I don’t recommend very many movies – and I especially don’t recommend the movie I’m about to mention. But sometimes lines spoken in movies jump off the screen and into the dictionary and become part of the way we think and speak – and inform us about ourselves and our attitudes.
In the movie "Jerry McGuire" – the character played by Tom Cruise is in a quandary. Fired from his old job as a sports agent, he must win new clients or risk losing his fledgling business, and his fledgling love interest, played by Renee Zelwiger. A young, talented, football player – played by Cuba Gooding Jr. – looks like a promising prospect.
But when Jerry tries to negotiate on his behalf – Cuba throws it back in his face: "Show me the money" he tells Jerry. You know the scene – he makes Jerry McGuire shout out "show me the money" until it’s echoing through the halls.
The line quickly entered the American lexicon as a way to say: "I don’t want just promises, I want results – show me the money!
It reflects the character of our society, and a common attitude. We want proof up front or we aint buyin’.
Sometimes we even make the same demands on God – "how do I know you are real – prove it!" or "how can I be sure I can trust you with my life and my problems – give me a sign!" Just how efficacious is this line of reasoning? Is it smart to ask God to "prove" Himself? Let’s take a look.
Today we’re going to look at the last half of Matthew chapter 12 as the religious leaders of His day, always His nemesis, make similar demands – and get a response they probably didn’t bargain for.
38 Then some of the Pharisees and teachers of the law said to him, "Teacher, we want to see a miraculous sign from you."
The Pharisees and Scribes were not seeking to know Jesus – they had already decided not to believe, all they wanted was evidence – a chance to prove He was NOT who He said He was.
Often people want God "proved" before they will believe – "show me tangible evidence that I can see with my eyes." Jesus throws it right back at them.
39 He answered, "A wicked and adulterous generation asks for a miraculous sign! But none will be given it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. 40 For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of a huge fish, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. 41 The men of Nineveh will stand up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it; for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and now one greater than Jonah is here.
The only "sign" Jesus would give was the sign of His own death, burial and resurrection. That’s all that really matters, it’s the "core essential" of our faith – and should be THE thing we rely upon – not always wanting more and more and more.
This brings up the point that people who don’t know Jesus can’t be "won" over by miracles – we should point them to the REAL miracle – Jesus death and resurrection for them. Those who have set their hearts against the Lord won’t benefit from special miracles either – that’s why the only focus should be on the risen Lord.
But the question for us who already believe is this: How often do we want the Lord to "prove" Himself by doing our bidding visibly? How much do we rely on "miracles" and "signs" to "prove" to ourselves that God is among us or blessing us, or approving of us?
I personally think it is a mistake to rely on "signs of God’s presence" like words from the Lord, or prophecies, or miracles. That is not to say that they are unimportant – but to use these "words" as the only way to move us is a recipe for getting lost. In fact, some Christians use the gifts of the Spirit in order to validate their own spirituality instead of what gifts and miracles were designed to do: point people to Jesus.
In fact, turn to Acts 9:36-43. Here we find the story of Dorcas – who died, and whom the Lord, through Peter, brought back to life. But look at verse 42: "This became known all over Joppa, and many people believed in the Lord." This miracle had the correct outcome – people got saved. That’s when the Lord often moves in the miraculous – not just so we can be satisfied or glorified.
A further question is this: Do you have to have a "sign" in order to trust the Lord?
When you ask the Lord something, or for something – do you do one of these three things?
Put out a Fleece
Ask for Open doors/closed doors
Seek someone to give you a word from the Lord
Putting out a fleece comes from experience of Gideon, found in Judges Chapter 6. The Lord tells Gideon "the Lord is with you mighty warrior." He then tells Gideon to rescue Israel from the hands of the Midianites.
Gideon contradicts the Lord twice – then asks for not one but three different signs to prove the Lord was calling him. Two of those signs involved a fleece of wool. First Gideon tells the Lord to make the fleece wet with dew while the ground was dry – then asks that the ground be wet and the fleece dry.
God, in His patience, granted Gideon’s requests. Ever since then the people of God have asked for "fleeces." They say: If this event takes place then I’ll take it as a sign that it’s okay if I do the thing I’ve asked for wisdom about.
Open doors/closed doors happens when we ask the Lord to change external circumstances to let make something happen or not happen so we don’t have to decide.
Seeking a word from the Lord is when we open the Bible randomly to get an answer, or wait for someone to speak for God, instead of seeking Him ourselves.
The problem with fleeces is they are open to coincidence, the problem with relying on open or closed doors is they are open to external circumstances that may or may not be influenced by the Lord, and the problem with seeking someone else’s or "chance’s" word is it is open to interpretation. Again, I’m not saying God can’t move or speak through these avenues – there is some evidence in the Bible of Him indeed moving through each of these – but that doesn’t mean we avoid what we really need to do, and rely instead on something or someone else to do our thinking and praying and listening for us.
I wonder what we’d do if we opened to Matt 27:5 So Judas threw the money into the temple and left. Then he went away and hanged himself.
I don’t want to completely rule out these ways of determining God’s will – but I do want to suggest three other ways that may serve you better as you seek God’s wisdom and direction:
Peace
Knowledge
& Trust
Peace – as an umpire
Philippians 4:6-7
6 Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.
7 And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
We ask God for things – that’s good, but instead of looking for a "sign" we should look for His peace to "guard" our heart and mind.
The "guard" means to "call the shots" – literally, to umpire. Notice it says the peace of GOD will do this. We shouldn’t rely on our own peace – subject to emotion – but should seek His peace about a situation.
This is something that is spiritually discerned – and comes as we mature in Him. One of the ways we can look for that peace is by seeking His knowledge.
Knowledge – from above, and about Christ
We’ve studied this several times before, and I’ll refer you to the message on James Chapter 3. We can put our situation through a matrix to help us determine if something is of God or not.
But secondly, we need to know Jesus Christ.
Ephesians 3:16-19
16 I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, 17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, 18 may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, 19 and to know this love that surpasses knowledge-that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.
We want power, we want faith, we want strength, we want His Spirit – we get those things through knowing Him. So simply, spending time with God, reading His Word, worshiping, praying – opening your life to Him and being moldable – mean you will begin to take on His character, and you’ll actually start to think like God – ooh, that’s a scary thought.
Trust – place your weight on Him, even if there is no sign.
Remember the boat in the storm? Jesus led His disciples into trouble in order to see if they would trust Him NO MATTER WHAT. Remember the synagogue ruler whose only child had died? Jesus turned to him in the midst of the doubters and said: "Don’t be afraid, only believe."
So don’t rely on signs – instead rely on the Savior.
One more point – I think we want a "sign" in order to know that God really loves us and approves of us. But in reality the sign Jesus points to – the sign of His death – is the proof of God’s love. "For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son."
Jesus already proved His love – now it’s time for you to show Him you got the message – and will trust Him.
So, back to our story. Why does Jesus call the generation "wicked and adulterous?" An adulterer was one who claimed to be married, yet had intimate relations with someone else. God’s prophets often used the term adulterer in a spiritual sense – a people who claimed to be "married" or belong exclusively to God, but yet in practice served and worshiped other gods.
For us, when we claim to have given our lives and our futures over to the Lord, then demand that God perform on our terms or in ways that reflect the demanding attitude of the world around us – are we not doing the same thing?
So instead – don’t demand a sign – and don’t demand that what you want happen right now!
Jesus said a sign would come, but in His timing. We need to ask the Lord to help, but then wait for Him to move.
He used Jonah and the Ninevites – because if a pagan nation, the enemy of Israel, could respond to the Lord’s rebuke and repent – why couldn’t the people of this generation?
Then He goes on to describe another "pagan":
42 The Queen of the South will rise at the judgment with this generation and condemn it; for she came from the ends of the earth to listen to Solomon’s wisdom, and now one greater than Solomon is here.
The "Queen of the South" probably refers to the queen of Sheba, in southern Arabia who came to visit King Solomon and came away completely impressed with the Lord.
In contrast, Jesus is telling the Pharisees – you need to repent, you need to be impressed because someone much greater than Jonah and much greater than Solomon is here. Instead, He describes what will happen.
43 "When an evil spirit comes out of a man, it goes through arid places seeking rest and does not find it. 44 Then it says, ’I will return to the house I left.’ When it arrives, it finds the house unoccupied, swept clean and put in order. 45 Then it goes and takes with it seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and live there. And the final condition of that man is worse than the first. That is how it will be with this wicked generation."
Jesus came and healed and died for Israel – he cleaned house – but since Israel rejected Him, it opened the way for Satan to thrash the people over and over and in worse ways then ever.
There is an application for us – when we allow the Lord to "sweep" our lives clean but then do not get filled with Him, either by salvation initially, or by sanctification subsequently, then we invite Satan to return and make things worse than before.
Sometimes people hear, for instance, the Sermon on the Mount – and they sort of "self clean" – by following the Golden Rule. But an externally changed life without new life internally is almost worse. That’s because you can get inoculated to Jesus. You hang around church and Christians – you sing the songs and learn the lingo, and on the outside begin to pattern your life around what you see in others. So you don’t realize that you MUST make a personal commitment to Christ. Don’t let that happen to you. The house is clean – but still empty – without asking God to take up residence there.
So then there is this sort of strange tag to the story:
46 While Jesus was still talking to the crowd, his mother and brothers stood outside, wanting to speak to him. 47 Someone told him, "Your mother and brothers are standing outside, wanting to speak to you."
48 He replied to him, "Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?" 49 Pointing to his disciples, he said, "Here are my mother and my brothers. 50 For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother."
We won’t go into this in detail – but we learn in Mark’s gospel that the motivation here was that Mary and the family thought Jesus had gone mad and they came to "take charge of Him." Wouldn’t you think that your brother or son was a bit crazy if he went around saying he was God?
Jesus reacts by saying several things:
Spiritual relationships are just as important as physical ones
You cannot let your family influence whether or not you serve God
It doesn’t mean you have license to be mean to your family either
Jesus criticized the religious leaders for not honoring their parents, and Jesus made sure his mother was cared for on the cross, among other things.
Jesus is paving the way for a new family, a new community of people who have God as their Father. And even as we trust our earthly parents to provide for us – we don’t say: "show me a sign that I’ll have dinner tonight" – we need to trust our heavenly Father has our needs in mind and will provide – according to His will.
And I guess that’s a postscript to this message – we should ask God for things. He tells us to, in fact. But when we ask we need to believe that He is, and is the rewarder of them that diligently seek Him. Seek God first – and when you ask, make sure you tell Him to answer the way He sees best.
