This transcript was generated by whisper.ai.

Welcome to day two of our look through Matthew chapter 11. We're talking this
week about what to do with those things that come up against our faith, that try
to erode our faith. Yesterday we talked about what to do when you face doubt.

Today we're going to talk about what do you do when you have a critical spirit.
But first, before that, I want to listen together with you to some things that
Jesus had to say about John the Baptist. In verses 7 to 15, as John's disciples
were leaving, Jesus began to speak to the crowd about John.

"What did you go out into the desert to see, a reed swayed by the wind? If not,
what did you go out to see, a man dressed in fine clothes? No, those who wear
fine clothes are in king's palaces.

Then what did you go out to see, a prophet? Yes, I tell you, and more than a
prophet. This is the one about whom it is written, 'I will send my messenger
ahead of you, who will prepare your way before you.

' I tell you the truth, among those born of woman, there has not risen anyone
greater than John the Baptist, yet he who is least in the kingdom of heaven is
greater than he. From the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of
heaven has been forcefully advancing and forceful men lay hold of it. For all
the prophets and the law prophesied until John, and if you are willing to accept
it, he is the Elijah who was to come.

He who has ears, let him hear. " Now what does Jesus want us to hear in these
verses? What is this about Elijah and about the kingdom forcefully advancing?

I want you to notice that in one sense Jesus is talking about history here, the
spiritual history of the world. Notice he says, "Up until John," and he talked
about the prophets, and he said, "Then there is John," and he talked about the
messenger, and then he says, "Since John," and he talks about the kingdom, John
the Baptist stands at a crossroads of the spiritual history of the world. He is
the messenger for the Messiah coming into the world.

So let's look at this history just very briefly. First he says, "Up until John,"
and he talks about prophecy. Those who came to be prophets were those who looked
forward to what God was doing in the world.

They looked forward to see what God was doing in the history of Israel, what God
was doing in the surrounding world, but they also, prophets also looked forward
to the Messiah who would one day come to save Israel. So up until John you had
the prophets looking forward to the Messiah, and then comes John who Jesus says
is a prophet, but he's more than a prophet. He's a messenger, he's a messenger,
which it sounds like maybe a messenger isn't as great as a prophet, but for
Jesus it was the greatest of all because he came to give the message that the
Messiah has come.

John came to say what the prophets had been looking forward to for centuries and
centuries, that that had now arrived. Isaiah 43 to 5, "A voice of one calling in
the desert, prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the wilderness a
highway for our God. Every valley shall be raised up, every mountain and hill
made low, the rough ground shall become level, the rugged place is a plain, and
the glory of the Lord will be revealed.

And all mankind together will see it, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken. "
That is the spirit in which John came. And so Jesus says he is the greatest
among men because of that, because of the faith that he had and the message that
he brought.

Yet, he says, yet, those in God's kingdom are greater than he. So what John is
looking forward to, what he's announcing is the Messiah, and the Messiah is
going to bring in a kingdom that's greater than anything else. Make sure, Jesus
is saying here, that you don't get so focused on the messenger, John, that you
miss the message that he came to bring, the message of a kingdom.

And then Jesus says from the days of John until now, so this is just a few
years. John's come, Jesus starts his ministry, just a few years have passed. In
those few days, the kingdom, he says, is advancing.

In fact, he says, it is forcefully advancing. What does that mean? This verse
can actually be taken in a number of different ways, depending on how you see
the Greek syntax that's here.

I think it refers to the way that God's kingdom begins to come into this world
through Jesus. It is forcefully advancing into this world. And one modern
picture behind the Greek word for forcefully advancing is the picture of a
hostile takeover of a company.

When a company is taken over, though it still wants to be in control, some force
comes from outside of it and takes it over, that's called a hostile takeover.
Now I know the word hostile sounds negative, but suppose a good company, just
suppose a good company takes over a bad company. The hostile takeover makes
things better.

The forceful advance of the kingdom makes things better. God is working a
hostile takeover on this world. God's kingdom is accomplishing a hostile
takeover of individual lives in this world, from the kingdom of darkness to the
kingdom of light, and he's taking us all, the whole world together, from the
kingdom of Satan to the kingdom of God.

God's changing everything. And Jesus says, it's happening even now. You can see
it happening even now.

Now in this hostile takeover, people are going to respond one way or the other.
They're going to accept it by faith or they're going to reject it. And so Jesus
goes on to talk about one of the ways that people fight this takeover, fight
this advance of God's kingdom.

In verses 16 to 19, Jesus says, "To what can I compare this generation? They are
like children sitting in the marketplaces and calling out to others, 'We played
the flute for you and you did not dance. We sang a dirge and you didn't 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, 'Here's a glutton and a
drunkard and a friend of tax collectors and sinners. ' But wisdom is proved
right by her actions.

" Jesus is speaking here to those who struggle with a critical spirit. The
critical spirit of no matter what someone does, there is something wrong with
it. Either people are not happy enough and so you're upset because they're not
happy enough or when they become happy, people aren't sad enough and so you're
upset at that.

Jesus is talking about this when it comes to faith in our lives. That we can
allow a critical spirit to become one of the barriers to us having faith. You
can always find something wrong with someone else because guess what?

They're a human being, imperfect just like you. So you can always allow a
critical spirit towards someone else to be a reason not to have faith. In fact,
they even found something wrong with Jesus, and he wasn't an imperfect human
being.

He was 100% perfect, they still found something wrong with him. John, Jesus
says, the Baptist, he was very strict in what he ate and they said, 'Oh no, no,
we can't accept that. That's like demonic the way he's not eating.

He's eating like locusts and honey. That's demonic. ' So Jesus comes and he goes
and he parties with the tax collectors and sinners and they say, 'Oh, we can't
have that.

He's a glutton. He's somebody who is associating with the wrong people. ' Here's
what's behind a critical spirit.

Those who do not want to listen to the truth will find a reason not to listen to
the truth. Now I understand, we struggle with how people act and we struggle
with our own hypocrisy, other people's hypocrisy. I understand the struggles
that we have with that and we should be honest about those struggles.

But sometimes it's not a struggle, it's an excuse. It's a reason I'm finding.
It's the way I'm using somebody else's imperfections to tell me that I don't
need to have faith.

I've got to tell you in all honesty, when you and I face God in heaven, there's
going to be no excuse in that. God's going to say, 'I gave you every opportunity
and you made them an excuse for you not to have faith. ' The truth is, this
isn't just about other people, it's also about me, it's about you.

When you and I don't want to listen to the truth, we find a reason not to listen
to the truth. It may be about beginning a relationship with Christ and so you
find some person who's a Christian who you can't respect and so you say, 'That's
why I can't have faith. ' But maybe it's that you don't want to have faith.

Maybe it's that you don't want to change your life and you're using them as an
excuse, using a critical spirit to keep you from faith. Or it might be that
God's putting his finger on some area of sin in your life and you don't want to
change. It's become your comfortable sin area, whether it's gossip or it's
sexual immorality of some kind or it has to do with materialism, whatever it is,
it's become your comfort place.

Whenever you hear a sermon about it, you start to think evil thoughts about the
preacher that's preaching the sermon. I bet he doesn't do those things, I bet.
Why do you have a critical spirit?

You have to ask yourself. You can criticize any sermon, of course, there's no
perfect sermon. But you have to ask yourself, 'Why do I have such a critical
spirit right now?

Is it really the sermon or is it maybe something in me that doesn't want to see
God change this area of my life? ' He wants to change it because he knows he can
make you better. He wants to change it because he knows what he can do for your
life.

What Jesus is saying here about the people of his generation is that they were
being childish and stubborn, having a critical spirit, but they needed to be
childlike and humble. They needed to have a humble spirit. Now, Jesus says to
what can I compare this generation, obviously this generation is also our
generation.

We struggle with the same thing, sarcasm, critical spirit, all these things of
blaming others, but when it comes right down to it, it's not about me and that
other person. It's about me sitting in the presence of God, a perfect God who
loves me perfectly. And he was inviting these things to happen in my life.

And many times, I have to admit, a critical spirit in my life is because I want
to hold God at arm's length rather than invite God in to make the changes that
he needs to make, that he wants to make. And then in the end, I'm going to be
joyful that he made. As we talk about this together, the only way to really
understand if this is happening in my life is to have God reveal it to us.

So let's ask him to, would you pray with me and just say, Father, if I have a
critical spirit about another person or some area of my life or faith in my
life, would you show me? Would you help me to see it and understand it? And as I
see it, instead of resisting your work, pushing against you, Lord, I pray that I
would invite you in because I know that you love me.

I know you have a great plan and purpose for my life. So I ask that you work in
this way in my life. In Jesus' name.

Amen. Tomorrow, we're going to talk about what to do when we struggle with
apathy or indifference.