Andy Cantrell: Who is Jesus to You, and What Are You Doing About It?

3:14PM Jul 4, 2024

Speakers:

Andy Cantrell

Keywords:

jesus

verse

people

life

priest

day

righteousness

god

lord

give

praise

work

text

broken heart

isaiah

world

preach

verses

proclaim

started

I'll invite you to take your Bible turn to Matthew chapter 16. Matthew 16 will be the text where we will begin.

I'd like to just say before I get into this text and the lesson for this morning that I genuinely appreciate the invitation to come here. I had more than one person say to me when I arrived, who are you, and how did we find out about you? And I still don't know the answer to that question. I live pretty far away, and have never really lived in this part of the world, except for just a little while in Arkansas, but it's been a blessing to me. I think a couple of people have already said this, men up front, but I think this is just true. Whatever benefit you get from hearing from one person, I think those of us that come to a place we walk away getting to know way more people having been fed into by far more sources. But it's been a blessing to be with these other men. I didn't know Greg before, but I sure do appreciate his approach to the Word of God, his clarity and the way that he talks about that. I've learned some good things about First Peter, and I'm look, I'm glad that I got to know him. And Mike has been someone I've looked up to for many years, and I sure appreciate his mind and the way that he approaches scripture and the good work that he does in bringing souls to the Lord. And it's been a blessing to be with Kenny, who I didn't know very well, and he's just, he's a joy to be around, so. And Todd as well. So, thank you for that.

The title of this lesson is actually a title that I didn't choose, and I don't, I didn't particularly care for the title when I was given the title. A church across town in Minnesota does a summer program, I guess you guys do something like that, where you have visiting preachers come. And they told me they wanted me to preach on who is Jesus to you and what are you doing about it? And I thought that that title sounded a little bit too in your face or a little bit cheesy. I'm not sure what it was when they first gave it to me, but as I got to studying for that lesson, I realized those are two pretty good questions. Who is Jesus to you, and what are you doing about it? I want to start the same way that I started with them when I first did this, and I want to say that I don't really care who Jesus is to you, and you ought not care who Jesus is to me. The question really should be, who is Jesus actually? We don't get to invent him or make him the way we want him to be. We don't get to have our own personal Jesus as Depeche Mode or Johnny Cash sang one time. We have to know who Jesus really is.

So, let's go to this familiar text in Matthew 16, and notice that Jesus asked the question, kind of like this, starting here in verse 13. "Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea, Philippi. He was asking his disciples, Who do people say that the Son of Man is?" Now, before I go any further this particular text took on new meaning for me when I finally got to visit Caesarea Philippi. I got a chance to go over to Israel some years ago, and we went to the ruins of Caesarea Philippi. And if you've ever been there, if you've ever seen pictures of this, that city was built up against a cliff where some water comes out from the bottom of the cliff. And because there's water there, the ancients saw that place as a source of life. So, they built a lot of temples and shrines and worship centers there. In fact, in the days of Jesus, you can still see these ruins if you go online, there was a there was a temple to the god Zeus, a temple to the god Pan and about four or five other gods that were worshiped at Caesarea, Philippi. Now just think about that, all these worshipers coming to worship all these different gods, and that's the place Jesus chooses to ask the question, Who do people say that I am. So, with that in mind, listen to the response. Verse 14, "Some say, John, the Baptist. Others, Elijah, but still others, Jeremiah, one of the prophets. He said to them, But who do you say that I am? Simon Peter answered, You are the Christ, the Son of the living God. And Jesus said to him, Blessed are you Simon Bar Jonah, because flesh and blood did not reveal this to you. But my father, who is in heaven."

You know, this is a template text, and let me explain what I mean by it being a template text. Nowadays, people might ask a lot of questions about God, about the truth, about the Bible. Have you ever noticed that when somebody asks a question about religion, it's kind of like this text. There's always lots of answers. Some say this, some say this, some say this. But there's usually a right answer, a blessed answer, a best answer, and it's the one revealed by God, not by flesh and blood. I want you to remember this text anytime somebody asks a question. You can answer all the ways. Will some flesh and blood say this? Some flesh and blood say this. But what we're seeking is to find the answer of what did our Father above reveal about the answer to this question. And when it came to Jesus, the only answer was, he's the Christ, the Son of God. If you don't believe that about him, it doesn't matter what else you believe about him. That's the truth. But that's not really the point of this question. I don't think who is Jesus to you? Let me give you a couple of answers that I think I've heard over the years and see if they measure up to what they should. I had a friend when I was in junior high and high school, and if I would have said, Hey, who is Jesus to you? Here's how he would have answered. I'm not trying to be flippant. He really would have said this. He would have said, Jesus is my homeboy. Have you ever heard that before? In Southern California that's how we talked in the 80s. And I said, Well, what if Jesus is your homeboy? What are you doing about it? And he would say, I wear this shirt that says that. Jesus is my homeboy. And what I liked about this guy is he was unashamed to do that in a public school in Southern California in the 80s, it wasn't popular to talk about the Lord, and he would bravely just display that Jesus is my friend. He would tell everyone. But here's the deal, about my buddy. He didn't really know what Jesus said. He didn't follow his teachings. He just liked to be different and wear a t shirt that said, Jesus is my friend. Is that enough? Of course, not. How about this? I've known people, they probably wouldn't say it like this, but this is kind of how they treated Jesus. Jesus is my good luck charm, like I just keep him close in my life, just in case, you know. I hang him around my neck, or I put a crown of thorns around my bicep and a tattoo, and he's just there. Just in case. I'm not really all in on following him, but he's there, you know, maybe to cover some things.

In fact, when I was in Los Angeles, I got a Bible study with this Persian lady, she spoke Farsi and a little bit of English, and she wanted to know more about Jesus. And so a couple of us went to her house, and when I walked in, there was a crucifix hanging above her dining room table, and Jesus was on the crucifix, or depiction of course. And I looked at that, and I looked at her, and I said, I thought you said you didn't know anything about him. And she said, Oh, I don't that's there, just in case. I think it keeps evil spirits out of my house. Have you ever known somebody that kind of treated Jesus like that? Now maybe that's not you. So, let me get a little closer to home. If you'd asked me when I was younger, who is Jesus to you, I might have said something like this, Jesus is the founder of his church. What am I doing about it? I make sure I go to the right church. Now, I want to be clear that's important. That we find God's people and do things his way. But is that really enough to just think in terms of, I want to make sure I belong to the right group, that's who Jesus is to me as the founder of that group, or is there more biblically that we should be thinking about for who Jesus is to us?

Turn with me in your Bibles to Luke chapter four, if you would. And I want to show you some people who could answer that question in ways that you and I simply can't answer in this life. Luke, chapter four. Before I read this, many of you in here, you love Jesus with all your heart, right? You love Jesus. Can anybody here tell me how tall he was? These people knew the answer to that. What color were his eyes? What did it sound like when he left? You know some of these hometown people of Jesus could answer every one of those questions. They knew him intimately. Some of the ladies in the synagogue would have held him as a baby. They would have been able to look out in a field of boys playing there near Nazareth, and recognized Jesus by His gait or his run or the way that he walked. I wish I knew all those things, but I don't. So, let's read then. Who was Jesus to them? Verse 14, "Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit, and news about Him spread through all the surrounding district, and He began teaching in their synagogues and was praised by all. And He came to Nazareth, where He had been brought up, and as was his custom, he entered the synagogue on the Sabbath and stood up to read. And the book of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him, and he opened the book, found the place where it is written, 'The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor. He sent Me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set free those who were oppressed, to proclaim the favorable year of the Lord.' And he closed the book, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down in the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him, and he began to say to them, today, the scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing. And all were speaking well of him and wondering at the gracious words which were falling from his lips. And they were saying, is this not Joseph's son?"

Alright, a couple of things to notice here. Did you catch to there in verse 16, when it says, as was his custom, he went to the synagogue. If you call yourself a follower of Jesus, I want you to notice that it was Jesus' custom to be with the people of God. When the people of God gathered, it ought to be your custom to that's what he did. But on this particular occasion, they give him the scroll of Isaiah, and he has to find the place in the scroll. That is our Isaiah 61. We're going to go there in a minute. And they didn't have chapter divisions and verse divisions back then. He would have found this place. He would have began to read, and it sounds like he said some things that maybe aren't recorded, and it blows them away. It knocks their socks off. I mean, they're talking about him when he sits down. Did you hear what he said? They're wondering at the gracious words. They're speaking well of him. But Who Was Jesus to them? Did you catch it at the end of our reading? "Is this not Joseph's son?"

I've tried to figure this text out and maybe a way to illustrate it. I've met a couple of young boys this week that are, I think their families are members here. You guys have an inordinate amount of jJosiahs here, you have a bunch of little Josiahs running around. I want you to think about one of those young Josiahs that you know. Imagine a few years from now, that young lad that grew up among you goes out preaching all around Alabama, up into Tennessee, and you guys keep getting word back that wherever he goes, he's just doing such good work. It's amazing the things that he's doing. And one day he comes back here to this place, to this pulpit, or if he's weird, he stands down here, and he preaches to all of you a sermon that makes you whisper when he sits down. Did you hear what he said? Wasn't that amazing? But you've seen this boy grow up. Who is he? Here's my question. Is there anything that that boy that grew up among you could do that would change your tune within a couple of minutes from speaking well of him, to skip down to verse 28, "and all the people in the synagogue were filled with rage as they heard these things, and they got up and they drove him out of the city, and they led him to the brow of the hill on which their city had been built. In order to throw them down the cliff passing through their midst. He went his way." I cannot wrap my head around that. I can't think of watching a young man grow up in the in the family of God, in a location, and people thinking well of him one minute, but him saying a few more sentences, and they literally drag him outside and try to find a high spot to end his life, to crush him on the rocks down below. What would he say to you all that would make you so mad? It doesn't really compute with me.

It may have something to do with what he says, of course, in the next few sentences. I'm going to come back to this at the end of the lesson, but I'm going to suggest it might also have something to do with the text that he preached that day and how excited they were about Isaiah chapter 61. So, let's go over there for a little bit and notice what Jesus preached on that day. But we're going to use our two, our two questions. Who is Jesus to you? And what are you doing about it? And we're going to try to use Isaiah 61 to answer those two questions. So, if you're there in the text, let me give you a brief outline of Isaiah 61. Verses one through three describe what the Messiah came to do for us. How he was going to work in our lives. That's verses one through three. And for today's lesson, it also should answer the question, who is Jesus to you, what has he done in your life for you? That's the first part of the question. But verses four through 11 describe what the Messiah was going to do with us, not for us, but with or through us. If we would let him do verses one through three in our life, then verses four through 11 describe what what we should be doing about that, what he was going to use us for in the world. So the two questions, who is Jesus to you should be answered from one through three, and what are we doing about it should be answered from four through 11.

So, let's look close at this. While I read verses one through three, I want you to try to find yourself. Jesus is all through the text, but so are we. Where are you in verses one through three? Let's read it. "The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me because the Lord has anointed Me to bring good news to the afflicted, he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to captives and freedom to prisoners, to proclaim the favorable year of the Lord, the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn, to grant those who mourn in Zion, giving them a garland instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, the mantle of praise instead of a spirit of fainting. So, they will be called oaks of righteousness, the planting of the Lord that He may be glorified." You know that beautiful text that describes the Spirit of the Lord being on the anointed one and him doing all of this good work in the world helps us see ourselves I hope. Did you catch yourself anywhere in here? Look at the first thing in verse one that he came to do. My version says "to bring good news to the afflicted." Your version might say, "to preach the gospel to the poor." But that's not talking about monetarily poor. It's talking about poverty of life. Is this your story? I have a feeling that there's probably people here that this is who Jesus is to them. They were born into a family of affliction. There was abuse and dysfunction. There was rarely any good news. Somebody was getting drunk, somebody was getting arrested, somebody was losing their job. There was never really much hope in your family. And it seemed like every time you turned a corner, it just all fell apart again. And then one day, you heard the good news, and Jesus to you is the good-news-bringer to all of your affliction. Is that your story?

You know, if I could pick one of these, I think in many ways, all of them have some impact in our life. But if you want to know who he is, to me, it's the second one in verse one, when it says he was sent to bind up the brokenhearted. How many of you have had a broken heart in your life, if I asked for a show of hands, do you think most hands would go up? I think when people think of broken hearts, they mostly think of romance. Maybe you fell in love with somebody and they loved you for a while, and then they stopped, or they didn't love you, or it didn't work out, and so your heart was broken. That's one kind of heartbreak, but I think heartbreak starts younger and not always in romance. I remember my first broken heart, or at least the first one I remember. I was eight years old. I had a best friend named Chris Thompson. He never had two front teeth like all the years I knew him, they were gone. I think he'd knocked them out when he was young, and they never grew back. But he was a gangly awkward kid, but he was my best friend. And one day Chris Thompson told me that his Dad was being transferred from San Diego, California to somewhere in Texas. I grew up before cell phones. I actually grew up before the internet, so our parents weren't friends, and we knew that this was goodbye forever. So, the last day that I walked home from school with him, I stopped to turn right on Capehart Street. He went further down Merrimack to his place, and two eight year old boys stood there saying goodbye forever. Have a good life. You too, buddy. I remember when I turned around to go home, I started to run as fast as I could. Tears were coming down. I couldn't see very well, and I opened the front door of my house, and my mom was standing there, and she said these words. She said, Ah, honey, you have a broken heart. And I remember thinking something like this, Well, I'm certainly not going to have one of those again. I was beginning to learn that the way broken hearts work is you attach your heart to somebody or something. You think your life's going to look a certain way, and this cruel world rips things we love away from us, and it leaves gaping wounds inside. My best idea was to harden my heart, not attach it to anything else, build walls around it. That's what most brokenhearted people do. But my mom wouldn't let me do that. She taught me that there was a God who could put your heart back together, teach you to love and no matter how many times it broke, no matter how many times it got hurt, you could keep loving deeply and God would stitch it back together. You know why that was such an important lesson to me as a young man? Two years later, when I was 10, that mother, who was my comfort and my teacher, she died of cancer at 42 years old. And if I thought I'd had a broken heart before, I was just getting started. Do you know who Jesus is to me? He is the tailor of my heart, over and over again, countless times. If I could open up my chest and show you the work that he's done, it'd be pretty amazing. Ask me what I'm doing about it. You know, every day I see people with broken hearts. I meet people who've been hurt by this world, and all they know to do is harden the heart, build walls. But I know someone who's in the business of changing that for them, and I'd like to share that. Is that your story?

By the way, that's just the first two things on a pretty long list here. Maybe you're the next one in verse one, when it says he came to proclaim liberty to captives and freedom to prisoners. And that didn't mean he was going to waltz into the land of Judea and, you know, kick the Romans out and give the Jews their their freedom. It didn't mean he was going to unlock all the jail cells and let the prisoners out. You know what this means. That there are people that have lived their whole life enslaved to something that they could not shake, some substance that they put in their body, some something that they looked at on a screen, some anger that they couldn't get out of them. They were captives to it, and then they met Jesus Christ. They brought all their weariness to him, and he emancipated them. That person who was once angry is now a gentle soul. Is that your story? Is that who Jesus is to you?

Do you see where this lesson's kind of going? I should have told you, no one gets out of this lesson alive today, by the way. Do you see where it's going? What was the problem with the Nazareth people? They knew everything about him, but they were never going to let him be their physician. They wanted to control what they knew. They didn't want him to know about them. What about you? Some of you have been going to church a long time. You know all the answers about Jesus. But do you know deep down who he is to you? What he's done? Have you let him do the work that he wants to do in your life? You know, after this list gets done, look down at the end of verse three. There's an illustration of Christians that's my favorite. It's got to be my favorite illustration of what a Christian is in all the Bible. When it says at the end of verse three, "So they will be called." Your version, might say trees of righteousness, or terebinths of righteousness, but I like the versions that say oaks of righteousness. Why oaks? What do you guys think of oak trees? What do you think of them? I mean, yeah, they're solid, right? We build out of them. I'm not sure this is Oak, but what do you think about when you look at them? Here's my description of an oak tree. It is majestically ugly. I mean, they're all twisted up when they when it starts getting dark out, they're a little bit creepy looking. That's where vultures hang out, you know. But this tree has been through it. The reason it's knoted and twisted is because the winds and the storms and the years have beat the thing up, but there it stands in all its glory. Why would God choose a metaphor like that for us? Come on, you guys know each other. Is there anybody here that's not scarred from the things you've gone through or been through? But if Jesus has gotten hold of you and planted you to be on display for the glory of God, then you finally let him do your do his work in your life. So, I'll ask it one more time before we move on. Who is Jesus to you? Do you know?

All right, let's talk about what we're doing about it. Verse four, "Then they will rebuild the ancient ruins. They will raise up the former devastations. They will repair the ruined cities the desolation of many generations. Strangers will stand and pasture your flocks. Foreigners will be your farmers and your vine dressers, but you will be called the priests of the Lord. You will be spoken of as ministers of our God. You will eat the wealth of nations and in their riches, you will boast. Instead of your shame, you will have a double portion. Instead of humiliation, they will shout for joy over their portion. Therefore they will possess a double portion in their land, everlasting joy will be theirs." There's a lot of great descriptions about what the Messiah would do with us after he got his hands on us, but go back to verse four. If you could choose a profession, a job, to describe verse four, what job would you choose? Look at it just for a second. What profession does verse four sound like to you? Construction Worker? Rebuilding ancient ruins? Or maybe even more specifically, have you ever seen those, those FEMA workers who come in after a tornado or a hurricane or an earthquake. I mean, the whole thing falls apart, and all of a sudden there's people picking up bricks and putting the world back together. Did you catch the prophecy of who Christians are supposed to be? Look, in verses one through three, God picked me up and put me back together. And then what he said was, there's a whole world out there that's falling apart, the desolation of many generations. This isn't talking about coming back from Babylon. It's not just one generation of desolation. This is a prophecy of the Messiah in a world that's falling apart. And he says, You oaks of righteousness, you get busy, you pick the bricks up, you extend a hand, you find the others who need my help. And you begin to be my, what in verse six, my priests and my ministers.

You're aware, of course, in the New Testament, we are called a kingdom of priests, that the minister isn't just the guy who stands up here. We're all servants to do the work of God. Let me ask you, in the Old Testament, do you think it was a privilege to be a priest? What do you think? To get to work in God's presence, serving men on God's behalf, serving God on men's behalf? Do you think it was a privilege to be a priest? But could anybody be one? If you just wanted to be a priest. Could you walk in and say, I'm ready to be a priest? No, you had to be of the tribe of Levi, son of Aaron. But not in the new covenant. What's the pedigree or the heritage of the priests in the new covenant? What family do you have to be a part of? Verses one through three, the ash heap of humanity. God's gonna take his priests and his ministers not from some bloodline, but those that have gone through and been cleansed by the blood of Christ. It doesn't matter where you came from or who your family is, or what your heritage is. God wants to make you a priest to serve men on God's behalf and God on men's behalf. What are you doing about who Jesus is to you? What am I doing?

Let's go to verse eight. By the way, I might just point out at the end of verse seven, there's that everlasting joy again that was described in Isaiah 55. That if we've traded our thoughts and our ways for God's thoughts and God's ways, we should be people of joy who the world recognizes. That's what this is about to say. Look at Verse eight, "For I the LORD, love justice. I hate robbery in the burnt offering. I will faithfully give them their recompense and make an everlasting covenant with them." There's that language again of everlasting covenant. But what's he saying? I hate robbery in the burnt offering. Well, in the Old Testament, if you brought an offering to God, you didn't bring something blemished, you gave exactly what he said you should, not holding back giving your best. In the New Covenant, though, what would be robbery in the burnt offering? What's Romans 12 say, "I urge you, therefore, by the mercies of Christ, to present your bodies, yourselves, your whole life as a living sacrifice." You know what I think verse eight means in context? Is if I've done for you what I said I was going to do in verses one through three, then don't hold back. Be all in. Don't rob me of the thing that I've sanctified, which is your whole life and self. And here will be the result, verse nine. "Then their offspring will be known among the nations, their descendants in the midst of the peoples, all who see them will recognize them, because they are the offspring whom the Lord has blessed. Have you ever had this happen? Somebody comes to you in your workplace or your neighborhood or your family and they say something like this? You know, I've known a lot of people over the years who called themselves Christians, but there's something different about you. You really mean it. You're all in I mean, he's everything to you. Folks, if that's not happened to you, then I want to ask you a question about this verse. How come it's not recognized? And I think it has something to do with our two questions. If I don't know who Jesus is to me, and I don't know what I'm doing about it, there might not be any recognition of the one that's been redeemed.

I want you to listen to the the next couple of verses, as this text finishes. Verse 10, "I will rejoice greatly in the Lord. My soul will exalt in my God, for he's clothed me with garments of salvation. He's wrapped me with the robe of righteousness. As a bridegroom decks himself with a garland, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels." Isn't that verse clearly New Testament language? Brides, bridegrooms, garments of salvation. This is a passage about us as Christians, but now I want you to hear God's poetry about what he was going to do with these people. Verse 11, listen to the poetry, "as the Earth brings forth its sprouts and as a garden causes the thing sown in it to spring up, so the Lord God will cause righteousness and praise to spring up before all the nations." Folks, that is a fantastic prophecy. Here we are, over 2000 years, or 2000 years after our Savior walked the earth. He was a homeless Rabbi living in a very small part of the world, and here we are in a nation across the sea, Millennium later, and we know his name. We know who he is. You know why? Because all through human history, there have been people who knew who Jesus was to them, and they knew what they were doing about it, and God was causing oaks of righteousness and the planting and the flowers and the springtime to grow up in all the darkness in the world. That's our heritage.

But there are two things in that verse that I don't want you to miss. Did you see the two words that describe what God would cause to spring up? Ttwo things, righteousness and praise. You see those two words? Let me illustrate why those two words have to go together. Sometimes I'll visit a congregation, and when I go to that congregation, I realize pretty quickly that they are righteous people. They have right doctrine, they have right teaching. They're doing the right things. People are living godly lives. But when it comes to praise, that mostly happens inside here. They're righteous. But speaking of the praise of God outside of this place, doesn't happen so much. On the other hand, there's been times where I visited congregations, and I get kind of excited, because, you know, you guys aren't the only one who stalk preachers on Facebook. I'll look at some of the people on that in that church before I go. And they're all vocal on Facebook. You know, God is great, God is good. They're always evangelistic on their on their Facebook page. But then I get to know them, and they're not really concerned about righteousness, right doctrine, right teaching. They're not really trying to live holy lives. They want to appear cool to the people in their neighborhood, and so they kind of aren't really being righteous. By the way, what is the Bible call that? When somebody praises God, proclaims God, speaks of God, but then they, by their deeds, deny Him, they don't live righteous lives. What's the Bible call that? Hypocrisy. Is that dangerous for praise to spring up without righteousness? Is it dangerous? God says the name of God is blasphemed because of things like that. You know folks like this. You work with them, they'll talk about Jesus in one sentence, in the next sentence, they're using his name blasphemously. They're doing all kinds of ungodly things, but they're proclaiming the name of God. Praise without righteousness.

But I have a feeling for a lot of us that's not our biggest problem. For me, it was righteousness without praise. If praise without righteousness is hypocrisy, What is righteousness without praise? Before I became a preacher, I worked in downtown San Diego for a capital money management firm called Nicholas Applegate. I started there when I was about 18. I ran the shipping and receiving departments. I knew everybody in the company because of that, and I was determined to be a light in that dark place. I was going to be a Christian in front of them. So, I went the extra mile. I was joyful. I was the person I ought to be. And then I decided to leave that to go preach when I was about 20. And word got around the office that I was leaving to be a preacher, and people said funny things to me, Hey, I hear you're going to be a priest. And I'd be like, Nope, I'm already one of those. And then I'd show him Isaiah 61. Are we going to are we going to see you on TV asking for money, they would say? I'd be like if I if you see me on TV, don't send me any money. But this one conversation happens, I think God did it to me on purpose. It was the last day I was there. I was on the elevator with a guy named Craig. Craig was in his 30s, extraordinarily successful, and he nudged me in the elevator, and he said, Andy, I hear you're leaving to be a preacher. And I kind of straightened up and I said, That's right. He said, Man, I always knew you were a really good guy, but I never knew you were a Christian. And he got off the elevator and I started to cry, you see, because what I done in that place, in going the extra mile and being a happy person and doing good for others, it violated what Jesus taught in the Sermon on the Mount. Do you remember what Jesus said, Do your good deeds in front of men in such a way that they see your good deeds and glorify Him. I've done my good deeds in such a way that what Craig thought was Andy Cantrell was a pretty good guy. If praise without righteousness is hypocrisy, what is righteousness without praise? It's self-promotion, and that doesn't get God's work done. I was determined from that point on, to be far more interested in people understanding the work God did in my life. Not who I was, but who I once was and who I was now because of him.

Let's finish this by going back to Luke four. That was the text Jesus drew their attention to that day, what he wanted to do for them and what he wanted to do with them. But let's look at what he said to get them so angry in verse 23 of Luke four, he said to them, "no doubt you will quote this proverb to Me, Physician, heal yourself. Whatever we heard was done at Capernaum, do here in your hometown as well. He said to them, Truly, I say to you, no prophet is welcome in his hometown, but I say to you, in truth, there were many widows in Israel in the days of Elijah, when the sky was shut up for three years and six months, when a great famine came over all the land. And yet Elijah was sent to none of them, but only to Zarephath in the land of Sidon, to a woman who was a widow. And there were many lepers in Israel in the days of Elijah, the prophet. And none of them was clear, cleansed, but only Naaman the Syrian." And then they want to kill him. What did he say? Well, in addition to saying, You guys aren't going to let me be your physician, you're not going to let me heal you, he told them two Bible stories that they probably always missed. In the days of Elijah, do you think there were other widows in Israel? What do you think? Do you think there were widows in Israel in the days of Elijah? Of course, there were. Show me one story where Elisha helped the widow in Israel. You won't find it. The only thing you'll find is that some foreigner was helped because she knew who this man was. In the days of Elisha, do you think there were lepers in Israel in the days of Elisha? What do you think? Of course, there were, but show me a Bible story where he healed any of them. The only one he healed was a foreigner, Naaman, Syrian. By the way, I like what Jesus says here, putting it with the story of Naaman. Do you remember who told Naaman there was a prophet who could heal his leprosy? Do you remember who told him? A little servant girl. You know what Jesus just told us. She'd never even seen him do it. She just knew he could, and now they want to kill him.

All right, here's the application. You ready? About 18 years ago, I was invited to Minnesota to preach there, that congregation said, we want to get to work, we want to teach people, we want to be evangelistic. We want you to help us. Something interesting happened there. There were a couple of conversions from people who were incredibly broken, drug addictions, real difficulties in their life. But those people knew who Jesus was to them, and they started spreading the gospel. They started bringing their friends. They started having Bible studies, and this weird phenomenon happened in that church. There were some people sitting in the pews who'd been there for two decades, three decades, and they folded their arms and they said something like this, what's going on around here? How come I'm not getting to do any Bible studies? You know what the answer was? For some of those folks they had forgotten who Jesus was to them, or they hadn't even let him deal with things they'd needed. Some of those people were as angry as they'd ever been, as captive to their old ways as they'd always been. Some of those people were still brokenhearted and never allowing God to fix it. But there was a weird dynamic in that church, because those folks with their arms folded could answer all the Bible questions. What did Jesus say here? Where did it say this? Where was he from? And the new Christians, who didn't know any of that, were embarrassed in class because they didn't know anything about Jesus. Except they were the ones changing the world. Someday, somebody may come through those doors who makes you uncomfortable. They're not going to look like you. Their life's going to be different than yours. But if Jesus gets a hold of them and changes their life, and they know who Jesus is to them, don't be surprised if they don't start changing the world around you. And if that day comes, join them. In fact, let me say that a different way, don't even wait for that day to come. Remember right now who it is that Jesus is to you, and if you haven't given him what needs given, allowed him to fix what needs fixing, let him do it. Become the oak that he meant for you to be. Pick up the bricks in a world that's falling apart. Be the priest. Be the ministers. Be all in don't rob them in the burnt offering. Let righteousness and praise spring up in your neighborhood, in your workplace, in your family. Who is Jesus to you and what are you doing about it? Thanks for your attention.