[Matt's Messages] “Who Does He Think He Is?”

“Who Does He Think He Is?”
Following Jesus - The Gospel of Matthew
September 9, 2018 :: Matthew 9:14-38 

I’ve said a few times during this series on Following Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew that we could entitle many of these messages with the same title, “Who Does He Think He Is?”

So I just went and did it for this message. That’s the title, “Who Does [Jesus] Think He Is?”

Because it strikes me, especially in this section right after the Sermon on the Mount that everything Jesus does highlights Who Jesus is. Everything Jesus does is kind of like an argument for Who Jesus is.

Like last week when Jesus healed the paralytic and at the same time forgave his sins. Remember that? Who does Jesus think He is going around forgiving sins?

Or the week before that when Jesus spoke to the storm and it had to obey or when He spoke to the legion of demons and they had to obey?

Or when He was healing all kinds of diseases. All of these miracles, all of these actions are great big signposts pointing at Jesus and saying, “Look Who He Is!”

And all that time, Jesus continually keeps calling people to follow Him.

And live a life of discipleship.

Now in the middle of all of those miracles and invitations to discipleship there is a little story that is kind of different from all the rest.

Some friends, some allies, disciples of John the Baptist who was, if you remember, in prison at the time, [these disciples of John the Baptist] come to Jesus and have a question for Him.

And I don’t think it’s an attack. It’s not a trick question or a trap. At least, I don’t think so. It’s not like the kinds of tricky questions that the Pharisees ask to try to trip Him up.

They ask Jesus (v.14), “How is it that we and the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast?”

Fair question. And Jesus chooses to answer their question by telling us all just Who He thinks He is.

If you remember, last week, we left Jesus at a party.

There was a big party at the house of Matthew who had just recently been a filthy rich tax-collector/extortionist.

And at that party were a bunch of current tax-collectors and notorious sinners.

And Jesus was eating with them. He was spending time with them. He was enjoying their company and loving them. He was extending mercy to them. He was calling them to repentance and faith and salvation and discipleship.

Because they needed it. He was a sin-doctor, and they were sin-sick.

But they were doing all of that over dinner. Feasting and eating and enjoying a big meal together.

And then Matthew tells us that John the Baptist’s disciples were scratching their heads.

Remember, John the Baptist was famous for eating locusts and wild honey.

He wasn’t big on lavish dinners at the Golden Corral.

In fact, his followers had been taught how to fast.

So they come to Jesus in verse 14.

“Then John's disciples came and asked him, ‘How is it that we and the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast?’”

“Are we missing something?

We are known for fasting.

The Pharisees (who tend to know their Bibles) are known for fasting.

You guys? Not so much.

What’s going on?”

Before we see how Jesus answers. Let me you ask you how you would answer that one.

Do you ever fast?

If so, why?

And if not, why not?

It’s not like Jesus never fasted, right? I mean He holds the world record. 40 days and 40 nights. We watched Him do it back in chapter 4.

And He’s taught His disciples how to fast. We read about it in the Sermon on the Mount chapter 6, verses 16 through 18.

And He doesn’t say there to NOT fast. Just don’t do it wrong. Don’t do it to impress other people. He says, “WHEN you fast, do it in secret so that your Heavenly Father Who sees what is done in secret will reward you.”

But fasting was definitely not what Jesus was known for.

Or His disciples.

Instead, they’re eating. They’re drinking. They’re feasting.

And they don’t have somber looks on their faces. They’re not all sad and fasting and depriving themselves.

I mean they probably did it on the Day of Atonement like the Law said to.

But that was about it. Most of the time, they were enjoying themselves.

And WITH SINNERS!

What’s going on here?

How would you answer that?

I mean, the Pharisees were probably fasting for all of the wrong reasons. They were the poster children for doing it the wrong way.

They were fasting to be seen by others. They were the targets of Jesus’ critique in the Sermon on the Mount. They already had their reward for other so called acts of righteousness.

But the disciples of John were good guys, right?

They probably fasted out of repentance and sorrow for their sins.

John taught people to repent for the king was coming and the kingdom of God was near.

That’s probably a big part of why they were fasting.

But here’s Jesus, and He’s like, “Pass the chicken nuggets. Umm. These are good. Is this your potato salad? Can I have another helping?”

So they ask Jesus, “How is it that we and the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast?”

And Jesus answers by telling them Who He thinks He is.

#1. THE BRIDEGROOM.  V.15

“Jesus answered, ‘How can the guests of the bridegroom mourn while he is with them? The time will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them; then they will fast.”

Jesus liken Himself to a bridegroom at a wedding.

Do you get his analogy?

His question is should everybody be all sad at a wedding?

Have you ever been to a wedding? How do people act around the bride and the groom?

Are they all like, “It’ll be okay, man. It’ll be okay.”

Or “Man, I hate this stuff. I wish we didn’t have to be here.”

No. If they are, that’s not the kind of wedding I want to be at!

No. Everybody is insanely happy for the couple. Aren’t they?

Big smiles. Break your face smiles. Ear to ear grins.

And lots of feasting. Lots of joy and rejoicing.

Jesus says that’s what it’s like to have Him around.

We aren’t living in the John the Baptist days where the king is coming.

We are living in the Jesus days when the King has come!

Do you know who also talked like this?

John the Baptist, right? In the Gospel of John chapter 3, John the Baptists basically says that he’s the best man at the wedding. But Jesus is the groom.

He says, “You yourselves can testify that I said, 'I am not the Christ but am sent ahead of him.' The bride [which is the church, right? The people of God.] belongs to the bridegroom. The friend who attends the bridegroom waits and listens for him, and is full of joy when he hears the bridegroom's voice. That joy is mine, and it is now complete. He must become greater; I must become less” (vv.28-30).

It’d be pretty inconsistent for Jesus and His disciples to major on mourning when they are announcing the inbreaking presence of the kingdom of God!

Now is the time to rejoice. Because Jesus is the Bridegroom.

However, Jesus says (v.15 again), “The time will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them; then they will fast.”

When will that be?

Well, at least at the Cross. That was a time when the bridegroom was taken away. Isaiah 53:8, “By oppression and judgment he was taken away.”

But I also think it’s true right now when the bridegroom is in heaven and we’re waiting for His return.

So rejoicing is appropriate because we have the King and we have the kingdom.

But right now lament is also appropriate. Because the King suffered and knows our suffering.

And right now LONGING is also appropriate. Because we don’t have the King right now. He’s not here right now in all of His fullness. We are WAITING for His return.

When we get to the end of the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus is going to use this language again to talk about watchfulness. He’ll liken Himself to a Bridegroom who may come at any time, and how we need to be ready for Him.

That’s Who Jesus think He is.

The Bridegroom.

And you know that’s a big deal?

Because do you know Who the bridegroom is in the Old Testament?

God Himself. Read Isaiah 62 this afternoon. Read Hosea chapter 2 this afternoon.

God refers to Himself as a bridegroom.

A bridegroom is full of love.

A bridegroom comes to get His bride.

And wherever the bridegroom is, there is JOY.

So should we fast today?

Well, we shouldn’t fast like the Pharisees. Nobody should fast like that.

And we shouldn’t fast like John the Baptist’s disciples. Because we don’t live in that era of anticipation in the same way they did before.

But we are free to fast today because we have the Bridegroom and yet we are also still  waiting for the Bridegroom.

So we have joy but we can also lament and we should also long for the return of Christ. If that’s what our fasting means, then we probably should do some of that today while we wait for the bridegroom to come.

The best book I ever read on fasting is called “A Hunger for God” by John Piper. He calls this passage, Matthew 9, “the most important words on fasting in the Bible.”

And he says, “In this age there is an ache inside every Christian that Jesus is not here as fully and intimately and as powerfully and as gloriously as we want him to be. We hunger for so much more” (pg. 38).

And that’s because Jesus is the Bridegroom.

Now, in verse 16 and 17, Jesus uses switches things up and uses two different metaphors. V.16

“‘No one sews a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment, for the patch will pull away from the garment, making the tear worse. Neither do men pour new wine into old wineskins. If they do, the skins will burst, the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined. No, they pour new wine into new wineskins, and both are preserved.’”

The picture is pretty clear. You don’t use the old with the new or things break and go wrong.

A new piece of cloth will shrink and re-tear the mended garment. They don’t go together.

New wine will ferment and rupture a brittle old wineskin. That’s not a chemistry experiment you want to watch.

You need new for the new.

I think that Jesus is saying that the old kind of fasting (like the John the Baptist’s) doesn’t work now that Jesus has come.

The Pharisees fasting certainly doesn’t work these days. If they thought that they were impressing God with their acts of righteousness.

It don’t work that way. And never did.

But the new has come. Jesus has come. The king has come. The Bridegroom is here.

If we’re going to fast, it needs to be a new kind of fast.

One that keeps all that mind.

Does that make sense? V.18

“While he was saying this, a ruler came and knelt before him and said, ‘My daughter has just died. But come and put your hand on her, and she will live.’ [Notice his faith! Just like the centurion from chapter 8. Just like the paralytic and his friends at the beginning of chapter 9. This guy believes. And it’s rewarded. V.19] Jesus got up and went with him, and so did his disciples.”

What do you think is going to happen?

Do you think that Jesus can raise a dead girl to life?

Well, we don’t get to find out just yet. V.20

“Just then a woman who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years came up behind him and touched the edge of his cloak. She said to herself, ‘If I only touch his cloak, I will be healed.’”

Can you imagine?

For twelve years she has had this recurring problem. And as uncomfortable as it was, it also made her UNCLEAN. Right? Ritually unclean.

She might as well have been like the leper in chapter 8.

Unclean.

And she risks everything.

And she has faith!

It comes out in her courage.

“If I only touch his cloak, I will be healed.” v.22

“Jesus turned and saw her [notice that. “Saw her”]. ‘Take heart, daughter,’ he said, ‘your faith has healed you.’ And the woman was healed from that moment.”

Amazing power! Amazing faith! She never had that problem again.

But that’s the not main story. Remember where Jesus is headed.

He’s going to a funeral, and He’s going to do something about it! V.23

“When Jesus entered the ruler's house and saw the flute players and the noisy crowd, he said, ‘Go away. The girl is not dead but asleep.’ But they laughed at him.”

You would, too.

You don’t call in the professional mourners unless the person is totally dead.

She wasn’t just mostly dead. She was totally dead.

But Jesus says that her death is just like sleep to Him.

She’s going to get up again today.

Who does Jesus think He is?

#2. THE RESURRECTION AND THE LIFE.

He thinks He’s the resurrection and the life, doesn’t He?

I mean He doesn’t say that here. Like He will at the tomb of Lazarus.

But that’s what He’s saying, isn’t it?

Jesus is saying that He turns death into something just like sleep.

That He can wake someone up from death.

And this ruler guy, the other gospels tell us his name was Jairus, He believes it.

Do you believe it?

Do you believe that Jesus is the resurrection and the life?

That Jesus can wake people up from death?

I love that Jesus does this not for some bigshot. I mean Jairus might have been a bigshot, but this is his daughter.

It wasn’t his son. In that culture there was a big difference.

Jesus is healing helping the last, the least, and the lost.

And the unclean.

There was nothing more unclean than a dead body.

Uncleaner than leprosy.
Uncleaner than an issue of blood.

This girl was dead. V.25

“After the crowd had been put outside, he went in and took the girl by the hand, and she got up. News of this spread through all that region.”

In John 11 Jesus said, “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. Do you believe this?” (vv.25-26).

Verse 27.

“As Jesus went on from there, two blind men followed him, calling out, ‘Have mercy on us, Son of David!’ When he had gone indoors, the blind men came to him, and he asked them, ‘Do you believe that I am able to do this?’ ‘Yes, Lord,’ they replied. Then he touched their eyes and said, ‘According to your faith will it be done to you’; and their sight was restored. Jesus warned them sternly, ‘See that no one knows about this.’ But they went out and spread the news about him all over that region.”

Who does Jesus think He is?

He thinks the same thing that these blind guys do.

He thinks He’s the Son of David.

#3. THE MESSIAH.

He thinks He’s the Messiah.

They want Him to heal their blind eyes.

This afternoon when you’re reading Isaiah 62, look also at Isaiah 35 and see what things will be like when the Son of David, the Messiah comes.

When God comes and makes everything beautiful again.

Isaiah 35:5 and 6, “Then will the eyes of the blind be opened and the ears of the deaf unstopped. Then will the lame leap like a deer, and the mute tongue shout for joy.”

What does that sound like?

It sounds like what happens when Jesus comes to town.

And the same question, “Do you believe?”

Well, do you?

These guys did! And they couldn’t keep it a secret. Even though Jesus told them, too!

Jesus didn’t need the extra publicity, but they couldn’t help but tell others that they had been blind but now they could see!

They had to talk about the Messiah’s amazing grace. V.32

“While they were going out, a man who was demon-possessed and could not talk was brought to Jesus. And when the demon was driven out, the man who had been mute spoke. [Sounds like Isaiah 35 again to me!] The crowd was amazed and said, ‘Nothing like this has ever been seen in Israel.’ But [listen closely] the Pharisees said, ‘It is by the prince of demons that he drives out demons.’”

“Shots fired” as they say.

They couldn’t argue with the miracles.

They miracles were there.

They were facts.

But they could dispute the meaning of the facts.

They had to dispute the meaning of the facts or they would have to put their faith in Jesus as the Messiah!

Instead they said that Jesus was a tool of the devil.

Can you imagine?

Jesus is asking the same question of us today.

“Do you believe?”

The Pharisees did not.

These kinds of interactions are going to lead to arrest, trial, and crucifixion of our Lord. Jesus will have more to say about this in chapter 12.

Right now, what’s important is to see that Jesus is asking us to believe in Him as the Messiah.

Do you?

Because He’s what we need.

He’s the good shepherd.

#4. THE GOOD SHEPHERD. V.35

“Jesus went through all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the good news of the kingdom and healing every disease and sickness. When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, ‘The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.’”

We just looked at this passage a few weeks ago before the Good News Cruise. So we won’t over it again.

But we can see Who Jesus thinks He is.

He thinks He’s the answer to these poor people’s problems.

He thinks He’s the shepherd these sheeple need.

Is that how you see Him?

Is He your shepherd?

Jesus said, “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full” (John 10:10).

And here He says, “As the Lord of the harvest” to send people out to bring them in.

Jesus is everything we need!

If we have Him, we shall not want.

***

Previous Messages in This Series:
01. The Genealogy of Jesus
02. The Birth of Jesus Christ
03. The Search for Jesus Christ
04. The Baptism of Jesus
05. The Temptation of Jesus
06. Following Jesus
07. Jesus' Sermon on the Mount
08. The Good Life (Part One)
09. The Good Life (Part Two)
10. You Are The...
11. Jesus and the First 2/3 of the Bible
12. But I Tell You
13. But I Tell You (2)
14. But I Tell You (3)
15. In Secret
16. Choose Wisely
17. Seek First His Kingdom
18. Generous
19. These Words of Mine
20. When He Saw the Crowds
21. When He Came Down from the Mountainside
22. Follow Me
23. Our Greatest Problem

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Stored Up Goodness: 2018 Prayer Retreat

What a privilege it is to be a pastor and to be trusted with the prayer requests of the flock!

Today is my annual prayer retreat where I try to get away and pray for every name in our church directory and lift up specific requests given me by people in our congregation.

So on my morning walk in Mr. Penn’s beautiful woods, before it got super hot, I read each card and lifted them up to the Lord, asking Him to be the answer to each of their heavy problems. I don’t know how the Lord might use my prayers this year, but I am trusting His wisdom, power, and love.

Thank you, Lanse Free Church, for giving me a front row seat to see our Lord work out His perfect plan for you.

“How great is your goodness, which you have stored up for those who fear you, 
which you bestow in the sight of men on those who take refuge in you.”
- Psalm 31:19, NIV84



***

[And if you wonder why I would tell you that I'm a prayer retreat (good reasons and bad), read this report from a few years back.]

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5 Years of Resisting Gossip

Rejoice with me!

Resisting Gossip was released 5 years ago today. Back in September of 2013, I could never have imagined all of the places it would go and the ways it has been used by the Lord. Today, my heart is overflowing with thankfulness for the blessings of the last half decade.

To name just a few:

- Resisting Gossip is now translated into 5 other languages around the world: Spanish (including an e-book), French [in both Canada and France], Russian, Romanian, and Korean. I’m excited to think that I’m getting to teach people God’s Word that I would never meet nor ever be able to converse with all over the globe.

- Resisting Gossip has been a bestseller for CLC Publications every single quarter since its release. For me, those sales translate into real people I hope have been helped to win the war of the wagging tongue in their own lives.

- Resisting Gossip has been recognized by many readers and leaders as helpful in the fight for holiness and love. The gracious words of folks like Kevin DeYoung (and on video), Tim Challies (once, twice, and then thrice at World Magazine!), Joe Valenti, Deb Welch, Monergism.com, Andy Naselli, Alex Chediak, Steve Kemp at BILD, Greg Strand, Bob Kelleman, Daniel Holmquist, Todd Hardin at the Biblical Counseling Coalition, Marci Ferrell at the Thankful Homemaker, Benjamin Vrbicek at Fan and Flame, Will Turner, and Mark Lauterbach at TGC have encouraged me to no end. It’s got 67 reviews on Amazon, and all but 1 of them are very positive. I'm also very thankful for the heartening support that WTSBooks has always shown for the book, as well.

- The message of Resisting Gossip and Resisting Gossip Together continues to resonate with people through online videos [Vimeo, YouTube], live seminars, podcasts, articles, and personal interactions. I love getting to share at conferences like CCEF and Challenge, teach at retreats, camps, and schools like Miracle Mountain Ranch, and speak in local churches such as the upcoming event at Hope EFC in Fertile, Minnesota. I feel so grateful to get to be used in this way.

Into the future:

Unfortunately, the global gossip plague continues to rage on unabated. My little book is just a drop in the bucket of what is needed to effect large scale change. I knew that going in (see the “final word” “The End of Gossip” on pg. 151). But hopefully it’s a drop in the right bucket and continues to be used by the Lord to move the right people in the right direction. That’s my prayer.

The good folks at CLC Publications are making arrangements right now to offer a special 5 year anniversary sale price and maybe even release an audiobook version of Resisting Gossip this Fall. I’ll let you know when I know more about those things. What I do know right now is that I never could have predicted how this would have turned out, and I give all the praise to Jesus Christ. May He receive all the glory due Him forever.

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[Matt's Messages] "Our Greatest Problem"

“Our Greatest Problem”
Following Jesus - The Gospel of Matthew
September 2, 2018 :: Matthew 9:1-13 

We’re in the section of the Gospel of Matthew (chapters 8&9) that you might call “Following Jesus the Miracle Worker.” Because right after the Sermon on the Mount Matthew tells a whole bunch of stories about the amazing miracles that Jesus did and punctuates, intersperses between these miracle stories, with Jesus’ calls to discipleship.

Last week, the sermon was called, “Follow Me.” And you know just about every sermon on every chapter in the Gospel of Matthew could have that title. Jesus is constantly calling people to follow Him.

He says those exact same words again in our passage for today. In fact, he says it to a certain tax collector named...Matthew!

That’s why our whole sermon series on the Gospel of Matthew is called “Following Jesus.” Because in Matthew, Jesus is constantly calling us to a life of discipleship.

He’s constantly showing us that He is wonderful and powerful and authoritative, with an authority unlike anyone else’s. And He uses that unparalleled authority to call us to follow Him.

In Matthew chapter 8, Jesus showed us that He has unparalleled authority over sickness (he heals leper, a paralyzed man, a woman with a great fever and all kinds of other diseases). And then He showed us that He has unparalleled authority over all of creation (He tells a storm to settle down and it actually does!). And then Jesus showed us that He has unparalleled authority even over the demonic. Even over unseen unclean spirits. When He say, “Go!” they must go.

And now in Matthew chapter 9, Jesus shows us that He has authority over our greatest problem.

You know what our greatest problem is, don’t you?

The problem that we all have.

And that we cannot solve on our own?

And it’s a greater problem for humanity than any other problem.

Matthew chapter 9, verse 1.

“Jesus stepped into a boat, crossed over and came to his own town. [At this point in His life that is Capernaum.] Some men brought to him a paralytic, lying on a mat.” Stop there for a second.

Matthew has condensed this story. In Mark and Luke we find out that these men actually dug through a roof and elevatored this guy down on ropes into the house where Jesus was staying.

They were desperate to get their friend to Jesus.

But Matthew focuses on the essential detail here.

This man can’t walk on his own.

He must be brought on a mat.

What do you think Jesus is going to do?

Can you imagine what this fellow’s life was like?

He might not have been a leper and ostracized from society, but there are no wheelchairs in that society either. There are no elevators except some friends. There are very few accommodations for handicaps in that society in that time period.

He could not get anywhere on his own.

What do you think Jesus is going to do?

He is going to solve this man’s greatest problem! V.2

“When Jesus saw their faith [the man and his friends], he said to the paralytic, ‘Take heart, son; your sins are forgiven.’”

Wait, what?

Is that what you thought Jesus was going to do?

From what we have read so far in Matthew, especially chapter 8, that’s a surprise.

I would have thought that Jesus would have healed the guy.

I mean it doesn’t say anything about that guy asking for forgiveness.

That’s not why they have come. At least, I don’t think so.

I think they came for the healing.

But Jesus goes for something much deeper, doesn’t He?

Jesus indicates that He is solving the deeper problem. The deepest problem.

Not just sickness but the root cause of all sickness. Sin.

Not that every sickness is caused by a particular sin. I’m not saying that this guy was sick because he sinned.

But his greatest problem wasn’t his lameness. It was his sin.

And Jesus says, “Take heart, son; your sins are forgiven.’”

Now, what Jesus has said creates a conflict with the religious authorities. They are not happy about this. V.3

“At this, some of the teachers of the law said to themselves, ‘This fellow is blaspheming!’”

Why are they so upset?

What does it mean to blaspheme?

It means to say something utterly untrue about God.

So you can blaspheme by saying that God is the same as the devil.

Or you could blaspheme by saying that you are the same as God.

That you are God.

That’s what they think Jesus is saying.

Why?

Because who can forgive sins but God alone?

Think about it. Jesus is not just saying, “God forgives your sin.”

He’s really saying, “I forgive your sin.”

And the scribes know it. They know that’s what Jesus is saying.

Think about it.

If I went out into the parking lot and stole Rob's truck.

Would it make any sense for Jane over here to forgive me for stealing Rob's truck?

“I forgive you, Pastor Matt.”

Thanks, but it’s really Rob that needs to forgive me.

But if Jesus is acting like the offended party and is forgiving people their sins then by doing that Who is He claiming to be?

The other title we could give to this sermon series on the Gospel of Matthew is “Who Does He Think He Is?” v.4

“Knowing their thoughts [supernaturally], Jesus said, ‘Why do you entertain evil thoughts in your hearts? [Reading minds is also something only God can do!] Which is easier: to say, 'Your sins are forgiven,' or to say, 'Get up and walk'?”

What’s the answer to that one?

Which one is easier TO SAY?

It’s easier to say, “Your sins are forgiven.” Because who can tell if it’s happened or not?

It’s harder TO DO! But it’s easier to say.

It’s hard to say, “Get up and walk” to a lame man because what if they don’t get up and walk?! V.6

“But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth [solve your greatest problem...] to forgive sins....’ Then he said to the paralytic, ‘Get up, take your mat and go home.’ And the man got up and went home.”

Wow! You see what happened there?

Jesus said the harder thing to say to prove that He could do the harder thing to do.

“And the man got up and went home.”

Imagine how that guy felt now!

Not only was he able to walk, but the man who made him able to walk just told him that his sins are forgiven.

Wow!

Here’s point #1 about Jesus today.

#1. JESUS CAN FORGIVE SINS.

V.6 “The Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins...”

That is such good news!

Because that’s our greatest problem.

Let me give you two simple questions for applying that first point.

Two questions to ask yourself now that we know that Jesus doesn’t just have the power to change the weather or send demons into pigs, but that Jesus as the authority Himself to actually forgive our sins.

- Have you come to Him for forgiveness? 

Because He’s where it’s at.

You can’t get forgiveness anywhere else.

Search high and low, try everything out there, and you will come up short.

Church attendance, doing good works, doing penance, trying to repay those you have sinned against. Pretending that you haven’t sinned.

Anything and everything you try outside of Jesus will not work.

But Jesus can forgive your sins.

We know HOW He can do that, too, don’t we?

We know the end of this book. Where the Son of Man was crucified. He paid for our sins with blood. These sins are forgiven because they are going to be paid for. He absorbs the cost.

So when He says, “Take heart, son; your sins are forgiven,” He knows how much that forgiveness will cost Him.

Think about that.

That’s what this table down here represents. The ultimate sacrifice so that He can say, “Your sins are forgiven.”

But only to those who have faith, right? Only those who trust Him. V.2, “When Jesus saw their faith.”

If they had hard hearts, He might have healed the man but He wouldn’t have said, “Your sins are forgiven.”

So what about you? Have you come to Jesus for the solving of your greatest problem?

So many have asked Jesus for much lesser things.

And we can ask for the lesser things. He cares about them, too.

But do you see your sin?

Do you see how you need to be saved from your sin?

Have you come to Jesus for forgiveness?

- Are you worshipping Him as God?

That’s the point of this story, isn’t it?

We know Who Jesus is!

He claims to forgive sins, and He proves it by healing sicknesses. V.8

“When the crowd saw this, they were filled with awe; and they praised God, who had given such authority to men.”

Hmmm.

I’m not sure about that phrase.

It’s good that they praised God.

We should be doing that, too, for every good gift He gives us.

But my read on verse 8 is that they intentionally missed the point of this story.

They couldn’t ignore the miracle. They were astonished!

But they didn’t worship Jesus as God.

The people of Capernaum are kind of famous for NOT believing that Jesus is Who he claimed to be.

They had all of the facts. They had all of the evidence. But they didn’t trust Jesus, they didn’t follow Jesus, they didn’t accept Jesus, and by and large, they didn’t worship Him as God.

Let’s not make that mistake here, okay?

Jesus is not just a miracle worker, He is God in the flesh. And He invites our worship.

Because He has come to solve our greatest problem.

Point #2 of 2 about Jesus.

#2. JESUS CAME FOR SINNERS.

This is why He came.

He came to solve our greatest problem. V.9

“As Jesus went on from there, he saw a man named Matthew [what a great name!] sitting at the tax collector's booth. ‘Follow me,’ he told him, and Matthew got up and followed him.”

Now, we don’t get just how scandalous that was.

Because as much as we don’t like taxes, we don’t have tax collectors like these guys.

They were kind of a like mafia.

They were extortionists.

They were in bed with the Romans. The Romans wanted taxes from the people. The people had no choice. They might pay as much as 40% of their income as small as it was in taxes.

And these guys contracted with the Romans to collect the taxes. So they had the authority and they used it to shake down the citizens for as much as they could do.

So they were Jewish but they were working for the oppressive enemy.

And they were doing the oppressing themselves.

Every time you read the word “tax collector,” you should under your breath say, “Boo! Hiss! Despised!”

They were traitors.

And they were getting rich off you by being traitors.

And there wasn’t anything you could do about it.

And Jesus says, “Yeah, I want you to come follow me. Matt, come be my disciple.”

And may even more amazingly, Matthew does.

Nobody saw that one coming.

The people that Jesus picks to be on His team?! This is crazy.

And then you know what Matthew does? He throws a party.

And He invites all of the low-lifes that He knows to come and meet Jesus. V.10

“While Jesus was having dinner at Matthew's house, many tax collectors and ‘sinners’ came and ate with him and his disciples.”

It’s getting even more scandalous, isn’t it?

A bunch of these extortionist traitors in one place.

And bunch of other notorious sinners.

This word “sinners” comes up again and again in this story. Three times in four verses.

This party has prostitutes at it. It has pimps. It has thieves. It has gamblers. It has gang-members. It has drug dealers. It has thugs. It has those people you don’t want your kids to hang out with.

But Jesus is there.

And He’s eating with them.

And it’s scandalizing the Pharisees.

We’re going to see again and again the scribes and the Pharisees getting madder and madder at Jesus. And one day, this conflict is going to come to head. V.11

“When the Pharisees saw this [Jesus eating with the sinners], they asked his disciples, ‘Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and 'sinners'?’”

I doubt they were at Matthew’s party.

My guess is that they were across the street taking notes on who came and went to this party.

“Oh, them? Eww. Oh, him, too? Yuck.”

And they don’t come to Jesus. They come to his disciples. Because they want to shake the tree and see if anything falls out of it.

“Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and 'sinners'?”

Jesus is like, “I’m a teacher am I? Okay, I’ve got a lesson for you.” v.12

“On hearing this, Jesus said, ‘It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. But go and learn what this means: 'I desire mercy, not sacrifice.' For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.’”

That’s really important.

Jesus is not condoning their sin.

He doesn’t like their sins.

He hates their sins.

He knows that their sins are their greatest problem.

Just because He’s eating with them doesn’t mean that He is accepting their sin or approving of their sin.

But He has come for sinners.

He uses the proverb, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick.”

He’s saying that it’s not those who think they are fine who need a doctor but those who know they are sick. And in this case, sin-sick.

You have to know that you’re a sinner to get saved!

“For I have not come to call the [so called] righteous, but sinners.’”

That’s the very reason why He came.

Let me give you two application question for this point about Jesus.

- Have you begun to follow Him?

Like Matthew, I mean. Matthew left his table, left I assume all of that money on the table. He left a life of luxury.

Tax collectors ate the best food, stayed in the best hotels, got the best service. Because they had the money.

Matthew left all of that because Jesus called him to follow Him.

Jesus is saying that same thing to you today, “Follow me.”

He has come all this way to find sinners, to call sinners first to repentance, then to salvation, and then to a life of discipleship.

Have you begun to follow Him?

One last question.

- Are you seeking sinners, too?

Are you like Matthew or like the Pharisees?

Matthew wanted his sinner friends to know Jesus. So he went after them and invited them to his party.

The Pharisees were too “good” for that.

They were too pure for that.

They wouldn’t ever eat with “sinners.”

They would never eat with “those people.”

Who are “those people” for you?

“Those people” who nauseate you.

“Those people” who are beneath you.

“Those people” whom you love to complain about on social media.

They don’t have their act together.

They don’t act like you.

They believe all of the wrong things.

They disgust you.

In verse 13, Jesus quotes Hosea 6:6 and says, “Learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy [or love or grace, hesed in the original, mercy], not sacrifice.”

God is looking for a heart of love, not just for outward obedience. Not even for sacrifices and offerings if you don’t love others.

God is after those who do not deserve it!

“For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.’”

And that’s good news for you and me. Because that’s what we are.

But we have to own it.

And we have to see that He didn’t just come for us.

He came for other sinners, too.

And what we doing about it?

Are we seeking out the sin-sick, as well?

And introducing them to the Savior?

Or are we just congratulating ourselves for having cleaned up so nice?

I think that so often we misjudge whom Jesus is seeking.

We think that otherwise nice people, clean people, respectable people are where it’s at.

But Jesus is going after the hard cases. He is.

[And, by the way, that includes all of the nice, clean, respectable people who come to realize what their truly greatest problem really is!]

But Jesus is going after the hard cases.

He is not a cushy doctor who is just doing routine check-ups.

He is an ER doctor with his sleeves rolled up and blood up to his elbows saving the most desperate cases from their greatest problem.

In fact, He is the doctor who takes on the sickness Himself to cure the patient, dying in the process.

Jesus came for sinners.

He is the answer to our greatest problem.


***

Previous Messages in This Series:01. The Genealogy of Jesus
02. The Birth of Jesus Christ
03. The Search for Jesus Christ
04. The Baptism of Jesus
05. The Temptation of Jesus
06. Following Jesus
07. Jesus' Sermon on the Mount
08. The Good Life (Part One)
09. The Good Life (Part Two)
10. You Are The...
11. Jesus and the First 2/3 of the Bible
12. But I Tell You
13. But I Tell You (2)
14. But I Tell You (3)
15. In Secret
16. Choose Wisely
17. Seek First His Kingdom
18. Generous
19. These Words of Mine
20. When He Saw the Crowds
21. When He Came Down from the Mountainside
22. Follow Me

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[Matt's Messages] "Follow Me"

“Follow Me”
Following Jesus - The Gospel of Matthew
August 26, 2018 :: Matthew 8:18-34 

Our sermon series on the Gospel of Matthew is called “Following Jesus,” because that’s what Matthew wants us to do.

Matthew wrote his gospel as a theological biography of the Lord Jesus Christ–the most compelling person that ever lived and ever will live. Matthew set out to introduce us to Jesus and to hear Jesus’ call to discipleship.

And that’s what we’re going to hear again today. In verse 22, Jesus says, “Follow me.” And that’s what I want to make the title of today’s message.

“Follow Me.”

It’s not the first time that He’s said it in the Gospel of Matthew.

Back in January, we memorized Matthew 4:19. Remember that?

“‘Come follow me,’ Jesus said, ‘and I will make you fishers of men.’”

He calls us to follow Him and to persuade others to follow Him, too.

Today, I have only one point to make. Just one.

I’ll say a bunch of other things, but I’ve only got one central thing to get across. Just one slide up there. And here it is:

FOLLOW JESUS BECAUSE THERE IS NOTHING AND NO-ONE MORE IMPORTANT.

Jesus calls us to follow Him first and foremost because there is nothing more important and there is no-one more important in all the world.

So those are the stakes this morning.

There is nothing more important than following Jesus.

Let’s see how this plays out in Matthew chapter 8.

Two weeks ago, we jumped to the end of Matthew chapter 9, the end of this bigger section of Matthew, and there, when Jesus saw the crowds He felt compassion on them. 

But here, in chapter 8 verse 18, when Jesus sees the crowd that day, He decides to get away. V.18

“When Jesus saw the crowd around him, he gave orders to cross to the other side of the lake.”

He is not running away, but He is getting away. He’s taking a kind of retreat.

When we left off last week, Jesus was giving them all a foretaste of the kingdom at Peter’s house in Capernaum. He was casting out evil spirits, healing all the sick including Peter’s mother-in-law. He was exercising great power and authority.

But Jesus didn’t want them to get addicted to His miracles, and He needed a little time away. So He told his disciples to get a boat together and set off across the Sea of Galilee.

But before they can go, Jesus interacts with two potential new followers. V.19

“Then a teacher of the law came to him and said, ‘Teacher, I will follow you wherever you go.’”

I don’t know about you, but that sounds really good to me.

That sounds like something we ought to be saying to Jesus.

It sounds like something we might sing on a Sunday morning in a hymn or a worship song.

“Teacher, I will follow you wherever you go.”

But Jesus doesn’t seem that impressed.

It may be because he’s a teacher of the law, a scribe.

And we know from the Sermon on the Mount, what Jesus thought about the scribes in general.

And it might have been because this guy had his focus on what he was going to do for Jesus not how worthy Jesus was.

I will follow you wherever you go. Yes, I will.

In fact, he might have been saying, “Jesus, this is your lucky day. I am going to follow you wherever you go! I see that you have all of these fishermen and other “lower-class” folks. But now you have me. A teacher of the Law. What are going to do today, Jesus? I hear we’re going for a sail across the lake.”

Listen to Jesus. V.20

“Jesus replied, ‘Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.’”

What do you hear there?

I hear Him saying, “Are you really going to follow me? That’s good, because there is nothing more important than following me. But it’s not going to be easy. It’s not going to be cushy and soft and comfortable.”

This is serious stuff.

Jesus is not discouraging the man from following Him.

He’s disabusing him of his mistaken notions of what it will be like.

Following Jesus is more important than our comfort.

Now, Jesus Himself is comforting. He promises us rest. “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.”

But at the same time it’s a hard road to walk.

Following Jesus is a hard road to walk. A narrow road, He called it.

What are you willing to give up to follow Jesus?

Ask yourself that question.

What are you willing to give up to follow Jesus?

Have you ever thought about how we who are Christians follow a homeless man?

My Savior was a homeless man.

And He has not promised me an earthly home.

He often provides them. But that’s not the promise.

The promise is an eternal home.

And between now and then there will be trouble.

“II have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”

In other words, we should follow Jesus, but it’s going to be hard. And yet it is absolutely worth it. ...

We don’t know if this guy kept on following Jesus or not.

We do know that Jesus is looking for real followers.

Not just the ones who say they are going to follow Him and then bail when the going gets tough.

What are you willing to give up to follow Jesus?

I hope the answer is everything. Because He’s worth it.

But so often we hold onto thing. We hold onto our comfort. We hold onto our money. We hold onto our family.

That was the problem of the next guy. V.21

“Another disciple said to him, ‘Lord, first let me go and bury my father.’”

Which sounds totally reasonable to you and me. Right?

Let me do this funeral thing first and then I’ll be right there, Jesus. V.22

“But Jesus told him, ‘Follow me, and let the dead bury their own dead.’”

Whoa. Those are strong words!

Why did Jesus get so salty with him?

There are two possibilities. One is that the man is asking for basically a year off of discipleship so that he can follow all of the traditions of caring for your deceased parents. That included the funeral and then actually digging up the bones many months later and putting them in an ossuary. And settling the estate. Gotta make sure the money is all there and in the right place. And, then I’m all yours, Jesus.

The other possibility that I think is even more likely. The man’s father isn’t dead yet. And maybe he isn’t even sick!

This guy is asking for a indefinite deferment of his discipleship.

He’s putting it off.

He’s putting Jesus off.

In either of those scenarios, it’s Dad first and Jesus second. Right? V.21 again.

“Lord, FIRST, let me go and bury my father.”

You are important, sure. But this is my Dad!

Have you ever said something like that to Jesus?

I know I have.

You are important, sure. But this is my Sleep!
You are important, sure. But this is my last one (my last dollar, my bite, my last year, my last chance).
Jesus, sure you are important. But first let me...

That’s why Jesus is so up in his face.

“But Jesus told him, ‘Follow me, and let the dead bury their own dead.’”

He’s not saying that we should dishonor our father and mother. Jesus is big on honoring them.

But that is not more important than following Him!

That’s the priority of the spiritually dead. Let them put second things first.

We need to put first things first. And Jesus is our first thing.

Follow Jesus FIRST AND FOREMOST because there is nothing and no-one more important.

I think it’s interesting that the very next thing they do is follow Him. V.23

“Then he got into the boat and his disciples followed him. [Of course, they didn’t know what they were in for.] Without warning, a furious storm came up on the lake, so that the waves swept over the boat. But Jesus was sleeping.”

Now we know why He needed to get away. He was TIRED.

There is a furious storm. The Greek word is the one for earthquake. There was an earthquake of a storm attacking their boat, and Jesus is asleep.

I love how that shows Jesus’ humanity. He was tired. He needed sleep. He was so tired that he could sleep through a violent storm with the waves coming in over the sides of the boat! V.25

“The disciples went and woke him, saying, ‘Lord, save us! We're going to drown!’ He replied, ‘You of little faith, why are you so afraid?’ Then he got up and rebuked the winds and the waves, and it was completely calm.”

Can you imagine?

How about the rebuke from Jesus?

“You of little faith, why are you so afraid?”

In the Greek the phrase is “oligopistoi.” “You of little faith.” Jesus used it already in the Sermon on the Mount when He was talking about worry.

Oligopistoi? Why are you so afraid?

The answer is because we know about the storms! We can feel the wind and the waves.

Now, they were right to turn to Jesus. So they had a little faith and it was directed toward the right person.

But Jesus thinks that they should have known by now that they wouldn’t drown in any boat that He is in.

That’s not how He’s going to die!

“Don’t you know who is in your boat?”

I don’t think they did.

When the wind and the waves quieted down, they just stood there gaping at Jesus. V.27

“The men were amazed and asked, ‘What kind of man is this? Even the winds and the waves obey him!’”

Don’t miss that.

And don’t make it all mythical.

This is not about the “storms in your life.”

Jesus can calm the storms in your life.

That’s true. And I guess it’s even an application of this story.

But this story is history.

Jesus actually talked to the storm, and it had to obey Him!

Who does that?

Only God.

Only the Creator does that.

Listen to Psalm 89:8-9, “O LORD God Almighty, who is like you? You are mighty, O LORD, and your faithfulness surrounds you. You rule over the surging sea; when its waves mount up, you still them.”

Who did that? Who alone is like that? Only God.

Follow Jesus because there is no-one more important.

Following Jesus means putting your faith and trust in Him.

It’s believing that Jesus is God incarnate, God-in-the-flesh.

Believing that the wind and waves obey Him.

Jesus is not just a great teacher.

He is a great teacher. On Back-2-School Sunday, we can safely say that there was never and will never be a greater teacher than the Lord Jesus Christ.

And we just studied one of His greatest teachings, the Sermon on the Mount.

But He is not just a great teacher.

He taught with a greater authority than anyone ever before Him.

And His authority is not just over words and concepts and ideas and truth.

It’s over matter and energy!

It’s over creation itself.

And that should cause us to worship Him in reverence and awe.

That’s why we are here today. Because we worship Jesus.

He is worthy of our worship.

There is no one more important.

One more story. And this is a weird one.

They get to the other side of the lake, and they meet up with two demon-possessed men. V.28

“When he arrived at the other side in the region of the Gadarenes, two demon-possessed men coming from the tombs met him. They were so violent that no one could pass that way.”

Matthew is the only gospel writer that tells us there were two of them. Probably one was the more violent and scary and so he got all of the attention from Mark and Luke. But Matthew tells us that there two. And nobody could pass that way because these two guys were possessed by evil spirits.

Unclean spirits and living among the dead in the tombs. Very very unclean! Very very powerful.

But not too powerful for Jesus. V.29. The demons speak.

“‘What do you want with us, Son of God?’ they shouted. ‘Have you come here to torture us before the appointed time?’”

Notice the answer to the question of verse 27.

The demons know.

The men asked, “What kind of man is this?”

And the demons say, “This is the Son of God.”

And they have a question for Jesus. Are you here to torture us before judgment day?

One of the commentators I read this week said, yes, that’s why He’s there. To give them a little taste of their own medicine and to give them a little taste of the judgment to come. That’s His prerogative. V.30

“Some distance from them a large herd of pigs was feeding [even more unclean!]. The demons begged Jesus, ‘If you drive us out, send us into the herd of pigs.’ [I don’t know why. But it’s okay with Jesus. V.32] He said to them, ‘Go!’ So they came out and went into the pigs, and the whole herd rushed down the steep bank into the lake and died in the water.”

Yes, the same lake that the disciples just thought they were going to drown in.

It’s now full of deviled ham.

[Sorry, not sorry.]

This is a strange story.

It teaches us that people are more important than animals.

It teaches us that there is an appointed time for demons to be punished.

It teaches us that demons know that Jesus is the Son of God.

All important items.

But I think, most importantly, it teaches us that Jesus IS the Son of God.

That He has authority and power not just over the wind and the waves but over the unseen spirits that inhabit the heavenly realms.

Even the unclean impure evil demonic spirits are subject to Jesus.

What does Jesus say in this story?

What speech does Jesus make?

He just says one word, right?

“Go.”

It’s just like in verse 26. He just stands up and rebukes the storm and it goes, “Sorry.”

And gets all quiet.

He just says to these demons (the other gospels tell us that there are a legion of demons and 2000 pigs). He just says one word. And it’s all over.

There is no one more powerful than Jesus.

There is no one more important in the whole world than Jesus.

And He says, “Follow me.”

Here’s the scary thing though. Not everybody does. Look at verse 33.

“Those tending the pigs ran off, went into the town and reported all this, including what had happened to the demon-possessed men. Then the whole town went out to meet Jesus. And when they saw him, they pleaded with him to leave their region.”

Will you please go away?

That’s what they said to Jesus.

It doesn’t say why.

Perhaps they were scared of Him.

You should be.

They were scared of the demon-possessed guys. And this guy says one word and all pig hell breaks loose.

Imagine the squealing violent scary sight that was when those pigs went and drowned themselves!

But I doubt they asked Him to leave because they were scared.

I think they were mad.

I think they had just lost what was most important to them.

Their pigs.

Their money.

That was their bank account. Jesus just sent all of their bank accounts to the bottom of the sea.

He just tossed all of their wallets into the lake.

He just hit delete on all of their accounts.

“Will you please just go away?”

I think their story is in here as a cautionary tale for you and me.

Because they encountered Jesus and decided NOT to follow Him.

There song was, “We have decided to NOT follow Jesus. Please turn back, Jesus. Please turn back.”

They had decided that there was something more important than Jesus.

Today, Jesus is inviting us to follow Him.

But to do that we have to count the cost.

We have to ask ourselves what we are willing to give up.

You see salvation is absolutely free. But it is not easy.

Salvation is by grace through faith and not by our good works.

But Jesus saves us to do good works.

And He calls us to follow Him no matter the cost.

He is more important than our comfort, than our family, than our money.

There is nothing earth and no-one in the universe more important than Jesus.

And we have Him, then we have everything.


***

Previous Messages in This Series:
01. The Genealogy of Jesus
02. The Birth of Jesus Christ
03. The Search for Jesus Christ
04. The Baptism of Jesus
05. The Temptation of Jesus
06. Following Jesus
07. Jesus' Sermon on the Mount
08. The Good Life (Part One)
09. The Good Life (Part Two)
10. You Are The...
11. Jesus and the First 2/3 of the Bible
12. But I Tell You
13. But I Tell You (2)
14. But I Tell You (3)
15. In Secret
16. Choose Wisely
17. Seek First His Kingdom
18. Generous
19. These Words of Mine
20. When He Saw the Crowds
21. When He Came Down from the Mountainside

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[Matt's Messages] "When He Came Down from the Mountainside"

“When He Came Down From the Mountainside”
Following Jesus - The Gospel of Matthew
August 17, 2018 :: Matthew 8:1-17 

We’re back where we belong in the Gospel of Matthew. Last week, we skipped head of ourselves to the end of chapter 9, but this week, we’re right back where belong– right at the end of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount.

For three power-packed chapters, Jesus has taught with unparalleled authority. He has taught about the inside-out upside-down kingdom of heaven of which He is the coming King.

He’s invited us to join that kingdom and follow Him. To repent for the kingdom of heaven is near. To seek first, before anything else, His kingdom and His righteousness. And to build our lives on His authoritative teaching so that when the storms come, our lives do not crash but stand firm.

And now we find out what happens next.

What happens when Jesus comes down from the mountainside.

Here’s what happens: Jesus shows that He is the King.

If Jesus has been showing that He is the Messiah who was to come through His words in chapter 5, 6, and 7, now in chapters 8 and 9 He shows that He is the Messiah who was to come through His deeds.

There are many many miracles here in chapters 8 and 9–healings, exorcisms, control of nature, even a resurrection of a dead girl. And all of these miracles, these demonstrations of Jesus’ power point to His identity. They reveal Who Jesus really is.

And sprinkled through all of those are calls to discipleship. We’ll see that strongly next week. Jesus doesn’t just heal people. He calls people to follow Him because of Who He really is. He calls people to trust Him because of Who He really is.

This week, because we don’t have much time, we’re just going to look briefly at the first 3 short stories. They are all healing stories. Healing miracles that Jesus did after He came down from the mountainside. They might not be in chronological order. Mark and Luke put them in a different order in their gospels. The chronological order wasn’t as important to Matthew as the theological message was to him.

Matthew is committed to revealing to us Who Jesus really is. And we get that through not only hearing what He taught but seeing what He did when He came down from the mountainside.

You’ll notice that all three of these stories show Jesus’ concern for and care for and love for outsiders. For what Bill Hamel used to call, “the last, the least, and the lost.”

We saw that last week at the end of this section, at the end of chapter 9. Jesus always had an eye out for the harassed and the helpless. The outcasts, the outsiders.

Nobody was more outcast or outsider in Jesus’ day than a leper.

If you had one of those infectious skin diseases that fell under the general category of leprosy whether it was Hanson’s disease or not, you were an outcast. You were lonely and ostracized and alone. Nobody touched you. You had to live outside of the camp, outside of town.

And if anybody came near to you, you had to yell out, “Unclean! Unclean!”

Because the Law said that you weren’t just sick, you were ritually unclean.

You were defiled. And if you touched others, you would defile them. They would become unclean.

Can you imagine what that felt like?

Some of you can. Some of you carry around so much shame, you feel like this all the time.

You feel alone, and dirty, and untouchable and unlovable.

Well, this is what happened when Jesus came down from the mountainside”

#1. HE BROUGHT TOTAL CLEANSING. V.1 again.

“When he came down from the mountainside, large crowds followed him. [He was a rockstar!] A man with leprosy came and knelt before him and said, ‘Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean.’”

That’s interesting, isn’t it?

He kneels before the Teacher. He calls Him, “Lord.” That was a term of respect, but it was also used to refer to God in the Old Testament. Does this leper guy know Who Jesus really is? He seems to. He seems to worship Him. At the very least, he trusts Him completely. “Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean.”

He doesn’t say, “Lord, if you can, please heal me.”

He says, “You can, if you will.” That’s faith!

And Jesus does the most amazing thing. The last thing you might expect this Jewish man named Jesus to do.

He touches the leper! V.3

“Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man. ‘I am willing,’ he said. ‘Be clean!’ Immediately he was cured of his leprosy.”

Isn’t that amazing?!

Jesus didn’t become unclean. The man became clean!

That’s amazing! That’s the opposite of how it was supposed to work. If you touched a leper, you became unclean. But Jesus touched a leper and they became clean.

Totally clean.

Totally you can take it to the bank you are clean.

That’s the point of verse 4.

Then Jesus said to him, ‘See that you don't tell anyone. [I’m not looking for publicity here.] But go, show yourself to the priest and offer the gift Moses commanded, as a testimony to them.’”

This is the real deal.

Leviticus 13 and 14 give Moses’ instructions for what to do when you think you’ve been healed of your leprosy.

And this guy gets to go do it. And it’s 100%.

Total cleansing.

You know what that means?

It means that he can enter into society again.

He won’t be an outcast. He won’t be an outsider any longer.

He can be touched. He can be included.

He’s clean!

All because of Jesus.

Can you imagine what that would be like?

You know leprosy in the Old Testament was a picture or a symbol for sin.

It wasn’t sin itself. Uncleanness was not sinfulness. But it was visual parable of sinfulness and how sinfulness is sickness and defiling and affects others.

So when there is healing like this and cleansing like this, it is a picture of salvation.

And when we are cleansed from our sins, we are brought into fellowship not just with God but others. So this total cleansing is a picture of the total cleansing we can have when we come to Jesus by faith and all of the blessings that come with it.

Now in the second story, there is another kind of outcast. This time it’s a Gentile, a Roman Centurion, a military leader over a 100 soldiers.

Now he may have been in charge of his regiment but he was a long way from home and the Israelites were not happy to have him around. As a Gentile he was an outsider. Way outside.

But this man had faith. V.5

“When Jesus had entered Capernaum, a centurion came to him, asking for help. [He probably didn’t do that very often!] ‘Lord,’ he said, ‘my servant lies at home paralyzed and in terrible suffering.’ Jesus said to him, ‘I will go and heal him.’ The centurion replied, ‘Lord, I do not deserve to have you come under my roof. But just say the word, and my servant will be healed. For I myself am a man under authority, with soldiers under me. I tell this one, 'Go,' and he goes; and that one, 'Come,' and he comes. I say to my servant, 'Do this,' and he does it.’ When Jesus heard this, he was astonished and said to those following him, ‘I tell you the truth, I have not found anyone in Israel with such great faith. I say to you that many will come from the east and the west, and will take their places at the feast with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. But the subjects of the kingdom will be thrown outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’ Then Jesus said to the centurion, ‘Go! It will be done just as you believed it would.’ And his servant was healed at that very hour.”

When Jesus came down from the mountainside:

#2. HE BROUGHT TOTAL AUTHORITY.

This guy knew about authority.

He was part of a great chain of command that stretched from Caesar to him so that when he told his men to jump, they asked, “How high?” on the way up.

“I tell this one, 'Go,' and he goes; and that one, 'Come,' and he comes. I say to my servant, 'Do this,' and he does it.’”

And what’s amazing is that this Centurion thinks that Jesus has that kind of authority over PARALYSIS and SICKNESS and SUFFERING!

“Just say the word.”

And that kind of faith is astounding to Jesus.

You want to surprise Jesus when He was here back in the day?

Trust Him fully. Give Him your unlimited confidence.

Especially if you didn’t know that much about Him.

I mean this guy was a Gentile!
He didn’t have the Old Testament!
He hadn’t been expecting a Messiah for thousands of years!

“I have not found anyone in Israel with such great faith.”

That’s a sick burn if I ever heard one.

This guy gets it. Where are you guys?

He has total faith in my total authority.

Do you?

That was the question that He was asking at the end of the Sermon on the Mount, right?

You going to enter through the narrow gate?
You going to “do the will of my Father who is in heaven?”
You going to build your life on my authoritative teachings?

Or are you going to go your own way?  On the broad road.

Saying, “Lord, Lord but actually not following Me.”

Building your life on the sand.

Jesus says, “I want more people like this guy. Who trust me completely.”

And He says that there are more on the way. V.11 again.

“I say to you that many will come from the east and the west [Gentiles!], and will take their places at the feast with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the [upside-down, inside-out] kingdom of heaven. But the subjects of the kingdom [the ones who should know better] will be thrown outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’

Because they didn’t accept their Messiah.

Because they didn’t receive Him.

Because they didn’t trust Him. They didn’t entrust themselves to Him.

These people reject Jesus. They don’t have faith. So they will have agony and sorrow and anguish and eternal despair. Weeping and gnashing of teeth.

But it doesn’t have to be that way for you and me.

Jesus invites us to trust Him like this Centurion did. Total faith in His total authority.

You don’t have to be Jewish.

You can be a Gentile from Pennsylvania!

All you have to do is put your total faith in His total authority.

And you will take your place at the feast with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven!

And to prove it, Jesus said, “Done.”

“Go! It will be done just as you believed it would. Because I have total authority. And his servant was healed at that very hour.”

The last story just shows how total that cleansing and that authority really was and where it came from. V.14

“When Jesus came into Peter's house, he saw Peter's mother-in-law lying in bed with a fever.”

Did you know that Peter was married?

How would you like to be Peter’s wife?!

Apparently he had a house in Capernaum. And his mother-in-law lived with him.

By the way, this is another kind of outcast. I don’t mean mother-in-laws! I mean women in general.

In that society at that time in history women didn’t have much status or social standing.

They weren’t lepers or Gentiles, but they weren’t respected all the time either. In some situations they were treated worse.

But Jesus always lifts up women.

He sees women.

He respects them.

He always improves their lives.

And here He heals one. She has a raging fever. Maybe malaria? And again. He touches her. V.15

“He touched her hand and the fever left her, and she got up and began to wait on him.”

The point of that is not that He was worthy of her service.

The point is that she was healed so completely that she felt like making dinner!

She felt like getting up and setting the table!

This complete healing! And he’s doing that left and right at this moment. V.16

“When evening came, many who were demon-possessed 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.’”

When Jesus came down from the mountainside:

#3. HE BROUGHT TOTAL SALVATION.

No disease was too much for Him.

No evil spirit had any chance against Him.

You see all of that authority here? V.16 “with a word.”

There is no question about Who Jesus is.

Jesus is the Messiah who was to come!
Jesus is the Son of God!
Jesus is the King of the Kingdom of Heaven!

And Matthew says, “Jesus is the suffering servant promised in Isaiah 53.”

All of this healing? It was a foretaste of the kingdom to come.

When all of the evil spirits are gone.
When every disease is gone.
When every sorrow is gone.
When every tear is wiped away.

When there is no more pain, no more sickness, no more death.

No more orphans!

Total salvation.

That’s what this is was a foretaste of.

That’s what was going on that evening at Peter’s house in Capernaum.

King Jesus was bringing the Kingdom.

Total salvation. Body and soul and world. All made new and right again.

But we know what it’s going to take to get there, don’t we?

Jesus knew what it was going to take to get there.

Matthew knew what it was going to take get there.

That’s why He brings in Isaiah 53.

“This was to fulfill what was spoken through the prophet Isaiah: ‘He took up our infirmities and carried our diseases.”

When He came down from the mountainside and then went up on the mount of crucifixion.

Matthew quoted Isaiah 53:4 and he knew what came next:

“Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, 

yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted.

But 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.”

To bring that total salvation, Jesus went to the Cross.

Have you come to trust in Jesus for your total salvation?

All of the cleansing you need?

All of the blessings that come with that cleansing?

If you haven’t, I invite you totally trust Him now.

If you have, I invite you to totally thank Him now.

What He did for us!

He didn’t have to take up our infirmities.
He didn’t have to carry our diseases.
He didn’t have to get punctured for our transgressions.

And yet He did.

And all He’s asking from us is total trust and to follow Him with all of our lives.

That’s not too much to task.

That’s nothing!

He gave His all for us, let’s give Him all of us for Him.

***

Previous Messages in This Series:

01. The Genealogy of Jesus
02. The Birth of Jesus Christ
03. The Search for Jesus Christ
04. The Baptism of Jesus
05. The Temptation of Jesus
06. Following Jesus
07. Jesus' Sermon on the Mount
08. The Good Life (Part One)
09. The Good Life (Part Two)
10. You Are The...
11. Jesus and the First 2/3 of the Bible
12. But I Tell You
13. But I Tell You (2)
14. But I Tell You (3)
15. In Secret
16. Choose Wisely
17. Seek First His Kingdom
18. Generous
19. These Words of Mine
20. When He Saw the Crowds

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[Matt's Messages] "When He Saw the Crowds"

“When He Saw the Crowds”
Following Jesus - The Gospel of Matthew
August 12, 2018 :: Matthew 9:35-38

We’re skipping ahead today.

We should be in Matthew chapter 8, verse 1.

We are in a long term series working through the theological biography of Jesus called The Gospel of Matthew, a series we’re calling, “Following Jesus,” and we just finished the section normally called “The Sermon on the Mount” Matthew chapters 5 through 7.

So, the normal next step would be to watch Jesus come down from the mountainside and see what happens next. I’ll tell you what happens next. Jesus goes right back to healing people, calling people to follow Him, and working amazing miracles that reveal Who He really is.

We’ll see that next week.

But as I was reading ahead, I got stuck on this paragraph, Matthew chapter 9, verses 35 through 38. I’ve preached it before several times. It’s very meaningful to me and probably very familiar to most of you.

But as I was reading it this week, I was thinking especially about the Good News Cruise.

And our hopes for what will happen here on our campus this coming Saturday.

This passage is about the mission that Jesus is on and the mission that Jesus calls us to, as well.

We often think of it as a missions text. International missions. But it’s just a relevant to our living the missional life here today.

I think of this passage of Scripture as a guide for how to do the Good News Cruise.

As we watch Jesus see the crowd and react to the crowd, I think it shows us how we are supposed to see the people who will be visiting our campus and how to think about them and pray for them and try to reach them with the gospel.

So, let’s skip ahead to chapter 9, verses 35 through 38.

Keith Folmar likes to remind us that the Good News Cruise is not primarily about cars. It’s primarily about...people.

And every year we get more people here on our campus. There’s a sea of people out there between the cars.

How should we look at them? How should we see them?

What should be our perspective on these people who are our guests?

I love to walk up and down the aisles of cars at the Good News Cruise.

Not so much to look at the cars themselves–though there sure are some beauties out there.

But more to look at and talk to the people.

One year, Keith was looking for me at the cruise-in, and he easily found me and said, “I knew where you’d be–out there the middle somewhere talking to someone.” That made me feel good that I could be predictable like that.

There’s a lot of different kinds of people here at the cruise, aren’t there?

There are people like you and me in significant ways, and there are people not like you and me in significant ways.

I look around at the crowd, and I have various initial reactions when I see these people coming.

What is your initial reaction?

In Matthew chapter 9, our Lord Jesus sees a large crowd. In fact, he sees more than one large crowd. In this stage of His life and ministry there were many crowds that He interacted with. He was like a rock star at this point between His teachings and His miracles. Especially the miracles.

There were people everywhere.

What did Jesus see when He looked at the crowds?

Our Lord often sees things differently than we do, doesn’t He?

Our Lord often sees things differently than we do.

I think this passage tells us about our Lord’s perspective and shows us what to see when we look out at the crowd at the Good News Cruise.

Three questions for us this morning. Here’s number one.

#1. DO YOU SEE THE PEOPLE?

In verse 35, we get a bullet-point description of Jesus’ work in these early years of His traveling ministry. It’s really a bookend to the section that began in chapter 4, verse 23. It sounds almost just like 4:23. There are three main actions of Jesus: teaching (in synagogues), preaching (the gospel of the [upside-down, inside-out] Kingdom of God), and healing (all kinds of diseases and sicknesses). We’ll see more about that next week.

It was a very busy period of time for Jesus, and He was on a mission.

But in the rush of ministry, our Lord did not fail to notice the people.

Everywhere He went, Jesus saw people. Big people, small people, clean people, dirty people, rich people, poor people, hungry people, sick people.  People, people, people.

And v.36 says, that when He saw the crowds, He had “compassion on them...”

The Greek word for “compassion” here literally means to have your guts wrenched in pity and sympathy. Uggh. He felt it right here in His gut.

When Jesus looked out and saw the people, he just grieved in His spirit with a gut-wrenching feeling.

Uggh. It hurt Him to see people like this. I mean it. It hurt.

The people were in Jesus’ sight (v.36) “harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.”

What do you think a sheep is like that doesn’t have a shepherd? I’ll tell you in one word: LOST.

Sheep are dumb animals. I’ve said this many times, and it makes me laugh every time. Sheep are so dumb they can get lost by walking into an open garage and then not being able to figure out how to escape!

If sheep don’t have a shepherd, they don’t have a leader, they don’t have a provider, they don’t have a care-taker, they are done-in, they are a lost cause, they are helpless.

And Jesus, when He looked out upon the crowds of people, saw shepherdless sheep.

They were harassed and helpless. They had forces at work against them which were way too powerful for them to stand against. They were in danger and in turmoil.

They were lost.

And our Lord felt compassion for them. Jesus loved the shepherdless sheep. Jesus loved lost people.

And the question that God is asking us today is this:

Do we see the people?

Do we see how they really are?

Not just the cars. But the people.

Do our hearts break when we see and interact with lost people?

Or are we too complacent and self-satisfied and self-centered?

Do we love the lost?

Or are we, rather, repulsed by them?

I firmly believe that our biggest problem in evangelism is not that we don’t know what to say. I think that many of us here know what the gospel is.

I believe that our biggest problem in evangelism is a lack of love.

I know that it’s my biggest problem in evangelism.

Our hearts are not moved by the plight of those who do not know Jesus Christ as their Shepherd.

Bill Hamel–the former President of the EFCA whom we are praying for as he is in hospice now with untreatable cancer–Bill Hamel regularly challenged our churches to love the LAST, the LEAST, and the LOST. That was his phrase, “The last, the least, and the lost.”

And if we don’t, he said we aren’t acting like Jesus.

Because Jesus did this for us!

Jesus looked at our helplessness before sin. He looked at our harassment by Satan.  And He took pity upon us. It hurt Him to see how we were. Ugh.

Jesus loved us, even though there was nothing in us to commend us to Him.  We were His enemies!

And yet, Jesus pulled us to Himself with covenant love.

If you are a Christian today, it is because Jesus saw how harassed and helpless you were without him...and He compassion on you!

And so we should do the same.

When I say the word MUSLIM, what happens in your heart?

Do you feel anger? Do you feel revulsion? Do you feel fear?

Or are you moved with compassion?

Muslim people are lost people.

And we should love them.

Not because Muslims are innately lovable, but because Jesus chose to love them, you and I should have our guts wrenched with an ache for their salvation.

I’ve heard supposed Christians call them, “Towel heads,” and hope they get out of our country. Yuck!

There are over 1.1 billion Muslims in the world. 80% of whom have never heard the gospel–ever! I read a statistic this week that of the 350,000 Christian missionaries in the world, only around 5,000 of them work in Muslim countries!

Do you see the people?

Not that I expect there to be many Muslims here on Saturday.

But the question is do we care?

How about this one.

When I say the words POOR PEOPLE, what happens in your heart?

Do you squirm? Do you feel revulsion? An aversion to talking about poverty?

Over a billion people in this world live on about one US dollar per day. 3 billion live on less than $2.50. Every day, around 10,000 people (most of them children) die from the results of dirty drinking water. There are 68.5 million refugees in this world. And 85% of the world’s poorest countries lie within the 10/40 window: the least evangelized part of the world.

In other words, if you are poor, you are harassed, helpless, and have a much smaller chance of hearing the gospel.

And do we care? Do we see the people?

Your neighbor down the street with the loud dogs, the beer cans in his yard, the raucous parties on Saturday night, the four-wheelers peeling over your newly planted grass? You see him coming your way...what do you do? Turn away? Walk down the other side of the street?

What do you feel?

Do you fear for His soul?

Do we see the people?

Or do we care too much for our comfort, our convenience, and our security?

What are you going to see when you look out at the people on Saturday?

You know, in saying that they are harassed and helpless, I don’t mean that some of don’t look really good. They clean up well. They have a nice looking car. Many of them are good upstanding moral people.

And we can learn from them, too!

We need to be careful labeling people as lost or helpless and make it sound like if they were just smart people like us then they’d have it all together. And they have nothing to offer others.

That’s far from the truth!

But we know what we were like before we knew Jesus, right?

Harassed and helpless like lost sheep.

“We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way...”

What do you see?

When you go to Sheetz, and there are bunch of people in the line.

What do you see?

When you look out here and see community people on our playground.

What do you see?

Do you see single moms that are struggling to make it?
Do you see people trapped in addictive behaviors?
Do you see sheep that don’t have a shepherd?

In my job, I talk to a lot of people. And sometimes, it’s easy to get “compassion” fatigue and to stop caring.

I struggle with that a lot. I want to be a compassionate person, but I get tired. I get weary.

I’m sure that Jesus got tired.

But when He saw the crowds, He got compassionate.

What do you see?

What do we see as we as we look out on our community?

Do we just see our school, our post offices, our truck stop, our families, our things?

Or do we see shepherdless sheep who are harassed and helpless without Jesus?

That’s why we do the Good News Cruise.

Keith has written up a little message called “Tuned for Life” which is about our theme this year. It will go in all of the goodie bags that we’re going to pack on Thursday night.

He talks about spark, fuel, and air.

This is what he says, “God and his saving grace through Jesus is our SPARK!  Without Christ, we have no hope in the future. We need Jesus to be the point of hope in this life and throughout eternity.”

That’s why we do the Good News Cruise.

Because we want to see people the way that Jesus sees people.

In verse 37, Jesus turns to His disciples and says that He can see something else that they probably can’t.  V.37

“The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few.”

Jesus, looking at these Shepherdless Sheep, sees something more that we often don’t see–potential!

#2. DO YOU SEE THE POTENTIAL?

Jesus looked at those people [sinners–every single one of them], and He saw some potential followers. He saw a church that He was going to build using lost people. He saw a harvest of souls won to the gospel of the kingdom–won to the King.

Do we see the potential?

Everywhere you go, among all the people you see, are the elect of God, sprinkled throughout humanity.

Do you see potential Christians everywhere you go?

Some of us see the lost, and feel their lostness, but we don’t feel hope for them.

We see their harassment, and we see their helplessness on their own.

We see their shepherdlessness. But we miss their potential to be Shepherded.

That’s a big part of my problem. I see the lostness. I feel it in my gut. But often, so often, too often, I have a hard time envisioning what God might do with them if I am bold enough to allow Him to use me.

But Jesus sees redeemable humanity among the lostness.

He did in me! He saw beyond my sin and my guilt and my shame.

And He went after me. He saw the potential harvest in me. Not that I had anything to offer Him. I didn’t qualify for even one of His gifts to me. But He knew what He was going to do with me. And I’ll be forever grateful.

That co-worker who bugs the living day-lights out of you could soon be your brother in Christ!

Your landlord who just about steals your hard-earned money, might soon be your sister!

Your hard-hearted father who has never had anything good to say about you or to you, may soon become a fellow Christian!

Some person you’d rather despise that is walking up and down the aisles of cars next week, somebody who is basically your enemy, might soon be part of your spiritual family!

Because the Gospel is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes!

Ask the Apostle Paul! God is in the business of changing murderers into saints.

You and I need to ask God that we begin to see every lost person we come into contact with as a potential Christian.

They won’t all turn to Christ. In fact, a depressing number of them will take the broad road that leads to destruction that Jesus was talking at the end of the Sermon on the Mount.

But we have no idea who will. And Jesus wants Shepherdless Sheep to have a Good Shepherd!

Do you see the people?
Do you see their potential?
Do you see how we need to pray?

#3. DO YOU SEE HOW WE NEED TO PRAY?

V.38. “Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.”

Do you see how we need to pray?

If you see the lostness of people and your heart is broken.

If you see how many people God desires to save through His gospel.

Then pray.  Ask the Lord of the Harvest to send out workers into the harvest field to bring those Shepherdless Sheep to the Good Shepherd.

Do we pray for more workers?

There are 7.6 billion people on the planet today. Most of them do not know Jesus Christ as their personal Lord and Savior.

The current missionary force that we have will not reach the world. We need to ask God to send more of us into the world to reach the world for Jesus Christ.

Next weekend, we’re going to have a special missionary guest, Sarah [I can’t say her last name so we just say, “Kay.”]. She has been called to go serve the last, the least, and the lost in Panama. She is called to work with orphans.

I’m sure that seeing them will break her heart.

Sarah Kay is going to be with us at the Good News Cruise and she’ll be here on Sunday to share her story with us.

She has heard the call of the Lord of the Harvest and is going out into the field.

And we need to pray for MORE.

“Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.”

It will only happen through prayer.

That’s why we have the Harvest Prayer Time every month. Last Saturday of every month, a group of believers meets in the prayer room for one hour to pray the whole time for the lost. We’ve been praying for the Good New Cruise.

It will only happen through prayer.

Why is that?

Why does Jesus want us to ask the Lord of the Harvest to send out more workers?

Doesn’t the Harvest-Lord know that there is a worker-shortage?

Of course He does!

At least 2 reasons why He wants us to ask:

#1. Because when we ask, we get involved. When we are praying, there is a much greater chance that we will care about what God does with these situations. It pulls us in. In fact, we are often the answer to our own prayers.

What happens in the very next verse? Chapter 10, verse 1? Those who were praying are sent on a mission themselves.

When we begin to pray for the person down the street who needs the Lord so desperately, often He sends us to go get them.

#2. Because God gets the most glory that way. Instead of OUR amassing a missionary army, we acknowledge our need and our dependence upon God to do it. And when He raises the army through our prayers–He gets the most glory.

Notice in v.38 that it is GOD’s harvest field? And that He is Lord of the Harvest?

The Lord of the Harvest is most glorified when He is most needed. And prayer is the most humbling and needful act that the church can participate in.

So we should pray for more workers.

We should pray that people on Saturday would walk out into that crowd and share Jesus with shepherdless sheep.

We should pray that we would be bold to talk to the people whose names were put in this fishbowl a few months ago. Have we forgotten about them?

We need to pray for workers for our various ministries this Fall. Misty will need help putting on Family Bible Night. Teachers, helpers, game leaders, song leaders, the whole nine yards. ABC Kids, Kids for Christ, Youth Group, Prayer Meeting. Link Groups. We need to pray for these.

And we need to pray for more workers to go out into the harvest field internationally.

And for people to support them to get there.

Abe and Jordyn Skacel still have like 25% of their support that still needs raised so they can go on campus and talk to shepherdless sheep about the Good Shepherd.

Sarah Kay needs support to make it to Panama.

We need to pray hard this week for the Good News Cruise.

Not for good weather.
Not for enough hot dogs.
Not for a bumper crop of cars.

We can pray for those things. That’s fine. God cares about them, too.

But that’s not what Jesus was seeing.

Jesus was seeing spiritually needy people.

And He was sending people who know Him and know His gospel to connect with them.

So we need to pray that we would be sent out into the aisles with the gospel of Jesus Christ.

“Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into”...that field right over there.

Do you see how you need to pray?

Is there some person in your life that drives you nuts, that you’d love to complain about on your Facebook page?

That you need to pray for instead?

Pray about this. Pray that you would see them as Jesus sees them. “Harassed and helpless like sheep without a shepherd.”

And see them as Jesus sees that they could be.

And then ask the Lord what to do. And do what He says.


***

Previous Messages in This Series:
01. The Genealogy of Jesus
02. The Birth of Jesus Christ
03. The Search for Jesus Christ
04. The Baptism of Jesus
05. The Temptation of Jesus
06. Following Jesus
07. Jesus' Sermon on the Mount
08. The Good Life (Part One)
09. The Good Life (Part Two)
10. You Are The...
11. Jesus and the First 2/3 of the Bible
12. But I Tell You
13. But I Tell You (2)
14. But I Tell You (3)
15. In Secret
16. Choose Wisely
17. Seek First His Kingdom
18. Generous
19. These Words of Mine

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