Reading Assignment: Matthew 12:38-50
Truth: Who is a part of God’s spiritual family?
Key Verse: Matthew 12:50
There are three parts to the story:
1. Signs (vv 38-42)
2. Last state worse than the first (vv 43-45)
3. Spiritual Family (vv 46-50)
Prayer Suggestions:
1. True Repentance: Jesus, I commit to living by Your word. Grant me wisdom and courage to follow through with sound practical choices.
2. Family of God: Jesus, thank You for including me in the family of God. I am truly undeserving, but You have shared Your holy family with me. Thank You.
Transcript
Let's pray. Lord, thank You for this time to spend with You. We always look to You with great confidence in our hearts because of Jesus. Thank you for the Savior who has come for us. We seek for Your blessing on our time together. Now guide us, we pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.
The next passage to be read is Matthew 12:38-50. This is the final section of Matthew Chapter 12. The truth that I want to highlight from this section is this: Who is a part of God's spiritual family? I believe this passage answered that question. The key verse is found in verse 50, the final verse, where Jesus says these words: “whoever does the will of My Father who is in heaven, he is My brother and sister and mother.” Before Jesus makes this claim, there are two other parts of the story that lead up to that phenomenal remark. Those three parts are these: 1) the signs (verses 38-42), 2) last state worse than the first (verses 43-45), and 3) God’s spiritual family (verses 46 to 50).
First, the matter of signs. As you begin to read this section, you'll notice there's a strange request by the scribes and the Pharisees, the religious leaders. They asked Jesus for a sign. This is really odd because the scribes and the Pharisees, throughout the Gospels and clearly in our reading of the Gospel of Matthew this time around, opposed Jesus. They didn't want to believe Him and follow Him.
More than that, Jesus had already performed signs in their presence. Immediately before this section, Jesus exorcised a demon which was done in plain sight before the Pharisees. Prior to that, Jesus, of course, healed the man with the withered hand. As you would recall, this was a situation the Pharisees themselves set up for Jesus. And of course, beyond these, the news about Jesus' signs was spreading everywhere, such that even John the Baptist from the prison heard about it (11:2). And so why are they asking Jesus for a sign? Well, I think Jesus knew exactly what they were really after. They weren't asking for a sign so that they would believe Him. This wasn't a genuine request for a greater evidence to believe. This was really just an excuse not to believe.
Believe it or not, this sort of thinking is actually rather prevalent even today. There are people today who say, “Well, if only God would do this or that, then I would believe.” But if we were to pry a little and try to understand what their request is really about, we learn a couple of things. First, they don't give much attention (if at all) to the signs that God has already given. They behave as if somehow the signs God has already given are inadequate. Furthermore, there is an attitudinal problem that says, “Well, God needs to meet me on my terms and demands. God must succumb to my desires. God needs to subject Himself to my terms for faith, versus humbly surrendering to the LORD who has revealed Himself to us by His own means. You see, what man attempts to do is to turn the tables around. They demand that God submit to my desires and demands, versus humbly acknowledging God for who He is and trust in Him on His terms of faith. And of course, this is a stunning reality of scripture that in scripture, God has so revealed Himself to us as the most exalted, the most supreme and sovereign God, and the One who never bends the knee to man. More than these things, if such persons were to be asked, “If God did do thus and such that you demand, then would you believe in Christ, give up all your sins, your selfishness, your self-will, and your stubbornness, and from here on out, serve Christ and live the rest of your life according to His words without ever questioning Him? And invariably, the answer is a firm no. What this reveals is simply this, that their request for a sign or greater evidence is, in the end, just an excuse not to believe. It is not really a reason why they don’t believe. Well, Jesus understood this about the Pharisees, and so at this juncture, He does not indulge their wicked request for a sign. In verse 39, Jesus responds to them in this way. He says, “an evil and adulterous generation craves for a sign.” He sees straight through them and sees what is in their hearts. He sees the evil lurking in their hearts. He sees that their affections are adulterous. This is to say, not so much that they're all sexually immoral, but that they are disloyal to the only true God. Instead of the faithfulness of a bride to her groom, ready to give of herself to him, they are seeking something else or someone else (an idol or a false god).
Well, God, of course, has already given many signs throughout their Jewish history and even in their own time through Jesus's ministry. In response to their request, Jesus directs their attention to the one final sign which God has chosen to give, the sign of Jesus’ resurrection. And so this is what Jesus says after that: “just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the sea monster, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.” What Jesus is saying is this: when He is buried, He will be entombed for three days and no more. Jesus does often use this reference to Jonah to describe His future resurrection from the dead. And this is the final sign that God has chosen to give. To the Jews in particular and to humanity in general, Jesus will prove Himself to be the Son of God, the Savior, and He will prove that by doing something no one has ever done, by rising from the dead in immortality and in glory never to die again. And of course, Jesus accomplished this. After this, then, Jesus denounced these religious leaders who were challenging Him. And He did so with two examples. The examples sound very much like the ones that He gave back in Chapter 11, where he denounced the cities of Capernaum and Chorazin, locations where most of His miracles were done. This time He brings up the city of Nineveh and the Queen of the South. With the example of Nineveh, Jesus explains that the Ninevites were more righteous than these religious leaders. Now, this would obviously come across as an insult to these religious leaders, because the Ninevites were Gentiles; but more than just Gentiles, Nineveh was the capital city of Assyria, the wicked nation that swallowed up its surrounding nations and expanded the borders of its empire with a great deal of violence and aggression. But here's what God did. God sent Prophet Jonah to them, and they repented at his preaching in dust and ashes, even down to the king of Nineveh himself. Jesus tells His audience that their spiritual condition is far worse than that of the Ninevites, since they repented at the preaching of Jonah, but these people won’t repent even when the Son of God Himself has come down from heaven and preached God’s word to them.
In fact, even when He has risen from the dead, even then, they still won't repent. Therefore, Jesus denounced these religious leaders as worse than the Ninevites. He tells them that the Ninevites on judgment day would even condemn them, scoff at them, scorn them, because they repented when Jonah the Prophet came, but these Jewish leaders would not repent even when God from heaven showed up and spoke to them. The second example is the Queen of the South. This is probably the Queen of Ethiopia at the time of Solomon. This remarkable woman traveled all that distance to hear the wisdom of Solomon. And Jesus compares the Queen of Ethiopia to these Jewish leaders, that they didn’t measure up to this Gentile woman, because even though she recognized the wisdom of Solomon and listened to him, these Jews would not come to the Son of God to listen to the wisdom that comes down out of heaven. Well, the point of all this is to show that these Jews were not repentant and thus they were not a part of God's spiritual family.
Jesus then gives a graphic illustration of their spiritual condition with demon possession. This brings us to the second section in verses 43 through 45. Jesus brings up a very strange example of demon possession. When a demoniac has been exorcised, the demon that has left the man goes seeking for another person to possess; but if he doesn't find any, then he seeks other evil spirits, even seven others worse than him, to join him in overtaking that first man. If these demons then come to this first man and they see that man's soul is unoccupied, then they will ravish that man. And his final condition would be far worse than his first condition. Now at first pass, this may sound like a lesson on demonology, but it isn’t. It's actually a lesson on what happens to people when the word of God does not take central place in their lives. If the word of God is not received with all their hearts, and they do not repent at the preaching of Jesus, they are in a place of great spiritual peril, even a worse situation than before they heard the word of God. Jesus's point is this. His audience had heard the word of God, but they have not welcomed it to occupy their lives. They resisted the word of God. They would not not repent and submit themselves to God’s word. Jesus indictment on them was this: their last condition was far worse than their first. They are not only outside the family of God; they are under the wrath of God.
The issue of God’s spiritual family is then explicitly given to us in verses 46 through 50. This is our final section. It was at this time as Jesus was responding to the Pharisees and the scribes that Jesus' mother and brothers came to visit Him. And someone in the crowd told Him, “Your family has come to see You.” Then Jesus makes this striking statement, that His true family is not His biological family, but those who do the will of God. Well, what does Jesus mean by the will of God? It is that we would listen to His Son, trust in Him, and receive His word with a repentant heart. According to Luke 8:21, a parallel passage to this, Jesus’ explanation is captured in these words: “hear the word of God and do it.” These are the ones whom Jesus identifies as His brothers, sisters and mother, His spiritual family. What this means is this: Those who are truly changed of heart, these belong to God's spiritual family. Now, this idea of God’s family is often tossed around in church as something very overly familiar and common, but in reality it is profound, amazing, and exhilarating. Imagine that I can be a part of the spiritual family of the God who created all things. This is spoken by Jesus, the only begotten Son of God from heaven, and He testifies that this is true that all who respond to His words with faith and repentance belong to God as His own child. This is really a breathtaking reality to ponder.
There are lots of things here to pray about. I'll just point out two. First, true repentance. Jesus confronts those who weren’t interested in true repentance. The Jewish leaders were only interested in making excuses, why they didn’t need to listen to the word of God. All of this is recorded for us, so we can respond to the Lord rightly. We can respond in prayer in this way. “Jesus, You are the Son of God. You rose from the dead. There were witnesses. And as I read Your word, it rings true and this is historical. It is the testimony of eyewitnesses. And I believe in You. And as I hear Your words that call me to a wholehearted surrender to You, to become Your worshiper and servant, and to become Your disciple, my heart's answer is yes. I want to serve You. I want to follow You. I want to live according to Your word. That's where my heart is. I ask of You for the help that I need to follow through as I should. I don't want to be an unrepentant, stubborn, and an unresponsive person like these religious leaders that I read about. I want to obey Your word and follow You truly and from the heart. Grant to me the strength and wisdom to make good, practical choices to honor You and Your word as I should.”
The second thing to pray about is the family of God. If you are a believer, you ought to thank the Lord that you've been included in God's family. We can pray this: “Jesus, thank You for these sweet words that affirm that I belong to God, that I am His child. I don't deserve this, because in and of myself I have no resemblance to the righteous and holy God who abounds with love. But I thank You that You have drawn me to repentance and thus You have included me in God's holy family. This means I can live every day with my true identity as a child of God. Help me to live with this reality every day, to not live just like the world around me, but to live as a child of God who is on his way to heaven. Thank You, Jesus, for including me. Thank You for speaking Your word to me. I carry this privilege as a badge of honor that I belong to God. Amen.”
I hope that this passage, though at first may seem a little awkward and strange, as you read through it and think about where it ends, that your heart will be drawn to respond to Jesus with true, sincere and earnest prayer. It's a wonderful thing to be included in the family of God. That's the lesson for today. Lord bless you and we are done for today.