Gifts Wrapped in Red
Welcome Campuses as we kick off the Gifts Wrapped in Red series! The final road before we get to Christmas! Can you believe it? How many of you are bringing guests to the Christmas service?
You should know before we even begin…RED is my favorite color! It catches the eye, it makes things pop...it’s vibrant, fun, passionate, it commands power…Red could beat up any other hue on the color chart.
Our series is about a gift, given to us by God Himself. The red letters in the Bible…for those that don’t know…they’re the words of Jesus, straight from His mouth, or retold by Biblical authors. They’re a pretty big deal.
In an article you always gravitate towards words that are bigger, or set off to the side, or italicized or emboldened and this is exactly the purpose of the red letters in the Bible. When you read them it’s almost like you feel you need to slow down and digest them..it’s funny but you find yourself taking them a little more seriously.
Sure it’s because they’re Jesus’ words….but being in RED doesn’t hurt! I don’t think purple, yellow or blue would have been as effective. There’s just something about RED! A yellow bow on a Lexus in your driveway just wouldn’t cut it. I’d turn that thing down! WHO ARE THOSE PEOPLE ANYWAY??
1/3 of those red letter words in the Bible are what is called ‘Parables’. By definition in the dictionary a parable is a ‘short allegorical story used to illustrate some truth, religious principle or moral lesson.
Over the years we’ve unpacked several of these parables, or stories in weekend teaching here at the Creek. My goal is not so much to go through a list of parables…LIO will have one daily this week…but I want to get to the heart of WHY Jesus gave so much energy to them. There is a reason, other than He just wanted to change things up because He was bored☺
We need a set up here. Jesus was in full swing of His 3 year ministry here on earth when we encounter Matthew Ch 12! He had been baptized by John the Baptist, He’d been taken up a mountain and tempted by Satan himself, He was in the main stride of preaching sermons like the Beatitudes (Lee talked about a few weeks ago)…He had preached on the Lords prayer…He was traveling around performing miracles and preaching some of His most famous sermons in a clear, concise preaching style …
Until Matthew 12. Matthew records Jesus having a pretty rough day. At least as far as the religious leaders of that day were concerned.
Matt 12:1-8 The day begins by the Pharisees attacking Jesus because they saw Him picking grain and feeding his disciples, what they considered a no-go for reasons I won’t get into right now, obviously Jesus disagreed with them….next 12:9-14 Jesus goes from there to the synagogue where He heals a man…and the Pharisees really don’t like that either, next 12:22-23 Jesus frees a demon possessed man that that REALLY makes the Pharisees mad!
That’s when the Pharisees make a huge mistake. They are so frustrated with Jesus one upping them that they declare His power to cast out demons comes NOT from God but from Satan himself. THIS IS A NO-NO. This was a total denial of who Jesus was claiming to be. This was a harsh statement….and Jesus wasn’t going to take it. What’s funny is that they didn’t even have to say it…Jesus read their thoughts! Could you imagine? Their accusation against Jesus…
This. Changed. Everything.
12:30 Jesus says ‘whoever is not with Me, is against Me’! He drew a line in the sand. He was done being Mr Nice Guy.
He flipped a switch…He begins preaching EXCLUSIVELY in parables for a time.
This means something. It means parables were more than just stories thrown into Jesus’ preaching to spice things up a little, to wake the crowd up….something was going on here. But what?
Jesus switches gears, He changes up tactics, QUITE INTENTIONALLY, VERY STRATEGICALLY, and ABSOLUTELY DIVINELY.
WHY? Well that’s what the disciples were wondering!
The disciples were a lot like you and me. They needed some answers too. So they pulled Him aside one day and asked why He was preaching only in parables. So, in true Jesus humor…He answers them with a parable. I love that.
Parable of the Sower: Matthew 13:3-9
Let’s pretend you’re the disciples…and you hear this….
A man sows seeds along a path. Some seeds were devoured by birds, others fell on rocky ground where they quickly grew…but had no roots so when the sun came out it scorched them and they withered since the soil wasn’t deep and their roots weren’t long. Other seeds fell among thorns and were choked out…yet other seeds fell on good soil and grew abundantly…Jesus says some of these seeds flourished like crazy…and His final words were :He who has ears, let him hear. (and walk away mysteriously) ha…alrighty then! Uhm, I just have to digest that for a minute….
Disciples ask Him why He’s speaking in parables. He answers like this:
Matthew 13:11-13 To you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of Heaven, but to them it has not been given, for to the one that has, more will be given…and he will have an abundance, but from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away. This is why I speak to them in parables, because seeing they do not see and hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand.
The parable of the Sower is talking about just this! (this is true for YOU right here, right now) He says IF YOU GET TRUTH AND HANDLE IT RIGHT, YOU GET MORE TRUTH. If you reject what truth you have been given, EVEN THAT GETS TAKEN AWAY.
God’s word grows abundantly and bears fruit in good hearts! He who has ears, let him hear…some people tune their ears to the word of God, others do not.
Jesus was done sugar coating things so everyone understood what He was saying. He was done with being rejected, He was done with being placated, He was done with super Christians who just wanted to look the part but never let His words soak in! He was ready to make people think, to make them choose. THIS WASN’T ALWAYS POLITICALLY CORRECT! Thankfully God isn’t worried about being PC!
Jesus understood what I’ll use a modern story to help with…
Years ago I talked about Mt St Helens. It blew with the force of many atomic bombe in Hiroshima. The blast blew 80,000 ft into the atmosphere and could be heard 200 miles away as ash fell into 11 states. The blast decimated everything around it. The sound wave was crushing. Except for one little area, that didn’t hear much of the sound at all. Those at the foot of the mountain…closest to it? Cone of Silence….cool morning combined with ultra hot blast…sound waves shot straight up for 9 miles until they hit a warm air stream, then they came back down at an angle…reverberating off the earths surface and back up again, moving out away from the mountain. This creatied a ‘cone of silence’…rare and at the time, not understood. Scientists have since researched it to be true.
Jesus was telling the disciples there were people who SEE my miracles and do not believe. There are people that HEAR my words and do not understand…because they choose not to. They’re right there, walking, talking, touching Jesus and they still didn’t ‘tune in’. That sounds impossible right??
Any good preacher takes to heart what Jesus revealed: There are 3 groups of people present when you communicate publically.
1) Group that wants to listen and learn
2) Group that doesn’t want to listen and learn
3) Group that is neutral. They don’t care either way…they’re neither tuned in OR tuned out…they just sit there and say “if you give me something amazing then I’ll be happy…if you bore me to death I’m just going to check out. “
With these 3 groups in mind, Jesus starts using parables A LOT.
Jesus started using parables for many reasons:
1) To give His enemies NO ground…He couldn’t be arrested for telling stories! He wasn’t scared of being arrested…He was just waiting for the right time! By using parables Jesus was making the TRUTH of His words clearer to those who wanted to learn and muddier to those who were out to get Him.
2) To enlighten the True hearted! The Good heart hears the truth…the ‘tuned in’ heart…parable of the sower.
3) To make people think for themselves! Jesus wanted people to use those perfectly designed brains! Too many times pastors/priests just end up telling people what and how they’re supposed to believe…that’s not good…you have to make people think it through!
4) To make people choose for themselves! Matther 7:13-14 Wide and narrow gate. Wide gate well traveled…leads to destruction…while the narrow gate…is hard…but leads to eternal life. He was engaging all 3 groups at once. Those who wanted to HEAR, understood narrow gate, those who rejected Him were fine with the comfortable wide gate…and those who were neutral...or on the fence were forced to make a CHOICE. Only 2 gates.
5) To fulfill prophecy! All the way back in Isaiah and Psalms!
Bottom Line??
If you were serious about living for Christ, you understood the parables…for the most part...if you weren’t serious about the TRUTH…you just didn’t understand the teaching. BRILLIANT!
It’s not that parables were just for the smart or pius…surely the Pharisees would have understood them…but they didn’t because they had NO interest in learning from Jesus.
Sounds like a bad category to be labeled in. The ‘not serious about learning from Jesus’ category. That could never be you or me…could it! Could it? (pause)
You’re either listening and learning or you’re rejecting. Doing NOTHING is not neutral, it is not a safe place to be!
We have a choice!
We are given the Holy Spirit to help us understand the Word of God when we say YES to Him. John 16:13 tells us God has opened our eyes and ears to the light of His truth! I’ll give you the chance to invite Him in to your heart in a minute.
Let those who have ears, let him hear. It’s possible to be at the feet of Jesus and reject Him. It’s possible to look the right part but have no truth.
Have you been living in a cone of silence lately? Has it been a while since you’ve heard God speaking into your life? Maybe you’ve never experienced this. I think it’s time. Make a choice.
The goal of Jesus, I think was to get us to PICTURE our faith.
In theological rhetoric…He wanted you to think outside the bun, as Taco Bell so eloquently puts it.
He wanted us to see Him in our everyday lives. He wanted His truths to be revealed to us in common, average ordinary every day things.
There is no reason to outthink the room on the truths of scripture.
He preached often in pictures because He created in pictures. This universe, this planet is bursting forth with vibrant colors and picturesque landscapes designed to inspire us and just make us smile and appreciate the Creator!
He does the same in our lives…He just wants us to think for ourselves, to choose His truth over all. I love that we worship a visual creator! In both the way that He creates AND the way the He preaches!
The gifts wrapped in red this Christmas season…Those Red Letters in the Bible…an idea by Louis Klopsch in 1899 after he read a verse about the blood of Christ covering our sins…they are red indeed, the color of PASSION, SACRIFICE…These are the words of a baby, born in a manger. Sent to save mankind. I suggest you open that gift…listen and learn…as the voice of our Savior rings in the New Year.
NOW is the time.
SALVATION PRAYER
