Crisis, Creativity and Faith: Matthew 12:1-14 - Matthew: Kingdom of God Revolution

You're listening to the road with Pastor Teacher Steve Holt.

Church, God wants us to be bold as a lion in our faith.

You say, well, how, Pastor Steve, how can that happen?

Well, the only way that's gonna happen in your life is as you begin to spend time in God's Word.

I think it's it's spending time in God's Word, and you're spending time in God's Word to build up your faith.

So reading the Psalms, reading a proverb a day, choosing a book of the Bible like Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John, and just reading a chapter or two a day, but spending time in God's Word makes you bold as a lion and renewing your mind.

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We hope you are encouraged by today's message from Pastor Teacher Steve Holt.

We are in the midst of quite a crisis in our nation.

Never before has our nation gone through what we're going through right now.

And I am so encouraged that three weeks or so before the uh stay at home mandate began.

I just love that uh Christine Hawk.

We did a seminar on how to build up and strengthen your physical and your spiritual immune system.

So I wanted to begin with reminding us of a few things about staying physically strong during this coronavirus, and that is a few little basics.

You should be taking three to five thousand milligrams of vitamin C, 50 milligrams of zinc, and also taking supplements of vitamin D and E.

And today's a beautiful day, and so I'm gonna be out in the sunshine today.

But uh, my family, we take all these supplements and others every day, and I think that's what's keeping us strong.

And even though we've been exposed to the virus, we've shown very little symptoms, so we feel really good about that.

Um, we are in a very, very difficult time.

There's no doubt about it.

Um, our country has recorded at least 26,000 deaths and over 600,000 cases so far, according to the data from Johns Hopkins University, all 50 states uh in a state of emergency that's never happened before.

And so there's a battle with fear, and many of us are struggling with fear, and fear is really not our friend most of the time.

And I want to challenge us to live by faith, and it's really it's exciting, and I just find it always amazing the sovereignty of God that as a chapter by chapter and verse by verse church, that here we are in Matthew chapter 12.

Matthew 12 · chapter mention

It's a perfect passage for our situation that we're in right now because fear is all around us.

Uh, the Bible mentions do not fear 91 times.

So it is one of the most prolific mandates in scripture.

And in Matthew chapter 12, Jesus is coming against fear in the life of the religious community in the Jews and in the Jewish system at that time.

Matthew 12 · chapter mention

And because of that, he had already given us his mandate.

He had given a mandate of what he's for.

And when Jesus began his public ministry, he said this the Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he's anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor.

He has sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, and listen to this, to proclaim the acceptable or the positive or the joyful year of the Lord.

And in our passage in Matthew chapter 12, Jesus comes to pick a fight with the Pharisees over their religious practices and the fear and the anxiety that they had created in the people.

Matthew 12 · chapter mention

So turn in your Bibles to Matthew chapter 12.

Matthew 12 · chapter mention

Powerful verse.

I want you to look at this from the perspective of Jesus coming to pick a fight with the Pharisees.

Well, I'm going to come from the perspective, I've come today, this morning, on Sunday, to pick a fight with fear.

So let's read it.

At that time, Jesus went through the grain fields on the Sabbath, and his disciples were hungry and began to pluck heads of grain and eat.

And when the Pharisees saw it, so I mean, think about it.

Jesus has and allows his disciples to go and pick grain on the Sabbath in a place where the Pharisees can see it.

It's obviously Jesus is setting up a situation to challenge their thinking.

And when the Pharisees saw it, they said to him, Look, your disciples are doing what is not lawful on the Sabbath.

And by the way, according to Deuteronomy 24, they were incorrect.

It was okay to eat grain and to pick grain on the Sabbath.

Verse 3.

But he said to them, Have you not read what David did when he was hungry?

He and those who are with him, how he entered the house of God and ate the showbread, which was not lawful for him to eat, nor for those who are with him, but only for the priest.

So then Jesus counters and said, Don't you remember the story of David?

And David was the main hero of the Pharisees, how he had been running from Saul, he came in and found the showbread that had been there on the in the tabernacle on the altar, and uh the priest gave him permission to uh eat that bread.

Verse 5.

Or have you not read in the law that on the Sabbath the priest in the temple profane the Sabbath and are blameless?

Very interesting passage.

Yet I say to you that in this place there is one greater than the temple.

But if you had known what this means, I desire mercy and not sacrifice, you would not have condemned the guiltless.

For the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.

Now when he had departed from there, he went into their synagogue, and behold there was a man who had a withered hand, and they asked him, saying, Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath, that they might accuse him?

Verse eleven.

Then he said to them, What man is there among you who has one sheep, and if it falls into a pit on the Sabbath, you will not lay hold of it and lift it out?

Of how much more value then is a man than a sheep?

Therefore it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath.

Then he said to them, Stretch out your hand, and he stretched it out, and it was restored as whole as the other.

Then the Pharisees went out and plotted against him how they might destroy him.

If I was giving a title this morning, it would be Crisis, Creativity, and Faith.

Crisis, Creativity, and Faith.

Jesus is setting up a scenario to challenge fear, intimidation, and enslaving systems that the Pharisees had set up.

And here's what he's saying.

This is the overarching word Jesus is giving is that human need always takes precedence over religious ritual.

The human and the need and the hearts of a human always take precedence over religious ritual.

Jesus is saying, I am not a slave, and neither should any of you be a slave to the Sabbath, but rather I am the Lord of the Sabbath.

Now look back at verse five.

Have you not read that on the Sabbath the priest in the temple profane the Sabbath and are blameless?

Well, you may be wondering what is he talking about here?

What he's talking about is that two lambs were to be killed on the Sabbath.

This is Numbers 28, 9 and 10, on a daily sacrifice.

The priests were engaged in killing the lambs and then burning the sacrifice.

But here's what's interesting.

In Exodus 35, 3, the command given in Scripture is do not light a fire in any of your dwellings on the Sabbath day.

So here were the here were the Pharisees putting religious ritual and enslavement on the people, creating anxiety and fear in them, and yet right there in the temple, they were doing the very thing that they were commanding other people not to do.

And what Jesus is saying here, we allow that.

We allow that with you as priests.

We allow you to carry out your sacrifices because God's commanded you to, and it's okay to build a fire in the temple to burn the sacrifices.

So in the same way, human need always takes precedence over religious ritual.

And Jesus is proclaiming freedom.

He's saying, look, there's freedom over the Sabbath.

And I've come to set you free, even in your Sabbath practices, that through me there's freedom.

And here's why, men and women, is because we tend, we tend to struggle with fear.

And some of you right now are struggling with fear, and it's understandable.

You may have known someone who has died of COVID-19.

Um, you may have known someone who's really struggling right now with COVID-19.

Could be that because of the stay-at-home mandate, it's been a struggle at home with depression and isolation for you.

You know, it's interesting that all the psychological studies that have been done on health find that physical isolation is actually one of the most unhealthy things you can do.

So I really want to encourage you.

Hopefully, you're with family, but if you're not with family and you can't get out, that you make a phone call, call someone, talk to someone.

Do not spend an inordinate amount of time on social media.

It'll create fear.

And I just want to encourage you to just put some of that stuff away and spend time in God's Word.

I mean, it's just powerful.

Look at um look at John 6.

Just keep your finger in Matthew 12, and I'm doing some gymnastics here, working with all the stuff, and there's a breeze blowing through.

So I'm trying to keep all my notes from flying through the woods.

John 6, 63, listen to this.

Jesus speaking.

It is the Spirit who gives life.

The flesh profits nothing.

The words that I speak to you are spirit and they are life.

What's being said there, church, is that we need life.

And the word of God gives us life.

The Holy Spirit speaks to us through the word of God.

And if there's ever a time where you could take time away, if you're working from home, take 15-minute breaks and just pull away, make a cup of coffee or tea or something like that, and then just go to God's Word.

Read God's Word, just spend time meditating in God's Word.

It's prosperity for your soul.

That's what Psalm 1 and Joshua 1 says.

But it's life to you.

So I encourage you.

Well, let's talk about fear briefly here.

I want to give you a little bit of a definition of fear.

Um, fear is not a bad thing, by the way.

Fear can be a good thing.

Fear is a response, uh fight or flight within us that is warning our system that we may not, uh, we may be in danger.

Something's coming our way, and so fear is not always a bad thing.

Let me give you a little bit of a definition here from John Topkins.

Fear is a human emotion that is triggered by a perceived threat.

It is a basic survival mechanism that signals our bodies to respond to danger with a fight or flight response.

As such, it is an essential part of keeping us safe.

But here's where the problem lies.

However, when people live in constant fear, whether from physical dangers or emotional dangers in their environment, they can become incapacitated.

So I want to give you what I think are four characteristics of the kind of fear that we don't want to have, the fear that enslaves us, this fear can capture our minds and our hearts and even affect us physically in a negative way.

So, number one, fear has a tendency, I'm talking about constant fear, not an occasional fear, but a constant fear that you're gripped by.

Fear closes off your mind from all creativity and enslaves your thinking.

It's amazing.

When we become fearful, we don't think straight.

We can't think creatively about solutions, we become incapacitated in our thinking.

Number two, fear creates passivity and paralyzes our actions.

Oftentimes, fear causes us to not be able to think about solutions or options in our life.

And so when we begin to feel that way, and I mean I feel like the circumstances that we're in right now can certainly create that because of us having to be stay-at-home, and you can't go to your job, you can't go visit certain people.

I mean, it's just it's a crazy time that we're in, and it can create a paralysis and a passivity in our actions.

Number three, fear impacts you physically.

A recent article from the University of Minnesota says fear weakens our immune system and can cause cardiovascular damage.

Gastrointestinal problems such as ulcers and irritable bowel syndrome decrease fertility.

It can lead to accelerated aging and even premature death.

So fear actually hurts our immune system.

It actually creates an environment within us biologically that can cause us to get sick.

Then, number four, in the same article, scientists have found fear can impair formation of long-term memory, decision making, and cause damage to certain parts of the brain, such as the hippocampus.

So the brain actually begins to malfunction under constant fear.

But Jesus came to set us free.

That's the mandate of Jesus.

That's the proclamation of our faith, is that Jesus came to set the captives free.

I love Proverbs 28:1.

Proverbs 28:1

It's one of those proverbs that Liz and I quote to each other on a pretty regular basis.

The wicked flee, and I would say the fearful flee when no one pursues, but the righteous are as bold as a lion.

Church, God wants us to be bold as a lion in our faith.

And you say, well, how, Pastor Steve?

How can that happen?

Well, the only way that's going to happen in your life is as you begin to spend time in God's Word.

I think it's it's spending time in God's Word.

As you're spending time in God's Word, he builds up your faith.

So reading the Psalms, reading a proverb a day, choosing a book of the Bible like Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John, and just reading a chapter or two a day, but spending time in God's Word makes you bold as a lion and renewing your mind.

I was telling Liz this morning that we go to baseball games a lot.

Many of you know that we've had boys that have all played baseball.

And so when you're at baseball games, you're always behind a chain link backstop.

And when you first walk up to a chain link backstop and the guys are out on the field, your tendency with your eyes is to focus on the chain link fence.

And so then what happens is the players on the field become blurry.

You can't see them that well.

So you have to refocus your eyes when you get into the stands and look out on the field.

You got to focus past the chain link fence to be able to see.

And then after a while, as you refocus and you're focused out on that field, you don't even notice the chain link fence after a while.

I feel like that's the way fear is.

Fear is like that chain link fence.

It's like that obstacle that comes and it's just right here in your face.

And you have got to train your mind to be fierce in your focus.

That fierce in your focus is to look past that fence to that other thing that you're focused on.

And then what happens is the fear goes out of focus, it gets blurry, and you can see clearly what's ahead of you.

So, what is bold, lion-like faith?

I want to give you four characteristics that I think are crucial in having this kind of faith.

And I believe this is what Jesus is saying to his disciples here.

He's saying, look, you're eating the grain, and that's and that is legitimate.

That is a human need.

By faith we eat grain even on the Sabbath.

David did that as he was running from Saul.

So he says this in bold like faith that this is what we're called to do, for the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.

Bold like faith.

Let me give you four characteristics of bold lion-like faith.

Bold faith is always based on knowledge, number one.

Bold faith is always based on knowledge.

There's no such thing in the Christian life as just blind faith.

No matter what our critics say, we don't have blind faith.

Our faith is built on the word and the Holy Spirit.

Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God.

So faith is built on knowledge that comes from God's Word.

So we're building up on Jesus' words.

We're building up on the promises of the Word.

Number two, bold faith opens up your mind to new creativity and innovative thoughts.

Bold faith opens up your mind to new creativity and innovative thoughts.

Faith awakens your sanctified imagination.

And that's what I see in Matthew 12.

When I read Matthew 12, church, it's like my mind, my imagination came alive as I read it and I saw the passage.

I saw what God was saying in a whole different light.

And when you read with sanctified imagination, God gives you vision, he gives you wisdom as you're reading scripture.

Number three, bold faith releases hormones that strengthen your immune system.

That's why people of faith are almost always in better shape, stronger, and healthier than people who are in constant fear.

So all the studies show that when you walk by faith, when you have a vision for your life, when you're imaginative, when you're innovative, you release good hormones into your system that create well-being.

Then number four, bold faith always seeks truth, and truth always sets you free.

So bold faith is seeking truth.

That's why I think that a lot of the fake news, a lot of the stuff that we're hearing on the media is so dangerous because a lot of it's not based in truth, it's based in political agendas.

And so I want to encourage you, seek truth, always seek truth.

Truth always sets you free.

Then Jesus says something interesting to the Pharisees.

Would you look at verse 7?

Matthew 12, 7.

If you had known what this means, I desire mercy and not sacrifice, you would not have condemned the guiltless.

Very interesting.

The rabbis analyzed the law and had found 613 precepts.

These they reduced to eleven principles in Psalm 15, then down to six commands in Isaiah 33 15.

Then we have Micah 6 8, which narrows it down to three requirements.

But now Jesus Is narrowing it down to one thing.

He's saying, I'm looking for mercy.

Sound familiar?

Sounds very similar to the great command.

Love the Lord your God with all of your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and your neighbor as yourself.

That all religious ritual, all the law, all of the prophets, it all summed up in this one thing.

I desire mercy.

I want to see compassion.

Compassion's the key here.

And then Jesus, in his typical way, exhibits what he means.

Look at verse 9.

Now when he had departed from there, he went into the synagogue, and behold, there was a man who had a withered hand.

And they asked him, saying, Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?

That they might accuse him.

Then he said to them, What man man is there among you who has one sheep, and if it falls into a pit on the Sabbath will not lay hold of it and lift it out?

Of how much more value then is a man than a sheep?

Therefore it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath.

And then he said to the man, Stretch out your hand, and he stretched it out, and it was restored as whole as the other.

Men and women, the greatest way to begin to walk by faith and destroy the power of fear in your life is to serve others, is to love others, to have compassion for others, to take your mind off yourself and put your heart and your focus on others and their need.

And if there was ever a time where we need to put our focus off of ourselves and on others, it's right now.

As you've heard me say several times in devotionals that I've done, the Jesus Strong Devotionals, and then I would just emphasize again get on the phone.

Call two or three people each day that may need encouragement.

Give them a call and encourage them and strengthen them.

Liz and I have been exposed to COVID-19, and our vision has been that if we could be positive with the virus, we might be able to go into the hospitals and minister to people.

I'm so excited about what Al shared in the announcements about these baskets that we're doing.

It's so cool.

We're going to give these baskets out with all these goodies to all our healthcare workers and all those that are serving.

And I just want to take a moment right now to just say a big thank you to so many that are serving.

My son-in-law, Ethan, married to Deborah, who's in three emergency room hospitals in Denver.

He's ministering there three, four days a week.

And then Daniel and Chandler, who just left last week to go to Manhattan, New York to serve with the COVID-19 patients there in the epicenter of the epicenter.

You may have heard that interview on Thursday that I did with them.

And if you haven't heard that, you go back and archive that, and it's a great interview with why they were going into New York and to minister there.

And so so many of our first responders, so many of our healthcare workers, they need our prayers.

And any chance you get, if any of you are at the hospital, if any of you see one of our first responders on the street just to stop, maybe.

I mean, stay six feet back, of course, but to thank them.

Thank them for what they're doing.

You might even want to put together a basket or some goodies or something like that and drive it down to the fire station or drive it down to the police station and just thank the officers.

What an awesome thing for road people to do, but to show that kind of love.

And Jesus comes and here's a man with a withered hand.

And his question to the Pharisees, okay, is it are we supposed to do good on the Sabbath?

Of course we are.

It's a rhetorical question.

And so the challenge to us is always do good.

Men and women, that's our calling.

That's what Jesus means by I desire mercy more than sacrifice.

And so this is a time for us, this is our finest hour.

This is a time for us as a church to stand strong, to make an impact, to be different than the world, to walk by faith.

So let me encourage you, be in the word, uh, be in fellowship with others to the extent that you can be.

It might be a phone call, it might be emails, whatever.

But let me close with a couple verses that I love.

And I've been meditating on these verses a lot the last couple weeks.

Whatever is born of God overcomes the world.

And this is the victory that has overcome the world, our faith.

The victory that overcomes fear, the victory that overcomes sickness, the victory that overcomes depression, the victory that overcomes anxiety is our faith.

Build up your faith.

Also, be strong and of good courage.

This is Joshua 1.

Do not be afraid nor be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.

So let that strength and courage of God be in you and over you.

And let us be like the Good Samaritan.

To me, that's the I've been thinking about the Good Samaritan lately, where he gave up, he sacrificed his time and even his resources to help someone in need.

Look for that opportunity.

I believe the more we do that, church, then the more God's gonna bless you and strengthen you.

Men and women, we are not going to church these days.

We are staying home.

What a great metaphor of what the church really is.

The church is not a place we go to, a church is who we are.

So let's be the church.

Let me challenge you at the road.

Let's be the church.

And if you're viewing from all over the world, wherever your hometown is, whatever city you're from, whatever neighborhood you're in, be the church.

Walk by faith.

Look for opportunities to share your faith with others, to give your life away to others.

Again, making a basket for someone, getting in touch with a neighbor who is older, that you might go buy groceries for them.

To call people, two to three people a day and just see how they're doing.

Whatever.

Ask God for creativity.

And that's how I want to close here this morning.

Let's pray.

Let's ask God for innovation, sanctified imagination, and Christ-centered creativity.

So, Father God, in the name of the blood of Jesus, we come before you.

God, we ask you for innovation.

Innovation from your spirit.

God, speak to us innovative ways that we can make an impact.

Father, I pray for sanctified imagination.

God, put thoughts, put images in our minds of things that we can do to bless and help others.

Father, I ask for Christ-centered, Christ-centered consecration in our thinking.

And Father, I pray that you would give us through the power of your Holy Spirit, through the anointing of your word, a compassion for others.

You love compassion.

You said to the Pharisees, I desire mercy.

And so, Father, I pray we'd be a merciful and loving people.

And so right now, Lord, I just pray that we that are believers and Jesus followers, you'd work in creative ways in our mind.

Lord, for those that are listening here this morning that have never given their life to you, they don't know how to have a spirit-empowered life.

They don't have a personal, vital, dynamic, growing relationship with you.

Lord, would you speak to their hearts right now that they might open themselves up and surrender their lives to you?

And so if you're out there right now and your head is bowed with me and you're praying and you'd like to receive Christ, open up your heart and say, Lord, come in.

Come into my life.

Change me.

Transform me.

Make me the kind of man.

Make me the kind of woman.

Make me the kind of child you want me to be.

I want to follow you.

I want to know that consecration that comes through the power of faith.

I want your faith in my life.

I want your son in my life.

I want the bright future that's ahead of me if I walk with you.

Thank you, Lord.

So we bless you, Lord.

We thank you, Lord.

We're excited about our relationship with you.

In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Amen.

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