Good morning. Today's scripture reading is
from Matthew 9 verses 32 through 34.
It's on page 7774. The Bibles that are under your
seats. As they were going away, behold,
a demon oppressed man who is mute was brought out to him.
And when the demon had been cast out, the mute man spoke and the
crowds marveled, saying never was anything like this seen in
Israel. But the Pharisee said he cast
out demons by the Prince of demons as the word Lord.
What's going on? Port City family and friends.
How are we doing? Good.
My name is Tanner. I'm one of the pastors here.
It is an honor to be with you. And Advent is upon us.
Somebody say Advent, you might have not heard that word before,
but in Christian history, OK, the intention of the Christmas
season was to anticipate the Savior's initial arrival so that
we could live well as we await his second arrival.
Because y'all, the advent didn't just happen once.
Advent means arrival. So we didn't just wait for
Jesus's arrival the first time. The church now is still a people
of Advent. We are awaiting his second
advent. Are y'all with me?
So we live in between the two advents.
The idea if we peel back the the consumeristic nostalgia the
season brings is the better we anticipate and re enter the
story of Christ's first arrival, we will live better in light of
his second arrival. Does that make sense?
So the more we learn the rhythm of the world, which is that it's
broken and God is good. We shouldn't be all acting like
heaven has arrived in the first Advent because it hasn't, right?
The world is busted, but at the same time Christ is risen,
right? Like the Savior is among us.
And so we should be people who are joyful and sorrowful or as
the apostle Paul once said, sorrowful yet always rejoicing.
So I hope this season, if this hasn't happened before, you will
learn to be happy and sad at the same time.
You will learn to pray your Kingdom come, your will be done
on earth as it is in heaven. Because the more we embrace
that, the better we will serve our city until Christ returns.
Amen, somebody. OK, so I'm going to pray just
kind of over the Advent season and then we will dive into
today's text. Will you pray with me, our
Father? That is our prayer.
Make us a people who wait well, God who don't have our head in
the sand and act like life is perfect because it isn't or we
just have to turn on the news to see pain internationally across
our States and even here in our our great city.
Lord, there's pain, there's brokenness even in this room.
There are hard things going on, but God above all that we could
say Christ is risen Lord that that what we're going through
now is not ultimate God as we read in Psalm 90 this morning,
you are from everlasting to everlasting.
God, this is just a blip in the the history of what is to come
and and what has been God you our reality and so we long for
you and we ask you to make us a people who live in the in
between really well help us to weep well help us to fight well
for the good of others and God would you fill us with joy as we
do it. So God that is part of why we
gather right now is to wait better.
So God fill us with the Holy Spirit.
God, what we know not now would you teach us what we have not?
Would you give us and what we are not?
Would you make us and let the words of my mouth and the
meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight.
And everybody who agreed with that said, Amen, y'all.
I want y'all to think about a couple reactions that you might
have from time to time. The first reaction is one of
just genuine, spontaneous. OK, that's one of my favorite
reactions. Maybe you ate a new food this
week. I know all the children are
like, no, I didn't because kids, we've got our flavor profile and
our textures and we're good. But as an adult.
I was this way when my my first Cinco de Mayo as a married man,
my wife had me eat guacamole for the first time.
OK, I was 22, and it was incredible.
I was so grateful, and my reaction was joyful.
The best Thanksgiving new dish that got added to my flavor
profile this week was like a cranberry bacon Brussels sprout.
It was banging and I reacted well.
All right, here's the second reaction you might be used to.
It's one of dismissal. Dismissal.
Dismissal isn't denying that something is what it is.
It's dismissing what it should do to you.
Are you with me? So to my sports people, I am in
dismissal mode with the Baltimore Ravens during the
regular season. OK, I can't deny that they win a
lot of games. I can't deny their greatness in
the regular season. I'm just dismissing it because
they don't do it when it matters.
Does that make sense? It does not register to me until
I see it when it matters. So I, I can't deny, but I do
dismiss. And maybe you're that way.
Somebody's just trying to convince you to try something
new, but you're in dismissal mode.
I can't deny that that was good for you or that restaurant is
great to you, but I'm not going to go eat there.
Some of y'all just have that temperament too.
When people tell you to try something, you're like, no.
In today's text, these are the two reactions we're going to
see. We're going to see the crowds
marvel at Jesus. They're going to be blown away
by what they see. We're going to see the
culmination of the last two chapters and they're just
marveling at him. And the other reaction we're
going to see is from the Pharisees, which is just
dismissal. Like I, Nah, they can't deny who
Jesus is, but they are going to dismiss him.
OK, So what I hope for us is that we won't dismiss Jesus, but
we'll marvel at him until we move towards him.
Marvel at him until you move towards him.
To get there, we're going to take this text from three
angles, from the man who's oppressed by a demon, from the
crowd to marvel at Jesus, and from the Pharisees who dismissed
Jesus. If you are ready, let me hear
you say I'm ready. All right, let's.
Start with the man. Let's start with the man.
Verse 32 said as they were going away, behold a demon oppressed
man who was mute was brought to him.
And when the demon had been cast out, the mute man spoke.
OK, the backdrop of today's primary meaning is all about how
you react to Jesus. But the backdrop is this, this
demon oppression scene, OK. And we've seen this a little bit
here in our journey through Matthew 8-9, but I'm going to
give you a couple other angles on just the conversation around
demons. And just a reminder y'all, the
goal is not just to learn more information, it's to live with
God, OK? How we think about the demonic
and God's role in that impacts how much you trust God, OK?
That's why we're going to, we're going to talk about this for a
second. So the language here of demon
oppressed could be translated demon possessed.
So those are kind of interchangeable.
Sometimes it's demon oppressed, sometimes it's demon possessed.
And Hollywood has definitely impacted what we think that
means. OK, few questions.
I just want to ask really quick. As we think about demons, number
one, does this still happen #2 Why does God not in the demonic
realm now forever? Why does he allow it to
continue? And #3 how and why should you
trust a God who allows it to continue when he could end it?
Y'all with me? OK, first question, does this
still happen? Yes, OK, yes.
Now Satan, the word Satan, thus Satan, he's literally the
deceiver, the accuser, OK. And as the deceptor that he is,
he morphs the way he operates in a culture to whatever version it
needs to be for that culture. So in some parts of our world,
even today, they're still from a medicine standpoint and from a
development standpoint and from a just fear of the the spiritual
realm standpoint. It's kind of like it is in the
biblical times. It still operates this way.
There's witch doctors, there's all kinds of things.
And in those context, Satan leverages fear, leverages direct
oppression a little more overtly, if you will.
In our context, the deception is just to let a bunch of
individual, individualistic people who think they have all
control and power and all technology, like his strategy
with us is just give us a phone, OK?
His strategy with us is just continue to let us think we are
the smartest people who have ever existed.
And he is totally fine with that.
He doesn't need to shake it up as much though.
This still happens in our culture.
I just want to push a little. Bit y'all, because I think we
think we're not influenced by the demonic.
That's not what the Bible says. OK, turn with me to Ephesians 2.
Ephesians. 2 Lot of y'all know this text.
And for the. People in the room who follow
Jesus. When you look.
Back on life pre Jesus, you agree with what we're about to
read. You agree with Ephesians chapter
2 verses one through 3 which say this.
Paul's telling some now believers what they once were
like, he says, and you were dead in the trespasses and sins of
which he once walked, following the course of this world,
following the Prince of the power of the air.
Who is that? That's Satan.
The spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience,
among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh,
carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and we're by
nature children of wrath like the rest of mankind.
Now let me break down for you what that means.
What it means is your experience when you're not in Christ is
that you do what you want to do. You follow the the desires of
your flesh. You do what seems right to you.
You live as if what you want done is what you do and you do
it. So you don't, as it as it were,
take orders from Satan, right? You don't experience life that
way. But when Paul talks about what
it means to be saved by Christ, you're going from under the
influence of the power of the heir, whose main strategy is to
let everybody just do what they want to do.
Does that make sense? So you don't think of yourself
as Team Satan, But in reality, you are not aligned with God's
agenda. You do not care for him.
You don't love him when you're not in Christ.
So the Prince of the Power of the Air just lets everybody do
their thing. So even though you don't feel
directly led by him, that's what it means to be under, under the,
the influence of Satan. Second Timothy says this, this
is a tough one. Second Timothy chapter 2.
Second Timothy chapter 2 says this starting in verse 24, He's,
he's talking to Timothy about how to handle certain people
that he's dealing with. And the Lord's servant must not
be quarrelsome, but kind to everyone, able to teach
patiently enduring evil. Correcting his opponents with
gentleness, God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to
a knowledge of the truth, and they may come to their senses
and escape from the snare of the devil after being captured by
him to do his will. Yeah, again, this is hard.
What the Bible teaches is that when you are not a Christ
follower, which none of us are born into, that it's not like
we're born. Just give me Jesus.
I love him. We're born self, self, self,
self, self, self, self. In some kind of way, we are
under the influence of the demonic.
We, we are gladly held captive. That's kind of the idea.
As we talked about last week, we're blind because we're
covering our eyes. We can't hear because we're
covering our ears, right? That's the way the Bible thinks
about it. So does this still happen today?
Is the demonic still influencing even a culture like ours?
Yes. OK #2 why does God allow them to
continue? If Jesus could walk the earth
and just say get out, go, if he could just cast them out with
the touch, why is God allowing it to go to the end of the age
where he will throw Satan and all his minions into the lake of
fire as Revelation tells us? Why wait?
And my language there is very intentional because y'all you
need to understand this theologically.
Satan is not self existent you know that right?
Let me tell you what that means. It means that God is the only
self existent reality in the universe.
God is the only person who exists just because he is.
Why is God God? Because he is.
He has no on switch. He just is you with me.
Like there is no start in God. There was no beginning.
There will be no end. He just is.
God is the only is that there is.
Write that down OK. He's the only is that always
will be and was and is OK. Which means that Satan in some
kind of way is contingent upon God, which means God is allowing
him to continue. Because if you don't accept
that, you are beginning to believe a chaos theory of
reality, which the Greek God mentality was, which is that
it's just some sort of war of good and evil going on and we
are a cosmic result of that, if that makes sense.
That's sort of what the Greek mythology world is built on.
It's just chaos, OK? That is not what the Bible
teaches. OK, we don't, we're not in a
world of chaos that is outside of God's business control.
And the second we say that we're like, well then why does he let
it go this way? And y'all the best I could tell
you because he's God and because.
In his. Infinite wisdom, goodness, the
foundation of His throne is righteousness and justice.
He wants it to be this way. He allows it to be this way to
showcase who He is and so we can taste of His goodness within our
free will in a world of suffering and brokenness.
And He is redeeming all things and because He's God and that's
the way it is. OK, that's hard, but it's good.
It showcases who He is. Now here's the question.
How do we live with God in a world where he continues to
allow it to be this way? Here's my prayer for you.
OK, I pray this just gets anchored in you, just all the
way down to your core. If you are a Christ follower,
God is good. Let me tell you what that means.
God can't will evil. There is no shadow or variation.
He is not petty. God is not the source of evil.
The Bible teaches some kind of way that he can be the allure of
things and not the blameworthy causer of them.
OK, so when evil befalls us, yo, God did not do that to you, OK,
Satan hates you OK? He is coming for your life.
He is the devouring lion seeking someone to devour.
OK, God is good and I fully understand that our brains go,
but he could and he doesn't. So why?
And I'm with you, I'm with that, but it's not because he's not
good. You have to anchor the goodness.
It has to be there. The the language I would just
offer to you is you have to develop a covenantal view of
reality. Let me tell you what that means.
It means that God is good and God is for you no matter what
happens. And once that anchor gets in,
everything that happens is interpreted through the filter
of His goodness. If you live a reactive reality,
you're always going to doubt Him.
You will never trust Him. Does that make sense?
It's always contingent upon what you see.
If God's goodness comes after what you see, you're in trouble.
His goodness is the filter for what you see.
It's covenantal. It makes sense once you're in.
It doesn't make sense if you're standing outside analyzing.
Are you with me? You have to get to where you
just trust him because he's good.
He's holy, he's righteous, he's not petty.
And in his infinite goodness, in some kind of way, everything
that he allows us to go through that could be demonically
influenced, He's still for you in it.
Does that make sense? He's with you in the fire.
One of one of my favorite hymns is called Mighty Fortress of Our
God. This is a little little bars
from the 15th century. Try to be updated a little bit.
Here we go, and though this world with devils filled should
threaten to undo us, we will not fear, for God hath willed his
truth to triumph through us. The Prince of darkness, Grimm,
we tremble not for him. His rage we can endure, for lo
his doom is sure. One little word shall fail him
y'all. The idea that most of Christian
history has just assumed is that bad things are going to happen
and God is good, and we both of those can be true.
I beg you as best you can to not allow your mutinous, so to
speak, as the man had in this text to make you think God ain't
for you. He is.
And one day you going to see it's all going to make sense.
But I pray in this life where demons still do their thing, we
can look at God and say go get them.
That's kind of what they do with Jesus, right?
They're not like, how dare you let him be?
They didn't watch him get unmuted.
You with me And they'll be like, why'd you let him get?
Muted in the 1st place, they're like, praise God, somebody can
undo the pain of this world. Amen.
Somebody. OK, Which leads us to the mute
man speaking. You know, the dude couldn't
hear, couldn't speak, tongue was mute.
OK, And Jesus just cast out the demon.
Get out of here. You got to go.
Which shows that Jesus has authority over demons.
Do you notice in our text in Matthew 8-9, demons don't
disobey? Jesus isn't that crazy?
We saw the last chapter. They beg him.
They come up with a plan for him to kick them out and he says OK,
go like Jesus has authority even over demons.
That's part of the point of what we're seeing here, is that there
is one who has come who is so authoritatively powerful that
they obey him even though they don't like him.
OK, it's amazing. And we saw last week that a
blind man saw, and now a mute man speaks.
I love that combination. The blind see, the mute hear.
They speak, right? Like that combination of seeing
and hearing and how Jesus gives us sight and gives us the
ability to hear. Apart from Jesus you can't see.
Apart from Jesus you can't hear. That's kind of the idea.
And it begs the question, what were your eyes made for?
What were your ears made to hear?
Psalm 6331 of my favorites. You can write this down.
I'll read it over you. Psalm 63 three says this because
your steadfast love is better than life.
My lips will praise you, you all.
The idea of the Bible is that my my body, who I am belongs to
God. What is our only hope in life
and death that we are not our own but belong to God.
So I was made to praise. I was made to sing the the he's
not loving this man by giving him an ability to just use his
lips. He's he's unleashing for him
what he could not do, which was praise God out loud.
Does that make sense? It's like he's bursting with joy
to the God who has set him free. So we're not getting arbitrary
miracles where these people's lives are just made better.
They're made better in Christ. Does it make sense?
Now I see the first thing the blind man saw last week was
Jesus. The first thing this man is
going to do when he can speak is speak about how the Lord set him
free. So we just got to ask the
question like, are we submitted in such a way as our life
showcasing the glory of God? Are we shouting of His goodness?
Or are we taking the things God gave us like our lips, like our
bodies and our allegiance with those things As to something
else, Something else gets the praise right?
Your lips will speak of something, right?
Your eyes will look at something and your eyes were made to look
at, your lips were made to speak about, your ears were made to
hear the goodness of Jesus and these people being delivered
from that. Though I'm not literally mute, I
remember a time where I was, you know what I mean?
And hopefully if you're in Christ, you could say the same
thing. OK, so this man gets delivered.
Now let's watch how the crowds react.
Let's look at how the crowds react verse 33.
And when the demon had been cast out, the mute man spoke and the
crowds marvelled, saying, never was anything seen like this in
Israel? You know, that's a big
statement. You know how on TV shows, every
once in a while they have an episode that's just like, kind
of pulling clips from all the old episodes?
You know what I'm talking about. Like maybe somebody's sick in
the show and then they just have a day where they remember things
from all the old ones. I'm like, they just needed an
episode and they were running out of ideas.
So they had a day where they just pulled all the old clips.
OK, Well, if you think about that idea, when they say never
has anything been seen like this in Israel, you got to do the
clips of what Israel has seen. Y'all?
They've seen AC split in two. OK, They have seen gnats by the
billions just coming down. They've seen hail the size of
cars just falling, They've seen just wild stuff.
They saw the sun stand still in the book of Joshua.
Y'all remember that? Like literally the day just
stopped so they could beat up their enemies and then that's
never happened again. They have seen countless
miracles. So this isn't just some flippant
statement. And it's not just referring to
the mute man speaking, it's referring to everything we've
seen in Matthew chapters 89 y'all the The sea was stopped by
this man, the blind sea because of this man, the mute here
because of this man. Demons are fleeing because of
this man. He touches people with fevers
and they start serving him. We have seen just a building
picture that Jesus is unlike anybody the world has ever seen.
When he says. When they say never has anything
been seen like this in Israel now, it's kind of the
culmination of what we've been talking about.
Jesus is the fulfillment of everything Israel pointed to.
He is the king like David. He is the prophet like Elijah
and Elijah He is the priest who doesn't just declare you clean
but makes you clean. He is everything Israel was
supposed to be to the world but wasn't.
Y'all. The whole point of the whole Old
Testament was that God had chosen a people for himself.
He delivered them from Egypt so that He could be their people.
Worship me, enjoy me, showcase my goodness through the law to
all the people. They will have it so made that
they will come crawling to Zion to ask how to get in with the
Lord. That was the idea of the Old
Testament, and they so butchered it that nobody was coming and
begging to get in with Zion. Are you with me?
They were not showcasing the glory of God.
They were butchering what it meant to be God's people.
So the idea is that somebody has to come in and showcase the
goodness of God. Somebody has to come in and
fulfill this story that they blew.
And that person is Jesus. He's reliving the story of the
people of God. He is the king of Israel.
That's why no one had ever seen anything like this in Israel.
He's the culmination of everything that had been pointed
to and this language here that they marveled at him.
That's not really the first time we've seen this in Matthew.
I want to show you one other place.
Turn with me to Matthew 7, Matthew 7, Matthew 7 at the end
of the Sermon on the Mount. If your Bible is read all the
5-6 and seven was all read. He was just preaching.
OK verse 28 at the end of the sermon and when Jesus finished
these sayings, the crowds were astonished at his teaching.
Check this next verse. Before he was teaching them as
one who had everybody say that word authority and not as their
scribes. So what what is building here,
y'all, is this picture that Jesus has authority in his
teaching. He has authority in his
miracles. He has authority.
So he's having authority by by telling demons to get out.
So, you know, like there's this boss status to what he's telling
people to do, but he also had authority even just in how he
taught. Like, what does that even mean?
It means he's not a Supreme Court Justice looking at the law
and trying to interpret it for you.
He is the law. Like he is something to which
those things point. He's not just breaking it down
for you. He is it to you.
Are you with me? Jesus taught in a way nobody
else taught. Jesus is authority.
I want to break down authority for us.
I think we think authority is standard, which it is.
That's the first word. Authority means standard.
It means he should be the one that creates that category for
you. Let me break that down for you.
Jesus is love. God is love.
So love does not exist. And we hold Jesus to that
standard. He is the standard.
Are you with me? Like God is the standard of
justice? God is the standard of all kinds
of things. That's what it means to be the
authority. He's the author.
He wrote the book. He is the originator.
OK. And he is the source of those
things. So to be authority means he is
the standard of it. So like, we don't hold him up to
it, we hold it up to him. Are y'all with me?
But he's also the source from which those things come.
Where do you think the concept of love came from?
When he taught? He taught like he was oozing out
the stuff that he's talking about.
Does that make sense? When he healed, he wasn't just
showcasing power. He was emanating the source of
life from which all things flow. Jesus is the source of life
itself. So he's not just first in line,
He is the line. Are you with me?
He is the new Adam, and in him something is starting over.
What Jesus is showcasing for us is what humanity was designed to
be. But.
Failed to be. And in him it is starting over.
He is the king of Israel. So this is a question I have for
us as we think about Jesus being the authority, are you still
sizing him up? I don't know if y'all size
people up. Somebody walks in the gym.
You're like, it's funny because you can watch people sometimes,
like they'll genuinely just start to.
Just walk like I'd see old pictures of myself.
I'm like, what are you doing, man?
Like what a loser like you're you're a little puffed out.
You're like what is wrong with you?
Or you puff out, you size up how smart somebody is or how pretty
you think they are or whatever it is.
Y'all. The idea of sizing up is this
other I'm analyzing, this other I'm over and I will attribute to
it or you where you fit in orbit to me, right?
Are you still sizing up Jesus, Yo, Jesus is the authority.
He isn't to be sized up. He's to be submitted to.
He's to be orbited around, not to just be.
I guess you could play with us. You could be on our team.
That's my favorite is when you size somebody up and deep down
you're like, we need him. You like we'll take him.
He could play with us and it's like you begging him to be on
your team. Let me say this y'all.
Is Jesus your standard and your source, or you ask him to be
your mascot? A mascot is the brand of you,
right? The mascot can't speak.
He's there's somebody in there. But if that person called out
sick, we'll get somebody else. Amen.
Somebody. A mascot just represents your
view of things, The standard, the source you submit to.
Are you with me? I think some of us approach
Jesus like a mascot. And not like the standard in the
text, it says the crowds marveled.
Somebody say marveled. Y'all, Marvel just means like
odd, admiring, astonished. It's one of those just like
you're speechless. Breath taken away, yo.
You were made to marvel at Jesus.
You were. You are a marveler.
Marveler. Somebody say I marvel.
You do and in our dopamine world, our the new economy is
the attention economy, which has been well documented.
People are paying to get your marvel.
What do you think we're doing when we're scrolling?
We're marveling. We're looking for things to be
taken by, to be grabbed by and in this world, it's getting
harder and harder to be impressed, isn't it?
You'll see a. Video that 1000 years ago people
would have paid $1,000,000 and walked 100 miles to go see that.
And you're like, saw that last week, you know, oh, it's a
donkey on one leg doing this spinning.
You're like probably fake, you know, we're so.
Hard to impress. I just want to put I just want
to put the Pebble in your shoe. Is this idea You aren't the
question isn't are you marveling?
But are you marveling? Well, like what is your marvel
economy look like right now? What's getting your marvel?
What's got your attention? What has captivated your
mindset? What is getting your glare?
What is getting your focus? And you might say to me, T, I'm
not marveling, man. I you, you too serious about all
this stuff. I'm just living my life.
I'm just, I'm trying to go to work.
I'm trying to survive. I'm doing this on the weekends.
I look and a little bit we can have this.
I don't know if you you resonate with that when I was first
hearing about the Gospels, Like this all just sounds serious.
Like I'm just living life. Yeah.
I scroll on my phone. I'm playing fantasy football.
I'm just doing my thing, man. Can you chill?
And I just want to say to you, listen, the issue here isn't
just that you're doing something wrong by by by thinking that
way, it's that you're missing out.
Are you with me? You were made to marvel at more
than fantasy football. Are you with me?
And if we could talk about are creaking just how to do fantasy
football. Roz, my guy, right now, the rest
of y'all like it's 100° in here, man Hurry up.
Listen, listen, listen. You are made to marvel at more
than that stuff. You were made for more than
surviving through the week and having some drinks with your
friends. You were made for more than just
looking at those images that capture your attention before
you go to bed. You were made for more than
gossip. You were made for more than just
settling for the stuff we settled for.
You were made to marvel at a God who oozes power and kindness and
good and love and in his goodness and kindness and love,
y'all. The ultimate display of that is
what He did for us on the cross. Yo, Jesus Christ is the King of
all authority who did not get up in ultimate flex on us and
demand that we. Worship him.
He got up on a piece of wood and died a criminal's death in the
place of those who yawn at him and say appreciate you.
Thanks for making me. I'll take it from here, but I
like your teachings and you can be my mascot.
That's what we do, and he dies in our place for us, gladly.
Why would we marvel at anything less?
Why settle for the stuff we settle for?
I'll make this note about the crowds before we move on to the
Pharisees. Y'all marveling at a distance as
the crowds do. Because let's be clear, not all
of those in the crowd are Christ's followers.
They're just seeing something in there.
They're marking the moment. But Matthew's intent by showing
us that is to invite us to get closer, right?
Is it to invite us to be 1 moving towards Him in need?
You know the the goal of your marveling is to bring you into
union with Christ, to bring you into life with Him.
So what doesn't make sense is to call yourself a marveler, but
then your life is not a marveling, if you will.
You're not with Christ. One of my, my favorite lines is
some say they've seen the Lord, but live on casually.
I don't know what you saw, but the Lord ain't what you've seen.
Because once you've seen the Lord, you're obsessed with what
you've seen. That's the idea.
So, So if you're in the crowd today, you're impressed.
He didn't come to impress you, but to know you, to love you, to
be in a relationship with you. So come closer to the cross,
fall on your knees and just worship him.
But unfortunately, many of us are like the Pharisees.
Let's take a look at the Pharisees, verse 34.
But the Pharisees said He casts out demons by the Prince of
demons. Some of y'all know that later
Jesus will address that Matthew chapter 12.
He'll go off on how that don't make no sense logically, like
how I'm going to drive out demons and he going to just RIP
them. OK, this is the first time that
the Pharisee Jesus rub is starting in Matthew's book.
OK, he alluded to the Pharisees and the sermon on the mount.
John the Baptist talked about the Pharisees.
There's been little drips, but this is the first kind of
haterade in the in the juice, if you will, from the Pharisees.
And it's going to build throughout the rest of his book
until they are half of the group, so to speak, that that
has Jesus killed the other half being Roman, right?
And the question we should be asking is who in their right
mind would dismiss this Jesus? And the answer is the Pharisees.
We got to be careful because not every Pharisee ever denies
Jesus. Some move towards him, some
repent the priests and Acts 6 come to faith.
We got to be careful that we don't just knock all people that
are like in a religious vocation of some kind of somehow that
means you're going to be on the outs.
That's not the point. But they are in a dangerous
position, y'all and they represent that.
You can't deny Jesus, but you can't dismiss him.
Jesus can't be denied. Historians can't deny that he
historically lived like you. You can't deny him.
You can't deny his power. You can't deny the life change
he's have for people. You can't deny the the Christian
movement, but you can dismiss it.
You can not deny it, but dismiss it.
It can be true for you, but not for me, or I'm unmoved by it and
what the Pharisees represent. Is the version of us which many
of us stay stuck in, that we don't want to deny him, but we
dismiss him. I was there for a long time.
And in the Pharisees mind, if Jesus was really God, he would
go through them. That's the Pharisees mind is we
are the people who know the books.
We know Torah, so if this Christ was really Messiah, he would.
Run it by us. He would check that we would
have a study session and then all come out as a united front
and tell the people right, if Yahweh really came in the flesh,
he would run it by us. And what happened was not that.
And instead of humble submission, if their hearts were
really aligned with Yahweh was a challenge, a power struggle.
The Pharisees represent our tendency to want Jesus to work
for us, but we don't want to submit to him.
There's a Pharisee in all of us where we stand outside of God
and hold him to our standard. And once it feels like he don't
work for us, we're like, we're out.
You got to run that by us. You got to run your teachings by
us. And I think.
Part of the intent of the text is to invite the readers in in
such a way that we're asking ourselves, are we the crowd
who's marveling? Are we moving towards Jesus?
Is he setting us free? Are we speaking now or are we
standing back and dismissing? And although eventually Jesus
would confront the Pharisees, there is an element of if that's
where your heart goes, God is going to let you.
When we harden our hearts, that's scary.
So I just want to ask the question, are you submitting to
Jesus authority or challenging it?
You know, those are the options. If he is and we we're not
denying him, are we just dismissing him or are we gladly
submitting to him and moving towards him?
There is no neutrality. There is no good for you.
The the reality is if we're not submitted to King Jesus, to
dismiss him is to claim to be your own authority.
Y'all, the essence of sin is to look at God and say, I think I
could do it better. I think I would do this better
than you. That's what sinners think is we
think I don't need a God. I am one.
And if there is one, he's in, he's in with me, but I do not
submit to him. Y'all, That is sin.
So I think Matthew is asking us, are we going to dismiss him and
be our own authority or? Y'all will We like the crowds
marvel. At this Christ.
Will we see that we need him to set us free?
We do not see apart from him. We can't hear we need him.
So my final just plea to you is to don't dismiss Jesus, but
marvel at him until you move toward him.
Y'all, my language there is very particular.
Y'all, Jesus did not come for us to to know some facts about him
and say some sermons we heard from him.
Oh, I know about that. Or I learned that the goal is
that your marveling moves you that you see him until you move
towards him. And the beauty that we're seeing
in these two chapters is no matter how dirty you feel when
you see him, you have access to him because the good news is
once you see him, you come. There's nothing preventing you
from coming. He will cleanse your sin.
He will take your guilt. He will wear your shame.
That's what we've seen in this building picture here in Matthew
89. What's keeping us is our sinful
desire to stay in charge ultimately to an authority.
What you've got to do is you have to submit.
You know, what that looks like is just just acknowledging that
that dynamic existed. God, I didn't want to submit.
I don't want to. And it's getting real about your
uncleanness. It's getting real about your
sin. And it's asking him to cleanse
you, to save you, you know, at the end of the day.
To be made right with God. You just got it.
You've got to acknowledge y'all are not equals here.
Man like that, that this ain't a partnership.
You know what I mean? Like.
This is he, he the King, he the. Source of all life.
He's the one who is and is to come.
We've got an expiration date. He don't.
And it's just an acknowledgement.
You are better. Your way is better.
I'm in. I trust you.
I don't fully get you, but I've seen enough.
I'm marvel at your kindness, you know, I've told you before.
And I get just a little bit of authority.
I get petty, I don't know about y'all, just a little, just a
little power makes goes to my head real quick, you know what I
mean? So quick.
And guys, in his kindness he is just moving towards us, begging
you to see him for who he is. He wants to bless you with his
power, not use you for his his own sake.
Here's the last little nugget I want to I want to throw in here.
When you get in the orbit of Christ, you really see him for
who he is. You notice how many people in
Matthew 8-9 bring somebody else to Jesus?
Did you notice that verse 32 as they were going away, behold, a
demon oppressed man who was mute was brought to him.
Do you remember the, the friends with the roof?
How they, they, they lowered the friend down?
Do you remember the the centurion saying my servant is
dying, you got to come? There's this idea of like once.
You see the kindness of God, you not only get on your knees and
submit to him and you orbit in his reality, but you're so
moved. You see so much pain and you're
like, God, What about them? God help them.
God, you become an intercessor. You become somebody who stands
in the gap for others. You become somebody.
But what's your agenda for today?
I'm a bring a demon oppressed man to Jesus, OK?
And I just want to beg the question that the church family
here who's living on mission together in our great city,
y'all, are we marveling until we move toward Him, not just for
our wish list, but because His kindness is needed in other
people's life, because people are suffering, because people
are dead in their sin, Y'all, We cannot stop coming to Him in
prayer, believing, begging that He will save our friends.
We cannot stop interceding for justice for people to get the
help that they need. God is kind, He is accessible,
and you are his child. If you're in Christ, come to him
on behalf of your friends who were lost.
God will respond. Don't give up.
Let me pray for us, our Father, we love you.
Thank you so much for the gospel that you are the one who turns
enemies into sons and daughters. Lord, may we not dismiss You got
to pray for anybody continuing to.
To try to hide behind neutrality.
Lord, I pray you would push them, Lord, to sober minded
reflection upon their their status before you, God, that
they would see that they think they can do it better than you
and God. They would just repent of the
sinfulness of that God. They would repent of their
control. They would repent God of seeing
you as harsh when you're really kind God.
That they would just. Trust you God, I pray your
kindness would melt them. Your kindness at the cross.
God, would you do that today? Would you save somebody?
Would you turn somebody's heart by the power of the Holy Spirit
and God? I pray for those of us who are
in Christ. Would we marvel at you until we
move towards you and God, In our moving towards you, we intercede
on behalf of our great city. Would many come to faith in
Christ who maybe we've written off and given up on?
God, would we continue to marvel until we move on their behalf?
We love you. We pray this in Christ's name,
Amen.