Sheldonville Baptist Church
November 30, 2025

      • Psalm 119:41–48NKJV

  • As The Deer
  • Because He Lives
  • Love Lifted Me
  • Oh Great Is Our God
  • Jesus Name Above All Names
  • Alas! And Did My Savior Bleed?
  • Behold What Manner Of Love
  • Thy Word
  • Unto Thee O Lord
  • The way that the world in general views God today is incredibly selfish. they define God as being a loving, accepting, tolerant being who is there when you need him but doesn’t interfere when you don’t. He is a force for good and safe zone for the troubled. He’s powerful to a degree but not very good at preventing natural disasters or human-initiated violence. So, he’s kind of a mixed bag when it comes to relevance. And poorly defined seems to be preferable, it allows us to be flexible in who God is and how God is.
    Specificity is definitely not popular. Allow God to reveal Himself through the Bible, allow God to have a moral nature that views actions and attitudes as right or wrong, allow God to judge sinful actions and people, allow God to allow people so much agency that we can destroy each other, allow God to judge people or reject those that reject Him, and you immediately have a God that people will not accept.
    We accept the God that we create in our own image and reject that God that created us in His image.
    And then we wonder why He might reject us.
    Irrational.
    In any other relationship, if someone rejects us, we move on—usually with an attitude—to people who value as and accept us for who we are. Why shouldn’t God be the same?
    The reality is that we can know who God is, what God wants, and How God responds with a fair degree of certitude specifically because He has revealed Himself in the Scriptures. And there are several places where we can see how He responds to those who reject Him. The end of Matthew 11 provides us with one example of the contrasting ways He responds to those who reject Him and those who accept Him.

    Jesus offers insults to those who reject Him, 11:20-24

    An insult is an expression, statement, or behavior that is often deliberately disrespectful, offensive, scornful, or derogatory towards an individual or a group.
    Matthew 11:20–24 NKJV
    20 Then He began to rebuke the cities in which most of His mighty works had been done, because they did not repent: 21 “Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the mighty works which were done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. 22 But I say to you, it will be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon in the day of judgment than for you. 23 And you, Capernaum, who are exalted to heaven, will be brought down to Hades; for if the mighty works which were done in you had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day. 24 But I say to you that it shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the day of judgment than for you.”

    Clarifying the cause, 20

    Matthew clarifies, in verse 20, against whom and why Jesus issues condemnation

    The Who

    People in the cities where He had powerfully demonstrated and declared His power and authority

    The Why

    They did not repent, indicating their rejection of Him

    Clarifying the cities, 21-24

    Chorazin and Bethsaida

    A farming village and a fishing village in Galilee
    Two villages that had significant exposure to Jesus
    Two villages that had markedly reject Jesus
    Two village that had responded worse than Tyre and Sidon and would fare worse than Tyre and Sidon in judgment
    Tyre and Sidon were two Phoenician cities who competed with each other for wealth and influence, epitomizing the actions and attitudes of human determination

    Capernaum

    A small city on the shores of the Sea of Galilee
    Sometimes called Jesus’ own city as He appears to have moved there, or at least been based out of there for part of His ministry years
    Matthew 4:13 “13 And leaving Nazareth, He came and dwelt in Capernaum, which is by the sea, in the regions of Zebulun and Naphtali,”
    Matthew 9:1 “1 So He got into a boat, crossed over, and came to His own city.”
    Capernaum had a lot of exposure to Jesus and His message and works but rejected Him
    Sodom doesn’t need much introduction, it epitomized the attitudes and actions of human degeneracy
    Jesus’ rebuke makes it clear that these towns had rejected Him despite His best efforts to win them over, so He was rejecting them. There is a part of us that recoils at that thought, even though we have no problem rejecting people that reject us. Why should Jesus be so foreign to us that He wouldn’t respond this way? We are made in the image of God and could see our propensity for mutual rejection as a reflection of His image. Not to mention, what is the alternative? Forcing them to receive Him would have been far more monstrous in our eyes.
    Fortunately, this rebuke is not protracted. Instead Jesus moves on to those who do receive Him.

    Jesus offers insights to those who receive Him, 11:25-30

    Matthew 11:25–30 NKJV
    25 At that time Jesus answered and said, “I thank You, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that You have hidden these things from the wise and prudent and have revealed them to babes. 26 Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in Your sight. 27 All things have been delivered to Me by My Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father. Nor does anyone know the Father except the Son, and the one to whom the Son wills to reveal Him. 28 Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 29 Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.”
    The insights that Jesus offers are in the context of a prayer of Thanksgiving to the Father. There is a huge contrast here. On the one hand, He rebukes and condemns those who reject Him. On the other hand, He is thankful for, and tender toward, those who receive Him.

    The nature of His followers, 25

    NOT those who are wise and prudent by this world’s standards
    Metaphorical description of those with an unsophisticated mind and a trustful disposition.
    This thought was picked up by the Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 1:26–31 “26 For you see your calling, brethren, that not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called. 27 But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty; 28 and the base things of the world and the things which are despised God has chosen, and the things which are not, to bring to nothing the things that are, 29 that no flesh should glory in His presence. 30 But of Him you are in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God—and righteousness and sanctification and redemption—31 that, as it is written, “He who glories, let him glory in the Lord.””

    The nature of His relationship with the Father, 26-27

    The Son receives all things from the Father
    The Son exclusively knows the Father
    The Son reveals the Father to those who receive Him
    There is a necessary symbiosis between our acceptance of the Son and our knowledge of the Father.
    Jesus clarified this for for the crowds in John 10:23–30 “23 And Jesus walked in the temple, in Solomon’s porch. 24 Then the Jews surrounded Him and said to Him, “How long do You keep us in doubt? If You are the Christ, tell us plainly.” 25 Jesus answered them, “I told you, and you do not believe. The works that I do in My Father’s name, they bear witness of Me. 26 But you do not believe, because you are not of My sheep, as I said to you. 27 My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me. 28 And I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; neither shall anyone snatch them out of My hand. 29 My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of My Father’s hand. 30 I and My Father are one.””
    Jesus clarified this for the Apostle Philip in John 14:8–11 “8 Philip said to Him, “Lord, show us the Father, and it is sufficient for us.” 9 Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you so long, and yet you have not known Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; so how can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? 10 Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me? The words that I speak to you I do not speak on My own authority; but the Father who dwells in Me does the works. 11 Believe Me that I am in the Father and the Father in Me, or else believe Me for the sake of the works themselves.”
    The Apostle John clarified this for his readers in 1 John chapters 4 and 5. 1 John 4:12–16 “12 No one has seen God at any time. If we love one another, God abides in us, and His love has been perfected in us. 13 By this we know that we abide in Him, and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit. 14 And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent the Son as Savior of the world. 15 Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. 16 And we have known and believed the love that God has for us. God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him.”
    We may never fully understand the nature of the Trinity, but it is clear that to reject either Jesus or The Father is to reject both Jesus and The Father; it is simply a rejection of God.

    The nature of His offer and reward, 28-30

    To those who toil to the point of exhaustion, burdened by many things, He offers rest.
    To those who are disillusioned with both human determination and human degeneracy, he offers lessons in humility and rest
    To those failed by religion, He offers relationship and rest
    Judaism as practiced in Jesus’ day was burdensome, Matthew 23:4 “4 For they bind heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on men’s shoulders; but they themselves will not move them with one of their fingers.”
    Burdensome requirements are antithetical to the right practice of Christianity which is supposed to be relational, not religious as the Apostle Peter observed in Acts 15:10 “10 Now therefore, why do you test God by putting a yoke on the neck of the disciples which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear?”
    Jesus invites us to share His yoke. In the ancient world, a young ox would be trained to the yoke by being paired with a strong, experienced ox and then hitched to a light load. The strong, experienced ox would pull the weight. While the young ox felt some of the weight, it wasn’t really pulling it, all it was really doing was learning to walk in the yoke beside another ox.
    Conclusion
    You know how fond I am of the question “What would Jesus do?” Here we get a glimpse of what Jesus did do, which is far more insightful.
    He responded to the people around Him differently based on whether they rejected Him or received Him. We can know how Jesus should or would respond based upon how He did respond. And when we think about our similar tendency, that makes sense: even if some people reject that.
    I don’t think this knowledge would sit any better with, or be any more compelling to, those who reject Jesus. They are gods unto themselves and receive only the god of their own devising. But for those of us who receive Jesus, it is both clarifying and comforting.
    Jesus calls us into ever deeper relationship with Himself that allows Him to pull ever more weight while we learn to walk beside Him.
    What do we do with this? Embrace the yoke. It is the place of peace and perspective where the God of the universe provides all that He demands.

      • Matthew 11:20–24NKJV

      • Matthew 11:25–30NKJV

  • The Battle Belongs To The Lord
Sheldonville Baptist Church
information@sheldonvillebaptist.org
(508) 384-2397
http://sheldonvillebaptist.org
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