This transcript was generated by whisper.ai.

I want to welcome you to day two of our look through Matthew chapter 12. Today
we're going to look at what is one of the most common questions people have
about the ministry of Jesus in the New Testament. In our research team, it's the
most common question, I think, as we're walking through the book of Matthew.

Every time it comes up that Jesus does this, someone asks, "Why does He do this?
" Jesus often, when He healed someone, would say to them, "Don't tell anyone. "
And so our question is, why?

I mean, doesn't He want people to know the good news? Why did Jesus tell people
not to tell? And earlier in Matthew, we addressed this very briefly and talked
about the fact that it was a matter of timing.

Jesus didn't want to press the action of His enemies, of the Pharisees. He knew
there was a timing when He should go to the cross, so He didn't want to push
that too fast. But there's a fuller answer.

There's a deeper answer. In fact, in all the Gospels, the deepest answer is here
in Matthew 12 of why Jesus told people not to tell. Listen to verses 15 to 21.

"Aware of this, Jesus withdrew from that place. Many followed Him, and He healed
all their sick, warning them not to tell who He was. This was to fulfill what
was spoken to the prophet Isaiah.

Here is My servant, whom I have chosen, the one I love, in whom I delight. I
will put My Spirit on him, and he will proclaim justice to the nations. He will
not quarrel or cry out; no one will hear his voice in the streets.

A bruised reed he will not break, and a smoldering wick he will not snuff out,
till he leads justice to victory. In His name the nations will put their hope. "
So Matthew tells us here that Jesus telling people not to tell, it was a
fulfillment of prophecy.

The fulfillment of this prophecy in Isaiah about the nature of who Jesus is as
He walks this earth, God, man, and also the nature of Jesus' ministry. As he
talks about the nature of Jesus' ministry, Isaiah says, "He came to serve. He is
My servant.

" And Jesus said, "I came not to be served, but to serve, and to give My life as
a ransom for many. " He's chosen and loved by God, sent into this world to serve
us. Isaiah says, "He came to proclaim justice, the justice of God revealed in
our lives.

" And this is not just national justice. It involves that in the end. God's
justice will be done in the end, but it begins with personal justice, being set
right with God.

God's setting things right in our lives so things can be set right in this
world. He came to serve. He came to proclaim justice.

At the end in verse 21, "In His name the nations will put their hope. " He came
to give hope, but the thing He did not come to do is He did not come to judge.
One day Jesus will judge.

The scripture is very clear about that, but not yet. God sent His Son into the
world not to judge the world, but to save the world through Him. Jesus did not
come to judge.

And because of that, as you look at the ministry of Jesus, you see this careful
and patient and loving ministry. He did not come to judge. He came to offer
hope.

And so He deals with people carefully and patiently in order to open the door to
everyone. Now I understand there is an exception in the religious leaders, but
the reason the exception was there is because they were acting like they had
come to judge. And Jesus, who did not come to judge, was not going to let them
become the judge.

The scripture here says He doesn't quarrel or cry out. When you look closely at
the ministry of Jesus, in many ways it was a very quiet ministry until the last
few weeks, those weeks in Jerusalem, those weeks towards the cross. We see the
drama in it now when we read back into it, but in that day no one knew what was
happening in this little corner of Israel.

Sometimes even in the towns where Jesus was healing, you could easily be in your
house and not know that it had happened that day. Sometimes you could even be at
one of the miracles that Jesus worked, and the way that He worked them through
His disciples or through others, unless you were looking, you could miss the
meaning even in that moment. We see it now, but in many ways Jesus had a very
quiet and careful and patient ministry as He walked this earth.

He's God in human flesh, but He's walking through the streets, gently, carefully
healing people. And the scripture describes this beautiful description from
Isaiah of this careful, patient, loving ministry of Jesus when it says, "A
bruised reed He will not break. A smoldering candle He will not snuff out.

" Something that's just about ready to be ended, this bruised reed that could
easily be tossed away. Or maybe you've seen one that has been broken off almost
all of the way, and in order to get it to live again, you'd have to carefully
prop it back up and tend it every day and wrap it very carefully. And Jesus
cared for people even like that.

Or the smoldering candle that's just about to go out. Jesus cared for people
even like that. So when you look at these scriptures, they describe the careful
and patient ministry of Jesus as He walked this earth.

But I want you to realize something. They also describe the ministry of Jesus in
your life. This is the way that Jesus treats you.

Patient, loving, gentle, forgiving. Like a bruised reed, that's how He treats
you. Instead of seeing the things that could be judged so easily in your life,
and pulling the weed, the reed, and throwing it aside, no, He gently works with
you every day.

He binds that place very carefully. He cares for you daily at that place, giving
His encouragement, giving His word. That's the way that Jesus works.

Like that smoldering candle. Smoldering candle has that bare amount of spark
that's left. And the only way to bring it back to life is to blow on it gently.

If you blow on it real hard, it's going to go out. But if you blow on it gently
over time, you can bring it back to life. And Jesus breathes life into you, into
me, day after day after day.

This is the way He led you to faith, with patience and love, not judgment, not
condemnation. And this is the way that He leads you in growth, with patience and
love. Why doesn't He come down hard on you every time you make a mistake, commit
a sin, do the same thing again that you did before that you shouldn't have done
the first time?

Why doesn't He come down hard on you? Because He loves you. And because He knows
that it is not condemnation, but it is that tender love that's going to cause
you to grow, cause you to keep turning to Him.

So these phrases, they describe the ministry of Jesus while He walked the earth,
His ministry in your life, but they describe also a third thing. They describe
your ministry in Jesus' name. Jesus did not come to condemn.

And your ministry, our ministry, is not to condemn. We are to minister to others
in the same way that Jesus ministers to us. Now in this sense of not condemning,
we often say here at Saddleback that we don't expect people to act like
believers until they are believers.

We do want to encourage people to live in faith once they are believers. To not
be condemning doesn't mean you can't tell the truth when someone needs to grow.
You just don't do it in a condemning way.

And to not be condemning means that before someone becomes a believer, you know
the main issue in their life is that they come to know Christ. You know some
people right now, they're a bruised reed. They're ready to break.

They're a smoldering candle. They're ready to go out. You know some people like
that.

But what is concerning to me in my ministry is there's many times when I don't
know that people are like this. They look strong on the outside, they speak with
great strength, but there's something going on in their life that I don't know
about. Something in their family, something in, there's some sin that they're
caught up in, there is some gossip that's come against them, there's some
criticism that's hurting them, there's something from their past that's come up
again with their parents.

Something is going on in their life and I don't even know about it. So that
causes me to think I've got to walk carefully through life because I never know
when I'm going to come across someone who is that bruised reed just about to
break, that smoldering candle just about to go out. And God, could you use me?

Could you use me to bind them at that broken place? Could you use me to bring
back into life that which is almost gone? The ministry of Jesus through your
life can do that.

How can you minister with the love of Jesus? You can strengthen people at that
bruised place. You can fan their love into flame again.

Now I get it as I talk about this that we have different personalities. I'm not
saying we have to all have the same personality. Some of us are more
soft-spoken, others are more loud.

God doesn't want to change your personality so much as he wants to change your
actions. Whatever your personality, you can love and not condemn. Whatever your
personality, you can be patient.

I know you don't want to be patient because whatever your personality, you don't
like patience. But whatever your personality, the Holy Spirit can strengthen you
to be patient because it's one of the fruit of the Spirit. Whatever your
personality, you can do what Jesus did.

You can serve. You can proclaim justice. You can offer hope.

The passage from Isaiah ends with saying, "Until he leads justice to victory. "
We do this until God turns the page on history. There will come a day when Jesus
will judge.

And all who have followed him, all who have chosen him will enjoy eternity with
him. All who have rejected him and in that done evil throughout their lives and
to others, they will suffer in that day for that. But it's not that day yet.

And so that is why Jesus, when he walked this earth the first time, he walked it
very carefully. And he sometimes said to people, "Don't tell yet," because of
the nature of his ministry, because he knew where things were headed. He knew
the kind of ministry that we needed, and he knew the kind of thing that would
change our lives.

Now, as I read this example of Jesus, I don't know about you, but I need his
strength to live out this example. It's the easiest thing in the world to be
impatient. It's the most tempting thing in the world to try to push hard to get
what I want, or to get what I'm saying I want even for somebody else's life.

I want to minister like Jesus did. Let's pray they'll give us that strength.
Jesus, thank you.

Thank you for being patient with us. Thank you for binding up those broken
places in our lives and fanning and deflating that candle that was just about to
go out. Thank you for your loving patience, and I pray that you would use me, we
pray that you'd use us, to patiently love others, to patiently express your love
to the people we meet today.

We need your strength to do that. So we ask for that strength. In Jesus' name,
amen.

Tomorrow we're going to see the scripture where Jesus explains blasphemy against
the Holy Spirit and the unforgivable sin.