Rejecting the Friend of Sinners

Call to Worship: 1 John 1:5 // Prayer

Adoration: Father, we praise you, for you are light, and in you there is no darkness at all. We praise you because your faithfulness is completely unchanging, your justice is pure, your righteousness is unsearchable. No early friend, no family, no government—nothing we possess—is like you. We look to you, because it is only in your light that we see light, and only out of the endless abundance of your life that life and salvation can be mercifully supplied to us. We look to you, and we rest ourselves in you.

Confession: Yet in spite of your mercy and righteousness, we, your people, have been unfaithful. We have been unrighteous. We have broken your law. We have failed to practice love and mercy to others. We have failed to share your gospel boldly. We have sinned in thought, word, and deed. Father, forgive us, for we have sinned against you.

Thanksgiving: Yet we know that we have been justified by the blood of your Son, and so we know that we shall be saved from your wrath on that last day, since you have already reconciled us to yourself by your Son’s death. All our sins are forgiven in him—may your name be praised!

Supp: And since we are reconciled to you, we ask that you would conform us to the image of your Son: we ask for holiness and wisdom in our homes—that in all our activities, our marriages and families would acknowledge you, live for you, rest in you, glorify you; and that we would have wisdom for every difficulty or challenge, every sin struggle, and every opportunity to love one another // And we ask for Bethany Bible Church, that you would strengthen their families also—that husbands and wives would grow in holiness and in love for one another, and would be empowered to raise their children in the Lord // and we ask for our brothers and sisters in Mexico—that their hearts would be strengthened in the grace of your gospel, and that they would be emboldened to preach your gospel in their cities and communities, that many would hear and believe, for the glory of your name // and we ask for your mercy on all who are suffering in the wars in Ukraine and Israel—we ask that you might bring a mercifully quick end to these wars, and that you might give courage to your people in these regions to love their neighbors and share the gospel, as lights in a dark place // and now, as we turn to your word, please give us soft hearts to receive your word—to be corrected, encouraged, admonished, comforted, and led deeper into your presence…

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Benediction

May our Messiah be blessed by the LORD, because his kindness has not forsaken the living or the dead! May he be eternally blessed, who became our bridegroom and our redeemer!

(adapted from Ruth 2:20)

Sermon

Intro

Wisdom is justified by her deeds.

There is a legend about Genghis Khan and a loyal hunting hawk he owned, who was like a close friend to him.

As the story goes, Khan was hunting with his hawk, and became extremely thirsty. He found a tiny trickle of a stream, and took out his cup to get a drink. But when he stood up with the full cup, his hawk dove and knocked it out of his hand. He was angry. But he knelt again, filled the cup, and brought it toward his lips. Again, the hawk knocked it out of his hand a second time. He was enraged.

He filled his cup a third time, but had his sword at the ready. When his hawk dove again, he slashed, and the bird was dead.

But in the process, he dropped his cup and it bounced and rolled so that he had to walk several paces up that trickle of a stream to get it—up to the spring that fed the stream. There, at the head of the stream, he saw that there was an extremely dangerous viper floating dead in the water, leeching its deadly venom into the flow.

At once he realized that his hawk had saved his life.

Knocking the cup out of the hand of a king is a shocking thing to do. Unexpected, and dangerous. But wisdom is justified by her deeds. The king was heartbroken. But his life had been saved.

The wisdom of God’s kingdom is something like that. It’s counterintuitive and unexpected. It causes doubts in some and rejection from others. Yet in the end, it’s a wisdom that is justified by her deeds.

And as we look into our text this morning, we’ll see that this unexpected wisdom caused doubts for none other than John the Baptist himself, as he sat in prison. He saw the deeds of mercy. But where was the triumph?

And then we’ll see that this wisdom caused both John and Jesus to be largely rejected by their own generation. Neither the somber heart-preparation of John nor the joyful mercy of Jesus made sense to them.

But in these things, we’ll also see our own opportunity to embrace the King’s wisdom with humility and joy.

And that, ultimately, is why Matthew recorded this for us. His point is this: Don’t doubt or reject the merciful King, but embrace him with repentance and joy.

Doubting the Merciful King (John Struggles w/ Doubt About Jesus’ Identity)

Well, as our text begins, Jesus has just finished teaching the twelve disciples about spreading the gospel, and he’s now resumed his ministry of preaching in the various cities up there in the region of Galilee. And some disciples of John the Baptist arrive with a question.

And verse 2 tells us where this question is coming from. It says:

Matthew 11:2–3 ESV

Now when John heard in prison about the deeds of the Christ, he sent word by his disciples and said to him, “Are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for another?”

Now remember, this is John the Baptist—the very person who, back in chapter three, was confident about who Jesus was. He had preached mightily about Jesus, and when Jesus actually showed up, he almost refused to baptize Jesus because he found himself unworthy to do it.

So what’s happened to John’s faith? Well, verse 2 tells us two things: first, he’s sitting in prison. He’s oppressed and suffering unjustly. Second, he’s heard about the deeds the Messiah. He’s heard about the miracles, the preaching, the banquet Jesus shared with tax collectors and sinners.

So you can imagine what’s going on in John’s mind as he sits in his prison cell: ‘If Jesus is really the Messiah, where’s his triumph? Where’s the defeat of evil? Where’s the point where he breaks open the prison and frees all the captives unjustly imprisoned by the wicked king Herod?

And so John sent some of his disciples as messengers to ask, “Are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for another?” In other words, “Are you really the messiah?” “Are you really God’s king?”

Now on the one hand, it’s not a good thing that John is doubting. It shows that he’s missing part of the wisdom of the kingdom. But on the other hand, isn’t he doing exactly the right thing? He’s taking his doubts, and bringing them straight to Jesus himself.

How does Jesus respond? Look at verse 4 and 5:

Matthew 11:4–5 ESV

And Jesus answered them, “Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight and the lame walk, lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor have good news preached to them.

What’s interesting about Jesus’ answer is that John, apparently, had already heard about all these things. In fact, these are the things that made John question Jesus in the first place. So what’s Jesus saying? Essentially, he’s saying, “Yes, I am the Messiah, and the wisdom of my kingdom is going to be different than what you thought. Blessed is the one who is not offended by how different I am than what you expected.”

And what’s the difference? We’ve already seen, several times in Matthew, that these healing miracles—literal, physical miracles—yet had a deeper symbolism: Jesus had come to give spiritual sight to the spiritually blind, hearing the spiritually deaf, life to the spiritually dead. Jesus’ ministry, at its core, was defined by mercy toward sinners, not by overturning political injustice.

And there’s another layer in these verses that shows us the same thing. Jesus was reminding John the Baptist of Old Testament promises that John would have known well. For example, talking about the arrival of the kingdom—hundreds of years before Jesus arrived—Isaiah the prophet wrote this:

Isaiah 35:5–6 “Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped; then shall the lame man leap like a deer, and the tongue of the mute sing for joy.”

And there are several more verses like that in Isaiah. And talking about the King himself, Isaiah wrote:

Isaiah 61:1 “The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the poor...”

So Jesus was saying to John, “Yes. I am the promised King. I am the Messiah promised in the Scriptures.” And he proved it by reminding John of the very promises he was fulfilling through his miracles and preaching.

Now, the OT also contains plenty of promises that political injustices will one day be overturned—even promises of prisoners being set free. And those promises will be fulfilled by Jesus when he returns. But his first coming, as we’re watching it unfold in the book of Matthew, was defined by mercy. His kingdom is a kingdom of mercy toward sinners.

And just as John the Baptist stumbled over this in his day, so also many stumble over it today.

Many believers want Scripture to make political action and political justice a primary mission of the church. It isn’t. That’s not to say that believers should disengage from politics—but political success in this age is neither our mission nor our hope. Instead, our mission is to spread the gospel of our king—the shocking and offensive truth of his mercy toward sinners. It’s a counterintuitive wisdom.

Others stumble over this because of the idea of mercy. Shouldn’t God’s king banish prostitutes and tax collectors? Why then is he sitting down and having a banquet with them?

But “Blessed,” says Jesus, “Is the one who is not offended by me.” It’s a call to surrender doubt and offense, and to embrace this merciful king with joy.

Rejecting the Sobriety of Preparation

But there’s a second thing we need to embrace. Along with the unexpected wisdom of the king’s mercy toward sinners like us, is the unexpected wisdom of preparing to receive that mercy with the humility of a repentant heart.

And so the very next thing Jesus does is turn around and honor John the Baptist to the crowds following him. And he does this in order to establish their need for a humble and repentant heart.

What do I mean? Well, let’s back up for a second and think about who John the Baptist was.

It wasn’t just Jesus that people struggled to believe. It was John the Baptist also. John was a true prophet of God, whose ministry existed to prepare people for Jesus. So John’s ministry and Jesus’ ministry were intertwined—and if you rejected one, you ended up rejecting the other as well. If you rejected the sober heart-preparation taught by John, you’d reject the joyful mercy of Jesus also. You would fail to receive King Jesus with repentance and joy.

Let’s look into this. In verses 7-9, Jesus challenges the crowds, because many of them had been out in the dessert to hear John the Baptist preach. And so he challenges them, “Why did you go out to hear him?” Verses 7-9:

Matthew 11:7–9 …Jesus began to speak to the crowds concerning John: “What did you go out into the wilderness to see? A reed shaken by the wind? What then did you go out to see? A man dressed in soft clothing? Behold, those who wear soft clothing are in kings’ houses. What then did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet.”

So Jesus establishes for them that John is a true prophet. But then he adds that John is something more. He’s a very specific prophet who was predicted by the OT as the one who would show up right before the Messiah and prepare folks to receive the Messiah.

You can see this in verse 10, where Jesus says about John:

Matthew 11:10 ESV

This is he of whom it is written, “ ‘Behold, I send my messenger before your face, who will prepare your way before you.’

That’s a quote from the prophet Malachi. So Malachi had predicted, several centuries earlier, that the kingdom of God would show up with two figures: first, a messenger to prepare the way—that’s John the Baptist—and second, the Lord himself—that’s Jesus. And so Jesus is telling the crowds: you’ve already seen and heard the messenger, who came to prepare the way.

And as we’ve already seen in Matthew’s gospel—back in chapter 3—John came preaching repentance with an emphasis on preparing your heart to receive the king, who was about to arrive.

And all this helps us to understand the critical link in verse 11:

Matthew 11:11 ESV

Truly, I say to you, among those born of women there has arisen no one greater than John the Baptist. Yet the one who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.

Do you see that? There’s this line all through the OT of prophets pointing to Jesus—teaching God’s people to hope in this Redeemer, who would one day come and save them. And the greatest of these OT prophets is John, who stood right there at the brink of the kingdom’s arrival, preparing hearts to receive God’s king.

So then, the kingdom itself—when it arrived—would be far greater than anything that came before. So great, in fact, that even the greatest prophet who came before it would be less than the least citizen of that heavenly kingdom.

But then comes the punch line, in verse 12:

Matthew 11:12 ESV

From the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven has suffered violence, and the violent take it by force.

***or you could say, ‘the violent snatch it away by force’

So, from the hay day of John’s ministry—preparing for the kingdom—to the days of Jesus’ ministry—actually bringing the kingdom—the kingdom had been violently opposed. Even rejected. Why? Well, verses 13 and 14 essentially say that because John the Baptist was a true prophet, he was largely rejected just like the true prophets of the OT. John the baptist was the ‘second Elijah’. So just like the original Elijah was rejected, so also, he was rejected.

And to reject this last and greatest OT prophet was to reject his call to prepare yourself for the arrival of God’s kingdom. And to reject preparing yourself for the arrival of the kingdom was to reject the king himself. And so, in that way, many folks from that generation failed both to repent in preparation, and therefore also to receive the merciful king with joy. But here, we urged to do the opposite—to prepare our hearts with humility, and therefore to take joy in this King’s mercy.

Rejecting Both Repentance and Joy

Finally, Jesus tells a parable to clarify this and tie it all together. He says:

Matthew 11:16–19 ESV

“But to what shall I compare this generation? It is like children sitting in the marketplaces and calling to their playmates, “ ‘We played the flute for you, and you did not dance; we sang a dirge, and you did not mourn.’ For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, ‘He has a demon.’ The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Look at him! A glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’ Yet wisdom is justified by her deeds.”

Now to understand this parable, just a note: when Jesus says, “This generation is like children sitting in the marketplaces” he doesn’t mean that the children in this parable stand for the generation that rejected John and Jesus. It’s a more general phrase used to introduce parables. So, it means something like, “the spiritual situation of this generation is like this.”

So in the parable, the children represent John and Jesus. They play sad music, but their playmates refuse to cry. They play lively music, but their playmates refuse to dance.

In the same way, John preached a call to repent in order to prepare for the kingdom’s arrival. But many in that generation refused to mourn over their sins. Likewise, Jesus came as the heavenly bridegroom who mercifully redeemed God’s people and brought us to the joy of the heavenly wedding feast—all the glories of communion with God. But since that generation had refused John’s dirge, they had no place for Jesus’ dance either.

All the counter-intuitive wisdom of the kingdom was foolishness to them: They rejected the sober preparation of John’s call to repentance, and so they also rejected the joy of Jesus’ mercy.

Think about this. If you’re not a believer, this is speaking directly to you: you are an enemy of God, who has broken his good law. John’s call to you is to recognize this evil in your own heart, and to turn from it to God for mercy. And if you do, you’ll then be prepared to see just how good it is that God’s king is the kind of king who holds a banquet with sinners. He’s a redeemer-king, who takes God’s enemies and cleanses them by his blood shed for them, so as to make them friends of God.

But what if you’re already a believer? What does this say to you? You might be tempted to think that this really isn’t important for you, since you’ve already trusted in Jesus. He’s already your king.

But think back to the sermon on the mount. What did Jesus say there?

Matthew 5:4 ESV

“Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.

So it’s not just entering into the kingdom that requires mourning/that requires repentance. But repentance is also the ongoing place of comfort for God’s people. Why? Because as soon as you’ve sat in God’s presence and mourned your sin, the mercy of Christ appears to comfort you.

“But you don’t understand. I’ve sinned in so many ways. Could God really forgive me?”

You know, sometimes Jesus’ enemies spoke better than they knew. In verse 18, they were wrong about John having a demon. In verse 19, they were wrong to call Jesus a glutton and a drunkard. But right after that, they spoke better than they knew: “a friend of tax collectors and sinners.” A friend of tax collectors and sinners.

All the glory of almighty God, veiled in human flesh, for what purpose? To be a friend to tax collectors and sinners. This is the counter-intuitive wisdom of the kingdom of heaven. And if you’ve seen your sin and repented, then the mercy of Christ is yours. “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.” Consider Jesus hanging on the cross, where he became the banquet for sinners—his body broken as our bread of life, his blood poured out as the wine of the divine wedding feast. Consider his mercy, brothers and sisters, overflowing and never ending, and ocean vast with blessing, and be comforted. For if he is your friend, then nothing can separate you from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

So then, repenting of sin and embracing the mercy of Christ is, on the one hand, how you enter the kingdom of heaven. Yet on the other hand, it’s the continual pattern of your life going forward—the continual place of comfort for believers.

But that brings important questions for us:

First, is this how your individual spiritual walk works? Most of us are going to struggle with this in one of two ways:

either we refuse to recognise the sin that is in our lives—maybe from pride or defensiveness—and thus loose out on the comfort of Jesus’ mercy… in this case, you need to listen to John’s call to repent, so that your heart can be prepared to receive that mercy

or we see our sins, but struggle to believe that Jesus has really forgiven us… in this case we need to remember that Jesus really is the friend of sinners.

Second, does this define our worship services? Do we embrace both the somber preparation of John’s ministry—taking sin seriously and confessing it—and also the joy of Jesus’ mercy—do we rejoice always in his death on our behalf, the unexpected wisdom of God, through which we have received this kingdom which cannot be shaken?

Third, does this define our Evangelism? Do you approach folks telling them that God has a wonderful plan for their lives? Neither John nor Jesus did that—nor any of the apostles, for that matter. Their message was: repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Repent, for the king has come, and he is a friend of sinners.

And finally, does this pattern define how we disciple one another? Do we teach one another the habit of repenting of sin and clinging to Christ’s mercy, as the path of growing in Christ?

This is how, as believers, we embrace our merciful king with repentance and joy.

Conclusion

Well, Jesus had said to John, “Blessed is the one who is not offended by me.” We might add, “Blessed is the one with ears to hear and eyes to see the wisdom of the kingdom.” Can you see it?

Wisdom is vindicated by her deeds. Wisdom is vindicated in the promises of God, fulfilled in Jesus. Wisdom is vindicated in what Jesus said to strengthen the faith of doubting John.

Wisdom was vindicated in the preaching of John the Baptist, which caused many sinners to repent and thus be ready to embrace Jesus when he arrived. And wisdom was vindicated when Jesus sat down in Matthew’s house, to share a banquet with tax collectors and sinners.

Yet the greatest vindication of wisdom was yet to come: the astonishing wisdom of God’s king, crucified for the salvation of wretched sinners like us. And it is in view of this that the message of the gospel says to us: Don’t doubt or reject the merciful King, but embrace him with repentance and joy.