Mat 11:25-27, Christ’s Christian Academy.Wednesday January 29, 2025 Hook: [slide] Entrance requirements for best schools (4.2 GPA and 1580 SAT). Christ’s school is more akin to Hogwarts, but with different requirements.
Main Idea: Wisdom comes to the humble learner who is childlike and loves and fears his Master.
Book: Mat 11:25-27
Jesus’ praise / prayer proclaiming that the Father hid these things from those who wouldn’t enter (take His yoke) and revealed them to those who would.
It is clearly a general characteristic of the wise and learned of the world that they refuse to take Christ’s yoke upon themselves.
1Co 1:26-29 For consider your calling, brethren, that there were not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble; 27 but God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong, 28 and the base things of the world and the despised God has chosen, the things that are not, so that He may nullify the things that are, 29 so that no man may boast before God.
Hidden - krupto. These do not choose to enter Christ’s school. The Master has a manor and a school.
[click] Use of krupto: Parables Mat 13:34; Treasure hidden in the field (Mat 13:44); entrance to Jerusalem (Luk 19:42).
It was hidden from them because they refused to enter into His house and school through faith. Thinking Him to be no more than a rabbi with special powers, they did not know what made for peace (a truly loaded phrase).
Revealed to infants: apocalupto – [click] Phi 3:15.
Context of Phi 3 want to know Him and the power of His resurrection…
This was pleasing in Your sight.
It was the Father’s pleasure to adopt children (sons and daughters; Eph 1:5)
It is His good pleasure to see His children learn the ways of heaven.
All things delivered to the Son: there are no parts missing in the coursework.
He is all in all - you know Him, you know the Father.
No one has seen the Son but the Father …only in His school can you learn of the Father and Son (“Learn from Me…” Mat 11:29)
Jesus will reveal the knowledge to whom He will (qualifications in next paragraph- not SAT, connections, resume).
Look: Why the image of the infant? Why child-like?
This truth that the image should convey to us is more important than most think.
Scriptures on children: Mat 18:1-6; 19:15f.; 1Pe 2:2; (not meaning ignorant) 1Co 14:20.
Being a humble learner who loves and fears his Master and has developed growth in Him which opens the eyes to life from heaven’s point of view and not from earth’s point of view. (worldview)
Humanity, universe, knowledge, norms and standards, reality seen and unseen, God, destiny and meaning.
Do young children think of these? They do naturally.
Children believe and love fairy tales. Wise see science, materialism, the cold law of cycle which is an infinite circle with no point.
Materialism, Ecc 1:1-12 cold, infinite, circle. Not the school of Christ.
You have hidden the from the wise and intelligent. Example: materialist: Ecc 1
Ecc 1:1-12 The words of the Preacher, the son of David, king in Jerusalem.
2 "Vanity of vanities," says the Preacher, "Vanity of vanities! All is vanity."
3 What advantage does man have in all his work Which he does under the sun? 4 A generation goes and a generation comes, But the earth remains forever. 5 Also, the sun rises and the sun sets; And hastening to its place it rises there again. 6 Blowing toward the south, Then turning toward the north, The wind continues swirling along; And on its circular courses the wind returns. 7 All the rivers flow into the sea, Yet the sea is not full. To the place where the rivers flow, There they flow again. 8 All things are wearisome; Man is not able to tell it. The eye is not satisfied with seeing, Nor is the ear filled with hearing. 9 That which has been is that which will be, And that which has been done is that which will be done. So there is nothing new under the sun. 10 Is there anything of which one might say, "See this, it is new"? Already it has existed for ages Which were before us. 11 There is no remembrance of earlier things; And also of the later things which will occur, There will be for them no remembrance Among those who will come later still.
[slide: cold, infinite circle – this is life? Solomon got lost in the earthly and with all his wisdom, this is all he could find.]
What is hidden from the wise and learned? The miracle. What does the infant see? The miracle. An egg will fly.
A miracle is God doing His will in a different pattern than He normally does. The materialists, which are so many of our wise and intelligent, see the cycles as laws that need to be obeyed. They see the sun as a hydrogen fusion reactor, which it is, rather than light and warmth and gladness. They see the trees as repeated cycles of seeds to leaves or fruits all based on DNA, which they are. But will they always be like this? If you saw the apple tree in your yard start to fill its branches with dollars, you’d claim a miracle. God would only reply that He was in the mood for something different.
We bet on the sun and rain and we are right for millennia, but that does not equal cold law. Someday the earth will be full of light without a sun. Rivers and trees will act differently than we see now.
Rev 21:23-25 And the city has no need of the sun or of the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God has illumined it, and its lamp is the Lamb. 24 The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it. 25 In the daytime (for there will be no night there)
Rev 22:1-2 Then he showed me a river of the water of life, clear as crystal, coming from the throne of God and of the Lamb, 2 in the middle of its street. On either side of the river was the tree of life, bearing twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit every month; and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.
The fact that a daisy is the same over billions of daisies, is not the result of DNA. DNA does not exist on its own. It has a Creator. Daisies are the same because God loves how they look. The same is true of all our world, until the day when God says, I want to light my earth with My Son and not a sun.
Tell a child that the apple tree will make dollars this time next year and he will believe you. This is the kind of learner Jesus says is the pleasure of the Father. The doctrinal pragmatist says, “You want me to believe in money trees!” No. I want you to believe in something far more wonderful than that.
Tell a child about Jesus lighting up the whole world and he will accept with no more resistance than his knowledge that cookies taste good. Explain to the child the law of gravity or the precipitation cycle and he will grow bored and lost. The wise and the learned think they have found life in the infinite circle.
Matt 10:39 "He who has found his life will lose it, and he who has lost his life for My sake will find it.”
So ignore gravity? At your peril. No. See its miracle. God made material objects attract one another with an invisible force. He might just as well have made them without it, or to be attracted by visible things, what can you imagine? One tree makes oranges and another apples. The scientist looks at DNA, and he is right, but his knowledge finds a connection that is not real. God made DNA. It would be like saying the Brooklyn Bridge is just steel and seeing no wonder in it (read its history in David McCullough’s book and you will). Steel didn’t make the bridge.
Now put this with what our Lord says - the Father revealed these things (wisdom of God) to infants and this pleased the Father because they love His world for what it really is - a miracle and playground for mankind, but not only for playing, but for work and danger and triumph. It is much like a fairy tale where there is danger, fun, work, adventure, reward, and real peril. And, the Son of God put Himself right in it and faced the peril. So important was His message and His work, that God sent someone in front of Him to warn everyone that He would be there soon.
The child sees the miracle in the cycle and marvels.
Luk 18:15-17 And they were bringing even their babies to Him so that He would touch them, but when the disciples saw it, they began rebuking them. 16 But Jesus called for them, saying, "Permit the children to come to Me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. 17 "Truly I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child will not enter it at all."
Apply to the things we are to believe.
What are we called to believe? Think about it and see if you soon don’t come to the unbelievable things that you do believe. Jesus wants us to live our lives in that unbelievable world as He did. (You are righteous, perfectly so though you still sin. You are indwelt by God, though you still have a sin nature in you as well. You have eternal life, though physical death creeps closer and closer.
Chesterton: “Christianity is a superhuman paradox whereby two opposite passions may blaze beside each other.”
One such paradox is coming up very soon: David eating the consecrated bread. The wise can only see one dimension: only for priests. Is there an instance where it is good to give the bread to David on the run from murderous Saul? Should then all Judeans grab a loaf of showbread when they like? Wisdom has the answer, and only infants know it.
Seeing this recently, I am now seeing it everywhere. Paradox that is not one, but is God’s plan for His own, the way of Christianity. For instance, it jumped out to me in a psalm I was reading earlier in the week:
Problem of knowing, for instance, that God indwells you, but not having it cause you to marvel.
Took: Believe all the truth and marvel like a child. These are the ones who progress in Christ’s Christian Academy.
Think of some of the supernatural things done to you by God and ask yourself, do I believe them like a child would?
Indwelling of Christ, Spirit. Eternal Trinity into which you have been entered. Possession of a mighty spiritual gift. Sealed destiny of heaven in the New Jerusalem.
Think of the difference in life if a believer knows these things, but unlike a child, is too rational to ever have them affect his day to day life.
It is the childlike faith in truths like these that create a life exceedingly, abundantly, beyond what you could ask or think.
Common life is not what you have been given. Uncommon life demands uncommon people.
Your life in Christ is more akin to a fairy tale than a mundane novel. Will you live it as Christ teaches you?
Next time we will see the qualifications of entering Christ’s school and how He, the Headmaster, describes it halls.
Homiletical standard: Hook (3 seconds):
The heart (pathos); trustworthiness of message (ethos); evidence and reasoning (logos). Go for the heart.
Make me care, make me trust, make me believe.
Intro: Surface need (why are we teaching this?) Raise a key question.
Preview.
Give Biblical context.
Announce and read the text.
Engage them first (pathos).
At the end of intro, preview sermon clearly (deductive: main point at front; inductive: main point at the end.)
Restate everything. Say the same thing many times in many different ways.
Robinson: 1. What does this mean? (Does the writer explain anything or does he assume his audience knows? Are there things I need to explain to our audience?) 2. Is it true? (Would our audience accept the idea no problem, not readily, will not accept right away? Other passages, proof from life examples …) 3. What difference does it make? (application) a. What is the vision of God in the particular text? b. Where precisely do I find that in the passage (The vision of God is always in the specific words and the life situation of the writer or the readers.) c. What is the function of the vision of God? What implications for belief or behavior did the author draw from the image? d. What is the significance of that picture of God for me and for others?
Write out transition questions.
Edification Exposition (with exhortation) Homiletics or pedagogy Theological correlation / Personal application Exegesis Hermeneutics / Observation.
“An artist, in the process of creating his work, agonizes over the minutia of his painting, but in the end he wants others to see not the fine details but the whole and how the parts are related.” (Zuck, Basic Bible Interpretation, p. 21)
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