CEFC Sermons
The Master Carpenter
I don't know where it's gone, and it's gone way too quickly for me. We're looking this morning at the Master Carpenter, so let's stand as we hear God's word read from Matthew chapter 3 and Matthew chapter 13. Then Jesus came from Galilee to John the baptizer at the Jordan to be baptized by him, and John tried to prevent him saying, "I need to be baptized by you and you're coming to me." And Jesus answered and said, "Permit it to be so for now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness." And then he allowed him. And when he had been baptized, Jesus came up immediately from the water. And behold, the heavens were open to him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and a lighting on him, and suddenly a voice came from heaven saying, "This is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased." And then over to Matthew chapter 13. Now it came to pass when Jesus had finished these parables. He departed from there, and when he came to his own country, his own town, Nazareth, he taught them in their synagogues, and they were astonished and said, "Where did this man get this wisdom and these mighty works? Is this not the carpenter's son? Is not his mother called Mary, and his brother James, and hoses, and Simon, and Judas, and his sisters, are they not with us? Where did this man get all of these things?" You see it? The master carpenter. I know we have a few master carpenters with us this morning, but we're going to talk about the master carpenter, the Lord Jesus, this morning. This is Labor Day weekend, as most of you know. Observed on the first Monday of September, Labor Day is an annual celebration of social and economic achievements of American workers. The holiday is rooted in the late 19th century when Labor activists pushed for a federal holiday to recognize the many contributions workers have made to America's strength, prosperity, and well-being. In 1894, Congress passed an act making the first Monday in September of each year a legal holiday. Many believe that the machinist, Matthew McGuire, founded the holiday. State research seems to support that Matthew McGuire, the secretary of Local 344, of machinist in Patterson, New Jersey, proposed the holiday in 1882 while serving as secretary of the Central Labor Union. According to the New Jersey Historical Society, after President Cleveland signed the law creating a national Labor Day in 1894, the Patterson morning call, it was her newspaper, published an opinion piece stating the souvenir pen should go to Alderman, Matthew McGuire of Patterson, who is the undisputed author of Labor Day. So I thought you should probably know that if you're ever on a trivia show and you know what happened here in Patterson. So man had the idea to have a Labor Day, God had the idea away in the beginning, didn't he? Six days shall thou labor and do your work. That was God's plan from the beginning to have a day of rest. Timothy's father, who's with us this morning, who's now in his 40s, when he was about Timothy's age, about five years old, came to us and said, "What's Labor Day?" Now we had lots of things we hadn't done in the summer, tasks that we wanted to do around the house and things we needed to do to get ready for the fall. And so we told Christian, "Labor Day is a day on which you work." Unfortunately, three years ago he caught on, but we had 40 good years of work from him on Labor Day. You meet somebody today and you're going to ask them possibly what's their name, where do you live, and what else do I ask this person, "Oh, what did you do for a living? What do you do?" Labor and work is very important to us. Genesis one and two clearly show us that as image bearers of God, we have been created for among other things to work. Create is certainly to worship and praise, but we have been created to work. Adam was put in the garden to keep and tend the garden. Sin entered in and so did the weeds. And the thorns and the thistles and the toil and the sweat came because of sin. The brokenness of work, but we were created to work. John 5, 17, Jesus says, "I'm working and my Father is working." John continues to work. We know a lot about the first few years of Jesus' life, his birth. We know a lot about the last three and a half years of his life, don't we? Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John tell us all about the time he spent here on earth. He went everywhere preaching the gospel. He went around teaching, doing miracles. He still storms, he fills them with fish, he feeds 5,000 and 3,000 with very meager means. He turns water into wine, he heals, he raises the dead. We know a lot about those three and a half years of his life. The impact that he made upon the world, an impact like no man has ever made. Throughout history, Jesus has had that surprising impact upon lives. Those who encountered him see transformation. We know a lot about the prophecies of Jesus coming. We know he was to be born in Bethlehem. Yep, Mary and Joseph were not in Bethlehem, were they? God had to get them to Bethlehem and he did that through a decree that all the world should be taxed. We know about the prophecy where he needed to be born. We knew a prophecy where he needed to be raised in Nazareth, fulfilling the prophecy that he would be called the Nazarene. We know in age 12 that with his parents at one of the great festivals, Jesus went up to the temple and stayed behind for three days. His parents had to go back and get him and there he was in the temple teaching and answering questions. And we read there in Luke, after that he increased in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and with man. But what happened to Jesus between 12 years old and 30 years? What was Jesus doing? At his Baptist that we read, he came forth to be baptized. He went into the waters when he came out of the waters and those of you who are being baptized will bring you back up again. All right, you go down but you do come back up again. He came up out of the waters and the heavens opened up and the Spirit of God came down, descended like a dove and the voice came from heaven saying, "You are my beloved son in whom I am well pleased." What was the Father talking about? Was he talking about Calvary? Was he talking about the teaching and miracles that Jesus would perform? No, I believe the Father was saying for these first 30 years of my life of your life, Jesus, I am well pleased with you. On the Hebrew minds that would hear the word son, they would understand the messianic portion of that. You are my beloved son in whom I am well pleased. Of course, they didn't understand what redemption was going to look like, that he was going to go to the cross, but they understood that Messiah was going to come and redeem them and they have here their midst, Messiah. There's a large crowd gathered around it tells us in the Word of God for people were being baptized. They hear the voice from heaven, "My beloved son, the Messiah," and they wonder, "What has he been doing? What has this man been doing? Where has he been for the last 30 years?" And then shortly after that we read over and mark, he goes out on a public ministry and he returns to Nazareth, the place where he grew up. He returns to his hometown, a small hillside hamlet, maybe 3,000 people of that. He goes to his boyhood home and he goes into the synagogue on the Sabbath as was his custom. He was accustomed to going to the church. He went into the synagogue on the Sabbath. And there he reads from Isaiah 61, "The spirit of the Lord is upon me because the Lord has anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted to proclaim liberty to the captives, the opening of the prison to them that are bound to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord," and he stops. And verse goes on. If you go back to Isaiah 61, verse 2, it goes on, "The day of the vengeance of our God." But that's not what Jesus' message was. That day will yet come, but in his first coming he came to proclaim liberty to the captive. Now a scroll in those days was made of animal skins sewn together with long wooden handles. And each end, the scroll of Isaiah would be about 25 feet long, and I asked Stan to paste it off. And he said back to about the six pew, one, two, three, four. So about back to where the pitmen are sitting, from here to where the pitmen are, yes, raise your hands if you don't know where the pitmen are, okay, where the pitmen would be the scroll if you were to open it up. Jesus opens the scroll and reads from Isaiah. Let me tell you, the scroll was handwritten, was written in Hebrew without any punctuation, no spaces between the words, it would look like one word on a 25-foot scroll, one word of letters that go on and on and on. Once in a while Timothy wants to come up into my office at home, he wants to do college work on the computer, and he starts typing letters. No spaces, no, I can't understand what he's typing, but he's doing college work. He's got all these letters up there, and he'll say, Gaga, what is that? And sometimes I can read it most of the time, I can't understand what it is. But that's what the Hebrew scroll was like. One single word going on for 25 feet, no spaces, no paragraphs, no punctuations, and get this, no vowels. And finding the text and reading the text would have to have an amazing grasp. I have several texts, I'm going to be reading this one, I have markers in my Bible, and we can find it very easily. We know the book and the chapters and the verses, they didn't have that, amazing grasp of the Scriptures. And after he read the Word of God, he said, this is fulfilled in your hearing. And those hearing him said, is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary. His brothers and sisters are with us, and they were offended at him. What a response to the reading of God's Word. They were offended. The word is hutas. It was a contemptuous word. When Jesus was out dining with the publicans and sinners, they said he was hutas. They were upset with him because he was with the publicans and the sinners. They didn't think he belonged there. They were contemptious of him. How could this man read this word and apply it to himself? And so I want to hold in our context this morning. The Word spoken at his baptism, this is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased and is not this the carpenter, it's really our carpenter. The dividing line between his earthly ministry, his public life, and his private life. The Father speaks and says, you are my beloved son. He's done mighty deeds, he's come, he's been baptized, he's back in his hometown. And they say, this is our carpenter. How could he do this? And you know what? He had them stand to read the Word. He stood to read the Word. And that's why I often, I think almost all the time, ask us to read the Word. You find it in the book of Nehemiah, you find it was what the Scriptures talk about. In reverence for the Word of God, we stand as it's read. And so following the reading of the Word, they ask that question, is not this the carpenter? So now we know two things, don't we, about Jesus, between ages 12 and 30. The Father is well pleased and people see him as the carpenter. Those who know him very well, knew him as the carpenter, it's not this our carpenter, but the Father who knew him better, said, in whom I am well pleased. And that brings the two texts together, gives us an idea of what he was doing for those 18 years. Tradition tells us that Joseph may have passed away, but Jesus was rather young somewhere after age 12. We don't know that. But if Joseph had passed away, Jesus was the oldest in the family. He fell heir to providing for the family. Think about Jesus on the cross when he looks at his mother, Mary, and says to John, "You take her to your house, take care of her. I've been taking care of her. Now John, I want you to take care of my mother." He was providing. So he may have been the breadwinner, he may have been the wage earner. And what we don't know, that tradition is true, we do know that he worked. Jesus worked for a living. The greater part of his life, 18 years, he was not a king upon the throne. He was not out in ministry teaching and healing the kinds of things that can boil you up and give you energy and give you life. He was doing the kinds of things that we call the daily grind. Oh, it's Monday again, well, this week it'll be Tuesday, oh, it's Tuesday, the daily grind, the daily labor, the wearyness of it sometimes. But he got up every morning, picked up his tools, and went into the carpenter shop. And so just a little sideline here, be careful about judging people. When you look into their carpenter shop, when you look into their life, and you see what they're doing, you say, oh, I don't know, God knows. If God has called them to that, it's a wonderful calling, it's his calling. The one who created and fashioned and sustained all things, you walk by the carpenter shop every day and he's in there working. 18 years or over, the divine light shines upon him, he lays his tools aside and the father says, I am pleased. I believe that means, among other things, that Jesus never did a substandard piece of work. I don't believe he ever did a careless piece of work. Wouldn't you love to have a table or chair made by Jesus of Nazareth? It would be, oh, wonderful. But mostly he probably did farm equipment, the equipment that was needed by the community. And when he said, take my yoke upon me and learn of me, he knew what a yoke was. And so he stood up to read, the spirit of God comes upon him, he says, this scripture is fulfilled this day and they say, but you're only a carpenter. Known as a carpenter, most of his life, he could have been almost any occupation. Although sons usually follow their father's occupations, another sideline, we're often guilty of telling our children, you can be anything you want to be. I started in education in 1967, and I'll tell you, some kids can't be anything they want to be. They're just not suited. And we as parents and grandparents need to pray and guide and direct these children and discern so we can direct them in the right path for their lives, fulfilling God's plan for their lives. Jesus could have been anything he wanted to be, yet they said, it's not this, the carpenter. He could have been known as the shepherd, couldn't he? Jesus said, I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd gives his life for his sheep. Hebrews tells us, our Lord Jesus, that great shepherd of the sheep. First Peter says, Jesus is the chief shepherd. Nevertheless, in the 33 years of his life, the Bible never says, is not this the shepherd? He could have been known as the lawyer. There's never been a lawyer like him. He's never lost the case. He had wisdom and skills and knowledge. He pleaded more cases than anyone has ever pleaded. In 1 John chapter 2, we read, "My little children, these things I write to you that you sin not, but if you sin, we have an advocate. We have a lawyer. We have an attorney with the father, aren't you thankful this morning as we come to the table?" When we've sinned, there's an advocate. There's one who speaks in our behalf to the father. Please the blood in our behalf. The Bible tells us in the book of Revelation that Satan is the accuser of the brethren and who's standing there in our behalf before the throne, day and night, as our advocate, our lawyer. He's never lost the case. There's one God and one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus. Yet for 33 years of his life, Jesus did not practice law. The Bible did not say, is this the lawyer? He could have been known as the physician, couldn't he? There's never been a physician like him, opens blind eyes, causes the death to hear, the dumb to speak, the dead are raised, the woman who touches the hem of his garment, is immediately healed, 18 years. He's a carpenter, but the Bible never says to him he is the physician. He could have been known as the fisherman. No one's ever a fish like him. In Luke chapter 5, Peter and his associates have just come in from fishing and they've caught nothing. And Jesus said, take your boats out and cast the net. If you recall what happened there in Luke chapter 5, they caught so many fish they had to invite other boats by to fill up their boats with fish. And over in John chapter 20, they've gone out fishing. Fish all night, caught nothing, Jesus had tried the other side and they catch 153 fish. As a fisherman for you. The Lord knew where the fish were, the greatest fisherman who ever lived. Yet, we never hear him called the great fisherman. He was not known as the fisherman, he was not known as the physician, he was not known as the lawyer, he was not known as the shepherd. But as a carpenter, he was a carpenter because he's the master builder. The Bible tells us all things about Jesus but not by accident that he was a carpenter. God and his wisdom saw fit for Jesus to be that master carpenter. He created the universe. That's pretty good, isn't it? When Christ created this universe, he did it with such skill and wisdom that scientists have been studying for years, galaxies upon galaxies, we sang about God wonders this morning. We can know for certainty, if Jesus does not come, when the sun will rise on September 1st, 2074. The universe is that orderly. We cannot help marveling over his creation and yet after six days of work, he rested. The Bible says only a fool can look at creation and not acknowledge there is a God. All we can see and things that we cannot say came about because of the master carpenter of the universe. As we heard earlier in Colossians, for by him were all things created. In heaven and in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones or dominions or principalities or powers, all things were created by him and for him. And he is before all things and by him all things consist of the universe. He's building his church. Jesus said over in Matthew 16, "I will build my church." Men can build a building with the strength and wisdom God gives, but only God can build his church and he builds his church out of his saints. In Ephesians 2 we read, "Therefore you are no more strangers and foreigners but fellow citizens with the saints and of the household of God, listen to this, and are built upon the foundation, the firm foundation of the apostles and the prophets, Jesus Christ being the chief cornerstone in whom all the building fitly comes together." He's building us together, not as separate, but as a unit, as a whole to become. This is important. He builds us together as his church to become the dwelling place of God. You should be jumping off your seats this morning. We are the dwelling place of God. God is in our midst in a very special way as we gather together, fitly framing us together, building us together, calling the right people together. And you wonder why this one's here and that one's here and why God brings us together. Sometimes we're a little different. That's okay. God is building his church together, fitly framed. So he built a universe, he's building a church and he's building a city. Hebrews 11 says, "By faith Abraham when he was called to go out into a place which he would receive foreign inheritance, obeyed and went out, not knowing whether he went." And by faith he's sojourned in the land of promise as in a strange country, dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob and their heirs with the same promise, listen, "For he looked for a city which foundations whose builder and maker is God." He built a universe, he's building a church and he's building a city. Jesus said, "I'm going to prepare a place for you." Now, I don't think Jesus has been busy building for 2,000 years, but he's gone to prepare a place for us. He created a universe for us to live in, a church for us to worship and grow in for edification and evangelism and a heaven for us to dwell in eternally. But you know what the most amazing thing is to me? It's not the universe, not the church, not even heaven. He's building lives. He's building into individual lives, the master carpenter. He can take a man or a woman that the world thinks nothing of. A man or a woman who's been discarded by society and he can take that life and change it, transform it, make it into something beautiful. And maybe you've known Jesus down here and you haven't gone through that. But imagine where you could have been without the grace of God in your life. He's taken your life and he's building your life into something beautiful. He can give us beauty for ashes. Don't underestimate what the omnipotent one can do in you and through you. Jesus was being prepared during those 18 years and sometimes we have a passion in our lives to do something or a promise from God, well, when's it going to be fulfilled? Remember Abraham waiting for Isaac to be born, couldn't wait, couldn't wait and messed it up. He had to wait, 18 years waiting for God's promise to be performed. Every day he picks up his tools and he goes into the carpenter's shop. What does it mean, he's making plows, he's making yolks. But in his heart he knows his mission is what, to seek and to save that which was lost. But it's been deferred for a while, it's been put off, he doesn't see it happening just yet. Doesn't that seem unusual to you? Came to seek and to save that which is lost and yet he's there making yolks and plows. Wonder what Mary thought. I don't know, I almost sound like Mary, I don't know, but what did Mary think? The virgin shall conceive and she'll beg God. She had to son and now every day my son goes to the carpenter's shop. He's Messiah, what's he doing in the carpenter's shop? Maybe you're wondering why you're where you are today. Doing what you're doing today why God has allowed this thing to come into your life or to be in part of your life and you just don't understand it. Jesus was content to do the Father's will each and every day. He said he who puts his hand to the plow and turns back, it's not worthy. We sometimes don't understand what God is doing in our lives. Sometimes we say life isn't fair. Why me? Why do I feel so restricted and penned in or this is not what I expected to happen or where I expected to be at this point in life. We sometimes don't understand his will. You know what the answer is? Are you ready? It's a mystery. It is a mystery, but God is working out something so good and so wonderful. And each day he'd go to the carpenter's shop and say, Father I know today this is your will for me. This is your will for me for today. And he did it faithfully. All service can be sacred service, even painting a baptistry can be sacred service. If we know that we serve the Lord Christ, we're doing it for him with each stroke. We do it not unto men for applause or acceptance, but living to please the Father. Where God has placed you today, can you say, God, where you place me today, I want to live to please you. We make our places of work in our homes, holy places for the Shukhina glory of God. Our lives are often predictable, pedantic, profoundly ordinary. We work. We spend time with our family. We worship. We eat. We sleep. Rinse and repeat. You know what they say? We do it again and we do it again and we do it again, but I believe that no man has fit for great service until he's been proven faithful in little tasks, in obscurity, faithful over little of the Bible so as I will make you ruler over much. The son of God incarnate deity, God in the flesh, came to seek and to save that which was lost, spent most of his life in the carpenter's shop. Because that was the will of God. The God of heaven who is infinite, eternal, omnipotent, omniscient, creator and sustainer of the universe became flesh. Yet he works in the carpenter's shop. Jesus, and I want you to notice this, Jesus lived in the power of the truth. There is something much better than doing a great thing for God. It's being where God wants you to be. Doing what God wants you to do, having no will apart from his will. Jesus lived in the power of the truth. There is something much better than doing a great thing for God. Being where God wants you to be, doing what God wants you to do and having no will apart from his. You probably don't remember our Christmas Eve message, so I'll remind you, as the night before Christmas in heaven, and Jesus said, "I, Father, I come into the world and I delight to do your will." That's what life should all be about. I delight to do your will. It may not be where I want to be or doing what I want to do, but it's what he wants me to do. Oh, Jesus, wouldn't you rather be out there healing and teaching? And I believe Jesus would say, "Today this is God's will, the carpenter's shop." And he delighted in the Father's will. You see, he fought battles for us. Where do we fight most of our battles? In the home, in the car on the way to church, in the workplace? That's where Jesus spent most of his life. And yet without sin, we say tempted and tried and always, "We come to church and we've got nice smiles on and we're nice to each other and we look like what a nice family that is." The battles he fought. He faced the subtle forms of temptations that we face. And I believe because of the carpenter's shop, there could be a Gethsemane, there could be a Calvary and a resurrection, tested in all points like as we. Do you think a customer ever came back and said he didn't like the work or the way he did something? He had to deal with irate people or deadlines or pressures. For those 30 years, Jesus lived the life we should have lived. Why did he just come down on Good Friday and rise on Easter Sunday? Because he needed to live the life we should have lived. So he could stand in my place and die the death I should have died and deserved and he could give me his perfect righteousness. See, he lived a perfectly righteous life in the carpenter's shop. We talk about being clothed in his righteousness, it's not just the righteousness from three and a half years of ministry where everybody's watching you. It's in the carpenter's shop. So this Tuesday morning, I know in tomorrow's Labor Day I'll give you the day off. Son, are you listening? You can have the day off. But on Tuesday morning, what will you be doing going to your carpenter's shop? Will it be just the same old, same old, the daily grind? Or will it be, "This is the Father's plan. I'm going to the Father's plan for my life." And may we begin each day with the words of the hymn by Frederick Faber, "I worship thee, sweet will of God, and all thy ways adore, and every day I live to love thee more and more." You talk about the will of God, "To learn to love the will of God each day more and more. I worship thee, sweet will of God, and all thy ways adore, and every day I live to love thee more and more." Father, we thank you for the Word of God this morning and that we could just open and hear your Holy Spirit speak. I pray, Father, that the words that we needed to hear would come from your Spirit to our Spirit's, that you would seal this word as we come now to the table in Jesus' name. Amen. We're coming now to the line.