This sermon emphasizes the importance of understanding and obeying all that Jesus taught, not just evangelizing but also teaching disciples to do everything Jesus commanded. It highlights the need to move from being mere scribes who understand intellectually to becoming disciples who practice and apply Jesus' teachings in daily life. The sermon also touches on the consequences of unbelief, the challenge of being undervalued in one's hometown, the need to trust God in all circumstances, and the power of hospitality and God's supernatural provision.

We continue our study today in all that Jesus taught. We are looking at how to obey the command Jesus gave in the last verse of Matthew. To make disciples, baptize them, and then teach them to do every single thing I've commanded. So, if we are to fulfill that commission, a very important part of that commission, which is not often taken seriously, we need to understand everything that Jesus taught both by faith and by his words. And learn from that, do it ourselves, and then teach others how to do it. Otherwise, we would not have fulfilled the great commission. And this is a part of the great commission that's usually neglected by most Christians who do evangelism or even initially bring people to discipleship. There's a whole lot that Jesus taught, and it's not something that we can go through quickly. And if our aim in building a church, a local church, is just to gather numbers of those who want to go to heaven, then we will neglect teaching them to do everything that Jesus commanded, because that takes time. So, if you want to teach people to do everything Jesus commanded and make disciples of good quality, you'll have to ignore numbers. Do all the evangelism you possibly can, but then bring those newborn babies to maturity, just like a good father would do. Not just keep on having babies who remain immature babies, but babies who grow up to maturity, and the only way to grow up to maturity is by teaching them to do every single thing Jesus commanded. This is exactly what he said. So, we've come to this point in our study in Matthew chapter 13 and verse 52, where at the end of the parables, Jesus said these words to his disciples. They had just responded to Jesus' question when he asked them in verse 51, have you understood all these things? It's quite amazing that all these parables, he asked them whether they understood it, and they said yes. I don't know whether they understood it very deeply, but they responded yes. And then he said, the scribe must become a disciple. What he meant was, a scribe is one who understands everything. He has used his mind to grasp the intellectual part of the scriptures, but the scribe must become a disciple. That means he has to obey what he has understood. So when they said, yes, we've understood all these things, Jesus said, that's fine, now you're scribes. You must become disciples who practice what you have understood. That means you've got to apply the truth of these parables to your life. For example, I'll just take two examples. The parable of the treasure in the field. Have you understood it? That this man sold all that he had to buy the field? How do you apply it? You must be willing to give up everything to recognize that Jesus Christ himself is that hidden treasure. Or the parable with the same meaning that he repeated in the man seeking for expensive pearls, and found a pearl of great price. If we see Christ as the pearl of great price, we'd be willing to give up everything on earth in order to have him. And we'll say like the psalmist, there is nothing whom have I in heaven but thee, and there is nothing on earth that I desire beside thee. So that is the mark of a true disciple, who can say to the Lord sincerely from his heart, there's nothing on earth I desire beside you. That's all I want, Lord. And if we say that, then we have understood that parable. And likewise all the other parables you know about the thorns growing up and choking the good seed. We can understand it, but we've got to make sure that thorns, the deceitfulness of riches and the anxieties of worldly things and all don't grow up to choke our Christian life. Then we become disciples. Otherwise we can preach wonderful messages on these parables and we are just scribes. And that's why at the end of the section on the parables, Jesus said the scribe must become a disciple. This is what Jesus taught. We're considering the subject of all that Jesus taught. What Jesus taught was it's not enough to be a scribe. You've got to be a disciple. And then once you're a disciple, you can, from the treasure you have in your life, the treasure is what we have experienced of putting these teachings to practice in daily life and through trial and temptation and overcoming. Then we have a treasure. And from that treasure, we can bring forth and make other people rich. Not with our knowledge, but with what we have practiced of what we have understood. And new and old means we have experiences from past years, but we must also be having continually new experiences with the Lord. If you only have old experiences with the Lord, you're probably a backslider. A person who's walking with God does not have only experiences with the Lord to talk about from last year or year before that. He must be having current experiences, not necessarily every day, but something current that's recent. What the Lord has spoken to him and done in his life and done for him treasures new and old. Remember that in the new covenant, ministry does not come by study or even by waiting on the Lord and hearing his voice. That is old covenant. In the old covenant, it was by hearing God speak. The old prophets would speak like that. Moses would go up to the mountain and come down and tell people, come and hear what the Lord has said. But in the new covenant, ministry comes through the trials God takes us through. As Paul says in 2 Corinthians in chapter 1, he says God allows us to go through all types of afflictions and he strengthens us. In 2 Corinthians 1, 4, the word comfort means strengthens and encourages. F-O-R-T comes in comfort meaning a fort of strength. God strengthens us in our affliction so that we may be able to strengthen those who are in an affliction themselves with the same strength that we received when God strengthened us. You see the number of times that word comfort or strength comes in that verse, four times. The strength we receive in the trials we go through is our ministry to other people because other people don't need an intellectual knowledge of God. They need to know how to overcome in their trials and that can only come through what we have experienced and that's why Jesus Christ himself had to, in order to be our forerunner, had to go through every temptation that any man can ever go through. He was tempted in all points as we are we read in Hebrews 4 and verse 15 and that is how he can run to the aid says in Hebrews 2, 18 of those who are tempted today and if we are to run to the aid of people who are in trial and temptation today we must be mini forerunners for others. We must be able to say to others follow me as I follow Christ. Paul could say that and from his trials Paul the scribe became Paul the disciple and so that's what he's speaking about here. The great danger of lots and lots of preachers today is they are scribes. They are not disciples. They have a lot of head knowledge. They can arrange their sermons so beautifully but they have very little to speak from practical experience of the Lord took them through triumphantly in different situations or helped them to overcome sins or helped them to come to a glorious family life or things like that and if we don't have such a message we're still scribes and that's the reason why the church suffers so much today. We have far too many scribes like Paul says in 1 Corinthians 4 for 10,000 teachers you may have one father and what the church needs is fathers and disciples who can bring forth out from their treasure experiences from the past as well as current experiences of what the Lord is teaching them right now. After these things in Matthew 13, 53 it says when he finished these parables he departed from there and he came to his hometown and he began teaching them in their synagogue. Jesus was constantly teaching as we noticed again and again in Matthew. He never tired of teaching because he knew that people needed to hear. He had gone through 30 years of walking with the father in Nazareth and was rich in practical experience of walking with God as a man. He had to come as a man go through all that and only then he could teach. He didn't rush out to teach just when he knew the Bible. He knew the Bible when he was 12 years old but he would have been a scribe but to be a disciple of the father he had to go through another 18 years in Nazareth experiencing everything that he had studied and then God sent him out. Today we have a lot of people who think they just go through three years in a Bible school but they go through experiences in life in order to lead other people to a godly life. And when he came there the people in his hometown were astonished. They said where did this man get this wisdom and these miraculous powers? I mean we just know him as a poor carpenter's son. Carpenters were not considered high up in society. They were not scholars and they were not rich people. Just a poor carpenter's son from a town called Nazareth and his mother is called Mary. His brothers we read here he's got at least four brothers James, Joseph, Simon and Judas and his sisters. We don't know how many there were but that means at least two. Are they not all here? Jesus therefore we see was a member of at least a family with seven children. Where did this man get all these things? And they took offense at him. And listen to these words of Jesus in verse 57. Except in his hometown and in his own family. And this has been true through 2,000 years. People have seen a prophet in his hometown or in his family grow up as a little child. They always think of him yeah this is a little child we knew. I mean who cares for him? But God may have raised him up to be a prophet. And so family members usually despise a true prophet of God. The town in which the prophet grew up there also they've seen him from childhood as a little school boy. They despise one who's like that. But other towns have seen him as a grown man as a prophet straight away and tend to respect him. And this was true in Jesus' time as well. In Nazareth everybody in Nazareth had seen him as a little boy and his family members and relatives also had seen him as a little boy. They said who is this? This is not some great prophet. We know him as a little kid. And so it's the same today when so many people despise a true prophet of God within his family and in his hometown. So you shouldn't be surprised if you're a true servant of God and God's given you a prophetic ministry that you're not valued in your hometown because familiarity breeds contempt as the English proverb says. And therefore we don't necessarily expect in our hometown and from our own family members. That's just following in the footsteps of Jesus. And then we come to verse 58. It says he did not do many miracles there because of their unbelief. What did we learn from Jesus' life? That though he wanted to do miracles for some people he could not do it. Not because he didn't want it. Not because they didn't need it. They needed it greatly. They needed him. But they wouldn't believe. That's quite amazing. In his own hometown where they should have had the maximum blessing they got the least. Imagine in all the towns and villages of Nazareth the town which got or the village or town which got the least amount of blessing was Nazareth where Jesus had lived for 30 years. They wouldn't accept him. They wouldn't believe in him. Capernaum where he stayed. But Nazareth especially they did not believe because they had a despising attitude. And wherever you despise a true servant of God for some reason or the other I want to tell you you're going to be the loser. If he's just a crook that's okay you don't lose anything. But if a man's a genuine true man of God you can count on him for some reason or the other. There's no man without weaknesses. Every servant of God has got weaknesses in the history of humanity including the Apostle Paul. But if you despise a man for something like that you're going to be the loser because you despise a true servant of God and that's what happened here. Jesus wanted to do many miracles there is there something God wanted to do for me but which he couldn't do because I wouldn't trust him. Maybe a difficult problem that you're facing and you really want to be delivered from it and God also wants to deliver you from it but you're not delivered from it because of your unbelief. I've often thought about this verse in relation to the final day of judgment. When I stand before the Lord I apply it to myself. Will there be any area or anything in my life where the Lord would have to say to me as he reviews my entire life on earth in the day of judgment and he'll have to say to me you know I could have done something for you there if you had trusted me or in this other place. If only you had trusted me the things would have turned out very differently from the way they did but I couldn't do anything for you. My hands were tied to help you. You went here and there. You looked up to the hills for your help. You went to Egypt. Instead of coming to me the Lord says. Would that be true? Well I sort of really searched my heart and said Lord I don't want you to say that to me in the final day. In any situation I can't do anything about the years gone by. So many years of my life wasted in unbelief but at least in the years that are left to me no physical sickness problems with other people difficulties with our children or any type of problem that we can ever face. Lord I want to trust you first. I know that you're almighty God. You taught me to pray to our Father who art in heaven who can do everything. My dear brothers and sisters please consider this whether there be things in your life that the Lord could have done differently if you had only trusted him. So that's a very challenging verse. To me it's one of the saddest verses in all the four Gospels. He could not do and he did not do many miracles there because of their unbelief. If you see the parallel passage sometimes it's good for us to compare one scripture with a similar passage in another Gospel. And this verse in Mark 6 verse 5 is written as he could do no miracle there except that he healed a few sick people and he wondered at their unbelief. He was amazed at their unbelief. It was staggering their unbelief. Here it says he did not do it. Mark 6 5 says he could not do it. He could not do it which means his hands were tied. Do you recognize that you tie the hands of Christ when you don't trust him? We move on to Matthew chapter 14 and verse 1. At that time Herod the Tetrarch heard the news about Jesus and he said to his servants this is John the Baptist he's risen from the dead that's why these miraculous powers are at work at him. That's quite an amazing thing that Jesus was mistaken for another human being. What a man John the Baptist must have been for somebody to think that Jesus was John the Baptist. That's really amazing to think that we can live in such a way that is so Christ like. That's Herod the Tetrarch said hey this is John the Baptist and the amazing thing is John the Baptist never did a single miracle. Yeah it says that in the scriptures in the gospels. John did not do any miracle but Jesus was doing miraculous things all the time and Herod the Tetrarch said hey this is John the Baptist risen from the dead you know he had killed John the Baptist and looks as if he's come back in the person of Christ. That's a real challenge. You know a whole hearted servant of God being considered equal to Jesus by a heathen man. And when Herod hears the old story of what Herod had done to John the Baptist it's interesting to read. Herod had John arrested and bound him and put him in prison. I mean he himself didn't want to do it but because of his wife whom he had married who was actually the wife of his brother Philip he got married to his brother's wife and John had been speaking to him saying straight to his face it's not lawful for you to have your brother's wife. Boy we need prophets like that who will speak the truth even to kings or big people in their churches etc. And even though he wanted to put John to death he feared the multitude because the multitude regarded John as a prophet. And when Herod's birthday came the daughter of Herodias danced before them and he pleased Herod and he promised to give her whatever she asked and she listened to her mother and asked her mother's advice and mother said ask for John the Baptist's head and she said I want John the Baptist's head on a platter and the king was so sad that he made such a promise but because he had given his oath and he didn't want to look humiliated in the presence of the dinner guests imagine what a weak person Herod was he was willing to cut off somebody's head just to please his dinner guests and he sent and had John beheaded and the head was brought on a platter and given to the girl and she brought it to her mother and disciples came and reported it to Jesus and buried him and they went and reported it to Jesus when Jesus heard it he withdrew from there in a boat to a lonely place by himself you know Jesus was so human and that's why he was so grieved when he heard about Herod killing his forerunner John the Baptist that he had to withdraw himself that's a good thing to do we learn from the life of Jesus whenever some pressure we feel of sorrow because of some circumstance or death or something like that we need to withdraw and get alone with God and overcome that and cast that sorrow into the Lord's hands Bible says cast your burden upon the Lord and he will sustain you because otherwise we can be overwhelmed with sorrow there are a lot of Christians like that who face some difficult situation or a sorrowful situation and they get so overwhelmed with it that they are incapacitated and useless for many weeks on end now if we want to avoid that we need to get alone in the presence of God even Jesus needed to do it when he heard it that John the Baptist had been killed he withdrew himself and went alone to be with the Father in prayer it shows me something of his tremendous identification with the human race that he experienced our weaknesses he experienced our sorrows he knew how to weep and he felt with the feelings we feel in such situations and he knew the answer was to get alone with the Father and when he had finished his time there the multitudes had followed him and he felt compassion for them and continued to heal the sick you see within a short time he was back into the ministry he didn't let the sorrow of that overwhelm him that's what we learned from the life of Jesus he teaches us by his life just as much as from his words for our practical daily life and when it was evening the disciples came to him and he to disciples came to him and he said to them disciples came to him he said to disciples came to him and he said them disciples came to him and he said disciples came said time energy money whatever they would of many would say well we can't trouble ourselves about these guys being hungry send them off but Jesus said no give them something to eat what a word I hope we can hear it when we come into similar situations and he says they don't need to go away give them something to eat and then they said how in the world can we do that they we have only five loaves and two fish here and he said bring that to me and ordering the multitudes to recline on the grass he took the five loaves and two fish and looking up toward heaven he blessed the food and break broke the loaves and he gave it to them and the disciples gave it to the multitudes and they all ate and were satisfied and they picked up what was left over the broken pieces 12 baskets full and there were about 5,000 men who ate beside the women and children so what we learned from this is that if we seek to be hospitable God can even supernaturally help us to bless other people that's what we learned from Jesus honor God say Lord I want to serve others and bless them and you'll find God does amazing supernatural things to help you we'll continue our study in the next episode