This transcript was generated by whisper.ai.

Welcome to our last day, our fifth day of looking through Matthew chapter 12, a
passage, much of it, where Jesus has been discussing things with the Pharisees.
In that discussion, we learn a lot about life, about the way we use our words,
about the unforgivable sin, about the kind of ministry we're to have with other
people. In the last verses of this passage, as you look through what Jesus is
talking about in this discussion with the Pharisees, you see him talking about
the dangers of spiritual pride.

That kind of pride that arises in our lives, there is a positive kind of pride.
I almost hate to use the word pride because I know it can be misunderstood.
There's a positive kind of spirit towards seeing the good things that God has
done in our lives and rejoicing in those things.

There's also a negative kind of pride, and some of that is related to the things
that you do, but some of it's also related to what's going on inside of your
life. This is really the source or the root of pride, the spiritual pride that's
in our lives. And Jesus, as he talks through these things with the Pharisees,
gives us some very practical ways of looking at life, maybe a different way of
looking at life.

It helps us to recognize sometimes those points of spiritual pride in our own
lives. We're going to talk about three things today. First, just because you ask
for a sign doesn't mean you have faith.

Second, just because you've cleaned up your life doesn't mean that things are
better. And third, just because it's urgent doesn't mean it's important. And all
of these, as we walk through them, you'll see there are issues actually of
dealing with spiritual pride in our lives.

First thing that Jesus taught us is just because you ask for a sign from God
doesn't mean you have faith. Listen to what Jesus said in verses 38 down through
42. Then some of the Pharisees and teachers of the law said to him, "Teacher, we
want to see a miraculous sign from you.

" He answered, "A wicked and adulterous generation asks for a miraculous sign.
But none will be given it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. For as Jonah was
three days and three nights in the belly of a huge fish, so the Son of Man will
be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.

The men of Nineveh will stand up at the judgment with this generation and
condemn it. For they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and now one greater
than Jonah is here. The queen of the south will rise at the judgment with this
generation and condemn it.

For she came from the ends of the earth to listen to Solomon's wisdom, and now
one greater than Solomon is here. " Jesus is here teaching us how to recognize
spiritual pride in our own lives, and we all struggle with this. We all deal
with this.

This is not just about the Pharisees. We all have this struggle in our lives. He
teaches us here that you recognize spiritual pride when you talk about God, but
it always seems that you want to be in charge of the conversation.

All of your conversation about God is God doing what you want rather than you
doing what God wants. They asked for a sign. They wanted to control God rather
than God controlling their lives.

You see spiritual pride when people try to use God to get what they want. Jesus
says, "You wicked and adulterous generation. " He's being very honest here.

He's saying sometimes it is our wickedness that causes us to ask for things from
God, to ask for a sign from God. The point here is they were saying God has to
prove himself to us. Whenever you say, "God, you have to prove yourself to me,"
you're saying, "I want to be in control.

" Whenever you're saying, "I want to be in control in the conversation with
God," essentially what you're saying is, "I want to be God. " There's only one
God in the universe. That position is already filled.

We don't see it that way when we do these things, but when you follow it down
the line logically, when you look into it more deeply, that's really what's
happening. Jesus says, "You're being wicked. You're being adulterous.

You're running after other things besides God by doing this. " It's a sign of
spiritual pride, using God to get what you want. He said, "I'm not going to give
you a sign except for one, the sign of Jonah.

" I want to talk about that sign in a minute, but before I talk about it, just a
brief aside. The fact that Jesus mentions Jonah and the belly of a huge fish
here is significant, because there are many people who teach that those Old
Testament stories, they're just stories. They're just legends.

They didn't really happen. The fact that Jesus talked about these stories as
history, not as legends, that is a confirmation that what I read in the Bible is
what happened. It is the history of what God did in people's lives.

Jesus believed in the prophets. Jesus believed in Noah. You see him talking
about Noah.

He believed in Adam and Eve. He believed in Sodom and Gomorrah. Here he believes
in Jonah.

Many of these stories that people said were just stories didn't really happen.
Jesus talked to them as facts and history in his teaching. Just a quick aside.

Now, back to this sign of Jonah. The sign of Jonah was that the Son of Man would
be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. The sign of Jonah was
the sign of the resurrection.

If the resurrection of Jesus, Son of God, in human flesh on this earth, He's
going to die for us, be resurrected from us. If that doesn't cause you to
believe, there is no greater sign that could cause you to believe. What Jesus is
saying here is those looking to find God, they can't miss the signs.

He talks about Nineveh. They saw Jonah, just Jonah, just a prophet, and they
repented. He talks about the Queen of the South.

You can read about in 1 Kings 10, who came to hear from Solomon and believed
because of what she heard. They just saw men, and because of what they saw in
these men, these prophets, these kings, they decided to believe. Jesus is God.

And if you can't see it, Jesus is saying, "Now, you're never going to see it. "
Those looking to promote themselves, they can't see the signs, no matter how
much they demand them. And they say, "Well, I can't see it, so God must not be
real.

" Well, maybe the fact that you can't see it says more about you than it says
about God. That's what Jesus is teaching here. Watch out for spiritual pride
that says, "Because I can't see it, it can't be true.

" It's the pride that's not recognizing maybe it's something in me. Just because
you ask for a sign does not mean you have faith. Second thing Jesus taught here
is just because you've cleaned up your life doesn't mean that things are better.

You recognize spiritual pride in your life when you're focused on the good
things that you've done to get close to God. You may be focused on those as a
sign of salvation, "I did all these good things, so now I'm close to God. " Or
you may know the truth that you can only be saved by grace, but you still feel
like all the good things you're doing in ministry, they're getting you closer
and closer to God.

That's what gets you close to God. Jesus taught about this. Us doing good
things, cleaning our lives up ourselves in our own power.

In verses 43 to 45, He gave us this picture. When an evil spirit comes out of a
man, it goes through arid places seeking rest and does not find it. And then it
says, "I will return to the house I left.

" And when it arrives, it finds the house unoccupied, swept clean and put in
order. And then it goes in and it takes with it seven other spirits more wicked
than itself. And they go in and live there.

And the final condition of that man is worse than the first. That is how it will
be with this wicked generation. Jesus says, "When you clean up your life
yourself, you might be able to look at yourself and say, 'Look at what I've
done.

' But He says, 'You haven't filled your life. You've just left it empty. And
what you've left it empty for is something worse than the beginning.

'" Now if you have spiritual pride in this area, it's very hard to hear this.
Because you think of all the work that you've done to clean up your life. If you
know someone you're working with that has spiritual pride in this area, it's
very hard for them to hear this.

Because you have to admit all that work that I did, it means nothing. It was for
nothing. But there comes a moment in life when we have to admit the truth about
ourselves and about reality, about spirituality.

And Jesus says, "You're going to be worse off at the end than at the beginning
if you try to clean it up yourself. " Now this scripture, I'm not going to go
into it, but it has vast implications if you're finding an addiction in your
life. The reason that Celebrate Recovery has so effectively helped so many to
get past their addictions is because there's the recognition that it's the power
of Jesus, not my own power.

If you clean up your life on your own power, you might be good for a year, two
years, five years. But Jesus says, and I'm not saying this, Jesus says you're
going to be worse off at the end than you are at the beginning. Let him clean up
your life.

Let him fill your life. Don't leave your life empty. Let him fill your life.

Then there's a third thing Jesus talks about here when it comes to spiritual
pride. He says, "Just because it's urgent doesn't mean it's important. " Listen
to verses 46 to 50.

While Jesus was still talking to the crowd, his mother and brothers stood
outside wanting to speak to him. Someone told him, "Your mother and brothers are
standing outside wanting to speak to you. " He replied to him, "Who is my mother
and who are my brothers?

" Pointing to his disciples, he said, "Here are my mother and my brothers. For
whoever does the will of the Father in heaven is my brother and sister and
mother. " Now what's going on here as Jesus talks about this?

Is he rejecting his family? No. He took care of his mother even on the cross.

He spent his first 30 years ministering to his family. His brothers became
followers. They became writers of the New Testament.

He doesn't reject his family. He's rejecting this person who's interrupting his
teaching saying, "Jesus, Jesus, there's something more important, something more
urgent you have to be doing right now. You've got to get outside and be with
those people.

So you've got to leave what you're doing to be out there. " You see, sometimes
in our spiritual pride we can live in this place of urgency, always doing urgent
things for God, always urgently running around and serving God, always looking
for the next need, the next opportunity. But in that sense of urgency we miss
out on the important things in life.

Eisenhower said, "The important is seldom urgent and the urgent is seldom
important. " When Jesus pointed to his disciples and he said, "These are my
brother and sister and mother," what he's saying is, "These are my priority now.
I served that family for 30 years.

These are my priority now. " Now, if you are of the opinion that nothing is more
important than family, it may shock you to hear there is something more
important. Jesus told us what it is here.

Doing God's will is more important than family. A lot of families will try to
bring some kind of emotional pressure against someone who wants to do God's
will. Doing God's will is more important than family.

A lot of people outside of your family will try to bring some urgency into your
life to say, "Oh, no, no, you can't do God's will because it's going to take you
away from your family. " Doing God's will is more important. Now, I'm saying
this as one who deeply believes in the importance of family.

I'm saying this as someone who deeply believes in committing to your wife,
committing to your kids. But there is something more important, and that is the
doing of God's will. And when you do God's will, you're going to live your life
not for what is urgent.

If you're always living for what is urgent, there's probably an issue of
spiritual pride in your life. You need to feel better about yourself. You need
to feel good about what you did today.

That's where urgency drives us. That's what drives us into urgency. No, when you
do what's important, then sometimes you take time just to listen to God.

When you do what's important, sometimes you take time just to love someone else.
When you do what's important, sometimes you say no to one important thing in
order to do the priority thing that God has for your life, even though others
might judge you wrongly for it. Your life isn't about urgency.

Your life isn't about pleasing others. Your life is about pleasing Him. So
spiritual pride, these issues in our lives that all of us deal with.

I struggle with it. You struggle with it. Jesus speaks to it because He wants us
to grow to become more like Him.

So let's pray right now that we would. Jesus, thank you. Thank you that you work
in our hearts at these points of spiritual pride to lovingly speak to us and to
lead us to places of growth.

You know us. You know these points and places in our lives that we all struggle
with. So we open our hearts to you right now.

And we ask that you would deal with us in these places. Help us to grow in these
places. Lord, in those places where we're trying to control you, to use you to
get what we want instead of being led by you into what you want, help us to set
aside our will and help us to do your will.

Lord, in those places where somehow we're trying to get closer to you by doing
something good, help us to see that and to realize that we are already as close
as we possibly could be to you because of what you've given us in Christ. You
couldn't love us anymore. So help us to do what we do in our lives.

Not to get more loved by you, but because we are loved by you. And Lord, in
those times when everything is urgent and we're rushing here and rushing Help us
to see those times when the reason behind it is because we want to please
others. We want to seem important to others.

And Lord, help us to set aside that urgency and in the place of that, put the
priority of your love for us and our love for others. Lord, these deep places of
our lives, you know us and you can lead us to grow. We pray that you would.

We ask it in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, make sure to join us next week.

Matthew chapter 13, it's a chapter of parables. The parables, the pictures of
Jesus, the sower, the weeds, the hidden treasure, the net, the pictures that
Jesus gives us in these parables of the real life that God has for all of us.