Sunday, November 25, 2007

But who do you say that I am?

“You are the Christ”

(Matthew 16:13-28, Preaching: Pastor Stephen Magee, Nov. 25, 2007)

Matthew 16:13-28 13 Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, "Who do people say that the Son of Man is?" 14 And they said, "Some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets." 15 He said to them, "But who do you say that I am?" 16 Simon Peter replied, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God." 17 And Jesus answered him, "Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. 18 And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. 19 I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven." 20 Then he strictly charged the disciples to tell no one that he was the Christ. 21 From that time Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised. 22 And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him, saying, "Far be it from you, Lord! This shall never happen to you." 23 But he turned and said to Peter, "Get behind me, Satan! You are a hindrance to me. For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man." 24 Then Jesus told his disciples, "If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. 25 For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. 26 For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his life? Or what shall a man give in return for his life? 27 For the Son of Man is going to come with his angels in the glory of his Father, and then he will repay each person according to what he has done. 28 Truly, I say to you, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom."

Introduction – Knowing Your Enemy, Knowing Your Friend

In December of 1944, one of the deadliest battles of World War II occurred in the engagement commonly known as The Battle of the Bulge. With some Allied troops almost entirely surrounded by German forces and facing extremely overcast weather conditions, it was of the utmost importance that our troops be able to distinguish friend from foe. At one point a party of four German soldiers carrying a white flag delivered a message to the American command demanding their surrender within two hours. Appealing as almost a friend of American values, the German Commander wrote these words: “All the serious civilian losses caused by this artillery fire would not correspond with the well known American humanity.” The official reply of the American command came in one word from the acting commander of the 101st Airborne. He wrote on the paper delivered to the Germans: “NUTS!” That reply had to be explained, both to the Germans and to non-American Allies.

Our Lord in His earthly ministry faced the greatest spiritual battle of all time. He understood that there would be times when enemies would pose as friends, and when friends might unwittingly speak words from the plan of the enemy. The passage before us contains two statements from the same man, the apostle Peter. One was a great statement of faith in Jesus Christ as the Son of God. The other was a strange rebuke concerning the coming horror of the cross. It is part of our Lord’s great wisdom that He knew just the right response to give in each situation.

Who do people say that the Son of Man is? (13-14)

Jesus and His disciples are traveling in the district of Caesarea Philippi, a pagan city named in honor of Augustus Caesar. It is there at the place dedicated to the Caesar of the empire that Jesus chooses to address His disciples concerning His own identity as the Messiah. The knowledge of who Jesus really is will be of the greatest importance in the spiritual battle that lay ahead of the disciples. Christ is surely moving toward the cross, and His disciples need to be prepared for this in such a way that they can later consider what He said about the battle of the cross before it every happened. To speak of these things prior to this time would have been too early, but to not speak of these things at all would be to leave his disciples inadequately prepared for the future.

Jesus calls himself the “Son of Man” a title connected in Daniel 7 to the hoped-for Messiah, but what do the mass of people think of Jesus? They knew that He was a man of spiritual power, and they thought that He might be from the recent or more distant heritage of God’s dealings with Israel. Was He somehow John the Baptist risen from the dead, or even the promised Old Testament prophet Elijah who was supposed to return before the Day of the Lord? This is what people generally wondered.

Who do you say that I am? (15-16)

Then Jesus directly asked His disciples one of the great questions of history. “But who do you say that I am?” The issue is not really what the crowds think of Jesus, then or now. What do His disciples think of the One who calls Himself by the title “Son of Man?” Peter has the place of honor in giving the answer. “You are the Christ.” This word “Christ” means “The Anointed One.” The Hebrew for this is actually where the word “Messiah” comes from. This title “Christ” is used in Psalm 2 where it is said that the rulers of the earth rage against the Lord and against His Anointed. In the same psalm, God calls the Christ both “My King” and “My Son.” It is not surprising then that when Peter says that Jesus is the Christ, he goes on to say that Jesus is “The Son of the living God.” In Psalm 2 these titles were both used for the King of Israel. God had promised that He would put a descendant of David on the throne, and that He would reign forever and ever. Peter is saying here that Jesus is not John the Baptist or even Elijah; He is the long-expected coming King of Israel.

I will build my church (17-23)

Jesus emphatically affirms Peter’s answer, calling Peter “blessed.” Jesus says that this answer could only have come from God in heaven. When anyone sees Jesus as Messiah truly from the heart he does a heavenly thing. There was so much about this coming King and His Kingdom in the Old Testament, yet this was not widely understood by the people of Jesus’ day; even by His disciples who had been with Him and had seen miracles and heard His words. It is now time for Jesus to begin to teach His closest followers and friends what it means that He is the Messiah King.

There are certain important things in these verses that should not be of controversy: 1) Christ is going to build something which He calls “My church.” 2) This church is on the offense against the stronghold of the world. 3) The world’s gates will not be able to withstand this Kingdom of the Messiah’s assembly. In any age it may appear that the church is surrounded by foes who may even insist that we surrender, but we know that Christ will prevail.

There is one matter of controversy that has proven difficult over the centuries. What is the rock on which Christ is going to build His church? There are three answers that are worth your consideration: 1) Peter is the rock (and perhaps by extension the other apostles). [Yes, in some sense, but only as God uses people as His way of bringing about His plans, just as Peter and the apostles fed thousands of people with just a few loaves.] 2) The profession of faith in Jesus as “The Christ, the Son of the Living God” is the rock. [Yes, in some sense, but only as God would give anyone the gift of a Messiah to believe in and the gift of faith in that Messiah.] 3) Jesus is the rock based on the broader teaching of the Bible. If only we had men like the Peter and Paul to sort this out for us. But we do! In Ephesians 2:20 Paul, speaking of the church, says that while the apostles and prophets are the foundation of the church, it is only Christ who is the cornerstone of His church. The foundation must be in line with the cornerstone. It is fitting that Peter himself should settle any confusion here. He says in I Peter 2:4-9 that we need to come to Christ as the cornerstone upon which we are being built up as living stones. Very importantly, he quotes from Isaiah 28:16 and Psalm 118:22. It seems clear from these verses that Peter would certainly not want us to settle on Peter as the rock and then stumble over Christ as a stumbling-stone that we had somehow ignored or minimized.

But regardless of how you understand the challenging matter of the identity of the rock of the church, do not forget the significance of the points of wide agreement here. Whatever we say about any of this cannot take us away from the reality that this is Christ’s church, and He is building it through a kingdom of heaven assault into a fallen world. He is doing this through what He calls here the keys of the kingdom which have been given to this first group of church officers. (For proof that this is not just Peter, see Matthew 18:18 and John 20:23.) The meaning of the keys is very difficult to establish here. They are something that the officers of the church use to call people into the kingdom and to identify those who they believe to be in or out of the Kingdom. The rest of the New Testament teaches us that this is done through the preaching of the gospel and the use of Baptism and the Lord’s Supper as signs and seals of inclusion in the church. These must be the keys that Christ refers to here. What we do see here is that Christ announces that God in heaven will take the church’s use of these keys very seriously in this age.

The disciples now know things about Jesus that He did not want others to know. Many would have misunderstood what the Messiah would do. They were expecting a Jewish Caesar ruling from Jerusalem. The Old Testament makes it clear that for Jesus to simply be a Caesar of an earthly empire would have been too small a thing. He is the leader of a far more glorious kingdom, but he accomplished His greatest victory through the pathway of His own death. This is what Jesus begins to teach them, and Peter is not happy about this. Christ now identifies Peter correctly as the worst enemy of the Lord if He insists on trying to move the Messiah away from the path that would lead to the cross. The Lord’s travel to Jerusalem, His sufferings, His death, His resurrection; these things were absolutely necessary. To try to make Jesus surrender to another plan was more than “nuts.” It was Satanic.

The Son of Man is going to come (24-28)

The rest of this passage teaches us that if we embrace the One who becomes far greater than Caesar by the way of the cross, then we must be willing to follow Him in God’s good plan of suffering in our own lives – a theme that we will investigate more fully in future passages. For now we want to rejoice in the Christ in whom we believe. He is building His church. The gates of Hell cannot withstand His assault of sacrificial love through His church. Peter, of course, did turn out to be a friend and not a foe. And he was right. Jesus is the cornerstone of the Kingdom. He is the Christ, the Son of the living God, who is going to come with his angels in the glory of his Father.

Questions for meditation and discussion:

1. What do you make of the crowd’s assessment of who Jesus is?

2. Discuss the conflict between Peter’s statement of faith with his concern over the Lord’s future suffering.

3. What does this passage tell us about God’s plan for the church?

4. How do you connect verses 24-28 with the earlier events that transpired here?

Sunday, November 18, 2007

Bodily Resurrection - The Greatest Sign of Heaven

“I Have Compassion on the Crowd”

(Matthew 15:29-16:12, Preaching: Pastor Stephen Magee, Nov. 18, 2007)

Matthew 15:29-16:12 29 Jesus went on from there and walked beside the Sea of Galilee. And he went up on the mountain and sat down there. 30 And great crowds came to him, bringing with them the lame, the blind, the crippled, the mute, and many others, and they put them at his feet, and he healed them, 31 so that the crowd wondered, when they saw the mute speaking, the crippled healthy, the lame walking, and the blind seeing. And they glorified the God of Israel. 32 Then Jesus called his disciples to him and said, "I have compassion on the crowd because they have been with me now three days and have nothing to eat. And I am unwilling to send them away hungry, lest they faint on the way." 33 And the disciples said to him, "Where are we to get enough bread in such a desolate place to feed so great a crowd?" 34 And Jesus said to them, "How many loaves do you have?" They said, "Seven, and a few small fish." 35 And directing the crowd to sit down on the ground, 36 he took the seven loaves and the fish, and having given thanks he broke them and gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds. 37 And they all ate and were satisfied. And they took up seven baskets full of the broken pieces left over. 38 Those who ate were four thousand men, besides women and children. 39 And after sending away the crowds, he got into the boat and went to the region of Magadan. 16:1 And the Pharisees and Sadducees came, and to test him they asked him to show them a sign from heaven. 2 He answered them, "When it is evening, you say, 'It will be fair weather, for the sky is red.' 3 And in the morning, 'It will be stormy today, for the sky is red and threatening.' You know how to interpret the appearance of the sky, but you cannot interpret the signs of the times. 4 An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of Jonah." So he left them and departed. 5 When the disciples reached the other side, they had forgotten to bring any bread. 6 Jesus said to them, "Watch and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees." 7 And they began discussing it among themselves, saying, "We brought no bread." 8 But Jesus, aware of this, said, "O you of little faith, why are you discussing among yourselves the fact that you have no bread? 9 Do you not yet perceive? Do you not remember the five loaves for the five thousand, and how many baskets you gathered? 10 Or the seven loaves for the four thousand, and how many baskets you gathered? 11 How is it that you fail to understand that I did not speak about bread? Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees." 12 Then they understood that he did not tell them to beware of the leaven of bread, but of the teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees.

Introduction – Magic vs. Miracle

Magic is “the art of producing illusions as entertainment by the use of sleight of hand, deceptive devices, etc.” A miracle is different. It is “an effect or extraordinary event in the physical world that surpasses all known human or natural powers and is ascribed to a supernatural cause.” The goal of magic may be to create the illusion of a miracle. A real miracle does not require any smoke, mirrors, distracting movements, or loud noises. This is now the second time in Matthew’s gospel where we have read about the miracle of the feeding of thousands of people with only a few loaves and fish. It is done in such a quiet way that is not even clear whether the people in the crowd would have noticed anything unusual, but the disciples certainly knew what they started with, and how many baskets they had in the end. Still, it was very hard for them to let the message of the miracle sink in.

As if once was not enough (29-39)

Last time this had happened Jesus seemed to be with Jews, but the evidence here and in other gospels suggests that this time they were in Gentile territory. Whoever the crowds were, they had been with the Lord for three days. The people came for healing from their physical troubles. Verse 30 says they “put them at his feet.” They were blind, lame, and mute. We are simply told that “he healed them.” Many who were there that day were observers and friends of those who needed help. It says that they all “glorified the God of Israel,” which is a wonderful report.

Jesus had compassion on the sick, but He went on to show compassion for the whole crowd of hungry people, many of whom had to be Gentiles. Remember the Gentile woman from the previous passage who said that if she could just have a crumb from the table of Jesus then her daughter would be well? She did get that crumb. Now we have more than just a few crumbs. Jesus cares about their needs. He will not send them away without food.

What is surprising is that the disciples respond with a question that shows their confusion. Jesus had recently been in a similar situation and had quietly used the disciples to distribute a small amount of food, ending up with 12 baskets of fragments. But they ask, “Where are we going to get enough bread?” This time the beginning of the supply of bread comes from the disciples. Jesus says to them in verse 34, “How many loaves do you have?” The Lord can do great works with what we have, though our supply may not seem to be enough for anything special. As before, Jesus takes the food. He first gives thanks to God. The food then goes from the Lord’s hands to the disciples and then through the disciples to the crowd. Every detail there is interesting – the role of the Lord, our thankfulness for what we have and our willingness to use it, the use of the disciples as a channel of God’s blessing, the result to the crowd, the fullness of seven baskets of fragments after everyone has eaten.

Still not enough (16:1-4)

The disciples seemed to forget the power of the Lord from the earlier similar miracle. Would twice be enough for His closest followers to see something of Him in the sign that He had accomplished? Would the repeated healings be enough for them to have confidence in His power and compassion for the weak? We know from the first four verses of the 16th chapter that the healings and supply of food were not enough for the Pharisees and Sadducees. They come to Him requesting a sign from heaven. Perhaps they want to see something amazing in the skies rather than miracles of compassion. They are testing Him. Jesus turns this situation around. He will not submit to their test, but He notes that they have failed His test by not recognizing the signs that have already been given. They miss the signs that Isaiah spoke of – signs of the coming of the kingdom of heaven. These were miracles such as the crowds had witnessed – signs that anyone could have seen. These spiritual leaders don’t know heaven, and they miss the signs of the heavenly kingdom. They are evil and adulteress, according to the words of Jesus, because they have a heart only for earth and not for heaven.

Jesus says that the only sign that they will be given is the sign of Jonah. Jonah was an Old Testament prophet who was able to calm a stormy sea by jumping into it. God had a fish capture this prophet to bring Him back to shore. The sign that Jesus is giving is a subtle reference to is His own death, burial, and resurrection. Like Jonah he would be gone, and then He would have life again. This is the second time in Matthew’s gospel where Jesus has given this reference to Jonah. Earlier he explained it with these words in Matthew 12:40: “For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.” This sign of Jonah in the resurrection of the Lord is the greatest sign of heaven for those who can receive it.

What was the resurrection of Jesus? It was a far greater thing than the appearance of the spirit of someone who has died. This is surely what some thought they were seeing when they saw Jesus alive again after the cross and the grave. Jesus said to Thomas in John 20:27-28, “Put your finger here, and see my hands; and put out your hand, and place it in my side. Do not disbelieve, but believe.” And Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!” Jesus Christ had risen again to physical life with an immortal body, and that was the greatest heavenly sign ever given.

Even the disciples do not understand (5-11)

Speaking of disciples like Thomas, it was not only the Pharisees and the Sadducees who seemed to lack understanding about the miracles of Jesus. It was bad enough that Jesus had to endure trouble from his enemies, but even His disciples did not understand. They may have used up all their supplies of bread on feeding the crowd. In any case they forgot to get more bread.

When Jesus mentions leaven (a yeast-like rising agent used in bread), they think that he is talking about physical bread. Of course, He is actually warning them of the great spiritual danger that they face from false teachers. The disciples need to be aware of this, but they at first miss the point entirely. Their discussions among themselves reveal that they still do not trust Jesus for their daily bread. He has compassion and power to provide for their every need. They missed the signs of heaven too, so they were worrying about the bread that they had neglected to bring.

The Leaven of the Pharisees and the Sadducees (12)

Jesus corrected them on this, and then they were at least able to get the point about the leaven that He was making. It was about the teaching of the scribes and the Pharisees. If you let that teaching go unchecked it will be like a bad leaven that will hurt the church. In the moments that we have left, I want to give a quick summary of what exactly was so dangerous about the teaching of the scribes and the Pharisees.

First, they had a wrong view of the Law of God. They had added so much from their own traditions that the larger issues of the Ten Commandments were often obscured. They became zealous about the outward observances of their customs, and kept these carefully, even though they found ways to rob from widows. The second problem is related. They tried to justify themselves based on their own deeds, and did not know how to relate to the message of faith and repentance that Christ came preaching since they considered themselves in the right before God as observant Jews. Finally and chiefly, when the Messiah came they rejected Him, refusing to recognize Him as the fulfillment of the Scriptures, and they even conspired with others to kill Him.

Their misuse of the Law, their self-justification, and their rejection of Jesus Christ as the Messiah was not just a problem for the first century or for Jews. The heart of Pharisaic teaching and living can create an epidemic of anti-Christian living in the church in any generation. It always needs to be resisted. The answer for us is a supernatural miracle of faith. This faith comes by hearing the word of God. That word of good news plainly and calmly reveals to us the greatest fulfillment of the sign of Jonah in the empty tomb of Jesus Christ, the Savior of the world, who had compassion on a crowd, and gave them bread through His disciples.

Questions for meditation and discussion:

1. Consider the details of how the feeding miracle took place. Do you see these as incidental details, or do you think that they have some importance for us?

2. Why would the Pharisees and Sadducees come to Jesus and request a sign?

3. Compare his treatment of these leaders with his treatment of the woman in the prior passage who needed help for her daughter.

4. How are we to beware of the leaven of the scribes and Pharisees?

Sunday, November 11, 2007

Hope for Someone on the Outside - through Faith

“Great is Your Faith”

(Matthew 15:21-28, Preaching: Pastor Stephen Magee, November 11, 2007)

Matthew 15:21-28 21 And Jesus went away from there and withdrew to the district of Tyre and Sidon. 22 And behold, a Canaanite woman from that region came out and was crying, "Have mercy on me, O Lord, Son of David; my daughter is severely oppressed by a demon." 23 But he did not answer her a word. And his disciples came and begged him, saying, "Send her away, for she is crying out after us." 24 He answered, "I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel." 25 But she came and knelt before him, saying, "Lord, help me." 26 And he answered, "It is not right to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs." 27 She said, "Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters' table." 28 Then Jesus answered her, "O woman, great is your faith! Be it done for you as you desire." And her daughter was healed instantly.

Introduction – The Proper Place of a Dog

I read a newspaper story from the early 1900s recently, where an elderly woman with a $3,000 estate left $200 for the care of her dog. The reporter did not know the dog’s age, but he wrote that $200 deposited in an interest-bearing account should be able to take care of even a very young dog for a long time. Moving ahead 100 years, when a very wealthy woman recently died, it was revealed that her dog received a $12 million trust fund. That should take care of the little dear for the foreseeable future. As something of a recent convert to the society of dog-admirers, I must admit that I do not go as far as some animal-lovers go. I do not think that you should set a place for them at the table under normal circumstances, and no matter how large a trust fund they inherit they are really not our children.

The District of Tyre and Sidon (21)

In our passage today Jesus makes a very important point about the proper place of a dog. The situation was not funny, but tragic and moving. A Gentile woman was desperate for God’s help with her demon-oppressed daughter. Demons are fallen angelic beings that are powerful in working evil. We do not know the details – just that she was severely tormented. That would be enough to make any mother desperate.

This woman was living in the region of Tyre and Sidon, north of Galilee. This is very significant, because Jesus is clearly in Gentile territory when all of this happens. By the end of this gospel, the resurrected Lord will be sending His disciples into the entire world with the message of Christ and the Kingdom. Here, and in other places, it is clear that the earthly ministry of Jesus was for the Jews. Why then did He travel into Gentile territory at all? Perhaps Jesus is giving His disciples a glimpse of a future movement of the Kingdom message beyond their borders. He is also showing us that faith will be the way for Gentiles to be blessed, just as it is the way for Jews to be blessed.

Have mercy on me, O Lord, Son of David (22)

The woman is called a Canaanite here, and a Syro-phoenician in Mark’s gospel. She is clearly a Gentile, and yet, she calls Jesus “the Son of David.” David was a great King of the Jews. It was anticipated that a Messiah would come who would be a descendant of David and would be able to deliver His people from bondage. Think of what this Gentile woman believes. She believes that Jesus is this Messiah. She believes that the release that He can bring might extend to Gentiles. She believes that the kind of release He could give would mean the defeat of evil angels. Apparently God put it into the heart of this woman that much blessing would come from the Jewish Messiah-King, and that it was worth her desperate entreaty of Him that He might show favor even to her.

Not a word (23-24)

This is a very moving situation, but what is shocking is that Jesus, who surely has more compassion for the weak than any of us (just consider the cross if you have any doubt about that), Jesus does not answer her a word. Yet she keeps on going. She was crying out after the disciples, so much so that begged Jesus to send her away. It is sad when suffering people just seem like inconvenient and extraneous details to be sent away. But that can happen with us, and we are not entirely shocked that the disciples would have this reaction. Jesus is apparently not going to do what this woman wants. The disciples are merely asking, in light of their Master’s decision to not talk to her, that He simply be clear here and send her away. What shocks us is Jesus. He seems to be the unfeeling one.

What could be going on here? What does the Lord say? He says, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” Notice here that though Jesus’ words seem to exclude this one woman, they establish that He was sent to help some “lost” people. The word “lost” is a strong word in the Greek that can mean perishing, ruined, destroyed, or even hell-bound. Jesus was sent for sheep like that in Israel. He does care about those who suffer, but His care seems to exclude her, at least at present, just because she is not a Jew. Her daughter is likely in horrible danger, and needs help now. The girl cannot wait for the change from the Old Testament age to the New Testament age.

Back to the disciples’ request for a moment – They want Jesus to send her away. Did you notice that He did not even answer that request? He certainly did not send her away. This great Son of David was also the Man of Sorrows. He knew what was ahead of Him and He had to live with that every day. He had to embrace His own suffering. Even for His followers, it is often our suffering and our experience of grace through it all that opens the door to looking at people differently. We don’t send them away as quickly if we have suffered ourselves.

Crumbs from the Master’s table (25-27)

As always, though we may not be able to figure it out, Jesus knows what He is doing, and He knows what is in the heart of this woman. He knows the cry of anguish and desperation from the broken heart. She keeps on crying out. She kneels down on the ground in His path. She calls Him “Lord,” and she simply says “Help me.”

He, again, shocks us – but you have to trust Jesus. He says, “It is not right to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs.” She needed to listen carefully to what He said. The children of the Kingdom were the Jews. Many of the Jews referred to the Gentiles as dogs, but they would have used the Greek word for stray dogs. Jesus uses the word for a household dog. She does not let this pass by. Her heart of faith is looking for the opening of divine mercy, and she finds that opening even in the response of Jesus that called her a dog.

She accepts everything that He has said. That is a good rule for you too as you look for the mercy of Jesus. He is never wrong. Accept what He says as certainly true and move from that foundation, rather than from a shaky platform of doubt. She says, “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters' table.” Again the word “Lord,” which is a necessary confession for us, is spoken. It says that He is the King of the Kingdom. It promises to hear and obey His Word. Can you call Him Lord today? She accepts here that the Jews are God’s special nation at this point in time. Yet she is so confident in the grace, power, goodness, and mercy of the table of this Master, that even a crumb from that table would be enough for her daughter. She looks for the overflow from a Jewish table to bring mercy to the Gentiles. Why else was Jesus up in Tyre and Sidon anyway?

Great is your faith (28)

Look how quickly everything changes now. Jesus speaks warmly to this special gentile child of God. “O woman, great is your faith! Be it done for you as you desire.” This word “woman” is not used with any disrespect. Remember that Jesus addresses His own mother that way. Don’t miss the significance of what He is saying here. There are two places in Matthew’s gospel where faith is mentioned like this. The other one was in Matthew 8, when a Roman centurion was commended. The most remarkable words of faith in Matthew come from non-Jews.

Faith is what it is all about. Jesus gives faith, He waits for faith, He knows faith when He sees it, and over and over again in the gospel account, He responds to faith. For Jesus to say that you have great faith is the perfect thing for Him to say. It is wonderful to have many other gifts and abilities. All of these are from God too, but if you do not have faith you really need to seek the Lord for it with the same kind of earnestness and persistence that this woman seeks freedom for her daughter. If you already have faith, you have something wonderful, and you need to use it.

In any case, everything changes so quickly in this story in verse 28. It’s like the Old Testament Joseph. Once his brothers humble themselves and say what needs to be said, the man they sold into slavery who has become such a powerful man in Egypt is overcome with love for them – love that was always there, and he reveals his mercy to them. The mercy was only hidden for a time. He had to wait for the right moment. The same is true here for Jesus.

Are you waiting for a crumb from the Lord who seems to be hiding His face from you? He is not ignoring you. He probably is just waiting for the very best moment. Much of what we want most desperately in this life will come at the best moment of all time. That moment is when Jesus comes bringing the resurrection of the dead. Yet you may even know some astounding mercy much sooner than that, if it is the Lord’s will.

What should you do now as you need His help? Consider the matter. Stay very close to the one who is the answer. Don’t rail against Him. That will not help you. Remember the truth about Him all the time. Speak to Him and follow Him as your Lord. Search His Word daily and listen to Him very closely. Look for the opening of a great door of grace and let your faith in Him grow rather than diminish in bitterness. Most of all, don’t forget the love of the cross, that suffering love. There has never been a bigger love than that. What looked like eternal abandonment and hopelessness was not that at all. It was mercy overflowing. So, wait upon the Lord, and find strength around this table. Imagine that! We Gentile dogs, look where we are sitting! We have a place at the table of the Lord.

Questions for meditation and discussion:

1. Why do you think that Jesus left Israel?

2. What is your understanding of the condition faced by the daughter who was oppressed by a demon?

3. Why do you suppose that Jesus treated the mother as He did?

4. What was so good about the mother’s final response?

Sunday, November 04, 2007

Clean Hands and a Pure Heart

“Breaking with Tradition”

(Matthew 15:1-20, Preaching: Pastor Stephen Magee, November 4, 2007)

Matthew 15:1-20 Then Pharisees and scribes came to Jesus from Jerusalem and said, 2 "Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? For they do not wash their hands when they eat." 3 He answered them, "And why do you break the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition? 4 For God commanded, 'Honor your father and your mother,' and, 'Whoever reviles father or mother must surely die.' 5 But you say, 'If anyone tells his father or his mother, What you would have gained from me is given to God, 6 he need not honor his father.' So for the sake of your tradition you have made void the word of God. 7 You hypocrites! Well did Isaiah prophesy of you, when he said: 8 "'This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; 9 in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.'" 10 And he called the people to him and said to them, "Hear and understand: 11 it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but what comes out of the mouth; this defiles a person." 12 Then the disciples came and said to him, "Do you know that the Pharisees were offended when they heard this saying?" 13 He answered, "Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be rooted up. 14 Let them alone; they are blind guides. And if the blind lead the blind, both will fall into a pit." 15 But Peter said to him, "Explain the parable to us." 16 And he said, "Are you also still without understanding? 17 Do you not see that whatever goes into the mouth passes into the stomach and is expelled? 18 But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this defiles a person. 19 For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander. 20 These are what defile a person. But to eat with unwashed hands does not defile anyone."

Introduction – The Positive Power of Tradition

I was recently given a tour of the village of Katwijk in the Netherlands by a pastor of a Dutch church. Since I had previously heard many things about the increasingly secular environment in Holland, I was surprised to find out that in the villages life is not that way. At least in Katwijk there are established traditions and customs that define a certain way of life that Christian families have been following faithfully for hundreds of years. There it is very normal for young people to receive weekly training in their faith throughout their teenage years. I mention this to point out that not all religious traditions are bad. We all order much of our lives based on what we consider to be customary practices. There can be positive aspects of good religious traditions that we would be wrong to minimize.

But there are limits… (1-3)

Nonetheless, it should be clear from the passage before us this morning that there are limits to the idea that we can safely follow the traditions of men. What if the tradition violates the Word of God? Which will you prefer? That one should be obvious. We need to follow God. But often the decisions that we have are more difficult and subtle. Sometimes our customs don’t so much contradict the Word of God as simply crowd it out. We give ourselves over to our own ways, and we just don’t seem to have the time or money to do the things that the Word of God calls us to. The effect ends up being the same. Eventually we are only doing our tradition and not God’s law.

A group of people can have such detailed customs about cleanliness, for instance, that it takes over the whole of their understanding of what it means to be faithful to God. Apparently this describes the life of many Pharisees in Jesus day. They had a whole section of their religious writings that had built up over time just on the topic of ceremonial washing. The Pharisees were not thinking about cleanliness the way that you and I do today. These were religious ceremonies involving sprinkling holy water to make you right with God in your daily life.

Honor your father and your mother (4-6)

The reason this topic comes up is that the Pharisees and scribes were drawing attention to the fact that Jesus’ disciples were apparently not doing these washings. Jesus answers this attack boldly. He does not give in to their understanding of spiritual life even for a moment. Their focus on washing their hands for ceremonial cleanliness made them feel more righteous than others, but their hearts were not clean.

This heart defilement showed up in their practice of setting aside their wealth for a religious offering in such a way that they ignored their responsibilities to their elderly parents who were in need of aid. Here is how this tradition worked. If you had some wealth, you could set it aside as “dedicated” to the Lord. Then if someone asked you for help you could tell them that there was nothing that you could do for them, since your wealth was already dedicated to God. You could even retain control of your wealth, and just claim that it was ceremonially dedicated to the Lord. In this way, Jesus said, you use the traditions of men to violate God’s law. God said in the Ten Commandments that you must honor your father and mother, but now you have a custom that allows you to dedicate your property to the Lord, and to ignore your obligation to care for your parents.

Why did Jesus even bring this up? The Pharisees’ question about washings was just another way of violating the most important commandment of God. When God sends His messenger, especially His Son, we should listen to Him. But what if we don’t want to do this? Could we find a righteous-sounding reason for rejecting this miracle-working Messenger of God? The tradition of hand-washing seemed to be the answer. It provided the appearance of a righteous critique against Jesus and His followers, so that the scribes and Pharisees could have a supposed godly reason for rejecting Jesus, and working against Him. Why should they listen to them, and why should they have any respect for Jesus? His disciples were not even following the ceremonial washing traditions of the elders.

Though the scribes and Pharisees were convinced that they were in the right on this point about washing, their behavior was scandalous. Their religious self-righteousness had blinded them to their own immorality. Take the example of how they were dedicating their property to God to avoid taking care of their parents. Any unbeliever could have seen the true dirty story behind their clean religion if he knew their situation at all. Even the Gentiles would have known in their conscience that children should have enough respect and love for their parents to help them in their time of need. Anyone could feel in their hearts that this was a disreputable practice that was very selfish and very wrong.

Hypocrisy (7-9)

What makes all of thus so repulsive is the hypocrisy of it. The word hypocrisy comes from the world of Greek theatre. It has to do with playing a part. The religious hypocrite plays the part of someone who is devoted to God. The words they speak of pure devotion to God can be heard on their lips, but the heart, which God knows, is far from the Lord. Prophets like Isaiah spoke strongly against this kind of hypocrisy. Jesus quotes from Isaiah 29, a chapter where God speaks against Jerusalem. In Matthew 15, Jesus is not bringing a new idea, but the same message of God against the hypocrisy of His people. This was a message that He had given for centuries.

We in the church today are not strangers to this kind of false behavior. We love to have the moral high ground against an opponent who has annoyed us. We love to win a trick by playing some religious trump card. Unfortunately, though we may seem to have victory in our self-righteousness and we may even get what we want, we then face the consequences of what we thought was one of our greater moments, and something within us does not feel all that right. The Pharisees thought that they were clever in finding a way to avoid honoring their parents, but one day the parents you were supposed to honor are gone. You have your money, but you don’t have them, and you wish you had helped them when they needed you. Best to be generous now, because the people that you need to bless may not always be there. Then you will have to deal not only with the loss of them and your own shame.

Defiled (10-11, 15-20)

When our children were young we took a portion of this story and made it into a song for them. From the King James Version, “There is nothing from without a man that entering into him can defile him. But the things that come out of him, those are they that defile the man.” I wanted them to know that our faith was more than outward rules. But for children to learn that, they need something more than a song. What lessons are you teaching by your life? Are you more concerned about outward appearances or about inner spiritual defilement and immorality that proceeds from uncleanness? Your biggest problem is not unclean hands. The bigger issue is that which originates in a defiled heart and then comes out of a defiled mouth and is expressed in a defiled life. How can we clean this up?

You be the judge. Which defiles a person more, neglect of some outward ceremonial duty or a covetous heart full of murder, adultery, stealing, and lying? God actually demands a heart without any defilement at all. How can we ever face Him when we have violated His law so deeply? God does have a way for a person to be spiritually clean of this defilement for anyone who will repent and believe His Son. The answer comes in the one man who not only had clean hands but also had a completely pure heart, the Lord Jesus Christ. He is God’s answer for you. This is what we are insisting on in the church throughout the centuries, that we have a God-given Savior who has taken away all our guilt and shame.

Offended (12-14)

The biggest irony of this passage is that the solution to Pharisaic uncleanness of heart was the One who was speaking to them and exposing their hypocrisy – the One who would soon die for sinners. Instead of receiving Him, they were offended by Him.

For my own part, I want to testify that I will not be offended by Jesus, even when His words convict me of sin. I will hear His words, and see my own sin as the real offense. I will choose the Light of the World, rather than the cleanest-looking traditions that proceed from the hearts of hypocrites. I will see take the perfectly pure hand of the Man who is the Light of the World, rather than follow the ways of the blind who insist on claiming that they can really lead the blind. Be clean in the depths of your heart through Him, and walk in the way that He leads.

Questions for meditation and discussion:

1. What might be the significance of the fact that these scribes and Pharisees came from Jerusalem?

2. What do you think was the real concern of this delegation?

3. Is Jesus bringing up a completely unrelated matter by talking about honoring parents?

4. How can we make the best use of godly tradition? What are the limits of even the best traditions?