The Fame of Christ (8/20/2023)

All right, so this section of Matthew 9, starting in verse 18, this is where Jesus raises a young girl from the dead.

And obviously when something like that happens, everybody is talking about it. Matthew 9, starting in verse 18, while he spoke these things to them, behold, a ruler came and worshiped him saying, my daughter has just died, but come and lay your hand on her and she will live.

So Jesus arose and followed him and so did his disciples. And suddenly a woman who had a flow of blood for 12 years came from behind and touched the hem of his garment.

For she said to herself, if I only may touch his garment, I shall be made well.

But Jesus turned around and when he saw her, he said, be of good cheer, daughter, your faith has made you well.

And the woman was made well from that hour. When Jesus came into the ruler's house, he saw the flute players and the noisy crowd wailing.

And he said to them, make room for the girl is not dead, but sleeping.

And they ridiculed him. But when the crowd was put outside, he went in and took her by the hand and the girl arose.

And the report of this went out into all the land. When Jesus departed from there, two blind men followed him, crying out and saying, son of David, have mercy on us.

And when he had come into the house, the blind men came to him. And Jesus said to them, do you believe that I am able to do this?

And they said to him, yes, Lord. And he touched their eyes saying, according to your faith, let it be to you.

And their eyes were open. And Jesus sternly warned them saying, see that no one knows it.

But when they had departed, what did they do? They spread the news about him in all that country.

So going back to verse 18, this man who comes to Jesus because of his daughter, both

Mark and Luke say that his name was Jairus. And you've probably heard the story of Jairus, his daughter,

Jairus was a ruler of the synagogue. So I want you to think about this for just a moment. Affirming Jesus is something that could have got you kicked out of the synagogue.

And yet this leader of a synagogue not only expresses faith in Jesus, it says he worshiped

Jesus. So once again, we see this theme in Matthew pointing really to the divinity of Christ.

Jairus, by worshiping Jesus, I mean, this speaks volumes because all the

Jews understood you don't worship rabbis. You don't worship teachers. You don't worship prophets.

Who do you worship? God and God alone. And this was the first commandment in the law to have no other gods before the

Lord. So either Jairus on some level believes in the deity of Christ, or he's doing something that no

Jew should ever do in worshiping a man. And Jairus wasn't just some rando guy.

He was a religious leader in his own right. In modern times, we would say that Jairus was like a pastor, or he was like an elder in a church.

I mean, he's somebody who would have known what was what. So by worshiping Jesus, the point is, this says a lot.

This is not an insignificant detail. Now I don't necessarily think Jairus thought through the theology of all of it, right?

He's just in great need. He hears about Jesus and the miracles, and because of his need, it causes him to seek

Christ. And I think this is one of the reasons why people do seek Christ.

They need help, right? Some of you, you sought out Christ because you were in a very bad position.

You didn't know where else to turn. Maybe you tried things to try to help out your situation, or maybe you felt lost living a life with no meaning or purpose.

Whatever it is that causes a person to seek out the Lord, we say, amen. Whatever it takes to bring someone to Christ.

For Jairus, it was his daughter. Started out she was sick, and then she dies. It causes him to seek the

Lord. But Jairus, in order to seek Christ, he needed to be aware of Christ, right?

People can't seek the Lord unless they first know of the Lord. Romans 10 .14 says,

How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in him in whom they have not heard?

And how shall they hear without a preacher? So the title of the message is the fame of Christ.

People needed to know something about Christ before they could seek him.

But by this point in Matthew, really the fame of Jesus had spread far and wide.

So Jairus may have had some understanding of who Jesus was. Maybe, maybe not.

Either way, he's seeking him out. I think he knew something. And Jesus is on the way to Jairus' house.

We'll look at verse 20. Something interrupts him. Suddenly a woman who had a flow of blood for 12 years came from behind and touched the hem of his garment.

For she said to herself, if only I may touch his garment, I shall be made.

Now that requires a lot of faith to believe that, doesn't it? If I just touch part of his clothing,

I will be healed. And then it says, Jesus turned around and when he saw her, he said, be of good cheer, daughter, your faith has made you well.

And of course, we recognize it was her faith in cooperation with the power of God that made her well.

We see in Matthew 9, 23, when Jesus came into the ruler's house and saw the flute players and the noisy crowd wailing, he said to them, make room, the girl is not dead, but sleeping.

Now, was she dead or wasn't she dead? Which was, was she dead or not? Yes or no? Yeah, she was dead.

But Jesus says, well, she's not dead, she's only sleeping. So how do you square this?

And of course, once he says that, it says they ridiculed him. Now, I think they ridiculed

Jesus for two reasons. Number one, they lacked faith. I mean, they didn't think that this could happen.

Jesus couldn't do anything about this. And the second reason, she really was deceased.

So then it begs the question, why did Jesus say that she's only sleeping? Well, most of you know that the word sleep in the

Bible is used sometimes as a euphemism for death, because the person, when they're dead, they look like they're sleeping, that's part of it.

But also, it's only temporary, what was Jesus gonna do? He was gonna come and wake her up.

So don't be confused, the girl truly was dead, which is why they brought in the mourners.

Sometimes, people today, we look at folks from 2 ,000 years ago and people today have this attitude, well, they're just stupid.

They didn't really know any better. No, they knew a dead body when they saw a dead body. She really was dead.

So they have basically what we would call a funeral going on for her.

And apparently, back in that culture, it wasn't uncommon to pay people to come and play music.

And maybe even to cry and to mourn when they really didn't even know the person. I know that sounds strange to us that what kind of people would pay someone to come to a funeral and mourn?

I guess if you don't think anyone's gonna show up, maybe you'd do that, but I don't think that's the situation here.

Who are the type of people that would do this? Well, apparently, the same people who would ridicule the

Messiah, and that's what they did. And I like what verse 25 says, or at least what it implies in the

Greek language. It says, when the crowd was put outside, but in the original language, the statement is very forceful, so it could be translated this way.

Jesus banished them, like he drove them out. Remember when Jesus drove out the money changers in the temple?

He didn't ask them to leave. No, he drove them out with a whip. Now, I don't think Jesus had a whip here, but that's the same idea.

Jesus was angry, and he banished them from the house.

Jairus, this Jewish leader, had just professed faith, and his daughter is laying there dead.

Jesus was not gonna tolerate this kind of mockery. Verse 25 says, he went in and took her by the hand, and the girl arose.

And the report of this, or his fame, went out into all the land.

Now, why did Jesus raise this girl from the dead? Why did he do that? To show mercy and compassion, to be sure, but also to validate his ministry and his message.

I talked about this last week, the week before. You can't just come out and say, I'm the Messiah, or I'm the

Son of God, or put all your trust in me. You can't just say that, you need to have something backing it up.

So Jesus did these things. He worked wonders to validate his ministry and message.

So you could look at this raising the girl from the dead. It's a picture of the gospel, because every person who comes to faith, what happens, they're raised to spiritual life.

But also, raising her, Jesus, when he returns one day at his second coming, he's gonna raise all from the dead, all who believe in him.

So Jesus performs these works nearly 2 ,000 years ago. His fame spreads, and we're still talking about it today, after all this time.

And people are still gonna be talking about this until Jesus returns, and then for 1 ,000 years after that.

But really, the question in Matthew 9, what we have to pose to others, who is this man?

We're reading about him, we see what he does. But this is the question for everybody, who is this man that can do such things?

Look at verse 27. When Jesus departed from there, two blind men followed him, crying out and saying,

Son of David, have mercy on us. So according to these men, who is Jesus? He's the

Son of David, which in that culture was another way of saying he is the Christ, he is

God's anointed. So Son of David is a title for the Messiah, and they're crying out to him, expressing their faith.

Because you don't ask someone to do something unless you believe they can do it, right? You can even look at your prayers as an expression of faith, because you're asking

God to do something. And you wouldn't ask if you didn't think he could do it, presumably.

So they turned to Christ by faith. And verse 28, when he had come into the house, the blind men came to him and Jesus said to them, do you believe that I am able to do this?

And they said, what? Yes, well, wait a minute, I thought they already believed that.

They came to Jesus the first time. Sometimes people need to say it. I just wanna make this application.

Maybe you have trusted in Christ in your heart. Maybe you're sitting here and you say, well,

I'm a Christian, I believe. Yeah, but have you ever said it? Have you ever told anyone?

See, even Jesus tries to get this yes out of their mouth so other people can hear it.

So to anyone who has ever trusted in Jesus as their savior, maybe in your heart, in your mind, you believe.

Question is, does anyone else know? Have you ever said it? Confess with your mouth, right? That's what the scripture says.

So they say to him, yes, Lord. And it's only after they say, yes,

Lord, that he touched their eyes, saying, according to your faith, let it be to you.

And immediately, what happened? Their eyes were opened. At which point,

Jesus then sternly warns them, don't tell anyone about this.

Now, that kind of strikes us as odd. I thought he wanted the word to get out to everybody. I thought he wanted everyone to know.

Why would he tell them sternly, hey, do not tell, hey, guys, you're hearing me right, do not tell anybody, right?

And then they go and blab it all around town. Why would

Jesus do this? Here's the thing, while the miracles were done to authenticate the message,

Jesus doesn't want the miracles to be the message. Because he knows full well there are people that will come to him simply for the miracles, simply to see a show, simply to maybe even just get something for myself, but I don't really care about following this man.

The miracle, the signs and wonders, they are not the message, amen? They authenticate the message.

Even today, and listen, our type of Christian tradition, we have our own problems, but this modern

Pentecostal and charismatic movement, that is a danger for them. That the signs and wonders become the message, and that becomes the focus.

And there's dangers for us, that we can tend to focus on certain things and kind of lose sight of the big picture.

What's first and foremost? What's the most important thing? You tell me. Salvation, the gospel, the message of who

Christ is and what he came to do in dying on the cross and rising from the dead.

We need to keep the first things first. Two more short stories, look at verse 32.

And as they went out, behold, they brought to him a man, mute and demon possessed.

And when the demon was cast out, of course, we see Jesus is the one who cast the demon out, the mute man spoke.

And the multitudes marveled, saying, it was never seen like this in Israel.

So what are they saying? We've never seen anything like this. This whole nation, no one has seen anything like this before.

Are you reading that? Yeah. About a month ago on Wednesday night, I did a series on the subject, or one part study,

I guess, on the subject of demonic possession versus demonic affliction, or demonic possession versus demonic oppression.

And one thing I noticed, I'd never really thought about this before. It kind of dawned on me, and I went back and checked, and it's true.

The Old Testament really says little to nothing about this subject of demon possession.

And yet you come to the pages of the Gospels and the Book of Acts, and it's like it's everywhere. In one

Old Testament story, where King Saul is afflicted by an evil spirit. But beyond that, there's really nothing said.

So Jesus, around his ministry, there's demonic activity going on, it seems, everywhere, right?

There's people that he encounters and his disciples encounter that are afflicted or possessed by demons.

So when Jesus cast the demon out, they seem to acknowledge this. We have never seen anything like this, not even in Israel.

So you sort of wonder, why did the ministry of Christ bring out all the demonic spirits?

Well, number one, I think that's what we would expect. When Jesus shows up on the scene for the devil to sort of throw the kitchen sink at it, to kind of throw everything he could, to counterfeit, to hinder, to oppose the ministry of Jesus and later his disciples.

I think that's one reason. But the demons, were they any match for the power of Christ?

No, not at all. But look at how the Jews responded. After casting the demon out, verse 34, the

Pharisees said, he, Jesus, he cast out demons, how?

He does it by the ruler of the demons. What are they saying? Jesus is doing this by the power of Satan.

Jesus is operating by the power of the devil. What do you say, that's stupid?

Is that what some would say that? That is a dumb thing to say. Jesus gets his power from Satan.

What do you call that? What's the term for that? We're going to see this more in chapter 12, blasphemy of the

Holy Spirit. Seeing the works of Christ wrought by the Holy Ghost and saying, yeah, he's working miracles, but he's doing it by the power of Beelzebub.

In chapter 12, Jesus will identify that as the blasphemy of the

Holy Spirit, also known as the unpardonable sin, which we'll cover that when we get to it.

But this is happening, all of this demonic activity, demon possession, the devil is trying to do everything he can to prevent or hinder the ministry of Christ, and Jesus just cast the devil out.

He just cast the demon out, no problem. But this is the response from unbelievers.

Now, you can argue that the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit cannot be committed today.

I just want to make a modern application. When people see the work of God today, do they give

God glory for it? To the unbelieving world, when something is done, maybe a person comes to faith in Christ, their life is transformed.

Or someone is just preaching and teaching, and the power of God is spreading in a community.

What do people say? How does the world respond? We're starting to see a similar thing where people now are, and of course this has always been true, where they call evil good and good evil.

But now people are starting to say that Christianity itself is evil, that Christianity itself is the problem.

Most of us as Americans, this is kind of a new thing for us, right? 20 years ago, 30 years ago, the unbelieving world, they didn't really wanna go to church, they weren't interested in Christianity.

But they sort of recognized it as, well, it's maybe a positive thing in general. I don't want anything to do with it.

But now things have gotten so extreme that people, essentially, they're saying

Jesus, this movement, the teachings of the Bible. They're not saying of the devil because they don't believe in the devil, but that's essentially what they're saying.

Who's noticed this? Yeah, there's just an increase, a rise in this over the past ten years, five years in particular.

Isaiah 5, 20 and 21 says, woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter.

Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes and prudent in their own sight.

So the Pharisees, they were religious people standing in front of God incarnate and saying, you are operating by the power of the devil.

You, Jesus, are of the devil. I mean, think about that. What would lead a person to that point to say such a thing?

Well, unfortunately, it's a pretty simple thing to slip into. Let me just give this warning.

Once a person abandons the teaching of scripture, and you start replacing what's right and wrong according to the word of God with your own opinions, and you think you know better than God, that can lead to a, for lack of a better term,

Pharisee mindset. That way, when you see people actually obeying the will of God and doing what scripture says, you accuse them of doing something wrong.

And I think you're not just seeing this with the world, I think you're seeing this among some believers today.

Here's a simple principle, and we're almost done here, but here's a simple principle that I try to live by.

I think you should live by this as well. Here's my philosophy. I'm wrong, and the

Bible's right, okay? I'm wrong, and scripture is right. So when the

Bible says something, and I'm inclined to think otherwise, or I think maybe I know a little better in how to handle something, what?

I'm wrong, and God's word is right. That's to say, you might not want to adopt this philosophy, but you should.

You're wrong, the Bible's right. And you're not always wrong, but when we come into conflict with the word of God, God is right.

So as I start to wrap this up, Jesus, his fame is spreading. Many doors are being opened to him in the ministry, but what?

There are many adversaries. And his adversaries are not just people of the world, some of them are religious folk.

That really, people would have thought they should be brothers. This is sort of how you know you're doing something for God when things are getting hard.

If your life, if you're just cruising on easy street and everything's going great, I don't know, maybe you're not stepping out in faith.

When you face adversity, especially for your beliefs, for your faith, that's usually a pretty good sign.

We're not looking for opposition, but did Jesus face trial and tribulation?

You bet he did. So it is today when we try to step out and follow

Christ, people will oppose us. But Jesus, he's the most talked about man in Israel at this point.

The multitudes loved him, but the principalities and powers, they came out against him.

So the wealthy, ruling class, the elites, whatever you wanna call them, the nation's leadership, they will soon be plotting

Jesus' death. They already said now he's of the devil, now they will soon plot his death.

But here's the good news, here's the thing. They will never be able to stop what

Jesus started. And the people that are opposing the ministry today, and even maybe some well -meaning folks who have gotten kind of wrapped up into this mindset where you're opposing people for doing the right thing.

You really can't stop the Lord's work. It will continue.

So fast forward up until right now, there are still many adversaries trying to prevent, and hinder, and oppose the work of Christ.

The scripture says about the enemy that the whole world is under his sway.

And while the enemy is destined to lose, the Lord still needs a few good men and a few good women to help out, okay?

We're kind of in a dire situation here. I don't wanna say dire, because we know we win in the end. But we're really up against it in this world, aren't we?

So what do we need? We need a few good people to step out in faith. Let's just look at this one last scripture, starting in verse 35.

Then Jesus went all about the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the gospel of the kingdom in healing every sickness and every disease among the people.

But when he saw the multitudes, he was moved with compassion for them because they were weary and scattered like sheep having no shepherd.

You know, there's nothing new under the sun today. The same problems they had back then, we're going through the same things now.

Isn't this what we see? The people of the world, they're sort of scattered. They're sort of lost, going from one place to another with no real purpose.

Life to many has no real meaning. They live an existence with no hope, day after day, week after week, year after year, and it leaves people feeling weary and tired.

That's the way a lot of Americans feel. They're weary and tired. Why am

I even here? What is the meaning of life? Some people, they're living, really just waiting to die, with no guidance, no protection, no security.

What are they? They're like sheep, having no shepherd. But Jesus, what did he say about himself?

I am the good shepherd, and Christ wants to gather as many into the fold as would come.

But how shall they call upon him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in him in whom they have not heard?

And how shall they hear without a preacher? So the fame of Christ, it's true, many people have heard, maybe even most people have heard, but not all, not all.

There is still a great harvest of souls. People, some people are just waiting to hear the message.

I know for many of you, you've been a Christian for a long time, and you've told many people about the faith.

And so many people have rejected it. You're at the point now where you're like, I don't even know that I wanna bother anymore.

Because so many people don't feel that way. There is still a great harvest.

This same man who is able to bring the dead back to life. He says in verses 37 and 38, the harvest truly is plentiful, but the laborers are what?

Few, there's very few people who wanna step out and do the work and tell people about the

Lord. Therefore, pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.

Focusing on yourself in this world, living for yourself, trying to get things for you and to store it up here on this earth.

Focusing on yourself makes you what? Makes you miserable, you're selfish, you're miserable. Focus on others, focus on Christ, focus on others.

Tell them about this man, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, God in human flesh.

Let's pray. And Lord, how thankful we are that we know who you are. But Lord, we also want to make you known.

So Lord, give us opportunities to share your love and your grace with a world who clearly not only do they not know you, many are opposed.

But Lord, I pray that you would soften their hearts. You who said I am the door, if anyone enters by me, he will be saved and go in and out and find pasture.

Lord, I pray for all those who are weary, all those who are living their life with no meaning.

So Father, help us to share this message of hope, help us to share this message of life, life from the dead.