Latest / Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive / April 10, 2016 | Route 66 - Matthew

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April 10, 2016 | Route 66 - Matthew · Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive

0:00
SPEAKER_00: A little bit of a longer uh intro, yeah, because it's been a while.
0:07
SPEAKER_00: And um I didn't know it, but we took us a little longer to get fixed up here.
0:13
SPEAKER_00: How are you doing today?
0:16
SPEAKER_00: Okay, open your Bibles to uh the New Testament, please.
0:24
SPEAKER_00: Um I want to share with you that uh we have something special happening next week.
0:29
SPEAKER_00: I was on uh I'm a member of the board of this organization now, John Bryan University, and I was online um oh a month ago, two months ago, and I was listening to uh President Chip Pollard, who in my view is the Bill Self of Christian College president.
0:50
SPEAKER_00: He is uh the thing that I like about Bill Self is that he's so accessible and he's so friendly, and yet he's so effective.
1:00
SPEAKER_00: And uh oh.
1:04
SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
1:05
SPEAKER_00: Thank you, Sam.
1:06
SPEAKER_00: For some reason we don't we don't have this picture, but anyway, so um and and Chip Poller's the same way, though he he's uh president of uh of uh school of I guess 200, 2,500 uh call Christian college students down in Arkansas, and he uh started watching him, started paying attention to what he would write, and say, back when my son Craig, my younger son, was considering going there.
1:39
SPEAKER_00: As you know, we're a sort of a Wheaton College family through my uh ancestry and uh uh seven and eight of us brothers and sisters went there out of the 12 children in my family.
1:51
SPEAKER_00: And uh um yeah, we better get this fixed.
1:57
SPEAKER_00: I have no sermon apart from apart from that.
2:02
SPEAKER_00: Uh no, thank you, Sam.
2:04
SPEAKER_00: So I'm just gonna keep talking until this happens.
2:08
SPEAKER_00: Um thanks, man.
2:14
SPEAKER_00: Oh, that's interesting.
2:16
SPEAKER_00: Isn't that a great picture?
2:18
SPEAKER_00: That's what I want.
2:19
SPEAKER_00: You're amazing.
2:20
SPEAKER_00: Thanks, Sam.
2:21
SPEAKER_00: So this is Chip Pollard.
2:26
SPEAKER_00: Homegrown.
2:27
SPEAKER_00: That's Sam Reed right there.
2:28
SPEAKER_00: Homegrown, baby.
2:29
SPEAKER_00: That's the best.
2:30
SPEAKER_00: Grow him right here in Topeka.
2:32
SPEAKER_00: Um so Chip is his name, and I was mentioning that I've always been more of a you know, Wheaton guy.
2:38
SPEAKER_00: It's a reputable, you know, highly high reputation.
2:41
SPEAKER_00: But Craig chose John Brown.
2:43
SPEAKER_00: I really liked the reasons why Craig chose John Brown.
2:46
SPEAKER_00: He wanted to choose a school where it wouldn't be, you know where it would be cool to be a fervent Christian.
2:53
SPEAKER_00: And um, and so I started following this guy, Chip Pollard, who'd graduated from Wheaton and from Oxford University and gone to Harvard Law School and so forth, and I was so impressed with him.
3:05
SPEAKER_00: So I've gotten together with him a few times, and I heard a talk he gave a month or two ago in chapel down there, and contacted him and I said, Would you give that talk at Topeka Bible Church?
3:18
SPEAKER_00: Uh his talk was on friendship, and it really hit the students, those college students, and so he's coming up uh this next Sunday, and he's going to give that talk on friendship here at Topeka Bible.
3:30
SPEAKER_00: And uh, if you're able to attend, I think you'll really appreciate it.
3:34
SPEAKER_00: It's a biblical talk, it's a practical talk.
3:37
SPEAKER_00: It expresses who Chip Pollard is.
3:40
SPEAKER_00: I was thrilled when Wheaton College was looking for a new president a year or two ago, and they tried to get him.
3:45
SPEAKER_00: I was so glad that they that he said no.
3:48
SPEAKER_00: And uh, so anyway, he's uh you're gonna enjoy him.
3:52
SPEAKER_00: He's spoken here once maybe three years ago.
3:56
SPEAKER_00: So but anyway, Chip Pollard here next Sunday morning.
4:00
SPEAKER_00: Now uh we're here this morning here we're at uh our road trip to the Bible, Route 66, and uh um we're moving to the uh to the New Testament.
4:17
SPEAKER_00: I was online uh looking at tips, uh I do a bit of traveling, looking at tips for road travel, and um it's very interesting that when when um when when they suggest how to how to go on Route 66 from Chicago, it's 2248 miles from from uh Chicago's Grant Park to Santa Monica Pier in uh in California, that they say the important thing is that you don't try to do it, you could do it in four days, but that you don't, that you take a minimum of a week, maybe two weeks, that you go slow, that you stop, that you talk to locals.
4:53
SPEAKER_00: And Charles Caralt waited and said, None what you need is uh, he gave some other tips.
4:59
SPEAKER_00: He said, make sure in these hotels you go to, since they're not going to be five-star on Route 66, make sure you sleep on the side of the bed uh farthest away from the phone, because and you've seen that, you've been you've been in hotels, because everybody sleeps close to the phone or close or or the bathroom, and so there's sort of a valley there.
5:21
SPEAKER_00: Sleep on the other side.
5:23
SPEAKER_00: Good advice.
5:23
SPEAKER_00: Also, he suggested good advice, bring along some of those large safety pins because the curtains never close and the and the sun will wake you up at 5 a.m.
5:34
SPEAKER_00: otherwise.
5:34
SPEAKER_00: And and but this Charles Skrall, and this was now 15 years ago, Charles Skrull said the single most important tip I can give you is bring along as many quarters as you can find.
5:48
SPEAKER_00: And this is not gonna relate to today at all, but he said, because it takes a quarter to buy a newspaper, takes a quarter for a for a for the phone, it takes a quarter for everything.
5:58
SPEAKER_00: And of course that doesn't apply anymore.
6:00
SPEAKER_00: And it takes a quarter, he said takes two quarters for a soda pop.
6:04
SPEAKER_00: Well, now it takes like a dollar fifty for a soda pop, and and we have cell phones and so forth.
6:09
SPEAKER_00: But but um what I'd say is uh my advice for traveling the Bible's Route 66, and this is gonna sound so self-serving, but it would be to take along the uh, yeah, I took my own advice, I didn't bring it with me.
6:26
SPEAKER_00: Uh the study sheet.
6:29
SPEAKER_00: I got an extra one.
6:30
SPEAKER_00: I left mine in back.
6:31
SPEAKER_00: Thanks.
6:32
SPEAKER_00: You don't need it.
6:32
SPEAKER_00: Thanks, buddy.
6:36
SPEAKER_00: Trey knows it all already.
6:38
SPEAKER_00: So my advice would be to to take this along.
6:40
SPEAKER_00: This is like quarters on Route 66 through the Bible.
6:44
SPEAKER_00: Uh uh I put a lot of work into these.
6:47
SPEAKER_00: I started out uh for with my dad's material.
6:50
SPEAKER_00: He taught, he taught through the Bible for years at Molham School of the Bible, and and so I've adapted it using uh using more modern commentaries and so forth.
7:01
SPEAKER_00: And uh, and in fact, they've used these at CarePrayerville uh to go through the Bible.
7:06
SPEAKER_00: But but because I don't ever do this, I'm gonna do it this morning.
7:11
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna ask you to take this out and I'm going to read through a bunch of it, okay?
7:15
SPEAKER_00: Just just to let you know, this is maybe the best way that you can get a uh a pocket-sized view of an entire book of the Bible.
7:25
SPEAKER_00: Uh the when you think of Messiah, uh when you think of Matthew, I'd like you to think of this phrase Jesus is the Messiah King.
7:35
SPEAKER_00: Uh Meshiach uh Melech uh in uh in Hebrew.
7:41
SPEAKER_00: Key verse, this is Jesus, the King of the Jews.
7:44
SPEAKER_00: That was the sign they hung over his head, right?
7:48
SPEAKER_00: On the cross.
7:49
SPEAKER_00: Great chapters, chapters 5 through 7.
7:51
SPEAKER_00: This is the only book of the Bible in which you find the Sermon on the Mount.
7:55
SPEAKER_00: Memory verses.
7:56
SPEAKER_00: Uh, did I put any of these on here?
7:59
SPEAKER_00: Um Road trip, Matthew.
8:03
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is the Messiah King.
8:05
SPEAKER_00: Uh, first verse I've got on here.
8:06
SPEAKER_00: Matthew 121.
8:07
SPEAKER_00: You shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.
8:13
SPEAKER_00: And then comes chapter 5, 1 through 16.
8:16
SPEAKER_00: What do we call these blesseds?
8:20
SPEAKER_00: We call them the Beatitudes.
8:21
SPEAKER_00: Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.
8:24
SPEAKER_00: Blessed are the poor in spirit, for there's the kingdom of heaven.
8:27
SPEAKER_00: Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.
8:30
SPEAKER_00: That's chapter 5, 1 through 16.
8:32
SPEAKER_00: Then there's chapter 6, memory verses.
8:34
SPEAKER_00: This is where you find the Lord's Prayer, our Father, which are say it with me off the screen.
8:39
SPEAKER_00: Our Father, which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
8:48
SPEAKER_00: Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.
8:54
SPEAKER_00: And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil, for thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever.
9:03
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
9:04
SPEAKER_00: It's good to say the Lord's Prayer every day.
9:06
SPEAKER_00: If you can remember to do it, that's the King James Version that comes out of Matthew.
9:10
SPEAKER_00: There's a shorter version in Luke, but this is the one we all know.
9:14
SPEAKER_00: At the end of that same chapter, Matthew 6.33, say it with me.
9:18
SPEAKER_00: But seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you.
9:25
SPEAKER_00: And in the next chapter, 7.7, say it with me.
9:28
SPEAKER_00: Ask and it shall be given you.
9:30
SPEAKER_00: Seek and ye shall find.
9:32
SPEAKER_00: Knock, and it shall be opened to you.
9:35
SPEAKER_00: Now there's a I've listed a whole bunch of verses, all of them this famous.
9:39
SPEAKER_00: Some of my favorites.
9:41
SPEAKER_00: Matthew, uh Matthew 11.
9:46
SPEAKER_00: Wow, isn't that interesting?
9:48
SPEAKER_00: That the verse title on the bottom is Matthew 28.
9:53
SPEAKER_00: This is actually Matthew 11, uh 28 through 30.
9:56
SPEAKER_00: Come unto me, let's say, I love these verses.
9:59
SPEAKER_00: So do you.
9:59
SPEAKER_00: Say them with me.
10:00
SPEAKER_00: Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
10:06
SPEAKER_00: Take my yoke upon you and learn of me, for I am meek and lowly and harved, and ye shall find rest unto your souls, for my yoke is easy and my burden is light.
10:19
SPEAKER_00: One more verse from this list that we should all know.
10:22
SPEAKER_00: Matthew 19, 14.
10:24
SPEAKER_00: This is very self-serving.
10:26
SPEAKER_00: These are two of my grandsons.
10:27
SPEAKER_00: Let the little children come to me and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.
10:35
SPEAKER_00: That's the NIV, keyword kingdom.
10:38
SPEAKER_00: Summary.
10:38
SPEAKER_00: The Old Testament predicted and longed for the coming of a Messiah, a king like David, a godsend who would break in to deliver his people Israel and establish his good kingdom.
10:51
SPEAKER_00: Verse 1 of the New Testament announces that great event, the book of Jesus Christ, the Son of David.
10:58
SPEAKER_00: Matthew is the essential bridge between the Old and New Testaments.
11:02
SPEAKER_00: Who is this Jesus?
11:03
SPEAKER_00: Since he perfectly fits the Old Testament predictions, he must be none other than Israel's long-awaited Messiah and King.
11:10
SPEAKER_00: But the Jewish leaders closed their eyes to this reality, then killed him.
11:15
SPEAKER_00: Yet King Jesus died as only Messiah could die, then rose to life.
11:19
SPEAKER_00: Now his gospel goes to all the world until he returns to reign.
11:24
SPEAKER_00: In a paragraph, Matthew's message is this In the coming of Jesus, the Messiah King, God fulfilled his promises to Israel.
11:33
SPEAKER_00: But Israel rejected Jesus as their Messiah and King as a result.
11:38
SPEAKER_00: The gospel passed into the wide world of the Gentiles.
11:42
SPEAKER_00: At the bottom of this sheet, as in every one of these 66 sheets, I give you an outline.
11:48
SPEAKER_00: The thing to notice about this outline is how many main points there are.
11:52
SPEAKER_00: Between the introduction and the climax, which are sort of an envelope for the book, there are one, two, three, four, five parts.
12:00
SPEAKER_00: Because there are five sort of teaching.
12:03
SPEAKER_00: Unlike any other of the gospels, there are five teaching sections in this book.
12:09
SPEAKER_00: Five through seven, the Sermon on the Mount.
12:11
SPEAKER_00: Then a smaller one in chapter 10, where he teaches his disciples about going out to evangelize.
12:17
SPEAKER_00: Then a main one, the parables of the kingdom in chapter 13.
12:23
SPEAKER_00: A smaller one in chapter 18, which you're familiar with about forgiveness.
12:27
SPEAKER_00: And then the long one in 24 and 25 is the upper room discourse.
12:32
SPEAKER_00: And it's perhaps it's because Matthew, Matthew uses five of these inserts, five, because this is such a Jewish book, and the number of five is associated with teaching, with Torah, with the five books of Torah for the Jews, Genesis through Deuteronomy.
12:49
SPEAKER_00: Flip over the sheet.
12:51
SPEAKER_00: We're getting close to my sermon outline.
12:53
SPEAKER_00: Well, I'll actually move from seminary classroom to actual preaching.
13:01
SPEAKER_00: People say, why do we have to have four Gospels?
13:04
SPEAKER_00: Well, they are all different.
13:06
SPEAKER_00: And here is, I'm sorry, Trey, I took your sheet.
13:09
SPEAKER_00: I could hold it out for you.
13:11
SPEAKER_00: So we have four books.
13:14
SPEAKER_00: Matthew.
13:14
SPEAKER_00: Notice the audience is different in each one.
13:17
SPEAKER_00: Matthew, the audience is Jews, and Mark it's Romans, and Luke it's Greeks, and John, it's the world.
13:23
SPEAKER_00: The theme, Messiah, King, and Mark, it's a servant.
13:28
SPEAKER_00: Luke, perfect man, John, son of God.
13:30
SPEAKER_00: And the picture, down through history, the church, the early church, used to put up these pictures instead of writing the words Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.
13:38
SPEAKER_00: For Matthew, they put up the picture of a lion.
13:41
SPEAKER_00: For Mark, the servant, an ox.
13:44
SPEAKER_00: For Luke, a man, John, the eagle.
13:49
SPEAKER_00: I think, however, if uh if you want to understand the Gospel of Matthew as briefly and fully as is possible, I would suggest this three-part outline that I want to walk through and illustrate now.
14:07
SPEAKER_00: First, Jesus, I'll give this back to you, brother.
14:11
SPEAKER_00: Thanks.
14:12
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is the long-awaited Messiah King who will save his people from their sins.
14:18
SPEAKER_00: That's chapters one through ten.
14:21
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is the long-awaited Messiah King.
14:23
SPEAKER_00: That's chapters one and two, with the genealogy, the story of his birth, with uh you know, wise men and so forth, saving his people from their sins.
14:33
SPEAKER_00: That's that's that's explained to us in chapter three through ten.
14:38
SPEAKER_00: Uh then you have in chapters 11 through 13, but the king's people, the Jews rejected him.
14:45
SPEAKER_00: And so chapters 14 through 25, the good news has gone out to the world.
14:50
SPEAKER_00: Then in 26 and 27, King Jesus was brutally killed, but he will return to his people.
14:58
SPEAKER_00: Now you'll notice on your sheet and on the uh screen up here that I have put in parentheses uh uh sections from chapters one and two, because the nice thing about Matthew 1 and 2 are uh is that it's sort of the reader's digest condensed Bible.
15:16
SPEAKER_00: For I guess there were people back then who didn't like to read either.
15:21
SPEAKER_00: But but it's a microcosm of the whole.
15:24
SPEAKER_00: In other words, Matthew 1 and 2, the genealogy tells us in chapter 1, 1 through 17 that Jesus is the son of David, the king.
15:33
SPEAKER_00: Chapter 1, 18 through 25, the angel comes and says to Joseph, he will save his people from their sins.
15:40
SPEAKER_00: In chapter 2, 1 through 12, we have the rejection, the fact that no Jewish leaders could be bothered to walk down to the manger.
15:48
SPEAKER_00: But the it takes the wise men coming from the east.
15:53
SPEAKER_00: The good news goes out to the world.
15:55
SPEAKER_00: The wise men, Gentiles, foreigners come to see Jesus.
15:59
SPEAKER_00: And then the killing uh in chapter two is the killing of King Herod going in and trying to kill Jesus and slaughtering the babies in Bethlehem.
16:11
SPEAKER_00: Again, a picture of the crucifixion.
16:14
SPEAKER_00: And then Jesus returning from Egypt to Israel is a picture in chapter two of the return predicted in Matthew 28.
16:25
SPEAKER_00: It sort of reminded me of last summer, uh the 2015 season for the Kansas City Royals, where the first week was actually a microcosm of the whole season.
16:36
SPEAKER_00: And the first week in 2015, nobody knew this was going to be a microcosm of the season.
16:43
SPEAKER_00: The Royals were 7-0.
16:45
SPEAKER_00: They they did they they defeated the White Sox and they defeated the Twins, and and and and that is, by the way, how they ended the season.
16:53
SPEAKER_00: The last five games of the season, you know, they defeated the same teams uh and were five and oh, and then they went into the playoffs and and swept through three teams winning 12 games and won the title.
17:05
SPEAKER_00: Well, that's what chapters one and two are.
17:07
SPEAKER_00: They're sort of a microcosm, a picture of the whole book.
17:11
SPEAKER_00: And um and and and so that's the outline of the whole book, and that's the uh short versions is in chapters one and two.
17:19
SPEAKER_00: Now let me talk about each one of these and um and and illustrate them and make them practical for us so that you and I can use them.
17:28
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is the long-awaited Messiah king who will save his people from their sins.
17:34
SPEAKER_00: That's chapters one through ten.
17:36
SPEAKER_00: And my question to you is, do you believe this?
17:38
SPEAKER_00: Well, you say, of course I believe this.
17:40
SPEAKER_00: I believe that Jesus was long awaited.
17:43
SPEAKER_00: It's been 400 years.
17:45
SPEAKER_00: We've had Persians, we've had Greeks, we've had Syrians.
17:48
SPEAKER_00: They waited for him like crazy.
17:51
SPEAKER_00: P.S.
17:52
SPEAKER_00: The Jews no longer are waiting for him in general.
17:55
SPEAKER_00: There are a few Jews, some Orthodox Jews who expect a Messiah.
18:00
SPEAKER_00: Uh but most Jewish people today have given up hope.
18:05
SPEAKER_00: But they certainly had great hope in 100 BC, 50 B.C., time Jesus was born.
18:13
SPEAKER_00: Even today, by the way, you could share this first line with people, and most everybody would nod their heads, no matter who they were, across the world.
18:22
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is the Messiah King.
18:24
SPEAKER_00: Sure, thumbs up.
18:27
SPEAKER_00: But if you said the segment, who will save his people from their sins?
18:31
SPEAKER_00: Where people will get hung up on that is that last word, sins.
18:36
SPEAKER_00: Again, that Jesus is a savior, you can get Muslims to agree with this, that he's a savior and that he's a Messiah, and that he's a king, and so forth.
18:46
SPEAKER_00: But this idea that all of us are full of sins, and you say, Well, I know this is not a strange view in the Bible, and you say, of course it isn't.
18:55
SPEAKER_00: I mean, this is Matthew's point, Matthew 1.21.
18:59
SPEAKER_00: You're gonna call his name Jesus, says the angel, for he will save his people from their sins.
19:06
SPEAKER_00: And and yet today, uh in the West, especially in America, a common view is that Jesus or that sin is an imaginary disease invented to sell you an imaginary cure.
19:24
SPEAKER_00: This is this is probably the wider view.
19:27
SPEAKER_00: This would be the view, typical view, say, uh from college professors, certainly the view in San Francisco, where I go quite often.
19:37
SPEAKER_00: In fact, uh I was I shuddered when I heard a pastor, Topeka pastor, actually say on television: our church is an organization for positive thinking.
19:46
SPEAKER_00: We believe all people have original virtue, not original sin.
19:51
SPEAKER_00: This is not an uncommon idea.
19:53
SPEAKER_00: The word sin is a word that's very difficult for moderns to pronounce.
19:58
SPEAKER_00: A well-known uh uh actually, he was the uh uh leading professor, the head of University of California, Berkeley Law School for a number of years.
20:07
SPEAKER_00: We actually had him at our church some years back, Philip Johnson explained it this way.
20:12
SPEAKER_00: He said, materialism sets us free from sin by proving that there is no such thing as sin.
20:20
SPEAKER_00: There's just antisocial behavior, which we can control with measures like laws and educational programs.
20:31
SPEAKER_00: So the word sin is a word that's hard for some people to hear, pronounce.
20:37
SPEAKER_00: As a result, by the way, one thing that has happened in evangelical circles is that we have uh pretty much moved.
20:45
SPEAKER_00: If you'll listen carefully and look carefully, you'll see that we've pretty much moved from the word sin to the word broken.
20:53
SPEAKER_00: In our songs, oftentimes we'll talk about being broken, and Jesus will make us uh well.
21:00
SPEAKER_00: He will he will heal us up, he'll fix us up.
21:03
SPEAKER_00: Now, now let's let's think really clearly for just a moment.
21:07
SPEAKER_00: I think it is a good idea when one of our uh biblical words lacks, has lost its meaning for the world, it's a good idea to come up with another way to communicate the same point.
21:23
SPEAKER_00: I don't really have a problem with using the word broken.
21:26
SPEAKER_00: I I use that word a lot myself, especially uh when dealing with the whole uh lesbian-gay uh issue.
21:34
SPEAKER_00: We're all broken people.
21:37
SPEAKER_00: And this is uh Billy Graham's son-in-law said this we are broken people living in a broken world with other broken people.
21:44
SPEAKER_00: We need grace.
21:45
SPEAKER_00: And that is one way to witness that, because people may hear that better than if you say, you're a sinner, and sound like you're preaching at them.
21:55
SPEAKER_00: But if we use that word, let's keep in mind that the Bible has no.
22:00
SPEAKER_00: No reservation about using the word sin, and that we must keep in mind that what we mean by the word broken is that we mean we are broken morally and ethically and eternally before God.
22:12
SPEAKER_00: Because the Bible's extremely clear that we sin against God.
22:17
SPEAKER_00: How then, said Joseph, could I do such a wicked thing and sin against God?
22:24
SPEAKER_00: The problem is that the world hasn't just given up the word sin, right?
22:28
SPEAKER_00: The world has given up the idea that somehow we should have low self-esteem for any reason.
22:35
SPEAKER_00: Right?
22:36
SPEAKER_00: I mean, there's a reason why I'm told half of the graduates of Stanford University graduate with honors, and that the average grade at Yale and Harvard is now A.
22:44
SPEAKER_00: Forty years ago it used to be C minus.
22:47
SPEAKER_00: The average grade at Yale and Harvard is A.
22:49
SPEAKER_00: I love the story of this of the guy who was going to a community college in California, suddenly decided he was getting C's.
22:56
SPEAKER_00: He decided he wanted to go to an Ivy League school.
22:59
SPEAKER_00: Knowing computers, he went in and he he changed his transcript to straight A's.
23:04
SPEAKER_00: And he transferred to Princeton and they let him in.
23:06
SPEAKER_00: And amazingly enough, instead of getting C's and C pluses at the community college in California, he suddenly started getting B's and B pluses at Princeton because there's this great inflation because we don't want to hurt anybody's feelings.
23:18
SPEAKER_00: We don't want anyone, it's unAmerican to make people feel as though somehow, you know, they have a problem.
23:26
SPEAKER_00: And yet you and I know in our saner moments that we all from earliest ages have a problem, right?
23:35
SPEAKER_00: And that there is a reason why the church for 2,000 years has spoken about the capital sins of pride, covetousness, lust, anger, gluttony, envy, and sloth, that we have those sins, that there are devilish thoughts, even in the most angelic minds, meaning yours and mine, of course.
23:55
SPEAKER_00: And that's why, you know, even uh just to pick two of the top hundred English uh uh novels in the last hundred years, Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad, uh, from his experiences and going to the Congo, and it's about the heart of Africa, except he uses the title Heart of Darkness, because his point is that, you know what, the heart of darkness is not in Africa, the heart of darkness is in each one of us and has this, it's really a horror novel.
24:23
SPEAKER_00: I remember reading it in high school and being terrified.
24:25
SPEAKER_00: This is about going into the heart of Africa and these civilized people realizing that their heart, they were no better than the savages that they were killing.
24:37
SPEAKER_00: And one of them, as he dies, cries out, the horror, the horror.
24:40
SPEAKER_00: And it turns out he's talking about the horror in his own heart.
24:43
SPEAKER_00: Or take another one of these great novels, The Lord of the Flies, William Golding, clearly understood in this story about uh civilized boys, the creme de la creme of English society, getting stranded on an island and fighting against some beast out there and trying to organize themselves, and all of a sudden, you know, one of them realizes you know what?
25:06
SPEAKER_00: The real beast out there, as we're slaughtering and we're killing, is inside each one of us.
25:11
SPEAKER_00: Maybe there is a beast, maybe it's only us.
25:15
SPEAKER_00: And again, you have a brilliant secular author realizing, yeah, there is a sin problem.
25:21
SPEAKER_00: There is a some sort of a problem in each one of us.
25:24
SPEAKER_00: It is a beast, G.K.
25:26
SPEAKER_00: Chesterton.
25:27
SPEAKER_00: Now he was a believer, and he put it this way, close to the beginning of the 20th century.
25:33
SPEAKER_00: Uh, what's wrong with the world?
25:35
SPEAKER_00: He he wrote in, he wrote to the London newspaper, Dear Sir, regarding your article, What's Wrong with the World, I am yours truly, G.K.
25:43
SPEAKER_00: Chesterton.
25:44
SPEAKER_00: And we have, in some ways, a modern G.K.
25:47
SPEAKER_00: Chesterton, not as brilliant, in in uh a New York Times op-ed writer who's always seems to be interviewed on television, named David Brooks.
25:56
SPEAKER_00: And I mentioned him to you on the first Sunday of this year because I just read a book that he just wrote called The Road to Character.
26:02
SPEAKER_00: And in this book, his main point, his main argument is he's trying, he says, my goal, and he's not even a Christian himself, at least he's borderline, but he says, we have lost this word sin in our culture, and we need to understand that there is a problem inside us, and sin might be the best word for it.
26:19
SPEAKER_00: He says, quote, sin is a necessary piece of our mental furniture because it reminds us that life is a moral affair.
26:29
SPEAKER_00: He continues, no matter how hard we try to reduce everything to deterministic brain chemistry, no matter how hard we strive to replace sin with non-moral words like mistake or error or weakness, the most essential parts of life are matters of individual responsibility and moral choice, whether to be brave or cowardly, honest or deceitful, compassionate or callous, faithful or disloyal.
26:51
SPEAKER_00: And he concludes when modern culture tries to replace sin with ideas like error or insensitivity, or tries to banish words like virtue, character, evil, and vice altogether, that doesn't make life any less moral.
27:04
SPEAKER_00: It just means we have obscured the inescapable moral core of life with shallow language.
27:11
SPEAKER_00: We are just thinking and talking about it less clearly and becoming increasingly blind to the moral stakes of everyday life.
27:20
SPEAKER_00: I can't believe someone could write so clearly who himself confesses not to be a Christian.
27:27
SPEAKER_00: So you and I need to wrestle with this and say, do I really believe that Jesus is the Messiah King who came to redeem the sins of the world?
27:37
SPEAKER_00: Do I understand that I am a sinner?
27:40
SPEAKER_00: Can I circle my sins on that list?
27:43
SPEAKER_00: Do I understand that I personally have a pride, problem with envy, a problem with laziness, and a problem with anxiety?
27:51
SPEAKER_00: Do I truly believe Jesus is the long-awaited Messiah King who will save us from our sins?
27:57
SPEAKER_00: Now, of course, in Matthew, the big problem is not so much that they didn't believe in sin.
28:02
SPEAKER_00: The problem is they wanted him to be the Messiah King.
28:05
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus' whole thing was, well, whoa, I'm not going to set up the Messiah King reign thing.
28:10
SPEAKER_00: I'm not going to kick the Romans out.
28:11
SPEAKER_00: Romans are not the biggest problem.
28:13
SPEAKER_00: The biggest problem is your sin.
28:16
SPEAKER_00: And so he made them mad.
28:18
SPEAKER_00: Remember when they tore, when these four friends tore off the roof, second floor roof, lowered this guy down.
28:24
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus says to this guy who needs healing, take heart, your sins are forgiven.
28:29
SPEAKER_00: And his point there in chapter 9 is I'm going to take care of the most important thing.
28:34
SPEAKER_00: I want you to know the most important thing is not healing.
28:37
SPEAKER_00: Most important thing is not kicking the Romans out.
28:40
SPEAKER_00: It's not politics, it's what's going on in your heart.
28:44
SPEAKER_00: Now, the second section is, but the king's people rejected him, chapters 11 through 13.
28:51
SPEAKER_00: And so the good news has gone out to the world.
28:53
SPEAKER_00: Now, I say thank you, God, for that.
28:55
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I'm so, in a way, I'm just so happy that the Jews did reject him, and so as a result, the program got extended and expanded.
29:06
SPEAKER_00: And now you can see the difference, by the way, between before and after, before the rejection and after the rejection, if you compare the two great commissions in Matthew.
29:19
SPEAKER_00: The first great commission Jesus gave to his disciples in chapter 10, and he said, I don't want you going to the Gentiles, I don't want you going to the Samaritans, go rather to the last sheep of the house of Israel.
29:32
SPEAKER_00: Chapters 11 through 13, Israel rejects him.
29:36
SPEAKER_00: And therefore, at the end of the book, we have a different great commission, go into all the worlds.
29:41
SPEAKER_00: Are you understanding me here for a minute?
29:43
SPEAKER_00: You see, that expansion, and since most of you here, almost all of you, are Gentiles rather than Jews, I say, thank you, Lord.
29:52
SPEAKER_00: Now, all of this was predicted way back in Isaiah chapter 49.
29:56
SPEAKER_00: There was the prediction of a prayer session between Jesus, the Messiah, and his Father, where Jesus said to the Father while he was on earth, the Father said, You're my servant, you're doing what I want.
30:10
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus said, But I've labored in vain.
30:13
SPEAKER_00: I've spent my strength for nothing in futility.
30:17
SPEAKER_00: My own people have rejected me.
30:19
SPEAKER_00: And then the Lord said, It's not enough for you to be my servant, raising up the tribes of Jacob, restoring Israel, I'll make you a light for the nations to be my salvation to the ends of the earth.
30:31
SPEAKER_00: So when Jesus felt like a failure because he was being rejected, mid-ministry, chapter 13, Matthew, his father said, You know what?
30:43
SPEAKER_00: Instead of letting you quit, I'm going to expand your assignment.
30:48
SPEAKER_00: You're going to go to the world.
30:50
SPEAKER_00: And you have a picture of this, of course, in the wedding feast, the parable of the wedding feast in Matthew 22.
30:56
SPEAKER_00: Kingdom of Heaven's like a certain king.
30:58
SPEAKER_00: You arranged a wedding, invited them to the wedding, they weren't willing to come.
31:03
SPEAKER_00: Therefore, he concludes go into the highways as many as you find, invite to the wedding.
31:10
SPEAKER_00: And that's why you and I are invited to the wedding.
31:14
SPEAKER_00: A great illustration of this, by the way, which some of you may have read about from Connecticut, Norwalk, Connecticut, is when the wedding was set up, very fancy wedding.
31:28
SPEAKER_00: Thousands of dollars for the reception, five, six thousand dollar reception catering, and so forth.
31:34
SPEAKER_00: And when the when her fiance backed out late, when it was too late for her to cancel this, she had so much class, uh Kathleen Gooley did, 41 years old, had so much class that she just brought in the food and then she went out, set on invitations, and ended up with 150 homeless people that she invited to this incredible party.
32:01
SPEAKER_00: And they sat there, listened to what they got to eat.
32:04
SPEAKER_00: They had an opening course of fruit cup, tossed salad, and then they had fried wontons, shrimp puffs, chicken wings, meatballs, meatballs, and egg rolls, stuffed chicken breast, string beans, almondine, cake, ice cream, and coffee.
32:20
SPEAKER_00: And she had 150 people who by the end, after being transported in by buses, were hugging her and crying and saying it was the best meal that ever had in life.
32:31
SPEAKER_00: And that I think is this wonderful picture of what Jesus says his father has done.
32:36
SPEAKER_00: Having been rejected, now the invitation goes out to you and I, homeless lost people, and he invites us to his wedding feast.
32:46
SPEAKER_00: Well, this rejection, uh, there's the the um uh on the front of your shoes in the outline, there's this polarization where you have the disciples getting closer to Jesus and and uh and the animosity getting stronger and stronger.
33:00
SPEAKER_00: Reminded me a lot of this last Monday, I was very fortunate uh to be able to go take my three sons to the final game of the college championship game down in Houston.
33:12
SPEAKER_00: And there's 74,000 people there.
33:15
SPEAKER_00: And so even though we have pretty decent seats, uh, which we've gotten from scalpers, uh unhappy Oklahoma people uh on Saturday night, um so but we're surrounded two-thirds of the people around us, all in front and inside, are North Carolina fans, Tar Hill fans, and behind us, there's three Villanova fans.
33:36
SPEAKER_00: Okay, so the polarization is the game goes, everybody's friendly before the tip-off.
33:40
SPEAKER_00: And then they start getting worse and worse for North Carolina cheering.
33:44
SPEAKER_00: And the four of us, me and my sons, were secretly hoping Villanova would win, but you know, trying to get along with everybody.
33:52
SPEAKER_00: So we're kind of jumping up when North Carolina scores and when Villanova scores, and it's getting worse and worse, and then with 4.7 seconds to go, North Carolina hits this amazing tying shot.
34:02
SPEAKER_00: North Carolina fans go crazy, they're sure they're gonna win, so we're slapping hands and everything else.
34:07
SPEAKER_00: And then 4.6 seconds later, Villanova hits hits this winning buzzer beater, and the three guys behind us go crazy, and we can't help it.
34:17
SPEAKER_00: We go crazy too.
34:18
SPEAKER_00: Well, whereas about 15 Tar Heel fans are on the floor, you know, sorry.
34:23
SPEAKER_00: But anyway, uh all of that was extra, but the polarization was just became so stark and trying to figure out where we were in this mess.
34:30
SPEAKER_00: Well, that's that's what happens in in the book of Matthew.
34:33
SPEAKER_00: Polarization gets so strong that finally people who hate Jesus brutally kill him.
34:39
SPEAKER_00: And the book ends with this animosity is killed, but the promise that he will return to his people.
34:47
SPEAKER_00: Even when he's hanging on the cross, and this I think is the key verse of the book, though.
34:51
SPEAKER_00: He is called the Messiah King, he is called the King of the Jews.
34:56
SPEAKER_00: The king of the Jews.
34:59
SPEAKER_00: And you and I, as this book ends, are told that we must really we must do two things.
35:05
SPEAKER_00: We we need to do what the wise men did, we need to worship the king.
35:09
SPEAKER_00: So you're here, right?
35:10
SPEAKER_00: And I hope I hope you worship him as the king.
35:13
SPEAKER_00: You realize he saved you from your sin.
35:15
SPEAKER_00: But the book ends that we're not we're supposed to do something else, we're supposed to go.
35:19
SPEAKER_00: And we're supposed to let the world know that he's really the king so they can worship him too.
35:24
SPEAKER_00: And the problem is in our world, well, we have a world much like I think the world of India in 1947.
35:31
SPEAKER_00: In 1947, after 300 years of the British being in charge of India and building all those roads and being in charge of the economy and this and that, after 300 years, India under Gandhi and some others, they got their independence.
35:44
SPEAKER_00: And sociologists came over from the West, from America and from Britain, went over to India, decided to do a year-long study to find out how the change from British rule to Indian rule was affecting the normal people.
35:56
SPEAKER_00: And they gave up the study after six months.
35:59
SPEAKER_00: After six months they came home.
36:01
SPEAKER_00: You know why?
36:02
SPEAKER_00: Because as they went from village to village, they found that most of the people across India that they talked to had no idea that the British had ever been in charge.
36:14
SPEAKER_00: Didn't even know there'd been a British king who was sort of sort of over over the top of them.
36:19
SPEAKER_00: They were just doing life as normal, which I think is a really great picture of the kind of world that you and I now live in today.
36:29
SPEAKER_00: Where Jesus has come to earth, right?
36:32
SPEAKER_00: He's lived, he's died, he's risen again, he is the king.
36:37
SPEAKER_00: But most people today that you talk to in this world have no idea that Jesus is really the king.
36:45
SPEAKER_00: They're really ignorant.
36:47
SPEAKER_00: And a lot of them innocently don't even know much about the whole sin thing.
36:50
SPEAKER_00: They're into sociology.
36:52
SPEAKER_00: It's astounding how many people today don't know anything about that.
36:56
SPEAKER_00: And you and I are called to go and share the bad news.
36:59
SPEAKER_00: The bad news that we're all sinners.
37:01
SPEAKER_00: Use the word broken if you want, that we're all, I'm broken, you're broken, we all need help, right?
37:07
SPEAKER_00: Right, yeah.
37:08
SPEAKER_00: And you you may you may need to mention the seven deadly sins or talk about family brokenness or other brokenness, but but we're broken people and we desperately need grace.
37:20
SPEAKER_00: We desperately need help.
37:21
SPEAKER_00: Well, there's an answer.
37:23
SPEAKER_00: The king came.
37:24
SPEAKER_00: Now he was disguised, and and he still is, but his kingdom moves from heart to heart.
37:29
SPEAKER_00: It's invisible.
37:32
SPEAKER_00: He's disguised.
37:33
SPEAKER_00: Did you ever read, by the way, um Mark Twain's story, The Prince and the Pauper?
37:38
SPEAKER_00: Did you ever read that where there was a prince and his name was Edward, and there was a pauper, and his name was Tom Canty?
37:45
SPEAKER_00: He was very poor.
37:46
SPEAKER_00: And one day, early in this book, I think it's in the first chapter, uh, Prince Edward is in the marketplace and he sees Tom Canty, and they're both struck by the fact they are look like identical twins.
37:56
SPEAKER_00: Neither one of them likes where they are.
37:58
SPEAKER_00: Prince Edward hates, you know, he King Henry's dad is always telling him what to do, and he hates being a prince and having to wear this stuff.
38:05
SPEAKER_00: And of course, the pauper, he hates the fact he never gets to eat well and he's he's in rags.
38:10
SPEAKER_00: So they decide to switch places.
38:11
SPEAKER_00: That's Mark Twain's story, the prince and the pauper.
38:13
SPEAKER_00: So they switch places.
38:15
SPEAKER_00: So Tom takes on the name Edward and he goes into the castle, right?
38:19
SPEAKER_00: And then Edward loses, he starts wearing rags.
38:22
SPEAKER_00: And then King Henry dies, and they make Tom the king.
38:28
SPEAKER_00: Now all of a sudden, Edward's going, I'm the true king.
38:33
SPEAKER_00: I'm supposed to be the king.
38:35
SPEAKER_00: But and Tom doesn't want to be a king either, but they can't find each other, and so Tom's knocking, you know, on the door of the castle, going, Hey, I I'm actually Edward.
38:45
SPEAKER_00: Well, of course, they don't believe him.
38:46
SPEAKER_00: And he spends the whole rest of the book trying to convince people he's the king.
38:51
SPEAKER_00: Listen, Jesus Christ is in disguise today.
38:53
SPEAKER_00: He's really the king, and he'll show that eventually, but right now he's in disguise.
38:57
SPEAKER_00: Your job and my job, according to Matthew, is to let people know that he's really the king.
39:01
SPEAKER_00: And he is such a cool king.
39:03
SPEAKER_00: He's the king that bent down and he rescued us when we were lost in sin.
39:07
SPEAKER_00: When we were broken people, this king came to us and he can come to you.
39:11
SPEAKER_00: We tell people, he can come to you.
39:12
SPEAKER_00: The bad news is you're a sinner.
39:14
SPEAKER_00: The good news is you have a savior.
39:17
SPEAKER_00: He's the Messiah King.
39:20
SPEAKER_00: Yeshua Hamashiach Melech, Jesus the Messiah, the King.
39:25
SPEAKER_00: He came, He loves you, His kingdom can enter your heart now, and He will come in person to make you part of His kingdom forever in the future.
39:35
SPEAKER_00: Amen?
39:36
SPEAKER_00: So that's our job, and that's the point of Matthew.
39:38
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
39:39
SPEAKER_00: Heavenly Father, we thank you so much for uh for what you did for us that you looked down, you saw that we were absolutely helpless, and so you sent your son.
39:50
SPEAKER_00: And uh and he was the king and he was the messiah, and he was all these things.
39:54
SPEAKER_00: But but first he had to deal with sin, and because he got rejected, he had to stay in disguise.
39:59
SPEAKER_00: We're looking forward to the day that he comes back.
40:02
SPEAKER_00: Lord is king.
40:02
SPEAKER_00: Give us give us the courage to talk to people about this and to share with them this wonderful news that if only they trust him, that uh if they believe on him as their king, as their savior, that then they can go to heaven too, that he'll be their full and eternal king in Jesus' name.
40:21
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
40:22
SPEAKER_00: You're dismissed.
40:23
SPEAKER_00: Thank you.