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Would you take this and move
it over there? Cannot deal with those being
right underneath. They're fine right there. Just so that's fine.
Just so they're not right underneath me. Otherwise, I will sneeze
through the sermon. That's the way it is. Which is a word to you young
men as you go into ministry. Folks do love to decorate. The
front of the church blows the flowers, but be bold enough to
say, if you have a problem with allergies, as I do, please don't
put those right there. Okay. Turn with me in your scriptures
to the gospel of Matthew, the 11th chapter. Matthew chapter
11. But as I read this, I'm going
to ask you not to follow along in your various translations
and tinker with why the text is slightly different in phraseology.
Just put your finger in the place, listen to the word, and then
we'll look at the details later on. After Jesus had finished instructing
his twelve disciples, he went on from there to teach and preach
in the towns of Galilee. When John heard in prison what
Christ was doing, he sent his disciples to ask him, Are you
the one who was to come, or should we expect someone else? Jesus
replied, Go back and report to John what you hear and see. The
blind receive sight. The lame walk. Those who have
leprosy are cured. The deaf hear. The dead are raised. The good news is preached to
the poor. Blessed is the man who does not fall away on account
of me." As John's disciples were leaving, Jesus began to speak
to the crowd about John. What did you go out into the
desert to see? The reeds swayed by the wind? If not, what did
you go out to see? A man dressed in fine clothes?
No, those who wear fine clothes are in king's palaces. Then what
did you go out to see? A prophet, yes? And I tell you,
more than a prophet. This is the one about whom it
is written, I will send my messenger ahead of you who will repair
your way before you. I tell you the truth. Among those
born of women, there is not arisen anyone greater than John the
Baptist. Yet he who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater
than me. But from the days of John the
Baptist to now, the kingdom of God has been forcefully advancing
and forceful men lay hold of it. For all the prophets and
the law prophesied until John. And if you are willing to accept
it, he is the Elijah who was to come. He was ears. Let him
hear. To what can I compare this generation?
They're like children sitting in the marketplaces and calling
out to others. We played the flute for you and
you did not dance. We sang a dirge and you did not
mourn. For John came neither eating nor drinking and they
say he has a demon. And the Son of Man came eating
and drinking, and they say, He is a glutton and a drunkard and
a friend of tax collectors and sinners. But wisdom is proved
right by her actions. Then Jesus began to denounce
the cities in which His miracles had been performed, because they
did not change their mind. Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to
you, Bethsaida! If the great works performed
in you had been performed in Tyre and Sidon, They would have repented long
ago in sackcloth and ashes. But I tell you, it will be more
bearable for Tyre and Sidon on the Day of Judgment than for
you. And you, Capernaum, will you be lifted up to the skies?
No, you will go down to the pit. If the miracles that have been
performed in you had been performed in Sodom, it would have remained
to this day. But I tell you, it will be more
bearable for Sodom on the Day of Judgment than for you. At that time, Jesus answered
and said, I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth. For
you hid these things from the wise and intellectual, revealed
them to little children. Yes, Father, for thus it was
pleasing in your sight. All things have been entrusted
to me by my father, and no one knows the son except the father.
Does anyone know the father except the son, and the one to whom
the son determines to reveal him? Come to me, all of you who
labor hard and bear heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take
my yoke upon yourselves, and learn from me. For I am humble
and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your lives. For
my yoke is kind, and my burden I read you the entire text of the
11th chapter of Matthew so that you could see the context. The disciples of John are wondering,
is this really the Christ? Because Jesus is not operating
as you would expect an earthly king to operate. And so John
sends his disciples to find out for themselves. And Jesus reports
to them, what do you see? The blind, they see. The deaf,
hear. The lepers are cured, the lame
walk, even the dead are raised. And the good news of the kingdom
of God is preached to the poor and the lowly. And then John speaks to the crowds,
why did you go out to hear John the Baptist? Don't you understand
that John the Baptist was the greatest of all men, but you
who are in the kingdom are greater than he. And then Jesus begins to denounce
the cities. Woe to you, Chorazin. Woe to you, Bethsaida. Woe to
you, Capernaum. If the great works had been done
in Sodom, in Tyre, or in Sidon that were done in you, they would
long ago have changed their opinion, changed their thinking, changed
their mind. it will be more bearable for
them than for you in the day of judgment. And then Jesus says, and it's
interesting because you see Matthew narrates as he begins this with
the same formula with which he normally uses when Jesus interacts
in a conversation with people. Jesus answered and said. The use of apokronomai with Lego. Jesus answered and said. Who
is he answering? Who is he replying to? He has
just spoken to the cities and he is, as it were, replying to
them, speaking to them. I thank you. I praise you. I
confess you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have
hidden these things from the wise and the intellectual and
you have revealed them to little children. Yes, Father, this was good in
your sight. God was pleased, despite the
great works which his son did in the cities of Capernaum and
Chorazon and Bethsaida. God was pleased to leave them
in their own willful darkness. But to others, to those who were
little children in the world's estimation of those who are wise
and learned to those God was pleased to reveal his kingdom
of salvation. And then Jesus says. All things
have been entrusted to me by my father, and no one knows the
son. Except the father. This is an
amazing statement, because, you see, I know you and you know
me. Why? because we share fully the
one same human nature. Part of the ability to preach
the gospel to others is the ability to look into your own life, into
your own soul, into your own life experience, draw lessons
and perspectives from that, and then presume that the people
to whom you are speaking share the same humanity created by
God according to His image and likeness, fallen and corrupted
in sin, that they experience the same emotional traumas, they
experience the same hurts and pains, the same temptations. They are every bit like you and
you like them. And that is the point of contact
that allows preacher to speak to audience. And while it is
true that Jesus in his human nature was tempted as we get
without sin, if he here says that no one knows the sun, Except
the father. He claims to have a. Position
wholly different than you and I's ordinary mortals have. There's
something about him that is so different that the crowds do
not know him. His disciples do not know him.
His mother. Did not know him. Only the father
in heaven. Knows him. And then he reverses
the statement and says that no one knows the father except the
son. Now, remember, this is spoken
to devout Jews. Did not God reveal himself to
Moses? Did not God put Moses in the
cleft on the rock and show him his backside, as it were, and
proclaim his name? Did not God appear to Isaiah
high and lifted up with in the temple, did not Ezekiel see the
form of Yahweh in the vision by the river Kibar? And yet Jesus says, no one knows
the Father except the Son. And those to whom the Son determines,
counsels to himself to reveal him. Do you realize that Jesus
is at that point claiming to be nothing less than that personage
of Yahweh who appeared again and again to the people of God
in what we call the Old Covenant and revealed God to them. It
was the son who descended on Mount Sinai that Moses might
get a glimpse, a mere backside of the shoulder glimpse of God. It was the son who appeared on
the chariot throne to Ezekiel at the River Kibar. No one knows the Father except
the Son, and no one knows the Son except the Father, and the
one to whom the Son chooses to reveal Him. You see, Jesus has
come in human flesh. The Son has become a man among
men. He is shared in our humanity so fully that He is shared even
in our death and burial. And yet he did that, that he
might reveal to us the Father. We are prone to misread this
text, because we quickly substitute for the word Father, the word
God, or the word Yahweh, the divine name. And that's not wrong. God, the Son, does reveal God,
the Creator. He does reveal the one who is
Yahweh. But that misses the point of
the text. He reveals to us the one who is father. And in that word is comprehended
the whole of the Christian gospel. That the almighty God, the creator
of heaven and earth. the holy one whom every man must
give account, the one who searches the hearts and minds of men and
knows the depths and profundity of our evil, that one is through
the Son to us, Father. And when you were a little child
and something wrong happened in your life, a bully, a fall
and a scrape on the knee, You were afraid of foxes underneath
the bed, as my daughter was when she was little. Whatever it was
that grasped you with fear, you have had the experience that
in the midst of the fear and the uncertainty that you were
experiencing as a little one, into the room came your father. He picked you up. He sat you
on your lap. everything was okay. Because you knew that whatever
else was true, here was Dad. Here was Father. He loves me. In that is the hope of the Christian
gospel. That in Jesus the Son, the Almighty
Judge of heaven and earth, is for us. A father who forgives
and bears with his children. A father who knows our weaknesses
and is patient with us. A father who lets us try and
stumble but picks us up and patches up the knees and puts us back
on our feet. No one knows The son, except
the father, and no one knows the father, except the son and
the one to whom the father, the son, excuse me, determines to
reveal him. And precisely because God, the
son, Jesus and human flesh comes to reveal to us the father. He
can then say to us, come to me, all of you who labor hard and
are heavy with burdens, I will give you rest. What is the rest
that Jesus gives us? We could define that in many
ways as theologians. We could say, well, it is our
justification in which all of our sins are forgiven and we
are accounted as righteous in the sight of God, only for the
righteousness of Christ imputed to us and received by faith alone.
We could speak of in terms of our regeneration and the work
of the Holy Spirit and effectual calling. We could speak of it
in terms of our sanctification, of God persevering us in faith
and all through all of this life. all boils down to this one simple
principle that even the little child can understand. But the
wise and intellectual cannot grasp. But God comes to wicked,
evil men and women who deserve his eternal wrath. And he becomes
for them father. And they become to him beloved Therefore, you see, when you
come to Jesus, you find rest for your lives. Take my yoke
upon yourselves and learn from me, for I am humble and lowly
in heart. God the Word, by whom the Father
made all things, God the Son, who alone knows the Father and
Father alone knows him, has come to us in all the loneliness and
ordinariness of our own humanity. So obviously, a man among men,
that even when he performed the works of God, the dead were raised,
the blind saw, the deaf heard. Corazon and the Seda. and Capernaum did not recognize
Emmanuel, God come to his people. He comes to us lowly. He says,
you will find rest for your lives. And finally he says, for my yoke
is, and then depending on how you want to translate that, easy
or kind. The Greek word there both can
mean easy as opposed to hard, but its fundamental usage is
the idea of kind or good. as opposed to harsh or hard.
His yoke is kind. Why? Because it is the yoke of
being children of the Heavenly Father. And my burden is light. An oxymoron. Burdens by definition
are not light. But you see, the burden that
Jesus places on our shoulders, the burden of discipleship is
not some heavy burden in which you must bear it of your own
strength and somehow finding in yourselves, perfect yourselves
before God that you may be acceptable to him. It is rather the burden
of children who have a father who loves you. I close by telling you a little
episode from my own life. It's been now eight years ago
when my earthly father passed away. And the year of my father's
passing was a very difficult year for me. My father and mother
that year had, between the two of them, 11 distinct hospital
events. I knew every hospital in Fayette
County. At one point, the burden of the
outward care of my parents and their affairs, and more the inward
burden of watching my father die and seeing my mother almost
die, was, there was more that I could
take. And I went into the kitchen of
my house alone. And then I'm sure the theologians
here would not have this problem. But I didn't know what to say. All of my academic learning of
theology was just worthless. with the burden and the weight
of what was on my soul. And all I could pray was, Oh, Father. When I was a child, that was
sufficient. Dad! Mom! They would come and care for
me. The good news For you sinners who still have a ocean of evil
surging inside you, who find that time and again you fall
miserably short of what you ought to be, is that when you are at
your wits end, you can bear it no more. All you have to do is
call out, Oh, Father, Jesus has come. took our flesh, bore our
sins, died in our place, that when life overwhelms us, we have
a Father. We have only to say, O Father,
and he meets us in his grace. And more than that, if we have
a Father who meets us in his love and mercy in all the troubles
of this life, then he will meet us in our death when we walk
through the valley of the shadow, and we will have nothing ever
except this, that we will always be His children. And He will
always be our Father. And therefore, life is good. Let us pray. Our gracious Heavenly
Father, we thank You that we have the privilege of calling
You We thank you for your marvelous love that sent your son to the
cross for us. We thank you for his words and
his works that show us your fatherly love. We thank you that in him
we have become your children. Oh, help us to treasure you,
to love you, to count you as the great treasure of our lives. This we ask in Jesus' name. Amen.
Jack Kinneer 9/24/2013
| Sermon ID | 925131746230 |
| Duration | 22:58 |
| Date | |
| Category | Chapel Service |
| Language | English |
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