When I was in my teens my Dad wanted to climb Mount Witney which is the tallest mountain in the continuous US. We trained for about a year, going up various mountains of differing heights, camping at each of them. When we were able to finally climb Witney it was right after September 11, 2001. We decided to take three days to climb it, so that we could get acclimated to the diminishing atmosphere. It was on the third day that we got up early and headed up to the summit where we would watch the sunrise. But something bad happened. Three hundred feet from the summit I loss all sense of direction and became extremely cold. If it wasn’t for my Dad I would have walked off the side of the mountain. I had altitude sickness from a lack of oxygen, and from that day on whenever I get cold, I start to shake.
I would like to try again someday, because it just takes a day to actually hike up and back down the mountain; a feat my Dad did later on without me. But it’s not pressing on me to do it. I have realized over the years that though it ended up being a horrible experience, the time I spent with my Dad made it worth it.
And it’s this idea of realizing that the payoff for what we go through isn’t always the final destination, but rather what was experienced along the way that brings us back into our Matthew series where we’ll be picking it back up in chapter 14 of Matthew. And as we open our Bibles to Matthew 14, verse 1, let’s recap just where we are so far since we started back a few weeks ago.
When we came back to our summer series in Matthew, we began to look at the parable sermon of Jesus. In that sermon, Jesus gave seven parables to help us understand the Kingdom of God. The first one represented what people do with the Gospel message when they hear it. The second and last parables represent how both those who have accepted Jesus and those who have not will grow next to each other until the day of judgment where they will be separated; one to eternal life and the other to eternal destruction. The third and fourth parables represent how much faith one needs to follow Jesus; it’s just a little, so we need not worry if we struggle in our faith as long as we continue to be faithful to what God calls us to. Finally, the last set of two parables teach us that we must desire the Kingdom of God above all things; its worth is more important than anything this world has to offer. And so we walked away from that week with a focus on, knowing the worth of the kingdom and going after it.
Then last week we talked about one interaction that Jesus had, that shows us the real world application of the parables. Jesus went to his hometown, but because they thought they knew him, they rejected his message of the Kingdom. This is like the pathway in Jesus’ first parable about the four soils. They are the weeds or the bad fish. And so, we walked away from last week with a focus on seeking God for us to be the good soil.
This brings us to a possible result of being the good soil. So let’s read from the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 14, starting in verse 1.
“1 At that time Herod the tetrarch heard the reports about Jesus, 2 and he said to his attendants, ‘This is John the Baptist; he has risen from the dead! That is why miraculous powers are at work in him.’
“3 Now Herod had arrested John and bound him and put him in prison because of Herodias, his brother Philip’s wife, 4 for John had been saying to him: ‘It is not lawful for you to have her.’ 5 Herod wanted to kill John, but he was afraid of the people, because they considered John a prophet.
“6 On Herod’s birthday the daughter of Herodias danced for the guests and pleased Herod so much 7 that he promised with an oath to give her whatever she asked. 8 Prompted by her mother, she said, ‘Give me here on a platter the head of John the Baptist.’ 9 The king was distressed, but because of his oaths and his dinner guests, he ordered that her request be granted 10 and had John beheaded in the prison. 11 His head was brought in on a platter and given to the girl, who carried it to her mother. 12 John’s disciples came and took his body and buried it. Then they went and told Jesus.”
Here Matthew brings fun circle this section of his Gospel. The third section of Matthew’s Gospel began in chapter 11 with John the Baptist in prison and his disciples asking Jesus if he was indeed the Messiah to which the John had devoted his life. This kicked off the whole section which focused on what it meant to follow Jesus.
Jesus called John the greatest person who ever lived, yet those who sought after the Kingdom and who were the least in it, would be called greater. Through the Holy Spirit’s inspiration, Matthew helped us connect Jesus’ teaching to this idea of what it means to be in God’s Kingdom. What it means to be his disciple. That we are to be good soil, who has our lives cultivated with the Word of God, and we produce great faith through the work of the Holy Spirit.
Then we end with two moments that show what it means to reject Jesus, and what it means to follow him. To reject Jesus means he doesn’t do miracles in our lives, and we are sent away from him in eternity. But to follow him, well that might mean we lose our head.
At this point in Jesus’ life, as he ends his teaching about what it means to be his disciple, John had already been beheaded. Herod the tetrarch, which means he was one of four rulers in the region, was the one who had imprisioned John the Baptist. So when he gets word of Jesus doing on these miraculous things, he believes it to be John come back from the dead to get his revenge.
Why? Because John had spoken out against the immoral lifestyle of Herod. Here was a ruler over the Jewish people, a person who at least claimed to follow the Jewish religion, yet he was in the public square blatantly engaging in sin
Here’s where it gets a little complicated. Herodias had married her Uncle Philip, this was against Jewish law to marry so close a family member. Philip’s half-brother Herod Antipas then convinced Herodias to leave Philip and marry him. Antipas would have also been Herodias’ uncle as well. Which was then three strikes against Jewish law, not only for the incest of marrying an uncle, but for divorce, and then remarrying while the previous husband was still alive.
All this played out in the public square, and was reminiscent of the ancient kings of Israel and their sin. John fulfills his role as an Old Testament prophet when he calls out Antipas for his sin. But this gets him sent to prison and eventually gets his head removed from his body.
Yet, this is a real possibility for anyone who choses to place their trust into Jesus. Earlier in Matthew chapter 10 Jesus speaks these words, “38 Whoever does not take up their cross and follow me is not worthy of me. 39 Whoever finds their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life for my sake will find it.”
Jesus used the image of the cross, not a pillow, to speak of the hardship that awaited those who trusted in Jesus as their Savior. Jesus spoke of losing life over being his disciple. Christians are not called to a life of ease, but to a life that God directs, and sometimes that direction goes through harsh circumstances.
There’s a false Christianity that says things like, “You get spiritually rich, and you’ll get finically rich (Quote attributed to Kenneth Copeland)!” Or, “God wants us to prosper finically, to have plenty of money, to fulfill the destiny he has laid out for us (Quote attributed to Joel Osteen).” Or “Prosperity is the wheel of the Gospel (Quote attributed to Kojo Bentil).”
Yet the Scriptures and the history of God’s people teach a very different view. Jesus speaks of of being hated by the world, in John 15:18-19, “If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. 19 If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you. 20 Remember what I told you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also. If they obeyed my teaching, they will obey yours also. 21 They will treat you this way because of my name, for they do not know the one who sent me.”
Paul writes in 2nd Corinthians 6:4-10, “Rather, as servants of God we commend ourselves in every way: in great endurance; in troubles, hardships and distresses; 5 in beatings, imprisonments and riots; in hard work, sleepless nights and hunger; 6 in purity, understanding, patience and kindness; in the Holy Spirit and in sincere love; 7 in truthful speech and in the power of God; with weapons of righteousness in the right hand and in the left; 8 through glory and dishonor, bad report and good report; genuine, yet regarded as impostors; 9 known, yet regarded as unknown; dying, and yet we live on; beaten, and yet not killed; 10 sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; poor, yet making many rich; having nothing, and yet possessing everything.”
All the twelve Apostles in the Church age suffered, with 11 of them being executed. There are books, such as John Foxe’s Book of Martyrs, Or DC Talks’ Jesus Freaks, or organizations like Voice of the Martyrs, who have documented the cross that Jesus’ disciples have had to carry since the founding of the Church.
To be good soil, doesn’t mean that we are cultivated in a greenhouse, where all the temperatures are regulated, where we get the mist of the perfect amount of water. No, we are to be good soil out in the fields, where the harsh weather beats against the ground of our lives. Where weeds grow, and the sun scorches. We are not called to a life of ease, but to a life where we can see God at work. Not to a life that seeks prosperity here on this dying planet, but who seeks the riches of the Kingdom in eternity. Who realize that to prosper means to know God ever deeper, and lose the desire for this world.
Everything that we have here now, is to be used for the glory of God. Whether we have or do not, we must seek Jesus saying “it’s yours.” If we are given something by God, we say, “it’s yours Lord.” If God takes something away from us, “Lord it was yours anyway.” If we are called to rise up and speak biblical truth into a culture that would hate to hear it, we must follow the calling. Our lives are Jesus’ when we accept him as our Savior.
Paul states in Galatians 2:20, “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”
If we are to be good soil we must come to a place where we realize everything we are is Jesus’. Everything we have is our God’s. And if he calls me, I must follow, in prosperity, in poverty, and in life, and in death. That’s what it means to be Jesus’ disciple, that’s what it means to be the good soil. To experience the persecution around us, those rocks in the soil, and yet, continue to trust in Jesus. To hear the siren call of the desires of the world and rejecting them to embrace our Savior. That’s good soil, and that’s who is called a disciple of Jesus.
My challenge for you this week is to go before God and be honest. If God were to ask you to lose something today, what are you not prepared to lose? House? Car? Job? Financial security? Child? Health? All these things need to be turned over to Jesus. They are his, let him work in them as he sees fit. Seek God to reveal to you those things that you are not prepared to lose, and ask God to cultivate you into that good soil that trusts him with all that he has given you.
I know this sounds hard. I know that it sounds like God is asking too much. But this is what Jesus has been speaking about through these last 14 chapters. It’s what he will continue to talk about for the next 14 chapters. It’s what we need to understand, that the worth of the Kingdom eclipses all things in this world. Let us trust Jesus, who is worthy of our trust, because he didn’t just ask us to lose everything to him, but showed us that he was willing to do the same for us on the cross. Let us be a people who follow our Savior to our own crosses, that he might be glorified in our lives. Amen.
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