Christmas Sermon 2022: Matthew 13.44-46

 * I was able to preach on Christmas Day!  Here is the video of my sermon from Matthew 13.44-46.

Sermon: Matthew 7.24-29--The Challenge of the Teacher and His Teaching

 * A sermon I preached on May 29, 2022 at Pella Communities.

Sermon on Matthew 5.33-37: Jesus on Vows & Oaths

* I preached on Matthew 5.33-37 at Pella Communities (3/14/2022). 

The Lord's Prayer--a Bible Study

“The Lord’s Prayer”—Matthew 6.5-15

 

1.    How NOT to pray: Matthew 6.5-8

 

a.    Not like a hypocrite: for outward show

 

                                               i.     Error: Selfishness—obsessed with themselves

 

                                              ii.     Christians focus on God

 

b.    Not like a Gentile (unbeliever): mechanical or magical

 

                                               i.     Error: Mindlessness—just babbling on and on without thinking of what he is saying is doing

 

                                              ii.     Christians engage in prayer with humble thoughtfulness

 

2.    How to pray: “The Lord’s Prayer”

 

a.    Breaks down into two sections

 

                                               i.     vv. 9-10: God-centered focus

 

                                              ii.     vv. 11-13: Human need

 

b.    “Our Father who art in heaven…” (who we pray to)

                                               i.     “Father” (17xs in Sermon on Mount)

 

1.    Relational term

 

2.    Protector and provider

 

3.    Other passages to consider: John 1.12-13; Romans 8.14-17; 2 Corinthians 6.18 (“sons and daughters to me”); Galatians 4.4-7; Ephesians 1.4-5; 1 John 3.1

 

·     Acts 17.28 is a special case; “we also are his children” refers to the fact that God as Creator has made everyone.  Quotation by a pagan poet.

 

4.    “If you want to judge how well a person understands Christianity, find out how much he makes of the thought of being God’s child, and having God as his father.  If this is not the thought that prompts and controls his worship and prayers and his whole outlook on life, it means that he does not understand Christianity very well at all.”  --J. I. Packer[1]

 

                                              ii.     “… in heaven”

 

1.    Place of power and authority: Psalm 115.1-3

 

2.    Not far removed or unconcerned

 

c.     God-centered focus: petitions relating to God’s name, kingdom, and will

 

                                               i.     “Name” = God’s nature and person

 

                                              ii.     “Hallowed”

 

1.    Seen as good and glorious

 

2.    All peoples everywhere to understand who God is and respond rightly

 

                                            iii.     “Kingdom”—God’s rule and reign

 

1.    Already/Not yet

 

2.    “To pray that his kingdom may ‘come’ is to pray both that it may grow, as through the church’s witness people submit to Jesus, and that soon it will be consummated when Jesus returns in glory to take his power and reign.”  --John Stott[2]

 

                                            iv.     “Will be done on earth as it is in heaven”

 

 

d.    Human focus—our needs

 

                                               i.     “Daily bread”

 

1.    All the things we need to sustain life

 

2.    What does it mean to pray for “daily bread” in the midst of plenty?  

 

a.    Deuteronomy 8: read whole chapter

 

                                                                                                     i.     Verses 11-14: full bellies can produce proud, forgetful hearts

 

                                                                                                    ii.     Verses 16-18: 

 

1.    v. 17: “Otherwise, you might say in your heart, ‘My power and the strength of my hand made me this wealth.”

 

2.    v. 18: “…for it is he who is giving you power to make wealth…”

 

b.    An antidote to pride and forgetfulness is gratitude and thankfulness!

 

                                                                                                     i.     1 Thessalonians 5.17-18

 

Pray without ceasing; in everything give thanks…

 

                                                                                                    ii.     Colossians 4.2

 

Devote yourselves to prayer, keeping alert in it with an attitude of thanksgiving

 

                                                                                                  iii.     Philippians 4.6

 

Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.

 

                                              ii.     “Forgive us our debts”

 

1.    We need forgiveness

 

2.    1 John 1.9

 

                                            iii.     “Do not lead us into temptation”[3]

 

1.    Main issue: Asking God not to lead into areas of testing in which we will fail and be overcome by the enemy.

 

2.    “So behind these words that Jesus gave us to pray are the implications that the devil is too strong for us, that we are too weak to stand up to him, but that our heavenly Father will deliver us if we call upon him.”  --John Stott[4]

 

 

                                            iv.     The last three requests of the Lord’s Prayer presuppose something about as us, the praying people…

 

 

 

 

Conclusion

 

“It will be seen that the fundamental difference between various kinds of prayer is in the fundamentally different images of God which lie behind them.  The tragic mistake of Pharisees and pagans, of hypocrites and heathen, is to be found in their false image of God.  Indeed, neither is really thinking of God at all, for the hypocrite thinks only of himself while the heathen thinks of other things.  What sort of God is it who might be interested in such selfish and mindless prayers?  Is God a commodity that we can use him to boost our own status, or a computer that we can feed words into him mechanically?

 

“From these unworthy notions we turn back with relief to the teaching of Jesus that God is our Father in the heavens.  We need to remember that he loves his children with most tender affection, that he sees his children even in the secret place, that he knows his children and all their needs before they ask him, and that he acts on behalf of his children by his heavenly and kingly power.  If we thus allow Scripture to fashion our image of God, if we recall his character and practise his presence, we shall never pray with hypocrisy but always with integrity, never mechanically but always thoughtfully, like the children of God that we are.”  --John Stott[5]

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     [1]J. I. Packer, Knowing God (Downers Grove, Ill.: Intervarsity Press, 1973), 182.

     [2]John Stott, Christian Counter-Culture (Downers Grove, Ill.: Intervarsity Press, 1978), 147.

     [3]For a fuller study on this phrase of the Lord’s Prayer see Lead Us Not Into Temptation but Deliver Us from Evil--a Bible Study.

     [4]John Stott, Christian Counter-Culture (Downers Grove, Ill.: Intervarsity Press, 1978), 150.

     [5]John Stott, Christian Counter-Culture (Downers Grove, Ill.: Intervarsity Press, 1978), 152.

Jesus' Use of Reason in Matthew 12.22-29

Matthew 12.22-29: Jesus’ Use of Reason

1.     Setting the scene

a.     There is a demon-possessed man who was blind and mute.

b.     Jesus responds by healing the man “so that he spoke and saw” (v. 22).

c.      The crowds are amazed and begin to draw the explanatory conclusion that Jesus might be the Son of David—the Messiah.[1]

d.     The Pharisees offer another causal explanation—Jesus’ exorcistic power is from Beelzebul, the ruler of the demons.

2.     Jesus begins to reason about why their explanatory cause makes no sense.  He points to their (a) inconsistency and (b) arbitrariness.[2]

a.     Inconsistency:  Jesus points to an internal inconsistency in his opponents argument in verses 25-26.  Essentially Jesus argues that if Satan is casting out Satan this creates a divided kingdom.  If Satan is casting out Satan and in the process is drawing people’s minds to think of God’s promises—namely the Davidic Messiah—then is a stupid plan.[3]

b.     Arbitrariness: In verse 27 Jesus points to a reality the Pharisees accepted—exorcisms by their “sons.”  Jesus is asking if their causal explanation of his exorcisms is consistent with the fact of other exorcisms they do accept.  Jesus is thus demonstrating that their causal explanation is arbitrarily applied.[4]

3.       Jesus continues to draw out his reasoning about the situation in verse 28: “But if I cast out demons by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.” 

a.     This is an example of modus ponens:

                                               i.     If P then Q

                                              ii.     P

                                            iii.     Therefore, Q

b.     In Jesus’ argument:

                                               i.     P = I [Jesus] cast out demons

                                              ii.     Q = the kingdom of God has come upon you

c.      Jesus had defended P in verses 25-27 against the counter-explanatory claims of the Pharisees

4.     The Pharisees can irrationally hold to their inconsistent and arbitrary explanation or they could attempt to take Jesus’ modus ponens argument and turn it into a modus tollens argument.

a.     modus tollens

                                               i.     If P then Q

                                              ii.     ^Q

                                            iii.     Therefore, ^P

b.     They could deny that the kingdom has come (^Q).  Therefore, whatever the explanatory cause of the exorcism it is not the case that the kingdom has come so they reject Jesus’ reasoning.  It is to admit that they do not have an explanation for Jesus’ power but they refuse to give credence to Jesus’ explanation.

5.     Why does Jesus draw the conclusion about the relationship between exorcism by the Spirit and the coming of the kingdom?

a.     Jesus’ words in Matthew 12.29 help us to see the background of Jesus’ reasoning.  Matthew 12.29 states: “Or how can anyone enter the strong man’s house and carry off his property, unless he first binds the strong man?  And then he will plunder his house.”

b.     This language of Matthew 12.29 is an allusion to Isaiah 49.24-25:

^24”Can the prey be taken from the mighty man, or the captives of a tyrant be rescued?”  ²⁵Surely, thus say the Lord, “Even the captives of the mighty man will be taken away, and the prey of the tyrant will be rescued; for I will contend with the one who contends with you, and I will save your sons."

c.      Larger context of Isaiah 49 is about the “Servant.”

                                               i.     Servant is both corporate (Israel—verse 3)

                                              ii.     And an individual—the Servant brings back Israel (Jacob) to God (verse 5-6)

d.     “Servant” language in Isaiah 49 is part of larger Servant imagery in Isaiah that Jesus also appeals to in his teaching.

                                               i.     Isaiah 42.1 “Behold, my Servant, whom I uphold; my chosen one in whom my soul delights.  I have put my Spirit upon him…

1.     Isaiah 42.1-3 is the passage quoted by Jesus in Matthew 12.17-21—the pericope immediately prior to the passage under consideration about Jesus’ exorcisms!

2.     The Servant who has God’s Spirit upon him is linked in Isaiah with the Spirit-anointed One in Isaiah 61.1 “The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the afflicted;…”

                                              ii.     Isaiah 61.1-2

1.     “This individual parallels in the servant figure of Isa. 40-55.  The anointment of the Spirit recalls 42:1…” 

2.     “Thus Beuken (1989) is correct in understanding Isa. 61 as an ‘interpretation’ of Isa. 40-55.”[5]

3.     Isaiah 61.1-2 is quoted by Jesus in Luke 4.18-19

e.     Jesus is utilizing the background material in Isaiah regarding the Spirit-anointed Servant who brings God’s kingdom.[6]

6.     Jesus and the Pharisees hold certain background assumptions in common.  They both formally affirm the Old Testament perspective on God, his covenants, his promises in Isaiah, etc.  Jesus reasons from within these shared assumptions to show the inconsistency and arbitrariness of the Pharisees.  Their explanation does not fit the evidence as situated within their shared background assumptions.

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     [1] “The question is worded in such a way as to indicate a measure of perplexity, but also to open the door to an interesting possibility.”  Leon Morris, The Gospel According to Matthew (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1992), 314.

     [2] Douglas Groothuis sees Jesus’ answers here in verses 25-27 as an example of Jesus using a reductio ad absurdum form of argumentation.  On Jesus (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth-Thompson Learning, 2003), 34.

     [3] “It is not be presumed that Satan is stupid: the Pharisees were taking up an impossible position.  Theoretically, of course, it might be argued that Satan could allow the expulsion of one demon in order to effect some diabolical purpose, but this would be met by the fact that Jesus kept on expelling demons; he carried on an unrelenting war against all the demonic forces.”  Leon Morris, The Gospel According to Matthew (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1992), 315.

     [4] “The only possible logic behind the Pharisaic position was that a mere human could not overcome a demon.  If Jesus did have such a victory, therefore, it would show that he had aid from a superhuman source, and in their hostility their logic led them to hold that the source could only be Satan.  But they had spoken hurriedly; they had not stopped to reflect that some of their own people claimed to cast out demons.  The Pharisees would have vehemently denied that their sons were in league with the evil one, but they had not realized that such exorcisms said something about Jesus also.  Therefore they will be your judges; your own sons will prove you wrong!  The logic of a Pharisaic denial that their followers cast out demons through the evil one meant that Jesus did not use the powers of evil either.  The sons would be able to testify to the fact that casting out demons was not a work of Satan.  They would ‘judge’ them for ascribing to Satan what they, the exorcists, knew came from God.”  Leon Morris, The Gospel According to Matthew (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1992), 316.

     [5] David W. Pao and Eckhard J. Schnabel, “Luke” in Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament, eds. G. K. Beale and D. A. Carson, (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker, 2007), 288.

     [6] “In making this unique claim—in the light of the expectation that in the last time God’s Spirit would rest on the Messiah (Isa. 11.2)—Jesus was almost certainly claiming that in his exorcisms it was evident that he was endowed with the eschatological Spirit and therefore an eschatological figure himself.”  Graham H. Twelftree, “The Miracles of Jesus: Marginal or Mainstream?” Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus 1.1 (January 2003), 119.