Matthew Part 6 - Salt and Light

Mathew 5:1 – 16

Many of you know how much I enjoy photography. I am not brave enough to call my self a photographer but I do enjoy taking cool pictures. There is a huge difference between a snapshot and a good photograph, and while there are many components that make a cool photo I want to focus on two of the simplest tools in the photographer’s toolbox … lenses. A wide-angle lens allows you to stand back and get the full vista, the full breadth of the view. A zoom lens allows you to zoom in a little closer to get more of the detail. I want to look at the first 16 verses of Mathew 5 firstly through a wide angle lens then secondly zoom in a little to capture the detail

The wide-angle view of Mathew 5 is simply Jesus teaching (vv2) us how we should conduct ourselves in the household of faith. If I were to paraphrase the text it would look something like this. “I trust you will act as if you are poor in spirit when you are around each other. Humility is one of the keys to the Kingdom and if you practice it you will find your inheritance in the kingdom. I hope you never loose the ability to mourn with each other. I hope you will never harden your hearts to effects of sin but will always be there for each other at moment of pain and sadness. I desire that gentleness and kindness are always the currency of your community life. I hope you never become satisfied but rather remain hungry for my righteousness among my people. I hope your community is filled with peacemakers who take forgiveness and reconciliation seriously! I want to teach you about courage also so that you are prepared and will persevere through tough times.”

I believe Jesus is asking us to behave in these ways around each other. He is giving us some distinctives, some community and personal attributes that should mark our communities of faith and set us apart in this world.

That is the wide-angle view and here comes the zoom.

BUT … He does not stop there! Jesus jumps immediately to those outside of the community of faith, giving us the well-worn parable of salt and light! I believe if we combine these two views we will realize that Jesus is telling us that one of the most irresistible and compelling witnesses for salvation is the community described in the beatitudes. I have long said, “There is no point in being the best kept secret in town”. A community that displays these attributes would be hard to hide!  This kind of community will penetrate and preserve … as salt does! And it will pierce the darkness and proclaim the truth … as light does!

“Changed Lives … change lives” vv16 asks each one of us to be bold, to let our light shine and to invite others into our lives so that they can see how distinctive we are and ultimately the scriptures tells us, when we do that they will “praise our father in heaven”

Matthew Part 5 - Healing ...

Matthew Part 5

Matthew 4:23 25

This amazing Chapter culminates in something of a healing revival.

We must however take note that Jesus taught in their synagogs AND preached the “Good News” of the kingdom, then saw some dramatic healings. This is not prescriptive but simply descriptive I know, but we can however glean some lessons from the text

Jesus gave himself to teaching. The simple impartation of knowledge. Teaching and explaining, undoing and informing. Laying a foundation for what was to come next and that was preaching the “Good News” that the Kingdom of heaven was at hand. This preaching took on a much more declarative and challenging tone. It came with the authority of the one who brought it, was backed up by the one who sent Him and was confirmed by the demonstration of the power of the Holy Spirit.

What a cool pattern emerges here. Teaching, Preaching and demonstrating the life of the Spirit. As I look at this pattern I am reminded of a conversation that I had last week with a friend who has planted an outstanding church about 30min drive from us. As we talked through the life of the Spirit and the challenges of church planting we came to the necessity of explaining some of what we do when we have visitors or those that may be a little more conservative than us in the meeting. I think we make a mistake when we assume that everyone is as comfortable with the move of the Spirit as we may be. A simple explanation of what we are doing need add no more 20/30 seconds and yet will have a profound effect in helping people to understand what God is doing and ultimately open themselves more to His dealings.

Proclamation is the declarative announcing of The Gospel with power, anointing and authority. The kingdom of heaven is near! Your sins have been forgiven! God will never be angry with you again for the wrath of God has been fully satisfied on the Cross! THAT is indeed “Good News”

I am convinced of this: Good News and good deeds still go together! Healing here by the power of The Spirit represents good deeds and so much more! I would define good deeds as broadly as any action that changes that person’s immediate circumstances or situation

What glorious goals to desire … that the mysteries of God would be given adequate explanation so that the thoughts that stand against them would be torn down - We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. (2 Cor 10:5)

That the proclamation of The Gospel would once again ring out with clarity, conviction, power, anointing and authority

AND that the life of the Spirit would be so honored and celebrated that the manifestations of His presences would be obvious

No wonder this text ends with … “Large crowds followed Him”! 

Mathew Part 4 - Come follow me ...

Mathew Part 4

Matthew 4:18 – 22

Come follow me … and I will make you

I have often wondered what Jesus saw in those fishermen?

One of the greatest abilities we can ask God for is the ability to look down the hallway of time to see what God sees in an individual. When we get a glimpse of what that person will look like when God shows up in his world it can stir us and lift our faith to see more come to him and more come through for him.

The two aspects of this that I want of look at today have to do with salvation and leadership. I love the adventure of meeting someone who has net yet responded to Christ. I love the stirring of the Holy Spirit when He begins to lift my faith because he has shown me what he sees in this person.

Certainly one of the most dramatic examples of this happened when we first moved to Los Angeles. Part of leading that church included oversight of a preschool that ran on the campus. One afternoon a young father showed up to pick up his daughter as I was walking across the parking lot. He was in his late 20’s, shaved head, with multiple tattoos! He seriously looked like a white supremacist! I knew instantly that this guy was going to be my next salvation project. As I walked away, praying for him I heard the Spirit of God say that he would become one of my elders! As you can imagine my faith was lifted, stirred and impassioned for this young father. A couple of months later he got saved and about 18mts after that we ordained him onto the eldership of River Church.

The other aspect of this is leadership development. Several years ago while we were still pastoring in South Africa a young man joined our church. He lacked confidence and stuttered badly. But I had heard God about this guys future and it was an incredible privilege to watch what God The Father “made” him over the next few years. Today he leads a thriving church in North America, with a dynamic team that he has developed and the impact of his ministry is felt far beyond the walls of his church.

I wonder what Jesus saw when he looked at those fishermen? There is no indicator from scripture that he had met them before or that He had a protracted conversation with them. He simply saw something in these men that prompted him to issue the most incredible life changing invitation of all time … “Come follow me … I will make you …” 

Surely it is our highest privilege to follow Him. Surely it is just as high a privilege to invite others to follow Him into this amazing journey, be it those that have not yet met him or those that He desires to bring through into a fuller expression of leadership. Either way – it all starts when we see what He sees in people. 

Matthew Part 3 - Word and Spirit

Matthew Part 3

Word and Spirit

Mathew 1:1 – 10

I have always loved chapter four of Mathew. This chapter is full of intrigue and insight. It opens with the temptation of Jesus then moves quickly through the launch of His public ministry, the calling of His first disciples and culminates in something of a healing revival.

There are few places in Scripture where the Word and Spirit debate are spoken into more clearly than right here in this dynamic chapter.

Jesus is led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by satan. Luke gives us a fuller picture of what being led by the Spirit looked like. Luke 1:1 says that Jesus was full of the Holy Spirit AND was led by the Spirit. Then Luke 1:14 says He returned “in the power” of the Spirit

So if you can allow me a bit of preacher’s license here to skip between these two texts, Jesus is “full of” and “led by” the Holy Spirit when he is tempted by satan. Yet three times he answers, “It is written”! I love the brilliance of the word of God, yet it is mostly so simple that the “unschooled and ordinary” of Acts 4:13 can get it. This is brilliant yet plain for all to see – Jesus “Full of” AND “led by” the Holy Spirit still needed the word of God to refute and dismiss what must surely have been one of the greatest challenges He faced outside of the cross.

I have been amazed that there is still a debate out there about word OR Spirit, or what the balance is between the two. The brilliant simplicity of this chapter is that we need both for victory, both for sustainability and both to come to fullness.  

Mathew Part 2 - John the baptist.

Mathew Chapter 3

John the baptist

When I was younger (much younger) I seriously identified with John the Baptist. The only problem is I am about as prophetic as a sack of hammers!

Nevertheless there as some great lessons we can learn from this radical, desert walking prophet of old.

The central theme of Jesus ministry here on earth was repentance and John comes as a forerunner of this message. There is good reason for this: without repentance we have no way of entering the Kingdom of Jesus Christ. John’s message of repentance should be as clear in our Gospel preaching today as it was then “Repent for the Kingdom of heaven is near” Jesus speaks graphically in the Luke 15 parable of the lost sheep about the celebration in heaven when one sinner repents.

What a sober reminder Jeremiah 23:21 +22 have always been …

I did not send these prophets,

      yet they have run with their message;

      I did not speak to them,

      yet they have prophesied.

      But if they had stood in my council,

      they would have proclaimed my words to my people

      and would have turned them from their evil ways

      and from their evil deeds.

When we are HIS mouth-piece and we heed HIS council and we proclaim HIS words to HIS people repentance will be the result!

The other characteristic that stands out for me about John is Humility. I love Mathew 3:3 “a voice of one calling in the desert” I would like to imagine that as a conversation “Who are you John?” we ask. “A voice” he replies. Nothing more - nothing less. Just a mouthpiece to be used by God to get HIS message to a nation and a generation.

The third characteristic is simplicity. John lived a simple life that challenged the religious leaders of day who lived, by comparison, in relative luxury. Here was a man who needed very little but a sip of honey and an occasional grasshopper to snack on.

Jesus likewise said the son of man has nowhere to lay his head. (Luke 9:58)

Paul says I have learned the secret of being content ... (Phil 4:11+12) I am not advocating for a lifestyle of poverty but simplicity where the voices that so easily drown out the prophetic voice of our God are silenced! I love Paul’s language here “The secret”  … a secret is simply something we are without knowledge on … a mystery. Then “content” – to be satisfied! Have we lost the knowledge of what is it means to be satisfied? Or are we simply looking for that satisfaction in the wrong places?

These lessons are simple, not always easy to live out but simple none-the-less.

Repentance, humility and simplicity are the currency of those who would go ahead proclaiming the good news of Jesus death and resurrection.

May our attitudes always be one of repentance. May our language be salted with humility and may our lifestyle and our message represent simplicity. 

Matthew Part 1 - God the Story-Teller

It continually fascinates me that the bible is not simply a book of lists or instructions

Would be so much easier

But that somehow God is his infinite wisdom chose to reveal himself as a storyteller … and of this I am convinced that he is still revealing himself in the same way in our day.

His revelation and stories are no longer thru Abraham and Hosea and Jeremiah … but through the lives of ordinary believers

So lets look at this part of the story

We have to imagine ourselves not as key players in the story but as bystanders …

Imagine being in the village when the news breaks that that Mary is pregnant!

She is engaged … which meant much more then than it does today … in those days to break an engagement was a similar process to getting a divorce … engagement was a legally binding contract … engaged partners were referred to as husband and wife they were for all intents and purposes married but with out the privilege of physical intimacy

For Mary to have been unfaithful during this time was considered to be adultery … she could have been judged publicly and if found guilty stoned to death

And by the time this is recorded, historians tell us that she was about 4 months pregnant there was no hiding it!

What shame this could have brought on Mary and Joseph as well as their families

Can you imagine the whispers in the crowd at the market place and at the well?

So Mary pregnant hey? … obviously Joseph decided to get a head start on the marriage thing!

Maybe it wasn’t Joseph?

Maybe she has been stepping out on him?

Now can you imagine living with that shame and it taking 30 + years before at the cross it declared surely this man was the Son of God!

Thirty years imagine living that story for the Glory of God!

But you also have to wonder what Mary and Joseph did on a day-to-day Basis … the baby after all had to be fed and cleaned and bathed and looked after … you see God the storyteller works thru the ordinary events of our lives

But back to our story

The creator of the universe, the King of kings, born in a barn. God is unveiling a new economy ... an economy of grace  

The news of the Savior’s birth is not announced to the cultural elites or the middle class, but to shepherds. Smelly, unkempt, hill-dwelling, bottom-caste outsiders. And to add insult to injury, the signs of the Savior’s birth are comprehended not by the religious but by the Magi, about whom we know very little.

The Scriptures tell us that something cataclysmic was going on. As Mary labored, an evil stirred that was so great, that it called for the blood of all Bethlehem’s infant sons.

Only God the storyteller could come up with a story as magnificent and as intriguing as this

Jesus is THE story of History … He is the central theme … the alpha and the omega the beginning and the end … the author and finisher of our faith …

But as I have said … I believe God wants to write his story on our hearts and tell the story of His goodness and grace through our lives today

You see when we put our lives in His hands we become his workmanship (Ephesians 2:10) … that word is more closely aligned with “Poem” … we become his poem of love and grace to those around us

At times we can feel as if we are out of control … but God is never out of control His is omniscient … all knowing

He is omnipotent … all powerful

he is Omnipresent … everywhere at the same time and He is:

The centerpiece of civilization

He is the central them of scripture and of all theology

            In Genesis … he is the creator

            In Exodus he is our deliverer leader

            In Leviticus he is our High Priest

            In Joshua He is the captain of our salvation

            In The psalms he is the Lord our shepherd

            In proverbs he is the wisdom of God

           

            In Matthew He is the Messiah

            In Mark he is the Miracle worker

            In Luke he is the Son of man

            In John he is the Son of God

And we can go through all of scripture like that until we get to the book of Revelation where he is The King of Kings and the Lord of Lords

            The Alpha and the Omega

            The lion of the tribe of Judah

            The lamb who was slain 

            The word of God

            The bright morning star

When we put our lives in the hands of the storyteller our story becomes His story through us. 

The ark (Genesis 6) … very detailed instructions for how to build the ark and yet there is no mention of a rudder or sails the two things that could have been used by Noah and the people on the Ark to steer …

And yet those 8 people in that ark represented the whole future of mankind.

See our lives in God’s hands is really the safest place we can be.

            The safest place on earth during the flood was in the Ark!

Only God the Storyteller can come up with stories as magnificent as this. What are the stories He wants to tell this year, through your life / your marriage / your finances / your children?