SPEAKER_00: This sermon was recorded at Faith Evangelical Free Church in Grand Forks, North Dakota.
SPEAKER_01: Just take your Bibles and make your way to the Gospel of Matthew in chapter 16.
SPEAKER_01: Matthew chapter 16.
SPEAKER_01: You didn't say it, but some of you probably wondered if we were ever going to make it out of chapter 15.
SPEAKER_01: Yes, we have.
SPEAKER_01: Praise God from whom all blessings flow.
SPEAKER_01: But we're going to continue many of the themes that are found in Matthew chapter 15.
SPEAKER_01: Matthew chapter 16.
SPEAKER_01: Joyce Meyer, Sarah Young, Beth Moore, Joel Osteen, Robert Schuler, T.D.
SPEAKER_01: Jakes, Stephen Fertig, and dozens more like them enjoy wide-ranging support from the broad landscape of evangelical Christians.
SPEAKER_01: Yet at the same time, some voices cry out that we should avoid such teachers, speakers, and writers.
SPEAKER_01: The two sides of supporters and those purporting caution reveal variations in discernment.
SPEAKER_01: One group, one group takes in the teaching of such folks and discerns nothing that is problematic, or at least not enough to avoid it.
SPEAKER_01: Another group takes in the same teaching and discerns much that is problematic and thus says, avoid this.
SPEAKER_01: Now that I've gotten your attention, let me switch to COVID.
SPEAKER_01: On another, completely different level, protests of various kinds are occurring worldwide due to governmental restrictions from the COVID-19 virus.
SPEAKER_01: Our Canadian neighbors have come out by the thousands with their trucks to display their opposition to governmental limitations.
SPEAKER_01: There are protests against restrictions taking place worldwide.
SPEAKER_01: And those protests also display differences in discernment.
SPEAKER_01: Even if the stated reason for the protests is an objection to restriction of freedom or a protest against governmental overreach, the protests illuminate disparities in discernment.
SPEAKER_01: Because one group digests all of the information available about the virus to be of a certain level of concern, and the other group discerns the information to be of a very different level of concern.
SPEAKER_01: How do you know when something is right or wrong?
SPEAKER_01: How do you know if something is true or false?
SPEAKER_01: How do you know if something is right or almost right?
SPEAKER_01: How do you know if something is beneficial or harmful?
SPEAKER_01: Well, thankfully, in our world today, we have the news outlets and social media worlds to help us.
SPEAKER_01: And they have employed words such as fake news, fact checkers, false information, misinformation to supposedly help us in our discernment.
SPEAKER_01: In a world of instant communication, social media, heightened politicization, and constant advertisement, sensitivity over what is perceived as good and evil, right and wrong, is thrust front and center right into our faces.
SPEAKER_01: Whether we realize it or not, human beings exercise discernment nearly every moment.
SPEAKER_01: You are exercising discernment right this very minute as to whether or not you should keep listening to me.
SPEAKER_01: We discern the water temperature in the shower, the weather outside, and appropriate dress for the weather.
SPEAKER_01: We discern when and how much we should eat, what we should listen to, how we should respond to our bosses, to our families, to our coworkers, to traffic.
SPEAKER_01: Whether or not we should pull over if there are flashing lights behind us.
SPEAKER_01: Christians discern even within the church.
SPEAKER_01: Some discern heresy or questionable lyrics in certain popular songs, while others do not.
SPEAKER_01: Some sense concerning drifts and denominations, while others do not.
SPEAKER_01: Some distinguish areas of concern with speakers, authors, various kinds of organizations, while others do not.
SPEAKER_01: In a fallen world, human beings do not discern equally.
SPEAKER_01: Thankfully, our passage in Matthew guides God's people as we seek to live as wise people in a broken world.
SPEAKER_01: Matthew chapter 16, beginning in verse 1, Matthew records for us that the Pharisees and the Sadducees came.
SPEAKER_01: And to test Jesus, they asked him to show them a sign from heaven.
SPEAKER_01: He answered them, When it is evening, you say it will be fair weather, for the sky is red.
SPEAKER_01: And in the morning you say, It will be a stormy day today, for the sky is red and threatening.
SPEAKER_01: You know how to interpret the appearance of the sky, but you cannot interpret the signs of the times.
SPEAKER_01: An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign, but no one, no sign will be given to it except the sign of Jonah.
SPEAKER_01: So he left them and departed.
SPEAKER_01: When the disciples reached the other side of the Sea of Galilee, they had forgotten to bring bread.
SPEAKER_01: And Jesus said to them, Watch and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the Sadducees.
SPEAKER_01: And they began discussing it amongst themselves, saying, We forgot bread.
SPEAKER_01: But Jesus, aware of this, said, O you of little faith, why are you discussing among yourselves the fact that you have no bread?
SPEAKER_01: Do you not yet perceive?
SPEAKER_01: Do you not remember the five loaves for the five thousand and how many baskets you gathered, or the seven loaves for the four thousand and how many baskets you gathered?
SPEAKER_01: How is it that you fail to understand that I did not speak about bread?
SPEAKER_01: Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the Sadducees.
SPEAKER_01: Then they understood that Jesus did not tell them to beware of the leaven of bread, but of the teaching of the Pharisees and the Sadducees.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: This account is divided here between demand for proof of divine approval for Jesus' ministry, literally on the spot.
SPEAKER_01: And on the other hand, Jesus teaching his disciples how to discern correctly.
SPEAKER_01: And the critical moment, the turning point, is when Jesus condemns the discernment of these religious leaders.
SPEAKER_01: These aren't just any leaders.
SPEAKER_01: These aren't just your typical run-of-the-mill pastors or politicians.
SPEAKER_01: Not that those two always go together.
SPEAKER_01: These are factious rivals joined together to oppose Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: We've not seen the Sadducees much in Matthew's gospel.
SPEAKER_01: And they only appear three times throughout the entire book.
SPEAKER_01: We saw them first all the way back in chapter 3, right before Jesus' baptism in the Jordan River by John the Baptist.
SPEAKER_01: This is the second appearance here in chapter 16, and we won't see them again until chapter 22.
SPEAKER_01: In chapter 3, the Sadducees also appear with the Pharisees.
SPEAKER_01: Hmm, isn't that interesting?
SPEAKER_01: John the Baptist called the group together, Sadducees and Pharisees joined together, a brood of vipers, baby snakes full of lethal poison.
SPEAKER_01: So when they show up here for the second time, Matthew has prepared us to view them negatively.
SPEAKER_01: But the Pharisees and the Sadducees are opponents, they're rivals.
SPEAKER_01: Some think that the two groups actually despised one another, which may have been true, at least on some level.
SPEAKER_01: But overall, they're much more like our modern political parties.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, they generally oppose one another, they have different perspectives, they have different backgrounds, but they can work together on mutual self-beneficial causes.
SPEAKER_01: And now they cooperate.
SPEAKER_01: For what reason?
SPEAKER_01: To oppose Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: They come together asking for a sign.
SPEAKER_01: And not just any sign, but a sign from heaven.
SPEAKER_01: That's a little bit curious since the Sadducees didn't believe in the miraculous and in the spirit world.
SPEAKER_01: In chapter 12, the scribes and the Pharisees had already come to Jesus asking for a sign, and Jesus replied there that they were an evil and adulterous generation.
SPEAKER_01: He called them also a brood of vipers, and he said the only sign that will be given to an evil and adulterous generation is the sign of the prophet Jonah.
SPEAKER_01: For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.
SPEAKER_01: Here Jesus doesn't explain the sign of Jonah.
SPEAKER_01: He just says, No sign will be given to you except the sign of Jonah.
SPEAKER_01: Now, it's not the Pharisees and the attorneys, the lawyers.
SPEAKER_01: Now it's the Pharisees and the Sadducees.
SPEAKER_01: It's the temple authorities.
SPEAKER_01: The Sadducees controlled the temple.
SPEAKER_01: They ruled all of the religious services.
SPEAKER_01: So it's the temple authorities, the Sadducees, coming with the Pharisees, asking not only for a sign, but a sign directly from heaven right now, this very minute.
SPEAKER_01: And you can't help but think of Israel's history with Pharaoh's magicians.
SPEAKER_01: Think about Pharaoh's magicians, way back in the book of Exodus, when God told Moses to take Aaron and go and to tell Pharaoh, let my people go and demonstrate God's power and God's authority by doing all of these various plagues, right?
SPEAKER_01: 1500 years before this confrontation, Pharaoh arrogantly challenged God's representatives.
SPEAKER_01: Moses and Aaron.
SPEAKER_01: How did he challenge them?
SPEAKER_01: He did it by asserting that whatever magic tricks Moses and Aaron could pull off, his magicians could do better.
SPEAKER_01: And now Jesus is like a greater Moses.
SPEAKER_01: He's performing all kinds of wonders.
SPEAKER_01: We've already seen it on the other side of the lake in verses 30 and 31, chapter 15.
SPEAKER_01: He's healing all kinds of diseases.
SPEAKER_01: He's raised the dead.
SPEAKER_01: He's cast out demons.
SPEAKER_01: Matthew has shown us that Jesus is the promised servant of Isaiah's prophecy.
SPEAKER_01: He's the one who was promised to bring in a new creation that would invade the world through divine healing of the blind and the lame and the deaf.
SPEAKER_01: In Matthew's mind, no additional proof is needed.
SPEAKER_01: But for some reason, all of the things that Jesus was doing were not considered signs from heaven.
SPEAKER_01: Apparently, any healer could do what Jesus did.
SPEAKER_01: And in that, the religious leaders are acting very much like ancient Pharaoh.
SPEAKER_01: Now we don't know whether or not Matthew intends for us to think that way.
SPEAKER_01: But what a powerful impression if he did.
SPEAKER_01: There are certainly some interesting parallels.
SPEAKER_01: And if Matthew wants us to think about Jesus as the greater Moses and think of the leaders of Israel asking for more significant signs, like disbelieving Pharaoh, then Matthew has flipped Jewish history on its head.
SPEAKER_01: And now the religious leaders of Israel are acting just like Pharaoh did.
SPEAKER_01: The religious leaders are holding Israel hostage, not allowing them to seek after God.
SPEAKER_01: Instead, demanding more signs.
SPEAKER_01: And so they come together now, joined together, cooperating, asking Jesus for a sign from heaven.
SPEAKER_01: Verify that your mission, Jesus, is God ordained.
SPEAKER_01: Show us a bit of heaven itself.
SPEAKER_01: That chapter three incident about the baptism of Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: You remember that when Jesus went down into the water and when he came back up out of the water?
SPEAKER_01: What is it that Matthew said about that?
SPEAKER_01: Jesus came to be baptized around the same time that the Pharisees and the Sadducees checked out crazy John baptizing in the Jordan.
SPEAKER_01: And Matthew said, and when Jesus was baptized, immediately he came up from the water, and behold, the heavens were opened.
SPEAKER_01: Prove it, Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Open up the heavens to us.
SPEAKER_01: The first time we see the Pharisees and the Sadducees together, the heavens were opened to show divine approval of God's Son.
SPEAKER_01: And the next time we see them together, they're asking for more proof.
SPEAKER_01: They're asking for heaven to be opened again.
SPEAKER_01: Now we might think, we might think of this as an opportunity to prove his deity.
SPEAKER_01: Why not do it, Jesus?
SPEAKER_01: Why not just prove once for all?
SPEAKER_01: But Jesus isn't out to prove anything.
SPEAKER_01: He's out to do the will of the Father while fulfilling the word of God.
SPEAKER_01: But these scoundrels demand more.
SPEAKER_01: I think scoundrels is a decent modern parallel to brood of vipers, don't you?
SPEAKER_01: Jesus' response to the demand of the scoundrels is quite instructive for the modern church.
SPEAKER_01: Here we see illustrations and instructions about discernment.
SPEAKER_01: The Sadducees and the Pharisees in the first part provide the illustrations before, in the second part, Jesus instructs his disciples.
SPEAKER_01: So let's look briefly at the illustrations of discernment found in the Sadducees and the Pharisees.
SPEAKER_01: The first illustration that we see is that they illustrate misguided discernment.
SPEAKER_01: There is such a thing as misguided discernment.
SPEAKER_01: It exists, it is real.
SPEAKER_01: Now these Jewish leaders typically get a bad rap, right?
SPEAKER_01: We talk negatively about, especially the Pharisees, and rightfully so.
SPEAKER_01: As a group, they have rejected Jesus and they will be one of the primary instigators of the crucifixion.
SPEAKER_01: One side, the Pharisees held sway over the people using traditional rules and laws that people were expected to follow through on.
SPEAKER_01: The other side, the Sadducees believed only in the first five books of the Bible, and they ignored the rest while controlling all aspects of temple worship.
SPEAKER_01: It's like the first century version of pastors ignoring the Bible's teaching on suffering or sexuality and sin all the while by trying to lead people to God.
SPEAKER_01: What?
SPEAKER_01: How can you ignore much of the Bible while saying you're leading people to God?
SPEAKER_01: That doesn't make any sense.
SPEAKER_01: So these two groups of leaders see things differently.
SPEAKER_01: And yet they come together and they say, no, when we discern things about Jesus, we, the religious leaders, the experts of worship, the experts of Israel's history and the law, we discern that this does not meet the required level of proof.
SPEAKER_01: But let's be careful about being too hard on them.
SPEAKER_01: And I say that genuinely.
SPEAKER_01: Let's be careful about being too hard on them.
SPEAKER_01: You know how how people will sometimes say, you know, John and Jane Doe are such good Christian people.
SPEAKER_01: You might not know them, but they are just such good Christian people.
SPEAKER_01: We make sweeping conclusions about people in other churches or in our community because of appearances or claims of loving Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: If we were living in first century Judea, we would say the same thing about the Pharisees and the Sadducees.
SPEAKER_01: Fellow Jews would say their religious leaders were good people.
SPEAKER_01: They would say that they were religious people, that they were law-abiding people.
SPEAKER_01: We would say that the Pharisees and the Sadducees loved God and they desired to follow Him and to be right with Him.
SPEAKER_01: We would say that they have genuine hearts, that they are earnest in leading Israel in what they believed was the right way.
SPEAKER_01: These religious leaders were the ideal Jew.
SPEAKER_01: In the first century, we would all hope to be like them.
SPEAKER_01: That's why it's better to be careful about saying something general like John and Jane Doe are good Christian people.
SPEAKER_01: Because on the outside, they may look good, they may say all of the right words, but their hearts, like the Pharisees and the Sadducees, might be far, far from God.
SPEAKER_01: These leaders come to Jesus exercising discernment.
SPEAKER_01: They're leading Israel, they're doing the right thing.
SPEAKER_01: They're trying to do the right thing.
SPEAKER_01: The law demanded that they evaluate a prophet according to God's standards.
SPEAKER_01: The law expected that of them.
SPEAKER_01: They're trying to do the right thing, but they are misguided in their discernment.
SPEAKER_01: As they come and they approach Jesus and they're evaluating all of the evidence, their discernment is misguided.
SPEAKER_01: You see, Jesus has already shown them beyond any question that what he does is by the direction of God the Father and the power of God the Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: But they show their discernment is misguided by ignoring the teaching and the powerful working of Jesus that fulfilled the prophetic scriptures.
SPEAKER_01: Listen to this.
SPEAKER_01: The religious experts ignored Scripture.
SPEAKER_01: The experts in Scripture ignored Scripture.
SPEAKER_01: Discernment is misguided when we are religious, but we ignore the Word of God.
SPEAKER_01: We often forget, just as normal human beings, we often forget the parts of the Bible that make us uncomfortable.
SPEAKER_01: We often forget, maybe conveniently, maybe just because we're forgetful people, the parts of the Bible that don't fit our paradigm of life.
SPEAKER_01: That ignorance will impact our discernment.
SPEAKER_01: These leaders also illustrate, though, that all discernment is not equal.
SPEAKER_01: All discernment is not the same.
SPEAKER_01: We, Allison and I hosted some friends a couple of weeks ago while they attended our men's conference.
SPEAKER_01: And one of them, one of the men, showed up at our house wearing shorts in below zero temperatures.
SPEAKER_01: He discerned that the temperatures did not require pants.
SPEAKER_01: Now we might question that kind of discernment.
SPEAKER_01: But that illustrates the point, doesn't it?
SPEAKER_01: Some look at the thermometer and say, What's wrong with wearing shorts?
SPEAKER_01: While others look at the same numbers on the thermometer and say, What's wrong with him?
SPEAKER_01: Not all discernment is equal.
SPEAKER_01: Now that's only a surface-level illustration.
SPEAKER_01: Discernment about dress that might lead to frostbite is different from discernment about Jesus and the scriptures that leads to spiritual disaster.
SPEAKER_01: Not all discernment is equal.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus here points to a typical weather pattern.
SPEAKER_01: You know, he says to the leaders, you know what it means if the sky is red in the morning or in the evening.
SPEAKER_01: He says, you know how to judge the appearance of the heavens, but you are unable to judge the signs of the times.
SPEAKER_01: You are unable to judge the appearance of the heavens, but you are unable to judge the signs of the times.
SPEAKER_01: Did you hear what I said there?
SPEAKER_01: Jesus' words are recorded here with a play on words.
SPEAKER_01: When your Bible says the word sky there, you can judge the sky at night when it's red.
SPEAKER_01: Matthew uses the same word that is translated heavens in, or heaven, in verse one.
SPEAKER_01: In verse 1, it's singular, heaven, and in the other places it's plural, heavens.
SPEAKER_01: Matthew will do that often.
SPEAKER_01: He will use the plural form of the word to refer to the sky that we can see.
SPEAKER_01: And when he uses the singular form, he refers to the place of God's presence.
SPEAKER_01: So Jesus says that the spiritual leaders that are coming to him that are challenging him, they think that they can discern the weather by looking at the sky.
SPEAKER_01: And they think also that they can discern signs from God's home.
SPEAKER_01: But Jesus says, you're merely amateur meteorologists looking out the window.
SPEAKER_01: Their ability to discern a heavenly sign is worse than their weather forecasting.
SPEAKER_01: They claim to be able to predict tomorrow's weather by looking out the sky, out the window today.
SPEAKER_01: They assume that they have the proper level of discernment.
SPEAKER_01: We have arrived at the place where we can understand what the weather is going to be like in the heavens, and not just that, we can understand a sign from the heaven, from God's home.
SPEAKER_01: But Jesus says, you can't interpret the signs of the times.
SPEAKER_01: What makes you think like you would understand a sign from heaven?
SPEAKER_01: Well, what are the signs of the times?
SPEAKER_01: Signs of the times can be answered in one word.
SPEAKER_01: Emmanuel.
SPEAKER_01: God with us.
SPEAKER_01: That's the sign of the time.
SPEAKER_01: God is with them.
SPEAKER_01: It's everything that Jesus has said and done.
SPEAKER_01: The heavens were already opened.
SPEAKER_01: The sign was given to them.
SPEAKER_01: The revelation of God the Son is taking place and they can't see it.
SPEAKER_01: They were better at discerning the weather from the heavens than they were at discerning the signs of the times.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus says they wouldn't even ask for a sign from heaven if they had adequately discerned the signs of the times.
SPEAKER_01: My friends, just because you have discernment in one area does not mean that you have the skills to discern in another.
SPEAKER_01: Not all discernment is equal.
SPEAKER_01: My father-in-law was a world-renowned research meteorologist specializing in tornadic storms.
SPEAKER_01: His contemporaries referred to him as a pioneer in radar meteorology and called him brilliant.
SPEAKER_01: His understanding of severe storms on the radar was among the best in the business.
SPEAKER_01: And as a result, his work took him around the world.
SPEAKER_01: But that's where his discernment took a strangely odd yet fascinating turn.
SPEAKER_01: You see, he could travel the world on his own without a problem.
SPEAKER_01: Foreign cities posed no issues to him.
SPEAKER_01: But he would get lost in his own hometown.
SPEAKER_01: Your ability to rightly discern what is needed for clothing at twenty below does not mean that your spiritual discernment is equally sufficient.
SPEAKER_01: Going to church for forty years doesn't mean that you will know what is right versus what is almost right.
SPEAKER_01: Making a wrong decision might get you lost in your hometown.
SPEAKER_01: But failing to grasp what is right versus what is almost right doesn't merely get you lost in your hometown.
SPEAKER_01: It can be much more dangerous, as the third illustration demonstrates.
SPEAKER_01: The Sadducees and the Pharisees demonstrate that some discernment leads to hell.
SPEAKER_01: It's hard for us to process because we think of discernment as a good thing, right?
SPEAKER_01: And we should, we should.
SPEAKER_01: But discernment merely means making a decision about something, making, reaching a conclusion about whether or not something is right or wrong, good or bad, right or almost right.
SPEAKER_01: Am I making the right turn or the wrong turn?
SPEAKER_01: Should I make a left turn or a right turn?
SPEAKER_01: Should I go out in a blizzard or should I not?
SPEAKER_01: But some discernment leads to hell because the Pharisees and the Sadducees could not tell the difference between what was right and what was almost right.
SPEAKER_01: How do we know that?
SPEAKER_01: We know that because they stood immediately in that moment right before the judge of all the earth and declared themselves to be perfect in discernment.
SPEAKER_01: Yet the evidence is piled up time and time again, and they continually respond by hardening their hearts, just like Pharaoh, saying, This is not enough.
SPEAKER_01: We need more.
SPEAKER_01: So Jesus says, an evil and an adulterous generation seeks for a sign.
SPEAKER_01: Chapter 12, we saw that that statement was a turning point for the leaders of Israel.
SPEAKER_01: It was their conclusion.
SPEAKER_01: It was the end of any chance of them to change their minds about Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: When Jesus said that, it was as though He put a stamp of confirmation on.
SPEAKER_01: He says, That's your choice, so be it.
SPEAKER_01: God put his word in flesh and walked among his people.
SPEAKER_01: But they could not discern that he was heaven-sent.
SPEAKER_01: God came to his own people and they missed it.
SPEAKER_01: What makes us think that we would be different?
SPEAKER_01: They could not discern that he was heaven sent.
SPEAKER_01: What they had always believed was in reality almost right.
SPEAKER_01: The Sadducees and the Pharisees believed that their powers of discernment were sufficient.
SPEAKER_01: They intended to judge for themselves whether or not Jesus was the Messiah.
SPEAKER_01: Just show us a sign, Jesus, from heaven, because we know what comes from heaven, and we will judge.
SPEAKER_01: And as a result, they prove their failure in discernment.
SPEAKER_01: The section is dripping with irony.
SPEAKER_01: You remember back in chapter 15, the Canaanite woman up in Tyre and Sidon?
SPEAKER_01: That Gentile dog, whom Jesus said possessed great faith.
SPEAKER_01: Remember her?
SPEAKER_01: The unnamed woman?
SPEAKER_01: She believed without seeing.
SPEAKER_01: She believed before she ever laid eyes on Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: She believed before her daughter was healed.
SPEAKER_01: That is true discernment.
SPEAKER_01: That is discerning the times.
SPEAKER_01: But the possessors of the law were blind leaders of the blind.
SPEAKER_01: They believed that they had proper discernment, but their judgment would get them lost in their hometown, sending them on the wide road to hell.
SPEAKER_01: Today we would call them good Christian people who could not see the light of Christ.
SPEAKER_01: These are illustrations of discernment.
SPEAKER_01: Now we move to Jesus' instructions to his disciples about discernment.
SPEAKER_01: They cross the Sea of Galilee.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus maybe just waiting for the right time to speak to them.
SPEAKER_01: They cross the Sea of Galilee, so some time has elapsed.
SPEAKER_01: They get to the other side, and Matthew makes this little note.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, by the way, you need to know they'd forgotten to bring any lunch.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus tells his disciples to watch out for the teaching of the religious leaders.
SPEAKER_01: Only he doesn't say teaching.
SPEAKER_01: He says leaven.
SPEAKER_01: What's leaven?
SPEAKER_01: Yeast.
SPEAKER_01: It's yeast.
SPEAKER_01: In the Bible, it's often used as a symbol of sin, of evil.
SPEAKER_01: It's an appropriate symbol because yeast spreads.
SPEAKER_01: If you put yeast into a batch of bread, it means that the entire loaf of bread is leavened.
SPEAKER_01: It will raise, it will puff up rather than being a thin, thin, crispy-like cracker bread.
SPEAKER_01: Quite an appropriate illustration.
SPEAKER_01: Because in the Passover meal, you only used unleavened bread.
SPEAKER_01: And so these religious leaders would be very, very cognizant of the difference between leavened and unleavened bread, and the disciples would be very aware of the Passover meal.
SPEAKER_01: And what happens when you put yeast into some dough.
SPEAKER_01: Sin is the same, it spreads in a bad way.
SPEAKER_01: And Jesus equates the teaching of these leaders with those same negative qualities.
SPEAKER_01: But the disciples are daydreaming.
SPEAKER_01: They're off in la la land.
SPEAKER_01: They're daydreaming while the teacher talks.
SPEAKER_01: They're like the folks listening to the preacher while drifting off into dreams about lunch.
SPEAKER_01: And when Jesus interrupts their daydreaming, they immediately feel guilty about not bringing lunch.
SPEAKER_01: It's a good illustration that our feelings do not always reflect reality.
SPEAKER_01: They hear Jesus' instruction about leaven and immediately exercise their powers of discernment.
SPEAKER_01: They conclude immediately that Jesus is rebuking them for neglecting to bring lunch.
SPEAKER_01: Was their discernment accurate?
SPEAKER_01: No.
SPEAKER_01: Their discernment was misguided, wasn't it?
SPEAKER_01: Jesus uses this recent interaction with the Sadducees and the Pharisees as an object lesson to teach his disciples about discernment.
SPEAKER_01: There are three principles of instruction that Matthew repeats for us.
SPEAKER_01: First, he instructs the disciples that wise discernment begins with trusting Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, you of little faith, why are you discussing among yourselves the fact that you have no bread?
SPEAKER_01: Do you not yet perceive?
SPEAKER_01: Do you not remember the five loaves for the five thousand and how many baskets you gathered?
SPEAKER_01: Or what about the seven loaves for the 4,000 and how many baskets you gathered there?
SPEAKER_01: How is it that you fail to understand that I did not speak about bread?
SPEAKER_01: Can you imagine Jesus saying that to you?
SPEAKER_01: How is it?
SPEAKER_01: How is it that you've you've been so long in church and you don't get this?
SPEAKER_01: There's a difference between the religious leaders and the disciples.
SPEAKER_01: The religious leaders are condemned to go to hell because they have no faith.
SPEAKER_01: The disciples are instructed because they have little faith.
SPEAKER_01: See the difference?
SPEAKER_01: One group has no faith.
SPEAKER_01: The other has faith, but it's little.
SPEAKER_01: It's a faith that exists, but it needs strengthening, it needs growing, it needs stretching.
SPEAKER_01: It's common for those whose faith is little to need growth in discernment.
SPEAKER_01: And Jesus says that what they've just been through ought to have grown their faith.
SPEAKER_01: That's why he asks them these questions.
SPEAKER_01: He said, Listen, you saw five to ten thousand people being fed with five loaves and two fish.
SPEAKER_01: You saw 4,000 men, plus women and children, being fed with seven loaves and a handful of fish.
SPEAKER_01: What did you learn from that?
SPEAKER_01: The number of people that were fed to satisfaction.
SPEAKER_01: Remember, we said it meant to be fattened like cattle?
SPEAKER_01: That's how satisfied they were.
SPEAKER_01: The number of people that were fed to satisfaction and then left over food gathered together with starting point of an infinitesimally in comparison amount of food ought to have taught you, ought to have impressed upon your heart that you need never worry or be anxious about what you eat.
SPEAKER_01: Physical needs are of no concern in the presence of the bread of life.
SPEAKER_01: We say that again.
SPEAKER_01: Physical needs are of zero concern in the presence of the bread of life.
SPEAKER_01: But their little faith is so distracted by physical needs that they are unable to discern that Jesus wasn't speaking about bread.
SPEAKER_01: In other words, they didn't trust that Jesus could provide in any and every situation.
SPEAKER_01: Their faith was small.
SPEAKER_01: Those whose faith is small will struggle to discern what Jesus means and properly apply what he says.
SPEAKER_01: Those whose faith is small will struggle with getting lost in their hometown.
SPEAKER_01: Those whose faith is small will struggle in making a decision between what is right and what is almost right.
SPEAKER_01: Those whose faith is small will struggle with the physical needs of life when Jesus says, just trust me on this.
SPEAKER_01: Let's check ourselves before we pat ourselves on the back for having great faith.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: We put ourselves into the feet of the disciples and we think, hey, if I would have been there, if I'd have been there, yeah, I would have been trusting Jesus by that point.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, probably not.
SPEAKER_01: Probably not.
SPEAKER_01: You see, friends, in the entire context, beginning in chapter 15, all the way to this point, the only person, the only person with great faith is an unnamed Canaanite woman.
SPEAKER_01: Who had never before laid eyes on Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Not the religious leaders, not the experts in God's word, not the disciples who'd been following him for who knows how long.
SPEAKER_01: But the woman who had only heard about the greatness of this guy named Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: In the context, the distinguishing characteristic between little faith and great faith is that great faith believes regardless of present circumstances.
SPEAKER_01: And little faith worries, stresses, and gets anxious over the things of this life in this world.
SPEAKER_01: In this context, that's the distinguishing marker.
SPEAKER_01: Great faith trusts Jesus no matter what life brings.
SPEAKER_01: And little faith gets sidetracked, gets distracted, makes wrong discerning choices.
SPEAKER_01: So if we want to grow in our faith and increase our discernment, we must grow in our trust in Jesus over all the things of this life.
SPEAKER_01: Even things that might seem minute, like what's for lunch.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus, though, also instructs his disciples that wise discernment distinguishes between the earnest and the true.
SPEAKER_01: Matthew has taken the man-centered traditions and laws of Judaism put forth by the Pharisees, and he has set them in opposition to God's purposes.
SPEAKER_01: We saw that in Jesus moving from the Pharisees and the Sadducees, the Pharisees and the Scribes, challenging Jesus' disciples eating with unwashed hands.
SPEAKER_01: And Jesus says, Listen, you would keep them from the things of God.
SPEAKER_01: And then he moves to the unnamed Canaanite woman.
SPEAKER_01: He says, You would really keep her from the things of God, wouldn't you?
SPEAKER_01: You wouldn't even let her close to the temple.
SPEAKER_01: So Jesus has dismantled the traditions and the laws, and he's bringing that reality to the forefront of the disciples' thinking.
SPEAKER_01: The Pharisees and the Sadducees are earnest in their faith.
SPEAKER_01: They're good guys.
SPEAKER_01: We would call them faithful.
SPEAKER_01: They're the be at church whenever the doors are open kind of people.
SPEAKER_01: They're the good people of the community.
SPEAKER_01: They're genuine in their faith and in their religion.
SPEAKER_01: But they're blind to who Jesus truly is.
SPEAKER_01: They are earnest, but not true.
SPEAKER_01: And it's possible to be earnestly and genuinely wrong.
SPEAKER_01: It's a hard thing for us to process.
SPEAKER_01: Because we like to think about the way we process decisions, the way we make discerning choices.
SPEAKER_01: And in the end, we make choices because we feel good about them.
SPEAKER_01: We feel that we've reached a right conclusion.
SPEAKER_01: And often those things are based upon how we feel.
SPEAKER_01: And Jesus reveals to us that it's possible that all of your feeling about your earnestness and your genuine.
SPEAKER_01: Can still lead you to a wrong choice.
SPEAKER_01: See, Jesus challenged the disciples' long-held perceptions about people.
SPEAKER_01: Their discernment, he said, must not be according to what appearances look like, or to what culture shows you, or to what emotions reflect.
SPEAKER_01: Discernment begins with what the heart does with Christ and is called to discipleship.
SPEAKER_01: Discernment is mere luck.
SPEAKER_01: It's a mere chance for those who are unwilling to believe in Christ and take up their cross and discipleship.
SPEAKER_01: There's a third and final instruction.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus instructs the disciples that wise discernment distinguishes between that which corrupts and that which truly satisfies.
SPEAKER_01: See, the teaching of the Sadducees and the Pharisees was this spreading kind of menace that Jesus pictures like yeast going through dough.
SPEAKER_01: In all genuineness and openness and honesty was intended to draw people to God.
SPEAKER_01: But in the end, all it did, Jesus says, is lead people right away from Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: It goes back to his opening illustration.
SPEAKER_01: You wouldn't be able to discern a sign from heaven if it was given to you.
SPEAKER_01: Because it already was.
SPEAKER_01: You wouldn't be able to discern the fulfillment of Scripture if it was laid out right in front of you.
SPEAKER_01: Friends, the first test, not the only test, the first test of religious teaching is whether it leads to the biblical Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Does whatever you're taking in lead you not to a feel-good Jesus, not to a Jesus that meets your needs, but to a Jesus as revealed in all of Scripture, not just the parts that you like, not just the parts that build you up, but all of it.
SPEAKER_01: Together, brought together.
SPEAKER_01: The teaching of the Pharisees and the Sadducees did not lead to people.
SPEAKER_01: In fact, it kept people away from Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Put differently, they were the map makers showing people the way to God.
SPEAKER_01: They were the map makers who got lost in their own backyard.
SPEAKER_01: They were the blind, Jesus says, leading the blind.
SPEAKER_01: Why?
SPEAKER_01: Because they were blind to Emmanuel.
SPEAKER_01: Proper discernment begins with faith in Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: So don't expect those who don't believe in Jesus to make wise choices.
SPEAKER_01: Don't be surprised when those who don't believe in Jesus go in a way that you think is just insane.
SPEAKER_01: It's expected.
SPEAKER_01: Why?
SPEAKER_01: Because the fear of Yahweh is the beginning of wisdom.
SPEAKER_01: There's no fear of God.
SPEAKER_01: If there's no fear of Jesus, there's not even the sense of beginning of wisdom.
SPEAKER_01: But the Pharisees and the Sadducees either looked elsewhere for understanding, or they ignored much of God's word that would have given them insight into the things of heaven.
SPEAKER_01: In essence, Jesus says, don't just look at the heavens, the skies.
SPEAKER_01: You need to find your way all the way to heaven.
SPEAKER_01: And we need to do the same.
SPEAKER_01: We inform our discernment often by what makes us feel good and accepted and welcome.
SPEAKER_01: And what ends up happening is that we inform our discernment by teaching that doesn't follow a biblical Christ.
SPEAKER_01: Instead, our discernment is informed more by cable news or Netflix or YouTube or video games or podcasts.
SPEAKER_01: What if we gave the time wasted on the things of this world to the very Word of God instead?
SPEAKER_01: We might find our faith challenged and stretched and groaned.
SPEAKER_01: And like the disciples, our discernment deepened.
SPEAKER_01: We must train our hearts to trust Jesus in all things and all ways so that our spirits are attuned not to the distractions of our world, but to eternal things.
SPEAKER_01: And we must feed our souls with the true bread that gives life so that our powers of discernment can distinguish between what leads to death and what satisfies to overflowing.
SPEAKER_01: Let's pray together.
SPEAKER_01: Lord Jesus, we long for what satisfies.
SPEAKER_01: We confess to you that we are like these disciples.
SPEAKER_01: Too often we don't even think.
SPEAKER_01: We just make decisions.
SPEAKER_01: We just process on the spot and we're not informed by your word.
SPEAKER_01: Too often we think that we are being led by what your word tells us and we haven't even gone to it.
SPEAKER_01: Too often we make significant discerning decisions and we haven't even spoken to you about them.
SPEAKER_01: We confess all of this, Lord.
SPEAKER_01: We confess that our faith is too often little.
SPEAKER_01: May you grow it.
SPEAKER_01: And Lord, even as I pray that, I know that as you grow our faith, it's often through testing.
SPEAKER_01: It's often through the challenging moments where you can point to us about who you are, about what you've done for us, so that we might trust you more.
SPEAKER_01: Lead us to that place so that we might be discerning people in all things and all ways.
SPEAKER_01: For the praise of your glorious grace.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: That concludes this sermon from Faith Evangelical Free Church.
SPEAKER_00: Our mission is to declare the Word of God and disciple believers into mature, devoted followers of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: You can learn more by visiting our website at faithfree.com.