Mother's Day
Notes
Transcript
Intro
Happy Mother’s Day Ladies!! Whether you are a mom now or not yet, today is about you!
We have a special service planned for each of you, with an extra something special planned at the end.
We are also concluding our BE series as the Sermon on the Mount is coming to an end. I hope that everyone, mom and not, are both challenged and encouraged this morning.
As I said last week, next Sunday we are starting our new series, Elementary! and taking a look at some of the things Scripture considers to be the basic teachings of our faith.
Without any further ado, lets dive in
“Anyone who listens to my teaching and follows it is wise, like a person who builds a house on solid rock.
Though the rain comes in torrents and the floodwaters rise and the winds beat against that house, it won’t collapse because it is built on bedrock.
But anyone who hears my teaching and doesn’t obey it is foolish, like a person who builds a house on sand.
When the rains and floods come and the winds beat against that house, it will collapse with a mighty crash.”
BE Doers of the Word
Jesus concludes His week long sermon with this reminder. It is not enough for you to sit and listen to everything I have said. Your life is founded on the solid rock when we actually put it into practice.
This would’ve been an important reminder for the Jews listening at the time. One of the things that we are often impressed by the early believers is the fact that they memorized huge portions of scripture. Depending on how far you went in your schooling, Jewish boys would have everywhere from the first five books of the Old Testament to the entire Old Testament memorized.
This was no doubt inspired by the teaching in Deuteronomy where Moses tells the people that they must not let the teachings depart from their mind. In fact, they were to talk about it when they sat to eat, when they walked along the path, and even have it written to the doorposts of their homes and gates of their cities. They would have been immersed in the Scripture, but to have it that memorized would have been a lot of work.
When it becomes that all consuming like that, it would have been easy to reduce their faith to simply a logical exercise.
This was a big enough issue in the early church that James even touches on it in his letter to the church.
But don’t just listen to God’s word. You must do what it says. Otherwise, you are only fooling yourselves.
For if you listen to the word and don’t obey, it is like glancing at your face in a mirror.
You see yourself, walk away, and forget what you look like.
But if you look carefully into the perfect law that sets you free, and if you do what it says and don’t forget what you heard, then God will bless you for doing it.
Blank
Not much has changed for the church today. With so much knowledge at our disposal, and such ease of access to it, many disciples have reduced their face to an activity of consumption. You can easily drown yourself with Christian TV, Christian books by hundreds of different authors. You can almost believe whatever you want because if you look hard enough, you will find someone who teaches the same thing you believe, or at least tickles your ears and makes you feel good.
One of the things that God has really been impressing on me lately is a broader understanding of gluttony. The same way that fasting is not just food, but we can fast from media, sex, technology, or hobbies, gluttony works much the same way. We can convince ourselves that because we are consuming so much good content that we are honoring God, but all the while Scripture repeatedly calls us to put it into action.
In order for your good deeds from Matthew 5 to be seen, you actually have to be doing good deeds. Even in Matthew 25, Jesus separates the true disciples from the others on the basis of how they practiced their faith. You fed the hungry, your gave drink to the thirsty, you clothed the naked, you visited the sick; you enter the kingdom of God. The rest of you did not so you will not.
For those of you who are feeling like this is a beat up message, here is the good news. If you have ever felt like life was out of control, that everything you put your hand to falls apart, what Jesus is saying is exactly what you need to hear. Not only do we get distracted by consuming information, we get distracted by the things of life, the things that will not last.
Jesus is saying that the only security, the only way life begins to have some resemblance of control is when we stop trying to do things our way, and we focus on doing things God’s way. We love the way God tells us to. We give, we pray, we withhold judgment. And God makes the same promise He made the Israelites in Deuteronomy. If you will obey, you will be blessed. If you try to do things your way or the world’s way, then you do it without God’s blessing.