SPEAKER_00 0:01

Um, yeah, it's just an honor and a blessing to be here on a Sunday morning. And I thank you for being here in the house of God. There's no better place to be. And uh, you know, going to church is it's more than just going to a service, right? You have to change your perspective on what it means to be here on a Sunday morning and on a Thursday night. Because we're meant to go out and do the work of the kingdom. Say the work of the kingdom. Your workers, your disciples, your followers of Jesus, are you? Yes. And so this is a place for you to come and be encouraged, to be equipped and to be edified. That means that your spirit is made whole. Your whole being is encouraged in the presence of the Lord, but also in the presence of your neighbor. That when we worship, we can look to our left and our right and see other people who believe like you do, who worship like you do, I hope, right? And who are calling you to greater and higher things. And so this place and your attendance here and your coming here is so much more than your duty. It's so much more than doing the right thing to get to the right place at the end of your life. Amen. Like I said many times, almost every time I preach, salvation is just the what? It's just the beginning. You don't live there. We get saved, that's the beginning, and then there's work to do. Jesus calls us to do his work. Amen. And so that's pivotal to what we're gonna talk about today, but it's also pivotal to how we approach Sunday mornings. There's joy in the house of the Lord. You can come with suffering and experience joy. You can come with pain and experience healing, you can come with sadness and experience a lifting of the spirit, amen. And you can't do that anywhere else. Well, temporarily. You could eat a good meal and maybe feel a little bit happier, let's be honest. But those things don't last, amen. The meal is over so quickly. I don't like to cook because of that. You pour hours into a meal that's done in three minutes, like gone. It's not worth it. I am just as happy eating spaghetti with cheese. Like, really, it's still good to me. So I'm like, why would I spend eight hours on a turkey? I could just boil some spaghetti in 10 minutes and be just as happy. Now you have a cooking philosophy, so you're welcome. Why bother? Just kidding. Sometimes it's nice. It's nice if other people eat it, I guess. Then you can enjoy it and watch them enjoy it. At least it's double the three minutes become six, I guess, really, right?

unknown 2:28

Ha!

SPEAKER_00 2:29

Okay, let's get into it, guys. It's okay to laugh. I want to talk about the book of Matthew. So, what we're gonna do is I wanna just go over the whole book and kind of give you like a high-level overview of what's going on in this book of Matthew, and then we're gonna dive in to this thing called the upside down kingdom. This is what I want to talk about today. We are a part of the upside down kingdom, right? You can put that slide up probably if you have it. There you go. This is the moment for the upside down kingdom. Doom, doom, doom. Put up the slide, upside down kingdom. We're gonna have fun learning about it. So let's look at the book of Matthew. And the two things I want to leave with you today, my message, of course, but also I hope that I stir up in you maybe a hunger to get to know the word of God a little better. It's one of my favorite things to do. And if I could choose to be a student of anything, I would choose to be a student of the Word of God. I've learned a lot of things, I read a lot of things, and nothing excites me more than when I can dive into the Word of God and learn something I didn't know before. So this is what I've done all week learn things I didn't know before, right? So we look at Matthew, and the big idea in Matthew is that the kingdom is at hand. Matthew is telling us a story. Jesus arrives announcing God's kingdom. And that kingdom turns out to be nothing like anyone expected. And you see that through the whole book. Everyone's kind of just very confused, and their expectations don't get met about what this kingdom looks like. We see that three things happen when the king shows up. Spiritual evil is confronted, God's reign is restored on earth, and a new family is formed. A family that will follow him, the Messiah, right? The king, a family that will obey his teachings, and a family that learns to live under his rule. And these are important things for us because I think sometimes in our society it's very hard for us to grasp these ideas. That we're called to live in a kingdom that offers freedom and yet requires us to follow someone, to obey a teaching, and to live under a rule. I think it's very hard for our minds, our Western minds, to comprehend freedom with a willing submission to authority, a willing obedience to somebody else that's not us, right? Do you understand what I'm saying? You can feel that, hopefully. I think you should be able to feel that in your own perspectives, in your own heart. Sometimes there's this resistance to submission. And we have to rewrite our perspective. You have to take off your glasses, right? Which I'm blind now, so I can't see anything, and you have to put on new glasses, right? Uh so you can see differently, right? So you can see the way Jesus sees, so you can see the kingdom of heaven when sometimes it feels invisible and far away. So the introduction to Matthew, Jesus is the Messiah, he is the king. Matthew sets up proof of prophetic promises coming to pass. Jesus is the Messiah. And he also sets up this really wonderful parable, uh, parable, parallel that Jesus is the new Moses. And he does this by unveiling Jesus as the one who is greater than Moses. So if you, I'm not gonna go through the whole book of Matthew, but if you're reading through it, you'll notice some things. Matthew sets up the fact that Jesus came out of Egypt. Remember, Jesus and his family had to escape to Egypt and they came back. Just like Moses, Jesus comes out of Egypt. Like the Red Sea, Jesus passes through the waters of baptism. Like the 40 years in the wilderness, Jesus spends 40 days in the wilderness. And like Moses got on top of the mountain and delivered the Ten Commandments. Jesus stands up on the mountain and delivers the Sermon on the Mount. And these are wonderful things that someone like me can miss super easily. I'm not Jewish and I wasn't raised to memorize like five books of the Bible. And there's things that we miss because we just, we're in a different culture and in a different time. But when you begin to learn these things, man, things open up wide. You go, oh, okay, so Matthew thinks it's important that his audience knows that Jesus is the new Moses, okay? He sets him up that way as one who would deliver from slavery, give new divine teaching, save from sin, and initiate a new comfort, a new covenant. This setup explains the format of Matthew as the next five movements portray Jesus as teacher. He is delivering a parallel in the five movements of Matthew to the five books of the Torah. So there's just a lot of symbolism in Matthew that's setting up Jesus as someone who's gonna deliver a new law, the authoritative teacher, just like Moses was, but in a new way, at a new level. Does that make sense? Jesus is the new authoritative covenant teacher, fulfilling the storyline of the Torah, and that's just really beautiful. So in the first movement, we're in Matthew 4 to 7. In these chapters, the king announces his kingdom. So Jesus begins his ministry and the crowd begins together. And in chapters 5 to 7, he takes that crowd up onto a mountain and he preaches the sermon on the mount. And this sermon is his manifesto for kingdom living. And Pastor Adam's been taking through that, taking us through that sermon on the mount, and I'm sure he's gonna finish it up. So I'm not gonna go through that all. I'm sure he will go through it all in depth. But the kingdom of heaven is upside down. All are equal and all are welcome. It fulfills the Torah rather than abolishing it, and Jesus says so himself in chapter five. I came not to abolish the law, right? But to fulfill it. And it works from the inside out. So the tendency of the religious leaders and those who actively work to fulfill the Torah and all its commandments was to focus on the external. What are you doing that people can see? What are we doing on the outside? But Jesus comes and says, actually, the intent of the law was to transform you from the inside out. It was to teach you how you ought to think and feel and to transform your heart, not just your actions, right? And that you're gonna see that the more we get into Matthew. The upside-down kingdom is not a footnote. Jesus first said in block of teachings here is an authoritative explanation on the interpretation of the Torah. For example, he says things like, You have heard it said, but I say, not only should you not murder, which is the external action you should not do, but know that even if you anger against your brother, you will be judged. So he's taking the commandment and he's saying, You know not to murder, but I'm telling you, that law is intended to go straight to your heart, so that even if you anger against your brother, there will be judgment. You should count anger against your brother as seriously as you do the act of murder. So he's taking something and he's just kind of pushing it into your heart and saying, it's not just don't commit murder with your hand, but don't even commit it with your heart. Right? These are the things that God is looking for. The one who wrote the law is revealing what the law was intended to do. It's important we listen, right? When the author of the law comes and says, This is how you interpret the law, we ought to what? Listen. Something the Pharisees could not do, right? Not only should you not commit adultery, but even lusting in your heart is equal to adultery. Love your enemies, he says, Forgive those who hurt you. Resist hoarding wealth, but give to the poor and needy. Trust God for your needs and put off anxiety. Remove the log in your own eye, before you dwell on the speck in your brothers. Treat others the same way you expect to be treated, and bear fruit. Build on the rock and not on your own understanding, and do God's will, lest you find out he never really knew you. This is just a brief summary of all those three chapters I talked about, and Jesus' like points on what the law was meant to do for you was those things I just talked about. He's taking something that was like the law had like, you know, if you find something on the side of the road, keep it forever until you find the right like it had real detailed stuff in there. And so Jesus is like, okay, I get it. There's a lot of detail, and you guys have been striving to get every detail right, but he's saying you're missing the heart. The heart was if you just treated others the way you wanted to be treated, you would probably have done that anyway. Do you see what I'm saying? He's saying there's a deeper thing here. It's not just, oh man, what's that one law about the thing I found? Oh man. He's saying if you had it in your heart to treat others the way you'd want to be treated, and you found their five dollars, you would have kept it and tried to find them and give it back. See what I'm saying? So this is what he's trying to get across to them. These passages and teachings were unlike a thousand years of teaching and instruction. They got to the heart and revealed the intent of the law, and the people were astonished. Then we move into the second movement. The king demonstrates his power. Jesus shows what kingdom authority actually looks like through nine accounts of kingdom power being demonstrated through healings, casting out demons, calming the storm, and other miracles. And this is Matthew 8 to 10. But Matthew deliberately includes two calls to follow him in the midst of this kingdom power, miracle working, healing demonstrating movements that we're writing about. He includes these because seeing the power is not the point. Becoming a disciple is. In the midst of Jesus healing and setting captives free, releasing demons, calming the storm, Matthew sees fit to put in people who say, I want to follow you, Jesus. And Jesus says, You want to follow me, but the Son of the Son of God has no place to lay his head. He's challenging them. I want to follow you. And right away, Jesus just points right into their heart at those things they're not willing to give up to actually follow him. But we see these calls that Jesus says, this kingdom power is not just to be seen and witnessed, but it's for you to walk in it, for you to become a disciple of, right? He sends out his disciples to do the same, teaching them how to announce the kingdom and what to expect when they do rejection and persecution. We pray for kingdom power all the time. We pray for it all the time in this place. We believe we're gonna see healings. We pray for God to demonstrate himself. We want to see him move. Come on, do you want to see him move? Who doesn't want to see him move? We say we long to see it. We ask God to show us, yet, how many of us are willing to first become disciples in order that it would happen? So many in Jesus' times said, I want to follow, but they could not give up what was required to do so. And remember, even in the later part of Jesus' ministry, there were crowds that had been following him for some time. And when Jesus failed to meet their expectation of what they believed he was gonna do, do you remember what happened? They went away. They returned to their former ways. Even those ones who were in the very presence of our Messiah, of our Savior, learning and following him, being discipled by him. They had unmet expectations. They put expectations on who they thought he should be. And when he wasn't gonna meet those, they went away. These are important things to think about when we read the Word of God. We always want to set ourselves outside, someone looking in. That wouldn't be me. But it would be much easier and more helpful for us to just start reading, thinking maybe that is me, so we could learn something from the Word of God. Amen. So after this, we have movement three where the kingdom divides the crowd, like I just said, right? There's Matthew writes a bunch of responses from different groups, the Pharisees and other groups. Some say he is the Messiah and some say he isn't. Some are neutral, right? But Jesus answers in chapter 13 with parables about a kingdom that is worth everything. The kingdom of heaven is the invaluable thing of great worth that one sells everything to acquire, almost like Jesus is hinting at why he must do what he is about to do. He sets up the kingdom of heaven like a farmer who sells everything to buy the field because there's a pearl in that field worth the greatest price. He sets it up by saying, um, there's a pearl of greatest price that one sold everything to acquire. This idea that what did Jesus do to bring about the kingdom of heaven? He sold everything. He gave his life, he gave it all to acquire this precious pearl. That is you. We are the kingdom of heaven, right? And Jesus is telling them that's what the kingdom of heaven is like. It's like he's trying to get them to understand what I'm going to do, right? There's a reason. And the reason is that I'm selling everything I have to acquire this pearl, and so should you, right? Sometimes we're celebrate, Jesus did it all, he gave it all for me, and yet we forget, who are we supposed to follow? Jesus. Are we willing to sell it all for the saint for the kingdom? Are you willing to give it all for the person to your left and to your right? The same way Jesus did? We can't just apply these things to ourselves and forget about everybody else when we're meant to be disciples of Jesus. Notice in these chapters who accepts Jesus. The ones who accept him and proclaim him as the Messiah are the irreligious, the unreligious, the unimportant, the ones that society had deemed not valuable, not important, no status. They're the ones who recognize the Messiah first. They came with faith. So even now we're already seeing, right? And I'm going really fast through this whole book, right? But you're seeing like the kingdom is like inverting, right? The first shall be last, and the last shall be first. He says this a ton of times in the book of Matthew, and he's showing them. And even the ones who are getting the kingdom first are the ones you least expect to get it. Movement four, what kind of Messiah is this? So in Matthew 14 to 20, this is where the expectations collide. I took a lot of this from the Bible project. They have some really good stuff. If you want to start learning your Bible, I would go there. They have fun videos for people who like to watch videos. Okay, go there. I got a lot of this from there. They just do a wonderful job. But they called it the Clash of Kingdoms, which I love. The Pharisees wanted a conquering Messiah. They wanted a victorious king who would overthrow the pagan occupiers and restore Israel as the chosen people. But their vision was so small. They wanted a Messiah who would rescue them today, but they had no vision for a Messiah who would rescue them forever. They wanted to be in charge of themselves. They couldn't see that Jesus wanted something so much deeper. True freedom. Not just freedom from the powers of their day, but freedom from their own selves and their own sin. There were scriptures to back up a conquering Messiah, but they missed the scriptures that proclaim the suffering Son of God, right? The wounded Messiah. So Jesus withdraws and he digs in and he teaches his closest disciples what it actually means for him to be Messiah. He begins to deepen their understanding of the upside down kingdom through teachings, experiences, and parables. And Matthew shows us, as we get closer to the end of the book, Jesus really begins to hone in on what is the kingdom? What is this upside down kingdom and what is my role as what is my role as Messiah? He begins to try to get them to like change their perspective on how he's going to conquer. And it's difficult. The upside down kingdom in full view is this. The world says gain honor by being served, and the kingdom says gain honor by serving others. The world says repay wrong with revenge, and the kingdom says repay wrong with forgiveness and with good. The world says gain wealth by keeping it, but the kingdom says gain wealth by giving it to the poor. So to follow a servant Messiah, you have to become a servant yourself. Painful. And yet we live in a kingdom where our king is the suffering Messiah. I'll never get past it. I don't think you can change my mind. I don't think education's bad or any of that stuff or wealth. But you have to be so careful that we don't wire ourselves to be like the Pharisees or worse, wire ourselves to be like unbelievers when Jesus has called us to be wired a different way. If you're not gonna use, yeah, if you're not gonna, okay. I feel like if you're not gonna use your education and your wealth to serve others, it would be better that you don't have it. And that might be a strong opinion, but it's one I deeply believe to my core. There's no point in gaining wealth or success or status or anything if you're not gonna use it to advance the kingdom of heaven. And Jesus feels the same way. I know he does. Because he chose not to pursue those things. He's not against those things, right? He loves everyone, that's the whole point. All are welcome, but all are equal. Anything you have in this life that you don't use as a kingdom resource, it's just gonna be burnt in the fire. Do you know what I'm saying? It says we'll pass through fire, and that which is kingdom will remain. So you can have it and not use it for the kingdom, that's great, but it'll all be for nothing in the eyes of God, right? These are hard truths but good truths. It's okay. It's okay to hear a hard truth. So now we have the clash of kingdoms continued. Matthew 21 to 25. Jesus enters Jerusalem and he really calls out hypocrisy among the Pharisees. He begins to assert his royal authority, he turns the tables in the temple. This is not how I want my temple run. He begins to assert his royal authority. The religious leaders are offended, shocked, and they decide to kill him. Wow, that seems drastic. Jesus critiques their hypocrisy and plainly laidens out his, he lays out his coming death and resurrection. But the thing you have to look at as an overview is that Jesus offers a peaceful kingdom and instead they chose violence. Okay? Everyone was offered. They all heard the same parables and the same teachings. Okay? And some listened and some didn't understand, right? It says in Matthew that some have eyes to see and some have ears to hear, and some don't. Partially, I think Jesus did that so he could probably buy some time, because he knew the violence in their hearts already. But something like that we can look at and say, that's It's crazy. How could you go from being offended to killing? But I think we have to think like this. Those things that are in our heart that we don't deal with come out eventually. And there's lots of true crime stuff, and you can hear on the news, people do crazy stuff. But it should never be a shock to us because those things that are in the heart eventually come out. They wiggle their way out for those who can't deal with it and can't get it transformed. That's what Jesus is here to do, transform the heart. Those things we don't deal with will come out, and they might even shock you. Have you ever said something that shocked you? Said something to a brother and sister, or actually like a literal sibling, let's say that. You say something, you're like, oh, okay, that was nasty. When your kids or you hear your kids, you're like, bro, that's intense. Calm down. But it's like those things in your heart that come out, right? You disciple your children to not do that. And their siblings, unfortunately, are the practice ground for their relationship with all humans in the future. Like that's actually not nice. And if you did that to anyone else, they might punch you in the face. Please don't do that. And uh they learn restraint, right? Your siblings push your buttons pretty hard, or your parents or whatever, whoever you're close to, your family, and you have to learn restraint. And sometimes you fail. That's good. It's good to fail in a safe place. And then you learn not to do that in public, hopefully, fingers crossed, so we can have a great, thriving society, right? Fingers crossed. Then we move to movement six, the surprising fulfillment. We have the Passover meal. Again, think about that Moses parallel, right? And what does this Passover meal represent that Jesus has? It represents rescue from slavery through the death of the Passover lamb. These old symbols that they knew very well of bread and of wine, Jesus gives new meaning that they are his body and his blood. Hundreds of years of foreshadowing land on the Passover table. It was so obvious, it's a shock that they missed it. It was shocking, okay? I'm not gonna go through the Passover table, but you should study what the elements represent, and you'd be baffled. How did they miss it? And yet, I probably maybe would have too. You know how you get familiar with something? You get familiar with coming to church, the music goes, then you have announcements, then you have a sermon, then you go home. We get familiar with tradition like that. They were familiar with the Passover meal. They forgot what it really represented. And they had missed the poetry that God had written in what He had asked the Israelites to do. He didn't just ask them to put parsley on a table and eat it. That's gross. You know, whenever cooking is the theme today. Whenever a recipe says garnish with parsley, I'm like, why? It tastes like nothing. And I don't want nothing sprinkled all over my dish. Like it makes no sense to me. It's like, put onion, you're like, yeah, put onion, I can taste that. Like sprinkle with parsley. Like to me, just cut some grass and put it on. No difference. I don't think you'd even notice. So, like, you know what I mean? I think they're like, God, Jesus, God, or whatever, back in the day, it wasn't like parsley's my favorite herb. There was like depth to the meaning, okay? If you study it, you'll understand it. I don't think he was like, I just love parsley. Dip it in this water thing, put it on your table and eat it. And they're like, yes, okay. It was supposed to represent something. The meal was symbolic. It wasn't supposed to be the Chinese buffet down the street. You know what I'm saying? So the they have this meal. It represents so much, okay? And uh, this is the new covenant. It's the final Passover meal because the one slain, the one lamb, the one true lamb, right, was about to be slain for all. It was the final one. They had kept up this meal for how many years? And now we're finally at the last one Jesus has with his disciples before he becomes the Passover lamb, right? The cross was not a failure, although many people believe that. Like Peter denied Jesus because I think in his heart of hearts, he's like, this isn't. I believed he was the Messiah, and now he's being crucified by my oppressor. This can't be the Messiah. And he was embarrassed and ashamed. And so he denied Jesus. It wasn't just some silly little thing about a rooster, it was revealing his heart and how he still didn't have the right perspective of who the Messiah was. He was still missing it. It was the surprising fulfillment of every prophetic promise. Instead of judging those who rejected him, this is just instead of judging those who rejected him, he is judged in their place. And actually, it doesn't say on their behalf, it says in their place. The judgment that you would want doled out to the ones who rejected the Messiah. The Messiah went and received the judgment for all that stuff they did to him on that cross. You ever thought of it that way? That all those things, like the fact that they even put him on the cross, that when he went on the cross, he actually received the judgment for those actions right there on the cross, right in front of them. Imagine your savior taking your sins on right in front of your very eyes. It's it's sobering thoughts and things we don't think about probably often enough sometimes in our long walks with God. Many of us in this room have been believers for years. And it can be easy for us to forget these things. And then the book ends: The Great Commission. The risen Jesus sends his disciples to all nations with the good news. Jesus is Lord, he is the King, He is enthroned. Anyone can join his kingdom through baptism and obedience to his teachings. We kind of land, like I said, oftentimes we stop at this salvation baptism and then just live a good life and God covers it all. But we forget this call to obey the teachings, to be disciples first, and then to make disciples. Jesus sends them out what? To make disciples of all nations. I can come and I can pray for you and set you free. Well, not me, but Jesus. Put their hands on you, Jesus heals you, great, awesome, send you on your merry way, and then what? There's a lot of people who are like, we don't need the church, we're supposed to be out there. Where are you gonna bring people that you bring to Jesus? You're telling me you're gonna bring 3,000 people to your home? Your goals are too small, first of all. And I like you have to resist bad theology. And like, look at the book of Acts. 3,000 people saved in one day and they gathered together. There is no home in all of Jerusalem or Galilee or the whole region to fit 3,000 people.

unknown 28:43

Okay?

SPEAKER_00 28:44

That's bigger than this church? 3,000 people? That's a mega church, by the way. So in the book of Acts, they have a mega church for a day, 3,000 people added to their cause. It's pretty cool. But resist bad theology, please, because you need the church, because this is the place where you grow in your faith. You're meant to sit beside someone who rubs you the wrong way. Because if you don't, how would you know what's in your heart? I am supposed to reveal things in your heart. It's my calling, and I accept it gracefully and proudly, and I'm happy to do so. And you can hang around me anytime. I'm just kidding. But we're all called to do that for one another. Be grateful when someone causes you to like get a feeling of something you shouldn't have. Good. Deal with it then and now, and praise God for the opportunity. We don't like that. That's fine. But you have to tell your flesh what's what, or you will be ruled by it to the end of the age. So I ends, surely I am with you to the very end of the age. Okay, so that's my first part, okay? I'm sorry, that was a lot. I know. It's like a fire hydrant of like, this is Matthew! But you can go and watch that video, like I said, and let it really get into you. But what I what we really want to look at now is so we know all this. The kingdom comes, he's flipping it upside down, but everyone thought the kingdom and the Messiah should look like. He's like, actually, no, nothing like that at all. So, what do Jesus' teachings in the midst of this? What do they show us about power, honor, and worth and how they work in the kingdom? And this is what we want to get to today. Power, honor, and worth. How do they work in the kingdom? Let's go. Now we're gonna open our Bibles, okay? We're gonna go Matthew 20, verses 20 to 28. And we're gonna read. There's a couple questions you need to ask yourself when you're looking at scripture. Something that Nathan and I have been reading this book. So if I'm reading a book, Nathan's reading a book because I'm gonna tell him about it. So he doesn't even have to read it, he just gets the footnotes. So he's blessed. But yeah, I'm reading this book about how to read the Bible, which is probably a great place to start. And it's actually really like helping me have a good framework. I think you're supposed to do it in Bible college. I'm pretty sure when I did Bible college, it was one of the books. So I've read it before, but when you're 19, it's just right over your head. You gotta read it again when you're 30, you know? You got a little more like, I need to pay attention, right? So you need to ask yourself who was in the room or who is the audience. Gotta ask, who is the audience? Because why was Jesus saying what he was saying, right? We need to ask, how did Jesus' message affect the audience? Not how it affects you, how it affected the people he was talking to, because that will reveal more to you than anything else. We're gonna look up some words. I'm not gonna say them, because we don't need to go there. I'm not gonna say like the Greek words, like please. You don't need to be hearing that. And we're gonna learn about what it does to us, okay? What the, what the what this passage of scripture does for us. Okay, so let's start. Matthew 20, 20 to 28. We'll read it quick and then we'll go through it. Then the mother of the sons of Zebedee came up to him with her sons, and kneeling before him, she asked him for something. This is she's asking Jesus, right? And he said to her, What do you want? She said, I said that really aggressively. I don't, that's probably not how we say it. What do you want? That's because I say that to my kids 400 times a day. I'm gonna retry that. What do you want? Okay, good. She said to him, Say that these two sons of mine are to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left in your kingdom. Jesus answered, You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I am to drink? They said to him, We are able. He said to them, You will drink my cup. But to sit at my right hand and at my left is not mine to grant, but it is for those for whom it has been prepared by my father. And when the ten, the other ten disciples, heard it, they were indignant at the two brothers, of course. But Jesus called them to him, everyone, and said, You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lorded over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. It shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be your slave. Even as the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many. So the audience here is the twelve disciples, and the context is everything. Jesus has just given his third and most detailed prediction of the cross. He says he will be mocked, flogged, and crucified, and the very next sentence is a request for the two best seats in the kingdom. Matthew put those side by side on purpose. Jesus describes his execution, and then the response is a conversation about positions. Who's going to be closest, who's going to be highest, who's going to be greatest. You do not know what you are asking, he says. Even though the mom is the one who came and made the request, Jesus answers with a plural you. Because who's really asking? It's the sons. And he turns to address the brothers directly. She spoke, but the ambition, right? The the ambition for power was the sons. The other ten were indignant, but not because the request was wrong, but because they made it first. And the whole group is exposed by their own reaction to this request. So some of the words in this passage, let's look at, okay? You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I am to drink? In the Old Testament, the cup is an image of judgment poured out. Isaiah 51, 17, or Jeremiah 25, 15. And they answer confidently, we are able, with no idea what they have just volunteered for. But in Gethsemane, Matthew 26, 39, Jesus prays that this cup would pass from him. They said yes casually to drink from the cup, and Jesus says yes in great agony, with blood, sweat, and tears flowing from his face. They didn't know. They just wanted power. Jesus says, You have no idea what it costs. You have no idea what it costs. When he talks about the Galilean authorities, the way they lord over and exercise authority over those underneath them, those verbs are built on a prefix in Greek, kata, which means down. So it's an exercising of authority downward. It's like a pressure, right? He says, not so with you, because um Gentile power was I'm over you and I'm gonna press down. But Jesus says in the kingdom, that pressure that you exert is actually from the bottom up. I lift you up, I'll serve you, right? I may have authority, but I'm gonna bend low and I'm gonna take my authority to what? To lift you up. It's still pressure, it's still authority and power, but it's reversed. When he talks about the servant and the slave, whoever would be great among you must be your servant. Whoever would be first must be your slave, right? Whoever wants to be great becomes like the word is a table waiter, someone just doing practical and unglamorous work. And whoever wants to be first becomes a doulos, which was a slave, someone with no right to determine his own day. Your day, gone. Right? You're a servant now, servant of all. The ambition climbs, but the role descends. So, true power in the kingdom, if we flip it upside down, right? If you want to be powerful, you want to carry authority, you want to be great first in the kingdom of heaven, then I'm gonna find you serving others always. I'm gonna find you like someone who doesn't even own their own day because they're so eager to look for ways to lift up others in the kingdom of heaven, so interruptible, so excited to do the work of the kingdom. Like already you should feel in your spirit conviction for those of us who are supreme lords of our days. Like, come on, we live in Canada. That's the most self-involved nation, probably on planet Earth. I don't know. It's up there. We are self-involved. Say it, it's okay. I am self-involved and I need to deal with it. I'm working on it. We should start self-involved. What is it? Anonymous. We can all come. Confess the ways in which we think about ourselves too much. And then the word ransom at the end, right? Jesus says, the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many. It is the price paid to buy a slave out of slavery. That's what that word means. He came to buy you out of slavery. And uh he even adds this anti-Polland. Again, I'm not Greek, guys. Forgive me. Poland, Poland, I don't know. Sounds like, yeah, anyway. In place of many is what it means. So he came not on behalf of, like I said before, not behalf of, but in the place, in your place. He became a slave so you could be removed from slavery. Does that make sense? Okay, good. Jesus does not tell them ambition is sinful, he tells them they're climbing in the wrong direction. Greatness is real in the kingdom, but it's just located at the bottom. He doesn't leave this as a rule. Verse 28 puts him in the same sentence. The Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve. So he doesn't just tell you what to do, but he actually did it first. And he asks you to follow in his example. In the kingdom of heaven, you do not climb to greatness. You descend to greatness. You descend. You can have ambition, but your ambition cannot be to lord over those around you, to finally get out of nursery duty, to finally get out of sweeping the floors. That's the wrong ambition. That ambition involves yourself. The ambition you must have is to be like your Messiah, servant of all. What must I do to establish the kingdom of heaven on earth? And if I need to sweep joyfully as to the Lord, to vacuum this house in while I'm praying in the spirit and believing for revival, calling out giftings in the body of Christ, praying for those who are in need, it's not low. It's the greatest place you can be. And you have to start rewiring your brain. All we do is wriggle and strive to get out of suffering. And it's not right. You must conquer your flesh and do not let your flesh conquer you. If you follow Jesus, the master of his flesh, you will learn to put away your flesh for the things of the spirit. And you don't do it on your own strength, by the way, because it can be hard to vacuum a place like this. You kind of sweat. That's not the point. It's okay to feel like things are hard. The point is the spirit empowers the state of your heart. So that when your flesh is screaming loud, you still have the ability to let the spirit rule and reign supreme. Does that make sense? Okay, great. That's one. Movement two is worth. Okay, let's look at Matthew 18, 1 to 14. This will be a quick one, okay? Matthew 18. At that time the disciples came to Jesus, saying, Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven? And calling to him a child, he put him in the midst of them and said, Truly I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. The disciples again, this is the audience, right? And they ask straight out this time, who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven? Tell us, please. In chapter 18, they ask it, and Jesus answers a child. That's what we're reading right now. And later on in chapter 20, they ask it again. We had read that. And what did he say? A servant and a slave. What we need to understand is that Jesus didn't answer with a name. He didn't call, he didn't say it's one of the disciples. He calls a small child over to stand in the middle of them. And the answer to a question about rank is a person with no rank at all. In that culture, a child had no rank. They weren't in the system. They were not valuable. They weren't able to contribute to society yet. And they said, Who is this great? Who is the highest? You know? And he says, Oh, come, this one. This one. They're like, What are you talking about? This is insignificant. This, they can't do anything for the kingdom of heaven. Jesus, this one, this is the greatest. Jesus says, uh, truly I say to you, unless you turn and become like children. And the word turn here is passive, so it's not like self-help improvement. It's not like better yourself, but it's just be turned around. So it's again about the perspective. You're facing the wrong way. Turn yourself around. Uh, we already said this, but a child, we think innocence, wonder, and trust, but that's not the point being made. This is an honor-based culture, and a child had no legal standing, no property, no voice, and nothing to contribute. And yet Jesus says, this person with nothing to contribute, think about that. This person with nothing to contribute is the greatest. And actually, Jesus goes on to really give like a really serious warning about these children. Whoever receives a child in my name receives me, but whoever causes one of these ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened around his neck and be drowned in the depth of the sea. And he goes on, by the way, that's not the end of it. He goes on about temptations to sin. Whoa. It'd be better for you to cut out your eyes if they caused you to sin, then your whole body go to hell. And so it's very important to Jesus that we begin to understand that those that we look down upon and place little to no value on are the very ones that Jesus says, woe, to those who cause them to sin. You must take care of them. You must treat them as though they were greater than you in the kingdom of heaven. And while maybe Maybe we don't live in an honor culture like that where that makes as much impact. I guarantee you there's someone you can think of or someone, some way that you can perceive this idea of looking down upon someone and considering them of little value. Jesus has a great heart for the poor and the needy. And he sees it as your duty, our duty, to take care of them. Those who have are meant to take care of those who do not. And he never once says, if they don't have, not by their own circumstance. He doesn't give caveats. He doesn't really care how they got there. He says, This is your job. You have today, so you give today. And then this idea, we can see that in the kingdom of heaven, our worth is not calculated on anything we can do or offer. Our worth is simply found in Jesus. You're not more worthy than anyone else on this planet right now, because we only find our worth in Jesus. Right? He is worthy. And it's through him that we can see the worth in others. And if you can't take off the blinders that you have towards other people, you've got to get more of this in you, right? More of his spirit in you. Help him. Help him, no, help you. Help him help you. Help him help you. Yeah, that works. Be more helpful to Jesus as he's trying to help you in changing your perspective. Because he's trying and he gives you opportunities. Although you may be a little deaf to them right now, I promise you, if you soften your heart, you'll begin to see those opportunities again. The ones that you used to just miss all the time. Yeah. The same story, like if you go on in this chapter, there's a parable of the lost sheep. Jesus says, this is right after what we just talked about, okay? See that you do not despise one of these little ones, right? For I tell you that in heaven their angels always see the face of my father who is in heaven. What do you think? If a man has a hundred sheep and one of them has gone astray, does he not leave the 99 on the mountains and go in search of the one that went astray? And if he finds it, truly I say to you, he rejoices over it more than over the 99 that never went astray. So it is not the will of my father who is in heaven that one of these little ones should perish. What's important is that we can kind of get a picture of kingdom value and worth. He doesn't do the math at all. He just says the father wasn't willing to lose it. It's just beautiful, right? He's not saying there's one that I would chase down, but not the other. He's saying, out of a hundred sheep, even if one goes missing, I care enough to go and find it. Because everyone is important in the kingdom of heaven. God assigns value based on relationship. Let's go, Matthew 6, 1 to 6. We're getting there, guys. We're getting close, I promise. You've got this. Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your father who is in heaven. Thus, when you give to the needy, sound no trumpet before you as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may be praised by others. Truly I say to you, they have received their reward. And the word there is like a receipt paid in full. So let's say you came to pay a bill. That's what he's saying. Everything's paid in full. There's nothing more for them. That's it. It's done. They've received it. Where was I? Why sometimes you can't see where you were? Wow, here we are. Better glasses is what I need, I think, guys. That's what we're learning here. But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret, and your father who sees in secret will reward you. And then we're gonna skip over to 16 here, verse 16. When you fast, do not look gloomy like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces, that their fasting may be seen by others. Truly I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, that your fasting may not be seen by others, but by your father who is in secret, and your father who sees in secret will reward you. So there's three things here. When you give, do not be a hypocrite, they have their reward, give in secret. When you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, they have their reward, pray in secret. And when you fast, do not be like the hypocrites, they have their reward, fast in secret. And the words that Jesus are using when he says to be seen, and when he's saying hypocrite are theater words. He's saying like one who puts a mask on and acts out a play. To an audience. Okay. Um yeah. And the idea is like they're actors in a play. But what we need to remember is that he doesn't say that the giving is wrong, that the praying is wrong, and that the fasting is wrong. But what was wrong was the audience. They were doing it to be seen by man, to achieve something. What they needed to be doing it for was their father. Right? He says, your father who sees in secret. Do it for him. We still give, we still pray, and we still fast, but our audience has to change. We do it why? I wrote some stuff down here. Because it's his approval we seek. You don't need the approval of man. Again, if you seek the approval of man and you get the approval of man, that's great, but then that's done. There's nothing waiting for you after that. We seek the approval of God, our Father, because it is only to do his will that we should be doing these things. It is only because we do what we see our Father doing. We reflect his nature and his character. We do these things for the right reason, for the right audience. I don't give to be to show, like I, those ones who like give when they're on TV and they're like a big check. They like printed it. It costs them like a thousand dollars to print it just to show how much money they gave. So funny. And they're just standing there like, look at us, look what we gave. See, that's the play. Jesus says, if you do it for me, you don't need to do that. He's already sees you that way when you do it. Do you see what I'm saying? We don't need to show off what we do, we just need to do it for the right reasons. Again, the upside-down kingdom doesn't deal just with the external, but it deals with the heart. It's like as simple as that. The only thing that really stands in our way in all these stories is your pride and your ego, or your greatest enemy in the kingdom of heaven. Every one of us is performing for someone, and we have to figure out who is in the seats. Who are we doing it for? Okay. This is the last one, guys. Are you excited? Matthew 19. We're flip-flopping around. This is a good one. I like this one. Verses 16. Behold, a man came up to him saying, Teacher, what good deed must I do to have eternal life? And he said to him, Why do you ask me about what is good? There is only one who is good. If you would enter life, keep the commandments. He said to him, Which ones? And Jesus said, You shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not bear false witness, honor your father and mother, and you shall love your neighbor as yourself. The young man said to him, All these I have kept. What do I still lack? Jesus said to him, If you would be perfect, go sell what you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven, and then come and follow me. When the young man heard this, he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions. Jesus said to his disciples, Truly I say to you, only with difficulty will a rich person enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God. When the disciples heard this, they were greatly astonished, saying, Who then can be saved? It's a great question. You're going like, oh my, we're all doomed. Jesus looked at him and said, With man, this is impossible. True, true, true, he says. It's just true, true. But with God, all things are possible. Peter said in reply, see, we have left everything and followed you. What then will we have? Some of these disciples are asking the honest questions. We have done it. Tell us, please. Is there something for us? Jesus said to them, Truly I say to you, in the new world, when the Son of Man will sit on his glorious throne, you who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel, and everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or lands, for my name's sake will receive a hundredfold and will inherit internal life. But many who are first will be last and the last first. We have one man, this is the audience that Jesus is talking to, who comes on his own asking a sincere question. He's not a villain and it's not a trap. This man is he's a model. He's successfully moral, he's religiously serious, he's genuinely searching. He is like many of us in this room, who are honestly doing our best every day. Right? We wake up, we're doing our best to be followers of Christ, we're doing what we know to do. We're putting in the effort. When we look at the words in this passage, what good thing must I do? His opening question is transactional. He wants a deliverable, a task he can complete and check. He's looking for eternal life. He wants to add it to his list of accomplishments. He's saying, I've kept all these things, and it's not a boast. It's probably true. He's being sincere. The word that he uses when he says, All these things I have kept is like a word to guard or to watch over. He's been sincerely guarding his heart and his actions. He's been watching over his life. We would hold him up in our churches and in our communities as a man to model after. And he knows yet, even in that, that there's something he still lacks. You can keep the whole law and still know something is missing. Jesus says, if you want to be perfect, it doesn't mean flawless, it means complete and whole. If you want to be whole, this is what you do. See, Jesus, he's basically saying, You asked what you lacked, and I'm saying, here's what will complete you. But the man went away grieving. And if we look for a little nugget in this passage, when we look at what the commandments Jesus lists in verse 18 and 19, do not murder, commit adultery, steal, give false testimony, honor your father, mother, love your neighbor. Every one of these is horizontal. It's about his relationships with other people. And the man honestly could say he kept everyone, but what does Jesus not list? He never mentions, you shall have no other gods before me, and he never mentions coveting. And he says, Go sell what you have. The one commandment Jesus never named is the only one the man could not keep. The failure was in the place that nobody could see. You can perfect the law, but never have your heart transformed. And you can pass every visible test and still be holding one thing that you will not lay down. The rich young man had power, and Jesus asked him to descend. He had worth, and Jesus asked him to stand with those who had none. He had honor, and Jesus asked him to walk away from the audience that gave it to him. But he said no to all three, and he was, by every measure to us, a good man. The tragedy here is not that he had a wrong answer, it was that he had a right record, but one unnamed thing. And the question I want to leave with you today is not what have we done wrong? The question is, what is the one thing this morning that you would not lay down if Jesus asked? Because that is the idol. It's not the thing that you're ashamed of. It's probably the thing that you are quietly certain that you get to keep. The upside down kingdom holds no room for pride, it holds no room for sin, it holds no room for appearances. The upside down kingdom demands a total heart transformation for each and every one of us. And like a bright flashlight that clicks on, the kingdom of heaven expels all darkness and exposes all secrets and reveals all idols. And if we are to live in the upside down kingdom, you must allow the word, the spirit, and Jesus Himself to do a work in you. We must name our one thing this morning. See, this man kept every commandment he could, but it was the one that he could not even name that he walked away holding. And as I was preparing this message and thinking about this message, that this picture just kept coming back to me over and over again. There are things in our life that we refuse to say out loud that we already know Jesus wants. When I was studying worship, the first instance of worship is Abraham when he sacrifices Isaac on the mountain. He says, We will go worship over here. And it just lays out this picture of worship as homage to a king, like you bend your knee, right? I serve this king, and whatever he asks, I'll do. But the last instance of worship in the Bible is when John in the book of Revelation bows to the angel. And the angel says, You must not bow to me. You must worship God. And the thing that God just put so clearly on my heart when I read that was as Christians, those who are living in the finished work of the cross in the kingdom of heaven can be so tempted to bow to the good thing before we've even got to the God thing. And I believe that the book of Matthew has so much for you if you'll start to study it. This sermon is long. That was three stories. There's like 20 some. Imagine if you just spent the year in the book of Matthew learning what it means to live in the kingdom of heaven. We miss so many of the parables. The Good Samaritan isn't even about helping the Samaritan. Did you know that? We think it's about helping the Samaritan, which probably is not good for us that we think that's the point. The point was the Pharisee, who when Jesus sets him up to say, the priest walked by, in his heart of hearts would have said, Of course the priest walked by, but the Pharisee would never. And then guess what? The Pharisee walks by. And guess who actually helps the man on the side of the road? The Samaritan, who to you and me would be like saying, the atheist, the secular, left-wing, progressive, liberal, they help the man on the side of the road, but not you, the believer, the one who lives in the kingdom of heaven. And it would be an offense and affront to you when you heard it. That was the point of the parable, was revealing his lack of love for the priest and for the Samaritan. It revealed in his own heart that he thought he was better. See what I'm saying? We gotta study the Word of God. But I know this morning that each and every one of us, we have something in our hearts. We have something in our lives. There's an idol that we are refusing to call an idol. Because maybe it's good. Maybe it's not, maybe it is sin, and that's where you're at today. But I know that there's things in our life that God wants you to name this morning, and He wants you to name it out loud. Because, like I said, pride and ego are the antithesis, right? They're the opposite of the kingdom of heaven. And it's usually our pride and our ego that refuse to call the thing the thing. So would you stand with me this morning? And I believe that even as I'm speaking this morning, and that was a lot of teaching, I know, but I know that the Holy Spirit is convicting you. I'm sure, like, you could come up, yeah, if you want. The Holy Spirit's convicting you, and there's something that He's asking you to lay down this morning. I know. Because, like the rich young man, we may have got a good handle on morals, we may have got a good handle on how to be a Christian, we may have a good handle on duty and how to show up to church and how to serve. But there might be something in our life that we refuse to name that Jesus has been trying to get our attention about because it's stealing our impact for the kingdom of heaven. Maybe it's the wrong perspective, maybe it's bitterness, maybe it's harboring people's offenses and not letting them go. I don't want to name it. You have to name it. It's your thing to name this morning. But this morning I'm gonna invite you. I'm not just gonna invite you. Pride is a tricky thing. If this morning you refuse to take the opportunity to name that thing, then it will still continue to own you. It will. The mind is and the flesh is this thing that it can deceive us into a lot of things. There's a lot of excuses that we give ourselves. If Jesus was standing here, he'd have something for each and every one of us that just points right where it hurts the most, right where it reveals the most. Not because he's here to condemn. Why would the Savior of the world, the one who already paid the price for all these things in your life, want you to keep living with idols? God is a holy God, a jealous God. He points out these things in our hearts and he asks you to sacrifice those things and lay them down. Because the reward and the pleasure for being a servant, for suffering in the kingdom of heaven is so much greater than having everything you could ever want, ever want and all your desires and needs met. Why would Jesus say, you know what, it's okay. Just continue to live for yourself when he knows there's such a better, more glorious, more holy thing for you. He wouldn't be a very good teacher if that's the way he left you. So he doesn't. He doesn't leave you. And he asks us to do hard things because hard things are the only things worth doing sometimes. And this morning I'm asking you, Faith Alive, to do a hard thing. I'm asking you to finally name the thing in your life that God has been calling out of you week after week after week, and you don't want to see it. And I'm asking you to come down here and say it out loud and be brave and courageous for once, to conquer the pride and the ego that has kept you so bound that you haven't experienced freedom in a long time. Because you'd rather have propriety than be undignified but set free. This morning I'm asking you, those of you who've been in this so long, you're actually numb. You sit here, you've heard it all. You've seen it all, you know so much. But you refuse to name the fact that you've been wearing the wrong set of lenses, and you might be looking at the parables of Jesus like the Pharisees and not the way Jesus intended you to see them. Those of us who blinded our own selves but told ourselves we can see. This morning, that's what I'm asking you to do is to come down here. I don't need to pray for you, but you need to come down here and you need to let it out of your mouth for real.

unknown 1:03:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:42

Without shame, without fear, because those things are not more powerful than the work of the cross. And you need to say it and name it, or he's never gonna be able to deal with it because you're holding on too tight. So as we sing, I can't tell you what to do, I can't name it for you, I can't even set you free. All I can do is ask you to give Jesus an opportunity in this house as a symbolic gesture that you walk up here and you get on your knees and you say the thing. Because I know that Jesus will honor your act and he will help you, and you will live in a way you never thought possible. And finally, the kingdom of heaven can begin to break through at faith alive, so people can be sent here to receive it. Because the blinders came off. Because now that we're disciples of Jesus in every way, the power of the kingdom begins to unfold in mighty and marvelous ways. Because it was never about you, it was only about what you're willing to hold on to or let go of. So Jesus can do the work that he needs to do in your life. Amen. So if you believe that, and if you're ready, I'm gonna invite you to come up here. I'm gonna come up here. Okay? They're gonna sing. There's no fanciness to this. You do it. Jesus will meet you where you are. Thank you.