Amen, and please be seated. If you have a Bible, let me invite you to turn with me to Matthew chapter 11 as we continue working through Matthew 11. We've said that Matthew 11 is about identifying the Messiah so that we can believe in the real Messiah and what fools we would be to put our hopes for eternal happiness in the wrong kind of Savior or the wrong way of salvation. In verses 1 to 6 a couple of weeks ago, we saw that John the Baptist himself raised doubts about Jesus saying, are you the one who is the commerce or will we be looking for somebody else?
And Jesus answered his doubts by his own works. Saying to him at verse 5, you may remember, well John, just think about it. The blind received sight and the lame walk, lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up and the poor have good news, breathe through them. And then last we saw in verses 7 to 15, Jesus says, believe my messenger, believe my works, believe my messenger.
Last week we saw Jesus talk about John the Baptist being, we saw in verse 10, the messenger that the prophet Malachi promised 400 years before Jesus came to the earth, a messenger who would go before him to prepare the way of the Lord. And if John is that messenger and he is, then who is Jesus who came behind him, but the Lord who has come, the King Messiah. So believe my works, believe my messenger. Now here in verses 6 through 19, Jesus concludes his comparison of himself and John by indicting the skeptics of his day for not embracing him as the Messiah.
In other words, in this passage, Jesus invites us to trust in him as our Messiah, to lay aside our skepticism, to let him answer our doubts. And so if you are a skeptic here today or if you come with doubts, that would be unsurprising. And if you're a person asking questions, seeking answers about who Jesus really is, I want you to know we're glad you're here. Jesus wants to talk with you about you and about him as we consider this passage.
And so let me invite you to give your attention to Matthew chapter 11 verses 16 through 19, here now the Word of God. But to watch out like compare this generation, it is like children sitting in the marketplaces and calling to their playmates. We played the flute for you and you did not dance. We sing 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 blunt and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners. Yet wisdom is justified by her deeds. Amen.
This is God's Word. Let's look to him in prayer. If you were a father, we ask that you would write this Word upon our hearts, minds and conscience. We pray that you would lift Jesus before our eyes, that we would see him.
Draw us by your spirit for your glory. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen. Jesus here poses a question that he tells a parable and then he provides an explanation followed by a kind of proverb.
So those four things that's what we want to look at. First he poses a question and then he tells a parable and then he provides an explanation and he concludes with a kind of proverb. So in the first place, here's the question, verse 16. But to what shall I compare this generation?
Now this is quite a question. Jesus asks it because he's about to give the definitive answer. Which says a lot about what he thinks of himself. He thinks he's capable of properly identifying and describing the defining characteristics of the generation of people alive in his day in Israel.
Let me tell you about them, he says. This of course goes hand in glove with. He's claimed to be able to properly identify and describe the defining characteristics of the kingdom of heaven. Which he'll do at great length two chapters later in chapter 13 where he gives all these parables and he says the kingdom of heaven is like this.
And the kingdom of heaven is like this. Let me tell you about the kingdom. Well here he says let me tell you about those who are well resistant to my kingdom. This generation that won't embrace me as their king and become part of my kingdom at least to date.
And so it is that Jesus understands the dynamics in which he's ministering. And he understands that generation and frankly he understands every generation. He understands that the bent of every generation is away from trusting God. Why don't I say that?
Because the natural bent of every person born into this world is to walk away from God and not walk with God. It's part of the depravity of our hearts that we come into this world like our first parents, Adam and Eve, who refuse to follow the Lord. And all of us are born this way. As Isaiah the prophet put it, all we like sheep have gone astray.
Each one to his own way. Our hearts, our minds, fallen as they are. They're set on themselves and not on following our Savior. Paul will lay the indictment this way in Romans chapter 8 verse 7.
For the mind that's set on the flesh is hostile to God. It does not submit to God's law. Indeed it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.
And so Ephesians 2 reminds us of this fact. This is what every Christian, this was our natural state. Apart from grace, Ephesians 2, 1-3, you Christians, you were dead in your trespasses and sins in which you once walked. Following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the enemy that is now at work in the sons of disobedience, among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh carrying out the desires of the body and mind.
And we're by nature, he says, children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. Now that is quite an indictment from the Apostle Paul, but he says that's how it was for us. And then he gives you the good news. He says immediately, chapter 2 verse 4, but God.
Being rich in mercy because of the great love with which he loved us made us alive in Christ by grace you have been saved. So that Jesus knows that it's right to sing, I once was lost, but now I'm found, was blind, but now I see. Jesus knows that we need grace if we're going to see him as the Messiah and if we're going to trust him to save us. And if we're going to be able to walk with him.
And each generation needs that grace because each generation is just a collection of people all walking away from God and sometimes egging one other on to flee faster and farther away from God. Each generation does it. It may look different as we pursue different things, but it looks the same from God's perspective as we're fleeing away from him. So the question we've got to ask is, have we been graced by God?
Has grace changed our heart and our mind so that we trust in the Messiah, Jesus, and seek to walk with him? Or are we like every generation, like the generation of Jesus day? And if God's grace has graced us, then if that's the case, you Christians will feel like fish out of water in any generation. We simply won't go with the flow.
There will be times where swimming upstream and everybody else is swimming down. And vice versa. So I just ask you, do you feel that in your experience? Do you feel that in your heart?
Are you conscious of ways that you live differently than the generation in which you live of those who reject the Lord? Is there any actual difference in the way that you think, in the way that you love, in the way that you do life? Or are you a child of this generation walking away from the Messiah? That's the first thing I think this question invites us to ask of ourselves.
Now, what was that generation like that Jesus is talking about? Well, he gives a parable here, verses 16 and 17. It is like, he says, 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.
So you know how kids are always play acting? Children are often imitating what they've seen, making up their own version of it, putting themselves as characters in it. My little William, who I haven't seen for a week, but I'll see this evening, Lord William, as he's coming back from Kansas, my six-year-old, is on an avatar kick. He always wants to pretend that he's got a sword, and he and I have to act like we're, I don't know what it is, samurai's or ninjas or something, whatever.
We have to pretend fight, we have to karate, job each other, we have to sweep the leg, we have to roll on the floor and get up. Sometimes he'll say to me, I need to teach you, pay attention. And he gives me a lesson from this TV show he's been watching, and when I wear out, because this is often at night, I slowly move the fight up the stairs, like Wesley fighting in Aigo Montoya. You remember that?
You know, doing swords on the staircase, hoping nobody falls until we reach the bedroom where we can get him ready for bed. Well, kids are like that. They like to play games. They like to play games with things that are important to adults sometimes.
Jesus knows kids, he's observed these children playing in the marketplace while the adults are buying and selling and bartering and socializing. And Jesus knows that they have two games they like to play. One is wedding, and one is funeral. Now I don't know how it was for you, but I was the last of five kids, and I had neighbor girls older like my older sisters, and one day they got me into their home and started painting my nails and dressing me up, and my mom was so mad.
I don't know that I ever got to go over there ever again. Might have been a little out of proportion. But, you know, what kind of games did you play as a kid? These kids are playing wedding and funeral.
And that may be because for most of the world, throughout most of human history, weddings and funerals were the primary social event of the entire community. They drew the biggest crowds, people dressed up for them. Nothing was a happier occasion than a wedding. Nothing was a sadder occasion than a funeral.
And these kids are playing a game of it, and their friends in the game are being fickle about it. They whine to their friends for 17. We played the flute for you, and you did not dance. We had the best wedding reception ever, but you sat on your rump, you folded your arms across your chest like a grump, refusing to dance.
So, we sang a dirge, a lament for the dead. But you did not mourn. We switched from wedding music to funeral music, and we couldn't get you to buy into any of it. You didn't weep, you wouldn't play along.
We said jump, and you didn't ask how high. We said, Marco, you didn't say polo. So, what's Jesus saying of this generation? They're bad sports.
They picked up their ball, said to speak, and went home because they didn't want to play the game the way the game is played. Their attitude is all wrong. They're like spoiled children who can't be satisfied, who refuse to be satisfied. And of course, he's not talking about the children.
He's talking about, well, certainly the adults who've rejected the beside, but everyone who does. He's saying it's childish. It's immature. It's unserious.
You're acting impossible to please, impossible to satisfy. You're being both fickle and stubborn. They can't decide if they want to play wedding or if they want to play funeral and they won't play either. Now you children, I think you probably understand this.
You've had friends who've done this to you. You've done it to them, and we have all played this. I'm not playing game. Well, so what prompted this criticism, this kind of parable.
Jesus explains it in verses 18 and 19. He explains it. For he says, John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say he has a demon. The son of a man came eating and drinking, and they say, look at him, a glutton and a drunkard.
So what's Jesus saying here? Well, John, he's explaining what if you've read the New Testament, if you've been with us even the last couple of weeks, you know about John. He was austere. He didn't know the parties he lived in the wilderness.
He didn't wear nice, soft clothing. He probably made his own from the hair of camels as he picked camel hair plucked from thorny bushes and shrubs that the camels had passed through. He didn't eat normal food. He ate locusts for his protein and for his carbs and desserts he'd keep wild honey out of beehives.
And he didn't come drinking, says Jesus, no alcohol. He drank water, not wine. And what did he do? He went out in the wilderness.
And what did he do out there? He prophetically proclaimed. What did he proclaim? Well, primarily God's judgment, God's condemnation, God's wrath against that generation of rebels.
And he called people to repent, to turn from their sins and call upon God for his mercy. And so Jesus says, and what do you say about him? You say things like, oh, he's so mean. He's not a nice man, is he?
He's not warm. He's kind of a fanatic. He's a funeral dirge kind of person. In fact, there's something really spiritually wrong with John the Baptist.
He's got a demon. He's a demon-possessed man. And of course, in doing that, saying that about him, they were blaspheming against the Holy Spirit because John was filled with the Holy Spirit even from his mother's womb. And they will do this later with Jesus himself too, as they attribute the works of Jesus to Satan himself.
But in any case, that's what they thought of John. And then here comes Jesus following John. He enters his public ministry after John's already in ministry. And his approach is a bit different, right?
In some ways he's the opposite of John. Jesus says it himself. I came eating and drinking. I don't follow the Nazarite vow of abstinence.
I don't abstain from wine. I eat normal food. I don't repel people with my preaching. I draw close to people and people are eager to draw close to me.
I'm a friend of the outcast. A friend of the socially isolated. I'm a friend of lepers. I'm a friend of the oppressed and the weak and the poor and the friendless and even to pagans.
I bring good news to people. So my preaching in my ministry is like a wedding, he's saying. Those who hear me receive good news. It's a cause for joy and celebration.
How does this generation of skeptics treat me? What do they say about me? He's a glutton. He's a drunker.
We've seen the riff-raff he associates with. We know what they do. Surely he does that with them too. In fact, you know what he is.
And here I think we can almost imagine the people spitting as they say it. He's a friend of tax collectors and sinners. He's a friend. They were saying of traitors who work for the Romans to impoverish us and graft off of our hard-earned money to make themselves rich.
Those good for nothing leeches on society. He even made one of them his disciple, that Matthew guy. Levi, the tax collector. And you know that Jesus.
He's a friend of wild women too. Women who sell their body. Why even hurt? He let one of them pour her expensive perfume, the charms of her business on his feet.
And then she kissed him. She kissed him. And he let her kiss him. We've got a holy man.
Is this? This is the kind of things they said. How dare he? What an evil man he is.
So you see what Jesus is saying. John comes along walking and talking, you say, a walking and talking funeral. And you say of him he's too tight. He's too narrow.
He's too dower. Too harsh. Too mean. And I come along and walking and talking wedding.
And you people think I'm too easy going. I'm too open, too happy, too nice, too kind. So we might just pause there and say, let that be a lesson to all the minister in his name. Never be surprised when people are highly critical of you.
Have nothing nice to say about you. Dislike your personality. Exaggerate your worst characteristics. Overlook and down play.
Your gifts and graces and eventually go hunting somewhere else for ministry. And it happened to John and it happened to Jesus. So Jesus says to them, what else are you going to criticize? You reject both of us.
I'm a minister one way for the sake of the gospel. You criticize me. John's a minister another way for the sake of the same gospel and you criticize him. You're like children who can't decide which game you're going to play.
As another put it, John called for a fast and you rejected him. Jesus called for a feast and you rejected him. John said the kingdom was a fire and you rejected him. Jesus said the kingdom is a festival and you rejected him.
John preached judgment. You rejected him. Jesus preached joy and you rejected him. And the truth is in the end, it wasn't the style they were rejecting.
But the message, they hated both John and Jesus, ultimately because they both preached the kingdom of heaven is at hand. The king has come, receive him, enter in by faith, repent and turn, come. They didn't want to believe the good news. That was the unbelief of the Israel of that generation.
Nothing would satisfy. Now we have to stop and then ask. Is that the kind of unbelief at work in your heart? Are you the kind of person who often criticizes the method of ministry and the message of the minister and the outer trappings of the church while missing the gospel?
We're a society of consumers. Aren't we? We approach everything like consumers, including the church. We taste tested.
We smell tested. We music tested. We program tested. We politics tested.
We people tested. We have different, perhaps, criticisms for the trappings of the church than they did. But do we miss the gospel in the midst of those criticisms? When you hear about Jesus, do you give him a fair hearing?
Or do you immediately fold your arms and say, Baja Humbuk, because your dad told you about Jesus? Or because your mom told you about Jesus? Or because your minister told you about Jesus? Or your Sunday school teacher?
And you know, there's just something off about those people. There's just not something right or good about them, not enough for me to believe. And I'll just say to you, of course there's not enough good about them for you to, but there's sinners too. They're trying to tell you about the only one who's really good, who can truly save you.
When you hear about the kind of man Jesus is, do you say, I want to know more about him? I need to listen to him again. When you hear about Jesus healing people, about his compassion on lepers who are isolated and thought to be god cursed. When you hear about Jesus showing mercy and grace.
When you hear of his death on a cross dying for our sins. Do you say, I don't want to share in that kind of love. I don't need a messiah dying for my sins. I don't need a prince of peace making peace between God and me.
And Jesus would say to you, don't be so stubborn and fickle. Look a child never satisfied with who Jesus is, but always needing something new from him or something different from him than what he is and what he does before you'll play ball in his ballpark on his team. And so Jesus concludes with some proverbial wisdom, verse 19, yet he says wisdom is justified by her deeds. The deeds of Jesus prove him right in the end and the fruit of his life, his preaching, his suffering, his crucifixion, his resurrection, the fruit of that will ripen in the lives of all who trusted him.
So that these selfish tax collectors and prodigal prostitutes and gluttonous food abusers and drunk hard partiers along with the self righteous skeptics who also repent will be seen to be trophies of his grace. And his redeemed people will prove him to be the true Messiah just as they have in the past, so they will in the future. And those who refuse him in our generation will be seen to be not smart, not sophisticated, and not wise, but foolish. Don't let that be you.
Believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved. Don't let your pride keep you from this friend of sinners like us. Let's pray. Father, thank you that you are gracious, patient, kind, slow to anger and abounding and steadfast love and mercy manifested to its greatest extreme in Jesus upon a cross and then raised from the dead, to be our Messiah.
Turn our hearts to trust in him, to rest on him, have mercy upon us all. In Jesus name I pray. Amen.