[inaudible][inaudible].
Speaker 3:Um, so today, um, if you haven't Bibles turn to Matthew chapter 12. Uh, we're going to back up just, um, a couple of verses from chapter 13. And look at, uh, the last statements of Matthew from Matthew chapter 12. Now he has for the last 46 verses, taught these Pharisees describes people around in the, um, the house that they were in. Um, teaching them first about Jesus being the Lord of the Sabbath. That, uh, he was able to do miracles within their midst because he has no need of authority because he held all authority over the Sabbath. The next thing that he talked to them about was that, um, the GS, the Pharisees and scribes called him BLS above, called him Satan. His works were from the L's above and he told them that my works are from the spirit of God. That my authority is not from anyone on this earth for many human, from any earthly being. My, my whole, uh, ministry here on earth was to, um, create was from the spirit of God was from the spirit and the kingdom of God has come unto you. And then finally from last week, what we looked at from John Cross when he was here two weeks ago, was that Jesus was relating the Pharisees and scribes as people that were able to clean out their insides. Everything on the outward exterior looked good, okay? They had swept and cleaned out the outside, but on the inside it was still as dirty, still as a sinful, as it had ever been. Okay? We looked at, I thought the verse was interesting. We're going to go back one verse to talk about when Jesus told them that in verse 45. We're going to look at that verse one more time. From what Jesus said as we start that you know, is, uh, when the demon looked at his house, looked at the fair season, describes how the, all the work that they did to clean up was even worse than what was there before. But today we're going to look the dangers of morality. And there is a nothing more capsulizes this culture than this idea of ethics and morality. Um, we have seen it's a pull from our society and we see it in a lot of different groups, a lot of different people that want to take the country back to an ethical or moral standard of actions and behaviors that in the past they felt like that was what this country was built on. And, and while I am all about ethics and morality, I think that those subjects are very important. Our subjects, society, but without Christ, without his life in us, ethics and morality can be just as dangerous as in morality. Okay? And we see that from a couple of different, um, portions within our culture. And society said, throw up the first quote that he had. Has it always existed? Has ethics and morality always existed? The first quote from Robert Frost says, you've got to be brave and you've got to be bold, brave enough to take your chance on your own discrimination. What's right and what's wrong, what's good and what's bad. So we see in this quote a definite of thought that within our culture, it's our own discrimination, that ethics and morality, what you believe, what you hold true is your own discrimination. It's about what I feel is my right and what I think is not right. What is wrong? I'm not going to focus on that. I'm going to focus on what is right. The second quote comes to us from Ernest Hemingway. He said about morals. I know only what is moral if it is what you feel good after and what is immoral is what you feel bad afterward. So he's saying that when, when I Haven wife, it's not about any spiritual feeling or a notion. It's about what I experienced afterwards. If I experience a good feeling, I've done right. If I've done wrong, I know it, I feel it. Okay. And so it's that idea. They're trying to get their own ethics and morality under control. And if they can do that, they feel like they have lived in, in a correct way. The last quote comes from a Albert Einstein and it's a lengthy quote and he says, a man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education and societal ties and needs. Very key. No religious basis is necessary. You see that man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of and hope of reward after death. So those three quotes capsulize this idea of ethics and morality in this country, um, you see it in a lot of different groups. The moral majority, okay? That's a group that is definite a pull within our culture that, uh, calls people to, um, you know, become involved in political and, and struggles within the nation. And while that is, uh, should be a part of what we believe, we also hold true what's in the Bible first. Okay. And when churches and and groups begin to focus more on the political, more on who's in the office, who is there. So we can, uh, change what we think is right. It does not work without Jesus Christ. And so in, in, in beginning, he is going to share a truth. Jesus is going to share truth that is so, but a against what this kind of quotes and the things that we talked about today on the other side, he is going to blow their mind about what it really means to serve and do the wills of the father. So in looking at the first verse, we're going to be in Matthew chapter 12 and look in verse 45. Then he go with, and he take care of him with himself, seven other spirits, more wicked than himself and enter in and dwell there. And that the last date of that man is worse than the first. Even so it shall be also unto this wicked generation. So he's saying, I felt like this was interesting that there are demons that are more wicked than other demons. And so he's saying at the end of this verse that the last demon that came in on this person was just as wicked as, as as the most dangerous demon that there can be. And he looked at this man, he looked at the fair season scribes, he looked at their lives and what he's saying is the last date of that man is worse than the first. Even so she'll be into this wicked generation. The first danger of morality and being ethical and trying to live a certain way is that it can blind our eyes to the savior that wants a relationship instead of a reformation. Okay, so he's looking at these men and saying on the outside you are trying to reform yourself. You're trying to live a certain way, behave a certain way that it will cause there to be a change in you. They, they're looking for something, but what they're for is not a relationship. They want no relationship and they certainly don't want it from Jesus. And what they've told him already and the dangers that they've presented to these people is that he is not who he says he is and what Jesus is telling them in verse 45 is that you think you are well on the outside, but what is inside of your life is just as bad as the minute you started trying to get better, trying to clean yourself up. And that is the problem with morality. It's the problem with the Mormons, the Roman Catholics, even some NGO, evangelicals, all those groups can be blinded and lumped into this idea that if I live a certain way, if I'm moral, if I'm morally right, that I will be accepted by God. So to illustrate that, my dog Teddy, um, he, uh, the pitcher that's coming to come up in a second is him right after his, uh, one of his, uh, nicer baths that he ever had. Um, the, he was taken to a really both boutique, I guess my wife likes those kind of things and he was given a, a wash, a clean and a blue Berry facial. He got, you know, he was, he looked the part, looked all the part and so we're going to get the that picture up second. Um, so looking at that dog for that moment, he looked the part. Okay. And then after a day or two, he does what all dogs do. Um, he got out of the house and he got muddy and he got dirty and uh, my dog has a ugly habit of, he likes to roll around, uh, in some not so nice things. Um, you know, he, he doesn't, he definitely has a smell when he comes inside and I can try to reason with that dog till I'm blue in the face. Okay. He, I've done in the past, I've tried to tell him, man, I just gave you a bath. I just cleaned you up. I just, I just had to take him to the store and spent$70 on you. But for him, he is nature. What's inside of him is to get dirty. He loves it. He loves getting out and doing that. No matter how many times I tell him to not, it's not gonna work in such as the same with people that are ethical and moral. Okay? On the inside, their hearts are as dirty and muddy as as can be. But as he was telling the Pharisees on the outside, it all looks okay. And, but on the inside there's holes, there's problems that only Jesus Christ can sell on where he can fell. And so looking at that first verse, he's trying to reach out to them. And then verse 46, he's going to begin his invitation. He's going to begin his invitation to these men and he doesn't, um, in a, in a different way than we would expected. You're usually on an invitation. It's very formal. It's very, um, you know, we, we do it a certain way, but Jesus definitely breaks that mold. In verse 46 he says, well, he talked to the people, behold his mother and his brother and stood without desiring to speak to him. Okay. And so he is telling him he's preaching to these people and teaching them in, in, in the word of God, telling them about who he is and the authority that he has and who comes. But as mother and his brother now in the book of John, it says that these there, his mother and his brothers came to take him back to back to, uh, Galloway who they wanted him to. They, they've heard about what he was doing about what he was saying and they thought that he was crazy. They thought he had lost his mind. Okay. So remember as well that he had been a carpenter up to that point in his life for 30 years. That's all they knew him ass. Okay. They only had glimpses of it, but they did not understand. Okay. And the book of John, they wanted to take him out. This, this book, I feel aligns with that and I think it was their time to try to get him and try to, you know, bring him home and get them some help. Okay. If you've ever been taken home, if you've ever been taken home by like you, you're in high school, you're sitting there in class and you've heard your mom's coming to get you, okay. Or your mom's coming to take you home. Okay? Usually it's embarrassing. Usually it's eh, w w what, what is she doing here? Or even worse for the people that are in rag, social media, if your mom comments on something, it's not a good thing you like, you usually get embarrassed by that, okay. But in Jesus's response, it in no way demeans his mother or his brothers. It was all an attempt to show these people that all need to have a relationship with Jesus Christ. In verse 47 he answers them. Behold that mother and thy brother stand without designed to speak with the, in verse 48 he answers them and says to them, and that told him, who is my mother and who are my brother? And, and he stretched forth his hand towards his disciples and said, behold, my mother and my brother. So what was he doing? What was he saying to them? What was he telling them? Well, what was he telling us today? In verse 49 or 48 he says something that probably shocked the crowd. He says, who is my mother? Who's my brother? And he's not trying to demean his family, but to call attention that earthly relationships and titles are not as important to him as the heavenly relationship he was building with his disciples. Those were, those were the people. Those were the men that he was building heavenly relationships with. He was still having earthly relationships with his mother, with his brothers. They were all having daily things, but he was telling them what matters in life is what is eternal, what is heavenly? And he's saying that these men were his mother's and his brothers. He was that close to them. He was that tied to them, that he was telling them that these are the men that I've staked my case to. This is what, who I'm going to build the church, who he was going to build his ministry with. And while his mothers and brothers were important to him, who he was building with and who he was developing and within the disciples were the most important things to him. So in saying that, who are the most important people to you? Who do you consider to be the mothers and brothers in your life? All of us have people around us that have affected us, that has caused us to, um, you know, grow spiritually, grow within, um, within the Christian life. Jesus is telling them that these relationships are the ones that count for eternity. Okay. And while his mother and brother needed him more than that, they needed to know who he was and what he was his authority in this life. And verse 50, he can finishes and says, for whosoever shall do the will of my father, which is in heaven, the same as my brother and sister and mother. So he's telling them, um, these men, these Pharisees, these scribes, these people that were in the room, he's telling them that he is the, the thing, the reason that they are who, who they are and why they're following him is because they do the will of my father. Okay? Doesn't mean they're perfect, doesn't mean they don't have issues that they deal with is that they believe that Jesus is the Messiah. They believe that he is the one, and that is what causes them to, to build that relationship. He's telling them the Pharisees this, um, in in a couple of different ways. Okay. In Matthew chapter 23, uh, look, look at your Bible for a second and look at Matthew chapter 23 in Matthew 23 in verse 25, he says, woe unto you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites for you clean the outside of the cup and the plate. But inside they're full of greed and self-indulgence. Verse 26, it says, you blind Pharisees first clean the inside of the cup and the plate that are, that the outside also may be clean. And then he finishes with even more of it. In verse 27 woe unto you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites for you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful but within are full of dead people's bones and also of unclean witness. And he ends in verse 28 by saying so you also outward appear righteous to others, but within you are full of hypocrisy involved. Snus so he's telling these Pharisees that everything with on the outside is, is what they're focusing on while on the inside it's not that way. And he's telling them that his response is that the relationship to Christ is the key to fill in the empty place within all of us, within all of us, within his mothers, with his brothers, with the Pharisees and scribes, all that. We're listening to the man that had the crippled hand earlier in the chapter. He's telling them all of this, they that you may have been baptized once with John the Baptist, but the main focus is what your relationship with Jesus crisis. And that is the foundation of, of what everyone must believe from Mary to all of the people in that room is that Jesus Christ focuses on relationship, not on reformation, not on trying to clean yourself up to get to him. He only is getting, he only is received by doing the will of the father. And that can only be accomplished through Jesus Christ. In verse 50 he finishes from chapter 12 saying, for whosoever shall do the will of my father, which is in heaven, the same as my mother and brother and sister. So what is the will of the father? What is that? Will Matthew T says a couple of different times, uh, Matthew three 17 he says it in Matthew three 17 when he says, and this is Jesus, when he was baptized by John the Baptist, and God comes from heaven and says a voice from heaven saying, this is my beloved son with who I am. Well pleased. Jesus is well-pleased by his father. And his connection with this father was what he was tying all this to. And also in Matthew 17 five, he again says the will of his father and what that is. And he says, and while he yet speak, behold a bright cloud overshadowed them. And behold a voice out of the cloud which said, this is my beloved son who I am. Well please. And then he finishes with the most, with the most important thing. Listen to him. Okay, what is the will of the father that you listened to, the son that you listened to? Jesus. What is God? What is Jesus telling us today? What is he telling you today? Is he telling us he is? He's telling us that we need to build a relationship with Christ. That Christ is the only way to behave morally and ethically in this life. How do we build that? How do we change things? We only change them by focusing on Christ and not on any other thing. So, um, my second point is that his response is that the relationship to Christ is the key to filling the empty place within all of us. As you see the picture there, that is the picture of the Pharisees. Their lives on the inside, on the outside look great on the inside. You see the emptiness within them. And then the last point is that growing as a Christian is found in believing that the will of God is accomplished only through Christ. And he brings that growth within our lives. Let's pray. Lord, we thank you for the day you've given us. We thank you for, um, your response to the Pharisees and scribes that said wanted to know who he really was and he defines it. And this passage and in saying that those that do the will of my father are the ones that are mine or we thank you for your, your amazing love for us. The fact that you came to this earth to die. For us to take our place and to provide us with all we need to grow as a Christian. We thank you for the rest of the day. We thank you for, um, what you're going to do in this place.
Speaker 4:Hey, thanks for joining us today at the church at Suncoast. We pray that the message was a blessing to you. If we can be of any help, don't hesitate to contact the church on our Facebook page or at Suncoast Jax org. If you are in the listing area, we'd love to have you attend any of our services. We hope you have a great day and we'll see you next time.
Speaker 1:[inaudible].