Matthew – Page 6 – No Other Boast

Matthew 15:1-20 & Holiness is a Dance

In the Old Testament Israel was drowning on one side of a boat. God delivered them. To prevent drowning again on that side of the boat they decided to throw themselves off the other side. To avoid falling off the starboard side of the vessel into the ocean of pagan libertinism, they jumped off the port side into the ocean Pharisaical legalism.

The Pharisees evaluated every boundary that the Bible establishes, and then tried to move the fence a few yards back, thus their traditions became more revered than the law. They thought that if you kept the traditions, you would never get close to breaking the law. But any time man tries to draw his own lines, his concern isn’t holiness, it’s sin. The Pharisees are like the lust filled adolescent who asks, “How far is too far?” I have no doubt that Jesus would reply to them as He did the rich young ruler, “One step, one thought, one glance, one touch!” The inflamed teen who asks this question, isn’t concerned about pursing purity, but lust. They want to know how close they can get to sin and be “ok.” Wanting to walk a line close to sin, is sin. It is the worship of sin.

God does draw a line in His law, and that line does differentiate between good and evil, righteousness and transgression, but it is less like a fence line, and more like the line of a rocket trajectory. It is not a line that you walk where sin is on the other side, and you can envy its green grass. It is like the rocket trajectory that lifts your eyes away from worldliness toward the heavens. The line God draws is a line toward perfection. Walk it and you walk away from sin, not towards it.

Be wary of reading this passage and concluding that, “Jesus is about a relationship, not rules.” Jesus want’s your heart. That is the point of this text. But the contrast here isn’t heart verses law, but tradition verses God’s commandments. When Jesus gives a new heart, it is a heart that loves the trajectory of the law (Ezekiel 36:25-27).

John is known as the apostle of love. The language of love pervades his writings. Listen to how often He connects love to obedience to God’s commands.

“If you love me, you will keep my commandments. …If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. ” (John 14:15, 23)

“And by this we know that we have come to know him, if we keep his commandments.” (1 John 2:3)

“For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome.” (1 John 5:3)

“And this is love, that we walk according to his commandments…” (2 John 6)

Commandments are not contrary to love, they are a means of expressing it.

Holiness is a dance. God wrote the steps. Jesus leads. We follow. No one looks at two skilled dancers who are wildly in love with each other and think that all the “rules” get in the way of their love. No, the dance does not choke love, it is a means of manifesting it, and it is beautiful, it is a delight.

The law for those redeemed by Christ is not merely a bridge between the two oceans of libertinism and legalism. It is a bridge toward holiness. Jesus traversed this bridge perfectly for us, in the power of the Spirit to the glory of the Father. All whom He saves from the oceans, He sets on this bridge, and empowers by His Spirit to follow Him to the glory of the Father.

This is true holiness. Let’s dance.

Matthew 14:22-36 & Great Faith Is a Belly Full of Jesus

Our works are born out of our faith. Faith is not born out of our works. Many sincere Christians long for deeper faith, but dig for it in all the wrong places. A better shovel may help you dig better, but it won’t make water exist below the surface. They think if they read the Bible more, they will have more faith; or if they pray more, then they will have more faith. Surely the Bible and prayer are means of grace, but not because we use them. Faith is not something we cook up in the empty kitchen of our own souls borrowing God’s ingredients. Faith grows when we feast on the Bread of Life God has already spread before us. God’s Word holds out faith-producing grace for us, not because we’ve read it or heard it, nor because some godly man has studied it or preached it, but because God spoke it, and He has spoken of His Son (Romans 10:17).

The point this text is not, “if you have faith, you can walk on water,” but, “Jesus walked on water and therefore He is worthy of your faith!”

It’s as if we go to a wine tasting and expect it to be great because we emphasize our technique. Perfect technique does not make a wine tasting excellent when the wine is wretched. The highlight of a great experience is the wine, not the technique; the tasted, not the taster. The emphasis here isn’t on the disciples faith, but the one “faithed”. What makes faith great is stressing not the beholder, but the Beheld; not the taster, but the Tasted (Psalm 34:8).

Man since the fall has tried to be a self-sustaining cannibal. Eating the apple was an infant’s attempt to be self-feeding. We were meant to be children reliant on our Father’s provision. Though made in the image of God, man is finite. When man tries to be self-reliant, to be his own source of life and thus eat on himself, there is always less of him after the meal. Seeking to be god, man becomes less godlike. Instead of living, he dies.

Better technique might help your Bible reading, but it is not decisive. It’s a shovel, it’s not water. You can’t quench thirst with a shovel. If you want good nutrition, it might help to chew your food better, but it is even better to chew better food. Introspection is good to see if you are of the faith, it is not good to grow faith. Faith will come when you look without, not when you look within. Look within for a faith-checking evaluation, look without for faith-giving revelation.

Put the emphasis on your conjuring up more faith, and you will eat yourself to death. Look to Jesus and see the feast that is. Great faith is a belly full of Jesus.

Matthew 14:13-21 & Mediate the Miracle

When the disciples come to Jesus and tell Him to send the crowds away, Jesus flips the table around on them and tells them to put food on it. Does Jesus really mean for them to feed the crowds? Absolutely, and they will. Their failure is that they come to Jesus seeking to be wise when they should come seeking a miracle. They come seeking to give an answer, instead of seeing the Answer. Do they think Jesus less concerned about the crowd’s need for food? Jesus is not only more compassionate, He is more capable. No sin of selfishness makes Him unwilling. No lack of power leaves Him unable. No lack of knowledge leaves Him in the dark.

The disciples think they have only five loaves and two fish. They have infinitely more than that, they have the Bread from heaven. John MacArthur writes, “They are like a person who stands in front of Niagara Falls and asks where he can get a drink.”

Jesus tells them to bring the bread, “to Me.” In all of this the disciples are active yet passive. They will distribute the bread, but Jesus does the miracle. Jesus means not only to be Bread for us, but to be Bread through us. Jesus means for His disciples to mediate the miracle. The task of ministry is impossible for us. We cannot regenerate. We cannot sanctify. We cannot create spiritual appetites. But as we obey, God mediates the miracle through us. We preach, God saves. Jesus is the Host and the Fare, we are waiters. The task is impossible for us, but we do not go it alone. The Great Commission is accompanied by the Great Promise; “I am with you always.”

Truly, he who writes this comment has often felt as if he had neither loaf or fish; and yet for some forty years and more he has been a full-handed waiter at the King’s great banquet. -C.H. Spurgeon

Matthew 14:1-13a & The Heralded and Herod

Here we have a king who looks like one but isn’t, and another King who doesn’t look like one but is. Herein lies the truer contrast of this text. The primary contrast you are meant to make isn’t between John and Herod, but between the King John heralds, and Herod.

Herod technically isn’t a king and Matthew wants to remind you of this; that is why though he calls Herod a king later (v. 9), he begins by telling us he is a “tetrarch”. Technically this means a ruler of a forth part of a kingdom, but it came to mean simply a lesser ruler. Herod Antipas’ father, Herod the Great, received the title “king” from Rome, but not Antipas. Still in both cases they were vassal rulers, subject to the authority of Rome. So here we have a pretend king, who hears word of the fame of the real King and fails to recognize Him. This is the setting for the flashback that makes up the majority of the text.

But it isn’t just the beginning of the text that informs us where the true contrast lies, it’s also the end. At the beginning, Herod hears about Jesus. At the end, Jesus hears about John. In both instances a king receives news; one responds with speculation, the other with preparation.

Upon hearing about John, Jesus wishes to get away by himself to a desolate place. We see Jesus doing this often, and he often does it to pray. Why does Jesus wish to be alone? What is He thinking about? What is so heavy upon him that He desires to be alone in a desolate place? I think its simple – John’s death is a foreshadowing of His future. If this is how they treat the herald, it’s because of how they think of the King. Jesus’ future is determining the past. Jesus is thinking of the much more violent death He will face on the cross, not facing merely the limited frustration of any earthly potentate, but in addition the wrath of His Father against the sins of men.

So here we have a wicked king, who out of fear and in pride takes the life of his enemy, contrasted with the righteous King, who out of love and in humility prepares to give His life for His enemies.

May we now herald Him too, even unto death.

Matthew 13:51-58 & Gospel Inoculation

Familiarity breeds contempt, but not really, at least when it comes to Jesus. Here we have two groups who were very well acquainted with Jesus; the residents of his hometown, and his disciples. For one group familiarity led to contempt, for the other, worship. But if you find Jesus familiar, common, and hold Him in contempt, it isn’t because you know so much of Him, but so little. You have a false familiarity.

I think many in evangelical churches suffer from this because they have heard preaching that is heavy on the imperative, and light on the indicative. The Bible contains both law and gospel, commands and declarations. And it is critical that we always remember that the law is given because of a prior gospel declaration. We are to act, and can act only because God has acted. This is as true in the Old Testament as it is in the New Testament. Just prior to the giving of the Ten Commandments we read, “I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.” They act because God has acted. As we read through the epistles of Paul w see he always begins with the indicatives of the Gospel before he makes application. He tells us what God has done before he tells us what we should do. The imperatives should never be dissected from the indicatives. Such preaching is not gospel preaching.

Could it be that many are bored with Jesus and arrogantly think Him common because they have never heard the gospel? Oh, they know Jesus loves them, and that they must believe in Him to be forgiven their sins, but every Sunday they are told about seven tips to…, or three ways to…, or the five keys of…, instead of learning of propitiation, redemption, substitution, or other glories of the good news of Jesus Christ.

We have been gospel inoculated; receiving a deadened form of Christianity we are immune to the real thing.

If this is your condition, don’t assume you know Jesus. Examine the gospels for yourself. Look at the way the apostles look at Jesus and all the Old Testament. As you examine the treasure trove of Scripture ask God to open your eyes to see the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. And if He graciously grants your petition, you will not be bored or offended, you will worship.

Matthew 13:47-50 & Perform No Appendectomy!

If these parables formed a body, would the parable of the dragnet be the appendix? Seemingly all it does is repeat part of the parable of the weeds. Does this parable contribute anything unique?

I think this parable, while teaching the same truths seen in the parable of the dragnet, does contribute something unique. While there unity among all these parables, they are all parables about the kingdom, there is also diversity and progression; with that being the case why repeat an earlier theme? Also, while there are other parables that build on each other and repeat the same idea, such as the parables of the mustard seed and leaven and the parables of the treasure and the pearl, notice how these follow one another. If the parable of the dragnet is meant to do nothing more than repeat the truths of the parable of the weeds why insert so many other parables in between them?

There are two things that make this parable unique, its emphasis and its context.

Whereas the parable of the weeds stresses the delay between the inauguration of the kingdom in sowing the good seed of salvation and the consummation of the kingdom bringing full salvation and judgment, the parable of the dragnet the emphasizes judgment alone. The parable of the weeds answers the question, “Why if the kingdom has come is there still evil present?” The parable of the dragnet warns of certain judgment. D.A. Carson points out the different emphasis saying, “Whereas the parable of the weeds focuses on the long period of the reign of God during which tares coexist with the wheat and the enemy has large powers, the parable of the net simply describes the situation that exists when the last judgment takes place.” In the parable of the weeds we are told of the state of both the weeds and the wheat at the close of the age (vv.42-43), here we are told only of the state of the bad fish. The first parable is an explanation, this one is a warning.

But it is the context that I think makes this parable most distinct and powerful. I think the word that makes it explode with power is the first one, “again”. Initially I thought of this word as nothing more than connective tissue. I read some great commentators who made much of the “again” in v. 45 as indicating the close connection between the parables of the treasure and pearl. I agree there is a close connection, but was bothered by their ignoring the “again” in v. 47. Then I thought what if the “again” is meant to show the relation of all three parables? I believe it is.

How do they relate? It’s like this, the kingdom of heaven will eternally be for you either treasure or torment. The kingdom brings both salvation and judgment, so it will either be your greatest delight or your greatest fright. All that God is will either be for you to enjoy, or for you to fear. God is holy, infinite, sovereign, incomprehensible, self-sufficient, immutable, omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, eternal, righteous, and faithful. Will you know all that God is as your eternal and deepest delight or dread?

Matthew 13:44-46 & Happy Hobos

If these two parables were Americanized they would end with the “man”, perhaps a tenant farmer, being vindicated as he now lives in a plush mansion with tricked-out camels, and the merchant being famous, having sold the pearl for many times what he bought it. But neither the man, nor the merchant sell their treasure to buy other things, rather, they sell all other things to buy the treasure. The merchant doesn’t buy the pearl to sell it; he sells all to buy the pearl. The kingdom of heaven is not a means to an end, it is the end.

Some today buy stunning pieces of art and rare artifacts, not to profit from them, but to simply enjoy them. Still its unheard of for a lavishly wealthy person to go for broke to own a single piece of art.

Merchants were extremely wealthy and powerful, and this merchant was certainly so, searching only for fine pearls (likely the most valued jewel of the time by Romans). Imagine hearing that a Bill Gates joyfully liquidated every asset to own one piece of art. There is video of footage of the former business magnate now gone hobo standing on the street corner with a grin on his face staring at his piece of art.

I think you would conclude either one of two things must be true. Your first impulse is that he must be nuts. But then you grow curious. You haven’t seen the work of art. What if glory and beauty exist that are really worth that price tag? Wouldn’t it be wonderful?

There is a glory this stunning. It is a glorious mystery revealed to some (13:11). They see the hidden treasure others don’t. To others their actions look absurd, but if you have seen the value of the kingdom, you know it’s worth sacrificing everything for. That’s the way we ought to live, as hobos with a smile on our face enjoying a treasure others can’t see, making them think, “What if a glory like that really exists? I don’t know that it does, but wouldn’t it be wonderful if it did?”

Matthew 13:31-35 & Marvel at the Shrub

No good Jew doubted that the Kingdom would be glorious, that was expected. What was a shocking stumbling-block, and what Jesus was communicating here, is that it would grow from the smallest, most humble and insignificant of beginnings.

I am not an optimist in regards to history or the future. I don’t suspect that humanity is steadily progressing, nor that the kingdom will ultimately win over the world before Jesus’ return, but I am not a pessimist either. What can we expect in the future? I think things will get both better and worse. The parable of the weeds reminds us that the kingdom hasn’t come in all its fullness yet; and that until the end of the age, evil will grow and our salvation will not be complete. But the parables of the mustard seed and the yeast remind us that the kingdom is growing, and that God’s mission is global.

Our Western eyes too often look on the 20th century as a time of decline for the church; as though she has lost her power and influence. We are missionally myopic judging the whole of Christianity in light of ourselves. I think our arrogance is displayed when speak in such ways as this, “Things are so bad here – Jesus must be coming soon!” Indeed He may come soon, but from a global perspective Christianity has flourished as never before. Consider the following figures (taken from Let the Nations be Glad by John Piper and Operation World by Jason Mandryck):

At the beginning of the twentieth century, Europeans dominated the world church, with approximately 70.6 percent of the Word’s Christians. By 1938, on the eve of World War II, the apparent European domination of Protestantism and Catholicism remained strong. Yet by the end of the twentieth century, The European percentage of world Christianity had shrunk to 28 percent of the total; Latin America and Africa combined provided 43 percent of the world’s Christians.

In 1900, Africa had 10 million Christians, representing about 10 percent of the population; by 2000, this figure had grown to 360 million, representing about half the population. Quantitatively, this may well be the largest shift in religious affiliation that has ever occurred, anywhere.

The number of African Christians is growing at around 2.36 percent annually, which would lead us to project a doubling of the continent’s Christian population in less than thirty years.

“This past Sunday more Anglicans attended church in each of Kenya, South Africa, Tanzania, and Uganda than did Anglicans in Britain and Canada and Episcopalians in the United States combined.”

“The number of practicing Christians in China is approaching the number in the United States.”

“Last Sunday . . . more Christian believers attended church in China than in all of so-called ‘Christian Europe.’”

‘Live bodies in church are far more numerous in Kenya than in Canada.”

“More believers worship together in Nagaland than in Norway.”

“More Christian workers from Brazil are active in cross cultural ministry outside their homelands than from Britain or from Canada.”

Last Sunday “more Presbyterians were in church in Ghana than in Scotland.”“The survival and growth of the Church in China are two of the decisive events of our generation. The staggering recent growth of the Chinese Church has no parallel in history – from 2.7 million evangelicals in 1975 to over 75 million in 2010.”

Some look at these figures and say, “Yeah, but they’re not all truly regenerate.” I agree, but many are sons of the kingdom; and oh how sad it is if you don’t have eyes to see the glory of the kingdom and rejoice in it.

We need to be aware, and we need to praise God. We need to be kingdom-minded people. The mustard seed is a shrub – marvel at it!

Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43 & Weeds Gone Wheat

The kingdom of heaven – it’s here, it’s in breaking, it’s moving!

The King is the Sower of the seed of salvation. The seeds are the sons of the kingdom. But if the kingdom is here, what is with the weeds?

Jesus’ answer – the kingdom has been inaugurated, but it is yet to be consummated; the kingdom will come in full glory, the weeds will be removed and the sons will shine like the sun, but not yet.

It is good that the kingdom does not come instantly in its fullness for naturally we are all weeds.

In Adam we are wheat gone wild, wheat gone weeds. But Jesus plucks weeds, recreates them, and sows us as sons of the kingdom. In Jesus we are weeds gone wheat. Sown by the Sower of salvation, we are being renewed in His image to one day shine like the sun.

“And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt. And those who are wise shall shine like the brightness of the sky above; and those who turn many to righteousness, like the stars forever and ever (Daniel 12:2-3).”

Matthew 13:10-17 & Revealing and Concealing

Jesus’ speaking in parables both conceals and reveals. In the same act, Jesus reveals the mystery of the kingdom to his disciples, though He will have to explain the meaning later, and conceals the mystery of the kingdom from the crowd. So while this revealing and concealing is simultaneous, it is not symmetrical. Jesus reveals by giving, He conceals by withholding. If light is present, God is to be praised. If darkness is present, self is to be blamed.