Sermon Supplements – Page 44

Matthew 16:21-28 & Satanic Vandalism

The disciples have received a canvas and they recognize the silhouette. “That’s the king,” they confess. Now Jesus wants to make the silhouette a portrait; He wants to fill in the lines. Peter has received revelation from the Father that Jesus is the Christ, now He is receiving further revelation as to what that means from the Christ. Jesus tells them, “You see a crown, but do you notice its thorns? You see a throne, but do you see that a cross undergirds it?”

Peter is ready to receive the canvas and its silhouette, but he wants to paint a mustache over God’s Mona Lisa. He thinks he can improve upon God’s masterpiece. Peter has the right picture. He has been given a paint by numbers sheet. Number 2 is royal blue, and number 1 is supposed to be blood red. Peter wants to improvise. No longer content to be the disciple he wants to be the rabbi. He decides everything should be royal blue. But Jesus says red is a “must.” The masterpiece of God’s kingdom has a lot of blood red in it, and Jesus tells His disciples that no one else can paint it. He must bleed to paint this glory.

Trying to paint over the cross and keep the Christ is satanic vandalism. In the wilderness Satan tried to offer Jesus the world without the cross. Peter is acting here as Satan’s disciple, not Jesus’. Many have tried to keep the glory without the gory, but the paint won’t stick. Blood red is the primer for Jesus’ work of new creation.

Now let me fill in some lines. Some act like they keep the cross, but they hollow it out, and then cover it with precious metal. No more blood. Many that deny that Jesus was paying the penalty for sins in the place of sinners to reconcile them to God will affirm many other truths about the cross, but the paint wont stick. Deny ransom, deny propitiation, deny substitution, and whatever cross you may embrace, it ain’t Jesus’. The cross is the crux, and the crux of the cross is penal substitutionary atonement. This is crucial to God’s masterpiece.

If a child were to paint over a revered piece of artwork in a museum with their crayons, this is one time when daddy and mommy would’t praise their creativity. When an aspiring adult artist does this, it isn’t ignorant creativity, its damnable vandalism. Don’t expect the Father’s accolades when you try to paint by different numbers. This is an instance where creativity is best termed heresy.

Matthew 16:13-20 & Damnation by Imagination

When asked who people say Jesus is, the disciples only give the “good answers.” They don’t include the bad ones; they don’t mention the Pharisees’ blasphemous accusations of Jesus’ casting out demons by Beelzebul. Yet, none of the “good answers” are good enough. You can’t get partial credit on this test. This is a true or false question. Jesus is a prophet, but saying He is Elijah or Jeremiah doesn’t count for even 33%. The crowds are in awe of Jesus, and they flunk. “Who do you say Jesus is?” This is the one question test that everyone either eternally passes or fails.

There is a contrast here, but not between the crowd’s awe-filled speculations and the Pharisees’ jealously-filled accusations; it is between the crowd’s opinions and the disciples’ confession. It does not matter how great you think Jesus is, if you think Him to be less than He is. Drop Him the slightest notch and you will find yourself falling endlessly into a bottomless pit.

Imagine you are talking on the phone with your wife. You use the most flowery language to express your endearment to her, you press the limits of poetry to convey her beauty, but you do this using another woman’s name and attributes. It matters not how highly you praise her blond hair when it’s brown. Think Jesus less than He is, and He is not flattered.

Do you believe in Jesus, or do you believe in the Jesus you believe in? An imaginary Jesus produces only imaginary salvation. This ain’t Peter Pan; just because you believe it don’t make it fly. We do not preach faith in faith. We do not preach, “believe and you can fly.” We do not preach, “believe and you will be saved.” We preach Christ and Him crucified. We preach, “Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved!”

“Oh, I believe in the Jesus of the Bible. I believe that He is the Christ, the Son of the living God.” Ok, let me push a bit. What does that mean? If you can’t fill in the lines, you’re still trying to fly using your own magic fairy dust.

If you rebut that Peter didn’t understand everything his confession meant I would retort, “You can be confused with Peter, but can you understand with him?” Sure, Peter didn’t understand everything this meant, but he did understand truth as to what it meant, and this truth was being given to him by Jesus’ Father. The confession that saves is a confession that is understood, and it is understood because it is revealed by the Father. Any thing less than this, is at best, damning.

Matthew 16:1-12 – Don’t Ride with Stupid

You’re riding in the back. Driving the car is a politician. Acting as navigator and “back-seat driver,” annoying the politician thoroughly, is an intellectual. They hate each other. You are on the interstate heading from San Antonio desiring to reach Corpus Christi. Just outside of San Antonio you see the typical green sign with white lettering that reads, “Corpus Christi – 137 miles.” Signs update you of the closing distance at several intervals. As you get closer you see a sign that reads, “Corpus Christi, Exit I-37, right lane, 3 miles.” Shortly, more signs read the same, except the numbers slowly countdown, “2, 1, ¾, ½, ¼.” Surprisingly, your seemingly competent driver and navigator pass the exit and continue south on I-69 towards “Nowhere, TX” missing Corpus Christi – “the body of Christ.” You ask, “What are you doing? You missed your exit.” “No we did not, we haven’t seen any signs.” “What! There have been plenty, they are green and white along the side of the road!” The politician exclaims, “I hate green signs and pay no attention to them. I’m looking for a sign in the heavens.” “I do not agree with you about the green,” interrupts the intellectual, “I hate signs with white lettering, but you are right on one count, I too am looking for a sign in the heavens.”

You are riding with a Sadducee and a Pharisee. Although they hate each other, there is a deep kind of stupid that unites them. Discontent that heaven has come down, they want an aerial banner to give them driving directions. With their arrogant noses turned up, they look only to the heavens – this is a deadly way to drive.

Like a wise parent Jesus tells us, “Don’t ride with stupid. They can’t get you to Corpus Christi, the body of the Christ. They always take a wrong turn.” This isn’t judgmental arrogance, its recognizing danger. It is recognizing the fool of Proverbs and avoiding him as instructed.

The Pharisees can interpret the sky regarding weather, but their spiritual barometers are broke. They don’t sense the force heaven is exerting downward. They don’t realize the sky is falling. There are signs, “signs of the times,” Jesus calls them, but they are blind to the green and white that the Authority has posted. They don’t want to bow to the authority, they want to be the authority. They want to be the teachers and make Jesus wear the dunce hat.

It does not matter if you turn up the volume for the deaf, or get a bigger screen for the blind. To believe, man needs not a miracle on the outside, but on the inside. Say you are a morning person and your spouse is not. You want them to know the glory and joy of a fresh bright morning. So you turn the lights on and commence whistling a tune. This unleashes their fury. You reason, “They love the day, so more light will make them love the morning.” To the previous day’s exercise you add throwing open the room darkening shades to let the blazing morning sun burst in. There is more light, but you discover you can’t make a morning person by more light. More light only exacerbates the problem.

There must be light within as well as without. Fallen man does not need new signs, he needs a new heart.

This is why we should avoid Pharisees and Saducees, for if the blind lead the blind, they never reach Corpus Christi, they will never confess, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”

Matthew 15:29-39 – Healing in the Hands of the King

We have seen many healing summaries like the one in vv. 29-31, and Jesus just fed the 5,000 in the previous chapter, so why revisit these themes? The greatest danger we face every Sunday is not a failure to learn something new, but a failure to remember something old. As Luther said, the gospel must be beat into our heads continually. We must visit the same themes again and again because we forget. There is a feast for us here too. The feast we must partake of daily; God’s miracle Manna for us in our wilderness.

Yet, there is something distinct about this summary, and the feeding of the four thousand. Jesus has left the area of Tyre and Sidon and headed back to Galilee (Matthew 15:21, 29); so He has withdrawn from Gentile country, right? The acute reader among Matthew’s original audience would ask which side of Galilee Jesus is on. Mark informs us that He is in the region of the Decapolis. The Decapolis was a league of hellenized cities that were predominately southeast of Galilee. Jesus is still in Gentile country. Matthew brings this out when He says this crowd, “glorified the God of Israel.” The messianic feast is for the Gentiles too (Matthew 8:11). The kingdom has dawned, and its salvation is sweeping up the Gentiles too.

So these healings and the feeding are to be linked with the healing of the Gentile woman in Matthew 15:21-28. She came to Jesus crying out for the “Son of David,” to have mercy. She bowed before Him and called Him “Lord”. Why would a Canaanite woman come to a Jewish King – for healing? When the Jewish Messiah came, Isaiah foretold the effects of His rule:

Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped; then shall the lame man leap like a deer, and the tongue of the mute sing for joy. For waters break forth in the wilderness, and streams in the desert (Isaiah 35:5-6).

Adam was a king under God. He was given dominion over the earth. He was told in Genesis 2:15 to work and keep (guard). Because of Adam’s presence the garden was to be safe and flourish. But Adam didn’t protect the garden. He let the dragon in. Now everything, instead of flourishing, is wilting. Because of Adam’s sin we are not safe, we are under the dragon’s sway. Because of Adam’s sin, we are not flourishing, all of creation is in a state of chaos.

But Jesus comes as the second Adam (Romans 5:14, 17). As Adam’s disobedience resulted in de-creation, Jesus’ obedience results in new creation. All things are put under His feet. He is undoing the curse and putting all things right. Jesus comes into our wilderness, and instead of making food for Himself, becomes God’s miracle Manna for us. The desert is blooming! Things are again becoming safe. Things are flourishing. Even death itself is working backwards.

In The Lord of the Rings, Aaragon the long awaited king saves Minias Tirith, the great city of men. The salvation he brings the city comes because he chose a deadly path. He does not look like a king, he has lived as a wanderer. How was the city to know their king? It was said, “The hands of the King are the hands of a healer, and so shall the rightful king be known.”

When black breath blows
and death’s shadow grows
and all lights pass,
come athelas!
come athelas!
Life to the dying
In the king’s hand lying!

Our King came disguised. He rode a donkey, not a mighty stead. He took the deadliest road, defeated the dragon, and conquered death. How are we healed? From where does our healing come? It is in the hands of the King. Those hands had to become incarnate. They had to take on flesh, be pierced, and let blood. Blood so precious, it is making all safe. Blood full of life causing all to flourish.

Matthew 15:21-28 & The Grace of Hunger

A father might be delighted or annoyed by his child’s persistent cries. You are at task and single focus is necessitated. You have explained this once to your son. Shortly “dad, dad, dad, dad, dad, dad…” are said in rhythm with a drumbeat of taps on your back. No emergency need be declared, and they do not want you, they just want some of your stuff and they want it now.

“Let’s play Nerf guns,” they later beg. And it is clear it’s not playing Nerf guns that they want, but playing Nerf guns with dad. You draw them out. You say no, but in such a way and in such a tone that they get what is happening. They persist and cry out, “please, please, pleeeeease?” The child wants their father, and the father wants to give himself, so what is a father doing in such instances? He is soaking in the moment, and heightening their hunger to maximize their shared joy at his yes. Which one is closer to what Jesus is doing in this text? I believe the point of this text isn’t simply that Jesus answers the humble, persistent cries of Gentiles, but that He loves to do so.

Jesus intensifies the hunger of this “dog,” so that she might rejoice all the more in the “crumb” that she receives from her “master’s table.” While this woman is shown the depth of her need and the extent of her unworthiness she is receiving God-glorifying backdoor grace that sees Jesus as her only hope, and keeps her coming back.

Jesus is glorified in our hunger as well as our satisfaction. Jesus is glorified in our groans as as well as our “ahhhs.” He is glorified when we long for Him in the valley of the shadow of death as well as when we rejoice that our cups run over. Whatever drives you to Jesus, whatever makes you grasp for Him more vehemently, whatever turns your casual prayers into earnest screams – is grace! So if you are crying out for the salvation of the Lord, keep crying out. When you sense your need, cry out. When He is silent, cry out. When conviction lays you prostrate before Him, keep crying out all the more. He is magnifying His name in you. He is increasing your hunger to maximize your shared joy at His yes.

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.