61 Why the Most Religious People Rejected Jesus (Matthew 11:16-24)

Krisan Marotta: Welcome to Wednesday in the Word. I'm Krisan Marotta, and this is my podcast about what the Bible means and how we know. Today we're going to look at Matthew chapter 11, verses 16 through 24. This is the 61st talk in our series in the Gospel of Matthew. Lecture notes for today's talk are on the link below this podcast. And you can also find them by going directly to wednesdayintheword.com slash Matthew 61. Thanks for listening today. Before we move on in chapter 11, I want to think about the significance of what we've already seen so far in this chapter, and then we're going to tie that into the verses we're studying today. The story of the Bible is largely about the relationship of God and the Jewish people. And chapter 11 of Matthew is largely about God's relationship with Israel, as is fundamentally the book of Matthew. And yes, ultimately the message of Matthew is a lesson for all disciples of Jesus, both Jew and Gentile. The apostles ultimately call everyone of all nations to repent and follow Jesus. And the ultimate purpose of the Gospel of Matthew is to tell everyone what Jesus taught and did so that everyone might respond in faith and obedience. The ultimate purpose of the Bible is to call all human beings to faith and obedience. But God chose to reveal Himself to the world by dealing with a particular group of people, the children of Israel. That means we Gentiles have an extra step in trying to understand a passage like Matthew 11. First, we need to understand the relationship between God and Israel on its own terms, and after that, we can derive truths from Israel's experience that apply to our own relationship with God. Understanding Israel's relationship with God allows us to understand our own relationship with God better. And Matthew 11 is an important part of understanding Israel's relationship to God. If you read through the Old Testament and the promises that God made to Israel and all that the children of Israel went through, then Matthew 11 is kind of a big deal. As we've been talking about, this part of Matthew deals with the way people respond to Jesus, particularly the way Jewish people respond to him. But it does have lessons for us as we decide how to respond. One of the themes we've seen in Matthew's gospel is how Jesus is different than what people expected. Jesus will ultimately come in judgment and victory, but his life and ministry when he came the first time around was surprising. It was confusing to people. I don't think it was until after his death and resurrection that people began to understand he's coming twice. And Matthew has been highlighting the difference between what people expected the Messiah to do and what Jesus actually came to do. So Jesus gave his disciples a sober warning in chapter 10 that they were going to be rejected and persecuted and hated because they follow and represent Jesus. And now in chapter 11, he's giving us a series of stories which highlight the growing opposition to Jesus. The first one we looked at was John the Baptist. While sitting in prison awaiting his execution, John becomes confused. We're not really told what John was thinking, but we know he becomes confused by what he hears about what Jesus is doing. And he looks at that and says, Are you the Messiah? And he sends his disciples to ask. John is a Jewish prophet who presumably knows the Old Testament well. He would have certain expectations from the Old Testament about what should be happening when the Messiah arrives. And Jesus is not meeting those expectations. So he's wondering where is the conquering Messiah? Where's the triumph over evil? Where's the judgment that rewards the faithful and destroys the wicked? And by the way, why am I, John, facing execution in the prison of an evil king? So John wonders if maybe someone else is coming to handle this judgment part and maybe he got something wrong. Jesus corrects his thinking, which we looked at in a previous podcast. He reminds John that the miracles he's doing not only show that God is with him, they are the kinds of acts of mercy and compassion that you would expect the Messiah to do. They point ahead to the fullness of promises to come, and they echo backward to the words of the prophets. He also reminds John that he is teaching and explaining the gospel more clearly than anyone has ever explained it before, and he is truly the one who is sent to preach good news to the poor. And then he said in 11 6, and blessed is the one who is not offended by me, or it's probably better translated, the one who keeps from stumbling over me. Jesus is aware that people could stumble over him, the Messiah, because he is not what they expect. Even John could fail to believe in Jesus and fail to enter the kingdom of God if he can't get over how different Jesus is than what he expected. John is facing the kind of confusion any Jew of his day would face. In some ways, Jesus is not at all what they expected. He's from Galilee of all places. He's not part of the Pharisees or the Sadducees. He eats with sinners. He doesn't follow all the Pharisaic rules about fasting and such. He's not gathering an army to drive out Rome, and he's just not acting like they expect the Messiah to act. But on the other hand, they have lots of evidence that Jesus is indeed the Messiah. And Matthew has been pointing out to us the many ways Jesus fulfilled the themes and prophecies of the Old Testament. And Matthew has been explaining how Jesus acts and speaks with the authority of God. That means his Jewish audience, just like John, must be willing to learn and change their expectations. They must be willing to let Jesus teach and show them the plan of God and how it is in keeping with the Old Testament prophecies, even if it's not what they expected. So just to review the story of God in Israel, the basic story of the Old Testament is this. God committed himself to the descendants of Abraham, the Jews. He rescued them out of Egypt and He established them in the land of Israel. He gave them David and his descendants as kings, but most of the time the people and the kings were faithless and they abandoned God. Eventually God brought judgment upon them by taking them into exile in Babylon. Many of the prophets wrote either before the exile or during the exile, and they said that one day God would restore the people to the land and send his Messiah, a son of David, to rule over them in peace. Many Jews of the day understood this simple picture that God would bring the Jews back to the land of Israel, and then the Messiah would come and fix everything. End of story. But if you read the prophets carefully, I think the picture becomes more complicated. But at least the basic understanding is that after the return from exile, the Messiah will come and immediately establish the kingdom of God. The prophet Malachi wrote after the Jews returned from Babylon, returned from the exile. He wrote after the temple was rebuilt, and this is the time when they're waiting for the Messiah to come back and establish the kingdom. But Malachi tells the Jews that their relationship with God is still not right. In particular, he talks about the priesthood, the sons of Levi, and how their offerings fail to take God seriously. The people are complaining, look, God's not listening, God's not reliable, but God says, No, in reality, you're the ones who have abandoned me. For example, in chapter one, God complains that the people are polluting his altar by offering blemished and sick animals as sacrifices. So the Jews were supposed to offer the best of their flock, but if you don't honor God, if you don't care about him, then you bring him the blind or the lame animals that you can't use or do much with anyway. That way you can keep God happy because you're going through the motions of the sacrifice, but it doesn't cost you much. And that's what was happening. The people were keeping the best for themselves, and God says, Nope, I have no regard for such offerings. In chapter two of Malachi, God rebukes the priests for leading the people astray, and he rebukes the people for failing to be faithful to the covenant, and he ends chapter two this way. This is Malachi two hundred seventeen. You have wearied the Lord with your words, but you say, How have we wearied him? By saying everyone who does evil is good in the sight of the Lord and he delights in them, or by asking, Where is the God of justice? So Israel complains that God is unjust because he's letting the wicked prosper. They say, Where's the God of justice? They want God to step in and do something, and so in Malachi three, God responds, He is going to step in and do something, and we've read this before, Malachi three, one through four. Behold, I send my messenger, and he will prepare the way before me, and the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple, and the messenger of the covenant in whom you delight, behold he is coming, says the Lord of hosts. But who can endure the day of his coming? And who can stand when he appears? For he is like a refiner's fire, and like fuller's soap. He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and he will purify the sons of Levi, and refine them like gold and silver, and they will bring offerings in righteousness to the Lord. Then the offering of Judah and Jerusalem will be pleasing to the Lord as in the days of old, as in former years. God says, Look, I am going to respond, I'm going to send a messenger who will prepare the way before me, and I will come into my temple. And we know as we've been studying that he is talking about John the Baptist and the coming of the Messiah, Jesus. And then he says, This is the God you're seeking, right? This is the God you say you delight in, but when he arrives you may not be as happy as you think. You may not be able to stand before him. The priests who are not taking God seriously are going to go through the refiner's fire. And Malachi makes clear that God is going to come both to condemn and to redeem. In four one through three we read for behold, the day is coming, burning like an oven, when all the arrogant and all evil doers will be stubble. The day that is coming shall set them ablaze, says the Lord of hosts, so that it will leave them neither root nor branch. But for you who fear my name, the Son of righteousness shall rise with healing in its wings, you shall go out leaping like calves from the stall, and you shall tread down the wicked, for they will be ashes under the soles of your feet on the day when I act, says the Lord of hosts. God makes clear that he is prepared to fulfill his promises, he is prepared to bless them, but they have to repent and seek to follow him. Now Malachi was written after the Jews have returned to the land and rebuilt the temple, and he makes it clear that the coming of God in the Messiah is complicated. God is going to send his Messiah, but that's not necessarily all good news. It's not as simple as he's going to come back and make everything right. He's going to come back both as judge and redeemer, depending on whether you truly fear God or not. Well, this brings us to John the Baptist and Jesus. John the Baptist is the messenger who prepares for the arrival of the Messiah, who both judges and redeems. This is why John said, Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Repentance is called for. God sends John to prepare the Jewish people for the coming of the Messiah because unless they repent, they will find no place in the coming kingdom. And this is why Jesus tells the crowd how important John the Baptist is. God in his faithfulness is prepared to bless them, but they have to repent and turn to him. In Matthew 11, Jesus is addressing the crowd as Jews who are familiar with the promises God has made to them. John the Baptist is a prophet from God. He's the messenger predicted by the prophets who has confronted the people with a life or death choice. John is the messenger who announces the coming of the Messiah who brings the refiners fire, and John himself makes this point earlier in Matthew chapter 3. But the timing is not what they expected. On the one hand, John is the greatest of the prophets. He brings Israel right to the door of the kingdom of God. He calls them to repent for the Messiah is coming. This is the role that's described in both Malachi 3 and Isaiah 40, the herald who prepared the way for the Messiah. On the other hand, John, probably like many people of Israel, is wrestling with his unmet expectations. He hasn't yet grasped that the Messiah is coming twice, and the coming in judgment is not yet. And as we looked at last week, Jesus wants the crowd to understand the sins in which John really gets it and the sins in which he doesn't. On the one hand, they should listen to him, they should heed his call to repent. He is the last great prophet, he has an important message, and they should pay attention. On the other hand, Jesus is not the Messiah they expected. He is not yet coming in judgment. He is not yet bringing that refiner's fire. And each person has to wrestle with those unmet expectations. Why do the bad guys seem to be winning? Why is life so hard? Why isn't the Messiah coming in judgment right now and putting all things right? And each person has to wrestle with that and say, okay, I'll trust him. And this is what we've seen in chapter 11 up to this point. Like all the other Jews, John needs to not stumble over Jesus. John is the important prophet that we think he is. And like everyone else, he needs to make the choice to follow Jesus. Everyone has to personally make that choice. Everyone has to repent or stumble over Jesus. And at the moment that we're looking at in history, John was still wrestling with that choice, but I have every confidence that he persevered in the faith. As we go on in the chapter, then Jesus continues to address the issue of how the Jews respond to him. Let's read eleven, sixteen through twenty. But to what shall I compare this generation? It's like children sitting in the marketplace and calling to their playmates, We played the flute for you, and you did not dance. We sang a dirge and you did not mourn. For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, He has a demon. The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, Look at him, a glutton, a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners. Yet wisdom is justified by her deeds. So John is the herald who called the people to repentance. This is the generation who finally stands in the presence of the herald and the Messiah. This is what Malachi predicted. It's finally happening. How is this generation going to receive the message? How have they received both the herald and the Messiah? And Jesus gives us an analogy. It's like children sitting in the marketplace playing the flute and calling to their friends. To understand the analogy, I want to look first at how Jesus explains it. Look at 11, 18, and 19. For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say he has a demon. Okay, we know something about John's eating and drinking habits. Matthew 3 4 tells us now John wore a garment of camel's hair and a leather belt around his waist, and his food was locusts and wild honey. Most people have a satisfying meal from the produce of their gardens and the abundance of their flock, but John lives out in the wilderness eating locusts and honey. I think the idea is he has reduced his food to the minimum he needs to keep himself alive. And as for drinking, the messenger who announces John's birth tells his father, Zechariah, this is Luke one, thirteen through fourteen. But the angel said to him, Do not be afraid, Zechariah, for your prayer has been heard, and your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you shall call his name John, and you will have joy and gladness, and many will rejoice at his birth, for he will be great before the Lord. He must not drink wine or strong drink, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit even from his mother's womb. So we know John doesn't drink alcohol, he eats locusts and honey, and the people look at this unusual behavior and they say he has a demon. Now we don't have any examples in the Gospels of John's lifestyle, only these statements, but in Luke's version of this passage we learn a bit more. This is Luke seven twenty seven through thirty. This is he of whom it is written, Behold, I send my messenger before your face who will prepare your way before you. I tell you, among those born of women, none is greater than John, yet the one who is least in the kingdom of God is greater than he. And then Luke adds these comments When all the people heard this, and the tax collectors too, they declared God just, having been baptized with the baptism of John, but the Pharisees and the lawyers rejected the purpose of God for themselves, not having been baptized by him. And then we have the passage that we find in Matthew today, to what shall I compare the people of this generation? Both Matthew and Luke record Jesus saying how important John the Baptist is. Both give this analogy of the children playing the flutes. But in between, Luke tells us that different groups are responding differently to Jesus. The people, the regular people, are responding positively to John's message and Jesus' message because they were baptized by John, but the scribes and the Pharisees, the religious elite, reject him and they don't acknowledge him as a prophet. They don't think his message of repentance is relevant to them and they don't need his baptism. That suggests that the complaints about John's habits and this charge of him having a demon come from the scribes and the Pharisees, the religious elite. They're probably also the complainers we find in 1119. The Son of Man, meaning Jesus, came eating and drinking, and they say, look at him, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners, yet wisdom is justified by her deeds. Now, other than this verse, we don't have any record of Jesus being accused of excess, but we do have complaints about his association with sinners. We saw this earlier in Matthew chapter nine. After Jesus calls Matthew, the tax collector, to be his disciple, Jesus dines at Matthew's house with his friends, and the Pharisees complained to his disciples, why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners? We also saw in chapter nine that Jesus didn't follow the ritual fasting prescribed by the Pharisees. He was eating and drinking when they thought he shouldn't be, and perhaps that's what's behind this charge of gluttony and drunkenness. And I think we can conclude that these complaints are coming from the religious leaders of the day. So Jesus highlights the contrast between their complaints about John and their complaints about himself. They say John was possessed because he deprived himself of good food and drink, and they say Jesus is a sinner because he did not deprive himself of good food and drink. So they complain when John doesn't, and they complain when Jesus does, which suggests the issue is not really eating or drinking, but some more fundamental hostility toward Jesus and his message. I think you can see this kind of thing in our American political parties all the time. Whatever the president does or does not do, the other political party will criticize him for it. You can almost pick any issue. And as far as the other side of the aisle is concerned, he's condemned if he does and he's condemned if he doesn't. It doesn't matter what action he takes, they just want to make him look bad. And I think this kind of fundamental hostility is the key to understanding the analogy. Now various scholars interpret this analogy differently. I'm giving you the explanation that I think makes the most sense, but there are other options. The children are Playing flutes in the marketplace. They want the other children to play with them. When they play a joyful tune, the listeners should dance, but they don't. When they play a dirge, the listeners should mourn, but they don't. So imagine an adult at a wedding. When the flute players play, everyone should celebrate the wedding by dancing and making merry. That's the appropriate response. If the person didn't dance, you'd wonder what was wrong. Then imagine an adult at a funeral. When the flute players play, everyone should wail and mourn. If someone didn't participate, you'd question their behavior. It's not appropriate to the occasion. In the same way, the children in the marketplace want their playmates to play with them. We're playing a dance tune, dance with us. Oh, you don't want to dance? Okay, we'll play you a dirge, mourn with us. They'll take either dancing or mourning. They just want the other children to play with them. Well, the Pharisees are like the children. Their objections are not reasoned. They're not principled objections to the message of Jesus. The Pharisees just want Jesus and John to conform to their picture of how a religious person should act. They want John and Jesus to act in a way they approve of, so they're going to complain about abstaining and they're going to complain about indulging, whatever works. They just want things their way. Again, kind of like the American political system. The politicians don't really care what the issue is, they just want the other side to look bad and take the blame. Jesus concludes wisdom is vindicated or justified by her deeds. In the end, John's eating habits and his deeds will be seen to be wisdom. In the end, Jesus' choices of eating and associating with sinners will be seen to be wisdom. John lived his unusual lifestyle because he was called by God to be a prophet. He didn't teach that everyone should eat like he did. He was following the call of God to live the distinctive life of a prophet. He wore a hairy garment and a leather belt like Elijah and other prophets. His life was free from the daily concerns about wealth, prosperity, and family needs. He was a distinctive, compelling figure of integrity, dedicated to announcing the Messiah and baptizing the people as he called them to repent. His life had a strange but fascinating quality that God wanted him to have as a prophet. Jesus led a very different kind of life. He deliberately rejected the religious rules of the Pharisees. He ate with sinners, he associated with tax gatherers. He didn't require his followers to follow all the rules of the Pharisees. He knew that the Pharisees were teaching righteousness consists of following all these rules and restrictions, so he wisely did not follow them. It comes down to this. John the Baptist was the messenger sent by God to announce the Messiah. Jesus was that Messiah. Yet most of the religious leaders of the day rejected both of them because neither of them fit their model of what a religious person ought to be. The Pharisees concentrated in a very inconsistent way on their outward behavior and missed the significance of their lives and message. Then Jesus goes on to explore the negative reaction of the Jewish people. This is 1120 through twenty four. Then he began to denounce the cities where most of his mighty works had been done, because they did not repent. Woe to you, Corusan, woe to you, Bethseda, for if the mighty works in you had been done in Tyree and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. But I tell you, it will be more bearable on the day of judgment for Tyree and Sidon than for you. And you, Capernaum, will you be exalted to heaven? You will be brought down to Hades, for if the mighty works done in you had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day, but I tell you that it will be more tolerable on the day of judgment for the land of Sodom than for you. Well, let me remind you that the first half of Matthew's gospel focuses on the ministry of Jesus around the Sea of Galilee. Corusan and Bethseda and Capernaum are in the northern region of Galilee. I'll put a link to a map in the lecture notes if you want to find them. Jesus did most of his miracles in this region, which makes sense because his base of operations was in Capernaum. Jesus is denouncing the Jews living in that region because they didn't repent. The Jewish people, by and large, need to repent and turn back to God. The Messiahs arrived to find a place in his kingdom, they need to repent. And as we've talked about, the miracles Jesus performed were a sign from God that Jesus was the Messiah and demonstrated the God given authority he had. The cities around the northern region of the Sea of Galilee saw more of those miracles and heard more of his teaching than anyone else, and yet they did not repent. There's a structure to how Jesus says this, which he repeats twice, and that structure is woe to you, Jewish city, for if the notoriously sinful pagans had seen my miracles, they would have repented. It will be worse for you on judgment day than for those sinful pagans. So let's look at the first cities. In twenty-one and twenty-two, woe to you, Corusan, and woe to you, Bethseda, for if the mighty works done in you had been done in Tyree and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes, but I tell you it will be more bearable on the day of judgment for Tyree and Sidon than for you. So in this first section, he addresses Coruson and Beth Seda. These are two cities in Galilee. Tyree and Sidon are two cities on the coast of the Mediterranean Sea in Gentile territory, their Phoenician cities. Tyree and Sidon are proverbial for being denounced by the prophets. For example, Ezekiel 26 contains a long prophetic denunciation of Tyree that lasts for several chapters. And immediately after that, in chapter 28, Ezekiel prophesies against Sidon. The Jews would have recognized these names as the kind of prototypical Gentile cities that come under the judgment of God. The Jews in Galilee, especially the scribes and the Pharisees, would see themselves as much superior to the people of Tyree and Sidon. And here Jesus is saying, actually, you're worse. If Tyree and Sidon had seen the miracles of Jesus, they would have repented, but you, Jewish cities, have not repented. Now it's true that Tyree and Sidon inflicted evil and harm on God's people, but the cities of Galilee had an advantage that those cities never had. The cities of Galilee have seen and heard the Messiah. They heard his wisdom, they heard him teach, they saw his miracles, and still they rejected him. If we picture the day of judgment as a time to measure how wicked people are, Jesus says the evil of rejecting the Messiah that we see in the Jewish cities of Khorzon and Beth Seda is much worse than the pagan evil we see in Tyree and Sidon. Rejecting the Messiah is a serious offense, and they had a better opportunity than anyone else had to date, and yet they did not repent. Then he repeats the same pattern with Capernaum. And you, Capernaum, will you be exalted to heaven? You will be brought down to Hades, for if the mighty works done in you had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day. But I tell you that it will be more tolerable on the day of judgment for the land of Sodom than for you. Now Matthew has told us that Jesus lived at Capernaum during his early ministry. This was his base of operations. And yet those in the city did not repent, even though they saw more of him than anyone else. Now Jesus may be echoing the language of Isaiah 14, where the prophet taunts the king of Babylon. He says in Isaiah 14, 13 through 15, You said in your heart, I will ascend to heaven above the stars of God, I will set my throne on high, I will sit on the Mount of Assembly in the far reaches of the north, I will ascend above the heights and of the clouds, I will make myself like the most high, but you are brought down to Sheol to the far reaches of the pit. Both Isaiah and Jesus picture someone who expects to be exalted to heaven but is condemned to hell instead. Now if that echo is deliberate, then it brings a touch of comparison and maybe a little sarcasm or irony to what Jesus says. The king of Babylon believed that he ruled over the known world at the time. He had a very exalted view of his importance. He exalted himself to heaven, but in fact he was going to be thrust down to the place of the dead. Likewise, the Jews of Capernaum have a pride and a confidence that they will be exalted to heaven, but likewise they will be thrown into the place of the dead for rejecting the Messiah. Now Sodom and its sister city Gomorrah were destroyed by God's judgment in the time of the patriarchs. They became the poster children for rejecting God. They weren't conquered by another nation. Angels of God came and warned the only righteous person in the city to flee, and then they called down fire and brimstone to destroy the cities. We've talked about them before in this series. Yet Jesus said, If those cities had seen the miracles, they would have repented. Yes, Sodom was a very wicked place, but the people of Campernum had an advantage no other city had. The Messiah lived right there in their town. They saw more of his miracles than anyone else, and still they rejected him. God's judgment will be that they are more stubbornly wicked than Sodom. Now it might sound like Jesus is saying the only reason Tyree and Sidon and Sodom turned evil is because they didn't get a chance to see the Messiah or the miracles of Jesus. It might sound like he's saying if they'd seen the miracles they would have repented. It's only because they didn't see the miracles that they didn't repent. I do not think that that is what Jesus is saying. Nowhere does Jesus suggest that miracles in and of themselves can turn unbelievers into believers. In fact, Jesus denies that very thing in the story of the rich man and Lazarus. In that story, a rich man hopes that someone will be sent back from the dead to warn his brothers to repent, but he is told that even someone coming back from the dead will do no good. If his brothers didn't listen to the prophets, they aren't going to listen to someone who rises from the dead either. The stubbornness and hardness of our hearts keeps us from repenting, and no miracle by itself overcomes that. Rather, I think Jesus is speaking here in hyperbole to get their attention. He's highlighting the fact that these Galilean cities are rejecting the clearest statement God has ever made. By saying that Tyree and Sidon and Sodom would have repented, I think he's emphasizing how much clearer the message of the Messiah is. These cities were relatively ignorant compared to the clear and abundant presentation given to the cities of Galilee. They think of themselves as religiously superior, but when presented with the Messiah himself, his miracles and his teaching, they refuse to repent. Okay, so let's wrap this up. What we have in Matthew 11 so far is a very serious and dramatic episode in the story of God's relationship with Israel. As we've talked about in this series, Jesus has two major criticisms of the religious leaders of his day, their self righteousness and their worldliness. That is, they thought God would reward them for their superficial religious practices, and they wanted the reward of this world now. Many rejected John and Jesus because they had a different picture of what it means to follow God. At this point, you and I face the same issue they did. We don't have to struggle with Jewish expectations concerning the Messiah, but we do need to struggle with our own religious expectations concerning Jesus. Christians today can just as easily fall into self-righteousness and worldliness. We can easily prefer a Jesus who we think rewards us now for being good Christians today. And we can seek a Jesus who will solve all our worldly, earthly problems today and make our lives smooth and prosperous. We can seek a Jesus who tells us we're special and unique and fans our secret desire that the story really is all about me, my needs, and my impact on the world. If we seek to follow a Jesus like that, we may not really be following the Messiah at all, and we're in danger of rejecting the Jesus we meet in Matthew's gospel because he doesn't meet our expectations. Now you've probably met people who think that the central goal of life is to be happy and to feel good about yourself. These people don't want God to be involved except maybe when needed to resolve a problem, and they think all basically good people go to heaven. We just need to be nice and fair. When these people discover that following Jesus doesn't guarantee wealth and happiness and automatic problem solving, they reject him. Even worse, if they learn that following Jesus means they have to listen to what he says about how they handle money, sexuality, ambition, and so forth, well then no thanks. That's not the Messiah they want to follow. All of us go through times where God says no, where following Jesus costs us something. Believers are not exempt from the tragedies and realities of living in a fallen, sinful world. At those moments we all have to wrestle with who am I following? What am I looking for? Where do I think I will truly find life? Am I going to follow Jesus if it means going through this tragedy? Am I willing to trust that he is the Messiah I need, even if he's not the Messiah I expected or want right now? So in this section we're looking at John the Baptist's confusion, the importance of his role in his message, the way the religious elite rejected both Jesus and John because they didn't meet their expectations, and then seeing that even the cities where Jesus spent most of his time didn't repent. All of what we've been looking at is about the various ways the Jews of the day responded to Jesus. And this is a very dramatic story because the story of the Jewish people in the Old Testament is a story of them continually failing to trust God and repent. Now the Messiah's here and nothing's changed. They're still failing to repent. Now this is not to suggest that the Jewish people are somehow worse than any other tribe or nation. They're not. God could have picked any people group and we would have all done the same thing. The Jews are not any worse than the rest of us. They represent all of us, whatever tribe or nation we belong to. Thankfully, though, the story is not over. My understanding is that before the Messiah returns, God will make one last appeal to the children of Israel, and this time they will repent and turn to him in huge, great numbers, because he will pour out his spirit in their hearts. This is a Jewish story, but it is also our story because God has graciously provided a time for Gentiles to repent. And right now, he has poured out his spirit on the Gentiles. Now is the time to repent and believe. Thank you for listening to Wednesday in the Word, a podcast that explains not only what a passage means, but also shows you how to figure it out. You can hear all previous episodes in this series on my website, WednesdaytheWord.com. There's no charge, no spam, and no advertisements. If you've been blessed by this podcast, please subscribe, leave a positive rating or review wherever you listen, but most importantly, tell a friend what you learned and where you learned it. Our theme music is graciously provided by Reggie Coates of Heartfeltmusic.org. I hope you take a moment to check out his music and CDs. You'll be glad you did. Thank you for joining me today. I'm Krisan Marotta, and I'll see you next week at Wednesday in the Word.