If you would, turn with me to Matthew chapter 12.

Matthew chapter 12.

Actually, I’m going to jump around a bit this morning, but I want to read first from Matthew 12, starting in verse 33.

And Jesus says in verse 33, Either make the tree good in its fruit good, or make the tree bad in its fruit bad. For the tree is known by its fruit. You brood of vipers, how can you speak good when you’re evil? For out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. The good person out of his good treasure brings forth good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure brings forth evil. I tell you, on the day of judgment, people will give accountants, account for every careless word they speak, for by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.

We’ve all heard the saying, you are who you are when no one’s looking. You know, character is who you are when no one’s watching. And I suppose that’s true to a degree, but I’m pretty sure we’ve seen people be ugly in front of us. I’m pretty sure we’ve had confrontation. We’ve had conversations with people where we’ve walked away thinking, boy, that person showed their true colors, we say. So I’m really not too sure that that’s true. You know, when a boy and a girl date, oh, they’re the best person ever, and it’s just this, oh, there’s not a fault in this other person, and months and goes on, and what happens? You realize, oh, this is a person with problems and flaws, just like me, or that star employee who’s great the first few weeks, but start being a little lazier, showing up late, and you realize, oh, that’s not entirely who they were when they were hired. So Jesus kind of says the opposite. He says, in fact, who we really are in our hearts, it’s eventually going to come out in the fruit of our life. It’s going to come out in what we say. It’s going to come out in what we do. We’re not very good, actually, as people, keeping a lid on who we are really in our hearts. And Jesus has had a number of,

of interactions, of course, very controversial ones with the Pharisees in chapter 12, and so He says afterwards to these Pharisees, He says, you think that you can speak good with your mouth, but it’s plain what’s in your heart. It’s plain what’s in your heart, because that’s who you really are. And I want us just to hang on to that question this morning and ask it of ourselves in light of our Christian discipleship. Who are we really in the heart? That’s what Jesus is talking about. Who are you in the heart?

So I want to do something different. I just kind of want to slingshot back and look at a couple different of these interactions that Jesus has with the Pharisees. So go back to the beginning in chapter 12 with me in verse 1.

It says, at that time, Jesus went through the grain fields on the Sabbath, and His disciples were hungry, and then began to pluck heads of grain and to eat. But when the Pharisees saw it, they said to Him, Look, Your disciples are doing what is not lawful to do on the Sabbath. He said to them, Have you not read what David did when he was hungry and those who were with him, how he entered the house of God and ate the bread of the presence, which it was not lawful for him to eat, nor for those who were with him, but only for the priests? Or have you not read in the law how on the Sabbath the priests in the temple profane the Sabbath and are guiltless? I tell you, I tell you something greater than the temple is here. And if you had known what this means, I desire mercy and not sacrifice, you would not have condemned the guiltless. For the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.

So we start chapter 12 really with this very beautiful picture. And what is it a picture of? It’s a picture of the Good Shepherd leading His apostles, His sheep, through this grain field. And He’s leading them through this, this grain field to tend their needs so that they can eat. They’re hungry, so they’re plucking heads of grain to eat. And what’s more, it’s the Sabbath day. It’s the day of rest. So it’s all the more sweet. Here they are, walking a slow pace with Jesus on the day of rest and just enjoying being with Jesus as He leads them and feeds them.

But the sweetness of that moment, it’s spoiled quickly because the very reason why Jesus is leading them through these grain fields, it’s the very reason the Pharisees find to condemn Jesus and His disciples.

Verse 2, the Pharisees saw and they say, look, your disciples, they’re doing what’s not lawful to do on the Sabbath. They think they’ve nailed Jesus on the technicality. They think they’ve got Him here in a corner. And here’s their case. Their case is this. It’s against the law to work on the Sabbath. Your disciples are plucking heads of grain, rubbing them in their hands to loosen them, to eat them. That’s work. Therefore, your disciples are in sin.

Well, wasn’t it true that God’s people weren’t allowed to work on the Sabbath? It’s absolutely true. You can see it in Exodus chapter 20. It says, remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Six days. You shall labor and do all your work. But the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it, you shall not do any work. Or you, your son, your daughter, your male servant, your female servant, your livestock, the sojourner who’s within your gates. For six days. In six days, the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea and all that’s in them. And He rested on the seventh. So the Sabbath always was a very sacred observance for God’s people because it had its origins in creation. God worked. He created six days and He rested. So we are not, they are not so important, so busy that we just have got to work through the Sabbath. We’ve got to work through that seventh day because we just have too much going on. God says, no, you can rest. And in the Sabbath, know that I’m really what you need. In the Sabbath, know I’m truly your provider. We even read a story in the Old Testament that a man who did choose to work through the Sabbath, he was dragged before the people and he was stoned to death. For doing so. So the Sabbath is a big ordeal.

But what the Sabbath was, was a good gift. It was for the people to rest. So see what the Pharisees have done. They’ve taken a good thing that God has given them, rest, and they’ve mangled it and turned it into a weapon. They’ve mutilated it and they’re using it against God’s people. The disciples weren’t laboring to make a profit, were they? No. They weren’t working their jobs. They were hungry. They were eating. They were observing the Sabbath. And at that, they were doing so according to the law. In Deuteronomy 23, it teaches us that if you are walking through your neighbor’s fields and you’re hungry, you should pluck heads of grain to eat them because it’s a marginal loss to them and your hunger is met. So if you’re in your neighbor’s fields or your neighbor’s in your fields, it’s totally permissible. It’s totally permissible to eat their fruit. In the same way, the law tells us elsewhere that once you harvest all of your crop for the season, you are not allowed to go back and do it again twice. Whatever you leave behind, that’s for the poor. We read about that when Ruth does that. She gleans Boaz’s fields once his workers go through it. So why does God give these laws? Because he’s good. Because he’s kind. Because he’s compassionate. See how the disciples, the disciples are led in the goodness of God’s law, but the Pharisees have bent and twisted it against them.

And Jesus gives to them a gentle rebuke where truly a much firmer one would have been justified. He says, hey, you who know the law so well. You remember back in 1 Samuel when the not yet King David, he’s on the run for his life because Saul in that jealous rage wanted to kill David. And out of sheer desperation,

David takes the bread of the presence for him and his men to eat. They have to eat. They have no food. And Himalek gives him the bread and they eat it. But it’s not counted a sin against David. That bread of the presence was a constant memorial to God alone. It was not common bread, the priest says. It was for God. It was a presentation constantly to God. When it went cold or stale, they would replace it often with fresh hot bread. And the Scriptures are very clear. Only the priest could eat that bread. So why wasn’t it wrong then what David did? Here’s why. Because what mattered more in that moment was an act of mercy for a famished, hungry, wrongly charged fugitive than obeying that ceremonial law. It pleased God more to do an act of mercy than that ceremonial law to be upheld. Charles Spurgeon said, the law of the Sabbath was never meant to compel starvation to hungry men any more than the law of the show.

So Jesus gives that one example of great compassion and mercy in God’s law. But then secondly, he says, hey, you remember how or you know how on the Sabbath the priests, they work in the temple, they make the sacrifices for the people. God commands it. So are you saying the priests are in sin by doing the work God tells them to do on the Sabbath because it is the Sabbath? Well, of course not. That would be cruel of God to command work, on a day where it would be sin to do work. That would be silly. But that’s the pitch of craziness that the Pharisees have come to.

What Jesus is doing is really a kindness to the Pharisees. You know, we talk a lot about Jesus is always rough to those Pharisees. Jesus isn’t rough to the Pharisees. Jesus speaks truth to the Pharisees.

He’s preaching to them, even if they won’t heed the message. God is not harsh and cold. And God didn’t give His law to break our back. God is a God of love and compassion and His rules are good for us. And it even shows that there are times when God makes concessions in His law because a greater good can be obeyed for His glory. So here stands before them the very lawgiver. Jesus says, I’m the Lord of the Sabbath. I’m greater than the temple. I gave the law. Jesus quotes Hosea 6. He says, I don’t desire sacrifice. I desire mercy. It means God doesn’t want robotic obedience and He’s happy. He wants us to love Him through seeing how good He is from the law. God’s rules, I want to say to us, are good. From the Old Testament all the way to the teachings we learn in the New Testament. God’s not arbitrary. God’s not harsh. God wants good for you in our lives. David says in the Psalms, Psalm 119, Oh, how I love your law. Oh, how I love your law. So the law shows us how good God is and it shows us how to live so to please God in a good way. But here’s the second thing that’s good about the law. The law evokes, should evoke in us, a humility. You know why? Because when I see how good God’s law is, I’m forced to realize I’m not that good as much as I want to live up to the goodness of God’s law. I simply cannot do it. So what is good becomes a terror to me because I realize I fall short of this law and I cannot obey it perfectly.

And yes, God gave His people in the Old Testament the animal sacrifices to deal with their sins. But never in all this, I want us to understand, did God ever communicate to the people if you could obey this law perfectly, they know they couldn’t, you could be saved. If you could keep these rules just right, you could be saved. It was always based on, yes, God devoted Himself, God pledged Himself to the people to be their God, to be their Savior. That’s the only reason ever. It started with the promise to Abraham, not in the giving of the law. And so Jesus in the flesh is here and He’s talking to these Pharisees and He’s saying, hey, look, I as God, I as Lord of the Sabbath have not come to demand you do something you can’t do.

Jesus has come to give us the rest that we cannot earn on our own. Jesus has come to be the righteousness that we don’t have. Jesus is leading His people through the grain fields of His rest. But the disciples are saying, no, wait, you’ve got to obey it all just this certain way.

What you and I need is the alien righteousness of Jesus. I need by faith a righteousness that will save me because I can never obey that law on my own. Paul says it like this in Galatians.

Is the law then contrary to the promise of God? Certainly not. For if a law had been given that could give life, then righteousness would indeed be by the law. But the Scripture imprisoned everything under sin so that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe. Friends, you and I have rest because Christ has given us His righteousness according to His perfect obedience. And you and I can never keep that law. So I want to say this to you this morning. And to be honest, this is a sermon by Chad Cronin to Chad Cronin for Chad Cronin. All right? Let me say this to you and you see if you can identify with it. If we want to live our lives on a technicality of how well we can obey God, we will never have rest. Amen. Ever. If like the Pharisees, we want to procure our own salvation by our rule keeping, we will never ever have salvation. Because you know, just like the Pharisees, when we live by our rule keeping, it’s awfully tempting to bend and twist God’s laws to make them fit what we want, what we think we can do. And we’re real good at making up some of our own rules too, aren’t we? Well, you know, I go to church a lot and I give money to Christian causes and I don’t watch R-rated movies. And I don’t cuss too much. You know, and I do all these good things. But what do we discover? We discover even in our best efforts, we don’t keep God’s law perfectly and we don’t even keep our own made up silly rules very well. And we fail God and we say, God, I’m so sorry. I didn’t live well enough for you. And we promise we won’t do it again. And we go back and we commit the same sin and we say sorry again and we say sorry again. But you know what? God doesn’t want your sorry. He already knows you can’t do it. We apologize to God for not being able to live for the kingdom of heaven and the power of the flesh. Don’t say sorry to God. Repent and say, Lord, I can’t do it. I absolutely have no power to do it unless you do something for me. I repent of ever trying to live for you in my own power. I can’t do it.

Jesus wants to lead us through the grain fields of life and rest. He wants to feed us and nourish us with His perfect righteousness. He wants to give us His whole self so that you and I aren’t frantically panicking that we cannot keep the rules, but rejoice that Christ has. And because Christ has, we have true, eternal rest.

It would be a weird thing if someone did it, but imagine someone digging up a corpse and you zip-tie that corpse to your own body. And you begin to roam around. And you’re wondering, how come these hands don’t work very good? And how come this body can’t hold a conversation? How come this body can’t do anything?

Because it’s dead. It’s dead. And in the same way, I think we so often come to God and we apologize for the old sinful man that’s been crucified and buried with Christ. And God’s saying, take that old man off. I don’t want to see that old man. Don’t apologize for that old man. Forsake that old man. You’ve been united. In the perfect, victorious, resurrected life of the Lord Jesus Christ. That’s our power for holy living. That’s our eternal rest. It’s the grace that God has shown us.

Sorry is an apology. My best wasn’t enough. God doesn’t want that.

Repentance is an acknowledgement. Lord, I cannot. Only Jesus can.

And perhaps, like me, you need to just, go ahead and call yourself a recovering shame addict. I just need to feel bad enough. You know, have I felt bad enough yet for that sin? Lord, I’m beating myself up for that, you know. And God’s responding, Jesus already got beat up on the cross for you. Yes, be convicted over sin. But no, the blood of Christ has washed that away and Jesus carried your sin and shame and guilt. So stop wallowing in the mud hole of self-righteousness and pity and walk through the grain fields of grace with Jesus.

I want to say this too. You know how you really labor and work for God? You know how you really get around to obeying God’s rules? It’s the first rest in the finished work of Christ. You want to work for God? Rest in the work of Christ. That’s the only way to truly work and labor meaningfully for God. Otherwise, you’re constantly sapping yourself of joy because, gosh, I didn’t do it well enough. Gosh, that wasn’t good enough. Somebody out there is doing it better than me and it’s about me and what I’m doing. I’m doing it for God, not about who Christ is and what He did for the Father. Rules become a joy, not a burden when we live in the power of the cross.

What’s in your heart this morning?

The rest Christ provides or the self-righteous rule-keeping of the Pharisees?

So I want to look at another conversation here. Let’s go to verse 22.

It says, Then a demon-oppressed man who was blind and mute was brought to him and he healed him so that the man spoke and saw. And all the people were amazed and said, Can this be the son of David? But when the Pharisees heard it, they said, It is only by Beelzebul, the prince of demons, that this man casts out demons. Knowing their thoughts, he said to them, Every kingdom divided against itself is laid waste. And no city or house divided against itself will stand. And if Satan casts out Satan, he is divided against himself. How then will his kingdom stand? And if I cast out demons by Beelzebul, by whom do your sons cast them out? Therefore, they will be your judges. But if it is by the Spirit of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you. How can someone enter a strong man’s house and plunder his goods unless he first binds the strong man? Then, indeed, he may plunder his house. Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters. Therefore, I tell you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven, people. But the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven. And whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven. But whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age, or in the age to come.

So this isn’t the first time in Matthew’s Gospel that we’ve seen Jesus heal someone. We’ve talked about that. We’ve seen that multiple times. But don’t let it be lost on you, the double miracle here. I think that’s so important in this interaction. Jesus doesn’t just give this man a sight. Jesus allows this man to speak. I mean, it would have been awesome to see one of the things, but Jesus does the two things at once.

How kind is God? To the Pharisees, to let them see what the great majority of humans will never see, even the great majority of Christians will never see. How few Christians will get to see God in the flesh doing a double miracle as they have seen it. And the grace of it’s not lost on the people. The people say, wow, maybe this is the Son of David. Look what he, I mean, who else can do this?

But for the Pharisees, they say, nah, he did that by the power of a demon. It drove a wedge between Jesus and the Pharisees. In fact, a wedge that was irrevocable, that can never be removed. And Jesus easily refutes their very silly logic. He says, now, if I’m doing it by the power of Satan, why would I war against Satan and cast demons out and lose ground for Satan? That would be a house divided. Jesus says, I bound the strong man and cast the demon out. That’s what happened. And Jesus says to them again, see the kindness of Christ. And what does He say? He said, if it’s not buildable, then that means I did it by the Spirit of God. And that means the kingdom of God is upon you. So think about that. How much kinder could Christ be to the Pharisees in what He’s said and done to show them?

But Jesus charges these men with a sin. And this is a very heavy, heavy truth here. He charges them with a sin that cannot be forgiven. He charges them with the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit.

Now, what is the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit? Well, it’s what they did.

They willfully denied. They willfully disbelieved. They willfully maliciously slandered what the Spirit of God had made plain to them. Jesus was the Messiah. They denied the undeniable presence of God.

church think about it with me who is it but the spirit of god alone who drops the scales from our eyes to see christ as our savior who is it but the spirit that draws us and woos us to play saving faith in jesus who is it that applies the work of christ the work of redemption to us that we could be saved the spirit so we cannot say god cut them off from repentance and forgiveness without saying they first chose to cut themselves off from god’s means of forgiveness and repent you ever burned your finger on a stovetop or you know burn something on like an iron and it hurts but it’s not you can’t feel there after a while because it’s dead and that’s the very thing they’ve done they’ve They’ve taken Satan’s branding iron and they’ve seared their own conscience to the point where they cannot feel spiritually.

The Hebrew writer describes it in this way. Hebrews 10.26 He says, For if we go on sinning deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a fearful expectation of judgment and a fury of fire that will consume the adversary Anyone who has set aside the law of Moses dies without mercy on the evidence of two or three witnesses. How much worse punishment do you think will be deserved by the one who has trampled underfoot the Son of God and has profaned the blood of the covenant by which He was sanctified and has, here it is, outraged the Spirit of grace? For we know Him who said, Vengeance is mine, I will repay. And again, the Lord will judge His people. It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. They denied what was undeniable. The works, the ministry of Christ wrought by God’s witness, the Holy Spirit. They said absolutely no.

And I think when we read that, we all go, Oh, have I done that before? You know, have I committed this sin before? I doubt that you’ve committed this sin because usually people who have seared their conscience don’t care what their relationship with God looks like. So I highly doubt you have done this. In fact, some commentators think this was such a special grace for the Pharisees to see Jesus that it wouldn’t even be possible to blaspheme the Spirit the way that they did to incur this sin. But I want you to consider this with me. What good is it to realize even you haven’t blasphemed the Holy Spirit if you still live as one who doesn’t have the Spirit?

What peace is there in saying, Oh, I haven’t committed the unpardonable sin if you don’t live any different from someone who has? Doesn’t make too much sense, does it? The Spirit of God didn’t come to just quote unquote save us out of hell into heaven. The Spirit of God came to fill us up with God. To live life to the fullest. So are you okay with having a casual relationship with the Spirit? I just want to be a saved person. No, there is no just saved people. There are people filled with the Spirit full of God. In John 20, 22, Jesus says that His apostles receive the Holy Spirit. Having the Spirit is New Testament life. Having the Spirit, I know God. Having the Spirit, I’m filled up with heaven to become like and act like and love and live for God. Jesus, I’ve got to have the Spirit of God in me. Why is that so important? It’s so important because the Spirit regenerates us to spiritual life. He stirs our affections for holiness and righteousness. A passion for holiness. The Spirit gives us power to resist sin. Imparts godly wisdom. Understanding of spiritual truth. Courage to live for God. Convictions of all of our sins. Gives us hope for the future. Joy and hardship. Peace. Assurance of salvation. A burden for lost people. Power to guard the doctrine of salvation. Produces all the fruits of the Spirit in us to be like Christ. Through the Spirit, we commune with the Father and the Son. Through the Spirit, we live in the local fellowship of the church. Through the Spirit, we are brought home to glory. All of that to say, friends, the Spirit doesn’t just save you. He keeps you. He keeps you. He brings you home all the way through. We must be a Spirit-filled people. So it’s a very poor and silly thing to say, oh, I haven’t been blaspheming the Spirit with no intention of being utterly filled up with the Spirit. To blaspheme the Spirit is to have none of Christ. To receive the Spirit is to have all of Christ. And there is no in between. A man is condemned to hell for blaspheming the Spirit as much as a person who goes to hell simply because they don’t have the Spirit. And shame on us if we do have the Spirit and we live as if we don’t.

Jesus has come so that in the heart we can be filled with not the Spirit of the age, not the Spirit of Satan. He’s come that we can be filled with His Spirit and have real eternal life, have the promise of heaven.

You went to the beach a couple months ago with our family. And we were there. And I’m the kind of person, I’m happy just to kind of hang out, you know, the condo. That’s good enough for me. That’s good enough. I just like to be somewhere else. My kids are like, we’re not at the beach. That’s the beach where the sand is. We’ve got to go over there. We’ve got to put on the sunscreen, get the toilet. We’ve got to get in the sand, get in the water. Right?

So yeah, technically I was at the beach, but I wasn’t at the beach. I wasn’t at home in Alabama, but my feet were already in the sand. Right? I was happy somewhere in between. And God calls us to not live in that in between. He says, no, you come and splash in the waters of the Spirit. Come and be full. Have life. Have the power of God. Have the joy of God. Live a victorious, effective life for God. That’s what we’re called to. So get rid of this technically business. I’m technically a Christian. I believe the right things. No, I want to absolutely, fully be filled up with Jesus.

Don’t be sad. Don’t be satisfied with anything less than the fullness of God. So how do I get more Spirit? Well, good news. You’ve got the Spirit. What you need to do is believe God when He says, be filled with the Spirit. Obey the command. Believe that God is going to give you everything you need to live for the Spirit. Pray for that greater faith. God, fill me up with the Spirit. Know God’s Word, because the more you know God’s Word, guess what? That’s the more the Spirit is going to bring, more of Christ He’s producing in you. So obey it. Be filled. Believe the promises of what God has done for you in Christ Jesus.

What’s in the heart? What’s in the heart? Are you filled up with the Spirit? Are you believing?

So I think at the end of it, when we consider what Christ is saying, what’s in the heart? I think the only answer for us can be Christ. Christ. I think that can be the answer. I think it’s if Christ is in the heart, it’s going to produce the good fruit of the life of Christ in us. We’re going to live out of that rest that Jesus has won for us. Having Christ in the heart, we have believed that Jesus is our salvation, that Jesus is life. We will in the heart be sealed for the day of redemption. What’s in your heart? Do you believe the fullness of the Gospel? Are you living in the rest? That Jesus’ finished work gives you? What, in the words of Jesus, what treasure are you bringing forth?

Cold dead rules?

That’s a silly, silly, sad substitute for the righteousness of Jesus. Your own pride and your own logic and your own thoughts? Oh, that’s a silly, silly, sad substitute for faith in Jesus alone. So let us bear the fruit of the kingdom because Christ, Christ is in the heart. It’s Christ in the heart.