Let’s see your bibles, let’s see our bibles, word. Let’s see your pens, bring out your pens and your lesson plan, lesson plan. Let’s turn to Matthew 26, Matthew 26.
Someone comes up with an idea and they go – Well I don’t know and they have 20 reasons why it won’t work. Now there’s nothing wrong with analyzing stuff. You have to analyze in order to strategize but you should analyze and strategize so you can get it done not so you can prove it won’t work. That’s the difference. And some people say they have all the details but great, tell me how to do it not why it won’t work. And then sometimes people hear stuff and they hear a somebody did something and they always think of the negative.
Like the other day I told someone my wife and I went to therapy and I’m thinking in my mind = I better explain what that is because they’re gonna think= Oh pastor Miles is getting a divorce. No it was physical therapy. Oh, they're having intimacy problems. No she has issues with her shoulder. It’s frozen and for 9 months she’s been in pain and we went to the SD Sports Medicine. They’re doing wonders for her.
So you always have to explain cuz people will always want to find the negative. You hear someone driving down the street and there’s loud music boom-boom-boom. Oh they must be listening to gangster rap. They probably have a gun under their seat. No it’s actually the Celine Dion Christmas hip hop remix with Celine and 40 cent ok? Not 50 cent, 40 cent. We always want to see something negative in everything.
Well Christ had those same people in His life, the people you just saw, the critics. They lived their whole life, the 3 years Christ ministered, Christ’s ministry was only 3 years and all they wanted to do was to prove Him wrong. They were the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the chief priests, the scribes, the experts in the law. They didn’t necessarily agree with each other. They just agreed to disagree with Christ.
And just as you and I have critics, and by the way every single one of us in this room have people who all they think about is negative about us and the more people you know, the more critics you have. The more popular you are, the more known you are, the more critics you have. That’s just the way it is. So just deal with it. But guess what? Christ had them too and they had Him killed. They had Him, you haven’t been killed yet and you won’t be killed by your critics most likely. You won’t be but Christ had them.
What we’re gonna learn today is not only how He dealt with it but more importantly what His critics proved because if you, as we talk about who Christ is you can learn about His identity by what His critics said about Him because His critics did more to prove His identity as Christ as God than to disprove it. I’m gonna say that again. It’s very critical for you to understand. Christ’s critics did more to validate the fact that He was God than to disprove the fact that He was God. They defeated their own purpose and also they revealed their own insecurity.
Couple things you have to know about critics: Critics cannot define who you are. Critics do not and cannot, if you don’t let them, define who you are. You can have people talking behind your back everyday, it doesn’t change who you are. Critics cannot defeat God’s purpose in your life as long as you obey. Critics don’t even know you.
My wife and I have been together 25 years. We’ve been married 20 years and a half, it will be 20, thank you it will be 21 years in September and the other day we were having a conversation about my son. He plays football and she said, I don’t where this came from but she says – You know if Miles never played football again, he plays baseball now I’m just not a baseball guy. It’s just a very boring game. Believe me baseball’s a great sport and everything but it’s just like…… so he’s playing a baseball game you know it’s like, we just sit there and we go to the games 2 or 3 times a week and it’s just so, football’s like you know violent and you know just hmph. So she says to me – If Miles never played football again I would be so happy and I looked at her. I said – I don’t even know you. 21 years we’ve been married, 24 years we’ve been together, 25 years! I don’t even know who you are. If I don’t know my wife, we have to start our whole, it just rocked my, I have to start our whole relationship all over again. If I have to, if I have to….. If I don’t even know my wife how can you know somebody you don’t even know to know how you can talk about them? We don’t.
Now what we’re gonna learn today is that our critics, Jesus’ critics did more to validate His identity then to disprove it which is what their attempt was. If you are someone who has doubts about Jesus Christ, who He is, what He did for you, what He offers you, the hope He has for you, the ability He has to transform your life, if you have doubts my challenge to you is this: If those doubts are removed, then why doubt? And if you’re gonna see in a minute that the critics, the people who lived with Christ and walked with Him for 3 years and tried to trap Him and tried to speak evil of Him, tried to prove Him wrong, even if they couldn’t prove Him wrong and they were there how much less can you prove Him wrong? And if you remove all the obstacles between you and trusting in Christ, if your remove all the obstacles between you and you laying down your life completely at His feet saying – Lord whatever you want me to do. If you remove all those obstacles then you have no other choice but to trust Him.
When I was playing with the Chargers our equipment manager was a guy named Sid Brooks and he was um, he used to talk trash all the time. He was an older guy, older than the players and he used to always walk around just talking trash and he was a very beloved guy. He’s got pictures up in his offices with him and presidents and Collin Powell. This guy was an equipment manager but he was like this world famous guy and he would walk around with this chest, he called his chest Mt. Brooks. I mean mount, like you know mount, like Mt. St. Helens like this is a mountain. You go climbing. He’d say – You want to go rock climbing and he would stick out his chest? So one day he looked at me and he says – You want some of this? And I was like – Man, shut up man, old man. He says – Look there’s nothing between me and you but air and opportunity. Then he would (woof) blow away the air. Are you feeling me on this?
And if, if the only thing between you and Christ is a bunch of obstacles and then a new life, hopefully today is gonna remove those obstacles. At least the concept that there are none, at least no legitimate one. The only thing between you and God is a whole bunch of opportunity for a whole new life.
Let’s look at a few reasons why and a few ways that they criticized. 1-I’ll just go through these real quick and then we’ll get to our lesson. They criticized Christ out of envy, Matthew 27:18. The bible says that Pilate out of envy they handed Christ over to them. They were just jealous of Christ. They were just jealous of Him.
Then it says in Matthew, now you don’t have to look these up. I’m gonna go too fast. They had evil thoughts. Jesus Christ forgave someone of his sins and they thought evil and Christ says – Why do you think evil in your mind? Critics think evil of you. People will think evil of you. People will be envious of you. They didn’t want to give Christ any credit for his good deeds. When He cast demons out of someone they said it was of the power of the devil that He did it. It wasn’t the power of God.
So people when they see you do something good they’re always gonna make an excuse and try to explain it away. The bible says they tried to trap Him in His words and twist His words around, and catch Him saying something wrong. People are always gonna try to catch you in stuff. You know people won’t always talk directly against you all the time. Sometimes they’ll sneak criticism in. In other words you may start dating somebody new and they’ll go – So ah how’s it going? They don’t really want to know how’s it going, they want to get some dirt. Well you know I heard last time you know he was rally abusive to his last girlfriend. I just want to know how he was doing with you. They’re just trying to get you. They’re trying to trap you and/ or they’ll ask someone else – Have you heard anything about that? You know they’re just trying to sneak, sneaky.
And by the way criticism and gossip only work if you have a sinful ear to listen to it. If you are known as a person who don’t listen, people won’t come to you. but if you find people always coming to you with gossip, do you know what that says about you? That you got a gossip ear. You can stop it. All you have to do is say – I don’t want to hear it. Next time they come to you – I don’t want to hear it. You know you need to pray. You need to go to church. And you know what? They’ll stop coming to you. But if you’re a person that says – Oh yeah, so tell me more. Oh I didn’t know that. Oh wow, tell me, you’re not doing anything but listening and you think you’re innocent. You‘re just as guilty cuz you got a sinful ear. Don’t be that sinful ear. Say – You know you need to take that gossip somewhere else. You don’t need to go home but you need to get up on out of here.
Another thing they said, they did, they compared Christ to evil people. What did they do? They had Him crucified with other criminals. And they’ll say – Oh He’s just like those other preachers. Or He’s just like those other businessmen. Or He’s just like those other athletes or whatever they’ll say about you. Or she’s just like those other women that just da-da-da-da-da…. They’re comparing you to somebody else, labeling you. We’ve all been labeled before amen? That’s what critics do. They tried to sabotage Jesus’ works. They tried to prevent Him from rising from the dead as we’re gonna see in a minute. They used the bible against Him. They said He’s breaking the bible. Oh my gosh if someone goes against the bible, you know they’re wrong. And you’ll hear people say – Well that’s not, that’s not scriptural. Well do you really, really know? You better know when you say that because that’s a big thing to say and when people say that don’t, don’t just accept it. Make them prove it to you and when they prove it to you make sure they can prove that 1=They know what the bible really means and 2-That they really know if that’s what the person really did. Some of them – Well you know that’s just not scriptural. Well that church is not scriptural. Well come on do you really know what’s really going on? You probably don’t and what that means is just mind your own business. Just mind your business.
Lastly they’ll pay people and get other people to side against you. They paid Judas Iscariot one of His disciples to betray Him. They’ll do the same thing to you. But here’s 2 things if you write, taking notes I want you to write these 2 things down. Here’s 2 things that critics do. 1-Critics are attempting in their own small insignificant sinful, deceitful, backstabbing way to prevent you from succeeding. They do not want God’s purpose to be fulfilled in your life. You, there is nothing constructive about criticizing someone behind their back or even criticizing to their face if all you’re doing is criticizing verses giving constructive counsel. Different! But if you’re just saying – Oh look at that, and look at that. All you’re trying to do is pull them down. Why? If this podium is the height of their stature, this is where you’re at and because you can’t make yourself any better what you do is you want to pull them down. So there you go. Now I feel better about myself. That’s all, that’s all criticism is, is you’re pulling someone down because you feel bad about yourself.
And that’s the 2nd point, not only are they trying to prevent someone from succeeding it is, the criticism is a sign of your own internal battle, your own insecurity, your own fear, your own jealousy, your own envy that’s all it is. So if you find yourself talking about somebody or you find yourself listening to someone talk and you’re both, I don’t know which one’s equally wrong but you’re both wrong. All you’re doing is demonstrating your need to feel better about yourself and why is that? Because you and God ain’t right. Because if you and God are right, guess what? You will feel so good about yourself.
You know it’s so biblical to look yourself in the mirror and say – I love myself. Uh-hum kiss my back, um. James Brown said he stepped back and kissed himself. You know what? It’s so biblical to say I love myself. If you can’t love yourself, how are you gonna love somebody else? Now loving yourself doesn’t mean I worship myself. It doesn’t mean I’m the best in the world. It just means I like who God made and I like the fact that He loves me and what God shows me about myself and what God shows me about my future is so exciting. If you don’t love yourself in that way you have a big problem cuz what you’re telling God is several things. 1-God you made junk. God don’t make junk. God your plan for me is no good. I’d rather be somebody else. God you made a mistake. Oh that’s messed up. You need to say – You know God, I appreciate what you have done in my life and even though I’ve attempted to mess it up everyday you still love me. Woo! Thank you God, thank you God.
Well let’s look at this. 4 examples.
And by the way I don’t walk around kissing myself. That’s James Brown, ok, just so you all don’t walk around – He’s just kissing himself. The half empty person may walk out and that’s all they remember is that I kissed myself. I’m not going there anymore. Thank you.
#1-They had false witnesses spread lies about Jesus because He taught with great authority and wisdom. They had false witnesses spread lies about Jesus because He taught with great authority and wisdom. Verse 57, chapter 26 of Matthew it says – And those who had laid hold of Jesus led Him away to Caiphas the high priest with the scribes and elders were assembled. But Peter followed Him at a distance at the high priest, to the high priest courtyard and he went in and sat with the servants to see the end. And the chief priests, the elders, and all the counsel sought false testimony. They found, looked for people to lie against Jesus so they could put Him to death but they found none. Even though many false witnesses came forward they found but at least 2 false witnesses came forward and they said – This fellow said – I am able to destroy the temple and to build it up in 3 days which wasn’t a lie.
What does that tell you? #1-That Jesus Christ’ argument was so true, His character was impeccable they couldn’t get any legitimate lie and any legitimate thing against Him. So they had to find people to lie. He was so righteous. He was so together.
Matter of fact when you are really, really good people got to lie about you. If you wanted to find something against me you don’t got to lie. There’s a whole bunch of stuff you can find against me that’s wrong. Same thing with the person next to you. Amen? I mean not for the person next to you, amen about yourself? You’re like amen brother, amen! I heard a guy once say you know someone was accusing this guy of something and he said – Is that all you got on me? 3 things? That’s the best criticism of me you can find? You don’t really know the whole story then. You know we all got our junk and your point is that we’re all human.
They couldn’t find anything against Jesus. So they tried to find people to make lies and even the lie was a truth, that He said He was gonna die and rise from the 3rd day. What does that tell you? That tells you that Christ was sinless. So the critics attempts to find lies is like – Wait a minute. If He’s so bad, why do you have to find someone to lie? Well we can’t find any truth in this bad boy. What does that tell you? That He is who He says. I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father but through me. I am truth. I do not lie. I am holy. I am righteous and it shows you how desperate His critics were.
Here you are 2000 years later. What makes you think you’re gonna find something against Christ that’s true if they couldn’t and they lived with Him for 3 years? Watched Him. and these were religious bible scholars in the law, experts in the law. The law is the Old Testament law not the legal system like we have today.
#2-It says they accused Jesus of blaspheme because He claimed to be God. You just saw the clip where they said blaspheme. Blaspheme means evil speaking, that you are speaking evil against and the, the blasphemist thing that Christ did was He claimed to be God Himself and He did several times or at least they recorded several times in the bible where He forgave sin. They said that was blasphemous because only God can forgive sin. So He was saying – I’m like God. That you couldn’t do that because you couldn’t, blaspheme was too, also to attribute the divine attributes to a created being or a man which is a created being. And they were saying – You are only a man. That’s God. You can’t say you can do what God does. You can’t say you have the authority of God so we have to kill you because the penalty for blaspheme was death. That’s the penalty. That’s why they just killed Him.
Look what it says in same chapter, verse 62. It says – The high priest rose and said to Him – Do you have any answer? Or do you answer nothing? What are these, what is it these men testify against you? And Jesus kept silent and the high priest answered and said – I put you under oath by the living God. Tell us if you are the Christ, the Messiah, the Son of God. Put your hand on yourself and raise your other hand and say – I do swear to tell the truth, nothing but the whole truth so help me Me! He’s God so He can’t, He don’t have to swear by Himself. He just has to say it. Are you the Christ? Are you the Messiah? Are you God’s son? To them they’re asking Him are you God? And you just saw what He said. Let’s read it. It says – It is as you said. Or He said I am. Nevertheless I say to you – Hereafter you will see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of the power or the Father and coming on the clouds of heaven.
Christ not only said – I am who you ask, but let me put an explanation point on that. You’re gonna see me sitting at the right hand of the Father coming on the clouds just as Matthew in the Old Testament predicted the Messiah would. That’s why they ripped their clothes.
Now what is the point? The point is that they killed Him because He claimed to be Messiah. Well Him claiming to be God is not a sin if it’s right.
Muhammad Ali was the master of talking trash. But did he? He would predict the round he would knock people out in. He would say – You’re going to heaven in seven. 7th round, boop, he would knock a dude out. He would predict rounds, times or sometimes they were true, I mean sometimes they were wrong but most of the time it was right. Was he talking trash or was he a prophet? Not a true prophet but you know what I’m saying. And so you listen to him running his mouth, running his mouth, actually he was, he was the best marketer ever in the history. He marketed himself like no other and if he tells the truth then what do you have to argue with?
If Christ says He’s God then the big question is – Is He? And if He’s not, then their perception and their accusations that He’s telling a lie is wrong but what we know beyond a shadow of a doubt is that what His critics are telling us is that Christ claimed to be God. Absolutely! He did. So when you hear people say – Well Jesus never claimed to be God. His own critics say He did and we saw that His apostles say He did. We saw the week before that, that He said He did. So even His critics will say He claimed to be God. Even His critics will say He talked with authority or represented that because they had to get a lie. They had to find lies. So if you think well did He, did He say He was God? Was He true? Absolutely. Cuz even the people who hated Him will tell that’s what He said over and over and over again.
They’re starting to debate whether they should teach intelligent design in public schools along with evolution because scientists are starting to come out against evolution because there’s no scientific basis for evolution. Scientists are now saying this. So there’s this big debate. Matter of fact in Kansas they just had a big hearing on this. Well all these scientists came out and none of the evolutionists Darwin, Darwinian scientists came to the debate. They didn’t show up and it was on Kahuto and whatever that show is, they said, they asked this lady who was um, ah this big proponent of evolution Jeannie Scott – How come the scientists never came? You guys didn’t even come to argue your side. Well we, I been to so many of those things and nothing ever happened. It’s like – No, no, they didn’t come because they got no argument. Now so what they, here’s the argument: If the evidence shows that there is intelligent design and the evidence of what we see and create in nature shows, or in scientific experimentation. The scientific process denies or invalidates the theory of evolution, why not at least show it for what it is? Don’t just tell people there’s no other option.
I was in my, when my wife was in therapy I’m into you now science and medicine and all that kind of stuff and I was asking the doctor, the therapist a bunch of questions. We started talking about propioception. I was like – Yeah I know what propioception is da-da-da cuz he was telling her this exercise will wake up the propioceptors in your body. Propioceptors is a, um a component of function of your nervous system. And it tells your limbs where they are in space.
In other words when you walk you don’t have to look at the ground to know that the ground’s gonna touch your foot. Most people don’t have to do that. Some people just, you know you just kind of really uncoordinated so you have to look at the ground but mostly you don’t have, your feet, your body knows where it is in relation to things around them so you can just walk and know it’s gonna touch the ground. You can close your eyes, most people, and you can put your finger to your nose because your hand knows where it is in relation to your face. When you get drunk propioception gets all out of whack. That’s why people do this. Or people walk like this cuz they don’t know where the ground is. Well think about it.
Your nervous system, your limbs, your whole body has space perception. What’s that? Where did that come from? Where did that concept even come from? An intelligent designer. Well over billions of years our body just existing it figured it out. Does that, you got to have more faith to believe that.
The point is this, if it’s true, well then it’s true. Don’t say it’s not true just because you don’t want it to be true. If Christ said He was God, well maybe He was. And don’t listen to someone who criticizes Him just because they’re against Him and you don’t want to be for Him and by the way, the reason you don’t want to be for Him or the reason they didn’t want to be for Him, because if He was God then all their power is gone. All their leverage over people was gone. That was the point. It wasn’t the facts. It was their perception and if you want to pull somebody down because you don’t think you can go up, if you want to make someone else look bad, worse then you because you don’t think there’s any other way to feel better about yourself, guess what? There is another way you can feel better about yourself. There is another way you can have more purpose in your life, more fulfillment. It’s with a relationship with Jesus Christ.
#3, #3 it says – They kicked Jesus when they thought He was down. They mocked Him while He suffered and attempted to discredit His claims to save other people. Look at verse, 27:38, verse 38. It says, verse 38 – Then 2 robbers were crucified with Him. 1 on the right and 1 on the left and those who passed by blasphemed or spoke evil of Him, wagging their heads saying- You who destroy the temple and build it in 3 days, save yourself. If you are the Son of God come down from the cross. Likewise the chief priest also mocking with the scribes and elders said – He saved others, Himself He cannot save. If He’s the king of Israel let Him come down now from the cross and we’ll believe. He trusted in God. Let Him deliver Him now if He will have Him for He said – I am the Son of God. Even the robbers crucified with Him reviled Him and said the same thing.
Now what we, what’s factual here? The factual thing is that these critics believed that Christ said that He was the Son of God based on what we just read. They believed He said He was the Son of man based on what we just read. They believed He said He was the king of Israel based on what we just read and they believed that He said He’s gonna save other people based on what their own words and all that is true! Christ did say He was the Son of God, the Son of Man, king of Israel, and would save other people. All that’s true. Their own words say that and what they’re saying is prove it. Look at you now. Oh the devil’s so good to kick us when we’re gown.
Whenever we’re down the devil’s gonna come around and say – See I told ya. Don’t Christians do that to each other? We are the worst. Christians and just my experience with being saved 21 years, Christians have inflicted more pain on me than non-Christians by far. Non-Christians kind of know – Hey we’re, that’s ok. People are sinners. Christians – Oh see I told you he’s not perfect. He said she’s a Christian and look at her. Beat us when we’re down.
Now I wasn’t in Jesus’ head but I have a theory: He’s on the cross and they’re talking all this trash. I could be wrong but it don’t matter, you’ll know why. In His mind He’s thinking – Just wait till Sunday. It ain’t over till it’s over.
Yogi Bear the master of the duh statements. It ain’t over till it’s over. Yogi had another one where he’s talking about Afflack and it gives you money for your insurance – Afflack. You ever see that commercial and he’s getting his hair cut and he says – Hey they give you cash. It’s just as good as money. You’re thinking –I don’t get it. There’s nothing to get. Exactly. That’s the point. Cash is money. It ain’t over until it’s over.
So Christ is on the cross, when people start criticizing other people wait till the end of the story. Think of all the people whose back you ever talked behind. Did you ever really destroy their life? No! What did you ever do? Frustrate yourself. That’s it. And poison someone else’s opinion.
There was a guy a pastor in this town I heard about for years from other pastors how evil this guy was. No lie, years! He did ying-ying-ying for years I kept hearing this. I was like – Man 1-Get a life and stop talking about the dude. And 2-Could the guy be that bad? I met the guy and I was like – You? The guy was the nicest guy. He wasn’t the guy with the problem. It was the people talking about him. But for years I was poisoned, poisoned, poisoned and then when I met him I was like – Oh I want to be your friend. I didn’t not meet him because, I just never saw him and really my opinion about him, it was more of inquisitive, how could all this be true?
If you think and listen what people say about people, think about it – could it all really be true? Could people really be that bad? Or is it the person talking?
Jesus Christ on the cross saying – Uh-hum, just wait till Sunday. He saved others. How is it, He can’t even save Himself. He wasn’t trying to save Himself. He was laying His life on the cross for us, for you, for every single person that ever talked behind His back, cursed His name. That’s who He was dying for. Oh my goodness and you know what? He could have come down but He didn’t. He says – I’m gonna endure all the pain just so all your sin can be forgiven. That’s the kind of Savior we want.
Look at the 4th one. They guarded the tomb Jesus was buried in because He promised to rise 3 days after He died. Verse 62, chapter 27 it says – On the next day which followed the day of preparation the chief priests, the Pharisees gathered together to Pilate saying – Sir we remember while He was still alive how the deceiver said, everyone say deceiver. That’s what they called Him.
Now by the way, if you ever hear somebody call somebody a name that’s their perception not necessarily factual. Christ wasn’t a deceiver but that’s what they called Him. Look what it says, look what the deceiver said. After 3 days I will rise. Is that true? That’s what He said. So again the critic says – He’s gonna rise after 3 days and He’s lying. It is what He said, we just don’t believe it.
