“ME”

“ME”

Text: Matt 11:16 (Luke 7:31); Luke 7:24–50

• Thesis: Our self-centeredness as Christians has replaced God with self.

     Adam and Eves choice to eat from the forbidden fruit was their attempt to replace God

       with ME.

• The golden calf was Israel's defiance and rejection of God with ME.
•  Jeroboam decision to erect a golden calf in the most northern part (Dan) and most

   southern parts (Bethel) of Israel was his attempt to reject God and lift up ME.

•  The current economic crisis is out of control because of ME.
•  The racial and social divide in this country is because of ME.
•  God seeing the problem in the beginning, determined to send his Son to die for the sins of ME.
•  He gave his Holy Spirit to help me with ME.
•  And one day he’s coming back for ME.

The New God: "ME" Today people are focused on how to satisfy me. There was an old godzilla

movie about a monster that was terrorizing the country; only to find out that the monster was the

collection of all of the people’s garbage/pollution. And since people were so fixated on satisfying

self, they took no thought to what their garbage was doing to the earth.

1. What do we look to get out of church? Are we open to change after being enlightened by the

scriptures? Have we become so fixed in our current status that change is almost impossible?

What if we hear the truth concerning our ways and refuse to submit to God to change, then what

is the purpose? Unless we have changed the paradigm for church. Do we go to church to change,

or do we go to hear something that satisfies our current status of sin? And when we hear

something that offsets our paradigm, is our response an instantaneous flushing "down the drain?"

Exegete the Text

After Jesus preaches and teaches his famous “Sermon on the Plain” (in Matthew it is called the

“Sermon on the Mount”) Jesus goes to Capernaum and there heals a centurion’s servant. The

next day, the Lord goes to Nain and raises a widow’s son from his casket as the family is on their

way to the burial. John’s disciples who had been with Jesus went back to show John all the deeds

of the Lord Jesus. While John is in prison, he asked them, “Is he the one or look we for another?”

Jesus then tells these disciples to go back and tell John that the blind are given their sight, the

lame walk, the dead be risen, and the gospel is preached to the poor. Then Jesus begins to

explain John’s purpose and lifts the misunderstanding of the people concerning John and Jesus.

Jesus compares his generation to children playing two games in the market. The children pretend

marriages and funerals.

32 They are like unto children sitting in the marketplace, and calling one to another, and saying,

We have piped unto you, and ye have not danced; we have mourned to you, and ye have not

wept.

33 For John the Baptist came neither eating bread nor drinking wine; and ye say, He hath a devil.

34 The Son of man is come eating and drinking; and ye say, Behold a gluttonous man, and a

winebibber, a friend of publicans and sinners!

35 But wisdom is justified of all her children.

In comparing John to himself, (1) Jesus was saying both have preached but the desired outcome

of a changed heart in some has not been met. Jesus was directing his words to the Pharisees.

Luke noted how the publicans had received John and Jesus’ messages. (2) The Pharisees justified

themselves by finding fault in John and in Jesus.

The narrative that follows drives Jesus’ point home. And home is the place that deserves our

attention. A Pharisee by the name of Simon desired Jesus to have dinner at his house. While at

dinner a woman, a known sinner enters and begins to anoint the Lord’s feet with precious

ointment. The Pharisee begins to murmur within himself concerning Jesus (v. 39).

To deal with his attitude, Jesus tells Simon the Pharisee a parable.

HOLD FOR A DIFFERENT MESSAGE

2. What was the model of church worship in the NT? And why is our current model drastically

different? The NT model of church was designed for believers and not for unbelievers. The

modern church model is designed for unbelievers. Thus our music with its jazzy flavor appeals

more so to the world than Christians. Further, since the church design is nonbeliever centered,

you dare not focus to much time on preaching and teaching. The world model for church are

short, more music, less preaching, shorter sweater more entertaining sermons, and more activity

base that emphases the in-crowd with very little attention on evangelism. This is not the case

everywhere, but I am seeing this more and more.

3. How do we get back to the NT church worship model? Or even yet why bother when so many

have never been a part of it. The very nature of a NT worship model is foreign to many of us.

Church today is more culturally based than NT based where style, sound, and energy has

replaced the hearing and studying of the scriptures. Our current church model resembles more so

the church period of the reformers and their derivatives (must show evidence). The black church

has added a bit of African flavor (must show evidence).

The NT church model was outlined by reading letters of the apostles and OT scriptures, praying,

singing songs, partaking of the Lord's Supper and expounding on those readings. Interestingly,

preaching was at a minimum in the first century. However, our knowledge of such is limited. We

can see the fruits of such worship practices among the patristic fathers' period (show evidence).

a. Singing spiritual songs. Eph 5:19.

b. Readings. 1 Tim 4:13; Col 4:16.

c. Prayers. Acts 2:42.

d. Teaching. Acts 2:42; 1 and 2 Timothy. Paul's preaching into the night. Church in the NT was

typically in houses. Initially, the Jewish church sprung out of the synagogue and the common

areas of the temple in Jerusalem: the Gentile court.

e. The Lords Supper

f. Offering. 1 Cor 16:1-2; Acts 20:35.

g. Some form of outreach. Acts 6; 20:35; Gal 2:10. Is it taking? Is church taking? Never measure

a church by its size, but how it gives. Never measure a church by how loud it sounds, but by how

much it does for the poor. You will know you're in the right church if the argument is not on

whether or not to help or who, or how, but when. The wrong church is the church centered on

itself and not the low and the cast outs. You know if it is the wrong church if they can never

agree on coming together to help the hungry and the hurting. You know its the wrong church if

people in it keep saying "its their church" as not mean something positive but to say its my

church and so we will do things our way, where they believe that their way is Gods way. You

can't tell me how the money should be spent because this is my church, God gave me a equal

voice in making the decisions for it.

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Application

1. We have piped unto you and mourn to you... implies that God has done what is necessary to

cause you to repent, but yet there is no change. The preaching of the cross is unto salvation. The

teaching that follows after one has been converted is unto sanctification.

2. Sometimes the proof of if the message is taking is after we get home or when church is over.

One of the Pharisees who had not been baptized by John received Jesus into his house.

Apparently even this Pharisee named Simon was unchanged even by Jesus message because

while at dinner with Jesus, Simon condemned Jesus within himself because Jesus received this

sinful woman. In other words, it doesn't matter how great our attendance is at church, the proof

of our faith is how we treat each other.

3. I love Jesus because he knows how to communicate truth to convict our hearts by telling a

story and then forgiving the woman. Three things she did that should catch our attention. 1. She

came to Jesus. 2. She gave something of herself to the Lord that was very costly. 3. She

worshipped Jesus. Simon was so busy focusing on the woman and probably her sins that he

could not see his own problem. The woman knew that she had a problem. It was her “ME” factor

that was the sin in her life. But the blessing and the difference between her and Simon was that

she brought Jesus her problem. Simon was so focused on everyone else that he could not see “ME.”

For the woman: All to Him I owe, sin has left a crimson stain, but he washed “ME” white as

snow.

Jesus knew something about ‘ME.” Satan tried to get Jesus to yield to “ME,” the flesh in the

wilderness.

Concerning how Jesus dwelt with the “ME” in himself, Paul recites the church hymn:

5 Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus:

6 Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God:

7 But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in

the likeness of men:

8 And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death,

even the death of the cross.

9 Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name:

10 That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and

things under the earth;

11 And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

Ernest L. Williams, Sr., June 19, 2022