Compassion and the Messianic Sign
Matthew: The King and His Kingdom • Sermon • Submitted • Presented • 40:39
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· 21 viewsComing to Jesus in humble need leaves you satisfied by His compassion, whereas demanding proof exposes an adulterous heart that refuses Him.
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Call to Worship
Call to Worship
A Song of Ascents. 1 I lift up my eyes to the hills. From where does my help come? 2 My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth. 3 He will not let your foot be moved; he who keeps you will not slumber. 4 Behold, he who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep. 5 The Lord is your keeper; the Lord is your shade on your right hand. 6 The sun shall not strike you by day, nor the moon by night. 7 The Lord will keep you from all evil; he will keep your life. 8 The Lord will keep your going out and your coming in from this time forth and forevermore.
Adoration
Adoration
You are our Keeper (Psalm 121:5)
Although we sleep and slumber, You are always awake and attentive to our needs (Psalm 121:4)
Confession
Confession
Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving
Message
Message
32 Then Jesus called his disciples to him and said, “I have compassion on the crowd because they have been with me now three days and have nothing to eat. And I am unwilling to send them away hungry, lest they faint on the way.”
33 And the disciples said to him, “Where are we to get enough bread in such a desolate place to feed so great a crowd?”
34 And Jesus said to them, “How many loaves do you have?” They said, “Seven, and a few small fish.”
35 And directing the crowd to sit down on the ground,
36 he took the seven loaves and the fish, and having given thanks he broke them and gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds.
37 And they all ate and were satisfied. And they took up seven baskets full of the broken pieces left over.
38 Those who ate were four thousand men, besides women and children.
39 And after sending away the crowds, he got into the boat and went to the region of Magadan.
1 And the Pharisees and Sadducees came, and to test him they asked him to show them a sign from heaven.
2 He answered them, “When it is evening, you say, ‘It will be fair weather, for the sky is red.’
3 And in the morning, ‘It will be stormy today, for the sky is red and threatening.’ You know how to interpret the appearance of the sky, but you cannot interpret the signs of the times.
4 An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of Jonah.” So he left them and departed.
In Matthew 15:21-28, we saw Jesus heal a Canaanite woman’s daughter.
She was an enemy of God.
Dwelling among enemies.
Yet Jesus heals her daughter.
She asked for crumbs from the Messianic table, and Jesus grants it.
This woman was banging down the door of Easter.
Jesus wasn’t “handcuffed” by this woman’s need.
He had a mission, and this mission superseded the immediate needs of the moment.
He was going to be obedient to His Heavenly Father.
Yet His love overflowed to that woman.
“He is first of all responsive to the One who sent Him. He will not let genuine human need, even misery, distract Him from the thing He has come to do. He is God-centered, not a humanitarian. Ultimately, Jesus does respond to her, but only after it becomes clear that her importunity fits with His mission. He does love the woman, but that love is an overflow of His love for His Father, His obedience to the first and greatest commandment.” —Peter Leithart, Matthew
Compassion from Christ
Compassion from Christ
29 Jesus went on from there and walked beside the Sea of Galilee. And he went up on the mountain and sat down there.
He leaves enemy territory and returns to the region of Galilee (Mark 7:31).
Now this region was also a primarily Gentile region.
The Canaanite woman led the way, but now we’ll see Jesus caring for thousands of people’s needs.
There is a big difference between this region and the regions close to Jerusalem.
This region was filled with commoners.
No religious elites but common people with common problems.
What the Canaanite woman was begging for at the feet of Jesus, He will now open the flood gates on this region.
30 And great crowds came to him, bringing with them the lame, the blind, the crippled, the mute, and many others, and they put them at his feet, and he healed them, 31 so that the crowd wondered, when they saw the mute speaking, the crippled healthy, the lame walking, and the blind seeing. And they glorified the God of Israel.
Idolatry and spiritual adultery.
The Bible often calls idolatry, the act of worshipping an idol
Gentiles who would have lived their whole lives in bondage to sin, Satan, and the ‘gods’ of this world.
4 Their idols are silver and gold, the work of human hands. 5 They have mouths, but do not speak; eyes, but do not see. 6 They have ears, but do not hear; noses, but do not smell. 7 They have hands, but do not feel; feet, but do not walk; and they do not make a sound in their throat. 8 Those who make them become like them; so do all who trust in them.
But imagine how quickly and abundantly the news would spread of Jesus’ miracles in this region which prompts people to bring to Him their sick and needy.
The language of the healing and compassion used here has already been seen earlier in Matthew’s gospel.
But now the audience has changed.
It’s not primarily or explicitly the Jews, it will be the Gentiles.
5 Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped;
6 then shall the lame man leap like a deer, and the tongue of the mute sing for joy. For waters break forth in the wilderness, and streams in the desert;
7 the burning sand shall become a pool, and the thirsty ground springs of water; in the haunt of jackals, where they lie down, the grass shall become reeds and rushes.
8 And a highway shall be there, and it shall be called the Way of Holiness; the unclean shall not pass over it. It shall belong to those who walk on the way; even if they are fools, they shall not go astray.
9 No lion shall be there, nor shall any ravenous beast come up on it; they shall not be found there, but the redeemed shall walk there.
10 And the ransomed of the Lord shall return and come to Zion with singing; everlasting joy shall be upon their heads; they shall obtain gladness and joy, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.
Jesus’ compassion toward the hurting.
Jesus’ compassion toward the hurting.
Every sickness and calamity here Jesus remedies.
The word “put down” here is extremely strong and can be to be “flung down” (A. T. Robertson).
They weren’t carelessly throwing their sick, they were hastily putting their sick before Him.
One way you can tell that the prosperity gospel is a sham is their avoidance of hospitals and areas of needy people.
Jesus didn’t avoid the needy.
The needy people were brought to Him and the evidence of their healing was plane for everyone to see immediately.
Anytime we approach the Scriptures presentation of sickness, we must always remember the far deeper malady each of us share in our sickness of sin.
30 And great crowds came to him, bringing with them the lame, the blind, the crippled, the mute, and many others, and they put them at his feet, and he healed them, 31 so that the crowd wondered, when they saw the mute speaking, the crippled healthy, the lame walking, and the blind seeing. And they glorified the God of Israel.
The crowds as a whole marveled at His healing power.
Jesus was no ordinary man but healed people in such a demonstrative way that people could see it instantly.
The crowds recognize the Jewish Messiah!
Much like the woman who begged for scraps recognized Jesus, here we see throngs of Gentiles responding to and praising the Jewish Messiah.
“This is never said about the Galilean crowds, and the terminology suggests that the crowd are Gentiles, recognizing the special power of the Jewish Messiah.” —R. T. France, Commentary on Matthew
These Gentiles were responding by praising the God of Israel!
Matthew moves from the mountain of healing to another large feeding account (Mark 8:1-10).
Why would Matthew present two, almost identical, feeding accounts?
The first feeding was in a primarily Jewish region, with the backdrop of a tyrant like Herod.
The second feeding is happening in a region which likely had more Gentiles.
We also see the backdrop of the Canaanite woman that is given “crumbs” from the Master’s table in faith.
Both feedings will be accompanied by responses from the religious leaders.
The first time they will come and ask if the correct amount of hand sanitizer was used.
The second they will ask for Jesus to perform a sign.
32 Then Jesus called his disciples to him and said, “I have compassion on the crowd because they have been with me now three days and have nothing to eat. And I am unwilling to send them away hungry, lest they faint on the way.”
This crowd has been with Jesus in the wilderness now three days.
So whether they did not bring the food to stay that long or their rations just ran out, they were in need of feeding.
Jesus’ compassion is stirred because this crowd is hungry from lingering under Jesus’ teaching.
This moves the heart of Jesus toward them.
33 And the disciples said to him, “Where are we to get enough bread in such a desolate place to feed so great a crowd?”
34 And Jesus said to them, “How many loaves do you have?” They said, “Seven, and a few small fish.”
35 And directing the crowd to sit down on the ground,
36 he took the seven loaves and the fish, and having given thanks he broke them and gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds.
37 And they all ate and were satisfied.
Jesus’ compassion satisfies the weary soul.
Jesus’ compassion satisfies the weary soul.
The Gospels of Matthew and Mark: Commentary Chapter 15
While His primary concern was for the spiritual welfare of men, He never forgot the ravages that sin had brought upon their physical bodies.
These accounts are almost identical to what we saw before, except for the fact that the baskets described here would hold about 50x more than the original supply of bread! (C. Quarles, Matthew)
And they took up seven baskets full of the broken pieces left over. 38 Those who ate were four thousand men, besides women and children.
39 And after sending away the crowds, he got into the boat and went to the region of Magadan.
Jesus likely went into the region as we know as “Magdala” and this would be have been the hometown of someone like Mary Magdalene.
Challenges from the unbelieving. (Matthew 15:39-16:4)
Challenges from the unbelieving. (Matthew 15:39-16:4)
What evidence would you find convincing to become a Christian?
Some things you can place in a test tube and quantify.
Other things you can observe and measure.
But how do we measure spiritual truth?
1 And the Pharisees and Sadducees came, and to test him they asked him to show them a sign from heaven.
The Pharisees and Sadducees were two prominent sects within Judaism, and they hated each other.
The Pharisees regarded the Sadducees as “heretics” (m. Ber. 9:5; Yad 4:7–8), [they] labeled them “sinners” (Psalms of Solomon), and ranked them with “gentiles” (m. Eruv. 6:2) who “had no share in the world to come” (m. Sanh. 10:1). — C. Quarles,
The fact that they joined forces on anything should be telling.
This would be like Democrats and Republicans agreeing on something together.
“The enemy of my enemy is my friend.”
They were Jesus’ enemy and they hated Him, so they joined forces to test Him.
The “testing” here is not open-minded inquirers instead it was testing “to attempt to entrap through a process of inquiry” (BDAG).
It wasn’t wrong to ask for validation that someone was speaking on behalf of God.
21 And if you say in your heart, ‘How may we know the word that the Lord has not spoken?’— 22 when a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord, if the word does not come to pass or come true, that is a word that the Lord has not spoken; the prophet has spoken it presumptuously. You need not be afraid of him.
The problem is not that these religious leaders were asking for a sign on the surface.
They saw the signs, but they interpreted them as NOT signs.
They were so hardened that they rejected the signs they were given.
2 He answered them, “When it is evening, you say, ‘It will be fair weather, for the sky is red.’ 3 And in the morning, ‘It will be stormy today, for the sky is red and threatening.’ You know how to interpret the appearance of the sky, but you cannot interpret the signs of the times.
Jesus’s signs are available for interpretation.
Jesus’s signs are available for interpretation.
Humans, because they are made in the image of God, have an ability to interpret signs.
They could understand the signs all around them.
Jesus this when he points to their ability to understand weather patterns (general revelation).
1 The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.
20 For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.
But they do not understand the signs of Jesus’ appearing to them.
Jesus shows them that they know how to interpret.
Thus they should be aware that Jesus’ signs mean the Messiah is present.
4 An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of Jonah.” So he left them and departed.
Demanding signs comes from wicked and adulterous hearts.
Demanding signs comes from wicked and adulterous hearts.
Why “wicked and adulterous generation”?
Why doesn’t He say, “stupid and ignorant”?
It’s not an issue of intelligence. It’s an issue of love.
Example of a wife showing her husband contempt because of an affair she committed with another.
To focus on the contempt would not really address the issue at all, the contempt is a mask for the true issue which is the affair.
These men love their tradition.
Their loyalties were with their traditions.
2 You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask. 3 You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions. 4 You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.
Because God is our husband and the “world” is a prostitute luring us to give affections to her that belong only to God.
This is how subtle the sin of worldliness can be.
Remember Jesus just fed five thousand, and then four thousand.
Just go ask the thousands of people who benefited from Him.
Then they should realize what is directly in front of them.
They weren’t seeing Him as the Messiah, they interpreted Him through their own values, beliefs, and priorities.
They’re demanding a certain kind of sign from Jesus.
Jesus refers to them as adulterers because they were being “unfaithful to their covenant God”.
Matthew Exegesis
The Pharisees and Sadducees are like meticulous meteorologists who can accurately predict weather patterns based on their careful observations but cannot distinguish summer from fall, fall from winter, winter from spring, or spring from summer! They do not appear to know that green grass and budding flowers indicate that spring has arrived or that bitter cold, whipping winds, and snow-covered ground mean that winter has come.
They heard Jesus’ words, but were unmoved.
They saw Jesus’ deeds but were blind to the truth standing before them.
37 And the Father who sent me has himself borne witness about me. His voice you have never heard, his form you have never seen, 38 and you do not have his word abiding in you, for you do not believe the one whom he has sent.
The religious leaders problem was the problem of many even astute Bible scholars.
39 You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me, 40 yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life.
Jesus is the very life of God. He is the way, the truth, and the life (John 14:6).
And here He is displaying His power and glory by feeding the masses and these theological egg heads missed it.
4 An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of Jonah.” So he left them and departed.
As we saw before (Matthew 12:40-41), Jesus says that His sign was that of the prophet Jonah.
Jonah didn’t do any signs. Except for the fact of he was swallowed by a great fish and then came back again.
Jesus’s resurrection is the sufficient sign.
Jesus’s resurrection is the sufficient sign.
The Bible addresses us as interpretative beings who are responsible for how we respond to whatever comes into our lives.
God desires that we respond to these situations by faith.
Matthew for Everyone, Part 2: Chapters 16–28 The Leaven of the Pharisees (Matthew 16:1–12)
If people watched him with only cynicism and criticism in their hearts, they would see nothing—until the moment when the rumour went around that he had been raised from the dead. That would be the final and devastating sign that God had indeed been with him all along.
22 For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, 23 but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, 24 but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.
A sign is a demonstration of power. The Jews longed for power and status, the Greeks longed for wisdom and expertise. Yet Jesus Christ is the embodiment of both and they rejected Him.
Coming to Jesus in humble need leaves you satisfied by His compassion, whereas demanding proof exposes an adulterous heart that refuses Him.
Coming to Jesus in humble need leaves you satisfied by His compassion, whereas demanding proof exposes an adulterous heart that refuses Him.
