This sermon continued our series in Matthew on Choosing Jesus. This week, we looked at Matthew 8-11 and looked at the responses people made to Jesus, either by true faith (i.e., the centurion in 8:5-13) or by "fake faith" (i.e., the Pharisees in several spots in 8-9).
The main point for the sermon was this: Jesus calls us to absolute, radical trust in him. To trust him, we need to serve him (not ourselves), overcome our fears and worries about trusting him, and refocus our lives around his values.
My point of application was this: Find one person to serve this week, or one way of serving others. By doing this, you trust Jesus: you're serving him as you serve others, you're overcoming your fears and worries as you learn to trust him in service, and you're refocusing your life around his values by becoming someone who serves others (just like Jesus).
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Sermon: Living with Absolute, Radical Trust in Jesus
Sermon slides can be viewed here or downloaded here.
The key to understanding the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7) is in Jesus' closing statements.
After teaching the true intent of the law--to bring one closer to God and to others by truly following the meaning of the commands--he ends by saying that those who hear his words and practice them are wise.
Jesus teaches us that it's the practice of his words that pleases him. It's the process of obedience we undergo that's important, not the end result. Too often we focus on end results--what we didn't accomplish. But for Jesus, the real accomplishment is the process.
To be pleasing to Jesus, practice his words. Practice makes perfect.
Sermon: Practice Makes Perfect
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You remember hearing that phrase from your dad, or maybe your grandfather? Guess what? It's biblical!
Jesus combined two ideas in his teaching that we call the Sermon on the Mount. First, he tells his listeners to "be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect" (5:48). Later, as he concludes his teaching, he says, "[E]veryone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man..." (7:24).
This last concept is the core of the entire block of teaching. It's the reason the gate to Jesus is so small and the road so narrow--because so few are willing to actually put into practice the teachings of Jesus.
Why do you think Jesus teaches about being salt and light? Why does he teach them the law by saying, "You have heard what the law says, but I say to you"?
It's because his hearers, like us, were accustomed to listening, to acquiring knowledge, but not acting on it. So someone could say, "I haven't murdered anyone, so I'm doing well as a Christian." But Jesus says, "Wrong--if you are angry with a person, you need to fix that relationship."
There's a big difference between avoiding something and being proactive in something. Jesus' teaching is about proactiveness--how else are we going to be salt and light in the world?
As he concludes his teaching, he makes clear that it's about the foundation we build on. His words, and the practice of them, are the solid rock for us to build on. The sit-back, laissez-faire, consumer-consumption approach is the sand that many of us build on.
Let's heed the words of Jesus, aim for perfection, just like our Father, and practice his words.
Practice makes perfect.
We have a few ways of trying to understand Jesus' sermon in Matthew 5-7. Some say it is merely intended to point out the ideal of Christian life. Others say Jesus intended us to realize how sinful we really are (because we can't keep the teaching he gives) so we turn to God in repentance.
My opinion is: Jesus intends us to obey his teaching in the sermon, and it's actually quite simple to do so.
Nowhere does Jesus himself tell us that we need to perfectly obey everything. And even when he does command us to be perfect, just as God is perfect (Mt. 5:48), the context clearly points to perfection being found in love for others (even enemies) and in impartial treatment of others.
In fact, the point of Jesus' teaching in this sermon seems to be focused on getting his hearers to realize their true calling. He states clearly that he has come not to abolish the law but to fulfill it. He indicates the law is not to be set aside but is to continue to be followed. But there is a higher righteousness, not the one attained by the Pharisees and religious elites, who hold onto the law as a badge of honor from God.
You obtain this true righteousness when you use the law/teaching to be what God has called you to be--the blessing to the nations that he promised to Abraham all the way back in Genesis. This is why Jesus emphasizes the "beatitudes" and teaches that we are "salt" and "light" in the world (5:1-16). He emphasizes the way of life, in line with the law, that responds to the grace of God in his deliverance.
God's promise to Abraham is fulfilled in part by you when you live as salt and light in the world and others glorify God because of your good deeds.
This is why Jesus teaches what he does in 5:21-7:12. He shows them (and us) that the law is not a badge of honor to hold on to, or even a static blessing of God. Rather, the law is a dynamic, moving force designed to take us deeper into what it means to be salt and light in the world. Instead of focusing on what we should avoid, Jesus teaches us to be proactive by saying, "But I tell you...."
This is why he ends his sermon with instructions to take the small gate and the narrow road that lead to life. It's not because it's hard and complex, but we make it so when we go beyond his simple teaching.
He tells us what his simple teaching is by saying, "Hear these words of mine and put them into practice" (7:24). He calls us to respond to God by faith, instead of waiting for God to respond to us because he owes us something.
We make his teaching complex when we add to it, excuse it, or explain it away. Obedience, while never perfect, is always a response of faith to God's deliverance. Simple. Anything else complexifies it, and is idolatrous.
We had an awesome brainstorming session today for a couple of sermons. To check out a whiteboard image of our session, click here.
We had a great start to our sermon series yesterdays, This or That: Choosing to Follow Jesus. In the bible study we studied Matthew 1-4 in overview and examined the ways Matthew shows us we can learn about Jesus, discussed what Jesus actually calls us to, and asked whether we're ready to choose him. You can download the teaching slides from that lesson here (Open Office format). You can also view these slides as a slideshow here.
In the sermon, we looked at how we like routines and what's already comfortable and known to us. But when we looked at the Gospel of Matthew--specifically, Jesus' teaching about repentance and call of disciples in Mt. 4:12-25--we learned that Jesus calls us to choose him, to follow him into a new truth that can't be fully known until you join the adventure.
You can download the sermon MP3 file here and the sermon slides here. Or, you can view the sermon slides as a slideshow here.
Don't forget to read your book! If you didn't get a copy, we're handing out one copy to each family, so let Joey Whelan or myself know, and we'll get you a copy.
Leave some feedback below about what you learned you learned yesterday.
Below are the slides we used for the last two sermons, "YOU Are the Church" and "True Worship." Please download them and use them however you'd like to keep processing this message.
 | Slides for YOU Are the Church | | File Size: | 454 kb | | File Type: | ppt |
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| Slides for True Worship | | File Size: | 381 kb | | File Type: | ppt |
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When Jesus called his disciples to "follow" him (Mt. 4:18-22), they immediately did so. They left behind their family business...and their religion.
Did they need to do this? We often excuse the behavior of followers of Jesus or even the teaching of Jesus himself (Luke 18:22, anyone?) by saying things like, "It was all brand new to them and they were excited," or, "He didn't really mean that, he just wants to know if you're willing to do it."
To ask those questions is to ignore who Jesus is and what he's up to. Before calling his disciples, he began preaching. His message was simple. Almost too simple. It was this: "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near."
Notwithstanding any translational issues, the sense of that sermon is, "Turn to God, because his long-promised deliverance is here." How is it "here"? In Jesus.
When we realize that, "repentance" takes on a whole different meaning and explains the actions of the disciples who immediately followed. Repentance is not feeling sorry for actions you committed. It's not even making amends, although that is part of it. Repentance means to turn from one way of life and turn to another way of life, specifically, the way of life of Jesus.
Two examples, in Matthew 4:12-25, show us this. First, the example of Jesus himself. In 4:12, Jesus hears that John the Baptist has been arrested. Many of us today, assuming rights we don't have as a supposed "Christian culture," would get on TV, on the radio, on blogs on the internet, and complain about how "unjustly" and "unfairly" Christians are being treated. But not Jesus.
Instead, Jesus withdrew to Galilee. Was he insensitive to the state of his own cousin? Did he not care about social justice? We could draw those inferences if we don't read on in Matthew's narrative. If we continue on, we see that Jesus' withdrawal is actually in line with scripture (he fulfilled what was said through Isaiah; 4:14-16).
That means: Jesus, instead of over-reacting, reacted in line with the bible and with God's will. He concentrated on his ministry and began preaching a message about repentance that was focused around God's action.
This is why repentance isn't based around how you feel about actions you commit. Repentance is a radical call-to-action based around the action of God in Jesus to bring about deliverance for his people that had long been anticipated. This deliverance is what the "kingdom of heaven" is.
The second example is the disciples. When Jesus called them to follow him, they recognized that he wasn't calling them to simply feel sorry for their past sins and to do their best to live a moral life. They actually recognized the long-awaited deliverance of God through the call of Jesus and followed him as the one who would make that deliverance available to them! This is why they immediately gave up everything for him.
Choosing Jesus means staying close to the story (not doctrine) of God we find in the bible, recognizing his action-for-us in Jesus, following him into the new life he creates.
Okay: I've been dropping clues on this blog, on my Facebook page, on Twitter, and during worship, about our summer series.
If you remember last year, we coordinated our bible studies with our sermons in the summer and did a long series on Becoming an Externally Focused Church. You can judge the results of that focus yourself.
(By the way, "we" in this post refers to myself and Joey Whelan. Joey is working with me this summer as my assistant and doing a tremendous job. He should be commended. The slides you see every Sunday? Joey's creating those and running them while I preach.)
This summer we wanted to tackle a similar project. But how could we top that? How better than to actually look at Jesus, within the context of one of the gospels? So we chose Matthew. And the theme we picked is "Choices."
We broke Matthew down into 9 segments and selected a theme for each segment that corresponded to a choice we have to make as a follower of Jesus. Here are the 9 segments, with themes:
July 5 (Mt. 1-4) Choosing Jesus
July 12 (Mt. 5-7) Choosing Simplicity or Complexity
July 19 (Mt. 8-11) Choosing to Live by Faith or by Your Own Ability
July 26 (Mt. 12-14) Choosing to Stay or Leave
August 2 (Mt. 15-16) Choosing a Difficult Faith or an Easy Faith
August 9 (Mt. 17-18) Choosing Relationships over Conflict
August 16 (Mt. 19-22) Choosing to Love Instead of Judge
August 23 (Mt. 23-25) Choosing Subversion over Conformity
August 30 (Mt. 26-28) Choosing to Follow
Over July and August, every Sunday, we will examine a segment of Matthew and discuss the choice for that week during the sermon. For the bible study, I'll provide an overview of the segment we'll look at during the sermon, so that through July and August we'll work our way through the entire gospel.
Many of you also know that we (Joey and I; illustrations by Sam Cale) wrote a book to tie-in with the series. You'll get your own family copy this Sunday. The book is written like a Choose Your Own Adventure book. It's built around making Christian choices. Each week, we plan to incorporate a scene or two from the book into the actual teaching.
So as you read the book and participate in the series, you will be challenged to grow in your faith and to make good choices that affirm your status as a follower of Jesus.
Please pray for this series, that it will be effective in our church to move us forward in following Jesus. Please pray also for Joey and myself that we will bring out the key concepts and teaching that God desires us to present. And please pray for yourself to be receptive to God's truth, not only during this series, but at all times.
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