Sermon Supplements – Page 43

Hydrogen to Helium (Matthew 19:1-12)

1 + 1 = 1—this is the formula for marriage. Marriage is God turning two hydrogen into one helium. It’s fusion. But first, marriage is fission. A man must leave his mother and father and cleave to his wife. Family ties are near strongest. They have a-bomb power; fission power. Marriage is stronger. Marriage has star power; fusion power.

Marriage is held together by the strongest glue—Trinitarian strength glue. Only the triune God could be the author of such a mystery as 1 + 1 = 1. God made man in His own image and He made man male and female. One way that man images forth God is in marriage. There are many junk illustrations for the Trinity (water in three forms, clovers, an egg, etc.) but there is only one authorized metaphor. Marriage, though a limited analogy, it is an analogy after all, is a legitimate one, the best one (cf. 1 Corinthians 11:3).

How permanent is marriage supposed to be? As permanent as the Triune God. One man, one woman, forever, till death do them part and usher them fully into the eternal reality of which their earthly marriage was just a shadow. Anything less isn’t marriage, it’s “mar-age.”

Let not man do fission where God has done fusion. When you toy with divorce you need to know you are playing with a nuclear warhead. You can’t seek to undo God’s work without the effects being cataclysmic.

Beyond 2 × 10 to the 30th Power (Matthew 18:21-35)

1 denarius = 1 days wage.

1 talent = 6,000 denarri or over 16 years of labor.

10,000 talents = over 160,000 years of labor.

Our debt is cosmic, our sins so weighty they make galaxies look miniscule. Your smallest sin is more weighty than the sun. The sun’s mass is estimated at just shy of 2 × 10³⁰ kg. That is a 2 followed by 30 zeros! The sun is so massive it accounts for approximately 99.8 percent of the mass in our solar system. Yet, the sun is finite. Your sins are infinite. They are committed against a God who is infinitely worthy of glory, of obedience, of love. Sin is that big a deal because God is that big a deal.

Whatever is not of faith is sin (Romans 14:23). Think how many seconds of your existence you live without faith. That is how often you live in sin. Ponder how even your every good work is only purified as it is offered up to God through Christ (1 Peter 2:5). You have committed galaxies of sins, with each sin more weighty than a star. Feel the weight of your sins that make the universe comparatively shrink to the size of spinning electrons.

But this is a weak effort to show you the scale of our sins. The best place to look is not up into heavens, but down here on earth at a tree and a naked bleeding Christ hanging on it, under a dark sky.

Truly it [the gospel] is the greatest and purest testimony against sin. Though sinners find favor from the Gospel, sin finds none. The Gospel is not the least indulgent to the least sin. —Ralph Venning

How massive are our sins? The only possible way that our debt could be cancelled, is if the infinitely glorious and beloved Son of God takes on human flesh, achieves all righteousness in our place, and suffers the full wrath of God for our sins. For God to create a star is easy. He need only speak. But to ransom man, God must bleed.

At the cross now you see not only the expanse of your depravity, but the exhaustiveness of God’s grace. And if you say you’ve tasted of this grace, you will be forgiving (1 John 3:10, 15; 4:7, 11; 4:19-21).

More than someone will ever sin against you, they sin against God. God is always the most offended party in sin. When against you, man’s sins are all earth size. Most are pebbles, you should generally just overlook those in forbearance and love. Sometime our brother’s sins are boulders. When boulders are tossed you should confront your brother per the house rules Jesus had just given. If they repent, you must forgive them, for this is beyond comparing boulders to stars.

Matthew 18:15-20 – A Grace Place?

Grace place—that is why some churches say they abstain from church discipline—they want to be a place of grace. Imagine that you have cancer and pleading with doctor after doctor to remove it to hear, “We don’t do scalpels here. They hurt. They’re not loving.” The last description you would give of such a doctor is gracious.

Church discipline is about love. When discipline is absent we wave with a smile to our brothers as they tread the path to hell. Abstaining from discipline for fear of offending your brother is like not yelling at your kids when they are playing in the street, because yelling might scar their little souls. Cars kill bodies. Sin kills the soul. Better to offend someone into heaven than nice them into hell. Church discipline loves—everyone. It loves:

The sinner, by seeking their repentance and restoration.
The church, by seeking her purity and protection from the leaven of sin (1 Corinthians 5:6-13).
The world, by seeking to guard the church’s testimony and witness to the transforming gospel of Christ.
God, as we act in obedience and for His glory.

When leaders and churches ignore church discipline, they are loving. They are loving themselves. They are concerned for their jobs, their reputation, their number, their offerings. A failure to do discipline reveals idols.

Jesus spoke the words in Matthew 18. Jesus commanded discipline to be done. And Jesus promises He is with us when we obey this command (Matthew 18:20). This is the ultimate reason to faithfully do church discipline. Because to do so is to stand with Jesus. And no one loves like Jesus.

“By abstaining from church discipline… we claim we love better than God loves.” —Jonathan Leeman

Acts 20:28 & When the Watchman Hydes

Elders are watchmen, entrusted with a city dear to the King. A city he bled to conquer with love. The task calls for unceasing vigilance. Not only are enemies without the walls, treachery is within, and the most dangerous men inside the city are the watchmen. In Christ we are all a Mr. Hyde turned Dr. Jeckyl. It is one thing when Hyde is within the city. It is another when He is the watchman of that city. Elders must make sure that Hyde stays dead. They must mortify him (1 Corinthians 9:27, Romans 8:13). They must “pay careful attention,” not only to the city, but to themselves.

Elders are sinners, and in desiring and being appointed to that office, they place themselves in a position to sin disastrously. If Hyde comes out you will sin against God’s little ones (Matthew 18:6), his dear blood bought city. Elders, watch yourself. The greatest danger when the watchman Hydes isn’t his destruction of the city, but the destruction of his own soul.

[T]hat man will never be careful for the salvation of other men who will neglect his own soul. -John Calvin

Titus 1:5-9 & Out of Order

Until elders are put in place, the task of missions is incomplete and the church is out of order.

Paul was a pioneer missionary. It was his “ambition to preach the gospel, not where Christ has already been named, lest [he] build on someone else’s foundation (Romans 15:20).” Paul was fulfilling the Great Commission by going to “all nations.” Evangelism does not complete the task of missions. Church planting does not complete the task of missions. Paul’s normal pattern for missions was to install elders in every church (Acts 14:23). Until this is done, things are out of order. Our call is not to garner professions, but to make disciples. Disciples that we teach to observe all things, whatever Christ has commanded. Biblical church government is one of those things. There is no way to soften it, until a church is led by a plurality of elders, she is disobedient. And disobedience always brings disorder. It turns new creation into chaos.

Sure, every church is sinful, but no church has an excuse to remain that way. Yes, the gospel is chief, but this is not to say that church government is inconsequential. When the toe hurts the body hurts (1 Corinthians 12:26). How much more does the body hurt when the eyes, or the mouth, or the ears are out of wack? Don’t think your obeying the command to not despise the lesser members of the body by denying the cruciality of the leader-members.

In the church car, government may not be the motor, but perhaps it’s the frame. No matter how sound the engine may be at the time, a whompyjawed church government means this car is going to wobble. Sure you can ignore problems in the frame longer than a plume of smoke coming from the hood, but to think that you can ignore the frame altogether isn’t wise. Something has to hold that motor in place. No frame, no order, only chaos.

Matthew 18:1-14 – Childlike, not Childish

Scripture holds up being childlike, not childish. The disciples are behaving like children here, but in all the wrong ways. Mark tells us that the disciples had been arguing about who was the greatest, and that they were reluctant to tell Jesus what the issue was. I’m sure if we had a transcript it would read as follows:

“I’m taller.”

“Me first.”

“Oh, yeah well…”

“Nuh-uh!”

There is a way we should be like children, but it should lead to us growing up. “Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation (1 Peter 2:2).” In Ephesians 4:12-13 Paul tells us that Jesus gifts His church with shepherds “to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.” There is a way in which the child of God should be childlike, but the result should be not a resembling of Benjamin Button, but of Jesus Christ.

Jesus says we must become like a child to even enter the kingdom, and then He says that the greatest only go deeper in this childlikeness. In what way are we to be childlike? Note that we are to humble ourselves to become like a child, we are not told to be humble like a child. Children can be as pompous as an adult. The humbling is in becoming like a child. In a sermon on Mark 10:13-16, B.B. Warfield says, “Childlikeness is one thing; that by which the state is attained is another.” Humility is a road, but a road to where? Warfield deals with the various options, arguing against simplicity, trustfulness, innocence, and humility. Ultimately taking his cues from Mark 10:15 he argues for dependence; “Truly I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child cannot enter it.” The kingdom is to be received, and that like a child. The childlikeness we are to have is in relation to our receiving.

Children are altogether dependent on another. This is why it is so humbling to become one. Kingdom greatness isn’t achieved by the ambitiously accomplished, but the desperately dependent. Cool big varsity kids won’t get to play the kingdom game. They won’t even ride the pine. They will be thrown into outer darkness. The kingdom is for “little ones”. And the greatest, go deep in their dependence.

Because of the fall, man is a vacuum in a dirty world. He can only suck in dirt. Thus his desperation. If man is to be “converted” from a vacuum to a water hose, dispensing water instead of sucking dirt, the water must come from an outside source. Thus his dependance. The greatest, those who disperse the most water, are the biggest consumers of grace. They pump out what they are chugging down. They know the true of the vine taught in John 15, that it is by abiding in Christ that they bear much fruit. They humbly admit any greatness they posses is not their own, but Christ’s.

Matthew 17:24-27 & No Taxation because of Representation

Matthew 17:24-27, this text isn’t about taxes. Trying to make it so is like trying to help out your friend who recently bought a classic car, which is complete and in running condition, but dissembled into many pieces, by giving him your son’s Lego car instruction booklet. Sure, there is correspondence, both have a steering wheel, wheels, a windshield and so on, but that classic car won’t be going anywhere because of your help. Sure, we have taxes here, but trying to make this text about civil taxes removes all its go power. Make this about civil taxes and you’ll have to push your little Lego car to make it run.

The glory of this text is not about how you relate to Caesar, but how you relate to God in Jesus Christ. The tax collected here was not one Matthew would have formerly gathered. This tax was not used to fund Rome. Whereas you would be unpatriotic for being a tax collector, paying this tax was a patriotic act. Whereas being a tax collector indicated the idolatry of mammon, paying this tax could be an act of worship of the one true God. This tax was collected to upkeep the temple. This tax has more in common with a church offering than a state tax.

The temple is Jesus’ Father’s house (Luke 2:49, John 2:17). Jesus is under no obligation to pay this tax. Jesus is free from this tax because He is the Son. We are free because in the Son, we are sons (Galatians 3:26).

Our country was birthed crying, “No taxation without representation.” We are reborn rejoicing, “No taxation because of representation.” Jesus is the true Son, representing those chosen by the Father in the Son, to be adopted as sons. He takes our sin, we receive His righteousness. We are free. This isn’t freedom from a tyrannical Caesar. This is freedom in becoming a Son of the King; a generous King who gives His only begotten Son to make us sons. The Son was taxed, meaning He was put under the heaviest of strains, paying our ransom, so that we might be free. And “if the son sets you free, you will be free indeed (John 8:36).”

Matthew 17:14-23 & A Check that Clears

Gardner’s Bookstore in Tulsa boasts being the largest used bookstore in Oklahoma with over 23,000 square feet packed with books. When I would browse the religion section looking for a jewel in a mountain of straw my frustration would be alleviated by humorously observing two of the titles that most populated those shelves. There were regularly at least half a dozen copies of Joel Osteen’s Your Best Life Now, and Bruce Wilkinson’s The Prayer of Jabez each.

People generally discard user’s manuals, especially if those manuals prove faulty. A lot of people bought these books hoping they were true. I speculate that a lot of people sold them having found they were false. The prosperity premise may not necessarily be rejected, this just wasn’t the right how to for them. “This plastic must be old; run a different card and I can stil have the goodies, right?” The results are diabolical. They think they took God’s check to the bank and it failed to clear. Keep the major premise and you can only come to two conclusions. God has limited funds, or you’ve irritated Him such that He put a hold on that check. You can only doubt God, either as regards His funds or His love. Either this isn’t by grace, or there just isn’t that much of it. Here is a text that is meant to bolster faith but when the prosperity wolves finish chewing on this bone it leads only to doubt. That is unless the manual worked for you, but then the results are still diabolical, for you are worshipping mammon and using God instead of worshipping God and using mammon. Doubt is still the end result, for your faith is in a different God.

Why is it a faith issue for the disciples to fail to drive out this demon? In Matthew 10:1 Jesus gives them “authority over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal ever disease and affliction.” Jesus says they have little faith, but it is not themselves they are doubting. They are dumbfounded as to why they can’t handle this (v. 19). They are doubting Jesus. Faith is anchored in the word of Christ, not the abilities of self (Romans 10:17). What is being bolstered by this promise then is not faith to move whatever mountain you desire, but faith to move whatever mountain Christ has commanded. To properly appropriate this promise you need to ask yourself not, “What mountain do I want to move,” but, “What mountain have we, the church, been commanded to move.”

What mountain can we move in faith?

“And Jesus came and said to them, ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age (Matthew 28:18-20).’”

Jesus had just gone up a mountain and glory was breaking through while the disciples were powerless below. Christ has ascended higher into greater glory, powerlessness should doubly not be our state.

“But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” And when he had said these things, as they were looking on, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight (Acts 1:8-9).”

Matthew 17:1-13 & No Gory, No Glory

We want the figure of a god, without the diet and exercise. When it comes to our salvation, to being godlike, we want to do it on our own, and we don’t want to do that much. We want glory, with none of the pain. We are spiritually health conscious in a way, but we want a quick, easy, and cheap fix. Gives us a pill, give us a surgery. What we will not do is really sweat or really work. We will not sacrifice our diet of sin. The diet of religion is both lazy and sinful seeking less than perfection. It is lazy because it seeks less than perfection. It is sinful because it seeks less than perfection. Its seeks to enjoy sin with minimal consequence. It does not truly seek to be holy as God is holy.

Physically, in our age of dieting, many try to delude themselves. Its funny how many articles are written as if it is some secret that diet and exercise are the key to health. There is only one way for health to get deep into your bones. It takes work. Our spiritual health likewise involves work. Paul tells us to “work out your own salvation with fear and trembling (Philippians 2:12).” But be careful. Our salvation is something we work out, it is not something we work for. No drug we manufacture can bring about our salvation, and all our work, even our best work is also futile. We’re not simply spiritually flabby. We’re dead. We couldn’t sweat enough “good,” we couldn’t bleed enough “payment” even if we wanted to. Any sweat is already only our due, and all our blood is the debt we already owe. We need unequaled and unobligated sweat and blood.

Our salvation is no sweat-less labor; no bloodless surgery. A laparoscopic procedure won’t suffice. Flesh must be rent wide open. Blood must be spilt. To give the dead life, The Life must die. Then, and only then, do our eating habits change, for we have an appetite for the Bread of life. Then, and only then, do our work habits change, for we love to do good works unto God’s glory through the Son by the power of the Holy Spirit. Because of the fall there is only one way to glory, and that is through the gory. For us to go up, God must descend, further down than any.

The transfiguration is framed by a lot of cross talk (Matthew 16:21-28; 17:9, 12, 22-23). Jesus tells the disciples not to tell anyone this vision until after He is resurrected. The glory light they have seen will only be properly understood when illuminated by a dark cross. The transfiguration is not so much a flashback to Jesus’ eternal glory, as it is a flash-forward to his resurrection glory, and the cross comes first. No gory, no glory. He takes our part, that we may take His.

“And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” -Philippians 2:8-11

1 Corinthians 15:12-28 & If I Don’t Rise, Jesus Didn’t

The Corinthians were affirming Jesus resurrection, but denying their own. Paul says you can’t do this. You would think that you could. Imagine you are about to appear before a judge for sentencing. The judge has the power to pardon at will. Just before you are sentenced the judge’s son, with whom he has no tiff, comes before the judge to be sentenced for the same crime. You reason that if the son is pardoned, there might be a chance for you, but if the son is not pardoned, you haven’t got a prayer. That is how you might expect Paul to relate Jesus’ resurrection and ours. But Paul flips it. Imagine the son is pardoned. It would take some gall to exclaim, “If I’m not pardoned, then your son wasn’t.” That is akin to what Paul is arguing. He isn’t saying, Jesus was resurrected, so there is a chance for you. He is saying that if you don’t burst some sod with a new bod, then Jesus is rotting in a grave.

You might expect Jesus’ resurrection and yours to relate to one another like a tree trunk and branches. In some ways they do. Our resurrection blooms out of His. But Paul says that our resurrection and Jesus’ relate more like a husband and wife than a trunk and branches. If the trunk falls, the branches fall, but if the branches fall you can still have a trunk. But with a marriage, if either party dies, the marriage is dissolved. If Jesus is didn’t rise we won’t. If we don’t rise, Jesus didn’t.

Why is this so? Lets go back to court. When could you say with confidence to the judge who pardoned his son, “If I’m not pardoned, then your son wasn’t?” What if you were tried as a single entity? This is what happened in Christ. Jesus rep work didn’t end on the cross. Jesus didn’t fly solo from the grave; He led a host of captives. Jesus didn’t rise independently. Jesus wasn’t a lonely acorn busting potting soil in some individual’s hobby hothouse. He rose as the firstfruits of a greater harvest of a huge field. His resurrection and yours are part of the same event. Further, Paul says, Jesus is the second Adam. He represents a new humanity. His resurrection was the beginning of new creation. The rest must necessarily follow.

How sure can you be that if your body is under dirt that God will begin cultivating the earth to make it new by ripping you out of her? As sure as you are the Jesus is risen. The degree of faith you have in the risen Christ is to be same measure of faith you are to have in your resurrection. Further, it is the very same faith.