Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

The nature of faith is that it’s hard to see.

defines faith as ‘the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.’

And, that’s tricky, isn’t it?

It’s tricky when you’re told to believe God, trust God, and obey God when you can’t see God.

In fact, there are many times in our lives in which it’s difficult to discern where God is, what He’s doing, and what He’d have you to do.

When you’re throwing up because of chemo or when you hear of another child that has lost their lives, God isn’t easy to see and his plan isn’t easy to trust.

The providence of God is best appreciated in retrospect.

The nature of faith is hard to see in the here and now, but the glory of providence is that looking back, examining what’s been behind, God’s presence is apparent.

When you’re sick and when your ambitions are slashed beyond repair, you feel alone, but how many times four or five years down the road have you looked back at the hardest seasons of your life and seen them as the greatest evidence of God’s faithfulness and providence.

What appears as defeat in the moment turns out to be victory for the long haul.

This morning, this is what we’ll see.

The cross appears to be defeat; it appears to prove the absence of God.

But, looking back, we’re going to see how it verifies God’s providence and leads to God’s glory.

God’s Word

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The Plan of God Affects People

Sometimes, it’s easy for us to talk about the plan of God as though it were out there somewhere.

We talk about missions as though it’s a fairy tale, or we talk about suffering as though those suffering are faceless and imaginary.

But, the providence of God is a real plan that affects real people.

There are real children being born without the hope of the gospel, and there are real moms and teenagers and lonely men in despair in our own community.

The plan of God is not out there somewhere.

It’s coming to bear in my life, your life, in our community, and in communities just like this one around the world.

And so was the case on that original Good Friday all those years ago.

It’s easy for us to think of Jesus’ crucifixion and death theologically in such a way that focuses only upon is salvation for me and miss the emotion, the pain, the distress, and the consequences it had on real people all those years ago and thus every generation that has followed.

This morning, I want us to look at how God’s plan works through all people (headline) for the church’s good and for his glory.

The Plan of God Uses the “Weak” for the Wonderful.

v. 55 “There were also many women there, looking on from a distance, who had followed Jesus from Galilee, ministering to him...” First, we’ll see that the plan of God uses the “weak” for the wonderful.

There’s a bit of a strange occurrence that keeps coming up here in Matthew.

You’ll notice in verses 55-56, then again in verse 61, that Matthew mentions a group of ladies that are remaining with Jesus.

In fact, in chapter 28, Matthew’s going to make sure that we know that it’s these ladies that are first to the tomb and first to realize that Jesus has been resurrected.

He’s trying to tell us something here.

In the ancient near east, women were viewed as vessels of weakness.

They walked behind their husbands in public, were concealed in the presence of guests, and were not to speak publicly to a man that wasn’t their husband.

Women did not have opportunities for formal education or to own land.

In court, a woman was not considered a worthy or credible witness.

Rabbis didn’t accept women as disciples.

Their role was considered vitally important as a childbearer and a homemaker, but it is clear, nonetheless, that they were considered to be, as Peter puts it, ‘the weaker vessel.’

The Weak Shame the Strong

And, think of the picture that Matthew is painting for us here.

Peter, the bold and brazen leader, has denied Jesus in the presence of a servant girl.

He’s gone.

Matthew, the very author of this gospel account, wishing he could write this part of the story far different than he actually had to, is in the wind, running for his life.

James and John, the sons of Zebedee, the very men that had asked Jesus for seats of greatness are nowhere here to be found.

But, their mother was there.

In fact, ‘there were also many women there.’

The only way that Matthew can even tell this part of the story, and I think this is a significant reason why he keeps bringing it up, is for these women to give him the account.

These women had to tell him what had happened while Matthew was on the lamb.

Paul says that ‘God chose what is weak to shame the strong.’

And, perhaps, there is no greater picture in all of the Bible than right here.

The very men that God was going to use to build up his church had to depend upon the testimony of their mothers.

Peter believed that he was strong enough to fight for Jesus to the death, but while he is running away from little girls and their questions, these women are there with Jesus, ministering to Jesus, being who Peter believed that he was.

v. 61 “Mary Magdalene and the other Mary were there, sitting opposite the tomb.”

And, remember how I said that women weren’t viewed as credible, worthy witnesses.

If your cases was built upon the testimony of a woman, your case was apparently doomed.

Yea, God totally ignores that here.

One of the thoughts that has come into the minds of people, and maybe it would come into your mind too, is that perhaps on that first easter Sunday they went to the wrong tomb.

The ladies went to care for Jesus’ body, but they went to the wrong place.

And, Peter and John, not knowing any better, just followed them to the wrong tomb.

Or, maybe you would think that Pilate or the Jews took Jesus’ body down from the cross and never took it to the tomb.

They just told them it was there, and the disciples were tricked into believing that Jesus rose.

First of all, Pilate and the Jews stood only to lose from the disappearance of Jesus’ body.

They certainly wouldn’t fake it.

But, to Matthew’s point, these ladies never left.

They are with Jesus at every point.

They are there when He is crucified.

They are there when He cries out.

They are there when He dies.

And, they are there when He was buried.

In the providence of God, He provided the witnesses the world wouldn’t accept to validate that He had really put his Son to death and that his Son was really buried in the earth, and He would use those very first ladies, those who had been with Jesus throughout, to have the first honor of realizing that Jesus had been raised.

Weakness Qualifies, not Disqualifies

APPLICATION: These ladies didn’t go to the cross intending to be used by God.

They went to the cross because they loved Jesus.

They cared for him.

They wanted to be near him in his most desperate moment.

They wanted to minister to him.

But, all along, behind the curtain of pain, the providence of God was at work through them.

If you’d have asked them that day if they’d be willing to serve as the star witnesses in Jesus’ case, they’d have told you that they were too weak.

But, the glory of God’s plan, the beauty of God’s design is that the plan of God uses the weak for the wonderful.

I hope that you’re too weak.

I hope that you consider yourself too weak to do what God has called you to do.

I hope that you’re too weak for the calling that God has placed on your life, too weak for what He’s leading your family to do, too weak to go where He’s sending you, too weak to have the kind of marriage He’s calling you to.

Weakness “qualifies” you for “service” in the Kingdom of God.

It doesn’t disqualify you.

You can be too strong in your own eyes, but you’ll never be too weak for the hand of God.

He uses the weak to shame the strong.

He uses the weak to accomplish the wonderful.

The Plan of God Uses the “Willing” for the Wonderful.

v. 57 “When it was evening, there came a rich man from Arimathea, named Joseph, who also was a disciple of Jesus.”

Not only does God use the weak, but the plan of God uses the “willing” for the wonderful.

In verse 57, we’re introduced to an extraordinary man that we find nowhere else in Scripture, Joseph of Arimathea.

We learn by reading all of the Gospel accounts that Joseph was a member of the council, likely the Sanhedrin, wealthy, prominent, and a secret disciple of Jesus.

This man is likely a Pharisee.

He’s a member of the very institutes of Israel that Jesus has been cursing.

Yet, in the den of snakes, there was a remnant.

Joseph is the proof that any Pharisee, any priest, any person could repent of their sins and follow Jesus at any time.

Typically, in the Roman empire, the Romans would leave the crucified man on the cross until his body rotted and decomposed, especially if he was convicted of high treason like Jesus.

But, Joseph decides to use his considerable influence to get audience with governor and to request Jesus’ body now so that he could bury him, a request which Pilate grants.

John tells us that up until this point, Joseph had kept his conversion to Jesus secret, for fear of the Jews.

He knew how they felt about Jesus.