Matthew chapter 11:25-30 (continued)

“At that time Jesus said, ‘I thank You, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because You have hidden these things from the wise and prudent and revealed them to infants. Even so, Father, for it seemed good in Your sight. All things are delivered to Me by My Father, and no one knows the Son, except the Father.

And no one knows the Father, except the Son and he to whom the Son will reveal Him. Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavily burdened, and I will give you rest.  Take My yoke upon you, and learn from Me. For I am meek and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy, and My burden is light.’”

Last time we ended talking about God’s sovereign grace. Everyone will come face to face with the wonder grace of our Lord at some point in their lives. God loves us all. He is so patient and kind even in His holiness and hatred for sin. His love and grace towards the sinner is unmatched ever in history.

This morning as I was reading in 1 Kings 21:7-29 and I saw that God was gracious to Ahab, the most evil king that ever-ruled Israel. When Ahab genuinely repented God was gracious; what a mighty God we serve!

Today we will look at one of the most important benefits of salvation; rest. God established rest as an essential part of the creation experience. We often say that God created the heavens and earth in six days and technically He did, BUT His account of creation included the day of rest. Does God need rest?  No! That is the most obvious answer you will ever have on a test. Yet God established an essential principle to mankind, even before the fall of man, we need rest.

There are many kinds of rest.  Physical rest of course in the form of sleep is essential.  As much as we boast of how little sleep we need to function, the truth is we need to sleep about 8 hours per night. Jesus needed sleep as a man, yes God slept. In Mark 4:38 and Matthew 8:24 we find accounts of Jesus sleeping so soundly that a storm could not wake him.

Jesus often went off by himself and we find Him reclining in many places. Jesus took the principle of rest very seriously. There is also mental rest; the rest from worrying. This kind of rest is the one that most of us get the least of.  We worry and worry about everything.  I am guilty of this. I read today where worrying is like sitting in a rocking chair, there is a lot of movement, but you don’t get anywhere, how true.

We Are to Be Like Infants, Verse 25-26

We have three children—Ocean, North and Saturn. We love them dearly. Ocean and North are in their teens and they are beginning to understand money and both the power and restrictions it can bring. Saturn is about to turn 3 and she has no idea of what money is except that mommy gives it to her on Sundays to put in the offering. She offers to give the lady money at the grocery store and she is constantly asking for things, as do the teenagers.

Saturn does not worry about stuff. If she goes to the fridge and there are no grapes, she takes strawberries. She expects that when she wants or needs something it will be there. She is into pull-ups now and she just goes and gets them and puts them on. She knows where they are and she just gets them and puts them on when she needs one. She does not worry about pull-ups, food or anything else.

God wants us to be like infants—worry free. But one other thing that Jesus says here that we often miss is that it is to us—the infants, that God has revealed His secrets. Even some of the most revered men in the Old Testament did not understand God as we understand Him. They saw God once; in King David’s case He saw Him a few times and in Solomon’s case he saw God twice.

Yet God reveals Himself to us daily in and through His Holy Spirit. He lives in us and has written a canon of 66 books with which to teach us and make His mysteries known. You and I know more about the end than Daniel did. We know more about Jesus that Isaiah did. Isaiah saw Him in His glory, we see Him as a man.

We hear his speech, feel His touch and love His grace. We are loved and cared for like Saturn is loved and cared for, His loving grace is so open to us and yet we are often thankless and selfish.  We forget that God and Jesus love infants, they love their unfailing faith and love.  We are called to be infants in Jesus. We have the bodies of men, but the loving, unfailing faith of infants in that grown body. See Mathew 19:14:

“Then Jesus said, ‘Leave the children alone, and don’t try to keep them from coming to Me, because the kingdom of heaven is made up of people like this.’”

Jesus Reveals God to Us, Verse 27

Jesus is the revelation of God to us.  John 1:1 tells us that Jesus is God.  John 10:30 tells us that Jesus and God are the same. John 14:19 says, if you have seen me you have seen the Father.  I can go on and on, but you get the picture.  Jesus is God and it is to us that this wonderful truth has been revealed.  One of the ways to find out if you are talking to a true believer is to ask them who Jesus is.

Many will say He is a good man, a good teacher, a historical figure and some will even deny His existence, but these are a few.  But when someone says He is God and then you know that you are speaking to a believer and this fact is revealed by Jesus through the Holy Spirit to us. 1 John 2:23 goes one step further and tells us that whoever denies the Son does NOT have the Father.  This is a serious statement, but it is one which weeds out true Christians from the pretenders.

I once had two Jehovah Witness fellows come to my home and argue that Jesus is the Son of God and as such could not be God since they are two people. We know that Jesus is the Son of God and sadly they forget that God is all powerful and able to do mysterious things, like come in the form of a man and yet still be the Omnipresent God. But just so that they could understand that Jesus by claiming to be the Son of God was actually claiming to be equal with God I shared with them this verses from John 5:17-18:

“But He answered them, ‘My Father is working until now, and I Myself am working.’ For        this reason therefore the Jews were seeking all the more to kill Him, because He not only was breaking the Sabbath, but also was calling God His own Father, making Himself equal with  God.”

The Jews understood that by claiming to be God’s Son Jesus was claiming to be equal with God.  This is very important that we understand this; Jesus claimed that He was equal with God. The men of that day understood his claim and sought to stone him to death.

Death is the rightful punishment for blasphemy, claiming to be god when you are just a man.  This is the same reaction the High Priest had when they questioned Jesus during His trial (see Mark 14:62-64).

“And Jesus said, ‘I am; and you shall see THE SON OF MAN SITTING AT THE RIGHT HAND OF POWER, and COMING WITH THE CLOUDS OF HEAVEN.’ Tearing his clothes, the high priest said, ‘What further need do we have of witnesses? You have heard the blasphemy; how does it seem to you? And they all condemned Him to be deserving of death.”

They understood that He was saying that He was and is the great I AM, God Himself. This is the proverbial line in the sand that one must cross to be a Christian.  One must accept that Jesus is God and not just a man. One must accept that God came to us when it was impossible for us to go to Him and that He saves those that are humble and call out to Him for forgiveness.

Have you done this?  Have you humbled yourself and called out to God, He is still waiting, He is still saving and He is still God.

Rest for Your Souls, Verses 29-30

Rest! This is almost a lost action in our world.  Even more so in the world of the NT church.  We treasure action, activity and work ethic.  God treasures rest.  God did not make the work week holy unto Him, but the Sabbath He made holy.  Israel was not supposed to forsake resting.

“Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, 10 but the seventh day is a Sabbath of the LORD your God; in it you shall not do any work, you or your son or your daughter, your male or your female servant or your cattle or your sojourner who stays with you” (Exodus 20:8-10).

It is amazing to me that God counted not resting as much a sin as adultery, lying and murder.  Did you get that? Now let us take this a step further, the Ten Commandments are divided into two sections, commandments 1-4 deal with our relationship to God and 5-10 deal with our relationship to our fellow man beginning with our parents.  Jesus said that the Law and the Prophets are summed up in two commandments in Luke 10:27:

“And he answered, ‘YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR STRENGTH, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND; AND YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.”

To love God with all your heart includes a time of rest and restoration. Make no mistake, Jesus rested on every Sabbath that He walked on the earth. Yes, He healed the sick and He allowed His followers to pick and eat grain but He rested. His longest journey would have been about 2000 yards—a Sabbath day’s journey. He would have observed the Sabbath because He is Holy and could not sin even for millisecond.

Working ourselves to the bone is not a part of the faith that we have in Jesus.  And the work that Jesus does call us to do is not about us and our human efforts. Yes we have to go, yes we have to sow the seed BUT it is Jesus who does the real work.  His Holy Spirit does the convicting, His Word is the power and His blood saves sinners. We just tell them what He did and who He is.

The results are up to Jesus. I saw a wonderful post on Facebook just the other day a young lady mentioned that Hitler had millions of followers and Jesus had just 12.  The amount of followers is not a true reflection of success. Obedience to God is the only measure of success and in that obedience is the call to rest. In fact Jesus tells us that beyond physical rest that we all need; we will actually find the real rest that we crave, rest for our souls. Our minds will be at ease.

I fail in this matter so often. I worry that my failures are so great that God’s grace will run out.  Yet I see God’s grace in the life of Ahab an evil king and it humbles me to realize that His grace is eternally more than sufficient to cover, forgive and forget my sins. I fail in this matter as the financial storms of life never seem to go away; it appears that it is hurricane season in my wallet all the time.  But God offers me rest for my soul in that He has promised to supply ALL MY NEEDS.

The hardest thing to do for most of us is to let go and let God do His thing. This is what the Sabbath is really all about; it is about accepting that all that we have is from God. Not by working extra hard or working ourselves to the bone as they say, but it is God who supplies and when we have a proper relationship with Him we find time to rest; we rest our bodies in Holy worship to Him, and in turn He gives us rest for our souls. We have not truly rested until we have rested our souls in Jesus and He gives us the rest for our souls.

Have you rested in Jesus?

I asked Jesus to save me when I was 14 years old, about 35 years ago. But the older I get I find that resting in Him is harder and harder as the responsibilities and expectations of life mount. As we get closer to the judgment I am afraid to be found resting, when that is probably more holy that all the human effort that I can exhort.

I continue to try and solve all of our financial issues rather than trusting God. I run into a brick wall after brick wall and find myself exhausted and unraveled. I am not resting, thus I am sinning and making myself into an idol. Forgive me Lord.

I invite you to rest in Jesus. It is the only rest that you will ever have for real and it will last for an eternity. Stop trying to earn God’s favor, if you are lost you need to be saved and if you are saved God has already accepted you in Jesus. Stop trying to get what you already have. I leave you with this:

“The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want  He makes me lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside still waters. He restores my soul; He leads me in paths of righteousness for His name’s sake. Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for You are with me Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; You anoint my head with oil; my cup runs over.  Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever” (Psalm 23:1-6).

Missionarybaptistchurch76@yahoo.ca

www.mississaugamissionarybc.com

Matthew chapter 11:1-11 (continued)

“When Jesus finished instructing His twelve disciples, He departed from there to teach and to preach in their cities. Now when John had heard in prison the works of Christ, he sent two of his disciples,  and said to Him, ‘Are You He who should come, or should we look for another?’ Jesus answered them, ‘Go and tell John what you hear and see: The blind receive their 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. Blessed is he who does not fall away because of Me.’

As they departed, Jesus began to say to the crowds concerning John, ‘What did you go out into the wilderness to see? A reed shaken by the wind? If not, what did you go out to see? A man dressed in soft clothing? Indeed, those who wear soft clothing are in kings’ houses. Then what did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I say to you, and more than a prophet. For this is he of whom it is written:’

‘Look, I am sending My messenger before Your face, who will prepare Your way before You. Truly I say to you, among those who are born of women, there has risen no one greater than John the Baptist. But he who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.’”

We ended our look at chapter 10 with a challenge to all of us to invest our resources in the kingdom of heaven. We are to look out for the needs of our brothers, sisters and the needs of the poor around us whenever and wherever possible.

Too many of us use our monies and resources for a lot of things that have no eternal benefits. Where you spend your money will say a lot about what or to whom you are committed. Money talks as they say. My question is what does your money say about you, your loyalties and your priorities?

Today we will move into chapter 11 and we encounter Jesus teaching about John the Baptist.  He is a great part of the Gospel story and we will explore a bit about him today.

Are You the One? Verses 1-3

When one sees this verse it would be easy for some of us to judge John and say that he was doubting that Jesus was who He said he was. John, of course, was Jesus’ cousin; he was about 6 months older that Jesus. He would have known Jesus from his youth, he would have seen him at family functions like weddings or as they went to the Temple to sacrifice. We are not told how much they would have seen each other but John certainly would have known both from his mother and father who Jesus was and is.

John was more than just a messenger or a prophet of God.  He was the greatest prophet in two senses. He was the last Old Testament prophet. After 400 years of silence from God after Malachi the prophet spoke, God raised up John the Baptist to usher in the age of the New Covenant. John was the forerunner to the Messiah and as Jesus points out the fulfillment of a prophecy found in Malachi 3:1:

“I will send My messenger, and he will prepare the way before Me. And the Lord, whom you seek, will suddenly come to His temple, even the messenger of the covenant, in whom you delight. He is coming, says the Lord of Hosts.”

A forerunner in that day was someone who ran ahead of a dignitary (most often a king), to let  the people know that he was coming. The forerunner would go to the people that the king was planning to visit and let them know to “make the paths straight” for the king to come to them.

The people upon hearing the news would flatten the roads and make the road as straight as possible so that the king would have the least amount of work to get there.  He would be able to make a straight line to the place he was planning to visit.

This was the intention with Jesus leaving heaven to come and visit Israel. He sent a herald ahead to prepare a people for the Lord. John, we are told came preaching “Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” or near.  He was alluding to the coming King—Jesus, who would come to establish a new covenant in His blood with all mankind.  As was His practice, God came to the Jews first to reveal himself.

He came to honor the promises He had made to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.  It would appear   from some of the studying that I have done that John, like many of the Jews may have been disillusioned by the coming of Jesus. I mean here he was sitting in a prison, held captive by Gentile rulers when the man he knew was the rightful king of Israel was there in person, walking amongst them.

Where was the revolution? Where was the restoration of the nation? He was not the only one disillusioned; even after the resurrection the Apostles still were missing the point. They asked Jesus in Acts 1:6 if He (Jesus) was going to restore the kingdom of Israel?

Jesus reassured John that He was (is) indeed the Messiah. He told the men from John to tell him of the miraculous signs that they saw and had heard about. Jesus asks them to reassure John and tell him to keep the faith in Acts 1:6.  It is not abnormal to have doubts or questions; this is a part of the human experience.

How we deal with doubt is very important. Jesus goes over all the miraculous works that He is doing, things we see in our lives and the lives of those around us.  One of the greatest signs is that the poor have the gospel preached to them. This is still happening in every corner of the earth today.

There are missionaries in the deepest darkest places on this planet preaching the gospel; men  and women who have moved their families, given up their comforts and literally risk their lives to take the gospel to those who have not heard it.  The message is still the same, “The kingdom of heaven is at hand.”

As you look around you it is easy to get discouraged and downhearted, we see the state of our nations, the state of our homes, the murder of babies, and the complete disregard for the morality of God in our governments. We can get defeated and get to thinking “Woe is m.”  Look around you, read the paper and the Bible and you will see that God is in control; everything He said would happen is happening and so you can trust your today and your tomorrows to Him.

He inhabits tomorrow and He will prevail—you will prevail.  God is God and that cannot be changed; chin up my brothers and sisters, God is not mocked.  This little ball in space will not continue to wave its fist in God’s face for much longer.

But while we wait let us be about the Master’s business, let us love one another with the fervent love. Let us serve one another with honest genuine care and concern and let us serve the lost so that by our love they too can miss hell and see the gospel in us. Jesus, are you the One? Yes, He is!

Prophets and Profit, Verses 7-9

I like money. I like to be able to take my wife out for dinners and make sure my kids have all they need and on and on I can go. Money, they say, makes the world go around. But the Bible warns us that the “love of money is the root of all evil.” All through the Bible there are dire warnings against the prophets, priest and judges of Israel not to take money or be after “filthy lucre.”  In Micah 3:11 we see this verse:

“Her leaders issue rulings for a bribe, her priests teach for payment, and her prophets practice divination for money. Yet they lean on the LORD, saying, ‘Isn’t the LORD among us? No disaster will overtake us’”

In the New Testament in 1 Timothy 3:3 a bishop is also called an overseer or in today’s vocabulary (a pastor) and he should not be one who “loves money.” Man this is tough on some men today. A man naturally wants to take care of his wife and family. But standing for the truth is not supposed to be a way to riches.

If the Lord allows you to become rich, then so be it.  But it is not the goal of the ministry. In the case that we are considering, the religious rulers of the day were often very wealthy, much more so than the common people, they certainly had more money than Jesus. John was of the priestly tribe, Levi, he could have been wealthy or at least wealthier than he was but he chose to be poor for the sake of his message.

The gospel is not a way to get rich.  It was offered freely to all men by God so we should honor that and offer it freely as well.  Money perverts the truth and once you and your family have become accustomed to a certain lifestyle it is hard to come down.

Even if you have lots of money and God blesses you that way, it may be wise to reinvest the money in God’s work rather than to spend it on things. There is nothing wrong with being rich. Solomon was rich beyond anything we can imagine even in the world of billionaires that we see today.

But getting rich at the expense of  the loss of integrity is sin. It is idolatry when money becomes your god. John the Baptist was unlike the religious leaders of his day, he shied away from the luxuries and dainties of the religious sect, he, and as a Nazarite (see Numbers 6) he did not drink wine, eat grapes and he certainly did not cut his hair. John would have been a very rough character compared to the groomed and polished religious sects of his day.

Unlike the religious sects of the day his message was the truth and his warning about the coming kingdom of heaven is real.  John was preaching in the wilderness out by the Jordan River and people had to go out to see him.  They did, many did and even Jesus did one day. John was given the privilege of baptizing Jesus as He was about to begin his earthly ministry.

 Old Testament Covenant vs. the New Testament Covenant, Verses 11-12

John ended the time of the Old Testament Covenant of Laws and ordinances when he introduced Jesus to the world.  He was executed shortly after that, his job complete. Jesus ushered in the New Testament Covenant that brought freedom to the whole earth. This new covenant would open the door for the Lord’s people to see Jesus at death and not pine away in Paradise waiting for the death, burial and the resurrection of the Messiah.

This new era ushered in by John when he introduced Jesus was a time when the Holy Spirit would come to live in men and women like you and me once we believed in Jesus.  This new era would see you and me as the temples of God, not some ornamented building in the heart of Jerusalem that we had to go to meet with God.

In the Old Testament the Holy Spirit came on people at certain times. In the New Testament the Holy Spirit actually lives here on earth. In the Old Testament the High Priest had to offer a sacrifice for us so that God would have temporary peace with us.  In the New Testament Jesus has offered an eternal sacrifice once and for all that allows us to have peace with God forever.

My sins are wiped away forever (Micah 7:19), cast into the bottom of the sea. You and I carry a message of grace that supersedes the Law of the Old Testament. We preach the gospel of God’s great love shown by the death of His Son on the cross. The Old Testament Law condemned us and revealed our sin. The New Testament grace, when accepted—justifies us and covers our sins.

“Jesus did it all, all to Him I owe, sin had left a crimson stain He washed it white as snow.”

You and I, my dear friends are greater preachers that John the Baptist; not in actions or ability, BUT in our message. The great and mighty God of heaven stepped out and touched this sin ravished earth, His holy feet walking in our filth, His holy hands touching our sinful faces, His holy love having compassion on us helpless humans, and His righteous blood spilled by the very ones He came to save.

This is the message we carry: Jesus came to us and He bowed down and put off His royal garments and put aside for 33 plus years His glorious glow so that we could touch and see and hear that God is real and that He loves us right to the utmost, even to die for us and to pay for our sins (Romans 5:8).

But God proves His own love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us!

Do you want to be great in the kingdom of heaven? Do you want God to know who you are?

Take the message of Jesus Christ—executed, buried and resurrected to ALL that you know.  Wear it on t-shirts, put it on bumper stickers, hand out Bibles, tracts and share it on FB. Get the message out: God loves you, He loves you so much that He died for you.

He took away your sin debt, He made a way, the ONLY way to heaven if you believe you can have forgiveness of your sins and eternal peace with God.  This is how you become great in the kingdom of God. Tell someone, anyone that Jesus saves.

Luke 19: 9-10 “And Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, because he, too, is a son of Abraham. ‘For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost.’”

Missionarybaptistchurch76@yahoo.ca

www.mississaugamissionarybc.com