This transcript was generated by whisper.ai.

(upbeat music) Welcome to day five, our last day of looking through Matthew
chapter 22. We're going to look at verses 41 to 46 today. In fact, let me begin by
reading those verses and then we'll get into what they have to say to us and the
life that God has for us.

Verse 41, "While the Pharisees were gathered together, "Jesus asked them, 'What
do you think about the Christ? "'Whose son is he? ' "'The son of David,' they
replied.

"He said to them, 'How is it then that David, "'speaking by the Spirit, calls
him Lord? ' "For he says, 'The Lord says to my Lord, "'sit at my right hand
until I put "'your enemies under your feet. ' "If then David calls him Lord, how
can he be his son?

"No one could say a word and reply. "And from that day on, no one dared "ask him
any more questions. " Now first, I want to talk about this from the perspective of
your life and maybe the life of a friend.

If you're struggling with who Jesus is, who really is Jesus and what does he
have to do with my daily life? Or you have a friend who's struggling with who
Jesus is. Maybe it has to do with an initial commitment to Jesus and they're
struggling with whether they should make that commitment.

Or maybe it has to do with how Jesus is going to be involved in your daily life.
And you're struggling. You're struggling with how much lordship, how much
direction and guidance you should allow him to have in your life.

Your friend is struggling with this. If you're struggling, there's two things
that need to be done that Jesus teaches us here. First, you listen to the
questions that Jesus is asking you.

And then number two, you listen to the truth that Jesus is teaching you. First,
you listen to the questions that Jesus is asking you. This begins with a
question.

What do you think about the Christ, Jesus says? Whose son is he? Jesus asked
questions all the time to lead people to the truth.

He did this all the time. If you look through the book of Matthew that we've
been studying, Matthew 17, when Peter came into the house, Jesus was the first
to speak. What do you think, Simon, he said, from whom did the kings of the
earth collect duty and taxes?

In verse 18, what do you think he says if a man owns 100 sheep, one of them
wanders away? In chapter 21, what do you think, Jesus says, a man has two sons.
He went to the first and said, son, go and work in the vineyard.

What do you think he says here about the Christ? Whose son is he? Jesus will use
scripture to bring a question to our minds.

Jesus will use another believer to bring a question to our minds. If you're
struggling with who Jesus is or you're struggling with Jesus' place in your
life, the truth is you've got questions and God honors those questions. You
should ask God all the questions that are on your mind and God will patiently
and lovingly listen to those questions.

He may be able to answer some immediately. There are some questions we ask on
this earth. There are no answers until we get to heaven.

That's not a cop-out. That's a reality of our human limitations. So you ask God
your questions when you're struggling.

You tell your friend who is struggling, ask God all the questions, but don't
stop there because you also need to take a moment to listen for the question
that God is asking you. Oftentimes, to get out of the struggle, you have to ask
your questions but you have to also stop long enough to listen. What question is
God asking me?

And in this case, he wanted to lead them to the truth that he is the Messiah. So
he asked them a question about David. They would have understood this question
from the Old Testament.

Now to you, it might not be an important question, but these are the kinds of
things that they talked about all the time. If you stop and listen when you're
struggling, if your friend stops and listens when they're struggling, they might
hear a question like, "Don't you know that I've been with you all along? " Or
they might hear a question like, "Can't you see my love in the way that I've
done this?

" Or they might hear a question like, "Isn't this what you're really struggling
with? "Can you be honest with me? " They might hear a question like Jesus often
asked, "Do you want to be healed?

" They might hear a very simple question like, "What do you want? " Listening
for God's questions is one of the keys to getting out of a struggle of doubt, a
struggle of faith. First, you listen to the questions that Jesus is asking you.

And then the second thing you do is you listen to the truth that Jesus is
teaching you. And here, just in this one passage, we hear truth from the Old and
the New Testament. Jesus brings an Old Testament quote when he talks about
David, and he says, "Look at what's said in the Old Testament here.

"Why then did the Spirit inspire David to say, "'The Lord said to my Lord, sit
at my right side "'until I put your enemies under my feet. '" Now, it's
interesting here in this comment, Jesus is actually recognizing the power of
scripture. He says, "Why did the Spirit say through David?

"Why did the Spirit inspire David to say? " Jesus recognizes here that David
didn't write those parts of the Old Testament. The Spirit inspired David to
write.

Quoting from David in the Psalms, he recognizes the Spirit actually is the
author. So when you and I talk about the authorship of the Bible being from God
and not from man, Jesus affirms that here. As he affirms it, he has this
question for them.

Why is it that David calls his son, his descendant, Jesus says the Messiah's
going to be called the Son of David. He asked them, what's the Messiah called, Son
of David? Jesus sometimes called himself the Son of David through his ministry.

Why in the world would he say that his son is his Lord? How could that be, he
says? Now, you and I know the answer now.

Jesus is both man and God. Jesus is the Son of David. He is in the line of
David.

He's David's grandson, great, great, great, great. I don't know how many greats
right now, but a lot of greats, great grandson. But he not only was born as a
man, he was born as God.

So this one who was born as a man of Mary is God. He is the Lord, he is both.
And David, inspired by the Spirit, recognized that.

Now this is amazing. Here is Jesus, this is the last week of his life. He's
having these arguments.

This is argument question day with the Pharisees. They've asked all their
questions of him. Now he has a question for them and they can't answer it
because they have been talking for hundreds of years about who the Messiah is
going to be.

And they couldn't understand the dichotomy in the Old Testament between the
suffering servant picture of a Messiah and the victorious king picture of a
Messiah. Jesus is both. They couldn't understand that Jesus is both God and man.

You and I, when we listen to the questions of Jesus, the answers that eventually
come to our mind, they can take your breath away. Revelation 22 verse 16 says
Jesus is both the root and the offspring of David. He is both God and man.

That was something totally unexpected. No one could have known that would happen
or expected that would happen. But God knew it from the very beginning.

And so Jesus teaches them here, I am the Messiah, I am God and man. But instead
of listening and responding, they just walked away because they couldn't
understand his questions. These leaders were blinded to the truth.

They were blinded by their tradition, they were blinded by their position, they
were blinded by their pride. And one of the things you and I have to watch out
for when we come to these moments of doubt in our lives is the people who want
to attach to our doubt, who actually want to bring us down because of our doubt
because they've been brought down. Something some people call toxic religion.

And one of the things you have to be able to do is know how to spot and deal
with a modern day Pharisee. Jesus knew how. He saw these people, they
continually tried to back him into a corner and show him how, well, God could
never do it that way.

God could never work in that way. And you hear these kinds of questions today
too. When he was backed into a corner, Jesus always turned on the light.

Jesus' opponents often tried to back him into a corner and he'd ask him a
question. They would ask him a question designed to trap him and he would give
them an answer that would show them the light. Instead, he turned on the light
of truth by offering a totally different perspective.

Give to Caesar what Caesar's, give to God what's God's. There's no marriage in
heaven. I am the God of Abraham.

Why did he call him Lord? In everything that happened in this chapter, he is
totally changing the way that they think. If you want to get out of doubt in your
life, if you want to get out of a struggle point in your life, you have to be
willing for Jesus to totally change the way that you see everything.

When you start to see with eyes of eternity, when you start to see with eyes of
hope, it changes everything. Now notice here, Jesus struggled with those who had
toxic religion. He answered them without arguing with them.

People who have toxic religion, they love to argue. They'd love to argue with
you from now until eternity. The truth of the matter is it doesn't do them any
good, it doesn't do you any good.

Jesus gave them an answer. He didn't play games with people. He wouldn't fall
for it.

He wouldn't be pulled into these crazy making games. Instead, he said, here's
the truth. And the truth is, I'm the Messiah.

They were asking him questions about taxes and they were asking him questions
about marriage. They should have been asking him questions about eternity and
about hope. The Messiah was right there, the one they were hoping for, they were
waiting for.

And instead of trusting him, they're trying to trap him. And the reason they
tried to trap him is because they were so caught up, they were so trapped by
their own selfishness. When I come to these struggle points in my faith, one of
the honest questions I have to let God ask me is, where is my selfishness
playing a part in this?

Where is there something I don't want to let go of? Where is there something I
don't want to believe? Where is the place I don't want to trust?

Where is the thing God's asking me to do that I'm afraid to do? Where is the
truth that I'm afraid to believe? Where's my own selfishness playing a part in
this?

You see, when you struggle with doubts, when your friend struggles with doubts
that you want to help, God wants to get you through that struggle. He wants to
get you to that other side of that struggle. But you start by listening for his
questions.

Ask yours, but then listen for his. And then you continue by listening to his
truth. Our Father, as we pray together right now, I pray that you help us to
hear both.

Help us to hear the question you have for our hearts. What do we want? Where are
we afraid?

Where do we need to step out and believe? Help us to hear the question. But God,
help us to also hear the truth from Jesus.

The truth that you want to meet our needs. The truth that you will be with us
when we step out. The truth that we can give our fear to you.

We don't have to be filled with anxious and troubled hearts because you are with
us. Help us to hear your truth. God, take us through this struggle to the other
side.

Other side, help us to know that we're going to find you. We're going to find
hope. We're going to find trust.

We're going to find life. Pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.

I hope you'll join us next week. We're going to see in the next chapter that
Jesus outlines the greatest dangers of hypocrisy in our faith. Now one of the
keys to battling hypocrisy is admitting that we all struggle with hypocrisy.

So all of you who struggle with hypocrisy, we'll see you next week to see what
Jesus has to teach us.