My friends, as we end this season after the Epiphany, God makes Jesus known as the One who makes the eternal heavenly realm available to us. God was not required to open the heavenly realm to us, but God DID; God opened it out of love, and out of that same love God calls you to enter….here, now, always.
Jesus’ identity as “feeder of the hungry” reminds us that Jesus is exactly what all the literally and metaphorically hungry people of our world need. God wants to feed them. God provides all the resources – physical and spiritual – to meet their needs.
Y’all, conventional wisdom tells us to separate ourselves from people who might pull us down. But God says something different through Jesus. Jesus ate with sinners: not just sinful Jews but also Gentiles, people who didn’t want to have anything to do with God. And through these parables, Jesus conveyed the deep truth that as people of God we’re supposed to eat and live and otherwise co-mingle with people who don’t want to have anything to do with God. And the reason we’re supposed to do this is the same reason Jesus sent his disciples out into the world: so that by our faith and by our lives of following Jesus, God will transform everyone around us into something else, something better.
February 10, 2019 Sermon Jesus Made Known: The Solid Foundation First Scripture Reading: Matthew 7:1-5, 12-14 7 “Do not judge, so that you may not be judged. 2 For with the judgment you make you will be judged, and the measure you give will be the measure you get. 3 Why do you see the […]
Well, my friends, Jesus had something every person needs; and part of what Jesus had, God’s truth of the BEST way to live, could best be communicated with words, by teaching. And Jesus shared what all people throughout time needed PRECISELY because people needed it…even though it cost Him His life.
My friends, today begins the season of discovering who God reveals Jesus to be through the gospel of Matthew. It’s going to be a fun series of sermons. It’s going to be enlightening. It may even be a bit scary…because you may discover you need some adjustment to what you already believe or how you already live. But…isn’t it worth it to know who GOD says Jesus truly is…and to then figure out what that means for you, for us?