Jesus and a Desolate City

Matthew 23:23-39

Jesus’ Woes, Pharisees, and Hypocrisy
This passage often feels uncomfortable. Were all Pharisees hypocrites? Why is Jesus so hard? Two things: “Woe” transliterates a Hebrew word expressing grief more than anger: “Alas.” 
Second, “hypocrisy” in English means insincere pretence, when a person covers known problems with play-acting piety. For Jesus, it’s not pretence, rather an emphasis on external obedience to God that blinds people to the fact that no inner change or devotion is present. It’s self-deception that sincerely misses the point of really loving God and loving neighbor, of justice, mercy, faithfulness. They are “externalists.” That’s the tragedy (‘Alas’): their chosen approach to the law brings correct external practice, not inner transformation. This is their built-in blindness (like the log in the eye, Mt 7:3) – even to God’s real purposes.

 
Jesus rebukes them like a prophet. He is not out to destroy them. Rather he instructs the crowds to learn from their teaching of scripture but critique the way they implement it. 

Jesus and Our Life of Prayer

Matthew 6:5-25

Seek First the Kingdom of God
At the beginning of the year, we started with Jesus' fundamental guidance: "Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness." [Mt 6:33] A way of seeing everything with God at the center of reality. Seeking that reality amid all claims for other gods like Mammon.
Prayer for Jesus is a profound expression of that seeking. Prayer is engagement / connection with the God of the universe. Jesus, himself, often had refreshing, renewing times of prayer.


"When You Pray" -- Taking God Seriously
Even truly good things are vulnerable to corruption/distortion from little gods. When prayer is for public display it becomes work for pay, fully paid. A closed circle, no God involved.
Jesus urges a core of private prayer. The "Father in heaven" is not far away but very close. Trust God as knowing and caring. He is intimately acquainted with us and loves us.

How Do You Swallow a Camel?

Matthew 23:1-24

Jesus' Profile in Contrast
Since coming to Jerusalem, Jesus has challenged the whole range of leaders in the Temple by actions and teaching: Chief priests (authority, God's work in John); Pharisees (taxes to Caesar); Sadducees (resurrection); serious questions (great command, Messiah/David).
Matthew begins the last of five collection of Jesus' teaching: Mt 5-7, 10, 13, 18, now 23-25. He focuses many things said before and anticipates the future beyond Jesus' ministry.

Jesus had a sharp profile among the many teachers, viewpoints, and parties among Jews of his day: Pharisees, Sadducees/chief priests, Essenes, Zealots, individual prophets like John. Each pointed a direction for a people in waiting, after exile, subjugation, longing for a future. Many envisioned a rigorous, purified community and violent opposition to Rome (Pharisees, Essenes, Zealots in different ways). Temple leaders/Sadducees compromised with Rome.

Living the Expectant Present with Jesus

Matthew 6:25-34

Living in the Present with the Past and Future
We begin 2016 with Jesus’ call: “Seek first God’s kingdom....” Most of us consider ourselves either committed followers of Jesus or seekers, interested in his teaching. He is clearly giving a challenge, but what does it mean? How do I seek that kingdom? What if I can’t find it? Why does he talk about not being anxious? Isn’t he asking the impossible? I’m worried!
A striking thing about Jesus is how focused he is on the present moment, the person in front of him, the present need/opportunity, living now! He lived in a nation with a long, difficult past. The future holds conflict, persecution, death for himself and many of his followers. We haven’t done well in the past, we face a fearful tomorrow. No anxiety? How can I seek?

Living Expectantly: Expecting Tomorrow

Isaiah 40:1-11

Expecting the Unexpected Future
We’re looking into a new year that, as always, is full of unknowns. Politics, war, revolution, science, medicine, culture, economy, creativity, racial tensions, justice, decline, renewal.
A basic challenge of life is dealing with time. Our faith is very present-oriented. We are called to love and serve here and now. “I was hungry and you fed me...” (Mt 25:35) “Do not be anxious about tomorrow...” (Mt 6:34). I want to live this moment as a child of God, a follower of Jesus, and trust God for the future. Leave it in his capable hands.

Living Expectantly: Christ’s Birth & Grown-ups

Isaiah 11:1-9

A Branch from a Stump
We’re reflecting on some important passages in Isaiah’s prophecies that resonate powerfully in the birth and life of Jesus. We began with the sign of the birth of a child: “the virgin shall conceive and bear a son” (7:14); “to us a child is born, to us a son is given (9:6). God’s unique creative power breaking in to begin new life: Sarah & Isaac...Mary & Jesus. 
But in Isaiah’s day, with faithless king Ahaz, it wasn’t enough. He wanted military help now, not God’s promises with whatever signs. It was the superpower Assyria who could bring in the god of war. Ahaz sold his nation and religion to Assyria for immediate war help.

Learning Expectation: Christ's Birth & Children

Isaiah 9:1-7

Did you grow up as a kid looking forward to Christmas?
Different cultures have different expectations. I did. Not too much religious stuff. But the tree and the gifts? Yes! We like to give and receive gifts. It's easily distorted, commercialized, but a good instinct. (Think about giving: Google "Advent Conspiracy" for a wider vision of giving gifts.)
Part of what we love in the holiday as children is the thrill of expectation. Part of what we love as parents is watching and fostering our children's expectation. Yes, it's a rather artificial ritual, but it can point to a deep truth, rich and complex: learning to live life expectantly -- in hope. Helping a child to live expectantly, creatively, in hope is a great gift. The gifts the Wise Men bring symbolize the hope and expectation that they believe are embodied in that unknown child, without status, but marked by signs for the future.

The Candle of Hope: God's Surprising Sizzle Reel

John 1:1-14

This week, Jeff Walling is our guest speaker for this week.
Jeff is from Pepperdine University in California, where he directs the Youth Leadership Initiative. He is an outstanding preacher who has led congregations on both the east coast and west and is widely called on to speak at conferences and lectures. Jeff delivers the message on HOPE for the first week of Advent. Download the message above, and listen to Jeff as he illuminates the HOPE found in the story of God coming to be with us in Jesus.

“For All that You’ve Done I will Thank You”

Romans 8 – An Expansive Reading

The right-hand column carries the text of Romans 8 as it has been printed in the sermon series
"Embraced by a God of Love" 1-7. Download the full notes for this sermon using the link below.

 

1 Now, however, nothing can bring condemnation for those who are in Messiah Jesus!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2 For now the law, under the power of the Spirit who gives the life in Messiah Jesus, has itself set you free from

 

1 The astonishing thing that God has now done in Messiah Jesus is that he has brought the end of all things forward into our present. The past, present, and future come together in Jesus. God’s final righteous verdict on our human life is pronounced – revealed here and now! 
Now I know that asserting such a thing may seem very fearsome indeed. When we look at our own weakness in following God’s commands, we are frustrated and, if we are honest, we are inevitably afraid of condemnation before God’s judgment. 


But amazingly, what we discover is that for those who are in Messiah Jesus, God imposes no verdict of condemnation at all! “No Condemnation!” Do you hear that? Rather, welcome, acceptance, unconquerable love! It is all because of Jesus’ faithfulness! 
By faith we trust in what God has done in Jesus – God’s faithful righteousness in keeping his promises. Our faith simply responds to what Jesus has done, and God by his grace brings us to share in Jesus’ life and identity, in who he is and in all that he did. “No condemnation” defines being in him, participating in all the effects of his faithfulness and sacrifice. 

2 Through Jesus, God has brought the way he works within us humans to a new level. The ancient Law or Torah, which expressed God’s will and intended to give us life, was always frustrated by the sin and brokenness dwelling in us – what I’ve called our “flesh.” But now the Law is under the power of God’s Spirit, who is the very 

"If God is For Us..."

Romans 8:31-39

Learning Who God Is?
The Bible is about God, and humans in relation to God. Paul says his whole proclamation is focused on Who God is. Is God distant, unconcerned, judgmental, condemning, an easy grandfather, an arbitrary tyrant, an impersonal force, nature itself, an abstract idea, an impenetrable mystery, a human projection, nothing, a nagging parent?


We know God only as he opens access by what he does. Paul has taken us through the human predicament and need, what God did through Israel, what God has done in Jesus, what God is doing in the Spirit. Now he wants the meaning of all that to penetrate our heart.
God shows that He is for us! Little words (hyper hemon). The "us" is everyone! All his creatures. Not our side against enemies. Jews, Romans, Greeks, Parthians, Americans, Syrians, French. There's no one he's against. What He has done creates inviting, freedom-giving love for all. The only "against" is the stuff we humans do to destroy & deface our lives -- sin, brokenness.

Shaped to the Image of Jesus

Romans 8:28-30

The Great Vision of God’s Grace
In these verses Rom 8 comes to a climax, leading to the great final exclamation of God’s love. Paul has led us from the distress of human weakness, delusion, and enslavement by sin through God’s astonishing intervention not to condemn us but to destroy sin’s power and free us from it’s deluding slavery. In Jesus and all he did and in the Spirit living in us, God has opened a way back to reality: Not humans on their own with little self-made gods but rather in close relationship with their creator and all the created world. Living freely in full humanity even now in a broken and frustrated world. Living with hope of God’s life-giving renewal of his whole creation in which they share the glory God always intended for them.

The Spirit’s Strength in Our Weakness

Romans 8:22-28

Groaning in Pain, First Taste of Hope vv 22-25
Paul is helping us to learn a way of thinking – seeing / knowing the world, ourselves, and God. It’s shaped by the reality of what God has done in Jesus & the Spirit. A transforming vision.
Paul tells how in Jesus God did what was impossible for humans, even with the best guidance. He broke the power of our imprisonment by sin and of the fear of death’s futility, by taking them on himself. By giving his Spirit, he empowers a new level of life – still deeply meshed with this world, but with the first taste of a world to come seen in Jesus’ resurrection.

Hope in a Frustrated World

Romans 8:15-25

United as God’s Children by the Spirit of God vv 15-17
Paul is announcing the Gospel that has created remarkable communities like the church in Rome – Jews and pagans of all nations, slave and free – the deep brokenness of human beings healed by God. This is God’s great purpose and only God could accomplish it.
In Jesus Messiah, uniquely Son of God, God came bodily among us in self-giving love/grace to bring the story of Israel to a new level of fulfillment, to break grip of sin and death that we in our weakness could not break, to conquer death and create new resurrection life.

The Freedom of “Abba! Father!”

Romans 8:9-17

Seeing Ourselves in the Reality of God (vv 9-11) 
In leading us to grasp what it means to be embraced by God’s love, Paul takes us to amazing expression of intimacy with God expressed by Jesus in calling God “Abba” – a child’s cry of “Papa,” “Daddy.” A sense of belonging/freedom/access with God of the universe. 
Paul wants to help his ancient Roman readers (& us) get our minds / our way of thinking around what has actually happened in God’s actions in Jesus and in giving His Spirit. It’s the climax of his long journey with Israel and opens that history to the whole world. It deals with the sin and brokenness of all human life by bringing God’s own life into it. In human Jesus, God takes our suffering, sin, and death into himself and creates life. For all who trust in him, God gives his Spirit, his ongoing presence and first taste of life. 

If the Spirit of God Lives in You

Romans 8:5-11

Realizing What God has Done
Rom 8 focuses on the new reality brought about by what God has done in faithfulness to his promises long ago, now brought to full reality in Jesus the Messiah and the active work of God's Spirit. It deals with the deep/complex brokenness, sin, & suffering we're caught in.
Good guidance was not enough. Even God's Law could'nt free us from the enslavement, but it made the problem clear and distinct. It led up to God's coming to his people in Jesus.
In him uniquely, God did what no amount of guidance or law for us could do: God brought his own life and reality into the broken human situation. He took on himself our death.
He treated us not just as rebels but as beloved creatures enslaved by sin and death, and condemned sin itself. God stayed with us in his Spirit. God embraced us with his love.

Life & Peace in Christ Jesus

Romans 7:24 - 8:6

The Passionate Participant
We return from our Retreat: Seeking "Rest and Delight" in God's presence, finding times of quiet renewal, meditation. If you look for books about meditation you'll find many on western variations of Buddhism, almost always with the invitation that this 'method' doesn't require any religion or faith. In that way they are true to the Buddha's self-help orientation of breaking the human situation of suffering with no dependence on any gods.

Paul also is dealing with the human experience of suffering, evil desire, brokenness. Some real similarities but a radically different vision of where hope lies. Paul sees our situation through the event of Jesus: his life, teaching, death, resurrection, all that he means in the light of God's long history with Israel, all that he means for all people.

Retreat Series Week 4: The Disciplines of Rest and Delight

Isaiah 58:6-14

Bringing God's Reality into Everyday Life
It may seem strange to use Isaiah 58 as a text leading up to our retreat: "In God's Presence-Seeking Rest and Delight in Everyday Life." It's a great text about the union of faith and justice. But notice how Isaian moves to a call for Sabbath. He mentions yokes 3 times, all negative. Jesus calls us to take his yoke and find rest for our souls (Mt. 11:29-30). Jesus challenges us to release our grip of anxiety and learn to trust God and seek his kingdom.