Sermon Tone Analysis

Bookmarks and Things I Need:

Matthew 12B

Invite Cards

Housekeeping Stuff:

Good morning and welcome.

Introduce yourself, thank guests and invite to the Parlor.

Thank the band and choir.

Announce Easter weekend stuff (Slides for those).

No evening service on Easter.

Need desserts for the lunch and for the auction to support the Student Ministry Mission trip.

Hot Topics this Thursday night at 6:30 in MH.

Topic this month: Self Harm.

Mention online giving.

Link in the app, on the website, and in YouVersion.

Opening:

Last week, we finished our series “Kingdom Hearts,” where we looked at the first three kings of the nation of Israel.

We’ve spent over a year learning about the beginning of the Israelite monarchy; the poor choices of the first king, Saul; the raising up of a new king after God’s own heart in David; the promises to David about how God would bless him and that his dynasty would last forever; then the rise of the nation of Israel to her greatest heights in worship, diplomacy, and economy under David’s son Solomon; and his subsequent fall into disobedience and sin.

The nation of Israel would be split in two during the next generation, and would never truly recover.

But just because Solomon went this direction and which led to the downfall of the nation of Israel, that didn’t mean that God’s promises to David had failed.

No, a new King would be born of the line of David.

A King unlike any other king that had ever lived… A King who would never fail to walk faithfully with God.

That King is Jesus.

FOCAL PASSAGE: ,

Pray

As I was studying for this week’s message, I must admit: I had never noticed all three of these “greater than”

verses in Matthew before.

I don’t know why, but I hadn’t ever taken note of all three of them.

I knew a few weeks ago that at the end of Kingdom Hearts, I would bring a message based on , that Jesus is greater than Solomon, which I guess was the only “greater than” statement that I had stored in my mind and heart at that point.

But there are three of these “greater than” statements here: Jesus says that He is greater than the Temple, that He is greater than Jonah, and that He is greater than Solomon.

We’re going to intentionally work backwards through our focal passage today, and we’ll be considering what are called the three offices of Christ.

In Jesus’s work of being the mediator between holy God and sinful man, He does so in three facets: as king, as prophet, and as priest.

Have any of you ever heard of this idea?

Today’s message is called “One Greater than Solomon,” just using one of those points today.

Points:

To set up our first two points, we need to keep verse 38 in mind:

Our first point is Jesus’ role as King.

These guys are asking that Jesus show them a sign to prove to them who He is.

Just through this point in the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus was, “healing every disease and sickness among the people” in Galilee, and people were bringing to Him, “all who were afflicted, those suffering from various diseases and intense pains, the demon-possessed, the epileptics, and the paralytics.

And he healed them.”

()

In , He had cleansed a man with leprosy (1-4), healed the centurion’s servant without even visiting him physically (5-13), healed Peter’s mother-in-law and many others in Capernaum (14-17), calmed the wind and the waves (23-27), and sent the legion of demons into a herd of pigs (28-32).

He told a paralyzed man that his sins were forgiven right before He told the man to, “Get up, take your stretcher, and go home.”

() He healed Jairus’ daughter and a woman who had been sick for twelve years (9:18-26).

He healed two blind men (9:27-31), drove out a demon that made a man mute (9:32-34), and “healed every disease and every sickness,” in various towns and villages (9:35-46).

Before they asked for their sign in verse 38 of chapter 12, Jesus healed a man with a shriveled hand in the face of being set up by the Pharisees (12:9-13).

They want a sign?

Jesus gives them two existing signs that point to who He is and His roles.

Our first point is Jesus’ role as King.

1) Jesus is the greatest king

Jesus is the greatest King of Israel.

Greater than Saul in his primacy as the “first” king (which he really wasn’t… God was), greater than David in his pursuit after God’s heart, and greater than Solomon in all his wealth, splendor, and wisdom.

At the end of our focal passage, we saw Jesus say something interesting to the scribes and Pharisees about the Queen of the South, another name for the Queen of Sheba:

You might remember that a couple of weeks ago, we looked at “Solomon’s Name & Fame,” and we read in about the visit to Solomon from the Queen of Sheba, which would have been a journey (one-way) of about 1,400 miles.

She had heard of his wisdom and the wealth of Israel, and she had to come and see it for herself.

Jesus says that the Queen of Sheba, because of her example, would condemn the Pharisees of that generation for their unwillingness to listen to the words of the wisest King to ever live, who was right in front of them.

At the end of Jesus’ earthly ministry, as He came into Jerusalem for His final week before His crucifixion, Jesus fulfilled a prophecy about the King of Israel from as He rode into town on the first Palm Sunday.

Jesus is the greatest prophet

CLOSING

Mat 12:1

He is greater than the Temple itself.

He is the Temple.

He is greater than the Temple itself.

He is the Temple.

•Brothers and sisters, don’t be half-hearted like Solomon.

Be more like Paul, who said, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.” 2 Timothy 4:7 •Now, just to be clear: it is not our obedience that saves us.

Our salvation is a work of God that we cannot earn and that cannot be “unearned” once it is received.

However, we are called to live lives of obedience as a response of grateful love to our Father who has shown us such great love Himself in Christ.

•This saved life begins with our surrender to God, believing in what He has done for us in sending Jesus to die in our place, so that we can be forgiven of our sins.

Surrender to the Lord this morning.

•If God is calling you to make another decision this morning: whether to formally join this family of believers at Eastern Hills, or if you have some issue in your life for which you would like to pray with one of us, we will be available during this time.

•Call down the band.

Pray.

•Mention the parlor and the AAEO.

The shouting of the people, “Hosanna to the Son of David!” was a cry of “Save us, King of Israel!”

They at least cheered (not the Pharisees, who told Jesus to quiet them down) as though they believed that Jesus was the long-awaited King from the line of David.

Application of Point 1:

So what about us?

Do we see Jesus as a King, specifically as the greatest King to ever live, a gentle King who would lay Himself down for us on the battlefield of our salvation, dying in our place so that we could be saved?

If He is King, then He is also Lord, and to Him we owe our allegiance, and in fact, our very lives.

Will the Queen of Sheba get to stand and condemn us for our unbelief in the face of One greater than Solomon?

Jesus is the greatest King, but He is also the greatest prophet:

2) Jesus is the greatest prophet

Mediator of the New Covenant

Jesus is the greatest prophet

Jesus is the greatest prophet

The role of the prophet is to share the truth of the God: it’s to speak “thus saith the Lord.”

Sometimes this would be in the context of telling the people what God had thought about what they had done, sometimes it was in telling the people what God’s thoughts and actions were about what they were doing, and sometimes in telling the people what God intended to do, or warning the people what He wanted them to do.

Jesus here tells the scribes and Pharisees that they would be given a sign, but one that looked a lot like a sign they already had: the story of Jonah.

Just as Jonah was in the belly of the fish for 3 days and 3 nights, so Jesus (the Son of Man) would be in the “heart of the earth” for a similar amount of time.

Keep in mind that “a day and a night” was a common ancient Hebrew idiom for an entire 24 hour day or any portion thereof.

Jesus was saying that He would die and be buried, but his comparative to the story of Jonah includes one additional aspect: Just as Jonah would not remain in the fish, so the Son of Man would not remain in the heart of the earth.

The “sign of Jonah” included Jesus’ resurrection!

Jonah was a prophet who was tasked with preaching to Nineveh about their impending destruction because of their wickedness.

Jonah’s message was a simple, yet powerful word from the Lord: “In forty days Nineveh will be demolished!”

Like the Queen of Sheba, the people of Nineveh in Jonah’s day would condemn the Pharisees of that generation for their refusal to listen to the message of the Lord, spoken through the greater prophet, Jesus.

The prophet was to speak for the Lord, so he was to speak the Word of God.

While Jesus certainly did that, there was another layer to what Jesus did: or more accurately, who Jesus is:

He is not just a prophet who speaks the Word of God....

He IS the living Word.