Jesus the Messiah Pt 1

you join me in prayer father we thank you for this opportunity this sunday morning to come and worship you in song lord you are worthy of all of our praise lord we thank you for your grace lord an unmerited favor for by grace are we saved by faith not that it works lest any man should boast but it's a gift of god we thank you for that lord jesus so bless our time we lift this day to you would you place in order to it for us lord that saved like me i once lost the hour my safe ransom like of my savior has ransomed my chains my chains are gone and said my savior has ransomed his mercy raising shall like snow the sun for we belong to you lord through us you you brought us to you by your

holy spirit heard a message we responded faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of god we thank you lord jesus you may be seated become discouraged in life you're always there your love is in feeling you're our strength washing up we say just give me jesus in you yes lord without you or nothing

is simply to sing i love you lord put our voices to you we thank you bless now our time as we continue our service in your word in jesus name amen take some fellowship time there good morning if you would begin locating your seat grab your bulletin we'll get ready to go over a few announcements glad you braved the uh the rain this morning to uh come out and join us so some things going on on the left hand side of your box to help you get ready to go over a few results your bulletin. As always, the things are happening this week, so locate one of those. All the times and days are listed over there, so find some spots to get plugged in. Over in the center section of

your bulletin, some things to pay attention to. Just a reminder that the Prophecy Conference up at Calvary of Emporia begins this Thursday. It'll be Thursday through Saturday, so if you have a chance to make it up there, it'd be a good time of some teaching. A reminder that our baptism picnic and family swim night will be coming up June the 26th from 6 to 8 30. We'll

meet at six o'clock at the picnic shelter at Paris Park, and then at seven we'll go over to the pool. If you've not been baptized and you would like to talk to me about that, please come see me after the service. Also, don't forget VBS. This is coming up July 6th through the 8th. I think there's a little bit of a work day this afternoon, I believe from two to five, if I remember correctly. If you want to get some

kids registered, that QR code right there, if you scan that, it'll take you to a spot where you can get kids registered, and it kind of ties in with all of the things that we have going on with Sunday school registration here. One other thing that is not on your bulletin, because I always forget to put this on here because it's only a once a month thing, is intercessory prayer is tonight at six o'clock. Six to seven o'clock tonight, back in the agape room. And then the last thing is that there are some opportunities to serve if you're looking to get plugged in. We need some help in the cleaning

ministry. We need some help in the greeting ministry, which if you don't know what the greeting ministry is, in between the services, Elaine Phillips, I kind of tasked her with doing this, kind of getting something going, being able to greet new people that come and kind of show them around to relieve a little bit of the, you know, the, you know, the, you know, the, you know, the jobs that the ushers do. And so if you want to get involved in helping out with that, see Elaine Phillips. And then also we need some helpers in the Sunday school ministry. You do not

have to be the person that plans the lesson. You just need to be there for crowd control. So they, they, our, our Sunday school classes are kind of blowing up right now in a positive way. Like kids aren't setting bombs back there. They're, they're blowing up in a positive way. We've got lots and lots of kids and they just, these teachers are doing a wonderful job, but they need some folks to come alongside them

just to be there, run tiny people to the bathroom, help distribute snacks, just kind of be there as a helper. So if you've been around for a little while, we'd like you to have been here for about six months before we start putting you in charge of that kind of thing. And you would like to get involved. Come see either Aaron or Glenn and Sandra about that. Cause I know specifically

nursery and, or not nursery, twos and threes. Well, I guess I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. Twos and threes. Well, I guess nursery as well. She did list that. So we're needing some of those areas, uh, helping. So, uh, those are the things that are going on. If you would make sure that

your mobile device is silenced for our responsive reading this morning, we are going to be in Psalm five, Psalm five, bless you. And, uh, as you're turning to Psalm five, if you would stand in the honor of the reading of God's word. Oh, I forgot to say, most of you know, this will be the new American standard. If you don't have one, there should be one in a row.

So please stand as you're turning to Psalm five. I know it's a little extra blinding this morning. I feel like, yeah, kind of bright. My Bible is illuminated. It's amazing. Luminescent God's word, right? If you like that, you would be hello. Psalm five. I will read the odd verses. If you will follow along with pastor Allen and the even verses for the choir director

for flute accompaniment, you up? No, no flute for you. Okay. A Psalm of David. Ear to my words. Oh Lord, consider my groaning. Heed the sound of my cry for help. My King and my God for to you. I pray in the morning. Oh Lord, you will hear my voice in the morning. I will order my prayer to you and eagerly watch for you are not a God who takes pleasure in wickedness.

No evil dwells with you. The boastful shall not stand before your eyes. You hate all who do iniquity. You destroy those who speak falsehood. The Lord abhors the man of bloodshed and deceit. But as for me, by your abundant loving kindness, I will enter your house at your holy temple. I will bow in reverence to you. Oh Lord, lead me in your righteousness because of my foes. Make your way

straight before me. There is nothing reliable in what they say. Their inward part is destruction itself. Their throat is an open grave. Their throat is an open grave. Their throat is an open grave. They flatter with their tongue. Hold them guilty, O God. By their own devices, let them fall. In the multitude of their transgressions, thrust them out, for they are rebellious against you. But let all who take

refuge in you be glad. Let them ever sing for joy, and may you shelter them that those who love your name may exult in you. For it is you who blesses the righteous man, O Lord. You surround them with favor as with a shield. And Father, I do thank you so much that you do give ear to our words. Lord, that you listen to the cries of our heart and that you are the God who saves, who preserves, and protects all those

who love you. And so, Lord, I thank you that we can rest in you. And I just pray this morning that you would give us eyes to see and ears to hear what it is that your Spirit wants to minister to us. And we just pray these things, Father, in Jesus' name. Amen. You may be seated. And if you would, open up in your Bibles to the Gospel of Matthew, and we'll be looking at

chapter 16. Matthew chapter 16. I've debated as to where I'm going to include this in the message, but now seems like the right time so that we can focus on communion at the end of the message. I want to lay out a challenge to us as a church as we come into the month of June. Um, I did this last year, and I was teaching yesterday at the conference, and there's a portion

of the passage in 1 John that I was supposed to teach out of, and that portion of that passage talked about the fact that the entire world is under the sway of the wicked one. Now, I don't know about you, but I got an alert on my phone. Actually, it's not an alert. There's a little dot on the calendar on my phone for June 1st. And so, I clicked on that because I thought, huh,

I wonder what I have planned for June 1st, because I never really know what's going on until I wake up that day and look at my calendar and go, oh, these are the things I have to do. And so, I click on June 1st, because it seemed like an odd thing. I don't remember planning anything for June 1st. And it said, the beginning of Pride Month, right? If you don't know what Pride Month is,

welcome to the 21st century. Pride Month is the month that all of the LGBTQ plus community celebrates the lifestyle that they have chosen. They find pride in their lifestyle. Now, I say this because it always has been my tendency to get a little frustrated with Pride Month. June is one of my favorite months of the year, because my wife is a teacher. And so, the month of June means nothing is going on. She's not planning for the next year.

She's not worried about the previous year. Life is a little more chill, usually, in the Nichols household. And so, we love the month of June. So, when all of this really started surfacing a few years ago about Pride Month, and really it began to take on a whole new form in and of itself, I found myself getting a little bit more excited about Pride Month. And so, I was like, oh, I'm going to

get a little bit angry at the whole situation. I found myself being really upset with Pride Month, and I'm just like, oh my gosh, I'm just so tired of hearing about it. I'm tired of seeing all of the stuff. I'm tired of the debauchery that I see around me all the time. Well, last year, the Lord laid it on my heart that instead of getting angry, all of us, instead of getting

angry about Pride Month and being angry at all of the people that are living these sinful lifestyles, what if we instead chose that for Pride Month, we will make it Prayer Month? And we will begin to pray for everyone who is trapped in a sinful lifestyle. Everyone who finds themselves bound in a lifestyle that is completely opposed to what God has planned for their lives. Because I think sometimes as believers in Jesus Christ, we can forget that people that live lifestyles that we very much disagree with, and the Bible very much disagrees with, we can forget that they are still made in the image of God. God still loves them.

God still died for them. Jesus gave his life just as much for the people in that community as he did for the people in any other sinful community. And so here's my challenge. Every day for the rest of the month of June, I want us to pray for the people that are caught up in these sinful lifestyles so that they can be set free, so that they can know the freedom that there is in Christ, so that they can know the acceptance that there is in Christ, and so that they can know the grace and the love that there is in Christ.

And so that's my challenge for us as Calvary Chapel of Ark City, that this would now become prayer month for us. So that's kind of my challenge as we get ready to move into scripture. I was trying to figure out the best place to put that, but I didn't want to distract from us taking communion later. So that's the challenge for the month of June. Now, as we come to chapter 16 of

the Gospel of Matthew, I've given a little bit of an overarching title to the next two chapters, actually. And the overarching title that I've given is, Jesus the Messiah. And so we're going to look at part one of that today, because really chapters 16 and 17 all kind of point to Jesus being the Messiah. For the Jewish mindset, this term Messiah was really important because Messiah means the chosen one. And the idea behind the chosen one

is the chosen one who would set the nation of Israel free. And that's exactly who Jesus was. He was the one who was chosen to not only set the nation of Israel free, but to set the world free from sin. He is the chosen one to be the ultimate and greatest ruler to ever rule and reign. But when he came the first time, he came as the suffering servant. When he

comes as the second time, he will come as the reigning king. But either way you put it, he is the Messiah. And so over these next two chapters, we'll see some interesting things about Jesus being focused on the Messiah. We're going to see, first of all, that there is a test. Second of all, there is a confession. And third, there is a revelation. Because the part that we're going to look at today is we're

going to look at the Pharisees and the Sadducees coming to test Jesus and his claim to be the Messiah. In the second portion, which we'll get to next week, we will see how the disciples confess that they understand that he is the Messiah. And then in chapter 17, we will see how he reveals that he is the Messiah, both through the transfiguration and through his power over demonic forces. And so as we move into chapter 16, verse 1, we begin to look at the first portion, which is a test. Chapter 16, verse 1 says this,

the Pharisees and the Sadducees came up and testing Jesus, they asked him to show them a sign from heaven. But he replied to them, when it is evening, you say it will be fair weather for the sky is red. And in the morning, there will be a storm today for the sky is red and threatening. Do you know the appearance of the sky, but cannot discern the signs of the times? An evil and adulterous

generation seeks after a sign and none will be given to it except the sign of Jonah. And he left them and went away. So this first portion is Jesus talking to the religious leaders. Now there's two groups that have come to talk to Jesus, the Pharisees and the Sadducees. These are two, if you will, differing religious groups. The Pharisees are what we would refer to today as conservatives.

They were the religious conservatives. They were the ones who believed wholeheartedly in everything that scripture had to say. They believe that scripture should be followed very literally. And they believe that there should be no oppression by a foreign government. Israel was best when Israel was free. There should not be government oppression of any sort. They were the religious

conservatives of the day. But of course, their biggest issue is that their religion was merely outward and made no true change on the inside. They struggled with hypocrisy. And they began to make rules that God never intended, rules that actually pushed people away from the knowledge of God. And so in all of their legalism, they missed out on the knowledge of God.

But the other group is called the Sadducees. The Sadducees are what we would refer to as religious liberals. It's really kind of interesting that these two people were coming together. It would be as if Donald, Donald Trump and AOC decided they would merge together on some sort of a thing because they were so on the same page about this one particular issue. As laughable as that is, that's exactly as

laughable as this is that the Pharisees and the Sadducees have decided they're going to come together in their hatred of Jesus. Because as I said, the Sadducees were the religious liberals of the day. You see, the Sadducees did not really take scripture very literally. The Sadducees did not believe in the supernatural. They didn't believe in the supernatural. They didn't believe

in miracles or angels or spirits or the resurrection. And quite frankly, as long as they could hold on to their wealth, they were completely content to align themselves with the Roman government as long as they could continue to do what they wanted to do. They were very much in opposition to each other. But you see, Jesus came along. And who says Jesus doesn't unite

people, right? He has united the Pharisees and the Sadducees in their hatred of him. And so they come together to say, we have to do something about this Jesus, because though we disagree on anything, we have to do something about this Jesus. And so they come together to say, every other thing in the world, we can agree on this one thing. Jesus is bad for us. You know what's

kind of interesting to think about? Because we're going to talk about the signs of the times. I won't go into a whole lot about today, but Jesus talks to them about the signs of the times. But you know what's kind of interesting? You know what's going to happen at some point in time? At some point in time, everybody's going to unite on one front. And the one front that they're going to unite on is

the fact that we may disagree on everything else in the world, but we don't like that. Jesus. We don't like what the church has to say, because we can all agree with the fact that the church, Jesus, is opposed to what we're doing. And so that's what happens here. So they come to Jesus and they ask him a very interesting question. They asked him to show them a sign from heaven.

They asked them to show him a sign from heaven. Now, it's kind of interesting that they would ask Jesus this. By the way, the term sign here, literally means an attesting miracle. In other words, they wanted to prove, they wanted Jesus to prove that he really was the Messiah, because he had started making some pretty bold claims about himself. He had made some pretty bold claims about being equal with

the Father, and they wanted him to show them some kind of a sign from heaven to prove that he was the Messiah. Now, at this point in time, one would have to ask themselves, how much more does Jesus need to do? Let's quickly rehearse a handful of the things that Jesus has done. Jesus has cast out demons, showing power over demonic forces. Jesus has healed the blind.

Jesus has healed the lame. Jesus has cleansed leprosy. Jesus has restored hearing to the deaf, and he has brought people back to life. Some of these things without being in the same household as the other. So, let's quickly rehearse a handful of the things that Jesus has done. Jesus has cast out demons, showing power over demonic forces. Jesus has healed the blind. Jesus has

fed multitudes of people on two separate occasions, one equaling 5,000 plus all of the women and children, the other one equaling 4,000 plus all of the women and children. You could find yourself saying, what else does he need to do to prove that he is who he says he is? But isn't it interesting that a skeptic will never believe, no matter how much proof he has, that he is the Messiah? If you show them. And that's the place that these Pharisees, these religious leaders were in at this

point in time, is they said, you need to show us a sign from heaven. But Jesus replies in a very interesting way. He begins to talk about the weather. He says, when it's evening, you say, it will be fair weather for the sky is red. And in the morning, there will be a storm today for the sky is red and threatening. Do you know how to discern the appearance of the sky?

Now, for those of us that live in Kansas, this makes sense, right? I don't know about the whole red thing, because I think that's more of a coastal sort of a situation that red sky in the morning, sailors take warning, red sky at night, something's going to be right. I don't know. I think I made that last part up. Anyway, but I think it's more of a coastal thing. However, we in Kansas can kind

of agree with this, right? Was it, what night did the sirens blow? Eleventy billion times. Was that Monday? Tuesday. Tuesday is when that happened. Yeah. So, there I was, right? Okay. So, I saw the sky. I looked and I went, bummer, dude. Thunderstorm's coming. That was pretty clear. We were supposed to have a softball game that night. And from about four o'clock on, I'm going, I don't know why we're trying to have a softball game. This is not going

to happen. I can look at the sky. I can feel the air. I can see the radar. This situation is not going to take place. Can we go ahead and just call that thing? Finally, they called the softball game and said, nope, no games are going to happen tonight. And so, we're like, okay, great. So, we go about the rest of our evening. And I'm looking at the sky and I'm going, yep,

thunderstorm's coming. That is the most clear thing in the world. All of the signs are there. And then, I dropped my oldest daughter off because she had a practice out in Dexter that she had to go to. And I'm like, no problem. She's driving away from the storm and they have a FEMA shelter out there. She's fine. So, I drop her off and I come back to town and I'm at the Dillon's, right?

And while I'm at the Dillon's, I have loaded my cart with the things that I need for that evening. I've loaded my cart with the essentials, things like soda and salad. Because I'm kind of fit and I'm kind of fat. So, I load all of those things into my cart and I am literally at the counter. I am taking them out of my cart to place them on the counter. You know that moment when you stood in line for a really long time at the Dillon's and you're like,

the promised land is before me. I'm almost done. Especially if you go like five o'clock in the evening because all of humanity, like I think people from other towns are like, this seems like the right time to go to Dillon's. So, yeah, I'm just about to put all my stuff up there. And everybody, legit everybody's phones in the entire store, all you hear is meh, meh, meh on the

phones. And I'm like, Amber Alert, tornado. Now, the sky looks stormy, but it didn't look tornado-y. And I just looked at the girl and I'm like, oh, you're going to make me leave, aren't you? Or go to a basement or something. And she goes, I'm sorry. Protocol says I have to go to the basement and you either have to go to the basement with me or leave, but we can't stay here. I was like.

That is 20 minutes I'm never getting back. So, I leave all my stuff there and I go home and we take shelter in the basement for no good reason because no tornado happened. Thank God, by the way. I'm really glad no tornado happened. Well, then as the evening goes on, I'm kind of like, okay, it's nice and cool outside. All of the rain kind of sucked all the humidity out of the air. It

feels great. Oh, this is wonderful. Everybody goes home because half the neighborhood came to our house. It was great. We had a huge party in the basement. And we all ate dinner together. It was great. So, everybody went home. And then I walked back outside about a half an hour later. And all of a sudden, it got really hot and humid again. And as it got really hot and

humid, everything went perfectly still. And then I looked up at the clouds. And one set of clouds was going one direction. And one set of clouds was going the other direction. And I was like, that's not good. You know why? Because I have lived in Kansas long. And I've lived in Kansas for a long time. And I've lived in Kansas for a long time. And I've lived in Kansas for a long time. And when it goes from the wind blowing like crazy to everything being

completely still, and the clouds are moving two different directions, and you can cut the air with a knife or at least spoon it out with a spoon, you know something funky is about to go down. And I went, oh, man, I bet they're about to... My phone starts going off again. Right? The sirens start going off. And I'm like, I wonder if the... Yep, all the people

start going off. And I'm like, I wonder if the... Yep, all the people start going off. coming back over to the house, and we're back in the basement. I can look at the sky and go, it's about to get funky again. I can tell because I can look at the sky. I can discern what's happening with the weather by doing that. Well, as Jesus is talking to these Pharisees and Sadducees,

he looks at them and says, you know how to look at the sky and discern what's going to take place with the weather, but you cannot discern the signs of the times. Everything about when Jesus showed up should have been abundantly clear to those who studied the word the most, which were at least the Pharisees, if not the Pharisees and the Sadducees. Jesus didn't show up at some surprising time. Jesus did everything that the Old Testament said that he was going to do.

Have you ever wondered how the wise men, and I'm sure I've shared this before, have you ever wondered how the wise men knew to follow a star? Well, on Wednesday nights, we're going through the book of Numbers, and we're about to come to a guy by the name of Balaam. I won't get into the story because I want you to come on Wednesday night. But anyway, the story of Balaam has him giving a bunch of different prophecies.

You know that there's a prophecy that Balaam gives that involves the king and the star that will show up? You see, these wise men had probably been trained, under guys like Daniel. And Daniel probably told them, because he was able to discern the signs of the times, that when you see a star that looks a little bit different than all the rest of the stars, that's the coming of the king. That's the coming of the Messiah.

That's why when those wise men from the east saw the star, they could discern the signs of the times, and they knew, I better go to Jerusalem, because that's where all of the teachers before us said we should go when we see the star spoken of through the prophets. They could discern the signs of the times. Do you know that the Bible was so abundantly clear about where Jesus was born? You, O Bethlehem, little among the nations, little among the towns, from you will come the great king.

It's written right there in the book of Micah. And when the wise men show up, and they go to Herod, and they're like, we're here to see the king. And Herod goes, king? What king? Hey, all you religious guys, all you religious nerds, where is there supposed to be a king born? And you know what they were able to do? Huh, Bethlehem. A king's supposed to be born in Bethlehem.

They knew that. They were able to tell Herod that. They were able to tell the wise men where to go, and yet they could not discern the signs of the times. Scripture in the Old Testament, very last verse of the book of Malachi said that one would come in the spirit and the power of Elijah to prepare the way for the coming of the Messiah. to prepare the way for the coming of the Messiah.

to prepare the way for the coming of the Messiah. to prepare the way for the coming of the Messiah. Make straight the way of the Lord. Guess what the first thing that you hear about in the New Testament is? The very first thing that you hear about is the birth of John the Baptist, who would come in the spirit and the power of Elijah to prepare the way for the Lord.

As soon as they saw John the Baptist show up on the scene, camel skins, eating locusts and honey, just like Elijah, they should have gone, we better pay attention, because that guy reminds me, of Elijah. And if they missed all of those things, there were two other things that were really important. Number one was when Jesus was baptized. You remember what happened?

We talked about it in Matthew. Do you remember what happened when Jesus was baptized? John baptizes him, brings him up out of the water, and what happens? The spirit comes descending upon him like a dove and a voice from heaven. You ever hear people say, you know, if I could just hear a voice from heaven, if I could just hear God speak, I would know to believe.

Listen, these fools heard God speak, right? God was like, this is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased. But is he really the Messiah? Should we look for more signs than that? You just heard a stinking voice from heaven. How much more do you need? And if all of that wasn't enough, there was prophecies throughout all of the Old Testament about everything that the Messiah was supposed to do.

The restoring of sight to the blind, the recovery of the ability of the lame to walk, raising the dead, restoring the hearing, cleansing the lepers, all of those things the Messiah did. And yet these religious leaders find themselves saying, show us a sign from heaven. Show us a sign that you really are who you say you are. Now this is how Jesus was the first time.

He said, You should be able to discern the signs of the times. And may I say, as believers in Jesus Christ, in the world that we're living in now, we should be able to discern the signs of the times. Jesus could come back at any time. That's always been true. It's been true from the moment that he left. We talked about this yesterday at the conference. From the moment Jesus left,

everybody believed that at any point in time, Jesus could come back. And I wholeheartedly believe that. But now we're seeing more and more signs of the times. The nation of Israel, has come back together. The world continues to wax worse and worse. Do you know there was another shooting last night? Another mass shooting last night in Philadelphia? That's just, it's unreal.

It's unreal how much of this violence is taking place. And my favorite line that they always give is, this doesn't happen in other countries. Yes, it does. It's called terrorism, right? We need to pay attention to that. But all of these things should not shock us because we know that things will continue to get worse and worse. We should not be shocked when the world

acts like the world. And as we see all of these things taking place, we should be paying attention to the signs of the times. Only the first time around, the signs of the times should have told them to pay attention for the first coming of Jesus. Now the signs of the times should tell us to be ready for the second coming of Jesus. When's it going to be? I have no idea.

It could be today. It could be 100 years from now. It could be 1,000 years from now. I don't know. Because nobody knows the day or the hour. God's very clear about that. But I do know one thing. We are to always be ready, especially as we see the day approaching. Are we paying attention to the signs of the times? And are we causing it to not hunker down, not get charismatic about things,

but instead to be about our Father's business and be waiting for His coming? You see, that's what they should have been doing. The religious leaders should have been preparing everybody for the coming of Jesus because that's what John the Baptist was doing. They should have been preparing themselves and everybody else for the fact that the Messiah is here. We should be paying attention to it.

Well, Jesus goes on to tell them. He says, You can discern all of these other things, but you cannot discern the signs of the times. He goes on to say, An evil and adulterous generation seeks after His sign. This is now the second time in the Gospel of Matthew that He has said this exact phrase. An evil and adulterous generation seeks after His sign. Why does He say that?

Because all of us find ourselves in our flesh wanting to constantly be entertained by the signs that Jesus is able to do. Have you ever wondered why the feelings movement is so big? Why everybody finds themselves so wrapped up in the charismatic movement? Now, I want you to understand something. I wholeheartedly believe that God can do anything that He wants to do.

I think He can heal whoever He wants to heal. I believe in the speaking in tongues. I believe in the gifts of prophecy. I believe in all of those things, but none of those things are a sideshow, and none of those things are to entertain the people. None of those things are to be given simply to prove that God is who He is. Those things are given to us to reveal more of who Jesus is to us

and to draw us closer to Him. And so He says, An evil and adulterous generation seeks after His sign. Why? Because all of the signs that Jesus, that Jesus was giving were to point people to Him. An evil and adulterous generation seeks after His sign for the sake of the sign. Jesus goes on to say, But there's only one sign that I'll give you, and that's the sign of the prophet Jonah.

Again, He's made this exact same statement before. He's now making it a second time. Well, what's the sign of the prophet Jonah? The sign of the prophet Jonah is that Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the fish, and then Jonah came forth from the belly of the fish, and then Jonah came forth from the belly of the fish. That sign is what will prove that Jesus is who He says He is.

That sign will be the ultimate proof of everything that He says. The sign of Him being crucified, being buried, and on the third day rising again. Paul states as much in the book of Romans. He says that He was declared to be the Son of God with power when God raised Him from the dead. Isn't it amazing how all of God's Word actually kind of ties together and all kind of works together?

Jesus said, That's the only sign that I'm going to give you. And then in a very interesting and point-stating sort of way, He says, There's great gravity in that statement, is there not? Because this gives us the idea that He didn't just go somewhere else. This gives us the idea that He's going, I'm not going to discuss anything with you religious leaders any longer, not until He comes into Jerusalem.

Well, Jesus goes on from there, and He's going to speak to His disciples, because Jesus is going to warn His disciples about something. Notice what He says. Verse 5, And the disciples came to the other side of the sea, but they had forgotten to bring any bread. And Jesus said to them, Watch out and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the Sadducees. They began to discuss this amongst themselves, saying,

He said that because we didn't bring any bread. Jesus, aware of this, said, You men of little faith, why do you discuss among yourselves that you have no bread? Do you not yet understand or remember the five loaves of the 5,000 and how many baskets full you picked up? Or the seven loaves of the 4,000 and how many large baskets full you picked up? How is it that you do not understand

that I do not speak to you concerning bread? But beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the Sadducees. Then they understood that He did not say to beware of the leaven of bread, but of the teaching of the Pharisees and the Sadducees. So the incident with Jesus and the religious leaders ends, but we continue on with this theme because it prompts Jesus to talk to His disciples about something.

Because remember, Jesus is in the retirement portion of His ministry where He's now preparing the disciples to take on the work of the ministry to carry on after Him. And He knows that this is, though maybe an encounter that He's trying to distance Himself from the religious leaders, that His disciples will have many more occasions to meet up with the religious leaders and they need to not only be aware of their teaching to know how to confront it, but to beware of their teaching so that they do not become a part of it. And so Jesus begins to warn them. It says, The disciples came to the other side of the sea.

We're given this one little commentary by Matthew and it has to be a little bit of a... on the part of Matthew because he explains why all of these things take place. It says, They had forgotten to bring any bread. Now, we don't understand why that's a big deal, but they're about to move again into a Gentile sort of a region. And as they move into a Gentile sort of a region,

Jewish people had an understanding that if you ate the bread from a Gentile region, that would make you ceremonially unclean. And so the disciples are a little bit concerned because they forgot to bring any bread. They thought to themselves, We had one job. We forgot to bring the bread. And so Jesus is discussing with them, undoubtedly, these things running through his mind.

And he looks at his disciples and he says, Watch out and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the Sadducees. Jesus gives them this distinct warning. And I'll discuss the warning in just a moment because it's an important warning that I think we should take to heart in and of ourselves. But as Jesus, as Jesus gives this warning, you can just imagine the disciples looking at him and going, Huh.

I wonder what he's talking about. They start kind of looking at each other and they're going, It's because we forgot them.

What were we thinking? Because I think that this was sort of a thoughtful statement that Jesus mentioned to them. As he's playing this scenario, as he's playing this conversation out in his mind, he just looks at them and says, Watch out and beware of the leaven of the scribes and the Pharisees. And they immediately sort of, amongst themselves, because they don't want to tell him that they forgot the bread, they start discussing.

This is probably what he's upset about. It's because we didn't bring any bread. And I want you to notice how Jesus answered them. He says, You men of little faith. You men of little faith. How do you not understand? And then Jesus recounts to them. Isn't it kind of interesting? They should have known by now that providing bread wasn't really much of an issue for Jesus.

He seemed to be able to take care of the situation any time. And so, Jesus reminds them of now the two situations. It was one thing when they forgot about the feeding of the 5,000, when they had all of the people in front of them the second time to feed. And they're going, How are you ever going to do that? And Jesus goes, Well, how much do you have? And he does it again.

But this time it's starting to get a little bit, get a little bit old for Jesus. He goes, How do you not understand? Providing bread is not a problem. You know, from this, I think that there's an interesting point. That's to be made. Jesus is going to deal with them on an issue. And the issue is the fact that they have a tendency to think about material things when Jesus is speaking to them about spiritual things.

I think that there's a really good reminder for us here. And that's that Jesus providing bread for us will never be an issue. I know that there's a lot of concern right now. Sometimes I'm one of them. A lot of concern about what kind of things are going to be available to us. And am I? Am I even going to be able to afford it? Am I going to be able to afford to put gas in my car?

Am I going to be able to afford to provide food for my family? I think that more and more is becoming a concern that people have, not only in the back of their mind, but very much at the front of their mind. What kind of things are we going to be able to afford? And even if we can afford it, it is even going to be on the shelf for us. And may I say, God is very well aware of the physical needs that we have,

of the material needs, that we have. And as God is aware of the material needs that we have, we can rest in the fact that him providing bread for us is not a problem. Him providing for our material needs is not a problem. I don't want to waste too much of my mental bandwidth, too much of my mental capacity stressed about whether or not I'm going to have food on the table, because if God takes care of the sparrows, then how much more is he going to take care of me?

And how much more is he going to take care of you? If God, as it tells us in the book of Romans, has not withheld his own son from us, how much more will he provide everything that we need? What did Paul tell us in the book of Philippians? The book of Philippians, Paul said, my God shall supply all of your need according to his riches and glory, in Christ your God, in Christ your God, in Christ your God, in Christ your God, in Christ your God, in Christ Jesus.

Saints throughout the centuries have lived in days and times when there was not very much. But do you remember what David the psalmist said? I was young and now I'm old, and I have never seen the children of God begging for bread. Because God always takes care of his kids. We can rest in that. And we need to understand that when God provides, He provides for us.

He provides for our needs, not always our wants. And that's when I started getting a little bit sad. Because my wants and my needs oftentimes look very, very different. But God will always provide for our needs. It's a promise that he makes us in scripture. And so as these disciples hear Jesus say to watch out for the leaven of the scribes and the Pharisees,

they're thinking material things, which is what we all have a tendency to do. We all live, you know, Madonna put it best. We live in a material world. And quite frankly, I am a material girl, right? And so sometimes it's very hard for us to get outside of that mentality. But one of the things that God tries to get us to do is to stop just thinking about the material world that we live in and begin to get our minds wrapped around the spiritual world.

Because the material world is passing away. All of these things are passing away. He wants us to get our mindset on eternity, eternal realities, and spiritual realities. And so as he looks at them, he says, you men of little faith, why are you discussing bread? Don't you know I can provide all of those things? How is it that you do not understand? Now, again,

I don't have voice inflection from Jesus here, although it would be amazing if we did. But I do think at this point in time, Jesus is getting pretty serious with the disciples. We mentioned something last week, and I don't want to negate this point. I don't want to negate this point at all, because I made a point last week that our memories are short, but his patience is not.

It's seen throughout scripture. It's even seen here, right? At this point in time, Jesus could have told them all, get out of my boat. I'm not taking you with me because you guys don't get it yet. Right? He could have done that and been completely righteous in doing that. But he doesn't. He does, however, rebuke them for their unbelief. Because while Jesus's patience for us is incredibly long,

he does desire maturity in our lives. I remember probably about ten years ago, I was going through Scripture and I came across a point, kind of like this, where the disciples had blown it again. I'm like, Oh, thank you Lord that I have the example of these disciples who continue to screw up, and yet you continue to love them, because Lord I know I continue to go back to the exact same things. And you know what?

I really felt like the Lord impressed upon my heart. I remembereralty felt like this. really felt like what he impressed upon me was, but sometimes it's time to move on to maturity. But sometimes you have to get past the exact same thing. Will God continue to be patient with us? Always. Because his long-suffering nature will always prompt him to be patient with us. But

there does come a point in time in our lives where we as believers need to grow up. Remember what Paul or what the writer to the Hebrews said? He said, I wish that by now you were eating solid food, but I have to keep feeding you milk. My concern about all of us as believers living in the 21st century is that we're never moving beyond the milk. That we're never moving beyond the emotional

devotional, as I like to call it. I listen to Christian radio, sometimes happily, sometimes not. And sometimes the music station, I'll be tuning in in time to hear the scripture of the day. And what always makes me the most sad about the scripture of the day is when they take them out of context. Right? Oh, I'm going to screw it up. I can't say it. I saw a great one about Satan. It basically quoted Satan on the scripture of the day calendar. And it was

like, okay, that seems like a bad idea. But that's kind of what happens sometimes, right? We become milk drinkers because we're like, did you have time with Jesus today? Yep. I got my scripture of the day on my phone. That was my time with Jesus. If that's your time with Jesus, go spend more time with Jesus. Because there comes a point in time in our lives where we

do need to mature. There comes a point in time in our lives where we have to mature beyond constantly falling down and we begin to walk on. I remember when my oldest daughter first started walking. Everything with her was just so fun because it was new. I hadn't been around tiny kids all that much. And so I'm watching her learn to walk. And it was great because, you know, when babies learn to walk, they sort of do one of these when

they stand up and then they fall over, right? I won't fall over for you because then you'll laugh at me and I'll be embarrassed. We'll all be embarrassed. No, you won't. I will. Anyway, then they kind of fall over and you're like, oh, that was so close. And then they grab your fingers and you stand them up again and they take a couple of more steps and then they get nervous

and they sort of topple over. But I remember with my oldest daughter, her doing that constant thing. I take a couple of steps, I fall down. I take a couple of steps, I fall down. And then one day, I was watching her. The day that she turned a year old, she took a couple of steps and she did this and then she did this. She never fell over. She just stood back up. It's like she went,

I don't have to fall. I can keep standing. Brothers and sisters, that's maturity. And that's the way we need to be in our walk with Jesus Christ. You see, for too long, too many of us, are saying, it's okay. I'll take a couple of steps and I'll fall down. And I'll take a couple of steps and I'll fall down. And is God patient with us? Absolutely. Was I patient with her that

whole time? Absolutely. But you know what? At the age of 13, if she was still taking a couple of steps and then falling down, I would know that there's something wrong because that's not what's supposed to happen anymore. But too many of us as believers in Jesus Christ are adolescents or we've walked with God for an incredibly long time and we're still taking a couple of steps and then

falling down because we're never maturing. We're never hitting that point where we say, I don't have to keep falling down. I don't have to give into the fear any longer. I don't have to give into the sin any longer. I don't have to give into the failure any longer. I can keep walking, not because of who I am, but because of who he is. And there comes a point in time in our lives,

brothers and sisters, we have to mature. And that's where he's at with these guys right now because he knows my time is short. As a matter of fact, when we get into the next section next week where he talks about, the confession that they make, he begins to talk to them about the cross. Why? Because it's getting really close. And he knows that the closer he gets to the cross, the closer he is to not being with

them in bodily presence any longer. And they've got to be ready. The older that my daughter gets and the closer that she gets to not being in my house any longer, which is coming way faster than I want for it to happen, the more I go, I've got to teach you more because there's going to come a day when I'm not with you. And I'm not going to be there to pick you up anymore. And you need to know the truth. You need

to mature into the truth. And that's what Jesus is doing with these disciples. And that's what he wants to do with us. He wants to mature us into the truth. So he looks at him, he says, how is it that you don't understand that I did not speak to you concerning bread, but to beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the Sadducees? Then in verse 12, it says, then they understood that he did not say to beware of the leaven of bread,

but of the teaching of the Pharisees and the Sadducees. Finally, they understand. Finally, they understand exactly what he's talking about. And so I want to jump back up to verse six and talk about what he says, because he says to beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the Sadducees. Now, as we look at this warning that Jesus gives, and we take it hopefully with the

maturity that we have, we take it with the maturity that we have. And so he says, over time of study with the word, we understand that that leaven is always representative of something in scripture. Leaven is always representative of sin. It goes all the way back to the Passover feast. And the thing that they were supposed to do in the Passover feast, they were supposed to completely rid their house of all of the leaven. They were supposed to

completely clean it all out because they needed a fresh start. They did it for not only practical reasons, but for symbolic reasons. And then as you move forward, you see that they did it for You see that when Jesus is ever calling people back to a right relationship with him, he says that they need to purge the old leaven. As a matter of fact, Paul tells us that we are to purge the old leaven so that we can become a new lump. How is leaven kind of like sin? Well, because it only

takes a little bit to permeate the entire loaf. It only takes a little bit to permeate every aspect of us. And do you know what's actually going to happen? It's going to be a little bit of a

little bit of a sin. And I think that's absolutely true about sin in our lives, is that it only takes a little bit to permeate our entire life. I know for me, sometimes I can think, oh, that's not that big of a deal. That won't affect everything else. And then my wife will say, what's wrong with you today? And I'm like, son of a gun, it affected everything else, right? Because that's what sin does to us. Sin affects every aspect of our lives. But you know what? That's true not only for our lives individually, and so we must purge it out of our lives individually. It's also true of a church.

When there is sin in a church, it permeates the entire church. It affects the entire church. That's why before we take our communion feast later, I'm going to tell you, we better check our hearts. Because that sin will permeate the entire church. But it's not only true of our lives individually, it's not only true of our churches, and by the way, our families, it's true of nations. And what we're seeing in our nation right now is the permeating of sin throughout the entire nation.

We're going to continue to hear things. We're going to continue to hear about calls for gun control. We're going to continue to hear about calls for more laws. We're going to continue to hear about all of the things that will put band-aids on amputations and hope that we can deal with some of the issues that we see. But do you know what we'll find? Is that sin has been permeating the heart of the nation for entirely too long. Because sin has been permeating the heart of the church for entirely too long.

Because sin has been permeating the lives of individuals for far too long. You cannot expect an individual to walk away from Jesus, families to be destroyed, nations to kill their young, nations to completely abandon God, nations to decide that they can change God's rules to meet what they think is right and not think that the entire nation will not be affected by it. It's impossible to do. And that leaven, is permeating our entire nation right now, just like it was the nation of Israel, but it started with the teaching of the Pharisees and the Sadducees.

Jesus said, you need to beware of this leaven, this sinful permeation that's taking place within the nation of Israel that's coming from the Pharisees and the Sadducees. What does he mean by that? Well, it's both bad teaching and evil conduct by the nation's religious leaders. You see, the nation's religious leaders were not teaching things that were correct, which is exactly what the Sadducees were doing, because they were stripping God's word of its power, they were stripping God's word of its spirit, they were stripping God's word of everything that was correct for political expediency and temporary wealth.

They were doing all of that, and so they were teaching very bad doctrine among the people, completely stripping them of their hope in anything beyond this life. And then you have the evil conduct and the bad teaching of the Pharisees, who were laying laws on people that they didn't intend to keep themselves, and who had turned them against God. They turned religion into something that was merely outward, and nothing that will ever change the heart of man. Because quite frankly, as long as I'm doing everything right on the outside, who cares what I look like on the inside?

All of that was permeating the nation. All of that was permeating the church, if you will, at that point in time. And so Jesus said, beware, beware of that. As a matter of fact, you know what it says in the Gospel of Luke, chapter 12, verse 1, Jesus gave a very similar warning. He said, beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the Sadducees, which is, and I love the way Chuck Smith says

this, hypocrisy. Beware of that hypocrisy that says, all of my religion is exterior, and none of it penetrates to the very core of who I am. For far too long, our nation saw a religion that was only exterior, but never penetrated to the core of man. And because of that, you saw some of the revolution in the 60s and 70s take place. There was a Jesus movement that went

along with that, and some found themselves being pulled back to the truth of the Gospel. But that leaven that was introduced at that point in time, of both hypocrisy and then rebellion, is now still at work within our nation. Because all of those who rebelled against authority and rebelled against God, and rebelled against the truth, are now the ones teaching the next generation, and the generation after that, how they should think. And because of that, we're seeing the things that we see today.

You see that leaven has taken over everything. But it wasn't just within our nation. That same leaven has been permeating our churches. Which is why so many churches today will not teach what God's Word has to say. They will not tell you what God's Word has to say, because quite frankly, sometimes when you tell the truth, people don't show up. You're going to offend someone.

And as you offend someone, you just might lose your job. Quite frankly, I was looking for a job when I found this one. So I'm going to just tell you the truth.

So what is there for us to learn from this? Well, that phrase that he gives, watch out and beware. That phrase literally means to take heed and to guard against. That means that not only do we need to pay attention, but we need to be on guard about everything that goes on around us. What does it mean? It means, number one, we need to watch out and beware of the teaching that we're listening

to. Even me. You better test everything that I have to say against God's Word, because I can make mistakes all the time, right? I quoted Madonna earlier. You better pay attention, right? It better not be the only note you took today. We need to watch out and beware of the teaching that we're listening to. Again, I've told you before, anytime somebody comes to me and says, I was

listening to this guy on YouTube, I immediately say, okay, let's stop. Let's know who he is. Let's know what he believes, and pay attention to what's being said, and let's test everything that he says against God's Word, because just because he has a YouTube page does not mean that he knows everything. Does not mean that he is the last statement of truth, even though he probably told you he is.

We need to pay attention to all of these things, because even within the Christian world today, that sometimes appears very conservative, do you realize that the social justice gospel is starting to go out more through places like the Gospel Coalition than the real gospel? The social justice gospel is starting to be taught more in churches today by people that you probably would really respect than the real gospel that's being taught today. And quite frankly, if you want to see social justice, then you'd better give them the real gospel of Jesus Christ, because only in Christ are we set free. Only in Christ is there no longer Jew nor Greek, slave nor free.

That's the only place where there's any real justice, because quite frankly, none of us really want justice, because justice means I go to hell. I don't care what color you are. We have to pay attention to the things that we're listening to. Number two, we must watch out and beware of the examples that we follow. There should be one person's example you follow and one person's

only, and that's the person of Jesus Christ. Because everyone else, I promise, will let you down. There are some great men that I have looked up to throughout my entire life, but I am well aware of the fact that one day I may learn something about some of them that will hurt my heart. And I remember the day I read about Ravi Zacharias. I'm glad I cried. That just destroyed me.

Because I really, really respected him. And I still do. He just had a weakness that was never dealt with. I read an article the other day on Fox News about a young lady who confronted her pastor because this young, this pastor was getting up in front of his church to resign to say that he had been living an adulterous lifestyle, but he wasn't going to tell the whole truth about it.

This young lady came, stepped up on stage and said, while it's true that he'd been committing adultery, it's started when I was 16. Friends, don't follow people. People will let you down. Because people are fallible just like you. Every single person that you come across is who they are, if they're good, by the grace of God. And if they're not good, it's because they haven't

found the grace of God. There's one person's example we follow and one personally and that's the person of Jesus Christ. So beware of the examples that we follow. And then the third thing is watch out and beware. For the life that you're living. Watch out and beware for that life that you're living because the leaven all around you can sometimes begin to permeate you.

That's why there are continual calls in Scripture for us to purge out the old leaven so that we can be a brand new lump. A continual call to purge out the flesh, to cut off the flesh, to circumcise our hearts so that we, we can be right with God. Watch out and beware because there is leaven of false teaching and false living all around us. We must keep our eyes focused on Jesus, our one true Messiah. Amen.

Well this morning is Communion Sunday and as we prepare to partake of Communion, we are reminded of a couple of things. Number one that this is the sacrifice of the Messiah. That our Messiah, the one who loved us enough to give himself for us, looked down at earth and said, I love them so much that I will have my body broken and I will have my blood shed for them. And that's what we celebrate here. We celebrate and proclaim

the death of Jesus Christ because now as a result of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, we have unity. Not only with him but with each other. This was a real theme of the conference that we were at yesterday, that aspect of fellowship because these things are written to us that we may have fellowship with one another. Koinonia, that which is in common.

Because we all as believers in Jesus Christ now have a singular common bond. We may be one weird tribe. We may be one weird looking family. But we all have one thing that bonds us all together no matter what our background is, no matter what our color is, no matter what our look is. We're all bound together by one thing, one singular thing, and that's the death

of Jesus Christ. Because we all found ourselves saying, I am a desperate sinner. He said, but I am a great savior. So as we come together to partake in this meal, we're doing something very sacred. And it's a very holy spiritual thing that we're about to do. And so we're told that we're to do so worthy. In a worthy manner. The way that we do that is, first of all, to make

sure that you're part of the family. Because this is a family meal. This is family time spent together. So if you're not a part of the family of Jesus Christ, this will be the saddest snack you've ever ate in your life. It won't mean anything to you. So if you want to partake of it in a worthy manner, you need to make sure that your heart is right with Jesus

Christ. If you would like to become a part of the family of God, it's as simple as confessing that you're a sinner and accepting that he's your savior. The moment that you do that, you are ushered into the body of Jesus Christ and you are now made one with us through the sacrifice of Jesus. And then you can not only partake as a part of the family, but we will celebrate the fact that you have been made brand new in Christ.

That you have become born again. There's another way as believers that we make sure that we partake in a worthy manner. And the way that we make sure that we partake in a worthy manner is to make sure that we have purged out the old leaven. That we have purged out that which is permeating our lives. So I'm going to go ahead and invite the worship team to come on up.

Because they're going to lead us in one last song. And as they lead us in this last song, I would ask you to allow the Holy Spirit to search your heart. And as the Holy Spirit searches your heart, confess those things to the Lord. Confess those sins that need to be gotten out. Purge out the old leaven so that you can once again become a brand new lump. So as they sing,

the ushers are going to come down and they're going to begin to hand out the elements. And as they hand out the elements, if you would stand with us and we will all partake together.

Father, we come before you and I just thank you so much for the time that we've had here this morning. And I thank you for, the truth of what this meal means for us. Lord, that you have given yourself for us. Lord, that your body was broken, pierced and striped for us. That your blood was shed for the remission of our sins. Lord, that you took unholy sinners, bore all of their sin

in your own body on the tree, and you granted us your righteousness. Father, keep us ever in mind of the fact that the one hope that we have is in you. Lord, as we celebrate, I pray that you would renew our understanding of the great love that you have for us. In Jesus' name. Amen. Let's partake.

Would you bow with me one more time?

Lord, lead us as we go out from here. Holy Spirit, flow through every person. Baptize afresh those who need that fresh filling of you. And Lord, set our minds on the things that are above. Father, we thank you for who you are. And just pray that your word would continue its good work in our lives. In Jesus' name. Amen. Be blessed.