First Baptist Church Litchfield
December 7, 2025

      • Isaiah 54:10ESV

  • God Made Low

      • John 16:33ESV

  • Jesus At The Center

      • John 14:27ESV

  • There Blooms A Rose In Bethlehem
  • Away In A Manger

  • Are you tempted to believe that unbelief exists “out there”?

    You might be tempted to believe that unbelief exists “out there”—in the hardened atheist, in the rebellious culture, in the wicked rulers of our age. But Matthew paints a more unsettling picture. Unbelief isn’t just loud rebellion. Sometimes it wears the quiet disguise of familiarity. Sometimes unbelief looks like the people who grew up around Jesus, heard His words, watched His miracles… and still missed Him. Other times unbelief looks like the powerful who hear God’s truth, feel it press on the conscience, and reject it because naming sin feels too costly.
    Matthew gives us two portraits of unbelief—one birthed out of proximity without faith, the other birthed out of truth without repentance. And both warn us:

    Unbelief always blinds the heart—either to Christ’s identity or to Christ’s authority.

    This morning, Matthew invites us to look carefully at both pictures, not simply to diagnose the world around us, but to examine our own hearts.
    Let’s look at the first portrait—unbelief that grows in familiar places, the unbelief that hears Jesus speak but refuses to listen.

    I. Unbelief Uses Familiarity With Jesus to Blind Us to the Glory of Jesus (Matthew 13:53–58)

    Let me walk you verse by verse so you see how unbelief uses familiarity with Jesus to blind you to the glory of Jesus.
    In verse 53, Jesus completes His parables and sets out for His hometown of Nazareth—the same community Joseph and Mary had returned to after fleeing with Him as a young toddler (Matt. 2:23; Luke 4:23). Nazareth was a small, insignificant agricultural village, home to perhaps 200–400 people. Think Fillmore, Illinois. Nazareth was a quiet, tucked-away place nestled in the hills of lower Galilee, far from major trade routes and political centers. To the larger world, Nazareth simply didn’t matter. This is why Nathanael could scoff, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” (John 1:46).
    From ages three to twelve, Jesus grew up in the rhythms of a small Galilean village. He played along the narrow dirt paths with the other children, watched Joseph shape wood and stone with his hands, learned to speak and read both Hebrew and Aramaic, and memorized Scripture in the synagogue school. Week after week He gathered with His community for worship, listening to the Law and the Prophets being read aloud. During the annual feasts, He traveled with His family to Jerusalem, experiencing the joy and gravity of Israel’s worship. Through all of this, the boy Jesus was “growing in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man” (Luke 2:52), and the people of Nazareth was becoming intimately familiar with Jesus.
    Fast forward twenty years. Jesus is a grown man in His thirties. Jesus, just as he did as a child growing up in Nazareth, entered the synagogue to teach the word of God. And when he taught them, he did so with authority and validity. He spoke truth in love and performed works of healing and casting out demons, which Nazareth was already familiar with him doing as they heard of his works in Capernaum (Luke 4:23). And like the people of Capernaum, they responded to Jesus with contempt.
    In verses 54–56, the people of Nazareth respond to Jesus with a series of incredulous questions:
    “Where did this man get this wisdom and these mighty works? Is not this the carpenter’s son? Is not his mother called Mary? Are not his brothers James and Joseph and Simon and Judas? Are not all his sisters with us? Where then did this man get all these things?”
    In other words, they are saying, “We know this man. We’ve known Him His entire life. His father built our homes and fixed our tools. His mother shops where we shop. His brothers and sisters married into our families. He’s a carpenter—not a trained rabbi. He doesn’t have the formal education to speak like this. He hasn’t been endorsed by our scribes or elders. And these miracles… certainly they aren’t from the Lord.”
    Their familiarity to the humanity of Jesus became the sole lens through which they judged Him—and that unbelieving familiarity produced contempt, a contempt that blinded them to his full divinity as the Son of God.
    So in verse 57 we read, “They took offense at Him.” The word Matthew uses for offense is the same word used to describe how the world stumbles over the cross—how Christ crucified is a scandal to the Jews. Jesus Himself is their stumbling block.
    And in verse 58, Matthew exposes both the heart behind their response and its consequence:
    “And He did not do many mighty works there, because of their unbelief.”
    The people of Nazareth knew Jesus well—at least they thought they did. They knew His mother, His brothers, His trade, His childhood reputation. In their minds, they had Jesus figured out. And that false familiarity became the soil in which unbelief grew like weeds.
    Their problem was not a lack of information—it was a lack of worship. As I said a few sermons ago in Matthew thirteen, “Familiarity can shrink God in our eyes.” And when Jesus is shrunk, faith becomes impossible.
    In my sermon, The Fortress of God, we reflected on how fear shrinks God—how fear whispers, “God is not as big or good as He claims.” But here in Nazareth, it is not fear—it is familiarity. Familiarity whispers, “We already know everything we need to know about Jesus.” And when you believe you already know Him, you stop listening to Him.
    I once sat across the table from a young man whose heart had been hardened by familiarity. He grew up in a Christian home. He read the Bible. He spent years under solid preaching. He knew the language, the stories, the doctrines. And with a straight face he said to me, “Pastor, you’ve never preached anything I haven’t already heard. I already know everything there is to know about Jesus and the Bible.”
    I was stunned.
    I looked at him and said, “My friend, I’ve studied Scripture for more than twenty years. Five of those years were spent immersed in it at school. Another ten were spent preaching it week after week, teaching it in Sunday School, counseling with it, and hiding it in my own heart. And after all that, I am convinced I haven’t even begun to scratch the surface of knowing Jesus. In fact, I believe one of the great joys of heaven will be spending eternity discovering more and more of who He is.”
    If you think familiarity with Jesus doesn’t blind people today, you are sorely mistaken. I saw it in that young man. I see it in so many in the church today. And I believe it is one of the greatest hindrances to revival in our nation.
    We assume we know Jesus simply because we have been a nation richly blessed by Him. We have taken His presence for granted, assuming that our children and grandchildren will automatically follow Jesus simply because His name has long been woven into the fabric of our culture: engraved on our buildings, entwined in our holidays, embroidered onto the robes of the courts, the colleges, and the clergy. But we mistake exposure for intimacy, blessing for belief, and cultural Christianity for saving faith. And so familiarity with Jesus has failed us, and the consequence is we have stripped His name from our buildings, emptied Him from our holidays, and replaced His place in our courts, our colleges, and even among our clergy with injustice, foolishness, and unbelief. God help us.
    This portrait warns us, our nation, and particularly, as lifelong churchgoers:
    You can grow up in a “Christian culture” and in church and still not know Christ. You can memorize Scripture and still miss the Savior. You can be “close” to Jesus yet remain far from Him, and if you're still not convinced of this, Jesus ensured you knew of the life of the wayward disciple Judas as a lesson to you:

    “Proximity to Jesus does not guarantee saving faith in Jesus.”

    You need repentance—turning away from sin with a whole heart. You need faith in the finished work of Jesus, a faith that endures until the day He calls you home or returns in glory. And your children and grandchildren need you to proclaim the whole gospel and to live a life that reflects it, removing every possible stumbling block from their path so they might come to saving faith. You need to plead with God to draw your children and grandchildren to His Son, and the Holy Spirit to do a work of regeneration.
    Do not settle for a familiarity-based faith. Embrace a living, obedient, Christ-treasuring faith that beholds and savors his glory, and stop at nothing to ensure your children and grandchildren do the same.
    If unbelief in Nazareth was a quiet unbelief—born from familiarity—Matthew’s next portrait is loud and violent, born from the rejection of truth itself.

    II. Unbelief Rejects God’s Truth Which Leads to Persecuting God’s Messenger (Matthew 14:1–12)

    Where Nazareth dismissed Jesus, Herod silenced John. One group stumbled over the identity of Christ; the other rebelled against the authority of Christ. Let’s look at this text verse by verse, as we did previously, to see how rejecting God’s truth always leads to persecuting God’s messenger.

    1. Herod’s Conscience Was Stirred, but his Sorrow was Shallow (14:1–2)

    “1 At that time Herod the tetrarch heard about the fame of Jesus, 2 and he said to his servants, “This is John the Baptist. He has been raised from the dead; that is why these miraculous powers are at work in him.””Matthew 14:1–2
    In Matthew 14:1, we aren’t told exactly how much time has passed since the rejection at Nazareth in 13:58—and that’s intentional. Matthew doesn’t write with strict chronological precision; he writes thematically. His primary concern isn’t the sequence of events but the major movements of Jesus’ ministry.
    When Matthew opens chapter 14, he is beginning a new section—one that highlights the rising opposition against Jesus, the increasing cost of discipleship, and the first clear shadows of the cross. So Matthew 14:1 should not be read as “this happened immediately after Nazareth,” but rather, “this occurred in the same unfolding season of growing conflict and revelation.”
    What we can discern is that Jesus is now in the middle of His three-year ministry. Herod has become aware of Him, which means Jesus’ fame has spread throughout Galilee. And by this point, John the Baptist has already been executed, evident from Herod’s fearful assumption that Jesus is John risen from the dead.
    Herod Antipas was the son of Herod the Great and ruled as a tetrarch from 4 BC to 39 AD. Although he is called King Herod, he only ruled about one-fourth of the kingdom. Israel was under Roman authority. Herod’s rule was somewhat like that of the military’s executive officer to the commanding officer.
    Herod Antipas’ personal life was a portrait of moral decay—a storm of compromise, corruption, and self-indulgence. Though married to Phasaelis, the daughter of King Aretas IV, Herod set his affections on Herodias, who was not only his niece but also the wife of his own half-brother. Driven by lust, he divorced his Nabatean wife so he could take Herodias for himself.
    Herod hears the reports about Jesus, and his first reaction is fear. His conscience suddenly stirs. Scripture teaches that the conscience is woven into the very soul of every human being—a mark of being created in the image of God. Paul tells us in Romans 2:14–15 that the conscience functions like a moral compass, bearing witness to God’s law written on the heart. In other words, every person—saved or unsaved—possesses an internal witness that either accuses or excuses their actions before the righteous standard of God.
    But we must remember: the conscience is not infallible. Because of the Fall, the conscience can be misinformed, dulled, or even seared (1 Tim. 4:2). Sin twists our moral perception so that what should disturb us no longer disturbs us at all. Think of Jonah, fast asleep in the hull of the ship while knowingly running from the living God. Our hearts can become so calloused to God’s voice that we eventually delight in the very sin that destroys us—just as we see in the life of Herod Antipas.
    What hardens his conscience? The murder of John the Baptist. John the Baptist, a faithful prophet who stood firmly on the authority of God’s Word, did not shrink back from confronting Herod’s sin. He boldly declared the marriage unlawful. By Herod’s response, we can see the searing of Herod’s conscience unfold. Rather than repent, he silenced the prophet and threw him into prison.

    2. Herod Imprisoned John to Silence the Word of God (14:3–5)

    “3 For Herod had seized John and bound him and put him in prison for the sake of Herodias, his brother Philip’s wife, 4 because John had been saying to him, “It is not lawful for you to have her.” 5 And though he wanted to put him to death, he feared the people, because they held him to be a prophet.” Matthew 14:3-5
    John, rightly, confronted Herod about his unlawful marriage to Herodias. Jewish law was unmistakably clear—Herod Antipas’ relationship with his brother’s wife was a direct violation of God’s command (Lev. 18:16; 20:21). John boldly and courageously spoke the truth, and called sin, sin.
    Herod—driven by lust and enslaved to the fear of man rather than the fear of God—sought to silence John rather than repent of the sin he was confronted with. With a conscience hardened against the Word of the Lord, he locked John in prison, hoping that if he could shut the prophet’s mouth, he could quiet his own guilt. This is what every sinful heart is tempted to do:
    “When truth threatens our idols, we silence the messenger instead of surrendering to God.”
    We see the same pattern repeated across the world today. In Communist China, the atheist government refuses to tolerate the truth of the gospel. Ministries such as Open Doors International and Voice of the Martyrs report that thousands of Christians are imprisoned each year simply for proclaiming Christ. But this impulse to suppress the truth is not found only in totalitarian regimes. Even in free Western democracies the pressure to silence God’s Word is mounting.
    Scotland’s Abortion Services Safe Access Zones Act 2024 is one example. As the Catholic Parliamentary Office explains, the law establishes “buffer zones” around hospitals and clinics—some as large as 200 meters—where nearly any expression of pro-life conviction is criminalized. Not only are conversations restricted, but even placing a simple pro-life poster in the window of a private home, church, or school located within these zones could be considered a criminal act. Already, individuals in England have been arrested for silently praying outside abortion facilities. With this new law in place, Scotland may follow the same path.
    Herod imprisoned John to stop the truth. Today, nations attempt to imprison prayer, silence Scripture, and restrain the gospel. But God has proved time and time again, you can imprison his people all you want, but you can never imprison God’s Word. As the Lord says through the prophet Isaiah, Isaiah 55:11 “11…so shall My word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.” Furthermore God will always speak through His people in season or out of season, imprisoned or free. God’s truth always advances to its end.

    3. Herod Was Ruled by the Sins of Others (14:6–8)

    In verse 6-8, Herod’s hardened heart is seduced by his teenage step daughter. I say seduced because she dances erotically before him and his guests. He is utterly enthralled with her dance. Verse six says her dancing “pleased Herod.” The word “pleased” denotes the idea of getting pleasure by the behavior of another. In his drunken stupor and arosal, Herod makes a rash commitment in verse seven: “…he promised with an oath to give her whatever she might ask.” This opens the door for Herodias’ vengeance to manipulate the Herod in the moment. In verse 8, prompted by her mother (Herodias), Herod’s step daughter said, “Give me the head of John the Baptist on a platter.”(v8)
    In his heart, Herod knows this is evil. In verse 9, Matthew tells us that Herod was “sorry”—a word that speaks of being distressed, troubled, even grieved by the request. His conscience flickers awake for a moment. But instead of fearing God, Herod fears losing face in front of his guests. Herod’s unbelief distorts his courage. Rather than obey the Lord, he bows to the fear of man and to the lust of his seared heart. His sorrow is shallow. It is not godly and it does not lead to true repentance.

    4. Herod Murdered John Because He Feared Man More Than God (14:9–12)

    Herod was trapped by an audience he wished to impress. His hardened conscience was in no shape to overcome the lust of the flesh and the fear of man. This is what unbelief does—it enslaves your soul to the crowd, and your heart to its own desires. John had to go.
    In the sermon Faithful Discipleship That Testifies and Prevails in Times of Uncertainty, we saw that John suffered violence precisely because he spoke God’s truth into a violent world. Herod stands as the tragic opposite—a man so enslaved to the approval of others that even truth spoken in love becomes a threat he must eliminate. With a heart hardened to the Word of God, Herod believed his only way out was to murder John. And that impulse is still alive and well today.
    Satan hates God, and he hates the people God loves. So he whispers the same lie into the ears of the wicked in every generation: “If you want to silence the message, silence the messenger.” That was the mindset of the Pharisees as they demanded Christ’s crucifixion, and it remains the driving force behind much of the Christian martyrdom in our world today.
    Jesus said, “The world hates Me because I testify that its works are evil” (John 7:7).

    So if you follow Jesus:

    Expect resistance when you speak God’s truth.

    Expect opposition when you name sin in love.

    Expect persecution—not as a sign of failure, but as evidence of faithfulness.

    Naming sin will cost you something. Hiding sin will cost you everything.

    Now that we’ve seen both portraits, Matthew invites us to step back and ask:

    What do these scenes teach us about unbelief and discipleship?

    Conclusion: Two Portraits—One Warning, One Invitation

    In Nazareth, unbelief whispered quietly: “We already know Jesus.” In Herod’s palace, unbelief roared violently: “We refuse His authority.”
    Two different expressions of the same spiritual disease—and both lead to death. Both shut the heart off from the healing, forgiving, restoring work of Christ. And both press a sobering question upon us this morning:

    Where does unbelief live in your heart?

    Is it the quiet unbelief of familiarity—where Jesus has become too common, too small, too predictable to move you? Or is it the hardened unbelief of Herod—where you know the truth, but naming sin feels too costly, too risky, too intrusive into your preferred way of life?

    Here is the hope of the gospel: Jesus confronts both forms of unbelief with the same gracious invitation—repent and believe.

    He never turns away the one who comes to Him in humble faith.
    Matthew calls us to behold Christ clearly and cling to Him fully. We are all prone to unbelief—whether through overfamiliarity that shrinks Jesus or through rebellion that resists His authority. But Jesus stands before us as the true Prophet, the righteous King, and the beloved Son—able to heal unbelief, forgive sin, strengthen wavering faith, and empower us to stand courageously for the truth.
    Honor Christ where Nazareth refused Him. Follow Christ where Herod resisted Him. And remain faithful—like John—trusting that even in a world hostile to the truth, the kingdom of God will prevail.

      • Matthew 14:3–5ESV

  • Silent Night (Stille Nacht)
First Baptist Church Litchfield
pastorjason.fbcl@gmail.com
217-324-4232
http://www.firstbaptistlitchfield.org/
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