Counting It All Joy: Matthew 13:10-17

Well, good morning. It's great, it's great to say good morning. It's great to be here To have fellowship with you now. When I came this morning I Realized how much we've missed in these last two and a half months.

Not only the sweet fellowship and love of each other but the joy it is to get together and minister to each other and worship the Lord. It's great to be back To worship the Lord together, and I'm so encouraged to see all these people here.

There are so many and those of you who Felt that you couldn't come today, or it wasn't the right time for you to come. Don't worry. I understand. We understand we're all concerned about the virus.

So.

One thing we want you to know is that our church loves you Misses you and you're part of our church, even if you're not here because as we've been saying We are the church. Right wherever we assemble and disperse Christ is there with us.

Okay, so we want to Let you know that if for whatever reasons you feel that you're not able to come to church now we want to minister to you and We will have videos available of our services on YouTube for you to see so Want to welcome everyone here this morning.

I guess what we can really say and think this morning is God has truly blessed us, right? God has kept us to this day. He's preserved us as a people he's keeping us safe he's keeping us healthy. He is so good.

To us.

Prayer for Worship and Fellowship

So let's open with word of prayer. Father we're just so thankful for the love of Christ. We're thankful for each other as a body of Christ as as a family of believers that are dear to each other. I Thank you for our church.

And what everybody means? To everybody else and to ourselves. We are literally part of each other and members of Christ together. And That is something that is special. Something that is sacred. Something that is and should be cherished.

And So we're thankful for that. We're thankful that we're able to meet together and worship you. And We pray that our worship would be sweet. Our worship would be Christ-centered. And our worship would glorify you this morning.

And we ask these things in Jesus name.

Good morning, and and good evening if you're watching it later on, right. I Think all right. Let's uh, oh, yes. Oh taste and see that the Lord is good. Blessed is the man that trusted in him. Let's stand and sing.

His mercy is more.

Thank you all for singing and please be seated at this time. Well, good morning.

What a blessing and a praise it is to be here this morning and seeing all your faces. We have so much to be grateful for so much to be thankful for. Just a some of the announcements can't take out your bulletin this morning, but We are we have set up established some guidelines for during this covert time most of you've seen those and if I could condense it down into it's really being considerate of others and things that really Kind of come natural as far as when you have the flu or not to come if you have the flu or a temperature those kind of things so Those are available for you If you want to know about that, but I think you're you're all exercising that now and I thank you for that.

For offering we have an offering box on the back wall in the foyer. So on you'll see that on your way out Ladies Bible study there's gonna be a ladies Bible study. I know you some of you have been waiting a long time for this June 20th.

And as a reminder 2nd Samuel chapter 21, that's where your study is going to land. Most of you know this as well and It's it's been written down as well and we announced it last week. But some of the audio might have been a little hard to hear but pastor John Kane has accepted to act as interim pastor interim in that transition as we're looking for a replacement pastor and I Can say nobody can replace pastor Stan, but we're gonna look for another pastor.

And and so that's The in two weeks John will be giving the message and We all know that next week is the Bernstein's last week with us and So I guess I'd say continue to uphold them in prayer. This is a difficult time.

It's gonna be a difficult time for you as a church. It's a difficult time for them as a family just logistically, but but emotionally and spiritually. It's a it's a it's a tough time. So Let's hold each other up in prayer and the Bernstein's especially as they they work through some real hard line physical.

Things that they have to deal with with homes and things like that. So anyway, that's it. Thank you. Good morning.

Counting All Things Loss for Christ

We turn to Philippians 3 7 through 11 this morning. Philippians 3. Hey my voice needs a little oil. Got a little rust over the last couple months.

Philippians.

Philippians 3.

7 through it verses 7 through 11, but what things were gained to me those I counted loss for Christ.

Yay doubtless. And I count all things but loss For the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my lord For whom I have suffered the loss of all things and do count them but dung that I may that I may win Christ.

And.

Be found in him Not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law But that which is through the faith of Christ the righteousness which is of God by faith. That I may know him and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings being made conformable Unto his death If by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead.

May the Lord add his blessing to the reading and hearing of his holy word. And let's stand and sing show us Christ and.

How great thou art.

All for singing and please be seated at this time. I turn it over to pastor Stan. Praise God how great.

God is.

We can trust him in all situations. How faithful Our Lord is. Let's go to the Lord in prayer. Dear Heavenly Father. We're just so thankful That you are so great and holy Majestic and loving and so faithful to us that you consider us who are but dust and You have been so gracious to us through Jesus Christ that we can now know you and we can now have joy and hard circumstances and We can now sing and keep our heads up and.

Be.

Confident that you will finish your work and We are thankful for that as we come to you in your word this morning. I Just pray father that your word would be a comfort and a means of edification to us.

And we ask all this in Jesus name. This is not a happy time For many of us. It's not a fun time is it. This coronavirus is turning our world Upside down and we are all wondering About the new normal. The new normal doesn't look that good and we're asking ourselves when will we get back to the way things were and Then to make matters worse.

We have seen the tragic sad death of George Floyd Which we all are grieving over.

We're.

Weeping for our country and We're watching The sad state of our country before our very eyes. People looting Setting Stores and things on fire all across America and we're seeing so much violence. We live in a world full of violence, don't we and Full of sin.

And many of us are asking right now Where is the peace. How can we have peace in a time like this. Our souls are troubled right? Deep within us. May I tell you the answer to that question upon the authority of the Word of God That the only way that this world and we ourselves Can have peace is through the Prince of Peace.

It's only Jesus Christ that is going to bring peace to a troubled souls and give us the peace of salvation. The peace my friends it doesn't come through legislation of Government because man's heart is still wicked and always will be wicked.

The only way to have peace and true and Lasting peace is one person at a time as God gives grace and salvation to us and peace through Jesus Christ and we turn around and be peacemakers in this world.

That's what we need this morning. And when we look at the verses this morning to me What I want to express to you and to myself during this troubled time during these times of sorrow is That we can now have joy and peace in the midst of all the sorrow.

Because we have a greater hope than the world can give we have Jesus Christ. We have eternal salvation. Praise God, we don't just live for today our Eyes are upon Christ who is going to come again. And our eyes though we groan in this mortal body as everybody else.

We yearn.

For the Freedom of the salvation that we will experience one day Through Jesus Christ. And that we will one day be with him in Glory where there is no more sin. There is no more trouble There is no more sorrow and there will be no more weeping when we're with him.

You see that's our hope. Our hope is beyond this world. It's a heavenly hope it's in Christ and the great thing is Nobody can take away that hope from us if we truly have it. That's my long introduction.

Now we're gonna get into the text. Matthew 13 verses 10 through 17. Matthew 13 10 through 17.

Okay.

Hey, it's great to hear the pages the Bible flipping. It's great to be together, isn't it? And it's great to have fellowship. Through Jesus Christ and around the Word of God. I used to love to tell people and I still do.

I love going to church. Even though we are the church.

But.

How else are we gonna find? Encouragement in this tough world if it's not in the gathering of the Saints and in the worship of Jesus Christ and through the fellowship of the Holy Spirit. Wow, we're so blessed.

Right.

We are each other's greatest resource, aren't we?

Church and so.

Look at verses 10 through 17 and the disciples came and said to him Why do you speak to them in parables? And he answered and said to them because it has been given to you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven.

But to them it has not been given for whoever has to him more will be given and He will have abundance but whoever does not have Even what he has has will be taken away from him. Therefore I speak to them in parables.

Because seeing they do not see. In Hearing they do not hear. Nor do they understand and in them the prophecy of Isaiah is fulfilled which says hearing you will hear and shall not understand and seeing you will see and not perceive.

For the hearts of this people have grown dull. Their ears are hard of hearing and their eyes They have closed. Lest they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears. Lest they should understand with their hearts and turn.

So that I should heal them. But blessed are your eyes for they see and your ears For they hear. For assuredly I say to you that many prophets and righteous men desire to see what you see and Did not see it and to hear what you hear and did not hear it.

Wow. There's a lot in here. I Want to look at how we can count it all joy in the midst of trials and suffering. This morning and the first thing we're going to see is the reason Christ spoke in parables verses 10 through 13.

This is an incredible passage of Scripture. This is an incredible chapter a chapter full of parables. And what the Lord is is saying in these verses this morning is that he is Speaking to people in parables.

Because they do not see and understand they don't understand spiritual truth.

And.

That's very sad That they don't have Christ and don't understand spiritual things and don't have an eternal hope in this world. And then on the other hand what we're going to see in this passage is The blessedness of Those who do have Who do have Christ.

Though they may be the lowliest Individuals on the face of the earth and the world might not give them a second look. They are blessed because they have Christ and salvation and an eternal hope and They know spiritual things.

How blessed we are, right? How blessed we are as sinful as we are To know Christ and to understand spiritual things though we see through a glass darkly and And Even the most spiritual person Can't cannot at times understand spiritual things.

But the great thing is We now have the capacity to understand spiritual because we now know the Living God and I think that's really the blessing that we see this morning. And So in verse number 10, we see something interesting.

Again the multitudes that were listening to our Lord were blind. They were spiritually blind. They didn't come up to the Lord After he uttered this parable now This is the first of seven parables that he just taught the parable of the sowers and it was hard to understand.

But who came up to the Lord? To ask about the meaning of the parable his disciples you see the ones who knew him and What that means is they understood spiritual things and they're like us. Even though they understand spiritual things.

We need to grow a lot and some of us have a lot of room to grow. But praise God We have light and we know God. And so they came up and they asked about The parables now you remember what a parable is.

A parable is basically an illustration it's a Comparison and It's taken out of everyday life especially nature or human Circumstances and it teaches spiritual truth and our Lord.

Used.

Parables to teach. He used parables before this but in this whole chapter He's using many parables now. That's important because this shows a Change in the narrative of Matthew and in our Lord's ministry.

For we know the Lord Jesus came to the lost house of the children of Israel. He came to the Jewish people to give them the gospel and we've seen and we're seeing now the rejection of The Savior by his own people.

By the religious Jews and the gospel praise. God is now going out to the world it's going out to the Gentiles and This is what we see here at this time with the parables. Great question. They asked why why do you speak in parables and he goes on to answer that?

Question.

Verse number 11 the answer is basically they people Who don't? Know me. Those that are obstinate do not understand. So I'm preaching to them in parables. So that they hopefully Will come to understand Will dig deeper.

It's like a prod right? Go that prod you on to go deeper into something. In other words the focus of the parable is That maybe people would dig deeper into truth to try to understand these parables and Consider God and Perhaps come to know God.

And so verse number 11 the Lord tells him About the whole focus or the theme of these parables in this chapter that he's going to be teaching and again, there's seven parables in chapter 13 and the theme of the parables Hits home, it's the kingdom of heaven.

The kingdom of heaven is a term that's similar to the kingdom of God. It has to do with the things of God. Specifically from the advent of Jesus Christ coming into this world. To when he is not only going to come and rapture his church But come the second time and set up his Eternal kingdom it is these things that the parable is teaching about and he calls them mysteries.

Well, we can't understand that word very well. Mysteries the word for this in the Greek. Because when we think of mysteries we think of a mystery book or something. That's really spooky and hard to understand.

But this word in the Greek for mysteries it means hidden. It means something that was hidden in the Old Testament. But now is revealed to us in the New Testament. Specifically it has to do with something that we can't things of Heaven things of Christ that we can't understand with our own natural Understanding, but God has to reveal those things to us and he reveals those things to us through his Word and his spirit.

That's the idea of a mystery and That's what? The focus is of these things now Jesus Spoke of you know, I'm sorry Matthew spoke uniquely of The kingdom of heaven because who was the audience that he was writing to anybody Jew Jewish people so he spoke in language that they would understand kingdom of.

Heaven you see and.

So.

It says here in verse number 12 Jesus clearly says Whoever has to him More will be given. That's what seems hard to understand. But the way I understand this verse is Whoever has means whoever has Christ.

Okay More will be given. Or whoever is saved by God's grace and knows God He will receive more light. Okay, but whoever.

He who.

Doesn't have or whoever does not have Even what he has will be taken away. In other words the one who doesn't have Conversely is the one who doesn't know Christ and doesn't have Christ and who thinks That in this world he has everything But is sadly going to experience Irrevocable loss in the sense that the things of this world are Temporary though God has given us many many good things But they will all pass away and the person without Christ will end up in the long run.

Losing.

That's what's sad. And that's the idea Of what he has will be taken away from from him. It reminds me of the verse where it really gets us to focus on life and why we're here and What we are to do in our lives when the Lord said What does it profit a man if he gained the whole world?

And lose his own soul. Isn't that true? I grew up in Los Angeles and I used to love driving through Bel-air, which is really beautiful and we sit in our car we poor people looking at all the things of the rich people the beautiful homes and I used to think well how wonderful it is.

Now I think well you have a big home like that and all that stuff. You have a lot of headaches. Because you got to take care of all that. You have a lot of problems and it takes a lot of money and maybe it's better just living a simpler life but a lot of people are living for the here and now and they're thinking that the things they have that's what makes them happy and That's what's gonna last but That's not what's gonna last.

You see.

What's gonna last is the grace of God in Christ in our hearts and Knowing him and having spiritual riches. Let's not Have our focus on the outward material riches. But let's have our focus on Spiritual riches that we want to be people who become more like Christ and exhibit the fruits of the Spirit in our life.

Because that's what really lasts. We look here at the people were blind verse 13 and So Jesus is saying I speak to them in parables because seeing they do not see and hearing they do not Hear nor do they Understand.

So again, he's saying I'm speaking to them in parables because they don't see they don't understand spiritual things. They have eyes. Physical eyes, but they don't see. That's that's that's a profound statement.

We've been given physical eyes to see it's a great blessing but some people Only see the things of the world. But they don't have spiritual eyes. To see the greater things of God the richer more valuable more intimate things of life and that's sad so you can See and not see that's what it says here basically the people.

What it says is they were unbelieving. It it's unbelief obstinate toward God. It reminds me of the people in Genesis the world may I say in Genesis chapter 6 When faithful Noah was preaching to an ungodly Unrepentant Unbelieving world that became so evil that God was going to bring judgment and It says that the Spirit of God was striving with them.

The Spirit of God was convicting the world and the world Would not turn and that's the idea the people that were listening to Jesus Were much like that. Obstinate.

Unbelieving and what we need to realize is that.

When God is convicting men and women. Through his word and through his spirit. That it says in Romans 2. For that. It's the goodness of God that leads to repent.

Praise God that he.

Loves us as well as his people and convicts us and his it's his goodness that leads us to.

Himself.

To repent but people didn't understand. They were blind spiritually. It's like today people don't understand. They don't want God. They don't want spiritual things. They're spiritually blind. They're refusing Christ.

It's sad that we so. The first point is the reason Christ spoke in parables verses 10 through 12. We see the dullness of the people verses 14 and 15. Jesus ministered to disobedient people. Look at verse number 14.

Jesus again Tells us another reason why he spoke in parables. Look at verse 14. He spoke in parables.

To.

Fulfill prophecy. Now this is interesting because verses 14 and 15 are a quotation from Isaiah 6 9 and 10 and To me the way I understand this is that the Lord is saying that my ministry as the Messiah is much like Isaiah's ministry was.

Now In Isaiah 6 9 and 10 These words that are quoted in verses 14 and 15 what the Lord is telling Isaiah is Isaiah. Wouldn't you. Wouldn't you love to hear that God tells you? Hey, I'm gonna use you in the ministry and you're gonna go out and preach but don't worry.

You're gonna preach to an obstinate.

Rebellious.

Stiff-necked people That are not gonna hear. Well, that's what he told Isaiah. And Was that not the case with our Lord and Savior who came into this world? Who was the man of sorrow and acquainted with grief?

The perfect sinless Son of God came and was persecuted by his own people Israel and Ended up dying on the cross By God's own eternal plans for our sin. And the people that the Lord was talking to right now.

Because there were multitudes that he was talking to but right now you see he was turning and talking to his disciples. And he was saying in a sense see all all these people. Many of them are the same.

They're obstinate. They're rebellious. They're dull of hearing.

They don't want me they see but they don't see.

They have ears, but they don't hear. They're hard of hearing. Their hearts have grown dull you see. You know what the problem with man is. It's unbelief. That's what he's saying here, they're unbelieving.

You know why people won't come to know Jesus Christ today. You want to talk to them about the gospel. They don't want to hear and they reject him. It's because of unbelief. Unbelief that's what he's saying here, but yet God is So merciful toward us, right.

He's so long-suffering and I want to take you to these verses to this verse. Because I guess we should etch it in our hearts as well as underline it in our Bibles. Because it has to do with God's nature that he is long-suffering.

2nd Peter 3 9.

2nd Peter 3 9 Lord is not slack concerning his promise as.

Some count slackness and Look what it says, but is what? Long-suffering toward us not willing That any should perish but that all should come to repent. That's the heart of God. God doesn't want anybody To not be saved.

He wants people to come to know Jesus Christ and be saved. But yet man is.

Obstinate.

Unbelieving unwilling to come that's the idea the nation Israel was. Unbelieving toward the Creator. Toward the God of Israel who chose them by grace to be His own people and a nation through whom he would work in a mighty way by giving the world His eternal word and by giving the world the Savior of the world.

And yet They turned in obstinacy. To see an unbelief this isn't anything surprising. The Word of God prophesied that right?

Isaiah.

53 verse 1. What does it say. And who has believed our report? That verse is referring to the suffering servant or the Messiah who would come and would come to Israel his own people according to the flesh and they would not believe.

They would not believe God's report. They would not believe the word and they would reject him. And so man man rejects God rejects the Messiah. And Because as it says in John 3 verses 16 through 19 He loves darkness more than light.

You see that's the essence of the matter. The light has come in the world. Jesus Christ is the light. But man loves darkness more than light and so rejects the light.

Sunbelief going back to.

Matthew 13 verses 16 and 17 the blessedness of the disciples. Now I don't want to end this message on.

A down note. I want to end on an upbeat note. I.

Want to end on a note of encouragement and I can do so by scripture because our Lord ends this on a note of encouragement even though he has been talking about the unbelief and Obstinacy and rebellion of Israel.

Now he turns to his disciples and says something incredible. But notice the transition word, but Blessed Are your eyes? He's looking at his disciples and he's saying but you're blessed. Now that word blessed has to do with God's blessing.

You see the greatest blessing is God's blessing and the greatest blessing that we can have is to have God and And what Jesus is saying is you are blessed because you have grace. You have Christ you have me.

Your eyes they see and.

Your ears they hear. In other words, he's saying to disciples. You're blessed because your physical eyes see and.

Your spiritual eyes. I hope.

That as you have spiritual sight, I mean physical sight. I Hope you have spiritual sight this morning, and I hope that your eyes really see. That you really see the greater thing in life. That you are living for the invisible God.

That you're living for Christ this morning. That you have an eternal hope that nothing or nobody is ever gonna shake and ever gonna take away from you because that's the basis of stability and confidence in life.

And We base our eternal hope not on our feelings.

We base it on the eternal Word of God and Jesus says you're blessed.

May I just apply that to us if you're here this morning. I don't care what problems you go through. We're all going through a lot of serous this morning.

Trouble in the world.

The world is not a happy place.

Today.

But the world is not our home as Christians. Our home is with God. Our home Is in heaven and.

One day.

I'll personalize it By God's grace. I'm gonna finish this race and I hope he allows me to be faithful to the end and I know the only way I can do that is by his grace and Then I can go home. Because I'm not home yet.

I'll be home when I'm with Jesus but as one evangelist said Wherever we are now, we're home because we're homed in God because we have Christ with us no matter How the wind blows and the storms hit us in our lives?

They will never Knock us down. They will never take away God's grace from us because we're homed in Christ.

Wherever we are we're blessed.

That's the application. I love what the Lord says in verse 17 for surely I say to you many prophets and Righteous men desired to see what you see and did not see it. And to hear what You hear and did not hear it.

In other words the prophets of Old of the Old Testament That prophesied of the Messiah and Jesus Christ. They longed to see him and they didn't see him. And all those righteous Jews and May I say all the righteous men and women? Throughout history who have been made righteous not by their own deeds in their own works But by simply by the righteousness of Jesus Christ.

They have longed to see him and some didn't see him. And they died in faith. And he's saying to his disciples, but blessed are you because you see me. Wow. They saw the Lord and Savior standing there right in front of them hearing his blessed words and Seeing his blessed works and his miracles.

And how blessed are their eyes he's saying and How blessed are your hearts? Because you have grace and you believe. And may I say How blessed are you this morning? If you have grace and believe and See not only with your eyes Your physical eyes, but you see with your spiritual eyes.

You can see the things of life and feel the things of life That are secret and we can't see with our own eyes. They're just as real to you as The things of this world. That's what faith is. Faith is the substance of things not seen the evidence of things not seen.

Okay, and that's the important thing.

That's the greatest gift. You see how can we have peace just to wrap this up? How can we have peace in the world? We're never gonna have peace in the world until Jesus Christ comes again, but we can have peace in our hearts and the only way a person can have peace in his heart and Know the true God is through the Prince of Peace through Jesus Christ.

Another another person can't give you peace. The government certainly Isn't going to give you peace. The government can't take care of itself.

How are you ever gonna get peace with the government the only one?

Who can give us peace and We can find the healing of our souls is Jesus Christ and it happens one Person at a time as we are given grace. We live by grace and that's what the world needs now. The world doesn't need more money.

We don't need more power. We need more grace. We need grace. We need God and he's available to you this morning. He'll save you. For all have sinned right and have fallen short of the glory of God. All of us are sinners and we're all separated from God and God paid the price So that you and I can come to know him and he sent his own son Jesus Christ to come in the world God in human flesh and he lived the perfect life and he died on the cross as the payment for our sin the Substitute for our sin.

There is no other way to have our sins forgiven and Have them taken away in the eyes of God except through Jesus Christ the mediator Between God and man. That's why Jesus died. That's why he shed his blood beloved.

We can't pay the price for our sins before a holy God because God can't look on sin. We can't get rid of our sin ourselves. Only the precious blood of Jesus Christ Can cleanse us of all of our sin and the good news is The proof that he is the Savior is that he not only died on the cross.