Have you understood all these things? They said to Him, “Yes.” [Matt. 13:51]
As a Christian you will face questions to which you don’t know the answer … don’t be afraid to say… ‘I don’t know’ …something I’ve shared with you before, one of the most important things I’ve learned in my years of going to seminary is… ‘Sometimes it’s ok to say…I don’t know.’
Being a Christian doesn’t mean pretending to understand or have an answer for every question concerning the Bible.
Here’s the error people have concerning Christians…we’re supposed to have everything figured out…why wouldn’t we?…we have an all-powerful…all-knowing God on our side…a book that supposedly has all the answers in it… and a place we can go to every Sunday with other Christians who have it all figured out as well…Right?
Problem is…most Christians can’t even define what the gospel is…they can’t even explain the essential message of their faith…or even know where to begin.
Goes back to something I said a few weeks ago…do you know your Bible well enough to explain to someone what the Kingdom of God is like? It’s there.
Is it any wonder that we live in a post-Christian America where the church is just a social gathering…where the Bible is not preached or taught…where the Church is no longer relevant to the culture at large?
As a result…most Christians don’t even know what the Bible says…or where to find the most basic of Christian doctrines.
Tragically…whatever influence Christianity used to have has been eroded away …what we need to realize is that public perception has shifted.
A recent Barna survey reports only 18% of Millennials…the generation of people born between 1981 to 1996…find Christianity relevant to their lives…does that give you an indication of the direction the church is heading?
The term “Moralistic Therapeutic Deism” is a term coined in 2005 by Sociologists (Christian Smith and Melinda Lundquist Denton) who after interviewing some 3000 teenagers found a common thread with respect to their spiritual beliefs.
It’s not a new religion or theology but reveals how grossly inadequate young people today are in the view of religion and Christianity…that:
- God wants people to be good, nice, and fair to each other, as taught in the Bible and by most world religions.
- The central goal of life is to be happy and to feel good about oneself.
- God does not need to be particularly involved in one’s life except when God is needed.
- Good people go to heaven when they die.
See the simplicity in that?…that summarizes how many of today’s youth view religion and Christianity…no wonder when you look at what’s happening to Christians today…non-Christians see nothing but the same miserable set of problems they struggle with.
Christians whose homes are battered with strife and bickering…quarreling and fighting…divorces…sexual immorality in the lives of Christians…they see all the evils…struggles…heartaches…and loneliness in the lives of Christians that are occurring in their lives as well.
Then they say…‘And your message for me is what? And why should I be interested?…you’re doing no better than we are.’
That is why the Gospel stresses the fact that Christianity consists of far more than merely believing a set of doctrines or rules…or thinking that becoming a Christian is just a way to get to heaven.
Many Christians don’t seem to understand that when you become a Christian you are introduced into a continually transforming process which ought to exhibited itself in a number of ways.
…FIRST…an increasingly wholeness of life…so what’s that mean?… wholeness is the quality of being complete… it involves all of what makes us human …our mind…body…soul…emotions…and our relationships…as Christians we should have an increasingly wholeness of life in all those areas.
When non-Christians look at our lives they ought to see the effects of a change in all those areas of our lives…NOW…nobody ever arrives at the end of their life perfect in all those areas…but there ought to be evidence that a visible and continual progress is being made.
It is those changes in our lives that give non-Christians the evidence to believe that the message we preach is a genuine message of reality and truth.
…SECONDLY as part of the continually transforming process Christians are to be spiritually transformed…we will think and act differently…removing the bad habits…worldly values…and selfish desires that lead us into temptation.
Be willing to simply say ‘no’ to those distractions and desires that so easily entangle us and draw us away from what is truly important in life: Jesus.
…THIRDLY as Christians we ought to have a fundamental idea of what the Kingdom of God is like both on earth and in heaven.
That was the essence of Jesus’ question to the disciples…He had just finished giving them eight parables that did just that…explaining what the Kingdom of God is like both on earth and in heaven.
WHY parables…why didn’t Jesus just come out and plainly tell us what the Kingdom of God is like…why the use of parables?…Jesus’s answer is a little confusing…(Matt. 13:11).
Because it has been given to you (2nd P/P) to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given.
So why would Jesus purposefully withhold truth from unbelievers? That seems kind of selfish.
It was not because He was hiding the truth from them…it was because they did not want to hear the truth…their unwillingness to receive Jesus’ messages was the reason He taught in parables.
Parables were given to reveal truth to those with spiritual insight and hide the truth from those without spiritual insight…again…why would He hide the truth… because they didn’t want to hear the truth.
The reason why Jesus taught in parables was not to explain spiritual truths to the crowds, but to keep spiritual truths from the crowds.
There are those who have neither interest in nor any regard for the deep things of God…don’t need to go to Church…don’t need to go to Bible study…they’re just like the disciples… ‘I understand it all’ so Jesus made a clear distinction between those who had been given ‘ears to hear’ and those who persisted in unbelief.
So when Matthew compiled his gospel he recorded the parables that reveal the mysteries of the Kingdom of God…how God is working in the world today… how Satan works in the world…and against the Church…why he is allowed to go on in his opposition to Christians…very briefly want to share those with you.
- The Sower and the Soils (13:1-9)
People need to have an open heart to hear the Word…some will accept… some will reject…freewill…John Calvin is wrong…people’s hearts must be prepared and ready. - The Tares (13:24-30)
The Kingdom on earth will consist of those who have genuine faith and those who have counterfeit faith…it will remain that way until a future harvest when the two will be eternally separated. [13:24-30] - The Mustard Seed (13:31-32)
Jesus is simply saying that the Kingdom on earth will start out small… with just Him and a few disciples…but would grow to great proportions in a very short time. - The Leaven (13:33)
Like the Parable of the Mustard Seed the kingdom is like leaven in a lump of dough…it starts out small and eventually spreads to the whole world. - The Hidden Treasure (13:44)
Kingdom of God is so valuable that we should give up everything to be a part of it. - The Costly Pearl (13:45-46)
Like the Parable of the Hidden Treasure we should do everything possible to possess it…even selling all we have to purchase it. - The Dragnet (13:47-50)
Much like the tares parable…we should bring as many as we can into the Kingdom of God…not knowing who is real or who is counterfeit…letting God sort them out…a warning to the wicked that judgement is coming.
After revealing to them the secrets of the kingdom of heaven…Jesus then asks the disciples… Have you understood all these things? [13:51] …all the things in the parables He had been teaching. They said to Him, ‘Yes’.
We are almost startled and amazed at the disciples’ immediate answer.
Naively and ingenuously they simply reply… ‘oh yea, not a problem seems pretty clear’ …without any questions…without needing any further explanation …without a single reservation on their part they say…‘Yes, we understand.’
The disciples said they understood…but how many times have you said the same thing when in reality you had no clue.
Jesus then goes on to show them something very remarkable about themselves and what it says about us as Christians… some say it’s actually the 8th parable:
- The Household (13:52)
Then He said to them, “Therefore every scribe who has become
a disciple of the kingdom of heaven is like a head of a household who brings out of his treasure things new and old.”
OK…if this is referring to me…then what does it mean…couple of things are confusing right up front…FIRST…the word ‘scribe’ may cause a problem since we normally think of a scribe in the Bible as someone who was opposed to Jesus’ teaching.
But the wording here is describing a scribe as someone who has become a disciple…that’s why in the Greek the wording is ‘every scribe having been discipled’ referring to someone who has been taught…and is continuing to learn…meaning not only is he a teacher…but he is also a student.
As a preacher you must continue learning so you can continue teaching…the reason at 73 I continue to go to school.
SECONDLY…we normally think of a ‘scribe’ as someone who writes something down for another person…that’s what a scribe does…mentioned it before, Mark was a scribe for both Peter and Paul writing down the events of Jesus’ life.
That was part of the discipling process…being trained…and being taught the secrets of the kingdom of heaven…that’s everybody in this room.
Here’s the importance of being ‘discipled’ …I observe people getting into all types of arguments…people getting into shouting matches…using the Bible to validate their arguments when most of the time they’re using verses out of context or have a gross misunderstanding of what the verse means because they do not understand how God is working in the world today.
That is one of the benefits of understanding the eight parables I just mentioned …so you can speak about how God works in the lives of people…what His long-range plans are for us…His intentions when it comes to judgement.
Let me just share with you what happens when you don’t understand these things…why Paul told Timothy to ‘accurately handle the Word of God…[2 Tim. 2:15] …the intent is…if you are a disciple then you have an obligation to handle the Word of God accurately and correctly.
Here’s what happens when we don’t accurately handle the Word of God:
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints believes the kingdom on earth is the LDS Church and exists wherever there are members of the Church…they actually help establish the kingdom as they seek to become pure in heart (D&C 97:21), obey God’s commandments, and serve with dedication.
There is nothing remotely accurate about that statement…see the importance of knowing and understanding the Word of God?
The truth is that the kingdom of God is on the earth and reigns in the hearts of all believers in the form of the Holy Spirit living inside every believer…it has nothing to do with a particular denomination or cult.
That’s why Jesus starts off by saying ‘therefore’ …implying that because you say you understand you are to be the authoritative interpreters of the Word.
That goes along with the meaning of the phrase…like a head of a household …strange wording but it’s implying as preachers…teachers…as Christians we have a responsibility to be an authoritative interpreter of Scripture.
As disciples of Jesus… which I hope is all of us…we are to be authorities when it comes to knowing the Bible…especially in how God works in the affairs of men…that’s the purpose of the eight parables in Matthew.
Being a learned disciple can only be accomplished by being a student of the Bible…by being in Sunday school and in church learning the secrets of how God is working in history…and in the personal events in our own lives.
Jesus then says in the ‘things old and new’ making reference to the Old Testament.
Far too many people believe the Old Testament has been done away with… BUT as a citizen of the kingdom we are to teach both the new and the old by …carefully balancing the teaching of the Old Testament expectation of a literal earthly Kingdom…with the New Kingdom that is in existence now…the one you are all living in.
As Christians if we are going to turn the tide against inadequate and false teachings …keeping the truths of the Bible relevant…we have an obligation to understand all these things and be faithful to share them with accuracy.