Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] All right, you beautiful moms, we got to give you a clap today.
[00:00:13] It is the wisdom of God to give us mothers.
[00:00:22] Mom, you're doing more than just raising a kid.
[00:00:27] You're raising a child of God.
[00:00:31] You're raising the children of God.
[00:00:36] And raising children of God turns out, is not so easy.
[00:00:43] So I'm going to say a special blessing for you this morning in my prayer.
[00:00:49] Dear Heavenly Father, in your wisdom, you established families and you granted us the gift of a father and a mother.
[00:01:09] And you granted us their care and wisdom so we could be initiated into life.
[00:01:20] And we are all grateful to you.
[00:01:24] I pray for these moms today that the spirit of Christ would enrich their souls.
[00:01:32] I pray that they would have a sense of your divine appreciation.
[00:01:37] I pray that in their heart they would be aware that you treasure them and value them and you appreciate every good effort they make.
[00:01:50] I'm praying for the moms who have great kids that the joy of the Lord would fill their hearts.
[00:01:58] I'm praying for the moms whose children are struggling and they often find themselves weeping.
[00:02:05] I pray that you would affirm them. I pray that you'd strengthen them.
[00:02:10] I pray that you would remind them that. That you love these struggling children more than they do.
[00:02:17] I pray, Heavenly Father, that every mother would have a sense of divine affirmation this morning.
[00:02:27] I also pray, Father, that I could speak about Jesus Christ in a way that honors him and in a way that he deserves.
[00:02:37] I pray that I would speak of him in a way that is compelling and all our hearts would be drawn closer to you. And we would want to submit ourselves to the wonder and the goodness of Jesus Christ.
[00:02:53] And I ask this for your honor and glory. In Jesus name, Amen.
[00:03:03] When Jesus was 30 years old, he passed his tool bag to his brother.
[00:03:13] He spent the first 30 years of his life as a craftsman.
[00:03:18] I know you learned that Jesus was a carpenter, but another one where we didn't quite get it right with the little flannel graph. Jesus is.
[00:03:31] He was a craftsman.
[00:03:33] And very few houses were built of wood. When Jesus was young, they were mostly stone or mud brick houses.
[00:03:42] I've seen pictures of Jesus making furniture.
[00:03:45] Average people did not have furniture in their house.
[00:03:50] So Jesus wasn't a carpenter or a furniture maker. He was probably a mason.
[00:03:56] And probably he learned the skill from his dad and they built houses and buildings together.
[00:04:03] But when he was 30, he passed his tool bag to his brothers.
[00:04:09] Nazareth is built on a hill and he walked up the street and walked up to the top of the hill.
[00:04:18] Got on a road and made his way east to the Sea of Galilee.
[00:04:24] The Sea of Galilee. He turned south and followed the Jordan river to a little village called Anon.
[00:04:34] And although this was a small village in the middle of nowhere, there were literally thousands of people there.
[00:04:44] John the Baptist was preaching and he was baptizing people.
[00:04:49] And Jesus stood in the crowd that day and listened to John say, ah, who warned you, generation of snakes to flee from the wrath of God?
[00:05:02] When the sermon was over, Jesus got in line and waited his turn.
[00:05:10] And when it was his turn, he walked into the Jordan River.
[00:05:14] And John looked him in the face and said, ah, I have need to be baptized by you.
[00:05:23] And Jesus said, permit this to be so that we can fulfill all righteousness.
[00:05:31] And John dipped Jesus Christ into the waters of the Jordan River.
[00:05:36] And when he came up out of the water, the heaven, the sky broke open.
[00:05:43] And a dove flew down and landed on Christ's shoulder.
[00:05:49] And a beautiful voice was heard in the broken sky that said, this is my beloved Son, in whom I think very well. I think very well.
[00:06:04] And then Jesus came up out of the water and was guided by the Holy Spirit to a wilderness place, just alley.
[00:06:16] There were very few villages there.
[00:06:19] It was arid. You couldn't have a farm out there.
[00:06:23] It was. It was.
[00:06:25] It was a wilderness.
[00:06:29] And the Gospels tell us that Jesus spent 40 days and 40 nights in the wilderness, praying, meditating.
[00:06:42] And at the end of those 40 days, the unholy One showed up and said to Jesus, I don't believe you are the Son of God.
[00:07:00] If you really are the Son of God, prove it.
[00:07:05] Turn these stones into bread.
[00:07:10] The Unholy One had thousands of years of deceiving humanity. He had thousands of years of having his way in, winning, in temptation.
[00:07:21] But on this day, he picked the wrong person to test.
[00:07:27] And Jesus looked at the Unholy One and he said, man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.
[00:07:42] But the Unholy One doesn't give up easily.
[00:07:47] And he caused Jesus to sense that he was on a very high mountain.
[00:07:55] And he showed him the known kingdoms of the world.
[00:07:59] Rome, Greece, Egypt, Persia.
[00:08:06] And he said to him, all this I will give you if you will bow down and worship me.
[00:08:17] Jesus looked at him and said, it has been written, thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shall you serve.
[00:08:30] The Unholy One had to have one more, three strikes.
[00:08:36] And he caused Jesus to sense that he was on the pinnacle of the temple.
[00:08:43] When you think of pinnacle don't think of the, the pinnacle of a steeple.
[00:08:48] Ah, the pinnacle of the temple is the south east wall of the temple, the corner of the southeast wall.
[00:08:58] It is the highest part of the wall.
[00:09:03] You can, you can see it in pictures still today.
[00:09:07] And he said, I don't believe you're the Son of God.
[00:09:10] If you are the Son of God, prove it.
[00:09:14] Just step off here.
[00:09:16] For it is written, he will give his angels a command about you and they will bear you up in their hand so that at no time will you strike your foot against the stone.
[00:09:30] And Jesus said to the Unholy One, it is written, you shall not put the Lord your God to the test.
[00:09:42] And then something happened to the Unholy One that had never happened. Jesus said, you are dismissed. Go.
[00:09:51] And the Gospels tell us that he left.
[00:09:57] And then Jesus began his ministry.
[00:10:01] And for the next two and a half years he chose 12 apostles.
[00:10:06] He discipled them, he did miracles, he helped people, he showed the love of God.
[00:10:16] But the Unholy One wasn't through with him.
[00:10:19] And he decided to make another run at Jesus.
[00:10:24] This time he showed up and spoke through the mouths of the scribes and the Pharisees.
[00:10:35] And Matthew recorded it. He said, Then some of the scribes and the Pharisees answered him, saying, teacher, we wish to see a sign from you.
[00:10:45] But he answered them, an evil and adulterous generation seek for a sign.
[00:10:51] But no sign will be given to it except the sign of Jonah the prophet.
[00:10:58] For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the sea creature, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.
[00:11:08] The men of Nineveh will rise up in the judgment with this generation and condemn it.
[00:11:16] For they repented at the preaching of Jonah. And behold, someone greater than Jonah is here.
[00:11:26] The scribes and the Pharisees basically said the same thing to Jesus that the Unholy One had said.
[00:11:36] We don't believe you are who you say you are.
[00:11:41] Now do something to prove that you are the Son of God.
[00:11:48] I find it very interesting that Jesus always operated on two levels. He operated on the level of the people who were standing in front of him.
[00:12:01] But he was always aware that there was some greater conflict than just the scribes and the Pharisees standing in front of him.
[00:12:11] Paul explained this when he said, in Ephesians, we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against rulers and against authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against spiritual forces of evil in heavenly places.
[00:12:33] You see Christ understood that more than just a religious argument with some scribes and Pharisees, this was a moment in his work of defeating the work of the devil.
[00:12:49] Ah, the unholy one who said to him, prove it.
[00:12:54] He says to him again, show us a sign that proves you're the Son of God.
[00:13:02] The problem is, for two and a half years, that's all he had done.
[00:13:08] Everywhere he went, the stuff he did proved he was the Son of God.
[00:13:16] When he spoke parables that helped people understand the reality of God most clearly. He was sharing the thoughts of God when he did miracles and good works, he was sharing the power of God when. When the qualities of his soul shone with grace, mercy and peace. And he was showing the character of God.
[00:13:45] And who other than Jesus Christ can claim to have lived a sinless life?
[00:13:52] Not one single sin.
[00:13:58] Not one.
[00:14:00] I doubt if I'll get home from work today without sinning. And he, he lived his entire life sinlessly.
[00:14:09] It wasn't that he hadn't shown that he was the Son of God. He had shown it very plainly.
[00:14:16] The problem was their eyes were blinded and they couldn't see the spiritual truth.
[00:14:24] I wonder if you've come here today and somewhere in your heart you have whispered to God, I want you to prove it.
[00:14:41] If you're God, prove it.
[00:14:45] Or maybe you've been more specific.
[00:14:48] If you're God, prove it by doing this.
[00:14:54] Church.
[00:14:56] Have you said to God, if you're really God, don't let this happen.
[00:15:03] Church.
[00:15:05] Christ does not prove himself to us by doing cheap tricks.
[00:15:13] He doesn't prove himself to us by pandering to our temporal issues.
[00:15:22] He proves himself to be the Son of God in power.
[00:15:26] And he primarily proves it in quiet, subtle, holy ways. In the human heart.
[00:15:36] The Pharisees lacked the one thing that God requires the most.
[00:15:41] Faith.
[00:15:42] Church. Without faith, it is impossible to please God.
[00:15:48] But the Pharisees possessed what God most resists, pride.
[00:15:54] Their problem was they had no faith and they were full of pride. And they couldn't see the reality of Jesus Christ standing right in front of them.
[00:16:08] And Jesus responded in an unusual way.
[00:16:16] In fact, it's rather harsh.
[00:16:22] He rebuked them and said, an evil and idolatrous generation seek for a sign.
[00:16:32] Can you hear what Jesus is saying?
[00:16:35] He's saying to these scribes and Pharisees who are religious leaders.
[00:16:40] Scribes are primarily people who taught the law.
[00:16:43] Pharisees lived by 300 and I forget 300 and no 638 rules.
[00:16:49] Wouldn't that be great?
[00:16:51] 638 rules.
[00:16:54] And they were abusive to anybody who didn't agree with them.
[00:17:00] And Jesus looked past their external appearance and he said, the tragedy is you're being used by the unholy one and you don't even know it.
[00:17:15] You are being manipulated by evil and you don't even know it.
[00:17:24] Shea and I were driving yesterday and we came to a four way stop and one car went.
[00:17:35] People were waiting their turn. And you know, it gets backed up, people waiting their turn.
[00:17:41] Well, one person decided not to wait their turn.
[00:17:45] So when the car in front of them went, they just went with them.
[00:17:50] So the other car that's coming sideways, he starts pulling out white F150. I got to believe he was a good man.
[00:18:04] And they're both honking their horns and then they're doing this, you know what I mean?
[00:18:11] One goes forward a little bit the other and it's unnerving everybody else there. Do you know what I mean? You can't watch that stuff. And, and I thought to myself, this is a, this is a metaphor for life right here.
[00:18:34] Ah, we're just going to sit here in this intersection and honk our horns at each other and we're going to inch forward a little bit and we're going to see who can annoy the other one until they're willing to give up church. Does that kind of feel like I want us, I want you to hear what Jesus is saying today.
[00:18:58] I do not want to be an instrument of wickedness in the world.
[00:19:05] I don't want to be.
[00:19:07] I want to present myself to God as a weapon of righteousness.
[00:19:14] I want to present myself to God with the weapons of righteousness in my right hand and in my left.
[00:19:23] I want to make the intersection better, not worse.
[00:19:28] Church.
[00:19:33] Jesus said to the Pharisees, you are as religious as a person can possibly be, but you're still an instrument of evil in the world.
[00:19:45] Church.
[00:19:49] And he said, I'm not giving you a sign.
[00:19:53] I'm not going to do a cheap trick.
[00:19:56] But you pride yourself in knowing the Bible. And I'm going to tell you, the prophet Jonah is a sign. You want a sign?
[00:20:06] Look at the prophet Jonah.
[00:20:10] And Jesus said, for just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the sea creature, so the son of man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.
[00:20:21] I find this comparison very interesting because when we ended the book of Jonah last week, it didn't end well. Did ended with Jonah sitting on a hill angry with God.
[00:20:35] I want one more chapter. I want Jonah to figure it out and say, God, I'm sorry, it doesn't end that way.
[00:20:42] And so for Jesus to say Jonah is assigned to you had to be jarring to the Pharisees.
[00:20:55] Ah, listen.
[00:20:57] Jonah went into the sea creature, disobeying God. How did he end up in that sea creature? He ran from God.
[00:21:05] Jesus went to the tomb, obeying God.
[00:21:10] They're not very much alike in that, are they?
[00:21:13] Jonah passed out, remembering the Lord. Jesus died, saying, father, into your hands I commend my soul.
[00:21:23] That's not very similar.
[00:21:27] Jonah was spit out on the beach and Christ rose and ascended to the right hand of majesty.
[00:21:35] Jonah was angry with God for his mercy and grace. Jesus mediated mercy and grace everywhere he went.
[00:21:43] Jonah's preaching saved Nineveh for 100 years.
[00:21:47] Jesus's work saves us eternally.
[00:21:52] So when I compare Jesus and Jonah, I don't see a good linkage.
[00:22:02] But Jesus is saying, maybe that's the whole point.
[00:22:10] Maybe instead of Jesus saying Jonah and I are alike, maybe he's saying just the opposite. You thought Jonah was a really great prophet, but in fact he's inferior to me in every single way.
[00:22:28] The prophet that you want to honor so highly is inferior to me in every way.
[00:22:37] Jesus said, the men of Nineveh will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, for they repented at the preaching of Jonah. And behold, someone greater than Jonah is here.
[00:22:51] Jonah was defeated by the testing of evil, and Christ defeated evil when he was tested.
[00:23:01] Jonah preached one sermon, repent, or Nineveh will be destroyed.
[00:23:08] Jesus preached the most interesting ideas and parables the human race has ever heard.
[00:23:16] Jonah didn't do one single miracle.
[00:23:21] Jesus died to save us.
[00:23:24] Jonah was angry because God saved people like us.
[00:23:29] The Pharisees, in their vain pride, considered themselves better than the pagan Ninevites.
[00:23:36] Jesus said, the Ninevites will stand in judgment and condemn them all. Right, here's why I need to make this point again.
[00:23:45] The Bible isn't written for us to look at people who made mistakes and go, oh, what a bunch of idiots they are. I'd have never done that.
[00:23:54] The Bible is written for all of us to look at the mistakes other people have made and then examine our own heart and say to ourselves, what's going on in me church?
[00:24:12] This.
[00:24:14] This passage wants every one of us to ask, who am I looking down on?
[00:24:23] Who have I convinced myself that I'm so much better than they are?
[00:24:32] And is it possible?
[00:24:34] Is it possible that I might be shocked if Jesus said the person and the People you look down on, they'll stand up in judgment because they have responded to my word in ways you've never been willing.
[00:24:58] Do you have a heart to hear it? Church Ah, the Pharisees, misguided by evil, misdirected in their own arrogance, looked at Jesus and considered him inferior to Jonah, when in fact he was the greatest of all prophets.
[00:25:33] For this sermon, I reread a chapter from N.T. wright's book, Jesus the Victory of God.
[00:25:42] And I read his chapter on Jesus being a prophet.
[00:25:47] And N.T. wright said Jesus was a prophet in four ways.
[00:25:54] First, he was an oracular prophet.
[00:25:58] Oracular prophet means he was an oracle. He spoke things that only God knows.
[00:26:07] Jesus is the greatest of all prophets because he spoke things that only God knows.
[00:26:15] He was a popular prophet.
[00:26:19] When Jonah's sermons were done, nobody wanted to hang out.
[00:26:24] When Jonah went out to sit on the hill, he sat out there alone.
[00:26:29] Everywhere Jesus went, he drew a crowd. He was a popular prophet.
[00:26:37] He was an action prophet.
[00:26:40] Many of the things Jesus did were lessons in themselves. Here's an example.
[00:26:46] A leper once came to Jesus and said, if you wish, you can make me whole.
[00:26:53] Now listen what happens.
[00:26:55] Jesus said, I do wish.
[00:26:58] And he reached out and touched him.
[00:27:01] I believe I've told you, nobody touched lepers. They didn't even get within 10ft of lepers.
[00:27:09] Jesus's action was a prophetic action. The act of touching someone who everybody else considered untouchable. It was the act of a prophet. He's saying, I want you to see what God does.
[00:27:27] The people you think are untouchable, God touches.
[00:27:31] And then he had this fourth category that I found very interesting.
[00:27:36] He was a leadership prophet.
[00:27:40] Ah, some of the prophets were able to lead and other prophets weren't.
[00:27:46] Ah, Jeremiah spent his entire ministry and couldn't lead the the people he was trying to lead.
[00:27:55] He succeeded as a prophet but failed as a leader.
[00:28:01] He was a leadership prophet. Luke said Jesus was a prophet mining in word. Indeed, the world is different because Jesus came as a prophet.
[00:28:18] Ultimately, church the bigger picture, the last thing I want us to look at, the last thought I want in our mind in this Jonah series, it's really not about Jonah. Jonah points to someone greater than himself.
[00:28:42] Jonah's failures are. Are the failures of a typical human being.
[00:28:49] Human beings at their very best are imperfect prophets.
[00:28:54] But Jesus said the prophet Jonah points to someone greater than who he is.
[00:29:02] We are. We were never supposed to read the book of Jonah and see it as, see it as a paradigm for us. We were supposed to read the book of Jonah and look past Jonah at this bigger and greater spiritual reality.
[00:29:20] As Jesus looked at the Pharisees and the scribes and recognized the evil behind them.
[00:29:27] We are supposed to look at these Old Testament prophets and look beyond them and see the wonder and the majesty and the beauty of our Lord Jesus Christ. Do you hear this?
[00:29:39] Ultimately, Christ was a divine prophet.
[00:29:45] He declared and initiated the triumph of the plan of God, eternal salvation and the recreation of humanity in the image of God.
[00:29:58] The book of Jonah is a escalator and it is meant to lift us above the mundane average day to day world. And it's meant to help us look and see that above all of this there is the great prophet, our Lord Jesus Christ.
[00:30:23] And he is, he is at work both to will and to work according his own good pleasure.
[00:30:32] Church here's what I'm asking you to do today.
[00:30:36] I'm asking you to.
[00:30:39] To examine your heart and I'm asking you how open are you to the prophetic work of Jesus Christ in you?
[00:30:52] How open are you to.
[00:30:54] To Christ speaking to you and calling the best out of you?
[00:30:59] How open are you to Christ speaking to you and calling you away from sin that's wrecking your life?
[00:31:10] How open are you to Christ whispering to your heart and saying, I want you to be an instant of my grace, mercy and peace in the world?
[00:31:20] Are you open to the prophetic work of Jesus Christ where he calls you to God's best idea of who you are and you become his partner in making the intersection a better place and not a worse place.
[00:31:37] Our dear Heavenly Father, I pray in the name of Jesus Christ that this, this study could nurture something that is holy and good in our souls.
[00:31:56] I pray that we would look beyond Jonah and we'd look on to Jesus, the originator and the perfecter of our faith.
[00:32:05] I pray that we would have hearts that are open to your prophetic word.
[00:32:10] That you could call us away from what is ugly, ruined and broken.
[00:32:15] And you could call us to what is beautiful, healthy, pleasing to you.
[00:32:20] I pray that your heart, your spirit would whisper to us and we would sense that you are at work in us in beautiful ways.
[00:32:29] And then I pray that we would respond by worshiping and glorifying you the way you deserve. In Jesus name, amen.
