Directional Challenge (Matthew 20:17-28)

Jesus is heading south to Jerusalem, down to the cross. But Matthew and Jesus tell us that He is going up to Jerusalem. Did Jesus miss His turn? No, Jerusalem is always up. Psalms 120-134 are “Songs of Ascents.” These would be sung by pilgrims on their way to Jerusalem for the feasts. Jesus and the disciples may have very well be singing them on their journey to Jerusalem for the Passover. Remember when the kingdom divided after Solomon into the northern kingdom of Israel and southern kingdom of Judah? This gives you the lay of the land. The majority of Israelites, before the split, would head south toward the Temple, singing Songs of Ascent. This is because Jerusalem was spiritually up. It was also up in elevation, drastically so from Jericho, which, being situated near the Dead Sea, the lowest spot on earth, is one of the lowest cities on earth at over 800 feet below sea level. Jerusalem in contrast is over 2500 feet above sea level.

So down (directionally) is up (in elevation). But up (in elevation) is down (humiliation). But ultimately down (humiliation) is up (glorification). This is true for Jesus, and that is why it is true for us. At the cross, Jesus sets the standard for greatness. He stoops to serve, and He stoops to the lowest depths.

There was no abasement ever so deep as Christ’s was, in a double regard. First, None ever went so low as he, for he suffered the wrath of God, and bore upon him the sins of us all; none was ever so low. And then in another respect his abasement was greatest because He descended from the highest top of glory; and for Him to be man, to be a servant, to be a curse, to suffer the wrath of God, to be the lowest of all – Lord, wither doest Thou descend? —Richard Sibbes

Jesus does just set the standard for us, He sets it for us. The cross is not only the standard, it is the source of all human greatness. He gave His life as a ransom. His death purchased us and delivered us from our bondage. Christ set an example for us, but His example empowers us to follow. The most important thing to know about following Jesus, are the steps you cannot take. We cannot go to the cross as He did. But because of His greater service, we can do lesser acts, empowered by His, that point others to the only one who is truly great.

Many today want to emphasize the cross only or mainly as a moral act to be replicated, an example to be followed, rather than an atonement in our place, but if there is no redemption, then the example is ludicrous. Tim Keller illustrates,

Imagine that you are walking along a river with a friend, and your friend suddenly says to you, ‘I want to show you how much I love you!’ and with that he throws himself into the river and drowns. Would you say in response, ‘How he loved me!’ No, of course not. You’d wonder about your friend’s mental state. But what if you were walking along a river with a friend and you fell into the river by accident, and you can’t swim. What if he dived in after you and pushed you to safety but was himself drawn under by the current and drowned. Then you would respond, ‘Behold, how he loved me!’ The example of Jesus is a bad example if it is only an example. If there was no peril to save us from—if we were not lost apart from the ransom of his death—then the model of his sacrificial love is not moving and life-changing; it is crazy. Unless Jesus died as our substitute, he can’t die as a moving example of sacrificial love.

Underlying Christus Exemplar is penal substitutionary atonement.

For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in his steps. He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth. When he was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly. He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed. —1 Peter 2:21-24 (ESV)

Christ’s atoning service makes ours possible and makes it potent. The cross is the standard and the source; every lesser sacrifice points to the greatness of His.

[W]hoever serves, as one who serves by the strength that God supplies—in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ. To him belong glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen. —1Peter 4:11 (ESV)

The Pilgrim: “Why Study Christ?” “Why Study Anything Else?”

What other matters? What matters besides, above, or beyond the glorious gospel of Jesus Christ, and of our acceptance with God through him? What spirit, or doctrine, or wisdom soever it be that centers not in, that cometh not from, and that terminates not within, the bounds of the gospel of Jesus Christ, is not worthy the study of the sons of God; neither is it food for the faith of Jesus Christ (John 6:51); for that is the flesh of Christ (and that is eternal life.) Whither will you go? Beware of the spirit of Antichrist; for ‘many false spirits are gone out into the world.’ I told you before, that the Spirit of God is ‘the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Christ,’ Ephes. 1:17; John 14:15; 16; and that without and besides the Lord Jesus it discovereth nothing; it is sent to testify of him; it is sent to bring his words to our remembrance; it is sent to ‘take of his things and shew them unto us.’ Wherefore, never call that the Spirit of Jesus which leads you away from the blood and righteousness of Christ; that is but the spirit of delusion and of the devil, whose teachings end in perdition and destruction. Tempt not Christ as they of old did. But how did they tempt him? Why, in loathing the manna, which was the type of his flesh and blood, which we are to eat of by believing. I say, tempt him not, lest you be destroyed by the serpents, by the gnawing guilt of sin; for, take away Christ, and sin remains, and there is no more sacrifice for sin: if so, thou wilt be destroyed by the destroyer, Num. 21:5-7; 1 Cor. 10:10. —John Bunyan, Justification by an Imputed Righteousness

Grumbling at Grace (Matthew 20:1-16)

If you are honest with yourself you cry out with the first hour laborers, “Hey, not fair!” Jesus, as Nathan did David, causes us to indict ourselves. This is what this parable reveals about every fallen son of Adam—we hate grace! Adam wanted to be like God, and he wanted to be like God because he did something.

Douglas Wilson uses the following illustration. Say it is family movie night. Your wife is getting the movie ready, the children are getting situated just right, and you go to the kitchen. You make one of your children a big bowl, the biggest bowl of ice cream they have ever had. What do your other children say? “Hey!” The first child looks at their siblings with a insincerely confused look that asks, “What’s the big deal? The universe is as it should be. Shalom has come.” So you go back into the kitchen to make each of the protestors even bigger bowls. What then does the first child say? “Hey!” The issue isn’t the amount of ice cream in his bowl, but the amount in everyone else’s. The issue is the same as that of the “man” in Matthew 19:16-22, namely, covetousness, which is idolatry (Ephesians 5:5).

The point of this parable isn’t that heaven is a communist regime where everyone gets one scoop. The first hour-ers complain that they have been made equal but really they haven’t. The point here isn’t equality. It’s more radical than that. The point is that the last are first and the first are last. One group gets paid a Benjamin per hour, while another gets seven and a quarter. Things are not equal. But things are just. The first hour-ers think they are demanding justice, but really they are grumbling against grace. They howl, “We deserve grace too, No! we deserve more grace!” But that is as nonsensical as a child throwing a temper tantrum saying, “But I wanted a square circle!” Deserved grace isn’t even on the level of a mythical creature. God could create a unicorn should He desire to do so. Deserved grace however is a logical impossibility. As soon as grace becomes deserved it un-defines itself.

What is the point? Those who receive the most grace, receive the most grace. No one can bark against that. If it is justice you desire, you may have it, hot and eternal. So, next time you worship with God’s little ones, look around. Is there anyone there that it would bother you if they got a bigger bowl of ice cream from the Father?

If you are properly seeking the reward, this means you are seeking the biggest possible thing God could give you—Himself. This means when God glorifies Himself in being gracious to the least, you get exactly what you want—God glorified. It does not matter where the grace is dumped. God is glorified, and thus, you are satisfied. There is no grumble in your stomach. There is no grumble in your mouth. Grace anywhere, is grace everywhere to little ones.

The Pilgrim: When Spiritual Steel Strikes Carnal Flint

‘The law is spiritual, I am carnal;’ therefore every imposition is rejected and rebelled against. Strike steel against flint, and the fire flies about you; strike the law against a carnal heart, and sin appears, sin multiplies, sin rageth, sin is strengthened! —John Bunyan, Justification by an Imputed Righteousness

Our Mutation and God’s Creation (Matthew 19:27-30)

When Adam said, “Hey, you gave her to me,” that wasn’t a good thing. We cannot blame our sin on the Giver or His gifts. Every gift God gives is good. It’s our grimy little hands that mess things up in the reception. Sin mutates. Contra DC Comics and MARVEL, mutations aren’t cool. Sin takes life and makes it death. It perverts good things into bad things.

Awareness of this causes some to be hyper-hesitant to speak of rewards. They feel two tensions; one between God’s glory and idolatry, the other between grace and merit. But does a gift, or a reward given necessarily cause you to love the gift more than the giver? If you have a wedding ring I hope you answer in the negative. Likewise, have you ever received a “reward,” that you thought was so disproportionate to any service rendered that it spoke more to the giver’s generosity than to your greatness?

Any reward we receive will come to us as grace upon grace. Let me show you with a barrage of texts.

[Y]ou yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. (1 Peter 2:5)

For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them. (Ephesians 2:10)

[W]ork out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure. (Philippians 2:12-13)

Now may the God of peace who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep, by the blood of the eternal covenant, equip you with everything good that you may do his will, working in us that which is pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen. (Hebrews 13:20-21)

And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work. (2 Corinthians 9:8)

You are being built by God to offer sacrifices, sacrifices that are then acceptable to God through Jesus, you are given a new heart, a heart that loves God and His law, God prepares opportunities for obedience and sets them before you, He equips you with everything you need to do that work, He works in us that which is pleasing in His sight, and makes His grace abound to us, and then, following and flowing from all of that, when we obey, He rewards it! That smells of merit as much as a Pepé Le Pew smells like an expensive cologne.

Say you get this lavish grace—overwhelmed with God’s generosity you are becoming generous. One way you are generous is that you want your son to be generous. You seek to graciously teach him about grace. You want your little tike to share to the glory of God. By God’s grace, your son shares his favorite Hot Wheel. But the friend destroys the borrowed wheels by eating them or something. Your son responds with grace. In joy you take him to buy a new favorite. Your son might mistake this for merit.

Your son grows in years and grace, and when a visiting missionary comes to town in need of a vehicle, your son offers up his ’96 Ford Tarus. The car gets totaled, and again your son responds with grace. This time you go and buy him one of three Lamborghini Venenos, with a 3.5 million dollar price tag. When this happens there is no chance that your son mistakes this reward for merit. He just thinks that his dad is nuts, but in a way that is really good for him.

When you get to heaven and hear, “Well done, now what shall I give you? Hmmm… here is a new earth, every inch radiating with the greatest of glory, the only glory there really is, Mine. And here are new eyes so that you don’t miss any of it. Also, that new heart that I gave you before; now you won’t have to worry about sin marring any of its affections. No, your joy will be able to soar without limits and without fear of heights. And here is a new brain to think and meditate on this new creation,”—when you see that your reward isn’t just earth size, that is to say a 6 followed by 21 zeros tons size, but a new earth dense with the glory of God size, which is to say infinite, then you will reply, “We are unworthy servants (Luke 17:10),” and “Worthy are you (Revelation 4:11).”

We render molecular size service and receive cosmic size rewards. The point isn’t our greatness but His. Why does God reward us so? Jesus.

Sin mutates, but God creates, and He recreates, and He always pronounces over His work, “Good!” In the new earth when He rewards, we won’t have to worry about that reward becoming an idol. This is because our hands, and everything attached to them won’t be grimy any more. We will enjoy things fully, and this means enjoying them unto Jesus’ glory.

God himself is the great good which they are brought to the possession and enjoyment of by redemption. He is the highest good, and the sum of all that good which Christ purchased. God is the inheritance of the saints; he is the portion of their souls. God is their wealth and treasure, their food, their Life, their dwelling- place, their ornament and diadem, and their everlasting honour and glory. They have none in heaven but God; he is the great good which the redeemed are received to at death, and which they are to rise to at the end of the world. The Lord God is the light of the heavenly Jerusalem; and is the ‘river of the water of life’ that runs, and ‘the tree of life that grows, in the midst of the paradise of God.’ The glorious excellencies and beauty of God will be what will for ever entertain the minds of the saints, and the love of God will be their everlasting feast. The redeemed will indeed enjoy other things; they will enjoy the angels, and will enjoy one another; but that which they shall enjoy in the angels, or each other, or in any thing else whatsoever that will yield them delight and happiness, will be what shall be seen of God in them. —Jonathan Edwards

The Pilgrim: Unfettered Faith

Faith, then, as separate from Christ, doth nothing; nothing neither with God nor man; because it wants its relative object, but let it go to the Lord Jesus; let it behold him as dying, &c., and it fetches righteousness, and life, and peace out of the virtue of his blood, &c., Acts 10:29, 31, 33; or rather, sees it there as sufficient for me to stand just thereby in the sight of Eternal Justice: “For him hath God set forth to be a propitiation through faith (belief) in his blood, with intent to justify him that believeth in Jesus,” Rom. 3:25, 26. —John Bunyan, Justification by an Imputed Righteousness

The Blessed Brought and the Cursed Comer (Matthew 19:13-26)

In all three synoptic gospels Jesus’ blessing the children is followed by the account of the “rich young ruler”. Noticing that these two incidents are paired is both helpful and hurtful. It is helpful in that it makes you look for a connection. It is hurtful because you prematurely label this man. Matthew wants to grab you with something easily overlooked, “behold, a man.” You don’t learn that this man is young and rich till much later. You only learn that he is a ruler from Luke. You have just seen children brought to Jesus, and now you see a man come.

The other gospels are helpful in creating even more contrast. In Matthew Jesus says, “little children;” how little are they? In Mark He takes them in His arms (Mark 10:16). In Luke it is said that they are “bringing even infants to Him (Luke 18:15).” These children have to be brought to Jesus, they cannot come otherwise, and the kingdom is made of such.

Critically dependent children are brought to Jesus and are blessed. A self-reliant man comes to Jesus and is cursed. If you are truly blessed it is because you were brought.

“No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day (John 6:44).”

When Jesus says it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom note carefully the disciples question. They don’t want to know how a rich man then can be saved. They want to know how anyone can be saved. Jesus says that man cannot act; man must be acted upon. Man must be brought. God, by the Spirit must bring you to His Son, and then in the Son, you are brought to God as Father.

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.

The Implosion of the Tilt-A-Whirl

The earth is rotating at approximately 1,000 mph on its axis, while revolving around the sun at an estimated 67,000 mph. The sun, and thus our solar system, is revolving around the center of the milky way at roughly 500,000 mph. On top of this the Milk Way is skipping through the universe at roughly 60,000 mph. As N.D. Wilson says, we live on a tilt-a-whirl.

What is it all revolving around? The true center of all the universe is God. He created and upholds it all, and all that, for His glory. “The heavens declare the glory of God.” But we are glory thieves. We, want to take God out of the center and make everything revolve around us—even God.

We don’t have enough mass to pull it off. Imagine trying to replace the hub of one of those huge wind turbines with the hub from one of your ceiling fans. Now magnify that by the galactic specs I just gave you. If you think this would only throw a slight wobble into the mechanism recompute.

Sin tries to play god and build a universe to revolve around self. But that universe implodes like a black hole because we aren’t that big a deal.

When we keep our place in this tilt-a-whirl, when the lap-bar is in place and we follow the directions given to us, there is no greater joy. This is life. When we lift the bar, there is only death.

The Pilgrim: A Big Difference

[T]here is a difference betwixt growing worse and worse, and thy seeing more clearly how bad thou art. —John Bunyan, Come and Welcome to Jesus