How Well Do You Know The Lord Jesus Christ? Series

How Well Do You Know the Lord Jesus Christ?

The Gospel of Matthew

Matthew 12:14-21

Sermon by Rick Crandall

(Prepared April 2, 2022)

BACKGROUND:

*Please open your Bibles to Matthew 12. Remember that by this point, Jesus was in the second year of His earthly ministry. And in this chapter we see the terrible hatred that had poisoned the minds of the Christ-rejecting Pharisees. They started stalking Jesus, looking for any opportunity to accuse Him of doing wrong. (1)

*In vs. 9-14, Jesus went into the nearby synagogue. A man with a withered hand was also there, and the Pharisees spitefully asked Jesus, "Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?'' They were trying to find a way to accuse the Lord of breaking God's Law. But Jesus wisely replied, "What man is there among you who has one sheep, and if it falls into a pit on the Sabbath, will not lay hold of it and lift it out? Of how much more value then is a man than a sheep? Therefore, it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath.''

*"Then He said to the man, 'Stretch out your hand.' And he stretched it out, and it was restored as whole as the other. Then the Pharisees went out and took counsel against Him, how they might destroy Him."

*Luke 6:11 tells us that the Pharisees were filled with rage to the point of madness that day. Mark 3:6 says they "went out and immediately plotted with the Herodians against Him, how they might destroy Him."

*This was an astounding move by the Pharisees because normally, they were bitter enemies of the Herodians. You see, the Herodians were polar opposites to the strict Jewish Pharisees. To begin with, the four Herods who ruled weren't Jews, but natives of nearby Idumea. They were appointed by the Roman Empire. The first is known as "Herod the Great," and though he expanded the Temple in Jerusalem, he was a vicious monster of a tyrant who had zero interest in keeping God's Law. This is the Herod who tried to kill young Jesus by murdering all the infant boys in Bethlehem. The Herods were basically as godless as they could be, and the Herodians were simply the people who supported them. (2)

*It's amazing that the Pharisees would partner with the Herodians. But the thing that brought them together was their utter rejection of Jesus Christ. And before the end of this chapter, those Pharisees would commit the only unpardonable sin. They were trying to destroy Jesus, but only wound up destroying themselves.

*All the while, Jesus went about doing miraculous good works and proving Himself in undeniable ways to anyone who was open to the truth. Now God wants us to be open to the truth. And if we are, today's Scripture will help get to us know Jesus better. Please think about this as we read Matthew 12:14-21.

MESSAGE:

*How well you know the Lord Jesus Christ. You may not know Him at all in a personal way, but many of us do, and everybody needs to know Jesus better.

*I can't imagine anybody ever knowing our Savior better than the Apostle Paul. But remember what Paul wrote in Philippians 3:8-10. After many years of knowing Jesus Paul said, "I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith; that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death."

*Paul wanted to know Jesus better than ever before, and Christians, so should we! The original word for "know" there was not just talking about knowing facts and information. It meant knowing the Lord in a close, personal way. And nothing is more important than knowing Jesus Christ!

1. FIRST IN THIS SCRIPTURE, WE NEED TO KNOW THAT JESUS IS THE GREAT PHYSICIAN.

*Jesus miraculously healed many thousands of people during His time here on earth. After the Pharisees went out to plot the Lord's death, vs. 15 tells us that "when Jesus knew it, He withdrew from there; and great multitudes followed Him, and He healed them all.

*Mark 3:7-12 gives more detail and says:

7. . . Jesus withdrew with His disciples to the sea. And a great multitude from Galilee followed Him, and from Judea

8. and Jerusalem and Idumea and beyond the Jordan; and those from Tyre and Sidon, a great multitude, when they heard how many things He was doing, came to Him.