WISDOM & WONDER | Raised. Ransomed. Recovered. | Matthew 20:17-34 | Philip Anthony Mitchell - 2819 Church

Summary

Podcast Summary: 2819 Church Episode - "WISDOM & WONDER | Raised. Ransomed. Recovered. | Matthew 20:17-34"

Host: Philip Anthony Mitchell
Release Date: January 4, 2025

Introduction and Announcements (00:00 - 05:00)

In the opening segment, Philip Anthony Mitchell sets a celebratory tone, emphasizing the significance of worshiping together. He shares two key announcements:

Annual Consecration Week:
“At the top of every year, we do what's called a consecration together. It's just seven days... to focus in on the Lord in fasting and in prayer.” (02:15). Mitchell highlights the transformative impact of this week, citing powerful testimonies from the previous year where lives were radically changed.
Gospel Expansion Offering:
“We start doing this once a year in the month of love, February... to purchase our very first facility.” (04:50). He explains the church's initiative to raise capital through sacrificial giving, aiming to fund various projects, support missionaries, and ultimately secure a dedicated facility without relying on traditional banking systems.

Transition to Scripture Reading (05:00 - 10:00)

Mitchell announces the culmination of their "Wisdom and Wonderful" series, covering Matthew chapters 12 through 20. Unexpectedly, he informs the congregation that there will be no prepared sermon for this episode. Instead, they will engage in a communal reading of Scripture, allowing the Holy Spirit to guide any insights or exhortations.

He underscores the importance of Scripture as a living entity:
“The scripture says the Word is alive and active. It is sharper than any two-edged sword.” (08:30).

Scriptural Analysis: Matthew 20:17-34 (10:00 - 25:20)

Jesus Predicts His Suffering (Matthew 20:17-19)

Mitchell begins by contextualizing Jesus' journey to Jerusalem, where He foretells His betrayal and suffering:
“He will be delivered over into the chief priests and to the scribes, and they will condemn him to death...” (12:45).

He delves into the historical severity of flogging in the first century, emphasizing the brutal reality of Jesus' sacrifice:
“He did that for your sin and for my sin. And that's the price he had to pay for the sins that you and I committed.” (15:20).

Mitchell passionately asserts the necessity of hating sin as a response to the high cost of Christ's redemption:
“We should not love sin. And we should hate sin. [...] we should be a people who watch and learn to hate sin.” (17:50).

The Promise of Resurrection (Matthew 20:20-22)

Reflecting on Jesus’ prophecy of His resurrection, Mitchell offers hope beyond death:
“Nobody has to lie at our funeral. [...] we have left this earthen vessel and we have gone into the precious presence of God Almighty.” (19:10).

He emphasizes the foundational truth of Christ’s resurrection for Christianity:
“If Christ is not raised, we have nothing to believe in at all.” (21:05).

The Request of Salome (Matthew 20:20-28)

Mitchell examines Salome’s request for her sons to sit at Jesus' right and left in His kingdom:
“What do you want from me?... say that my two sons of mine are to sit at one at your right hand and one at your left hand in your kingdom.” (22:30).

He warns against manipulating God's will for our children, advocating for guiding them towards God’s intended paths:
“We have to lead them down the pathways that God prepared for them...” (23:15).

Mitchell connects this to modern-day suffering and service, urging believers to embrace servant leadership:
“Whoever would be great among you must be a servant.” (24:45).

Healing and Persistence in Prayer (Matthew 20:29-34)

Addressing the story of the two blind men, Mitchell highlights the importance of persistent prayer:
“These men were persistent and stopping. Jesus called him and said, what do you want me to do for you?” (24:55).

He shares personal struggles with depression and ministerial pressures, encouraging listeners to seek intimacy with Christ:
“There is no activity you will ever engage in that's more important than just sitting in the presence of the Lord.” (23:30).

Mitchell underscores the power of worship and the secret place as spiritual weapons against inner turmoil:
“Worship is a weapon. And your secret place is a weapon, but my greatest weapon.” (24:01).

Prayer and Deliverance (25:00 - 27:51)

The episode transitions into a prayer segment where Mitchell leads prayers for an unnamed congregant battling tormenting thoughts. Notable exchanges include:

Prayer Request:
“Any prayer for these evil thoughts and evil thoughts?” (24:12).
Deliverance Prayer:
“We command every demonic spirit... to flee from this man. In the name of Jesus.” (25:02).

Mitchell emphasizes the authority believers hold through Christ to overcome mental strongholds:
“Every thought that's held him captive, we be taking captive right now under the authority of Jesus Christ.” (25:21).

Personal Testimonies and Encouragement (27:50 - End)

Mitchell shares a heartfelt testimony about encountering a stranger who encouraged him during his own struggles, reinforcing the reciprocal nature of support within the faith community:

“Even when you don't feel good about yourself, my love for you has not changed.” (24:25).

He concludes by urging listeners to abandon self-condemnation and seek mercy through honest prayer:
“Lord, I feel like I'm in a funk... just have mercy on me. That is the end of the Wisdom and Wonder series.” (25:27).

Conclusion

In this episode, Philip Anthony Mitchell delivers a profound exploration of Matthew 20:17-34, intertwining biblical exegesis with personal vulnerability. He addresses themes of suffering, servant leadership, persistent prayer, and the transformative power of intimate fellowship with Christ. Through his transparent sharing and scriptural insights, Mitchell encourages listeners to deepen their faith, embrace their struggles as pathways to spiritual growth, and rely on God's unwavering love and strength.

Notable Quotes:

“We should not love sin. And we should hate sin.” – Philip Anthony Mitchell (15:20)
“If Christ is not raised, we have nothing to believe in at all.” – Philip Anthony Mitchell (21:05)
“Whoever would be great among you must be a servant.” – Philip Anthony Mitchell (24:45)
“There is no activity you will ever engage in that's more important than just sitting in the presence of the Lord.” – Philip Anthony Mitchell (23:30)
“We command every demonic spirit... to flee from this man.” – Philip Anthony Mitchell (25:02)

This summary encapsulates the key discussions, insights, and personal reflections shared by Philip Anthony Mitchell in the "Raised. Ransomed. Recovered." episode of the 2819 Church podcast, providing an engaging overview for both regular attendees and new listeners.

Transcript

Philip Anthony Mitchell (0:00)

You can be seated. I know that. I know that some of y'all think we doing the most. I know. But how y'all gonna spend a whole hour in worship like y'all doing the most? I think he's worthy of that. And because this is our last Sunday of the year for us, we won't come back again until January 5th. I just want you to remember what it feels like when we're together worshiping our Savior. So we are doing the most today. It's a day of celebration and praise unto our God before we jump into God's word. Not really a proclamation so much. We're going to do something a little different today. Just two quick announcements, and I just want to share this with you. If you're new to our church, at the top of every year, we do what's called a consecration together. It's just seven days, one week in which we turn our plates down. We turn down the noise of society, we hop off of social media, we turn down all the external stimulus to just focus in on the Lord in fasting and in prayer. We spend more time in the Word, more time in his presence, and we want to just be with Him. And it doesn't have to be to get some clear word or directive for the year. If that's your goal. That's nothing wrong with that. But the primary goal is that we would just draw near to him as a church together. And in our consecration last year, powerful testimonies of how people's lives was radically changed in such a short period of time. So I just want to let you know that's coming at the top of the year. Okay? And then secondly, I am not a money man. I even struggle to raise capital. It's probably one of my weakest areas of pastoral ministry. 12 years of pastoral ministry. I've never taken special offerings. Never. $100 line, $50 line. I don't say I hear the spirit of the Lord saying, 50 people need to bring me a thousand dollars. Later, we don't. I don't get into any of that American foolishness. Don't do that here. But we do know it takes resources to move God's work forward. And one of the things we instituted last year was what we call a Gospel expansion offering, in which we start doing this once a year in the month of love, February. And the last Sunday of the year, we bring something sacrificial, a gift that we sold together as a church. And these gifts, at least for these first two years, we're trying to raise as much capital as possible that we can invest that into the purchase of our very first facility. I've made it very clear and I've been very transparent that there is pressure on us here and that we cannot remain in this school very long. And we're doing everything we can to raise as much capital as possible to be able to purchase a facility. And we're trying to do this without a bank involved because I believe the people of God, we can do this for ourselves. And so on that Sunday, the final Sunday of the year in February, I'm sorry, will be the opportunity for us to come together sacrificially to sow or to invest towards gospel expansion and beyond. A facility which that is not the promised land. We use that offering to help fund all of our projects and initiatives. And we support missionaries who are outside the country right now. And I just want to let you know that so we can be prepared for that. Amen. If you are a guest to 2819, we welcome you. If you're sitting in the overflow and you are a guest, we welcome you. If you're watching me live right now in cities across the nation, around the world, we welcome you. We are at the end of a series called Wisdom and Wonderful. We are walking through, or have walked through Matthew chapter 12 through 20 together. We're going to finish that series right here today. And then I'm going to share with you a little exhortation after that. We're going to take communion and we're going to go home. And disclaimer. I did not prepare a sermon for you this morning. Okay. And what we're going to do today is we're going to read God's word and we're going to go home. And if the Holy Spirit gives me insight as we read, I will give you that insight. But I told you there will be days when we'll come together and there will be no preaching because I am not an idol. But that we will sit together and just read these holy scriptures together and just let the word minister to us as we read it. Go home. And for those of you who make me an idol, that you think you can't survive a Sunday without a sermon from me, I just want to remind you that the scripture says the Word is alive and active. It is sharper than any two edged sword. And if what I'm telling right now makes you feel uncomfortable, like how could I come to church and the preacher doesn't have a sermon? Let me, let me just show you something that our Lord did So you don't think I'm a heretic in Luke. Luke, who was a doctor, a physician and a historian. The only non Jewish writer of the Scriptures, 40 of them. He records an incident in Luke chapter four. I want to read it to you so that you see that I want to put Scripture on what I'm doing, okay? In Luke chapter 4, and beginning in verse 16, Luke wrote, and he who was Jesus came to Nazareth where he had been brought up. And as was his custom, he went into the synagogue on the Sabbath. And so we see Jesus had a habit of being in the gathering of the saints or the gathering of the Jewish people. Obviously we know the Sabbath was Saturday for the Jews. We celebrate the Lord on Sunday. Non essential. And he stood up to read. He stood up to do what? He stood up to do what? Not to preach. He stood up to do what? He stood up to just read. And the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written. And this is from Isaiah 60:1. The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to proclaim the good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, and to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor. Two verses he read. And then what did he do after that? And he rolled back up the scroll and gave it back to the attendant. And he sat down, gathering over, and he gives one exhortation. And he began to say to them, today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing. He reads the scriptures, he gives one exhortation, gathering over. So it is not unbiblical to do that. And if we can't just read the Scriptures amongst the people of God, then where can we read these Scriptures? Amen. So today I'm going to close out our Wisdom and Wonders series by just reading to you the last verses in Matthew chapter 20. We'll do Matthew chapter 20 and we'll go from verses 17 to 34. Eternal God and ever wise. Father, we sense and feel your presence right now. We thank you Lord, for your word that's forever settled in heaven. And we pray, Father, that we would just find contentment and joy in just a holy reading of these Scriptures and that it would be enough for us today. Speak to our hearts as we read these sacred texts, minister what needs to be said, and we'll give you the glory for that. In Christ's name, God's people said Amen and Amen in Matthew chapter 20. And beginning in verse 17, Matthew, who was an outcast Jew and converted to Christianity, a follower of Christ, an eyewitness of his ministry, he wrote these words beginning in verse 17. And as Jesus was going up to Jerusalem, we know that the Lord has left Capernaum, his home base of operation, and he's headed towards Jerusalem for what will be his last time entering that city. And he took the twelve disciples aside, and on the way, he said to them, see, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be delivered. It's a very important word. He is prophesying about his own impending betrayal. He will be delivered over into the chief priests and to the scribes, and they will condemn him to death and deliver him over to the Gentiles to be mocked and flogged. A very strong word. Flogging was a very severe form of punishing someone. They would flog someone with a whip called the Cat of Nine Tails. And that cat, a flag alone, would be a pole with leather straps on it, multiple straps. And at the end of those straps would be metal or bone. And whenever you would strike somebody with that whip, it would go into the skin. And when you pull the whip away from the person, it would rip the flesh off the person. Isaiah, who wrote 700 years before Christ was born, tells us that Christ was so badly beaten when he was flogged that his face and his body was unrecognizable, that they did not recognize his face when he was beaten, that he was so badly beaten, his flesh was torn, and they could not make out the appearance of his face. I just want to remind you that he did that for your sin and for my sin. And that's the price he had to pay for the sins that you and I committed. This is why we should not love sin. And this is why we should hate sin. And this is why, when we see it operating in our lives and in the church and in culture, we should be grieved over sin. In our own lives and in the Church in America, we should be grieved. And in our nation, we should be grieved when we see sin. Why? Because sin, its payment, came at a high cost. As followers of Christ, we cannot stare at the brutal whipping of the Lord or what he suffered on the cross and then turn away from the cross and just enjoy the pleasures of sin. This is not to say we will not sin or make mistakes. But, man, we should not love it with our hearts. That I'M going to keep talking like this until it gets tattooed to your heart. That we will be a people watch. That we learn to hate sin, hate iniquity, hate these things that grieve the heart of God, that when it operates in me, my heart is bruised and broken, that I keep running to him in repentance. And he will be crucified and he will be raised on the third day. This is the Lord for the third time, prophesying to his followers about his coming death, his burial, and his resurrection. Just a powerful word there. Raised. Just a reminder of them to have hope beyond the grave. Amen. And I'm just reminded that for all of us whose names have been written in the book of life, we have hope beyond the grave. Nobody has to lie at our funeral. They can speak with us with confidence. That that believer whose body lays in a box, they have gone into the presence of the Lord. That one day we would leave this broken body and people would mourn a dead shell. But we would say, don't cry for us too long, for we have left this earthen vessel and we have gone into the precious presence of God Almighty. And I'm just so thankful that the Lord was raised. We should always see that word and be excited. For if Christ is not raised, we have nothing to believe in at all. There is no Christianity if Christ is not raised. For he is not the only progenitor of a religion, but he is the only progenitor who's not in a grave. And then verse 20, then immediately after his declaration, the mother of the sons of Zebedee, this would be the mother of James and John, her name was Salome, came up to him with her sons, and kneeling before him, she asked for something. And he said to her, what do you want from me? Or what do you want? I just find it interesting that this mother, immediately after the Lord, is testifying about his death, burial and resurrection. The first thing she does on the heels of that is come to make a request. And she says to him, say that my two sons of mine are to sit at one at your right hand and one at your left hand in your kingdom. Now, I'm reading this, and when I first read this, I thought to myself, man, this woman just heard that the Lord is about to be brutally executed. And your response to that is a request. It's like you missed the whole point of what he was saying. You're worried about glory for your sons, and he's talking about suffering. And I just want you to notice in the text, it Came and said it says she came and she knelt before him with the two sons, which is an act of worship. And then in the presence of worship, the first thing she does is seek his hand, but not his face. And so she enters into worship. And then she uses worship as an opportunity to get to her vision board. I mean, we do the same thing. I just feel like something changes in our lives when we don't see the presence of God as only a means of getting stuff from him, but we see the presence of God as the greatest means of getting Him. See? And I want to say something to some of y'all, and I know it's going to sound boring, but the greatest thing you could get in prayer is Christ Himself, right? It's going into his presence and sometimes just sitting with Him. It's just loving on Him. There's times I go into his presence and I'm not pleading with him for something. I'm just sitting there with him and I'm just enjoying him and I'm just loving on him and being loved by him. Sometimes I will say crazy things like, lord, would you just appear to me for just a second while I'm here? I've said that he may never do that, but I've said that. I said, lord, even if I just see your feet, I'll take from the knees down, and I'll be satisfied with that. And I'll say, lord, I just want you to know that I love you and I just want to be here with you. And I just lean into his presence. And then my prayer time is not boring, and I'm not on a clock, and I'm not just trying to get through five minutes so I can get out. I'm actually going in there to sit with the person that I love. I want to encourage some of you who struggle to pray, because you go in there and you think, like, how can I talk to the Lord for 15 minutes or 20 minutes? Like, I'm going to run out of things to say. Just practice his presence. Go in there and put on some worship music or some instrumental worship, or sit inside and just sit there and feel his presence. Get visions of him raised and glorified. Get visions of fire in his eyes. Get visions of the fact that he's coming back to get you. Just learn to sit there in his presence for just a little while. Think about the person you're talking to. Think about where he's seated. Just sit in his presence for a little while and just warm up yourself to him every now and Then when you go into his presence, get a flashback of where he has brought you from. Like, man, you took me, Lord. From dirt. You took me from the street. You took me when I was a knucklehead. You. You saved me with that. Just get a flashback of what he's done for you. Man. When I was a hoe in the street, Lord, you came and got me. When I was in and out of beds, you came and got me. When I was wiling out in the flesh, you came and got me and just sit there and just love on him for just a little bit and feel his presence and then lean into your heart like, Lord, I'm struggling with shame and I'm wrestling with insecurities. And I know I'll be posting things because I want attention, but help me to get delivered from the brokenness of not having my father or not being affirmed by my mother. Lord, I'm angry with this person because of the way that they treat me. Lord, I had a tough week this week at my job and you just start pouring out your heart. We didn't even get to asking him for nothing yet. And you look up and you've been there for an hour. Then you turn the secret place into your vice. Does this make sense? You turn the secret place into a vice. So every time your heart is heavy, you keep running back there. So a bottle won't be my vice. A blunt won't be my vice. That china white won't be my vice. That boy won't be my vice. But when you make the secret place your vice, then when you think about all the hell you keep going through in life because life is a conveyor belt of challenges. If the secret place becomes your vice, man, you look up one day and all of the hell you know what it produced in you? Intimacy with Christ. In the shower, in the car, at the light, in the cubicle, at the job, while you're walking in the park, when you're driving down the highway, you can turn any place into a secret place. Wow. I don't even know why I'm stuck here. And I'm supposed to be reading. No, I preach, black man. Just sitting with the Lord. Look at me. This is the highest activity any human being will ever engage in in this life. There is no activity you will ever engage in that's more important than just sitting in the presence of the Lord. My marital problems, my secret place. My insecurities, my secret place. Don't feel like a good father this week. My secret place. Feeling jealous. My secret place. Wrestling with thoughts in my mind that's unholy. My secret place. Got needs that I can't meet for myself. My secret place. I just keep cozying up next to the Lord, that man. I just enjoy walking into my secret place. I close the door and immediately I feel his presence. And I'm just going to tell. I know you want me to move on. No, don't tell me. Take my time. See, because I don't have no sermon. So I'm being led by the spirit. So maybe somebody needs this, right? Listen, all the. All the tears that we keep, we shed, the pain that we're feeling in this life, I'm telling you, something would happen deep in your heart when you make the secret place your vice. Praise God for friends, praise God for devotionals, praise God for all that stuff. But there is something very powerful when you make the secret place your vice, that all of the hell of life, it keeps driving me to that secret place. And that sometimes I don't have to be going through hell to go into my secret place. Sometimes me, Philip Anthony Mitchell, I just want to slip away from Lena and slip away from kids and just sneak away for just a little bit to go sit in God's presence in the secret place. And my family, they'll tell me. They feel when I'm being agitated or when the pressures of leading a church is too much. And my wife will come to you, honey, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on. Hold on. Let him go. Just stand right here, bro. Can't run up on us like that, bro. You get shot in here? Pray for you.