Beware the Yeast | The Hidden Danger Jesus Warned About | Matthew 16

**Chris Franky** (0:00)
We're gonna start in Matthew chapter 16, five through 12 However, I wanna catch up a little bit on last week. Last week, we saw that the Pharisees and the Sadducees had come, they had engaged with Jesus. And when they engaged with Jesus, it wasn't just them to sit there and look for what was happening in front of them, they demanded a sign. They wanted a sign. Not because they had lacked evidence, the scripture had told us over and over and over again that there was thousands of miracles, thousands of healings. The blind were seen, the lame were walking. But they demanded a sign because they had refused to learn from the signs Jesus had already given them. This is something that I asked us to reflect on this week. How many times in our own life does Jesus do something in the midst of our family? It could be financial, it could be healing, it could be peace, it could be all kinds of different things. And then immediately when we find ourselves in another situation, maybe a moment of lack, maybe a moment of lacking of understanding, we immediately ask Jesus to show up and give us a sign again as if he hadn't already done that.
How quickly we forget that it's us who are fickle, not Jesus who is fickle. How quickly do we forget that we are the ones who sometimes will take the scripture and will use the scripture for our advantage, and Jesus never was abusive, Jesus never was manipulative, Jesus was perfection in all regards. This is what our pride does. Our pride will blind us to exactly what's happening in front of us, and we'll try to see every type of situations through the lens of pride for our own good, right? How does this help us? How does this benefit us? Pride is ultimately a downfall that leads to destruction in all areas of our life. And yet the people of Nineveh had heard one reluctant prophet, not a parrot, but a prophet. And they repented. And here we have the Pharisees who are seeing more than one from more than just a prophet, Jesus the Christ, God in the flesh. And they refused to repent.
There was a generation who hears God and responds, and there's a generation who hears God and chooses to harden their heart. And we have to choose in this room with multiple generations, which generation are we going to be?
We hear God, the Pharisees heard God, but what are you going to do with it? The normal people saw and heard God, and they reacted in a positive way. They repented, they moved forward with their life. They began changing their behavior, changing their thought processes. The Pharisees heard and saw the same things. They did not change and repent. They doubled down.
One brings humility, the other does not. I promise I'm getting to something worthwhile, Elijah.

**SPEAKER_2** (2:57)
I promise.

**Chris Franky** (2:59)
He's just saying the quiet part out loud. It's okay.

**SPEAKER_2** (3:02)
It's okay.

**Chris Franky** (3:04)
Oh, he bonked his head. I bonked my head too this week. I have a little cut from a ladder. It was Sarah and Cam's ladder too, I think. Does that mean I can sue them?

**SPEAKER_2** (3:11)
I don't know. Oh, Paul said, I can't sue you.

**Chris Franky** (3:13)
Sorry.
All right, now to verses five and six. As we continue in Matthew chapter 16, we see the scene shift again, not from the Pharisees demanding of a sign, but now we see them crossing to the other side of the lake. It says later after they crossed to the other side of the lake, the disciples discovered that they had forgotten to bring any bread. Has anybody ever done that? You know, my kids play softball, my kids play baseball, all that type of stuff. And there's numerous times where we have the best laid plans. We're going to pack our lunches, we're not going to eat concession stand food, you know, all the things. And we get there and we're like, Elias, where's your water bottle?

**SPEAKER_2** (3:50)
He's like, I left it at the house.

**Chris Franky** (3:51)
Or it's like, hey, Nora, did you pack a sandwich? And it's like, oh, I forgot, I left it in your car or whatever. And it's like, does anybody else have that problem or is it just us? I'm like, you have the same problem? Yeah. Well, you plan ahead of time and you just sometimes fail to execute the plan. That's okay. But after they had crossed the other side of the lake, the disciples had discovered that they had forgotten to bring any bread. Watch out, Jesus warned them. Beware of the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees.