Sermons on Matthew
This morning, we will be focusing on a topic that I have given much of my life to thinking about. I’ve spent years working to develop effective processes and tools for its implementation. It’s been said that “a person needs to invest about 10,000 hours in a skill in order to master it.” In the…
As we continue to look at the various ways in which God calls believers to walk in the fullness of all He desires for His church, we begin to shift our focus from the internal community of the body to the broader community in which we live. How has God called us to interact with those who are “on the outside”? Or in other words, How has God called us to engage our community? Pastor David shares God’s purpose and plan for engaging our community.
My goal today is to focus on some of the events from the last half of the week, but I hope to do this by seeing these events through the eyes of one of Jesus’ closest followers—Simon Peter. Throughout the Passion Week, Simon Peter seems to be involved in everything that is happening—which is sometimes good and sometimes not so good. As we consider all these things that he said and did during these last few hours of Jesus’ life, I hope to be able to portray not only his words and actions but also his implied thoughts and feelings. I will not overly-dramatize the text of Scripture to make it say something that it does not say, but I will attempt—when possible—to analyze the text of these gospels to help us see and feel what Simon Peter is experiencing. We’ll begin where Pastor John left off last week—in the Upper Room where Jesus and His disciples celebrated the Passover on Thursday evening.
The message last week was one of the most difficult passages that I have ever tried to exposit in my 34 years of preaching! The crazy thing is that the previous paragraph—verses 19-25—is one of my favorite passages in all of Scripture! We cannot pick and choose what we like or what we want to believe in the Bible, because “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work” (2 Timothy 3:16-17). So, today, let’s look now at the encouragement that the author offers to this beleaguered group of Christ followers in Rome as they endure the trials and the difficulties related to living by faith under the malicious reign of Emperor Nero.
In this final, synoptic study of Romans 12, we will reflect on some of the major themes from this chapter over the past ten weeks in an effort to see clearly what the Scripture means when it tells us to not be conformed to this world, but be transformed—be different! Transformation is a process! It starts with a decision to offer our lives to the Lord. Then the Lord works in us—humbling us and teaching us how to serve others within our giftedness. As we serve Him by serving others, it is His desire that our lives display the marks of a true Christian—genuine love for one another, diligent service to the Lord, patience in tribulation, persistence in prayer, and generosity in everything. Exhibiting these characteristics of a true believer is essential in our quest for overcoming the evil that persists in our lives. And we must never forget that the only way to gain victory over evil is with the righteousness of God.
Today we are continuing our sermon series “Therefore” in the book of Romans Chapter 12. In Verse 11, Paul encourages us to live with diligence, to live with a fervent spirit, to serve the Lord. Our call to diligence doesn’t mean we just need to go do any stuff. In reference to verse 11, this call on our lives is the consistent and persistent effort to pursue God’s will and fulfill our responsibilities with a right attitude. We are going to explore how we can achieve that in our personal spiritual walk, in serving others, and sharing the Gospel.
In Ephesians 4:13, it says that we should strive to grow up in Christ “until we all attain to the unity of the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.” In today’s study, I want to take a few minutes to look a little deeper into this subject of discipleship, what it means to be a follower of Christ and what it means to disciple someone.
This portion of Scripture has three teaching sections and an encounter with Jesus’ family. The primary teaching is commonly referred to as the Parable of the Sower, but I prefer The Parable of the Soils. Jesus taught this parable to the crowd that was following Him from town to town. Later, His disciples asked Him to further explain the meaning of this parable. Jesus explained it citing that the disciples had “been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of God.” After these two teaching sections, Jesus shared an additional parable highlighting the need to share the truths that they learned with others. The last part of our passage recounts how Jesus’ mother and half-brothers came to see Him, but Jesus did not stop His teaching to see them. This demonstrated how that Jesus’ priority was first and foremost His teaching ministry. According to other gospel accounts (cf. Mark 3:21; John 7:5), Jesus’ siblings—the children of Mary and Joseph—never supported Jesus’ ministry before His death and resurrection.
Many of Jesus’ followers were first disciples of John the Baptist. John played a unique role in the pronouncement of the coming Messiah—the Christ. John had been preaching that the kingdom of heaven was coming soon, but even he did not fully understand what that would look like. Having been thrown into prison by Herod the tetrarch (Luke 3:19-20), John was unable to go to Jesus himself. When he heard all that was happening through the ministry of Jesus, John sent some of his disciples to Jesus to confirm that He was truly the promised Messiah. We should remember that John was the one who proclaimed, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” when he saw Jesus approaching him to be baptized in the Jordan River (John 1:29). But just like any other sinful man, John was having some doubts about this because Jesus’ ministry was not what he (or anybody else) expected. John the Baptist needed confirmation from Jesus to help alleviate any doubts he might have about the ministry of the Messiah.
Herod was a cruel and diabolical man. He was incredibly jealous and hopelessly suspicious of everyone. He was threatened by everyone and everything, and so he spent his entire life plotting the murder of people. There are accounts of multiple times when he killed someone (or groups of people) because they were somehow seen as a threat to him. His victims even included one of his wives and several of his own children. Herod had a lust for power, a constant suspicion, and an insane eagerness to avenge himself that enslaved the man all the days of his life. He was a cruel and bloodthirsty tyrant. I share all of this with you today to give you a glimpse into the heart of this evil man—his mindset and his character—so that we can better understand his role in the nativity narrative.