Sermon Tone Analysis

Date: 2022-05-22

Audience: Grass Valley Corps ONLINE

Title: Inside Outside

Text: Matthew 12:38-50

Proposition: You’re either in or you’re out

Purpose: Pay attention and get in the Kingdom!

Grace and peace.

Journey through Matthew’s biography of Jesus.

Section shares a series of disputes with the Pharisees – Group of religious lay leaders of the day.

Find Matthew chapter 12…

While you do, let me tell you about this podcast I listen to.

Science Vs.

Show takes an issue or idea, investigates it from every side they can and present the information.

Then share their conclusion and all the citations so you can check their work.

Took on issue of a medical treatment.

Doctor who first promoted it explained his reasons and the study that caught his attention and the other facts which led to him deciding to promote and use this treatment.

Then the team looked at that study and found that it had been reviewed and determined to be fraudulent.

Went back to doctor.

He said, “Doesn’t matter.

There are others.”

And there were – about 75 of them.

Most of which turned out to also have serous problems in the way they were done.

Which left very little evidence for the treatment.

Original doctor said it is obvious that there is a bias against the treatment.

New studies came out – larger, properly done.

Showed no evidence for the treatment working at all.

Probably doesn’t hurt, but pretty definitely doesn’t help.

Original doctor says it is obvious what’s going on: Giant conspiracy between Big Pharma and the medical community at large to keep this treatment out of the hands of common people.

Says that there is no evidence the reporting team could produce which will convince him otherwise and that they are obviously brainwashed or hoodwinked by the conspiracy.

Listening, it was obvious to me that his pride won’t let him say that he might have been wrong or that he’d been fooled by that first, fraudulent study.

He’d rather believe that dozens of researchers who checked the work were duped or dishonest and that thousands of people were somehow able to manufacture a giant conspiracy and keep it quiet than accept that he may have just been wrong.

Which reminded me a lot of the passage we’ve been working through.

The Pharisees, rather than admit that they might have been wrong about some scripture interpretations, had gone beyond disagreeing with Jesus to calling him the devil to rejecting everything he had said or done and not even trying to evaluate it any more.

Look at Matthew 12, verse 38.

38 Then some of the Pharisees and teachers of the law said to him, “Teacher, we want to see a sign from you.”[1]

First, any time Matthew records someone calling Jesus “teacher” you know they’re up to no good.

Second, and more importantly, let’s look at what they are asking for.

A sign? What kind of sign?

Did you ever see that movie Bruce Almighty?

Great film – if you get a chance, stream it!

There’s one scene where Jim Carrey’s character is praying, “Please God, send me a sign,” and then he drives past a big, flashing CAUTION AHEAD sign.

Then he’s like, “Really, God, send me a sign!” and then he gets cut off by a truck filled with road signs that say DANGER AHEAD.

And he speeds around it and crashes into a pole.

There’s more, but you get the point.

Which is kind of funny, because the character still didn’t.

Just like the Pharisees, right?

Remember what brought us to this point.

Jesus has been teaching and fulfilling prophecies and performing miracles.

He’s been so blatantly obvious about who and what he is that the average guy in the crowd is starting to ask questions like, “Hey, I think this guy might be the Messiah we’ve been waiting for.

What do you think?”

But instead of seeing all that and asking themselves who Jesus could be, a lot of these so-called leaders were saying, “Hey, this guy isn’t exactly what we were expecting and he won’t do what we tell him, so we need to do something about him.”

Which is what we’ve seen as we’ve been looking at this passage.

They first decide they need to destroy Jesus, then they said that any miracles he did were the work of Satan and now they are asking for what, exactly?

A sign?

Jesus has already done the signs God said the promised King of Kings was going to do.

But that somehow wasn’t good enough for these guys?

What WAS going to be good enough?

Like that doctor who is only willing to believe in a study if it supports his position.

It’s a foolish position to take, and Jesus calls them on it.

39 He answered, “A wicked and adulterous generation asks for a sign!

But none will be given it except the sign of the prophet Jonah.

40 For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of a huge fish, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.

41 The men of Nineveh will stand up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it; for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and now something greater than Jonah is here.[2]

Jesus is foreshadowing his own death and resurrection here, but that’s not the main point of what he’s saying.

Nineveh was capital of Assyria – Assyrians were responsible for destruction of northern part of Israel and the ten northern tribes.

They were particularly brutal in war and not much better at peace.

And God sent Jonah to preach that they needed to get their lives in order because judgment was coming.

And they listened to him.

And repented.

And threw themselves on the mercy of God.

Who blessed them and released them from his judgment.

And Jesus tells the people that Nineveh, who repented at Jonah’s word, will condemn them.

Something greater than Jonah is speaking to them.

He goes on to give them another example.

42 The Queen of the South will rise at the judgment with this generation and condemn it; for she came from the ends of the earth to listen to Solomon’s wisdom, and now something greater than Solomon is here.

[3]

The Queen of Sheba heard about Solomon’s wisdom and thought she’d come check it out.

In 1 Kings 10 we’re told

When the queen of Sheba heard about the fame of Solomon and his relationship to the Lord, she came to test Solomon with hard questions.[4]

Why?

Because she didn’t believe he could be all that and a bag of chips, the way she’d been told.

But she talked to him and watched him and asked him questions.

And after all that,

6 She said to the king, “The report I heard in my own country about your achievements and your wisdom is true.

7 But I did not believe these things until I came and saw with my own eyes.

Indeed, not even half was told me; in wisdom and wealth you have far exceeded the report I heard.”[5]

She came and investigated.

She found out that everything she’d been told was right – in fact, what she found was even greater than she’d been told!

And so she believed.

The Pharisees and the teachers of the Law heard about Jesus.

They came and investigated.

They found that everything they’d been told was right – in fact, what they found was even greater than they’d been told!

But admitting that would be hard on their pride.

They’d have to acknowledge they’d been wrong about some things.

But Jesus says that something greater than Solomon is there and if they fail to pay attention to it the Queen herself will stand and condemn them for their unbelief.

Now, I want to make a point here.

A lot of people think Jesus is being harsh with them.

I think that’s not it.

I think he’s being bold and strong and trying to get them to come around.

I think he’s trying to reach them, not condemn them.

Look at what he says and what he doesn’t.