Hope Church LV Sermons

The Sadducees Ask Jesus About the Resurrection

In this message, Pastor Tom teaches from Mark 12:18-27. From this passage, we took a look at the Sadducees’ question to Jesus about the resurrection and how Jesus answered it. Jesus said the Sadducees didn’t know or understand God’s word or God’s power. Some of us as Jesus followers are wanting God’s power in our lives but we care less about His word, and some of us love learning God’s word but we care less about His power. We need them both! We will never know God’s power without knowing His word, but knowing His word doesn’t mean we’ll have His power. Let’s seek Jesus individually and together as a church!

Duration:: 50m
Broadcast on:: 05 Aug 2024
Audio Format:: mp3

- Thank you for joining us today. We're excited you came across this message. The sermon you're about to watch is from our verse by verse study through the Gospel of Mark. Up to this point in our series, we have seen the first half of the book. In chapters one through eight, Jesus demonstrated through his life, miracles and teaching that he truly is the Son of God. And through the second half of Mark, we'll see Jesus establishing his kingdom by going to the cross. Our entire study through the Gospel of Mark thus far is available in our feet. We would love for you to join in. If you're joining us for the first time, I wanna be the first to say welcome to Hope Church. Go ahead and open up the Hope Church LV app or visit hopechurchlv.com and click connect with us to fill out a short digital connection card. Once again, thank you so much for joining us today. - Hello Hope Church. My name is Guy Renard and I'm excited to be a member of this family. And my wife and I have been blessed to attend here for the last five and a half years. I've served in the hub with fostering hope and love well. And I serve with Hope Community as a group leader and on the production team with Hope Creative. Tonight's teaching text is from Mark chapter 12 verses 18 through 27. The Sadducees ask about the resurrection. And Sadducees came to him who say there is no resurrection. And they asked him a question saying, teacher, Moses wrote for us that if a man's brother dies and leaves a wife but leaves no child, the man must take the widow and raise up the offspring for his brother. There were seven brothers. The first took a wife and when he died left no offspring. And the second took her and died leaving no offspring and the third likewise. And the seven left no offspring. Last of all, the woman also died. In the resurrection, when they rise again, whose wife will she be? For she, for the seven had her as wife. Jesus said to them, is this not the reason you are wrong because you know neither the scriptures nor the power of God? For when they rise from the dead, they neither marry nor are given in marriage but are like angels in heaven. And as for the dead being raised, have you not read in the book of Moses in the passage about the bush? How God spoke to him saying, I am the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob. He is not God of the dead but of the living. You are quite wrong. This is the word of the Lord. - Amen. Thank you, guy. Aren't y'all excited to not to hear about a guy who married the same woman? Seven, that sounds like something we wanna dive right into, doesn't it? I'm not a guest pastor, by the way. My name's Tom. I've been here for 14 years. So some of y'all hoping I'm not coming back tough. (congregation laughing) If you don't have your Bible out, go ahead and turn there to Mark chapter 12. We're just rolling through the book of Mark here at Hope and have been for the last two or three years and we'll finish up Mark next year but we are in the middle of chapter 12 and that's what I wanna preach to not and help us to understand some things, hopefully. How many of you guys are just enjoy the heck out of being around people who are passive aggressive? (congregation laughing) My kind of people, right? You two? Yeah, me not at all. That's not what I like whatsoever. I mean, they won't come out and say what they want to say. They won't ask exactly what they want to ask but they'll use some manipulative tactic to persuade you, to embarrass you. Sometimes, honestly, to hurt you. The Cleveland Clinic has this definition. I want us to throw up on the screen to give us a picture of what it looks like to deal with somebody who has an outcome they want to happen and so they're gonna manipulate the words that they say to be able to make that outcome happen and here's what the Cleveland Clinic, one of the leading healthcare organizations around the world, says about passive aggressive behavior. They say that the most obvious example of passive aggressive behavior can be experienced when someone is gaslighting you and being emotionally manipulative. I thought that was just a great definition 'cause that's exactly what happens when someone is exhibiting passive aggressive behavior. And this is what's happening in these verses, believe it or not. And I'm gonna show you exactly what I mean by that. I wanna take us though, as we start to not, back to the very beginning of chapter 12, when Jesus is angered by the Jewish leaders, when chapter 12, verse 12 says this, "And they were seeking to arrest him, but feared the people, for they perceived that he had told the parable against them." So they left him and they went away. And in fact, as pastor Jeff preached a couple weeks ago, they actually were speaking against him. They were speaking directly against him. They had the truth right in front of them and refused to acknowledge him, refused to acknowledge his salvation. In fact, they would reject the cornerstone as we read two weeks ago. And that cornerstone was, and it still is not religion, it's not religious leaders, it's not your pastors, it's not the church building, it's not any good work that you can do. Jesus is and was that cornerstone. And that's what we learned at the very beginning of chapter 12. But the religious leaders, they weren't finished. They didn't stay away very long. We know that because last week, as pastor Trenton did just an amazing job in teaching us last week, we know that also last week they came to trap him and help him to lose his credibility in front of the people. Here's what chapter 12, verse 13 says. They sent some of the Pharisees and some of the Herodians to trap him in his talk. And what they were asking him was, if they should pay taxes to the Romans, do you remember if you were here last week you do? Even though they were not Roman citizens, but were Jews. Should we still pay our taxes? And what we see here is these two groups of people, these two groups of Jewish leaders coming and attempting to trap Jesus. They're known as the Pharisees and they give us another insight, the Herodians. So there were several groups of people who were all plotting the same thing to try to take down Jesus. And Jesus answers that question too. He answers it with wisdom, amen? 'Cause that's what he's got. What they were attempting to do, again, is thwarted. In fact, in verse 17, the Bible ends with this pastor Trenton taught last week. He said, and they marveled at him. They marveled at what he had said. Lots of people marvel at Jesus in this scripture. They couldn't trap him and Jesus, of course, as always, would always be right and he would always be gracious in his answers. And so that's where we pick up today. As we start in verse 18, that's where we pick up. What we find is more Jewish leaders coming and attempting to trap Jesus so that he could lose his credibility with the people. This time, though, it'd be the Sadducees, not the Pharisees, not the Herodians. This time it's the Sadducees who'd be passive aggressive toward Jesus and show this passive aggressiveness toward him. When teaching expositorly here at Hope, we aim to ring out literally everything that we can, every bit of truth that we can from the Bible passes. So to understand the Bible passes that we're looking at today, we're gonna have to do something a little bit different than we usually do, and that's define who the Sadducees are. In fact, the reason that we have to do that is 'cause this is the first time in the whole book of Mark that we've talked about 'em at all. So you won't come in here today with anything that we've taught you about the Sadducees, we're gonna have to answer that question. We're gonna, and here are the four questions we're gonna answer tonight as we jump in. Number one, who are the Sadducees? And I'm gonna combine that with the second question. What really was their question? And then we're gonna answer the question, why did they ask that question? And then we're gonna finish with how Jesus responded. So let's go ahead and jump in. If you have your Bible or your Bible app, go ahead and get it out 'cause we're gonna need it a lot tonight, okay? Number one, here's the first, we're gonna put these two questions together. Number one, who are the Sadducees and what was their question? Verse 18 tells us, "And Sadducees came to him." Again, the first appearance in the book of Mark, here's who the Sadducees were. I wanted to find 'em for us 'cause they're a little bit different than the other sects or the other groups of Jewish leaders that are found in the Bible. The Sadducees were a group of Jewish leaders, just like the rest of the Jewish leaders, made up mainly of people who are wealthy. They believed and adhered only to the first five books of the Old Testament. Some people call it the Torah, some call it the Pentateuch. Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. And while that was a lot of scripture, to be honest with you, it's five of the 66. That's what they believed in. They believed in five of the 39 because the other 27 hadn't made it yet. They denied the immortality of the human soul. In other words, they didn't believe in the afterlife. They denied a bodily resurrection after death. So they would say that even if there was a resurrection and they didn't believe in the resurrection, no way could there actually be a body after death. They denied the existence of angels. In other words, they denied that there were spiritual beings at all, somewhere in the highest levels of Jewish leadership, particularly in the upper echelon, Sanhedrin Council. They rejected the traditions of the Pharisees. They weren't on their side at all. They didn't espouse to anything that the Pharisees did. They believed in total free will. While the Pharisees believed in the total providence and sovereignty of God, what the Sadducees believed in is their own free will. And they gave absolutely no credence to the providence of God. They were almost the opposite in what they believed. They had influence with the wealthy, like I said, and they had zero influence with the common people. They were the skeptics. They were the instigators, if you will, of the day. And they were greatly influenced by the Greek culture that had taken over that part of the world, more than any other Jewish group. In fact, most Jewish rabbis saw these folks as heretics, that they were heretics of even Judaism. Now, though they were the competitors of the Pharisees, they also liked a good fight. And you all like a good fight? I don't wanna know it, but some people like a good fight. They like to stir the pot. They like to stir the pot so much that they would agree to work in conjunction with the Pharisees if it meant they were gonna be against Jesus. That was cool with them. It was one of those things where the enemy of my enemy is my friend, adage, right? Like the other groups, they were religious, which means they were self-righteous, that they knew everything. That's who they were. But what was their question? Well, verse 23 gives us exactly what it is. It's, we get a little glimpse of it, and there is a specific question that they have, but I say that because their question was the passive, aggressive part of this message that I'm teaching. Their question was a passive, aggressive question. And passive aggressive behavior, there's like the apparent question, the one that is said, but then there's also the actual question that lies underneath, you know what I'm saying? So they ask a question, but the question is, was that really the question? And I don't think that it was. The apparent question was this, whose wife, excuse me, whose wife will this woman be in the resurrection? Their literal question to Jesus, what their passive, aggressive behavior was. So Jesus, whose wife will this be in the resurrection? Here's what's funny about that. They didn't even believe in the resurrection. Why are they asking the question about the resurrection? And they don't even believe in the resurrection. Because that wasn't their real question. I'll tell you what I think their real question was because what we see in Mark throughout this whole chapter is them trying to trap Jesus into something that would get him in trouble with the common people. The actual question may have been this, Jesus, aren't you in fact a heretic? You say, Tom, that's a little rough. It doesn't exactly say that, I know. But why are people who don't believe in the resurrection asking about the resurrection? Here's what we mean by the word heretic in case that's a new word in your vocabulary. By heretic, we mean someone who teaches opposite of the scripture in this case, as if it were true, to believe something that is erroneous and not real and teach it as if it's true. And that's what they were doing. They would also hijack this topic of the resurrection. And so that's why we believe that that wasn't actually the question. So that brings us to the next question. Number two, what was the reason for the Sadducees question? If that wasn't the question, why did they ask the question? What did their question reveal about their misunderstanding? You see, this passage was never a question about marriage in heaven. I remember a couple of weeks ago, Pastor Trenton told me, he said, man, you lucky guy, you get to preach on marriage in heaven, man. That's good. That's not what it's about. We're gonna find out why in just a second, but it's a question more on the basis of Jesus' authority, Jesus' influence over the common Jewish person. Now to be clear, all other groups of Jews did believe in a bodily resurrection. They all believed in that. The point was not to get those people to believe in something that they believed in. That wasn't the point at all. That wasn't why they were asking this question. The point was to create doubt among the common people about Jesus and listen to me, almost every book in the New Testament, especially in the epistles, are written about one thing. And in order to written about the deity of Jesus. And you know, the one thing throughout history that's been the same is that we gotta get people's eyes off Jesus. If we can get people's eyes off Jesus, then we can get people's eyes off the message. And if we can get their people's eyes off the message of the gospel, then what happens is, is that they all perish. We gotta get them away from that. This wasn't something that they came up with. This is something that our enemy has come up with. And they would do this by eliciting an answer from Jesus that would accomplish two things. Number one, make the common Jew think about an extreme, and this is an extreme example, isn't it? Seven brothers, one wife of a law that they knew everything about that should have a logical answer if their in fact was a resurrection. And if their in fact was part of what was called the lever-right law where this law said if a husband dies and his wife is alive and she has no kids, then the brother takes her and I don't wanna go into all that. But it happened seven straight times. So it should be very understandable. It should be very logical to answer. So the common Jew would have to think about this extreme example. Secondly, the other thing that it would accomplish would be that Jesus could answer possibly in a heretical way causing the people to doubt in him. And that was really the crux of the matter. See, their question didn't come from a place of inquisitiveness. Their question came from a place of deceit. In fact, I won't go into it either, but in this passage the Bible says that the deceit that they had believed wasn't even the seat that was from outside, but it was actually the seat from themselves. That they told themselves a lie and they believed the law they told. They wanted Jesus to be seen as somebody who couldn't be trusted to teach the scriptures. They wanted him to lose the influence he had with people. And the reason they asked the question was to destroy his credibility and ultimately destroy his reputation. You see, if Jesus' reputation could be destroyed, then his message would be ignored. Hey, we've already gone through two points. How about that? We're getting out early tonight. You got it, brother. Number three is long. Point number three. How does Jesus answer the question? How did Jesus answer the question? How did Jesus reveal what was really going on here? Well, to start with, Jesus actually does answer both questions. We're about to see how. He answers the literal questions they have, but he also answers the question they kind of ask, but that he himself answered in the right way. That the Sadducees, like the Pharisees and the Herodians were trying to trap him, was not news at all to Jesus. He knew exactly what they were trying to do. And so after he had asked a question, 'cause that's the first thing he does, which is pretty common with Jesus, he proceeded to answer their questions. So what did we learn practically from Jesus' answer? You see, there was a lot that the Pharisees didn't understand. I see five things here that Jesus answered, and actually he answers for us too. As we study the Bible, we can know that the Bible is real and true, amen? We can trust it. If it says it, we can believe it. So Jesus tonight gives us five different things in his answer to the Sadducees. And here's the first one. There is an afterlife. People say, "I don't believe in the afterlife." You're wrong. Sorry. How do you know that? Verse 25, "Jesus said, 'For when they rise from the dead.'" You notice anything there? Not if. (congregation murmurs) Who lives in the afterlife? Only the Christians, everybody. Some people live in eternity with God forever. Praise God, amen? But do you know that all the people who never accepted Christ, they live in eternity too? You don't die in hell, you live there. (congregation murmurs) Anybody get the shakes, but me just then? Maybe I'm getting older. Number two, the resurrection is real. Resurrection is real. Verse 25 just said it for when they rise from the dead, but verse 26, look what it says. And as for the dead being raised, he specifically says, "Listen, dead being raised." Now, these words together is one Greek word, and grammatically, it's what's called a passage, excuse me, a present passage. It's a present tense, passive voice. Here's what that means. Present means it's happening right now. Listen, you don't think they freaked out? He said, "Whoever's dying today is being raised today." Here's what he meant. They're going to live with God today. There's not a place where we go and we stay, people. I know some of us have been taught that there's this waiting that goes on. That's not what Paul said. He said to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. He said they're being raised. And not only are they being raised in the very moment, they are being raised by someone else. It's a passive verb. What's happening to the person who's passed away, somebody else is raising them. There is an afterlife and the resurrection is real and every person will live in the afterlife. Thirdly, angels are also real. Angels are also real. I don't have to convince most of us that, but that was one of the things. Here's what's funny. They didn't even ask about angels. But you know what Jesus knew? He knew who he was talking to. He knew he was talking to a group of people who didn't believe that angels existed and that they were not real. And so Jesus just kind of throws it in. You'll be like the angels in verse 25, but are like angels in heaven. He didn't have to say that. He said it for them to help them to know what's true. And you know what? It's in our Bible. Listen, we can believe everything that's in our Bible. If Jesus were here, we can believe everything that came out of his mouth. And you know why? Because the Bible came out of his mouth. Amen, Tom. - Amen. - Yeah, praise the Lord. Woo. Here's number four. Knowing what the scripture says does not mean a person knows what the scripture means. You say, Tom, where do you get that from? The Sadducees didn't understand the Torah, which was, like I said, the first five books of the Old Testament, because if they had, maybe they wouldn't even have answered that question, because in verse 26, look what Jesus says to him. He says, have you not read in the book of Moses, which by the way, he knew they had? Those are the books they believed in. So Jesus didn't have to go to some new teaching in that was coming up in the church. He didn't have to go to an Old Testament prophet. He didn't have to go to any book of the other 39, except for one that they would have known about. And he said, have you not read in the book of Moses about how in the bush, God spoke to him saying, I am the God of Jacob, Isaac, excuse me, I am the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Again, Jesus said, I am the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. You know what he didn't say? Well, I was. I was until they died and then I'm not anymore. They died, so what can you do? (congregation laughing) He said, I still am. How is it possible, Preston, that he is still the God of the Abraham, Isaac and Jacob? Unless Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are alike. Because they are a lot. I've seen all my grandparents pass away, they're all still alive. You've seen somebody in your life pass away, but let me tell you something. As a child of God, they are still alive. All people aren't all still alive, but those of us who believe in him and have our people who went on before us, that's what keeps us going. When we love somebody and he said, listen, I know the great emphasis that you put on Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, I got news for you, they're still living. And here's the big one in this passage, there is no marriage in heaven. In verse 25, here's what Jesus said. On earth, excuse me, they need their Mary nor are given in marriage. You say, Tom, how do you know there's no marriage in heaven? Now, some of y'all are happy about that. (congregation laughing) Shame on you. He says, they're neither Mary nor are they given in marriage. Some on earth will claim this hallelujah that we're not. And then others though, of you will be greatly depressed because of that. You have a very close relationship with your spouse. And here's what I would say, both camps, if you believe there's marriage in heaven, they're just isn't. But don't be disappointed. It's not a bad thing. You see, on this side of heaven, when we try to equate anything on this side of heaven with what eternity looks like, multiply it times a billion and you might get there. We think of all the good things here and we're like, it'll be even better there. No, it'll be different there. You see, all of our relationships will be right. We will love each other perfectly. When we hear love, we hear sex, but that's not what God hears. He hears care and concern and love and graciousness and mercy. And not only that, not everybody hears married. Nor will everybody be married and Paul said, that's even better. To which some of y'all are saying, hey man. (congregation laughs) Marriage on Earth is amazing. I love my wife. I am so blessed to have her as my spouse. But Jesus makes it very clear here. There is no marriage in heaven. I didn't put it in my notes, but I'm gonna do it just for you, man. I've got it on my phone here somewhere. Here's what John Popper said about it. Watch, I think it's an amazing quote. So you've got to listen 'cause it's not on the screen, it's not even in my notes. So here we go. He says, marriage is temporary and it will finally give way to the relationship to which it was pointing all along. Christ and the church. The way a picture is no longer needed when you see face to face. We can't even imagine what this must be like. They're asking a question for nefarious reasons, but Jesus goes in so deep that he says, there's not marriage there either. You see what Jesus zeroed in on this passage by asking him a question was the Sadducees' actual problem in verse 24. Look at it with me there, what Jesus says to him. Listen, all this other stuff, we need to know that. We need to know the resurrection's real. We need to know that there's no marriage in heaven. We need to know that angels are real. We need to know all that. But Jesus said, that's not the issue here. The issue is not who's gonna be, whose wife will she be? Here's what Jesus said in verse 24. It's on the screen for you. Jesus said to them, is this not the reason you are wrong? He says it twice actually. He tells them they're wrong twice. He tells them right here and he tells them in the very last verse, in verse 27. He talks about them being wrong again. He says, and then he tells them why, because you know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God. You see, here's the truth. The Sadducees were wandering. Now, I'm from Tennessee, praise God. I didn't say wandering, wandering. I have to really stress that. Wandering, like they're just kind of moseying around. He said, you're just kind of, you're off the path. You've gotten off the beaten path. You think that you're religious and you think that you know who God is and you think you know the Bible. But the truth is you're wandering around spiritually. So let me explain, let's just look at verse 24, a little bit more in depth. And let's go deep into this verse 24. The Bible says, Jesus said to them, "Is this not the reason you are wrong?" This sentence is actually a very difficult sentence to translate. In fact, the only one I can think of is in Proverbs 23, I think, where it talks about the heart and it being the spring of life, right? And man, that is such a tough passage to translate for even translators, for the best of translators. And so that was the closest thing they could come up with. This one is another one of those passages where in our language, it doesn't translate over very well. So let me just help us kind of understand what he meant when he said that. Jesus said to them, here's the way it reads specifically, okay? It may not make sense as I'm reading it. And so that's why I got to explain it a little bit better. But here's the literal translation. Jesus was declaring to them not so, question mark. Now, see, that's not even a sentence. Like I woulda had red marks on my paper in English for this. Not so, question mark. You are wandering around this. In other words, Jesus was saying, is this not true? Am I not right? Are you not wandering around in this question? You see, according to Jesus, he had a perfect view of them. And what he knew about them was, is that they were spiritually wandering. When you think about somebody who wanders, what do you think about? Well, we think about the people who just don't know the destination. Maybe they don't know where to go, even though they may know the name of the destination. Sometimes it means that that person who's wandering has become confused. Sometimes it may mean they're distracted. Now, I'm starting not to talk about the Sadducees. Talk about us. Here's the question we got to ask for ourselves to not. How many of us are spiritually wandering? We haven't asked Jesus this question, and especially this kind of question maybe. But have you ever asked Jesus a silly question? Have you ever thought something that had nothing to do with the scripture or the Bible? When Jesus would say this to us too, is this not so? You're wandering around this. And Jesus then gives them the two reasons why. The first one is this. The Sadducees didn't know or understand God's word. The Bible says, Jesus said, let me tell you what I'm saying is true, because here's what I know about you. You know what the scripture says, but you don't know what the scripture means. The word know here. There's two Greek words for know in their language. One of them meant to know about. So if I were to say, I know what Preston's favorite color is, that's one thing. I know something about Preston. But if I tell you, I know my wife, who I've been married to for 32 years, you would go, man, you know her. Yeah, I do. Not like I know Preston, but I know her. And so they distinguish the two words. This is the word that means to know intimately, to know experientially. And it didn't stop there. This is also a perfect tense verb, which means that the Sadducees had absolutely no idea. Here's what it meant. They didn't know and they didn't know right now and they wasn't gonna know tomorrow, possibly, but they for sure didn't know in the past, they don't know right now. He said, you for sure don't know what you're talking about. Then he uses the word neither. This is usually the word, it's usually translated just in oh, no. So you don't know. You do not know. You know neither, he says the scriptures. This is, in their language, this was a very strong negative way. They had three words that meant no. This was the middle word. It was a strong negative to say, you do not know for sure you don't know. And this is very relatable to us in our lives, to us personally and those that are also around us. When we have questions about God, when we have questions about relationships or finances or just life and general, anything, kids, where's the first place that you turn? Is it to his word? Is it to something that God's taught you about himself? Is it why you can sit in a hospital room and watch somebody who, to take their last breath and the reason that you can handle all that is because you know the word or when you're in that room, do you just lose it completely? Not because of any other reason that you think this is it and it's over and done, but because of the word we know it doesn't have to be over. How many times have we heard people around us tell us something in our immediate thought was, well now wait a minute, that's not in the Bible. You ever happened to you? Sometimes it's harder for us to see ourselves doing that, but we can pick it out as somebody else. Here's what I know, sinful humans, as the sinful humans that we are, we struggle with appropriating the Bible into our lives, mainly because we don't know what it says. And if we do know what it says, mainly then because we don't know what it means. I'll be the first one to tell you, there are a lot of gray areas in the bottom, but the gray areas aren't our problem, amen? So Tom, what about so-and-so? Who cares? Listen, we got enough stuff we are confident about. Let's trust them in the things we don't understand. Jesus died on a cross. Did that happen or not? Rose from the grave. Then why are we worried if he's coming back? He's coming. Here's some things that are for sure very clear for us. God created everything, amen? God loves every human. Jesus is God. He was born of a virgin. He made a way of redemption for us. He died on the cross. He was buried in a tomb, raised from the dead. Jesus is coming back. People would say, "Tom, you know heaven's real?" Yeah. You say, "Well, did you read that book about that guy "that went to heaven and he came back?" No. Why not? It's in the book. I ain't got to read that guy's book. Yeah, but that guy ain't really happy. Okay. What a dummy for coming back? I guess, I don't know. I don't have to read a book to know that heaven is real. You hear what I'm saying? You know what else is real, Hill? Jesus talked more about that than he did heaven. Hill's real. And in the Bible, it says that there was a man that tried to come back and he couldn't. God's given us clarity and the things that we do understand. Therefore, we can trust him in the things that we don't understand, amen? But how can we better understand God's word? Here's a practical thing for us. Read God's word. I know that sounds funny. You've said that so many times, pastor Scott has reiterated that over and over. Listen, read the Bible. And as you read it, ask God to speak to you. Ask Him to reveal the meaning of what you're reading. People say, I don't read the Bible 'cause I don't understand it. Of course you don't understand it. God will teach you. Read God's word again. You say, Tom, the third thing, read God's word, then what? Read it again. I already read it once. We'll pick it back up. Read it over and over and over. Know what the Bible says about how much God loves you. Is what causes you to reciprocate love back to Him. You don't love God for any other reason than you know how much He loves you. And we find that in here. So submit to God's word, submit to it. When you read it and He shows you what it means and you love Him back, submit to what He said. When we follow and obey what we know, the word becomes even more clear and we understand it even better and we're able to obey Him even more. Here's what A.W. Tozer said. He said Satan's greatest weapon is man's ignorance of God's word. Well, I wish I'd said it, but A.W. said it. (audience laughs) But it's good. It's good. His greatest weapon is our ignorance. And listen, we're the people of God. We're not gonna know God's word by reading it once, by hearing it preached, by reading a daily devotional. It's gonna take the repetition and the experience of all those things over and over and over and over for us to understand who God is, what He's done and for it to mean something in our lives. The Sadducees didn't know His word. How do I know it? It's because the Bible says it. You say, Tom, how do you know about the Sadducees didn't know it? 'Cause Jesus just said it. Not because I'm mad as Sadduce, you never have. How do I know I'm a sinner, Romans 3, 10? How do I know God loves me? John 3, 16? How do I know salvation's available? 2 Peter 3, 9? How do I know how to be saved? 1 John 1, 8? How do I know I can, that I can't lose my salvation? This is a big one, John 10, 28, y'all better write that one down. How do I know that some sins are sins? Revelation 21, 8, He names some, quite a few. There's so many things in our current culture too that I think would be cleared up so easily if we only knew His word. We're asking questions that we shouldn't be asking as believers, 'cause we don't know His word. Second thing, and I'm completely out of time, you're welcome to leave if you'd like, but please stay. He said the Sadducees didn't know or understand God's power. Verse 24, you don't even understand the power of God. This word, nor is exactly the same word with the word and attached to it, that was the first no. He said you don't know that either. The word power here is the word dunamis. The word dunamis is where we get our word dynamite from. There are two different words that are used in the Greek New Testament as well for the word power and one of them has to do with the authority that somebody has. The principal at the school, the president of our nation, that kind of authority, but this is not that word. This is word that means strength. He said you don't understand how strong I am and he was talking specifically about raising people from the dead. You know what kind of power it takes to raise somebody from the dead? Jesus kind of power, God power. What kind of power does it take for him to raise himself from the dead? Do you understand Jesus got up, right? We sing that song. I might as well go and not go on right now. He got up. He rose. What's God able to do anything? Everything, everything. He created the world. He healed the lame. He gave sight to the blind. He stopped the earth from spinning. Joshua 10 tells us for one hour, it just stopped. The sun didn't stop, the earth stopped. It's like he grabbed the two axes and just held it. The three Hebrew boys, Jonah, Daniel, all survived miraculous things that they were in. Man's a God people walk through dry ground at the Red Sea. He raised Lazarus from the dead. He raised our daughter from the dead. He raised himself from the dead. He has all the power to do whatever he wants. But how do we know that? 'Cause the Bible tells us that. How do the Sadducees not know what they needed to know? 'Cause they didn't know what it said. Why do we as Christians live like we live sometimes? 'Cause we don't know what it says. So we like the Sadducees wander spiritually because we don't know his word. We don't understand the power that he possesses. But who are those that wander? Well, some wander because they're blind. Some are blind. They wander because they have no shepherd. 'Cause they don't know there is one or they've been or they fail to ever follow the one that they did hear about. That's every person before salvation. But some are just rebellious and that's those who are Christians. Listen, it's one thing to never have a shepherd. It's a whole other thing to have a shepherd and be rebellious against him and just say I'm a follower of God, but never follow him. My question would be are you? Some are self-sufficient. They depend on their own intellect, their own feelings. They can be controlling, they're self-righteous. They believe in self more than they believe in God. They believe they can chart their own path. And if they ever do need God, they'll call him when they're in their emergency room. But to be honest with you, most of us are just immature. I'm still growing myself. I'm in that category too. We simply haven't grown in our relationship with the shepherd the way that we should. We have a relationship with God, but we don't understand that fellowship and the relationship is what God desires. And the only way to grow and fellowship with him is to begin to allow him to live his life through us. Then we can be more and more like him and we can know him. These who do mature in the faith, because the reason they do mature in the faith is because they spend time with God. And when they don't mature in the faith, it's because they don't spend time with the shepherd. You see, wandering causes separation. And the wandering is not him wandering from us. The wandering is us from him. We cannot know a person we do not spend time with. While salvation takes only a moment, knowing God takes a lifetime. Just as knowing somebody here on earth takes time, the same is true about knowing God. Unfortunately, it's more likely that we know about God than that we know God. You see, our wandering causes us to know God, it causes us not to know God's power, not to know his word, and we don't know his power because we don't know his word. Clyde Cranford said this. You've heard us talk about him a lot. He's in heaven now. He said there's an overall goal, and there's a daily goal for the life of a Christian. As the daily goal is accomplished, in time, the life goal will be accomplished. What are the goals? The life goal is to know God, which takes a lifetime. The daily goal is to spend time with Him. And as we spend time with Him, the life goal will be accomplished. You see, the irony in all of this, is that Jesus came to save those who were trying to trap Him. You know, the reason He was so honest with them, 'cause He wanted them to be saved. He didn't want them to live in the lie anymore. He wanted them to live in the middle of what was true. You see, He came to fulfill what the law could never accomplish, but ironically, it was that very law and the interpretation of that law, instead of a relationship with God that kept them blinded. What they needed to know, they did not. And what they did know didn't matter that much. So what are we gonna do with this message? I was talking to Micah yesterday. Micah hears a deep, deep, well, if you get to talk to Micah Ogo, spend some time with Micah. He's not just a sweet fellow. He's a very deep spiritual guy, and has been here for almost 20 years. Here's what he said. He said, "Tom, there are some who want God's power in their lives, but they could care less about His word." He said, "Then there are others who love learning God's word, but they don't really care much about God's power." We need Him both, don't we? And we will never know His power without knowing His word, but knowing His word does not mean we'll have His power. Let's seek Him together. Let's seek Him individually. Let's seek Him as a church. But here's the question for us tonight. Let's go ahead and why don't you just bow your head where you are. I want you to just lead us in a moment, and then we'll be finished. Are you wandering tonight? If you're an unbeliever, you've never given your loss to cross. There's never been a time. Listen, I don't want to hear about when you were a baby and you were baptized, or when you made some emotional decision. I want to know, what is your life like today? Have you given your life to Christ? If you did, you haven't lost the salvation, but have you. Right now, the blinders are on. I know, 'cause that was me. I know what that looks like. Are you wandering because you have no shepherd? But for those of you who are followers of Jesus, are you wandering for one of those other three reasons? You just refuse to follow Him. Maybe you're distracted. Maybe you're confused. Maybe you're trying to make your own way. You're not rebellious, you just need to grow. But those of us who are followers of Jesus, how well do you know God? And this isn't a scale that I'm talking about here. How well do you know His Word and His power? How well do you understand what He's taught in His Word? Do you need to know Him and His power more? What's the next step for you? Is it to repent and start from where you were? Is it to start again and say, Lord, you saved me back years ago, but I've kind of walked away. I don't want to walk away. I find myself distracted, confused. But are you wandering? Here's what I can tell you. You don't have to wander anymore. The Sadducees that they turned and left, they kept wandering as far as we know. You don't have to. Come home. Come back to Him. Lord, you've heard this message. You know my heart in this and God, you know how I studied for this. But God, you also know, or I know, how nobody will be touched by any of my words. They will only be touched by yours. So Lord, I pray that you'd take your word that they've heard and I pray that you would apply to hearts in this room. And I pray that we'd be honest with ourselves and with you about who we are. You've asked us not to have to wander anymore. You've given us a reason not to do that. And so Lord, to not, we can come back to you. You will take us right where we are. The change that we've made long ago still applies today. And if you need to give your life to cross, I would like to show you how not to wander for the very first time. Some of our pastors will be up here, our prayer partners will be up here. We would love to pray for you. But are you wondering? You don't have to. Lord, thank you. Thank you for your grace. That even when we wander, you are good. Even when we don't listen, God, you still love us. And you give us a way back. None of this is about performance. It's all about your grace, your mercy, and your love, Jesus. We love you. Have your way in this room. We pray in Jesus' name, amen. Let's stand together. Let's sing together. If you're a believer, please stay and pray for those who aren't. And if you are wandering, listen, just come get it right. The altar's open. We'll pray with you. Wander, know, or listen together. [BLANK_AUDIO]