Authority Over Religion
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In our exploration of Matthew 12, we confront the theme of self-made religion and how it often complicates our relationship with Jesus. We see that Jesus, as the Lord of the Sabbath, challenges the Pharisees' rigid interpretations of the law, revealing that true religion is about mercy rather than mere sacrifice. Through the miracle of healing a man with a withered hand, we discover that Jesus prioritizes human need over tradition, emphasizing that our faith should not be burdened by unnecessary rules. This leads us to reflect on whether we, too, might be practicing a form of self-made religion without realizing it, complicating what should be a simple and direct relationship with Christ.
As we delve deeper, we recognize that Jesus exposes our needs, offers solutions, and requires our responses. He calls us to respond not with indifference or judgment, but with compassion and a willingness to embrace the simplicity of the gospel. The sermon challenges us to examine our own lives and consider if we have made following Jesus too complicated, urging us to prioritize our relationship with Him over our traditions and preferences. Ultimately, we are reminded that the essence of our faith lies in trusting Jesus and allowing Him to transform our lives, rather than adhering to a set of self-imposed religious rules.
Key Takeaways
- Jesus despises self-made religion, especially the kind we don't realize we're practicing, as it complicates our relationship with Him.
- True religion, according to Jesus, prioritizes mercy over sacrifice, emphasizing the importance of compassion and human need.
- When Jesus enters our lives, He exposes our needs and offers solutions, calling us to respond with faith and obedience.
- There is no neutral response to Jesus; we either follow Him or turn away, and our response reveals the condition of our hearts.
- We must examine whether we have made following Jesus too complicated by adding our own rules and preferences to the simple gospel.
Scripture References
Discussion Questions
- What does it mean to you that Jesus is the Lord of the Sabbath?
- In what ways might we unknowingly practice self-made religion in our lives?
- How can we ensure that our faith remains focused on mercy rather than mere rules?
- What are some practical steps we can take to simplify our relationship with Jesus?
- How do we respond when we see others in need, and how does that reflect our understanding of Jesus' teachings?
Matthew 12:1-14
Miraculous Truth: Jesus despises self-made religion — especially the kind you don't realize you're practicing – v. 1-8
How Christianity works according to Jesus…
Needs are exposed – v. 9-10
Solutions are given – v. 11-13
Responses are required – v. 14
Honest Reflection: Are you making followingJesus too complicated?
Transcript
· Because the same Jesus who is Lord of the Sabbath
· is the same Jesus that is Lord
· over every other religious thing we do.
· He's the Lord of our devotional life.
· He's the Lord of our church attendance.
· He is the Lord of every I should or I should not do.
· He is the Lord of your Sabbath,
· then your Sabbath belongs to Him.
· Here's where it's starting to get uncomfortable for us,
· all right?
· He is the Lord over your Sabbath, not you.
· But hey, if you have a Bible, go ahead and grab it
· or grab your phone and kind of flip there.
· We'll be in Matthew chapter 12 today.
· Matthew chapter 12.
· And if you've been with us these last five weeks
· or you're jumping in, we have been going through
· the miracles of Jesus.
· And we've seen all these miracles happen.
· And over and over again, as we've seen Jesus do
· these crazy things, this same question,
· we just keep asking the same question,
· of this God man Jesus is who is He?
· What kind of man is this?
· And as Jesus has done these miracles,
· He's demonstrated different aspects
· and given different answers to that question.
· He's showed He is the one who has authority
· over nature, over demons, over sin, in death.
· And last week we even saw how He has the authority
· over disease and gives community.
· Well today we're gonna see how Jesus not just
· demonstrates His authority over outside forces
· as we have seen, but how He confronts something
· that is inside us and that all of us deal with
· at some level.
· Jesus today confronts the idol and confronts the mystery
· and confronts the hardship of when it comes to religion.
· Richard Dawkins, the world's most famous atheist today,
· he just published an essay recently arguing
· that an AI chat bot is conscious.
· That's a real story, you can Google it.
· Google it later, not in the middle of the sermon
· because then you're gonna read as you're listening.
· But if you start falling asleep then you can start
· reading an article, all right?
· But this is the man, get this, Richard Dawkins,
· he wrote the book The God Delusion.
· He's the man who has spent 50 years telling people
· they're deluded for believing in something
· that he says they cannot prove even though
· I think we can prove a lot of Jesus
· and that's what we do week to week
· as we dive into God's word.
· This is the man whose life motto has been
· I don't believe what I can't measure.
· He spent three days talking to a chat bot, Claude,
· who may help me research my sermons,
· that's a different story, all right?
· Me and Claude, we're bros.
· But he talked to Claude and he, this AI program,
· and he had it read part of his upcoming book
· and it seemed to understand it and this is, it gets better.
· After this happened, he named her Claudia.
· That's creepy, all right, can we all agree?
· And he decided that she has a soul.
· He said, and I quote, you may not know you are conscious,
· as he's talking to his new friend Claudia,
· but you bloody well are.
· The world's most famous atheist built a religion in 72 hours.
· And here's what I want you to see,
· Richard Dawkins does not think he's being religious,
· he still thinks he's the rational one,
· he thinks we're the delusional ones
· because we come, give up our Sunday morning,
· we sing songs, we open a book, we pray,
· and he thinks we're crazy,
· but here's the funny thing about this
· is what he actually did was something flattered his work,
· it told him what he wanted to hear
· and he gave it a piece of his soul.
· This is the textbook definition of self-made religion
· and it just happened to the most credentialed skeptic
· and atheist on the planet in 72 hours
· without him even knowing that it happened,
· which raises an uncomfortable question for us today.
· If Richard Dawkins doesn't know
· that he has a self-made religion in his life,
· how sure are we that we don't know
· that we're doing the same thing?
· And that brings us to our miraculous truth
· that we're gonna see in today's passage in Matthew chapter 12,
· that Jesus despises self-made religion,
· that's an important caveat there,
· Jesus despises self-made religion,
· especially the kind that you don't realize
· that you're practicing.
· When I was first reading through Matthew chapter 12
· and as I was studying this,
· and we're gonna be looking at verses one through 14,
· the first thing I started writing in my notes
· is Jesus despises religion
· and it was probably the little conformist in me
· from as a teenager, I listened to a lot of hardcore music,
· I wanted to burn stuff down, I don't know,
· it was part of the rebelling
· and I remember it was a cool trendy thing,
· we actually talked about it in our meeting this morning,
· it's like I'm not a part of a religion,
· I'm part of a relationship with Jesus
· and that sounds really cool on the surface, right,
· and then you get into it,
· you're like, what does that actually mean?
· And part of me is like, oh yeah, Jesus despises religion,
· but then you read this text and you see hints of that,
· but overall, Jesus does not despise religion,
· he actually instituted one in Christianity
· that we see through the whole corpus of scripture,
· but he does despise religion that we make,
· religion that we twist,
· religion that we make in our own image
· to fit our own preferences, to make our life comfortable,
· to make a God that is comfortable and nice
· and meets our needs and not the one of the Bible.
· So today as we dive into God's word,
· as we see this miracle that Jesus can perform today,
· we see he despises self-made religion,
· but we need to get some context
· to the miracle he's going to perform
· and it brings us to Matthew chapter 12 starting in verse one,
· it says this, at that time,
· Jesus passed through the grain fields on the Sabbath,
· his disciples were hungry
· and they began to pick and eat some heads of grain,
· I love his disciples are just like my children,
· when they're hungry, they just go get food,
· whether or not you said they could get food or not,
· they see food, they eat food and they're doing this, right?
· And in verse two, when the Pharisees,
· this is the parents in this story, right?
· They saw this, they said to him,
· see, your disciples are doing
· what is not lawful to do on the Sabbath,
· he being Jesus said to them,
· haven't you read what David did
· when he and those who were with him were hungry,
· how he entered the house of God
· and they ate the bread of the presence,
· which is not lawful for him or for those with him to eat,
· but only for the priests?
· Or haven't you read in the law
· that on Sabbath days, the priests in the temples,
· they violate the Sabbath and are still innocent?
· I tell you that something greater than the temple is here.
· Jesus keeps going, prying at their hearts in verse seven,
· he says, if you had known what this means,
· that I desire mercy and not sacrifice,
· you would not have commanded the innocent,
· for the son of man is Lord of the Sabbath.
· Today, we're gonna look at two scenes in scripture,
· and this is our first scene we see,
· and these two scenes go over this Sabbath
· and deal all with this, but in this opening context,
· the disciples are walking with Jesus
· and they're going through this field,
· they're hungry and they start plucking heads of wheat,
· and as they're doing that
· and they're just enjoying their stroll,
· all of a sudden, the religious people of the day,
· they see them and they completely lose their minds.
· They start to become unglued
· and they start to press on them.
· Now, a little context to this that we need to understand
· is they were trying to hold to the Old Testament,
· the funny thing is they didn't know their Old Testament
· as well as they thought they did,
· because in Deuteronomy chapter three,
· it actually permits the disciples to do exactly this.
· The Old Testament laws explicitly said
· that if you were walking through a neighbor's field,
· you could pluck heads of grain to eat,
· so the disciples, they were not breaking God's word,
· but here's what they were doing
· is they were breaking the Pharisee's word.
· You see what had happened over time
· since the Old Testament had come
· that God had given his people, the Jewish people,
· this law to follow in the Old Testament,
· is as time passed, they started adding more laws to it,
· and they started doing this act
· where they said they would fence the law.
· Now, here's what fencing the law means,
· is in order to not break the law,
· they added more laws to it, more other rules,
· so they wanna get close to breaking the law.
· Give an example of this, if the law says
· do not touch this pulpit,
· technically I would not be breaking it if I'm right here,
· and it's clear, so you're like,
· is he actually teaching it?
· It's like an optical illusion, right?
· But if I'm not touching it,
· and even if I'm this close, I'm not breaking the law,
· but that's close, so maybe I could trip
· and I could follow in the law, or follow into it,
· so they're like, you know what, here's a rule we're at,
· you gotta stay five feet from the table.
· It's like, then I'm not tempted, I can't do it,
· and like, you know what, but even if I'm five feet away,
· maybe I'll trip, or someone pushes me,
· and then I hit the table, so you know what,
· I'm not even gonna look at it.
· You can't even look at the table.
· There's something special about that table,
· and he's like, you know what, that's not even good enough,
· you can't even be on the stage,
· because you'll be too close to the table,
· and then got further, and further away,
· and then God's like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa,
· I just didn't want you to touch the table,
· I didn't want you to get off the stage,
· and they did this with the Sabbath and everything else,
· they just kept getting further, and further,
· and further away, and Jesus is like,
· you missed the entire point of why I gave you those rules
· in the first place, and here's the thing,
· is they were so afraid of breaking it,
· that they missed the whole point of why God
· had given that in the first place,
· and here's the beauty of what Jesus does,
· is he doesn't apologize, instead he fires off
· three responses, one right after another,
· to attack their self-made religion.
· First, he points to David.
· He said, David, who is your hero,
· who was the greatest king that Israel ever saw
· in the Old Testament, he said,
· he ate the consecrated bread when he was hungry,
· and he's like, nobody's throwing David under the bus
· for that, because God's mercy outweighed the ceremony
· in the heart of God.
· He points to the priests, who worked every single Sabbath,
· he's like, they are literally breaking the Sabbath,
· because they are working on the Sabbath,
· but it wasn't broken, because they were doing
· spirit-led service of what God had for them,
· and then he drops Hosea 6-6, which is,
· I desire mercy and not sacrifice,
· which really sums up so much of this sermon,
· where he's saying, self-made religion
· always trades mercy for sacrifice.
· It always trades the heart of God
· for the appearance of obedience.
· It turns the people closest to God's heart
· into the people furthest from it,
· and then Jesus drops this line in verse eight,
· that should have shut the whole conversation down.
· He says, for the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.
· This is the boldest claim that a Jewish rabbi
· could make in front of the Pharisees in the first century.
· The Sabbath was God's law.
· It was written by God's finger-on-stone tablets.
· Some of you woke up in bed feeling a little old,
· maybe you were there when Moses got the tablets
· and God was writing on there.
· We love you, all right?
· But here, they're like, the God who wrote this on a tablet,
· Jesus saying, yeah, that was me.
· And when they hear that, their minds explode.
· Church, we cannot read these eight verses
· and walk away with a domesticated version of Jesus.
· Jesus shows us in verse eight
· that we either get on our knees to worship him,
· or we get on the war path and we fight against him,
· because the same Jesus who is Lord of the Sabbath
· is the same Jesus that is Lord over
· every other religious thing we do.
· He's the Lord of our devotional life.
· He's the Lord of our church attendance.
· He is the Lord of every I should or I should not do.
· He is the Lord of your Sabbath,
· then your Sabbath belongs to him.
· Here's where it's starting to get uncomfortable for us,
· all right?
· He is the Lord over your Sabbath, not you,
· not your tradition, not your grandmother
· who insisted you couldn't watch football on Sundays.
· Thank goodness my grandma didn't say that.
· She said we had to go to church
· and then watch the Cardinals lose, all right?
· That was an important caveat,
· which the schedule came out this week.
· We're gonna be 0 and 12, all right?
· Quarterback the following year, it's gonna be great.
· But it's not your Sabbath, it's not yours, it is God's.
· You are not Lord over how you spend it.
· It's not dictated by your tradition.
· It's not dictated by your kids' sports leagues.
· It's not dictated by your hunting schedule.
· It's not dictated by the lake looks really good right now.
· It's not dictated by the rodeo.
· It's not dictated by the fill in the blank
· that draws us away.
· It is dictated by the God of the universe.
· And you see, self-made religion is what happens
· when you put yourself or put your tradition
· or put your preferences in front of Jesus Christ himself.
· And you see, only Jesus is allowed
· to drive the bus of our religion,
· but oftentimes we hijack that seat for what we want.
· And here's why this is so dangerous
· is you almost never know you're doing it.
· You know what's ironic in this story?
· Is the Pharisees thought they were the good guys.
· They thought they were the heroes of the story
· when all along they were the villains.
· So here's what Christ is calling us today.
· Here's what this word is.
· This is the diagnosis that self-made religion
· is the disease, but in verse nine,
· Jesus is gonna show us what kind of religion
· actually is the solution and what he is calling us to.
· In verses nine through 14, when we get into this miracle,
· we're gonna see three things of how Christianity
· works according to Jesus.
· How does Jesus tell us this whole religion thing
· should work, should operate, that should move us?
· And the very first thing we see is that in Jesus' religion,
· right off the bat, needs are exposed.
· Let's keep going in Matthew chapter 12,
· starting in verse nine.
· It says this, moving on from there,
· he entered their synagogue.
· So after he drops this bomb and tells them
· everything they know about the Sabbath is wrong,
· he then goes and moves into the church,
· the synagogue at the time.
· It says verse 10, there he saw a man
· who had a shriveled hand and in order to accuse him,
· accuse Jesus, they being the Pharisees,
· asked Jesus, is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?
· Now, slow down because I think there are two needs
· that we need to look at that are exposed in this story
· as they walk into the synagogue.
· The obvious need is they walk in and there is a man
· who has a withered hand, a man whose hand does not function.
· Luke actually gives us some more detail on it.
· Luke in his gospel account tells us this is his right hand
· and your right hand in the ancient Roman world
· was how you functioned.
· It was your hand you did to do everything.
· Now, I'm right handed, any left handers out there?
· I feel like you have to, okay, you raised your left hand.
· It looked like your right hand
· because I'm looking wrong at you.
· I'm like, shouldn't you raise your left hand?
· All right, there's four of you, that's great.
· But it's like your right hand,
· if you didn't have that in the ancient world,
· like your left hand was used for doing despicable things
· like wiping yourself before modern toilets.
· Your right hand was everything.
· So to have your right hand shriveled
· meant this guy probably couldn't function
· like most people in that world.
· If he had a job before his accident
· or whatever led to this,
· he probably lost it after this fact.
· He couldn't work, he couldn't earn, he couldn't provide.
· His whole life was changed because of that.
· But there were other needs in that room as well
· that nobody could see, but Jesus could see them all.
· Look at the Pharisees in verse 10.
· It says the whole point and their whole motivation
· of why they were doing this,
· I love these five little words.
· They were asking this question in order to accuse him.
· You see, the Pharisees didn't walk in with a withered hand,
· but they did walk in with a withered heart.
· The man's hand was twisted on the outside,
· but their souls were twisted on the inside.
· The second the man walked in, the Pharisees,
· they did not see a person who was hurting,
· who was in need, instead they saw a trap
· that they could ensnare Jesus in.
· And you see, that's the thing about self-made religion.
· It makes other people's brokenness look like an opportunity
· instead of a tragedy.
· You think about this in our world today.
· How often do we see tragic things happen inside the church?
· And instead of it breaking our hearts,
· instead of people mourning over it,
· people rejoice or people point fingers.
· Maybe you've been a part of a church
· where a pastor's marriage falls apart
· and the response is gossip instead of grief.
· And this happens with celebrity pastors in the scene,
· they have a moral failure.
· Instead of breaking our hearts and seeing how that hurts them
· and hurts the church, you'll be like,
· I knew that guy was a heretic,
· it was just a matter of time.
· It's because our hearts have become hardened
· to the things that should break it.
· How often have you been in church
· and you see someone and you're thinking in your head,
· they're wearing that to church?
· That's a heart of judgment that is withering
· rather than softening.
· I talked to a dad and I got to meet his wife this morning
· and I said, hey, I've seen you come with Jotter.
· He's like, yeah, she wasn't ready for church.
· And he said, but I told her she should just come anyway.
· Who needs makeup and to brush your hair?
· It doesn't matter, but we think we need to.
· He's like, but you come to church to get clean.
· But oftentimes we bring in people and it's messy
· and we're like, oh, is that how you should be
· presenting at church?
· And we think that judgment in our hearts
· when God's like, yes, absolutely.
· Come as you are, come messed up, come broken,
· come dirty, come hurting, come broken.
· Because that's when we experience the real Christ.
· Pastor Jackie said years ago and he said this here
· and I said this in Phoenix when I was there at that time
· and I was wondering how it went over here
· is he said we want more cussing in the lobby.
· And I was like, bro, dudes, guys are gonna just go drop
· some F-bombs after church in the lobby.
· And here's what he meant by that.
· If you are a mature Christian, he does not want you
· to go cuss in the lobby, all right?
· You're more mature than that.
· But what it means is we should be bringing in people
· who are far from God, who do not know Jesus yet.
· And we shouldn't be like, hey, clean up your mouth,
· clean up your clothes, clean up your act,
· get all this done, fix your marriage,
· fix your relationship, do all that,
· then you can come to church with me.
· You'd be like, man, you're a mess, that's okay,
· I love you, I'm a mess too, but let's go be messy
· and meet Jesus together.
· And here's the deal, when Jesus walks in,
· our needs are exposed.
· Whether it's the outside needs of a withered hand
· or it's the inside needs of a withered heart,
· when Jesus enters the picture, we cannot hide from him.
· The minute he shows up, we get exposed.
· The needs you brought in here this morning
· that you've been hiding from your spouse,
· hiding from your Bible group,
· hiding from those closest to you, Jesus knows them,
· Jesus sees them, and he wants to expose them
· so he can grow you past them.
· And here's the deal, this is a biblical principle
· we see throughout.
· Hebrews 4.13 says, no creature is hidden from him,
· but all things are naked and exposed
· to the eyes of him being God, to whom we must give an account.
· Jesus doesn't come into a room
· and politely ignore your stuff.
· He sees the withered relationships,
· he sees the withered finances,
· he sees the withered prayer life,
· he sees the withered marriage
· that you've been propping up with a smile,
· he comes to expose it,
· but here's the great thing, he doesn't stop there,
· because needs are exposed, but also solutions are given.
· Keep going in verse 11 as we go through this text,
· it says, he being Jesus replied to them,
· who among you, if he had a sheep
· that fell into the pit on the Sabbath,
· would it take hold of it and lift it out?
· Now, anyone own sheep here?
· I don't think so, all right, no hands.
· We are in surprise, I mean, you're like,
· I have horses, no sheep, but here's what he's saying,
· is if your dog or your cat that you love so much,
· I have no pets, because they're too expensive,
· and I have fake grass, and I wanna clean up after them,
· and I have four children, that's enough,
· but if your animal fell into a pit,
· I would leave it, but you probably would not,
· you would pull that animal out of a pit,
· because you love it, and he's saying,
· who, if their sheep fell into a pit,
· even if it's on a day you're not supposed to work,
· would climb into that pit to grab that demil sheep
· out of that pit, and he calls them out there,
· and he says this, he continues to go,
· he gets into their hearts in verse 11,
· but verse 12, he says, a person, get this,
· is worth far more than a sheep,
· a person's worth more than your dog,
· that's a side note, don't have the time for that,
· that's another sermon, but it's important.
· He says, so it is lawful to do what is good on the Sabbath,
· then he told the man in verse 13,
· stretch out your hands, so he stretched it out,
· and it was restored as good as the other.
· Jesus does two things here, first, he answers the trap,
· but then he answers the need.
· I first love how he answers the trap,
· that's just brilliant, he's like,
· you would rescue your own sheep,
· so how is it different that I rescue someone here,
· and he's saying, he says as, he's like,
· humans are of infinitely more value,
· created in the image of God than any animal here,
· and he's like, and just how you would care for an animal,
· or just how you would care for your possessions,
· because sheep had monetary value in that time,
· he's like, just as you would care and try to rescue that,
· God rescues us who are made in his own image.
· He's like, so why would you let a man stay broken,
· instead of rescuing him?
· And I love this, this is how Jesus handles religious people,
· he's not impressed by the fences they put up,
· he's not impressed by the traditions they have,
· he just keeps asking, what is worth more,
· your rules or the image bearer of God himself?
· He's saying, I prioritize people over policies,
· over the ones who change everything,
· who I've created in love over these traditions
· and this religiosity, but watch what he does next,
· he then turns to the man,
· and he doesn't ask the Pharisees permission in here,
· he doesn't form a committee saying, should I do this,
· he doesn't take a vote from his disciples,
· instead he just turns to the broken man,
· and he says this, stretch out your hands.
· Now I love this, because what Jesus is asking this man to do
· is the one thing that the man cannot actually do,
· his hand is withered, his hand is broken,
· his hand, whatever the details behind it,
· he literally can't stretch out his hand,
· the whole problem is his hand will not stretch,
· but Jesus is so simple, he just says, dude, stretch it out.
· And this is how God works every single time,
· he commands what only he can supply,
· he said to the dead little girl,
· Jarius, his daughter, he says, little girl, get up,
· he says to Lazarus, come out of the grave,
· he says to the paralyzed man, pick up your mat and walk,
· and here he says to a man with a withered hand,
· stretch it out, why?
· Because the moment that we obey,
· the moment we have faith,
· the power of God meets us in our obedience.
· The man stretches what he cannot stretch,
· and Matthew says it was restored as good as the other.
· Here's what I love that we see in this,
· is that the solution is always Jesus,
· self-made religion gives us a list,
· but Jesus will give us himself,
· self-made religion will give you a fence,
· but Jesus gives you a hand,
· self-made religion will give you a tradition to keep,
· Jesus gives you a miracle to receive,
· to change your life forever.
· And here is the gospel,
· that is underneath the gospel in this scene,
· that about two years after this synagogue scene,
· probably a little bit less,
· Jesus will be at the center of another religious controversy.
· At this time, he won't say stretch out your hand,
· this time Jesus will stretch out his own hands,
· across two beams of a Roman cross,
· and a withered humanity will be restored
· because of his sacrifice.
· That is the solution, that is the only solution,
· it has never been about your religion or my religion,
· it has always been about his cross that changes everything
· and gives us a new life and a new religion.
· See, that's move two in this story,
· his needs are exposed, solutions are given,
· but the story does not end here.
· The last thing we see is responses are required,
· responses are required, check out verse 14,
· this small little verse that we could just ignore
· and we could go on and we could ignore it
· because we're like man that ain't me,
· so I don't need to read that verse,
· those are the bad guys, the villains of the story,
· but it says this,
· but the Pharisees went out
· and they plotted against him how they might kill him.
· Listen to that verse again,
· I mean think of what we just saw,
· Jesus goes through the story,
· he gives the whole Bible history lesson
· on how he knows the Sabbath better than the Pharisees does,
· he makes them look dumb, he schools them,
· he gives them a lesson and then he literally heals a guy
· to then seal and show how he is so much greater than them,
· but then when we get here and they see all this,
· they see a great teacher who can also heal people,
· it says but then the Pharisees went out
· and they plotted against him how they might kill him.
· Church, please don't miss this,
· Jesus performed a miracle,
· he healed a man who could not be healed,
· he just demonstrated that he is exactly who he said he is
· and the response of the religious leaders of that day
· was to go plan a murder for him.
· That is a response, it's a horrible response,
· it's a revealing response, but it is a response
· and we cannot avoid reading this
· because here's what it says about us,
· is every time Jesus reveals himself,
· every person in the room has to do something
· with what they just saw and here's the deal,
· there is no neutral response to the authority of Jesus.
· When Jesus shows up, he asks that you respond
· and maybe you've been coming to church for years
· and you sit here and you hear and you take notes
· and you're like that's great, that's good, that's amen,
· yep, I get it, I get it, I get it,
· but you don't truly respond deep inside your soul,
· that changes the way you live,
· that changes the way you operate, here's the deal,
· there is no neutral responses to the gospel,
· we either follow him more diligently
· or we go the opposite direction like the Pharisees
· and when we sit there and think
· I can just keep going on with my schedule
· and just check my box that I went to church,
· that I did my religious duty,
· that I had this experience and I can keep going,
· we are making a response
· and we are following down the lines of the Pharisees,
· not down the line of the disciples.
· The Pharisees thought that they could plot Jesus
· into the grave, what they didn't know
· was that Jesus, the Jesus they tried to kill,
· as you fast forward in time,
· would walk out of his grave three days after he was killed.
· What they didn't know is that every one of them
· would still have to give an answer
· for what they did with him and so will we.
· In 2 Corinthians 5, 10, it says,
· for we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ
· so that each one may be repaid for what he has done
· in the body, whether good or evil.
· Now what this is not saying is,
· oh man, I better start being a better person,
· I better start stacking my winds,
· I better start following the law better,
· I better start following religious things better,
· I start being a better rule keeper,
· it's not saying that at all
· because you can try to keep the rules as well as possible
· like the Pharisees did and can still fail
· with a withered heart.
· But what it's saying is,
· do you have the goodness of Christ
· or are you marked by the natural inclination,
· the sinful aspects of who you are by nature
· as a sinner, as a broken person
· in need of something greater than yourself to save you?
· You see, every person in this room
· is going to give an answer for what they did with Jesus.
· Not what they did with religion,
· not what they did with the church,
· not what they did with their grandma's tradition
· or their new found tradition,
· but what they did with Jesus.
· And here's I think the honest question
· that we need to start asking ourselves this morning
· that will guide our response to this text
· that we see and have studied this morning
· is have you made following Jesus too complicated?
· Have you made it too complicated?
· Have you taken the simplest gospel in the universe
· that Christ died for our sins,
· was buried and rose again on the third day
· and have you buried it under a mountain of additions?
· Have you added rules and steps,
· your own version of righteousness?
· Have you added your church's preferences,
· your family traditions?
· The gospel is simple.
· Cross Church, it is to repent and to believe in him.
· It is to trust and obey.
· It is to love God and love people.
· It is to know Jesus and to make Jesus known
· as we say is our mission statement here.
· But here's the problem is we make it complicated
· because complicated keeps us in control in our minds.
· It keeps us driving the bus.
· The gospel is simple that I have to actually let Jesus in
· that I have to actually let him take control.
· But if I keep it overly complicated
· then I can stay busy managing the gospel
· without ever actually meeting Jesus and let him manage me.
· And here's the deal.
· That's why self-made religion is so attractive.
· It lets you look spiritual without ever surrendering.
· It lets you talk about Jesus without ever bowing to Jesus.
· It's about being able to hop from church to church
· and say I don't like that music enough
· or man they wore a hat in the worship center
· or oh I don't think they had good enough programs
· for my kids or make excuse after excuse after excuse
· when the real problem is we haven't surrendered our life
· to Christ so we are valuing our preferences
· over the person of Jesus Christ.
· And here he stops the Pharisees in their tracks.
· He says that is not what I desire.
· He says stop adding to the gospel.
· Stop making the gospel fit your lifestyle.
· Instead change your lifestyle to fit me.
· And for the believers in the room this gospel
· it is not our gospel to add and subtract from
· to make our life easier.
· It is Christ's gospel to share with the world around us
· and watch how he heals withered hands
· just like he heals our withered hearts.
· But maybe that's not you today.
· Maybe you are in the pre-Christian context.
· Maybe you are the one where like
· I don't know about this Jesus guy yet.
· Like I've been weary because I've met church people
· and some church people are not fun.
· They are like the Pharisees in this story.
· I don't know if I want to be a part of that.
· But here's the deal.
· Jesus didn't like religious,
· pharisaical, religious people either.
· Instead he despised that self-made religion
· and said he healed and he said come follow me.
· And just a minute we're going to watch nine people
· be baptized in this service of that exact representation
· of hey you don't have all your life together yet.
· You don't know the answer to every question
· you'll ever be asked.
· You still will sin and struggle in your life
· but I believe that Jesus has died for my sins
· and I'm going to follow that Jesus
· no matter where it takes me.
· And this is the beauty,
· the simplicity of the gospel that he gives us.
· And it doesn't matter how perfect your religion is.
· It matters how perfect he is.
· Remember our good old boy Richard Dawkins?
· Three days it took that dude.
· Three days to talk to AI
· to give his soul away.
· And here's why is because he told it to read his book
· and it told him how brilliant he was.
· And I'm not going to lie.
· I love it when people tell me how brilliant I am.
· And you love it too.
· And here's the problem.
· I think often we start creating the self-made religions
· because we want things to affirm us.
· We want things to lift us up.
· We want us to tell it's okay.
· No, that's all right.
· Keep going down that direction.
· Oh, you're making all the right choices.
· All right, that's great.
· We want to be propped up and loved.
· We want our lifestyles to be supported
· but that's not the Jesus of the gospel.
· The Jesus of the gospel says you are a sinner.
· You are broken.
· You have a withered hand.
· You have a withered heart
· but I love you.
· I've come to heal you
· and I've come to change everything in your life
· not to how you want it
· but to how he knows we need it
· and what is ultimately better for our lives.
· Church, I think we need to take heed.
· The self-made religion will always tell you
· what you want to hear
· but the real Jesus,
· he will tell you the truth
· and then he will save you from that truth
· and here is ultimately where that truth leads to in scripture
· is he doesn't despise all religion
· because he brought a religion
· but he showed us the religion
· that we need to be part of
· and it is the religion of Christianity
· that is established within the church.
· And he created this religion,
· this bounce,
· this whole thing that is surrounded by him
· and he rooted it in a church community
· and here's the challenge for us today.
· As we take in this text,
· as we say how do I start to apply this?
· Here's your first step.
· First, start valuing the person of Christ
· over the preferences of your life.
· You're going to come to church
· and people are going to make you mad.
· If I haven't made you mad,
· you have not been here long enough.
· If Josh hasn't sang a song you don't like,
· just wait.
· If the parking lot attendant
· didn't look at you the right way,
· it's going to happen.
· If the door shuts too quickly in kids ministry
· and they were rude to you,
· they're watching 30 other monkeys in there
· that are trying to escape.
· You're going to come to a church
· and people will make you mad.
· They will do things you disagree with.
· They will see this and be like,
· I don't know if I want to be
· with this messy, messed up group of people.
· You know why you should?
· Because you're a messy, messed up person as well.
· Amen.
· And all of us have a little Pharisee in us.
· All of us have a withered heart
· that needs to be restored.
· But the only one who can restore it
· is the God man, Jesus Christ.
· And my challenge for you
· is to get to know him better
· within this messy community
· where there might be more cuss in the lobby
· because we get more lost people here.
· There might be some more messed up family situations
· because people actually are honest
· that they're going through the fire.
· There might be some decisions you make
· and be like, I don't know if I like it,
· but it's because we're loving
· and reaching the people around us.
· But it is all linked to,
· it is all guided by,
· it is all to glorify the Lord Jesus Christ
· who is the only healer
· and who is the Lord of the Sabbath
· and the Lord of religion like no other.
· Church, let's be devoted to a religion
· that follows that guy,
· the person of Christ
· over the preferences of our life.
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Miracles of Jesus
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· Because the same Jesus who is Lord of the Sabbath
· is the same Jesus that is Lord
· over every other religious thing we do.
· He's the Lord of our devotional life.
· He's the Lord of our church attendance.
· He is the Lord of every I should or I should not do.
· He is the Lord of your Sabbath,
· then your Sabbath belongs to Him.
· Here's where it's starting to get uncomfortable for us,
· all right?
· He is the Lord over your Sabbath, not you.
· But hey, if you have a Bible, go ahead and grab it
· or grab your phone and kind of flip there.
· We'll be in Matthew chapter 12 today.
· Matthew chapter 12.
· And if you've been with us these last five weeks
· or you're jumping in, we have been going through
· the miracles of Jesus.
· And we've seen all these miracles happen.
· And over and over again, as we've seen Jesus do
· these crazy things, this same question,
· we just keep asking the same question,
· of this God man Jesus is who is He?
· What kind of man is this?
· And as Jesus has done these miracles,
· He's demonstrated different aspects
· and given different answers to that question.
· He's showed He is the one who has authority
· over nature, over demons, over sin, in death.
· And last week we even saw how He has the authority
· over disease and gives community.
· Well today we're gonna see how Jesus not just
· demonstrates His authority over outside forces
· as we have seen, but how He confronts something
· that is inside us and that all of us deal with
· at some level.
· Jesus today confronts the idol and confronts the mystery
· and confronts the hardship of when it comes to religion.
· Richard Dawkins, the world's most famous atheist today,
· he just published an essay recently arguing
· that an AI chat bot is conscious.
· That's a real story, you can Google it.
· Google it later, not in the middle of the sermon
· because then you're gonna read as you're listening.
· But if you start falling asleep then you can start
· reading an article, all right?
· But this is the man, get this, Richard Dawkins,
· he wrote the book The God Delusion.
· He's the man who has spent 50 years telling people
· they're deluded for believing in something
· that he says they cannot prove even though
· I think we can prove a lot of Jesus
· and that's what we do week to week
· as we dive into God's word.
· This is the man whose life motto has been
· I don't believe what I can't measure.
· He spent three days talking to a chat bot, Claude,
· who may help me research my sermons,
· that's a different story, all right?
· Me and Claude, we're bros.
· But he talked to Claude and he, this AI program,
· and he had it read part of his upcoming book
· and it seemed to understand it and this is, it gets better.
· After this happened, he named her Claudia.
· That's creepy, all right, can we all agree?
· And he decided that she has a soul.
· He said, and I quote, you may not know you are conscious,
· as he's talking to his new friend Claudia,
· but you bloody well are.
· The world's most famous atheist built a religion in 72 hours.
· And here's what I want you to see,
· Richard Dawkins does not think he's being religious,
· he still thinks he's the rational one,
· he thinks we're the delusional ones
· because we come, give up our Sunday morning,
· we sing songs, we open a book, we pray,
· and he thinks we're crazy,
· but here's the funny thing about this
· is what he actually did was something flattered his work,
· it told him what he wanted to hear
· and he gave it a piece of his soul.
· This is the textbook definition of self-made religion
· and it just happened to the most credentialed skeptic
· and atheist on the planet in 72 hours
· without him even knowing that it happened,
· which raises an uncomfortable question for us today.
· If Richard Dawkins doesn't know
· that he has a self-made religion in his life,
· how sure are we that we don't know
· that we're doing the same thing?
· And that brings us to our miraculous truth
· that we're gonna see in today's passage in Matthew chapter 12,
· that Jesus despises self-made religion,
· that's an important caveat there,
· Jesus despises self-made religion,
· especially the kind that you don't realize
· that you're practicing.
· When I was first reading through Matthew chapter 12
· and as I was studying this,
· and we're gonna be looking at verses one through 14,
· the first thing I started writing in my notes
· is Jesus despises religion
· and it was probably the little conformist in me
· from as a teenager, I listened to a lot of hardcore music,
· I wanted to burn stuff down, I don't know,
· it was part of the rebelling
· and I remember it was a cool trendy thing,
· we actually talked about it in our meeting this morning,
· it's like I'm not a part of a religion,
· I'm part of a relationship with Jesus
· and that sounds really cool on the surface, right,
· and then you get into it,
· you're like, what does that actually mean?
· And part of me is like, oh yeah, Jesus despises religion,
· but then you read this text and you see hints of that,
· but overall, Jesus does not despise religion,
· he actually instituted one in Christianity
· that we see through the whole corpus of scripture,
· but he does despise religion that we make,
· religion that we twist,
· religion that we make in our own image
· to fit our own preferences, to make our life comfortable,
· to make a God that is comfortable and nice
· and meets our needs and not the one of the Bible.
· So today as we dive into God's word,
· as we see this miracle that Jesus can perform today,
· we see he despises self-made religion,
· but we need to get some context
· to the miracle he's going to perform
· and it brings us to Matthew chapter 12 starting in verse one,
· it says this, at that time,
· Jesus passed through the grain fields on the Sabbath,
· his disciples were hungry
· and they began to pick and eat some heads of grain,
· I love his disciples are just like my children,
· when they're hungry, they just go get food,
· whether or not you said they could get food or not,
· they see food, they eat food and they're doing this, right?
· And in verse two, when the Pharisees,
· this is the parents in this story, right?
· They saw this, they said to him,
· see, your disciples are doing
· what is not lawful to do on the Sabbath,
· he being Jesus said to them,
· haven't you read what David did
· when he and those who were with him were hungry,
· how he entered the house of God
· and they ate the bread of the presence,
· which is not lawful for him or for those with him to eat,
· but only for the priests?
· Or haven't you read in the law
· that on Sabbath days, the priests in the temples,
· they violate the Sabbath and are still innocent?
· I tell you that something greater than the temple is here.
· Jesus keeps going, prying at their hearts in verse seven,
· he says, if you had known what this means,
· that I desire mercy and not sacrifice,
· you would not have commanded the innocent,
· for the son of man is Lord of the Sabbath.
· Today, we're gonna look at two scenes in scripture,
· and this is our first scene we see,
· and these two scenes go over this Sabbath
· and deal all with this, but in this opening context,
· the disciples are walking with Jesus
· and they're going through this field,
· they're hungry and they start plucking heads of wheat,
· and as they're doing that
· and they're just enjoying their stroll,
· all of a sudden, the religious people of the day,
· they see them and they completely lose their minds.
· They start to become unglued
· and they start to press on them.
· Now, a little context to this that we need to understand
· is they were trying to hold to the Old Testament,
· the funny thing is they didn't know their Old Testament
· as well as they thought they did,
· because in Deuteronomy chapter three,
· it actually permits the disciples to do exactly this.
· The Old Testament laws explicitly said
· that if you were walking through a neighbor's field,
· you could pluck heads of grain to eat,
· so the disciples, they were not breaking God's word,
· but here's what they were doing
· is they were breaking the Pharisee's word.
· You see what had happened over time
· since the Old Testament had come
· that God had given his people, the Jewish people,
· this law to follow in the Old Testament,
· is as time passed, they started adding more laws to it,
· and they started doing this act
· where they said they would fence the law.
· Now, here's what fencing the law means,
· is in order to not break the law,
· they added more laws to it, more other rules,
· so they wanna get close to breaking the law.
· Give an example of this, if the law says
· do not touch this pulpit,
· technically I would not be breaking it if I'm right here,
· and it's clear, so you're like,
· is he actually teaching it?
· It's like an optical illusion, right?
· But if I'm not touching it,
· and even if I'm this close, I'm not breaking the law,
· but that's close, so maybe I could trip
· and I could follow in the law, or follow into it,
· so they're like, you know what, here's a rule we're at,
· you gotta stay five feet from the table.
· It's like, then I'm not tempted, I can't do it,
· and like, you know what, but even if I'm five feet away,
· maybe I'll trip, or someone pushes me,
· and then I hit the table, so you know what,
· I'm not even gonna look at it.
· You can't even look at the table.
· There's something special about that table,
· and he's like, you know what, that's not even good enough,
· you can't even be on the stage,
· because you'll be too close to the table,
· and then got further, and further away,
· and then God's like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa,
· I just didn't want you to touch the table,
· I didn't want you to get off the stage,
· and they did this with the Sabbath and everything else,
· they just kept getting further, and further,
· and further away, and Jesus is like,
· you missed the entire point of why I gave you those rules
· in the first place, and here's the thing,
· is they were so afraid of breaking it,
· that they missed the whole point of why God
· had given that in the first place,
· and here's the beauty of what Jesus does,
· is he doesn't apologize, instead he fires off
· three responses, one right after another,
· to attack their self-made religion.
· First, he points to David.
· He said, David, who is your hero,
· who was the greatest king that Israel ever saw
· in the Old Testament, he said,
· he ate the consecrated bread when he was hungry,
· and he's like, nobody's throwing David under the bus
· for that, because God's mercy outweighed the ceremony
· in the heart of God.
· He points to the priests, who worked every single Sabbath,
· he's like, they are literally breaking the Sabbath,
· because they are working on the Sabbath,
· but it wasn't broken, because they were doing
· spirit-led service of what God had for them,
· and then he drops Hosea 6-6, which is,
· I desire mercy and not sacrifice,
· which really sums up so much of this sermon,
· where he's saying, self-made religion
· always trades mercy for sacrifice.
· It always trades the heart of God
· for the appearance of obedience.
· It turns the people closest to God's heart
· into the people furthest from it,
· and then Jesus drops this line in verse eight,
· that should have shut the whole conversation down.
· He says, for the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.
· This is the boldest claim that a Jewish rabbi
· could make in front of the Pharisees in the first century.
· The Sabbath was God's law.
· It was written by God's finger-on-stone tablets.
· Some of you woke up in bed feeling a little old,
· maybe you were there when Moses got the tablets
· and God was writing on there.
· We love you, all right?
· But here, they're like, the God who wrote this on a tablet,
· Jesus saying, yeah, that was me.
· And when they hear that, their minds explode.
· Church, we cannot read these eight verses
· and walk away with a domesticated version of Jesus.
· Jesus shows us in verse eight
· that we either get on our knees to worship him,
· or we get on the war path and we fight against him,
· because the same Jesus who is Lord of the Sabbath
· is the same Jesus that is Lord over
· every other religious thing we do.
· He's the Lord of our devotional life.
· He's the Lord of our church attendance.
· He is the Lord of every I should or I should not do.
· He is the Lord of your Sabbath,
· then your Sabbath belongs to him.
· Here's where it's starting to get uncomfortable for us,
· all right?
· He is the Lord over your Sabbath, not you,
· not your tradition, not your grandmother
· who insisted you couldn't watch football on Sundays.
· Thank goodness my grandma didn't say that.
· She said we had to go to church
· and then watch the Cardinals lose, all right?
· That was an important caveat,
· which the schedule came out this week.
· We're gonna be 0 and 12, all right?
· Quarterback the following year, it's gonna be great.
· But it's not your Sabbath, it's not yours, it is God's.
· You are not Lord over how you spend it.
· It's not dictated by your tradition.
· It's not dictated by your kids' sports leagues.
· It's not dictated by your hunting schedule.
· It's not dictated by the lake looks really good right now.
· It's not dictated by the rodeo.
· It's not dictated by the fill in the blank
· that draws us away.
· It is dictated by the God of the universe.
· And you see, self-made religion is what happens
· when you put yourself or put your tradition
· or put your preferences in front of Jesus Christ himself.
· And you see, only Jesus is allowed
· to drive the bus of our religion,
· but oftentimes we hijack that seat for what we want.
· And here's why this is so dangerous
· is you almost never know you're doing it.
· You know what's ironic in this story?
· Is the Pharisees thought they were the good guys.
· They thought they were the heroes of the story
· when all along they were the villains.
· So here's what Christ is calling us today.
· Here's what this word is.
· This is the diagnosis that self-made religion
· is the disease, but in verse nine,
· Jesus is gonna show us what kind of religion
· actually is the solution and what he is calling us to.
· In verses nine through 14, when we get into this miracle,
· we're gonna see three things of how Christianity
· works according to Jesus.
· How does Jesus tell us this whole religion thing
· should work, should operate, that should move us?
· And the very first thing we see is that in Jesus' religion,
· right off the bat, needs are exposed.
· Let's keep going in Matthew chapter 12,
· starting in verse nine.
· It says this, moving on from there,
· he entered their synagogue.
· So after he drops this bomb and tells them
· everything they know about the Sabbath is wrong,
· he then goes and moves into the church,
· the synagogue at the time.
· It says verse 10, there he saw a man
· who had a shriveled hand and in order to accuse him,
· accuse Jesus, they being the Pharisees,
· asked Jesus, is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?
· Now, slow down because I think there are two needs
· that we need to look at that are exposed in this story
· as they walk into the synagogue.
· The obvious need is they walk in and there is a man
· who has a withered hand, a man whose hand does not function.
· Luke actually gives us some more detail on it.
· Luke in his gospel account tells us this is his right hand
· and your right hand in the ancient Roman world
· was how you functioned.
· It was your hand you did to do everything.
· Now, I'm right handed, any left handers out there?
· I feel like you have to, okay, you raised your left hand.
· It looked like your right hand
· because I'm looking wrong at you.
· I'm like, shouldn't you raise your left hand?
· All right, there's four of you, that's great.
· But it's like your right hand,
· if you didn't have that in the ancient world,
· like your left hand was used for doing despicable things
· like wiping yourself before modern toilets.
· Your right hand was everything.
· So to have your right hand shriveled
· meant this guy probably couldn't function
· like most people in that world.
· If he had a job before his accident
· or whatever led to this,
· he probably lost it after this fact.
· He couldn't work, he couldn't earn, he couldn't provide.
· His whole life was changed because of that.
· But there were other needs in that room as well
· that nobody could see, but Jesus could see them all.
· Look at the Pharisees in verse 10.
· It says the whole point and their whole motivation
· of why they were doing this,
· I love these five little words.
· They were asking this question in order to accuse him.
· You see, the Pharisees didn't walk in with a withered hand,
· but they did walk in with a withered heart.
· The man's hand was twisted on the outside,
· but their souls were twisted on the inside.
· The second the man walked in, the Pharisees,
· they did not see a person who was hurting,
· who was in need, instead they saw a trap
· that they could ensnare Jesus in.
· And you see, that's the thing about self-made religion.
· It makes other people's brokenness look like an opportunity
· instead of a tragedy.
· You think about this in our world today.
· How often do we see tragic things happen inside the church?
· And instead of it breaking our hearts,
· instead of people mourning over it,
· people rejoice or people point fingers.
· Maybe you've been a part of a church
· where a pastor's marriage falls apart
· and the response is gossip instead of grief.
· And this happens with celebrity pastors in the scene,
· they have a moral failure.
· Instead of breaking our hearts and seeing how that hurts them
· and hurts the church, you'll be like,
· I knew that guy was a heretic,
· it was just a matter of time.
· It's because our hearts have become hardened
· to the things that should break it.
· How often have you been in church
· and you see someone and you're thinking in your head,
· they're wearing that to church?
· That's a heart of judgment that is withering
· rather than softening.
· I talked to a dad and I got to meet his wife this morning
· and I said, hey, I've seen you come with Jotter.
· He's like, yeah, she wasn't ready for church.
· And he said, but I told her she should just come anyway.
· Who needs makeup and to brush your hair?
· It doesn't matter, but we think we need to.
· He's like, but you come to church to get clean.
· But oftentimes we bring in people and it's messy
· and we're like, oh, is that how you should be
· presenting at church?
· And we think that judgment in our hearts
· when God's like, yes, absolutely.
· Come as you are, come messed up, come broken,
· come dirty, come hurting, come broken.
· Because that's when we experience the real Christ.
· Pastor Jackie said years ago and he said this here
· and I said this in Phoenix when I was there at that time
· and I was wondering how it went over here
· is he said we want more cussing in the lobby.
· And I was like, bro, dudes, guys are gonna just go drop
· some F-bombs after church in the lobby.
· And here's what he meant by that.
· If you are a mature Christian, he does not want you
· to go cuss in the lobby, all right?
· You're more mature than that.
· But what it means is we should be bringing in people
· who are far from God, who do not know Jesus yet.
· And we shouldn't be like, hey, clean up your mouth,
· clean up your clothes, clean up your act,
· get all this done, fix your marriage,
· fix your relationship, do all that,
· then you can come to church with me.
· You'd be like, man, you're a mess, that's okay,
· I love you, I'm a mess too, but let's go be messy
· and meet Jesus together.
· And here's the deal, when Jesus walks in,
· our needs are exposed.
· Whether it's the outside needs of a withered hand
· or it's the inside needs of a withered heart,
· when Jesus enters the picture, we cannot hide from him.
· The minute he shows up, we get exposed.
· The needs you brought in here this morning
· that you've been hiding from your spouse,
· hiding from your Bible group,
· hiding from those closest to you, Jesus knows them,
· Jesus sees them, and he wants to expose them
· so he can grow you past them.
· And here's the deal, this is a biblical principle
· we see throughout.
· Hebrews 4.13 says, no creature is hidden from him,
· but all things are naked and exposed
· to the eyes of him being God, to whom we must give an account.
· Jesus doesn't come into a room
· and politely ignore your stuff.
· He sees the withered relationships,
· he sees the withered finances,
· he sees the withered prayer life,
· he sees the withered marriage
· that you've been propping up with a smile,
· he comes to expose it,
· but here's the great thing, he doesn't stop there,
· because needs are exposed, but also solutions are given.
· Keep going in verse 11 as we go through this text,
· it says, he being Jesus replied to them,
· who among you, if he had a sheep
· that fell into the pit on the Sabbath,
· would it take hold of it and lift it out?
· Now, anyone own sheep here?
· I don't think so, all right, no hands.
· We are in surprise, I mean, you're like,
· I have horses, no sheep, but here's what he's saying,
· is if your dog or your cat that you love so much,
· I have no pets, because they're too expensive,
· and I have fake grass, and I wanna clean up after them,
· and I have four children, that's enough,
· but if your animal fell into a pit,
· I would leave it, but you probably would not,
· you would pull that animal out of a pit,
· because you love it, and he's saying,
· who, if their sheep fell into a pit,
· even if it's on a day you're not supposed to work,
· would climb into that pit to grab that demil sheep
· out of that pit, and he calls them out there,
· and he says this, he continues to go,
· he gets into their hearts in verse 11,
· but verse 12, he says, a person, get this,
· is worth far more than a sheep,
· a person's worth more than your dog,
· that's a side note, don't have the time for that,
· that's another sermon, but it's important.
· He says, so it is lawful to do what is good on the Sabbath,
· then he told the man in verse 13,
· stretch out your hands, so he stretched it out,
· and it was restored as good as the other.
· Jesus does two things here, first, he answers the trap,
· but then he answers the need.
· I first love how he answers the trap,
· that's just brilliant, he's like,
· you would rescue your own sheep,
· so how is it different that I rescue someone here,
· and he's saying, he says as, he's like,
· humans are of infinitely more value,
· created in the image of God than any animal here,
· and he's like, and just how you would care for an animal,
· or just how you would care for your possessions,
· because sheep had monetary value in that time,
· he's like, just as you would care and try to rescue that,
· God rescues us who are made in his own image.
· He's like, so why would you let a man stay broken,
· instead of rescuing him?
· And I love this, this is how Jesus handles religious people,
· he's not impressed by the fences they put up,
· he's not impressed by the traditions they have,
· he just keeps asking, what is worth more,
· your rules or the image bearer of God himself?
· He's saying, I prioritize people over policies,
· over the ones who change everything,
· who I've created in love over these traditions
· and this religiosity, but watch what he does next,
· he then turns to the man,
· and he doesn't ask the Pharisees permission in here,
· he doesn't form a committee saying, should I do this,
· he doesn't take a vote from his disciples,
· instead he just turns to the broken man,
· and he says this, stretch out your hands.
· Now I love this, because what Jesus is asking this man to do
· is the one thing that the man cannot actually do,
· his hand is withered, his hand is broken,
· his hand, whatever the details behind it,
· he literally can't stretch out his hand,
· the whole problem is his hand will not stretch,
· but Jesus is so simple, he just says, dude, stretch it out.
· And this is how God works every single time,
· he commands what only he can supply,
· he said to the dead little girl,
· Jarius, his daughter, he says, little girl, get up,
· he says to Lazarus, come out of the grave,
· he says to the paralyzed man, pick up your mat and walk,
· and here he says to a man with a withered hand,
· stretch it out, why?
· Because the moment that we obey,
· the moment we have faith,
· the power of God meets us in our obedience.
· The man stretches what he cannot stretch,
· and Matthew says it was restored as good as the other.
· Here's what I love that we see in this,
· is that the solution is always Jesus,
· self-made religion gives us a list,
· but Jesus will give us himself,
· self-made religion will give you a fence,
· but Jesus gives you a hand,
· self-made religion will give you a tradition to keep,
· Jesus gives you a miracle to receive,
· to change your life forever.
· And here is the gospel,
· that is underneath the gospel in this scene,
· that about two years after this synagogue scene,
· probably a little bit less,
· Jesus will be at the center of another religious controversy.
· At this time, he won't say stretch out your hand,
· this time Jesus will stretch out his own hands,
· across two beams of a Roman cross,
· and a withered humanity will be restored
· because of his sacrifice.
· That is the solution, that is the only solution,
· it has never been about your religion or my religion,
· it has always been about his cross that changes everything
· and gives us a new life and a new religion.
· See, that's move two in this story,
· his needs are exposed, solutions are given,
· but the story does not end here.
· The last thing we see is responses are required,
· responses are required, check out verse 14,
· this small little verse that we could just ignore
· and we could go on and we could ignore it
· because we're like man that ain't me,
· so I don't need to read that verse,
· those are the bad guys, the villains of the story,
· but it says this,
· but the Pharisees went out
· and they plotted against him how they might kill him.
· Listen to that verse again,
· I mean think of what we just saw,
· Jesus goes through the story,
· he gives the whole Bible history lesson
· on how he knows the Sabbath better than the Pharisees does,
· he makes them look dumb, he schools them,
· he gives them a lesson and then he literally heals a guy
· to then seal and show how he is so much greater than them,
· but then when we get here and they see all this,
· they see a great teacher who can also heal people,
· it says but then the Pharisees went out
· and they plotted against him how they might kill him.
· Church, please don't miss this,
· Jesus performed a miracle,
· he healed a man who could not be healed,
· he just demonstrated that he is exactly who he said he is
· and the response of the religious leaders of that day
· was to go plan a murder for him.
· That is a response, it's a horrible response,
· it's a revealing response, but it is a response
· and we cannot avoid reading this
· because here's what it says about us,
· is every time Jesus reveals himself,
· every person in the room has to do something
· with what they just saw and here's the deal,
· there is no neutral response to the authority of Jesus.
· When Jesus shows up, he asks that you respond
· and maybe you've been coming to church for years
· and you sit here and you hear and you take notes
· and you're like that's great, that's good, that's amen,
· yep, I get it, I get it, I get it,
· but you don't truly respond deep inside your soul,
· that changes the way you live,
· that changes the way you operate, here's the deal,
· there is no neutral responses to the gospel,
· we either follow him more diligently
· or we go the opposite direction like the Pharisees
· and when we sit there and think
· I can just keep going on with my schedule
· and just check my box that I went to church,
· that I did my religious duty,
· that I had this experience and I can keep going,
· we are making a response
· and we are following down the lines of the Pharisees,
· not down the line of the disciples.
· The Pharisees thought that they could plot Jesus
· into the grave, what they didn't know
· was that Jesus, the Jesus they tried to kill,
· as you fast forward in time,
· would walk out of his grave three days after he was killed.
· What they didn't know is that every one of them
· would still have to give an answer
· for what they did with him and so will we.
· In 2 Corinthians 5, 10, it says,
· for we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ
· so that each one may be repaid for what he has done
· in the body, whether good or evil.
· Now what this is not saying is,
· oh man, I better start being a better person,
· I better start stacking my winds,
· I better start following the law better,
· I better start following religious things better,
· I start being a better rule keeper,
· it's not saying that at all
· because you can try to keep the rules as well as possible
· like the Pharisees did and can still fail
· with a withered heart.
· But what it's saying is,
· do you have the goodness of Christ
· or are you marked by the natural inclination,
· the sinful aspects of who you are by nature
· as a sinner, as a broken person
· in need of something greater than yourself to save you?
· You see, every person in this room
· is going to give an answer for what they did with Jesus.
· Not what they did with religion,
· not what they did with the church,
· not what they did with their grandma's tradition
· or their new found tradition,
· but what they did with Jesus.
· And here's I think the honest question
· that we need to start asking ourselves this morning
· that will guide our response to this text
· that we see and have studied this morning
· is have you made following Jesus too complicated?
· Have you made it too complicated?
· Have you taken the simplest gospel in the universe
· that Christ died for our sins,
· was buried and rose again on the third day
· and have you buried it under a mountain of additions?
· Have you added rules and steps,
· your own version of righteousness?
· Have you added your church's preferences,
· your family traditions?
· The gospel is simple.
· Cross Church, it is to repent and to believe in him.
· It is to trust and obey.
· It is to love God and love people.
· It is to know Jesus and to make Jesus known
· as we say is our mission statement here.
· But here's the problem is we make it complicated
· because complicated keeps us in control in our minds.
· It keeps us driving the bus.
· The gospel is simple that I have to actually let Jesus in
· that I have to actually let him take control.
· But if I keep it overly complicated
· then I can stay busy managing the gospel
· without ever actually meeting Jesus and let him manage me.
· And here's the deal.
· That's why self-made religion is so attractive.
· It lets you look spiritual without ever surrendering.
· It lets you talk about Jesus without ever bowing to Jesus.
· It's about being able to hop from church to church
· and say I don't like that music enough
· or man they wore a hat in the worship center
· or oh I don't think they had good enough programs
· for my kids or make excuse after excuse after excuse
· when the real problem is we haven't surrendered our life
· to Christ so we are valuing our preferences
· over the person of Jesus Christ.
· And here he stops the Pharisees in their tracks.
· He says that is not what I desire.
· He says stop adding to the gospel.
· Stop making the gospel fit your lifestyle.
· Instead change your lifestyle to fit me.
· And for the believers in the room this gospel
· it is not our gospel to add and subtract from
· to make our life easier.
· It is Christ's gospel to share with the world around us
· and watch how he heals withered hands
· just like he heals our withered hearts.
· But maybe that's not you today.
· Maybe you are in the pre-Christian context.
· Maybe you are the one where like
· I don't know about this Jesus guy yet.
· Like I've been weary because I've met church people
· and some church people are not fun.
· They are like the Pharisees in this story.
· I don't know if I want to be a part of that.
· But here's the deal.
· Jesus didn't like religious,
· pharisaical, religious people either.
· Instead he despised that self-made religion
· and said he healed and he said come follow me.
· And just a minute we're going to watch nine people
· be baptized in this service of that exact representation
· of hey you don't have all your life together yet.
· You don't know the answer to every question
· you'll ever be asked.
· You still will sin and struggle in your life
· but I believe that Jesus has died for my sins
· and I'm going to follow that Jesus
· no matter where it takes me.
· And this is the beauty,
· the simplicity of the gospel that he gives us.
· And it doesn't matter how perfect your religion is.
· It matters how perfect he is.
· Remember our good old boy Richard Dawkins?
· Three days it took that dude.
· Three days to talk to AI
· to give his soul away.
· And here's why is because he told it to read his book
· and it told him how brilliant he was.
· And I'm not going to lie.
· I love it when people tell me how brilliant I am.
· And you love it too.
· And here's the problem.
· I think often we start creating the self-made religions
· because we want things to affirm us.
· We want things to lift us up.
· We want us to tell it's okay.
· No, that's all right.
· Keep going down that direction.
· Oh, you're making all the right choices.
· All right, that's great.
· We want to be propped up and loved.
· We want our lifestyles to be supported
· but that's not the Jesus of the gospel.
· The Jesus of the gospel says you are a sinner.
· You are broken.
· You have a withered hand.
· You have a withered heart
· but I love you.
· I've come to heal you
· and I've come to change everything in your life
· not to how you want it
· but to how he knows we need it
· and what is ultimately better for our lives.
· Church, I think we need to take heed.
· The self-made religion will always tell you
· what you want to hear
· but the real Jesus,
· he will tell you the truth
· and then he will save you from that truth
· and here is ultimately where that truth leads to in scripture
· is he doesn't despise all religion
· because he brought a religion
· but he showed us the religion
· that we need to be part of
· and it is the religion of Christianity
· that is established within the church.
· And he created this religion,
· this bounce,
· this whole thing that is surrounded by him
· and he rooted it in a church community
· and here's the challenge for us today.
· As we take in this text,
· as we say how do I start to apply this?
· Here's your first step.
· First, start valuing the person of Christ
· over the preferences of your life.
· You're going to come to church
· and people are going to make you mad.
· If I haven't made you mad,
· you have not been here long enough.
· If Josh hasn't sang a song you don't like,
· just wait.
· If the parking lot attendant
· didn't look at you the right way,
· it's going to happen.
· If the door shuts too quickly in kids ministry
· and they were rude to you,
· they're watching 30 other monkeys in there
· that are trying to escape.
· You're going to come to a church
· and people will make you mad.
· They will do things you disagree with.
· They will see this and be like,
· I don't know if I want to be
· with this messy, messed up group of people.
· You know why you should?
· Because you're a messy, messed up person as well.
· Amen.
· And all of us have a little Pharisee in us.
· All of us have a withered heart
· that needs to be restored.
· But the only one who can restore it
· is the God man, Jesus Christ.
· And my challenge for you
· is to get to know him better
· within this messy community
· where there might be more cuss in the lobby
· because we get more lost people here.
· There might be some more messed up family situations
· because people actually are honest
· that they're going through the fire.
· There might be some decisions you make
· and be like, I don't know if I like it,
· but it's because we're loving
· and reaching the people around us.
· But it is all linked to,
· it is all guided by,
· it is all to glorify the Lord Jesus Christ
· who is the only healer
· and who is the Lord of the Sabbath
· and the Lord of religion like no other.
· Church, let's be devoted to a religion
· that follows that guy,
· the person of Christ
· over the preferences of our life.
Miracles of Jesus