Jesus Wants to Help Us Understand the Kingdom of Heaven - Part 3
The Gospel of Matthew
Matthew 13:47-58
Sermon by Rick Crandall
(Prepared May 26, 2022)
BACKGROUND:
*Please open your Bibles to Matthew 13:47. In this chapter Jesus told a series of 8 parables to help us understand the Kingdom of Heaven. The Lord told these simple stories to reveal spiritual truth to His followers. But Jesus also spoke in a way to conceal these truths from the scribes and Pharisees. The Lord did this because by this second year of ministry, most of those religious rulers had rejected Jesus with bitter hatred.
*They hated Jesus so much that they were plotting to kill Him. One reason why was because Jesus rejected the thousands of petty rules and regulations the scribes and Pharisees had added to God's Law. For over a hundred years these men had basically been in charge of telling all the other Jews what was right and wrong.
*William Barclay gave this example: In Jeremiah 17:21, "Thus says the Lord: 'Take heed to yourselves, and bear no burden on the Sabbath day.'" But a "burden" had to be defined, so the scribes and Pharisees defined it as "food equal in weight to a dried fig, enough wine for mixing in a goblet, milk enough for one swallow, honey enough to put upon a wound, water enough to moisten an eye-salve," and so on.
*Then they had to settle questions like this: Could a woman wear a brooch on the Sabbath? Could a man wear a wooden leg or dentures? -- Or would it be carrying a burden to do so? Could a chair or even a child be lifted on the Sabbath Day?" On and on the regulations went. Then this random, unschooled carpenter from Nazareth showed up and rejected all of their ridiculous rules. Jesus also publicly criticized them for laying heavy legal burdens on God's people. (1)
*But there was a bigger reason why the scribes and Pharisees hated Jesus, and that is because He rightly claimed to be God. We can see the Lord's claim many times in the New Testament.
*Last week we looked at Mark 2:1-12, but another great example is in John 5. It's the story of a man who had not been able to walk for 38 years. Jesus instantly healed that man on the Sabbath Day. And how did the Lord do it? In John 5:8 Jesus simply told him to "Rise, take up your bed and walk.''
*Soon after that miracle, John 5:15-18 says:
15. The man departed, and told the Jews that it was Jesus, which had made him whole.
16. And therefore did the Jews persecute Jesus, and sought to slay him, because he had done these things on the Sabbath day.
17. But Jesus answered them, My Father has been working until now, and I work.
18. Therefore the Jews sought the more to kill him, because he not only had broken the Sabbath, BUT SAID ALSO THAT GOD WAS HIS FATHER, MAKING HIMSELF EQUAL WITH GOD.
*Jesus begin to answer the Jewish rulers in John 5:19-23:
19. Then Jesus answered and said to them, "Most assuredly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He sees the Father do; for whatever He does, the Son also does in like manner.
20. For the Father loves the Son, and shows Him all things that He Himself does; and He will show Him greater works than these, that you may marvel.
21. For as the Father raises the dead and gives life to them, even so the Son gives life to whom He will.
22. For the Father judges no one, but has committed all judgment to the Son,
23. that all should honor the Son just as they honor the Father. He who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent Him.
*Jesus rightfully claimed to be God, because our crucified and risen Savior IS the eternal Son of God, the King of all Kings, and our only hope of salvation! But instead of responding with humble faith and love, the Pharisees responded with arrogant self-righteousness and murderous hatred. This is why the Lord began to speak to them in Kingdom parables they could not understand.
*Today's Scripture includes the last two parables in this chapter. These were given to the Lords' disciples along with more vital information about the King of Kings. Please listen to God's Word as we read Matthew 13:47-58.
MESSAGE:
*From a human point of view, about the closest I’ve ever gotten to royalty is Burger King. But by God's grace, all Christians can say, "We really do know a king! In fact, we know Jesus Christ, the King of all kings! And today's Scripture shows us some of the Lord's greatest desires for our lives.
1. FIRST: JESUS WANTS US TO GET READY FOR GOD'S JUDGMENT.
*Judgment Day is surely coming for all people. Jesus made this truth clear with the parable He told in vs. 47-50:
47. "Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a dragnet that was cast into the sea and gathered some of every kind,
48. which, when it was full, they drew to shore; and they sat down and gathered the good into vessels, but threw the bad away.
49. So it will be at the end of the age. The angels will come forth, separate the wicked from among the just,
50. and cast them into the furnace of fire. There will be wailing and gnashing of teeth."
*Everybody needs to get ready for the King's Judgment Day. It will make an everlasting difference for the wicked and for the just. But who are "the just?"
*Years ago, "U. S. News and World Report" polled a thousand people to ask this question: "Who do you think is ‘very likely' or ‘somewhat likely' to go to heaven?" They asked them to rate 13 famous people, and of all of the celebrities, the biggest vote-getter was Mother Teresa at 79%.
*At the bottom of the barrel was O. J. Simpson who got only 19% of the vote. But the highest vote-getters of all weren't any of the celebrities. The most votes went to the people who got surveyed. Over 87% of them believed they were most likely to go to heaven. (2)
*Well, they may have thought they were ready. But none of those people was truly ready unless they knew the King of Kings in a personal way. The only way to get ready for the judgment is to receive Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior.
*No matter how good we think we are, we are not good enough to deserve a place in Heaven. Of course, some people are a whole lot better than others, and a lot of people think they are better than others. But even if I was the best person in the whole world, that still wouldn't make me good enough to go to Heaven.
*That's because God's standard for getting into Heaven by good works is total perfection 24 hours a day for my whole life! And nobody has ever lived up to that standard except Jesus Christ.
*For all the rest of us, Isaiah 64:6 says, "All our righteous deeds are like filthy rags; we all fade as a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away." Romans 3:10 tells us that "there is none righteous, no, not one." And Romans 3:23 adds that "all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God."
*When we hear this verse, we usually focus on the fact that all of us have sinned, and we surely have. But how far do we fall short? We "fall short OF THE GLORY OF GOD." How far is that? -- Infinitely far! God's glory is so brilliant and pure that it would kill us to see it in our mortal bodies.
*In Exodus 33, Moses asked to see the glory of the Lord.
19. Then (God) said, "I will make all My goodness pass before you, and I will proclaim the name of the LORD before you. I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.''
20. But He said, "You cannot see My face; for no man shall see Me, and live.''
21. And the LORD said, "Here is a place by Me, and you shall stand on the rock.
22. So it shall be, while My glory passes by, that I will put you in the cleft of the rock, and will cover you with My hand while I pass by.
23. Then I will take away My hand, and you shall see My back; but My face shall not be seen.''
*If God didn't shield us from His glory, we would melt like snowflakes in the hot desert! So, for us to measure up to the glory of God would be like a flea climbing Mt. Everest, or a mosquito learning how to fly a jet plane, or a germ graduating from LSU with a 4.0.
*It's never going to happen. It never could happen. And without God's grace and mercy, we would all surely be condemned forever to hell.
*God's standard for going to Heaven is His perfect righteousness. How are we going to get it? It can only come through the cross of Jesus Christ. That's why Isaiah 53:5-6 gave this prophecy about the Lord:
5. . . He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement for our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed.
6. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned, every one, to his own way; and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.
*The cross of Jesus Christ shows us the seriousness of our sin. And only the cross can save us from our sin. Corrie Ten Boom put it this way, "In the forest fire, there is always one place where the fire cannot reach. And that is the place where the fire has already burned itself out. The cross is the place where the fire of God's judgment against sin burned itself out completely. And it is only there that we are safe." (3)
*The only way to get ready for God's Judgment Day is to receive Jesus Christ as the Lord and Savior of our lives. So, put your trust in our risen Savior. Then you will have the righteousness that God alone can give. As Paul explained in 2 Corinthians 5:21, "He (that is, God the Father) made Him (Jesus) who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him."
2. JESUS WANTS US TO GET READY FOR GOD'S JUDGMENT. HE ALSO WANTS US TO STUDY AND SHARE GOD'S WORD.
*In vs. 51-52, Jesus asked His disciples:
51. "Have you understood all these things?'' They said to Him, "Yes, Lord.''
52. Then He said to them, "Therefore every scribe instructed concerning the kingdom of heaven is like a householder who brings out of his treasure things new and old.''
*This is the last parable in this chapter, and when Jesus talked about scribes here, He was not talking about the officials who hated Him. He was talking in a general sense about people who had studied God's Word. And though Jesus was speaking to His disciples, what He said applies to all Christians, for all of us should be disciples, trying to learn from our Lord.
*Jesus reminds us that we have infinite spiritual treasures available in the Bible. And the more we study God's Word, the more treasures we will discover. In fact, we never get to the end of discovering the spiritual riches we have in Jesus Christ. That’s one thing the Apostle Paul was thinking about in Ephesians 3:8 when he said, "To me, who am less than the least of all the saints, this grace was given, that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ." That word "unsearchable" means in this life we will never be able to find all of the riches we have in the Lord, so God wants us to keep studying His Word.
*But that's not all. God also wants us to share His treasures with other people. This is the idea of the "householder who brings out of his treasure things new and old.'' All of us aren't called to be preachers, teachers, or missionaries. But all Christians are called to be witnesses. All Christians are called to share the riches of Christ with other people.
*We can tell them the stories of what God has done in our lives. We can tell them how the Bible has spoken to us. We can tell them about how Jesus died on the cross for our sins, and how our living Lord has saved us. Every Christian has spiritual treasures to share with other people. And even small expressions of your faith can make everlasting differences for other people.
*Randy Aly told of a lady who responded to a small expression of faith. She was a Christian, but she was very backslidden, and her husband had never come to faith in Christ. When they moved to a new community, they were visited a couple of times by members of the local church, but this couple rudely said they wanted to be left alone.
*Then one day the wife was looking out the front window, and she saw the postman delivering mail. As she watched him, he stopped right in front of her mailbox, and sat down on the curb to eat his lunch. Then the mailman bowed his head and thanked God for his meal.
*The Holy Spirit used that simple act of faith to melt that woman's heart. She talked to her husband. They decided to go to church. After hearing the sermon, they both came forward. She joined the church, and her husband trusted in Jesus! The next week they brought their parents, and they all trusted Jesus as their Lord and Savior! (4)
*Thank God for that mailman who loved the Lord enough to publicly thank God for his food. It's a great example of how God can work through even the small expressions of our faith.
3. JESUS WANTS ALL OF US TO STUDY AND SHARE GOD'S WORD. BUT MOST OF ALL, HE WANTS US TO BE BLESSED BY BELIEVING IN HIM.
*Don't let anything keep you from believing in Jesus Christ! In vs. 53-58, Matthew gave us the example of people who let their past keep them from Jesus. They were from the Lord's hometown of Nazareth, and they knew Jesus before He started His ministry.
*Matthew wrote:
53. Now it came to pass, when Jesus had finished these parables, that He departed from there.
54. And when He had come to His own country, He taught them in their synagogue, so that they were astonished and said, "Where did this Man get this wisdom and these mighty works?
55. Is this not the carpenter's son? Is not His mother called Mary? And His brothers James, Joses, Simon, and Judas?
56. And His sisters, are they not all with us? Where then did this Man get all these things?''
57. So they were offended at Him. But Jesus said to them, "A prophet is not without honor except in his own country and in his own house.''
58. And He did not do many mighty works there because of their unbelief.
*The original word for "offended" in vs. 57 is where we get our word "scandal." They were outraged at Jesus because they thought He was a scandalous fraud. So, most of the people in Nazareth missed the blessings of believing in Jesus. They missed their miracles.
*They could see some of the people in their town being miraculously healed. But most still stubbornly refused to believe in Jesus, so they missed they greatest miracle of all. They missed eternal life in the Kingdom of Heaven!
*As Christians, we thank God that the King of Kings loves us so much that He humbled Himself to become a man like us. Jesus was part of a family like our families, with brothers and sisters.
*In Philippians 2:5-8 the Apostle Paul highlighted this truth and wrote, "Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a servant, and coming in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross."
*Hebrews 4:15-16 in the Living Bible tells us that "This High Priest of ours understands our weaknesses, since he had the same temptations we do, though he never once gave way to them and sinned. So let us come boldly to the very throne of God and stay there to receive his mercy and to find grace to help us in our times of need."
*The Apostle John opened his Gospel by acknowledging that Jesus is God. Calling Jesus "The Word," John 1:1-4 says, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men."
*But in John 1:10-11, the Apostle went on to write that Jesus "was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him. He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him."
*This was the fatal mistake people in Nazareth made. They let past experience keep them from faith in Jesus Christ. They let their limited understanding block them from finding true wisdom. They let earthly connections keep them from making eternal connections. They made the fatal error of rejecting the King of Kings, and that is the worst mistake anybody can ever make.
*Don't let anything keep you from Jesus! Don't let your past, your pain, your plans, or anything else keep from Jesus. Don't get bogged down by bitterness, anger, shame, envy, regret, riches, or fame.
*Don't miss your miracles! Believe in Jesus Christ! Believe in the infinite wisdom, compassion, and ability of Almighty God. Believe that all good things are possible with God. Believe that He is able to heal any disease today, according to His perfect will. But we must have faith in Jesus even when we don't get the miracles we want.
CONCLUSION:
*If anybody could have let his circumstances keep him from Jesus, it would have been Robert Reed. Max Lucado told Robert's story. His hands are twisted, and his feet are useless. He can't bathe himself, or feed himself, brush his teeth, comb his hair, or put on his underwear. Strips of Velcro hold his shirts together, and his voice drags like a worn-out recording.
*Robert has cerebral palsy. The disease keeps him from driving a car, riding a bike, or going for a walk. But it didn't keep him from graduating from high school or attending Abilene Christian University, where Robert graduated with a degree in Latin.
*Having cerebral palsy also didn't keep Robert from teaching at St. Louis Junior College, or from going overseas on 5 mission trips. And Robert's disease didn't keep him from becoming a missionary in Portugal.
*He moved to Lisbon, alone, in 1972. There he rented a hotel room and began studying Portuguese. Robert would get someone to take him to a park every day, and there, he would pass out brochures about Jesus. In six years he led 70 people to the Lord. And one of them became his wife, Rosa.
*Lucado finished by saying this: "I heard Robert speak recently. I watched other men carry him in his wheelchair onto the platform. I watched them lay a Bible in his lap. I watched his stiff fingers force open the pages. And I watched people in the audience wipe away tears of admiration from their faces.
*Robert could have asked for sympathy or pity, but he did just the opposite. He held his bent hand up in the air and boasted, 'I have everything I need for joy!' His shirts are held together by Velcro, -- but his life is held together by joy." (5)
*And Christians, we can surely have the same joy, because we have already received the greatest miracle of all! We know that the King of Kings died on the cross for us. We know that He rose again from the dead! We know that He is a worthy King, and we're saved!
*We have an everlasting home in His Kingdom. We have a seat at the King’s royal table. We are part of the royal family of God. So, keep trusting in the Lord, love Him, and serve Him with all your heart.
*And if you have never received Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, now is the time to call on the Lord to save you as we go back to God in prayer.
(1) Sources:
-https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pharisees
-BibleVerseStudy.com - "Who Were the Pharisees?" - https://www.bibleversestudy.com/johngospel/john7-pharisees.htm
-BARCLAY'S DAILY BIBLE STUDY SERIES (NT) by William Barclay, Revised Edition (C) Copyright 1975 William Barclay - First published by the Saint Andrew Press, Edinburgh, Scotland - The Westminster Press, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania - "The Man Who Came by Night" - John 3:1-6 - https://bibleportal.com/commentary/chapter/william-barclay/john/3
(2) Sermons.com sermon - "What Are Your Chances of Going to Heaven" by James Merritt - John 14: 6
(3) Sermons.com sermon "When Nothing Else Would Work" - I Chronicles 36: 14-23; Ephesians 2: 4-10; John 3: 14-21 - email 03/26/2003
(4) SermonCentral illustration contributed by Randy Aly
(5) Adapted from SermonCentral illustration contributed by David Yarbrough - Source: Max Lucado - https://maxlucado.com/peace-that-defies-pain/
