SPEAKER_00: This sermon was recorded at Faith Evangelical Free Church in Grand Forks, North Dakota.
SPEAKER_01: Good morning.
SPEAKER_01: Wonderful to see all of you here this morning to worship our Lord Jesus Christ together.
SPEAKER_01: If you have a Bible or a device, I encourage you to find your way to Matthew's Gospel in chapter 13.
SPEAKER_01: Matthew chapter 13.
SPEAKER_01: You can use the Bible that's in the seat back in front of you if you don't have your own copy.
SPEAKER_01: An early American evangelist by the name of Mr.
SPEAKER_01: Whitfield was asked one time why he preached so often on John 3.16.
SPEAKER_01: You must be born again.
unknown: Mr.
SPEAKER_01: Whitfield is known to have preached on that text at least 80 times.
SPEAKER_01: I can't remember the exact number.
SPEAKER_01: It was sort of repetitive, and so this individual was challenging him.
SPEAKER_01: Why do you keep preaching on that same text?
SPEAKER_01: And Mr.
SPEAKER_01: Whitfield replied to his questioner, because you must be born again.
SPEAKER_01: It's kind of the element that is before us today.
SPEAKER_01: We have heard and sung this morning of the greatness of Christ's sacrifice for us.
SPEAKER_01: Responding by giving thanks to the Father for sending his son.
SPEAKER_01: But we constantly need to hear that message that we must be born again, that there needs to be a response to the Lord Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: The reason that we need to hear about that is because at the end of chapter 13 of Matthew's gospel, we see so often that people do not respond and do not believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: What makes this passage even more difficult to wrap our brains around is a slogan that some of you probably have hanging in your own homes.
SPEAKER_01: Home, sweet, home, right?
SPEAKER_01: It's an encouragement to come home.
SPEAKER_01: It's an encouragement to revel and to relax in the grace and the comfort of home.
SPEAKER_01: But Matthew 13 describes a situation in which home for the Lord Jesus was not so sweet.
SPEAKER_01: People who knew Jesus most of his life wanted to drive him off of the face of a cliff.
SPEAKER_01: We structured our service this morning around that idea.
SPEAKER_01: Here are people who knew Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: They knew him from the time he was in diapers, right?
SPEAKER_01: They knew him all of his life.
SPEAKER_01: And yet here they are, in the midst of his ministry, knowing all about him, saying, no, we don't believe in you.
SPEAKER_01: In the same way, we as gatherers on Sunday mornings may be in a similar place, having known Jesus all of our lives and yet needing to hear that message.
SPEAKER_01: You must have a rebirth.
SPEAKER_01: So our service this morning is begun with focusing on what Christ has done for us and giving thanks for that.
SPEAKER_01: And then being challenged with this staggering concept of people knowing Jesus and yet not believing.
SPEAKER_01: So we then, after hearing that message, are going to be challenged to turn our eyes to the Lord Jesus Christ, not in simple knowledge of who he is, but in faith in him and celebrating his death, burial, and resurrection on our behalf.
SPEAKER_01: So with that, Matthew 13, if you would take your Bible and look as I read, beginning in verse 53 this morning, I've been reading from the English Standard Version, it says, And when Jesus had finished these parables, he went away from there, and coming to his hometown, he taught them in their synagogue, so that they were astonished, and said, Where did this man get this wisdom and these mighty works?
SPEAKER_01: Isn't this the carpenter's son?
SPEAKER_01: Are not his mother, is not his mother called Mary, and are not his brothers James and Joseph and Simon and Judas, and are not all his sisters with us?
SPEAKER_01: Where then did this man get all these things?
SPEAKER_01: And they took offense at him.
SPEAKER_01: But Jesus said to them, A prophet is not without honor, except in his hometown and in his own household.
SPEAKER_01: And he did not do many mighty works there because of their unbelief.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: Last Sunday we were challenged by Jesus' use of value comparisons.
SPEAKER_01: He compared the kingdom of heaven to a treasure in a field and a merchant in search of a precious pearl.
SPEAKER_01: Saying, What is the value of Christ and his kingdom?
SPEAKER_01: We were challenged to consider the value that we give to following Christ.
SPEAKER_01: How valuable is the kingdom of heaven with Christ as its king to you?
SPEAKER_01: Is the value of the kingdom of heaven with Christ as its king worth everything that you have and everything that you are?
SPEAKER_01: Now in this final portion of Matthew chapter 13, we're challenged with a similar question.
SPEAKER_01: Is being a Christian, is being a disciple of Jesus worth being alone?
SPEAKER_01: Or is it worth dying for?
SPEAKER_01: Two very different people addressed the people of their homeland over the radio.
SPEAKER_01: On February 1st, 1933.
SPEAKER_01: For the very first time on that date, Adolf Hitler gave his very first radio broadcast to the German nation after coming to power.
SPEAKER_01: The other national radio address that day was from a pastor and a theologian who had grown concerned about Hitler.
SPEAKER_01: On the same day as Hitler's first radio address, Pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer also addressed the nation.
SPEAKER_01: Bonhoeffer had traced the evolution of the concept of leadership in Germany at the time, especially among young people, saying that if a leader, and in German leader is Führer, if a Fuhrer, if a leader becomes an idol that those who are being led are looking for, then a leader, a Führer, shifts from being a leader to being a misleader.
SPEAKER_01: And right when he made that point, the radio broadcast was inexplicably cut short.
SPEAKER_01: To this day, no one knows how or why.
SPEAKER_01: And that parallels Bonhoeffer's life being cut short because of his opposition to Hitler's leadership.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus offered himself to sinful humanity only to be met with rejection.
SPEAKER_01: Humanity, Bonhoeffer said, pushed Jesus right out of the world and right onto the cross.
SPEAKER_01: He taught that Jesus calls us to the same, saying, when Jesus calls a person, he bids him to come and die.
SPEAKER_01: What is the value of following Jesus to you?
SPEAKER_01: On April 9th, 1945, when he was 39 years old, Bonhoeffer was arrested and taken to Flossenburg concentration camp, where, just days before the Allied forces liberated Germany, Hitler gave orders to execute the last of those who opposed him, including Pastor Bonhoeffer.
SPEAKER_01: He followed it in the path of his Lord by being rejected by his own people and dying as a result.
SPEAKER_01: Now we've heard in our study in Matthew's Gospel that anyone who seeks to follow the Lord Jesus Christ must expect nothing less than what Jesus experienced.
SPEAKER_01: And that's quite a challenge for us as we continue on in Matthew's gospel, because we see from this point forward that Jesus receives nothing but opposition.
SPEAKER_01: That's hard for those of us that like to be welcomed and received and encouraged and embraced.
SPEAKER_01: Because when Jesus commands us to take up our cross and to follow him, it's no joke.
SPEAKER_01: He knows fully of what he speaks.
SPEAKER_01: Because it costs something to follow Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: But the value of following him is priceless.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 53, Jesus is coming to his hometown.
SPEAKER_01: But if we if we stop there, we we might expect something in our own minds of somebody returning home today in our world, in our culture.
SPEAKER_01: We might expect Jesus to have gained such excitement and such popularity that people are organizing a return home party, right?
SPEAKER_01: There's going to be celebration, there's going to be, there's going to be billboards, there's going to be balloons, there's going to be fireworks, there are going to be lines of people standing in line, camping in line for days, waiting for his autograph or to be cured of any disease or any sickness that they might have.
SPEAKER_01: Matthew's prepared us, though, for the reality.
SPEAKER_01: Because in Matthew chapter 12, the leadership of the Jewish people said, no, Jesus works for the devil.
SPEAKER_01: And so we have here Jesus coming to his hometown and being rejected.
SPEAKER_01: Why is that?
SPEAKER_01: Why does somebody who leaves home and is such a popular kind of person, why does he come home and receive rejection?
SPEAKER_01: Well, the bottom line is that Jesus is a very polarizing person.
SPEAKER_01: You can't just encounter Jesus and be okay.
SPEAKER_01: Something has to happen as a result.
SPEAKER_01: Human beings who are confronted with the person in the ministry of Jesus generally react in one of two ways.
SPEAKER_01: Either they react with faith and trust, in which he becomes the rock of their life, the one whom they follow, and the one upon whom they build their new life, or they react with offense, in which Jesus then becomes a stone over which they continually stumble in their unbelief.
SPEAKER_01: And that's the record that we have in the rest of the New Testament.
SPEAKER_01: Consider the book of Acts, for example, when Jesus has ascended to heaven after his resurrection and he gives the command to his disciples to go out and make disciples, we see that those who follow Jesus are just like him.
SPEAKER_01: They're polarizing individuals.
SPEAKER_01: You can't encounter one of those disciples and come away unmoved or unchanged.
SPEAKER_01: For example, four chapters in to the book of Acts, Peter and John are arrested for talking about Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Seven chapters into the book of Acts, Stephen, one of the disciples, becomes the first Christian martyr.
SPEAKER_01: He's killed.
SPEAKER_01: In the 12th chapter of Acts, James, the brother of John, was beheaded.
SPEAKER_01: And Peter was imprisoned.
SPEAKER_01: And as the gospel continued to spread through other communities and even throughout the whole entire Mediterranean region, as the Apostle Paul came to new communities and declared the gospel, there were riots and there were persecutions because the proclamation of the gospel and the transformation that it brought to people had that kind of an impact on the communities.
SPEAKER_01: When Christ calls you, he bids you to come and die.
SPEAKER_01: Maybe mostly this is a question for younger people.
SPEAKER_01: If your social media connections were completely lost to you because of Jesus, would it be worth it?
SPEAKER_01: If your family refused to love you and accept you and embrace you, would it be worth it?
SPEAKER_01: If you have a long time job and suddenly your employer lets you go because of Jesus, would that be worth it?
SPEAKER_01: If you are left all alone because of Jesus, would he be worth it?
SPEAKER_01: Are we polarizing individuals because of our connections to Jesus?
SPEAKER_01: Has our faith and trust in the King of glory so transformed us that taking up our cross impacts everyone around us for the glory of God?
SPEAKER_01: Now please understand, that doesn't mean that we turn people off because we're acting stupidly or offensively.
SPEAKER_01: It's because we turn people off because of Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: And the message of salvation in Christ alone.
SPEAKER_01: There are so-called churches in America where the cross is not on display anywhere in the building for fear of offending somebody.
SPEAKER_01: You may be aware of churches where they're afraid to declare that there is only one way to heaven because someone might be offended.
SPEAKER_01: Entire denominations of churches are giving in to societal and governmental pressures about sexuality and God's design for men and women rather than standing firm on the word of God when it contradicts the demands of sinful people.
SPEAKER_01: Where are the Christians and the churches who, in following in the footprints of Jesus, are not afraid to be polarizing children of God?
SPEAKER_01: Are you a polarizing figure in your hometown?
SPEAKER_01: You should be.
SPEAKER_01: Because Jesus was.
SPEAKER_01: Look with me at the flow of the text.
SPEAKER_01: Two main actions here, two main things, events going on.
SPEAKER_01: One is a primary action, the main action happening in the text.
SPEAKER_01: The other is the response, the reaction to that action.
SPEAKER_01: Let's look first at the main action where Jesus is seen here teaching in his hometown.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus is teaching here in his hometown.
SPEAKER_01: We're unclear.
SPEAKER_01: Is this talking about Nazareth, where he grew up?
SPEAKER_01: Or is this talking about Capernaum, where he has established his main base of operations?
SPEAKER_01: We're not told exactly.
SPEAKER_01: If it's Nazareth, which I tend to believe, then this marks the only recorded return to that village in all of the gospel record.
SPEAKER_01: Imagine that.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus returns one time in his three or so years of ministry to his hometown.
SPEAKER_01: And this is it.
SPEAKER_01: It's also the last time we see him teaching in a synagogue.
SPEAKER_01: Mark and Luke's Gospels tell us that it was on the Sabbath day.
SPEAKER_01: And we ought to know by now from chapter 11 and chapter 12 that Jesus somehow gets in trouble on the Sabbath day routinely.
SPEAKER_01: It's a rough day for him.
SPEAKER_01: And the result is amazement, incredulity, astonishment.
SPEAKER_01: It's a word that means to be so overcome with amazement that you are just utterly overwhelmed.
SPEAKER_01: But Luke puts a little bit different twist on it.
SPEAKER_01: It's not astonished and amazed with excitement.
SPEAKER_01: Luke tells us that they are astonished and overwhelmed because they were filled with wrath.
SPEAKER_01: They were overcome and unable to really process and act responsibly because they were so angry at Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: They could not believe the audacity of Jesus to return home, to come into their synagogue and speak with such wisdom.
SPEAKER_01: Imagine that.
SPEAKER_01: Somebody comes to the pulpit and speaks with wisdom, and people are angry.
SPEAKER_01: Starts with a question of education.
SPEAKER_01: Why are they so angry with Jesus?
SPEAKER_01: They're saying, where did this guy get his wisdom and his mighty works?
SPEAKER_01: This is Jesus' hometown.
SPEAKER_01: They knew him from the time he was a little toddler.
SPEAKER_01: In fact, it's likely that Jesus spent all of his 30 or so years prior to his ministry in this small community.
SPEAKER_01: Everyone knew Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: They knew that he had been with them most of his life, and they knew that he had absolutely no opportunity to gain the education that they deemed was necessary for teaching them in this kind of way and to gain such wisdom.
SPEAKER_01: They heard his wisdom with their own ears.
SPEAKER_01: Notice, where did this man get this wisdom?
SPEAKER_01: They're hearing wisdom, they're recognizing he's teaching us good things.
SPEAKER_01: He's teaching rightly, he's teaching wisely.
SPEAKER_01: But they couldn't explain where he gained his theological insight.
SPEAKER_01: And that's just astounding.
SPEAKER_01: Rather than be affected by the message, they were stumbling over his lack of education.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, they had heard of his mighty works.
SPEAKER_01: It's a word that Matthew uses many times in his gospel that most often refers to a creative, restoring kind of power that's beyond human ability.
SPEAKER_01: So we read in John chapter 7, verse 15, the Jews marveled, saying, How is it possible that this man has learning when he's never studied?
SPEAKER_01: How can this carpenter's son do all of these unexplainable, miraculous things?
SPEAKER_01: Those are good questions.
SPEAKER_01: Questions are your friend because they ought to make you ask more questions and learn more and study more to get at the right answer.
SPEAKER_01: But from the people's perspective, they just asked the questions and stopped there.
SPEAKER_01: They simply said, Jesus is uneducated, he's one of our own, and that's all.
SPEAKER_01: Many of these people may have grown up with Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Played on the streets of Nazareth with him.
SPEAKER_01: Maybe had some benefit from his working with Joseph in carpentry.
SPEAKER_01: They had no faith to see that far from being uneducated, Jesus is the source of all knowledge.
SPEAKER_01: Far from being somebody that just has physical strength from lifting wood and logs all day long and having rough hands, he is the one who holds the world together by the power of his might.
SPEAKER_01: Now, in the human life of Jesus, we see that all of his wisdom and all of his mighty works comes because of the Spirit of God working powerfully and acting through him.
SPEAKER_01: That's in chapter 12, verse 28.
SPEAKER_01: And that makes Jesus stand out from the world.
SPEAKER_01: When the Spirit of God is working in an individual or through an individual, that person stands out from the world.
SPEAKER_01: And brothers and sisters in Christ, that same truth applies to you.
SPEAKER_01: A spirit-filled person is going to stand out from the world.
SPEAKER_01: That's not always a good thing from a felt needs perspective.
SPEAKER_01: John's gospel shows us how God's spirit takes up residence within his children and then empowers them to be like Christ.
SPEAKER_01: That's important to remember that no one can come to Jesus to take his yoke upon them and be his disciples unless the Father draws them and the Spirit enables them.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus called that process a new birth, a new kind of birth in John chapter 3.
SPEAKER_01: That new birth means that you are now different from the rest of the world.
SPEAKER_01: You belong, in other words, to another kind of realm.
SPEAKER_01: Your king is Jesus, his word is the rule of your life, and his gospel, his good news is the key to all of eternity.
SPEAKER_01: That makes you stand out.
SPEAKER_01: That's why in Acts chapter 4, verse 13, Peter and John stood before the Jewish High Council.
SPEAKER_01: And that council was surprised, was taken aback by their boldness.
SPEAKER_01: Fascinating statement.
SPEAKER_01: It says, and they, the High Council, perceived that Peter and John were uneducated.
SPEAKER_01: Same word as Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Uneducated.
SPEAKER_01: They had no learning, they had no training.
SPEAKER_01: And they recognized that they had been with Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: All you need to be effective for Christ is faith in Jesus, through which God gives you his spirit to empower you for his glory.
SPEAKER_01: And then you will stand out.
SPEAKER_01: There ought to be, at minimum, maybe we could say, at minimum, there ought to be curious glances at us from the world.
SPEAKER_01: Because we've spent so much time with Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Back to stepping on toes.
SPEAKER_01: Are you formed more by social media than you are by Jesus?
SPEAKER_01: Oh, I can't, I can't, I can't read the Bible.
SPEAKER_01: Well, take the time that you look at social media and read your Bible.
SPEAKER_01: I bet you'll be surprised.
SPEAKER_01: Can you recount more about who did what, when, with whomever, than you can recount what Jesus says?
SPEAKER_01: Are you known more for your politics or for your soapboxes than for the gospel of Christ?
SPEAKER_01: Are we more comfortable fitting in with some group of one kind or another than we are of standing firm and being offensive because of Jesus?
SPEAKER_01: Jesus is challenged here with a question of education, and that question is followed by a second question.
SPEAKER_01: It's a question about birth.
SPEAKER_01: Isn't this the carpenter's son?
SPEAKER_01: That's a dig, by the way.
SPEAKER_01: Wait a minute.
SPEAKER_01: Isn't this the guy that works with wood?
SPEAKER_01: He's just a lowly carpenter.
SPEAKER_01: Isn't that who this is?
SPEAKER_01: We know his parents.
SPEAKER_01: We even know his brothers and sisters.
SPEAKER_01: What's up with this guy?
SPEAKER_01: They could tell that he was a great preacher.
SPEAKER_01: They could hear the wisdom in his teaching, and they had heard that he could do great works and of great power, but they just couldn't get their minds beyond their preconceived ideas of Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: And that can be a problem for people who've grown up in church.
SPEAKER_01: We develop from the time we're children these certain ideas about who Jesus is and what he is and what he's capable of, and we fail to recognize that you must be born again.
SPEAKER_01: Remember, Matthew's been telling us over and over and over from page one that Jesus is the Messiah.
SPEAKER_01: He's the great king.
SPEAKER_01: He's Emmanuel, God with us.
SPEAKER_01: But to his hometown, Jesus was just the kid who grew up down the block.
SPEAKER_01: To people in his hometown, Jesus was just one of the kids that grew up on the dusty streets of Nazareth learning the carpentry trade.
SPEAKER_01: They looked all the time at the human perspectives keeping them from seeing the truths of the kingdom of heaven.
SPEAKER_01: Because people didn't expect a prophet to come from Galilee or from Nazareth.
SPEAKER_01: Remember Nathaniel's question in the Gospel of John?
SPEAKER_01: John chapter 1, verse 46, when he was told that his friends had found the Messiah, Jesus of Nazareth, and Nathaniel's response was, what?
SPEAKER_01: Can anything good come out of Nazareth?
SPEAKER_01: You can't be serious.
SPEAKER_01: A kid from Nazareth?
SPEAKER_01: They didn't understand Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: And the world will not understand a spirit-filled person either.
SPEAKER_01: See, there's a question of doubt.
SPEAKER_01: Where did this guy get all of this wisdom?
SPEAKER_01: It's truly unimaginable to the human mind.
SPEAKER_01: The living word of God, the one who is, who was, and who is to come, the Alpha and the Omega, the creator of all that is, Yahweh Himself, is in their synagogue teaching them on a Sabbath morning what we would give to be in that kind of a place.
SPEAKER_01: And all they can say is, where'd he come up with this?
SPEAKER_01: I think that teaches us volumes about the depth of human depravity.
SPEAKER_01: In the Old Testament, Israel stood and camped around the base of Mount Sinai.
SPEAKER_01: And they heard God thunder.
SPEAKER_01: They heard the voice of God and they said to Moses eventually, Moses, we were too afraid of God to talk with God.
SPEAKER_01: So you go intercede for us.
SPEAKER_01: They had the privilege of hearing the voice of God.
SPEAKER_01: And yet, just a few days after hearing the voice of God, they formed a golden calf and worshiped it and said, Here, O Israel, is the God who brought you out of Egypt.
SPEAKER_01: Here in their synagogue is the God who formed them.
SPEAKER_01: And they're saying, Nazareth?
SPEAKER_01: Really?
SPEAKER_01: Jesus?
SPEAKER_01: That tells us that we can expect the same in our declaration of the words of God to an unbelieving world because mankind hasn't changed.
SPEAKER_01: And if we are to live a Christ-like manner of life, we will stand out.
SPEAKER_01: Our choices will stand out, our actions will stand out, our temperaments will stand out, and our speech will confound people.
SPEAKER_01: Bottom line is that fitting in doesn't fit in with the people of Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: If we're talking about fitting into this world.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 57, they took offense at him.
SPEAKER_01: They were offended by his apparent audacity to proclaim good news of salvation.
SPEAKER_01: And by his seeking to teach them the word of God.
SPEAKER_01: They simply could not, in their minds, connect Jesus' ordinary, humble, well-known origins with his teaching and miracles.
SPEAKER_01: They were trying to draw a line between point A and point B, and they couldn't connect them.
SPEAKER_01: That's why it's called faith, right?
SPEAKER_01: The people were offended.
SPEAKER_01: The word which Matthew chooses to use here is scandalizo.
SPEAKER_01: If you're thinking, you might recognize some English words that come from that word.
SPEAKER_01: Scandal.
SPEAKER_01: Scandalized.
SPEAKER_01: Scandalous.
SPEAKER_01: It's a word that means to give offense, to produce anger or shock, and so cause somebody to trip up, to stumble.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus is a scandal.
SPEAKER_01: Why?
SPEAKER_01: Because he opened his mouth.
SPEAKER_01: Because he spoke.
SPEAKER_01: He spoke the words of God.
SPEAKER_01: It's because the words of God are scandalous to sinful people.
SPEAKER_01: Interestingly, back in chapter 11, verse 6, Jesus said to the disciples, Blessed is the one who is not scandalized by me.
SPEAKER_01: There's blessing if you aren't scandalized by Jesus, which means that if you are scandalized by Jesus, you miss out on that blessing, right?
SPEAKER_01: These people in his hometown would not receive such a blessing.
SPEAKER_01: But if you are not scandalized by Jesus, that's a blessing.
SPEAKER_01: And notice the way that Jesus responds to this.
SPEAKER_01: He says it's not a surprise to him.
SPEAKER_01: He knows this, he expects it.
SPEAKER_01: A prophet is not without honor except in his hometown and in his own household.
SPEAKER_01: Prophets, in other words, are often rejected by their own people.
SPEAKER_01: Acts chapter 7, verse 52, Stephen, speaking before the Jewish High Council, asked, Which of the prophets did your fathers not persecute?
SPEAKER_01: It's expected.
SPEAKER_01: If you're a prophet, you're going to be persecuted.
SPEAKER_01: People of Jesus' hometown are much like the residents of Korz and Bethseida and Capernaum in chapter 11, verses 20 through 24.
SPEAKER_01: They reject God's saving rule through the Lord Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: They reject the kingdom of heaven and its king because they thought he was a common person.
SPEAKER_01: They had no faith to believe that Jesus is the fulfillment of all of Scripture's promises, that he is Emmanuel.
SPEAKER_01: And so this then becomes a real life illustration of the parable of the sower in chapter 13.
SPEAKER_01: Where seed is cast out by the sower and falls on all kinds of ground.
SPEAKER_01: Most of the ground doesn't produce any fruit.
SPEAKER_01: People are offended.
SPEAKER_01: My friends, a spirit-filled person will be offensive to the world.
SPEAKER_01: Notice Matthew's comment here at the end of verse 58.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus limited his ministry in his hometown.
SPEAKER_01: He did not do many mighty works there.
SPEAKER_01: And then there's a purpose statement.
SPEAKER_01: Because of their unbelief.
SPEAKER_01: He can do all things.
SPEAKER_01: All things are possible with God, right?
SPEAKER_01: But because of the community skepticism and the doubt and the lack of faith in who he truly was, Jesus limits the extent of his ministry among them.
SPEAKER_01: And he says he did that because of their unbelief.
SPEAKER_01: This is a word that is only used in Matthew to refer to those who reject Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: There is no faith and no trust in Jesus as their king.
SPEAKER_01: And that is a symbol in the New Testament of judgment.
SPEAKER_01: A world that rejects God's work through his spirit-filled people stands without excuse.
SPEAKER_01: See, it's a sign of God's judgment when he backs away and lets people be.
SPEAKER_01: When God steps back and says, okay, I'm no longer restraining, I'm no longer working.
SPEAKER_01: And he says, just have fun, do whatever you want.
SPEAKER_01: That's a sign of his judgment.
SPEAKER_01: And they're without excuse.
SPEAKER_01: Friends, it's important to understand that when the world rejects us because of Jesus, it's not us that they're rejecting.
SPEAKER_01: It may feel like it.
SPEAKER_01: The emotions may well up inside that feel as though you're alone, that you're standing alone, no one is with you, and everybody is against you.
SPEAKER_01: Remember Elijah after the high point of his life on Mount Carmel, experiencing the power of God.
SPEAKER_01: The next thing you see is he's alone in the desert asking God to take his life because he's all alone.
SPEAKER_01: He's the last one.
SPEAKER_01: But it's not, it's not us they're rejecting.
SPEAKER_01: It's the Lord Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Remember when Israel asked for a king?
SPEAKER_01: Saul was, or Samuel was so grieved that they were asking for the king.
SPEAKER_01: And God said to Samuel, hey Sam, cheer up.
SPEAKER_01: They're not rejecting you.
SPEAKER_01: They're rejecting me.
SPEAKER_01: And when God ceases his work among those who turn away from him, it's a sign of his judgment.
SPEAKER_01: In Luke's gospel, Luke records that the people wanted to push Jesus off of a cliff.
SPEAKER_01: They're so stirred up, they're so angry and scandalized by Jesus declaring the truth of the word of God that they want to pick him up and toss him over the side of a cliff.
SPEAKER_01: A person doing the work of Christ, expressing the words of Christ and the power of the Spirit of Christ, will be offensive to a world that does not want Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Think with me about some implications of this.
SPEAKER_01: Because of him.
SPEAKER_01: Why?
SPEAKER_01: Why should we not be surprised?
SPEAKER_01: Because Jesus has already said, Come and die.
SPEAKER_01: Come and die.
SPEAKER_01: Follow me.
SPEAKER_01: Take up your cross, a symbol of your death, your dying, so that my life might live through you.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus says, I want to do my work in my world, and I'm going to do it with the power of my spirit, and I'm going to do it in the power of my spirit through frail human beings who come to me to die.
SPEAKER_01: He lives in you, and through you, for his purposes, he accomplishes his desires.
SPEAKER_01: That may mean rejection for you.
SPEAKER_01: That may mean needing to make a concerted effort and decision in your own mind to stand firm upon the words of God.
SPEAKER_01: That may mean coming to your fellowship group on a Sunday morning and asking your brothers and sisters in Christ to pray for boldness for you, like the New Testament church.
SPEAKER_01: But all of that does not mean that we change our message or that we work to accommodate.
SPEAKER_01: You know, you can make Christ palatable to anyone.
SPEAKER_01: Just minimize a lot of his commands.
SPEAKER_01: Just kind of shift the way Jesus says things to make them a little more acceptable.
SPEAKER_01: You can make Christ palatable to anybody.
SPEAKER_01: But that's disingenuous and deadly.
SPEAKER_01: Because if we minimize the words of Jesus, then we're leading people to believe in a Jesus that isn't real.
SPEAKER_01: Christ commands all people everywhere to repent.
SPEAKER_01: That's why Mr.
SPEAKER_01: Whitfield said again and again, you must be born again.
SPEAKER_01: You must have faith to believe that Jesus is this one.
SPEAKER_01: He commands all people everywhere to repent, to be born again, but in coming to Jesus, it will cost you everything.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, but here's the glorious prelude to that, right?
SPEAKER_01: That's last week when we looked at the value of the kingdom.
SPEAKER_01: It will cost you everything, but it is worth every cost to follow Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Don't turn away.
SPEAKER_01: Turn to him.
SPEAKER_01: Come to Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Fix your eyes on him, the author and the perfecter of your faith.
SPEAKER_01: Turn to Jesus, take up your cross and follow him.
SPEAKER_01: That can only happen if you look to him by faith.
SPEAKER_01: Seeing the only way this makes sense is if Jesus really is God.
SPEAKER_01: If he really did go to the cross and shed his blood for me, and if he really did rise from the dead.
SPEAKER_01: Would you pray with me?
SPEAKER_01: Lord Jesus, we come having heard your word, and we ask that you would work powerfully through it.
SPEAKER_01: We ask that your spirit would move amongst us, even giving new life.
SPEAKER_01: Right this very moment.
SPEAKER_01: Someone who's heard this message, maybe for the first time or maybe for the hundredth time, who's heard it and said, Yes, I need to believe.
SPEAKER_01: Lord Jesus, we celebrate, we thank you for who you are and for what you've done.
SPEAKER_01: We hear your words to look to you.
SPEAKER_01: And in our looking to you, we ask that you would fill us with your spirit, that you would give us all boldness to be effective for you.
SPEAKER_01: As we stand firm against a world that hates you.
SPEAKER_01: We look to you with faith, believing that your word is true, that you are true, and that you are our king.
SPEAKER_01: 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.