When Words Mean Nothing
To watch the sermon When Words Mean Nothing | Jesus Heals and Fulfills Isaiah’s Prophecy
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Since December of last year, we have focused heavily into the cultural changes that Yeshua brought in the first century.
It's a little bit more life altering than when we decide to skip the kids blessing for the first time in eight years. Although for some of us, we're creatures of habit. And so when we skip the kids blessing, then we're like, what do we do? Like, how do we transition? This transition is weird.
Who cares if the transition is weird? I can promise you Jesus was considered weird in the first century. I can promise you, based upon what we see in the text, that he was not considered to be popular. Obviously, they killed him.
We're talking about Torah observant Jews who had grown up under the lineage of Abraham, under the lineage of Joseph, under the lineage of David, under the lineage of Deborah, under the lineage of all of these individuals.
Since December, we have been looking at the life, the conception, the ministry, Yeshua, because like we just sang, yours is the kingdom, yours is the power, yours is the glory, forever and ever. If it's not his, then we're in conflict. If we're in conflict, we a lot of times bring chaos. And if there's chaos, then the Holy Spirit is not there. Because from Genesis to Revelation, when the Holy Spirit is evident, the Holy Spirit is restoring order.
Jesus ministry was a shift in a paradigm. It wasn't preaching about God. He was God. It wasn't just preaching about Word. He was Word.
It wasn't just preaching about the Ruach Hakodesh or the Spirit. He was the Spirit in all things. The kingdom had come like never before.
It was no longer, what are we going to do when Mashiach comes? It was more of who recognizes that Mashiach is here.
The methods that Jesus used were not exactly what the Torah observant believers of the first century had wanted. They weren't exactly what they had expected, and they definitely weren't what they had built a culture around.
This isn't unusual, right? I mean, we all have misplaced expectations. One of the easiest places to have issues in your marriage is to have misplaced expectations in your relationships. Misplaced expectations out of our expectations become the culture, the atmosphere, the expectations that we build for ourselves and other people.
But yet many of us have come to even be in this room to a crisis of belief. It is most popular if you are actually going to attend a church at all. It is most popular to attend on a Sunday. So you have to come to some sort of crisis of belief on why am I not meeting on a Sunday? To even walk through the doors of a church on a Saturday.
And then when you walk through the doors of the church on the Saturday and you start to see that this Jewish messiah was the king of all nations, all races, all creeds, all financial statuses. Yes, even for the people. New York, all of you Okies.
And how fitting that last night a lot of you, whether it was on television or you drove around the cities or you drove out to the country, Newcastle, Blanchard, those areas, those country places, way out yonder over the Chattahoochee and you saw booms, bright lights, and if you were fortunate enough, you really, really felt it because you know, you went from creed to Toby Keith. We were American. We were free.
Brought to you courtesy of the red, white and blue. And yet, as patriotic as I am, as much as I love this country, our freedom is nothing in comparison to what we're looking at in Matthew chapter eight as America. It's nothing in comparison to the freedom that Jesus, Yeshua, the Messiah was bringing not only to the Jews, not only to the Israelites, but to the entire world. We ended last week with Jesus healing many.
He wrote the book on the 12 step process. The problem is that 11 of the 12 didn't make the book because it was just with a simple word. He cast out demons. Funny how Hollywood has turned it into three or four guys with the collared shirt got to go into the room with the right water at the right time, doing the right thing and then we can cast out a demon. Yeshua did it with a simple word in Matthew 8 and this was to fulfill the prophecies that were spoken of in Isaiah.
Remember, everything we're looking at in the Kingdom of Action series is for us to understand. One of the key statements that was used against Jesus as being the Messiah. He was here to nullify the Torah and the prophets.
He says himself, I did not come to nullify, I came to fulfill. I came to complete. I came to make whole. We talk a lot in our origin story about the Torah, but not a lot about the prophets. The prophets foretold of all time who this person should be, what this person should look like, and what your culture should do in expectation of that king.
When we talk about our feasts, our festivals, our sabbaths, the commandments in the scripture, we have the same opportunity today that the first century apostles had the same opportunity.
Why do you keep the Sabbath? Why do you keep the feast? Why do you keep the festivals? And under whose authority do you do so? Is it under the authority of Moses?
Is it under the authority of Solomon, or is it under the authority that all of the men in the Bible found themselves, which is God Almighty, Jesus, the Christ, Yeshua, hamashiach, Shiach. And this crisis of belief was about to cost these Torah observant Jews and a handful of gentiles that interacted with them. They came up against what we like to call that proverbial fork in the road, not spork in the road, but it was going to cost him everything.
Some of them had actually cost them their life. Today, some of us, you've paid tremendous costs for following Jesus.
And some of you have read the stories, watched the documentaries, whether it's on YouTube or some of the other places about the underground church in Iran, the underground church in China, and some of these other places where husbands or wives will leave in the morning to go and study with other people and they will kiss their loved ones each morning as if they are not coming back. You think about that, you know, you talk to somebody and it's like, oh, I'll go to work, I'll call you at five o'. Clock. When they walk out the door of their house, they walk out the door of their house as if they're never coming home. And it's a blessing if they get to come home because they live in a country that persecutes people for professing that Jesus is the salvation.
We don't live in that country. We don't face that type of persecution.
We're blessed. Yet the reward of this future kingdom that costs them everything gives them one of the greatest rewards. In the book of the Revelation, John was given the vision that the new Jerusalem would be built off of the 12 Pillars of the 12 Apostles. We're going to pick up in Matthew, chapter 8, verses 18. Now, when Jesus saw a crowd around him, he gave orders to depart to the other side of the sea.
May seem kind of small to you, but how did Jesus get to start giving orders to people who just came down off the mountain with them? If we're talking military language, if we're talking rabbi influence, if we're talking pastoral influence, we're barely out of the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus comes down off the mountain. Jesus comes down and people start seeing things, things start happening. We're in the first part of it.
We're literally only 18 verses into chapter eight after the Sermon on the Mo. And here Jesus says, go to the other side of the mountain. That's like a newcomer coming into the church. And I'm like, go to 4th street and pick me up some tacos and bring me back. I'm going to be like, love you, Pastor.
But no. Jesus immediately gives them this order to go. Yet they're barely starting their relationship at this point in time. Jesus somehow spoke with authority and then was able to give direction with an authority pretty quickly.
That's again, countercultural seems small, but we have to develop trust, we have to develop relationships before somebody is like, hey, Jeremy, I need you to go run some errands for me this afternoon and bring them to my house. Well, the first time I ever met you, you might do it. Cause you're one of the kindest people I've ever met. But realistically, it's probably we have to develop a little bit of a relationship before you're just like, hey, man, I wanna spend time with my wife. You know, I wanna spend time with my daughter, my son.
I don't really wanna run all over town for you. You have to develop a relationship. Jesus is like, hey, we're gonna just get out of the boat and we're gonna test real quick who's with me, who is a follower, who has a relationship and who believes in my authority. And more than just hearing me speak. But actually, to put some skin in the game, this is what we would call a vetting process.
Normally, that vetting process takes a little bit of time. Yet Jesus speaks with an authority to vacate crowds and to ask them to go to the other side of the lake. So some people will use this and they'll say, see, God doesn't want to make a church. God tells them anytime there's a crowd to go to the other side of the lake. That's not what the text is saying here.
And we see in Luke's message later on in the book of Acts that thousands were saved in moments with the preaching of the gospel and the falling of the Holy Spirit. But when God says, go, you better go. Because the kingdom mission is always doing something, just like it's always giving something.
Matthew 8, 19, 20. Then one of the teachers of the religious law said to him, teacher, I will follow you wherever you will go. But Jesus replied, foxes have dens to live in, and birds have nests, but the Son of man has no place to even lay his head. We've heard this all before, right? Or we've read this all before.
I mean, I've read it multiple times. I love the poetic nature of that. It's, you know, it's kind of passive, yet aggressive. Foxes have dens to live in and the birds have nests. But the Son of Man has no place to lay his head yet.
There's so much in here and I'm going to do my best to get to all of the things that the Lord revealed to me over the last couple of weeks in here today. But first I want to point out this is the first time Matthew's got a lot of firsts. We talked about the first of Matthew to point out that we had the first recorded element of where Jesus spoke and had healing versus touch. Over the last two weeks we talked about how in the first of Matthew, Jesus was using a Gentile to minister to the Jews and how he was using an unclean to minister to the clean. Lots of firsts in the Gospel of Matthew that this is the first time the terminology the Son of Man is used.
Now where do we find the terminology of the Son of Man and the prophecy that goes with that? Daniel. See, there's a lot of things in the prophecy of Daniel more than just the timeline. Okies. There's some beautiful things.
The most of the things you're going to find in the prophecy is not about some doom and gloom in the future. It's going to be about the hope of Jesus.
Jesus didn't come so you could have hope of potentially being dead.
Hate to break it to you, before Jesus ever came, you were going to die anyways. Human beings died. Very few got called into heaven or lived forever. Yet even fewer were resurrected to life and only one resurrected himself to life. You were going to die.
It was not poetic or prophetic that you were going to die in the physical. It was that you would die to yourself and be alive in Christ was the revolutionary element of that. Yet In Daniel chapter 7, 13, 14, it says, I saw in the night visions and behold, with the clouds of heaven, there came one like the Son of Man. We talked about this before. I forget exactly what sermon series it is.
A lot of times we talk about apocalyptic literature, apocalyptic concepts that are there. This is one of them. A lot of times like we'll see the Son of Man come riding on the clouds. Glory, hallelujah. And we talk about the second coming of Christ.
This is actually talking about the first coming of Christ.
There came one like the Son of Man. And he came to the ancient of days and was presented before him. And to him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom that all peoples, nations and language should serve him. His dominion is everlasting dominion which shall not pass away. And his kingdom, one that shall not be destroyed.
Don't tell me Jesus Christ doesn't have dominion until he comes back the second time. Don't tell me that Yeshua doesn't have dominion. He's not God until he comes back the second time. You don't know the Bible and you're not listening to Daniel. There's one who comes, the Son of Man, who is given all dominion.
The Son of Man is a human who appears before Yahweh, the ancient of days, God the Father, and is given universal dominion. Doesn't say, I'm getting universal dominion. There's one, the Son of Man, who's getting universal dominion over the world and the world's kingdoms. So Matthew is using this term after Jesus has come and shown his dominion over the fallen angels who are now demons, folks. Because I've never.
I don't think I've ever used that terminology, fallen angels in any of my sermon. Don't go home in, like, beautiful minds, Nephilim and all this weird stuff. Like, and, like, end up down this rabbit hole of things. You're missing the point. Jesus had come, and the fallen angels of the Torah have now manifested in more of a demonic influence in the first century.
And here's the point. Jesus took dominion over both. Jesus took dominion over both.
Yet in Matthew, where he releases the Son of Man, he says he's got no place to lay his head. It's also interesting to point out I wrestled with this all week. I called Brent, I called some of my friends who've got degrees. Why? Why?
I don't believe there's a mistake in the single word of God. I don't care if it's English version or whatever. I believe the Holy Spirit can work in all versions of them, even the Passion. Even though the Passion is loose. Loosely translated, loosely, when we're talking about really loose, like, you should tie your shoes, you're going to trip over the base.
Loose. I say that because why foxes? Why not mammals? Why not sea creatures? Why not have more broad terminology?
Why foxes? Because in the next, it says birds. It doesn't say pigeons. It doesn't say doves, it doesn't say blue jays, it doesn't say orioles, it doesn't say any of these. Why foxes and then birds?
Why not saying creepy crawling creatures and flying creatures? I wrestled with this all week. Lord, there's got to be something here. There's got to be something. You're going to have to help me understand, because I don't understand.
I think it's interesting. As I started to go down the same rabbit hole I told you not to go down about The Nephilim and the fallen angels. And I started going down the rabbit hole of foxes and the interaction of foxes with Judaism, early rabbi writings, and then also in the Scripture.
Foxes are commonly tied to the destruction of the temple and the hope of a new temple in Judaism. Rabbi Akiva actually writes of this. And we see in Lamentations, I believe it's Lamentations 5 and a prophecy which I believe I did not put in my notes, but I believe it's in Zechariah 14. We also see references to foxes in the temple in Jerusalem. And it always is in line with weeping or the destruction and the hope of a new temple.
Yet the scribe. Remind you who the scribe is. This guy isn't new to a church. This is a guy who sits with the religious teachers. He's like a lawyer.
He is extremely well versed, not only in the Torah, but in the interpretations of the Torah. He gets to see the Sadducees and the Pharisees arguing these things. This is an intelligent man when it comes to what they're doing in that time frame. Yet the scribe doesn't even recognize Jesus, the one who is sitting there speaking, calling himself the Son of Man.
He doesn't understand the inference, or at least he doesn't believe the inference that's coming out of Jesus's mouth would apply to Jesus Yeshua, in the moment.
We could sit there all day. Yet I want to shift gears into the rest of the passage where it says Jesus instructs them to go.
And yet rather than going, one of the scribes says, I'll go with you, Lord.
Hey, trolling, let's go walk to the parking lot. I'll go with you, trollen. Let's go to the parking lot. I'll go with you. And I'm still here and trolling, still sitting there sipping his coffee.
I'll go, Pastor. I'll go.
Many like that meme. Do something. Move, do something. Jesus was not interested in them, to show their allegiance by speaking that they would go or they would obey. He wanted them to actually go and obey.
Go to the other side of the lake. Kind of like when we're posting our memes on Facebook, like this is what we were supposed to do on the Sabbath, or this is what you're supposed to do with that. Why don't you just do it? Novel idea. What did we do before social media?
Oh, we kept our opinions to ourselves.
Brought to you courtesy of the red, white and blue. Jesus isn't interested in us always talking about what it is we'll do. Did you know I'm a Christian? Did you know I love the Torah? Did you know, show me, do something.
There's a lot of talk, and we judge based upon talk a lot. Especially in America. Jesus is saying, go. Not just talk about going, Go. How many of you in your life?
And I know this is somewhat different, but I want to let this sit in for a second with how real this is. How many of you have talked about, you know what would be really, really awesome? If I went on a vacation with my family one day. I've never taken a vacation. I've never been to the beach.
I've never done this. I've never done this. Why don't you go instead of keep talking about it? How much greater is it when the son of God, the Jewish king of kings, the Lord of lords, is standing in your midst and you should know it's him? And he says, go.
And you're like, I'll go, Lord. He's like, thank you. I already invited you. Okay, are you coming or what?
Every one of us, I promise you, has an area in your life where Jesus has asked you to go and do something. You're like, I'm gonna go, Lord.
He's like, do I do anything to ask you again?
The religious leadership of that day was great for words. They would speak a lot. They would actually stand in rooms with each other in debate, or they would go into the cities and they would speak. This is what the word professes.
Do not touch alcohol, thy people and go pour themselves some bourbon at night. Do not look upon your neighbor with anger. And they got a whole list of who's naughty or nice that they're mad with in their room. They were good in that culture to speak one thing and do the absolute opposite. My, how we haven't changed in 21st century America.
We all wrestle with religious hypocrisy and other hypocrisies in our life, and Jesus is saying, I just want you to do it. Just go be with me. Jesus had come to model the kingdom and put the emphasis on going, giving, and doing. Yet humanity continues to get stuck in their trauma cycle of saying one thing and doing the other. Yet this teacher had made a pledge, an oath of vow, so to speak.
I will go wherever you go. And what does Jesus do? He gets poetically aggressive. Creation has a home. Jesus would know Creation has a home.
He was here before creation. Through him, all things were created. So he's making a statement that he already knows to be fact. Creation as a home Yet Jesus wasn't here to establish his home in this creation. He was here to invite us into a co heir relationship.
The same way he asked us in the garden, the same way he asked us at Mount Sinai to establish his kingdom, which was a different kingdom on the earth. He wasn't here to continue the foreshadows, he was here to bring the kingdom of God to earth.
Yet every single resting spot for creation were not resting spots for the Creator. When I first read that this week in this context, like, I was sad how far we had gotten from the stories of Genesis where God would walk in the garden with humanity in the cool of the day to a place where now Jesus is saying, God on earth is saying there's no place for me to even lay my head. And I was sitting there in my not Jonah moments, but in my sorrow moments of saying, like, I'm a part of that, like I'm no different. I'm a human just like all of you. Paul says, I sin just like you.
I'm more aware of my sins than your sins. Cause I gotta live with them every single day. But how, like in those moments of sadness, something hit me.
We had talked about the absolute shock it would be for a Jewish rabbi to heal a leper, to send them to the temple under the laws of Moses. They were to go to the temple, they were to bring an offering, they were to be inspected by the priesthood. The priesthood was the only people who could testify that they had gone from unclean to clean.
First sermon in this series, we actually called the obligation to testify. The priesthood had an obligation to testify what they had seen, to bear witness, not to bear false witness. And the corporate community of Israel, we would struggle with this today. The corporate community of Israel, if the priesthood came out and said, brent is clean, it's a miracle. We were like, I need to inspect them myself.
The crunchy moms would be like, is there any red 40 and whatever it is you did with your voodoo magic to get clean. And somebody else would be like, I don't care, Bleach, it kills everything. Like, but we wouldn't take Misael's word for it if he was the priest or Monique, we wouldn't take your word. We would argue over it. Well, I need to see it with myself, I need to prove it with myself.
It was the temple priesthood's obligation to testify what they saw. And Jesus knew the magnitude of what was potentially happening there because if he would have sent somebody to bear false witness to the temple, then he himself would have transgressed the Torah. He did not come to transgress the Torah, transgress the prophecies. He came to be the completion and the fulfillment of all of those, even in the most small of nuances. That's the beauty of who he is, and that's the hope of who we will become when we rebirth through him.
But think of the absolute shock a scribe might hear when there's this new rabbi in town who says, I don't have a place to lay my head. I don't have a place to find my house, put down shop. I'm not even going to get to go to Target and put a doormat out, because there's not a single place for me. Well, what would the context of that time have been? If the scribe had thought maybe he was Mashiach, then it would have been extremely revolutionary, because where did God dwell in Israel?
In the temple, in the Holy of Holies?
So if he's thinking he might be the Mashiach and he's saying, I have no place to dwell or lay my head, it's a little inflammatory. A little? What are you talking about? Lord, you do have a place. My ancestors carried it in the wilderness and set it up and tear it down.
If he was just a rabbi, he was just a pastor, he was just a teacher. Well, they were in every community there was a synagogue. So the expectation of a scribe who sees a man of authority, who sees a man of a teaching, whether he is just a rabbi in his mind at this point in time, or he's potentially the Mashiach, There was an expectation of where he would dwell or what he would do. And yet Jesus doesn't say, well, foxes have dens and birds have nests, but the Son of Man is going to rest in Norman. The Son of Man is going to rest in Capernaum.
The Son of Man is going to rest on the other side of the Sea of Galilee. He doesn't make those statements. He said, there is not a place for me to lay my head. I can't even temporarily rest.
Why? Because the kingdom of God is at hand.
Some of us are like man.
I love my Sabbath day. We saw last week Jesus left the synagogue to go to the sickbed and heal Peter's mother in law. Jesus knew when his rest would come, when his earthly ministry was over. And then he would rest until the Lord sent him back to fulfill all things in the rightful place of the King of Kings and the Lord of Lord. The book of Leviticus goes into extensive instructions on the tabernacle and the Temple, it lays out the protocols of the King, the protocols of how you should approach.
I love that a lot of the scholars in Christianity call it the holiness code because it's basically taking an impure people who are perverted and prevailed by the nations. And he's saying, this is how you come into fellowship with me. This is how you reflect my holiness, my character, my nature. Rather than reflecting that of the Pharaoh or of the Egyptians or of those people, you are reflecting something at every moment of your life. The question is whether it's his character, his nature, or it's somebody else's.
Only one is pure and holy. All the rest struggle. Yet in the holy of Holies, God would come and dwell. Yet here was God in the flesh, and he was telling those around him, even in that place, I have no place to lay my head. I cannot sit idly.
And possibly he was foreshadowing the destruction of the temple for a new kind of temple that Paul tells about is us, made of flesh and bones. But there's a seismic shift that is happening when Jesus is teaching his Torah and operating in his kingdom in action. There is a massive shift that is happening. And we must understand that we live in a day and age on the timeline where we don't exist before. Before Jesus came, we exist after.
And so everything in the Torah and the prophets must run through the lens of Jesus and Jesus teachings. Otherwise, you run the risk of creating the same thing that happened before. Pharisees and Sadducees arguing over what the king can and cannot do, trying to put a box in, trying to put whatever is there. And guess what? We're really good at doing that.
And we will end up doing the same thing.
You can't serve two kings. You cannot serve two masters. And the Bible says there's literally only one that can offer you salvation, healing and forgiveness, and that is Jesus.
The house that once had held the glory of God as it fell in the holy of holies would no longer be the place that would contain a holy God. At least not until the new Jerusalem is brought down in the revelation of John, from my prophecy buffs out there. Then Jesus will sit on the throne at the temple, and the sun and the moon will cease to rise and fall, because the glory, the Kavod of Yeshua, will be so bright that it will manifest and radiate for all nations. And all nations will come without ceasing, bringing gifts and offering gifts to him.
The kingdom of God was at hand. And Jesus was saying, if you're gonna Go with me. It's gonna take a different sacrifice than what you're accustomed to. We talk about sacrifice from the things of like, oh, well, can we sacrifice a car? Can we sacrifice coffee?
You know, that's a big thing for just $5 a day. If you just skip one Starbucks, you know, when we're trying to raise money for youth or whatever, if you just skip one Starbucks, you can help a youth go to summer camp. That's not sacrifice. There's people who live their entire life without a Starbucks or a beanstalk or a Panera Bread or any of those types of things. That is First World problems.
Hashtag privilege, hashtag pellet smoker. It does it for you. We're over here like, man, I couldn't get the traeger pro. We're not persecuted.
You're not out there with Flint trying to cook a hot dog. Like, we are blessed people.
It's a different type of sacrifice. Put yourself in their situation. The Torah was the rule for the temple. If you do this, you are to bring a turtle dove. If you do this, you are to bring a goat.
If you do this. There was an offering for all kinds of things. People are like, oh, well, you know, sin, sins. There was offerings for everything. Nowadays, like, you preach, man, don't you talk about that tithe.
Don't you talk about that offering.
That was their system. If you harvest corn, you're bringing some of it to the temple. If you have baby sheep, you're bringing some of them to the temple. And now we're like, I worked hard for my money. No, you didn't.
The Lord gave you brains. The Lord gave you life. The Lord gave you all of this. The Lord opened doors. The Lord gave you favor.
He did all of that. You just didn't screw it up that bad.
It's a different type of sacrifice. And that was what they were accustomed to. Every dollar, every. Every harvest, everything that was happening, that they would bring a sacrifice to the Lord to recognize. And like all things, humanity turns it into a business at some point in time.
And we see that with Jesus interactions with them later on. Yet Jesus is saying for you to go with me. This is a completely different type of sacrifice that you're going to potentially have to make. This is a complete and unwavering commitment to my kingdom, my actions, my authority, and the mission that I have called you on.
There are some people who will text me this week and say, hey, I'm sorry I couldn't make it to church this week. I overslept. That's Okay. I always pray whoever the Lord wants to come through the door. You do that, Lord.
I'll minister to anybody who comes through the door. I don't care who it is. Yeah, man, I was out really, really late last night watching the fireworks. And maybe I had too many root beers to drink. And, you know, you know, I'm a 9 o' clock or I didn't get to bed till 11:30, so I really, really struggled.
The calling to be on mission with Jesus is more than showing up in the morning and getting a dove outside the door and bringing a dove and saying, I'm sorry, Lord, that, you know, I put fireworks over you. Didn't mean to step on your toes. It's just the reality of what it is. You can say that I'm upset. I'm not upset at all.
I just understand this week going through these passages that sometimes we don't want to sacrifice or we don't want to be on mission with God any differently than those who were the ones he was dealing with.
Man, it's a little bit of a long drive. Oh, man, I don't know. That person in the congregation is a little weird. They might stop me and they might talk to me. Whatever it is.
We find an excuse to have a reason to not put an emphasis on coming together on the Sabbath day to worship God. The Hayes machine. The pastor's got a man bun. Haven't you read Paul in Corinthians 10? I can do all things through a verse out of context.
We come up with any reason, oh, I don't know if I want to get the flags out today. I don't know if I want to worship. I don't know if I want to dance. I don't want to know if I. We are restricting God.
We are restricting the power of God by saying what? I'm not a narcissist, but I am, because God, I just want you to play the songs I want you to play. I want you to teach the message. I want you to allow me to have my Starbucks.
I want you to allow me to do this culture. Thousands of years, many, many leaders had set up a place where God was only allowed to move in a certain way. God was only allowed to do a certain thing. And you were only allowed to give God a part of yours. See, it's only 10% off this.
Well, it's only my time on the Sabbath day or on a Sunday or on a Wednesday or on a Thursday. Oh, we meet in a church, they have Wednesday. It's a Tuesday. So we're just gonna move it over.
The king was always on mission. The mission always included having the word of the Lord go out to all the nations. The tabernacle in the temple was ultimately for there to be what a testimony of God to the nations so that all would know that all these other gods that are out there, that they don't exist, they're false. And Yahweh is the Lord of all.
All of these things existed from. For the nations to understand, there's only one way.
And then through that one way, Jesus Christ, we become a new creation.
We must remember not to be so hasty to promise God that we're willing to go on mission, we're willing to be called His. We're willing to do things if we aren't actually willing to do anything, if we're not actually willing to sacrifice.
And some of you like, ah, well, Pastor Chris, you drive a Tesla. What are you sacrificing? Headroom.
That wasn't in my notes. Thank you, Holy Spirit.
I'm not asking you to go into a poverty lifestyle.
I'm asking you to go into your prayer closet with Jesus Christ, the spirit of Jesus, as Paul writes in his epistles, and ask him, are you on mission with him or is Jesus got to fit into your mission?
Because your mission will not be successful if it is not on mission with Jesus.
Does that mean that you have to stop buying your clothes or stop buying briskets on the 4th or going to fireworks through all day? Not unless he tells you to. There are some he told and they gave their life and they were martyrs and they fasted and they prayed for extensive period of time. And there's other people who assimilated into the culture so that they could minister to the culture. Not every calling and not every gift is universal for every person.
God works uniquely through you. But the mission is the same and you must give up whatever it is the Lord is asking you to give up so that you can't be like, Lord, I'll meet you at the Holiday Inn at 5pm and he's like, I asked you to go to the Holiday Inn now with me so we could minister to those who were there.
The scribe saw the power, recognized the power.
He probably thought it's likely. He thought that this is the new Stephen Furdict of the day, this is the new Rabbi Akiva, this is the new Maimonides, all of these men and women, John Piper, and that Yeshua was going to go at some point in time and he was going to set up roots At a synagogue, whether it's in Galilee or Capernaum or wherever, that most likely that's what the scribe thought would happen. Or he would go into Jerusalem and he would debate in the rooms with the Pharisees and the Sadducees, but he would have the same comforts of the religious leadership that he was accustomed to in that culture. It is most likely that's what the scribe was thinking. Yet Jesus quickly dispels this notion.
And another of his disciples said, lord, let me first return home and bury my father. But Jesus told him, follow me now and let the dead bury the dead. The work of the kingdom of God is alive and active and on a timeline. We don't know the timeline. We live in a city where many, many people have tried very hard to understand the prophetic timeline.
And every time Israel does something or Iran does something or whatever, everybody speculates about the timeline. They make buku dollars about it. So far, let me give you a hint. They have been 100% right about nothing.
And yet people still spend their time giving them their money and paying attention to them. Who's the one who's maybe off a little bit?
There is a timeline.
There was a timeline here.
The kingdom of God is at hand. Jesus probably didn't know exactly how many days he had in ministry on this earth. He was at the will of the Father. He was a reflection of the Father. But he lived every day as if it was his last.
And he lived every single day on mission, for the mission ultimately to the place where he had some sort of an idea. He's crying in the Garden of Gethsemane after the Last Supper, after the Passover meal. And he's literally in that condition to where he is so stressed and so emotional and so wrought that blood is coming out of sweat. He had some idea to speak the words, father, if it would be your will, would you let this cup pass from me? Because he knew the prophet Jeremiah talked about the cup of wrath that was to be poured out to the nations.
He was on mission all the time.
Jesus came for life. He came so that people could be healed, set free, and saved from chaos and death. The enemy seeks to destroy and bring chaos in your life, which causes death to you. Whereas Jesus and the Holy Spirit come and pass chaos and into order, and order provides life. He wasn't training people for a corporate job where you had scheduled days off.
There was no days off from this life. The sun would come up, the sun would go down, babies would be born. Welcome to the world, Elijah Caleb, I was really praying that you would make it to 1201. And your mom had a different plan.
People pass from this world and babies are born every single minute. The kingdom of God was here. It was here to show not only those people, but us 20 centuries later, how to overcome the kingdom of darkness that has been running rampant in the world.
Worship team, you can come back.
Jesus wasn't interested in like, hey, go bury them. Their life is over. They are dead. We are on a timeline tomorrow, while you go bury your dad. We have not ministered to two or three other people who are going to die spiritually apart from Christ, so they will not be rebirthed back into life.
We don't think of it that way. We think of it like, like, oh, well, Lord, can you give me a divine appointment? Meanwhile, you pass 100 people at Walmart.
He didn't ask, hey, Tuesday, do you got anything going on at 11am Maybe we can go down to the senior center and we can minister to them about Jesus. He said, go, do. Don't worry about what's done. You have to fix what's happening here. Because if you don't fix what's happening here, what will happen in the future?
Let the dead bury the dead. Because my kingdom is at hand. And if my kingdom isn't moving now, if we're not going after them now, then you produce more dead in the future. He wasn't referencing the fact that people are going to die. Shocker, we're all going to die.
Do you think Jesus didn't know that? Of course he did.
The invitation from Jesus was, now go now, heal now, give now, do now. Because what you do today has an impact on tomorrow. What you tolerate today, you become enslaved to tomorrow.
And people will put off hard conversations because they think it will get better.
Nobody was just going to stumble into salvation of Jesus. Nobody was just going to stumble into repentance. God sent John the Baptist to prepare the way so that the wineskins could be reconditioned to be in preparation for this new spirit, this new wine. We sang about it today in the crushing and the pressing. Sounds really great when we're talking about wine.
Man, I'd love to drink some wine. What happens when you're the wine, when you're being crushed, when you're being pressed, and God is expecting something new to come forth out of you. What about that?
Is it going to be Chris that comes out or is it going to be Christ?
People will excuse their behavior today because they have hope that it will somehow change tomorrow. Jesus dispels this. He says, let the dead bury the dead and let's take care of our issues today, which is God, it'll work better. Southwest flights are cheaper on Tuesday. Lord, can we go on Tuesday?
I got some airline miles, so they're only going to allow me to use them on Thursdays in July. Can we go? He says, go.
Do you know, Lord, you have dominion over all things. Can we heal them tomorrow? He says, be healed.
I'm being tormented, Lord, by this evil spirit. He doesn't say, hey, by the way, let's come back, let's pray, let's fast over this. There are some where he says, you will have to pray and fast to remove those things. But for the most part, what you see in the scripture is he speaks a simple word, go. Let me ask you a question.
At the end of The Matthew, chapter 8, in verse 17, I believe it was, and we were talking about that Jesus had left the synagogue and at the end of the Sabbath day he started to heal many and he started to continue to do this. And he speaks with a simple word to the demons who were in these people and he says, go. And they left. Why are the demons more Torah observant than us?
Why do the demons run when Jesus calls? But we're like, ah, Lord, kind of made plans with my bestie, go, well, Lord, I can't do that on the Sabbath day, because if I do that on the Sabbath day, then I might have caused somebody to work when I picked up those socks. And I know somebody might have blisters on their feet. But Lord, your word says we don't work on the Sabbath day and we don't cause other people to work on the Sabbath day. So I'm not going to get the socks and go put them on the homeless people.
The demons left at a simple word. And we're over here debating like we're Pharisees and Sadducees.
Jesus invitation was into an immediate life altering opportunity.
It was immediate when he spoke, healing, immediate when he's cast out a demon immediately when he asked you to go immediate, he invited you into an immediate present and active state with him in those moments. And the ones who actually did their lives were forever changed. Like, oh, I got a really good life. Haven't you checked my Instagram? His was real.
He didn't need any filters, he didn't need a sharpness, he didn't need a vignette, he didn't need a Ken's burn flare. It was immediate, impactful and eternal. I think we fooled ourselves into thinking that just because we walk into a church, just because we walk into a spiritual atmosphere, that somehow the Lord is active and present and moving when we struggle with the same things that we read about in this space. The scribes felt the same way. But Jesus was only allowed to do what the scribe wanted him to do.
Or so he thought. It doesn't matter how you want to bind in Jesus, he's going to be Jesus. You might miss out on the opportunity to go. You might miss out on the opportunity to be set free. You might miss out on the opportunity to heal because you didn't want to be in that atmosphere with him.
But in the end, the Son of Man is on mission at all points in time. You can either choose to do that or not. Like, oh, do you remember the blessing? Give you an example of real life? Bible says that we should confess.
I can't say necessarily it's a sin, but I can say it is something that I was selfish about. And selfishness can be a sin. So we're in a real gray area if you want to debate it. Brentabreckfamily.com I don't like prison ministry.
I like comfort. Let's go to the orphanage. Let's go to the senior center. Ah, I can do the hospital a little bit. I'm somewhat of a germaphobe sometimes.
I got invited by Norman Bible Church, who we're friends with. Erica and her husband are also deacons there. We do a lot. Nick's over there too, doing things. We had a great relationship with them.
They started a prison ministry. One of my friends, Pastor Allison, couldn't be there to lead worship and threw it out to a bunch of worship leaders. And she's like, hey, anybody able to fill this void? I'll be out of town. It's like, sure, I can do it.
Lots of thoughts on my mind.
What if they get a hold of the string on my guitar? I've seen enough movies, they can take the screen. It's like, I was tough in high school. Not so much anymore. I have bunnies on my shirt.
West side, they're west side bunnies. But I watch out. And so all these thoughts in my head, I go into the prison. There's two different cell blocks on each side. Thank God they didn't tell me that there was.
There was all types of criminals in there. I thought it was all this kind of like real low level stuff. And they're like, that's why we didn't tell you before you walked in. Once I was male, once I was female, you had lead worship. Pastor Amy was doing the message that day, and Pastor Joel was also doing it.
So we were kind of on a mega church cycle. You know, there's a limited time, so lead worship. They run you down the hallway to the other block. The pastor comes over to the block, teaches while you're leading worship over there. And afterwards, it was a time of ministry and prayer in preparation for the possibility for baptism.
One of the most beautiful things I've ever seen, sitting there ministering to people who have made decisions in their life that has cost them to be enslaved into a system in a confinement because of their decisions. And then on Thursday before July 4, I was asked to come and be a part of it again. This time I willingly was like, yes, please.
And they set up this rinkety old pool. Couldn't even be metal. Can't get no shanks out of it. Can't shank nobody with some real loose plastic. Like, this ain't gonna happen.
They put this pool in this box. It's a concrete box with metal over top of you. Hot as all get out, humid. There is no air BO everywhere.
But there has never been a place I've seen more joy as the inmates came out and professed Jesus as their salvation. Professed that they repented from their sins. Some of these people, possibly, I don't know. I didn't ask each and every one of them. It didn't matter because the Bible said, it doesn't matter what you were born as.
It doesn't matter what you did. It matters from the moment of repentance and and acceptance of Jesus. You're a new creation. So whatever that is doesn't change the consequences. But in that moment, if I'm talking to Paul, it's no longer the same Paul that killed two people.
It's no longer the same Paul that stole money. It's a new man, new creation. The moment you profess Jesus as your salvation, repent. And they're professing Jesus as their salvation. And they're going in the water and they're coming out, and these other criminals are sitting there rejoicing with them.
What?
But I didn't want to go.
I don't want to go. But if I had not gone the first time, I definitely would not have gone the second time for the baptism. And I would not have been able to see the power of God manifest and move in those situations. And God would have done it anyways. He didn't need me.
There's plenty of People. There's so many people there that are loving them. But I would have missed out on the opportunity to watch the testimony of individuals that of the saving power of Christ in some of the most horrible situations. My kids get mad if we have to go outside and play for an hour. These people get one hour a week to go out and play.
And play is standing in the corner of a concrete box.
We are a blessed people who don't recognize just how good we have it. And we have it good. So the question is, is what are we going to do with it when God says to go do something with it? Well, it can only happen in the realm of the temple. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
Nah.
We maybe need to find ourselves kind of like the first century apostles and the individuals who are interacting with Jesus. We need to find our where. Maybe we sit down, maybe we go back to the basics.
Maybe we get to a place where we stop arguing over what our interpretation of observance of commandments is. And maybe we just find ourselves in a hard posture where we realize that we don't know anything except for Christ and Christ crucified. And in that the Holy Spirit, Spirit can empower us, lead us and guide us for our homes so that we can come together with the Creech home, with the Davis home, with the Castellano home, with the Smilovichi home, with the Kalis home, with the the Walrus home, with all the different homes and bringing them together into one body of Christ that we can go out and make a difference in other bodies of Christ. Because guess what? The days of playing church business is over.
If you haven't noticed by watching the news, God is tearing down the business of church. He's tearing down the hypocritical leadership. He's tearing down these places that refuse to repent and do things according to the scripture. And he says, that's not my way. That's not new.
Why are we shocked? We're reading about it in Matthew.
Young people, you're getting ready to go to camp this week. The topic is set a fire. What are you going to be on fire for? I. I don't eat pork. I keep the Sabbath.
I don't do this. Are you going to be on fire for this one? Who is the Sabbath Jesus? The Christ. I hate to break it to you.
There's not salvation in the Sabbath. There's salvation in the Lord of the Sabbath.
We are forced with an opportunity to understand that all these Little homes. We try to create a man of feel good at hff. Awesome. Jesus didn't have a place to lay his head at hff, just like he didn't have a place to lay his head in the temple. Why?
Because his mission was about going and getting every single person every single day.
What are we doing currently to exalt the one whose power will allow us to do those things?
Because in the end, if you are the temple and Jesus's spirit does not live in you, those foxes are running on your mount and you are on the verge of destruction. You might be able to make it another year, another two years, another three years, another six months. But there is only one power in the temple and that is the power of God. If the power of God is not in you, is the temple. The foxes are on the Temple Mount.
As we break for table fellowship after service today, as we respond with singing the song Yeshua, I'm not interested in you coming into church here and being like, man, I felt so good about how awesome the preaching was or how awesome the worship was. If you didn't experience God in this place, that's what I care about. Guess what? I can't make you experience God. I don't have some license on the Holy Spirit.
It said that the Holy Spirit is alive and active for all who are seeking. If you seek, you will find. If you knock, the door will be open. What you do in the times of worship, in the times of prayer and the times, times of study, in the times of that, you have the power collectively and corporately to unlock that in somebody else by ministering and going.
And that's what type of a church I want to continue to be and continue to press on towards because I desire to know Nothing else. The 14th, the 15th, 3, 34, 30, 17, 15, all this Gematra, all these numbers, all these things, I just desire to know Christ and Christ crucified. Because in the end, in all of these cool revelations and all of these long Bible studies and all these things that I'm doing, in the end, none of that gets me any closer to the kingdom of God. And it doesn't get me any closer to the power, power of God. It just reaffirms how much I love God.
