The Unforgivable Sin

Well, if you're just joining us, we started something back in February that's sort of been the focus of our entire year, and I think we'll be done around December.

It may take a little longer.

I don't really know.

Uh, but I think December is probably a safe bet.

We're calling it a study, it's a study we're calling Following Jesus.

We're going through the entire book of Matthew.

Uh again, we started it back in February.

Our goal with this is very simple.

We want to understand Jesus better.

We want to know him better.

You can never be too close to Jesus, you can never be too familiar with Jesus.

There's no one like Jesus.

He is God, he is the hope of this world.

And so we're just trying to pour through everything he says and does so that we can have a clearer picture of Jesus in our minds.

We can have a closer walk with Jesus in our lives.

Now, we've been trying to follow Jesus as literally as possible.

So we've used a lot of maps.

Um, this has kind of been like our main map of Israel.

It shows you Israel and the regions that made up Israel at that point in time.

So if you're ever reading uh one of the Gospels, for example, and you see words like Samaria, you're like, where is that?

Well, there it is, Galilee, there it is.

But uh, even though Jesus has been very mobile so far in our story, he has gone all over the place.

The last several weeks, we haven't really moved at all.

It's all been super concentrated into this region around the Sea of Galilee.

This is where Jesus really does the lion's share of the work that he does early in his ministry.

He lived in a city called Capernaum for a period of time, right on the Sea of Galilee.

And many of the early miracles of Jesus, early teachings of Jesus, those all happen right around the Sea of Galilee.

So we've sort of been parked there for the last few weeks, but next week he's gonna start moving again.

So we'll we'll start to do our Indiana Jones maps again and track along with him.

Um, today we are wrapping up a little series within our following Jesus study called New Roads.

And the idea is pretty simple.

Back in Matthew chapter 9, Jesus told his disciples to pray for workers.

Matthew 9 · chapter mention

He said, Pray for workers because the harvest is great.

He's talking about people saying, There are so many people that are ready to be part of what I'm doing, but we need people to go out and teach them and tell them.

And so he equips his workers, he gives them instructions, he warns them it's gonna be hard.

Because he's asking them to do something new, something that's never been done before.

The mission of Jesus, the teachings of Jesus, it's totally different than anything this world has ever seen.

And building new roads is difficult.

It's hard work, and it's not something that everyone always gets behind.

The last few weeks we've looked at Jesus experiencing some resistance.

And some of that has just been people not understanding what he's doing, even people very close to Jesus.

In fact, in Matthew chapter 12, verses 46 through 50, we hear that as Jesus was speaking to the crowd, his mother and brothers stood outside asking to speak to him.

Matthew 12:46–50

Now we know from another gospel account that they're there to stop Jesus.

He's creating all this commotion, and they think he's kind of lost it a little bit, and they're there to kind of take him back home and basically put him in like the penalty box for a little while, let things cool off.

It says someone told Jesus, Your mother and your brothers are standing outside, they want to speak to you.

And Jesus asked, Who is my mother?

And who are my brothers?

And then he pointed to his disciples and said, Look, these are my mother and brothers.

Anyone who does the will of my father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.

Jesus is basically saying, Look, I am doing what God has sent me to do.

I'm not gonna let anyone stop me.

Even people who I'm close to.

If they don't get it, that's okay.

They'll come around eventually.

But last week we saw things escalate a little bit.

It's not just people going, hey Jesus, I don't really understand what you're doing.

Why are you going about it this way?

Why did you say that?

We're starting to see Jesus face outright opposition.

And so last week we looked at a few stories involving Jesus and the Pharisees, the religious leaders of his day.

Jesus does some things that sort of breaks their box.

Like they have God in a very neat, tidy box.

This is exactly how God is, and Jesus does things that break that box, and they don't like it.

And in fact, it culminates with Jesus healing a man, a man in a synagogue who has a deformed hand.

This is a man who would have had a disability, couldn't work, couldn't provide for his family.

And Jesus sees him in the synagogue on the Sabbath, on the day that they were supposed to worship.

And the Pharisees think you're not allowed to do anything on the Sabbath, no work of any kind.

They kind of missed the point.

We talked about that last week, if you want to listen to that.

Jesus heals him in front of the Pharisees, and their response is not to praise God, not to say, wow, a miracle has taken place in our midst, and it's not to be excited for this man whose life has been restored.

Their response is, we've got to kill Jesus.

And they leave and they begin to conspire with others to bring Jesus' life to an end.

And that's where we left off last week.

Jesus is not deterred, though.

We pick up in Matthew chapter 12, verse 15.

Matthew 12:15

It says that Jesus knew what they were planning, and so he left that area, and many people followed him.

He healed all the sick among them, but he warned them not to reveal who he was.

This fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah concerning him.

Look at my servant, whom I have chosen.

He's my beloved who pleases me.

I will put my spirit upon him, and he will proclaim justice to the nations.

He will not fight or shout or raise his voice in public.

He will not crush the weakest reed or put out a flickering candle.

Finally, he will cause justice to be victorious, and his name will be the hope of all the world.

Now, today we see this opposition escalate even further.

And what it's going to result in is Jesus speaking some of the most intense and harsh words that we ever see Jesus speak.

And Jesus is going to say some things today in response to the opposition that he faces that many people have wrestled with for thousands of years.

Not specific people wrestling with it for a thousand years.

Many people over the course of thousands of years have wrestled with this for a smaller number of years.

So this is something we're about to read that is it's tough.

I'm just going to say this on the front end.

This is tough.

When we go through scripture, here at his hands, we don't skip the hard stuff.

Sometimes the stuff we're talking about, it's like, I mean, you know, Jesus is walking on water and it's just like, yeah.

And sometimes Jesus says things that you're like, whoa.

What are we going to do with that?

And this might be one of the, this may be the greatest example of that today.

And I'm excited for us to get into it.

Are you guys ready?

All right, here we go.

Matthew chapter 12, starting in verse 22.

Matthew 12 · chapter mention

It says, Then a demon-possessed man who was blind and could not speak was brought to Jesus.

He healed the man so that he could both speak and see.

Now, something that we've talked about, quick sidebar.

Most of the miracles that Jesus has done are amazing and incredible, but they do have a precedent in the Old Testament.

There are things that prophets who have come before Jesus have done before.

Healing people who are possessed, and depending on how you've grown up, that might be a really strange concept to think about, but just track with me for a second.

If that's a real thing, I believe it is.

Jesus definitely believed that it was.

No one had ever done this before.

No prophet in the Old Testament had ever been able to have the authority to cast out an evil spirit.

But Jesus does this often.

And to the Pharisees, this is a problem because now Jesus is not just doing things that have a precedent in Scripture.

Jesus is doing something no one's ever heard of someone doing before, and they don't like it.

So he heals this man.

Now the man can both speak and see.

The crowd is amazed and asked, Could it be that Jesus is the Son of David, the Messiah?

But when the Pharisees heard about the miracle, they said, No wonder he can cast out demons.

He gets his power from Satan, the prince of demons.

Jesus knew their thoughts and replied, Any kingdom divided by civil war is doomed.

A town or family splintered by feuding will fall apart.

And if Satan is casting out Satan, he is divided and fighting against himself.

His own kingdom will not survive.

If I'm empowered by Satan, what about your own exorcists?

They cast out demons too.

They tried.

But if I'm casting out demons by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God has arrived among you.

For who is powerful enough to enter the house of a strong man and plunder his goods?

Only someone even stronger.

Someone who could tie him up and then plunder his house.

Anyone who isn't with me opposes me.

Anyone who isn't working with me is actually working against me.

So I tell you, every sin and blasphemy can be forgiven, except blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, which will never be forgiven.

Anyone who speaks against the Son of Man can be forgiven.

Son of Man is a title Jesus used about himself often.

But anyone who speaks against the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven, either in this world or in the world to come.

A tree is identified by its fruit.

If a tree is good, the fruit will be good.

If a tree is bad, its fruit will be bad.

You brood of snakes.

How could evil men like you speak what is good and right?

For whatever is in your heart determines what you say.

A good person produces good things from the treasury of a good heart.

And an evil person produces evil things from the treasury of an evil heart.

And I tell you this you must give an account on judgment day for every idle word you speak.

The words you say will either acquit you or condemn you.

The sign of Jonah will be your sign.

He goes on to say that one day some religious uh some teachers of religious law and Pharisees came to Jesus and said, Teacher, we want you to show us a miraculous sign to prove your authority.

But Jesus replied, Only an evil, adulterous generation would demand a miraculous sign.

The only sign I will give them is the sign of the prophet Jonah.

For as Jonah was in the belly of the great fish for three days and three nights, so will the Son of Man be in the heart of the earth for three days and three nights.

The people of Nineveh will stand up against this generation on Judgment Day and condemn it.

For they repented of their sins at the preaching of Jonah.

Now someone even greater than Jonah is here, but you refuse to repent.

The Queen of Sheba will also stand up against this generation on Judgment Day and condemn it.

For she came from a distant land to hear the wisdom of Solomon.

Now someone even greater than Solomon is here, but you refuse to listen.

When an evil spirit leaves a person, it goes out into the desert seeking rest but finding none.

And then it says, I'll return to the person I came from.

So it returns, and it finds its former home empty, swept, and in order.

Then the spirit finds seven other spirits more evil than itself.

They all enter that person and live there, and the person is worse off than before.

That will be the experience of this evil generation.

Okay.

There's a lot there.

We've got the Queen of Sheba, we've got evil spirits showing up to an apparently very clean house and taking over.

We've got this unforgivable sin.

And this is one of those moments, and I wanted to read all of this in its entirety, because this is one of those moments in Jesus' ministry where even if you are his closest follower, you're like disciple number one in the pecking order, you're going like, ooh.

Jesus, can can you do another miracle?

I think the people would really appreciate a miracle right now because what you just said is intense and it is heavy.

But look, if we're going to be serious followers of Jesus, we have to deal with the serious things that Jesus says.

And whether you're following Jesus for the first time in your life or considering that, or you've been following him for years, I've never met someone who says, you know, I don't really want to be a serious follower of Jesus.

I just kind of want to be like a novice.

Like a cat.

No, I maybe there are some.

I don't know about you.

I want to be as close to Jesus as possible.

And so I've got to deal with the hard stuff if I'm going to grow and I'm going to mature.

And I'm excited for us to deal with this.

Now, we could talk about what Jesus just said for months and months and months.

I want to focus on two specific aspects of what he said.

And here's what we're going to focus on: an unforgivable sin and an inescapable truth.

Okay?

An unforgivable sin and an inescapable truth.

Quick show of hands.

How many of you have read the whole unforgivable scene thing before, or you've seen it in scripture?

You've heard someone talk about it.

You're familiar with the concept of an unforgivable sin.

Does anyone have the courage to say, I've never heard about this?

This is the first time I've ever heard about this.

I thought everything is forgivable.

I'm really scared.

Okay.

Let's just be transparent and honest.

Whoever has the bravery and courage to do this, has anyone ever worried?

I hope I'm not the one who commits the unforgivable sin.

Anyone here ever been like, I hope I've not done that?

All right.

We'll find out, I guess.

Apparently it's unforgivable, so if you have, I mean, I don't know what to tell you.

No, I'll say this on the front end.

If you've ever had that thought, like, Lord, I hope I haven't done that, that is evidence you can have peace because that is not the kind of thing a person uh guilty of this would even think.

Okay, so just be at rest there, but we'll explain this.

Let's go back to Matthew chapter 12, verse 31.

Matthew 12:31

Jesus says, So I tell you, every sin and blasphemy can be forgiven except blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, which will never be forgiven.

Anyone who speaks against the Son of Man can be forgiven, but anyone who speaks against the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven, either in this world or in the world to come.

Jesus is not mincing words.

He is being very, very clear.

So let's try to understand this.

Let's think of the word blasphemy.

That is one of those words we see in scripture that we're all sort of familiar with.

We use it, but we tend to use it loosely.

Okay, let me give you some examples of like what we might consider modern-day blasphemy.

Let's say you go to a really nice steak restaurant, okay, like a nice steak dinner, and you order filet.

And the server says, How would you like your filet cooked?

And your response is, I will have my filet well done.

Okay?

If you ask for well done filet, that is blasphemy.

Right?

Like, now, I'm obviously joking to a certain degree, okay?

I'm obviously joking.

But you will see a response.

Like, someone who's actually a big state connoisseur, maybe even the server, like I imagine the chef at the restaurant is like, well done, like I might as well microwave it.

You know what I mean?

And if you prefer well done, we're not, I'm it's not real blasphemy.

This is a lighthearted example.

Let's look at another one.

Um basketball.

Let's use this.

If someone says, I have a problem, forgive me.

If someone says um LeBron James is better than Michael Jordan, that is blasphemy.

That is blasphemy.

And if you believe that, you deserve to be excommunicated from the I'm just joking.

Like there, no.

That's actually a debate in my home sometimes because the younger generation that didn't grow up watching Michael don't know what they're talking about.

So um, I'm teasing.

If you think, if you think LeBron's, there's a case, there's a case we made, but I would still consider it, you know, borderline blasphemy.

We actually discovered uh a blasphemer here in our office not that long ago at the church.

We were all talking about some TV shows that we've kind of grown up watching, and one person on staff, I will not tell you who it was.

I want to protect this person from the outrage and the mob that would likely come at them if you knew who this was.

They said this statement the office is not funny.

I'm not gonna tell you who it is, because I love them, but that is blasphemy, and I pray that God has mercy on their soul.

Right?

No, like when we use the term blasphemy in sort of modern day context, we're almost always saying that someone has said something that goes so against popular opinion that it's hard to even understand why they would say such a thing.

Right?

It means someone is is saying something that seems ridiculous.

Now, blasphemy in scripture, it's a little more serious.

Okay, in the Hebrew language, the word that is translated blaspheme, it means contempt.

It means to despise or to abhor, it means to hate.

The Greek word for blasphemy means to slander, to lie.

But it comes from a place of deep contempt and hatred.

That is blasphemy.

Jesus himself, by the way, was accused of blasphemy.

We actually read an example of that just a few weeks ago in Matthew chapter 9.

Matthew 9 · chapter mention

Some people brought to him a paralyzed man on a mat, seeing their faith.

Jesus said to the paralyzed man, Be encouraged, my child, your sins are forgiven.

But some of the teachers of religious law said to themselves, That's blasphemy.

Does he think he's God?

And turns out he does.

Because he is.

But they accuse him of blasphemy.

It's not the only time he's accused of that because they're saying, you're saying something, only God has the authority to say that's blasphemy.

Now, we see blasphemy all around us in our world.

People mock God, people make fun of God, people can actually outwardly resist God.

The Apostle Paul, for example, says this in 1 Timothy.

If you don't know the story of Paul, he's one of the primary leaders of the early church.

He writes a ton of scripture.

A lot of what we read, a lot of what helps us understand Jesus better comes from Paul, but early in his life, Paul fought hard against the church.

He was mentored, likely by many of the Pharisees that opposed Jesus directly.

And so in 1 Timothy chapter 1, Paul says, I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, who has given me strength to do his work.

1 Timothy 1 · chapter mention

He considered me trustworthy and appointed me to serve him, even though I used to blaspheme the name of Christ.

In my insolence, I persecuted his people.

But God had mercy on me because I did it in ignorance and unbelief.

Oh, how generous and gracious our Lord was.

He filled me with the faith and love that come from Jesus Christ.

So Paul actually admits here, I was a blasphemer.

I blasphemed Jesus.

Against Jesus.

I blasphemed him.

But he was forgiven.

Why?

Well, A, because it was out of ignorance.

He says, I was ignorant, I didn't know better.

And B because he blasphemed against Jesus, and Jesus himself said, you can blaspheme against me, and that's forgivable, but it's blasphemy against the Holy Spirit.

That is that is unforgivable.

And so we we have to try to wrap our minds around this.

And what I want us to understand first and foremost is we've got to understand sort of the Jewish concept of the Holy Spirit.

Because it was different than the way we would see the Holy Spirit if you've been raised in church and you studied Scripture.

So, uh, for example, uh, for us, Romans chapter 8 would inform us that the Holy Spirit is very personal.

Romans 8 · chapter mention

Romans 8, 10 says, Christ lives within you.

So even though your body will die because of sin, the Spirit gives you life because you've been made right with God.

The Spirit of God who raised Jesus from the dead lives in you.

If you give your life to Jesus, if you put your faith in him, you surrender your life to Jesus, meaning you confess and say, Lord, I need you, I recognize who you are, and I invite you into my life.

I want you to be the core of my being.

I want to live my life following you.

You have the Holy Spirit.

That's a that means a lot of different things to a lot of different people, but that's clear in Scripture.

The Holy Spirit is something you might be aware of.

You may have felt the presence of God in an unmistakable way.

You have felt what it's like for God to lead you and reveal things to you that you could never have figured out yourself.

And maybe you've never experienced that, but it's okay.

Because you feeling the Holy Spirit is not the same thing as you having the Holy Spirit.

We confuse those things very often.

And when we do that, sometimes we try to manufacture feeling the Spirit because maybe we feel like if we don't feel it, it's not there.

I do not feel my spleen right now.

I hope it's there.

I'm sure that it is.

We have to have trust and confidence that the Spirit is within us.

And if you're new to following Jesus and you want someone to help mentor you and disciple you and teach you what that means, man, reach out to us, go to the connect desk, and we will have someone sit down with you and help you with that because it is kind of a mysterious thing.

A lot of God's stuff is mysterious.

That's okay.

He's God.

It kind of should be mysterious.

But we see the Holy Spirit as this personal presence of God that lives within us for those of us who follow Jesus.

That is not the way the Jewish people understood the Holy Spirit.

So when Jesus is talking to them and he says, Those of you who blaspheme against the Holy Spirit, what did they have in mind?

We can go back to a scripture like Judges chapter 14.

Judges 14 · chapter mention

In the book of Judges, we read about a man named Samson.

And if you grew up in church and you've heard the stories of Samson, like it's he's great for kids' Bible stories, right?

Samson's super strong, right?

What is the source of his strength?

His hair.

Sort of.

His hair really wasn't the source of his strength.

The reason Samson had long hair was because he took a vow.

Like his family basically took a vow over him as a child, and part of his vow and how he was supposed to follow God was to never cut his hair.

That was a physical symbol of his commitment to God.

Every time Samson does something that's amazing and powerful, it's because the Spirit of God comes upon him.

So, for example, we see in Judges chapter 14, as Samson and his parents were going down to Timna, a young lion suddenly attacked Samson near the vineyards of Timnah.

Judges 14 · chapter mention

At that moment, the Spirit of the Lord came powerfully upon him, and he ripped the lion's jaws apart with his bare hands.

I loved that story when I was a kid.

And man, if having long hair meant you could do that, I would have never cut my hair.

Like just been like.

His hair, it was the Spirit of God.

So, in the Jewish concept of this is that the Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit, is when God shows up in such a powerful and undeniable way that no one in their right mind could say that's not God.

It's like if you were standing at the sea when Moses parted the sea, and the sea parts, and people start walking through it, and you're like, I don't think that was God.

It'd be like, explain, right?

So I want to unpack all this, and I want us to really look at this in the context.

This is a really serious thing, but I think we're we're meant to understand this.

So here's the situation, right?

Knowing what we we know now, like thinking about how they saw the Holy Spirit, what blasphemy really is, it's contempt, it's hate, it's slander.

Jesus is essentially saying, look, if you get me wrong, if you're mistaken about me, there's forgiveness for that.

Many people have Jesus wrong.

In fact, many people throughout history have had Jesus wrong, have actively worked against Jesus, and then they've had an encounter with Jesus and change.

In fact, I'm gonna show you a picture of a really interesting person.

You can look her up later.

Her name is Hirsi Ali.

Hirsi Ali, uh, she is, look her up, really cool person.

She grew up as uh as a Muslim, okay, and then left Islam, became a very devoted atheist, very intellectual, very well studied, has written a lot of things and became very close with a kind of famous atheist group called the New Atheist, led by a man named Richard Dawkins.

And if you've ever studied him, interesting guy, and basically spent time touring the world and proclaiming atheism, like trying to convince people to stop believing in God.

And last year she became a Christian.

Last year she gave her life to Jesus and um and has had many interviews since and actually sat down with Richard Dawkins, who's still, you know, doing that, and explained why.

All right, this is a person who used to speak out against Jesus, essentially, against God, and say, Hey, not real.

Don't believe it, leave it.

And now she's given her life to Jesus.

Jesus is saying to the Pharisees, that's who he's talking to, remember that.

Hey, you can get me wrong, you can be mistaken about me, you can misunderstand me, and there is grace for that.

In fact, Jesus on the cross prayed, Father, forgive them.

They don't know what they're doing.

It's like Paul, it's out of ignorance.

But then he says, But if you blaspheme against the Holy Spirit, if you see an undeniable display of God's goodness and his power, and you decide, I oppose this, I hate this, I will fight this.

Jesus says, that is blasphemy against the Holy Spirit.

Now, we could ask ourselves the question: who in their right mind would do that?

Like, who in their right mind could see God do something undeniable and powerful, not out of ignorance, just get him wrong, like full well, knowing full well that God is real and what he's all about and who he is, and see God do things that only God could do and decide, I will fight this with every fiber of my being.

Who could do that?

Well, the answer is Satan.

That's exactly what Satan did.

When Satan rebelled against God, he did not do it out of ignorance.

No one had to deceive Satan.

No one came along and tempted Satan like Satan tempted Adam and Eve.

There was no deceiver.

Satan and the rest of the angels who followed Satan, what we would call demons, they knew God.

They saw God.

They knew what God was about, they knew what God can do, and yet a rebellion and a hardness within their hearts rose up so intense that knowing full well who God is and what God is about, they said, We will fight you.

And Jesus says, There's not forgiveness for that.

Because you've made a decision.

You'll never repent.

You would never do that.

And it could be that Jesus is saying to the Pharisees, that's what you're doing right now, or maybe it's a warning that they're really close to that line.

Because let's think about the Pharisees for just a second and we'll move on.

Are the Pharisees ignorant about God?

No.

They're the experts.

They're supposed to be.

They're the ones who tell everyone what God is like.

They're the ones who teach everyone about God.

They know the scriptures backwards and forwards.

In fact, if you were really truly a Pharisee of Pharisees in Jesus' day, you would have had the entirety of the Old Testament memorized.

You could quote it from memory, seriously.

So they can't claim ignorance.

But even more than that, let's look at an interesting exchange.

John chapter 3, Jesus has a meeting with a Pharisee, a very high-ranking Pharisee named Nicodemus.

John 3 · chapter mention

It says, There was a man named Nicodemus, a Jewish religious leader who is a Pharisee.

After dark one evening, he came to speak with Jesus.

Rabbi, he said, we all know that God has sent you to teach us your miraculous signs are evidence that God is with you.

He says, We know.

It's undeniable.

You are totally from God.

We all know.

Who's he speaking about there?

The Pharisees.

That's the we.

We all know.

We've talked about it, we've discussed it.

There's no denying that you're from God.

No one could do what you're doing unless God were with them.

That's who the Pharisees were, and many of these Pharisees who have already admitted through Nicodemus, we know he's from God.

You couldn't do the things he's doing unless God were with you.

There's no way.

But they stand in this synagogue and they see Jesus heal a broken man and they hate it.

And they say, we have to kill him.

We have to stop this.

This cannot continue.

Think about that.

Later on, Jesus heals a demon-possessed man, and they say it's Satan.

They are ascribing evil to the most pure demonstration of goodness that's ever been seen.

That's blasphemy against the Holy Spirit.

Or in the Pharisees' case, they're either there or they're.

Jesus is warning them, you guys are be careful.

A little definition that we might look at, and this is sort of cobbled together from just a lot of study and reading, that this kind of blasphemy is deliberate, defiant sin that comes from a heart which decidedly hates God and opposes God's undeniable goodness and power.

Deliberate, I'm gonna read it again, defiant sin that comes from a heart which decidedly hates God and opposes God's undeniable goodness and power.

Now, a little bit earlier, some of you said, I'm worried that I hope I don't do that.

Show of hands.

How many of you deliberately, decidedly hate God?

And at any type of display of his goodness and power, you would say to yourself, I will fight against that with every fiber of my being.

I hate him.

Alright, you're good.

No, seriously, be relieved.

And this shows us something, we're about to move on and get really close to wrapping up, but this shows us something so important about the heart of God.

We get God wrong all the time.

And there's grace for that because he's God.

We don't understand it.

We get God wrong all the time.

We we think about something like hell, for example.

Jesus taught about hell.

And we think, oh man, what about those people who just they just don't know any better?

They never understand, they're never really told who Jesus is, or maybe they grow up in a country like America and they're they're told about Jesus a lot, but it's by people who don't really reflect Jesus at all, and the Jesus they're given is not the real Jesus.

What about those people?

And it's like we have this worry and fear that people are gonna sort of oops their way into hell.

But Jesus says this in Matthew chapter 25.

Matthew 25 · chapter mention

He says, the king will turn to those on the left and say, Away with you, you cursed ones, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his demons.

That's who hell was for.

It's not people who like heaven is not a reward for being a good enough person, and hell is not punishment for not being a good enough person.

Satan and the demons would never want to be in heaven.

They hate God.

And heaven is the eternal presence of God and relationship with God and worship of God.

They left that.

And we see from what Jesus teaches here and some other places in Scripture that you know, as hard as it is to imagine that there are people who can do the same thing.

Who can say, I see you, I know who you are, I recognize your power, the good things you do, but I hate you and I want nothing to do with you.

And that is hell.

It's not God just going, well, hey, not good enough.

I grade on the curve, and unfortunately, you know, Mother Teresa raised the bar, and now the rest of you have to pay.

That's not how this works.

Okay?

And so if you have a fear, if you have this worry inside of yourself, I had a wonderful conversation about a month ago with a with a lady I've known for years.

She's having some health problems, and she said, I just hope I'm good enough for heaven.

I'm like, oh, that's not what this is about.

Heaven is heaven is for everyone who just simply recognizes who God is and says, I need you and I love you.

And we see so many stories of people who do that at a young age, and we've got some people getting baptized this morning that have just recently done that.

We're gonna celebrate that in a minute.

And we see with people like the thief on the cross at the very last moment of life, someone will just be like, Yes, I recognize.

There's so much grace.

But hell and judgment, it's for that.

Jesus says, that is what blasphemy of the Holy Spirit is.

You deliberately, decidedly hate and oppose God, and nothing God would, nothing that God could ever do will change your heart.

There's no forgiveness for that because you don't desire to be forgiven.

You don't have any repentance inside of you in that way.

So we're gonna move on and wrap up.

That's the the unforgivable sin.

Does that bring some clarity to that?

Does that help?

Anyone more confused than when we started and I've done a poor job?

And if so, that's very possible.

I'm serious.

Thankfully, that is not an unforgivable sin.

And so I have more weeks to come, okay?

So I want to wrap up with one final thing.

And it's this inescapable truth.

And this will not take nearly as long as that.

It's not as hard to deal with.

How did the Pharisees get to this point?

I want us to explore that for just a moment.

How did the Pharisees ever get?

How could you be someone who grows up steeped in Scripture?

I mean, you know the stories, and yet you come to this place where you are so completely against God.

How did they ever get there?

I read this last week as I was studying, someone wrote that the root of blasphemy is the absence of love of God.

The root of blasphemy is the absence of love for God.

So Jesus said this in Matthew chapter 12, and I think he's, I think in this moment, and I'm saying I think because that's the best I can do, it's very mysterious, but I think he's describing the status of the Pharisee's heart when he says this.

Matthew 12 · chapter mention

When an evil spirit leaves a person, it goes into the desert, seeking rest but finding none.

Then it says, I will return to the person I came from.

So it returns and finds its former home, empty, swept, and in order, and then the spirit finds seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they all enter the person and live there, and so that person is worse off than before.

That will be the experience of this evil generation.

The Pharisees were men who were completely devoted to following the law, to ridding themselves from every tiny little iota of wrongdoing.

They were rule followers.

And so they didn't do anything on the Sabbath, and they made sure they never ate anything that was forbidden in the law.

Now we find from their lives that they would do all kinds of little cheats, they'd find loopholes to be able to sort of circumvent that stuff, but their lives, at least in their minds, their hearts were empty of sin.

Clean, swept, and in order.

And the irony is that these men, so devoted to cleansing themselves from every type of possible sin, had hearts that were completely consumed by hatred of God.

And it's like Jesus saying, hey, here's this home, and it's swept, and it's clean, it's tidy, there's no mess at all, and that's the home that evil takes residence in.

And Jesus is reminding us here that being empty is not an option.

That's the inescapable truth.

Emptiness does not get the job done.

Religion isn't enough.

It's not enough just to say, hey, I'm gonna rid myself of the bad things.

I'm not gonna do this, I'm not gonna do that, I'm not gonna watch this or watch that, I'm not gonna say this or say that.

The Pharisees could have all claimed that.

No one was more empty than the Pharisees.

But our lives are meant to be filled.

We're meant to be full.

Look at something like Ephesians chapter 5, verses 18 and 19.

Ephesians 5:18

It says, Don't be drunk with wine, because that'll ruin your life.

I'm surprised there was not one amen for that.

Um like, speaking from experience.

Instead, instead, listen to what God says.

He doesn't say be empty.

The Holy Spirit through through Paul here doesn't say, hey, God wants you to be empty, so don't drink wine.

That's the Pharisee, that's the way the Pharisees did it.

Don't have this in your life.

Empty yourself from it.

And then what?

Jesus says, being empty isn't enough.

Hey, Satan sees a nice empty home.

He's like, ooh, there's lots of room in here.

It says, instead be filled with the Holy Spirit, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs among yourselves and making music to the Lord in your hearts.

God wants us to be filled.

And a life that is filled with love for God would never even come close to blasphemy.

And even if you like, oh my gosh, I God, I'm sorry, that's a heart that God desires.

Not a perfect person who does everything right.

That's not what God is looking for, but someone who desires to be filled with God.

And out of that filling, you just love the Lord and you sing to him and you think about him.

You know, he's on your mind, you pray, you want to spend time with God.

Our focus as believers cannot be what the Pharisees' focus was: to simply rid ourselves of the bad stuff.

That's not enough.

That doesn't even guard our hearts from the influence of our enemy as we see with them.

Their hearts were empty, swept, clean and tidy, and Satan himself is so clearly at work within them.

But God desires us to be filled.

And so the the practical takeaway today isn't don't blaspheme the Holy Spirit.

You're not going to.

Like you don't hate the you don't hate God.

You're good.

That could be, don't hate God.

Okay?

Yay.

The practical takeaway though is be filled.

What what fills you?

What fills you with with wonder about who God is?

You know, for some people, it's just being out in nature and like seeing the sky and going, wow, look what God has made.

Anyone like that?

You're like an outdoorsy person?

I like to be indoors and look at videos of amazing places in the world and be like, wow, look what God has made.

I am, I can give God glory on an H an HD TV can display the wonder of God in ways you can't even imagine.

It's spending time in scripture, in his word.

Even if you don't understand it, if you're someone who's like, I open up the Bible, I don't understand it, well, pray.

Ask God to give you eyes to understand and a mind to understand.

He'll do that.

You're meant to understand the truths of God.

And the Holy Spirit will work within you as you do that.

Read his scripture, read his word, like sing to him.

Sing in the shower.

Like, whatever.

If you're if you're some of us aren't singer people, we're not like how many of you are like really into worship?

You are here before the first song starts.

Okay?

How many of you come in like, you know, a few songs in and you're fine with that?

Anyone?

You won't admit it, but you I know we see you walk in late every Sunday.

Don't act like that.

It's okay.

It's okay.

There's a variety of ways to be filled with the wonder of God.

One of my favorite ways, I'll tell you mine, and this is something I think the church is really special for.

And so if I could plug anything, get involved.

Be part of the men's Bible studies, the women's Bible studies, the student Bible studies that we have.

If you're a couple, be part of generations, because what fills me with wonder about God is being around other people filled with wonder about God.

When I spend time with other believers, other men who have followed God, like it just, it it I see things about God I'd never seen before.

They say things that make me go, wow, I've never thought about it that way.

And I walk away and I'm like, God is awesome.

God wants us to be filled.

And so my encouragement to you as we wrap up is to do everything you can on a weekly basis to be filled with God.

It's not about spending your life going, I've got to starve myself from sin.

Sin is bad, it messes up.

It's like what Ephesians said.

Don't be filled with, don't get drunk on wine, because it'll ruin your life.

God doesn't want you to ruin your life, right?

But his real heart is that you would be filled.

So this week, don't let your focus be to starve yourself from the bad stuff.

The Pharisees were obsessed with that, it didn't work.

Let your focus be, God, fill me with the good stuff.

Like I crave it.

I want more of you.

I want to experience your presence.

I want to understand your word better.

So I'm gonna read it more.

I'm gonna spend time with other believers so that like iron sharpens iron and I grow through that.

I just want to do everything I can to be filled because that is what God desires for us.

If the Pharisees had hearts that desired to be filled, they would have never opposed Jesus.

They would have never opposed Jesus.

So there we have it.

We have an unforgivable sin.

Anyone still worried about that one, by the way?

You shouldn't be.

Good.

And we have an inescapable truth that we have to be filled.

We're gonna wrap up and take Lord's Supper together.

And then we've got some baptisms happening, so stick around for that.

That's a really big deal.

Um, if you missed this when you came in, by the way, we have tables in the back with little cups with bread and juice.

And if you did miss it, if you're new, no big deal at all.

Um, feel free to stand up, go grab one.

Our ushers will help bring them to you.

And so you're not interrupting us at all.

But what a what an awesome morning to take this.

We do it every morning.

But in context of what we're talking about, being filled, like Jesus knows us so well.

And he asks that when we get together, we do this.

And every time that we do this, it's it's a filling experience.

We are literally taking in something into our body.

We are filling ourselves.

And so I just can't, I'm sometimes blown away by how much this connects to everything that we talk about.

And so if you're new to this, the bread represents Jesus' body, which was given as a sacrifice on the cross.

The juice represents his blood.

And this is something we do every single week just to honor what he's done for us.

And in the context of today, desiring to have a heart that is not empty, but that is full, so that we always love God and pursue God, I can't think of anything better for us to do.

So if you don't mind, let's take the bread and let's pray together.

Father God, we thank you so much for who you are.

And Jesus, we thank you for having hard conversations, for being willing to go there and to say the difficult things.

Lord, we wrestle with those things.

We don't always fully understand, but we want to.

And our heart, Father, is it's the opposite of blasphemy.

We do not hate you, we do not have contempt in our hearts for you, and we will not oppose what you're doing in this world.

You have an undeniable power and goodness, Lord.

Your love for people was made, it's made manifest in so many ways, Lord, but specifically through Jesus, your love is on full display.

And we want to be filled with you, Jesus.

So as we take in this piece of bread, as we reflect on the fact that you died on the cross to forgive us for our sins, Lord, we're asking that just as this bread fills our bodies in some way, that your spirit would fill us and that we would be more aware of the fact that your spirit fills us, Lord.

Let's take the bread.

We're gonna pray for the juice.

Father, this juice represents your blood, the blood of your son, Jesus.

We thank you.

Jesus, we thank you for loving us so much that you were willing to bleed for us and die for us.

You poured it all out.

You held nothing back, you never hold back.

Lord, remind us of that because if we ever feel empty, it's not because you're you're holding back from us.

When we're empty, it's because something within us is struggling to receive.

Thank you for having mercy and grace for that, Lord.

We struggle to receive a lot.

But right now, Lord, we just want to say we're open to you.

Jesus, we we love you.

Holy Spirit, we want to see you move and work in our hearts to change us and make us the people that we're meant to be.

And just as this juice fills us, Lord, we're asking that you would give each of us a desire to be filled, filled to the brim with wonder and awe and worship and adoration for you.

We love you, Lord.

Let's take the juice.