Guest Brian Briggs

Verses 6 through 8, he says, I tell you something greater than

the temple is here. And if you had known what this

means, I desire mercy and not sacrifice, you would have not

condemned the guiltless, for the Son of Man is the Lord of the

Sabbath. So these verses kind of set up

the theme of the passage we're going to look at today.

And what that theme is, it's that of justice and mercy, and

that Jesus is the source of both.

So when Jesus said he's the Son of man, that's greater than the

temple. When he said he is the Lord of

the Sabbath, he's in an indirect way claiming to be God.

And this fact wasn't lost on the Pharisees.

In fact, this is precisely why the Pharisees wanted him dead.

Because the Pharisees had elevated their man made

traditions and their their man made rules to the same level as

the commands of God, and they had prioritized them over the

the weightier matters of the law such as justice and mercy.

In the beginning of chapter 12, we saw their legalism had gotten

so bad that they would rather see a man be left unfed than

break their tradition. And in the passage we're going

to look at today, we're going to see their their legalism had

gotten so bad they would rather a man remain crippled than break

their tradition. And even worse, their hearts had

become so hardened that they not only refused to recognize Jesus

for who he is, but they would conspire to put an innocent man

to death. And so it's against this

backdrop of the hard heartedness and the legalism of the

Pharisees that we we look into our text today and we see that

Jesus demonstrates the stark difference between the way that

he treats the people of God versus the way that the

Pharisees treated the people of God.

So in our text today, we're going to see that Jesus exposes

the hypocrisy of the Pharisees. We're going to see him

demonstrate gentleness, compassion, and mercy.

And we're going to see how he is the fulfillment of the servant

of the Lord in Isaiah 42. Let's go to our text, Matthew

12, starting in verse nine. I'm going to be reading from the

ESV version today. By the way.

Says he went on from there and entered their synagogue and a

man was there with a withered hand and they asked him, is it

lawful to heal on the Sabbath so that they might accuse him.

He said to them, which one of you who has a sheep, if it falls

into a pit on the Sabbath, will not take hold of it and lift it

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

So it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath.

Then he said to the man, Stretch out your hand, and the man

stretched it out, and it was restored, healthy like the

other. But the Pharisees went out and

conspired against him how to destroy him.

Jesus, aware of this, withdrew from there, and many followed

him. And he healed them all, and

ordered them not to make him known.

This was to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet Isaiah.

Behold my servant whom I have chosen, my beloved, with whom my

soul is well pleased. I will put my spirit upon him,

and he will proclaim justice to the Gentiles.

He will not quarrel or cry aloud, nor will anyone hear his

voice in the streets. A bruised Reed he will not

break, and a smoldering Wick he will not quench until he brings

justice to victory. And in in his name the Gentiles

will hope so we're going to see in our text this morning.

The main point here is that Jesus is the servant of the Lord

who brings justice and mercy and hope to a broken world.

Before we continue, let's pray. Father, I thank you so much for

the opportunity to open your word.

God, I pray that your Holy Spirit would guide us into all

truth this morning, that you would guard us from error both

in what is said and what is heard.

And God, we thank you that Jesus is the one who brings justice

and mercy and hope to this broken world that we live in.

In Jesus name, Amen. All right so first thing we're

going to walk through this text. The first thing we're going to

see is that Jesus exposes the hypocrisy of the Pharisees.

Verse nine. He went on from there and

entered their synagogue and a man was there with a withered

hand and they asked him, is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath so

that they might accuse him. So there's kind of three main

characters in this story, right? There's the man with the

withered hand, there's the Pharisees and there's Jesus.

So the man with a withered hand that we don't typically use the

word withered to describe ailments in, in our culture, but

it's, it's just what it sounds like, right?

The muscles would have been contracted and atrophied.

There would have been no circulation.

Basically, his hand was was dried up and paralyzed and

useless. Luke's account of this same

story in Luke chapter 6 tells us that this was the man's right

Luke 6 · chapter mention

hand. So remember, this is a

right-handed culture in the 1st century.

So this man most likely would not have been able to work a

trade, wouldn't have been able to make a living.

He most likely would have been poor.

He would have been an outcast. He would have been looked down

on by society because of his physical, his physical

condition. And next are the Pharisees.

Now Mark and Luke, when they tell the same story, they

include a detail that Matthew doesn't that I think is

interesting. He they both say that the

Pharisees were watching Jesus to see whether or not he would heal

on the Sabbath. Now, some commentators speculate

that this man was in the synagogue because the Pharisees

actually brought him there as a trap for Jesus.

Now that's speculation. We don't know that, but it

certainly seems possible. And I want you to notice

something about the hard heartedness of the Pharisees.

They know Jesus can heal this guy.

They suspect that Jesus will heal this guy.

So they know he's not only able, but they know he's merciful.

But this Jesus is not going to be able to resist healing this

guy. And yet rather than recognize

who Jesus is, recognize that this is the Messiah and rejoice

in the fact that he's not only able but willing to heal, they

want to use it as a means of trapping him, use it as a means

of of putting him to death. And Mark's account of this story

tells us that Jesus looked around at them with anger,

grieved at their hardness of heart.

Mark 35 says So Jesus in this moment is motivated by two

things. He's motivated by his compassion

for this man, but also his anger towards the Pharisees.

As James 46 says, God opposes the proud but gives grace to the

humble. So there was one man in the

synagogue that day with a withered hand, but the Pharisees

in the synagogue that day all had withered hearts.

Their condition was far worse. And as John Michael explained

last week, the Pharisees, they had placed laws upon laws upon

laws around the Sabbath. He, he used the example of

building a fence around the law. I thought that was a helpful

picture of, of what happens when we try to add to the law of God.

And they had done this their, their legalistic traditions had

added so much and, and the Sabbath became a burden to the

people of God rather than a blessing and healing or giving

medical care would have been expressly against their

traditions. So they had actually made

exceptions on the Sabbath for treating life threatening

conditions, right. So if somebody's life was at

risk and and they needed something and in order that they

wouldn't die that they said was OK, but for non life threatening

conditions, they would not make an exception.

In fact, they wouldn't even allow a broke a boat, excuse me,

a broken bone to be set on the Sabbath because it was quote UN

quote working. And so they're they're man made

traditions. They not only forbade healing in

the miraculous sense, but they forbade healing and, and just an

ordinary medical natural means as well.

And this these were merely man made traditions because God's

law made no such prohibitions against providing medical help

to people. And so the Pharisees are trying

to use these rules and these traditions to trap Jesus and

accuse him of being a Sabbath breaker.

And we sometimes look at these situations in the scripture and

it seems like the Pharisees are the ones trying to uphold the

law and take God's word seriously.

And, and Jesus is the one trying to bend the rules.

But, but no, it's actually just the opposite.

No, it's the Pharisees who are reviling the Sabbath because

they've taken what God intended to be a gift, what God intended

to be rest for his people, and they've turned it into a burden.

And it's Jesus who is the Lord of the Sabbath.

Jesus who is, who is communicating the true purpose

and meaning of the Sabbath because he is the Lord of the

Sabbath. He, Hebrews, tells us he is our

Sabbath and he's inviting us into his rest.

Then we see Jesus in this story, and as he often does, he answers

their question with a question they ask him, is it lawful to

heal on the Sabbath? And in verse 11, he said to

them, which one of you who has a sheep, if it falls into a pit on

the Sabbath, will not take hold of it and lift it out of how

much more value is a man than a sheep?

So it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath.

So Jesus, here, he's referencing an actual exception that the

Pharisees had made in order for saving livestock if they were to

fall into a pit or or whatever. And by doing so, he's pointing

out their hypocrisy because what are they doing?

They are placing a higher value on their property than on a

human being, right? And he's exposing them and

pointing out that while they might affirm the value of human

life with their words, in their actions and in their attitudes,

they're showing less value and less respect for human life than

they are for their livestock. And Jesus highlights that even

this broken, poor outcast of a man is highly valuable to God.

And so our application here this morning is if we're going to

minister to people like Jesus did, we have to love and value

people the way that Jesus does, right?

We have to be moved by moved by our compassion for people the

way that Jesus is. We see next in verse 13.

That's what he does. Jesus demonstrates compassion

and mercy to the man with the withered hand.

Verse 13. Then he said to the man, stretch

out your hand, and the man stretched it out and it was

restored healthy like the other. So Jesus not only says, yes,

it's lawful to do good on the Sabbath, but watch this and he

tells this guy, stretch out your hand.

He heals this man instantly in front of everybody, and by by

demonstrating this compassion and this mercy towards this man,

he's, he's putting into practice this principle that it's never

contrary to God's law to do good for someone else.

The Pharisees, they had created this system of oppression that

condemned the guiltless and it put people under a burden of

legalism. But Jesus came to bring justice

and mercy to bear in this situation.

He told the man to stretch out his hand.

Think about that for a moment. He's telling this man to do

something that's impossible for him to do, right?

This man's hand is paralyzed. He can't stretch it out.

And yet Jesus is telling him to do the very thing that's

impossible for him to do, this stretching out of the hand.

This was an act of faith. This was an act of obedience.

This man could not heal himself. He could not stretch out his

hand in his own power. The only thing he could do in

that moment was believe and obey Jesus by faith, right?

And he could have chosen not to, right?

I imagine looking at the the Pharisees in the room all

leering at him, waiting to see, is he going to do it?

Is he going to stretch out his hand like this Jesus has told

him to? Or is he going to shrink back

from fear of what they might do to him?

But no, He chose to obey Jesus by faith, and his faith was

rewarded. He was healed in an instant.

And the irony of this story is, although the Pharisees looked

physically whole and spiritually holy on the outside, they were

the ones with the greatest need. They were the people in the room

who needed Jesus more than anyone, But it was the man with

the withered hand who was restored, both body and soul,

because he believed in and obeyed Jesus.

Now, friends, I don't see any withered hands in the room among

us today. But there may be among us some

that have a withered heart. There may be among us some that

have a withered mind. It's been withered by sin.

It's been withered by rebellion against God, withered by self

righteousness, trying to earn God's favor rather than receive

it by faith. And the fact is that we are no

more capable of healing our hearts and our minds than this

man was capable of healing his hand.

And so Jesus is calling you to to respond today if you if

you're in here this morning and you have a withered heart or a

withered mind, stretch out your heart, stretch out your mind in

an act of faith and obedience and allow him to reward your

faith and make you new this morning.

We see the response of what happens in verse 14 says the

Pharisees went out and conspired against him how to destroy him.

Jesus aware of this, withdrew from there and many followed him

and he healed them all and ordered them not to make him

known. So again, this is mind blowing.

Despite seeing this man healed right before their very eyes,

they they go out and their first response is, oh, we got to kill

this guy. It's crazy.

And what does that teach us? I think a lot of times we buy

into the lie that if people just have enough evidence, if people

just have a sign and a wonder if people just have something that

they can see that will cause the unbelief in their heart to to

vanish and they will, they will believe by faith.

But friends, that's not the way it works.

Unbelief is not rational. Unbelief is not just waiting for

evidence. No, Unbelief is a is a sick and

dead condition of the heart, and it's only healed through the

power of the Holy Spirit. So the Gospels record many

examples of Jesus finding himself in the middle of

controversy, right? Jesus always manages to end up

in these controversial situations with the Pharisees,

and we often see him withdraw himself when things start to

escalate. Jesus wasn't going to defend

himself. He wasn't going to overthrow

them with violence. His appointed time had not come.

It wasn't his time to go to the cross.

It wasn't his time to lay down his life.

His mission from the Father was not yet complete.

So he withdrew. And verse 15 says many followed

him and he healed them all. So even when Jesus is trying to

get away from the crowds, even when Jesus trying to get away

from the notoriety and get away from all the recognition, it

follows him everywhere he goes. He can't get away from it.

And in Mark's account of this story, he actually, Jesus tells

the disciples to get a boat ready because the people are

crowding around him so much so that they're going to crush him.

He's like, these people are literally going to crush me to

death if we don't get out of here.

That's, that's how earnest these people were to come and be

healed, to have their unclean spirits taken by Jesus.

But Jesus doesn't get angry with them or annoyed by them.

No, he, he has compassion for them.

Matthew notes He healed them all.

So even in the midst of trying to withdraw and trying to get

away, he's still healing this, these people.

He's still responding with mercy.

This reminds me of an earlier passage.

You guys probably studied it several weeks ago.

At this point in Matthew Chapter 9, starting in verse 35, it says

Matthew 9 · chapter mention

when Jesus went throughout all the cities and villages teaching

in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the

Kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction,

when he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them because they

were harassed and helpless like a sheep without a shepherd.

Then he said to his disciples, The harvest is plentiful, but

the laborers are few. Therefore pray earnestly to the

Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.

So Jesus earthly ministry from its very outset was marked by

his compassion for people and his ministry in heaven is no

different, right? He's currently at the right hand

of the Father interceding on our behalf.

He's our high priest and he continues to have compassion

toward us. His ministry from beginning, and

it will never end, but from beginning until forever is, is

marked by compassion. And so the kind of laborers that

the Lord of the harvest is looking to send into the harvest

are people that have compassion. If we're going to be followers

of Jesus, if we're going to do ministry like Jesus, we must be

people of compassion. Verse 16 says after healing them

all, he told them not to make him known.

Now this is another common thing we see throughout the gospels.

Jesus will heal someone or do something and he'll say, now

don't tell anybody. And do they usually listen?

No, they usually do the exact opposite.

In fact, in Mark chapter one, it says Jesus, because the guy

didn't listen and he went and told everybody.

It says Jesus wasn't able to go into the cities openly, but he

had to kind of skirt around the outskirts of town.

And you know, there's lots of reasons we could look at for why

Jesus would would tell people not to tell anyone.

But the reason that Matthew gives in this passage is that

this was a fulfillment of Isaiah 42 one through 4.

Verse 17 says this was to fulfill what was spoken by the

prophet Isaiah. So it's important to understand

the the backdrop of the previous chapter before we look at

chapter 42. So in chapter 41, these chapters

are pretty closely connected, but in chapter 41, it begins

with God is using a poetic language of sorts.

And he's he's calling to the nations of the earth and he's

proclaiming his sovereignty over all the nations.

He's proclaiming his sovereignty over all of human history.

And then he turned his attention towards the the remnant of

Israel directly and he's reaffirming his promise to them

that he would be with them. He says, do not fear for I am

with you. And he tells them that he will

bring justice against all of her enemies.

And so then in the last portion of chapter 41, God calls forth

the idols of the world. And he says, prove your worth,

prove your value. And of course, the conclusion of

this chapter is that they are in fact worthless, right?

It's the futility of men and women chasing after idols.

And in the chapter ends with verse 29, which says, behold,

they are all a delusion. Their works are nothing.

Their metal images are empty wind.

And so 41 ends right there in that bleak emptiness of the

futility of idols, and 42 begins with the word Behold.

Behold, God is presenting the answer to the futility of men

and women chasing after idols, and that answer is His chosen

servant. And what Matthew is showing us

is that Jesus is the chosen servant of the Lord and that he

is the fulfillment of Isaiah 42 one through 4.

And before we get into Matthew's paraphrase of Isaiah 42, let me

just say this. We live in a world that is

steeped in idolatry, right? We live in a world where people

are seem to be coming more and more aware of their need for

redemption. People seem to be more and more

aware of how broken the world is.

I don't know about you, but I don't find it difficult at all

to have a conversation with unbelievers about how broken the

world is, right, people, man, did you see the news last night?

This happened, this happened, this is going on.

People are blowing each other up in this country.

This, you know, I'm not going to give examples of how broken the

world is for the sake of the children in the room, but people

are, it's just we're inundated with it.

It's it's, it's everywhere. Doesn't matter what age, doesn't

matter what background, Everyone seems to recognize this.

And where you and I as believers differ is we, we understand why

it's broken and we understand what the solution is.

And church, this is the core of our gospel message, that

humanity and the world are broken because of sin, which is

rebellion against God. We are, we're all born into the

sin of our Father Adam, and we justly deserve the wrath of a

holy God. That's the bad news, right?

That's the bad news. But the good news is that God

was born as a man named Jesus, who brought the Kingdom of

heaven to the earth. Jesus never sinned, but He kept

the law perfectly on our behalf. And yet He died on the cross in

our place, bearing the wrath of God and the penalty for our sin.

And three days later he bodily rose from the dead, securing

eternal life for all of his people.

And then he ascended into heaven to sit at the right hand of the

Father, where he is now ruling and reigning until all of his

enemies are made a footstool for his feet, and he's restoring and

redeeming all things back to himself until he comes again and

consummates His Kingdom here on the earth for all of eternity.

Church, that message, that gospel, that is our mission.

And when we allow ourselves to become distracted from that

mission and from that gospel, we are of no value to the world

around us. We're we're no different than

the unbeliever sitting around complaining about how broken

everything is. When we when we lose sight of

our mission, we're like salt that has lost its saltiness.

We're like a light that has been put under a basket.

Alistair Begg once said, mission in many places has been replaced

with admonition. And what he means by that is

instead of saying, behold, the servant of the Lord, we're

looking at the secular culture and saying, what's wrong with

you? Why are you like this?

But the sad reality is they don't know why they're like

that. We are the ones that have the

answer, Amen. We know why the world's broken.

We know what the solution is. And the answer is, it's the same

as it was in Isaiah's day. It's the same as it was in

Matthew's day. It's the same in our day.

Behold the servant of the Lord Jesus is the answer.

So verse 18 he says, Behold my servant whom I have chosen, my

beloved, with whom my soul is well pleased, I will put my

spirit upon him, and he will proclaim justice to the

Gentiles. He will not quarrel or cry

aloud, nor will anyone hear His voice in the streets.

A bruised Reed he will not break, and a smoldering Wick he

will not quench until he brings justice to victory.

And in his name the Gentiles will hope so.

These verses are the first of four what we call Servant Songs

in the book of Isaiah, which are prophecies about the Messiah

which are fulfilled in Jesus. They tell us about Jesus

identity, about his character, about his compassion, and that

we hope in him because he will one day bring justice to the

nation's. So it says Jesus is the chosen

servant of the Lord, who is the beloved of the Father, in whom

the Father is well pleased. He said He is the one on whom

the Father has placed his Spirit.

And this calls to my mind the baptism of Jesus right in

Matthew chapter 3, starting in verse 16.

Matthew 3 · chapter mention

It says when Jesus was baptized, immediately he went up from the

water and behold, the heavens were open to him.

And he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and

coming to rest on him. And behold, a voice from heaven

said, This is my beloved Son with whom I am well pleased.

So from the very beginning of Jesus ministry, his identity was

found in the fact that he was chosen and loved by the Father.

Jesus lived only to please the Father.

And this is where you and I, as followers of Jesus should also

find our identity, right? This is where we should find our

security. This is where we should find our

value, not in who our family is, not in the fact that we're

citizens of United States of America, not in what we do for a

living, not take your pick. It should only be in the fact

that we are chosen and loved by God.

Jesus ministry was done in full dependence on God the Father and

through the power of God the Holy Spirit.

Everything Jesus did while on the earth was through the power

of the Holy Spirit. And after he ascended into

heaven, what did he do? He poured out that same Spirit

on the day of Pentecost in Acts chapter two.

He poured out that same Spirit on the church.

So now you and I are the chosen servants of the Lord.

We are His church. We have His Spirit, and He has

empowered us by his Holy Spirit to do His mission in the earth

because of our unity with Jesus Christ.

So if we're going to live like Jesus, if we're going to

minister like Jesus, then we must recognize our full

dependence on God. We must recognize our full

dependence on being empowered by the Holy Spirit.

Because Jesus said apart from him we can do nothing, right?

He poured out his Spirit on us to empower us to be able to

fulfill the mission that he's given us.

And apart from his spirit, we we could never even think of

fulfilling his mission. Verse 19, it says he will not

quarrel or cry aloud, nor will anyone hear his voice in the

streets. So despite Jesus repeatedly

finding himself in the midst of these controversies, he wasn't

quarrelsome. He he wasn't angrily shouting or

or trying to talk over people. He wasn't spreading his own name

and his own fame. He he did not defend himself

with violence. He didn't he didn't try to

establish his Kingdom by force. In fact, he said to Pilate in

John 18 verse 36, my Kingdom is not of this world.

John 18:36

If my Kingdom were of this world, my servants would have

been fighting that I might not be delivered over to the Jews,

but my Kingdom is not from the world.

So Jesus, Jesus message was clear, his Kingdom doesn't

function the way the world does. His Kingdom functions

differently. And Jesus meekness and his

gentleness were not what people were expecting of their Messiah,

right? They were expecting the Messiah

to come in guns blazing, taking out the powers that be.

That's that's what they expected.

That's what they wanted, but that's not what they got because

that wasn't Jesus way. Think about the irony of this

for a moment. Colossians one tells us that

Jesus is preeminent. That means his greatness

surpasses everything. So all things were made in him

and through him and for him. He's the greatest authority in

the universe. And yet we see him do things

like quietly withdraw from a controversy.

We see him tell people not to tell about who he is or what

he's done. We see him using this

discretion, avoiding notoriety. And isn't this so unlike the

kings and the political powers that we see in our world today?

I'm sure many of you are following the the disaster that

is the 2024 election. I mean, just think about it.

Would Jesus be on national television bragging about his

golf game? No, it's the difference is so

stark and it's, it's, it's unreal.

The one person in the universe that actually does have

something to brag about, that does have something to be over

the top about. He chooses to be gentle and meek

instead. And this is not only true in the

political sphere, but even in the church.

I think a lot of times as Christians we're tempted to show

our spirituality by being loud, by being harsh, or, or by trying

to put on a show for people. And Jesus just did his work and

tried to avoid notoriety. Jesus did what he saw the Father

doing. He was concerned about

fulfilling the mission that his Father gave him, not about

making a name for himself. And even in his moments of

retreat and in his moments of withdraw, he was still healing

people. He was still showing mercy to

those who came to him. Which brings us to verse 20.

A bruised Reed, He will not break.

A smoldering Wick He will not quench.

This speaks to the gentleness and the compassion that Jesus

has toward his people. Now, most of you I'm sure, know

what a Reed is, right? It's a tall grass like plant,

grows by the water. There's millions of them.

They're, they're everywhere. And in ancient times they would

use these for writing utensils or musical instruments,

whatever. But reeds, they're, they're so

abundant, they're everywhere. So even a really good straight

one that's like perfect, it's, it's not really worth much

because they're so readily available.

And so when you're talking about a bruised Reed, a messed up Reed

that you can't actually use for anything, it's completely and

totally worthless. And in these days, lamps were

were made by lighting oil on fire.

And you didn't just light the oil on fire.

You had to have a Wick to put in the oil Wick would be made of

flax. And when the Wick was all but

burnt up and was just smoldering and no more lights being

produced in the lamp, that Wick is no no longer of any value,

right? What are you going to do?

You're going to throw that Wick away, You're going to get a new

one. And so the metaphor being

employed here is simple. It's that Jesus is kind and

gentle towards those who are bruised.

He's kind and merciful and compassionate towards those who

are just barely holding on. He doesn't discard people.

He doesn't give up on people. He doesn't throw people away and

say they're no good, I can't use them.

No, he does just the opposite. He says, come to me, all who are

weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest.

He says to the withered hand, stretch out your hand and he

makes him whole again. And maybe you're here this

morning and you you got guilt and shame, maybe from your own

sin or maybe from sin that was done to you and you think

there's no way that God could ever love me.

Or maybe if God confide him in his heart to love me, there's

certainly no way he could ever use me.

And if if it's you hear me today, a bruised Reed he will

not break. A smoldering Wick he will not

quench. Behold the servant of the Lord

come unto him, for his yoke is easy, and his burden is light.

He has compassion towards you. And I just want to tell you,

receive his compassion. Receive his mercy today.

Jesus is, is the kind of king who can take a bunch of broken

reeds and or bruised reeds and smoldering Wicks and build a

Kingdom out of them. He can, he can take those things

which which seem useless, which seem discarded, and he can

fashion them into something useful.

Now these are comforting words, right?

These are comforting words. For whom?

Who are whom are these words intended for?

The bruise reads in the smoldering Wicks.

These are the people who are beat down by sin and beat down

by circumstances, and they're crying out to Jesus for mercy.

And Jesus is gentle toward them. But he doesn't give that same

treatment to everyone, does he? Now think of the parable in Luke

Luke 18 · chapter mention

chapter 18 of the Pharisee and the tax collector, right?

It says two men went up to the synagogue to pray, a Pharisee

and a tax collector. And what does the Pharisee do?

He he stands and says, oh God, I thank you that I'm not like all

these other yahoos, that I don't do this and do that.

And but I tithe and I do this and I do that.

And then what does the tax collector say?

Jesus said he couldn't even lift his head, but he just beat his

breast and said, have mercy on me, a Sinner.

And he said one of those men went home justified and not the

other, because God opposes the prowl, but gives grace to the

humble. And so we see Jesus deals very

differently with unrepentant sinners and very differently

with the self-righteous. The unrepentant should not

expect gentleness or mercy from Jesus.

Romans 2, starting in verse four says this.

Or do you presume on the riches of His kindness and forbearance

and patience, not knowing that God's kindness is meant to lead

you to repentance, but because of your hard and impenitent

heart, you are storing up wrath for yourself.

On the day of wrath, when God's righteous judgment will be

revealed, He will render to each one according to His works.

To those who by patience and well doing seek for glory and

honor and immortality, He will give eternal life.

But for those who are self seeking and do not obey the

truth, but obey unrighteousness, there will be wrath and fury.

So those who are unrepentant dare not presume upon the riches

of His kindness and His forbearance and His patience.

But make no, no mistake, Jesus is patient.

He is patient even towards the unrepentant.

He's patient even toward his enemies.

Why? Second Peter chapter 3 tells us

2 Peter 3 · chapter mention

it's so that all of his people will reach repentance and be

saved. Says Lord is not slow to fulfill

his promise, as son counts slowness, but is patient towards

you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should

reach repentance. But the day of the Lord will

come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a

roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved,

and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed.

And this is what is meant by the phrase in Matthew 12/20.

Until he brings justice to victory, right?

Jesus is gentle and He's merciful for now, but there will

come a day where He brings justice.

There will come a day where justice finds victory.

There will come a day where He will right every wrong.

There will come a day where He will judge the wicked with the

fury of the wrath of God. And what's that going to look

like? Revelation chapter 19.

Revelation 19 · chapter mention

We see this depiction of Jesus starting in verse 11.

Since then I saw heaven opened, and behold, a White Horse, The

one sitting on it is called faithful and true, and in

righteousness he judges and makes war.

His eyes are like a flame of fire, and on his head are many

diadems, and he has a name written that no one knows but

himself. He is clothed in a robe dipped

in blood, and the name by which he is called is the Word of God.

And the armies of heaven arrayed in fine linen, white and pure.

We're following him on white horses.

From his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down

the nations, and he will rule them with a rod of iron, and he

will tread the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God the

Almighty. On his robe and on his thigh he

has a name written, King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

That depiction of Jesus doesn't exactly sound gentle.

It doesn't exactly sound meek, doesn't exactly sound merciful.

It sounds like a conquering king coming to make war, and I think

it's difficult for us sometimes to reconcile these ideas in our

head, right? That Jesus is both our

conquering king and our suffering servant.

He is gentle, He is merciful, he is meek.

But you better believe a day's coming where he will be a

conquering king, because the where the justice of God and the

mercy of God meet is in the person of Jesus Christ.

And that is why we hope in him church, because he shows

gentleness and mercy to his people, but he brings his

perfect justice and his perfect timing.

He's the only one who can do that.

He's the only one. He's the only one that can show

true mercy. He's the only one that can bring

true justice. And church, This is why we can

be compassionate and why we can be merciful toward other people,

right? Because when we're wronged, when

we're sinned against, we know that Jesus is going to bring

justice. We know that vengeance belongs

to the Lord. We know that one day Jesus will

right every wrong. And so we are free to follow the

example of Jesus, to be merciful and to be compassionate towards

those around us, even our enemies, even those that sin

against us, because we serve a God that will one day bring

justice to victory. And as it says in Revelation 21,

he will wipe every tear from their eyes, and death shall be

no more. Neither shall there be mourning

nor crying nor pain anymore. For the former things have

passed away. And he who was seated on the

throne said, behold, I am making all things new.

Let's pray. God, we thank you so much.

Lord, we thank you that. Although this world is broken

and and seemingly spiraling into chaos, God, we know that this

chaos is not outside of your control, not not outside of your

sovereignty, God, but you saw fit to send your chosen servant,

Jesus and God, He is modeled for us what it looks like to be a a

person of compassion, a person of mercy.

And God, I pray that we as your church, empowered by your spirit

would show your compassion and your mercy to the world and God.

I thank you that we can hope in you God.

We can hope in the fact that you will one day set everything

right. You will one day make all things

new when you bring justice to victory in Jesus name.

Amen. So from what I understand, Don

and Karen are going to be up here at the end for if anyone

has a prayer need. Is that the case?

Yeah. All right.

Well, we're good. All right.

Thanks for being here, everybody.

Love you. Thank

you. Thank you.

It's worth it. Oh, yeah.

I'll get charity to count. OK.