First Baptist Church Litchfield
March 22, 2026

      • Psalm 27:4–5ESV

  • How Majestic Is Your Name
  • Come Praise And Glorify

      • Psalm 27:13–14ESV

  • Abide
  • Let My Words Be Few
  • In Christ Alone

  • Seeing Clearly… or So We Think

    There are few things more dangerous than thinking you can see clearly when you cannot.
    There are people who lose their vision slowly. At first, everything seems fine. The shapes are still there. The colors still appear. But over time, things begin to blur. Distances become distorted. What once was obvious is now uncertain. And often, the most dangerous part is this: they do not realize how blind they have become. Their new normal happens slowly, over time. And like a frog in a pot of water slowly warming to a boil, the blur becomes blindness, and blindness brings their demise.
    Spiritually, the same thing happens.
    We assume we see clearly. We assume we understand God, His Word, and His work in our lives. We assume we are walking in truth. And yet, according to Scripture, the human heart is not naturally clear-sighted. It is blind.
    Paul says in 2 Corinthians 4:4, “The god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers.”
    And even for believers, there is still a lingering dullness, a forgetfulness, that clouds our vision.
    We do not always reject Christ outright like the Pharisees. But we often resemble the disciples, close to Jesus, walking with Him, and yet still not seeing clearly.
    That is where Matthew 16:1–12 meets us this morning.
    In this passage, we see two expressions of the same problem: Spiritual blindness that refuses to see what God has revealed, and spiritual forgetfulness that fails to remember what Christ has already done.
    The uncomfortable truth of it is; we are both. We are more like the Pharisees than we want to admit. And we are more like the disciples than we care to confess.
    So the question this morning is not simply, “Can you see?”
    The question is: “Has Christ opened your eyes, and are you remembering what He has shown you?”

    I. Spiritual Blindness: Demanding Signs While Rejecting the Savior (Matthew 16:1–4)

    In verse one, Matthew sets the tone by showing us something deeply ironic. Two opposing forces within Judaism unite together, not for the cause of truth or defending the Torah, but in blindness.
    The Pharisees and the Sadducees were theological and political enemies. The Pharisees were strict traditionalists. The Sadducees were elite rationalists who denied the resurrection (Acts 23:8). They disagreed on nearly everything. And yet here, they come together with a shared purpose: to oppose Jesus.
    What unites them is not truth. What unites them is blindness.
    Isn’t that the power of a hardened heart? Men who cannot agree on doctrine can still agree in their rejection of Christ. And what Matthew wants us to see is that their unity is not a strength, it is evidence of spiritual blindness that leads to death.
    They come to Jesus “to test Him” (Matthew 16:1). They demand a sign from heaven, as if Jesus has not already given them countless signs. The blind heart is never satisfied with the revelation of God. It always demands more, while rejecting what has already been given.
    Jesus exposes this blindness in verses two and three:
    “When it is evening, you say, ‘It will be fair weather, for the sky is red.’ And in the morning, ‘It will be stormy today, for the sky is red and threatening.’ You know how to interpret the appearance of the sky, but you cannot interpret the signs of the times.” (Matthew 16:2–3)
    Jesus is saying, “You can read the sky, but you cannot read the Scriptures. You can discern the weather, but you cannot discern God’s Messiah standing in front of you.”
    They had eyes for creation, but no eyes for Christ. They could predict a storm in the clouds, but they could not see the coming judgment of God or the arrival of His kingdom. Their minds were savvy to the world, while their hearts were dead to sin.
    As Paul later writes, “The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God… he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned” (1 Corinthians 2:14).
    It is like a man standing in the sunlight with his eyes closed, insisting that the sun is not shining. The problem is not the light. The problem is his sight. And Jesus does not soften His words. He presses deeper into the fallen condition of their hearts.
    In verse four, He calls them “an evil and adulterous generation.”
    This language reaches back into the Old Testament. God used these same words to describe Israel when they turned away from Him (Jeremiah 3:6–10; Hosea 1–3). Evil, because their hearts were hardened in sin. Adulterous, because though they claimed covenant loyalty, they gave their hearts to idols.

    Spiritual blindness always leads to spiritual unfaithfulness.

    They were not neutral observers asking honest questions. They were covenant breakers demanding proof from the very God they were rejecting, and they prove their blindness by demanding a sign. Do you see the irony? They are asking for what has already been given multiple times.
    Jesus had healed the sick (Matthew 8:16–17). He had cast out demons (Matthew 12:28). He just had fed thousands with a word (Matthew 14:13–21; 15:32–39). The signs were everywhere. The problem with blindness is not the lack evidence. It is a commitment to reject it.
    Think of Israel in the wilderness. They saw the ten plagues (Exodus 7–12). They walked through the Red Sea on dry ground (Exodus 14). They ate manna from heaven (Exodus 16). Water flowed from the rock (Exodus 17). And yet Scripture says, “They always go astray in their heart” (Psalm 95:10).
    The problem was never the lack of revelation. The problem was the hardness of heart. And so, Jesus gives them one final word, a word of both judgment and grace.
    “No sign will be given (Judgement)… except the sign of Jonah (Grace)” (Matthew 16:4). They will not receive a spectacle in the sky. They will receive something far greater. Just as Jonah was three days in the belly of the fish, so the Son of Man will be three days in the heart of the earth (Matthew 12:40).
    Jesus is not going to perform for them like a circus clown. He will crucify his own body on behalf of them and rise so they can have more than a one and done miracle. They can have eternal life. The greatest sign God will ever give is the death and resurrection of His Son. Do you have eyes to see? Can you see it’s glory? Can you see the glory of God’s mercy?
    The glory of the gospel shines beautifully is when the blindness of man meets the mercy of God. Because apart from grace, we are no different than the Pharisees and the Sadducees!
    We have more revelation than the Pharisees ever had. We have the completed Scriptures. We know the cross. We know the empty tomb. And yet, left to ourselves, we would still remain blind.
    As Moses said, “The Lord has not given you a heart to understand or eyes to see or ears to hear” (Deuteronomy 29:4).
    But God also said, through the prophet Ezekiel promised, “I will remove the heart of stone… and give you a heart of flesh” (Ezekiel 36:26). Only God can open blind eyes. And Jesus says God fulfills that promise through the Holy Spirit when He regenerates your heart to be born again (John 3).
    So the question is not simply, “Do you have enough evidence?” The question is, “Has God opened your eyes?”

    Are you still demanding more proof from God while ignoring the cross?

    Are you still looking for God to give miraculous signs while neglecting the resurrection?

    Are you still refusing to see Christ as your only hope in life and death?

    When God opens your eyes, you no longer need another sign. The risen Christ is enough.

    II. Spiritual Forgetfulness: Doubting the Savior Despite His Provision (Matthew 16:5–12)

    As we move into verse five, the scene shifts. The confrontation with the Pharisees is over, but the lesson Jesus needs to teach His disciples is not. The disciples cross to the other side, and Matthew tells us something that seems small, but becomes spiritually significant:
    “They had forgotten to bring any bread” (Matthew 16:5).
    One loaf. That is all they have.
    Why they forgot the bread is up for discussion. Some se it as an oversight. Others see it has a poor assumption the disciples made about Jesus. Like the Pharisees, they just assumed Jesus would preform another miracle and provide the bread they needed. It was presumptuous on their part and they were acting no different than the Pharisees and the Sadducees.
    So, Jesus sees in this moment an opportunity to expose something deeper, not just a lack of bread, but a lack of understanding.
    So in verse six, He gives a warning: “Watch and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees.”
    Two imperatives. Watch. Beware. It is as if Jesus is sounding an alarm. Pay attention. Guard your heart. But what are they to watch for? What is this “leaven”?
    Leaven, in Scripture, metaphorically often represents corruption, something small that spreads and influences the whole (1 Corinthians 5:6–8; Galatians 5:9). Jesus is warning them about the same blindness they just witnessed.
    The Pharisees’ hardened unbelief. The Sadducees’ denial of truth. Different expressions, but the same root problem: spiritual blindness.
    “Take care, brothers,” Hebrews 3:12 says, “lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God.” That is the warning. Guard your heart, lest you become blind like them, and spiritual blindness wrongly fixates on the minors, like physical need and forgets Christ’s faithfulness.

    A. Forgetfulness Fixates on Worldly Needs Instead of Spiritual Reality (Matthew 16:7–8)

    Instead of receiving the warning, the disciples begin discussing something else entirely: “It is because we brought no bread” (Matthew 16:7).
    They completely miss the point. Jesus is speaking spiritually. They are thinking physically. And notice, it is not just a discussion. It carries the sense of anxious reasoning, even argument. Who forgot the bread? Who dropped the ball?
    It is like a child sitting in a lunch room at school hearing the sounds of the alarm and being warned about danger of a tornado, but instead arguing with his teachers about the lunch his mother forgot to pack. The warning of the tornado is urgent, but the focus of the child is dangerously misplaced. That’s what’s going on with the disciples.
    And Jesus responds in verse eight: “O you of little faith, why are you discussing among yourselves the fact that you have no bread?”
    Do you hear the concern? It is not that they have no faith at all. They followed Him into the boat. It is that their faith is clouded by forgetfulness. And what forgetfulness reveals is something deeper, it exposes a kind of spiritual blindness still lingering in their hearts. As R. T. France observes,
    “The disciples’ problem was not absence of faith, but deficiency of perception…” R. T. France
    In other words, they believed, but they were not seeing clearly. They remembered the events, but they did not understand their meaning. And when you forget what Christ has done, your vision of who Christ is becomes blurred. When Christians, especially pastors and church leaders, have a blurry vision of Christ, heresy and error always creep into our doctrine and theology. A skewed view of Christ distorts the gospel, distracts the sinner from salvation, and leads to the broad road of destruction.

    B. Forgetfulness Fails to Remember Christ’s Faithfulness (Matthew 16:9–10)

    Jesus presses them with a series of questions: “Do you not yet perceive? Do you not remember…?”
    And then He takes them back: The five loaves for the five thousand, twelve baskets (Matthew 14:13–21). The seven loaves for the four thousand. seven baskets (Matthew 15:32–39).
    In other words: “You were there.” “You saw it.” “You collected the leftovers.” So why are you worried now?”
    This is the tragedy of the human heart. We forget what Christ has already done. We have seen His provision. We have experienced His faithfulness. And yet, when a new need arises, we panic as if He has never provided before. It is like Israel in the wilderness again. After the Red Sea, after manna, after water from the rock—and still they grumbled (Exodus 16:2–3). Forgetfulness turned miracles into amnesia.
    It is like a child who has been carried safely through every storm, every danger, every dark moment of life by a faithful father. The father has never forgot him. Never failed him. Never once let harm come near him.
    And yet, the moment the next storm clouds gather, the child begins to panic.
    “Are we going to be okay?” “Do you know what you’re doing?” “Can you really take care of me?”
    And the father, with patient love, might say, “Have I ever failed you before?”
    That is exactly what Jesus is doing with His disciples.
    “You were there.” “You saw it.” “You gathered the leftovers.” So why are you afraid now?
    The problem is not that Christ has been unfaithful. The problem is that we are forgetful.
    So do yourself a favor, and remember! Remember the past awesome works of God so they can shape your present hope. Preach the past faithfulness of Christ to your present fears.
    When anxiety rises… remember Jesus’ promise to always be with you. When provision seems lacking… remember God knows everything you need before you even ask for it, and that he is a good Father who provides for His children. When the future feels uncertain… remember God has ordained your days, and he knows every hair on your head. He knows the plans he has for you, and in Christ, those plans are already accomplished.
    Brothers and sisters, your faith grows where your memory of God is most active. And ultimately, we do not just remember loaves and fish. We remember the cross and the empty tomb. If God did not spare His own Son (Romans 8:32), He will not fail you now. So do not live in panic or be anxious about tomorrow, or your eternity, as if He has never provided for you, or accomplished your hope in life and death. Remember and trust Him.

    C. Forgetfulness Reveals Lingering Spiritual Blindness

    Jesus asks: “Do you not yet perceive?” (Matthew 16:9)
    That word “perceive” gets to the heart of the issue.
    They are in the presence of the Bread of Life (John 6:35), and yet they are consumed with one loaf of earthly bread. They are looking at bread, but missing Christ. And that is the essence of spiritual blindness.
    What makes spiritual blindness so dangerous is that it lingers.
    It is not just out there in the Pharisees. It is not just a past condition. It is something that can quietly settle back into our own hearts if we are not watchful. Which is why Jesus does not simply correct them; He presses them. He calls them to see, to remember, to understand.
    And that is why the means of grace are not optional for the Christian—they are essential.
    This is why you must read your Bible daily. Because the Word of God clears your vision (Psalm 19:8).
    This is why you must pray without ceasing (1 Thessalonians 5:17). Because prayer keeps your heart near Christ.
    This is why you must gather with the church, Sunday School, and corporate worship; to sit under the Word of God (Hebrews 10:24–25; Romans 10:17). Because faith is strengthened when Christ is proclaimed.
    This is why you must take the gospel into your community: to Litchfield, Witt, Hillsboro, Mount Olive, and everywhere in between (Matthew 28:19–20). Because sharing Christ keeps Christ central.
    These disciplines are not empty routines. They are God’s appointed means of grace to keep your spiritual sight clear.
    Just as you must continually care for your physical eyes lest your vision deteriorate, so the believer must continually place himself before Christ, lest his heart grow dim and he suffer spiritual glaucoma.
    So here is the question:
    Are you putting yourself in places where your eyes can see Christ clearly? Or are you slowly drifting into spiritual glaucoma—where your vision narrows, your focus shifts, and Christ becomes peripheral?
    Guard your sight.
    Fix your eyes on Jesus (Hebrews 12:2). Stay in His Word. Stay on your knees. Stay with His people.
    Because blindness does not usually happen all at once.
    It happens slowly… quietly… through neglect. And the only way to keep seeing clearly is to keep looking at Christ.
    And before we judge the disciples too quickly, we must see ourselves in them.
    I can relate to how David Platt feels when he reads our text. He says, “When I read about the disciples, I am tempted to get a bit frustrated with them. They seem to be so clueless at times, particularly with all that Jesus was saying and doing in their presence. You would think they would eventually get it! But then I see myself, and I think, “How many times has the Lord in His mercy taught me the same truths again and again and again?” He has shown Himself so faithful to me in everything, and yet I sometimes doubt Him. Oh, how we should praise God for His mercy and patience with us, for His faithfulness when we are faithless!”

    What Is Your One Loaf?

    In our fallen condition, we fixate on the “one loaf.” Whatever captures your attention more than Christ becomes your loaf.
    It may be: Your finances. Your schedule. Your reputation. Your fears. Your plans.
    You argue over it. You worry about it. You organize your lives around it. And all the while, you forget Jesus is in the boat.
    The same Jesus who fed the five thousand. The same Jesus who fed the four thousand. The same Jesus who calmed the storm (Matthew 8:26). The same Jesus who cast out demons and healed the broken. And yet you live as if He is not enough.
    Churches can do the same. We think if we just had better programs, better music, better strategy—then we would grow. We forget, Christ builds His church (Matthew 16:18).
    Families chase activity, success, and entertainment—while neglecting the Word, prayer, and discipleship (Deuteronomy 6:6–7). We are feeding on the loaf of busyness and entertainment, instead of feasting on Christ.

    From Blindness to Sight, From Forgetfulness to Faith

    This morning we considered how dangerous it is to think you can see clearly when you cannot. And now, after walking through this text, we have more clarity on spiritual blindness and forgetfulness.
    The Pharisees were blind and demanded more signs. The disciples were forgetful and worried about bread. Different responses—but the same root problem: They missed Christ.
    And if we are honest, so do we.
    We have seen His work in our lives. We have read His Word. We have sung His truth.
    And yet, how quickly we forget.
    We worry. We fixate. We demand.
    All while Jesus is in the boat.
    But glory be to God in the hope of the gospel: Jesus does not leave blind people in darkness. And He does not abandon forgetful disciples in their confusion.
    He confronts us. He teaches us. He reminds us. He restores us.
    Because ultimately, Jesus did not just come to warn the blind, He came to give sight. The Pharisees asked for a sign, and Jesus said the only sign would be the sign of Jonah.
    And that sign has come. The cross. The empty tomb.
    That is the moment where blindness is broken.
    Because at the cross, we finally see our sin clearly. And in the resurrection, we finally see our Savior rightly. If you see your need for a Savior this morning, repent of your sin. Turn from it. Confess it to Christ and ask for His forgiveness. Believe God crucified him in your place so you would not have to suffer his wrath in hell for eternity. Believe He raised Christ from the dead and Jesus ascended into heaven and now sits at the right hand of he Father interceding for you. All who call upon the Lord will be saved.
    If you are in Christ, the call is simple and urgent: Stop demanding more signs. Stop obsessing over the loaf. And look to Christ.
    Fix your eyes on Him (Hebrews 12:2). Remember what He has done. Trust who He is. And if today you realize, “My eyes have been closed… my heart has been forgetful…”
    Then do what blind men do in the Gospels: Cry out. “Lord, let me see.” And the good news is this: Jesus still opens eyes and reminds forgetful hearts.

      • Psalm 19:8ESV

      • 1 Thessalonians 5:17ESV

      • Galatians 2:20ESV

  • 'Tis So Sweet To Trust In Jesus (Trust In Jesus)
First Baptist Church Litchfield
pastorjason.fbcl@gmail.com
217-324-4232
http://www.firstbaptistlitchfield.org/
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