Kevin Cooney: What a pleasure to be with you all this morning.
Kevin Cooney: Uh if you have your Bible with you, you can open it to the book of Matthew, chapter 26, or 883 in your pew Bibles.
Kevin Cooney: Just a word of uh greetings to our guests this morning, those who have come to visit us.
Kevin Cooney: Just want to let you know that you are so welcome here and we are so grateful that you're here.
Kevin Cooney: And uh I hope that you have come looking for hope.
Kevin Cooney: I know I say this every time, but this is a message of hope and joy and love this morning from our great God and Father.
Kevin Cooney: Um, allow me to pray for us this morning before we begin.
Kevin Cooney: Heavenly Father, there are so many things that swirl around in our hearts and our minds, the tasks that are undone, the relationships that we fret about.
Kevin Cooney: Lord, would you grant us a moment of clarity and peace that we might hear from you this morning?
Kevin Cooney: And would you grant us, Lord, hearts that can receive this word, that we would respond in faith.
Kevin Cooney: Lord, I pray for those that have come this morning, that that don't yet know you as Father.
Kevin Cooney: And I pray, Lord, that you would do something beyond our wildest expectations.
Kevin Cooney: Lord, I pray for those of us that that know you, that our hearts maybe have become distracted with the things around us, the political sphere, the the troubles in our homes, in our families, just even the sin in our own heart, Lord, would you would you grant us that we would behold afresh the wondrous mystery?
Kevin Cooney: And Lord, would you allow me to bring a blessing to your people?
Kevin Cooney: I ask this in Jesus' name.
Kevin Cooney: Amen.
Speaker: I've been thinking through what kind of a person Matthew has written this gospel to.
Speaker: The gospel of Matthew, we know, is not some kind of a gospel tract.
Speaker: It wasn't intended to sort of uh be handed out to unbelievers.
Speaker: These scrolls were expensive to make and even more expensive and time-consuming to hand copy.
Speaker: He's writing to believers, to Christians.
Speaker: Certainly he has a desire that those that would read this gospel would be able to better share its contents with others.
Speaker: But what kind of believer exactly is Matthew writing to?
Speaker: Certainly a newer Christian, perhaps someone still wrestling with some of the implications of this teaching.
Speaker: Maybe they're wondering: is this some kind of new new religion, a new fad?
Speaker: Is this a foreign religion?
Speaker: Is this a trend?
Speaker: A dangerous heresy, perhaps?
Speaker: Is this a cult?
Speaker: Am I abandoning my heritage and my people by following this Messiah?
Speaker: Am I betraying Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob?
Speaker: Those are questions that are even relevant for us today.
Speaker: But there's another element here that sometimes can get lost on us in the West.
Speaker: And that is, what would it cost for someone in Matthew's original audience to follow this Christ?
Speaker: And the answer in the first century, and for most of the world still today, is that it may cost you everything to give all of your loyalty to Jesus Christ above all things, it may cost you more than just humiliation or the insults of others.
Speaker: It could cost you your life, or the life of your spouse, or your children.
Speaker: It's in the book of Matthew, we read this.
Speaker: Jesus said, Look, I'm sending you out like sheep among wolves.
Speaker: What do wolves do to sheep?
Speaker: They devour them.
Speaker: For Matthew's first readers, they better be ready to lose everything to follow this Messiah and this teaching.
Speaker: In fact, that's exactly what Jesus is calling his people to do.
Speaker: And so they better be certain that this Jesus is the one that the prophets spoke about, that this isn't new.
Speaker: And so Matthew writes this gospel in order that we might have confidence that this revelation of the person and work of Jesus Christ is not some fad, but that it is rooted in the historic events that surround the birth, the life, the death, and the resurrection of Jesus.
Speaker: But more than that, that this Jesus is the expectation, the fulfillment, the very substance of all that the Old Testament was pointing to.
Speaker: That God has been preparing and foretelling the coming of this Messiah for several thousand years.
Speaker: And at last Matthew announces he has come.
Speaker: He has come.
Speaker: Just as the word of God had spoken.
Speaker: Jesus is the Messiah.
Speaker: And therefore we can follow him no matter the cost and no matter the loss.
Speaker: And our sermon this morning really only has one point.
Speaker: And we're going to see it play out in three separate settings or three scenes.
Speaker: The point is that God fulfills his word.
Speaker: And we're going to see this play out in the courtyard of the high priest.
Speaker: We're going to see it play out in the court of Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor.
Speaker: And lastly, at the Jewish temple.
Speaker: Allow me to read our text for us this morning, beginning in Matthew chapter 26, verse 69.
Speaker: Now Peter was sitting outside in the courtyard.
Speaker: A servant girl approached him and said, You were with Jesus the Galilean too.
Speaker: But he denied it in front of everyone.
Speaker: I don't know what you're talking about.
Speaker: When he had gone out to the gateway, another woman saw him and told those who were there, This man was with Jesus the Nazarene.
Speaker: And again he denied it with an oath.
Speaker: I don't know the man.
Speaker: After a little while those standing there approached and said to Peter, You really are one of them, since even your accent gives you away.
Speaker: Then he started to curse and to swear with an oath, I don't know the man.
Speaker: Immediately a rooster crowed, and Peter remembered the words Jesus had spoken.
Speaker: Before the rooster crows, you will deny me three times.
Speaker: And he went outside and wept bitterly.
Speaker: Chapter twenty-seven, verse one.
Speaker: When daybreak came, all the chief priests and the elders of the people plotted against Jesus to put him to death.
Speaker: After tying him up, they led him away and handed him over to Pilate, the governor.
Speaker: Then Judas, his betrayer, seeing that Jesus had been condemned, was full of remorse, and returned the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priest and the elders.
Speaker: I have sinned by betraying innocent blood, he said.
Speaker: What's that to us?
Speaker: They said.
Speaker: See to it yourself.
Speaker: So he threw the silver into the temple and departed.
Speaker: Then he went and hanged himself.
Speaker: The chief priest took the silver and said, It's not permitted to put it into the temple treasury, since it is blood money.
Speaker: They conferred together and bought the potter's field with it as a burial place for foreigners.
Speaker: Therefore that field has been called field of blood to this day.
Speaker: Then what was spoken through the prophet Jeremiah was fulfilled.
Speaker: They took the thirty pieces of silver, the price of him whose price was set by the Israelites, and they gave them for the potter's field as the Lord directed me.
Speaker: This section begins by connecting it to the earlier events of the night before, where Jesus predicts the denial of Peter.
Speaker: The word of Jesus here is being fulfilled and upheld.
Speaker: If you remember several weeks ago, I was here preaching on Jesus' prediction of Peter's betrayal, and I brought it to attention for us: this contrast between Peter's word and Jesus' word.
Speaker: God's word prevails, the word of man does not.
Speaker: In our text today, we see that man's word once again falters.
Speaker: But Jesus has spoken, and it is so.
Speaker: God's word is fulfilled.
Speaker: Look at Peter's denial.
Speaker: It's threefold in verse 70.
Speaker: I don't know what you're talking about.
Speaker: I don't know how he said it.
Speaker: I don't know what you're talking about.
Speaker: But it but there's an escalation in verse 72.
Speaker: There's an oath, I don't know the man.
Speaker: In verse 74, now he's cursing.
Speaker: And then not necessarily expletives, but more likely calling down curses.
Speaker: May God judge me.
Speaker: I don't know the man.
Speaker: Peter's sworn oath just the day before was that he will not deny Jesus.
Speaker: And now, as Jesus is arrested and standing before the Jewish authorities, Peter swears that he does not know the man with an oath just as rash and worthless as it was the day before.
Speaker: And yet Jesus' word remains just as certain as the sun is hot.
Speaker: And Peter remembered the words that Jesus had spoken, verse 75.
Speaker: What a monumental failure for Peter.
Speaker: You know, there are these moments in Scripture where you just kind of think, wow, this is really bad.
Speaker: Or maybe perhaps we're just so familiar with this story and we think so well of Peter.
Speaker: Maybe we're just too accustomed to God's grace that we don't actually feel how bad this is.
Speaker: And you would think, or maybe I should say, the original audience of Matthew, they might see this denial as far more shameful and offensive than us.
Speaker: It's blasphemous.
Speaker: If God is true, I don't know the man.
Speaker: They might think there's no coming back from such depravity.
Speaker: Total rejection, a flat-out denial of the Lord Jesus Christ, total self-preservation.
Speaker: The man who saw Jesus perform miracles.
Speaker: Peter, who was taught privately by Jesus, who had Jesus in his home.
Speaker: This Jesus who touched his mother and healed her from her fever.
Speaker: The same Jesus who reached out and caught Peter as he sank into the water.
Speaker: Even if I have to die with you, Peter told him, I will never deny you.
Speaker: And here he is calling down curses upon himself.
Speaker: I don't know him.
Speaker: You know, I was reminded several times this week of Hezekiah's son Manasseh.
Speaker: This guy, arguably the worst king that Judah ever had.
Speaker: It's frightening how wicked this guy is.
Speaker: In 2 Kings 21, you get his biography, and you can read of how this guy did evil in the sight of the Lord.
Speaker: He's rebuilding pagan temples throughout Israel and setting up perverse images in the temple of God.
Speaker: He sacrifices his son in the fire, probably a reference to the pagan god Molech.
Speaker: They would have this sort of bronze statue with extended arms.
Speaker: They would place a fire under to superheat the arms, and as they beat their drums to drown out the screams, they would place the baby on the arms.
Speaker: As it melted, horrible stuff.
Speaker: Horrible guy.
Speaker: Why am I sharing this?
Speaker: Well, the author of Chronicles, he offers some information about Manasseh that really takes a wrecking ball to the way that we often think about God's mercy and his grace and how it should work.
Speaker: Our natural inclination is this you know, the big sinners, they get judgment and they deserve it.
Speaker: But you know, the little sins and us little sinners, we we get forgiveness.
Speaker: Is that how it works?
Speaker: Listen to 2 Chronicles, chapter 33, verse 10 to 13.
Speaker: The Lord spoke to Manasseh and his people, but they didn't listen.
Speaker: So he brought against them the military commanders of the king of Assyria.
Speaker: They captured Manasseh with hooks.
Speaker: Not a good thing.
Speaker: Bound him with bronze shackles and took him to Babylon.
Speaker: Now listen to this.
Speaker: When he was in distress, he sought the favor of the Lord his God and earnestly humbled himself before the God of his ancestors.
Speaker: He prayed to him, and the Lord was receptive to his prayer.
Speaker: He granted his request and brought him back to Jerusalem to his kingdom.
Speaker: So Manasseh came to know that the Lord is God.
Speaker: What on earth?
Speaker: That's disturbing.
Speaker: How does this guy get forgiveness?
Speaker: And that's how we're to feel about Peter here.
Speaker: Why does he get grace after such a betrayal of Jesus?
Speaker: Peter's denial is no small betrayal.
Speaker: And yet, just a few verses down, we're gonna look at Judas's fate.
Speaker: Another betrayal.
Speaker: But the outcome is very different than Peter's.
Speaker: Judas betrays Jesus and he dies without hope, without mercy, without forgiveness, without grace.
Speaker: They're both disciples.
Speaker: And it's not because Peter is just kind of better than Judas.
Speaker: It's not as though as being kind of good or being a little bit better person than, say, Hitler or Manasseh.
Speaker: Means that God is going to like you better.
Speaker: The definition of grace is unearned, undeserved favor.
Speaker: God chooses to show mercy to whomever he wants.
Speaker: That's what we call the doctrine of election.
Speaker: I don't want to get too far off topic here, but let me make something very clear for us, which I think most of us already understand.
Speaker: The Lord looks down from heaven on the human race to see if there is one who is wise, one who seeks God.
Speaker: All have turned away, all alike have become corrupt.
Speaker: There is no one who does good, not even one.
Speaker: Psalm 14.
Speaker: Peter doesn't deserve grace.
Speaker: None of us deserve grace.
Speaker: And yet God chooses to show mercy to some, and to others they receive justice.
Speaker: This is strictly and purely God's sovereign choice.
Speaker: He is the creator, and he can do whatever he pleases with his creation, including us.
Speaker: But we must understand this.
Speaker: God's love and mercy is not dependent on our actions or our performance.
Speaker: Manasseh gets grace.
Speaker: Peter is going to get grace.
Speaker: Judas gets justice.
Speaker: It's not fair.
Speaker: Grace is not fair.
Speaker: Friends, God's love for us is never determined by human success or failure.
Speaker: If that were the case, then none of us would ever be saved.
Speaker: And all we can say here is that God's love was set on Peter before the foundation of the world.
Speaker: Jesus not only experienced the pain of Peter's denial and failure that day, but long before Peter was ever born, when he was only an idea in the mind of God, Jesus foresaw all of his sins and all of his failures and weaknesses.
Speaker: And despite all of that, Jesus determined that he would go to the cross for him.
Speaker: And friends, if you are in Christ, that is every bit is true for you.
Speaker: Mark 16, 7 tells us that it was the Lord that seeks out Peter and calls him to repentance.
Speaker: If you remember at the empty tomb where the women arrive, there's the heavenly messenger.
Speaker: And he says this to the women.
Speaker: Now listen here, he says, go tell the disciples, and Peter.
Speaker: Make sure you let Peter know he's included.
Speaker: Peter is mine.
Speaker: And that I want him.
Speaker: You see, God fulfills his word.
Speaker: Jesus said that Peter would deny him, but he also said that Peter would be restored.
Speaker: Luke fills in the conversation from the night before.
Speaker: After he predicts the denial, he says, When you have turned back, strengthen your brothers.
Speaker: Jesus has spoken, beloved, and it is so.
Speaker: How do you know if you're elect?
Speaker: That's the question.
Speaker: How do you know if God has set his love on you?
Speaker: Well, one good indication is that he has brought you to hear his word, the message of the gospel.
Speaker: And if you find yourself convicted of sin and drawn to the mercy of God in Christ, I want you to know that is God's love already at work in you.
Speaker: Because he's calling you in love to repent of your sin and to believe on him.
Speaker: Now, for some of you believers, you need to hear this this morning.
Speaker: You need to be reminded of this, that your failures do not change God's love for you, not even an ounce.
Speaker: And don't misunderstand me.
Speaker: I'm not saying that this is a reason to sin or just to indulge your flesh, but you do need to know this.
Speaker: Your sin and your failure has not dug some sort of a pit for you that you need to work your way out of in order to get back to God's good graces.
Speaker: He saw your sin and your failures from an eternity away.
Speaker: And he went to the cross.
Speaker: So confess your sin, dear brothers and dear sisters, to one another.
Speaker: Receive his forgiveness.
Speaker: Get with somebody, get with a church member, a brother, a sister.
Speaker: Confess your sins and be encouraged.
Speaker: Don't let those sins keep hindering you and stealing your joy.
Speaker: Come back to verse 75.
Speaker: He went outside and wept bitterly.
Speaker: Weep over your sin.
Speaker: Weep.
Speaker: Grieve over your failures.
Speaker: But don't stay there.
Speaker: Come to Christ.
Speaker: Let's look at our second setting.
Speaker: We have some movement in our text.
Speaker: Jesus is brought from the courtyard of the high priest to the Romans.
Speaker: Look in chapter 27, verse 1 and 2.
Speaker: When daybreak came, all the chief priests and the elders of the people plotted against Jesus to put him to death.
Speaker: After tying him up, they led him away and handed him over to Pilate, the governor.
Speaker: And again, we're seeing here that God fulfills his word.
Speaker: In Matthew 20, verse 18 and 19, Jesus said exactly this.
Speaker: See, we're going up to Jerusalem.
Speaker: The Son of Man will be handed over to the chief priests and scribes, and they will condemn him to death.
Speaker: They will hand him over to the Gentiles to be mocked, flogged, and crucified.
Speaker: And on the third day he will be raised.
Speaker: Jesus is handed over to the Jewish lead handed over by the Jewish leaders to judgment, just as he said.
Speaker: And we need to take note here that Israel's rejection of Jesus is not only a betrayal.
Speaker: Betrayal of God.
Speaker: But it's a betrayal of their calling as God's people.
Speaker: Think about this for a minute.
Speaker: God in his word had given Israel a mission on earth, a purpose in the world.
Speaker: He chose them and he set them apart to be a holy nation.
Speaker: Is that what we see here?
Speaker: Holiness?
Speaker: As Jesus is handed over?
Speaker: These elders and priests, they were tasked by God to render right judgments, to uphold the moral perfection of the law of God.
Speaker: And by doing so, Israel was to become a light to all nations.
Speaker: God had given Israel this law which was to govern their society and every aspect of their life.
Speaker: And Israel was called to display before all the world true justice, true righteousness, drawing the nations of the world who would see the fruit and the blessing of living under God's righteous standard.
Speaker: And they would come to know this one God.
Speaker: But that's not what's happening in our text.
Speaker: Instead, we see Israel's perversion of justice and corruption is now put on display.
Speaker: It's brought from Israel to the Romans.
Speaker: They're handing over the holy, sinless God.
Speaker: And they're falsely calling him a sinner and a blasphemer.
Speaker: Look again at verse 2.
Speaker: After tying him up, they led him away and handed him over to Pilate the governor, a governor of the largest Gentile empire in the world at the time.
Speaker: Pontius Pilate, we know that name.
Speaker: But he doesn't receive Jesus and say, Wow, what a holy God these people serve and revere.
Speaker: What a just and righteous people they are.
Speaker: He knows this is corruption.
Speaker: Move your eyes just down a little bit to verse 18.
Speaker: It says, For he knew it was because of envy that they had handed him over.
Speaker: And yet all of this injustice before the Roman world is part of God's plan.
Speaker: God's word will not be foiled by human sin.
Speaker: God had spoken that Israel will be a light to all nations, but friends, it's not going to happen through these priests and elders.
Speaker: He's going to do it through the true Israelite, Jesus Christ.
Speaker: God's going to fulfill his word here.
Speaker: And notice Jesus is not quietly put to death in some back alley in the corner of Jerusalem.
Speaker: He's not swept under the rug to be soon forgotten and never remembered.
Speaker: The significance of Jesus' death is part of a global purpose, a purpose that must play out before the whole world.
Speaker: The death of Christ must be a public spectacle.
Speaker: And his resurrection is a matter that involves all peoples in all places.
Speaker: Hundreds of years before the events in this passage even took place, God spoke of Israel's failure to demonstrate his holiness, failure to uphold his justice, failure to be a light to the nations.
Speaker: God spoke and foretold of Israel blaspheming and profaning the name of God among the Gentiles.
Speaker: But he also spoke of a time where in the face of Israel's moral failure, he would act.
Speaker: He alone would make his holiness known in all the world.
Speaker: A time where the nations would come to know him.
Speaker: This is what he's talking about in passages like Ezekiel 36.
Speaker: Let me read this for us, Ezekiel 36, verse 22 to 23.
Speaker: Therefore, say to the house of Israel, This is what the Lord God says.
Speaker: It is not for your sake that I will act, house of Israel, but for my holy name, which you profaned among the nations where you went.
Speaker: I will honor the holiness of my great name, which has been profaned among the nations, the name you have profaned among them.
Speaker: The nations will know that I am the Lord.
Speaker: This is the declaration of the Lord God, when I demonstrate my holiness through you in their sight.
Speaker: And we're seeing that fulfillment now.
Speaker: In this text, God is fulfilling this word.
Speaker: Jesus is being handed over to the Gentiles in order that the whole world will witness the power and the justice and the holiness of God.
Speaker: A very public death.
Speaker: And three days later, the resurrection comes along and God renders his verdict.
Speaker: This is my holy one.
Speaker: He will not see decay.
Speaker: Christ is raised up, and all the corruption of Israel and Rome are exposed.
Speaker: Christ is raised up and he is vindicated by God as the only righteous and holy Israelite who ever walked the earth.
Speaker: At last, God's holiness is on display for all the world to see in the resurrected Lord.
Speaker: And it is so because God spoke it.
Speaker: It is so because God fulfills his word.
Speaker: Come with me down to verse 3 to 10 of chapter 27.
Speaker: This is our final setting.
Speaker: Verse 5 tells us this is taking place at the temple now.
Speaker: Starts in verse 3.
Speaker: Then Judas, his betrayer.
Speaker: No surprise here.
Speaker: I just want to remind us that Jesus earlier during the Last Supper, he quotes Psalm 41 for telling this betrayal.
Speaker: A betrayal that was spoken of by God hundreds of years earlier, fulfilled.
Speaker: God's word is trustworthy, beloved.
Speaker: You can bet your life on it.
Speaker: Judas's betrayer, seeing that Jesus had been condemned, was full of remorse and returned the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders.
Speaker: I have sinned by betraying innocent blood, he said.
Speaker: What's that to us?
Speaker: See to it yourself.
Speaker: That response is a tragedy.
Speaker: These men, these these priests and these elders of Israel.
Speaker: These are the intercessors.
Speaker: They're supposed to stand be between God and sin.
Speaker: And they're to show them a way to be united with God.
Speaker: They were to uphold the sacrificial system, to teach the scriptures, to offer hope and forgiveness.
Speaker: They're supposed to be shepherds leading the people to life.
Speaker: And Judas comes to them.
Speaker: Look at verse 3.
Speaker: He's full of remorse.
Speaker: Verse 3 again, he wants to make restitution.
Speaker: He returns the silver.
Speaker: And then in verse 4, he makes the confession I have sinned.
Speaker: And here's the response.
Speaker: Look at the bottom of verse 4.
Speaker: What's that to us?
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: There's no hope there in those words.
Speaker: No mercy.
Speaker: No grace.
Speaker: No intercession.
Speaker: Look, the temple was supposed to be this one place in all the earth where sinners could come and find a way to God.
Speaker: And what you're seeing here is that this final horrid condition of the priesthood before its ultimate judgment.
Speaker: It's lifeless and it will never be restored.
Speaker: In many ways, this interaction itself marks the complete end of Judaism.
Speaker: Not the institution, but really the end of any means of grace that the Old Testament sacrificial system offered.
Speaker: Because from here on out, it's only the new covenant, the terms of the new covenant that hold out any offer of hope and forgiveness.
Speaker: It's only in the person of Christ where mercy is available.
Speaker: But Judas doesn't see this new covenant hope.
Speaker: He doesn't remember the words of Jesus like Peter did.
Speaker: He's looking for mercy and forgiveness in the wrong place.
Speaker: Notice he doesn't come to the feet of Jesus.
Speaker: When going to the temple to make his offering, he doesn't remember the brother he sinned against.
Speaker: He comes only to this relic, this stone temple, which is now only a place of condemnation.
Speaker: He cannot and will not see Christ alone as the only salvation from guilt and sin, and so therefore he hangs himself.
Speaker: He is outside of the new covenant.
Speaker: And I spoke earlier of this doctrine of election.
Speaker: How do we know Peter was elect and Judas was not?
Speaker: It's quite simple.
Speaker: Judas is not drawn to Jesus.
Speaker: His rejection of Christ remains to the end.
Speaker: And Christ comes to Peter.
Speaker: Christ draws Peter.
Speaker: And Peter responds in faith.
Speaker: Friends, where are you looking for mercy and for the forgiveness of your sins?
Speaker: Are you looking in your good works?
Speaker: Are you hoping that by doing some kind of good things from time to time, that that's somehow going to erase all the bad things that we've thought and done and spoken?
Speaker: As if God were some corrupt judge that could be bought off with a few good deeds from our hands?
Speaker: Are you trusting in your penance or some kind of religious order or ritual that you've submitted yourself to?
Speaker: I promise you, such things have nothing but condemnation.
Speaker: Because there is no priest and there is no rabbi and there is no imam and there is no guru that can offer us forgiveness.
Speaker: But Jesus can, and he does.
Speaker: And if you can do that in the sincerity of your heart, that's only because his love has already worked in you.
Speaker: And his word is so trustworthy, beloved.
Speaker: In John 6 37, he says, Everyone the Father gives me will come to me, and the one who comes to me I will never cast out.
Speaker: Those are great words of comfort.
Speaker: You can always run to Jesus.
Speaker: So finally, let me draw our attention to verses 9 and 10.
Speaker: Some of you are going to notice there's a textual issue here.
Speaker: Then what was spoken through the prophet Jeremiah was fulfilled.
Speaker: They took the 30 pieces of silver, the price of him whose price was set by the Israelites.
Speaker: Matthew speaks of what was spoken by Jeremiah, but then he quotes from Zechariah 11.
Speaker: What's up with that?
Speaker: This whole sermon, I'm talking about the reliability of God's word.
Speaker: Now there's some Bible commentators who suggest this is merely what's called a scribal error.
Speaker: That's a fancy way of saying that as Matthew's gospel was hand copied over the years, somebody made a typo.
Speaker: It makes sense.
Speaker: Jeremiah, Zachariah, they got the prefix mixed up.
Speaker: It gets dark in those scriptoriums.
Speaker: Now, if you came to the scribes and scriptures conference that we had here a couple months ago at the church, you would have heard about textual transmission.
Speaker: The thousands of biblical manuscripts that we have, copies of the original works, thousands, more than any other ancient document.
Speaker: We have thousands of New Testament manuscripts.
Speaker: And sometimes there are typos or little notes in the margins of these scrolls.
Speaker: But none of these typos have any major effect on doctrine or teaching.
Speaker: But I don't think there's a typo here.
Speaker: I don't think that's what's going on in this text.
Speaker: Others have said that Matthew is really just, he's mentioning Jeremiah because he's pointing to these bigger scrolls that they had back then, right?
Speaker: They didn't have the whole Bible in one scroll.
Speaker: That would have been massive.
Speaker: The Jews had categories.
Speaker: They had the law, the prophets, and the writings, and they would combine uh the books of the law into one scroll and the books of the prophets into another scroll, and then the final was the writings.
Speaker: Maybe he mentions Jeremiah because that's the big scroll of the prophets.
Speaker: It's possible.
Speaker: Another commentator suggests that it was Jeremiah who was the one that compiled the 12 minor prophets, and so he just gets credit for the book of Zechariah in that way.
Speaker: Now that could be the case also.
Speaker: And also, there's the possibility that Matthew mentions Jeremiah here because he wants to link the thematic connections of Jesus' rejection by Israel in the book of Jeremiah with the book of Zechariah.
Speaker: Now we see something quite similar to this in Mark.
unknown: Right?
Speaker: In Mark 1, you have Isaiah who is cited, but then you've got a quote from Malachi included in the citation.
Speaker: So already in Scripture, we've got this example of an idea where only the bigger prophet is cited, but he's trying to link several sections of Scripture together thematically.
Speaker: I think that's what's going on in our text this morning.
Speaker: Matthew's citing the broader themes in all the prophets, Jeremiah being the biggest.
Speaker: But then he also includes the actual words from Zechariah because of the specific mention of the 30 pieces of silver.
Speaker: Now let me let me try to flesh this out a little bit.
Speaker: Throughout the whole gospel of Matthew, he's wanting us to see more than just a few quotes here and there of where Jesus fulfills Old Testament prophecy.
Speaker: Matthew is leading us in his gospel to see these big, far-swooping ways in which Jesus is the substance and the theme of the entire scriptures.
Speaker: You have the example earlier in Matthew, where Jesus goes out into the wilderness for 40 days to be tested.
Speaker: Now he's not necessarily fulfilling a specific prophetic passage that says he will do that.
Speaker: But instead, what he's doing in the wilderness is he's recapitulating or living out afresh the entire book of Numbers.
Speaker: Only with Jesus, there's no rebellion in the desert.
Speaker: There's no sin, there's no death.
Speaker: Jesus, as the true and perfect Israel, he fulfills the very purpose for which Israel was saved and sent out into the wilderness.
Speaker: He overcomes sin and temptation.
Speaker: And he is the holy son, the faithful son, the light to the nations.
Speaker: And here in Matthew 27, 9, we're directed to Jeremiah and Zechariah.
Speaker: And I think the intention here is for us to consider how the Old Testament themes of the rejection of God's servant and the condemnation of Israel's leaders converge in the person of Jesus Christ and at the cross.
Speaker: Matthew wants for us to see and to be absolutely sure that God fulfills his word.
Speaker: Let me do a quick walkthrough.
Speaker: In Jeremiah 19, the prophet Jeremiah is told to go buy a jar of pottery.
Speaker: He's going to use it as a sermon illustration.
Speaker: And then he's going to preach.
Speaker: And he's going to preach condemnation to the people of Israel.
Speaker: In verse 4 of Jeremiah 19, he speaks of them betraying innocent blood.
Speaker: Compare that with verses four and six in our text.
Speaker: Judas and the high priests are acknowledging the betrayal of innocent blood.
Speaker: Then in Jeremiah 19:6, God gives the land a new name in order to correspond with the violence of the land.
Speaker: Ben Hinnom Valley will now be called the Valley of Slaughter.
Speaker: Now again, compare that with verse 8 in our text.
Speaker: They use the money to buy the potter's field, and then it will be called the field of blood.
Speaker: Jeremiah is speaking of a coming, permanent judgment against Israel and Jerusalem, the destruction of the temple, the end of the old covenant, and the dawning of the new.
Speaker: And this is now fulfilled in Christ as he is rejected.
Speaker: We read later in Matthew in the same chapter, down in verse 51, at the death of Christ, the temple curtain is torn in two.
Speaker: The end of the old covenant has come.
Speaker: Jeremiah finishes his sermon by smashing the pottery.
Speaker: An irreparable judgment.
Speaker: A final judgment for Israel.
Speaker: Then in verse 9 to 10, we have the actual quote from Zechariah 11.
Speaker: Again, speaking of God's judgment against the leaders of Israel.
Speaker: They're just leading them straight into death.
Speaker: Sound familiar?
Speaker: That's exactly what we just read.
Speaker: The priests are doing to Judas.
Speaker: What's that to us?
Speaker: They said.
Speaker: And Judas goes out and hangs himself.
Speaker: In Zechariah 11, the prophet is called to step in.
Speaker: Zechariah is to step in and to be the shepherd who saves.
Speaker: And in Zechariah 11, 9, it says that the sheep detested him.
Speaker: They reject him.
Speaker: They don't want a good shepherd.
Speaker: And so the prophet hands the sheep that despised him back to the wicked shepherds.
Speaker: And then he says this in verses 12 to 13 of Zechariah 11.
Speaker: He says, If it seems right to you, give me my wages, but if not, keep them.
Speaker: So they weighed my wages, 30 pieces of silver, throw it to the potter, the Lord said to me, This magnificent price I was valued by.
Speaker: So I took the thirty pieces of silver and threw it into the house of the Lord to the potter.
Speaker: You heard the sarcasm there, right?
Speaker: The magnificent price that I was valued by them.
Speaker: Zechariah is only a type and a shadow of the good shepherd.
Speaker: They valued the life of Jesus at 30 pieces of silver.
Speaker: And then you owe the slave owner 30 pieces of silver.
Speaker: 30 pieces is an insult.
Speaker: One Bible commentator says it this way: the Lord's shepherd is rejected by the people of Israel and valued at the price of a slave.
Speaker: And in both instances, the money is flung into the temple and ends up purchasing something that pollutes and points to the destruction of the nation.
Speaker: These final moments of Jesus' life are fulfilling all the Old Testament themes and prophecies of the suffering servant.
Speaker: And the word of God is testifying here.
Speaker: In the rejection and the death of Christ, the destruction of Israel and the end of the old covenant has come.
Speaker: God has spoken, and it is so.
Speaker: Now, what does that mean for us, brothers and sisters?
Speaker: Well, we need to first keep in mind that everything that we're reading and hearing this morning is part of a gospel.
Speaker: Gospel, good news, a proclamation of good news.
Speaker: So when we read of Peter's rejection of Jesus, of Jesus being handed over publicly to the Gentiles, when we look at these Old Testament allusions to the judgment of God poured out against Israel and the priests and the temple, we must remember that there is a good purpose in all of this.
Speaker: All of these things are going according to God's set plan and purpose to bring life and salvation.
Speaker: He has an elect people from every tribe and tongue and nation.
Speaker: God has a people.
Speaker: This is essentially the theme of the whole Bible, right?
Speaker: God works good in the face of sin.
Speaker: That's the whole Bible.
Speaker: What man intends for evil, God intends for good.
Speaker: The Christ event is not some trend that just shows up on the scene in the first century.
Speaker: It goes all the way back to the beginning.
Speaker: And it's revealed in the scriptures all along the way that you might see the Christ as he truly is, as the substance and the hope of all of God's word.
Speaker: Now I know my sermon point this morning is it's not very clever, it's not catchy.
Speaker: God fulfills his word, but it's everything.
Speaker: This Jesus is the Messiah.
Speaker: This Jesus is the one that the scriptures point to.
Speaker: You can endure suffering for this Jesus.
Speaker: Hardship, persecution, you can face death knowing that your sins are truly forgiven in Christ, because that's what he said.
Speaker: He said, It is finished.
Speaker: He didn't make a way for salvation, he accomplished it.
Speaker: It is finished.
Speaker: Your sins have been washed in Christ.
Speaker: Because he spoke it, it is so.
Speaker: And we follow a savior that is despised and rejected and hated.
Speaker: And he calls us to leave everything and follow him in this path of the cross, to take up our cross daily, to lose our lives in him, to let our light shine before men, to boldly proclaim the gospel, whatever the cost and whatever the loss.
Speaker: Matthew's writing to a people who, in following Christ, will look so different and unlike the world and the culture that they're in, and it will cost them.
Speaker: And we must look different.
Speaker: We must be about different things.
Speaker: We can do that with the confidence that following Christ ends in a glorious resurrection.
Speaker: We can live our lives so that unbelievers look at our lives and say, that only makes sense if there's a resurrection.
Speaker: Let me close with a few reminders of the sure and certain word of Jesus for your life, for my life, for our lives.
Speaker: He promises that you can come to him and he will answer.
Speaker: Matthew 7, 7, ask and it will be given to you.
Speaker: Seek and you will find.
Speaker: Knock and the door will be opened to you.
Speaker: He promises you rest.
Speaker: Matthew 11, 28, come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.
Speaker: Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, because I am lowly and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.
Speaker: You can bank on that.
Speaker: He promises to be with you, beloved.
Speaker: Matthew 28, 20, and remember, I am with you always to the end of the age.
Speaker: God fulfills his word.
Speaker: Pray with me again.
Speaker: Lord God, we we we delight in you that you have cleansed us from all unrighteousness.
Speaker: And yet, Lord, we still sin.
Speaker: We still misrepresent you.
Speaker: We still fail, Lord.
Speaker: And yet you are you are always there for us.
Speaker: You are always at work in our lives.
Speaker: You are merciful to us, Lord.
Speaker: Who are we that you should be so mindful of us?
Speaker: I give you thanks, Lord, for those that you have called and you have redeemed.
Speaker: I thank you for those in this church, Lord, that share a singular testimony that we were one way and now we are another way.
Speaker: And I ask, Lord, that you would help us to glorify you, to live lives that only make sense in the light of the resurrection.
Speaker: And I pray, Lord, that you would bless your people, that you would grant salvation to those that don't know you.
Speaker: I ask that in Jesus' name.
Speaker: Amen.