Matthew – Hoover Church of Christ: Recent Episodes
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Jesus seems to have been determined to let people know that he wasn’t interested in a certain kind of power. In the text above, he directly rebuffs Satan’s attempt to lure him into bypassing the suffering that lay ahead for the immediacy of some kind of political position with all of its trappings.
After one particularly notable miracle, the people wanted to make Jesus their king, a lifelong dream for many would-be rulers. Jesus quickly fled the area to spend time by himself in the mountains, completely uninterested in what they wanted for him.
One of the accusations Jesus’ enemies made against him on the eve of his death was that he wanted to establish himself as a rival to Caesar, which wasn’t true, at least not in the sense that they meant it. Jesus clarified it for Pilate: “My kingdom is not of this world.” In other words, I’m not that kind of king.
The disciples of Jesus also wanted to hitch themselves to this rising star so that perhaps they might sit at the table with the one with all the power in his hands. He quickly disabused them of that notion, to put it mildly.
And on it goes.
What Jesus went to great pains to teach is a lesson that’s been so quickly and completely forgotten by so many followers of Jesus over the years. Thinking that in order to make a difference in the world we need power as the world defines it–whether political or cultural or institutional or whatever–we’ve tried to co-opt Jesus for our own purposes. These desires inevitably lead to dangerous and damning places, as history has repeatedly demonstrated.
To all of that, Jesus emphatically says “no.” His “power,” such as it is, is in sacrificing himself for the good of those around him. One surprising outburst from Jesus came in response to Peter’s misguided suggestion that Jesus circumvent the cross and its suffering to achieve his goals, which seems almost exactly like what Satan tried to get Jesus to do in the wilderness. “Get behind me, Satan!” was Jesus’ unforgettable and shocking rebuke. I’m not that kind of king.
This is a familiar story to most Christians, and it’s been preached many times over the years to help people realize how much Jesus cares about our attitude toward those who are disadvantaged. And that’s certainly a needed emphasis.
Tomorrow I plan to focus on an interesting nuance in the text, something that I’ve never thought that much about. For the most part, I’m going to ignore the last part of the story–about the ones who ignored the needs of the hurting.
Instead, we’ll focus on the fascinating fact that the ones who blessed others–the “sheep”–seemingly had little awareness of how they had helped people. They were surprised on judgment day because they found out that God had noticed all of the little things that they had done over the years. And it seems like they didn’t even really remember doing them.
Compassion had apparently become such a part of their character that they didn’t even think about it. This is interesting, I think, and also worth exploring.
How do we become so close to Jesus that his heart becomes ours? How do we become the kind of people who just instinctively help others, even without any apparent forethought?
We come to the part of this beautiful prayer where Jesus leads us to express our needs. There are three requests–Give us our bread, forgive us our debts, and lead us not into temptation–and we’ll consider the first one tomorrow.
The one about the bread is the only one that has to do with physical needs, and it’s very brief. You’ll notice there’s nothing extraordinary there–no requests for luxuries, obviously, and not even a request for something more than simply bread.
Now the bread represents something more than bread, I think; it probably stands for our recognition of the fact that all of our physical needs are supplied by the Creator. This part of the prayer is not just a request; it’s an acknowledgment. We recognize that if we are to have food to eat, it’ll come from the Father. If we have breath and health, they’ll come from the Father.
In fact, praying about the bread faithfully comes only when we’ve prayed the first part. We don’t just pray according to what we think we need, but rather after we’ve acknowledged that God–his kingdom, his will–is what we’re after. It’s not about the bread; it’s about the Father.
There’s nothing wrong with our making requests–a point we’ll make clear tomorrow–it’s just that we need to move beyond the personal requests to receive something more important.
Three weeks ago we started a short series on what it looks like to follow Jesus in the midst of busy lives, lives where we feel pressured by so many expectations and distractions.
What does following Jesus look like day-to-day? How do we do what life demands while also finding time to cultivate a real-life relationship with Jesus?
The answer is in actually following Jesus, not just in the abstract I’m-a-Christian-because-I’ve-been-baptized sense, but actually walking in his footsteps, doing what he did, learning to do life like he did it.
And how did he do it?
Sunday we’ll focus on how Jesus lived his life in view of possessions.
As far as his life was concerned, he possessed very little, having been born to poor Jewish peasants. When he died he apparently owned nothing except the clothes that he was wearing.
And what he said about the temptations of money was pretty harsh, as you probably remember. He saw that stuff got in the way of real discipleship, so he wasn’t shy about pointing it out.
I hope you’ll notice something interesting in the passage above from Matthew 6. You’ve heard it before–“You cannot serve God and money”–but look a little closer. He doesn’t say that we “shouldn’t” serve God and money, but that we “cannot.” I think it’s important to notice that Jesus isn’t giving us another command, telling us that we shouldn’t do both. He’s reflecting on the nature of reality . . . it is simply impossible to serve God and money.
What he says about possessions completely counters the American way, though, doesn’t it? Our economic system is based on buying and consuming, and then buying and consuming more, and then more, and so on.
Advertisers make millions when they’re good at convincing us that we need more stuff, and that if we can get it, we’ll be happier and more content.
But of course it’s a lie.
Jesus calls us to something simpler, something better. He calls us to see possessions for what they are and for us not to put on them more than they can bear. What we need are the necessities of life . . . anything beyond that won’t add any real value to our lives.
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Christmas is a time of year when many people reflect on the birth of Jesus. It has arguably become quite commercialized, of course, and sometimes it reflects attitudes that are considerably dissimilar to those that characterized Jesus. But any occasion that gives us an opportunity to talk about Jesus in meaningful ways is good.
Sunday we’ll study Matthew 2–about the wise men, about Herod’s decree, but particularly about Jesus’ trip to Egypt as a child and how that reflected a theme that began long ago. Jesus, like Israel, went down to Egypt. Like Israel, he came out of Egypt. But unlike Israel, he lived a life of perfect obedience and went on to offer himself as the perfect sacrifice (of which Israel’s animal sacrifices were mere shadows).
Jesus’ birth is remarkable, and it’s fascinating to think about how from the very beginning he was destined for something eternally significant. His miraculous conception prefigured his identity as the Son of God, and his early trip to Egypt further signified that he was the Son of God who could accomplish what Israel never could.
He was incarnated–God became a human being–so that he could do for us what we can never do for ourselves. May God help us take the spirit of Christmas beyond December, and may he help us to grasp the depth of his commitment to bring us back to himself.
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Two weeks ago we looked at Jesus’ predictions concerning his upcoming crucifixion, and last Sunday we studied his taking the Passover meal and reinterpreting it for the apostles (and for the church). Tomorrow we’re going to reflect on a part of one of his trials that began early on that fateful Friday morning. The religious leaders had brought him before Pilate, the Roman prefect of Judea, whose primary goal was to keep the locals peaceful and relatively happy so that his somewhat shaky political position wouldn’t be endangered by reports of unrest. Recognizing that Jesus had been brought to him because of envy among the religious elites, he thought that he might release Jesus–whom he knew to be innocent–according a custom where he released a prisoner of the people’s choice during the weekend of Passover. He had in custody an insurrectionist named Barabbas, and he thought the people would want this violent man to remain in prison, but he misjudged them. When he asked them if they wanted Barabbas or Jesus to be freed, they asked for Barabbas. There’s an interesting spiritual point here. Pilate’s question, “Which of the two do you want?”, can be read as the kind of question that we all must answer. Do you want Barabbas, the one who offers the best short-term outcome? After all, Barabbas probably had as his goal the liberation of the Jewish people from Roman oppression–something that was very important to them. Or do you want Jesus, the one whose counter-intuitive kingdom ethic would likely bring about short-term struggle? Which one do you want? Do you want the one who does what you want or the one who does what you need? Do you want the strong-and-powerful Barabbas or the meek-and-mild Jesus? Do you want the one who leads guerrilla warfare, or the one who washes feet? Which do you want? That’s what Pilate asked the people, and in a way it’s what we’re being asked today. The post Which Do You Want? appeared first on Hoover Church of Christ.
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The disciples spent much of their time being confused, and they pretty much stayed that way until they were filled with the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. What really messed them up was when Jesus started talking about going to Jerusalem to be mistreated and then to be killed. If he’s the Son of God, how can anyone kill him? The Messiah is supposed to conquer his enemies, not be conquered by them.
Three times in our readings for this week Jesus stops to tell his disciples what lies ahead. It confuses and distresses them, even leading Peter to step in and try to persuade Jesus not to do it.
Jesus’s response to them is his response to us . . . “take up your cross and follow me.”
Jesus didn’t come to be pampered and served. He, quite literally, came to die. And he calls us to learn to live outward-focused lives and to be willing to live sacrificially, walking in his footsteps toward Jerusalem. It’s an all-encompassing and humbling call that we must spend our entire lives learning to follow.
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To be honest, the genealogies of Scripture are the parts we probably skim (or skip!) most frequently when we’re reading the Bible. After all, who cares that that Jehoshophat’s son was Joram, right? It might even be more perplexing that after reading the Old Testament for a long time and (finally) getting to the New Testament, the first page of Matthew is mostly names, many of which we don’t even really know or care about.
But as we probably ought to guess, God has important reasons for including genealogies in Scripture, and we’ll explore some of them tomorrow. There’s so much weight in the very first words of Matthew’s gospel, of course: “The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.” David and Abraham are the theological heavyweights of the Old Testament, so it’s not surprising that Matthew mentions them first.
But there are also some hidden gems in Matthew’s genealogy, and we’ll explore some of them tomorrow as well. For example, why are five women mentioned? And why these particular women? And what about some of these other, lesser-known characters?
Jesus is the “son of David, the son of Abraham,” but he’s also the son of Rahab and Ruth and Bathsheba and Shealtiel and Eliakim and others. All this, of course, is according to God’s plan.
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This is the last of the sermons I’ll preach in 2018 on the theme for the year: Love God. Love People. Change the World. I will try to wrap it up, summarizing the theme as we end the year and look toward a new one. There’s plenty of evidence around us that loving God and the people he created will need to be a continual emphasis of Christians everywhere. We’re surrounded by hate and violence and political division. What the world needs from us more than ever is for us to model love and compassion and truth.
Thought I won’t go into great detail, I will look briefly at the Parable of the Good Samaritan as an example of what Loving God by Loving People looks like, and I’ll encourage our church to let this emphasis be a motto for their Christian lives as we move forward.
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It’s hard to love people who make us angry, isn’t it? And the people with whom we disagree on very fundamental things, like God, morality, and good and evil.
And people who have hurt us or our families, or who make life difficult for us at work or school. Or people who talk about us behind our backs.
The list could go on, I suppose.
Jesus says to love even them. Especially them.
Part of what makes us different from those who don’t follow Jesus is that we try to follow his spirit of selfless love, of loving the unlovable . . . the “Father, forgive them” kind of love that he extended to the people who nailed him to the cross.
Perhaps no command he gave is harder, and maybe no command is more important in our world that needs so desperately to see a Jesus kind of enemy-love. The post Love Your Enemies appeared first on Hoover Church of Christ.
Three weeks ago I introduced a short sermon series (click here to view) about the importance of seeing Jesus as he is portrayed in the Bible, and not just in the way that makes us most comfortable. We all like to think about the Jesus who held babies and forgave sinners and ate dinner at tax collectors’ houses. We may not be as comfortable with “that other side of Jesus”: the one who turns over tables, talks about “weeping and gnashing of teeth,” and excoriates the “scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites.”
But in order to read the Bible faithfully, we need to see Jesus as he is, not necessarily as we wish him to be. Tomorrow we’ll look at one of the stories he told, and this one has this interesting and quite scary language: “fiery furnace . . . [where] there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”
A fiery furnace? Weeping and gnashing of teeth? Do these words actually come from the mouth of Jesus, the “Prince of Peace”?
Yes, they do, and you may be surprised (or not) to know that he spoke fairly often of a frightening judgment that awaits those who reject him.
What do we do with this side of Jesus? What do we do with our loving Savior when speaks in such negative ways?
It might challenge us, but one option that is not available is to dismiss him. To accept only the version of Jesus that makes us feel good isn’t really accepting him at all, because he comes to us as one who is both loving and holy, a God of both mercy and judgment.
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In the month of May, we’re having a “Train up a Child” campaign—we’re hoping to be able to fill all of our children’s Bible class rotations with teachers through May 2019.
In conjunction with this emphasis, we studied the text above. We discussed how children weren’t highly valued in the world of antiquity for different reasons, which may explain why the disciples discouraged people from bringing them to Jesus. The disciples also probably had an inflated sense of their own importance, and they may have thought Jesus was too busy to take time for kids. There were badly mistaken, of course—Mark’s account demonstrates this more clearly than Matthew’s: “But when Jesus saw it, he was indignant . . .” (Mark 10:14). Jesus wasn’t happy with people who ignored children.
It must’ve been a memorable sight: the hands that fashioned this world into existence reached down and scooped up little kids and blessed them (“And he took them in his arms and blessed them, laying his hands on them,” Mark 10:16).
We applied this story to our church family: (1) Children matter; and (2) Children’s souls matter. Most of us have attended or visited churches with few children, and it doesn’t speak well of those churches’ future. At Hoover we’ve been blessed with a lot of young children, and God expects us to treat them as Jesus did: to love them and bless them. We have an hour or two each week to shape the hearts of these children, so we must take advantage of these opportunities.
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Text: Matthew 1:18-25
18 Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. 19 And her husband Joseph, being a just man and unwilling to put her to shame, resolved to divorce her quietly. 20 But as he considered these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, “Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. 21 She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” 22 All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet: 23 “Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel” (which means, God with us). 24 When Joseph woke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him: he took his wife, 25 but knew her not until she had given birth to a son. And he called his name Jesus. (ESV)
Brief thoughts about the text:
The birth of Jesus gets a lot of attention this time of year, and that’s good: Scripture strongly emphasizes it, including a lengthy account in Luke and a shorter one with different details in Matthew. When cultures appropriate biblical stories, though—especially with something as commercialized as Christmas—we run the risk of missing the essence of the event itself.
Perhaps no word distills the meaning of Jesus’ birth as beautifully and completely as Immanuel. Jesus is “God with us.” He is both God and Man. We see his deity in that Mary was a virgin when she conceived and gave birth to him; he had no earthly father, but rather he was conceived “of the Holy Spirit.”
We see his humanity (he is “with us”) in the fact that he was born as every other human being has been born, yet in more humble circumstances than many. He was born to Mary, a remarkable young woman in so many ways, but a woman who was completely human nonetheless. Jesus was a helpless baby—totally dependent on his mother as she held, patted, nursed, bathed, and changed him.
Imagine that—God as a helpless newborn! And yet that’s how God chose to come to us. The Creator of heavens and earth—the One who spoke the galaxies into existence—came to be with us as one of us, subjecting himself to the limitations and frustrations of human existence in our world.
And Matthew sums it up with this word: Immanuel. He is “God with us.” God among us, in us, and for us.
It’s no coincidence that Matthew ends his gospel with these words: “I am with you always, to the end of the age.” He came to Bethlehem to be with us, and he remains with us to this day.
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In some fundamentalist-type religious groups, you hear about the second coming all the time, usually pointing to something going on in the world today as a sure sign that “Jesus is coming soon!” so you’d better “Repent or perish!” But in others (probably most), you hear little, maybe because talk of judgment and Jesus’ second coming is usually associated with the kind of church mentioned above, and most of us don’t want to be connected to that.
But, truth be told, Jesus spent quite a bit of time talking about his next coming, and our text for Sunday comes in the middle of a long section filled with Jesus’ warnings about the end of time. In our passage Jesus uses a wedding illustration to make two points: (1) His coming will be sudden, so (2) We must be prepared.
Most of us are quite overwhelmed with just trying to make it to the weekend, so we have little time or energy to think much beyond that. But we must. At the risk of sounding cliché, much of the stuff we spend our time on won’t matter a hundred years from now. But our relationship with Jesus and how it affected our lives will matter a lot. In fact, it’ll be all that matters.
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There’s a lot of talk these days about the relationship between Christians and government. This isn’t a new kind of tension, because apparently Jesus’ peers had similar discussions. In this short text, Jesus doesn’t solve all of the difficulties, of course—Paul would later reflect on this this theme more in Romans 13—but he speaks to some of the tensions in his world: he didn’t side with the Zealots, who wanted to rebel against the government, and neither did he side with certain sects who wanted to curry favor with Rome.
Jesus’ ultimate point was our allegiance to God—that’s an important point. Just as the coin bore the image of Caesar and belonged to him, we bear the image of our Creator and owe all things to him. Perhaps this text has something significant to say to things going on in our world right now.
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This is the last sermon of this four-part sermon series. Three weeks ago I spoke on The Great Compassion (Matt 9:35-38 — Jesus’ love for us); two weeks ago we studied The Great Confession (Matt 16:13-23); last Sunday: The Great Commandment (Matt 22:34-40 — love God and neighbor). Notice how the series progresses from Jesus’ love for us (Compassion), to our response to him (Confession: He is the Son of God), to our living out the call of discipleship (Commandment: Love God and neighbor).
Today we will look at the inevitable result of loving God and neighbor: we tell our neighbors about God. Not long before he ascended, Jesus assembled with the men he’d spent the last few years training and discipling . . . and he told them to continue the mission. The post The Great Commission appeared first on Hoover Church of Christ.