The Signs of the Kingdom

Well, which word did you hear? Well, the answer to that depends, right? And it depends on where your eyes were looking. Because where you looked determined what you heard.

But the truth is, the word that actually was being said was “BRAINSTORM.” And so if you heard otherwise, then I have some advice for you, And it comes by way of the famous theologian Obi-Wan Kenobi, who once said: “be careful to not trust your eyes, for they will deceive you.” And why is that? Because of something called: “Confirmation Bias.”

What’s that? Well, I’ll answer that by way of an illustration: For example, if my eyes are looking to see my favorite team win the big game, Then when the refs call for that instant replay - I don’t even need to watch it to know what the right call is Because the right call is - OBVIOUSLY - the one that favors my team! And if the ref thinks otherwise, then they are a blind as bat and need to be fired! And even when the instant replay shows otherwise, it won’t change my mind and I’ll boo anyways about the “terrible call.” And why? because of confirmation bias

So that’s confirmation bias, and now that you know what it is, you will... ‘see it everywhere…’ Yes, that was a pun intended. You will see in sports, You will see it politics, You will see it in arguments and debates, You will see it in just about everything, Which means that you’ll see it in religion too.

And in Matthew 16, that’s exactly what we see as the religious leader’s look at Jesus and draw their biased conclusions. And what do they conclude? They conclude He’s not legitimate, but instead a fraud They conclude He’s not holy, but sinful, They conclude that He’s not of God, but of Satan, And so consequently, they conclude He’s not God’s Messiah, And why? Because their eyes were full of confirmation bias which led them see Jesus wrongly. Which led to their direct and eventually violent opposition of Him.

In our passage this morning, Jesus interacts with the confirmation bias of the pharisees, who have just asked Him to show them a miraculous sign. And why? Not because they wanted to believe, but because they wanted to continue in their unbelief! and so because of this, they only saw what they wanted to see, and refused to see what they didn’t want to see.

And so with this in mind, Jesus turns to His disciples in verse 6 and says: “Beware of they leaven.” Which basically an illustrative way of saying: “Beware of the bias of unbelief.”

So how do we do that? Four ways:

To defeat the bias of unbelief we must see:

1. The Blindness of unbelief (v.1-3)
2. The Bent towards unbelief (v. 4)
3. The Battle for belief (v. 4-11)
4. The Blessings of belief (v. 12)

1. The Blindness of unbelief (v.1-3)

And the Pharisees and Sadducees came, and to test him they asked him to show them a sign from heaven. He answered them, “When it is evening, you say, ‘It will be fair weather, for the sky is red.’ 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.

Matthew 16:1-3 ESV

So far in the book of Matthew, we’ve seen Jesus perform some pretty incredible miracles! We saw Him heal the sick, Cast out demons, Make the lame walk Cause the blind to see, Feed the hungry crowds with just a few loaves of bread and fish on two different occasions, And even raise the dead! And what how do the religious leaders of Jesus’s day respond? “MORE PLEASE!” Except they didn’t say please.

And why do they ask for more signs? Because their confirmation bias has has led them into wilful unbelief.

And so in response to their wilful unbelief, Jesus rebukes them by giving them a weather analogy. He’s basically saying: “you can read the signs of nature, yet you religious leaders are (ironically) completely incapable of reading the signs of the supernature.” Or another way to say that: “you can read the signs of earth, but are blind to the signs of heaven.” Which is why Jesus called them “Blind Guides” back in Matthew chapter 15. and the reason they were blind guides is because they had seen the signs of heaven through Jesus’s miraculous works - over and over again, And yet because their eyes were fixed in the wrong place, they couldn’t see the truth, which left them spiritually blind.

Where were their eyes fixed? Not where they should have been. They were fixed upon their traditions, Their customs, Their rituals, But where should their eyes have been fixed? Upon God’s Word and it alone. And make no mistake, the second we get our eyes off of God’s Word and onto something else, it leaves us blind! Which is why the Psalmist says:

Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.

Psalm 119:105 ESV

Now, did the religious leaders have their eyes completely off of God’s Word? No they didn’t - which is in part why Jesus says in Matthew 23 that they sit on Moses’s seat,and so the people are supposed to do what they say, but not as they do. So what went wrong them then? What went wrong was they tried to have their eyes on God’s Word and Man’s Word at the same time, Which is something you can’t do! Like try it sometime! Try to look at two things at once You can’t do it! You’ll either go cross-eyed and see nothing at all, or else you’ll divert your attention off of what you should be looking at, to the thing you shouldn’t be looking at.

And how did they get their eyes onto man’s word? By appealing to their traditions. which were just man’s thoughts; not God’s... Which is something Jesus didn’t have the time of day for....

So do we ever do that? Do we ever get our eyes off God’s Word by trying to look at man’s Word and God’s Word at the same time? You had better believe it. Cuz it happens in about 30 million different ways.

Let’s look at just a few: Take politics for instance: Though the Bible says it’s wrong to murder, many professing Christians (because of their commitment to a political party - which last time I checked is just man’s thoughts) go directly against the Bible when it comes to abortion. And why? Because they tried to look at two things at once, instead of the one thing they should have been looking at.

For another example, let’s take modern psychology. Though the Bible tells us to pick up our cross and follow Christ and to deny ourselves for the sake of serving God and others, modern-psychology says to “love yourself” and to not let anything get in the way of your personal happiness. And i’m not making this up. I recently saw post on social media by someone, and in her post she said: “Your personal happiness is no one else’s business but your own.” And even more remarkable than that, a bunch of professing Christians like’d her post knowing how she was living...

Church, this is nothing but secular psychology’s prescription for happiness. Which is not at all compatible with God’s, is it? No, it’s not. And so why do professing Christians end up thinking this way? Because they tried to look at two things at once, instead of the one thing they should have been looking at.

Take science for instance: Genesis (and Exodus for that matter) make it pretty clear that God created the Universe and how He did it... And yet so many professing Christians try to also look to man’s scientific rational, which simply leaves them looking to man’s scientific rational and neglecting God’s Word. And if you think that’s an insignificant issue then we need to have a serious conversation about Biblical interpretation and how the way we interpret Genesis 1 and 2 when it comes to the creation effects the way we Interpret Romans 1 and 2 when it comes to sin and sexuality. Which is exactly what so many professing Christians have done in order to accept more and more of man’s views on everything from sex, to sexuality, to gender and a full embracing of the modern feminist movement. Which has caused all sorts of problems in society, the church, and the home. So this is no little problem. And why? Because they tried to look at two things at once, instead of the one thing they should have been looking at.

Look - you can’t look at two things at once, I tried with that video and it didn’t work. You can’t hear two things at once: anymore than you can play Simon Says and listen to Simon and someone else… And so too church is it impossible for us to listen to God’s Word and man’s. For if we do, we - like the religious leader’s of Jesus’s day, will be left blind.

Ya know - I think the saddest thing about the blindness of the religious leaders was that they thought they were looking to God’s Word, when the truth was they weren’t. And how did that happen? How did they end up accepting the traditions of man in place of the Word of God? By falling for the same old-tired argument of: “God told me so.”

And you remember how this happened... After Moses came down from the mountain, yes He wrote down God’s laws, BUT, his printer was out of ink, so when it came to applying God’s laws He passed that on orally to Joshua and the elders, who passed it down to the priests, and then to the teachers, and then eventually to them.

Do you realize this “God told me so” lie, lies at the center of every Christian cult on the planet? Over half of which come right out of America… btw... And all because the lie of “God told me so” lie was re-born and re-raised here.

And yet, what are to do? Fix our eyes upon God’s Word alone.

And we have the prophetic word more fully confirmed, to which you will do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts,

2 Peter 1:19 ESV

All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.

2 Timothy 3:16-17 ESV

So where are you eyes fixed? God’s Word or Man’s Word? Do you believe the Bible is our only source for faith and practice, or do you think it’s “A SOURCE” for faith and practice, which also makes room for man’s word?

Because make no mistake, its one or the other. And if it’s the other, it will leave you blind. And so if we want to avoid the blindness of the Sadducees and pharisees, we have to have our eyes in the right place, which is upon God’s true and living Word, and not man’s biased word. Which lead’s us to our second point.

To defeat the bias of unbelief we must see:

2. The Bent towards unbelief (v. 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.

Matthew 16:4 ESV

If you notice in verse 1, it says that the Pharisees and the Sadducees came to Jesus “TO TEST HIM.” And this is fascinating for a few reasons, but one of them is that these two groups were diametrically opposed to one another. And yet here, they come together to “test” Jesus...

See, the pharisees were the religious conservatives and the Sadducees were the religious liberals. The pharisees prided themselves upon all of God’s Word and living for the Kingdom, while the Sadducees only believed in the Pentateuch and didn’t even believe in an afterlife at all which probably explains why they were so sad... Get it… SADDUCEES… Well at least now you have an easy way to remember the difference between the two… But the point is, these groups were not friends... In fact, in Acts when Paul is being challenged by both groups, He just says: “I BELIEVE IN THE RESURRECTION” and that causes a huge fight between the two that distracts them from going after paul.

And yet, with Jesus we find them working together to “test Him.” And why would they do that? Have you ever heard the expression: “The enemy of my enemy is my friend.” Well that’s part of it, but more-so-than that, without their knowing, they both were actually on the same team, which was the team Satan. And so as agents of Satan - or fingers from the same hand - they show up to test Jesus just as Satan did back in Matthew chapter 4.

And why did they want to test Jesus? Was it because they wanted the truth? Nope. It was because they wanted their truth, which they clang to because of their unbelieving bias.

I mean think about it... They heard Jesus’s heavenly teaching, saw His heavenly living, and even saw His heavenly miracles, but it didn’t fit with their desires did it? And what were their desires? They wanted the conquering King, not the suffering servant. They wanted the Messiah on the White Warhorse, not the lowly donkey! They wanted Jesus to accept them and reject and castigate the others

But Jesus didn’t do that, did He? No He didn’t. He didn’t serve their agenda at all. In fact, He condemned it.

And he condemned it because the driving force behind our blind and biased unbelief is rebellion in response to God not giving us what we want. What we think we deserve What we think He should do...

See, unbelief isn’t just being an atheist... No, it’s actually more insidious than that. Unbelief also is when we lose our job, our health, or that special loved one, and our heart’s follow the advice of Job’s wife to “curse God and die.” But here’s the thing: Whatever it is we say: “God if you give me that, then I’ll serve you.” That thing - that’s our true God. That’s what we are serving.

Just think about the unbelief of the Israelites. God blesses them immensely, and then proceeds to tests their faith with hardship, And how do they respond? “We’d be better off back in Egypt!” “Back in slavery!” And if that’s not a shining star example of the blinding bias of unbelief then I don’t know what is! I mean these jokers saw God part the Red sea Feed them bread from heaven Give them water from a rock Make their clothes last for 40 years! Some of mine don’t even last 40 days!

And yet how do they respond when their true God of comfort is taken from them? They are ready to curse God and die. Which was precisely the attitude of the religious leaders.

“An evil and adulterous generation seeks a sign” Jesus says, but to them no sign will be given. And why? Because Jesus saw the willful, unbelieving bias of their heart’s, which rebelliously refused to see the truth.

And do you know what this teaches us? It teaches us that unbelief isn’t the result of a lack of sufficient evidences, but the lack of a sufficient heart-change. Think about all of the examples we have of this: Was Cain lacking in evidences? Not at all!

How about Pharoah? Was he lacking evidences? No. What was he lacking - a softened heart... and the same thing goes for the Israelites, the religious leader’s of Jesus’s day, and every unbeliever ever. For at the center of their unbelief lies not a lack of evidence, but a rebellious heart that cries out as the Jews did before Pilate: “We will not have this man reign over us!”

Deep down every unbeliever knows this too, but they suppress it. But once in a while, you find one who acknowledges it. For example, Harvard’s atheist Biologist Richard Lewontin once admitted his biased unbelief, saying:

“Our willingness to accept scientific claims that are against common sense is the key to an understanding of the real struggle between science and the supernatural. We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism. It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our [commitment] . . . to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counterintuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute, [And why?] for we cannot allow a divine foot in the door.

That’s an amazingly honest recognition!

See here’s the problem. What if that divine foot get’s into the door of our life, and then insists upon the Divine leg coming through, And then the Divine torso, arms, and head? What then? I’ll tell you what then, it means we lose our autonomy! We lose the right to sing Bon Jovi’s “It’s my life!” The burger king motto of: “Have it my way” becomes “have it God’s way” And the human heart doesn’t like that! Not ONE BIT!

And so because of this we’ll do anything to keep Him out. And there’s all sorts of ways people do this too. Atheistically, people convince themselves there is no God and all of this just happened… somehow... Religiously, people convince themselves that there is a God, but He’s on our side! - YAY!!!!! How convenient! He approves of what I approve, disapproves EXACTLY of what I disapprove of,.... It’s JUST WILD how alike we are! In fact, it’s “almost” like we’re THE SAME PERSON... Yes we aren’t perfect, and so there’s some thing we gotta do to keep Him on our good side, But the list isn’t that bad, and we’ve mostly got it down....

But you know what. He’s not on our side and we don’t have that list mostly down, do we? NOT EVEN CLOSE! in fact, apart from Jesus’s work upon the cross, God is our enemy, and so unless we receive the righteousness of Christ by God’s free grace through faith in Him, we are hosed! Which means we can’t earn it We can’t work for it And we definitely DO NOT DESERVE IT!

Now tell me WHO WANTS TO HEAR THAT? Who wants to sing “for such a worm as I?” That doesn’t sound like positive, encouraging, K-love to me!? And so in response the rebellious human heart rejects God’s grace. But... if we do that, we have completely lost the battle for belief. Which leads us to our 3rd point.

To defeat the bias of unbelief we must see:

3. The Battle for belief (v. 4-11)

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. When the disciples reached the other side, they had forgotten to bring any bread. Jesus said to them, “Watch and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees.” And they began discussing it among themselves, saying, “We brought no bread.” But Jesus, aware of this, said, “O you of little faith, why are you discussing among yourselves the fact that you have no bread? Do you not yet perceive? Do you not remember the five loaves for the five thousand, and how many baskets you gathered? Or the seven loaves for the four thousand, and how many baskets you gathered? How is it that you fail to understand that I did not speak about bread? Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees.”

Matthew 16:4-11 ESV

Here we find another dim-witted disciples moment, in which they completely miss Jesus’s point at first. But what is His point? Look at verse 7: “WATCH OUT” “BEWARE” Of what? The leaven (or unbelief) of the Pharisees and Sadducees.

And what does Jesus point them to as the means of battling against unbelief? God’s provision! Which is true battleground of unbelief.

Why? Because apart from God’s grace, what does the human heart do? Find provision apart from God... It tries to fill our starving spiritual belly’s on our own... But that’s a lot like trying to feed a crowd of five thousand with a few loaves Or a crowd of 4,000 with a few fish! You can’t do it! It’s impossible It’s just gonna leave you starving!

And yet, we all naturally live our lives trying to feed our starving soul’s with money, jobs, career, sex, and hobbies... But it don’t work, does it? No it doesn’t. For there is only one thing that does, and it’s the bread of life, who was broken and torn for us so that we might live. Which what Jesus is referring to in verse 4 when He speaks once again of the sign of Jonah - which was the only sign He would give these unbelievers.

And what’s the sign of Jonah? “just as Jonah was in the belly of fish 3 days and 3 nights, so the Son of man will be in the belly of the earth 3 days and 3 night.” And why? Because that was how the battle for belief would be won, which would lead to the blessings of belief Which leads us to our final point.

To defeat the bias of unbelief we must see:

4. The Blessings of belief (v. 12)

Then they understood that he did not tell them to beware of the leaven of bread, but of the teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees. Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” And they said, “Some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” Simon Peter replied, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” And Jesus answered him, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven.

Matthew 16:12-17 ESV

Throughout Jesus’s teaching, He continually talks about, “Blessed are those with ears to hear and eyes to see.” And in verse 12, the disciples come to understand and see the truth. Until eventually, with eyes of faith, Peter concludes in verse 16:

Matthew 16:16 (ESV) “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”

Why was Peter able to see this? Because he was determined to see? Because he made himself some spiritual glasses? No. It wasn’t flesh and blood that did this, it was the Father who is in heaven, Whom by grace through faith in Christ we can come to KNOW!

Before we were alienated from God - completely cut off from Him - but we have been brought near as Hebrews says: Before we were sons and daughters of the devil - but now we have been adopted and son’s and daughter’s of the King! Before we were blind, but now we see! And it is not because of what we have done, but because of what HE HAS DONE FOR US blind, biased, defeated and cursed sinners! And what He has done is He has won the battle we could never win, to bring us the blessings we never deserved nor could have ever imagined! and He did so by taking our blindness upon Himself as He was slapped and beaten before a mob of biased unbelievers

But... because He did this, though we were deaf, now we hear! And though we were blind, now we see! And because we now hear and see, we can experience the wonderful and glorious blessings that our Father in heaven continues to shower down upon us, As we keep our fixed upon the author and finisher of our faith!

C. S. Lewis: “I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.”

Some of you are trying to view: your marriage through darkened eyes of this world your jobs through darkened eyes your careers through darkened eyes And you can’t figure out why you keep bumping into things…

But hear me when I say this, until you come to see all that with the eyes of faith, Until everything you perceive is filtered through the SON of God, you will be blind and you will live without the blessing of spiritual sight.

Do you have that blessing in your life? Do you have eyes of faith? If not, what are you waiting for? “Hear Him Ye deaf, Ye praise ye dumb “your loosened tongues employ” “Ye Blind behold your Savior come” “And Leap Ye Lame for Joy!”

This is the manuscript the sermon was preached from, so the recording may differ in places.