me.” A little more aggressive. We could even, getting away from the Greek word, just go to the concept. Zeal for your house will kill me. I will die because of my zeal for your house. And, friends, that happens at both the horizontal and the vertical levels. Horizontally he would die because he made Annas His enemy. Annas hated Jesus. Like, you can imagine some Mafia, head of a Mafia family, would hate anyone cutting in on the drug business, or trying to stop it, or back in the days of prohibition. Al Capone, anyone who would come against him, he would be killed. And so, Annas wanted to kill Jesus, and there is definitely a link between the cleansing of the temple, and Anna's hatred for Jesus. But that's a horizontal level, “Zeal for your house will kill me.” How much more, then, at the vertical level with the holiness of God? Jesus knew that the temple of God was defiled, that the people of God were impure, and he was willing that his blood be shed to purify us from all unrighteousness and to cleanse us, that we might stand holy and blameless in His sight.

And so, zeal for God's house, literally and figuratively killed Jesus. We cannot measure the fire for holiness that burns within the heart of Jesus Christ. And so he was willing to pour out his life blood for that.

And so, what does he do? Well, he enters the temple area, and it says he drove out all who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves. This is a passionate picture, this is a man of action. You can imagine tables flying, coins rolling, clattering to the ground, doves fluttering up into the air, people shouting, wondering what he's doing, and he goes from table to table doing this. It's a picture of the passionate hatred that God has for sin. He's not lukewarm about sin; our God's a passionate being. Our God's an emotional being. Not lukewarm at all. It says in Romans 1:18, “The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness.”

And we should not imagine, friends, that there's the slightest shadow of a hint of a shade of a difference between God the Father and God the Son on this. They're exactly the same. They both hate sin, they're both wrathful against it. There's no difference. You should not imagine that Jesus, mild and meek riding on the donkey, has to stand between us and a wrathful God the Father, etcetera. He feels exactly the same way God the Father does about our sin. And so, this is the passion of Jesus. It is also a prophetic depiction, I think of the future destruction of that temple itself. Jesus himself after he would die and be resurrected on the third day and spend 40 days with his disciples, he would ascend to heaven, and he would sit down at the right hand of God the Father Almighty. And from there he would make his enemies a footstool for his feet. And in 70 AD, He sent the Romans, the sovereignty of Jesus depicted, he sent the Romans to destroy the temple. Jesus predicts this. In Matthew 24, as he left the temple and was walking away, the disciples came to call his attention to its buildings and all of its magnificent stones. “Do you see all these things?” Jesus said, “I tell you the truth, not one stone will be left on another.”

But this is a symbolic surgical strike. Notice that no human being is injured. No animal, even. Doves are set free. Just inanimate objects thrown around. Coins rolling on the ground, that's all. Very careful symbolic surgical strike here. We can imagine, I don't know if it has happened, but some idolaters, money-grabbing, money changers, scrambling around like lizards trying to collect these coins as many of them as they can, and maybe the crowd, they're in the court of the Gentiles, scooping up as many coins as they can get. “Oh, what a happy day at the temple, look what I had mom, bringing home some coins.” Jesus goes from table to table.

And he gives a scriptural reason. He said, “It is written, my house will be called a house of prayer, but you're making it a den of thieves.” The foundation to all true spiritual reformation must be the Scripture. It is written, it is written. And so, Jesus makes it plain that there's a scriptural reason for this purification in the temple.

Isaiah had a magnificent vision, I think, yet to be fulfilled fully. Isaiah 56:7, speaking of aliens, foreigners, eunuchs, Gentiles. Foreigners who bind themselves to the Lord and the Covenant, says, Isaiah, “I will bring to my holy mountain and I will give them joy in my house of prayer, says the Lord Almighty. Their burnt offerings and sacrifices will be accepted on my altar; for my house will be called a house of prayer for all nations.” Someday that's gonna come true. Someday we're gonna dwell together with people from every tribe and language and people and nation, we will offer up a sacrifice of praise to the glory of God, it will be a house of prayer for all nations. Awesome vision. Now, in Jesus' day, still in the Old Covenant, the temple symbolized the unfinished work of redemptive history. It was a bunch of barriers, really, of concentric barriers. You had the court of the Gentiles, beyond which the Gentiles could not go. It was illegal for them to go beyond that. You had the court of women, beyond which Jewish women could not go. And then you had the court of Israel, beyond which laymen, non-Levites could not go. And then you had the sanctuary area itself beyond which only the priests could go.

And then you had at the core of it all, the Holy of Holies into which no one could go, except the High Priest just once a year with the blood of the atonement and he had to get out, lest he be struck dead. What is God saying in the Old Covenant? Thus far you may come and no farther. And so the Gentiles were excluded, but even so there was a desire that a righteous Gentile like a Cornelius or a Centurion and might be able to come to the Temple Mountain, stand there on the outside. Yes, Lord, but even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from the master's table, even the Gentiles could be there and maybe they could pray. But if they did, what would they find, the bazaar of Annas, traffic, and money changing going on. So Jesus just overturns the whole thing. Now of course, by the end of that incredible week, by shedding His blood Jesus is gonna make it all obsolete, amen. Whole thing, obsolete. Oh, how sweet is this? We, in the New Covenant, because of the shedding of the blood of Jesus, we have confidence to enter the most holy place by a new and living way, into the very presence of God that new and living way is his body.

And concerning that barrier, that dividing wall between Jew and Gentile set up there, the court of the Gentiles, that's destroyed, it's gone. For it says in Ephesians chapter 2, concerning Jew and Gentile hostility, “he himself is our peace, who has made the two one, and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, by abolishing in his flesh the law with its commandments and its regulations, and make one new man out of the two.” And so, Jesus gives a picture, a symbolic picture of all this. While he's cleansing the temple, he has in mind Isaiah's vision, “my house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations.” But he says more than that, you're making it a den of thieves. He's quoting another Scripture. Jesus just flowed Scripture. I think if you had squeezed him he would have spoken a Scripture verse. Some Scripture would have come from him, if you had stood near him long enough, he would have quoted something from Scripture. And this is from Jeremiah 7, I mentioned it to you, remember how they were looking on the temple as a talisman, a lucky charm.

And they thought just because they had the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, that they would never be destroyed by a Gentile power. And Jeremiah said, “But look, you are trusting in deceptive words that are worthless. ‘Will you steal and murder, commit adultery and perjury, will you burn incense to Baal and follow other gods you have not known, and then come and stand here before me in this house, which bears my Name and say “We are safe” -- safe to do all these detestable things? But I have been watching declares the Lord, has this house which bears my name become a den of robbers to you?’” So in summation, the temple represented the dwelling place of God with his people in the Old Testament, central to the temple were two things: animal sacrifice, blood sacrifice and prayer. The Jews in general violated the spirit of the sacrificial system by trampling his court with meaningless offerings, because they had not repented from their sins. The Jewish leaders had defiled it by trying to make money on other people's sins, and so, Jesus goes and cleanses it. 

Now where does it stand now with the temple of God? Well, we're in the New Covenant now. We are the sacred space. We are the sacred place. The time is coming, said Jesus to the Samaritan woman when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father, God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth. So the old temple is abolished, he abolished it, friends. It's obsolete, it says in Hebrews 8:13, “By calling this covenant ‘new,’ he has made the first one obsolete; and what is obsolete and aging will soon disappear."

And so, there is a new temple established. The Bible speaks in two different senses of that. First of every individual Christian. If you have been born again, you are the temple of the Holy Spirit, your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit. 1 Corinthians 6:19, “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have received from God? You're not your own, you're bought at a price, therefore glorify God in your body.” You individually as a Christian, you are the temple of the living God.

But so also the church corporately as a whole is the temple of the living God, and the Bible speaks in that way, as well. 1 Corinthians 3:16, speaking collectively. “Do you not know that you yourselves are God's temple and that God's Spirit dwells among you or in you?” Or in Ephesians 2:22, “and in Him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by His spirit.” 

Can I ask you a question? Do you think it's really possible that Christ's zeal for the shadow of the Old Covenant is less than his zeal for the purity of the reality of the new? It cannot be. He is every bit zealous that this temple be pure and holy as it was that, that one was. Christ's heart burns with the desire that every individual Christian and that the church, his bride be holy and blameless in his sight. And so he moves through our hearts and lives sometimes with a whip and with fire in his eyes to get the job done.

He was willing to pay the price, to shed his blood that we be pure. It says in 1 John 1:7, “the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin.” Because of the shedding of his blood, he was willing to die that we be pure. And now his call stands over us that we be pure and we be holy.

So how can we apply this text? First of all, understand how zealous Christ is for purity. Meditate on this. Picture him with fire in his eyes, like Revelation chapter 1. His eyes like blazing fire, his feet like burnished bronze, and he's got a whip in his hand. You say, “Well, I don't like that picture. I like the gentle Jesus, meek and lowly riding on the donkey.” Friends, you can't pick and choose. He is lamb, yes, but he's also lion. He is lion and lamb. We have to accept both.

Meditate on this, and realize what Jesus was willing to do to make us a pure people. Titus 2:13-14, it says, “Jesus Christ … gave himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness,” listen, “and to purify for himself a people that are his very own eager to do what is good.” That's why he shed his blood, that we would be pure from all wickedness and eager to do what's good.

Therefore, application: hunger and thirst for that purity. Sometimes people come to me and they struggle and they say, “How do I know if I'm a Christian? I know I prayed the prayer, I was baptized and I'm struggling. I need to know.”

Probably one of the first things I do is I ask them this: “Do you hunger and thirst for righteousness? So, what do you want?” We all stumble in many ways, we have Romans 7 struggles with indwelling sin, we battle, we fight, we fall, we rise again, we struggle again. My question to you is simply this: do you hunger and thirst for righteousness? Do you want it like Jesus wants it? And I mean for your own personal purity, for your own lives, that your bodies will be holy and pure, that your use of your body will be holy and pure. Do you yearn for that? And then do you extend it out to this church? Are you hungry and thirsty for the righteousness of this church, for your brothers and sisters in Christ that they would be holy and pure in their lives? Is this a fire that burns in your heart? And extend it out. What about other churches in this community, godly churches where there are godly men preaching the word of God, and then people being converted? Do you care about those churches and their holiness? Are you praying for them? Does it matter to you whether they're holy in God's sight?

And extend it out to the nation. The church in the United States of America, does it matter to you whether the people of God is pure? And go to the ends of the earth. “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,” Jesus said, “for they will be satisfied.” Ask God to purify us, ask him to purify yourself, to cleanse you from all unrighteousness, beg him for this. 

Now, what do I mean by purity? I wanna give you two senses before I'm done. There are two key kinds of purity I wanna tell you about, purity of the heart and purity of the lifestyle. 2 Corinthians 7:1 speaks of both. “Since we have these promises dear friends, let us purify ourselves from everything,” listen, “that contaminates body and spirit, perfecting holiness out of reverence for the Lord.” 2 Corinthians 7:1, okay? There are things that contaminate the heart, and there are things that contaminate the body. Okay. What do I mean by purity of heart? Well start with this. Is your heart devoted to Jesus Christ above all? Is he the greatest love of your life? Is your trust wholly in him, or are you trusting also in your good works?

If you're not a Christian, you're probably trusting in your good works, abandon that trust, it will not help you on Judgment Day. Come to Christ, let Christ be uppermost in your own affections and your own trust, purity, focus on Christ. If you are a Christian, I'm asking you now, does the esteem of Christ matter more than anything else to you, more than what other people think about you? Heart purity is sincere and pure devotion to Christ. Freedom from all idols that you would not esteem anything higher than you esteem Christ, that you will not cherish anything earthly or material above Christ, that you would purify your heart from worldliness. In James 4 it likens it to adultery, spiritual adultery. He says, “You adulterous people, don't you know that friendship with the world is hatred toward God, anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. Or do you think that the Scripture says without reason that the Spirit He caused to live in us envies intensely?” That's the spirit of Jesus. And he's zealous for you and he doesn't want you to be worldly.

Now, if I start listing to you specifically, what's worldliness? That's where we get into trouble, isn't it? I'm not going to list them out, I'm just gonna say, anything that's the lust of the eyes, the lust of the pride, lust of the flesh, the boastful pride of life, these things are worldly. It's adultery and therefore, we're called on to purify ourselves, “Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts you double-minded.” So that's heart purity. 

Secondly, life purity. That you would be cleansed in your lifestyle from everything that defiles you. Four major areas, sexual purity. Ephesians 5:3, “but among you, there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality or of any kind of impurity or greed, because these are improper for God's holy people.” Sexual impurity is a temptation in every age, very much so in our age. We are saturated with sexual images. We're barraged by sexual temptations. Christ commands us to be pure from even a hint of sexual immorality. No sexual innuendo, no sexual jokes, no sexual lust resting in your heart, no defilement with media, with internet pornography, nothing. He demands our purity in this, He wants us to be a pure people. Fear him, picture him with eyes blazing with a whip in his hand, He will not spare you as he did not spare people in the past who decided to test him in this area.

Secondly, speech purity. Oh, how we defile ourselves and each other by what we say. Be careful how you use your mouth. Ephesians 4:29, “Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen.” We speak impure words, we gossip, we slander, we talk about others behind their backs, we complain. We murmur against God, for what He provides. We have arguments with one another, with our spouses, with our children, with our parents, with fellow workers, with total strangers, with church members. We speak prideful words boasting about ourselves, we speak untrue words, lying, shading the truth, exaggerating. We speak hurtful words, cutting others down, discouraging them, hurting them with vicious comments. We know how to do it in such a way that they get hurt and we don't even... It's like a hit and run. I've seen people do it.

Sadly, I've done it myself, cut somebody down in such a way they don't know, they've been cut down, they just feel awful after they get done talking to you. You knew what you were doing. God yearns for our speech to be pure from all this. Only what's helpful for building others up according to their needs. Set a guard over the door of my mouth O Lord, may I be pure in speech. Let me say, only what is glorifying to God, may I say only what is true and noble and right and pure and lovely and admirable. May my mouth speak what is true and right.

Thirdly, relational purity, I'm talking about how you conduct your relationships. There are things that defile, like, rage and anger and bitterness and unforgiveness. Are your relationships free from this? Is your marriage free from bitterness and unforgiveness? How about your relationship with your parents or with your children? What about your relationship with your employer or your employee? Are you carrying these relationships properly? He wants relational purity, he wants churches free from factions and dissensions. If you disagree with something the pastors or the elders are doing or have done come and talk to them.

Deal with it honestly, maturely. I appreciate it when people have the courage to do that, and come and bring the Bible and we talk. Praise God for that, and do it. Don't talk about us, about church leaders behind their backs. I have no evidence that's going on. I just suspect, just because of human nature. Let's be sure that our church is free from these kinds of defilements.

And finally, lawful pleasures purity. What do I mean by that? Well, there's some good gifts that God's given, but they have the power to ensnare you. Like food, for example. That you could become gluttonous, that you could kind of live for food, and that's your god, really. It's the pleasure of your life and you just can't wait to have it. Well, it says in 1 Corinthian 6, “‘All things are lawful for me,’ but not all things are helpful or profitable. ‘All things are lawful for me,’ but I will not be enslaved by anything.” Is there any lawful pleasure that's enslaving you in your life? A hobby, a habit pattern, a television program, an electronic device, a vacation home, anything enslaving you, that you have to have it? It's what I call a lawful pleasure enslavement. Oh, that we would be pure, pure in our hearts and pure in our lives.

Now, it could be as you've listened to me preach today, God has been convicting you of sin in your life. If you're a Christian, if you trusted in Christ, all you need to do, 1 John 1:9, is to confess your sins to him. It says, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins” and what? “Purify us from all unrighteousness.” Isn't that sweet? If you're feeling guilty today, take the guilt to the cross, don't blame the pastor, it's not his fault. I don't know you, I don't know you. I know your face and your name, I don't know what's going on in our lives. If you're feeling the sting of conviction could it be that there's a sin there? Bring it to the cross, and confess it to Jesus and let him cleanse you, let him purify you from all unrighteousness. You can be free today from enslavement, come to the cross. 

It may be that you're unable to deal with certain enslaving patterns in your life, and Jesus may need to touch your life with his whip. It's called discipline from the Lord. It might be some kind of hardship, some financial difficulty, could be a health problem.

It says in Hebrews 12, that “the Lord disciplines the ones he loves and he scourges everyone he accepts as a son.” Don't lose heart, and don't blow it off as though it's nothing, but accept the discipline from the Lord and let him work in you. There is a final phase of our salvation yet to come, and I can't wait for it. I yearn for it. When God and man at last will dwell together in perfect righteousness, when the new Jerusalem will come down from heaven as a bride, beautifully dressed for her husband, and at last the dwelling of God will be with his people, and they will be with him and he will be their God and they will be pure from all defilement for all eternity. And when we're there, you know who you have to thank for it, Jesus, the one who died that his temple might be pure. Close with me in prayer.

Well, I was commenting to somebody before worship today, that we may be one of the few Southern Baptist churches that's preaching a Palm Sunday theme on Mother's Day. We're not behind schedule, we're just going on to the next text in Matthew. Those of you that have been with us for a while are not surprised by this at all, but others may be. So we're not off, it's not Easter next week, this is just the triumphal entry I'm preaching on.

One of the most encouraging things for me in the Christian life is to meditate on this one truth, and that is that we were created for a purpose. Our lives here on Earth are absolutely enriched and surrounded by that purpose. And that's good to know, I think, because we live in a day and an age that's diffused with evolutionary principles, within scientific principles, and materialism and all that that teaches us that basically, life is meaningless.

That there is no purpose to any of this. That some time in the primordial age of the earth, billions of years ago or something like that, some volcanic vent at the bottom of the ocean, enabled the temperature to be just right. And suddenly, the first living cell appeared, and we don't know what happened after that, but lots of increasingly complex organisms, evolved eventually and then along came the fish, and then the primates. And then, man evolved from that, and basically, our life is meaningless. And if that's true, then I think that the New Testament captures the proper response, if that's true, if life is meaningless, and there's no real purpose and that when we die our molecules are just kind of reabsorbed in the earth and kind of get recycled in some way, and that there really isn't anything such as spirit or soul. Then let us eat, and drink, and be merry for tomorrow we die. That's the best way to live.

But thanks be to God, it's not true, amen. Thanks be to God, we actually have a purpose that God created us for a very real and rich and full purpose. And that purpose, I think, can be summed up in one word and that word is worship. We were created to take in the truth of God, to know who he is, to scan the breadth and the depth and the height of all that he has achieved in history, to take it in to reason it over and to have our hearts moved by it, powerfully. And to give it back in worship. To just be kindled in our hearts, in our affections, and give God praise and glory and honor for who He is and what He has done. God created the universe for this purpose to display His glory. We can't say it enough. And so, we were created to receive that display and to take it in and to let it change us, so that we would be able to give it back in praise and worship. Therefore Heaven is a world filled with praise to God. It's just filled with it, it resounds with praise to the living God, they're just constantly giving up praise to God. But on earth, not so much. Not as it should be. And why is this?

Well, our hearts, so designed for praise and glory and honor and worship made a dreadful exchange some time ago, and it's described in Romans 1:25, “They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshipped and served created things rather than the Creator -- who is forever praised. Amen.” That is the central dreadful exchange of the human race. And that is why Jesus came to Earth, that we might be reclaimed from bondage to worship of material things, of created things, and give our true heart devotion where it really belongs to the triune God. And that we would spend eternity doing that, that we would delight in it, that it would make us happy to do so.

Now, in today's passage Jesus enters Jerusalem to begin the climactic last week of his life. And as he enters the city, there's a huge throng of Jewish pilgrims that are going up for the Passover celebration. They're enthusiastically greeting him, they are lavishing some kind of praise on him, or worship in some sense. They welcome him and they shout his praises, but my friends, for the most part, it was merely idolatry, because they really didn't know who he was, and they really didn't know why he came, and the kingdom they thought he was bringing was not what he was really bringing. They were worshipping and serving rather an image of what kind of life they would have when Jesus brought in the kind of kingdom they thought he should bring in.

And so this is probably one of the most ironic passages in the entire Bible. Because outwardly there's something very right about this huge throng of people worshipping and praising Jesus. It is very right and proper to do so. He is infinitely worthy of praise. He's entering the city of David, and he's being praised by his people. So, outwardly something very, very right, but inwardly there was something very, very wrong and therefore it's ironic. And so as we come to this passage, we come to be challenged in our own hearts, I think ultimately concerning our own worship for Jesus. And to have some idols stripped away from our hearts and to focus on who Jesus really was, and is. And what he has really come to do and give him, truly, praise and glory and honor for that. To me that's worth spending our time on, don't you think? And so let's look at the details of the triumphal entry.

The triumphal entry is described in numerous places in the New Testament. The circumstances, as I've already mentioned is the passover, this is one of the three great Jewish festivals, and all Jewish men were commanded to leave their homes and come from all over Israel, up to the single place that God had chosen out of all their tribes. It would be Jerusalem, they would come up to Jerusalem. So there were huge crowds, multitudes flowing into the city. During a census taken about 10 years after the life of Jesus, the number of sacrificial lambs slaughtered at the Passover time, in Jerusalem was 260,000. A little over a quarter of a million lambs sacrificed. Now, according to Jewish custom, one lamb could be offered for up to ten people. So there might be as many as two million Jewish pilgrims going up to Jerusalem for the time of the Passover. Now you can imagine what that would have been like for the Roman authorities who are there to dominate the Jews, rule over them, keep the peace.

And what could they do? They wanted to uphold the religion so the people would be happy and peaceful, and not cause the Romans any trouble. But three times a year, they had two million Jews to deal with all at once, and so it was a time of heightened alert and intensity and the Romans would be very, very careful concerning any kind of patriotism or any kind of movement or riot that would spark up among the people. And frankly, the Jewish leaders were maybe even more zealous that that kind of thing wouldn't take place. Now, in our account, Jesus is passing on the Mount of Olives, a little place called Bethpage. We don't know anything about it other than that it's near Bethany. And so Jesus, as you put the gospel accounts together, has just finished a time in Bethany, of refuge and refreshment. Bethany was the home of Martha and Mary, and Lazarus. And John's Gospel tells us that Jesus visited that home in Bethany, six days before the Passover.

So this was probably then, a Sabbath day, a Saturday, that they visited, now, during that visit, as you remember Mary anointed Jesus with expensive perfume, spikenard, it was called, and the aroma filled the house with just a pungent sense and it was very expensive. And you remember that Judas and the other disciples, but primarily, Judas was very upset about the expenditure of this money. And it was at this moment that Judas decides that he's got to part company with Jesus. If they're gonna be lavishing a year's worth of wages on Jesus' feet and Jesus says it was proper to do this, she's preparing me for my burial, it's time Judas thinks to go on his way, because Judas didn't care about the poor, John's Gospel tells us. But he was a thief. As keeper of the money bag, he used to help himself to what was in it. And so it's right at this time that he goes and makes arrangements with the Jewish authorities to betray Jesus into their hands and have him arrested.

“But not during the feast,” they said, “Or there may be a riot among the people.” Now, just a short time before that, of course, Jesus had done his most spectacular miracle of all, and that was the resurrection of Lazarus from the dead. Lazarus had been dead for four days, and Jesus spoke those words, “Lazarus come forth,” and Lazarus came out of that tomb. And it was electrifying because it was so near to Jerusalem. A mighty miracle. And so this is the back drop. And so in Verse 1-3, we see Jesus initiating everything. “Jesus sent,” verse 1, “two disciples, saying to them, ;Go to the village ahead of you and at once you will find a donkey tied there, with a colt by her. Untie them and bring them to me. If anyone says anything to you, tell them that the Lord needs them and he will send them right away.’” Now, with all of these events swirling around Jesus, how serenely Jesus orchestrates the events of the final week of his life on Earth.

How peaceful he is. And you see this in all the accounts, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. It doesn't matter what's going on. His betrayal, His arrest, the events surrounding the Last Supper, all of these things, Jesus is at peace and knows exactly what He's doing and is initiating like a king everything that must happen. And this view of the calm, serene Jesus who's in charge of everything, who initiates everything, is so important to keep in our minds. John 10, “No one takes My life from Me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have the authority to lay it down and to take it back up again.”

And why is it so important, because enemies of our faith, say that Jesus was a good man, a religious leader who got caught up in events too big for him, beyond his understanding, politics and all these kinds of things. He wasn't that kind of a leader and so he was out of his depth, he was in over his head, and je just gets kind of sucked into this and somewhat like goes down the drain, beyond his power, he gets killed. And what can you do? Is that the Jesus of the gospels? 'cause I tell you it is not. Jesus, is sovereign, He's in control, He's in charge. And he is taking the initiative here.

Notice also Jesus' astonishing foreknowledge, the detailed knowledge of what they're gonna find ahead of them in this little area. There's this village and there's gonna be a donkey, and the colt tied there, and if anyone should say anything to you, have this conversation. It's a bit eerie actually. And in Luke's gospel, when he goes, he sends some disciples ahead to prepare the upper room, it gets even more detailed. There's a man entering the city carrying a jug of water, when you see that man go up and tell him, ask him about the Upper Room.

Jesus has an exhaustive detailed foreknowledge of the future, he knows exactly what's going to happen. We see also the issue of fulfilled prophecy. I think there were two overwhelming concerns in Jesus' life as he goes through. Concern number one was that at every moment, he should obey the commands of His father. That his food was to do the will of him who sent him and finish His work. He's always wanted to obey God, the laws of Moses, all of God's commands, that he would obey completely. Secondly, he's always concerned to fulfill prophecy, that the Scripture would be fulfilled, that say it must happen in this way.

And so this prophecy from Zechariah is one of these great predictions. Look at Verse 4 and five. As Jesus sends the disciples in there to go. It says, “This took place to fulfill what was spoken through the prophet: ‘Say to the Daughter of Zion, “See your king comes to you, gentle and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.’” Now, many of the prophecies that came true in Jesus' life really we would have to say at the human level were beyond his control, like when he's crucified, and there's a little jar of wine vinegar, at the foot of the cross, who put it there, and Jesus couldn't have orchestrated that there was no way he could have done it, so that was something beyond his control. This is a little different. I think Jesus actually could have orchestrated this fulfillment. He could have read in Zechariah and said, “Let's be sure that there's a donkey waiting for me, so I can ride it into the city in fulfillment of that.”

Well, look at the disciples' obedience. In verse 6 and 7 it says, “The disciples went and did as Jesus had instructed them. They brought the donkey and the colt, placed their cloaks on them and Jesus sat on them.” So the disciples did everything Jesus had said. There were indeed two animals of donkey and a colt, Matthew tells us. Both animals are brought to Jesus, he chose the colt, the younger and stronger animal. No, he didn't ride two animals at once. I don't know how you could do that and how undignified would the attempt be.

Jesus was always dignified, but rather both the animals were there, and he chose one of the two. It says they put their cloaks on them and Jesus sat on them, meaning the cloaks, not on the two animals. So you just have to be clear about that. And it's interesting because some hostile and unbelieving commentators will say that what Matthew is doing here is he failed to understand Hebrew parallelism in Zechariah's prophecy. There only ever was one animal, but in Hebrew repetition in poetry, they just... Matthew just made a mistake. And so then he writes into the history that there were two animals because he made a mistake. 

Oh, friends, don't you believe it. Who would you rather go with, a Jewish man, Matthew, who was an eyewitness to the events, who wrote down, filled with the Spirit, this account, or some liberal commentators who come years later, and tells us, “Oh, I know why he said this.” I'm gonna go with Matthew. He was there, friends, and there were two animals and Jesus rides on the colt, the foal of the donkey. Notice also the disciples obey even though they really had no idea what was going on.

By the way, that's a good thing for us too. One of the central messages of this sermon is you're not always going to understand what God's doing to bring in His kingdom. And those unfulfilled expectations where you really don't know what's happening in the midst of that time please continue to obey the clear commands God's given you. So even if you don't know what he's doing, just do what he tells you and later it will be clear, it says in John 12:16, “At first His disciples did not understand all this, only after Jesus was glorified did they realize that these things had been written about him and that they had done these things to him.”

Well, meanwhile, as this is happening, and Jesus is riding in, the crowd takes over. Look at verses 8-11, “A very large crowd spread their cloaks on the road, while others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. The crowds that went ahead of him and those that followed shouted, ‘Hosanna to the Son of David!’ ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!’ ‘Hosanna in the highest!’"” Well, this huge crowd as I said, these would be Jewish pilgrims going in just in obedience to the law of Moses.

But also there would have been a large number of Jesus's own disciples who were going in with him and surrounding him, and I think Jesus' disciples really kind of kicked this whole thing off. I think they were just so excited by what they thought was going to happen and by their expectations and thinking about Lazarus and thinking about all the miracles Jesus had done. Luke's gospel tells us that they were celebrating all the mighty signs and wonders that Jesus had done. I think it just served as kind of an igniting combustion of excitement with all of these pilgrims going in. And so they go ahead of Jesus and they're spreading their cloaks on the road, in front of Jesus' animal as he rides it. And it really is a show of... A display of humility.

A display of submission, to take a cloak off your own shoulders and lay it on the dusty ground and have an animal ride across it, in effect, saying, what John the Baptist had said some years earlier concerning Jesus, “I'm not worthy to untie his shoes.” But again, I don't think they understood him, I don't think they understood who he was. It was just a show, it was a display of... They were saying, “He's our king. We're willing to follow his leadership.” And they were... And the palm branches that are cut down in particular symbols of celebration and of salvation and joy.

I remember when I was raised in the Roman Catholic church, Palm Sunday was probably one of my favorite Sundays. We got to hold these palm branches and walk around in procession around the church and parents all took pictures, and this kind of special day, it was a happy day, it was a day of celebration. And so it was for these people as well, they were celebrating. It was a time of happiness because of what they expected that Jesus was going to do.

And look at their words of praise, “‘Hosanna to the Son of David!’ ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!’ ‘Hosanna in the highest!’” Luke gives us this, “Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord!” They're very clear what's going on. Jesus is King, and he's coming to take his throne, at last, we'll have a Jewish king again. Peace in Heaven, they say, and glory in the highest. Now, the cry Hosanna literally means, “Oh, save” or “Save now.” But this urgent cry that they're crying, the whole crowd around Jesus crying, is not for this kind of salvation they really needed.

It was for a different kind of salvation. They yearned, like all patriotic Jews, to have the yoke of Gentile authority finally thrown off their shoulders. From the time of Jeremiah on, when Nebuchadnezzar came in, and conquered Babylon, or conquered Jerusalem, the king of Babylon, from that time forward, Jerusalem was under the heel of Gentile rulers, and they thought, “Today's the day when at last, we can throw off the Roman yoke of oppression.” 

They did not realize that there was a far more bitter yoke of oppression on them, the yoke of sin, the bondage to sin, the judgment under the holy sight and gaze of God. The threat of Hell. This is what they needed deliverance from, but they're crying out, “Oh save.” And by saying “Hosanna in the highest,” they're really crying out to Almighty God saying, “Oh God, in conjunction with this messenger of yours, do something great, come down like Psalm 18 with fire in your eyes and smoke coming out of your nostrils and whoop up on those Romans at last.”

That's what they were saying, that's what they were thinking. “Oh, save. Hosanna, in the highest.” And they said, “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!” quoting another Messianic psalm, Psalm 118, and they're saying, “This is the Messiah. Blessed is the Messiah, the king, who comes in the name of the Lord.” We'll come back to that statement in a moment. Well, the city reacts, Jerusalem reacts. Jerusalem was kind of combustible anyway, all the time, with the zealots, and the Jewish patriotism and all that. But this was especially combustible at this particular time. And so the city reacts in Verse 10-11, when Jesus entered Jerusalem, the whole city was stirred and asked “Who is this?” And the crowds answered, “This is Jesus, the prophet from Nazareth, in Galilee.” Now, you can imagine just the human side. A quarter-of-a-million, a million people, I have no idea how many would have been even aware, but just huge numbers, but that most of them probably couldn't see Jesus, or even know what it was about.

Now, think about it in Acts 19 with that terrible riot in Ephesus, and it says right in the text most of them didn't even know why they were there. They were just saying, “Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!” and then, “Why are we here?” “I don't know, something happened.” “Well, what happened?” Well, so it was, I think at this time I don't think they really knew what was going on, and then maybe they were just focused on that person, “Who is that?” They don't know who he is. And look at the answer. The answer is mild at best. “This is Jesus, the prophet, from Nazareth in Galilee.” Well, all of it's true, it's just inadequate.

It was Jesus. He was a prophet, my friends, he was the greatest prophet that ever lived. He's in some sense, the final prophet, the one to whom all prophets and apostles point. And yes, he was from Nazareth and Galilee. But if that's all the credentials you can give Him, you've really missed the point. He is the eternal God in human flesh, that's who he is. And so they did not understand who he really was.

Well, around this time there's opposition to Jesus, it's not right in the 11 verses that we read, but in all the accounts there is, and we'll get to it later in Matthew. So I bring it up. The Jewish leaders are deeply alarmed at this display, they're terrified of Roman intervention that would cause them to lose their place and their nation. Afraid of it. Specifically, their own cushy lifestyles, their own pleasure-seeking lifestyles, they're afraid of losing all that. They had indeed been planning on killing Jesus, but this was not in their minds at this particular moment, frankly, this was not their timetable.

And so, they rebuked Jesus for the crowds actions, in Luke 19, it says, “Teacher, rebuke your disciples.” And you remember what Jesus said, he said, “If these remain quiet, I tell you, even the stones will cry out.” Later in Matthew 21, just look down a few verses lower, “When the chief priests and the teachers of the law saw the wonderful things he did and the children shouting in the temple area, ‘Hosanna, to the Son of David,’ they were indignant. ‘Do you hear what these children are saying?’ they asked him. ‘Yes,’ replied Jesus. ‘Have you never read, “From the lips of children and infants you have ordained praise?”’”

And so Jesus defends the praise. Well, that's the account. That's what happens, but what is the significance? Remember how it says in John 12, “His disciples did not understand all these things at the time, only later on reflection, did all the symbolism come through to them.” Well, now we have the time to reflect: What is the significance of these things? Well, I wanna point out four things.

Number one, notice how Jesus forces the issue. I think he intentionally fulfills this prophecy by choosing this manner of entering Jerusalem. This was directly in his control, he did it on purpose, to inflame the city. And why?

Well, he did it because the timetable of the Jewish leaders was the wrong one. Jesus ceases control at this particular moment because he must fulfill prophecy, more on that in a moment. But Jesus is being extremely provocative here to the Romans and to the Jewish leaders, and he is pushing the timetable so that they will actually kill him before they're ready to do it. Notice that Jesus does not react to his enemies, they must react to him. And how appropriate is that because he is the king, he sets the agenda, he sets the pace and the timetable, he's in charge and we're not, he knows exactly what he's doing and he's going to do it in his own manner.

Secondly, as we've just touched on, Jesus fulfills prophecy. He fulfills prophecy in a number of ways, but let's focus on the manner of his entry. Zechariah 9:9, “Rejoice greatly, O Daughter of Zion! Shout, Daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, your King comes to you, righteous and having salvation, gentle and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.” So we see the symbolism of Jesus riding on the donkey. This was a messianic act, he was fulfilling this prophecy. There is a deeper issue and that's the rest of this prophecy. I'll come back to that in a moment, 'cause the prophecy said more than just that he'd ride on a donkey.

The second aspect of the fulfillment is the timing of his death. It was the time of the Passover. And I tell you that every one of the animal sacrifices, all of the animal sacrificial system, all of it were prophecies pointing ahead to the cross. All of them taught the lessons we needed to know for our salvation. All sin deserves the death penalty, the death penalty can be paid by a substitute. The substitute cannot be an animal. We're waiting for the Christ to come. John the Baptist points at him and says, “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world!”

And so Jesus must fulfill the animal sacrificial system, but especially the passover sacrifice, perhaps the clearest of all in terms of the substitutionary aspect in which the angel of death was going to pass over the Jewish homes and he would see the blood painted on the doorposts and the lintels and he would seeing the blood, passover and not kill the firstborn, substitutionary atonement definitely pictured in that. And so Jesus must die, as the passover lamb, he must die at Passover.And so He ceases control, and pushes the timetable so that he can fulfill that prophecy. 

Thirdly, notice that Jesus accepts worship. The significance of this is that Jesus accepts worship because that's what he came to get, he came to fix our worship problem, he came to heal us from our sinful idolatry and wickedness. Jesus said, “If these disciples, if all of them remain silent, I'll raise up rocks and stones to do the praising.” Friends hasn't he done that anyway, in our salvation? Didn't he take out the heart of stone and give us the heart of flesh? Wasn't that us? Ignorant of God, not thinking about him, blind hardened in our transgressions, not seeing any good reason to praise him, and so he's raising up from these stones praise to the living God.

And so Jesus defends the praise. And fourthly Jesus exposes Israel's unbelief, he exposes their rejection and rebellion. Now, as we've talked about, and you've heard many, many times before, I think I'd been a Christian for three months when I heard the first time that the Jews were expecting a different kind of kingdom than Jesus came to, we know about that. But it's true. What I wanna say to you is they had good reason to expect it. There were actually numbers of prophecies that predicted that the son of David would rule on a throne that would go to the ends of the earth and that his dominion would extend, his scepter would extend to the distant islands and that all of His enemies would be made a foot stool for his feet. It said all of that.

Listen to Zechariah 9:8, which is the verse before Zechariah 9:9. Listen to this, “I will defend my house against marauding forces. Never again will an oppressor overrun my people for now, I am keeping watch.” Behold your King comes to you gentle and riding on a donkey. They emphasize verse 8, they're saying, “Alright, marauding forces, those are the Gentiles, we all know that.” He's gonna throw off the marauding forces, for now, he is watching over His people.

The verse after, Zechariah 9:10, “I will take away the chariots from Ephraim and the war horses from Jerusalem and the battle bow will be broken. He will proclaim peace to the nations, His rule will extend from sea to sea and from the River to the ends of the earth.” Now, the reason that the crowds were cheering so much, the reason that they were so excited about Jesus coming was they expected that this kind of a kingdom would be brought in. And I say to you that their expectations were idolatrous. They were woven up with their own visions of peace and prosperity and comfort and pleasure, and they thought Jesus would do it for them.

And they considered that his miracle working power was enough to defeat the Romans, and it really would have been, even just as a prince of peace. Look at Lazarus, for example. Lazarus is raised from the dead after four days. Imagine you're fighting the Jewish zealots and their army, you're a Roman soldier, and you kill a man, you run him through with a sword and he drops down to the ground, some Jews run and get him and bring him to Jesus, and up he pops again. And you've got to fight the same man again and again.

There was no doubt in anyone's mind that Jesus could throw off the Romans, or about this, Jesus spoke to the winds and the waves, and they obeyed him. You know just a little hail storm, a little thunder and lightning, and the Romans are done. Well, could Jesus have done that? Absolutely. Will he do something like that? Absolutely, read about it in Revelation 19. We'll get to that in a moment. Was he gonna do that now? Absolutely not. Because they did not understand the real threat.

They didn't understand the real tyranny. Jesus said it very plainly in Matthew 10:28, “Do not fear those who kill the body and after that can do nothing to you. I'll tell you the one to fear. Fear the one who after the death of the body has power to destroy both soul and body in hell. Yes, I'd tell you, fear him.” The real threat, if you can understand this, I speak with great reverence, the real threat was God. The real threat was the judgment of God.

It was the wrath of God for them, against their sins, that was the threat he came to save them from. So it was right for them to say, “Hosanna, Hosanna. Save us now.” He was doing that, he was saving them from that which threatened them ultimately. If Jesus had brought in that kind of a kingdom, they would not have been able to receive it, they would have glutted themselves, they would have increased their idolatry and their wickedness, they were not ready for that kind of a kingdom. And so their hearts had to be changed, the heart of stone had to be taken out, and the heart of flesh given in. So Jesus was going there to bring in a different kind of kingdom and work a different kind of salvation.

He was going to shed his blood on the cross, as a substitute for us, that any who looks to Him and believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life. He came to give us that kind of work, that kind of salvation. But Jesus entered the city to expose their unbelief, and they rejected him, they did not embrace him, he started to act strangely. He goes in and cleanses the temple, he says seven woes over the Jewish leaders, He preaches fire and brimstone and the destruction and not one stone left on another, and they're just utterly bewildered, they have no idea and, even worse, he gets arrested, he doesn't fight it and then goes and suffers and dies. It's absolutely not what they expected.

Now, I don't know for a fact that there was any single individual that said, “Hosanna,” on one day and then five days later, said, “Crucify” the next, but it wouldn't surprise me. How fickle are human hearts. And it really doesn't matter to me whether there was any single individual that did both. The Jewish nation was represented at both places. The expectation of the Jewish nation when he rode into Jerusalem, and then the fact that they so bitterly ignored him when he was dying for the sins of the world. There's just his mother and a couple of other women and John, and then the Romans, and those that passed by hurled an insult and kept going on their way, the greatest work in the history of the world, and they ignored it because they hated Jesus for what he had done, they felt betrayed.

And so what do we see in this? Well we see the greatness of Jesus revealed, we see His omniscience, that he knew all things, all details. We see His sovereignty and His power displayed in His control over major and minor events. And we see, especially his humility and his gentleness and his meekness. These are the very attributes that the Zechariah prophecy focuses on. He's meek and lowly, maybe even physically low. I don't know how high a donkey is but I'm thinking you could have looked Jesus in the face while he was riding on the donkey. I'd picture that anyway.

And you know, great conquerors, they ride on mighty steeds. Like Alexander the Great rode on Bucephalus, Ox Head, he had such a big head that they called them Ox Head. What a mighty horse he was. Or El Cid, the 11th century conqueror of the Moors at Valencia. He rode an Andalusian charger into battle. Or Napoleon at Waterloo, in 1815, rode a charger, a white stallion named Marengo. Imagine Napoleon riding into Waterloo on a donkey. Hard to command from a donkey. And so Jesus is riding humble and lowly and meek, saying, “I'm not going to do what you think I'm going to do. It's not what I'm here for. I'm here for meekness and lowliness, and for peace.”

Jesus the Prince of Peace would come in and would humble himself. Now, I say to you the second coming will be vastly different. I won't go into any great detail, but just listen to this from Revelation 19:11 and following, “I saw heaven standing open and there before me was a white horse whose rider is called faithful and true. With justice he judges and makes war. His eyes are like blazing fire and on his head are many crowns, and he has a name written on him that no one knows but he himself. He is dressed in a robe dipped in blood, and his name is the Word of God and out of his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations, and he destroys the anti-Christ and all of the anti-Christ forces that have arrayed themselves against God and his people, he comes back and destroys them, slaying them with the sword coming out of his mouth.

It's coming. It just wasn't coming in the first coming. It's definitely part of what was prophesied in the Jewish prophets, it just wasn't time yet. Rather, Jesus in his first coming, opened up for something called the day of salvation and in gentleness and humility stands there and says this, “Come to me all you who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me for I am gentle and humble in heart and you'll find rest for your souls, for my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

How many times, oh Christian, have you thought about the gentleness and tenderness of Christ? When you'd been in a sinful state, and needed to come back to Jesus and his gentleness wooed you back into grace? Oh, how sweet is this day of salvation. And to you who are not believers yet, let the gentleness of Jesus invite you to the foot of the cross and look up and see him gentle and humble taking your sins on himself, and shedding his blood for you that you might not stand under the wrath of God finally. That's the gentleness of Jesus, that's what he came to do, that's the salvation He came to work.

We've seen the praise of men exposed positively, human praise is appropriate, some of the disciples I think we're praising them rightly but not fully, just like us. Negatively, we see human praise as a weak, frothy vain thing that pops like a bubble when disappointments and false expectations get popped. And so we see some of that sadly in our lives as well.

And we see the future prefigured in this, immediate future is the death of Jesus because he's whipping this crowd into a frenzy, and the authorities are not gonna let it stand.

The long range future for Israel was suffering. That's why in the other accounts, in Luke, that Jesus wept at this time, what a strange thing, they're all celebrating and Jesus is defending the praise, the rocks are gonna cry out and, meanwhile, he's weeping over Jerusalem. And in Luke 19, it says, “As he approached Jerusalem and saw the city, he wept over it and said, ‘If you, even you, had only known on this day what would bring you peace -- but now it is hidden from your eyes. The days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment against you, and encircle you and hem you in on every side. They will dash you to the ground, you and the children within your walls. They'll not leave one stone on another because you did not recognize the time of God's coming to you.”

The clear implication is 'cause they did not understand who he was, because he was Jesus, the prophet, from Nazareth in Galilee rather than God the Son, because they did not recognize the time of God's coming to them that they would be destroyed by the Romans. Crushed by the Romans as a judgment for their sin. Now, it's no use to us, to speculate what would have happened if the nation had received Jesus at that point. Just like there's no point in speculating what would have happened if Adam hadn't eaten the fruit. It was part of God's sovereign plan that both of those things happen: That Adam eat the fruit and sin and death enter the world, and that Jesus come to His own and His own received Him not.

And there is even now, a spirit of stupor, and hardening over the Jewish nation though they exist in our midst and we have Jewish friends and co-workers, and neighbors, but their minds are covered with a veil and they can't see the light or the glory of God in the face of Christ and until that veil is removed, they're not going to see it. But the good news is, in the future, at a future time, in a mystery, God, the Sovereign God is going to remove that veil from the nation's eyes and they'll see it at once and they will be converted and they will cry, “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.”

But they'll do it from their hearts and they'll understand who he is. And it says in another verse in Zechariah, Zechariah 12:10, “I will pour out on the house of David, and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and supplication. And they will look on me, the one they have pierced, and they will mourn for me as one mourns for an only son, and salvation will come that day to Israel.”

So yes, future destruction for Israel from that point on. But I say from this point on, future salvation, as it says in Romans 11, “All Israel will be saved through faith in Christ.”

One final future prefigured and that's us standing around the throne. We've quoted this verse many times before, but it says in Revelation 7, “Then I saw a great multitude from every tribe and language and people and nation, standing before the throne in front of the lamb.”

And it says, “And they're holding in their hands palm branches.” So I guess I get to do that again. I get to walk around the throne again, and hold the palm branch, again, and I'll be dressed in a white robe and so will you, if you have faith in Jesus. If you trust in him, he's gonna cleanse you of all your sin, and you get to celebrate forever, the entry of Jesus, not into the old Jerusalem, but into the new Jerusalem, the perfect Holy City where we will dwell with him forever and ever and see his face.

Alright, well, what application can we take from this? I had a bunch, I just wanna do two. The first I wanna speak to you about is unmet expectations. Is there a person here that has not been disappointed by God, at least one time in your life? And you ought not to be, but it's happened, it happens again and again. You had some expectation that God would do something in your life, and he didn't do it. I'm speaking now even to non-Christians, I can't tell you the number of times I've witnessed, and people tell me, “Well when I was a child, my grandmother was sick, and I prayed for her and she died, and from that point on, my heart's been hard toward God.” They don't use that language, but that's about what they say.

Because this bad thing happened to them when they were young or something happened in a church or whatever from that point on, their heart was hard toward God. Unmet expectations, you know? They had hopes, “Hosanna, Hosanna,” they're thinking that this time has come and God's gonna do this thing for me, and when he doesn't do exactly what they expect, then it's “Crucify, Crucify” a week later. All of us are like that. Even we Christians struggle with that don't we? Expecting God to do something in your life.

You're struggling with sin. Somebody even told me this recently, “I prayed and prayed that this sin would be taken from me and it hasn't, now I'm just starting to get hard toward God, I think he ought to do such and such with my sin.” God doesn't work that way. He expects you by the Spirit to put to death the misdeeds of the body, he wants you to fight, he gives you the strength if you ask him.

But unmet expectations. Let me say a tender word to mothers. I think this is maybe where you live. Especially as you go on and your children get older and things aren't quite what you expected, and it can be disappointing, and you look at how it turned out, and it's not what you thought when you were a young mother, when you were a young bride, and it's not going exactly how you hoped and all I wanna say to you is don't turn at that point and think that God has in some way done you a disservice, rather say God called you to this ministry, you sowed in tears, you're gonna reap in joy. Don't let unmet expectations cut off your ministry as a mother.

Well let me speak to men who are in their midlife crisis. Unmet expectations, you hoped your life would be different. You look at it and it's not quite what you hoped for. Don't think that God has done you any great disservice. You wanna know the one thing, you need to get out of this world, faith in Jesus for the forgiveness of your sins. If you have that you have the victory that has overcome the world. Center your life then around that victory and you will be satisfied, it will be a good life.

But we all have those unmet expectations. Tragedy, you expected God to heal somebody, and he didn't, trust in God, at those times. And secondly, worship in spirit and truth. That's where we began, it's where we're going to end. The reason the Jews did not worship Him properly is they didn't understand who he was. So I say worship in spirit and in truth. The better you understand the truth of who Jesus is, his person, he is the Son of God, he is flawless, he is perfect, he is omniscient, omnipotent. Focus on that and worship him in spirit and truth.

Look at his work with new eyes, he came to die, he came to rise again, he came to bring a kingdom with the second coming that will be beyond our wildest dreams. Focus on his work, focus on his future when you get to see him around that throne and worship him in spirit and in truth. Don't let your misunderstandings make your worship idolatrous, but rather, fill your minds with scripture, so that you can worship him, rightly. Let's close in prayer.

So when I was growing up, one of my favorite types of fairy tales were the kind of stories in which some supernatural being would drop into an ordinary person's life and offer them one wish or, even better, three wishes. Wasn't long before thinking myself more clever than any other child, I came up with the idea of asking for unlimited wishes, like I were the only one that ever thought of that. I'm sure you thought of it too. But there are all kinds of stories like the fisherman and his wife, and he catches a supernatural fish who grants him ever increasingly better homes to live and mansions. Or the tree, the woodsman who is about to cut down a tree fairy's favorite oak tree and she offers him three wishes and all of that. But of all of those stories, I think the most popular and well known is Aladdin and his magic lamp. It's one of the thousand and one nights, the Arabian Nights.

And in that story, this Chinese Muslim young man comes in possession of a mysterious lamp, he doesn't understand its powers. And he starts to polish it because it's a bit dingy. And suddenly a genie appears before him and says, “I am the slave of whoever holds the lamp. Ask whatever you wish and it'll be done for you.” And it's interesting in the story, I re-read it last night and just trying to remind myself of the details, but he really just little by little starts to use the power of this genie. Just asked for food initially, 'cause he's hungry. And as the story unfolds he starts to use the genie’s power more and more, gains more and more wealth and power and influence and eventually marries the sultan's daughter. Happy ending. But we, as we grow up, we start to realize this is just a fairy tale and no supernatural being's ever gonna drop into your life and stand in front of you and say, “Ask whatever you wish and it will be given to you.” You have to work for what you get, you have to labor with your own hands, everything you get will come as a result of your efforts and your energy.

And then you read the New Testament. And here is Jesus the Son of God giving us lavish commands and promises on prayer, many of which I prayed back in my prayer. If you believe, you'll receive whatever you ask for in prayer. Ask and it will be given to you that your joy may be full. Ask and you will receive. Over and over these kinds of promises. And in our passage today though it's not directly about our prayer life I think it is relevant the point of connection to us today is that Jesus still stands in front of us and asks this question, “What do you want me to do for you?” And how different is Jesus from Aladdin's genie. Aladdin's genie is just mindless supernatural power that does whatever the human being wants. That is not the God of the Bible, my friends. Thanks be to God that we don't get everything we ask for. Thanks be to God that neither I nor you run the universe. God in his wisdom will filter our requests and our prayers and do what is best for us.

Now, I've known that for a long time. I believed from the beginning of my Christian life that God is sovereign, he's providential, he rules over all things, orchestrates them for his own power and glory. So how do my prayers fit into that? God's gonna do what God's gonna do and it's going to be good and right so why should I ask him for anything? Now when Jesus stands in front of us and says, “What do you want me to do for you?” Most people in the world in effect say, “Absolutely nothing. I want nothing from Jesus.” Either they don't believe he really exists or can do anything or he's irrelevant to their situation, they ask nothing of Jesus, literally nothing. Some sinners recognize their dire straits and they ask simply for salvation. They want forgiveness of sins, they wanna live with Christ forever. In the providence of God, Uta’s converting text, I get to preach on today, isn't that sweet? He asked me, “Did you do that on purpose?” I said “No, that was the sovereign hand of God.” Oh the joys of expositional preaching. I didn't orchestrate that, God did.

But that can happen. Just an unbeliever standing before God and in effect Jesus is saying, “What do you want me to do for you?” “Lord, I wanna, I wanna live forever. I want my sins forgiven.” So they ask and he forgives. But I say to you, there's not a single Christian in this room that asks enough of Jesus. We, all of us, under ask. We ask for less than we should. We ask with less specificity. We ask with less confidence than we should and my desire is to reverse that today by the power of the Word of God that we can picture Jesus continually standing in front of us and saying, “What do you want me to do for you?” knowing that he will filter our requests and do what's best according to his will and his purpose but we should be asking more and more with greater and greater intensity. So what do you want Jesus to do for you today?

Now, the context of this healing Jesus is passing through Jericho. This is the end of a major section in Matthew's gospel and the beginning of the final section. The overall theme of Matthew's gospel is the king of the kingdom of heaven, presents Jesus as the King and the realm that he rules over called the Kingdom of Heaven. The beginning of Jesus' preaching ministry in Matthew 4:17, “From that time on he began to preach ‘Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.’” Now, everything in the gospel of Matthew exists, I think either to establish Christ as the King of the kingdom of heaven, what he's like, what kind of king he is, or to tell us the nature of the kingdom of heaven or to exhort us as sinners to enter the kingdom of heaven or to live according to kingdom principles. That's what the gospel of Matthew is about.

So in the first three and a half chapters from Matthew 1:1 through 4:11, we have the prologue of Jesus' ministry. We have the genealogy establishing Jesus' right to rule as the king of the Jews. We have the birth narrative with the gifts of the Magi and all that. We have John the Baptist’s ministry in Jesus' baptism and then Jesus' temptation in the wilderness. All of this just setting the stage for the central section which we are just completing today from Matthew 4:12 to 20:34, Jesus' ministry in Galilee and his journey to Jerusalem. We see teachings, we see miracles, we see the calling of the first disciples as he walked by the Sea of Galilee or as he calls Matthew from his tax collector's booth. We see the Sermon on the Mount and we start to understand the nature of the kingdom life that Jesus would have for us. A life of the heart, of the spirit that transforms from within. We see more miracles, the training of the twelve, they're sent out on mission, trained and prepared. We see the ongoing and the increasing rejection of Christ by the Jewish leaders and by some of the people.

We see the parables in which Jesus uses that form of teaching to tell us about the kingdom of heaven and what it's like. And the end of Jesus' ministry in Galilee, including his acceptance by some and rejection by others. And then the journey which we're on now, the journey to Jerusalem always under the shadow of the cross in which he is increasingly preparing his apostles for his own death, making it very plain what's going to happen when he gets to Jerusalem. And so in the final section of Matthew's gospel, Matthew 21 through 28, we will see Jesus' basically the final week of his life. Eight chapters of Matthew's gospel devoted just to the final week of Jesus' life. His ministry there in Jerusalem, his trial, his crucifixion and death and then his glorious resurrection and the Great Commission.

So we're on route here in this account to Jerusalem, on the way to the cross. This is the time of the Passover in Jerusalem. Hundreds of thousands of pilgrims are making their way to the city of Jerusalem and Jesus and his disciples are among them. But for Jesus, it is a unique and painful time. He would be the Passover lamb. His blood would be shed finishing therefore the animal sacrificial system. His blood would be shed for the sins of the world. Jesus had just warned in verses 17 through 19 of Matthew 20, his disciples about his impending death. He took his disciples aside and told them very plainly what was going to happen. “We are going to Jerusalem and the Son of man will be betrayed to the chief priest and the teachers of law. They will condemn him to death and turn him over to the Gentiles to be mocked and flogged and crucified. And on the third day he will be raised to life.”

He's also instructed them about the importance of humility in his kingdom. You remember how James and John took Jesus aside and asked that he might grant them the right to sit at his right and his left at the kingdom. So they're jockeying for position. We talked about that last time. And Jesus instructs his twelve apostles, at that point, about the nature of greatness in the kingdom. “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them and their high officials exercise authority over them, not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant and whoever wants to be first among you must be your slave -- just as the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.” So the last two sections that we looked at focused on Jesus' death. Jesus is thinking about it all the time. As I said, he's traveling to Jerusalem under the shadow of the cross. Now, this is the last detailed healing account in Matthew's gospel. We do have a passing reference in Matthew 21:14, but it's just a general statement. This is the last healing account we get.

Now, as he's passing through Jericho, he's passing through a historic and a beautiful city. The Jericho of Jesus' day lay somewhat south of the ruins of the Old Testament Jericho that was destroyed by Joshua at the time of the crossing and the entrance into the promised land by the Jews. This city of Jericho rebuilt now, locates, is located 15 miles northeast of Jerusalem. Jerusalem, built up on a series of mountain ridges up on Mount Zion, it's called, Mount Moriah, and was 3,300 feet higher than Jericho. Thus in the parable of the Good Samaritan, Jesus speaks of going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, this man that's beaten by these robbers. Jesus is making the opposite journey. He's going up from Jericho, up to Jerusalem.

Now Herod the great and later Archelaus had strengthened and beautified the city of Jericho. They gave it an amphitheater, villas and a public bath. It was a little paradise with an oasis of fresh water, with palm trees and rose gardens, lavish crops of fig and citrus and other fruits. It's winter climate was delightful. Josephus said that when it was snowy in Jerusalem, Jericho was by contrast warm and pleasant. And thus Herod built a winter palace there. Now, as I mentioned, it's a historic city of course, you know about Joshua and the walls of Jericho falling down. And there was saved Rahab, the prostitute, who was Jesus' ancestress whose name is mentioned in Jesus' genealogy in Matthew chapter 1. It was also near here that Jesus went out into the desert for 40 days of temptation by the devil. So it's historic even in Jesus' life.

Now, as we come to this account, there are problems in harmonizing it with Mark and Luke's account, that I think it's reasonable for us to mention. One of the hardest things to do in New Testament studies is to harmonize Matthew, Mark and Luke in their accounts. And I don't often mention this to you, but this time I think it's worthy of mention because in Mark's gospel, you just have one blind man, Bartimaeus, he's named and it's not mentioned that there are two. And in one of the accounts Jesus is going out of Jericho, in another account he's going in. Well, I'm not gonna burden you with all of the details in the different ways that these things can be harmonized. I think simply, there were two beggars. Whenever any gospel account gives us additional information, you add the additional information on as true and try your best to harmonize it with the simpler accounts. And so I think there were two beggars and one of them was named Bartimaeus. Concerning Jesus leaving or entering Jericho, I know this, that it was right around this time in Luke 19 that he sees Zacchaeus up in the tree.

So it could be that it was just his intention to be leaving Jericho and he goes back into the city to have a meal with Zacchaeus. So it is possible to harmonize all of these things. But let's concentrate on the story primarily as Matthew gives it to us.

Beginning at verse 29 it says, “As Jesus and his disciples were leaving Jericho a large crowd followed him. Two blind men were sitting by the roadside and when they heard that Jesus was going by they shouted, ‘Lord, son of David have mercy on us!’ The crowd rebuked them and told them to be quiet but they shouted all the louder, ‘Lord, son of David have mercy on us!’ Jesus stopped and called them. ‘What do you want me to do for you?’ he asked. Lord, they answered, we want our sight. Jesus had compassion on them and touched their eyes. Immediately they received their sight and followed him.” 

Now, Matthew heightens the sense of intensity here by saying as they're going by the road “behold” or “look, two blind men sitting there.” So suddenly there they are. He wants us to see them with our minds eye as we really read the text. 

And they were in a wretched condition. First of all, they were blind. Modern surveys list blindness as one of the greatest medical fears that anyone has. Many of us probably fear that more than any loss that could happen to our bodies. We rely so much on our vision for our lives in the world. Jesus said, “The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are good, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eyes are bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness then how great is that darkness?” Blindness was very common in the Middle East in Jesus' day. Many were blind from venereal diseases gotten from their mothers through the birth process. There's no cure for that. Other infants became blind though trachoma, a virulent form of conjunctivitis. Of course, there were accidents and other things that could happen.

Reading between the lines, it seems that these men had at one point been able to see and had lost their sight. So they're unlike, I think, the man born blind in John chapter 9. They knew what they were missing, at least in part, and they yearned to have their sight again. Now, Jericho was apparently a haven for blind people since it is reported that there was a special balsam wood bush, that would grow there that had healing powers for some types of blindness. So there actually was a very large population of blind people that would be there to be treated. But these men were not only blind, they were beggars. And the two don't necessarily go together. You become a beggar if you don't have a family system around you to care for you with sufficient resources or compassion to take care of you. So these men were cast adrift in the world as blind men and only if they would beg, could they eat. There's a sense of desperation. And like most beggars they would congregate outside the city to interact with those going in and out of the city.

And so they cried out to Jesus. They could not see Jesus but they heard that he was coming. They had heard reports about him, they of course it would be of great interest to them to know that there was a prophet from Nazareth and Galilee who seemed to be able to do anything. Including it was told, healing blind men. Something that had never been done in the Old Testament. There's never an account of it in the Old Testament, something Jesus alone seemed to be able to do. So they knew about Jesus. They'd heard reports about him but now their ears are telling them that Jesus himself is passing by now. This might be their last and best chance ever to have their sight restored by miraculous power. And so with a great intensity they cry out, “Lord, son of David have mercy on us!” Now I would imagine that blind beggars must learn not to be shy about asking for anything. Being shy doesn't get you anywhere. They had needs and they wanted to make their needs known and so they cried out.

And notice they used this beautiful messianic title Lord, son of David. I don't know that they really fully knew everything about Jesus but I think by the end of this encounter they had been given not only physical sight but also a spiritual sight to see who Jesus really was. But I think they're already beginning to wonder if perhaps he might be the Messiah. And notice also what they're begging for. Could sum it up in one word, “Lord, son of David have mercy!” Have mercy on us. Oh, how we need mercy. We don't deserve it. It's not a matter of justice, we can't demand it, it is given freely or it's not given at all but we need mercy. And they knew that they needed mercy. They're crying out for mercy. 

But they have an additional burden and that is the surrounding crowd. Look at verse 31, “The crowd rebuked them and told them to be quiet.” This was particularly cold and vicious of this crowd. Oh, how cold our hearts are and how much we violate the second great commandment to love our neighbors as ourself or the golden rule, to do to others what we would have them do to us. I can't understand why the crowd would do this, maybe they just didn't wanna be bothered by the shrillness of this cry or by dealing with their problems. Maybe they didn't want these blind men to hinder Jesus, probably noticed Jesus always seems to stop. Everybody gets what they need from Jesus and maybe they were in a hurry to get on to Jerusalem, who knows. But I tell you this, if any of these annoyed, impatient, cold-hearted crowd had been in their situation, they would have done the exact same thing and cried out for mercy. How hard it is to forget that we are suffering too, and to remember how merciful God's been to us.

But you noticed that it doesn't seem to bother these guys? They just have to shout louder, that's all. If you're gonna tell me to be quiet, then I'm gonna have to shout even louder. “Lord, son of David have mercy on me!” Louder and louder they're shouting, they will not be denied. Shout it even louder. With great intensity, with commendable persistence, pictures of Jesus most poignant parables on the need for persistence in prayer. To always pray and never give up. They would not stop, but they kept crying out, “Lord, son of David have mercy on us.”

And so we come to the essential point, the essential question of this text. Jesus stopped and called them and he asked them, “What do you want me to do for you?” Now at one level this could be the strangest moment in the entire encounter, alright. Could it be that Jesus was really that obtuse? Could it be that he was really that dense? Everyone knew what these blind men wanted. It could be like sometimes there are these geniuses that just don't function well in every day life, but they can do special things really well, to an nth degree maybe they call them idiot savant. Now, we know Jesus isn't one of those, but maybe he just doesn't know kind of every day life type of things, and he's really not sure what these blind men want.

Maybe he's distracted, maybe he's thinking about the cross and the pressure of that is on his mind all the time. I read an account about Albert Einstein and how he used to go out in the winter, in Princeton, New Jersey, without any footwear at all, no socks, no shoes, no boots, nothing. His beloved sister had to run out after him and be sure that he wasn't trudging in the snow and ice in his bare feet thinking about something great.

Well, is that the picture you get of Jesus in the New Testament? It's not the picture I get, not at all. There's always a purpose to what Jesus does. There was a reason why, He knew very well what they wanted, He knew very well what was in their mind, what the pressure on their lives was and yet he asked, “What do you want me to do for you?” I think this is the essential issue. Jesus makes us ask him for what we want. He makes us ask for what we want. He already knows exactly what we need, he knows far better than we do, what we need. He has searched our hearts, he has studied our lives, he knows the world better than we do. He knows our past, our present, and he knows our future better than we do, he knows exactly what we need.

Jesus already taught on this in Matthew 6 in the Sermon on the Mount, verse 7 and 8, “And when you pray, do not be like the pagans who keep on babbling for they think they'll be heard for their many words. Do not be like them for your Heavenly Father knows what you need before you ask him.” And yet, for all of that, he still wants us to ask, to put it into words, to make our request specifically known to Jesus. And so they give a simple, specific answer.

Verse 33, “‘Lord,’ they answered, ‘we want our sight.’” They knew exactly what they wanted. Literally in the Greek it's, “Lord, we want our eyes to be opened, open our eyes, Lord.” It was crystal clear in their own minds, they'd dreamed of recovering their sight from the time they lost it, to see again the blue sky, the white wispy clouds, maybe a breeze blowing the clouds across the sky, to see that same breeze tickle the leaves of palm trees, to see the color of the roses, to see the faces of children, not just hear their musical laughter, but to see their faces, their facial expressions, to see the faces of loved ones, of wives, of parents perhaps. This was no small gift really.

But I say to you like everything Jesus does, it would have taken no effort whatsoever for him to do it. Isn't that amazing how God can create the universe in six days with no effort at all. Don't imagine he needed to rest on the seventh day like he was exhausted. It wasn't anything like that. It was a theological resting as a king on his throne, that's what it was, he wasn't exhausted by the effort, and it was no effort for Jesus to heal these blind men.

So, see the astonishing compassion and power of Jesus, verse 34, “Jesus had compassion on them, and touched their eyes, immediately they received their sight and followed him.” The more I go on in my Christian life, I'm not sure which is more astonishing: his compassion or his power. I think they're really equally astonishing. As I see just how wretched we are in our sin, and how high and holy and lifted up he is, his compassion is infinite, and infinitely astonishing to me. And when you consider what was going on in Jesus's mind, in his soul, in his life, remember I'm telling you, he's making every step up that 3,300 foot incline to Jerusalem under the shadow of the pressing weight of the cross. He says in Luke 12, “I have a baptism to undergo and it's like I'm in a straight jacket until I undergo it. How distressed I am until it is completed.”

And yet, for all of that, interestingly, he never stopped caring about the needs of others. That other-centered attitude would come to its greatest fruition while Jesus hung on the cross. I counted three statements he makes from the cross, which are other-centered and compassionate in nature. Of those who crucified Him, He said, “Father forgive them, they don't know what they're doing.” To the thief on the cross who said, “Lord, remember me when you come in your kingdom.” He said, “Today you will be with me in paradise.” And concerning his mother and the disciple whom Jesus loved, John, he connected them together so that John would take care of his mother from that day forward. Three of Jesus' seven statements were other-centered, and he was suffering under the wrath of God. Can I just pause for a moment and urge you not to complain if you're sick, if you're hurting don't complain, serve others, pray for others, think about there are probably others worse than me. I could actually be praying for others, I could use this grief I'm going through to minister to others. I'm not saying we can't grieve, we can't hurt, we can't go to the doctor or any of those, I'm just saying it's so sweet to look at how Jesus died and get our minds off of our own suffering and start ministering to others.

And so, Jesus' compassion is endlessly astonishing to me. Compassion is the number one emotion that Jesus displays, to be moved with the feeling in the situation of others. Scriptures reveal that Jesus is a high priest who is deeply moved with our infirmities. Hebrews 4:15 says, “We have not a high priest which cannot be touched with the feelings of our infirmities.” And so Jesus is moved with compassion and he reaches out and touches them. Jesus could have healed anyway he chose, frankly, he heals a lot of different ways. The centurion servant, he heals him remotely and the centurion’s servant doesn't even know how he's getting healed, he's just healed. From a great distance Jesus did it.

In John 9, he spits on the ground and makes mud and smears it on the man's eyes, and the man goes and washes off the mud, and he can see. I think it's remarkable that when we consider the centurion's healing that Jesus could have banished blindness from the face of the earth with a word, he could still do that today, he has that kind of sovereign power. All he has to do is say, “Blindness be gone,” and every person on the face of the Earth will be able to see perfectly right now, he has that kind of power. But yet how many times in his healing does he wanna touch people, does he want that encounter with them, that touch.

Do you remember the woman who was bleeding for 12 years, and she touches the hem of his garment, and Jesus wants to have that encounter with her, “Who touched me?” And he wants to force that encounter, even though it brings her some embarrassment he wants to connect with her. He touches Peter's mother-in-law, she's lying in bed with a fever, he touches the leprous man, and he's cured, he loves to touch people, and so he touched these blind men and instantly they received their sight. How easy it is after all of this time, to minimize the power of God, to minimize what Jesus can do. If you minimize Jesus's power, you won't get the point of my sermon, because I'm gonna say in a few moments that you need to ask him for what you want. And if you think he can't do anything you ask then, you won't ask. But he can do infinitely more than all you can ask or imagine. Now, that's amazing. And so we see both the compassion and the power of Christ.

And what are the results of the healing? Well, they were healed physically, they received their sight, but I think more than that happened to them that day. It says in Mark 10:52, “Jesus said unto him,” this is in the KJV, “‘Go thy way, thy faith hath made thee whole.’” The Greek word could mean a simple healing, but it is the word most consistently used for salvation, and what's especially important is that they followed Jesus after the healing, and they were praising and glorifying God. I think this man blind Bartimaeus became a well-known disciple of Jesus, I think that's why he was named, and I think he became a follower of Jesus. The deepest need that we have is not for physical sight, even if we're blind, the deepest need that we have is for forgiveness of sins. To be saved from sin, to be healed from sin, to be freed from sin's penalty that we might not sink under it for eternity. And so Jesus stood in front of them and said, “What you want me to do for you?” and he healed them I think to the infinite degree of bringing them to salvation.

Now, what are some spiritual lessons for us from this account? Well, first of all, every miracle of Jesus is a parable of spiritual truth. All miracles of healings are pictures of human weakness and inability, combined with God's power, divine power, always the blind man cannot, he cannot see. Jesus has the power to heal, he can. The lame man cannot walk, Jesus has the power and He can heal him. The deaf man cannot hear, but Jesus has the power to heal him. The dead man cannot do anything and Jesus can raise him from the dead. So every miracle is a picture of Jesus' sovereign power come face to face with human complete weakness and inability. Thus each of these healings also translates into a spiritual realm. We are weak, and Jesus is strong, we are unable, and Jesus is able, we are paralyzed, Jesus can move us. We therefore must be spiritual beggars. Blessed are the spiritual beggars, Matthew 5:3, Those that know that they're destitute, that they cannot, that they have no resources, and they cry out to God and he moves powerfully.

So Jesus stands in front of you today and says, “What do you want me to do for you?” And if you're lost, the Bible says you're dead in your transgressions and sins, and it could be that this sermon you can hear Jesus' voice cutting through the haze, the satanic blindness, and you're able to see for the first time a light, a savior, Jesus shed his blood on the cross. He suffered under the wrath of God, he died. And in that, you can be forgiven, the shedding of blood for the forgiveness of sins, and not only that, but God raised him from the dead, His death, His resurrection can be yours through simple faith. Maybe for the first time you're seeing that. And so now, Jesus is standing in front of you saying, “What do you want me to do for you?” And like Uta, answer, “I want you to forgive my sins. I want you to take me with you, forever to heaven. I wanna live with you, I don't wanna go to hell, I don't wanna get what I deserve for my sins. I wanna live with you forever.” Then tell him.

It's really not that hard. Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved, just tell him. It doesn't matter what words you use, what matters is what's in your heart, what do you want Him to do for you? I want you to forgive my sins. 

And what of our blindness? Well, blindness is especially a metaphor for the darkened state of our hearts. God is light, God's truth. The Bible is a lamp for our feet, and a light to our path, Christ is the light of the world, the radiance of God's glory, the exact representation of his being. He is the light of the knowledge of the glory of God, you can see it in his face, and in his life, and in his actions. Well, let me tell you something, this specific divine supernatural light, is the very thing that Satan wants to keep you blinded from seeing. 2 Corinthians 4:4 says, “The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ who is the image of God.”

So ask him and say, “Lord I want my sight. I wanna be able to see you. I wanna see you in your glory. I wanna see you high and lifted up. I wanna see you with my own eyes.” It says in Revelation, “They will see His face.” I wanna see his face, but even we Christians, our sight isn't totally restored. Did you know that? We see through a glass what? Darkly, then we shall see face-to-face. If our eyes are good, our whole body will be what? Full of light. Someday we will be filled with light, because our eyes will be good at last, and we will see God, perfectly. We will see him face-to-face, we will see him as he is, and we will be transformed and made just like him, and our whole being will be filled with the light of his glory. But I think it behooves us as it says in 1 John 3: 3, “Everyone who has this hope in Him, purifies himself just as he is pure.” Get pure by seeing more and more of that divine Supernatural Light. Ask God, say, “Lord, increase, improve, my spiritual vision. Open the eyes of my heart, Jesus, so I may see you better. I wanna see you right now in my heart. I don't have to see you physically, but I need to see you standing here at the moment of temptation. When I'm being tempted and pulled toward the flesh, I wanna see you in my mind's eye that I might not sin against you. Open the eyes of my heart. I wanna see my heavenly reward. I want it to drive out lust of the eyes, and lust of the flesh, and boastful pride of life.”

The account talks about an intense cry for mercy. How's your prayer life? I've often thought of prayer as like a rod of iron being put into a coal bed in a big bellows, and blowing that air.

Like that, and then the black, cold, hard iron gets hotter and hotter and brighter and brighter and starts to shine. And then the master can take it and shape it whatever way he wants. That's prayer. How is your prayer life? Is it cold and distant and formal or is it hot? So maybe Jesus stands in front of you and says, “What do you want me to do for you?” Say, “Lord, give me a heart to pray, give me intensity in prayer, I don't care about things like I should. Give me intensity in prayer.” Or maybe you need perseverance. “I start praying and then I kind of give up. I pray for a little while, and I stop. You told that prayer in Luke 18, that we should always pray and never give up, the persistent widow. I'm not the persistent widow. I try once or twice and then I get frustrated. Oh God, give me persistence in prayer.” Jesus stands in front of us and says, “What do you want me to do for you?”

Change my heart and make me persistent in prayer, do that for me, Lord, transform me. Finally, I'd like to say that you need to get specific in prayer. No more of this bless brother so-and-so, bless sister so-and-so. How will you know whether it got done? Could we get specific, say, “Bless brother so-and-so, give them a heart for the Word of God so that they plainly transform in their love for it and read through the Bible in a year, and actually start talking Bible verses, so we can actually see that they love the Word of God. And give them a heart to memorize a chapter, even a book of the Bible, in Jesus's name, amen.” Pray that until they do it, pray specific things, not just pray that somebody would be healed, that's specific enough. We can tell whether,  but do more than that, God's doing more than that in the sickness. If they're lost say, “Lord I pray that this physical sickness would be used by you to bring them to saving faith. God use it, and God use me to bring it about.” Pray specifically.

George Muller prayed specifically for orphans, he cared for 10,000 orphans in his life. He wrote down 50,000 specific prayer requests. 50,000. How specific are you in your requests? Do you know whether God's even blessed the world or not, “Bless the world in Jesus name.” I wouldn't think that would cover it, wouldn't you? “Bless the world in Jesus' name, amen.” What else do we need, right? Well, I think we need a lot more, be very, very specific in prayer. And then how about the boldness of these blind men? Do you need some boldness? Jesus stands in front of you and says, “What do you want me to do for you?” Say, “Lord, I'm a coward. I don't do what I should. I'm afraid of the crowd, I'm afraid of what people say. I wanna be a witness for you, Lord. I wanna be able to lead someone to Christ, I wanna see them get baptized. I wanna see them grow, I wanna be part of it Lord, include me. Give me boldness. Give me boldness Lord, to speak and to live for the glory of God, that's what I want. 

Jesus Christ never changes. I think in this text, through this sermon, he is in fact standing before you today, spiritually, and saying, “What do you want? Do you want anything from me? Is there anything I can do for you? What do you want me to do for you?” Now this week, I saw a van advertising one of the local churches. And it was, I perceived, I hadn't seen the van before, or the name of the church before, but I perceived it was a health and wealth kind of church. And on the side of the van, they were advertising their church that if you came to their church and got involved you would have... And this is the big phrase, in big letters, “guaranteed success.”

Well, I was thinking I just wanted to go to see how they're gonna do it. “Guaranteed success.” But I have a suspicion that it isn't the kind of success that the New Testament talks about, away with that, away with it. Jesus isn't Aladdin's genie, giving you wealth, and lasting power and all of that, He's not doing that. Ask for this, “Lord, make my heart like yours, make my life well pleasing to you that I might live for your glory and so not be ashamed, on judgment day, but have a whole array of beautiful fruit to show you for my life.” Close with me in prayer.

At the end of the century, at the end of the millennium, Time Magazine put out a number of issues in which they were entertaining the question that's really in front of us in our text today: What is the nature of true human greatness? And they had one issue after another. I have one of those issues, I was looking at it some time ago and that particular issue focused on the greatest minds of the 20th century. The greatest intellectual achievers, those that did great things by their thinking. By their inventiveness.

So they talked about the Wright Brothers, who came up with the first heavier than air flight machine, or Alexander Fleming, who developed penicillin, and Enrico Fermi, who split the atom. Jonas Salk, who defeated polio with his vaccine which he developed over a number of years. Albert Einstein of course, that we all know about with his special and general theories of relativity. Robert Goddard did pioneering work in liquid rocketry that enabled us 50 years later or so to go to the moon. Tim Berners-Lee, the man really responsible for the internet. I'll just move on at this point. William Shockley, who fathered the transistor and brought the silicon to Silicon Valley. Now these are great minds, great achievers. This is what passes for greatness in the eyes of the world. At least in terms of intellectual achievement. 

Other issues focused on other achievers; politicians, military commanders, poets, architects, artists, writers, filmmakers, musicians, all of these were picked up and looked at in turn for human greatness. This issue is in front of us all the time, some time ago I was watching an NBA playoff game and one player was playing extremely well and the announcer said, “You are watching what true greatness is all about.” Well, I just heard that like I hear everything, I heard it theologically. I said, “No. True greatness is all about Jesus Christ and Him crucified,” and that's what I have the privilege to preach about today; true greatness, the greatness of Jesus Christ.

And also the greatness that comes to those that enter his kingdom and more specifically for us, how he measures greatness, the measurement of greatness. Look at verses 26 through 28. Jesus said, “Whoever wants to be great among you must be your servant and whoever wants to be first, must be your slave -- just as the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve and to give His life as a ransom for many.” So Jesus does not denigrate the inquiry, saying what is true greatness. He doesn't put it down to ask what is a great life, how can I be a great person? And he doesn't put it down. What he does is shift the entire playing field from under our feet so that we look at it entirely differently.Tto Jesus Christ, true human greatness then came down to this: humble servant-hood. Putting the needs of others ahead of your own for your whole life, and whoever was most willing to lay himself down for the good of others would be called greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven.

This standard is simple to understand but I can testify, it's hard to live. I have been fighting this struggle, I've known about this since the first weeks that I was a Christian. This is not a new idea, I must become a servant but oh I have found it difficult to do.

Well let's begin, as the text does, negatively, how not to be great. And at least from the text, self-promotion is not the way to become great. Look at verses 20 and 21. “Then the mother of Zebedee's sons came to Jesus with her sons and, kneeling down, asked a favor of him. ‘What is it you want?’ he asked. She said, ‘Grant that one of these two sons of mine may sit at your right and the other at your left in your kingdom.’” So this is greatness by self-promotion. Now, this is common in our time. Putting yourself forward. Espousing all your best attributes, putting it in a resume presenting it to others but it's not new. It's been going on since the beginning of time.

James and John were practicing it here with Jesus 20 centuries ago. Secular kingdoms have been dominated by this kind of approach. In the Roman Empire, counselors to the Caesars would orchestrate political scandals for their rivals so that they could topple them down by shame. That failing, they might just have them poisoned. But in any case, they're going to advance by putting others down and by presenting themselves well. Cicero who was one of the leading orators of that time was especially expert at destroying enemies with innuendo of immorality. He was good at it. I was disillusioned to find that out. I always thought of him as this pure moral kind of guy but he was actually excellent at putting himself forward by putting others down. In European courts of the Middle Ages, lords and nobles would fight jousts with one another to find out who was the strongest and who could sit at the king's right and at his left and be in a position of power. 

In the modern era, we don't know that much about kings and their courts and emperors and all that. It's more of the corporate setting, the board room, what happens in the corporate world. I was reading recently off the internet; a summary of a book entitled, Twenty-One Dirty Tricks at Work: How to Win in Office Politics. So don't listen to this in order that you might learn something that you can then put into practice, but this is what the book was saying. It discusses techniques like stealing credit for someone else's success, trapping someone in a compromising situation and then blackmailing them, using flattery to gain the confidence of a fellow worker and then sticking the knife between the ribs at just the key moment at the board room during a meeting. Well, this kind of thing has been going on for a long time. Advancing yourself by destroying others, by presenting yourself well.

James and John were, I think, maneuvering to get the best seats in the Kingdom. Actually though, if you read the text carefully, it wasn't them per se. It was their mom. I was thinking this might be a good Mother's Day sermon but I'm actually glad it's not Mother's Day. But yeah, it was mom. Now I think that James and John really put mom up to it, because in Mark's gospel mom isn't even mentioned, and here in our account, mom gets ignored after the first foray. From that point on, Jesus is dealing directly with James and John.

Now indications are that James and John's mother, Zebedee's wife was named Salome and it's quite possible that she was a sister of Mary, the mother of Jesus, which would make her Jesus' aunt and it would make James and John, Jesus' cousins. So what we have here then would be a case of nepotism, using family ties and connections. Pulling strings along family lines to get a position of importance in the coming kingdom. This has been going on for a long time, nepotism.

Napoleon sat brothers on thrones throughout Europe when he could do so. James, his brother, was King of Naples, mismanaged it so badly that he was made king of Spain. Until he abdicated and lived in Bordentown, New Jersey for a number of years. Napoleon's brother Louis was made king of Holland and his brother Jerome, king of Westphalia. This is what you do, you get your brothers in there, you get your cousins, your relatives. So this is common. Family members using their influence to gain positions of honor and power. So what is the request?

Look at it again, verse 20 and 21. “Then the mother of Zebedee's sons came to Jesus with her sons and, kneeling down, asked a favor of him. ‘What is it you want?’ He asked. She said, ‘Grant that one of these two sons of mine may sit at your right and the other your left in your kingdom.’

Now notice her reverence, her humility, kneeling down in front of Jesus. The request however, is even more comprehensive in Mark's gospel. In Mark 10: 35 and 36. It says this. “Then James and John, the sons of Zebedee came to Him, ‘Teacher’ they said, ‘We want you to do for us whatever we ask.’” So we're gonna hand you a blank check, we would like you to sign it and then we'll fill in the amount. Jesus wisely says, “What do you want me to do for you?” So he's very careful, an open-ended request. Now kings sometimes like to show their power and their glory by being able to grant these kind of open-ended requests. “Whatever you want, up to half of my kingdom,” they're willing to say. No king in history has been as able to cash a blank check as Jesus. No one had so much power and wealth at his fingertips as does Jesus, the King of the Kingdom of Heaven.

But he is very wise and very careful and he asked, “What do you want me to do for you?” So the mother in our account in Matthew has this request, “Grant that one of these two sons of mine may sit at your right and the other at your left in your kingdom.” Now these would be the two most important positions of influence and honor in the coming kingdom of Christ. They would have free access to Christ. They would have, so they probably believed, influence over Christ's decisions and with it would come immense privilege and power and prestige and possessions, all of the things that our little idolatrous hearts crave so much. 

And so James and John are pushing themselves forward to gain the most influential seats in the kingdom of Christ. It's a play for power. My friends, it's a play for greatness and so Jesus has to respond.

And so he responds in verses 22 and 23 by saying, those places are assigned by God. He actually has multiple layers to his answer. The first layer is basically to correct their ignorance. He says to them in Verse 22. “You don't know what you're asking.” He strips their presumptions bare. Like all the other disciples, like the disciples were constantly, until the coming of the Holy Spirit and even afterwards, not really understanding the kingdom and how it would come.

Their understanding of the kingdom is woefully inadequate. They do not understand the nature of Christ's kingdom, they don't understand how greatness will be weighed or assessed in the kingdom. They don't understand what it would take to sit in those seats, they just don't understand. So he says, “You don't know what you're asking.” He starts there. 

The second layer of his answer is to refer to a cup. Verse 22 he says, “Can you drink the cup I'm going to drink?” Now what cup was this? Whatever it was, it seems to have been prerequisite to taking those seats in the Kingdom or else Jesus wouldn't have brought it up.

The drinking of Christ's cup is essential to sitting in those seats. Now the cup was the issue but what cup was Christ going to drink? Well, in a very short time in Matthew's Gospel, we're going to see Jesus taking James and John along with Peter with him into the garden of a Gethsemane and we're gonna see him overwhelmed. Mark's gospel says, he was astonished. We're gonna see him shaken to the core of his being and he's going to go a little further and he's gonna fall to the ground and great drops of blood like sweat are gonna flow down his face and he's going to pray, “Father, if it is possible, let this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will but as you will.” Now he doesn't identify the cup but we know it must be the cross and digging deeper, it must be the cup of God's wrath poured full strength into that cup, that he would drink it to its dregs. That Jesus would bear the wrath of God for us. 

At the physical level, it would mean rejection by human beings, it would mean persecution, it would be a shame, it would mean pain, torture and death. So there are many layers or levels to this cup that Jesus was going to drink. Clearly, no light thing but a thing of immense cost, of immense difficulty. Can you drink the cup? And I'm going to drink. James and John said, “We can. We are able to do it.” Go back a little bit and the verse, “You don't know what you're asking.” Well, they don't know what they're saying here. They don't have any sense of the weight of that commitment. They don't know what Jesus's cup is. Whatever it takes, they'll do it, that's what they're saying. It's a bold assertion here. Oh, how prideful are our ignorant hearts. How much we trifle with weighty things. Things of immense worth and value. We think very little of them. We are so confident in ourselves aren't we? We think we can do it, we ought not to be so confident.

A mature Christian loses that self-confidence and grows in confidence in Christ only, for we are the circumcision. We who worship by the Spirit of God, who glory in Christ Jesus and put no confidence in the flesh but I think James and John were putting conference in the flesh here and so they say “We can drink that cup.”

Well then Jesus says very strikingly, “You will indeed drink from my cup.” You will indeed drink from my cup. Now Christ's cup as I said, is the cup of God's wrath. His atoning sacrifice for the sins of the world. They would not drink that Christ alone could drink that cup, that was for Jesus alone but if you could picture some drops falling from the cup, if you could picture some of the physical aspects of Christ suffering, the human rejection, the pain, the suffering, the persecution, the shame, you will indeed drink from my cup, James and John. James would be put to death with the sword by King Herod, the first of the 12 apostles to die, that Martyr's death in Acts 12. James would indeed drink from Jesus's cup. And how about John? Well, he'd outlived them all but he would suffer greatly.

Church tradition tells us that in Ephesus, he was boiled in oil but God miraculously spared his life. Then he was exiled to the isle of Patmos, suffering persecution for the testimony of the word of God, testimony of Christ. So John also drank from Christ's cup. Only Jesus drank Christ's cup but we are called on to suffer for Jesus we are called on to live a life of self-denial of taking up our cross and following Jesus. James and John would indeed drink from Christ's cup.

However, Jesus says, those places, the one you asked about, the ones at my right and my left, they're not for me to grant. What an astonishing statement that is. This is God in the flesh and he's saying, I don't have the right to tell you that. I don't have the right to give it to you. Those places belong to those for whom they have been prepared by my Father and He'll give them out. 

So Christ leaves them in the dark about whether they're gonna take those seats or not. Will James and John be sitting at Jesus' right and his left? I can't say. I can't say. I don't know. Jesus doesn't tell us so they might actually sit at his right and his left but that's not gonna be settled now with Mom coming and asking. Not at all. It will be settled in that future world. And notice that Jesus does not deny that there are such places sitting at his right and his left, that there is power, there is honor, there is glory to be won for the kingdom. He doesn't deny that. And notice the word here, “prepared.” Those places are for those for whom they have been prepared by my Father. I actually believe the heavenly father prepares both ends. He prepares the place for the people and he prepares the people for the place. Maybe today you're getting prepared for your final place in heaven.

By listening to this sermon, you'll learn how you can rise in the estimation of God. How he can see you as great. A great son or daughter living a great life, doing great things. You will learn what true greatness is from the word of God but he's preparing, he's getting you ready for the place and he's getting the place ready for you. Preparation. So there will be places of honor. Christ wants us to know that but what he does now is he educates us all on how they will be given out. On what basis will they be assigned and he deals with that in verses 24 through 28.

“When the ten,” it says in verse 24, “heard about this, they were indignant with the two brothers. Jesus called them together and said, ‘You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant and whoever wants to be first must be your slave -- just as the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve and to give His life as a ransom for many.’” 

Well, this phase of the education begins with the feelings of indignation in the hearts of the ten. They're indignant, it says, with James and John. The Greek word is used sometimes for the teething pain of an infant. Sometimes for the feeling of a pebble in your sandal. It's a feeling of mild if not perhaps even strong irritation. So the other ten apostles are annoyed, they're irritated with James and John. Kinda hypocritical if you think about it. I think they're annoyed because they wish they'd thought of it or they wish they were Jesus's cousins or they could finagle for positions. I don't find them any more humble than the others. I actually think their annoyance is every bit as prideful as James and John pushing themselves forward. There's really no difference.

But they're irritated, they're annoyed, and so Jesus must deal with this sordid situation right now. Now, he's already dealt with it. Oh, he's dealt with it again and again. You remember him back in Matthew 18. They were arguing about which of them was the greatest and he had a little child come and stand among them and he said, “Unless you humble yourself and be like this little child, you'll never even enter the kingdom.” You've gotta be transformed. He'll deal with it again, the night of the last supper when as they enter the upper room, they're arguing about which of them is the greatest, they can't seem to get off this topic. Which of them is the greatest? And so Jesus gives them a demonstration of who among them is the greatest. Jesus said, “I am among you as one who serves” and so he took off his outer garment and he wrapped a towel around his waist and he got down and he washed His disciple's feet, drying them with the towel that was wrapped around his waist.

So he's got to deal with this issue because they would be the future leaders of the church. They were the pillars, humanly speaking, the foundation on which the church would be built and this pride is a stinkweed. It's a wicked root that bears much bitter fruit and so he's got to deal with his pride and so he calls them together, he assembles them together and as he would soon tell Pontius Pilate in a different sort of sense, there he would say, “My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest but as it is, my kingdom is of another place.” It's a heavenly kingdom. It's got a heavenly nature, a heavenly essence to it and so in a similar way, he's gonna say to his leaders “My kingdom is not of this world.” It's not like that, it's not like the gentile kingdoms.

It's a different kind of kingdom and so he teaches them a lesson by contrast, look at verses 25 and 26, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you.”

So Jesus is here speaking of the glories of Gentile rulers and kings and lofty officials, they had seen it, the Jewish nation had been well educated in Gentile rule, they'd seen it with King Herod, who really wasn't Jewish but it was a Gentile usurper and who was a wicked man. They'd seen it with a string of Gentile emperors ever since the exile to Babylon, Nebuchadnezzar and then the Medo-Persian emperors, one after the other. Alexander the Great and all of the Greek rulers and now it's the Romans. They had seen these Gentile rulers, one after the other, and notice what Jesus says, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them and their high officials exercise authority over them.” So here Jesus is speaking, I think, of both the motive and the manner of Gentile government, Gentile rule. The motive is self-glory, making much of yourself. In some cases, even the point of self-deification.

Alexander the Great had a coin minted of himself in Egypt with the horns of Jupiter Amon on the side of his head. Clear claim to deity. He really believed he was a god. He spoke of his biological father as “the man supposedly, my father.” [chuckle] And the same attitude was found in other Greek rulers like Antiochus IV who called themself Epiphanes, “the manifest one,” a clear claim to deity. The Romans picked up on this. So Octavius came to be known as Caesar Augustus, the title Augustus is a claim to deity. So they're claiming to be divine so also their underlings, like a Pontius Pilate has a motive of self-glorification, making much of himself. So that's the motive of their rule.

How about the manner of their rule? How do they carry themselves in their rule? Well, their outward displays of prestige and power and glory. There are trumpets sounding at the approach of the Roman governor. There are banners that are fluttering in the breeze, of maroon and gold. There's a manner of superiority and an attitude towards those that are under them. They carry themselves with this kind of attitude. So they love the places of honor and the most important seats and lofty greetings and words of praise, the trappings of power. I was reading about Louis XIV, the Sun King, King of France and he built Versailles, his palace, magnificent display of his wealth and of His power and there's one particular room called the Hall of Mirrors and it's just covered with mirrors all around, ceilings, walls all around. And he would meet foreign dignitaries there on a raised dais, on a glorious throne. He would meet them and they would inevitably shrink in their own eyes before this glorious personage, this Sun King.

Well, that's how they do it. “The rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them and the high officials, they exercise dominion or authority over them. Not so with you.” Not so with you. Oh, that the church would learn this lesson. We have been fraught with people, with leaders who have not understood this lesson. During the years right before the Reformation, Pope Julius carried himself like a conquering Emperor. He used to ride around on a white horse with a full coat of armor and with these kinds of trumpets and banners. He was like an earthly king. He was the Pope. The head supposedly of Christ's Church. Christ's vicar on earth. Oh, that we would learn this but it's not just out there my friends, it's right in here. It's in our own hearts. We need to hear this lesson. When we get positions of power, we are tempted to lord it over and exercise authority, not so with you.

Verses 26 and following, “Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant and whoever wants to be first, must be your slave -- just as the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve and to give His life as a ransom for many.

Now, ambition for heavenly glory is not evil. Actually, I think it's good. You should yearn for and desire to gain as much glory and honor as possible in the future. We already talked about that with the issue of rewards but let's remember where we're starting from. What Jesus says is whoever wants to become great among you. What does that imply about our starting place? We weren't great at the beginning. “Kingdom of heaven is like a tax collector and a Pharisee who went to the temple to pray and the tax collector stood off to the distance and beat his breast and would not even lift up his eyes to heaven but said ‘Be merciful to me, oh God, the sinner.’” Well, that's where all of this starts. Remember that when you talk about your own greatness, I think it's easy to forget that we are saved by grace alone and so Jesus says greatness in the kingdom is earned by servanthood. Humble yourself now, stop living for yourself, stop living for your earthly advantages, your earthly pleasures, earthly prestige and power and glory. Deny yourself daily, take up your cross, make yourself nothing. Meet the temporal and eternal needs of others and live that way, every day. And when you have achieved some level of genuine servanthood, go even lower. That's what he's teaching here.

If you want to be great, you must be a servant, he says. A diakonos, from which we get the word deacon. Diakonos did menial labor in the house, scrubbing floors, cleaning rooms, waiting tables, living to see that others had enough food and clothing, everything that they would need, that their needs were met. That's a servant in the household. You wanna become great, be one of those. Do you wanna become first? Then you'll have to become a slave. Well, that's a doulos. Now, the diakonos, the servant can leave if he wants. His life is his own, he owns himself, he's a free man. A slave is owned by another. You're not your own, you're bought at a price, you don't have the freedom to come and go. You live at the will of the Master.

Jesus said, “You wanna be first, then be a slave.” So in effect Jesus is giving us a downward journey, diakonos to doulos, from servant to slave, lower still. And this is what Jesus himself has done.

So he says in verse 28, “Just as the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve and to give His life as a ransom for many.” So Jesus presents himself as a humble example, “just as the Son of Man,” that's he himself. Christ, the prime example of meek and lowly servanthood. He himself traveled that journey, that downward journey, infinitely farther than any of us ever could.

And what was his motive for everything? And Christ's motive, it was not selfish but selfless. It says “The Son of Man did not come.” Why did you come Jesus? Why did you enter the world? For what reason were you born? Why did you come? He said, “I didn't come to be served. I came to serve.” That's what he's saying. He wasn't looking for anyone to sit him on silk pillows and bring him bread and meat and another cluster of grapes to squeeze into his cup and drink it's sweet drink. He wasn't looking for that, to be some kind of earthly potentate, having all of his needs met and his feet anointed and rubbed and having servant girls dance for him and have himself fanned. He didn't come for that. Frankly, he had left infinitely higher than that.

He sat on the throne of glory with His Heavenly Father and around him, thousands upon thousands attended Him and 10,000 times 10,000 stood before him, ready to serve him. That's the glory he left and he took off those robes of glory that he shared with his Heavenly Father and He made Himself nothing and he entered the worlds, taking the very nature of a servant, which is a human being. That's what we are. That's what we were created to be, servants of God and He took on human form. That was his motive. He came to serve.

He came out of love. To lift us up out of the muck keep of sin. To cleanse us, to redeem us, to put a song in our mouths. To put a robe, a white robe around us. Lift us up, that we might dwell with him forever in heaven. That was his motive. His motive was love. And what of his manner? Well, he always appeared lowly as well. He was born of a poor Jewish couple. He was laid in a manger where animals eat. It's a lowly way to enter the world, an abject poverty and humility and he carried himself that way his whole life. He didn't take on trappings of wealth and power, he didn't demand that people respect him or honor him, he put up with slights, he put up with insults.

Aren't we right in saying that you're demon possessed and your father was a Samaritan? What an insult. Questioning the legitimacy of His birth. Jesus put up with all those things, he carried himself with humility. He was weak and lowly, just in terms of himself. He entered the world humbly, he lived humbly. He lived in perfect submission to the law of God. Every moment fulfilled all of God's commands. Luke chapter two tells us that He was submissive to his own parents. We learned from other scriptures that Joseph was a carpenter. We learned also that Jesus was a carpenter. That same title is ascribed to him as was ascribed to Joseph. So my guess is he was Joseph's apprentice. Can you imagine Jesus submitting himself to Joseph in the carpentry shop? I can. Can you imagine Him taking orders as a 15 year old? I can imagine that. Being submissive to his father. It's all speculation. I don't know when Joseph died but we can imagine that he would have been trained that way, that he was humble. He was Joseph's God, He was Joseph's creator. He will be Joseph's judge and yet He submitted meekly to Joseph's commands on how to handle a piece of wood.

Kinda like, “Alright, Joseph, after you're done, I'll teach you how to create a piece of wood, alright? You teach me how to do that and I'll... “ He didn't do that. Rather, he humbled himself. He made himself lowly and when it came time for Jesus to begin his earthly ministry, he did so in the most humble manner imaginable. He submitted to John the Baptist, baptism of repentance for sin. John didn't wanna baptize him, he said “I need to be baptized by you and you come to me?” He said, “Let it be so now, we must fulfill all righteousness.”

And so, he humbled himself, he lowered himself and was covered with the waters of baptism for repentance he didn't need. He had nothing to repent from. He was sinless. And in his ministry, he was healing huge crowds of people and the way I read the healings, He tried to have personal encounters with people he healed. He would have been able to heal 10,000 people with a word but you remember the woman subject of bleeding, who touched the hem of His garment and thought to get away unnoticed? Jesus wanted the encounter with her. He wanted to touch people, to speak to them, to encounter them and so you can imagine how exhausting a ministry of healing like that would have been. He poured himself out, day after day, for multitudes, huge crowds, that would come from Jerusalem, Judea, Galilee, Samaria, the region across the Jordan to be healed and see how humbly he rises and goes with the centurion to heal his servant.

Lord, my Centurion lies at home paralyzed and in terrible suffering. Matthew 8. “I will go and heal him,” He says. And then in the very next chapter, Jairus comes and says, “My little girl has just died but come and put your hand on her and she will live” and Jesus gets up and goes with him. Jesus is humble, he is led, he's a doulos. He's a slave. Anyone and everyone, it seemed, could impinge on his time.

Never once did he murmur. Never once did he lord it over anyone claiming “Do you know who I am? Do you realize what kind of honor you ought to be giving me?” He doesn't do that and all of it culminated in his death, just as the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many. This was the ultimate servanthood. His substitutionary death on the cross, the greatest act of humble servanthood in history. If you consider that Jesus retained his divine power through the entire process while he was being scourged and mocked and beaten and spat upon and nailed to the cross and at any moment he could have come down off the cross and shown himself to be divine and he withheld himself at every moment, you see then the nature of his humility. It's not like he lost his power and couldn't do anything about it, it wasn't like that at all, he was restraining himself at every moment and showing his humility and here, Christ asserts, I think, that his primary reason for being born was to give his life as a ransom for many. He came to die. Now the other things were necessary, the life had to happen but he came to die. To give His life as a ransom for many. This is the measure of greatness.

Now, what do we mean by this? These are significant words for our doctrine of the atonement. In what sense did he give his life as a ransom for many? Now, the word ransom means the payment of a price, sometimes it's used to refer to money paid to rescue prisoners of war or money paid to get slaves out of chains. It's money paid to get someone out of trouble. Along with this, it's striking that Jesus' life is a ransom and it's paid instead of. There's a little Greek prefix, which means instead of or in the place of, it's ante. He gives himself as a substitute ransom. There's kind of an intensification here. Substitutionary atonement.

Christ's life then was forfeit. It was paid out for many for their distress. Now in the Middle Ages, some Medieval theologians misunderstood this ransom concept and they thought that Jesus paid a ransom to the devil. Something like the devil had kidnapped us and Jesus had to pay the devil's price. My friends, the devil is a created being and the greatest of all sinners. He is great in his wickedness. Hell, the lake of fire is made for the devil and his angels. The devil, it says, is filled with rage because he knows his time is short. What does God owe the devil? He owes him nothing. This ransom was not paid to the devil, not at all. Rather the ransom was Christ's life paid because the death penalty required it. That we deserve to die for our sins.

This was established back in Genesis 2:17, in which God said to Adam, “You must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil for when you eat of it, you will surely die.” The death penalty established right there, Ezekiel 18:4, “The soul who sins will die.” Romans 6:23, “The wages of sin is death.” Jesus had to give his life as a ransom so that we might be free to live forever. So he paid the debt of many. Says in Isaiah 53, “He was pierced for our transgressions.” Listen to the substitutionary side. “He was pierced for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities. The punishment that brought us peace was upon Him and by His wounds, we are healed. We all like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.” Do you not see the substitution there?

Oh, can I urge you to come to Christ. If you've never trusted in him, look to Jesus as your substitute, you have no other hope! You have no other hope. You cannot stand before God on Judgment Day on your own merits. You must have this death penalty paid for you or you'll pay it yourself in hell. Look to Christ. Don't look to your own good works, trust in him.

Jesus came to give his life as a ransom for many. Free us from the death penalty. Therefore my friends, the position of greatest in the Kingdom has been filled. It's been filled. No other applicants need apply. Position has been taken. Jesus is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven but if you wanna be second greatest or third or tenth greatest, he's showing you how to do it: imitate him in his servanthood. 

Now, what application can we take from this? Well first, can I urge you to be alert to your own pride? Do you think James and John were aware of how prideful they were as they stepped up there? Are you aware of how prideful you are? Am I aware of how prideful I am? Be aware of this stinkweed. Begin to walk by the power of the Spirit controlling you moment by moment so that you learn how to serve. 

Secondly, be willing to drink from Jesus's cup. He drank the cup to it's bottom but yet, there are some drops for us. You cannot go to Heaven without suffering Jesus' suffering and there are two kinds in particular, that Christians must be willing to suffer.

You must be willing to suffer temptation. Jesus himself, it says in Hebrews 2:18 suffered when he was tempted. The unbelievers, they don't suffer temptation, they just sin. We have to be willing to say no to wickedness, to stand firm with the armor of God on us and to suffer until the temptation evades. Calling on God for protection and help during that time of testing. Suffer temptation and you have to be willing, secondly, to suffer rejection and persecution by this Christ-hating world and I think the more faithful you are to serve in Christ and others, the more persecution you will endure, as it says in 2nd Timothy 3:12, “Everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.”

In the Book of Hebrews 13 says “Jesus also suffered outside the gate to make the people holy through His own blood. Let us then go to him outside the camp, bearing the disgrace he bore.” 

Thirdly, understand that there are places of honor in the kingdom. There are place of honor and they will be given out to people. 

Fourth, understand the path of true servanthood. To serve another means put their needs ahead of your own. Consider others better than yourselves. Deny yourself, take up the basin and towel. Do these hard things. Give others the seats of honor. In personal conversation, talk less and listen more. Be an encourager. Find ways to encourage others. 

It troubles me sometimes when I hear about church members talking about what they're not getting from the church. Do you realize how much that violates the spirit of the passage I'm preaching on? The Son of Man came not to what? Be served but to serve. If the church is preaching the word, if there's lots of Christians there doing spirit-filled ministries and good things are happening, you're in the right place. You don't need to go shopping for another church, alright? Then I would urge that you just take Jesus' attitude and say “How can I serve others here?” not “How can I be served and have my needs met?” That's the ethos that Jesus is giving us here for one another. The Son of Man came not to be served but to serve.

I want to focus on three areas in particular; serve with your money. Every Lord's Supper, we have a benevolence fund, a Deacon Benevolence Fund. We give that money out to people within the church and in the community whose needs are pressing. That amount or those cases are increasing and getting more intense. That shouldn't surprise you. I'm sure you're reading the newspapers. We need more money for the Deacon Benevolence Fund. You will be serving others if you deny yourself in some way, in your everyday life and bring more money than you've ever brought before to the next Deacon Benevolence offering. So just look and see when the next Lord's Supper is and let's see if we can double or even triple the amount of money that's brought into the Deacon Benevolence Fund. That money is given out first and foremost to needy people in the church and secondly, to those in the community as the Lord leads. So with your money.

Secondly, with your prayers. Can I urge you to get the two prayer lists that the church has. There's a prayer list we use on Wednesday that has general issues, hospital issues, salvation issues, different things, that's the church's general prayer list. Get a copy of it. Secondly, Keegan Callahan puts out one for our missionaries, we said we would hold the ropes for these folks. You can serve them by praying the request they ask us to pray. So, I would urge you get those prayer lists and serve others by doing that.

Thirdly, with your spiritual gifts. One of our goals here for this year is that every member of First Baptist Church would have a recognizable spiritual gift ministry. What is yours? What is your ministry here at this church? It's a pattern, it's not a foray. It's not an occasional thing, it's something that you do regularly. A consistent pattern of using a spiritual gift. Now spiritual gifts are special abilities given by the Spirit of God to meet horizontal needs with others. How are you serving others with your spiritual gifts? And if you're not, I would urge you to not look at a list of spiritual gifts but look at a list of needs of things that can be done, needs that could be met in this church or in the community and start serving and you'll find your spiritual gifts. 

One final application is I want you to honor Christ for his humility. Honor Christ for what he did and I can't do it any better than Paul did in Philippians chapter two, speaking of Jesus Christ, “Who being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant being made in human likeness and being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death, even death on a cross. Therefore, God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.” Close with me in prayer.

So Christ is risen from the dead, and nothing can change that fact. There's no power in heaven, earth or under the earth that can change the fact that Christ is risen. And based on his promise, based on our faith in him, we will rise again, and we will live forever with him. And that is my sure and certain foundation, the foundation of my joy. It's a foundation for unshakable joy. And all other joys are temporary and transitory and fleeting and shallow in comparison with this. I will never forget the morning of January 17th, 1995. It was 5:46 AM. Christi and I were serving as missionaries in Tokushima, Japan. Suddenly an earthquake hit Awaji Shima, Awaji Island. 7.2 on the Richter scale.

The ground under our house shook vigorously from side to side for 20 seconds, the longest 20 seconds of my life. The curtains in the house were swaying back and forth. And I remember this distinctly, that there was nowhere to hide, nowhere to go. The earthquake did its most deadly damage in the city of Kobe, across from Awaji Shima. 5100 people died that morning. The elevated Hanshin Expressway was toppled over, and many modern buildings collapsed. And I learned physically what I already believed spiritually, and that is in this world, there is nothing that cannot be shaken. Everything on the surface of the Earth has its foundation on rocks that can move and split wide open and be swallowed up themselves, if the Earth should open its mouth. And so it made me question again, what is the foundation of my life? Deeper question comes as well. Everyone seeks happiness, everyone seeks joy. This is without exception. Everyone seeks some form of joy in life and every moment of life. The question of the great Hanshin earthquake for me was, is there any unshakable joy possible in this life?

Now, there are many temporary causes of joy. A wedding day, for example. The laughs, the celebrations, the photos, the rice or bird seed thrown at the happy couple as they run out of the church, joyful, celebratory music. It is joy, but is it joy unshakable? Or the birth of a baby, a quiet joy and pride that even Jesus mentions in our text today.

After the anguish of childbirth, then there is joy and holding that little one in your arms. It is joy, but is it joy unshakable? I'm gonna meddle a little bit with some of you here. There's the championship of a beloved sports team. After a lot of effort, you win an NCAA Championship, and there is a kind of joy that comes in it. But is it joy unshakable? I have some old championship t-shirts from a number of years ago. They're worn with age, and I'm telling you, they don't bring me much joy anymore. Just a warning to some of my friends here. Or there is the achievement of a treasured goal. Some of you are nearing graduation. You've worked hard, you've labored.

The time has come for graduation from high school or college, graduate school. And there's a joy there. Graduation caps thrown in the air. Celebration. Yes, it's a joy, but is it joy unshakable? A recovery of health after a severe illness makes you happy, or a reunion with a long lost loved one. I'll never forget a photo I saw in a book on the Vietnam War. It was of a teenage girl running across the tarmac to her father who had just been released from a POW camp from the Vietnam War. She was crying and joyful and just about to crash into her father with the biggest hug he'd ever received in his life. It was joy, but was it joy unshakable? There's victory at the end of a war. World War II, VE Day, VJ Day. There's celebration, wild celebration in Time Square. Peace has come at last.

But that joy can go away. Soon another war follows. There's victory in a political election. A candidate achieves the office he sought to achieve for years, and the volunteers are hugging each other and celebrating and crying and all of that, it's joy. But is it joy unshakable? Now, the older that we get, the more restrained are these moments of joy. And not just because we may have less energy to express our joy, that is true, but rather it's tempered by the increasingly sad knowledge that there is no joy here on earth, that's based on these things, that is lasting, that is unshakable.

In every case, the joy can turn to sorrow, or at least to indifference. The moment passes, the calendar changes, the season moves on, and the ground for joy changes right from under your feet. Charles Spurgeon put it this way, "I do not know whether you have noticed, but I have, that most of our joys, if they are of an earthly kind, are very expensive before long. You cannot delight in created things without sorrow coming of it. You cannot love your wife, your child with the most lawful and laudable love, but one of these days it will become a most expensive love when the loved ones are taken away, or they sicken and suffer. The more we love them, the more they cost us."

And so even the ground under your feet for that joy can be taken away. Marriage can be the happiest kind there is, but death still stands over it. A baby can die in infancy, or grow up and rebel against his or her parents. A diploma can lose its luster when you have trouble finding a job. A significant achievement becomes worthless when you're in a nursing home and nobody really wants to hear the story of your great achievements in life.

And so the advance in age and wisdom can bring some people lingering sorrow and skepticism, even a cynicism, that there is nothing in this world that can produce unshakable joy. A joy that endures. A joy that actually could grow and grow. That never perishes, spoils or fades. My friends, the truth of the Gospel is, there is such a joy. There is an unshakable joy, invest in that. That's precisely the joy we've come together today to celebrate. For today, my friends, is Resurrection Sunday. And we are celebrating the only certain ground for joy there ever has been or ever will be in this sin-cursed world. And that is the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.

Now, the context of our message today from John's Gospel, John 16. We're looking specifically at verses 20-22. But this happened the night before Jesus was crucified. He had some precious time with his apostles. He was seeking to prepare them all for the most difficult trial they would ever face. Jesus was about to be arrested and condemned, mocked, tortured and crucified. He would die. He would be murdered. And obviously something like that would be distressing enough, if it happened to an ordinary man who was a friend, or even a beloved family member. But Jesus was far more than that, and they knew it.

Over the three years, he had been actively ministering in front of the 12. He had proven his deity to them again and again. At the time of his baptism, when John the Baptist baptized him, a voice came from heaven saying, "This is my beloved son. With him, I am well pleased." John the Baptist, the greatest prophet to come to Israel in centuries, had testified of Jesus, that he was the Son of God. As Jesus began teaching in the synagogues, he unrolled a scripture in Isaiah, clearly a Messianic prophecy. And after reading that prophecy, he said, "Today in your hearing, this Scripture is fulfilled." He clearly claimed to be the Messiah.

Jesus' teaching itself was a display of supernatural power and authority. He said in the Sermon on the Mount, "You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, you shall not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment. But I tell you that anyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment. Again, anyone who says to his brother Raca, is answerable to the Sanhedrin. But anyone who says, you fool, will be in danger of the fire of hell." After such authoritative teaching, the crowds listened with amazement, not just at what he said, but how he said it. And at the end of the account of the Sermon on the Mount... It says, "When Jesus had finished saying these things, the crowds were amazed at his teaching. Because he taught them as one who had authority and not as their teachers of the law."

No man ever spoke like this man. He spoke like the son of God. And his miracles testified also to his power. His incredible miracles, these signs, proved that he was God in the flesh. And on top of all of this, Jesus claimed it. In as many different ways as you can. He claimed to be the Son of God. He called God his own father, making himself equal with God. He said this in language that would have been unmistakable to the Jews, "Before Abraham was born, I am." There's no doubt about his claim to deity there. Now, this supernatural person, this incarnate Son of God, that very night would be arrested, tried, condemned to death, tortured, mocked, crucified. And Jesus' deepest desire that night before any of that happened, was to prepare his disciples realistically for what it is they would face.

The grief and the anguish they were about to endure. And so he labored to get them ready for two things. He labored to get them ready for the profound grief that they would face when he died, and for the unshakable joy that they would experience when he was raised again. And so let's begin with the first, this clear warning that profound grief comes first. Verse 20. "I tell you the truth," he says, "You will weep and mourn, while the world rejoices. You will grieve," he says. Look again at verses 21 and 22. "A woman giving birth to a child has pain because her time has come, but when her baby is born, she forgets the anguish because of her joy that a child is born into the world. And so it is with you. Now is your time of grief."

So he's getting them ready there for grief. He's preparing them realistically. Jesus in his wisdom, wanted his disciples ready for what really was going to come. What they would really face. And so his warnings and predictions to them exist to give them strength for the trials that they would face. If he had not warned them, they might have been shocked and overwhelmed with surprise, and would have doubted perhaps that he really was God. And so it is with us, my friends. So it is with us. We're not naive children, polianers, who always look on the bright side with a kindergarten perspective, living a fairy tale. We know better. 

The world is filled with sorrows and griefs and disappointments. The bloom comes off the rose. The shine comes off the gift. The pleasure fades and trouble comes. Jesus makes us all this promise, if you wanna call it that, or perhaps a warning, at the end of this same chapter that we're studying. In John 16:33, "In this world, you will have trouble." So also Peter makes this plain statement. 1 Peter 4:12, "Dear friends, do not be surprised at the painful trial you are suffering as though something strange were happening to you." 

The Scriptures therefore are given to help us be realistic about what kind of life we're actually going to live. What it's actually going to be like. And so grief must come first, he says. And the grief is described. Verse 20, he mentions weeping and mourning. Bitter experiences of grief. In verse 21, he mentions anguish and physical pain like those of a woman in labor. The disciples would be locked in the upper room. They would be utterly bewildered. They would be shocked. They would be speechless. They would not be able, really, to comprehend what was happening and why it had to happen.Over and over, their minds would return to this grievous truth. Their beloved master was dead. This powerful, capable, loving teacher of the ways of God had been executed. The system had won. And he was just another hapless victim, so it seemed.

Now, what would be the cause of their grief? Well, it would be Jesus' shocking death. It would be shocking to them. Shocking because, as I've already mentioned, of who he had demonstrated himself to be. This was the man who could do anything. Nothing was too difficult for him. He had done more mighty miracles than anyone in history. He had changed the water into wine at Cana in Galilee. He had cast out the mighty demons from the man called Legion, driven them out with a single word, "Go," in the region of the Gadarenes.

He had cured a man born blind by spitting on the ground and making mud and wiping it on the man's eyes, and then he washed the mud off and he could see. He had raised up a paralyzed man that they had dug through the roof and lowered down in front of him, he raised him up with just a word. He had cured the centurion's servant with a word from a remote distance. He didn't even need to come, just gave the word and the servant was healed. He had walked on water. He had spoken to the wind and the waves, and they had obeyed his voice. What kind of man was this? Even the winds and the waves obey him. He had raised his friend Lazarus from the dead after he'd been buried, had been dead for four days.

Huge crowds thronged to him from Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, Galilee, and he healed them all with a word, with a touch. This was Jesus. They had come to realize who he was. This was the son of Almighty God, the son of the Most High God. Peter, James and John had been with him up on the mount of transfiguration. And the cloud, the bright cloud had enveloped them. And out of the cloud came this voice, "This is my only begotten son, whom I love. Listen to him." The voice of God. Now, how could this one who controlled the wind and the waves, who raised the dead at his command, the one about whom God himself had testified, "This is my son." How could he die? It's a profound question. Shocking, really.

Secondly, it was shocking because of all these men had sacrificed in order to follow him. They had left everything to follow Jesus. They had burned their bridges. Peter, John, James and Andrew had forsaken their fishing ministry, or their fishing work, in Capernaum and followed Jesus. Matthew had risen up from that tax collector's booth and followed Jesus. He wasn't getting that job back. Simon the zealot had burned the bridges with all of his zealot friends by being friends with Matthew, the tax collector. They weren't gonna welcome him back, he was a traitor to the cause. They had burned their bridges. What could their future look like now?

Shocking thirdly therefore, because of the danger that Jesus' death would represent for them. They had followed him, he was the head, and he was executed. They would come after them as well. And so they would spend that time with the doors locked for fear of the Jews, expecting at any moment to hear soldier's boots coming up the stairs and banging on the door and arresting them all. And they would be crucified too.

Shocking because theologically, they really didn't understand why he had to die. They didn't get it. I mean, that's proven by the fact that even after these words that we're studying here, Peter drew his sword to try to rescue Jesus. Peter, bad idea. If you succeed, you'll go to hell. We must have this death. He must die in our place. He must die so that we can spend eternity in the presence of God, our sins atoned for.

They didn't understand why Jesus had to die. John the Baptist had pointed at him and said, "Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world." But even John didn't fully understand. He wondered if they should wait for someone else. Jesus' death was a substitutionary atonement. He would stand in our place under the wrath of God. He would shed his blood to pay the penalty for the sins that we had committed. We had broken God's laws. We had not loved the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength. We had not loved our neighbor as ourselves. We had broken the 10 commandments. We had violated the laws of the holy God. And there was a penalty for that. The wages of sin is death, and Jesus stood under that penalty for us. He was our substitute and his blood shed was shed for us. But they didn't understand that. They couldn't understand. Only afterward would they fully understand the doctrine of atonement.

And it was shocking because Jesus' enemies appeared to triumph. How bitter was that? That they would win. That the Sanhedrin would win, the corrupt high priest would win, that the Romans would win, that Herod would win, and Jesus would lose. Shocking.

And shocking, probably above all, simply because Jesus was dead. He was dead. Death is shocking. It's just shocking. And it stands like a bloody, vicious tyrant with its boot on our necks, on the necks of all of our hopes, of all of our dreams for the future, and we can't shake him. He is a tyrant, too powerful for us. And if the pattern had held like it always did in every other case, they would never see Jesus again. And that was shocking.

And so the result of all of these shocks would be an immeasurably deep sense of grief. Verse 20, "I tell you the truth, you will weep and mourn while the world rejoices. You will grieve." And in verse 22, "Now is your time of grief." Ah, yes, but it wouldn't stay that way. Amen? It wouldn't stay that way.

Jesus couldn't leave them grieving, he didn't come to grieve us, He came to lift us up to unshakable joy, a joy unspeakable and full of glory. That's why he came. And so he is going to change their grief into joy, it's going to be like a woman giving birth after that suffering, she rejoices, and so it would be for them, they would grieve, but their grief would change to joy and no one would be able to take that joy away from them. So Jesus would not leave them in grief, he said in John 14:18, I will not leave you as orphans, I will come to you. Joy, my friends, is the purpose of his mission, that's why he came.

Why did God create the world? What was the reason why he created the world? Well, if you study the scriptures you start to understand the reason God created the world was to put himself on glorious display, that He would be glorified. That's why He made heaven and earth. But doesn't that imply an audience? Doesn't that imply someone seeing it, appreciating it, etcetera? So he would create created beings and they would rejoice in that glory.

And the two of them go together. It's really two sides of the same coin. God created the earth to display His glory to us so that we would enjoy it forever. That's why He made everything, and yet sin entered the world and ruined all that. We became idolaters, we turned away from the living God, we did not love him, we did not rejoice in His glory, we didn't delight in it, we instead exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images and started living for physical things, physical pleasures. And so because of sin, Jesus came into the world. Jesus entered the world for our joy and His, and He died on the cross for our joy and for His, it says, Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfector of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross. He did it all for joy. And so even in this final conversation with His apostles in John's gospel, we have repeated mentions of joy, it seems to be one of the major themes in His mind. In John 15:11, he says, I have told you this, so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.

Or this one, John 16:24, Until now, you've not asked for anything in my name. Ask and you will receive and your joy will be complete. Or Jesus in his prayer in John 17, He says, I'm coming to you now, Father, but I say these things while I'm still in the world so that they may have the full measure of my joy in them. It's all about joy, friends, that's the reason why Jesus came into the world to give us joy and joy is the only proper response of a healthy created being in the presence of such a happy God. Oh, what a delighted and delightful being He is. Our God is in heaven, He does whatever makes him happy. He rules and reigns in pleasure and in joy. He sits on His throne and does whatever pleases Him, whatever brings Him joy. We're the messed up ones, we're the ones that don't know joy, but if we get close to Him in a right relationship with Him, the only proper healthy response, my friends is joy, unshakable joy. And so Jesus came to give it to us. Psalm 16:11, You have made known to me the path of life, you will fill me with joy in your presence with eternal pleasures at your right hand.

And so the foundation of that unshakable joy is the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ. That's a foundation of everything. Jesus' shocking death was the cause of their grief, but so also Christ's triumphant resurrection would be the cause of their joy. Jesus would come and stand in their midst, in the midst of a locked room filled with dreariness and sadness and fear and anxiety and depression, and he would go right through those walls and stand in their midst and present himself to them and say, Peace be with you, Peace be with you. And they would look at His hands and His sides and the scripture says in John 20, the disciples were overjoyed when they saw the Lord. It's only proper response for forgiven sinners like they were... Or again, in Luke's gospel, we see the same thing, Jesus giving joy unshakable to his frightened and weak disciples. In Luke 24, it says this, While they were still talking about this, Jesus himself stood among them and said, Peace be with you. And they were startled and frightened thinking they saw a ghost. And He said to them, Why are you troubled? Why do doubts rise in your minds? Look at My hands and My feet, it is I Myself, touch Me and see.

A ghost does not have flesh and bones as you see, I have. And when He had said this, He showed them His hands and His feet. And while they still did not believe it because of joy and amazement, He asked them, Do you have anything here to eat? And they gave Him a piece of broiled fish and He took it and ate it in their presence. Their reaction is they couldn't believe because they were so filled with joy. It's too good to be true. Well, in this case, it was too good not to be true, joy unshakable and full of glory based on Christ's resurrection.

So why is our joy unshakable? Look at verse 22, he says there, I will see you again, and you will rejoice and no one will take away your joy. A Christian's home base then is eternal joy, though we may occasionally by difficulties and trials and by our own sin and the wanderings of our own hearts be disturbed from heavenly joy, yet we return there by the power of the Holy Spirit again and again. The Christian's home base then is unshakable joy, and that joy, according to Nehemiah 8:10 is our strength, the joy of the Lord is your strength.

So what do I mean by unshakable joy? What I mean is that there's nothing on Earth that can take away that joy. In 1 Peter 1, it says, Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ in His great mercy has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade, kept in Heaven for you, who through faith are shielded by God's power until the time comes for you to receive your inheritance. So this joy, this unshakable joy is founded on some unshakable historical facts, the incarnation of Jesus Christ, that He took on a human body. A permanent choice by Him. His sinless life, His substitutionary death for us on the cross, His bodily resurrection on the third day, these are historical facts. They can never be changed. It's also founded on irrevocable biblical promises based on this work of Christ. Like this one, John 11, I am the resurrection and the life, he who believes in Me will live even though he dies, and whoever lives and believes in Me will never die. That's a promise, friends. And this unshakable joy is likened to a kingdom that can never be shaken. It says in Hebrews 12:28, Since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful. It's an unshakable Kingdom, and therefore an unshakable joy, and the reason for joy is intimacy with Jesus.

Look at Verse 22, Now is your time of grief, but I will see you again, and you will rejoice and no one will take away your joy. Jesus himself is our joy, if He can be defeated, then so can your joy, if He can be killed again, then so can your unshakable joy, but he can't be... It's impossible. Death has been defeated. Heaven is your destined home if you're in Christ. Earthly enemies cannot stop you, Satan can't stop you. Your own sin nature cannot stop you if you have been born again by the power of God. And our earthly sufferings, the trials that all of us go through, they serve a purpose, you know what that purpose is, to get us ready for an even better and more permanent joy. It says in 2 Corinthians 4:17, Our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. We actually must have these sufferings to get us ready for heaven. Romans 8:18 says, I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.

Now, church history testifies to the unshakable nature of their joy. You couldn't stop these people, you couldn't shut them up, they were there on the day of Pentecost, preaching boldly with the threat of death still hanging over them, it was a real threat all except the Apostle John would die martyrs deaths. It wasn't theoretical, and yet they were utterly fearless. They couldn't be stopped. They preached boldly, 3000 were added to the church that day. They healed the lame beggar, and they were arrested and brought in front of the Sanhedrin, the very group that had tried Jesus and handed him over to be executed. Peter and John were utterly fearless. They were utterly fearless. As they proclaimed the name of Jesus, salvation is found in no one else, but there's no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved. They were bold, they were fearless, they were courageous, and they died without ever turning away from their joy.

So it was with the Apostle Paul, it says in Philippians 1:20 and 21, I eagerly expect and hope that I will in no way be ashamed, but will have sufficient courage so that now as always, Christ will be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death, for to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain. Utterly fearless Paul was, he wasn't afraid to die. How about Stephen boldly proclaiming as he's about to die, he's being stoned to death. And what does He see? He looks up and he sees heaven open and Jesus standing at the right hand of God, ready to receive him. He said, Look, I see heaven open. There's Jesus. Do you see him? I don't think they saw him. They just continued stoning him. And as he died, he said, Father, forgive them. Don't hold this sin against them. Oh, how sweetly Christ-like that was, utterly fearless and other-worldly, unshakable joy. The martyrs during the Roman era, they were unshakable and confident, like Perpetua, who went off to her death, singing hymns of victory, as she went off to die. Continues even to this day, Voice of the Martyrs, a modern ministry that talks about Christians that are laying down their lives for Jesus, told a story of a 19-year-old Christian young man in North Korea, who was arrested by Kim Jong-il's police force and tortured brutally for his Christian faith.

He said this to the Chief of Police who was ordering the torture, if you kill me, you will become a Christian. Oh, I love that kind of boldness. Isn't that sweet? If you kill me, you will become a Christian. I couldn't find out whether it happened or not, maybe it hasn't happened yet, maybe it's just a prophecy. I wish I could stand and say, And he became a Christian. I wish I could tell you that, I don't know. But maybe he will. Oh, how powerful is that. And the foundation of this unshakable joy is this, I will be with you, I will see you, and you will see me. And we'll be together forever. And no one will be able to separate us. And no one will be able to take away your joy.

So what application can we take from this? Well, first, I just wanna ask you a question. Is your joy essentially earthly or heavenly? Is it essentially earthly or heavenly? You are created for joy, you're created for happiness, you're going to pursue it. Nothing can stop that. We're all going to proceed, if you're... You may be a non-Christian, I'm telling you right now, you will be living for joy and happiness and pleasure, nothing will stop that, you may be a Christian and you'll be living for joy and happiness and pleasure, and nothing can stop.

This is the way we're wired. God made it that way. The question is, where are you gonna find your joy? Is it earthly? Or is it heavenly? In my front yard, around my front yard, there's a little gully, occurs around the perimeter of my property, I live on a generally down-sloping piece of property, and during a really soaking rain, it becomes a little river, and sometimes my kids love to go out and play in that little river, they put twigs in it and they put leaves and they float around my property. The river is about 3 feet wide and about 6 inches deep and very muddy, and they play in it. There's nothing wrong with that if my kids are listening to me, keep playing in the river, that's fine, that's fine, but the river is a picture to me of earthly joys, 3 feet wide, 6 inches deep and muddy. Can I suggest a better river to you? Listen to Revelation, Chapter 22, verse 1 and 2, Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, as clear as crystal flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb, down the middle of the great street of the city. And on each side of the river stood the tree of life bearing 12 crops of fruit yielding its fruit every month. And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations. Just picture a river like that, perfectly clean, delicious, never-ending, it's flowing from the source, which is the throne of God, and there's healing and there's joy and there's sweet fruit around that river.

Are you drinking from it? Come to Christ. You came to church today, go one more step, go an infinite step beyond. Come to Christ, trust in Him. You've heard the gospel today, how Jesus stood in our place under the wrath of God, how his blood was shed. How you can have full forgiveness of sins, and if all of that is dealt with, you have grounds, unshakable grounds for eternal joy, come to Christ. Don't leave this place without looking up to Jesus and saying, Jesus, save me from my sins. Do you know for certain if you died tonight that you would spend eternity in the presence of God, or would He have to consign you to hell justly for the sins you've committed? Are you ready to face judgment? You don't know when it's going to come.

Can I urge you? Trust in Christ. Now, it may be that you already trusted in Christ, you've made a profession of faith in Christ, you've been baptized, you go to church regularly, you're a Christian, but you have a loud Satan in the world and your flesh to kind of conspire to pull you away from this unshakable joy, and you're now so involved in worldly pursuits that your joy is based on them every day. It's essentially about worldly things. Can I urge you to come back to this? The resurrection of Christ as the source of your joy, meditate on it, feed on it. Because other than that, you're going to be focused on financial troubles, job problems, achievements that you achieve, but you know are maybe insufficient to even get a job. You're faced with marital problems or parenting problems, all kinds of anxieties that can pull you away from security in Christ, come back to Him. And even if things are going well for you right now, if your joys are essentially earthly, you are vulnerable, come back to the cross and the empty tomb and find your unshakable joy there, ask Him to wean you from these earthly tastes and these earthly entanglements and come back to unshakable joy. Close with me in prayer.