The Dance

Matt 13:13-15 "Therefore I speak to them in parables, because seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand. And in them the prophecy of Isaiah is fulfilled, which says: ’Hearing you will hear and shall not understand, and seeing you will see and not perceive; for the hearts of this people have grown dull. Their ears are hard of hearing, And their eyes they have closed, Lest they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears, Lest they should understand with their hearts and turn, So that I should heal them."

INTRODUCTION: ODD VERSE (“Difficult Sayings”) – “So that I should heal them”

A. Sounds As Though God Doesn’t Want To Heal Them or Save Them. As If…

1. Jesus: “I’m going to keep talking in mysterious parables”

2. “I don’t want to be too dead obvious”

3. “It’s good that their ears are hard of hearing & eyes have closed”

4. “If it was too dead obvious, I’d be obligated to save them”

5. “I don’t want to save them”

6. Parables are a padlock to saving truth. Understand parable, then saved.

7. Dancing around the truth to keep us from stumbling on the truth

B. Yet That Seems So Contrary To The God I’ve Become Accustomed To:

1. The God that said, “I didn’t come to condemn the world but to save it”

2. The God that left the 99 in search for the one – went out of his way

3. The God that left everything (heaven) and gave everything (Calvary) who loved world so much that “whosoever” should be saved

C. So What Gives? Does He Want To Save or Not?

SOME KEYS TO UNDERSTANDING THIS VERSE

– Why He Doesn’t Speak In Plainly -

I. THIS KINGDOM RELATIONSHIP IS INHERENTLY MYSTERIOUS!

A. Kingdom Matters Are Inherently Mysterious

1. Cannot be just spoken of & understood “plainly”

2. As simple as we may speak of it, still parts of it incomprehensible

3. I still have yet to comprehend:

a. Kingdom breadth & width & depth

b. Kingdom future

c. Kingdom authority – we reign with Him

d. Kingdom morality

- 100% righteous, but hell-bound w/out God’s righteousness

- 100% wretched, but heaven-bound w/ God’s righteousness

B. Beyond Just The Things Of God Being Mysterious, God Himself Is Mysterious Yet This Mysterious God Wants Relationship With Us?

C. How Many

…Men would agree that women are mysterious creatures?

…Women would agree that men are mysterious creatures?

D. In The Redemptive Relationship – You Have Two Principally Different Agents

1. The Creator and the Creature (mankind) the bride of Christ

2. As different & more so than a man / woman relataionship

3. Pre-marital counseling – 2 hands

a. very much the same – but so very different closer together

b. this is why closer a person grows to Lord, more he is aware of how base he is and need of God’s forgiveness and apt to be less judgemental

c. the judgemental, legalistic, Pharisees not at all close to God

4. Understanding what Jesus was saying in Matthew 13 – understanding dynamics of Creator/creature (male / female) relationships

E. Much Of Mystery In Male/Female Relationships Is Their Brains Are So Different “If I Could Just Get Inside Their Head”

1. It’s said that women talk more than men

a. women 20,000 words/day; men 7,000 words/day

b. women have 11% more neurons in her brain centre for language and hearing than a man.

2. It’s said that men want sex all the time – women not so much? brain space devoted to the female sex drive is 2 1/2 times smaller than the space set aside in a man’s brain.

3. It’s said that women seem more emotional? Or…It’s said that women remember special occasions better than men The principal hub for emotion and memory formation -- the Hippocampus -- is larger in a woman than in a man.

- women have an 8 lane superhighway for processing emotion

- men have a small country road

4. It’s said that men are typically more aggressive - The amygdala, which registers fear and triggers aggression, is larger in the male brain.

F. Apply This Male/Female Relationship Difference To Bride of Christ & Her Groom

Built-In Mystery (Inherent) Because We Are So Different From The Creator

1. Women, trying to understand the mind of God (or a Matthew 13 parable) is like trying to understand the mind of a man

2. Men, trying to understand the mind of God (or a Matthew 13 parable) is like trying to understand the mind of a woman

G. God Is Truly Not Trying To Trick Us

1. Men, sometimes with your girlfriend / wife, feel like she’s trying to trick you, trap you, trip you up with a cross-eyed question