Matthew 14.1-12 | "The Cost of Truth"

This sermon was recorded at Faith Evangelical Free Church in Grand Forks, North Dakota.

Please take your Bible, make your way to Matthew chapter 14.

Matthew 14 · chapter mention

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I'll be reading in a moment from Matthew chapter 14 in the English Standard Version.

Matthew 14 · chapter mention

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Glad to have you with us this morning.

The text of Scripture before us in Matthew 14 has been described by one author as the most bizarre soap opera.

It's a story of infidelity, divorce, remarriage, incest, political intrigue, jealousy, spite, revenge, lewdness, lust, cold-heartedness, cruelty, brutality, violence, ungodly remorse, and godly mourning.

Welcome to church.

This is the world we live in, my friends.

It's messed up.

It's messed up, it's twisted, it's bizarre.

It doesn't make much sense.

And there is nothing new under the sun.

These kinds of things have been going on for millennia, for thousands upon thousands of years.

Join me from Matthew chapter 14, if you would follow along as I read.

Matthew 14 · chapter mention

Says, at that time, that is at the time that Jesus was rejected by his hometown.

At that time Herod the Tetrarch heard about the fame of Jesus, and he said to his servants, This is John the Baptist.

He's been raised from the dead.

That's why these miraculous powers are at work in him.

For Herod had seized John and bound him, and put him in prison for the sake of Herodias, his brother Philip's wife.

Because John had been saying to him, It's not lawful for you, Herod, to have her.

And though he wanted to put him to death, Herod feared the people, because they held John to be a prophet.

But when Herod's birthday came, the daughter of Herodias danced before the company and pleased Herod, so that he promised with an oath to give her whatever she might ask.

Prompted by her mother she said, Give me the head of John the Baptist here on a platter.

And the king was sorry because of his oaths and his guests he commanded it to be given.

He sent and had John beheaded in the prison.

And his head was brought on a platter and given to the girl, and she brought it to her mother.

And his disciples, John's disciples, came and took the body and buried it.

And they went and told Jesus.

Amen.

Will you stand for the truth?

No matter the cost.

Will you stand for the truth?

God's truth.

No matter the cost?

That's the question that underlies this whole situation.

John the Baptist stood for the truth.

And literally, it cost him his head.

God designed truth to function as a lighthouse in a dark world.

As the only lighthouse in a dark world.

But a darkened world fights against the light.

It suppresses it.

It suppresses the truth.

It stomps it underfoot.

The darkness seeks to quiet truth's voice.

Because sin despises truth.

There's an old Latin phrase: veritus odium parit.

Truth begets, produces hatred.

Darkness hates truth because its deeds are evil.

And evil exposes, is exposed by truth.

That's the core of this passage.

Evil was exposed.

A politician was exposed before the light of God's word.

Not just in private, publicly.

He was living his life of shame and evil publicly as though it was a good thing.

Because he could do whatever he wanted to do.

And John the Baptist, through his preaching, exposed that evil.

And the light was hated.

One commentator wrote that John the Baptist lost his life by defending the sanctity of marriage.

It's one thing for us to say of our politicians and our world that their deeds are evil, that their lifestyle is sinful.

But would we be willing to do that if the immediate consequence was dungeon imprisonment leading to the loss of your life?

Would you be willing to stand and proclaim the truth if it cost you everything?

But ultimately, this passage here is not about John the Baptist, it's about Jesus.

Notice that Herod heard about the fame of Jesus in verse 1, and in verse 12, the disciples of John go and tell Jesus.

The book ends here are about Jesus telling us that all of this is happening because of Jesus, because of what Jesus is doing, because of what Jesus is about, because of who Jesus is.

So we're going to hear about John.

But the message is about Jesus.

This is a story of religious fascination, but without genuine faith.

It's a worldly story of power corrupting the heart.

It's a snapshot, or maybe in our world, it's a screenshot of power from a godless world.

Look with me at five characteristics of a dark and godless world.

First, a darkened world possesses a twisted conception of reality.

Herod here is most likely at his desert compound.

This time of year he is he is sort of whisked away to his vacation resort.

And he hears about the fame of Jesus.

Naturally, we've already heard that is spreading, right?

The crowds are following Jesus wherever he goes.

In fact, in the next section, we're going to see Jesus seek to get away, to kind of recover, recoup a little bit, to have some downtime.

And we find that even though he tries to get away, the crowds come and surround him.

He's getting more and more popular as each day progresses.

And of course, if you're a ruler and trying to maintain your power and your control over people, you're going to be paying attention to those that are gathering attention.

Herod hears about Jesus.

And he says to his servants, this doesn't make sense.

I don't understand this.

He said, The only thing that this can be is John the Baptist.

The problem is I had John the Baptist killed.

So this has to be John come back to life.

Now Herod the Great is someone that we need to kind of process through to understand what's going on here.

Herod is actually a last name in our kind of thinking.

So my last name is Holm.

That's my family name.

Herod was a family name for a long lineage of people, for a long lineage of rulers.

We first encountered him in Matthew's gospel back in chapter 2, where he was the great baby killer.

That was Herod the Great.

Herod the Great, when he heard about the birth of a new king of the Jews from the foreigners that came to worship him, said, Hey, tell me where this baby was to be born.

And he sent and had soldiers dispense with all of the baby boys under two years of age.

Well, that Herod the Great was this Herod's father.

This is not that Herod the Great.

This is a different Herod of the Great, but like father, like son.

They have murderous spirits, they have murderous intentions.

They hold on to power.

Herod the Great was an Idumean, which means he was a descendant of Esau.

You remember Esau and Jacob?

God chose Jacob to be of the line of promise, and Esau he did not.

Herod the Great is a descendant of Esau.

Herod the Great died and divided his realm of rulership between his sons.

And so his sons then were not Jewish, but they did have some Jewish blood in them.

And as a result, they were sort of accepted by the Jewish people while at the same time being despised by the Jewish people.

And they fought hard to sort of maintain the Jewish people's respect for their authority, but also to control the Jewish people.

So you can see how all of this just stirs the pot more and more.

Now one of Herod the Great's sons was named Antipas.

This Herod in chapter 14 is Herod Antipas.

Maybe we should call him Antipas Herod, I don't know.

That's the man that is referred to here in chapter 14.

And Herod Antipas ruled over Galilee and an area called Perea.

That's a region that is just to the east of the Dead Sea.

Jesus is ministering in Galilee, a region of Palestine called Galilee at this time.

The Jewish historian Josephus tells us that Herod was in his southern fortress of Macaris, which is about 15 miles south of the Dead Sea, at this point in time.

And we now know because of archaeology that that desert palace had a dungeon prison in it.

So it's possible that John was not at some distant prison, but was actually just down in the basement.

At the time that Herod is having a birthday party.

The irony is that the very thing that caused the people of Nazareth to stumble is what piqued Herod's interest.

Remember last time at the end of chapter 13, Jesus is going home.

He's going to his hometown.

And he's preaching there in the synagogue.

Most likely he's healing people.

The other gospels tell us that they get so irritated, so frustrated at what Jesus is doing because they know this is just the little boy that was running around learning how to do carpentry work, right?

Getting splinters in his hands.

Say, who are you to come and teach us?

And they tried to push him off a cliff.

The very thing that stirred his hometown people up to want to be rid of him is the same thing that piqued Herod's curiosity.

He hears about these things about Jesus and he says, Who is this guy?

What's going on?

But that curiosity apparently came after John's death.

Oh, but wait, we haven't heard about John's death in the Gospel of Matthew yet.

See, at the beginning of this account, we find the reality on display that the dark and unbelieving world doesn't understand the truth.

It doesn't understand the truth of Jesus, and it doesn't understand the truth of God's way of working.

Because what was John's message?

John is this despised person.

There's sort of this twisted thing going on in Herod's mind.

He was sort of interested in John the Baptist, but hated him at the same time.

And John the Baptist's message was repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand.

When people asked him, Are you the one that we should expect to be coming?

He said, No, I'm not the Messiah.

He's coming after me.

I'm here to prepare the way.

Herod doesn't get that.

Herod has missed the truth.

He's missed the message.

And now he thinks, somehow, John has come back from the dead.

He has a twisted view of reality.

He believes that only John the Baptist could be this person risen from the dead.

And so Herod believes the reports of Jesus to be true.

But only because John has apparently come back from the dead.

How does that happen if you took his head off?

I don't know.

But that gives us a little bit of picture into the popular thought concerning John the Baptist.

He was highly thought of amongst the common people.

He was considered to be a prophet.

And there was a belief prevalent at the time that prophets, holy men of God, could return to earth after death.

And so that was presumed to be at the end of the age when God would judge the world.

So you can imagine Herod having some sort of religious curiosity, some sort of religious interest.

And here is John the Baptist raised from the dead.

Well, that can only be the end of time when God comes to judge the earth.

What's going to happen to me?

Interestingly, Herod apparently believes in some sort of resurrection.

A large portion of the Jewish believers at this point in time did not believe in a resurrection, but others did.

It's an interesting insight into Herod's thinking.

He thinks it's possible.

But it also tells us that Herod understood John's character.

And that, combined with John's influence among the people, caused Herod to fear John.

Notice that little hint.

Herod the king doesn't fear God.

But he's afraid of a man whose head he took off.

But he was afraid also of John's influence.

Because John the Baptist could easily turn the populace against Herod.

Because when John spoke, the people listened.

That made Herod leery of doing anything other than imprisoning John.

Just get him out of the public eye.

Just put him down in the dungeon, quiet him, make sure that the people can't hear him, the people can't come and see him.

He can't get stirred up, stir up people.

Just get him out of the way.

So in Herod's view, when he heard about the fame of Jesus, he didn't process that as the truth.

He processed it in his own way of thinking, which is John's dead.

He must have come back.

His old nemesis has returned.

Notice secondly that a darkened world possesses a murderous reaction to the truth.

You know, it hurts sometimes to hear the truth, doesn't it?

When the truth is spoken to you in the midst of your sin, in the midst of your darkness of life, sometimes that hurts.

Herod seemed to have had some sort of admiration for John the Baptizer, but but it only went so far.

This portion of the story begins with a typically Hebrew method of slowing the story down.

We get so caught up in what Jesus is doing in chapter 13 and what Jesus is saying.

And now Matthew employs a Hebrew way of writing by piling up the verbs, the actions, one on top of another.

For Herod had seized John.

What happened when Jesus was seized in the garden?

Troop of soldiers, right?

And we get this picture in our minds with this action that there's a group of people coming to take John captive, to bind him.

He seized John and he bound him and put him in prison.

We're drawn into the dreadful details of the account, telling us every little thing that Herod did to John.

John was arrested for proclaiming a message that undermined the honor and the position of Herod.

We're told back in chapter 4 of Matthew of John's arrest.

All the way back in chapter 4, we heard that he was arrested.

And in chapter 9, we heard that he was still in prison.

And here we find out all of the details.

And all of this is because of Herod's wife, Herodias.

But that needs some explanation because Herod had several wives.

Because Herod originally married the daughter of King Aretas IV, who was a Nabataean king.

You might have heard of the Nabataean Empire.

Their capital was Petra, the city of Petra.

So southern Arabian peninsula kind of area.

So as was common in 14 AD, Herod made an agreement, kind of made an alliance with King Aretas by marrying his daughter.

But then in 29 A.D., so would that be 15 years later, he was on his way to Rome.

Herod was, Herod Antipas.

And along the way he stopped to visit his brother Philip in a coastal city of Palestine.

And Philip had married Herod Antipas' niece.

Herodias.

Herodias, Herod's brother's wife, agreed to leave Philip and become Herod Antipas' wife.

But only if Herod Antipas divorced his current wife.

Okay, are you with me?

I meant to have a picture of this on the screen for you, and I just didn't get that.

Two brothers, Antipas and Philip.

Philip is married to Herodias.

Herodias is Herod, Antipas' niece.

So they come together and there's some sort of arrangement.

They hit it off, and Herod and Herodias want to get married, and Herodias says, Ah, you got to get rid of this gal first.

And so that ends up actually happening.

Herod gets rid of the daughter of King Eretus and marries his brother's wife, who also happens to be his niece.

Soap opera.

Nothing new under the sun, right?

Nothing new under the sun.

The problem in John the Baptist's mind was the truth of Scripture.

Because according to Leviticus 18 and Leviticus 20, that kind of incestuous relationship was forbidden for God's people.

And it's adultery, expressly violating Jesus' teaching in the Sermon.

On the Mount in chapter 5, verses 31 and 32.

So this is already giving us a real life demonstration of the violation of God's word by a dark world.

See, Herod was part Jewish.

He knew the law.

He knew all about God's expectations.

But he was the one in power.

He was the one who was the authority, and he got to do whatever he wanted to do.

Or so he thought.

And so John brought the light of truth to the ruler's private life that was lived out in public and said, It is not lawful for you to have her.

Herod Antipas, that's not okay.

And the language that Matthew uses here says that this wasn't just a one-time situation.

This is the kind of thing that John the Baptist would say over and over and over again whenever he had the chance.

John accused a public ruler of breaking God's law.

He called out the sin of a politician in public, just like an Old Testament prophet would do.

I like what John Stott wrote of John the Baptist.

He said, He dared to impugn Herod's marital life.

Nobody likes to hear such criticism.

And if the object of that criticism happens to be an Oriental despot with a difficult wife and a guilty conscience, then the outcome is predictable.

See, John had been publicly denouncing the Rome-approved ruler for his immorality.

And when a darkened world is confronted with the light of truth, it responds not with repentance, but with murder.

Which leads us to a darkened world possessing a pathetic path of leadership.

When John got in the way of Herod's political ambitions, a line was crossed.

And so Herod naturally tries to get rid of him.

He desires, the text tells us, to kill John.

That tells us what's going on inside of Herod before Herodias ever said a thing.

Herod already wanted him gone because it's simply easier to get the accuser out of the way.

If your conscience is troubled by the light of truth, it's simply easier to get rid of the truth.

With John out of the way, Herod's political ambitions, his personal ambitions are all free and clear, so he thinks, and so Herod desires to kill him.

But we don't know why, but Herod feared the people, it says.

Verse 5.

Maybe he thought there would be some sort of uprising or some situation that would provide tension and be a problem for his political career.

We're not told the details.

Whatever the case, we do know that Roman law at the time did not recognize the freedom of speech that we would expect today.

That did not exist at the time.

Even questioning a ruler in private could lead to execution.

Will you stand for the truth?

No matter the cost?

So Herod isn't out of bounds in what he's doing with John.

He's just acting according to Roman expectations, not Jewish expectations.

And unfortunately, Israel's history recorded in Scripture is riddled, riddled with rulers who ruled in a way that appeased sinful desires of people rather than ways that lead to pleasing God.

And that one little detail, he feared the people, speaks volumes about the kind of leadership filling a sinful world.

Not only was Herod unwilling to respond to the truth with repentance, he's unwilling to do what he wanted to do because he fears other people.

What kind of leadership is that?

Regardless of whether you you have a right view of leadership and have a right direction, you have a desire of what you want to do, and you don't even do that because you're afraid of what other people are going to do or say or think.

So he doesn't have the right perspective of what the right thing to do is.

He doesn't have the strength of character to do what he wants to do.

Herod is a leader who is formulated his leadership all around people that surround him and what they want of him.

So in some ways, he's a puppet.

But he's just listening to the voices of a sinful world.

He rules with platitudes, with prophets and power, not with truth and grace.

Which brings us to a crucial part of this account in verse 6: his birthday party.

Why wouldn't a ruler have a birthday party?

Why wouldn't he celebrate his life?

So let's throw a party.

And it's here in this sick party that a darkened world possesses a torturous expression of power.

Parties were a big deal in the Roman world, especially when held by someone of high and prestigious rank.

So a party like this would carry with it an expectation of attendance if you were invited.

This was the kind of party that you changed your schedule to go to, not because you liked Herod, but because if you didn't, something might happen to you.

You go and you celebrate Herod because Herod's throwing a party for himself.

In this case, Mark chapter 6, verse 21, tells us that Herod invited his nobles.

Mark 6:21

He invited his military commanders and all the leading people of Galilee.

So this is a gathering of important people.

These are the respected people.

These are the people who formulate laws.

These are the people who lead the communities.

These are the people who establish the power.

Parties such as this, among those of high status in the Roman world, often included excessive drinking and suggestive dancers for entertainment.

Most scholars suggest that in this situation, described here in verse 6, there's likely some sick, incestuous desire on the part of Herod for his stepdaughter Salome, who's probably about 12, 13, or 14 years old.

It's unusual for a member of the royal family to be dancing in this kind of way, not unheard of, but unusual.

And that probably gives us some further indication of the drunkenness of Herod, fed by just his pattern and style of life and his view of the world, but also the trickery of his new wife.

Who's his niece, remember?

So what we are told here in this verse is that at the very least there's a a gala, a celebration, a gathering of respected, powerful people, drunk out of their minds, fully intoxicated men being entertained by the suggestive dancing of a young girl.

Why do we need to know that?

Well, it's so that we can understand how depraved this ruler in his family was.

So that we can understand how dark the world really is.

This is a situation driven by the desire of sin.

And what is the passage of scripture that was read for us earlier, Romans 6?

How does that end?

For the wages of sin.

It's death.

This isn't uncommon in the ancient world.

Remember it?

In Genesis chapter chapter 40, I believe it is.

Pharaoh's birthday party.

Somebody was hanged.

Remember that?

Chief Baker and the chief butler, and one of them was restored to his position and the other was hanged.

And apparently left hanging for the birds to eat his flesh.

Give thanks that we're more civilized today, right?

But see, sin left unchecked leads to this kind of debauchery.

Herod is pleased with his stepdaughter, who is the daughter of his niece.

And in most likely a drunken statement in front of all of his esteemed guests, promises to give her half of his kingdom, whatever she wants, up to half of his kingdom.

Mark tells us that detail.

So this is a boastful and quite reckless promise.

Because historical scholars don't have all of the details lined out, but it appears that as a Roman governor, Herod didn't even have the authority to grant up to half his kingdom.

That wasn't something he could do.

It just indicates that he's not in his right mind when he's opening his mouth.

This is just a messed up situation.

Because what is she hearing?

She's hearing John the Baptist say, You're in the wrong.

You're wrong.

You're wrong.

You're wrong.

What matters here is that she is fed up with John's preaching against her sin.

She hated the light of the truth.

She wanted John dead, along with proof of his death.

And she uses her young daughter to accomplish her sinful, murderous desire.

One writer comments on this saying, what happened to childlike innocence and ethical parenting?

Is the head of a man on a dinner platter a common request for a young girl?

And what kind of depraved advice to a child is this?

Since when do we teach children that murder is appropriate and that asking for heads on platters is quite normal?

By the way, I could give you other historical data to show you that this kind of thing was quite normal.

That this extreme request is made at a celebratory feast speaks to how degraded and depraved the celebration was.

This party in which human desire and sinful planning was given free reign is celebrated.

Here's the sickening part, friends.

There's nothing new under the sun.

We don't have to go too far to find leaders in our own world who do sickened, depraved things.

A darkened world that has no light of truth is just filled with power that expresses itself in sinful, depraved, debaucherous kinds of ways.

And when Herod hears the request in verse 9, he's sorry.

What's the phrase?

Sorry doesn't cut it?

Sorry.

We're not told why he's sorry.

Maybe he wanted to give John a proper trial as Jewish law demanded.

Maybe having him out of the way in the desert fortress where he was unable to preach satisfied Herod.

Perhaps there's a sliver of clarity in his drunkenness.

Maybe a sliver of his conscience remaining, and he knows that that's just plain wrong.

We don't know.

But now his honor is at stake because all of his respected leaders are here in this room with him.

They've all heard the request, they've all heard the promise.

These are men with authority, men who gave orders, men who commanded and it was done, men who promised and followed through.

So Herod must follow through or face humiliation in front of all of his leaders.

This is Matthew chapter 5, verses 21 to 37, 38, 39, 40, or so carried out.

Matthew 5:21–37

Jesus teaching on lust, on divorce, and on oaths.

All right here.

Lived out.

In the life of a leader.

It demonstrates a sinful life.

Herod maybe doesn't desire to murder John in this particular way, or maybe at this particular time.

He doesn't desire to actively sin in such a way, but he eventually just gives in and does it anyway.

Isn't that what sin does to us?

It just erodes away any element of truth that might give us support to stand against it and says, no, just do it.

Just be done with it.

Just one person.

Just one head.

Just one life.

Interesting language here.

Verse 9.

The king.

The king was sorry.

It's an interesting usage because Herod was not a king.

Herod the Great was.

Herod Antipas was not.

In fact, he was, he traveled to Rome one time.

Herod Antipas traveled to Rome to ask the emperor if he could have the title of king, and he was told no and sent into exile.

So Matthew seems to be using this title with just a touch of sarcasm.

Just a hint of irony.

The moment when Herod is least like a proper king, he gives him the title king.

This is the kind of guy you want for your president.

This is the kind of guy you want for your king.

This is the kind of guy you want for your governor.

Alright, here's the kind of king you get.

You get a murderous one.

But a darkened world also possesses a conscienceless response to darkness.

Herod simply turns to hatred over truth.

Verse 10.

He sent and had John beheaded in the prison.

In the end, John suffered the fate of a prophet.

As one commentator said, he was murdered through a bizarre sequence of events, part of the entertainment of the evening, by the whim of the wicked.

Rather than give John the trial that Jewish law demanded, Herod acted as a Roman instead of a Jew.

He disregarded his Jewish lineage and chose his Roman lineage and said, I'm the Roman governor, I'm the Roman law, I can do whatever I want.

He gave in to his sinful pride and peer pressure and had John's head cut off.

And to prove the temporary triumph of darkness over truth, a soldier brought the head of John the Baptist to Herod, and it was presented to the young girl who would then have to carry the grisly gift on a platter to her mother.

And this wasn't unusual.

In fact, Herodias's family had a family history of these kinds of things.

One of her ancestors, Alexander Junius, held a feast one time at which at which he ordered 800 rebels to be crucified in front of his dinner guests.

And as if that wasn't enough, he killed the rebels' wives and children in front of them while they were hanging on the cross.

John's disciples are honoring their teacher one last time.

But there's also a risk involved.

If you come along as one of John's disciples, what might happen to you?

If this has just happened to John and you come along and say, hey, I'm associated with John, what's Herodias going to do to you?

What would happen if you associate yourself with the truth?

They go and tell Jesus.

Surely Jesus would want to know.

What a sad story.

What a gruesome story.

But if we stop there, we will fail to learn what Matthew intends for us to learn.

As much as it strikes us, the story isn't recounted for us to know the horrendous outcome of John's life.

The story is not written in the life of Jesus for us to be drawn into the lurid details of a leader's sinful escapades.

In fact, the story is ultimately not even about Herod.

It's not about his marriage.

And ultimately, it's not about John.

And while there are many modern parallels in our world, it's not about those either.

It's about Jesus.

This is a story about Jesus.

You see, there are similarities between John and Jesus.

John was the forerunner of Jesus' ministry.

And now he's the forerunner of Jesus' death.

We're told this story so that we can know more about Christ and then more about our calling to follow Christ.

The entirety of John's purpose in life and God's plan is to point to Jesus.

Everything that John was called and made to do is to point to Jesus.

What did he tell his own disciples?

I must decrease and Jesus must increase.

I'm not the one, he's the one.

Beginning of John's gospel, you see him pointing to Jesus and some of his own disciples saying, We gotta go follow Jesus.

At the beginning of Matthew, Jesus' ministry was linked to John's, and now Jesus' death will be linked with John.

This is the point in Matthew's gospel where we take a sharp right-handed turn.

Right to the cross.

On Good Friday.

This is the point where the gospel begins to point to an even darker day.

When the way, the truth, and the life would hang lifeless in the darkness of the Father's wrath against sin.

Chapter 17 of Matthew, speaking metaphorically of John the Baptist, Jesus says in Chapter 17, verse 12, I tell you that Elijah has already come, speaking of John the Baptist.

And they did not recognize him, but they did to him whatever they pleased.

Isn't that a perfect encapsulation of what we've just heard?

They did to him whatever they wanted.

But now listen to what Jesus says next.

So also, so also the Son of Man, Jesus himself, will certainly suffer at their hands.

The story of John's death is not to emphasize the cruelty and the injustice of his death, although that's very clearly there.

The whole point is to foreshadow the future of the Lord Jesus, to speak of the cruelty and the injustice of his death, because it's by his death our sins are taken care of.

Everything in John's life is a marker pointing the way to Jesus.

It's like going north on I-29 out of Kansas City, and it's not very long before you see signs for wall drug.

Jesus.

Jesus.

Everything that John does and says is Jesus.

There's the Lamb of God who does what?

Who takes away the sin of the world.

John's death is a picture of Christ's death.

If Jesus is a prophet without honor in his hometown, as we saw at the end of chapter 13, then there is little, if anything, to keep him from the same fate.

In a similar way, brothers and sisters in Christ, it foreshadows those who follow Jesus.

If you are a Christian, you are a follower of the way.

You are a proclaimer of the truth.

And you're a herald of true life.

You live in a dark world that hates truth.

Even in his death, in his manner of his death, in the cruelty of his death, in the injustice of his death, John became a sign pointing to Jesus that said, There he is.

Hear him, believe him, trust him, for he will die as well, but his death will give you life.

Christianity has been sold as having your best life now.

But that sales job doesn't fit with this text.

Because coming into alignment with Christ isn't about having everything you want now.

If you want everything you want now, you can join Herod and Herodias.

No, being a Christian is seeing greater value with Christ in eternity.

It's knowing that in Christ Jesus there's a treasure of great value beyond anything that this world has to offer.

And you go after that with all that you have and all that you are.

Problem is we live in a dark world.

We live in an unbelieving world that has no problem lopping off a prophet's head and having a teenager carried on a platter in defiance of the light of Christ.

You will encounter people who are dismissive about Jesus.

You will encounter people who are offended by Jesus.

Because unless Jesus happens to be useful to someone's personal agenda, Jesus is a scandal.

He's offensive.

Because he is the truth that opposes everything that a dark world holds to be valuable.

But we need more Johns.

We need men and women who will be like John and who will point to the truth of Christ regardless of the cost.

John dared to bring absolute foundational morality into the political realm.

In the same way, the followers of Jesus are called to be heralds of the truth.

Even if it means being rejected for bringing Christ-like morality into a world that despises his morality.

But Jesus, as we've already learned, is worth it.

You know there's a reason that Matthew puts this after chapter 13.

Because he's already led us to believe and to embrace that Christ is a treasure.

That seeing him beyond anything that this world has to offer, seeing him as the light of the world as what ought to be our motivator, he is of ultimate value.

And John gave his head for that.

Let's pray.

Lord Jesus.

We ask, for the sake of our own comfort, that we would not have to give our lives for the truth.

I think in many ways it's safe for us as your children to say that we do not necessarily fear death itself because death has been vanquished, it's been conquered.

But maybe in our humanness we might fear the means of our death.

Lord Jesus, give us boldness to stand for you.

Maybe it's standing for the truth before our teachers.

Maybe it's standing for the truth before our employers or our our friends or our neighbors or maybe even the most painful way before our family.

Or maybe it means standing for the truth alone.

You say, Lord Jesus, that you are the truth.

Give us a vision of that treasure and cause our hearts to value you, the truth, beyond anything.

Give us the boldness to stand firm for you, to be a lighthouse, a hill, a city on a hill that cannot be hidden.

Because of you and what you are doing in and through us.

For your glory, for your name, we pray these things.

That concludes this sermon from Faith Evangelical Free Church.

Our mission is to declare the Word of God and disciple believers into mature, devoted followers of Jesus.

You can learn more by visiting our website at faithfree.com.