Cold Shower & The Kingdom of God

TRANSCRIPT:

I'm really grateful that you got up and that you are with us this morning. If you're joining us online, we love you too. We're so grateful that you are a part of the journey.

But because some of us are a little tired, we're going to start slow this morning. We're going to start with story time before we get to the passage that Anna just read for us.

And it's a story that I've been wanting to tell you for a while because it has really stuck with me and helped me ask some questions about my faith, about myself, about the kind of life that I want to live. And it's a relatively simple story.

Goes back to early to mid-January. My wife, Laura, was traveling and I was at home with the three kids doing work and solo dad duties. And in the middle of that, two of my three kids ended up getting the flu and then I caught the flu.

So we were just going through a pretty rough little patch of time as a family, which made it particularly unfortunate where for two nights in a row, by the time I got to the end of what had been an excruciatingly difficult day, I stepped in and had

no choice but to take a freezing cold shower, which was not how I wanted to end the day, right? There was nothing wrong with our hot water tank.

And quite frankly, it shouldn't happen because we were down one shower in our family and maybe down somebody who particularly enjoys a long hot shower. So I'm like, this just should not be, right? And the first time it happened, I'm like, whatever.

Second time it happened, I'm like, oh no, I'm going to fix this tomorrow night. I'm going to do a little good old fashioned parenting, right? So we go upstairs to get ourselves ready for bed.

And Emma goes into the shower to do her little thing, our little eight year old. And I decided to take the opportunity to give my sons a little guidance on how to be a good human being, what consideration looks like.

I'm sure I looped in Jesus in how to be a good citizen and get into college and grow up and have a meaningful life because we were going to practice self-control when we took our showers so that when dad gets in there, dad doesn't freeze and go to

bed angry. So we were talking, it was going well. It was not this moment of like epic parental rage. I felt like I was getting through.

We were connecting heart and mind. It's all going great. And we got so into it that I didn't realize how long it had been that my speech was going.

I know you guys are familiar with that phenomenon, but I didn't realize how long it was going until all of a sudden, the bathroom door opens up and Emma comes out with like this billowing cloud of steam all over her body. And I'm like, oh, it's you.

Never mind, boys, you just carry on. Look, girl, we got to have a conversation. Dad's going to go to bed cold.

Come on, come on, let's not do that. So I go in and I'm like, come on, Emmy, let's just, you know, talk about that and put her to bed. And it's always this like sweet little moment putting Emma to bed.

As I come out of putting Emma to bed, the bathroom door opens and this time it's Aiden, our middle child, 10 years old. He's coming out and there's just something about him that I was like, hey, dude, are you okay? And he's like, yeah, I'm fine.

Fine. He goes in his room and gets dressed real fast. And I'm like, okay, whatever, like back on track, give the hot water tank space to recover.

It's all going to be fine, right? Aiden comes into my room probably about a minute later in this like super stoic way. He's like, hey, dad, you'll be all right.

I took a cold shower so you don't have to, right? I'm just like, what? What child is this?

What have you done with my son? Right? You ever just saw this place where you're like so low in life, where like the smallest gesture just kind of like breaks your heart open, and you're like, oh, my gosh.

Dude, that's incredible. Like, thank you, right? When I saw him, I was like, hey, are you okay?

It's because if you've ever met Aiden, he is an extremist to the core. I'm like, oh, he probably went like straight ice cold shower. Like, he wasn't going to do lukewarm.

He was like ice bucket challenging it in the bathroom. And he's like, dad, I did it. You'll be, you'll be all right.

And borderline tearing up and just wanting him to know, like, thank you. Like, that means the world to me. Like, that's so kind of you.

That's just so generous. Like, thank you. Like, that's, man, that's amazing.

And because I'm a preacher at heart and can't miss the opportunity, I'm like, you know what I really love about that? Man, it just just reminds me of Jesus.

Like, I don't know if you were thinking about that when you took a cold shower so that I didn't have to, but that kind of reminds me of Jesus going to the cross and tasting death so that I don't have to.

Jesus enduring something that he didn't have to, that he didn't deserve, that he hadn't earned so that I could live free.

And you could see that moment in Aidan's eyes where he's like, well, frankly, I hadn't thought about that, but even better, you know? I'm generous in reminding you of Jesus. This is just great.

So I put him to bed and just again, I'm like, buddy, thank you. So grateful, so proud of you. Just thank you.

It's amazing. Hang out for a little bit. Ultimately, put Jack to bed.

And by this time, enough space has recovered from Emma that I'm ready to take a shower. And then the weirdest, the weirdest thing happens is I'm about to get into the shower. I have this thought, because again, I know Aidan.

I know how much he loves, you know, to be praised and thanked and celebrated, where I was like, oh my goodness, you know what? You got to be careful not to make too big a deal out of this. He's just going to keep doing this, right?

I don't want him to keep doing this. I don't want him to get into this, like, nightly cold shower habit. The goal is not that he freezes himself.

The goal is that Emma moderates herself. So I'm like, you know what? I'll just take a cold shower, too.

I'll just do the same thing. I'll just take a cold shower. And that way, when he gets up tomorrow, I can be like, hey bud, again, I'm super impressed.

But you know what? I did the cold shower thing. So you don't have to do that in tomorrow night.

Like, you just go enjoy your shower. And I legit had every intent of doing that. And then there was like this still small voice.

I don't know if it's like the Spirit of God or common sense or just my own self-interest. But I was like, how stupid are you, John? He didn't sacrifice to take a cold shower so that you could then do the same.

Like, if you get up and tell him that tomorrow morning, he's going to think you're an idiot. And he's going to be annoyed. And he's going to be like, well, dad, if I knew you were going to do that, I would have taken a hot shower.

Like, what is wrong with you? And it just wouldn't have accomplished anything. So I got in and I did.

Man, I just enjoyed this long, hot, I'm the last one in the house. Who cares if I use all the hot water kind of shower, channel my inner Emma, right? It was great.

But as I'm standing there, I'm like, huh, this is really why I wanted to tell you the story.

Maybe for some of you, the idea of Jesus taking the cold shower so you don't have to is enough to change your life, because you finally understand what He was doing on the cross.

That He was there to take the payment for your sins so that you don't have to.

But I think there's a lot more of us in the room who say we believe that, who understand that Jesus goes to the cross in our place, yet for some reason we still feel compelled to stand in the cold shower of guilt and shame and condemnation, punishing

ourselves, beating ourselves up, deriding ourselves, being our own worst critic, constantly disappointed that we don't measure up to our own standards yet alone, God's. There was something in me that knew that Aidan had taken the cold shower, yet

felt compelled to do it myself. And I just wonder how many of us in the room know that Jesus has paid the price for your sin, yet you still wake up every single day and you beat yourself up over and over and over and over again.

And if one little 10 year old boy taking a cold shower could free you from that chain, man, it would be a pretty good morning in church. Man, it would be a pretty good morning where things start to shift around in your heart and maybe in your life.

And I really want you to hold on to that idea. I want you to hold on to it throughout our time in God's Word this morning.

I want you to hold on to it when we come to a communion table in a minute to remind ourselves not of the cold shower that Jesus took, but of the cross that Jesus endured for our forgiveness, for our redemption, for our freedom.

But I really want you to remember it in the moments where you're tempted to go back into a self-condemning spiral and live like the gospel isn't real, and live like Jesus hasn't really accomplished everything necessary for our salvation.

That's really why I wanted to tell you that story. I wanted to shift your life a little bit. I also wanted to tell you that story because it is my attempt to answer the question that Jesus' disciples ask him in Matthew 13, verse 10.

The disciples come up to him and ask him, why are you speaking to them? Why are you teaching the crowds in parables?

Now, if you're new to church parables, we'll define them a little bit more in a few minutes, but just think of them as a short, memorable story. It would be something equivalent to, hey, Dad, I took the cold shower so that you don't have to.

Common, every day, you can picture it, you can relate to it. Jesus tells these stories, right? It was a new way of teaching people about God.

It wasn't like he had adopted the sermon style of a preacher down the road. It wasn't like he had taken, you know, their cultural version of a TED Talk and tried to import it into the church.

It was something nobody had ever done before, and the disciples are like, what are you doing, right? What's that all about?

And sometimes when we try to answer that question, we are, particularly if you've been around the church for a while, we are burdened by our familiarity with these stories, right?

We know the story of a prodigal son, we know the story of a God who leaves the 99 to go search the one, and we miss out sometimes on the freshness of what God is trying to do, which is why I wanted to tell you a new and a slightly different story.

That's why I wanted you to have that moment of, oh, isn't that incredible? And isn't it incredible when a 10-year-old boy takes a cold shower, and isn't it amazing when the son of God takes a cross?

Right?

That's really my best attempt to answer the question. For my second best attempt to answer the question, you got to stick in for the rest of the sermon.

All right.

Before we dive in to this text, let's zoom out for a minute and kind of set the stage for where we're going between now and Easter. Right? This is the season of the year that the church has historically designated as Lent.

Some of you may have observed Ash Wednesday, this past Wednesday. It's a season of intentional preparation leading into Easter.

Historically, it is a season marked with fasting, repentance, self-denial, sort of a spiritual preparation for the glory of a resurrected Christ on Easter Sunday. And I'm all about that.

And more often than not as a church, we tend to lean into some of those Lenten themes.

But as I was thinking about it this year and praying about it this year, it just didn't feel like that was the right note for us to strike in March and April of 2025, because as we've said nearly every Sunday in 2025, this has been a rough year for

the vast majority of us, right? Tough winters, bad cold and flu season, the memory of the plane crash right down the road is still not too distant from us.

There's a significant amount of uncertainty for those of you that work in the federal government or work in a federal contract. There's just a lot going on. There's just a lot of uncertainty in our city.

And it didn't feel like Jesus was leading us in that climate to then double down on like, all right, now we're going to fast just to make it better.

Right?

Like just to draw closer to God, let's skip coffee for 40 days or what? I mean, some of you are like, I'm already fasting from sleep and happiness. Like, what more, what more do you need from me?

Right?

It just didn't feel like the right move for this week.

And I kept thinking about where we've been over the majority of 2025, right? We spent weeks walking our way through Matthew chapter 9 and chapter 10, talking about the heart and life of a disciple.

What does it really look like to live as a follower of Jesus and was so grateful for all the different things that the Lord had put in front of us through His Word, but kind of had this sense that we weren't done with that theme, that if we would

keep reading in Matthew's Gospel, not so much chapter 11, which is compelling, but deals primarily with John the Baptist and moving that narrative forward. And then we have some miracles and some additional teaching in Matthew chapter 12.

But if we could keep going to Matthew chapter 13, we'd get another piece of the story. Right, because it's the next major teaching that we get from Jesus.

He strings together a series of, depending on how you do the math, five to seven, we're going to call them five different parables. That he wants to teach people about the nature of the kingdom of God.

And that seemed like what Jesus was asking us to contend with as a church. Right, as we get ready to head into Easter, to allow these simple, everyday, memorable stories to speak into our understanding of the kingdom of God.

Because at the end of the day, our problem is not that our expectations of the kingdom of God are too great, it's that they're too small.

It's not that we've put too much hope in the kingdom of God, it's that we haven't put enough hope in the kingdom of God.

It's not that our expectations of the kingdom are too immediate, it's that they're too reserved for the future, that Jesus invites us to live under the rule and reign of God in our lives today.

It is this beautiful, compelling invitation, but it is an invitation to live in a world that we can hardly imagine. It's an invitation into a spiritual reality that we can barely fathom.

And what we want to do over the next couple of weeks is just allow Jesus to paint a picture for us of life in the Kingdom of God, using these stories that we call parables. Now, here's the idea with parables.

Jesus uses them to teach surprising truths about God in a way that causes us to ask questions.

I want you to think about today as sort of preparation for the next five sermons that we're going to do together, because we're not looking at any of the individual parables today.

I may make reference to a couple of them, but today we are focusing on Jesus' explanation, why do you teach this way? What are you hoping to accomplish? What's your intent?

What are you up to here? And I'm going to argue that Jesus uses these stories to teach surprising truths about God, but to do it in a way that causes us to ask questions. All right, let's start with the surprising truth about God.

We need to understand that when it comes to parables, Jesus is aiming for shock value. That's what he's after.

He is trying to disrupt people's conventional thinking about religion, about God, about the way in which we are meant to be human in the world. He is not intending to tell a comforting story that will soothe people.

He is tending to jolt people's religious imaginations a little bit. Part of what makes the story about Aidan taking a cold shower compelling is that it centers around the unexpected behavior of a ten-year-old boy.

Now, I'm saying this because some of us have become far too complacent around the parables. We think we've got them nailed. We think we know what they are all about.

And granted, some of us have familiarity with them. I'm not asking you to pretend you've never heard a sermon about them, you've never thought about them, you've never prayed about them.

I'm just saying, fair warning, prepare to be jolted, because Jesus is trying to stir things up with these stories. He is absolutely trying to make theology accessible to the masses.

This is likely what prompted the disciples' question in the first place. This is just not how rabbis taught. Rabbis were the leading academics of their day.

They would give lectures on ancient, dusty scrolls, right? Let's read from Ezekiel and expound on it at great length. Take notes if you're able.

Pay attention. Try to keep up with me, right? Smart guy in the front of the room showing off and most people being left behind.

So you've got these guys doing an academic symposium, and then you've got Jesus who's like, huh. So anyway, there's like this dad, and he's got two kids, and they both got issues, right? One son, he's a little more under the radar.

You don't see his issues until the end of the story, but the other dude, he's like a hot mess, right? This is the kind of kid that wants his dad's stuff, but doesn't want a relationship with his dad.

So he has the audacity to ask dad, could you give me my share of the inheritance right now? And he goes off and he squanders in an unloose living and the whole thing. And his disciples are like, what are you doing?

This is not how people teach.

And Jesus is trying to make it clear that the kingdom of God is available to everybody regardless of educational background, regardless of family pedigree, regardless of how much privilege you did or did not grow up with.

He's like, look, I can take the reality of the mystery of God, and I can put it into a simple story. On the other hand, Jesus is being a little cagey, isn't he? Right?

Some of you are a little on edge, because you're like, are you going to ignore some of the more difficult realities of this text? No. Well, let's go there now.

Because yes, Jesus is trying to tell memorable and compelling stories. He's trying to get theology on the bottom shelf where everybody can grasp hold. But he's also really aware that not everybody in the audience is grasping hold, right?

He's super aware that not everybody gets it. Matthew 13 verse 11, he answered, because the secrets of the kingdom of heaven have been given for you to know, but it has not been given to them. Right?

One of the dynamics that's going to follow all the way through Matthew 13 is sort of two different things playing out. For the majority of the chapter, Jesus is teaching to the crowd.

He's teaching to Jew and Gentile, male and female, the majority of which are not his disciples. And when he does that, he's always teaching in parables. It's just straight parables to the crowd.

Yet we get these different behind the scenes moments where he leaves the crowd behind and he's just with his inner circle. The text we're looking at today is one of those inner circle moments.

And what Jesus seems to be saying is, look, part of the reason that I'm teaching in parables is because you guys, you understand them. You get them. You know the mysteries of the Kingdom of God.

And they don't. So I'm using parables because they don't understand the mysteries of the Kingdom of God. Right?

It's a significant dynamic throughout the chapter, and this is where we need to pump the brakes a little bit and do a little bit of theology together.

It's also a helpful place for me to say that different theologians have answered this question in a number of different ways. Right?

And you can subscribe to any of these schools of thought and still be absolutely welcome here, and we can have a spirited discussion over lunch.

But there's two of them that I want to push back on a little bit, and a third, just to put my cards on the table, that I want to get a little bit closer to as a community, right?

You may have heard it taught that Jesus switches to parables in Matthew, Chapter 13, as an act of almost deliberate retaliation because the religious leaders of Israel reject the Kingdom of God in Matthew, Chapter 12, right?

Almost a sense of, hey, they attributed the works of Christ to Satan. Jesus calls that blaspheming against the Spirit, refers to it as the unpardonable sin.

And there is a school of thought that says Jesus is so upset by what happens in Matthew, Chapter 12, that he intentionally pivots. And he's like, I know what I'm going to do. I'm going to tell some stories that they don't understand.

Right? Yeah, if that doesn't sound like Jesus, that's good. I don't think that is exactly what Jesus is doing.

Now, there is a shift in Matthew's gospel. Something happens in Matthew 12 and 13. So, I don't want to dismiss that as just sort of utter theological lunacy.

But the idea of a Jesus who goes out and tells a story precisely so that people don't get it, that doesn't sound like the Jesus of the gospels. It also sounds like, hey, why not make life easy and just skip the speech? Right?

It seems like a lot of work to be like, I know what I'm going to do. I'm going to get out there, preach a sermon, and nobody's going to understand it. Like, why don't you just skip the sermon, man?

So, I don't think Jesus is trying to throw the crowd off. He's not trying to lose them. He's not trying to leave them in oblivion and be like, that's right, you don't understand it.

I'll be over here with the special ones that do. No, no. That's not Jesus.

That's just not how it would work. Now, there's another version of that. This one might be a little bit closer to the truth, and say, well, wait a minute.

We believe, and again, sort of orthodox Christianity teaches, that God makes the first move towards humanity. That's why we see salvation as an act of grace. Yes, we're saved by faith, but God always pursues us before we pursue Him.

And there would be some people that would say, okay, so here's the deal with these parables. It's true. Some people hear them and get it, and some people hear them and don't get it.

And really what that is is just a litmus test of whether or not you're saved. Like if you're in the club, you're going to understand the stories. If you're not in the club, they're not going to make any sense to you.

It's maybe a litmus test if you want to use some more precise language of whether you're predestined for salvation or not. Again, God makes the first move.

But the purpose of Matthew 13 is not to give us a litmus test for whether somebody's in or out of the Kingdom of God.

The purpose of Matthew 13 is to tell stories that awaken our imagination to what the Kingdom of God is like so that we can ask some questions.

And that's the approach that we're going to take over the next couple of weeks, to say that Jesus is telling these stories to get us to ask questions about ourselves and about the nature of the Kingdom of God, right?

Let's start with this idea of Jesus using parables to get us to ask questions about ourselves. You know, there's a theologian named CH. Dodd who explains the parables this way.

He describes them as a metaphor or simile drawn from nature or common life, arresting the hearer by its vividness or strangeness and leaving the mind in sufficient doubt about its application to tease it into active thought.

Parables were accessible to everybody if you were willing to put in the work and reach for it. Parables were accessible to everybody if you were willing to open your heart to what it is that they were trying to teach you about yourself.

Look at what Jesus says in Matthew 12 and 13, For whoever has more will be given to him, and he will have more than enough. Right?

If you are interested in learning about yourself, you're interested in learning about God, you're interested in learning about the gospel, you're interested in learning about the beauty of who Jesus is, you are interested in exploring an

inexhaustible well. You never get to the end of the road where you fully mastered God. There's always more. There's always fresh wonder.

There's always new understanding. There's always deeper relationship. There's always more commitment.

There's always something on the table for you. You never get to the point where you're like, church, boom, check, been there, done that, got it, understand it, have it all figured out. There's always a little bit more.

But whoever does not have even what he has will be taken away from him. Again, you've got questions at school. Let's keep going.

This is why I speak to them in parables, because looking they do not see, and hearing, they do not listen or understand. Again, you can see that Jesus is aware that not everybody's getting it. The question is, is he trying to hide it from them?

Or is he trying to help people ask questions about the receptivity of their own soul to some surprising truth about God? Right? He's trying to tell stories that raise to the surface, huh, where am I in that story?

Where am I in relation to the picture of God that that story is presenting? Right?

I did a short synopsis a minute ago of Luke 15, right, what we would call the story of the prodigal son, of the kid who goes away and takes half of dad's inheritance and blows it, and then comes home.

Let me ask you this, where is your heart in relation to that story?

Is your heart open to a god who loves sinners so desperately, personally, and intimately, that he's willing to sacrifice even his own dignity and his joyful affection for a child who comes back home?

Can you handle a god who lavishes grace on the broken? Now, for most of us, when we're the broken one, we're like, sign me up, right?

When we're coming out of a season where we feel like we've made a mess out of it, we're like, give me that kind of Jesus. But what about your sister who made a mess out of your family growing up? Are you okay if God runs to her?

What about the person who stole from you? Is it still okay if God runs to him, and God wraps his arms around him, and gives him the robe and the ring, and says, welcome home? What about the parent, the son, the daughter?

Are we still okay with the grace of God? Again, these are meant to raise questions, right? Not condemnation, not guilt, but to say, wait a minute, that picture of God is beautiful.

Can I follow it to its logical extension in my own life? What Jesus is trying to do is give us some stories that allow us to reflect on the reality of our own soul. That's what Matthew 14 and 15 are about.

Isaiah's prophecy is fulfilled in them, which says, you will listen and listen, but never understand. You will look and look, but never perceive. For this people's heart has grown calloused.

Their ears are hard of hearing, and they have shut their eyes. Otherwise, they might see with their eyes and hear with their ears and understand with their hearts and turn back, and I would heal them again.

It's not a not a God who's afraid that people will turn to him.

This is the story of Isaiah 6, where Isaiah sees God in the throne room of heaven, is captivated by the glory of God, says, I'm going to go to the world, and God sends Isaiah as a messenger to call people back, so that they could experience salvation

and healing through God. But he warns Isaiah and he says, you're going to go bring this beautiful message, but people are going to respond hardheartedly.

People are going to shut their ears and close their eyes, and they're going to want nothing to do, and it's not going to make any sense, because you're going to be announcing the beauty of the kingdom of God.

And people are like, no, I'm going to prefer the kingdom of darkness. But again, you look at the sense of Isaiah 6. It's a sense of a people whose heart has grown callous, of ears that choose not to hear, of eyes that choose to remain closed.

Are we willing to allow our eyes to be opened? Are we willing to allow our hearts to be challenged? Are we willing to have our imaginations stretched anew?

Are we willing to ask questions about the nature of the Kingdom of God? Verse 16 and 17, Blessed are your eyes because they do see, and your ears because they do hear.

For truly, I tell you, many prophets and righteous people long to see the things you see, but didn't see them, to hear the things you hear, but didn't hear them.

For those of us that are willing to lean in, for those of us that are willing to wrestle with a God who lavishes grace on sinners, for those of us who are willing to wrestle with a God who could be with 99 sheep, yet be thinking about the one who's

straying. For those of us who are willing to think about a mustard seed that flourishes into something glorious, we can begin to access the mysteries of the kingdom of God, and we can begin to live a different way.

That's the invitation for us as a church this Lenten season, to invite God to stir us up a little bit, to disrupt our complacency, to cause us to fall in love all over again with this Jesus, to ask what it could look like for us to live as His hands

and His feet. So, my point this morning is just to ask that God would do a work in our hearts that would open us up to who He really is, and that He would remind us that life under His rule and reign is infinitely better than any of the myriad

alternatives that are out there in the world today. Let's pray. Father, we want to know You. We want to understand You.

We're asking that You would open our ears, and our eyes, and our minds, and our hearts. Help us to see ourselves clearly. Help us to see you clearly. Help us to see grace clearly. I pray, in Jesus' name.