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God Wants to Give Us the Greatest Life
The Gospel of Matthew
Matthew 11:1-12
Sermon by Rick Crandall
(Prepared February 22, 2022)
BACKGROUND:
*Please open your Bibles to Matthew 11.
In the last chapter, the Lord chose His twelve Apostles and sent them on a mission to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.
In Matthew 10:7, Jesus commanded them to preach that the kingdom of Heaven was at hand.
And to confirm this vital truth, Jesus gave the Apostles the power to perform mighty miracles.
In Matthew 10:8 Jesus told them to, "heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out demons . .
."
*Before Jesus sent them out, He gave them some key instructions that still apply to His followers today.
Now in Matthew 11, the twelve disciples have gone on their mission, but Jesus also left to go and preach in their cities.
*By now, John the Baptist had been in prison for months.
And in vs. 2-6 we will see that John sent two of his disciples to make sure that Jesus was the promised Messiah.
Matthew 14:1-13 will look back to give us the details of John's arrest and execution by Herod the tetrarch.
We don't know exactly how long John was in prison before his death, but I have seen estimates of two years.
(1)
*Here in Matthew 11, John was still suffering in prison.
He was going through the worst days of his life, and all of us will go through hard days.
But God wants to give us the greatest life we can possibly have, and today's Scripture shows us how to get it.
Please think about this as we read Matthew 11:1-12.
MESSAGE:
*How's your life going today?
Pastor Steve Brown wrote about a car he saw one day on the way home.
It was the ugliest car he had ever seen.
Steve said this car wasn't just ugly.
It was ugly on top of ugly.
That car had a big gash on one side, and one door was held together with wire.
Several other body parts were almost completely rusted out.
The car's muffler was so loose that it hit the street with every bump, sending sparks flying in every direction.
Steve couldn't tell the original color, because the rust was so bad, and so much of the car had been painted over with different colors.
*But the most interesting thing about the car was the bumper sticker.
It said: "This is not an abandoned car."
Christians: Sometimes we may feel just about as junked up as that car.
But the Lord has not abandoned us!
He loves us, and He wants to give is the greatest life we can possibly have.
How can we get there?
(2)
1. FIRST: GO TO GOD FOR THE ANSWERS YOU NEED.
*John the Baptist was under maximum stress in vs. 2.
He is an innocent man locked up in a prison worse than we can imagine, and he would soon be sentenced to death.
*David Leininger explained that "John's ministry had begun in the wilderness where he lived on a diet of locusts and wild honey.
He wore the clothes of a prophet, camel's hair and a leather belt.
*John preached the need for repentance in preparation for the coming of the promised Messiah.
John also called on people to be baptized in recognition of their cleansing.
He preached fairness and sharing: a person who had two coats should give one to someone who had none.
Tax collectors were warned to collect no more than their due.
Soldiers were instructed to rob no one and be content with their wages."
(3)
*But John's career was ending in disaster, or at least it seemed to be from the world's point of view.
William Barclay explained that "It was not John's habit to soften the truth for any man.
He was incapable of seeing evil without rebuking it, and his fearless preaching had put John in danger.
*Herod Antipas of Galilee had paid a visit to his brother in Rome.
During that visit he seduced his brother's wife.
He came home again, dismissed his own wife, and married the sister-in-law whom he had lured away from her husband.
*Publicly and sternly John rebuked Herod, and Herod took his revenge.
John the Baptist was thrown into the dungeon in the mountains near the Dead Sea.
For any man that would have been a terrible fate, but for John the Baptist it was worse than for most.
He was a child of the desert.
All his life John had lived in the wide-open spaces, with the clean wind on his face and the sky for his roof.
*And now he was confined within the four narrow walls of an underground dungeon.
For a man like John, this must have been agony."
(4)
*John was under so much stress that he began to question if Jesus really was the Savior promised in the Old Testament.
In the beginning of the Lord's ministry, John had been absolutely sure about Jesus.
John 1:29-34 gives this report:
29.
The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, "Behold!
The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!
30.
This is He of whom I said, 'After me comes a Man who is preferred before me, for He was before me.'
31.
I did not know Him; but that He should be revealed to Israel, therefore I came baptizing with water.''
32.
And John bore witness, saying, "I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and He remained upon Him.
33.
I did not know Him, but He who sent me to baptize with water said to me, 'Upon whom you see the Spirit descending, and remaining on Him, this is He who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.'
34.
And I have seen and testified that this is the Son of God.''
*Matthew 3:17 tells us that at the same time, "suddenly a voice came from heaven, saying, 'This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.'''
*Back then, John had no doubts that Jesus was the Messiah.
But now John the Baptist was in prison.
And yes, he had heard about the wonderful works that the Lord had done, but now John had questions.
I'm sure he wondered what was going on.
Why am I still in prison?
And in vs. 3, "Are You the Coming One, or do we look for another?"
*What happens when things don't turn out the way we wanted them to, or expected them to?
What happens when we find ourselves in a terrible crisis?
We should do what John the Baptist did.
Take it to Jesus.
Take all of your questions to Jesus.
Go to God for the answers you need.
That's how to have the greatest life.
2. AND KEEP TELLING THE GOOD NEWS ABOUT JESUS.
*This is the command the Lord gave to John's followers in vs. 4-5:
4. Jesus answered and said to them, "Go and tell John the things which you hear and see:
5.
The blind receive their sight and the lame walk; the lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear; the dead are raised up and the poor have the gospel preached to them."
*This was the perfect answer to John's question in vs. 3: "Are You the Coming One, or do we look for another?''
It was the perfect answer because here Jesus quoted two of Isaiah's prophecies about the coming Messiah.
In Isaiah 35:5-6 the prophet wrote this about the Messiah: "Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped.
Then the lame shall leap like a deer, and the tongue of the dumb sing . .
."
Then in Isaiah 61:1 the prophet quoted the Messiah saying, "The Spirit of the Lord God is upon Me, because the Lord has anointed Me to preach good tidings to the poor . .
."
*Both of these prophecies were written about 700 years before Jesus was born, and John's disciples could see the indisputable proof that Jesus was fulfilling them all.
That's why Jesus told them to "go and tell John." (5)
*Now God wants us to do everything we possibly can to keep spreading the good news about Jesus Christ.
Many times, God will connect us with people like John the Baptist: People who are discouraged and hurting, people who are in trouble, people who are having all kinds of problems in life.
*God puts us in their lives for a reason: He wants us to help them.
He wants us to go to them with encouraging, evangelistic words about what Jesus has done in our world, and in our lives.
Jesus especially wants us to tell people about the power and love of the cross: How He died on the cross to take the punishment for our sins, how He rose again from the dead, and how He will save everyone who trusts in Him.
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