Exodus 13:1-16

¹ The Lord said to Moses, ² “Consecrate to me all the firstborn. Whatever is the first to open the womb among the people of Israel, both of man and of beast, is mine.” ³ Then Moses said to the people, “Remember this day in which you came out from Egypt, out of the house of slavery, for by a strong hand the Lord brought you out from this place. No leavened bread shall be eaten. ⁴ Today, in the month of Abib, you are going out. ⁵ And when the Lord brings you into the land of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, which he swore to your fathers to give you, a land flowing with milk and honey, you shall keep this service in this month. ⁶ Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread, and on the seventh day there shall be a feast to the Lord. ⁷ Unleavened bread shall be eaten for seven days; no leavened bread shall be seen with you, and no leaven shall be seen with you in all your territory. ⁸ You shall tell your son on that day, ‘It is because of what the Lord did for me when I came out of Egypt.’ ⁹ And it shall be to you as a sign on your hand and as a memorial between your eyes, that the law of the Lord may be in your mouth. For with a strong hand the Lord has brought you out of Egypt. ¹⁰ You shall therefore keep this statute at its appointed time from year to year. ¹¹ “When the Lord brings you into the land of the Canaanites, as he swore to you and your fathers, and shall give it to you, ¹² you shall set apart to the Lord all that first opens the womb. All the firstborn of your animals that are males shall be the Lord’s. ¹³ Every firstborn of a donkey you shall redeem with a lamb, or if you will not redeem it you shall break its neck. Every firstborn of man among your sons you shall redeem. ¹⁴ And when in time to come your son asks you, ‘What does this mean?’ you shall say to him, ‘By a strong hand the Lord brought us out of Egypt, from the house of slavery. ¹⁵ For when Pharaoh stubbornly refused to let us go, the Lord killed all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both the firstborn of man and the firstborn of animals. Therefore I sacrifice to the Lord all the males that first open the womb, but all the firstborn of my sons I redeem.’ ¹⁶ It shall be as a mark on your hand or frontlets between your eyes, for by a strong hand the Lord brought us out of Egypt.”

Flannery O’Connor once said this about writing:

When you can assume that your audience holds the same beliefs as you do, you can relax a little and use more normal means of talking to it; when you have to assume that it does not, then you have to make your vision apparent by shock, to the hard of hearing you shout, and for the almost-blind, you draw large and startling figures.

That’s an interesting insight, and a true one.  “Making our vision apparent by shock” is something we all must do for those unaccustomed or unprepared to receive what we need to say and what they need to hear.  This may be especially true in the raising of children!  It is most certainly true in the way that the Lord God teaches us.  We are the hard of hearing who need a shout.  We are the almost-blind who need startling images drawn.

That is true of us and it was true of Israel as well.  Coming out of Egypt, the Lord needed to impress certain truths upon His children.  These truths were identity-forming and salvation-bringing insofar as they prepared the hearts of the people of God for the eventual coming of  the incarnate Christ.  They were truths that had to do with the reality of sin, forgiveness, deliverance, salvation, holiness, consecration, and community.

We have looked already at the institution of the rites of Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread.  In our text tonight we see another expression of the Feast of Unleavened Bread as well as instructions on the consecration of the firstborn sons of Israel.

I. The Divine Counterpart to the Divine Curse: The Firstborn of Israel (v.1-2,11-16)

Provocatively, our text begins and ends with instructions concerning the firstborn sons of Israel.

¹ The Lord said to Moses, ² “Consecrate to me all the firstborn. Whatever is the first to open the womb among the people of Israel, both of man and of beast, is mine.”

I say this is provocative because it clearly stands as a counterpart to the death of the firstborn sons of Egypt.  The firstborn sons of Egypt were killed whereas the firstborn sons of Israel would live lives consecrated to God.  The firstborn sons of Egypt were under a curse.  The firstborn sons of Israel were under the promise of salvation.

To consecrate is to set aside as holy.  Israel is told to consecrate to the Lord “all the firstborn” and “the first to open the womb…both man and beast.”  “They are mine!” declares the Lord.  The firstborn of Egypt were the Lord’s too, and were the objects of His wrath.  The firstborn of Israel were the Lord’s and were the objects of His special affection.  In truth, all the children of Israel were the Lord’s, set apart by Him and for Him.  In a general sense, of course, all the peoples of earth belong to the Lord insofar as He creates us all and we bear His image, marred by the Fall though it is.

This consecration of the firstborn sons of Israel was unique, though.  It highlighted the salvation that was Israel’s.  The consecration of the firstborn of Israel was a symbol of all of Israel’s consecration to God.  Speaking of the consecration of the livestock of Israel, Honeycutt suggests that “by the principle of ‘pars pro toto,’ the part may stand for the whole.  Offering the firstborn symbolized the effectual giving of the entire future offspring for man’s consumption.”[1]  The same principle would apply to the consecration of the firstborn child.  The firstborn stand for all.  Verse 11 and following revisits this consecration.

¹¹ “When the Lord brings you into the land of the Canaanites, as he swore to you and your fathers, and shall give it to you, ¹² you shall set apart to the Lord all that first opens the womb. All the firstborn of your animals that are males shall be the Lord’s. ¹³ Every firstborn of a donkey you shall redeem with a lamb, or if you will not redeem it you shall break its neck. Every firstborn of man among your sons you shall redeem.

In giving these instructions, the Lord is making His vision apparent by shock, to return to O’Connor’s phrase.  Essentially, the consecration of the firstborn went like this.  All the firstborn sons of the people and the firstborn of the animals were to be consecrated.  Those animals deemed clean were to be sacrificed to the Lord.  Unclean animals, of which the donkey is specified in our text, were to be redeemed.  That is, they were to be consecrated, but could be redeemed, bought back, for a price.  In this way, they would not be killed, and could be used again.  Thus, the unclean donkey would be consecrated, but not sacrificed.  The options for the donkey, as well as for all unclean animals, were two:  (a) they could be redeemed for a price or (b) they could be killed.  These were the only two options for unclean animals.  Thus, the consecrated donkey could be bought back or its neck could be broken.  In this way, God’s rights over the firstborn were acknowledged, either through the sacrifice of the consecrated clean animals, the redemption of the consecrated unclean animals, or the death of the consecrated unredeemed animals.  In any case, God’s sovereign rights were acknowledged.  The firstborn, in place of all, belonged to God.

Most interestingly, the Lord says that “every firstborn of man among your sons you shall redeem.”  This is as fascinating as it is telling.  In practice, the firstborn sons are placed in the same category as the donkey:  consecrated, unclean, and in need of redemption.  Child sacrifice was forbidden by the Lord, of course.  The Lord would not have His people kill their sons like they may have to kill their unredeemed donkeys.  No, the firstborn sons of Israel were to be redeemed.  The price of redeeming the firstborn son was five shekels.  We see Joseph and Mary honoring this law with Jesus in Luke 2.

²² And when the time came for their purification according to the Law of Moses, they brought him up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord ²³ (as it is written in the Law of the Lord, “Every male who first opens the womb shall be called holy to the Lord”)

Now, the Lord Jesus was without sin, but it was still important that He not be in violation of the Law.  So He was presented to the Lord.  But all the other firstborn sons of Israel needed to be redeemed because, like they donkey, they were unclean…which is to say – and this is key – we are unclean.

In other words, we see in these instructions the truth of human depravity.  We are unclean and in need of purification.  We are sinners in need of salvation.  Remember:  the firstborn sons of Israel stood for the whole of Israel, indeed, for the whole of humanity.  The theological importance of this will be immediately evident:  we are all unclean and we are all in need of redemption.  The options available to us are the same as the options available to unclean animals:  death or redemption.

Do you see the deep, ancient, theological seeds that were sown into the consciousness of these early Jews in order to prepare Israel and the world for the coming of Christ?  Lost, unclean man needs to be redeemed.  If he is not redeemed, he is condemned.  But who could pay the price of redemption for the sins of the world?  Who could offer redemption to all?  Is there a sacrifice that could accomplish this?  Is there a payment large enough for this price?

Praise God, church!  There is!  Jesus is the payment for our redemption, the perfect Lamb whose death and resurrection makes us unclean sons and daughters clean again.  We need not die!  We need not be judged!  We need not be condemned!  Our Jesus has paid the price for us!  For you!  For me!

Have you trusted in the Lamb who paid the redemption price for you?  Have you called on His name?  Can you say that you are His?

These truths we now know in full were previously presented in the startling image of consecration and redemption.  Israel was instructed to do these things so that their faith could be passed down.  We see this beginning in verse 14.

¹⁴ And when in time to come your son asks you, ‘What does this mean?’ you shall say to him, ‘By a strong hand the Lord brought us out of Egypt, from the house of slavery. ¹⁵ For when Pharaoh stubbornly refused to let us go, the Lord killed all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both the firstborn of man and the firstborn of animals. Therefore I sacrifice to the Lord all the males that first open the womb, but all the firstborn of my sons I redeem.’

Do you see?  The consecration of the firstborn was established as an instrument by and through which the successive generations of Israel would learn of the events of the Exodus, particularly the events of the death of the firstborn sons of Egypt in the tenth plague.  They would learn of this tragedy by viewing its glorious counterpart:  the consecration and redemption of the firstborn sons of Israel.  So deliberate was this passing down of the faith that it was to be written upon their very lives.

¹⁶ It shall be as a mark on your hand or frontlets between your eyes, for by a strong hand the Lord brought us out of Egypt.”

These are highly-disputed words.  Were they intended literally or figuratively?  It is likely that this was a figurative expression intended to denote such intimate awareness with the truths of God that it is as if they were written on their very lives.  In time, the Jews came to take this literally, strapping phylacteries to their heads and to their hands.  Phylacteries are sacred little containers holding words from Scripture.  In Matthew 23, Jesus condemned the self-righteous use of such things by some of the Jews.

⁵ They do all their deeds to be seen by others. For they make their phylacteries broad and their fringes long, ⁶ and they love the place of honor at feasts and the best seats in the synagogues ⁷ and greetings in the marketplaces and being called rabbi by others.

No, the truth of God’s sovereign rule and His deliverance of Israel from bondage was to be passed down in purity and in truth, not with ostentation.  Why?  Because this truth was preparing Israel for the greater truth to which it pointed:  the coming of Christ.  The consecration of the firstborn sons was intended to point to the coming of the true firstborn Son, the only begotten Son, Jesus the Chrtist.  The church father Tertullian put it like this:

For who is really holy but the Son of God?  Who properly opened the womb but he who opened a closed one?  But it is marriage which opens the womb in all cases.  The Virgin’s womb, therefore, was especially opened, because it was especially closed.[2]

Christ was the firstborn Son for which the world was waiting.  The consecration of the firstborn sons of Israel was intended to prepare the people for and point them to Jesus.

II. The Symbols and the Passing Down of the Faith: Unleavened Bread (v.3-10)

In the middle of our text, in verses 3-10, we find another description of the Feast of Unleavened Bread.

³ Then Moses said to the people, “Remember this day in which you came out from Egypt, out of the house of slavery, for by a strong hand the Lord brought you out from this place. No leavened bread shall be eaten. ⁴ Today, in the month of Abib, you are going out.

The month of Abib “correspond[s] to our late March and early April.”[3]  Douglas Stuart says that “just as modern Westerners learn as little children that Christmas come only in the month of December, ancient Israelites learned early on, from this point in history forward, that the Feast of Unleavened Bread comes only in Abib.”[4]  This was to be a continual remembrance in Israel, a yearly reminder of Israel’s hasty exit from Egypt once the Lord opened the door of deliverance.

⁵ And when the Lord brings you into the land of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, which he swore to your fathers to give you, a land flowing with milk and honey, you shall keep this service in this month. ⁶ Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread, and on the seventh day there shall be a feast to the Lord. ⁷ Unleavened bread shall be eaten for seven days; no leavened bread shall be seen with you, and no leaven shall be seen with you in all your territory. ⁸ You shall tell your son on that day, ‘It is because of what the Lord did for me when I came out of Egypt.’ ⁹ And it shall be to you as a sign on your hand and as a memorial between your eyes, that the law of the Lord may be in your mouth. For with a strong hand the Lord has brought you out of Egypt. ¹⁰ You shall therefore keep this statute at its appointed time from year to year.

We have discussed the Feast of Unleavened bread already and how the absence of leaven spoke of the purity and holiness of God’s people.  It was itself a symbol of consecration, a reminder that Israel belongs to God and not to Egypt or any other power.  In fact, it reminded Israel that they did not belong even to themselves.  They were God’s, and they were to walk in a pure love and relationship with their Deliverer God.

What is most interesting in our text is the repeated call for Israel to hold to these rites and symbols – Passover, Unleavened Bread, the consecration of the firstborn – as intentional efforts at faith transmission.  Terence Fretheim put it well when he said this about our verses:

            The basic rhythm of the text is thus not that of memory and hope but of memory and liturgical responsibility…As with passover (see 12:1-28), the concrete and replicative nature of each of the rituals indicates that they are vehicles in and through which God effects salvation for each new generation…The concern is not that God be properly thanked but that the redemptive experience be a living reality for each Israelite in every age.[5]

Yes, the redemptive experience does need to be a living reality for God’s people in every age.  That is why God gave Israel these remembrances.  This is also why you and I are to bring our children into consistent contact with the sacred remembrances of the church:  the preaching of the gospel, baptism, and the Lord’s Supper.

The sacred remembrances the Lord gave to Israel were intended to prepare God’s people for the actualization of that to which they pointed:  the coming of the Redeemer, the Lamb of God, the second and greater Moses who would lead His people out of sin, death, and Hell.  They were constant reminders that Israel had been liberated, freed from bondage in Egypt.  It was a reminder that they did not have to stay in Egypt.

The Lord Jesus stands today to say that we do not have to stay in the Egypt of sin, death, and Hell.  We can be free.  Israel’s hope is now our living and present reality.  Christ has come.  Christ reigns.  He has come to set us free.

Do not stay in Egypt.

You do not have to stay in Egypt.

The Savior, Jesus, has come to lead you home.

The Lamb of God has paid the redemption price for you.

Trust in Him and live.

Matthew 7:12

¹² So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets.

Around the year 20 B.C., somebody asked the Rabbi Hillel to stand on one leg and teach him the whole law.  The “stand on one leg” part had to do with seeing if the Rabbi could answer the profound question quickly and deftly, thinking on his foot as it were.  Hillel did so.  He stood on one leg and said, “What is hateful to you, do not do to anyone else.  This is the whole law; all the rest is only commentary.”[1]

That will likely sound very familiar to many of you:  “What is hateful to you, do not do to anyone else.  This is the whole law; all the rest is only commentary.”  It will sound familiar because it is so very similar to the words of Jesus in Matthew 7:12, words which we know as The Golden Rule.

¹² So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets.

Yes, those are very similar sayings, and I should note that other sayings similar to the Golden Rule were said even earlier in history.  Even so, there is something unique about the Golden Rule.  It was said by Jesus Himself.  Like all of Jesus’ words, they have content and weight because of Jesus’ work on the cross and in the empty tomb.  What Jesus has done, in other words, makes His words unique, even if similar sayings were made by others.

The context of the Sermon on the Mount adds particular meaning to the Golden Rule as well.  If the Sermon on the Mount is a depiction of how citizens of the Kingdom of God who are current residents of the fallen kingdom of the world are to live (which it is), then this commandment is necessarily integral to our lives as followers of Jesus.  As such, I would like for us to consider two crucial truths about this important teaching.

I. The Golden Rule is NOT an Isolated, Humanistic Ethic of Kindness:  It Grows Out of the New Testament Vision of Who God Is.

One of the temptations we feel when approaching the Golden Rule is the temptation to remove it from its wider theological context and reduce it to an ethical maxim, thereby reducing it to a humanistic ethic of kindness.  In other words, there are those who take these words as the lowest common denominator of all religions and argue on that basis that this rule is all that really matters.  In this way of thinking, the Christian claims concerning the deity of Christ, His crucifixion, His resurrection, His ascension, and His promised return do not really matter.  All that matters are these words of His:  “So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets.”

Many people feel this way, religious and irreligious.  For instance, I recently saw where somebody had asked this question on “Yahoo! Answers”:  “What is the purpose of life?”  This posted response intrigued me.

The purpose of life is to learn to love yourself and others. The golden rule is all that matters and every religion has that. It’s also about learning and growing in knowledge and good character.[2]

That is a typical approach:  forget religious differences and focus on this one rule.  Even atheists have argued this.  In a debate with Rick Warren, the popular American atheist Sam Harris argued that the Golden Rule, which he calls “a wonderful moral precept,” is a good thing that anybody can follow “without lying to ourselves or our children about the origin of certain books or the virgin birth of certain people.”[3]

Do you see?  Sam Harris says we can forget God and forget even the supernatural so long as we hold to the ethic of the Golden Rule.  Furthermore, popular religion author, Karen Armstrong, was asked in an interview if all that mattered in religion was the Golden Rule.

Dave: That everything boils down to the Golden Rule.

Armstrong: I’m convinced of it. It’s in all the traditions, and it’s what the world needs now more than religious certainty, more than doctrinal statements or more rules about what people can do in the bedroom and who can get married and who can be bishops or priests. All this is like fiddling while Rome burns.[4]

So we do not even need religious certainty.  All we need is this Rule, interpreted generally to mean, “be nice.”  Of course, that raises the question of how we can be certain of even the Golden Rule if we cannot have religious certainty.  But many religious people seem to agree with this approach.  I do not normally quote Wikipedia, but the Wikipedia page noted this about The Golden Rule:

The “Declaration Toward a Global Ethic” from the Parliament of the World’s Religions (1993) proclaimed the Golden Rule (“We must treat others as we wish others to treat us”) as the common principle for many religions.  The Initial Declaration was signed by 143 respected leaders from all of the world’s major faiths, including Baha’i Faith, Brahmanism, Brahma Kumaris, Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Indigenous, Interfaith, Islam, Jainism, Judaism, Native American, Neo-Pagan, Sikhism, Taoism, Theosophist, Unitarian Universalist and Zoroastrian.[5]

This, of course, appeals to the ecumenical and pluralistic spirit of the age.  After all, who would not love to see all religions get along?  Who would not love to see an end to religious strife?  So maybe this is the answer:  we should all agree on one common rule and disregard all of our differences as irrelevant religious details.

I would like to suggest that, though such an idea may be attractive to our modern, secular impulses, it is disastrous.  It should not be an attractive option for Christians, for whom the totality of Christ’s teachings and life is sacred.  In point of fact, the Golden Rule is not an isolated, humanistic ethic of kindness.  Instead, it grows out of the New Testament vision of who God is.  This means it must remain in its proper place precisely there:  in the center of all that Jesus taught and all that Jesus is.

Part of what tempts people to want to detach the Golden Rule from the whole counsel of God’s word is that it appears to be detached in its lack of an explicit reference to God.

¹² So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets.

At first reading, the Gold Rule actually appears to reduce the essence of faith to treating people nicely.  However, two aspects of the Rule mitigate against such an idea.  The first is the word “so” in the ESV or “therefore” in the KJV.  That word is significant because it links the Golden Rule to that which was said just before it.  That may mean it is connected to the beginning of chapter 7 and the warning against sinfully judging others lest we be judged.  If it is connected to those words, it is a kind of concluding thought to, “Judge not, that you be not judged” (Matthew 7:1).  Put together, that would sound like this:  “Judge not, that you be not judged…So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets.”  But what is most significant is that Matthew 7:1 ties its warning to the reality of the final judgment of God.  In other words, we judge not because we realize that there is but one Judge capable of making true judgment:  the Lord God.

But if that “so” or “therefore” refers to what immediately precedes the Golden Rule, then it is linked to the teaching on prayer:  asking, seeking, and knocking.  In this sense, we should treat others with kindness not only because we wish to be treated with kindness, but because, as the text immediately preceding this says, we have been treated with kindness by our good God.

Either way, the first word of the Golden Rule harkens us back to the reality of God.  It is therefore theological, not ethical.  It cannot be reduced to a mere statement about how we should treat people.  Whatever the Golden Rule means, it means something about the life to which God, not human solidarity, calls us.

Furthermore, the concluding statement of the Golden Rule also keeps us from divorcing it from the other truths of God and reducing it to a relational rule.

¹² So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets.

That statement is significant:  “for this is the Law and the Prophets.”  It is significant because we have heard Jesus say it before, and this other usage of the term helps us understand how He intends it here, because it is a fuller statement.  The shorter should be interpreted in light of the fuller.  The fuller usage of this phrase was used in Matthew 22

³⁴ But when the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together. ³⁵ And one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. ³⁶ “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” ³⁷ And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. ³⁸ This is the great and first commandment. ³⁹ And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. ⁴⁰ On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”

Ah!  Now things become clearer.  In Matthew 22, Jesus defines the greatest commandment in a two-fold manner:  Love God and love your neighbor as yourself.  You will immediately note that loving our neighbor as ourselves is a shortened form of the Golden Rule:  do to others as you would have them do to you.

What this means, then, is that Matthew 7:12 must be interpreted in light of Matthew 22:40.  The grand motivation behind the practice of the Golden Rule is therefore love of God, the first part of the greatest commandment.  In truth, we are only able to love others as we love the Lord God.

The theological core of the Golden Rule is also evident, of course, in the fact that Jesus, in both Matthew 7:12 and 22:40, sees this as the essence of all that the Law and the Prophets sought to do.  The Law and the Prophets are, at heart, about the union of man with God.  Whatever the Law and the Prophets were about, they were not about some mere effort to get people to be nice to each other.  Thus, the Golden Rule cannot be just about having people be nice to each other, for the Law and the Prophets which it epitomizes were not merely about that.  They were about union with God.  This union with God is what lies behind the Golden Rule.  Stanley Hauerwas put it well when he said:

Oddly enough…when the rule is isolated from the eschatological context of the sermon, indeed when the rule is abstracted from Jesus’ ministry in order to ground ethics, it is made to serve a completely different narrative than the one called the kingdom of God…Jesus knows nothing of a realm that Kant called “ethics.”  That we are to do to others as we would have others do to us is not ethics.  According to Jesus it is the summation of the law and the prophets…Jesus calls us to live faithful to the particularity of Israel’s law and prophets.  Jesus does not say that now that we know the Gold Rule – the rule was known prior to Jesus – we no longer need to know the law and the prophets.  On the contrary, we must know the law and the prophets if we are to know how to act toward others.  Let us not forget that this is the same Jesus who told us earlier in the Sermon on the Mount that he has not come to abolish the law and the prophets, but to fulfill them.[6]

Is the essence of Christianity therefore simply being nice to people?  Clearly not!  That is not what Jesus intended.  Again, this Rule is given in the Sermon on the Mount.  It is a Rule for the redeemed, born again, blood bought people of God.  This is what life in the Kingdom of God looks like.  Therefore it is about that other-worldly kindness that grows out of redeemed hearts.

That raises an interesting question:  can a non-Christian really follow the Golden Rule?  Can a person whose heart has not been redeemed truly treat others as they wish to be treated?  In a surface sense, the answer is yes.  Non-Christians can be kind and, regrettably, Christians can be brutally and tragically unkind.  But in another sense, we must see that a heart that has been captivated and indwelt by the risen Son of God, Jesus Christ, has a depth of love and kindness and goodness and magnanimity that an unredeemed heart cannot understand.  Which is simply to say that the cross makes a difference in how people treat other people.  At least it should.  Christian cruelty to others is a violation of that most sacred core of our faith:  the cross and empty tomb.

Placed in the mouth of Jesus, the Golden Rule is a Rule for how followers of Christ live out His presence in kindness and goodness to others.  This comes from a heart that has been born again.  Billy Graham was recently asked the following question.

As far as I’m concerned the most important thing about religion is following the Golden Rule and treating people kindly. After all, isn’t that what Jesus told us to do? We’d have a lot fewer problems in the world if everyone did this, in my opinion. — W.W.

Graham’s answer was characteristically insightful.

Yes, the world certainly would be a better place if everyone put the Golden Rule (as it’s commonly called) into practice. Jesus’ words are just as relevant today as they were when He first spoke them: “In everything, do to others what you would have them do to you” (Matthew 7:12).

But why don’t we put it into practice? Why is there so much conflict and evil in the world? The problem isn’t ignorance; most people, I suspect, know they ought to treat people with respect and kindness, even if they can’t quote Jesus’ words exactly. And yet they fail to do it — and so do we.

The problem is far deeper: The problem is within our own hearts and minds. Down inside, we are selfish and demand our own way — and this brings us into conflict with others (who are just as selfish). Almost every headline bears witness to this truth. Jesus said, “For from within, out of men’s hearts, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly” (Mark 7:21-22).

This is why we need Christ, for only He can take away our stubborn selfishness and replace it with His love and compassion. And He will, as we confess our sins to Him and submit our lives to His control. Don’t trust in your own goodness (which has its roots in pride — which is a sin). Instead, turn to Jesus and commit your life to Him today.[7]

I repeat:  the Golden Rule is not an isolated, humanistic ethic of kindness.  Instead, it grows out of the New Testament vision of who God is.  And the New Testament vision of who God is is a vision of His redeeming, forgiving, and declaring righteous lost humanity as it turns, repents, and receives His grace.

II.  The Golden Rule is a Practical Demonstration of Inner Transformation Through the Indwelling Presence of Christ.

It follows, then, that the Golden Rule is a practical demonstration of inner transformation through the indwelling presence of Christ.  It is, in other words, a Christian Rule.  It is the Rule of Jesus.  We do to others only that which we would have done to us because what has been done for us in Christ is so immeasurably infused with shocking love.  We love because we have been loved!

Living out the Golden Rule is therefore an act of mission.  It is an incarnation in our own treatment of others of the love that we have been shown by Christ.  We treat others as we would be treated.  We treat others as we have been treated.  The Golden Rule is unintelligible without the love of Christ.

In Dostoevsky’s The Idiot, Prince Myshkin makes the following observations about kindness and charity:

In scattering the seed, scattering your “charity,” your kind deeds, you are giving away, in one form or another, part of your personality, and taking into yourself part of another; you are in mutual communion with one another, a little more attention and you will be rewarded with the knowledge of the most unexpected discoveries.  You will come at last to look upon your work as a science; it will lay hold of all your life, and may fill up your whole life.  On the other hand, all your thoughts, all the seeds scattered by you, perhaps forgotten by you, will grow up and take form.  He who has received them from you will hand them on to another.  And how can you tell what part you may have in the future determination of the destinies of humanity?[8]

There is truth in this.  We do unto others as we would have done to us because of what Christ has done for us.  But in doing so we share the love of Christ with others, we share the presence of Christ with others through acts of love and kindness, effecting them in turn, leading them to contemplate this love that they have been shown and, behind it, the Lover who has shown us the love that makes our love possible.  Kindness, then, becomes a door for the gospel.  Love because an avenue for the cross.

¹² So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets.

It is the Law and the Prophets for the Law and the Prophets both point to Christ and are both fulfilled in Christ.  To follow the Golden Rule, then, is to be Christ to others, to love with the love of Christ.  Practically speaking, then, the person who is indwelt by Christ will love like this.  The person who does not love like this, no matter what they may say of Christ, may, in fact, not be indwelt by Him at all.

Can you be cruel to others with no inner disturbance, no agitation of or by the Spirit of the living God?  Then perhaps you are not indwelt by Him.

Can you speak viciously to others without feeling as if you are betraying your King, Jesus?  Then maybe it is because you do not know Jesus the King.

Are you harsh, unforgiving, judgmental, bitter, and hateful?  If so, then can you say that Christ lives within you?

But do you treat others with love?  With mercy?  With compassion?  With understanding?  With grace?  With tenderness?  With kindness?  With love?  And do you do so because you yourself have been shown such love by Christ?  Do you act out of the storehouse of your own gratitude over the fact that you have received such love?

It must be so with followers of Jesus.  It must be so with citizens of the Kingdom of God.  It must be so with people who are indwelt by Christ and who are being slowly transformed by the indwelling presence of Christ.

Would you love like this?  Then trust in Jesus.  Repent of your sins and come to Jesus.  He will pour this kind of love into your heart.

Christian, are you not loving like this?  Then repent and return to your first love, Christ.

Matthew 7:7-11

⁷ “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. ⁸ For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. ⁹ Or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? ¹⁰ Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? ¹¹ If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!

The following article appeared in the June 4, 1899 edition of The New York Journal.

The lack of rain on Long Island has worried the farmers all month.  On Saturday, those living at Northport formed a committee, and calling on the pastors of all the churches, asked them to pray for showers.

The clergymen did as they were requested, and in a few hours a thunderstorm came.  There was a magnificent display of lightning and a heavy fall of thunderbolts.

The lightning did great damage.  The house and barn of George P. Lewis (who was a member of the committee who asked the pastors to pray for a storm) was struck; the barn and its contents were wholly destroyed.

At Bay Shore, where prayers were also said for rain, William Gunther’s carriage house was struck and burned.  George Tilley’s barn, at Jericho, was destroyed.

The same storm was felt at Spring Valley.  Farmer Benjamin Baker was burned out of house and home.  Lightning knocked him and his wife senseless.

Grace Episcopal church, at Nyack, was struck by lightning during Sunday Night’s services.

A house at Orangeburg, near Nyack, was destroyed.  Several houses, barns and trees in the vicinity also suffered.

This prayer thing is apparently dangerous business!  In all honesty, though this story strikes us as shocking and, in parts, perhaps even humorous, there is a powerful truth here, is there not?  Prayer is powerful.  Prayer can also be, from our perspective, frustrating.  Sometimes we pray and God answers in ways that we find pleasant and wonderful and, to our minds, timely.  Other times we pray and He does not appear to answer at all.  At yet other times, His answer is in forms that we could not foresee, like in the article mentioned above.

If you are like me, you struggle with prayer.  Sometimes I pray easily.  Sometimes it is work.  Usually I simply do not pray enough to put an adjective on it.

To be confessional for a moment, I often feel real frustration over my own prayer life.  I know it is valuable.  I know it should be the natural habit of the believer’s heart.  Yet I take comfort in the fact that Jesus had to teach His own disciples how to pray.  They, too, had to learn, and they walked with Jesus!

And then there are those times when I pray and become aware of the fact that my prayers sound so very consumeristic.  Try as I might to pray for others or, even better, simply to rejoice in the glory and sovereignty of God in prayer, I find that I keep asking for things…not material things, usually, but things nonetheless.

Of course, in our text this morning, Jesus tells us to ask, seek, and knock.  But for what?  If the entire Sermon on the Mount is a depiction of life in the Kingdom, it must mean that I am asking, seeking, and knocking for those things that advance the Kingdom.  Calvin Miller was right when he said, “the best of saints have seldom prayed to get stuff from God.  Instead, they are after union with Christ.”[1]

That is true, but then Jesus did instruct us to ask for “daily bread,” a material need.  So surely not all asking is selfish.  And, of course, asking for another’s good is an act of selflessness and care, indeed of Christlikeness.  So it would seem that there are things for which we should not ask and things for which we should ask.  It would also seem that God’s answers often come dressed in unexpected garb.

But what of our asking?  What of our praying?  I believe our text offers us the fundamental, theological truths to help us make sense of the great gift of prayer.

I. Prayer is to be active, diligent, and persistent (v.7-8)

To begin, there is much in this text about the quality of our prayers, the marks of biblical prayer.  Verses 7 and 8 are filled with verbs.  Let us listen.

⁷ “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. ⁸ For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened.

Ask.  Seek.  Knock.  Here is a charge to active, diligent, persistent prayer, the kind of prayer that never quits, that never stops, that never gives up.  This is the prayer of intensity, the prayer of utter abandonment to God, the prayer of principled devotion and trust.  These verbs are all present imperatives.  What they really say is this:  “Keep on asking…keep on seeking…keep on knocking.”  Don’t stop!  Don’t give up!  Don’t quit!

There is a purpose and a meaning to prayer.  Prayer matters.  There are people who do not think prayer matters.  They believe the universe operates by chance.  They would see any alleged answer to prayer as mere coincidence.  For my part, I rather like Bishop William Temple’s response to the charge of coincidence.  He once said, “When I pray, coincidences happen.  When I don’t pray, coincidences don’t happen.”[2]  Tongue planted firmly in cheek, what Bishop Temple was saying was this:  prayer matters.  We must continue to pray!

Jesus commends unceasing, unquitting, unreleting prayer.  In Luke 11, we find an interesting preface to our text this morning.

⁵ And he said to them, “Which of you who has a friend will go to him at midnight and say to him, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves, ⁶ for a friend of mine has arrived on a journey, and I have nothing to set before him’; ⁷ and he will answer from within, ‘Do not bother me; the door is now shut, and my children are with me in bed. I cannot get up and give you anything’? ⁸ I tell you, though he will not get up and give him anything because he is his friend, yet because of his impudence he will rise and give him whatever he needs. ⁹ And I tell you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. ¹⁰ For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. ¹¹ What father among you, if his son asks for a fish, will instead of a fish give him a serpent; ¹² or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? ¹³ If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”

How fascinating!  We might almost call this impudent prayer, though, of course, we should not be impudent with God.  The friend keeps banging on the door until it is opened!  Jesus told a similar parable in Luke 18:

¹ And he told them a parable to the effect that they ought always to pray and not lose heart. ² He said, “In a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor respected man. ³ And there was a widow in that city who kept coming to him and saying, ‘Give me justice against my adversary.’ ⁴ For a while he refused, but afterward he said to himself, ‘Though I neither fear God nor respect man, ⁵ yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will give her justice, so that she will not beat me down by her continual coming.’” ⁶ And the Lord said, “Hear what the unrighteous judge says. ⁷ And will not God give justice to his elect, who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long over them? ⁸ I tell you, he will give justice to them speedily. Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?”

Be like the friend who will not stop knocking!  Be like the lady who will not stop coming before the judge!  The point of the latter parable is not that God is an unjust judge.  No, this is what’s called an a fortiori argument.  He is arguing from something lesser to something great.  His point is this:  if an unjust judge will relent before a persistent widow, how much more will a good God do so?

Oftentimes Christians struggle with the questions of why their persistent prayers are not answered.  As we will see, even these words are not a blank check for a selfish people’s consumer desires.  Even so, they do promise the answer of God.  Sometimes it does happen that Christians pour out their hearts in prayer and do not perceive that God has answered, and do not see the answer He has given.  That does not mean He has not answered, by the way.  We do, after all, see “in a mirror dimly” (1 Corinthians 13:12).  But sometimes we must wait for His answer.

That is true, but is it not more often the case that we are unable to perceive His answer, not because He has answered enigmatically, but because we have not prayed persistently?  Be truthful with yourself:  are you persistent and unyielding in prayer?  Do you storm the gates of Heaven in prayer?  Do you cry out, day after day, in prayer?  Or are you like Granny in William Faulkner’s The Unvanquished?

“And the mules,” Ringo said; “don’t forget them.  And dont yawl worry about Granny.  She cide what she want and then she kneel down about ten seconds and tell God what she aim to do and the she git up and do hit.  And them that dont like hit can git outen the way or git trompled.”[3]

Are you like that?  You get down for ten seconds and tell God what you aim to do?  The great heroes of the faith were heroes because they persisted in prayer.  They did…not…stop.

For instance, Daniel 6 records Daniel’s reaction when he heard that King Darius signed a proclamation decreeing that nobody could pray to any god other than himself:

¹⁰ When Daniel knew that the document had been signed, he went to his house where he had windows in his upper chamber open toward Jerusalem. He got down on his knees three times a day and prayed and gave thanks before his God, as he had done previously.

Daniel would not stop, even to save his own life.

Even children can learn to pray like this.  When Ludwig von Zinzendorf was six-years-old, he was sitting in his room in the Gross-Hennersdorf castle in Saxony reading his Bible and praying.  All of a sudden, the door burst open and a detachment of Swiss soldiers stormed into the room.  When they did so, young Zinzendorf glanced up at them for a moment and then returned to praying.  The soldiers stared at him for a moment then left.  When his grandmother, Baronness von Gersdorf, ran into the room a moment later with his Aunt Henriette in tow, they wanted to know what Zinzendorf had said to the soldiers.  They reported that the soldiers had left, saying that they could not ransack a castle that was so protected by God.  Zinzendorf replied, “Nothing.  I just kept praying.”

Do you pray persistently?  Do you pray with passion?  Do you pray unrelenting prayers?  It was said of Arsenius the Desert Father that he prayed so intensely that he appeared to be on fire.[4]  How do we appear when we pray?

II. Our Confidence in Prayer Rests in the Goodness of God (v.9-10)

It must be understood that persistence in prayer is not a mere act of mental or spiritual exertion.  On the contrary, it is grounded in the rock-solid verities of the character of God.  Specifically, we persist in prayer because God is good.  It is telling that Jesus follows His words about persistence with a theology of the goodness of God.

⁹ Or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? ¹⁰ Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent?

There is a reason we keep praying:  the goodness of God.  There is a reason we persist:  the goodness of God.  There is a reason we go to the Lord time after time after time:  He is good!

If we persist in prayer because God is good, does that mean the opposite is true:  we are weak in prayer because we suspect He might not be?  Perhaps, at times, to our shame, that is the case.

Have you prayed for something that you believe is in His will?  Have you called out for a movement of His Spirit?  Does it seem that He is not listening, that He is not responding?  I assure you He is.  Listen:  do not stop!  Persist!  Ask!  Seek!  Knock!  The God to whom you are praying loves you more than you can know.  He seeks your good, not your ill.  He is your heavenly Father, the One who gave His Son for you.  Do not let doubts cripple your prayers!

Bill Hybels tells a fascinating story about a lady who learned this very lesson.

Some years ago we had a baptism Sunday where many people publicly affirmed their decision to follow Christ.  I thought my heart would explode for joy.  Afterward, in the stairwell, I bumped into a woman who was crying.  I couldn’t understand how anyone could weep after such a celebration, so I stopped and asked her if she was alright.

“No,” she said, “I’m struggling.  My mother was baptized today.”

This is a problem? I thought.

            “I prayed for her every day for twenty years,” the woman said, and then she started to cry again.

“You’re going to have to help me understand this,” I said.

            “I’m crying,” the woman replied, “because I came so close – so close – to giving up on her.  I mean, after five years I said, Who needs this? God isn’t listening.  After ten years I said, Why am I wasting my breath?  After fifteen years I said, This is absurd.  After nineteen years I said, I’m just a fool.  But I guess I just kept praying, even though my faith was weak.  I kept praying, and she gave her life to Christ, and she was baptized today.

            The woman paused and looked me in the eye.  “I will never doubt the power of prayer again,” she said.[5]

Ah, friends!  Don’t give up!  Those twenty, thirty, forty years of prayer are not wasted years.  God is not toying with you.  He is doing something within you as you pray for that other person, even as you pray for yourself.  He is at work in you.  He is building faith in you.  He is building trust in you.

III.  However, the Goodness of God Includes Both His “Yes!” and His “No!” (v.11)

Divorced from its wider context, we might conclude that Jesus is teaching a kind of “name-it-claim-it” theology whereby we ask and God must therefore give us what we want.  But that is not the case at all.  We just read verses in which the example of loving, earthly fathers was appealed to in an effort to demonstrate a larger truth about prayer.  Listen to those verses again, this time with Jesus’ conclusion in verse 11.

⁹ Or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? ¹⁰ Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? ¹¹ If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!

Ah!  So God promises to give us what is good.  However, it is often the case that what we think is good in a moment of prayer really is not good.  Have you ever, like Garth Brooks, thanked God for unanswered prayers?  Have you ever seen a request as a great good in the moment, only to see it months or years later as shortsighted and foolish?  I certainly have.

No, Jesus is not teaching a kind of divine blackmail whereby we pray, trap God, and He must do as He’s told or He’s broken His Word.  Instead, He is teaching that a good God gives good things to His children.  But do you know what those good things are?  Do I?  Paul answered that question beautifully and poignantly in Romans 8.

²⁶ Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. ²⁷ And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. ²⁸ And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.

We always complain about God’s answer without ever thinking carefully about our request.  “We do not know what to pray for as we ought!”  That is telling, and it puts certain qualifications on Jesus’ ask, seek, and knock.  It now means, in light of the full teaching of Christ, that we should ask, seek, and knock for God’s good will in our lives, knowing that He will give it.  We may, as faithful children, bring our specific requests in light of this, but we do so now humbly, carefully, understanding that we do not even know what those good things are much or even most of the time.

I do not know about you, but the fact of my ignorance does not break my spirit in prayer, it strengthens it.  It means that I can now view God not as a genie in a lamp who is enslaved to my own selfish caprice but as an all-knowing, all-loving Father who invites me to bring my feeble requests before Him but will do what is best nonetheless.  When I understand that, I now understand that prayer is a journey in which, through daily transformation to Christlikeness, I can align my own heart more and more closely to His.  Prayer is a recalibration of my own self-centeredness to Christlikeness.

Brothers, sisters:  let us pray like God’s children.  Let us come fervently, feverishly even, before the throne of grace, asking, seeking, and knocking for the good will of our Father.  Let us not be like the haoli.

R. Kent Hughes has noted the fact that visitors to Hawaii from the mainland are called haoli by the islanders.  He then passed on Alice Kaholuoluna’s explanation of the meaning of the term.

Before the missionaries came, my people used to sit outside their temples for a long time meditating and preparing themselves before entering.  Then they would virtually creep to the altar to offer their petition and afterwards would again sit a long time outside, this time to “breathe life” into their prayers.  The Christians, when they came, just got up, uttered a few sentences, said Amen and were done.  For that reason my people call them haolis, “without breath,” or those who fail to breathe life into their prayers.[6]

What an indictment!  What a tragedy!  What a shame!

May our prayers never be “without breath.”  May they instead be filled with the breath of the Spirit of God, working in us and through us to seek the Father’s will.

Exodus 12:29-50

²⁹ At midnight the Lord struck down all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh who sat on his throne to the firstborn of the captive who was in the dungeon, and all the firstborn of the livestock. ³⁰ And Pharaoh rose up in the night, he and all his servants and all the Egyptians. And there was a great cry in Egypt, for there was not a house where someone was not dead. ³¹ Then he summoned Moses and Aaron by night and said, “Up, go out from among my people, both you and the people of Israel; and go, serve the Lord, as you have said. ³² Take your flocks and your herds, as you have said, and be gone, and bless me also!” ³³ The Egyptians were urgent with the people to send them out of the land in haste. For they said, “We shall all be dead.” ³⁴ So the people took their dough before it was leavened, their kneading bowls being bound up in their cloaks on their shoulders. ³⁵ The people of Israel had also done as Moses told them, for they had asked the Egyptians for silver and gold jewelry and for clothing. ³⁶ And the Lord had given the people favor in the sight of the Egyptians, so that they let them have what they asked. Thus they plundered the Egyptians. ³⁷ And the people of Israel journeyed from Rameses to Succoth, about six hundred thousand men on foot, besides women and children. ³⁸ A mixed multitude also went up with them, and very much livestock, both flocks and herds. ³⁹ And they baked unleavened cakes of the dough that they had brought out of Egypt, for it was not leavened, because they were thrust out of Egypt and could not wait, nor had they prepared any provisions for themselves. ⁴⁰ The time that the people of Israel lived in Egypt was 430 years. ⁴¹ At the end of 430 years, on that very day, all the hosts of the Lord went out from the land of Egypt. ⁴² It was a night of watching by the Lord, to bring them out of the land of Egypt; so this same night is a night of watching kept to the Lord by all the people of Israel throughout their generations. ⁴³ And the Lord said to Moses and Aaron, “This is the statute of the Passover: no foreigner shall eat of it, ⁴⁴ but every slave that is bought for money may eat of it after you have circumcised him. ⁴⁵ No foreigner or hired worker may eat of it. ⁴⁶ It shall be eaten in one house; you shall not take any of the flesh outside the house, and you shall not break any of its bones. ⁴⁷ All the congregation of Israel shall keep it. ⁴⁸ If a stranger shall sojourn with you and would keep the Passover to the Lord, let all his males be circumcised. Then he may come near and keep it; he shall be as a native of the land. But no uncircumcised person shall eat of it. ⁴⁹ There shall be one law for the native and for the stranger who sojourns among you.” ⁵⁰ All the people of Israel did just as the Lord commanded Moses and Aaron. ⁵¹ And on that very day the Lord brought the people of Israel out of the land of Egypt by their hosts.

Samuel Rogers, the 18^th/19^th century poet, wrote these words in his poem, “The Death of the Firstborn.”

‘Tis midnight – ‘tis midnight o’er Egypt’s dark sky,

And in whirlwind and storm the sirocco sweeps by;

All arid and hot is its death-breathing blast, –

Each sleeper breathes thick, and each bosom beats fast.

And the young mother wakes, and arouses from rest,

And presses more closely her babe to her breast;

But the heart that she presses is deathlike and still,

And the lips that she kisses are breathless and chill.

And the young brother clings to the elder in fear,

As the gust falls so dirge-like and sad on his ear;

But that brother returns not the trembling embrace:

He speaks not – he breathes not – death lies in his place.

And the first-born of Egypt are dying around;

‘Tis a sigh – ‘tis a moan – and then slumber more sound:

They but wake from their sleep, and their spirits have fled –

They but wake into life, to repose with the dead.

And there lay the infant still smiling in death,

And scarce heaved its breast as it yielded its breath;

And there lay the boy, yet in youth’s budding bloom,

With the calmness of sleep – but the hue of the tomb!

And there fell the youth in the pride of his prime,

In the morning of life – in the springtide of crime;

And unnerved is that arm, and fast closed is that eye,

And cold is that bosom which once beat so high.

And the fond mother’s hope, and the fond father’s trust,

And the widow’s sole stay, are returning to dust;

Egypt has not a place where there is not one dead,

From the proud monarch’s palace to penury’s shed.

And the hearths of that country are desolate now.

And the crown of her glory is struck from her brow:

But while proud Egypt trembles, all Israel is free –

Unfettered – unbound, as the wave of the sea.[1]

That captures well the sense of terror and dread that gripped the Egyptians in the tenth plague.  The firstborn of all of Egypt are slain in every house whose door has not been marked by the blood of the Passover lamb.  Agonizing fear and grief grip Egypt and Israel begins the Exodus.

I.  The Tenth Plague:  Devastating Judgment and Initial Flight (v.29-33)

The actual execution of the plague is mentioned with startling bluntness.

²⁹ At midnight the Lord struck down all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh who sat on his throne to the firstborn of the captive who was in the dungeon, and all the firstborn of the livestock. ³⁰ And Pharaoh rose up in the night, he and all his servants and all the Egyptians. And there was a great cry in Egypt, for there was not a house where someone was not dead.

The death of Egypt’s firstborn is, of course, a catastrophic event.  It is the judgment of God.  Of course, Egypt has assaulted God’s son, Israel, threatening it very survival.  Once again we remember that the eradication of Israel would mean the eradication of the people through whom the Savior of the world would come.  God’s deliverance of His people is therefore linked to God’s provision of a Deliverer.

It is interesting to see how many people have struggled with the ethics of the tenth plague.  It is, of course, understandable.  This is an extreme and terrifying act.  However, we must not judge the actions of God by our own perceptions of right and wrong, as if we are in any position to judge God at all!  Roy Honeycutt offers, in my opinion, an unfortunate example of this.  Listen closely to what he says about the tenth plague.

One should face realistically the moral problem raised by the assertion that the Lord smote all the firstborn.  The total witness of the biblical revelation concerning the nature and character of God suggests that while God may utilize fatal epidemics, or other catastrophes in nature, he hardly goes about slaying children.  Thus, either the nature and character of God has changed, or man’s comprehension of that nature has enlarged with the fuller appropriation of God’s self-revelation.[2]

Well, those are interesting options:  either God has changed or our comprehension of God’s nature has evolved.  What Honeycutt does not allow is that the text may mean exactly what it says and that we should accept that the actions of God are right because God did them.  The assumption that a plain reading of this text indicts God of evil (if, indeed, that is what Honeycutt is suggesting) is an assumption grounded in hubris.

The Lord strikes the firstborn of Egypt.  It is terrifying, but it is just.  As a result, Pharaoh and the people of Egypt plead with the Hebrews to leave.

³¹ Then he summoned Moses and Aaron by night and said, “Up, go out from among my people, both you and the people of Israel; and go, serve the Lord, as you have said. ³² Take your flocks and your herds, as you have said, and be gone, and bless me also!” ³³ The Egyptians were urgent with the people to send them out of the land in haste. For they said, “We shall all be dead.”

It is fascinating to see that Pharaoh, after telling Moses to take the people and leave, actually asks for a blessing:  “be gone, and bless me also!”  Philip Ryken says that little scene reminds him of the scene in Fiddler on the Roof in which a young Russian Jew asks the rabbi if he can bless the czar.  The rabbi thinks about it and says, “May the Lord bless the tsar and keep him…far away from us!”  That is likely what Moses felt:  “I hope the Lord blesses you…over here…while we go over there!”

The reaction of the Egyptians to the tenth plague reminds one of the story recorded in Matthew 8 of Jesus delivering two demon possessed men from demonic possession and casting the demons into the pigs of the country of the Gadarenes.  Do you remember the people’s reaction to this deliverance and the destruction of these pigs?  “And behold, all the city came out to meet Jesus, and when they saw him, they begged him to leave their region” (v.34).  It is interesting to observe that the Gedarenes reacted to an act of deliverance the same way that the Egyptians reacted to an act of judgment.  Both instances exhibited the power of Almighty God.  People cannot long stand to be in the presence of God’s power!

II. An Act of Unleavened Consecration and Purity (v.34-41)

We saw in the first half of chapter twelve that the Lord established the Passover feast and the Feast of Unleavened Bread as symbolic rituals and reminders of their deliverance from Israel.  The Feast of Unleavened Bread was to be observed at the conclusion of the Passover.  However, the people were unable to partake, so they took their dough with them to observe it along the way.

³⁴ So the people took their dough before it was leavened, their kneading bowls being bound up in their cloaks on their shoulders. ³⁵ The people of Israel had also done as Moses told them, for they had asked the Egyptians for silver and gold jewelry and for clothing. ³⁶ And the Lord had given the people favor in the sight of the Egyptians, so that they let them have what they asked. Thus they plundered the Egyptians. ³⁷ And the people of Israel journeyed from Rameses to Succoth, about six hundred thousand men on foot, besides women and children. ³⁸ A mixed multitude also went up with them, and very much livestock, both flocks and herds.

Honeycutt proposes that the mixed multitude “was composed of Egyptians who had married Hebrews (cf. Lev. 24:10; also, Moses’ marriage to a non-Hebrew, Num. 12:1 f.), fragments of various ethnic groups who had migrated to Egypt just as had the Hebrews, and prisoners of war employed at forced labor.”[3]  Regardless, it is interesting to note that Israel does not go out alone.  As if, prophetically, to speak of the universal scope of the Savior who will come through Israel’s line, Israel goes with at least some from other nations with them.

It is also interesting to observe the reactions of modern and ancient commentators to Moses’ report that “about six hundred thousand men on foot, besides women and children” left Egypt.  That figure, including women and children, might be somewhere around two to three million.  Many modern commentators struggle before this number, pointing out the improbability of it and trying to figure out some way that that figure means something other than what it appears to mean.  Some ancient commentators, however, saw in that number evidence of the providence of God.  Thus, Gregory of Nazianzus, marveled at it.

Joseph came into Egypt alone, and soon thereafter six hundred thousand depart from Egypt.  What is more marvelous than this?  What greater proof of the generosity of God, when from persons without means he wills to supply the means for public affairs.[4]

It is indeed a marvel!  Israel has grown into a mighty nation, a numerous people.  They are emerging from the nightmare of bondage a powerful throng, a free people.  Their first act is to hold fast to the observance of unleavened bread.

³⁹ And they baked unleavened cakes of the dough that they had brought out of Egypt, for it was not leavened, because they were thrust out of Egypt and could not wait, nor had they prepared any provisions for themselves. ⁴⁰ The time that the people of Israel lived in Egypt was 430 years. ⁴¹ At the end of 430 years, on that very day, all the hosts of the Lord went out from the land of Egypt.

As we have seen, the absence of leaven speaks of the absence of impurities from the lives of God’s people.  They are a free people, and a people committed to God.  Their commitment will not remain pure, but it begins thus.  The eating of unleavened bread is an act of consecration and purity.  They are now a people set apart, a holy people, called out, redeemed, and delivered.

III. An Act of Covenant Identity and Solidarity (v.42-51)

Furthermore, God prescribes an act of covenant identity and solidarity.  The physical mark of covenant belonging is reasserted over Israel.  God reminds them that the Passover is for the His people, and His people are known by bearing the mark of covenant belonging in their flesh.

⁴² It was a night of watching by the Lord, to bring them out of the land of Egypt; so this same night is a night of watching kept to the Lord by all the people of Israel throughout their generations. ⁴³ And the Lord said to Moses and Aaron, “This is the statute of the Passover: no foreigner shall eat of it, ⁴⁴ but every slave that is bought for money may eat of it after you have circumcised him. ⁴⁵ No foreigner or hired worker may eat of it. ⁴⁶ It shall be eaten in one house; you shall not take any of the flesh outside the house, and you shall not break any of its bones. ⁴⁷ All the congregation of Israel shall keep it. ⁴⁸ If a stranger shall sojourn with you and would keep the Passover to the Lord, let all his males be circumcised. Then he may come near and keep it; he shall be as a native of the land. But no uncircumcised person shall eat of it. ⁴⁹ There shall be one law for the native and for the stranger who sojourns among you.” ⁵⁰ All the people of Israel did just as the Lord commanded Moses and Aaron. ⁵¹ And on that very day the Lord brought the people of Israel out of the land of Egypt by their hosts.

This may strike our modern ears as an odd prescription.  Is God xenophobic?  Does he have a fear of foreigners?  Why does He say that only those who have been circumcised can partake of the Passover?

There is, in fact, a deep and important truth here:  there are parameters to being the people of God.  There are boundaries.  As Thomas Oden once said, there can be no center without a circumference.

Almighty God knows that when His people become embroiled with people who do not share a common trust in Yahweh God, the convictions and identity of His people will become diluted.  This is why circumcision is necessary for those outside of Israel to partake in the Passover observance.

For the people of God today, the counterpart to Old Testament circumcision is repentance and faith, not baptism (as some allege).  We, too, have boundaries.  We, too, have parameters.  This is why Baptist Christians have historically practiced what is called “regenerate church membership.”  Membership in the body of Christ, the church, is open to all who have been circumcised of heart, who have repented and come to Christ in faith and trust.  This is the mark of covenant belonging and solidarity that is necessary today.

I have a friend who proposes that the body of Christ does not need boundaries, does not need a concept of membership as traditionally understood.  He says the church should be like a rancher who takes down his fences and digs a deep well.  The livestock, he says, do not need to be defined by a boundary, instead, they will be defined by the presence of life-giving water.  The well will keep them close.  They will not wander far from water.  They will, in other words, stay close to the source of life.

To be sure, the body of Christ must keep Christ at the center of its fellowship.  He is the source of life around which we gather and from which we dare not wander.  But it is a charming naivete that thinks the body of Christ does not need boundaries.  In point of fact, there are numbers of people who will draw near only to poison the well and kill the herd if there are not identity-defining boundaries.  Boundaries protect us, and the boundary for the church is repentance and faith.  The Church does not consist of perfect people, but it does consist of redeemed people who have bowed heart and knee to Christ.  We, too, have a defining boundary:  Christ Himself.  All who are in Christ are the Church.  Any who reject Christ are not.

Once again, we see in Israel the story of Christ and His church written in shadows and types.  There is more here than simply a story of historic deliverance.  There are principles here that, while clothed in strange and foreign elements, speak to the very heart of God that will be revealed definitively and most clearly in Christ Jesus.  In this sense, the Exodus is our story.  It is a preface to the gospel, a setting of the world stage for the eventual coming of Christ.

Let us thank God for the deliverance of His people.  Let us thank Him above all for the Deliverer who will come from this delivered people.

Matthew 7:1-6

¹ “Judge not, that you be not judged. ² For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you. ³ Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? ⁴ Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when there is the log in your own eye? ⁵ You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye. ⁶ “Do not give dogs what is holy, and do not throw your pearls before pigs, lest they trample them underfoot and turn to attack you.

History is full of bad, uninformed, and downright silly judgments.  Consider:

• In 1737, Johann Adolf Scheibe described Johann Sebastian Bach’s compositions as being “deprived of beauty, of harmony, and of clarity of method.”
• Louis Spohr described Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony as “an orgy of vulgar noise.”
• In 1833, Ludwig Rellstab said that Chopin was so talentless that, had he had a teacher, his teacher would have torn his music up and thrown it at his feet…or, said Rellstab, he would at least like to imagine that would have happened.
• Emile Zola said that Paul Cezanne did not have the persistence to become a great painter.
• In 1849, James Lorimer took consolation in the fact that, as he saw it, Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights would never be generally read.
• In 1855, The London Critic opined that Walt Whitman was “as unacquainted with art as a hog is with mathematics.”
• One critic said of George Orwell’s Animal Farm that, “it is impossible to sell animal stories in the U.S.A.”
• A critic said of Anne Frank, after reading The Diary of Anne Frank, “This girl doesn’t, it seems to me, have a special perception or feeling which would lift that book above the ‘curiosity’ level.”
• Edouard Manet said to Claude Monet that Renoir “has no talent at all, that boy.”
• MGM’s Irving Thalberg suggested that the studio not buy the film rights to Gone With the Wind by saying, “No Civil War picture ever made a nickel.”
• Gary Cooper, after he turned down the role of Rhett Butler, said, “I’m just glad it’ll be Clarke Gable who’s falling flat on his face and not Gary Cooper.”
• An MGM executive wrote this after Fred Astaire’s 1928 screen test:  “Can’t act.  Can’t sing.  Balding.  Can dance a little.”[1]

These are all charming and silly simply because they are so manifestly wrongheaded, but what about judgments of a more serious nature, judgments about other people, their motives, their characters, their worth, their value?  It is one thing to think that Fred Astair could not dance.  That’s silly.  It is another thing to judge a man or woman’s character without all of the facts.  That is careless and harmful.  It is yet another thing to judge a person when you yourself are doing what that person is doing.  That is a gross sin.  It is even yet another thing to judge a child of God as worthless and meaningless.  That is demonic.

Of course, in our country we may face the opposite extreme more often:  the refusal to make necessary judgments.  To be sure, being judgmental is a sin, but so is, unfortunately, the inability to make a judgment when needed.  Gene Fant said this about an experience he had on jury duty.

Recently I opened a jury duty summons for one of our local courts. My report date hasn’t arrived quite yet, but I’m looking forward to the possibility of serving. I’ve only been empanelled once and it was a nightmare; I’m hoping for a better experience this time. The accused was clearly guilty; everyone identified him as the culprit (it was a robbery and stabbing), there were multiple witnesses, and the case was solid from start to finish. The accused even admitted that he had done it, but he claimed, with a straight face, to have stabbed the guy “accidentally” four, count ‘em, four times: once in the chest and three times in the back after he flipped the victim over. He threw the icepick (he claimed it was a meat thermometer) into a river, he said, while fleeing to another state because he was afraid that he would be charged with a crime.

Incredibly, we ended with a hung jury because one of my fellow jurors kept saying, “Who am I to judge this man?” It was a case of eleven angry men and women and one owner of a half-baked hermeneutical approach to Scripture, in this case Matthew 7:1-3, which she had denuded over and over in a refrain of its first two words: “Judge not.”[2]

Yes, here we see the opposite extreme.  Here we see a human being who honestly believed that literally all judgment was sin and that human beings have no right whatsoever under any circumstance at all to judge.

I say that we may encounter this extreme more frequently than the other (though, to be sure, the church, in many quarters, is brimming over with sinful judgmentalism), because our national mood is one in which judgments are not desired.  In short, we now have trouble saying of anything or anybody that it or he or she is wrong.  Ed Stetzer put it like this:

The reality is that sometimes we forget the worldview of the era in which we live. The world is not filled with people who are aware they are spiritually dead and looking for Jesus. Today, people think they are spiritually alive and are finding their own path to God. God is fine with however they wish to live because the only thing they know is that Jesus said, “Judge not, lest ye be judged.”[3]

That is true.  Matthew 7:1 may be the favorite verse of modern Americans because, twisted just a bit, it can be made to sound like we should never make moral judgments at all.  Theologian Roger Olson noted,

Even people who know very little about the Bible are usually familiar with Jesus’ saying “Judge not, that ye be not judged” (Matthew 7:1, KJV). This command is part of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount; it is Jesus’ most popular saying because our culture values tolerance so highly.[4]

Perceptively, Jean Bethke Elshtain described judging as a modern phobia!

Judging has been in bad odor for quite some time in American culture. It is equated with being punitive, or with insensitivity, or with various “phobias” and “isms.” It is the mark of antiquated ways of thinking, feeling, and willing…Why is judging—what Arendt called the preeminent political faculty—at a nadir among us? Surely much of the explanation lies in the triumph of the ideology of victimization coupled with self-esteem mania.[5]

Maybe there is something to that:  the ideology of victimization and self-esteem mania.  We are a people that do not know how to approach judgment.  We either tend to judge haughtily, hypocritically, and arrogantly, or we do not judge at all, even when certain judgments are needed.

What are we to make, then of our text this morning?

¹ “Judge not, that you be not judged. ² For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you. ³ Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? ⁴ Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when there is the log in your own eye? ⁵ You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye. ⁶ “Do not give dogs what is holy, and do not throw your pearls before pigs, lest they trample them underfoot and turn to attack you.

Yes, what are to make of this…or, more importantly, what is it to make of us?  After all, these are the words of Jesus.  We bow before them.  We do not make them bow before us.

Does Jesus mean that we should actually and literally never judge?  Is that what He is saying?  Or can we whittle this down to make it mean that we can judge freely and with impunity?  Certainly not!  Or could it be that there is a kind of judgment that is a sin and another kind that is not?  I would like to show you this morning that this is, in fact, the case.

I.  Followers of Jesus Must Not Indulge in Sinful Judgment:  Haughty, Arrogant, and Hypocritical (v.1-5)

Clearly, the focus of our text this morning is to reject a kind of judgment that is sinful and wrong and unbecoming for the children of God.

¹ “Judge not, that you be not judged.

Here are the words that our culture knows so well.  These seven words have become a kind of modern mantra against moral judgments.  Regardless, even though these words have been abused, this is clearly a prohibition from Jesus against sinful judgment.  As disciples of Jesus, we must listen to the whole counsel of God, taking into account what else God has said on the matter (and we will do that today).  It is clear that there is a kind of judgment that is evil and wicked and should not be indulged in.

² For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you.

This is a chilling word!  Would you like for God to judge you in the same way and with the same standard that you judge others?  I ask you:  are you hard on people?  Are you brutal on people?  Are you quick to see the faults of others, condemning them for their mistakes while giving your own a pass?  Do you forgive others as readily as you forgive yourself?  Would you like to stand before your own standard of judgment?

Furthermore, Jesus tells us that it is often the case that we judge hypocritically.

³ Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? ⁴ Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when there is the log in your own eye? ⁵ You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.

There is a simple logic to this, and one that shames us.  A man with a board in his eye should not condemn the speck in his brother’s.  That, friends, is hypocrisy.  That is the kind of absurd judgment that makes fools of us.  We Southern Baptists are particularly good at this:  condemning the sins of others when we have massive sins of our own.

There is a weird kind of blindness that comes with judgment.  Caught in the fervor of condemning another’s sin, we miss our own.  It is a strange and tragic state of affairs.  Paul put it like this in Romans 2:

¹ Therefore you have no excuse, O man, every one of you who judges. For in passing judgment on another you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, practice the very same things. ² We know that the judgment of God rightly falls on those who practice such things. ³ Do you suppose, O man—you who judge those who practice such things and yet do them yourself—that you will escape the judgment of God?

If you judge the sins of others while you yourself are in a state of sin, you will be judged by God.  The Lord will not tolerate such hypocrisy.  Thomas Merton has passed on the following story from the desert fathers.

Time and again we read of Abbots who refuse to join in a communal reproof of this or that delinquent, like Abbot Moses…who walked into the severe assembly with a basket of sand, letting the sand run our through many holes.  “My own sins are running out like this sand,” he said, “and yet I come to judge the sins of another.”[6]

Do you relish in finding out that your brother or sister has sinned?  Do you take perverse joy in the failings of others?  What of your own sins?  What of your failings?  Do you consider those?  That old adage about those who live in glass houses not throwing rocks is really quite wise.  Do you fear God so little that you would judge another while you yourself are in sin?

Furthermore, we should avoid sinful judgment because only God sees the full picture.  This is why only the judgment of God can be perfect and without error.  There is an interesting text in 1 Corinthians 4 in which Paul responded to the fact that he was being judged by his detractors in the church.

³ But with me it is a very small thing that I should be judged by you or by any human court. In fact, I do not even judge myself. ⁴ For I am not aware of anything against myself, but I am not thereby acquitted. It is the Lord who judges me. ⁵ Therefore do not pronounce judgment before the time, before the Lord comes, who will bring to light the things now hidden in darkness and will disclose the purposes of the heart. Then each one will receive his commendation from God.

God alone possesses the needed light by which to see situations clearly enough for pure judgment.  You are not God.  Neither am I.  At best we are operating on merely a part of the story.  We do not see all.  We must accept the limitations of our own knowledge.  James put it like this in James 4:

¹² There is only one lawgiver and judge, he who is able to save and to destroy. But who are you to judge your neighbor?

Yes, who are we to judge our neighbor?  I know who we are not:  we are not God.

William Barclay told the story of Collie Knox and what happened to him and a friend of his in a London restaurant.  It beautifully illustrates the limitations of our own knowledge and how these limitations cloud our ability to judge.

Collie Knox tells of what happened to himself and a friend.  Collie Knox himself had been badly smashed up in a flying accident while he was serving in the Royal Flying Corps.  The friend had that very day been decorated for gallantry at Buckingham Palace.  They had changed from their service dress into civilian clothes, and they were lunching together at a famous London restaurant, when a girl came up to them and handed to each of them a white feather – the badge of cowardice.[7]

This ignorant girl called two men who bore wounds from their patriotic service cowards.  How embarrassing for her!  But she was operating on the limited knowledge she had.  The two men appeared to be living the high life when they should have been serving their country.  But that was a faulty appearance.  Her judgment was hindered by her ignorance.  Ours usually is too.

Brothers, beware of sinful judgment.  Sisters, beware of sinful judgment.  But that phrase, “sinful judgment,” raises an interesting question:  is all judgment sinful?  Was Jesus saying that there is never a situation in which we are to judge?

II. Followers of Jesus Must Carefully Practice Godly Judgment:  Loving, Reciprocal, Clear, and Careful (v.5-6)

Verses 5 and 6 are very interesting.  Jesus condemns the hypocrite who would scoff at his neighbor’s speck while giving his own plank a pass.  That is absurd!  That is hypocritical!  We dare not do that.  What He says afterward is telling.  Listen closely.

⁵ You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.

Now, it is not my intention to try to water down what Jesus is saying.  Not at all.  My intention is simply to listen to what Jesus, in fact, said.  In verse 5, He says that removing the plank from your eye will enable you to see clearly enough to help your brother.  Hear it again.

⁵ You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.

This is not a hall pass for judgment.  Not at all.  On the contrary, the man who has removed a plank from his own eye is going to be a very different kind of judge for having done so, is he not?  He is now humbled.  He is now broken.  He now knows the reality of his own sin.  He has been to the throne of grace.  Indeed, it is a very different thing when that man goes to his brother and says, “Friend, I need to talk to you as one sinner to another.”  He will not do so haughtily.  He will not do so hypocritically.  He will not do so in order to condemn.  He takes no perverse delight in doing so.  His own plank is fresh in his mind.  He comes now, after having removed the plank from his own eye, as a sinner to a sinner.

This is godly, careful, humble, loving judgment.  It is also reciprocal.  It acknowledges that we all stand under judgment for sin and that judgment cuts both ways.  The man who has removed, by God’s grace, the plank from his own eye understands that his life must be open to scrutiny as well.

Clearly this is a different kind of judgment than that which Jesus condemns.  Indeed, Jesus cannot mean that all judgments are sinful or that all judging is sinful, for the Word of God stands without contradiction.  In 1 Corinthians 5, Paul called upon the church to respond to a situation of grievous, open sin in their midst.  The words sound hard, but, again, they are addressing a flagrant instance of open rebellion that was known and unaddressed by the congregation; namely, a man was having a relationship with his own father’s wife.  Here is what Paul writes:

¹¹ But now I am writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother if he is guilty of sexual immorality or greed, or is an idolater, reviler, drunkard, or swindler—not even to eat with such a one. ¹² For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Is it not those inside the church whom you are to judge? ¹³ God judges those outside. “Purge the evil person from among you.”

This is a helpful text, and a provocative one.  First, v.12 draws a distinction between judging the world (which Paul says he does not do) and judging fellow Christians (which Paul says we should do).  Now, clearly this does not mean the kind of judgment that Jesus forbids.  Paul and Jesus are not in conflict on this point.  Instead, they are talking about two very different things.  Jesus is condemning haughty, hypocritical, arrogant judgment.  Paul is commending careful, necessary, heart-broken judgment, born of love and seeking the restoration of one who has rebelled.  In point of fact, it is most unloving to stand idly by when an individual or a church destroys itself and make no judgment in situations that demand it.

There is a judgment to be avoided and a judgment that must carefully be taken up.  It is a dangerous business even then, and it is most telling that Scripture gives many more warnings against judgment than it does instances in which it is allowed, but sometimes it is allowed.

Furthermore, please take note of the last verse in our text this morning, Matthew 7:6.  It is a strange sounding verse, but a crucial one.

⁶ “Do not give dogs what is holy, and do not throw your pearls before pigs, lest they trample them underfoot and turn to attack you.

Well!  That is fascinating, especially where Jesus says this.  He says it immediately after condemning sinful judgment.  But what is most intriguing is that verse 6 involves divine judgment and also calls upon us to make a judgment.  “Do not give dogs what is holy, and do not throw your pearls before pigs.”

The meaning seems clear enough.  There are people who are so full of hatred, rancor, wickedness, and hostility, that you cannot reason with them about the gospel.  They are like wild dogs or ravenous pigs.  Paul used the same image in Philippians 3.

² Look out for the dogs, look out for the evildoers, look out for those who mutilate the flesh.

What is evident in this text is that there are people who have so hardened their hearts against God that they will not hear the gospel.  All they desire is the death and destruction of God’s people.  These people, Jesus says, act like dogs and pigs, and the people of God must guard themselves against them.  These people would be analogous to those mentioned in Matthew 10:14.  In that verse, Jesus instructs His disciples concerning what to do when people reject them and the gospel:  “if anyone will not receive you or listen to your words, shake off the dust from your feet when you leave that house or town.”  Those before whom you would shake off the dust from your feet are like dogs and pigs.  They will not hear.  They do not want to hear.  They only desire the triumph of evil.

Why does Jesus insert this strange reference about dogs and pigs here?  Why does He say this immediately after warning against judgment?  Is it not because He understands the human penchant for extremes?  Is He not saying in our text this morning that there is a kind of judgment that is sinful and a kind is not?

Knowing that somebody is acting like a dog or a pig requires a kind of judgment.  Even here, though, extreme caution must be used.  We are not to go around assuming that people are pigs and dogs.  Jesus is addressing a very specific situation in verse 6 that He will make abundantly clear to His people at the appropriate time.

In our text this morning are six verses.  Five are cautioning us against hypocritical and arrogant judgment.  Only one allows for a kind of judgment.  That should tell us something.  It tells me that most times our judgments are flawed and possibly even sinful.  We are more apt to sinful judgment than non-sinful judgment.  We are more apt to fall in this area than to soar.

Let our dispositions toward one another be dispositions of love.  Let us assume the best about one another.  Let us refrain from judging unless and until we can go to a brother or sister carefully, in love, fully aware of our own sinfulness, having rejected that sin ourselves, and gently pleading for a wayward brother or sister to come home.

Above all, let us put on love towards one another.  It is a shame that 1 Corinthians 13 has been relegated primarily to weddings.  We need these words as a living presence in our midst today.

⁴ Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant ⁵ or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; ⁶ it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. ⁷ Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things…13 So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

Amen, and amen.

Exodus 12:1-28

¹ The Lord said to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, ² “This month shall be for you the beginning of months. It shall be the first month of the year for you. ³ Tell all the congregation of Israel that on the tenth day of this month every man shall take a lamb according to their fathers’ houses, a lamb for a household. ⁴ And if the household is too small for a lamb, then he and his nearest neighbor shall take according to the number of persons; according to what each can eat you shall make your count for the lamb. ⁵ Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male a year old. You may take it from the sheep or from the goats, ⁶ and you shall keep it until the fourteenth day of this month, when the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill their lambs at twilight. ⁷ “Then they shall take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and the lintel of the houses in which they eat it. ⁸ They shall eat the flesh that night, roasted on the fire; with unleavened bread and bitter herbs they shall eat it. ⁹ Do not eat any of it raw or boiled in water, but roasted, its head with its legs and its inner parts. ¹⁰ And you shall let none of it remain until the morning; anything that remains until the morning you shall burn. ¹¹ In this manner you shall eat it: with your belt fastened, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand. And you shall eat it in haste. It is the Lord’s Passover. ¹² For I will pass through the land of Egypt that night, and I will strike all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and on all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments: I am the Lord. ¹³ The blood shall be a sign for you, on the houses where you are. And when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and no plague will befall you to destroy you, when I strike the land of Egypt. ¹⁴ “This day shall be for you a memorial day, and you shall keep it as a feast to the Lord; throughout your generations, as a statute forever, you shall keep it as a feast. ¹⁵ Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread. On the first day you shall remove leaven out of your houses, for if anyone eats what is leavened, from the first day until the seventh day, that person shall be cut off from Israel. ¹⁶ On the first day you shall hold a holy assembly, and on the seventh day a holy assembly. No work shall be done on those days. But what everyone needs to eat, that alone may be prepared by you. ¹⁷ And you shall observe the Feast of Unleavened Bread, for on this very day I brought your hosts out of the land of Egypt. Therefore you shall observe this day, throughout your generations, as a statute forever. ¹⁸ In the first month, from the fourteenth day of the month at evening, you shall eat unleavened bread until the twenty-first day of the month at evening. ¹⁹ For seven days no leaven is to be found in your houses. If anyone eats what is leavened, that person will be cut off from the congregation of Israel, whether he is a sojourner or a native of the land. ²⁰ You shall eat nothing leavened; in all your dwelling places you shall eat unleavened bread.” ²¹ Then Moses called all the elders of Israel and said to them, “Go and select lambs for yourselves according to your clans, and kill the Passover lamb. ²² Take a bunch of hyssop and dip it in the blood that is in the basin, and touch the lintel and the two doorposts with the blood that is in the basin. None of you shall go out of the door of his house until the morning. ²³ For the Lord will pass through to strike the Egyptians, and when he sees the blood on the lintel and on the two doorposts, the Lord will pass over the door and will not allow the destroyer to enter your houses to strike you. ²⁴ You shall observe this rite as a statute for you and for your sons forever. ²⁵ And when you come to the land that the Lord will give you, as he has promised, you shall keep this service. ²⁶ And when your children say to you, ‘What do you mean by this service?’ ²⁷ you shall say, ‘It is the sacrifice of the Lord’s Passover, for he passed over the houses of the people of Israel in Egypt, when he struck the Egyptians but spared our houses.’” And the people bowed their heads and worshiped. ²⁸ Then the people of Israel went and did so; as the Lord had commanded Moses and Aaron, so they did.

C.S. Lewis once asked his readers to imagine with him a woman who has been lowered into a deep pit.  The woman is expecting a child.  She gives birth to the child in the pit, and the child grows without ever having seen the outside world.  In the pit is paper and a pile of pencils.  As the child grows, the mother tries her best to draw pictures of the outside world so that her child can have some sense of what life outside of the pit looks like.  However, her drawings are very basic:  stick figures, simple trees, puffy clouds, a circle for the sun, etc.  These images are all the child knows of the world.

A decade goes by and finally the lady and her son are released.  They are raised, blinking, into the midday sun.  As their eyes adjust, the child sees around him real trees, real grass, real people, real birds, and a real sun.  Confused, the child looks up to his mother and asks, “Mommy, where are the lines?”

It is a fascinating little story that communicates a compelling truth:  human beings oftentimes have to learn profound truths in piecemeal and elementary fashions.  This is usually done through pictures and images.  If you think about it, we all spend a good bit of time drawing simple lines on paper for our children, preparing them for the raw truth to come.  We know that their minds and hearts must be prepared first.

So it is with God and us:  to prepare the world for Jesus, God first drew images, sometimes simple, sometimes complex, oftentimes startling, and always preparatory.  Here on the threshold of the Exodus, the Lord does precisely this with Israel, drawing images for them.  These images were codified in sacred religious observances, primarily in the observance of the Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread.  He did this to prepare them for the Exodus, but more so to prepare them and the generations to come for Christ Himself.

Let us consider the establishment in the life of Israel of these preparatory and heart-preparing images.

I. Passover: Sacrifice, Judgment, Salvation, and the Proto-Evangelium (v.1-13, 21-28)

Our text has three sections, the first and last dealing with Passover and the middle with the Feast of Unleavened Bread.  Consider, first, Passover.

¹ The Lord said to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, ² “This month shall be for you the beginning of months. It shall be the first month of the year for you.

The Passover marks the beginning of a new era for Israel.  G. Henton Davies writes, “12.2 marks ‘this month,’ i.e. the month of the Passover…our March-April, the beginning of the year.[1]”  The great Baptist educator and exegete, B.H. Carroll, explained it like this:

In chapter 13 it says, “This day you go forth in the month of Abib,” and in other passages it is called the month of Nisan.  The two names correspond.  The time of the year was in the spring, when the firstfruits of the harvest were gathered.  This month now becomes an era.  In 12:2, it is said, “This month shall be the beginning of months unto you; it shall be the first month of the year to you.”  That means the ecclesiastical year.  They had a civil year, which commenced in the fall, but their ecclesiastical year commenced with that Passover…The time was then spring, Abib or Nisan, answering to our March or April, the lamb selected on the tenth day, to be slain on the fourteenth, at the going down of the sun.[2]

Carroll’s distinction between Israel’s civil year and ecclesiastical year is helpful.  “This month now becomes an era.”  Indeed.  It is intriguing to note that the truly great, epochal moments in salvation history tend to redefine time itself.  I am thinking of Passover, the birth of Christ, and the advent of the Lord’s Day at the Resurrection.  The Passover marks the deliverance of God’s people from bondage in Egypt.  That is, the Passover marks the survival of God’s people, the people through whom Christ Jesus would, in time, come.

The birth of Christ, likewise, changed time.  We now operate on a calendar that hinges on the startling events of Christmas.  Jesus split time itself into B.C. and A.D.  Even modern attempts to circumvent the Christological division of the Western calendar by using B.C.E. and C.E. still cannot change the fundamental division of human history into two facets:  time before the birth of Christ and time after.

And, of course, every Sunday we acknowledge another great shift in the way we see time.  The Christian shift from the Sabbath to the Lord’s Day, Sunday, is a direct result of the high water mark of salvation history:  the resurrection of Jesus.  We gather on Sunday’s because Christ rose on a Sunday.  We are here, now, today, because He came forth on this day.  Every Sunday, then, is Easter.  Every Sunday is resurrection day!

The Passover altered the way the Jews viewed time.  It was the beginning of their ecclesiastical year.  Even here, it was preparing them for even greater things to come.

³ Tell all the congregation of Israel that on the tenth day of this month every man shall take a lamb according to their fathers’ houses, a lamb for a household. ⁴ And if the household is too small for a lamb, then he and his nearest neighbor shall take according to the number of persons; according to what each can eat you shall make your count for the lamb. ⁵ Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male a year old. You may take it from the sheep or from the goats, ⁶ and you shall keep it until the fourteenth day of this month, when the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill their lambs at twilight. ⁷ “Then they shall take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and the lintel of the houses in which they eat it. ⁸ They shall eat the flesh that night, roasted on the fire; with unleavened bread and bitter herbs they shall eat it. ⁹ Do not eat any of it raw or boiled in water, but roasted, its head with its legs and its inner parts.

The preparation of the Passover lamb was critical.  It was to be an unblemished lamb, thoroughly roasted, with none of the blood consumed.  A.H. McNeile observes that the blood of the animal was not to be consumed because the blood was “regarded as the seat of the vital principle or the soul (nephesh), it was too sacred and mysterious to be used as human food; it must be offered to God before the flesh could be eaten.”  He then passed on three reasons why the meat had to be roasted and not boiled.

• “to bring the flesh into contact with a foreign substance such as water, might be considered a defilement”
• “it would be difficult to boil a whole lamb in any ordinary utensil, without cutting it into parts, or breaking its bones (cv. v.46)”
• “it was prohibited, in the case of animals offered by fire, to eat the intestinal fat (xxix 13,22, Lev. iii. 3-5, iv. 8 ff., vii. 22-25; see RS² 379 f.); so in the present case the inwards are to be roasted, in order that the intestinal fat may drip down and be burnt in the fire.  The flesh is evidently to be roasted on a spit and not in an oven.”[3]

The purity of the lamb was critical, as we shall see.

¹⁰ And you shall let none of it remain until the morning; anything that remains until the morning you shall burn. ¹¹ In this manner you shall eat it: with your belt fastened, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand. And you shall eat it in haste. It is the Lord’s Passover. ¹² For I will pass through the land of Egypt that night, and I will strike all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and on all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments: I am the Lord. ¹³ The blood shall be a sign for you, on the houses where you are. And when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and no plague will befall you to destroy you, when I strike the land of Egypt.

These are startling and unsettling words, to be sure.  They are repeated by Moses to the elders, beginning in verse 21.

²¹ Then Moses called all the elders of Israel and said to them, “Go and select lambs for yourselves according to your clans, and kill the Passover lamb. ²² Take a bunch of hyssop and dip it in the blood that is in the basin, and touch the lintel and the two doorposts with the blood that is in the basin. None of you shall go out of the door of his house until the morning. ²³ For the Lord will pass through to strike the Egyptians, and when he sees the blood on the lintel and on the two doorposts, the Lord will pass over the door and will not allow the destroyer to enter your houses to strike you.

I began this sermon with a story about a mother in a pit trying to communicate the reality of the world outside through simple lines on a page.  I made the point that God, like that mother, prepared Israel and the world for the eventual coming of Christ through ceremonies and rituals that communicated the truths of Christ in simple, preparatory, rudimentary forms.

That is what is happening here.  We simply cannot read of the blood on the doorposts without realizing, on this side of the cross, what God was doing.  He was even now beginning to draw their minds and hearts toward certain images and concepts:  judgment, wrath, blood, blood covering, protection for those covered by the blood, etc.  Here is the gospel in signs and images and symbols.  Here is Christ writ in primal and basic ways.  Here, in the institution of the Passover, God is sowing seeds in the minds and hearts of His people.  They are seeds that He will confirm time and again through the tabernacle, then through Temple worship.  And all of these were leading and pointing to Jesus.

They needed the lines before they could see the reality.  That is why the Lord tells His people to use the Passover as a tool for teaching the generations to come the great truths inherent in this act.

²⁴ You shall observe this rite as a statute for you and for your sons forever. ²⁵ And when you come to the land that the Lord will give you, as he has promised, you shall keep this service. ²⁶ And when your children say to you, ‘What do you mean by this service?’ ²⁷ you shall say, ‘It is the sacrifice of the Lord’s Passover, for he passed over the houses of the people of Israel in Egypt, when he struck the Egyptians but spared our houses.’” And the people bowed their heads and worshiped. ²⁸ Then the people of Israel went and did so; as the Lord had commanded Moses and Aaron, so they did.

Do you see what is happening?  The Lord has established in the Passover a means for current obedience as well as for future transference of the faith.  This is why the symbols we have been given are so very important, and why the too-frequent abandonment of these symbols by modern Christians is a great tragedy.  One of the beautiful things that happens when, for instance, we share the Lord’s Supper, is that our children observe what we are doing and ask, “Mommy, Daddy, why did you eat that bread and drink that juice?”  Likewise, with baptism, “Mommy, Daddy, why did the preacher put that man under the water and then bring him back up again?”

What beautiful teaching moments the sacred symbols of our faith present!  Israel was being introduced to the great themes that would prepare them to understand Jesus.  Imagine:  year after year after year, the people of God would kill a lamb and prepare it for the Passover feast.  Year after year after year, they turned to this act of remembrance, celebrating the power of God and recalling the deliverance of Israel from Egypt.  Then one day, after so many years of practicing the symbols, a strange man stands in the Jordan River and points to an even stranger young man.  He points to Him and shouts to the stunned onlookers:  ““Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!”

The observance of Passover was preparing Israel for that moment!  As such, it is the preface to the gospel, explaining in shadows what would soon happen in the broad light of day.

II. Unleavened Bread:  Purity, Haste, and Deliverance (v.14-20)

In the middle of our text we find another observance established by the Lord for His people, the Feast of Unleavened Bread.

¹⁴ “This day shall be for you a memorial day, and you shall keep it as a feast to the Lord; throughout your generations, as a statute forever, you shall keep it as a feast. ¹⁵ Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread. On the first day you shall remove leaven out of your houses, for if anyone eats what is leavened, from the first day until the seventh day, that person shall be cut off from Israel. ¹⁶ On the first day you shall hold a holy assembly, and on the seventh day a holy assembly. No work shall be done on those days. But what everyone needs to eat, that alone may be prepared by you. ¹⁷ And you shall observe the Feast of Unleavened Bread, for on this very day I brought your hosts out of the land of Egypt. Therefore you shall observe this day, throughout your generations, as a statute forever. ¹⁸ In the first month, from the fourteenth day of the month at evening, you shall eat unleavened bread until the twenty-first day of the month at evening. ¹⁹ For seven days no leaven is to be found in your houses. If anyone eats what is leavened, that person will be cut off from the congregation of Israel, whether he is a sojourner or a native of the land. ²⁰ You shall eat nothing leavened; in all your dwelling places you shall eat unleavened bread.”

The Lord commands that His people eat unleavened bread for seven days, beginning at the conclusion of Passover.  Leaven is yeast, causing bread to rise and ferment.  Notably, it also causes bread to decay.  It is therefore significant that the Lord so stridently stresses the need for unleavened bread.  That is, it is significant that the Lord wants His people to remember their deliverance from bondage through the consumption of bread lacking decaying elements.

He is asking them for purity:  a pure remembrance symbolizing a pure people.  Because of this, leaven came to be a kind of bad word among the Jews, a word referring to godlessness and decay.  Thus, in Matthew 16:6, Jesus tells His disciples, “Watch and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees.”  By “leaven” He meant their false and dangerous teachings (16:12).

In 1 Corinthians 5, Paul exhorted the Corinthians believers to bring discipline against a member of the church who is living a scandalous, open lifestyle of sin.  Furthermore, he scolded the church for their arrogant acceptance of this man’s lifestyle.  This is what he says to that congregation:

⁶ Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump? ⁷ Cleanse out the old leaven that you may be a new lump, as you really are unleavened. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. ⁸ Let us therefore celebrate the festival, not with the old leaven, the leaven of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.

Paul is repeating to the church what God said to Israel:  “Cleanse out the old leaven.”  For Israel in the Exodus, this meant literally removing all leaven from their houses in preparation for the Feast of Unleavened Bread, but the intent had less to do with what kind of bread they were eating than with what kind of people God wanted them to be.  The intent was the symbolic affirmation of purity that was to give way to an actualized purity.

In the body of Christ, the challenge of unleavened bread is a personal one.  Yes, to be sure, there are times when it is corporate, as in 1 Corinthians 5.  There are tragically times when the body of Christ must remove harmful leaven.  I hasten to add that this does not mean the church is devoid of sinners.  We are all sinners.  But the church must respond to flagrant sin, to embraced leaven, that threatens the very identity of the followers of Jesus.

Personally, though, the challenge to be unleavened is a daily challenge, a moment-by-moment challenge.  Every day, every moment, I must ask myself whether or not there is leaven in my life.  I must daily ask the Lord to search my heart, to hold a candle up to the dark corners of my heart, making evident any agents of decay that threaten my relationship with Jesus.  That is what we must all daily do.

Brothers, sisters, I ask you:  is there leaven in your life of which you need to be rid?  Is there anything hindering you on this journey toward glory?

Fasten your belts.  Grab your walking sticks.  Make sure you are covered by the blood of the Lamb.  Reject the world’s leaven.  And let us follow our King.

Matthew 6:25-34

²⁵ “Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? ²⁶ Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? ²⁷ And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? ²⁸ And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, ²⁹ yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. ³⁰ But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? ³¹ Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ ³² For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. ³³ But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. ³⁴ “Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.

Peter J. Gomes, the late minister of Harvard University once told of a sermon he preached on our text this morning and a very surprising reaction he received to it.

Some years ago I gave the commencement address at a very posh girls’ day school in Manhattan.  Many of the brightest and the best of the girls went on to Radcliffe and to other elite colleges, and soon thereafter would make their way into the expanding stratosphere of the establishment once reserved for their brothers.  They were able, aggressive, and entitled young women on the threshold of conquering the world, and I rejoiced in their achievement, was happy to celebrate with them, and wished them well.  I took as my text on that bright sunny morning in midtown that wonderful passage from Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 6, where he asks, “Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?”  Neither for Jesus nor for me was this a hostile question, and he goes on to invite his listeners, as I did, to “consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin, yet their heavenly father provides for them.  Are you not of more worth than these?”

All were not pleased…and at the reception the father of one of the girls came up to me with fire in his eyes and ice in his voice, and told me that what I had said was a lot of nonsense.  I replied that I hadn’t said it, but that Jesus had.  “It’s still nonsense,” he said, not easily dissuaded by an appeal to scripture.  “It was anxiety that got my daughter into this school, it was anxiety that kept her here, and it was anxiety that got her into Yale, it will be anxiety that will keep her there, and it will be anxiety that will get her a good job.  You are selling nonsense.”[1]

One would not expect such a reaction to a sermon against anxiety, yet, when we stop and look closely at what we have made of modern life, we realize just how much anxiety is bound up with our daily lives.  We are ostensibly working hard so as to remove anxiety from our lives, yet, ironically, what we are doing seems only to increase it.

This business of casting off anxiety and worry and studying the lilies works well for poets and dreamers.  After all, it was Emily Dickenson who once said that the only commandment she did not break was Jesus’ commandment, “Consider the lilies of the field.”[2]  But we’re not Emily Dickenson, right?  We have things to do, and they must be done well to maintain what we have and, if we are fortunate, to have even more.

In January of this year, the Barna group released their findings on a new survey on “Temptation and America’s Favorite Sins.”  Under the grouping, “Particularly Western Temptations,” Barna discovered that 60% of Americans say they are tempted to worry and anxiety.[3]  I would suggest that the kind of anxiety we have fostered in our culture is, indeed, a particularly Western phenomenon.  Travel to what used to be called the Third World and, while you will say perhaps different kinds of anxiety, you will see a startling lack of the soul-destroying worry and angst that we have invited into our lives.

Jesus addressed the reality of worry, of anxiety, because He knew what the presence of such corrosive forces can do in and to the lives of His people.  Remember, the Sermon on the Mount is a depiction of life in the Kingdom of God.  It is utterly fascinating that, in this brief discourse, Jesus thought worry to be sufficiently dangerous so as to warrant careful consideration.

Let us consider today the dangers of worry and anxiety.

I. Worry is an Insult to the Love of God. (v.25-26)

Let us first define what the biblical idea of anxiety or worry is.  The Greek word for “anxious” is merimnao.  It refers to “apprehension, anxiety, or worry.”  It is interesting that the word is used two times in the Apocrypha for the idea of insomnia.[4]  This is worry that keeps you up at night.  This is life-shortening, relationship-destroying, ulcer-producing, sleep-depriving, soul-debilitating worry.  This is what Jesus is condemning.

What He clearly is not condemning is careful, reasonable planning, or a healthy sense of work and production.  In 2 Thessalonians 3, Paul is apparently addressing a church situation in which some believers were so convinced that the return of Christ was imminent that they had stopped working.  To them, Paul said this:

¹⁰ For even when we were with you, we would give you this command: If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat. ¹¹ For we hear that some among you walk in idleness, not busy at work, but busybodies. ¹² Now such persons we command and encourage in the Lord Jesus Christ to do their work quietly and to earn their own living.

Work is not worry.  Planning is not worry.  But worry can creep in and pervert both work and planning.  J.C. Ryle put it nicely when he said, “Prudent provision for the future is right; wearing, corroding, self-tormenting anxiety is wrong.”[5]

What Jesus is condemning is a mindset of anxiety and fear and worry in which we are held captive by a kind of physical, mental, spiritual, vocational, and relational hypochondria.bbIn Catch-22, Joseph Heller writes about the anxiety that had gripped the characters Yossarian and Hungry Joe:

There were lymph glands that might do [Yossarian] in.  There were kidneys, nerve sheaths and corpuscles.  There were tumors of the brain.  There was Hodgkin’s disease, leukemia, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.  There were fertile red meadows of epithelial tissue to catch and coddle a cancer cell.  There were diseases of the skin, diseases of the bone, diseases of the lung, diseases of the stomach, diseases of the heart, blood and arteries.  There were diseases of the head, diseases of the neck, diseases of the chest, diseases of the intestines…There even were diseases of the feet.  There were billions of conscientious body cells oxidating away day and night like dumb animals at their complicated job of keeping him alive and healthy, and every one was a potential traitor or foe.  There were so many diseases that it took a truly diseased mind to even think about them as often as he and Hungry Joe did.[6]

There are people who live their lives gripped by this kind of suffocating fear, and that is a tragedy.  It is interesting to note that the first reason Jesus gives us for rejecting worry is that worry is an insult to the love of God.  Listen to what He says.

²⁵ “Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? ²⁶ Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?

He warns against worry in the area of food, health, and clothing.  He then makes the fascinating observation that life is “more than food, and the body more than clothing.”  That may strike us as odd.  As a matter of fact, without food, we will lose our lives.  Without food, we will die.  Just some verses back we were cautioned to pray for “daily bread.”

But this misses the point.  For citizens of the Kingdom of God, the absence of food does not threaten our lives at all.  It may threaten our bodies, our health, and our physical lives, but citizens of the Kingdom of God have a different view of life:  it is unending.  To be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord, Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5:8.  Our life is more than food.

But what is really striking is verse 26.

²⁶ Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?

“Are you not of more value than they?”  You are!  God likes His little birds, but God loves His people!  There is something unique about you, something that sets you apart from the animals.  Do you realize that you are fearfully and wonderfully made in the image of God?  Do you realize that He loves you?

When you give in to fear, to anxiety, to crippling worry, you insult the love of God.  Do terrible things happen?  Yes.  Do terrible things happen to the people of God?  Yes.  Why?  I do not pretend to know.  But even here the believer rests in the hands of a good God.  The believer lives free from anxiety, even as tragedy befalls them.

It is not wrong to grieve.  It is not wrong to ask God, “Why?”  It is not wrong to struggle.  The Lord God is not demanding inhuman stoicism.  But what He is doing is reminding us that even in the struggle, we need not despair, even in the pain, we need not resign ourselves to fear.  Our God reigns and our reigning God loves us!  This is why time and again, God’s Word comforts us.  Joseph Tson once said from the pulpit of Westminster Chapel that there are 366 verses in the Bible exhorting us not to worry.  He noted, “We have one for every day of the year and one for Leap Year!”[7]

II. Worry is Fruitless…It Helps Nothing. (v.27)

On a practical note, worry is fruitless as well.  Here is how Jesus put it.

²⁷ And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life?

It is interesting that there is a long debate over the last phrase of v.27.  Is it a reference to length of life (“add a single hour to his span of life” ((ESV))) or to height (“add one cubit unto his stature” ((KJV))).  That is interesting, but not critical, for neither translation affects the central point:  worry is fruitless and helps nothing.  All the worry in the world cannot make you taller or live longer, Jesus says.  It is wasted energy.

Kevin DeYoung writes that “anxiety, after all, is simply living out the future before it gets here.”[8]  You will immediately understand the absurdity of living out the future before it gets here:  we do not know the future.

Honestly, how often have you spent mental and spiritual and physical capital on things that never happened?  How often, after the fact, have you looked back on your worry and anxiety with embarrassment and shame?

III. Worry is an Insult to the Demonstrable Providence of God (v.28-30)

Worry also insults the demonstrable providence of God.  By demonstrable I mean observable.  By providence, I mean God’s hand of care and provision.  In other words, we can see God’s provision all around us!  Once again, Jesus points us to nature.

²⁸ And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, ²⁹ yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. ³⁰ But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?

If God provides for throw-away flowers and grass, will He not provide for you?  Stop and study a flower, Jesus says.  See the intricate care and provision He has shrouded it in.  Observe its delicate and baffling beauty.  See how poets and song writers have waxed eloquent on the flowers.  And that’s God’s window dressing for the world!  If God lavishes the earth’s window dressing such, will He not care for you?

Peter Burn’s “Consider the Lilies” says:

Consider the lilies,

Ye sons of despair;

Consider the lilies,

Ye daughters of care.

And from them instruction receive:

Though fragile and feeble,

Yet, see how they grow,

“They toil not, they spin not,”

Nor care do they know,

But, kept by their Maker, they live.

Consider the lilies!

To them ever give

Attention and study –

They’ll teach you to live,

The secret of peace they will show;

Then, ye from distresses

And cares shall be free,

Like them ye shall flourish,

Though lowly you be,

Like them, ye in vigour shall grow.[9]

All around you is evidence of God’s care.  He is not cruel.  He is not forgetful.  He is for us, and we are safe in His hand, even if evils befall us.

IV. Worry is a Mark of Spiritual Lostness and is Therefore Unbecoming for Citizens of the Kingdom of God (v.31-34)

Finally, worry is the mark of an unregenerate heart, a lost heart.  It is not becoming for a citizen of the Kingdom of God to act as if God is not present and caring for His people.

³¹ Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ ³² For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. ³³ But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. ³⁴ “Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.

Yes, “the Gentiles seek after these things.”  Gentiles worry.  Gentiles are bound in fear.  Gentiles are suffocated by anxiety.  Why?  Because they do not know the Lord.  They are blind to the truth.  Thus, for lost people, anxiety is a natural disposition.  Kevin DeYoung writes that, “Worry about the future is not simply a character tic, it is the sin of unbelief, an indication that our hearts are not resting in the promises of God.”[10]

The people of God dare not act like people who are hopeless without God.  The people of God dare not act as if there is no God.  Our Savior has called upon us not to worry.  Our Savior has called upon us to trust and rest in God.

And that fact is key:  our Savior has called upon us not to worry.  That fact alone is what makes His instructions to consider the lilies of the field imminently practical.  I suspect some of you have been listening to this and thinking, “Fine and good, but that is not practical and that is not real life.  I simply cannot live life in the modern world without anxiety.”  But that thought assumes that we know greater burdens than the Lord Jesus Himself knew.  That is demonstrably false.  The One who gave us this teaching knew a burden we will never know, yet He gave it nonetheless!

John Stott relays how the German Protestant pastor, Helmut Thielicke, who had opposed Hitler, faced the difficult task of preaching to his German congregation in from 1946-1948, in the years immediately after World War 2.  The Germans were a devastated people, broken and hopeless.  Dr. Thielicke chose for his preaching plan in those years the Sermon on the Mount.  As he came to our text this morning, he reflected from the pulpit on how odd and seemingly impractical these words about considering the lilies and the birds must seem to a people who only recently tasted the anxiety or war and defeat.  “We know the sight and the sound of homes collapsing in flames,” Dr. Thielicke said, “Our own eyes have seen the red blaze and our own ears have heard the sound of crashing, falling and shrieking.”

Could such a people who had experienced such horrors really take seriously these words about considering the birds and lilies, these words against anxiety.  Here is how Thielicke concluded.  He drew the attention of his people to Jesus and said:

Nevertheless, I think we must stop and listen when this man, whose life on earth was anything but birdlike and lilylike, points us to the carefreeness of the birds and lilies. Were not the somber shadows of the Cross already looming over this hour of the Sermon on the Mount?[11]

Yes!  The shadow of the cross was already on Jesus when He taught us not to be anxious, not to worry.  This Jesus who teaches this carried a burden while teaching it that we will never know!  The man of sorrows knew what burdens were.  He would soon kneel in a garden and sweat drops of blood.  He was anguished.  He knew the temptation to anxiety and despair.  But He said, “Not My will but Thy will be done!”

There is comfort in that.  Brothers and sisters, there is no sin in feeling the weight of a burden.  There is no sin in sweating blood, even, over that with which we are confronted.  But citizens of the Kingdom of God do not stay there.  We do not let the struggle become anxiety then worry then despair then the abandonment of God.  We must say, “Not my will, by Thy will be done.”  And as we say that, we will look to our side and realize that we say it with the Lord Jesus, the One who told us not to worry, not to be anxious, not to despair.

Friends, consider the lilies.

Do not worry.