I'll just go ahead and apologize
in advance for any coughing I do. The dust that I was into yesterday. If you'll turn back in your Bibles
to Matthew chapter 11. Matthew chapter 11. Let's seek the Lord's blessing.
Our Father, we have opened your book, and we know how dangerous
that can be, because if we are left to ourselves, we'll have
the truth right in front of us and not see it. We will distort
it and twist it to fit our own thoughts. So Lord, I pray that you would
guide us into all truth, protect us, from our own foolishness
and grant us that wisdom which is from above. In Christ's name
we pray, amen. In both of the accounts of these
words spoken by our Lord, in particular this prayer to the
Father, it is in response to unbelief. He had sent the 12
disciples out and then later sent another 70 or 72 other disciples
and they went out two by two, went into the various towns where
he was going to go, kind of as heralds to prepare the way, sort
of an advanced team. And as he went to these various
cities, he was met mostly with unbelief. You know the best preaching in
the world will not reveal the truth to someone unless God does
a work in the heart. We know that our Lord Jesus Christ
preached perfectly. You know my message is there's
always things I'm disappointed in. You know I walk away from
here, oh I meant to say that and I didn't or I wasted my time
on that. should have moved it along. The
Lord was never like that. Every time He spoke it was the
truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. And yet for the
most part it was met with unbelief. And that would be quite discouraging,
wouldn't it? You go out and preach and you
do it right and people still don't believe it. And not only had He preached,
He had worked miracles. You think that would get people
to believe? I mean if you saw someone whom
you'd known from birth and they'd been blind from birth and then
you saw a man comes into town speaking gracious words and then
he heals this man born blind. You'd think that that would stir
up a revival in that town. It didn't. Why? Spoken words, if that's
all there is, they don't accomplish anything except condemnation. You say, why is that? Because
they heard the truth and wouldn't believe it. It's not until and only then,
not until the Spirit of God gives life to a person that he where
she is able to understand what's being said. Now, we could easily become discouraged,
and I do. You know, when I showed up here
in 1987, I expected by now we'd have a really big crowd here,
and that's not the case. And we have preached, we've preached
on the radio, we've preached here, you've talked to your family
and friends and we say what we believe and they nod their head
and they think it's wonderful and just keep going many of them
to some place where something else is preached. And you go,
why? Why would anybody do that? If
their heart is stirred by the message of God's free grace,
how come they still sit and listen to that which at least takes
the edge off of grace, if not utterly undermines it? But they
do. And it'd be easy to get discouraged,
but it says in Luke that before our Lord, where He said, I praise
you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth. Just before that, we find
these words, and Jesus, full of the joy of the Holy Spirit,
said, I praise you, Father, heaven and earth, that you've hidden
these things. That's rather remarkable. Our Lord goes out and preaches,
and He's met primarily with unbelief, And his response is to be full
of the joy of the Holy Spirit. Now, how can that be? Well, first
of all, understand the joy of the Holy Spirit, something different
than the joy you might receive from your team winning the game. Last night, I was in Tennessee
playing New England. Brian liked how it turned out. Tennessee won. Tom Brady goes
home. And that's fun, and that's kind
of joy, but it comes and goes. The joy of the Holy Spirit is
the joy of the Lord, which it is written, the joy of the Lord
shall be your strength. Whenever we try to draw strength
or even joy from the results of our pursuit of the things
of God, or preaching and all that, we're gonna come up not
with joy, but with sorrow. Because in reality, when we're
looking at the results, we're looking at the flesh, and the
flesh is always disappointing. We're looking at outward appearances.
And we're also judging things by what we hope for instead of
what God determined he would do. But our Lord, having spoken of
the unbelief of Chorazin and Bethsaida, in another place he mentions
Capernaum. Yeah, down in verse 23. Capernaum, that was Peter's
hometown. The Lord went there to preach
and nobody's interested. And he said to them, if the works
that were done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they'd
have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. But not you, not you
Jews. As it is written, he came unto
his own, his own people, his own kin, as it were, and they
wouldn't have him. And yet the result, his reaction
to that is to be full of the joy of the Holy Spirit. Now I'd
like that kind of joy, wouldn't you? I'd like that kind of joy
that is present even when circumstances argue against it. Now that's
the joy of the Lord. And why does this joy remain
unchanged? Because it's the joy of the Lord
and the Lord remains unchanged. Do you know that God is perfectly
happy? Perfectly happy with the way
things are going right now. He's not upset. He's not surprised. He's not discouraged. He is not
disappointed. See, but people aren't believing.
It's exactly what he intended. You say, well, you know, why
would God do that? Well, now, well, we'll get the
answer in a minute, but as they're trying to figure out God's motivation
in doing this or that, over our heads. And we get in a lot of
trouble when we start asking why God does things the way He
does them. He says, it is written, He gives
no account of His deeds. Now it says we must all give
an account but God never has to give an account for what He
does. And as far as What our Lord says
here, here's why God did the things the way he did them. That's
what he wanted to do. That was it. That's the final
answer. You know, I've seen a lot of
people get all tied up, and I guess I've done it too, but get their
minds all in a quandary when they start asking these questions
why, and what they're really asking is, why didn't the Lord
do it the way I think it should have been done? I'll give you
an example. The very first chapter of the
Bible describes about God creating the heavens and the earth in
six days. And then science comes along
and said it was other, you know, it was done another way. And if you talk with some of
these people, and you know, they profess to believe, but still
want to think that Genesis is not an accurate record of how
things came into being. They'll say, well, couldn't it
have been that God used evolution as the way to bring it about?
Well, it could have been. He could have done it any way
he wanted. But if he told us how he did
it, shouldn't we go with that? And if you say, well, why didn't
he do it? I don't know. I could say, you know, why did
he take a whole six days? He could have created everything
perfectly formed and finished in a moment, but he spread it
out over six days. Why? I don't know. None of my
business. He hasn't given an account to
me why he took that long, nor has he bothered to give an account
to the scientists of why that's all the time he took. He just
does it because it seems good to him for it to be done that
way. But in the face of unbelief,
in the face of being rejected by those who were, naturally
speaking, his people, he did like David did when his men started
to turn against him. Says, David encouraged himself
in the Lord his God. Where did our Lord find joy?
In God. Say, well, he is God. I know.
He's also a man, and as a man, he looked to God, and he found
in God the source of his joy. And the more we're able to follow
that pattern, the more we will be able to withstand, endure,
and even rejoice in all the ups and downs and back and forths
of life. Because our joy will be founded
or come from another source, be founded on something different. Now I'm preaching that. I'm not
telling you that's what I do. I'm just saying that's, that's
the way it is. And those few times those, uh,
unfortunately very scarce and short periods, when I'm really
able to enter into that and rejoice in the way things are simply
because that's the way God determined them to be. Boy, what joy that
is. You'd think if it's so good we'd
do it all the time, but the flesh is just not going to cooperate
with that process. Now, the Lord says, I praise
you. Most translations use the word
praise there, or some of them use the word thank. And those
are legitimate translations, but I think they restrict the
meaning too much. And, uh, actually I looked it
up because I was going to compare this to another scripture. And
then I found out the original words aren't even the same to
that other scripture. I wanted to compare this prayer
of our Lord. What this word actually means
is to boldly or very openly and powerfully confess. always think of confession in
terms of you did something bad and you've got to confess it.
The word simply means, the word for confess in Greek simply means
to say the same thing. Homo ligament. You see the word
homo at the front that means same and then speak. When the
Bible says if we confess our sins that doesn't just mean tell
God what we did. It means to say the same thing
about our sin that God says about our sin. A man could tell you
what he did and not think it's sin. But to confess it means
to acknowledge it as sin. See it for the wickedness it
is. Well, you take that word confess to say the same thing
and you put a Greek preposition X from it, which means out. Our
word exit comes from that. But it's also used just to intensify
a word. And so what it's saying here
is when Christ said, I openly, boldly, plainly confess, and
happily so, Father, you are Lord of heaven and earth. Now that
is praise isn't it? To confess that is praise. And
that's why the word sometimes can be used for that. But in
the New Testament it's never used to mean thank or praise
except at this point. In fact it's used when it says
that Judas agreed to betray the Lord for money. He was enthusiastic
in his agreement with their terms. And it's also the same word that's
used in Philippians chapter 2 when it says, every knee shall bow
and every tongue confess that Jesus is Lord. So you bring all
these thoughts together of agreement, of invested in the agreement, that
is you like it that way, you're not just saying that's the way
it is, you are boldly saying this is the way it is, I like
it to be this way, I agree with it, I acknowledge it, and that's
what the Lord is doing here. In fact this word came to mind,
to blurt. He just blurted it out. He didn't
hold back. He didn't polish His words. He
didn't try to take the edge off of His Father's absolute sovereignty. He didn't try to say, well, God's
sovereign, but I tell you, I wish it was somehow. No. He rejoiced
in what He says about the Father. And He openly confessed it. And
of course, in so doing, He showed his preference for the father
over all those who rejected what he said. Our Lord was saying here that he loves his father and
is in submission to his father to such a degree that he's willing
for sinners to refuse to believe and be condemned for it, if that's
the way the Father wants it." You say, well, that doesn't sound
very nice. Well, nice or not, agreeing with
God's a good thing. It's a good thing. I confess. What did he confess? Well, he confessed that God was
his Father. And he was bold about it. Now he'd get in trouble for that.
They said to him, well, you call God your father and you're making
yourself to be a son, which would mean you're declaring yourself
to be God. And our Lord never said it as openly as we might
have wanted to, but basically he said, well, you said it. Yeah,
that's who I am. But God is my father. Now, how
wonderful it is to be able to look heavenward and say, Father. Now, anyone has the right to
look heavenward and say, God, because he is, but he's not a
father to everybody. Later on the disciples said,
teach us to pray. And how did our Lord teach them
to pray? Our Father who is in Heaven. What a glorious name we are given
by which to call upon our God. Throughout the Old Testament
we find many names assigned to God. And they would pray to God
under those many names. And they were good names. But
I don't recall ever once anybody in the Old Testament praying
to God and beginning with the word father. Now not everybody in the world
has or had a good father. But you know we all kind of have
a sense of what a good father is supposed to be. And that's
why even children can recognize abuse. If their fathers are abusive
and they've never known anything else, but they have an innate
understanding. This is not how it's supposed
to be. And so when our Lord uses the word father in reference
to God, uses that freely for himself and then calls upon us
to use it in our prayer. What is he saying to us? He's
saying that God views us and deals with us the way that we
know every father should view his children and deal with them. And that's an amazing thing to
me. I know how I feel about my children. I did not always do
a good job. And I've never run into a father
that doesn't have regrets. You know, just because you want
to do good by your children doesn't mean you know what's the best
for them. And considering that, you know, we start having children
on the young end of our lives. I've said it's regrettable that
just about the time we learn how to raise kids they're all
raised and we've got nothing to do with the knowledge we've
gained. But to think that my Heavenly Father
views me the way I view my children and even better. As a father pities his children,
so does the Lord pity those that fear him. He knows we are dust. And he deals with us accordingly.
Unless you're trying to get rid of dust, you don't blow very
hard. The Lord understands that the
breath of his providence can blow people away. So he always
adjusts his providence for his people. Oh, they'll feel it. And they may very well think
they're going to be blown away, but they won't be. Our father, Peter says, and I'm
paraphrasing here, you address as father, the one everyone in
the world must address as judge. Now, he's not saying you need
to be scared because your dad's the judge. No, he's saying the
exact opposite. Because he's your father, he
does not come home to you after he's done judging and bring judgment
home with him. Now, there are some fathers that
deal with their children that way, and that's unfortunate.
They don't have mercy on their children. They just look at what
they did and if it upsets them, they get a whooping or whatever
it is they do. And their children grow up with
this idea that they must perform in order, you know, perform what's
required of them in order to get what they want. And they grow up with a legalistic
mindset about everything. I remember in my youth that we
were told we were going to go to an amusement park that night.
It's a local amusement park, bigger than a carnival, but not
Walt Disney World. And we always liked it. It was a place my mom
and dad met each other. But for some reason, me and my
sisters just got mischievous that day and kind of pushed mom
over the edge. Teenagers do that, you know. So we figured, well, you can
kiss Camden Park goodbye. And Dad came home, and of course,
he got the news. And actually, I thought we'd
probably, not only would we not be going to Camden Park, but
Dad was gonna find his belt, and we're gonna get it. Because,
I mean, we not only pushed her over the edge, I mean, we'd been
really naughty that day. You know what he did? We didn't
go to Camden Park. Instead, Mom went with my sisters somewhere.
To this day, I don't know what they did. They went off and did
girly things. Dad, he and I took off. I know we went several places,
but the only place I can remember is one of those driving ranges
on a pond. You know, they knock them out there and I guess the
balls were a little bit lighter cause they'd float. We went out and
had an enjoyable time together. What my father realized. I didn't
know it as a kid then, but my father realized that what we
needed was not punishment. We needed, for lack of a better
word, bonding. We needed to remember who our
father is and who our mother is. And learn what grace and mercy
are. Now I don't know that dad was
thinking all of those things like that in his mind, that was
just his natural way of doing things. Now our Father deals
with us that way. And the Lord was bold in His
declaration and confession that God is His Father. And then He goes on and He says
of His Father, Lord of heaven and earth. I imagine that if somebody's
father is an influential person in the world, My dad's president
of the United States. That'd be something else now,
wouldn't it? Or a rich guy. You know, my dad's so rich, you
know, I'll never have to work a day in my life. I'm not necessarily
saying that's a blessing. It seems like those who live
that way end up in a pretty big mess somewhere along the line.
But nonetheless, you see what I mean? Here, our father, his
father, our father. is Lord of heaven and earth. Now he's a father and he rules
everything. What does that mean about us? Well, I know that my dad, to
the extent of his abilities, ruled things for the good of
his family. And my heavenly father rules
the universe for the good of his family. And I can look at
whatever happens, and I'm almost afraid to say this, because I
don't want the Lord to say, well, let's see if you're really this
way. But I'm going to tell you how it is and confess that I
don't live this way very much. But we can look at life as it
is and say, that's good, because that's what my father was pleased
to do. And I know that even if it isn't
pleasant, it's still good. He's Lord of heaven and earth,
which means, and by saying heaven and earth, he's encompassing
everything. You know, it's not like he's
Lord of heaven and earth, but not Lord of what's in between.
Everything. But he rules over everything
that pertains to our lives in the present situation. He rules
here. And he rules in everything pertaining
to the next life. Our father covers every moment
of our existence. He was our Father, though we
did not know it. He was our Father when we were
born into this world, yea, when we were conceived into this world. He has watched over us as a father
watches over his children. He preserved us from death until
we heard the gospel and believed it, and even now He preserves
us from any trouble or any trial that would drive us away from
Christ. And He will preserve us end. And He can do it because He rules
everything everywhere. Our Lord rejoiced in that, we
should too. And then He says, you, I boldly confess you as
Father, Lord in Heaven and Earth and all this I'm happy with the
things are." Why? Because you have hidden these things from
the wise and the learned, the educated, the extra smart people
and you've revealed it to babes. Now when it says God has hidden
these things He does not mean that God has covered them up.
He hides it in plain sight. Say, how do you hide something
in plain sight? Hide it where you know they'll
never look. You see, when it comes, the Lord
talks about these things. He's talking about truth. He's
talking about the truth of who He is and what He's come to do
and all of that. He's hidden that from the wise
and prudent. He's hidden the truth from them. If you want
to turn or you can just listen, Colossians chapter 2. We'll find
out here how God hides things from the wise and prudent. Verse
3 of Colossians 2, speaking of Christ, it says,
in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. Now
it says it plainly there. It says where it is. Now, you
know, you're a kid and you're going on an Easter egg hunt,
you know, your mom or dad puts Easter eggs out there and then
he tells you where they are. They've hidden eggs and then
they come and tell you where it is, where they are. Have they really
hidden it? No. In one sense, yes. In another sense, no. We've been
told where all truth is. All the treasures of wisdom and
knowledge are in Christ, but that's the last place anybody
will look for it. And nobody looks for it there
until by the grace of the Spirit of God their eyes are opened.
You can go and tell them, you can say all the truth is in Christ.
No, it's over here. And so while it's just kind of
laying out there in plain sight, they will not have it. Truth
came in a person. I am the truth, says the Lord.
It came. It stood there. He spoke the
truth. He lived the truth. He is the truth. And they said,
no, it's not there. People look for truth in their
own books or the books written by other men. It's not going
to be found there. They look for truth in their church. They
say, well you know I was raised in this church. What's that got
to do with anything? Really, seriously. And I don't mean this
church in particular, whatever. People just say, well I was raised
in such and such a church. That's got nothing to do with
what the truth is. The truth is what it is. People
say, well I learned truth from the Bible. Well the Pharisees
could have said that. And our Lord said of them, you
search the scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal
life. But these are the scriptures
that testify of me, and you will not come to me that you might
have life. They're looking for life in all
the wrong places. God told them where life is.
He says, I'm the way, the truth, and the life. They said, no,
thank you. We're going to keep looking. Well, can you blame
God for their blindness then when they simply refused to look
in the very place He put it and treasured it and told them about
it? If men don't see the truth, it's
because of their own willful stubbornness. And if they do
see the truth, it's only because of the sovereign grace of God.
Do you see the truth? Do you know where it is? Have
you looked there and found it? Well, openly, boldly profess,
Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because He's the one that revealed
it to you. I didn't. I told it to you, but I couldn't
reveal it to you. I said, you've hidden it. from
the wise and learned. He hid it by putting it in Christ.
He hid it by making it too simple for them. You know, there's no
glory to be gained in this world by knowing the gospel. Now, if your child comes home
from kindergarten or first grade or something like that, he may
say two and two is four and think pretty highly of himself because
of it. And you may, you know, clap for him, her, you know,
and say, oh, that's good, you know, but you really think, well,
you know, duh, two and two is four. It's pretty simple stuff.
And the gospel is so simple, you cannot take any glory to
yourself for knowing it. That's why I believe that trouble
within denominations always starts in that denominations seminary.
And that's because the atmosphere of the academic world is contrary
to the simplicity of the gospel of Christ. Because when you go to seminary,
well, if you go for a graduate degree, which would be what seminary
is, you've got to write. And if you're going to be a professor
at any kind of university or college or whatever, they expect
you to write and try to be published. aren't going to be published
unless you have something new and interesting to say. Nobody
is going to care what you have to say. Well there is nothing
new and interesting to say. Well it's interesting if you
are spiritual but you know what I mean. Nothing that is going
to excite the world. And so over here they are trying
to meet the demands of being a university professor. They've
got to come up with something. So they keep looking and they
keep digging. And they dig so deep they dig past Christ and
they They come up with a mess. These educated, these wise people,
they were looking so far, they didn't see what was right in
front of them. Bonnie and I went to a mall or
something like that, a huge parking lot, had her Toyota. And Bonnie usually, you know,
because she thinks of these things ahead of time, when she gets
out of the car, she gets her bearings. So she knows where
to go back and find her car. Well, this one time, she didn't.
And I never do, so. You can't count on me. We go
in, we show up, we come out, neither one of us knows where the car
is. We start talking, well, we think it's over there. And so,
you know, we start casting our gaze out, and we looked and looked
and looked, and finally I said, well, Bonnie, just hit the panic
button. So she did. We were standing
at the back of her car. Now, it wasn't right in front
of us, it was right behind us. But we had looked that way, looked right
over it, I guess. Fortunately, there wasn't anybody
with us, so we had a laugh. But that's how the world is when
it comes to the gospel. They're looking far afield for
what's right here. They're trying to make something
complicated out of that which is simple so that they can take
glory for understanding a complicated thing. They're too smart for the simplicity
of the gospel. God has made it to be foolishness
to them. He has made nothing of the wisdom of the wise of
this world. They looked at the gospel, which
is the wisdom of God, and said, that's foolishness. He said,
okay, stay that way. He set his gospel out in a way
that the natural man's gonna think
that's silly. And therefore he won't have it.
Well, the Lord went on and said, not only did you hide it from
the wise and prudent, you revealed it unto little children. Now,
who is he talking about there? He's talking about the disciples,
because he'd sent them out and they're just now returning with
news of how things had gone with them. And some mighty works had
been done by them. They'd cast out some demons and
things like that. He told them, he said, don't
rejoice because you have power over spirits. Rejoice that your
name's written in heaven. And so what he's saying, little
babes, don't get all impressed with this stuff that you can
see. Even though it's a work of God to serve a purpose, he
said, that's not where the real joy is. Here's the real joy. Your name's written in heaven. You know what's nice about a
child, why believers are often compared to children? Children
do understand things on a very simple level. And they take as
fact that which their father tells them. Now, of course, the
fathers of this world are not altogether wise and not altogether
honest. But the children will believe their father until maybe
they get old enough to know better. But when it comes to our Father
in Heaven we're never going to get old enough to know better
than what our Father has said. But a believer can take the Word
of his God just as a child takes the Word of his Father. Now children
if they're fearful You know, they wake up in the middle of
the night, and they're scared, and they cry out, and they hear
their father's voice. That's enough. Dad's here. I'm all right. They don't worry about tomorrow's
food. Why? Dad. They simply take his word and
they trust him for who he is to them. And that's the simplicity of
what they call childlike faith. Does our father say that his
only begotten son bore our sins in his body on the tree? Okay.
Someone will say, that's foolishness. Well, it may be to you, but that's
what my father said. And I'm gonna go with what my
father said and ignore what you had to say. Now that's what a child does.
And that's what God's children do. They believe their father. Even if the things he says sound
unbelievable. And then the Lord goes on and
blurts it out, confesses it boldly. Yes, Father, for this was your
good pleasure. This was what seemed right to
you, says the Lord, so it's good by me. Father, you did it this
way because in your estimation of things, this is the way it
ought to be done. And I'm in agreement with you. Well, why
are you in agreement with me? Because it's my father. And I
agree with anything my father says. Did he not take this same
attitude in Gethsemane when full of distress of the things he
knows he's about to bear? And he asked that the cup pass
from him, and then he says, nevertheless, not your will, I mean, excuse
me, not my will, but yours be done. What's he saying? Whatever
seems good to you is fine with me. Now there's an attitude that will preserve
joy in the midst of difficulty. It doesn't look all right to
me, but since it happened, it must be that my father, Lord
of heaven and earth, thought this was the best. And if he
thinks it's the best, And I'm gonna go with that. Now, when my world crumbles down
on top of my head, don't come and think I'm gonna be able to
perform this like the Lord Jesus does. I hope I can perform it
some. Well, our Lord went on then,
having spoken to his Father, and he said to the people, all
things have been committed to me. by my Father." And he says, no one knows the
Son except the Father. And no one did. And no one knows the Father except
the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal Him. Our Lord went out preaching in
all those cities and towns telling the truth, he only revealed the
truth to a few. Why? For even so, Father, it
seemed good to you. Our Lord had the power to reveal
it to anybody, but he revealed it to those that the Father was
pleased to have it revealed to. And then he goes on and says,
come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give
you rest. Our Lord rested in what he knew
about his father. And he says to all of us who
are weary, who are burdened with a sense of sin, weary with trying
to overcome it, weary with thoughts that God's gonna give it to us
bad when we die, he calls all of us And he said, come to me,
I'll give you rest. I'll give you my rest. I'll give
you my joy. I'll give you my comfort. Because
even though you can't see, I can. I see that he is my father. I
don't just believe it, I see it, I know it. And trust me,
he's your father too. I see that he's Lord of heaven
and earth. I know that sometimes you're
in distress because it seems like things are out of control.
Trust me, they're not. My father and your father, he's
got everything in hand. Come to me. Take my yoke upon
you and learn of me and you will find rest. He's saying, do as
I do, and trust the Father as the Father, and you will find
rest. Take out your hymnals and turn
them to number 485. Revive us again, number 485 in
the hymnals and we'll stand as we sing.