Matthew 12:15-21 Friend of the Broken

You are listening to the podcast of Recast Church in Matawan, Michigan. Our desire is to help you draw near to God by growing in faith, community, and service. This message is by Pastor of Teaching and Vision, Don Filsek, and is a part of a series entitled Not Your Average Savior, a study of the book of Matthew.

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The Messiah's Ministry in Matthew 12

So this morning we're going to look into a short text that packs into it a lot of revelation about Jesus Christ and his ministry. We're going to be in Matthew 12, 15 through 21, just a couple of verses there.

But Matthew uses in this text a significant, actually the longest quotation from the Old Testament that Matthew uses in his entire gospel. Now it was quite common for the gospel writers to tap into the Old Testament and kind of go back there and show evidences that Jesus Christ is the Messiah, and we're going to see that he takes his time a little bit with this one and actually quotes an extensive portion of the book of Isaiah.

But Matthew uses that quote for the purpose to highlight the method of the ministry of the Messiah, the way that Jesus went about doing his ministry. You see, in the book of Matthew, things are heating up and opposition is beginning to build up against Jesus, and it would have been natural for followers to think that he was about to go all Braveheart on the Romans.

They were thinking, okay, this guy is going to set up his kingdom here on earth, he's the Messiah, he's going to conquer, and they had some good evidences for that according to the Old Testament, that he would come as a conquering hero.

And so they're actually thinking that that's the way that this is all going to go down, and so here we find a text that makes sense, according to the Old Testament, makes sense of a meek and humble, compassionate ministry from the Messiah.

That there was evidence in the Old Testament that Jesus would come and be meek and humble and kind and generous and gentle and gracious to people. The Jews often overlooked the Old Testament passages about the Messiah being a servant and jumped ahead to the passages about him being a conqueror.

The notion of him being a deliverer and a conqueror and coming in with a sword and getting rid of the oppressor, can you imagine why that would draw people's attention? Why that would be kind of cool, especially if you were oppressed, if you had Romans coming in and heavy taxation and all of that.

And so they focused a lot on those texts that were about Jesus coming in as a conqueror but not about him being a servant. God came in flesh, and in reality, his people were not ready for him. And the same can be true for us today.

You know, we're about to celebrate Christmas, and Christmas is supposed to be a re-celebrating, an annual event re-celebrating the coming of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. But we have to ask ourselves this question repetitively every year, and I think it's an important question, are we ready for him?

Are we really ready? I mean, we can be ready, how many of you know you can be ready for the holiday and not be ready for Christ? You know what I'm talking about? I mean, in reality, some of us aren't even ready for the holiday, right?

And so we get so busy and wrapped up in getting ready for the holiday that we miss taking pause this time of the year to consider who is Christ, and will we let him be Lord of our life moment by moment and day by day?

Not just one day of the year, not Christmas and Easter, a couple days or whatever, and not just the 52 Sundays of the year, but every day, every moment, every hour, are we going to let him be Lord? And thinking specifically this Christmas season, because I fear that some of us, when all of the Christmas, you know, and the holiday traditions roll up and come and smack us in the face and we're so busy with all the things that are going on, we ultimately leave Jesus Christ as a ceramic baby in the nativity scene, and that's where he stays.

So I want you to open your Bibles to Matthew 12, verses 15 -21, where we look at the method of Jesus Christ as Messiah that is an example, but more than an example to us. That's page, by the way, that's 696 in the Bible that's in the seat back in front of you, so you can turn to 696 there, we'll read this short passage together, and then pray.

And the band will come.

Jesus, aware of this, and we'll talk about what this was later, Jesus aware of this withdrew from there, and many followed him and he healed them all, and ordered them not to make him known. This was to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet Isaiah, behold my servant whom I have chosen, my beloved with whom my soul is well pleased, I will put my spirit upon him and he will proclaim justice to the Gentiles.

He will not quarrel or cry aloud, nor will anyone hear his voice in the streets, a bruised reed he will not break, and a smoldering wick he will not quench, until he brings justice to victory, and in his name the Gentiles will hope.

Let's pray.

Father, I rejoice that there is hope that has been brought to the Gentiles, I stand before you as a Gentile, I think all of us in this room are Gentiles, or have Gentile blood running in our veins, and Father we read a passage about hope for the Gentiles, for us, because of Jesus, because he came, and he did some awesome stuff, and then ultimately paid the price for our sins on the cross.

Father, I ask that our hearts would rejoice together, I thank you for the unity that we experience as a body of believers, we come from all different kinds of things going on this week, all different kinds of backgrounds and histories, and you've brought us together in this room for the purpose of lifting up Jesus Christ, and hearing from your word and being changed and transformed, not as solo individuals, but as a corporate body together, being transformed and changed by your grace in our lives.

I pray that as we sing these songs, we would sing them out of gratitude to you, for your awesome love for us, in Jesus' name, amen. Well go ahead and make sure your Bibles are open to Matthew 12, 15 -21, page 696, while we kind of walk through this text, feel free to get up, get coffee, donuts, juice, or stretch out in the back if you need to during the message, but just whatever it takes to kind of keep our focus on God's word this morning.

At the conclusion of last week, we saw Jesus go into the synagogue on the Sabbath day, the holy day of the Jews, a day set aside for rest, and he healed a man with a withered.

Hand.

A man who had had some kind of physical deformity to his hand, it was something that visible physical problem with his hand, and, did I say physical-able? I just wanted to highlight that there, make sure that's in the recording.

He had a withered hand, this hand did not work, and Jesus healed it, and said stretch out your hand, and he stretched out his hand, and it worked, and God totally healed him. But then in verse 14 at the end, it says, therefore the Pharisees went out and plotted to kill Jesus.

They conspired to destroy him, which is a logical conclusion to a guy healing somebody,.

Right?

No, okay, not so much, that's kind of crazy. But that's the way that kind of religious pride can blind us, that our desire for power, our desire for people to like us can sometimes make it so that when somebody else is liked, we don't enjoy that as much.

Can you see how logical it really becomes when you put it in your own context? Somebody else gets that promotion, they get the recognition, you didn't, and you kind of think, how dare they get a promotion?

How dare somebody recognize them? And that's kind of the spirit that's going on here, and so they begin to plot, and that's not cool that they plot to destroy him. But according to verse 15, right here at the beginning of our text, we see Jesus aware of this.

What's he aware of? Jesus is aware of the plot. He knows it. I'm guessing it's difficult to keep a secret from God in flesh, really, when you think about it, and sometimes we might be guilty of trying to keep secrets from God.

Good luck on that one. I don't think that's going to happen, and they're trying to keep a plot, they're conspiring to put Jesus down, and he knows it. But notice what Jesus does when he finds out that they're plotting his destruction.

They're literally trying to gain momentum. I mean, how do the conversations look on the street? Can you picture that? You know, hey, hey, you want to go in with us? We're going to kill Jesus. How do you get people to your side on that?

What if they like him? But sometimes conspiracies just happen, and you happen to fall into the people who are on your side, and eventually we know how that's going to turn out. So what Jesus does, he finds out about this plot to destroy him, so he stands up in their midst and lights them up with fire from heaven.

Do you see that in the text? All their faces melt, just like Raiders of the Lost Ark, and it's the end of the story. All of his opposition is obliterated, and that's the way it goes. It could have. And that's actually, that's funny.

That's my next question. Could it have happened that way? And I think that that's important to set. Sometimes the background to the life of Jesus needs to be set with what could have been. What he had the power and the authority to do.

You start with who he was, God in flesh, come down among us. Could he have just fried them, just roasted them, and been done with the opposition? Absolutely he could have. So there's something that we learn about Jesus by the things that he didn't do.

The place that he chose not to be born is valuable to understand. The things that he didn't do is key at some point. So Jesus withdraws from the area, the text tells us. What's his response to those in opposition?

He finds out there's this plot to destroy him. He withdraws, the text tells us. I don't think for a moment that Jesus was afraid of them. Would you agree with me on that? I don't think that he was afraid.

As a matter of fact, the bravery of Jesus is clearly on display later in the Gospels as he faces his final week in Jerusalem. He knows he's going to die. He goes to Jerusalem knowing that they're going to kill him when he goes there, and he goes there.

And some of your minds might be rolling over, the Garden of Gethsemane, well wait a minute, was he really that brave? What is his final conclusion at the Garden? Not my will, but yours be done, Father.

I would love it if I didn't have to go through this whole bearing the sins of the world business tomorrow, but if there's really no other way, I'm your man, I'm going to do this. He faces all of that with just clear bravery.

So he withdraws because he was not done with his earthly work yet. He still had more to accomplish, and his ministry, we see, was not to be one of throwing off.

Roman rule.

He had bigger fish to fry than the Romans or the Pharisees. He did not come to abolish the oppression of the Pharisees. He did not come to abolish the oppression of the Romans. He came to destroy all oppression by paying for sins as the sinless sacrifice.

So he withdrew, but many followed him, it says in the text, and it's clear that his reputation went with him as a miracle worker. You see that all throughout the Gospels, that he gains a following. He does one miracle.

People are interested in that, and they end up following him and bringing out everybody, Aunt Mildred, who needs a hip replacement, and everybody is there because he does miracles, he does cool stuff.

And it says in the text, he healed all. At this context, he healed all who came to him with infirmity. The word is spread that the man with the withered hand, I think that's just in context, you can understand that, this man with the withered hand, people were there, they saw it, and they said, you know, we're going to bring more to see more miracles, and he did it.

But in verse 16, we see a strange but common theme that arises throughout all of the Gospels. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John all possess at least an element of this secretive ministry.

Of Jesus.

It's something that can be a little bit confusing to us, but what does Jesus say to those that.

He's healing?

Don't tell anybody about me. Don't tell anybody. Now, is that a little bit counterintuitive to thinking like, hey, you want to come and start a big movement, you want to come and start, you know, saving the world, but don't tell anyone yet, okay?

And there's an element of that. He doesn't want a bunch of people to know his identity at this point in his ministry. In many ways, it's hard for me to get my mind around the idea of Jesus pacing himself in ministry, but he did.

Jesus, God in flesh, paced himself. He was human. Jesus Christ was flesh and blood. He got tired. He needed food. And his emotions, he was a man with a human spirit. His emotions were impacted by the ministry and the things that he saw in his life.

You ever consider that? I mean, I think sometimes we think of him as like a robot who came down to do the will.

Of the Father.

He is feeling. He's experiencing these things. He talks about him being tired. You ever think about him falling asleep in the middle of the storm? How many of you know that you usually don't fall asleep with thunder and lightning crashing around you in the middle of an open-top boat in the middle of the Sea of Galilee?

He falls asleep.

He's weary. He's tired. I'm not suggesting that Jesus was tired, like kind of sick and tired of ministry. I'm not suggesting that at all. But I'm saying that he worked to keep a reasonable pace in ministry.

Which I think at some points was just crazy to think of what he models as a reasonable pace.

He's moving.

Also, the text that Matthew is about to quote here highlights that Jesus was not some boisterous, outspoken, loud, demanding ringleader type of guy. Okay, so he's pacing himself in ministry, but I think there's also an aspect of this that really highlights what kind of leader he is.

He's not the kind of guy who's just come to just announce to everybody, hey, let's just fill up the biggest venues we can get. Let's come out and just shouting in the streets, hey, come to me, everyone, everybody, you know, and just, are you getting what I'm saying?

Can you picture that kind of charismatic leader who is kind of just all about himself, razzle-dazzle, you know, the snakeskin boots and the big buckle and the, hey, everybody, come to me kind of guy.

That's not what we've got going on here. Even in his meek, compassionate, humble ministry, Matthew tells us that Jesus was fulfilling a prophecy found in the Old Testament. Even in the method, even in the way that Jesus approached ministry, he's fulfilling prophecy.

It's very amazing to see how clear that is. And the passage that he quotes, that Matthew quotes, is Isaiah 42, 1 through 3. You can write that down. He quotes the whole thing. This Old Testament text was assumed by Jews, Jewish scholars, all down through the ages to be about the Messiah.

He said, one is going to come who is going to fill these shoes. He's going to be like this. But it got lost in the shuffle about the Messiah being a conqueror. And a lot of these passages about the Messiah being a servant, as I said earlier in the introduction, got washed away by this notion of Jesus coming as a conqueror.

And what we end up having is, in all honesty, if we lived in that day and age, I think we all would reasonably be assuming Jesus was going to come as a conqueror. I don't think that was an unreasonable expectation on the Jews.

I don't think they were just totally misguided and like, duh, look at your Old Testament.

Here.

I don't think that's it at all. Because there are so many verses in the Old Testament that talk about Jesus coming as a conquering hero. And so what we have to understand is that Jesus Christ has two advents.

Do you guys know what the word advent means? It's a very simple meaning to it. It means coming. Two times Jesus is coming to earth. The first time he comes as a, his first advent, already occurred in history, he came as a suffering servant, compassionate, generous, gentle, kind, merciful.

We're going to see the character of the suffering servant in our text. But there is a day coming, another advent that is coming, when he will come as the conquering.

Hero.

And so the only thing that the Jews didn't understand is they had those two put together and couldn't quite figure out how those two worked together. Is that reasonable? If you were to just, if all you had was the Old Testament, you would be confused about the character of the Messiah to some degree.

You would not have understood the two different advents. Now we understand that as God is progressively revealing things through history and making sense of scripture through our understanding of the way that things are unfolding now.

Does that make sense? Are you guys getting that concept of two different advents of Jesus? So Matthew starts with one of his favorite words, behold. Another way to modernize that is to check this out.

Jesus is identified as some amazing things here at the beginning of this quotation in verse, let's see, 18, yep, behold my servant whom I have chosen is how the quotation begins and it starts right there.

Jesus is identified as the servant of God. He was especially chosen by God according to the text. He is loved by God. And Jesus pleases, it says in the text, Jesus pleases the very soul of God. Would you guys agree with me that those are some amazing things that are stated about Jesus in the text?

Some pretty radical amazing things in just a few words. It would be reasonable for us to understand this statement as an echo of what God said audibly to the crowds at the baptism of Jesus when the ministry was instituted at the very.

Beginning.

Jesus is in the water, John the Baptist puts him under the water and he comes up out of the water and a voice is heard from heaven that says this, this is my beloved son with whom I am well pleased. I haven't had that happen at a baptism yet.

I think there's something unique about Jesus Christ here. Would you agree with me? I'm thinking John the Baptist was like, well, okay, this was a different one. I've baptized a lot of people in the past, but there's something unique about this voice from heaven.

This one. And I mean, what is God saying? I mean, does God love us all? Yeah, but he says, this, this, this one's the one, this is the guy right here. Jesus is the one. You see how that's unique? I mean, all of us have been baptized into, if you've been baptized, you've been baptized with glory into the family of God, into his, you know, into joy, in salvation.

But this is different, but it's not only in this text about the way that the father, God, the father feels about Jesus, the son that is addressed in verse 18. But Isaiah goes on to say that God, the father gave Jesus, the son, a unique calling and the power of the spirit of God to accomplish it.

Now, at the baptism, you had father, son, and Holy Spirit all present. The spirit of God coming upon Jesus to perform the task and the work of his ministry here on earth. Now, I think you need to understand one thing is that a lot of the things that Jesus did, he did on this earth in the power of the Holy Spirit.

Now, I mean, a lot of people have gone, okay, Jesus is God because he walked on water. Well, what does that make Peter? Did Peter walk on water? He did so in the power of the spirit, right? And he did a lot of those things that in all honesty, God could allow anyone in this room to do if he chose to through the power of his spirit.

So Jesus performed his miracles and the things that he did on this earth as a man, God in flesh, but the power of the spirit on his life to do these things. And he says, I will put my spirit upon him and he will proclaim justice to the Gentiles.

At his baptism, Jesus received the Holy Spirit in a very special way on his life. Now, the Jews were kind of hoping for a Messiah that would come in and that he was going to come and kung fu kick the Romans out of Israel.

But instead, they're getting a Messiah who is promising justice to the Gentiles. Now, think about that for a second. Oppressive force comes into Michigan, okay, takes over everything, okay, Canada invades.

What? Are you allowed to use that as an illustration? They come in and they invade us, they take over us, heavy taxation, they control things, they even to the degree that they come into chosen towns and kill everybody two years and under.

Okay, that's what the Romans did. Remember that? We're talking about Christmas time here. They have that kind of authority and that kind of oppressive force. They have military bases all around to keep you and me in line.

How are you feeling about this? Is that good? Is that fun? What do you go to bed dreaming about every night? What do you wake up thinking about every night? Getting rid of the oppressor, right? And that's what they were thinking.

And here, Matthew quotes from Isaiah and Isaiah says, you know what, God's going to bless those guys, those oppressors, those Gentiles that are controlling you. God is providing hope for them as well.

Whoa!

Jesus brought a bit of a counter-cultural message. Would you agree with me on that? Do you think Jesus still is in the business of bringing counter-cultural messages?

Yes.

Kind of like bringing a message of suffering, of blessing through suffering into a land,.

Into a culture.

Let's say, for example, there was a land or a culture that measured blessing according to health, wealth, and prosperity. I mean, I know it's hard for you to imagine that there could be a nation like that that would measure blessing according to health, wealth, and prosperity.

But can you imagine then being tasked to bring in a message that blessing comes through suffering into a culture like that? That's counter-cultural and God is still in the business of bringing that kind of a message.

And here in verse 19, Isaiah is foretelling the methods the Messiah will employ in ministry. So, from Isaiah's perspective, he's saying there's this guy, the chosen one of God is going to come and this is the way he's going to act.

He's basically prophesying, foretelling, this is the way he's going to roll. He's prophesying the M .O. of the Messiah. He says he won't quarrel. He's not going to be a quarreler. He's not going to shout other people down, okay?

As a matter of fact, people will have a hard time even hearing his voice in the city streets. It's not like you're going to just hear him, you're not going to just be able to step out your front door and hear him shouting in the city of Jerusalem.

He's going to have a quiet, subdued ministry as he does his thing here on earth. Again, Jesus was not boisterous and loud. He wasn't hostile or aggressive. He was not an inciter of riots as I'm sure many of the Jews were hoping he would be.

One who was going to stir up the crowds and buy swords and get this party started kind.

Of guy.

And that wasn't the way he came. Although his miracles and teachings certainly attracted crowds, I imagine that people found it easy to lose interest after the miracles were done. Can you imagine that?

I mean, that's kind of hard. Maybe from one perspective, you're like, well, I bet the crowds hung around for a while. But once you got your miracle, what more was there to hang around for? I believe he was a master teacher.

Don't get me wrong. I don't think people got necessarily bored with his teaching, but I think there came a point in many people in the crowd's mind where they said, well, when's this going to happen again?

Do you remember seeing John the Baptist a few weeks ago when he actually said, you know, wait, wait a minute, I thought you were going to come like this and you're like this. Are you really the one? And even John the Baptist wavered.

How much the average person out on the street kind of going, okay, he does some cool stuff. That's great. He's got some tricks up his sleeve. Awesome. You know, healing people.

Good.

Got my miracle. Now what? And he wasn't conquering. He wasn't building an army. He wasn't setting up a throne. And I think people just like we tend to do today can begin to lose interest pretty fast in things.

Just look at the way we treat actors and actresses and you can kind of understand a little bit of the human nature in that of how we love them one moment and then hate them the next,.

Right?

And raise them up just to chop them down often, right? And I think that there's some of that that was going on here. I wondered as I prepared this week, if there's not some room for application, I'll think about Jesus.

Can you picture in his mind his type of meek, humble, non-boisterous, non-quarrelsome ministry? Is there some application to us as individuals in the way that we conduct ourselves? What about as a church in the way that we conduct ourselves as a church?

I think there's a way of doing ministry that draws significant attention to what we are.

Doing.

You know what I'm talking about? Where we want everybody to know exactly what we're accomplishing. Jesus goes around saying to others, don't tell everyone about me yet. Just be patient. We'll get this message out.

It's coming. He isn't shouting in the streets. He isn't taking out billboard advertising and booking the biggest venues. I wonder if you've considered this. I talked about what Jesus could have done and sometimes we learn a lesson in that.

Where was Jesus born? Stable in a manger in a little out of the way town, Bethlehem. Not in the temple precincts in Jerusalem. Not in Rome, the center of the known world at the time. Could he have come there?

Absolutely.

Not in prominent places. Where could he have set up his ministry? He sets it up in Capernaum. It's a little obscure town on the north shore of the Sea of Galilee. He never left Israel to the best of our knowledge in his earthly life.

Could he have?

Absolutely.

But he chose a meek and humble ministry there among the common people. I would love to be a church that reflects Jesus Christ in this. By church I mean individuals and then all of us corporately as we make decisions together.

And work forward.

Better that we are known for our service to this community. Better that we are known for our service to others than for our slick advertising or loud boisterous attention grabbing. And the same applies to our individual ministries at home, at work, or in our neighborhoods.

As we represent Jesus Christ, we should emulate his methods. He served others in humility. He served others with meekness. And this couldn't be any more clear than in verse 20 where we find what I want to focus most of our attention on this morning.

Bruised Reeds and Smoldering Wicks

And he identifies his target audience and his target audience was very different than we might expect. He says this, a bruised reed he will not break and a smoldering wick he will not quench. Now how many of you have ever heard that phrase before?

Have you heard that phrase? Maybe just a little bit. It's interesting because I've heard that phrase a lot. I mean you study the Bible and I've read it many times. But this is the first time really sitting down and just dissecting that phrase and I'm not sure that I ever really understood it.

I had the general notion that it meant that he was going to be kind of gentle and kind or something to that effect. I never looked carefully at this until this week. So I think it's important for us to understand two things.

Reeds and wicks. Reeds and wicks. What is a reed? What is it? It says a bruised reed he will not break. What's a reed in general and then what's a bruised one and why would anybody break it? I don't really get it.

So let's think through this. Reeds were used in many applications because they were lightweight but also fairly sturdy. It's a part of a plant, the stalk of a plant. Think like a cattail type plant with a round, hollow, woody kind of stalk.

Thin, about the size of a pencil and growing about as tall as me. In marshy areas. So that's what you need to have in your mind. Marshy areas are all around the Middle East. These things still grow there.

The Anchor Bible Dictionary says, and I'm quoting here, the cane serves such various uses as containers for lipsticks, eyeshadows and mascara, pens for writing, measuring rods, used to bind together for mats, flutes, walking canes, sandals, thatch for roofing and fuel.

So there are multiple uses for this plant. As you can imagine, a plant grows plenteous in an area and it's going to get used in that area in that time because of just the need. But the problem with a reed is that once it's snapped, it cannot be restored to usefulness.

Once it's broken, it can't be mended. It's not going to be able to be fixed and ever be able to be used for its original intention.

Again.

Its only use was really to be broken up and thrown back into the fire. Now, have any of you here ever grown sunflowers? Have you ever grown a sunflower? Have you ever had a sunflower that's head got so big that it actually bent and snapped the stalk that it was on?

We've grown some the last couple of years. We had one that grew. And try as we might, we could not get that thing propped up to continue to stand anymore. Once it was bruised and broken, you couldn't fix it.

Can you get that picture in your mind? Once that stalk was snapped, it just would not stand. Some kind of flowers maybe you have, you've grown flowers or you've gotten flowers from the store and the way that the stem is, the minute that it's snapped, you just can never get it to stand again.

You just got to cut it off at that point. You have to break it, if you will. That's the notion that we have here. A bruised reed is one that has a weak point and is close to breaking. The text tells us that Jesus does not give up on bruised reeds.

He does not give up. He's not quick to surrender and look for a better reed, something better. I'm grateful for this passage because I am a bruised reed. Every single one of us is wounded and broken at some level.

Would you agree with me on that? We bear the scars of hurts that have been done to us and we equally bear the scars of wounds that we have caused to others. When do you know you can be bruised by your own behavior towards others?

Our sin bruises us as well as others. Would you agree with that? Whether we acknowledge it or not. I'm unconvinced that Isaiah is mostly concerned with the Messiah's view of plant life. This is not a botany lesson.

This is not primarily about how Jesus felt about marshy plants that grow in the swampy areas of Palestine. He is certainly using the reed as a metaphor for us, for people. Jesus ministered to those who were wounded and bruised.

I think it's fair to say he gravitated toward those who were beaten up and broken by sin. And he responded to them with compassion. So it's not our health. It's not our stability. It's not our togetherness that gets the attention of Jesus.