January 24, 2010
Morning Worship
Text: Matthew 13:10-23
Subject: The King of God
Title: Knowledge is the Key
Have you ever seen the ads on TV that tell you that you may have money waiting for you? That you possibly have money that the state is holding while they have been looking for you. I get emails like that too. You know when I first heard about that it thought, “How silly”! But then I started to rethink the possibilities. What if I did have money just waiting for me and I didn’t do anything about it. What if that money was there, just waiting for me to claim it, and I didn’t know about it. What good would it do me?
Let’s go a step further. What if my car broke down on the highway and I had to call a wrecker to come and tow it in? So after six months or so, I’ve been thinking about it so I call my insurance company and say, “You know, I don’t want that to happen to me a gain. I would like to purchase some towing insurance. And they tell me that I had towing insurance all along. My ignorance of the truth cost me something. I held something in my own hand that was mine, that came with the package, and I didn’t use it because I didn’t know it was there.
There has been a downward spiral in the church of Jesus Christ for the last 1500 years in which many of the benefits of being called a child of God have taken a back seat to human tradition and religion. The church has always had the keys to the kingdom. Jesus said in Matthew 16, I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it. 19I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven… Now it has been commonly interpreted that the keys to the kingdom are in reference to the authority of Christ that has been given to the church. But I want to show you today that the keys go beyond authority. I believe the keys to be the knowledge that you have Christ’s authority. You see, you can have His authority, but unless you know you have it, it doesn’t do much for you.
Hosea 4:6, my people are destroyed from lack of knowledge.
Let’s look today to see that knowledge is the key.
Read Matthew 13:10-23
Lord, open my eyes to see and my ears to hear what the Spirit is saying to the church.
I. THE KNOWLEDGE OF THE SECRETS OF THE KINGDOM. 10The disciples came to him and asked, “Why do you speak to the people in parables?” 11He replied, “The knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of heaven has been given to you, but not to them. Why was knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom given to the disciples? It is because they are Christ followers. They listened. They believed. They wanted more. They could never get enough. Where did that knowledge come from? It came from the words that Jesus spoke. Even though Jesus was speaking in parables the disciples were able to harvest the spiritual information that was contained in them. They wanted to understand and to receive more. Now, did the disciples always understand Jesus’ parables? Obviously not, because later on He sees that He has to take time to explain it to them. But it is being revealed to them because of their desire to know. Verse 12, Whoever has will be given more, and he will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken from him. Whoever has what? Whoever has the knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of heaven. Do you realize that knowledge isn’t something that is just handed to you? There is something that must transpire on your part in order for you to attain spiritual knowledge and understanding. Jeremiah 33:3, ‘Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know. God didn’t say that we could sit and wait until we received revelation knowledge. He said that we need to call to Him. We need to ask seek and knock. We need to desire to know more of His word and the spiritual implications that are contained there for us. Whoever has some knowledge of the kingdom, if they are seeking God and wanting more understanding, they will be given more and they will have an abundance. When Jesus says in verse 12, Whoever does not have, refers to those who have missed out on revelation knowledge because of their rejection of who Jesus is. Whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken from him. Romans 1:20-23, 20For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse. 21For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools 23and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles. Paul is talking about how people know that there is a God. You cannot look at creation and honestly say that there wasn’t a Creator. All evidence points to the fact that there is. But for those who have that knowledge and don’t do anything with it, even that will be taken from them. 13This is why I speak to them in parables: “Though seeing, they do not see; though hearing, they do not hear or understand. 14 In them is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah: “‘You will be ever hearing but never understanding; you will be ever seeing but never perceiving. 15 For this people’s heart has become calloused; they hardly hear with their ears, and they have closed their eyes. Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts and turn, and I would heal them.’ The keys to the kingdom is in the knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom.
II. THE KNOWLEDGE OF THE BLESSINGS OF THE KINGDOM. 16But blessed are your eyes because they see, and your ears because they hear. The word see means, “to behold”. The disciples have a knowledge of blessings that those who came before could not have. They could see the kingdom because Jesus was right there with them. The word hear carries with it the idea of not just hearing but also understanding. They could have an understanding or have knowledge of the blessings that they have received because they have heard the word of God spoken directly to them. 17For I tell you the truth, many prophets and righteous men longed to see what you see but did not see it, and to hear what you hear but did not hear it. Have you ever thought about that? You are more blessed than the apostles, the prophets of old, or any of the OT saints. How could that be? I’m more blessed than Elijah? It is because of God’s progressive revelation of Himself to mankind. The prophets and righteous men longed to see the days of the Messiah and hear the words that He spoke but they couldn’t – because the Messiah hadn’t come yet. What is progressive revelation? Progressive revelation is God’s continual revealing of Himself to mankind with each successive revelation illuminating the previous revelation. Dr. J. Barton Payne says: "Since God's redemptive acts were progressive, preparing the way for Christ who should come in the fullness of time (Gal 4:4) the accompanying truths that were progressively revealed show in most cases a progressive development. That is, God graciously unfolded both His redemption and His revelation in ways corresponding to man’s capacities to receive them." Adam and Eve knew about one who would come (the seed of the woman) who would crush the head of the seed of the serpent. Moses saw a little different picture of the one who was to come. Deuteronomy 18:15, The LORD your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your own brothers. You must listen to him. Isaiah saw an even different revelation of Jesus, Isaiah 53:4-6, Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted. 5But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed. 6 We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all. John the Revelator saw a different revelation of the Messiah. Revelation 21:2-6, I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. 3And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. 4He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” 5He who was seated on the throne said, “I am making everything new!” Then he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.” 6He said to me: “It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. To him who is thirsty I will give to drink without cost from the spring of the water of life. 7He who overcomes will inherit all this, and I will be his God and he will be my son. And we have an even greater revelation because we have 2000 years of study and understanding of the bible as a whole through which God is revealing Himself to the church today. 1 Corinthians 2:9-10, “No eye has seen, no ear has heard no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him” 10but God has revealed it to us by his Spirit.
III. THE KNOWLEDGE OF THE MESSAGE OF THE KINGDOM. We have revelation knowledge of the secret things of the kingdom. We have knowledge of the blessings in the kingdom. Now God wants us to have a knowledge of the message of the kingdom. What is it? Verse 18, “Listen then to what the parable of the sower means: what does the parable of the sower refer to? We have always been taught that it is about the Word of God – the gospel. But verse 19 says, When anyone hears the message about the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what was sown in his heart. This is the seed sown along the path. What is being sown is the message of the kingdom. So through the revelation of God that we have tells us about salvation that is ours for the asking. It is about the baptism in the Holy Spirit. Healing is revealed to us. The gifts of the Spirit, the fruit of the Spirit, the life that God desires us to live, the way He wants to move supernaturally in our lives – all these things are the message of the kingdom. It is about sowing in the spirit man instead of the natural man. It is walking by faith and not by sight. It is about walking according to the Spirit and not according to the flesh. It is about the freedom you have to step away from a life that is dominated by oppression of the enemy. It about how you have been delivered from bondage to the things of the world. That’s the message of the kingdom. In Mark’s telling of this parable he says, in Mark 4:13, 13Then Jesus said to them, “Don’t you understand this parable? How then will you understand any parable? If you can’t grasp that the parable of the sower is about the kingdom at work in the world today how will you understand more of God’s revelation? 19When anyone hears the message about the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what was sown in his heart. This is the seed (revelation knowledge of the kingdom) sown along the path. 20The one who received the seed that fell on rocky places is the man who hears the word and at once receives it with joy. 21But since he has no root, he lasts only a short time. If you are not rooted in the word of God your revelation knowledge is limited. You don’t have all the promises from His word to stand on. When trouble or persecution comes because of the word, he quickly falls away. Why? Because My people are destroyed because of lack of knowledge. 22The one who received the seed that fell among the thorns is the man who hears the word, but the worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth choke it, making it unfruitful. 23But the one who received the seed (knowledge of the kingdom) that fell on good soil is the man who hears the word and understands it. He produces a crop, yielding a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown.
My people are destroyed from a lack of knowledge. But you have everything that you need to keep from being destroyed. You have God’s word – the revealed word of God. You have the Holy Spirit – God’s power source for your life. You have 2000 years of bible study and supernatural power at work in the church that tells you that God is able to do exceedingly abundantly above what we ask or think… according to the power that is at work within us. You have the secrets, you have the blessings, you have the complete message of the kingdom.
The only thing worse than not having the kingdom dynamics at work in your church is having them and not knowing that you do. The only thing worse than that is having knowledge of the kingdom and not doing anything with it.
The bible is God’s revelation of Himself to mankind. In the bible is everything you need to know about what God wants you to be and what He has done to help you attain it. But it is not an automatic. You need to study. You need to pray. You need to ask the Holy Spirit to show you things about the kingdom that are supposed to be at work in you right now.
Romans 12:2, Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.
God’s will at work in your life, according to His plan.
Jesus is building His church and He has given you the keys to the kingdom - The knowledge of all His plans for you.
That’s kingdom knowledge and it is for you.
