The Incomparable Christ: Matthew 12:38-45

Good morning, welcome Happy Mother's Day What a blessing it is.

We're all so thankful for our mothers and our wives and so we

Hope that this is going to be a good day for you, and you'll be blessed as we worship together on video and Get the

Word of God into our hearts so glad you're here with us this morning Let's open up with the

Word of Prayer Dear Heavenly Father, we're thankful for so many things

We're thankful for our mothers and the great blessings. They are in our lives our wives who are mothers of our children

We're thankful for all the material gifts you give us and the spiritual gifts you give us and we're thankful For Christ in the grace that we have in Jesus Christ We ask that you would bless our worship this morning and bless your word and I ask this in Jesus name

Amen have an announcement Of course today is

Mother's Day Praise God for that. Amen We thank

God for mothers and the blessing they are in our lives

There's a lot to praise God about as usual, so I want to mention a few things that we can praise

God for We are thankful for our church and your love and faithfulness

Thank you for your giving in this time of crisis God's work will be done by God's people

We are thankful to God for his protection and the health he gives

We're thankful that God is with us and working everything according to his purposes

We can trust him Great is his faithfulness In terms of prayer

Pray that our country and state would open up and people will be safe and healthy

Pray that we will be able to meet as a church soon

Pray for God's blessing and comfort on those working on the front lines of this pandemic and God's Comfort for those who are sick and those families who have lost loved ones to this virus

Pray that God will give us joy to serve him and that We will make the most of the opportunities that God gives us

To get the gospel out this time

We are going to have some worship think about an incredible gift

That you have received to me

I can think about my wife

She has been a great blessing to me I'm a great blessing to our children as a mother and Since this is

Mother's Day today How special is that? To remember the blessings that God has given us through our mothers our wives and We can all say that we would not be who we are without them but For me the most incredible gift that I have been given by the

Lord is Is Salvation there's nothing greater than that To me to think about the fact that God has given me this treasure in an earthen vessel is nothing but astounding and Great Paul says it this way

Regarding our salvation that it is an unspeakable gift and So this morning

We are going to see that Jesus Christ and the salvation that he has given us is beyond description that Jesus Christ himself is

Incomparable nothing compares with him Nothing is as great as he is

He is the greatest of the great and he is to be desired more than anything and So we need to ask ourselves a question this this morning

What will you give? God For What he has given you

I Think the response to that is that we should give him lives of surrender and devotion

So this morning we are going to look at the fact that Jesus Christ is

Incomparable beyond Compare We're in Matthew chapter 12 verses 35 38 through 45

Matthew 12 38 through 45

I'll read Then some of the scribes and Pharisees answered saying teacher.

We want to see a sign from you but he answered and said to them an evil and adulterous generation

Seeks after a sign and no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet

Jonah For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish

So will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth?

the men of Nineveh will rise up in the judgment with this generation and condemn it because they

Repented at the preaching of Jonah and indeed a greater than Jonah is here

The Queen of the South will rise up in the judgment with this generation and condemn it for she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon and indeed a

Greater than Solomon is here When an unclean spirit goes out of a man

He goes through dry places seeking rest and finds none Then he says

I will return to my house from which I came And when he comes he finds it empty

Swept and put in order then he goes and takes with him seven other spirits

Much more wicked than himself and they enter it and dwell there in the last state of that man is worse than the first So shall it be with this wicked generation

Well quite some words We're looking at the fact that Jesus Christ is incomparable and the first point is an

Unbelieving generation we want to look at an unbelieving generation verses 38

Through 40 they were tempting the Lord verse 38 and what we're going to see this morning is

Very incredible and very sad That this generation of Jews who

Heard and saw the Lord Jesus Standing right in front of them and especially many of the religious leaders

Rejected him Rejected his salvation Rejected his miracles

And this morning he is going to show them and show us that there's nothing

Better than Jesus Christ nothing compares with Jesus Christ He is the greatest of the great and he is to be desired more than anything else and so we see the interesting thing in verse 38 that the

Pharisees came to our Lord and They came in Unbelief Basically as as we see in the gospel of Mark They came tempting our

Lord because they were asking him for a sign and What that meant is that they were insincere they came with hard hearts they came unbelieving because often

Asking for a sign is a mark of unbelief and So that's what we we see here the scribes and the

Pharisees Answered him now. They were listening to what the Lord. Jesus was saying to them in the midst of the multitude that was listening to him and they

Said teacher we want to see a sign from you now

That's pretty incredible if you think about it because they had already seen many signs from him

Jesus Christ had already done many miracles Incredible miracles, but yet they still didn't believe

So the question is is what miracle would be enough? They want to see another miracle

What would be enough for them to believe? Nothing really because if you think about it as our

Lord Jesus teaches that if men don't believe the word of God They're not going to even believe it

If God gave the greatest miracle even raising somebody from the dead so so we see their

Unbelief here in verse 38 38 and What is sad there as we see?

the depth Not only of the depravity of man the sinfulness of man in the scribes and Pharisees but we also see the depth of unbelief how deep unbelief is in the heart of man and and How we need the

Holy Spirit So you see as it says in 1st Corinthians chapter 2

Verses 7 through 10. We need the Holy Spirit to convict us as sinners and show us

Spiritual things so that we can understand who Christ is so we can understand

Spiritual things because on our own it as Unsaved unregenerate people we are dead in our trespasses and sins

And I like what what the Lord says he just kind of puts the finger right on the pulse of the problem here and He tells us in John chapter 5 and we're going to turn there verse 40 that really that the the big point of the problem in man is unbelief you see

That it's unbelief in the heart of a person that causes him not to come to Christ and not to get saved and We see that here with these religious leaders.

Look at John chapter 5 verse 40 John 5 40 just says it's so succinctly here

But you are not willing to come to me

That you may and the words that say it all is you're not

That's unbelief Unbelief is a matter

People are unwilling to come to Jesus to receive life that's so sad because It shows that we are in fact our own worst enemies, right and So that's what we see we look at verse 38 the incredible unbelief of the

Scribes and Pharisees we see that they're tempting our Lord with that question

Because that was not a sincere question and Look at the response of our

Lord the sign of Jonah verses 39 and 40 our

Lord answers them in an incredible way. In fact, he shows us that their question reflected unbelief

He shows us that seeking a sign on their behalf

Showed that they are an unbelieving generation And he calls them an evil and adulterous generation

Now they're evil because they have rejected Jesus Christ the

Son of God and they are adulterous Generation because they are not faithful to God Sounds like our generation today, doesn't it?

very self -sufficient Generation very complacent generation.

We seem to be Satisfied with material things, but many people don't want spiritual things they don't want

God and they say they don't need God and So what we see here is that we we need

God Okay, he created us and our lives are going to be miserable without him and so Jesus gives them a spiritual sign and he answers

These men who are tracking on an unspiritual level or a natural level.

He answers them in a spiritual way Which they probably didn't understand

It's an incredible answer He says I'm gonna give

I'm not going to give you a sign Except the sign of the

Prophet Jonah here Now Jonah is a type of Christ now, he's a type of Christ in the sense that he

Was in the belly of a great fish For three days and three nights and that points to the resurrection of Jesus Christ and that Jesus Christ would rise again in three days like Jonah You see

Jonah was propelled out of The mouth of that big fish by God in a big way after three days and three nights and Jesus Christ rose from the dead

After three days by the power of God so you see how

Jonah Points to Christ and so the sign of the

Prophet Jonah is the resurrection of Jesus Christ I'm gonna give you a sign

He says now what is the greatest miracle that we could get the greatest son?

well, it's the resurrection of Jesus Christ and That's he says I'm going to give you that that sign now

I want to say that if you look back in Jonah and When it talks about the fact that Jonah was in the belly of that great fish for three days and three nights

That's emphatic in the sense that he's mentioning that that includes

Partial days because when we Consider what a day is to the

Hebrews and the Jews The day for the Jewish people is a lunar day

It goes by the moon our days our solar days the

Egyptian Calendar when we go by the Sun So a day for the

Jews goes from sundown to sundown and So as we look at the resurrection of Jesus Christ, we see that he

Was crucified there on Friday Before sundown, that's the first day the second day was

Saturday and then the third day

Was Sunday morning you see and he rose from the dead.

So we see how that applies Now the sign here

Given to Jonah it will be the sign for all men it was given to this evil and Adulterous generation that was listening to Jonah and it's given for the whole world and It is the death burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

That's the sign The death burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ is the blessed gospel

That is what we need to believe First Corinthians 15 tells us that the gospel is that Jesus Christ is

Lord That he died for our sins According to scriptures and he was buried and he rose again the third day according to Scripture that's the gospel and When we come to believe

The gospel by the grace of God and put our faith in Jesus Christ We are saved 2nd

Corinthians 5 17 says a glorious thing That if any man is in Christ, he is a new creation

And so once you put your faith in Jesus Christ, you are now Saved and you have a new nature and we have the

Holy Spirit Now the resurrection of Jesus Christ is so glorious, isn't it?

Romans 1 verse 4 says that the resurrection of Jesus Christ declares

Jesus to be the Son of God with Clearly the resurrection shows that he is this so that will be the sign that this evil and Wicked generation would be would be given

The second point as we look at the Incomparable Christ is we want to look at an unlikely witness versus 41 and 42

As we speak of the person the glory of the person of Jesus Christ and we see that he is the

Son of God and the Messiah who is to come and that he rose again from the dead and he died for our sins we see

Here that there are witnesses to the person of Christ witnesses to his glorious nature

And they're unlikely God often uses the weak and the

Unexpected doesn't he and the unlikely to achieve his purposes and that's what we see here verse 41

The first witness is Nineveh, isn't that incredible? Well, what what is

Nineveh? Nineveh Was the capital of Assyria Assyria was a fierce enemy of the

Jews they were a pagan nation that severely hated

Israel God's people and persecuted So much so when

God called Jonah to go and preach to the Ninevites Jonah kind of said no way

God I don't want to do that in Jonah was basically the reluctant prophet, but Jonah did go and preach after God Chastised him a little bit and showed him that he needed to do it and when this man of God and this prophet preached

Guess what happened? This whole city repented they turned to God and they experienced salvation

Incredible. I mean one of the most incredible Revivals matter of fact one of the first revivals recorded in the

Bible and They they repented at the preaching

Of Jonah now the word repented here Means that they turned from their sin and they

Had a different view of sin Now We need to repent of our sin

Turn from our sin by the grace of God and put our faith in Jesus Christ for salvation and when we do

We are saved It's a glorious thing

And he said that this unlikely City Full of pagans that were idol worshippers enemies of Israel They are gonna rise up in judgment against this

Evil generation that was listening to our Lord Jesus when he was here on earth

Why? Because they repented

When they heard the prophet the man of God Jonah preach, but these these

Jews who should have received their Messiah and Were face -to -face with the

Lord of Glory God himself and Heard him preach and saw him do great miracles

They didn't turn and they didn't repent At the preaching of one so much greater than than Jonah in fact the one who created

Jonah the Lord himself and And in that sense they are going to condemn

That generation in The judgment Jesus a greater than again.

It's greater

He's the Lord of Glory and he's here. What what what an application that is for us?

The Lord Jesus is here God has visited this sin sick world

He has come in all of his glory John chapter 1 and he tabernacled among us he put on a

Tent of human flesh and he was perfect God and perfect man and he dwelt

Among us and he came into this world because he loves us with the express purpose to die

For those he created for sinful man, and that's why he went to the cross to die for us so for us and he is our substitute for our sin and He rose from the dead.

And so He is here for you

And he loves us And that's the important message that we need to know

That God loves us he created us He saved us and he sent

Jesus Christ into this world to die for our sins Because he loves us so much

And I think because we're all struggling so much now during this coronavirus and our lives are turned

Upside down that we need to hear that good news We need to know that God loves us and he has a plan for us he has a purpose for us and he sent

Jesus Christ in and salvation is available and that God is in control of everything and That's our purpose as individuals in the church is to tell the world the good news about Jesus Christ So we we also see the second witness the first witness was

Nineveh the second witness was the Queen of Sheba the

Queen of Sheba sought wisdom verse number two now, she's also an unlikely witness she's a

Gentile and She came from a long distance. I Close to a thousand miles to come in here

King Solomon because she heard that King Solomon was the king of Israel and Israel Was the people of the true

God and that God had given this man wisdom greater than anybody and She had a heart for God and she wanted to know more about God and she wanted to hear from Solomon Wisdom and about God.

So she took this long arduous hard journey And she came and she heard

Solomon and the Bible says That after she saw how

God blessed Solomon was so much and heard his

Great wisdom greater than anybody and heard about the

Lord she gave glory to God and she magnified the

God of Israel What an amazing thing It reminds me of a time when

I heard a missionary Preach And he told about a time where he he was a missionary to Africa and they were having a gospel service and he said

That the people walked three hours at night to go to that gospel service to hear the words of God and I was

Convicted in my shoes. I was thinking Wow How paltry we are here in the

United States how little we desire the Word of God They traveled three hours

Even in the dark to hear the Word of God and sometimes We are reluctant to travel 10 miles or less just to go to church

Wow How amazing you see those people?

Spill service they were hungry for God you see They were hungry for the

Word of God Just like the Queen of Sheba the Queen of Sheba Wanted to know

God she was hungry for God and she wanted to hear The wisdom of God and wanted the

Word of God and for that sense Jesus says that She an unlikely

Queen a Gentile Queen is going to rise up in judgment

Against this Jewish generation this unbelieving Jewish generation who saw the

Savior the very Son of God God himself They saw his miracles they heard him preach and they

Didn't want his wisdom. They're going to condemn that generation

Because Jesus said a greater one. He's greater.

That's he's the greater King He's the king of Israel. He's the king of the world

He's the king of this earth and the question for us this morning

Do we love God? Do we have a desire for his

Word? Do we know God personally through Jesus Christ?

Can we say with the Apostle Paul as he says in Philippians 3?

8 through 10. Well, I want to read those words Turn with me to Philippians 3 8 through 10

Because this should be the desire of each truly born -again Christian. This should be our desire

We should have a desire for Christ above all we should have a love for God's Word and desire for his

Word Look at it says here in Philippians 3 8 through 10 yet Indeed, I also count all things lost for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my

Lord For whom I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish

That I may gain Christ and be found in him not having my own righteousness

Which is from the law But that which is through faith in Christ the righteousness, which is from God by faith

That I may know him and the power of his resurrection And the fellowship of his suffering being conformed to his death

That should be our same desire Desire of the Apostle Paul had above all else.

He said my main desire in life is that I may know All that I may know

Christ. Oh that we may know Christ more Oh that we may reflect Christ more in our lives and he says

I count all things Lost for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my

Lord in other words nothing compares to Christ nothing compares

To the Apostle Paul to knowing Christ that should be the greatest thing for us and the great thing in our lives should be to live for Christ and reflect him in our lives and be witnesses for Christ and when we do

The world will stand up and look Just like they did with the

Queen of Sheba And so we see the unlikely witnesses to Christ to his glory

To his person We also want to look at an unmatched illustration verses 43 through 45 an

Adulterous generation verses 43 through 45. Now. This is a unique Illustration this is

Kind of hard to understand but it's a spiritual illustration So it definitely would have been hard for them to understand

As he was speaking to them because they were looking at things not from a spiritual point of view at all but from solely a human point of view and even

Us as Christians can do that so often Now what the

Lord is teaching in these verses is that a man cannot reform himself

Okay That we need salvation We need regeneration in other words when we trust in Christ as our

Savior and our Lord We're regenerated and that means that we're made new creations in Christ and we have the

Holy Spirit So what Jesus is saying in this? Illustration and this parable is that living life without the

Spirit of God and without Christ and without regeneration is futile miserable and is going to lead to Destruction and that's what he's saying

That's what it means And when we are living without Christ, we are open to demonic well demonic activity and So forth and so verse 43 talks about the demonic

Possession Here now These verses go back to verses 24 through 29

Where the Lord Jesus cast out Demons from this man who was demon -possessed praise

God and did a great miracle and we see here that the scribes and Pharisees attributed his miracle to Satan rather than to God and The Holy Spirit and said that he did that glorious Miracle by the power of Satan rather than the power of God now what we see

There in those verses is the reality of Satan, right?

the reality of demon possession Okay, and so now we can go back to verses 43 through 45 and understand more of what

Jesus is Talking about now when he's talking about an unclean spirit. He's basically talking about a demon

There's Satan and there's many demons okay, and When he says the demon goes out of a man, he's he's saying the demon was cast out of a man

But this man was not saved okay, and he He was it was kind of he goes through dry places seeking rest and finds none

He kind of looks cleaned up. He looks good for a while But he doesn't have the

Holy Spirit Okay, and then What we see here is

The demon because demons want to inhabit things they want to inhabit people animals or whatever wants to go back

Into this man and When he goes back, it's much worse because he takes with himself

Seven other spirits that were more wicked to himself than himself and then they inhabit or dwell in this poor man and What Jesus saying here is the result of this?

Was worse than before the beginning so the end was worse for this man than the beginning and He's applying this

As you see to this wicked Generation of Jews that was listening to Christ hearing him seeing his miracles, but yet rejecting him

So he's applying them. And so what he's teaching them and showing them is that It is fruitless to live without God and The Holy Spirit and seek to reform yourself

The end of that is worse than the beginning We can try to do things on our own by our own power reform ourselves

We might look good for a little while, but then we're gonna flop out and be worse off in the end

Okay and this is basically a history of the

Jewish people and The Jewish people as we look at the history of the Jewish people

They were idolatrous They were committing idolatry.

They were unfaithful to the Lord But then at a certain time when

Right here when Jesus was here. They looked good. They they weren't involved with the idolatry outwardly

But they were idolatrous inwardly they were unfaithful to the

Lord and seeking To reform themselves and so Jesus is applying this to them and to us

For me the the greatest application here is is

That we are fooled and deceived If we think we can live life on our own without God who created us and Also If we think that we are not sinners and under God's judgment because of our sin we're just Evading ourselves.

We're evading God. We're running from God and we're gonna

Live miserable lives and we seek vain substitutes as blaze

Pascal said That every man has himself in himself a

God -shaped vacuum that he always tries to fill and he tries to Fill the vacuum in his life with everything other than God and that God -shaped

Vacuum in our life can only be filled by God and Jesus Christ and until we have

God and Jesus Christ We will never be happy we will be miserable and we will be seeking all kinds of substitutes and what

Jesus is saying is if you in that to this wicked generation if you continue in your obstinacy and Rebellion toward God That the end is worse than the beginning

Can't reform yourself Salvation We need

Christ. We need the Holy Spirit You see the only change that we can have that will have lasting value is the

Holy Spirit working in our life and bringing change and Transformation in our life through Christ to make us more like Christ Yes, we have to do things.

Yes. We're responsible to God, right? Yes we got to work out our salvation with all diligence, but What Jesus is teaching is that Reformation isn't going to help us a hill of beans

It's regeneration We need Christ So, let me ask you a question

What do you value? What is most important to you?

What is the greatest thing in your life? It's a good question

You can ponder that in your heart. I can ponder that Is it

God? Is it Christ? Or is it things?

Is it the world? Is it success? Is it money? Whatever.

What we see is they're all vain substitutes Because the glorious one is

Christ he's the incomparable one and that's what he's been saying in this chapter

Verse 6 look at verse 6 of chapter 12 He says

I'm greater than the temple. That's incredible. I'm greater than the temple verse 41 of this chapter

He says I'm greater than Jonah the prophet Jonah And then he says in verse 42

I'm greater than Solomon you see

He is the greatest of the great He's incomparable

There's nothing that compares with him. There's no amount of money. There's nothing we can give for salvation because salvation is a free gift and We who have received salvation are debtors of grace

It is the greatest thing and Christ is the greatest

That's what we're seeing this morning So the question is

For us this morning are we living for Christ and the

Word of God And are we seeking His glory

Have we received Christ and Salvation if not

We are missing out on the greatest thing in life and What God we create created us for?

to magnify to reflect him In our life at this time.

We want to end With worship But before we do that I'm going to close with a word of prayer

Let's pray dear Heavenly Father We are astounded this morning, but we also are challenged and perhaps

Convicted of the glory of Jesus Christ the fact that he's incomparable

Because he is Lord and he's without sin and he's the only Savior And we pray

God that I pray that if there's anybody That hears this message and that is away from you or is out of fellowship with you that they would come back to you and receive your grace and Just be living for you

And I'd also pray father that if there's anybody who doesn't truly know you as their

Lord and Savior and has never Received Christ and been saved and made a new creation in Christ that they will come to know him even today and bear fruit for him and live for him and for all of us

Lord, I just pray that you will help us to Count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus Our Lord and to make it personal

My Lord, I pray father also For the blessing on each person as we are living in such hard times.

We need you That you will bless each and every one in our church all those hearing this message with your presence with your comfort your blessing with your wisdom and That you will keep us by your grace and help us

To in fact live for you and glorify you and may this be the chief end of our lives

And may this be the great purpose in our lives And we ask all this in Jesus name