Hidden From the Wise
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All right, as they are going out, I am going to jump right in. There is once a year where we preach in Oklahoma City, and we get in the car and we drive the speed limit down Interstate 35 to HFF DFW. Today would be one of those days. Currently, as we sit here, there is a Messiah meetings conference happening in our Dallas campus right now. Started last night, and we'll carry on through tonight.
So I'm gonna be preaching here today, running off the stage. I'm gonna be hopping in my car with my family, and I'm gonna be driving to Dallas, and I'm going to be preaching at the end of the Messiah meetings down there with Brad and Erica Brauns and with Dr. David Jones, John Diff. A lot of my friends, we go way, way back. And so pray for me. More importantly, pray for my wife and my kids.
You know, that expedition can get up and go, you know, kind of like the Tesla, but, you know, we'll be driving that expedition as if it was a Tesla now in 35 to try to make it in time. I think last time I did this, I walked into the Dallas campus with 10 minutes to spare before I was supposed to preach. And so I guess maybe that's a positive thing because then you don't feel the pressure or the weight of, like, what you're getting ready to say or what you're getting ready to preach or just kind of at that point in time, just, you know, living on a prayer. My kids are the ones who are asking, oh, are we halfway there? So living on a prayer.
All right. Hidden from the wise. We're going to continue in Matthew chapter 11. This is actually the last series, the last teaching in the series called the Kingdom aside. Next week, my wife and I and our family will be on vacation, and Brent will be back.
Brent will be preaching for the first time in, like, eight months. I think it's been, I don't know, maybe seven months. But Brent will be back on the pulpit and just in time to tackle Matthew chapter 12 and the interaction with Jesus and the Pharisees in regards to the Sabbath. So be prepared for Brent to be well rested and to come out swinging punches next week. This week, I'm gonna try not to swing punches.
But as we've seen in the Gospel of Matthew, it's almost impossible not to, because what Jesus is coming into and Jesus interaction is the narciss. And a lot of times we talk about the Pharisees because Jesus does have those interaction with the Pharisees. But the reality is Jesus interaction with all of the religious elite of that day, the Essenes out in the Qumran Valley. That's where we get the Dead Sea Scrolls and all kinds of random theology and doctrine that's happening today. You have the Sadducees who did not believe in the Resurrection, who were more politically minded.
And then you have the Torah keepers, the Torah observant leadership, which was the Pharisees, who were the interpreters of the law at that. Last week we saw that Jesus revealed that the law and the prophets were never the final destination, but that it was the guardians to prepare God's people for the arrival of the Messiah. John the Baptist stood as a hinge in history. We see this in the beginning of Matthew chapter 11. Cam taught this about two weeks ago.
It says that the Torah and the prophets prophesied till the time of John. That's a hinge point in history, that the Torah and the prophets had a finite moment where they then turn into what we have now as the Gospels. John stood as the baptizer of the people and the hinge of that history. He called Israel out of their ritual. Remember, mikvahs were something they did on a regular basis.
Mikvahs were a ritual cleansing. But what good is cleansing your skin when your soul remains tainted and dirty? He called them out of rituals and he called them into repentance. This was the doorway from death into life. Though the kingdom came in power, many remained unchanged.
We see this in our current world. We've seen signs, miracles and wonders in this church alone. And we've seen people who have dismayed or disregarded those things. Just to go back into a life of, well, what I can do with my hands and my feet is the most important. When we saw the power of God come down and do something that there's not a person in this room who has the power to do it on their own.
We are not the Holy Spirit. We will never be the Holy Spirit. Not because the people misunderstood, that's not why they remained unchanged. The people of that day were more Torah observant and understood the Torah better than any of us ever will because it was a part of their life and their culture, but because they had refused to repent. Repent is one of the greatest gifts from God, and yet it is one of the biggest curse words in Christianity today.
You say repent and you might as well have said other words that are found in the King James Bible, but not in the Message Bible. Jesus did not judge their lack of knowledge, but he judged their Indifference to the power of God in their midst. Repentance remains the essential act that turns us from the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil into the fruit of the tree of life that can only be found in Jesus Christ. It's relational, transformative. And how do we know it's happened?
Because John says we are to bear fruit. In keeping with repentance, there is fruit we should be able to see. It's not that we're judging the person's heart or their mind. We're judging what their heart and mind is producing as fruit. Remember, the fruit of your tree is so that the people who are around you can take and eat and grow closer to God.
It's not for you to eat on your own fruit. It's like man, I'm so holy, let me eat this righteous apple I just created. No, it's not part of it. Responsibility always comes with revelation. Today we're going to see more revelation spoken from Yeshua in Matthew chapter 11.
If you have your Bibles in your lap or on your app, open to Matthew chapter 11, we're going to start in verses 25 and 26. Jesus is talking and he says, oh Father, O Yahweh, Lord of heaven and earth, thank you for hiding these things from the wise and the clever and revealing them to the childlike. Jesus contrasts the religious elite of that day, the ones who saw his miracles but had refused to repent in the earlier passages, with the humble, childlike Jews who knew very little but had turned their hearts towards God. Everybody in this room, all my Torah, observant, feast, loving Torah, pursuant righteous individuals. This should be our book to look and wake up.
There are two trees that we can eat from. It's the same two trees from the garden. The knowledge of good and evil are the tree of life. Jesus contrasted the religious elite of this day as the ones who saw the miracles yet refused to repent. And yet here are these humble, childlike, don't know much.
They don't know much, but they know they love him and they turn their hearts towards God. This wasn't accidental. This was a divine strategy. God resists the proud, but he gives grace to the humble. God's wisdom appears foolish to the world's elite.
And revelation does not come to those who believe they know everything. It comes to those who know that they need Him.
All I did a teaching years ago called the Apocalypse at Shavuot. And one of the points of that, that terminology apocalypse. For many years we've, in our conservative Christianity have come From a place where the apocalypse means some, like, doom and gloom, end of the world, like, it's when Grand Theft Auto meets doom or something. I'm aging myself a little bit. I don't think doom has been relevant for many, many years.
But it's some sort of, like, warfare that's happening. And apocalypses in the scripture are not warfare. Apocalypses in the scripture are when heaven meets earth and heaven and nature sing.
Revelation does not come to those who know everything. It comes to those who know that they need Jesus, the source of all revelation. Humility positions us to receive the kingdom, while repentance opens the door of our hearts and our mind. Matthew continues as Jesus is speaking. My Father has entrusted me everything to me.
No one knows the Son except for the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal himself. Let me read this again. My Father has entrusted everything to me, so Yahweh has entrusted everything to Jesus. No one knows Jesus except for Yahweh, and no one knows that Yahweh except for Jesus and those who Jesus chooses to reveal him. Jesus is not merely some sort of messianic rabbi.
He's not just a messianic prophet, not merely just another voice in the long prophetic lines of Israel. Israel has some beautiful prophetic voices that take place. If you classify Jesus as just another rabbi, as just another prophet, as just another Israel prophet, you have sold Jesus short from his own testimony, which is the testimony of the one who sent him, which is the Father. I hate to break it to you, you can't get any higher than that. There's no other line on the corporate ladder that could trump this.
You're talking to the Yahweh of all creation who is saying to Jesus, and Jesus is saying about Yahweh, that Yahweh cannot be revealed unless Jesus reveals him. And Jesus chooses who he reveals him to. This should alter some of our concepts of, well, we can get to the Father without the Son. You don't see the Father without the Son. You see the Father through the Son.
Oh, wait a second. I thought Jesus was just an ambassador. Now to put it in terminology that some of my parents in this room could understand because your children are in kids class. Jesus is the big boss baby in charge. There is no other one.
You don't get to the Father, you don't get to Yahweh without going through Jesus. It's not like there's some, like, Willy Wonka chocolate bar that if you get the Gold coin. You get to go some other place. There's literally no other way. There's no other door.
There's no other escape path. You ain't even getting invited into the kingdom of Heaven if it's not through Jesus. I need you to understand that. The Sabbath day about Jesus, the feast about Jesus. The Holy Spirit reveals Jesus, Jesus reveals the Father.
Everything flows through Jesus. And I will never apologize for that stance.
Jesus is the only one who truly knows Yahweh. He is the only one who reveals Yahweh. And he is Yahweh in the flesh. And no one. Not Moses, not Deborah, not Esther, not Ruth.
Yes, women prophesied and had roles in the Bible, too.
My wife is a woman's pastor. Amen in that one. No, that's a good word. Nothing. Okay.
All right. Jeez, man, it's beginning to look a lot like Hanukkah. There ain't no joy in this house. Who?
You better figure it out. It's tomorrow. The Festival of Lights. The Festival of Joy starts tomorrow. What, are you just gonna wait till you light the candle and then magically it's like, ooh, you're gonna make me sing Sunday school classes songs again.
Like, I got the joy, joy, joy, joy down in my heart. Every week we're gonna have to start off with that one because it seems like we're like, oh, it's December, guys. It's like 60 degrees out and sunny.
I mean, I've prayed for different. I want snow, I want cold. I'm an Ohio boy. Just for one week, and it can go away. But I digress.
No one can get you to the Father except for Jesus. This was a theological earthquake to the Pharisees. The Pharisees had believed that they were the rightful leaders of Israel, that they were the Torah keepers. They were the keepers of the Torah, the protector of the Torah. They were the interpreters of the prophets, and they were the mouthpiece of God on earth.
And yet Jesus stands before them and declares, you can't know Yahweh unless you come through me.
Those were fighting words in that day. This is not a small shift in the scripture. This is a cosmic collision. When God comes to God's people, we find out very quickly that God's people weren't about God.
We should wake up and take notice because we all have the tendency to fall into the same trappings of me over you.
The old wineskins cannot contain what God was pouring out. In this day and age, there was a contrast. Dare I say a Brent's favorite word, a juxtaposition that the heavy burdens that were laid by the Jewish leadership of that day now met a rabbi who said, my burdens aren't heavy and I want to give you rest. Matthew 11:28, Come to me, all who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Jesus confronts the Torah observance of that day, not the Torah itself, the observance, the way it had been interpreted and the way it had been weaponized against other believers.
Israel now faced what Adam and Eve had faced in the garden. There's two trees in front of them. There is the tree. One of the Pharisees that they spoke for the Father, but they misrepresented his heart of the Torah. They led people with spiritual burdens that were impossible for any human to carry.
They created a culture of exhaustion, shame and spiritual harassment, that they taught the gospel in a way that none of us would ever be good enough. And guess what? On our own, none of us ever were going to be good enough. But they taught it from a way that said, trolling, you need me. And because you need me, I will teach you how to be good enough so you can stay with me.
This is how we get cults.
And here's the second tree that comes in the picture, the tree of life. Jesus, the Lord of the Sabbath. He was humble, he was gentle, he was rest giving, he was burden lifting and he was life producing. He said, if you take me on, you will live forever. I can't offer you the ability to live forever.
The truth is I can't even offer you the ability to overcome everything in your life because there's things I haven't done in my life. So my counsel would be fruitless because you'd look at me and you'd say, why is that dude giving counsel on that? He's never gone on through it. Shocker, you'd be right.
Jesus saw the Pharisees leave his sheep harassed and helpless. And he says, I will not leave you harassed and helpless. I will empower you to life and life abundantly. That is so much better than getting the king sized Snickers. That is so much better than 50 price candy day, which falls the day after Halloween, the day after Christmas, the day after Valentine's Day, the day after all of those.
It is so much better than that. It is life and life abundantly. And it's in a life that you have access to now. So many people teach that if you just, if you love Jesus, you'll have this life in the future. And Jesus says, you'll have a life in the future with me, but I want that life to start now.
The religious leaders said, try harder. Do more. Maybe one day you'll be righteous. Probably not, but maybe one day. And Jesus says, repent.
Come to me. I will give you rest. I preached on my own testimony. I don't know how many times about when we started to keep the Sabbath day, how we basically built this box around it where we were afraid to do anything. I was afraid to turn the television on.
I was afraid to look at my phone. I was afraid to do anything. And we spent I don't know how many months of honoring the Sabbath. We never honor the Sabbath. Once in there, never once did we find rest.
Never once did we find Yeshua. Never once did we find peace or patience or kindness. Never once did we ever find any good fruit. All we did is we sat there and we rotted for about 12 hours of daylight. Because what we did is we did what the Pharisees did.
We said, somehow we can obtain righteousness in the Sabbath. There is no rest apart from Jesus. Guys, one tree. The tree of the Pharisees was crushing the Israelites. And here comes the tree of life.
Jesus, Yeshua, the Messiah. And it says, I will heal you and set you free. Dare I say it? Juxtaposition.
Jesus continues, Matthew 11, 29, 30. And he says, take my yoke upon you. Let me teach you, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light. Take my yoke.
That's a Hebrew idiom. It means to submit to my authority. This is Jesus talking, not me. Take my yoke. Jesus is saying, submit to my authority.
Learn about my teachings. Apprentice under me. Let me shape your life and the way of your life.
But even though this has been taught many times as an obligation, the scripture is full of invitations.
God is asking you to join him. God is not some Neanderthal, some caveman who's walking up behind you, beating you over the head with the stick and say, you now saved. He is inviting you to his house to dine with him. He's inviting you to do life with him where he can take and he can carry your burdens. He's inviting you to lay and let him cuddle you.
Super awkward. When we have weird relationships with our fathers or our mothers, and then we see in the scripture that God has talked about the ultimate father. And then even in the prophets, as a nursing mother, we can't accept that love from Yahweh, from Jesus. Because we weren't able to accept it from our parents. And Jesus is saying, sooner or later you have to forgive them.
And trust me, Jesus is giving them an invitation. You get to choose your rabbi, just like you get to choose where you go to church. HFF is one of the greatest billboards for all the other Saturday churches in, in Norman, Oklahoma City. Because if you come here and there's things you're looking for that we're not going to be about. Like, we don't have a Torah scroll.
We're not going to do a Torah scroll. Like, but we're going to send you to a place that does that. Why? Because not every sheep is supposed to be in this pasture. And I'm totally cool with that.
I want you to get to where you can thrive. Because if you thrive, you find Jesus and the kingdom is better, rather than keeping you here so that you can die when you would thrive in somebody else's field. This is the difference between the Pharisees yoke and Jesus yoke. The Pharisees yoke was prideful, narcissistic, oppressive. It was impossible to bear.
And it was a yoke of slavery. It was a burden that had left people harassed and helpless. Yet Jesus yoke is contrasted here by being humble and gentle. It's empowered by the Holy Spirit, the Ruach Hakodesh that actually provides rest for your soul. It is life giving.
It is a burden that's carried with you, not a burden that's placed, put on you. Was walking around like Jacob with that limp. But it wasn't because we wrestled with God. It's because some religious person put this weight on us that God says, give it to me.
I like to think I have a high threshold of pain, but you hang me on a stake, Mommy.
Not only did he hang there with the guilt and shame of me, he did for all of you in this room, and he took it.
Jesus yoke is a way that you can actually live. Where the Pharisees said, you need us, Jesus says, you need my Father. And my father is revealed in me. The Kingdom Messiah invites you into a rest that is unlike anything we can produce in this life. Anybody who's known me a while knows I have like 1% chill.
The last three years, I've increased 1%. In a corporation, I would be going bankrupt on my chill, but I've gained 1% chill. But I can tell you this. When I find myself turning off my phone, turning off the television, turning off the text messages, all that stuff, and sitting with Jesus, there's an actual rest that I can't. I can't even really explain what that's like.
When I find myself not allowing Jesus to sit and be with me and me to be with him, and I have these distractions or I have these engagements that are out there, even if they're one degree of separation, I find myself not actually finding rest. You could say, well, you took two days off, you took the weekend off or whatever, and somehow come Monday morning, you feel more overwhelmed than you did on Friday.
That's because you cannot find true rest apart from Jesus. The Israelites were the most Torah observant, the most feast loving, the most Sabbath keeping, culturally understanding people. Ever.
Think of this cosmic collision that's happening when this man is saying, if you allow me to be your rabbi, you will actually find rest. Wait a second. I have a rest. Every week we sing Yom Shekazo, Shabbat. O it's so fun.
It's peaceful. He said, I'll say it again. My yoke is easy, my burning is light. Come to me, all who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest. A child needs their parents, and we need our Father.
And the Father is fully revealed in the Son, Jesus Christ. Here's another thing. Jesus Christ gets to choose. That's what we read. He chooses who he reveals the Father to.
So you can't get a glimpse of the Father if the Son isn't revealing him. If you think there's some back door to Yahweh without Jesus, not happening. It is the Son's choice to reveal, and he did over 2,000 years ago. He went and he was intentional about everything he did. The days of acting like we can get to the Father without him were so 2000 years ago.
The kingdom. Messiah is bringing the kingdom of heaven and earth, and he's inviting you into the mission, not the performance. He's inviting you into the mission, not the ritual. He's inviting you into the mission not through the works of your righteousness of filthy rags, but through repentance, humility, and rest.
Worship team, you can come back.
I think that we should go ahead and put this down as a marker. I had eight pages of notes, and I've done it somewhere in like 20 minutes. This will never, ever, ever, ever, ever happen again. I can promise you. What you've witnessed today was a miracle.
There was a sign in the star, and it told you. I'm just joking. Oh, thank you, jt. Thank you. You can teach an old dog new tricks.
Yes. You can only get through this life through repentance, humility and rest. And Jesus says, come to him, Take his yoke. Let him teach you. And this is where a lot of us stop.
We say, oh, let us be taught. Let it be taught the Hebrew way. Let us be taught the Greek way. Let us be taught.
But you have to also allow him to transform you. You also have to let him carry the things that you cannot carry. For his burden is light, his way is life. His kingdom is rest. And his invitation is open.
Dear Heavenly Father, I thank you for this day. I thank you for the ability to read from your word. Lord, I thank you that you sent your son.
Lord, I ask that you would give me grace with the children's and the toddlers and the junior youth leaders who just now started their message, that they would know that we all need rest, Lord. Lord, I ask that you be with Mark Jeffries as he continues to heal from his back injuries. I ask that you would be with the multiple families who've been dealing with the stomach bug that's going around this week. Lord, I ask on behalf of the Horner family and on behalf of the Dorsey family, Lord, that you would hear our petitions, that you would remove the cancer cells from those children's body, Lord, and that they would be healed in the name of Jesus Christ, Yeshua, the Messiah, that they would have a miracle, that they would be able to testify about that. It wasn't the doctors, it wasn't my voice.
It was your spirit, your power and your healing, Lord, for those who are struggling with their jobs, we lift them up for Jim, Lord, complete healing in your name, Lord, we ask that you would be with each and every person at the Messiah meetings today, Lord, that we wouldn't be about coming to church just to play church. Those days are over. That we would be about coming together on the Sabbath day to feel and experience your power and your presence. Because it is a cosmic shift that you offered to humanity over 2000 years ago. And we cannot get into your presence through our brains.
We have to do it with the submission of our entire body to speak, repentance and confession so that you can fill us with the power of your holy spirit, Lord, that we can be about the mission of this life which is to bring heaven to earth.
Forgive us of the times when we look more like Chris and not enough like Christ. Forgive us of the times when that we put ourselves first and not you first, Lord, Forgive us of the times where we're worried about the giants in front of us rather than revealing the fact that David, with the stone and your might, took down the giants. And you will do the same for us today for Hanukkah, for Christmas, for Festivus, for the rest of us, Lord, that you would be with us, that you would create a space and an opportunity to remember that as long as we have breath in our lungs, that as long as we have life in our heart, that as long as there is blood in our body, Lord, that we are to give our entire life back to you. Not only in our physical, Lord, but in our mental, our spiritual, our emotional. To put you first, to remember, to proclaim that you came to this world and you gave us an opportunity to make the shift from self to you, Lord, for those who've lost loved ones in the last year, who this season brings a lot of anxiety and a lot of sorrow, Lord, I ask that you and only you could fill that space in their heart through the power of your holy spirit, Lord, that they would know that even though they lost a loved one in this life, you are still with them in this life and they will see them in the next life.
For the minchakas, Lord, for their dog, for the other things that are going on with their family, for Joshua's father, Lord, for all these things that have crept up this week, Lord, I ask that you would give them words of wisdom, that you would give them discernment, that you would give them words of knowledge, Lord, that they would know exactly what to do with the doctors, that they would be guided in every step, not by themselves, Lord, but by you.
For yours is the kingdom, for yours is the power, for yours is the glory forever and ever, Lord.
Lord, we ask for the homes that are broken, Lord, we ask that you would fill the brokenness in that space. You would remove the generational traumas, Lord, and you would fill it with the generational promise that we have in you, Jesus Christ, that even though our earthly family might be messed up, might be dysfunctional, whatever, we have a heavenly family that comes from a perfect dad and a perfect mom and sent a perfect son, that we could be sons and daughters of that family, Lord, today, as we respond, I ask that you would work on our hearts and our minds that we would not just sing this revelation song, Lord, but that we would remember that this is what is sung in the the throne room, Lord, that this is what is sung worthy. Are you holy, holy, holy? Are you day and night, night and day, without ceasing, that we wouldn't just sing this song, that we would position our hearts and our minds in a place, Lord, that we would recognize that we are joining heaven and earth in the proclamation of the King of Heaven.
Because you are our everything.
We extol you, we love you, we praise you, Almighty King of Heaven.
For it's in the name of Jesus Christ we come before you. Amen and amen. If you will stand and let's respond.
