# Authority Over Religion

Sermon transcript from Cross Church Surprise.
Series: Miracles of Jesus
Date: May 17, 2026
Watch: https://crosschurchcares.com/surprise/episodes/authority-over-religion

## Summary

Is your faith rooted in tradition or in the true authority of Jesus? What happens when our self-made rules overshadow His grace? Discover how Jesus confronts the idols of religion and invites us to a deeper relationship with Him. Let's dive in together!

## Transcript

0:00 · Because the same Jesus who is Lord of the Sabbath

0:03 · is the same Jesus that is Lord

0:05 · over every other religious thing we do.

0:08 · He's the Lord of our devotional life.

0:10 · He's the Lord of our church attendance.

0:12 · He is the Lord of every I should or I should not do.

0:15 · He is the Lord of your Sabbath,

0:16 · then your Sabbath belongs to Him.

0:19 · Here's where it's starting to get uncomfortable for us,

0:21 · all right?

0:22 · He is the Lord over your Sabbath, not you.

0:28 · But hey, if you have a Bible, go ahead and grab it

0:32 · or grab your phone and kind of flip there.

0:34 · We'll be in Matthew chapter 12 today.

0:37 · Matthew chapter 12.

0:39 · And if you've been with us these last five weeks

0:42 · or you're jumping in, we have been going through

0:44 · the miracles of Jesus.

0:46 · And we've seen all these miracles happen.

0:48 · And over and over again, as we've seen Jesus do

0:51 · these crazy things, this same question,

0:54 · we just keep asking the same question,

0:55 · of this God man Jesus is who is He?

1:00 · What kind of man is this?

1:04 · And as Jesus has done these miracles,

1:06 · He's demonstrated different aspects

1:07 · and given different answers to that question.

1:10 · He's showed He is the one who has authority

1:13 · over nature, over demons, over sin, in death.

1:17 · And last week we even saw how He has the authority

1:20 · over disease and gives community.

1:23 · Well today we're gonna see how Jesus not just

1:26 · demonstrates His authority over outside forces

1:29 · as we have seen, but how He confronts something

1:33 · that is inside us and that all of us deal with

1:38 · at some level.

1:40 · Jesus today confronts the idol and confronts the mystery

1:46 · and confronts the hardship of when it comes to religion.

1:52 · Richard Dawkins, the world's most famous atheist today,

1:55 · he just published an essay recently arguing

1:58 · that an AI chat bot is conscious.

2:03 · That's a real story, you can Google it.

2:04 · Google it later, not in the middle of the sermon

2:06 · because then you're gonna read as you're listening.

2:08 · But if you start falling asleep then you can start

2:09 · reading an article, all right?

2:11 · But this is the man, get this, Richard Dawkins,

2:13 · he wrote the book The God Delusion.

2:16 · He's the man who has spent 50 years telling people

2:19 · they're deluded for believing in something

2:21 · that he says they cannot prove even though

2:23 · I think we can prove a lot of Jesus

2:25 · and that's what we do week to week

2:26 · as we dive into God's word.

2:28 · This is the man whose life motto has been

2:31 · I don't believe what I can't measure.

2:34 · He spent three days talking to a chat bot, Claude,

2:39 · who may help me research my sermons,

2:41 · that's a different story, all right?

2:42 · Me and Claude, we're bros.

2:44 · But he talked to Claude and he, this AI program,

2:49 · and he had it read part of his upcoming book

2:51 · and it seemed to understand it and this is, it gets better.

2:55 · After this happened, he named her Claudia.

2:59 · That's creepy, all right, can we all agree?

3:02 · And he decided that she has a soul.

3:07 · He said, and I quote, you may not know you are conscious,

3:10 · as he's talking to his new friend Claudia,

3:12 · but you bloody well are.

3:17 · The world's most famous atheist built a religion in 72 hours.

3:24 · And here's what I want you to see,

3:25 · Richard Dawkins does not think he's being religious,

3:28 · he still thinks he's the rational one,

3:30 · he thinks we're the delusional ones

3:32 · because we come, give up our Sunday morning,

3:34 · we sing songs, we open a book, we pray,

3:37 · and he thinks we're crazy,

3:39 · but here's the funny thing about this

3:41 · is what he actually did was something flattered his work,

3:45 · it told him what he wanted to hear

3:48 · and he gave it a piece of his soul.

3:52 · This is the textbook definition of self-made religion

3:57 · and it just happened to the most credentialed skeptic

4:00 · and atheist on the planet in 72 hours

4:03 · without him even knowing that it happened,

4:07 · which raises an uncomfortable question for us today.

4:11 · If Richard Dawkins doesn't know

4:12 · that he has a self-made religion in his life,

4:16 · how sure are we that we don't know

4:18 · that we're doing the same thing?

4:21 · And that brings us to our miraculous truth

4:24 · that we're gonna see in today's passage in Matthew chapter 12,

4:27 · that Jesus despises self-made religion,

4:31 · that's an important caveat there,

4:33 · Jesus despises self-made religion,

4:36 · especially the kind that you don't realize

4:38 · that you're practicing.

4:40 · When I was first reading through Matthew chapter 12

4:42 · and as I was studying this,

4:44 · and we're gonna be looking at verses one through 14,

4:46 · the first thing I started writing in my notes

4:49 · is Jesus despises religion

4:51 · and it was probably the little conformist in me

4:55 · from as a teenager, I listened to a lot of hardcore music,

4:57 · I wanted to burn stuff down, I don't know,

4:59 · it was part of the rebelling

5:01 · and I remember it was a cool trendy thing,

5:03 · we actually talked about it in our meeting this morning,

5:05 · it's like I'm not a part of a religion,

5:07 · I'm part of a relationship with Jesus

5:09 · and that sounds really cool on the surface, right,

5:12 · and then you get into it,

5:12 · you're like, what does that actually mean?

5:15 · And part of me is like, oh yeah, Jesus despises religion,

5:17 · but then you read this text and you see hints of that,

5:21 · but overall, Jesus does not despise religion,

5:23 · he actually instituted one in Christianity

5:26 · that we see through the whole corpus of scripture,

5:30 · but he does despise religion that we make,

5:33 · religion that we twist,

5:35 · religion that we make in our own image

5:36 · to fit our own preferences, to make our life comfortable,

5:40 · to make a God that is comfortable and nice

5:43 · and meets our needs and not the one of the Bible.

5:47 · So today as we dive into God's word,

5:51 · as we see this miracle that Jesus can perform today,

5:54 · we see he despises self-made religion,

5:57 · but we need to get some context

5:59 · to the miracle he's going to perform

6:01 · and it brings us to Matthew chapter 12 starting in verse one,

6:05 · it says this, at that time,

6:08 · Jesus passed through the grain fields on the Sabbath,

6:11 · his disciples were hungry

6:12 · and they began to pick and eat some heads of grain,

6:15 · I love his disciples are just like my children,

6:18 · when they're hungry, they just go get food,

6:21 · whether or not you said they could get food or not,

6:23 · they see food, they eat food and they're doing this, right?

6:26 · And in verse two, when the Pharisees,

6:28 · this is the parents in this story, right?

6:30 · They saw this, they said to him,

6:31 · see, your disciples are doing

6:34 · what is not lawful to do on the Sabbath,

6:37 · he being Jesus said to them,

6:38 · haven't you read what David did

6:40 · when he and those who were with him were hungry,

6:42 · how he entered the house of God

6:44 · and they ate the bread of the presence,

6:47 · which is not lawful for him or for those with him to eat,

6:50 · but only for the priests?

6:51 · Or haven't you read in the law

6:53 · that on Sabbath days, the priests in the temples,

6:56 · they violate the Sabbath and are still innocent?

7:00 · I tell you that something greater than the temple is here.

7:05 · Jesus keeps going, prying at their hearts in verse seven,

7:09 · he says, if you had known what this means,

7:11 · that I desire mercy and not sacrifice,

7:15 · you would not have commanded the innocent,

7:18 · for the son of man is Lord of the Sabbath.

7:23 · Today, we're gonna look at two scenes in scripture,

7:27 · and this is our first scene we see,

7:30 · and these two scenes go over this Sabbath

7:32 · and deal all with this, but in this opening context,

7:36 · the disciples are walking with Jesus

7:38 · and they're going through this field,

7:41 · they're hungry and they start plucking heads of wheat,

7:45 · and as they're doing that

7:46 · and they're just enjoying their stroll,

7:49 · all of a sudden, the religious people of the day,

7:53 · they see them and they completely lose their minds.

7:57 · They start to become unglued

7:58 · and they start to press on them.

8:00 · Now, a little context to this that we need to understand

8:04 · is they were trying to hold to the Old Testament,

8:06 · the funny thing is they didn't know their Old Testament

8:08 · as well as they thought they did,

8:10 · because in Deuteronomy chapter three,

8:11 · it actually permits the disciples to do exactly this.

8:15 · The Old Testament laws explicitly said

8:16 · that if you were walking through a neighbor's field,

8:19 · you could pluck heads of grain to eat,

8:22 · so the disciples, they were not breaking God's word,

8:25 · but here's what they were doing

8:26 · is they were breaking the Pharisee's word.

8:30 · You see what had happened over time

8:31 · since the Old Testament had come

8:34 · that God had given his people, the Jewish people,

8:36 · this law to follow in the Old Testament,

8:39 · is as time passed, they started adding more laws to it,

8:43 · and they started doing this act

8:44 · where they said they would fence the law.

8:47 · Now, here's what fencing the law means,

8:49 · is in order to not break the law,

8:51 · they added more laws to it, more other rules,

8:55 · so they wanna get close to breaking the law.

8:58 · Give an example of this, if the law says

9:00 · do not touch this pulpit,

9:02 · technically I would not be breaking it if I'm right here,

9:05 · and it's clear, so you're like,

9:07 · is he actually teaching it?

9:08 · It's like an optical illusion, right?

9:10 · But if I'm not touching it,

9:11 · and even if I'm this close, I'm not breaking the law,

9:14 · but that's close, so maybe I could trip

9:15 · and I could follow in the law, or follow into it,

9:18 · so they're like, you know what, here's a rule we're at,

9:20 · you gotta stay five feet from the table.

9:23 · It's like, then I'm not tempted, I can't do it,

9:26 · and like, you know what, but even if I'm five feet away,

9:28 · maybe I'll trip, or someone pushes me,

9:30 · and then I hit the table, so you know what,

9:32 · I'm not even gonna look at it.

9:34 · You can't even look at the table.

9:36 · There's something special about that table,

9:37 · and he's like, you know what, that's not even good enough,

9:39 · you can't even be on the stage,

9:42 · because you'll be too close to the table,

9:44 · and then got further, and further away,

9:46 · and then God's like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa,

9:48 · I just didn't want you to touch the table,

9:50 · I didn't want you to get off the stage,

9:53 · and they did this with the Sabbath and everything else,

9:55 · they just kept getting further, and further,

9:57 · and further away, and Jesus is like,

10:00 · you missed the entire point of why I gave you those rules

10:04 · in the first place, and here's the thing,

10:07 · is they were so afraid of breaking it,

10:10 · that they missed the whole point of why God

10:12 · had given that in the first place,

10:15 · and here's the beauty of what Jesus does,

10:18 · is he doesn't apologize, instead he fires off

10:21 · three responses, one right after another,

10:24 · to attack their self-made religion.

10:26 · First, he points to David.

10:28 · He said, David, who is your hero,

10:31 · who was the greatest king that Israel ever saw

10:33 · in the Old Testament, he said,

10:34 · he ate the consecrated bread when he was hungry,

10:37 · and he's like, nobody's throwing David under the bus

10:39 · for that, because God's mercy outweighed the ceremony

10:43 · in the heart of God.

10:45 · He points to the priests, who worked every single Sabbath,

10:48 · he's like, they are literally breaking the Sabbath,

10:50 · because they are working on the Sabbath,

10:52 · but it wasn't broken, because they were doing

10:55 · spirit-led service of what God had for them,

10:59 · and then he drops Hosea 6-6, which is,

11:02 · I desire mercy and not sacrifice,

11:04 · which really sums up so much of this sermon,

11:08 · where he's saying, self-made religion

11:09 · always trades mercy for sacrifice.

11:12 · It always trades the heart of God

11:15 · for the appearance of obedience.

11:18 · It turns the people closest to God's heart

11:20 · into the people furthest from it,

11:24 · and then Jesus drops this line in verse eight,

11:27 · that should have shut the whole conversation down.

11:31 · He says, for the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.

11:38 · This is the boldest claim that a Jewish rabbi

11:43 · could make in front of the Pharisees in the first century.

11:46 · The Sabbath was God's law.

11:49 · It was written by God's finger-on-stone tablets.

11:54 · Some of you woke up in bed feeling a little old,

11:57 · maybe you were there when Moses got the tablets

12:00 · and God was writing on there.

12:02 · We love you, all right?

12:05 · But here, they're like, the God who wrote this on a tablet,

12:10 · Jesus saying, yeah, that was me.

12:14 · And when they hear that, their minds explode.

12:17 · Church, we cannot read these eight verses

12:19 · and walk away with a domesticated version of Jesus.

12:24 · Jesus shows us in verse eight

12:26 · that we either get on our knees to worship him,

12:31 · or we get on the war path and we fight against him,

12:35 · because the same Jesus who is Lord of the Sabbath

12:38 · is the same Jesus that is Lord over

12:41 · every other religious thing we do.

12:44 · He's the Lord of our devotional life.

12:45 · He's the Lord of our church attendance.

12:47 · He is the Lord of every I should or I should not do.

12:50 · He is the Lord of your Sabbath,

12:52 · then your Sabbath belongs to him.

12:55 · Here's where it's starting to get uncomfortable for us,

12:57 · all right?

12:57 · He is the Lord over your Sabbath, not you,

13:01 · not your tradition, not your grandmother

13:04 · who insisted you couldn't watch football on Sundays.

13:07 · Thank goodness my grandma didn't say that.

13:09 · She said we had to go to church

13:10 · and then watch the Cardinals lose, all right?

13:12 · That was an important caveat,

13:14 · which the schedule came out this week.

13:15 · We're gonna be 0 and 12, all right?

13:18 · Quarterback the following year, it's gonna be great.

13:20 · But it's not your Sabbath, it's not yours, it is God's.

13:25 · You are not Lord over how you spend it.

13:28 · It's not dictated by your tradition.

13:31 · It's not dictated by your kids' sports leagues.

13:33 · It's not dictated by your hunting schedule.

13:36 · It's not dictated by the lake looks really good right now.

13:38 · It's not dictated by the rodeo.

13:40 · It's not dictated by the fill in the blank

13:43 · that draws us away.

13:46 · It is dictated by the God of the universe.

13:50 · And you see, self-made religion is what happens

13:55 · when you put yourself or put your tradition

13:59 · or put your preferences in front of Jesus Christ himself.

14:05 · And you see, only Jesus is allowed

14:07 · to drive the bus of our religion,

14:10 · but oftentimes we hijack that seat for what we want.

14:15 · And here's why this is so dangerous

14:17 · is you almost never know you're doing it.

14:21 · You know what's ironic in this story?

14:23 · Is the Pharisees thought they were the good guys.

14:27 · They thought they were the heroes of the story

14:31 · when all along they were the villains.

14:35 · So here's what Christ is calling us today.

14:38 · Here's what this word is.

14:39 · This is the diagnosis that self-made religion

14:42 · is the disease, but in verse nine,

14:45 · Jesus is gonna show us what kind of religion

14:47 · actually is the solution and what he is calling us to.

14:53 · In verses nine through 14, when we get into this miracle,

14:56 · we're gonna see three things of how Christianity

14:58 · works according to Jesus.

15:01 · How does Jesus tell us this whole religion thing

15:04 · should work, should operate, that should move us?

15:09 · And the very first thing we see is that in Jesus' religion,

15:12 · right off the bat, needs are exposed.

15:16 · Let's keep going in Matthew chapter 12,

15:18 · starting in verse nine.

15:19 · It says this, moving on from there,

15:22 · he entered their synagogue.

15:25 · So after he drops this bomb and tells them

15:27 · everything they know about the Sabbath is wrong,

15:30 · he then goes and moves into the church,

15:32 · the synagogue at the time.

15:34 · It says verse 10, there he saw a man

15:36 · who had a shriveled hand and in order to accuse him,

15:41 · accuse Jesus, they being the Pharisees,

15:43 · asked Jesus, is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?

15:49 · Now, slow down because I think there are two needs

15:52 · that we need to look at that are exposed in this story

15:55 · as they walk into the synagogue.

15:58 · The obvious need is they walk in and there is a man

16:01 · who has a withered hand, a man whose hand does not function.

16:05 · Luke actually gives us some more detail on it.

16:08 · Luke in his gospel account tells us this is his right hand

16:11 · and your right hand in the ancient Roman world

16:14 · was how you functioned.

16:16 · It was your hand you did to do everything.

16:18 · Now, I'm right handed, any left handers out there?

16:21 · I feel like you have to, okay, you raised your left hand.

16:24 · It looked like your right hand

16:25 · because I'm looking wrong at you.

16:26 · I'm like, shouldn't you raise your left hand?

16:27 · All right, there's four of you, that's great.

16:30 · But it's like your right hand,

16:32 · if you didn't have that in the ancient world,

16:34 · like your left hand was used for doing despicable things

16:36 · like wiping yourself before modern toilets.

16:39 · Your right hand was everything.

16:42 · So to have your right hand shriveled

16:44 · meant this guy probably couldn't function

16:47 · like most people in that world.

16:49 · If he had a job before his accident

16:51 · or whatever led to this,

16:52 · he probably lost it after this fact.

16:55 · He couldn't work, he couldn't earn, he couldn't provide.

16:57 · His whole life was changed because of that.

17:01 · But there were other needs in that room as well

17:04 · that nobody could see, but Jesus could see them all.

17:08 · Look at the Pharisees in verse 10.

17:10 · It says the whole point and their whole motivation

17:15 · of why they were doing this,

17:17 · I love these five little words.

17:19 · They were asking this question in order to accuse him.

17:25 · You see, the Pharisees didn't walk in with a withered hand,

17:29 · but they did walk in with a withered heart.

17:33 · The man's hand was twisted on the outside,

17:36 · but their souls were twisted on the inside.

17:41 · The second the man walked in, the Pharisees,

17:43 · they did not see a person who was hurting,

17:47 · who was in need, instead they saw a trap

17:50 · that they could ensnare Jesus in.

17:53 · And you see, that's the thing about self-made religion.

17:56 · It makes other people's brokenness look like an opportunity

18:00 · instead of a tragedy.

18:03 · You think about this in our world today.

18:06 · How often do we see tragic things happen inside the church?

18:11 · And instead of it breaking our hearts,

18:13 · instead of people mourning over it,

18:15 · people rejoice or people point fingers.

18:18 · Maybe you've been a part of a church

18:20 · where a pastor's marriage falls apart

18:22 · and the response is gossip instead of grief.

18:25 · And this happens with celebrity pastors in the scene,

18:28 · they have a moral failure.

18:29 · Instead of breaking our hearts and seeing how that hurts them

18:32 · and hurts the church, you'll be like,

18:33 · I knew that guy was a heretic,

18:34 · it was just a matter of time.

18:37 · It's because our hearts have become hardened

18:39 · to the things that should break it.

18:42 · How often have you been in church

18:45 · and you see someone and you're thinking in your head,

18:47 · they're wearing that to church?

18:50 · That's a heart of judgment that is withering

18:53 · rather than softening.

18:55 · I talked to a dad and I got to meet his wife this morning

18:58 · and I said, hey, I've seen you come with Jotter.

19:00 · He's like, yeah, she wasn't ready for church.

19:02 · And he said, but I told her she should just come anyway.

19:04 · Who needs makeup and to brush your hair?

19:06 · It doesn't matter, but we think we need to.

19:08 · He's like, but you come to church to get clean.

19:10 · But oftentimes we bring in people and it's messy

19:13 · and we're like, oh, is that how you should be

19:16 · presenting at church?

19:18 · And we think that judgment in our hearts

19:20 · when God's like, yes, absolutely.

19:23 · Come as you are, come messed up, come broken,

19:25 · come dirty, come hurting, come broken.

19:29 · Because that's when we experience the real Christ.

19:33 · Pastor Jackie said years ago and he said this here

19:37 · and I said this in Phoenix when I was there at that time

19:40 · and I was wondering how it went over here

19:42 · is he said we want more cussing in the lobby.

19:45 · And I was like, bro, dudes, guys are gonna just go drop

19:48 · some F-bombs after church in the lobby.

19:51 · And here's what he meant by that.

19:53 · If you are a mature Christian, he does not want you

19:56 · to go cuss in the lobby, all right?

19:58 · You're more mature than that.

20:00 · But what it means is we should be bringing in people

20:03 · who are far from God, who do not know Jesus yet.

20:06 · And we shouldn't be like, hey, clean up your mouth,

20:08 · clean up your clothes, clean up your act,

20:10 · get all this done, fix your marriage,

20:12 · fix your relationship, do all that,

20:13 · then you can come to church with me.

20:16 · You'd be like, man, you're a mess, that's okay,

20:17 · I love you, I'm a mess too, but let's go be messy

20:20 · and meet Jesus together.

20:23 · And here's the deal, when Jesus walks in,

20:28 · our needs are exposed.

20:30 · Whether it's the outside needs of a withered hand

20:32 · or it's the inside needs of a withered heart,

20:35 · when Jesus enters the picture, we cannot hide from him.

20:40 · The minute he shows up, we get exposed.

20:44 · The needs you brought in here this morning

20:46 · that you've been hiding from your spouse,

20:48 · hiding from your Bible group,

20:49 · hiding from those closest to you, Jesus knows them,

20:52 · Jesus sees them, and he wants to expose them

20:55 · so he can grow you past them.

20:59 · And here's the deal, this is a biblical principle

21:01 · we see throughout.

21:02 · Hebrews 4.13 says, no creature is hidden from him,

21:06 · but all things are naked and exposed

21:10 · to the eyes of him being God, to whom we must give an account.

21:15 · Jesus doesn't come into a room

21:17 · and politely ignore your stuff.

21:19 · He sees the withered relationships,

21:22 · he sees the withered finances,

21:24 · he sees the withered prayer life,

21:26 · he sees the withered marriage

21:27 · that you've been propping up with a smile,

21:29 · he comes to expose it,

21:32 · but here's the great thing, he doesn't stop there,

21:35 · because needs are exposed, but also solutions are given.

21:40 · Keep going in verse 11 as we go through this text,

21:43 · it says, he being Jesus replied to them,

21:46 · who among you, if he had a sheep

21:48 · that fell into the pit on the Sabbath,

21:51 · would it take hold of it and lift it out?

21:54 · Now, anyone own sheep here?

21:56 · I don't think so, all right, no hands.

21:58 · We are in surprise, I mean, you're like,

22:00 · I have horses, no sheep, but here's what he's saying,

22:03 · is if your dog or your cat that you love so much,

22:06 · I have no pets, because they're too expensive,

22:08 · and I have fake grass, and I wanna clean up after them,

22:09 · and I have four children, that's enough,

22:11 · but if your animal fell into a pit,

22:14 · I would leave it, but you probably would not,

22:16 · you would pull that animal out of a pit,

22:19 · because you love it, and he's saying,

22:21 · who, if their sheep fell into a pit,

22:24 · even if it's on a day you're not supposed to work,

22:25 · would climb into that pit to grab that demil sheep

22:28 · out of that pit, and he calls them out there,

22:32 · and he says this, he continues to go,

22:34 · he gets into their hearts in verse 11,

22:36 · but verse 12, he says, a person, get this,

22:39 · is worth far more than a sheep,

22:41 · a person's worth more than your dog,

22:42 · that's a side note, don't have the time for that,

22:44 · that's another sermon, but it's important.

22:48 · He says, so it is lawful to do what is good on the Sabbath,

22:53 · then he told the man in verse 13,

22:55 · stretch out your hands, so he stretched it out,

23:00 · and it was restored as good as the other.

23:05 · Jesus does two things here, first, he answers the trap,

23:10 · but then he answers the need.

23:13 · I first love how he answers the trap,

23:15 · that's just brilliant, he's like,

23:17 · you would rescue your own sheep,

23:19 · so how is it different that I rescue someone here,

23:22 · and he's saying, he says as, he's like,

23:25 · humans are of infinitely more value,

23:28 · created in the image of God than any animal here,

23:31 · and he's like, and just how you would care for an animal,

23:33 · or just how you would care for your possessions,

23:35 · because sheep had monetary value in that time,

23:38 · he's like, just as you would care and try to rescue that,

23:41 · God rescues us who are made in his own image.

23:45 · He's like, so why would you let a man stay broken,

23:49 · instead of rescuing him?

23:50 · And I love this, this is how Jesus handles religious people,

23:54 · he's not impressed by the fences they put up,

23:57 · he's not impressed by the traditions they have,

23:59 · he just keeps asking, what is worth more,

24:02 · your rules or the image bearer of God himself?

24:07 · He's saying, I prioritize people over policies,

24:12 · over the ones who change everything,

24:15 · who I've created in love over these traditions

24:18 · and this religiosity, but watch what he does next,

24:22 · he then turns to the man,

24:24 · and he doesn't ask the Pharisees permission in here,

24:26 · he doesn't form a committee saying, should I do this,

24:29 · he doesn't take a vote from his disciples,

24:31 · instead he just turns to the broken man,

24:34 · and he says this, stretch out your hands.

24:38 · Now I love this, because what Jesus is asking this man to do

24:43 · is the one thing that the man cannot actually do,

24:47 · his hand is withered, his hand is broken,

24:50 · his hand, whatever the details behind it,

24:52 · he literally can't stretch out his hand,

24:55 · the whole problem is his hand will not stretch,

24:59 · but Jesus is so simple, he just says, dude, stretch it out.

25:04 · And this is how God works every single time,

25:06 · he commands what only he can supply,

25:11 · he said to the dead little girl,

25:12 · Jarius, his daughter, he says, little girl, get up,

25:14 · he says to Lazarus, come out of the grave,

25:17 · he says to the paralyzed man, pick up your mat and walk,

25:21 · and here he says to a man with a withered hand,

25:24 · stretch it out, why?

25:26 · Because the moment that we obey,

25:28 · the moment we have faith,

25:30 · the power of God meets us in our obedience.

25:34 · The man stretches what he cannot stretch,

25:37 · and Matthew says it was restored as good as the other.

25:42 · Here's what I love that we see in this,

25:45 · is that the solution is always Jesus,

25:48 · self-made religion gives us a list,

25:51 · but Jesus will give us himself,

25:55 · self-made religion will give you a fence,

25:57 · but Jesus gives you a hand,

25:59 · self-made religion will give you a tradition to keep,

26:02 · Jesus gives you a miracle to receive,

26:04 · to change your life forever.

26:08 · And here is the gospel,

26:10 · that is underneath the gospel in this scene,

26:14 · that about two years after this synagogue scene,

26:17 · probably a little bit less,

26:18 · Jesus will be at the center of another religious controversy.

26:23 · At this time, he won't say stretch out your hand,

26:25 · this time Jesus will stretch out his own hands,

26:30 · across two beams of a Roman cross,

26:33 · and a withered humanity will be restored

26:35 · because of his sacrifice.

26:38 · That is the solution, that is the only solution,

26:41 · it has never been about your religion or my religion,

26:45 · it has always been about his cross that changes everything

26:49 · and gives us a new life and a new religion.

26:53 · See, that's move two in this story,

26:56 · his needs are exposed, solutions are given,

26:59 · but the story does not end here.

27:01 · The last thing we see is responses are required,

27:05 · responses are required, check out verse 14,

27:10 · this small little verse that we could just ignore

27:12 · and we could go on and we could ignore it

27:14 · because we're like man that ain't me,

27:15 · so I don't need to read that verse,

27:17 · those are the bad guys, the villains of the story,

27:20 · but it says this,

27:21 · but the Pharisees went out

27:24 · and they plotted against him how they might kill him.

27:31 · Listen to that verse again,

27:34 · I mean think of what we just saw,

27:36 · Jesus goes through the story,

27:38 · he gives the whole Bible history lesson

27:41 · on how he knows the Sabbath better than the Pharisees does,

27:45 · he makes them look dumb, he schools them,

27:47 · he gives them a lesson and then he literally heals a guy

27:50 · to then seal and show how he is so much greater than them,

27:54 · but then when we get here and they see all this,

27:58 · they see a great teacher who can also heal people,

28:03 · it says but then the Pharisees went out

28:07 · and they plotted against him how they might kill him.

28:14 · Church, please don't miss this,

28:19 · Jesus performed a miracle,

28:22 · he healed a man who could not be healed,

28:24 · he just demonstrated that he is exactly who he said he is

28:28 · and the response of the religious leaders of that day

28:31 · was to go plan a murder for him.

28:35 · That is a response, it's a horrible response,

28:40 · it's a revealing response, but it is a response

28:45 · and we cannot avoid reading this

28:47 · because here's what it says about us,

28:49 · is every time Jesus reveals himself,

28:52 · every person in the room has to do something

28:55 · with what they just saw and here's the deal,

28:58 · there is no neutral response to the authority of Jesus.

29:03 · When Jesus shows up, he asks that you respond

29:07 · and maybe you've been coming to church for years

29:10 · and you sit here and you hear and you take notes

29:13 · and you're like that's great, that's good, that's amen,

29:16 · yep, I get it, I get it, I get it,

29:18 · but you don't truly respond deep inside your soul,

29:21 · that changes the way you live,

29:23 · that changes the way you operate, here's the deal,

29:26 · there is no neutral responses to the gospel,

29:30 · we either follow him more diligently

29:32 · or we go the opposite direction like the Pharisees

29:35 · and when we sit there and think

29:37 · I can just keep going on with my schedule

29:39 · and just check my box that I went to church,

29:41 · that I did my religious duty,

29:42 · that I had this experience and I can keep going,

29:45 · we are making a response

29:46 · and we are following down the lines of the Pharisees,

29:50 · not down the line of the disciples.

29:52 · The Pharisees thought that they could plot Jesus

29:55 · into the grave, what they didn't know

29:58 · was that Jesus, the Jesus they tried to kill,

30:03 · as you fast forward in time,

30:04 · would walk out of his grave three days after he was killed.

30:08 · What they didn't know is that every one of them

30:10 · would still have to give an answer

30:12 · for what they did with him and so will we.

30:17 · In 2 Corinthians 5, 10, it says,

30:20 · for we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ

30:27 · so that each one may be repaid for what he has done

30:31 · in the body, whether good or evil.

30:35 · Now what this is not saying is,

30:36 · oh man, I better start being a better person,

30:39 · I better start stacking my winds,

30:41 · I better start following the law better,

30:43 · I better start following religious things better,

30:45 · I start being a better rule keeper,

30:46 · it's not saying that at all

30:48 · because you can try to keep the rules as well as possible

30:50 · like the Pharisees did and can still fail

30:53 · with a withered heart.

30:56 · But what it's saying is,

30:57 · do you have the goodness of Christ

31:00 · or are you marked by the natural inclination,

31:05 · the sinful aspects of who you are by nature

31:08 · as a sinner, as a broken person

31:11 · in need of something greater than yourself to save you?

31:15 · You see, every person in this room

31:18 · is going to give an answer for what they did with Jesus.

31:23 · Not what they did with religion,

31:25 · not what they did with the church,

31:27 · not what they did with their grandma's tradition

31:28 · or their new found tradition,

31:30 · but what they did with Jesus.

31:35 · And here's I think the honest question

31:36 · that we need to start asking ourselves this morning

31:39 · that will guide our response to this text

31:43 · that we see and have studied this morning

31:46 · is have you made following Jesus too complicated?

31:54 · Have you made it too complicated?

31:57 · Have you taken the simplest gospel in the universe

32:01 · that Christ died for our sins,

32:03 · was buried and rose again on the third day

32:06 · and have you buried it under a mountain of additions?

32:11 · Have you added rules and steps,

32:14 · your own version of righteousness?

32:16 · Have you added your church's preferences,

32:18 · your family traditions?

32:20 · The gospel is simple.

32:21 · Cross Church, it is to repent and to believe in him.

32:24 · It is to trust and obey.

32:26 · It is to love God and love people.

32:28 · It is to know Jesus and to make Jesus known

32:31 · as we say is our mission statement here.

32:35 · But here's the problem is we make it complicated

32:37 · because complicated keeps us in control in our minds.

32:42 · It keeps us driving the bus.

32:44 · The gospel is simple that I have to actually let Jesus in

32:48 · that I have to actually let him take control.

32:52 · But if I keep it overly complicated

32:55 · then I can stay busy managing the gospel

32:57 · without ever actually meeting Jesus and let him manage me.

33:02 · And here's the deal.

33:02 · That's why self-made religion is so attractive.

33:06 · It lets you look spiritual without ever surrendering.

33:11 · It lets you talk about Jesus without ever bowing to Jesus.

33:15 · It's about being able to hop from church to church

33:17 · and say I don't like that music enough

33:19 · or man they wore a hat in the worship center

33:21 · or oh I don't think they had good enough programs

33:23 · for my kids or make excuse after excuse after excuse

33:27 · when the real problem is we haven't surrendered our life

33:29 · to Christ so we are valuing our preferences

33:32 · over the person of Jesus Christ.

33:36 · And here he stops the Pharisees in their tracks.

33:41 · He says that is not what I desire.

33:44 · He says stop adding to the gospel.

33:46 · Stop making the gospel fit your lifestyle.

33:49 · Instead change your lifestyle to fit me.

33:53 · And for the believers in the room this gospel

33:58 · it is not our gospel to add and subtract from

34:01 · to make our life easier.

34:03 · It is Christ's gospel to share with the world around us

34:10 · and watch how he heals withered hands

34:12 · just like he heals our withered hearts.

34:17 · But maybe that's not you today.

34:20 · Maybe you are in the pre-Christian context.

34:23 · Maybe you are the one where like

34:25 · I don't know about this Jesus guy yet.

34:28 · Like I've been weary because I've met church people

34:30 · and some church people are not fun.

34:32 · They are like the Pharisees in this story.

34:36 · I don't know if I want to be a part of that.

34:40 · But here's the deal.

34:41 · Jesus didn't like religious,

34:44 · pharisaical, religious people either.

34:48 · Instead he despised that self-made religion

34:50 · and said he healed and he said come follow me.

34:55 · And just a minute we're going to watch nine people

34:57 · be baptized in this service of that exact representation

35:02 · of hey you don't have all your life together yet.

35:06 · You don't know the answer to every question

35:08 · you'll ever be asked.

35:09 · You still will sin and struggle in your life

35:12 · but I believe that Jesus has died for my sins

35:17 · and I'm going to follow that Jesus

35:19 · no matter where it takes me.

35:24 · And this is the beauty,

35:26 · the simplicity of the gospel that he gives us.

35:31 · And it doesn't matter how perfect your religion is.

35:36 · It matters how perfect he is.

35:41 · Remember our good old boy Richard Dawkins?

35:46 · Three days it took that dude.

35:49 · Three days to talk to AI

35:54 · to give his soul away.

35:57 · And here's why is because he told it to read his book

36:01 · and it told him how brilliant he was.

36:05 · And I'm not going to lie.

36:06 · I love it when people tell me how brilliant I am.

36:09 · And you love it too.

36:12 · And here's the problem.

36:13 · I think often we start creating the self-made religions

36:20 · because we want things to affirm us.

36:23 · We want things to lift us up.

36:26 · We want us to tell it's okay.

36:27 · No, that's all right.

36:28 · Keep going down that direction.

36:29 · Oh, you're making all the right choices.

36:31 · All right, that's great.

36:32 · We want to be propped up and loved.

36:34 · We want our lifestyles to be supported

36:39 · but that's not the Jesus of the gospel.

36:43 · The Jesus of the gospel says you are a sinner.

36:46 · You are broken.

36:48 · You have a withered hand.

36:49 · You have a withered heart

36:52 · but I love you.

36:55 · I've come to heal you

36:57 · and I've come to change everything in your life

37:00 · not to how you want it

37:03 · but to how he knows we need it

37:07 · and what is ultimately better for our lives.

37:12 · Church, I think we need to take heed.

37:16 · The self-made religion will always tell you

37:19 · what you want to hear

37:21 · but the real Jesus,

37:24 · he will tell you the truth

37:26 · and then he will save you from that truth

37:31 · and here is ultimately where that truth leads to in scripture

37:36 · is he doesn't despise all religion

37:38 · because he brought a religion

37:40 · but he showed us the religion

37:41 · that we need to be part of

37:43 · and it is the religion of Christianity

37:45 · that is established within the church.

37:50 · And he created this religion,

37:52 · this bounce,

37:53 · this whole thing that is surrounded by him

37:56 · and he rooted it in a church community

38:02 · and here's the challenge for us today.

38:06 · As we take in this text,

38:09 · as we say how do I start to apply this?

38:15 · Here's your first step.

38:17 · First, start valuing the person of Christ

38:22 · over the preferences of your life.

38:25 · You're going to come to church

38:27 · and people are going to make you mad.

38:30 · If I haven't made you mad,

38:31 · you have not been here long enough.

38:35 · If Josh hasn't sang a song you don't like,

38:38 · just wait.

38:40 · If the parking lot attendant

38:42 · didn't look at you the right way,

38:43 · it's going to happen.

38:45 · If the door shuts too quickly in kids ministry

38:48 · and they were rude to you,

38:50 · they're watching 30 other monkeys in there

38:52 · that are trying to escape.

38:55 · You're going to come to a church

38:57 · and people will make you mad.

39:00 · They will do things you disagree with.

39:02 · They will see this and be like,

39:03 · I don't know if I want to be

39:04 · with this messy, messed up group of people.

39:06 · You know why you should?

39:08 · Because you're a messy, messed up person as well.

39:10 · Amen.

39:12 · And all of us have a little Pharisee in us.

39:16 · All of us have a withered heart

39:19 · that needs to be restored.

39:22 · But the only one who can restore it

39:25 · is the God man, Jesus Christ.

39:29 · And my challenge for you

39:31 · is to get to know him better

39:34 · within this messy community

39:37 · where there might be more cuss in the lobby

39:39 · because we get more lost people here.

39:42 · There might be some more messed up family situations

39:44 · because people actually are honest

39:46 · that they're going through the fire.

39:49 · There might be some decisions you make

39:50 · and be like, I don't know if I like it,

39:52 · but it's because we're loving

39:53 · and reaching the people around us.

39:56 · But it is all linked to,

39:57 · it is all guided by,

39:59 · it is all to glorify the Lord Jesus Christ

40:02 · who is the only healer

40:04 · and who is the Lord of the Sabbath

40:07 · and the Lord of religion like no other.

40:13 · Church, let's be devoted to a religion

40:18 · that follows that guy,

40:21 · the person of Christ

40:24 · over the preferences of our life.