Our text today is Matthew 11:1-6. It has been a little while since we were in our study of Matthew due to the holidays and such, so let’s read the text, shall we?
“When Jesus had finished giving instructions to His twelve disciples, He departed from there to teach and preach in their cities. Now when John, while imprisoned, heard of the works of Christ, he sent word by his disciples and said to Him, ‘Are You the Expected One, or shall we look for someone else?’ Jesus answered and said to them, ‘Go and report to John what you hear and see: the BLIND RECEIVE SIGHT and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and the POOR HAVE THE GOSPEL PREACHED TO THEM. And blessed is he who does not take offense at Me.’"
Now let us pray and thank God for His living Word…
Have you ever found yourself running down a mental road, making plans and decisions and talking up a storm, only to have the information you thought you “knew” turn out to be wrong?
When the 1960’s ended, San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury district reverted to high-rent, and many of the hippies in the area moved down the coast to Santa Cruz. Like the other residents of that area, they got married and had children – though not necessarily in that order. They didn’t name their children Paula or John or Melissa or Brett. People in the mountains around Santa Cruz grew accustomed to their children playing on the merry-go-round and the monkey bars at the park with Time Warp and Spring Fever. Eventually Moonbeam, Earth, Love and Precious Promise all ended up in public school. That’s when the kindergarten teachers first met Fruit Stand.
Every fall, perpetuating tradition, parents boldly apply nametags to their children, kiss them good-bye, and send them off to school on big yellow buses. So it was with Fruit Stand. The teachers thought the boy’s name was odd, but they were somewhat used to this, so they tried to make the best of it.
“Would you like to play with the blocks, Fruit Stand?” they offered.
A little later, “How about a snack, Fruit Stand?”
Hesitantly, he accepted. By the end of the day, his name didn’t seem any odder than Heather’s or Sun Ray’s. At dismissal time, the teachers led the children out to the buses. “Fruit Stand, do you know which one is your bus?”
He didn’t answer. That wasn’t strange. He hadn’t answered them all day. Lots of children are shy on the first day of school. It didn’t matter. The teachers had instructed the parents to write the names of their children’s bus stops on the reverse side of their name tags. The teacher simply turned over the tag. There, neatly printed in easy-to-read letters, was the word “Anthony.”
Easy to make assumptions at first glance, isn’t it? Well, the text we are studying today is one of those texts that has that happen to it all the time. Let’s begin by reading the text and then we’ll discuss what it appears to mean and what it actually means.
The first verse, which we saw last time really belongs in the preceding chapter, is clear: Jesus completed His instructions to His disciples and then left the area to do Himself what He had told His disciples to do. He didn’t just give instructions and sit back and watch; it wasn’t “Do as I say, not as I do,” with Jesus, and it never is.
He never asks us to face anything that He has not faced and accomplished Himself already. And, since He lives in us, we have the same power and strength available to us as He had when He went through whatever it is we happen to be facing.
There is a message here, also, for every Christian in that the message we take is not for us, it is for those around us. We have the assurance that we are His; others do not. Jesus sent His disciples into the countryside, then He went there Himself.
The Gospel is not for the saved, it is for the unsaved. Once we have responded to the Gospel, we begin the life of a disciple of Christ. It is ours to spread the Gospel like the fire from our lesson last time. Remember when I set fire to the piece of newspaper and dropped it into the dish? It went out because it ran out of fuel, right? Then I wanted to do the same thing to another piece of paper, but this time I wanted to drop it onto a pile of crumpled newspaper lying on the floor.
Sound familiar?
Okay, now let’s think about the wisdom in this bridging verse. Do you think that people would have come to the disciples for healing or been interested in hearing them teach if Jesus was around? Why go to the pupil when you can go to the teacher? Why go to the follower when the Master is available? Why have the nurse attend your ailments when the Physician is at hand?
Jesus goes from speaking specially and specifically to His disciples, to preaching the general message of the Gospel to the masses. This is still how He works today, if we think about it. The first thing Jesus does is coordinate our circumstances so that we hear the message that we are lost and in need of a Savior and that He is the One who can save us.
After we respond to the Gospel and surrender our hearts and lives to Him, He then begins to teach us specifically what it means to be a child and servant of God and how to live a life of faith and obedience. He then sends us out to do the same in the life of someone else, and the process begins again. From the general to the specific and back again, and we see this in microcosm in Matthew 11:1. The Word of God never ceases to amaze me!
Okay, now to go on to the portion of our text that made me think of little Fruit Stand.
In Matthew 11:2-6, we have recorded for us an encounter that Jesus had with two of the disciples of John the Baptist. I don’t know about you, but the first time I read this, I felt a little sense of shock. First, I had forgotten all about John. Second, it seemed odd to me that John would still have disciples of his own.
When you read these few verses, what seems to be happening here? Seems like John, who has been imprisoned by Herod, is having some doubts about who Jesus is, doesn’t it? It seems like a reasonable thing, too, if you think about it. John’s under a great deal of stress right now, knowing that his death is probably quite imminent and that his mission is about as done as it’s going to get. It would be quite reasonable for him to want to have the assurance before he is killed that his mission was not in vain, that he had been correct about who Jesus was, and that his life had had some meaning.
And, at first look, that is what seems to be happening. Many commentators have suggested that, although John was indeed a prophet, he still had the same hopes and dreams that all Jews had in that day and so he wanted to make sure that Jesus was indeed the Promised One, the Messiah that was to come. We forget some things about John, though, when we make those assumptions. We need to turn the tag over and see what’s written on the other side.
Let’s go back for a moment or two to John 1:29 & 36. In both verses, we have John saying, "Behold, the Lamb of God!" In verse 29, he adds, “that takes away the sin of the World!” John knew well who Jesus was; there isn’t any doubt in his mind. His entire life had been preparation for announcing the coming of the Messiah.
When he spoke of Jesus as “the Lamb of God,” he was well aware that Jesus was to be God’s sacrifice for sin. Does any ambassador go into the world without knowing where the kingdom he represents stands on its most important issues? So, too, with John: his entire life had always been about being the herald of the Coming One.
Why, then, would he send two of his followers to Jesus, asking if Jesus was “the Coming One,” or if they should wait for someone else? For their sakes.
John knew his time was just about up, that his execution was probably just around the corner. How could he be so certain of this? Matthew 14:3-5, Mark 16:17-20, and Luke 3:19-20 all tell us that Herod had imprisoned John because John had openly chastised Herod and his so-called wife, Herodias, for living in an incestuous and adulterous relationship. Herodias was actually the wife of Herod Philip, the brother of this Herod, who was Herod Antipas. She was the granddaughter of Herod the Great and the daughter of Aretas, King of Petraea.
History records that, while on a journey to Rome, Herod Antipas stopped off at his brother Philip’s, met and fell in love (read that “lust”) with Philip’s wife, Herodias, and agreed to put away his own wife if Herodias would agree to leave her husband and go with him. This she did.
Both Herod and Herodias despised John for his open and public scolding, and both wanted him dead. The only reason Herod had not killed John yet was because he feared the people who believed John to be a prophet (Matthew 14:5).
So, John knew that his time on earth was about over; he knew that his followers would soon be alone in the world. He knew, too, that they should be following Jesus instead of him. They were men of character and strength, men who had believed John and followed him and listened to him and witnessed the lives of those who repented of their sin as a result of John’s message. They were men who would not abandon John in his hour of deepest need and darkest hope.
They were also a bit judgmental about Jesus and His followers. It was they who joined the Pharisees in questioning Jesus about His disciples in Mark 2:18, “John’s disciples and the Pharisees were fasting; and they came and said to Him, ‘Why do John’s disciples and the disciples of the Pharisees fast, but Your disciples do not fast?’"
John, ever the leader of men, knew he had to ensure that they went where they should when he was gone and that they would not stray. He did not want them taken captive by “philosophy and empty deception.” He didn’t want some pernicious lie to take hold of them and lead them down the path of destruction. John knew that it was Jesus they should now embrace as their Teacher and Leader – and, more importantly, as the Savior who was promised.
I can well imagine John repeatedly trying to convince his followers that Jesus was indeed the One Promised, the Redeemer who was to come and save His people from their sins. He only met with frustration, though, for they remained with him instead of following after Jesus. Jesus didn’t fit the prescribed mold that the Jews of that day were sure the Messiah would fit.
When word reached John about the many miracles that Jesus was performing and His confrontations with the religious leaders, probably through the reports received from the very disciples he sent to question Jesus, John knew it was time. But how to get his followers to learn the lesson that Jesus really was the Messiah, despite the fact that He didn’t fit their preconceived notions?
One of the best ways for a teacher to get a lesson deeply into his students is to have them discover that truth for themselves. He has to inspire the desire to learn in them and lead them to the place where they can discover the truth for themselves. This, I am convinced, is the case with John in our text. He has sent his disciples to Jesus with a question that is not for him, after all; it is for them. By presenting it in the way he did, he preconditioned their minds to pay very close attention to the answer.
Jesus responded in flawless fashion, of course. In the parallel text in Luke 7:18-35, Luke tells us in verse 21, “At that very time He cured many people of diseases and afflictions and evil spirits; and He gave sight to many who were blind.”
Jesus first demonstrates the power of heaven that is His to employ in myriad ways with a huge number of people, leaving absolutely no doubt about the power that is His to wield. Immediately after performing all of these miracles, He turns to John’s followers and quotes two of the Old Testament prophecies concerning the Messiah; Isaiah 35:5; 61:1.
Let’s look at what Jesus says as recorded in Matthew 11:4-5: “Jesus answered and said to them, ‘Go and report to John what you hear and see: the BLIND RECEIVE SIGHT and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and the POOR HAVE THE GOSPEL PREACHED TO THEM.’”
Notice that Jesus doesn’t answer their question directly; He doesn’t come right out with a simple declaration. Why? Because He knows the tendency for people to doubt, to be skeptical, and to not take what is said to them at face value. This does not make John’s disciples bad men; it just makes them men. Skeptical man, I grant you, but men none the less.
Jesus says, “Go and report to John what you hear and see.” He was willing to allow them to be witnesses themselves to what they had heard rumored about Him. He was more than able to bear the test of a true witness by demonstrating the truth instead of making a simple proclamation. We can say all we want to about who we are, what we are capable of, and what our character and tendencies are. But those are just words. We heard Jesus say back in Matthew 7:16 & 20, "You will know them by their fruits.”
We’ve all heard the saying, “I’d rather see a sermon than hear one any day.” This held true even in Jesus’ day and He knew that quite well. That is why He performed the signs and wonders that He did, and it is also the reason He gave His disciples those abilities when He first sent them out and when the Church first began after His Ascension. Those signs and wonders testified to the fact that God was personally involved in the work and the message.
John’s disciples were at the place where they needed to be convinced for they had not yet heeded the words of John, the one they followed.
Don’t you find that ironic? These men had been following after John for a very long time and had heard his message and seen his baptisms and witnessed his life, yet they would not take at face value what he said about Jesus. We, too, cling to things that we know and are comfortable with when we’re confronted with a truth about Christ that shakes our sense of stability and security.
Pastor Stephey Belynskyj starts each confirmation class with a jar full of beans. He asks his students to guess how many beans are in the jar, and on a big pad of paper writes down their estimates. Then, next to those estimates, he helps them make another list: their favorite songs. When the lists are complete, he reveals the actual number of beans in the jar. The whole class looks over their guesses, to see which estimate was closest to being right. Belynskyj then turns to the list of favorite songs.
“And which one of these is closest to being right?” he asks. The students protest that there is no “right answer”; a person’s favorite song is purely a matter of taste. Belynskyj, who holds a Ph.D. in philosophy from Notre Dame asks, “When you decide what to believe in terms of your faith, is that more like guessing the number of beans, or more like choosing your favorite song?” Always, Belynskyj says, from old as well as young, he gets the same answer: Choosing one’s faith is more like choosing a favorite song. Oh, how wrong they are!
Jesus never responds with hatefulness or criticism or condemnation. He leads us into the place where the truth is unavoidable and real and then presents us with the choice of believing and obeying or not.
In the case of the interplay recorded in our text today, Jesus did the same thing; He gave the disciples of John every reason in the world to believe who He was by demonstrating it before their very eyes and then tied it to the Sacred Scriptures with which they were so familiar. He demonstrates the new within the context of the familiar. I think that is one of the primary reasons that in verse 1 we read, “When Jesus had finished giving instructions to His twelve disciples, He departed from there to teach and preach in their cities.” He went out to meet people where they were.
This is also why in the Great Commission Jesus says, “Go.” We are not to sit in our warm sanctuaries and comfortable pews and invite people to become converted to our way of thinking and our way of worshiping and our way of viewing life. We are to go and teach and preach and touch and heal and invest in others, discipling them as we have been discipled, just as Jesus Himself did with those He first chose to follow Him.
Let’s look at the prophecies that Jesus quotes for a moment. The first is Isaiah 35:5ff; the second is Isaiah 61:1. When we read these in their original contexts, they are written slightly differently. Is Jesus misquoting the Word of God? Is He maybe rewriting the Word of God? Maybe He just doesn’t quite remember it exactly as it is written; could that be it?
Actually what Jesus is doing is clarifying what the prophet saw. Isaiah lived about 700 years before Jesus did, and he was looking down through the ages at what God was going to do for His people and, through them, for all of mankind. Much of the time it was like looking at a range of mountains. The prophets could see each mountain top and describe each one to a certain degree, but the distance between the peaks was uncertain, as were the minute and exacting details. Keep in mind that prophecy is a foreshadowing of what is to come, not a video tape of what has transpired.
Isaiah was told by God what kinds of things would accompany the coming of the Messiah, but he wasn’t given all of the details. Jesus brings the slightly blurred picture into focus, like the fine-tuning of the lens on a camera.
Jesus also speaks the words of the prophecy in a manner that indicates clearly that what was foretold is coming to pass in their presence. Instead of, “Then the eyes of the blind will be opened,” Jesus says, “the blind receive sight.” Instead of, “And the ears of the deaf will be unstopped,” we have, “and the deaf hear.” Instead of “The lame will leap like deer,” we have Jesus doing then describing, “the lame walk.” Jesus then includes the lepers being cleansed and the dead being raised up for these things are even greater than what is described by Isaiah, yet the disciples themselves are witness to these things.
Jesus closes His description of what is happening with His summary of 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; He has sent Me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to captives and freedom to prisoners.” Jesus states it simply, “the poor have the Gospel preached to them.”
The treasures of the grace of God are for those who are afflicted in life, those who are poor and knowingly in need of a Savior. Those who are well have no need of a physician; those who believe they are righteous have no need of a Savior. It is so easy to know we need to cry out for help when we have need if we are humble enough to admit that we are unable to help ourselves.
Jesus is right there to give what needs to be given, and to do so simply because of His own humility and grace. There is a story of a well known celebrity in years gone-by who removed his dinner jacket when someone entered a formal gathering in shirtsleeves in order to make the newly arrived but under-dressed guest not feel embarrassed. This is how Jesus approached people and how we are to approach them, too. Not compromising integrity or righteousness, just caring more about others than we do about ourselves; not being offended at someone being “out of place,” just being willing to adapt our own appearance to others to accommodate someone who is misinformed or just lacks understanding. It isn’t about exalting ourselves but about raising up and building up others. That, after all, is the nutshell message of the Gospel, isn’t it?
Many, many people are puffed up with self-importance, money, position, influence, intelligence, and all of that. This message, first written of by Isaiah and now quoted by the Prince of Peace, is not for them; it is for the blind, the lame, the lepers, the deaf, and the poor. It is they who know they are in need of help. It is those “dead” in poverty and obscurity whom Jesus raises to new life in Him.
Jesus ends His message with a conditioned blessing: "And blessed is he who does not take offense at Me." I call it conditioned because there is something to watch out for. There is a blessing for anyone who does not “stumble” over the thing to watch out for. What is it about Jesus that causes people to stumble?
The most obvious is from what we have just studied – the Gospel is not for those who do not see themselves as being in need. This extends beyond the physical, however, into the realm of self-righteousness and works-righteousness and pride.
Paul perhaps gives us the best explanation of this “stumbling.” In his first letter to the church at Corinth, Paul shows the contrast between the wisdom of God and the wisdom of men. He says in 1 Corinthians 1:18; “For the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.” Then, in verses 23-24, he says, “but we preach Christ crucified, to Jews a stumbling block and to Gentiles foolishness, but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.”
Paul speaks even more clearly and specifically about the Jews and their response to the Gospel in Romans 9:32-33: “Why? Because they did not pursue it by faith, but as though it were by works. They stumbled over the stumbling stone, just as it is written, "BEHOLD, I LAY IN ZION A STONE OF STUMBLING AND A ROCK OF OFFENSE, AND HE WHO BELIEVES IN HIM WILL NOT BE DISAPPOINTED."
Here again we have two references back to the prophet Isaiah from Isaiah 8:14; 28:16. Look back at the day when Jesus was presented in the Temple for his eighth-day rite of circumcision and what the old man named Simeon prophesied over Jesus as recorded in Luke 2:34: “And Simeon blessed them and said to Mary His mother, ‘Behold, this Child is appointed for the fall and rise of many in Israel, and for a sign to be opposed – ‘” It had long been known that the person and message of the Messiah would be the hope and salvation of many but the downfall of many more.
Jesus is telling John’s disciples and all those who could hear Him that their hope was to be found in Him and to not be offended by anything to do with Him, no matter how despicable or wretched things looked, and not to fall away because of how bad it was going to get. There was no greater disgrace for a Jew to experience than to be brutalized and hung on a cross, but that was just where Jesus was headed. That kind of death as a means of salvation was foolishness, a stumbling block, to the Jews.
This is an absolutely ridiculous idea to many even today – the idea that to be great one must be debased is the opposite of the program and formula of the world. To the lost, it is beyond foolish to think that success is to be measured by what one does not have than by what one does possess. And, it is downright stupid to think that God would become a man and die for the sins of mankind. Yet, this is just what the message of the Gospel is and what the life of Jesus Christ really means. It’s about turning the tag over and seeing what’s on the other side.
The Jews in general were offended at everything to do with Jesus. They were offended by His parentage and the manner of His birth – there were still questions in Nazareth about Mary’s story of a virgin birth. They were offended at the poverty of His parents; if indeed He was the Messiah He would be of noble, kingly birth – after all, wasn’t the Messiah of the house of David, Israel’s greatest king?
They were offended about where He was born, which they assumed was Galilee, the Mobile Home Capitol of the day. His education – or, lack of it – offended them, for He had no formal training like the great and wonderful Scribes and Pharisees and Sadducees and other men of high religion.
They were offended by His appearance and how He carried Himself in public – after all, look at who He associates with. He insists on being always in the company of the poorest, the dregs of society, the tax-gatherers and the sinners, the sick and the ignorant; even the lepers were His friends.
The doctrines He preached we particularly offensive because He went completely against the strict teaching of the Pharisees regarding the necessity of strict adherence to the Law and to their traditions. Even John’s disciples had been offended at the fact that His disciples didn’t fast like they did.
Perhaps the most offensive thing of all, however, was that He kept asserting His authority above that of anyone other than God, even alluding to the notion that He Himself was God! He kept speaking of the kingdom of God as if He had some personal familiarity and entitlement to it.
He was continually reproached for His behavior, for his teachings, for the behavior of His followers, for His disregard for many of their traditions, and for his disdain for the religious authorities. No one was more offensive to the Jews then or now than the man Jesus who claimed to be the Messiah – He even acted like it, too!
Jesus knew that many would be the persecutions afflicted upon those who accepted Him and His message, submitted themselves to His reign in their lives, and who freely proclaimed Him as Savior and Lord. Jesus was saying here that anyone who would willing do all of this despite the difficulties and discouragements they would face would receive from His hand joy and peace and comfort and an eternity that would surpass their greatest expectations, including being with Him for all of it.
This ties in well with the warning He gave His disciples when He sent them out as “sheep in the midst of wolves,” as we studied last time. Remember our lesson? Anyone too ashamed to acknowledge Him in front of other people He would be too ashamed of to admit they were His before His Father in heaven.
I know that this is not a comfortable lesson to hear, especially over and over again. We cannot deny, however, that we have been taking these lessons in order and in the context of the texts that we have been studying. The message remains the same throughout the Word of God, and we have to be resolved to the fact that there is something expected of us as Christians, something expected of us as those who claim the name of Christ.
Can you summarize what that is?
The underlying theme throughout these past weeks and one that will be arising more and more as we progress through or study of Matthew is what Paul admonishes in 1 Corinthians 6:19-20: “Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? For you have been bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body.” Or what he says in Romans 12:2: “Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.”
There is really no avoiding this. Jesus makes it clear that there is no question, really, about who He is and what that means. There is no question about His life and sacrifice and death for us. There is no question that we have a responsibility to respond to His gift and His Lordship in a specific and identifiable way. Many today scoff at the message of the cross – Jesus knew that they would. It is ours to not be offended by it and to live in joy because of it.
Can you do that? Will you do that? Will you sacrifice all you have and all you are for the sake of the Gospel?
David Livingstone (1813-1873) was a Scottish missionary, doctor and explorer who helped open the heart of Africa to missions. His travels covered one-third of the continent, from Cape Town to near the Equator, and from the Atlantic to the Indian Ocean. Here is what he had to say about his 33 years in Africa tormented by disease, theft, attacks from natives, attacks from soldiers, loss of his wife, loss of his possessions and supplies several times over, and a multitude of other suffering, all for the sake of spreading the Gospel throughout Africa:
“People talk of the sacrifice I have made in spending so much of my life in Africa. Can that be called a sacrifice which is simply acknowledging a great debt we owe to our God, which we can never repay? Is that a sacrifice which brings its own reward in healthful activity, the consciousness of doing good, peace of mind, and a bright hope of a glorious destiny? It is emphatically no sacrifice. Rather it is a privilege.
Anxiety, sickness, suffering, danger, foregoing the common conveniences of this life—these may make us pause, and cause the spirit to waver, and the soul to sink; but let this only be for a moment. All these are nothing compared with the glory which shall later be revealed in and through us. I never made a sacrifice. Of this we ought not to talk, when we remember the great sacrifice which He made who left His Father’s throne on high to give Himself for us.”
We might well say that his is a unique outlook, for it is indeed. But that is not because of some special talent or gifting that he had – it is because he had an accurate and true perspective on the appropriate response to the truth of who Jesus is and what He has done.
Our challenge is to not take offense or to stumble over what being openly identified with Jesus Christ might cost us. He paid a greater price for us than we ever will for Him.
Are you willing? Do you know Him as your Savior, or are you still not convinced? Do you stumble over Him, or are you glad to announce that He is God in the flesh, the only way of salvation and the only way to make it to heaven? Where are you today? Are you ready to turn the tag over and read the other side?
Let’s pray.
