Union Church

Matthew: New Wine

Today, we continue our series through Matthew and see the work of Christ in bringing the kingdom.

Notes/Quotes:

Text: Matthew 9:14-38

Title: New Wine

Reading: Matthew 9:14-38

“a process whereby a smaller company with fewer resources is able to successfully challenge established incumbent businesses” -Harvard Business Review

“Sinners are safe with Jesus but sin is not.”  - Jon Wolfinger

 

“After an ancient Jewish wedding, the couple did not honeymoon, but stayed at home for a week of open house in which there was continual feasting and celebration. For the hardworking, this was traditionally considered to be the happiest week in their lives. The bride and groom were treated like a king and queen that week (sometimes they even wore crowns). They were attended by chosen friends known as “guests of the bridegroom,” Their guests were exempted from all fasting through a rabbinical ruling which said, “All in attendance on the bridegroom are relieved of all religious observances which would lessen their joy.” - R. Kent Hughes

 

Questions:

• If Jesus was walking the world today in what ways would He be demonized?
• Am I following Jesus into this tension?
• Am I embracing the new wine of the Kingdom of God?

 

Matthew: The Authority of Jesus and Roadblocks of Religion

Listen in as we look at Matthew 9:1-13 and see the authority and ability of Jesus to forgive sin and form followers and how religion sets up roadblocks toward God and others.

Notes/Quotes:

Matthew 9:1-13

Forgiveness of sins is a “coming home” not only to the Creator but to natural life; forgiveness brings about reintegration with the home and the community. Dale Bruner

“By Jewish law a tax-gatherer was debarred from the synagogue; he was included with things and beasts unclean, and Leviticus 20:5 was applied to them; he was forbidden to be a witness in any case; ‘robbers, murderers, and tax-gatherers’ were classed together” H. Merkel, Exegetical Dictionary of the New Testament

“It seems that holiness begins with the recognition that we are not well”Stanley Hauerwas

Roadblocks begin with a shift from:
Truth to opinion
Loving to critiquing
Learning to arriving
Asking to assuming
Embrace to exclusion
Fear and glory to apathy and comfort
Curiosity to rigidity
Following to observing
Outward to inward

Invitations back to center:
Remember the miracle(s)
Fully place faith and follow
Cast the current cares

How would you live today if you knew all your sins were forgiven, all your days were guided by a God of love, and your future was secure? - Jared Wilson

 

Matthew: Jesus is Different

Listen in as we look at Matthew 8:18-34 and see just how different Jesus is and how that's really good news for us today.

Sermon Notes/Quotes:

Reading: Matthew 8:18-3

 

“to be a disciple of Jesus, it seems, requires such dedication because what Jesus is and does means that “normal” is reconstituted. The one who would be a disciple of Jesus stands in the presence of life itself, yet remains captured by death, wanting to bury the dead. Jesus, who will die on our behalf, requires that those who will follow him not let death determine their relationship to the living.” -Stanley Hauerwas

 

“demons recognize the son because they—more than we—are able to recognize who threatens them. Demons draw their existence from death and are, therefore, able to recognize the one who is life. They fear that Jesus has come before the appointed time, but they discover that the appointed time is now. The disciples fear of Jesus’ absence as he sleeps in the boat the demons fear his presence”  -Stanley Hauerwas

 

“This dramatic incident is most revealing. It shows what Satan does for a man: robs him of sanity and self-control; fills him with fears; robs him of the joys of home and friends; and (if possible) condemns him to an eternity of judgment. It also reveals what society does for a man in need: restrains him, isolates him, threatens him, but society is unable to change him. See, then, what Jesus Christ can do for a man whose whole life—within and without—is bondage and battle. What Jesus did for these two demoniacs, He will do for anyone else who needs Him.” -Warren Wiersbe

 

“Humanity often holds onto their bondage and evil rather than yield to the pain of transformation by Christ’s power and grace.” -Sinclair Ferguson

 

Do my crying underwater

I can't get down any farther

All my drowning friends can see

Now there is no running from it

It's become the crux of me

I wish that I could rise above it

But I stay down

With my demons

I stay down

With my demons

-The National

 

“we would rather be ruined than changed,

we would rather die in our dread

than climb the cross of the moment

and let our allusions die”

- W.H. Auden

Questions:

1. Am I following Jesus?
2. Is it always comfortable? 
3. Is Jesus sovereign over the things I hold most sacred? 
4. Have I limited Jesus to mere human categories?
5. Am I choosing the familiar instead of being free?

 

Matthew: Far As The Curse is Found

Listen along as we look at Matthew 8:1-17 and see how we can come to Jesus with our need, come to Jesus with other's needs and how Jesus ultimately comes to us.

Notes/Quotes:

Matthew 8:1-17

“We learn from this first specific healing in the Gospel that faith is not a general belief in God; it is particular trust in God’s Son and in his ability to help us with our deepest problems” - Dale Bruner

“No more let sins and sorrows grow, Nor thorns infest the ground; He comes to make his blessings flow Far as the curse is found!”

Matthew:Jesus the Judge

Listen in as we wrap up Matthew 7 and the Sermon on the Mount.

 

Notes/Quotes:

Matthew 7:13-29

 

“I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God. That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic—on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg—or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to” - C.S. Lewis

The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult and left untried.” - G.K. Chesterton

“You can judge the quality of their faith from the way they behave. Discipline is an index to doctrine.” - Tertullian - 2nd Century Ad

“It is possible to work for Jesus and yet not live under him. We can be intoxicated by the power of Jesus and yet be hostile to his hard commands. “Inever ever really knew you; get out of my face, you doers of the very opposite of my teachings.” They believe that they know Jesus, but apparently they never gave him a chance to know them (“I never really knew you”), that is, they never gave him a chance to come into personal contact with their innermost life (the force of the biblical word “know”). It is strangely possible to serve and even to glorify Christ and yet in one’s own personal life not to obey him.” - Dale Bruner

 

“For many, the first great surprise of the Christian life is in the form of the troubles we meet.” - Eugene Peterson

 

“Obedience to Jesus’ words is not so much protection from troubles as protection in them, just as rock under a house does not shield from storms but supports during them” - Dale Bruner

 

“Almighty God, give us grace to be not only hearers, but doers of thy holy word, not only to admire, but to obey thy doctrine, not only to profess, but to practice thy religion, not only to love, but to live thy gospel. So grant that what we learn of thy glory we may receive into our hearts, and show forth in our lives: through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.”

Matthew: Judging, Asking, and the Golden Rule

Listen in as we continue our time in Matthew's gospel. Today we look at Jesus' words on judging, asking, and his heart behind the golden rule.

Notes/Quotes:

Text: Matthew 7:1-12

Title: Judging, Asking, And The Golden Rule

 

Reading: Matthew 7:1-12

 

“The boundary between those who would follow Jesus and the world is unmistakably apparent, but nonetheless permeable. Matthew chapter 7 consists of Jesus’s instructions for how to negotiate that permeability.” -Stanley Hauerwas

 

“We quite literally cannot see clearly unless we have been trained to see “the log in (our) eye.” But it is not possible for us to see what is in our eye because the eye cannot see itself. The only way we are able to see ourselves is through the vision made possible by Jesus—a vision made possible by our participation in a community of forgiveness that allows us to name our sins. -Stanley Hauerwas

 

“When I judge, I am blind to my own evil and to the grace granted the other person. But in the love of Christ, disciples know about every imaginable kind of guilt and sin, because they know of the suffering of Jesus Christ.” Dietrich Bonhoeffer

 

“There is a form of evangelism that urges Christians to use every opportunity to share the gospel. Unfortunately, insensitive evangelism often proves harmful not only to the obdurate whose heart is hardened by the undifferentiating evangelist, but harmful also to the gospel that is force-fed.… Aggressive evangelism gets converts and counts them, but we are never able to count those turned away from the gospel for the numbers of the offended are never tallied.” -Fredrick Bruner

 

Oh, that all men acted on it, and there would be no slavery, no war, no swearing, no striking, no lying, no robbing; but all would be justice and love! What a kingdom is this which has such a law!” - Spurgeon

 

Questions:

1. Do I understand the difference between the way the world makes judgment and the way a christian does?
2. Do I have discernment when it comes to presenting the gospel in the world?
3. How does being apart of a community of forgiveness which names their sins help me?
4. When I come to God in prayer do I ask selflessly or selfishly?
5. In terms of the Golden Rule, how do I hold it? In the negative or positive perspective?

 

 

 

 

Christmas Eve 2020

Listen in as we look at how all of Advent (Jesus) effects all of life.

Notes/Quotes:

 

Matthew: Jesus and Anxiety

Today we continue our series through Matthew and get insight into Jesus' help on anxiety.

 

Notes/Quotes:

Matthew 6:25-34

“Sometimes we want God to simply TELL us what to say. Tell us what to do. He wants to TEACH us what to say. Teach us what to do. Teaching requires interaction: the teacher & the taught. Teaching implies connection. Relationship. It requires instructor and student. Rabbi and disciple. A table for two. We who put our trust in Christ don’t just have a boss barking orders. We have a teacher. We’re taught in the classroom as we study Scripture. Taught on field trips we sometimes never meant to take.  Taught. Not just told. We have a God who wants to be with us. Who wants to show us his ways. Reveal to us his heart. His good intentions. His righteousness. He wants to teach us how to live. How to love. How to endure.” - Beth Moore

“These teachings are but commentary on the prayer we’ve just been taught” - Stanley Hauerwas

“The birds and the flowers sing and preach to us and smile at us so lovingly, just to have us believe.” - Martin Luther

“Anxiety is a sign that the false self is demanding we nourish it instead of dying to it. Awareness is critical to be sure, but it is not the path of growth, it is simply the gate. The goal of managing anxiety is not simply for relief, it is to connect more fully with God and to raise awareness of what God is doing. Anxiety blocks our awareness of God because it takes our subconscious attention. This means that anxiety can be an early detection system that we’re depending on something other than God for our well-being”- Steve Cuss

Here’s how Jesus cures our anxieties:
Redirects focus 
Reminds us of the Father
Renews faith in the present

Matthew: Time for a Fast?

Listen in as we look at Matthew 6:16-24 and see how Jesus evaluates what we truly treasure, trains us toward healthy eyes, and teaches us how to trust a better master.

 

Notes/Quotes:

Reading: Matthew 6:16-24

 

(Lev. 16:29–31; 23:27–32)

 

(Neh. 9:1–2; Ps. 35:13; Dan. 9:2–20)

 

“Though they fast, I will not hear their cry, and though they offer burnt offering and grain offering, I will not accept them.” (Jeremiah 14:12)

 

“Then the disciples of John came to him, saying, “Why do we and the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast?” And Jesus said to them, “Can the wedding guests mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them? The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast." (Matthew 9: 14&15)

 

“Don’t just fast with your mouth, but also with your eyes, and your ears, and your feet, and your hands, and all the members of your body. Let the hands fast by being cleansed of plunder and greed. Let the feet fast by ceasing to run to immoral shows. Let the eyes fast by refusing to stare lewdly at lovely faces. After all looking is the food of the eyes. If what we look upon is immoral or forbidden, it mars our fast and upsets the whole safety of our soul. But if what we look upon is moral and safe, it adorns our fasting. Wouldn’t it be most absurd to abstain from lawful food because of a fast, but at the same time to touch with the eyes what is unlawful” -John Chrysostom

 

1. What occupies our thoughts when we have nothing else to do? What do we fret about? What occupies our daydreams? Is it our investments, our position? If so, those are the things we treasure, and that is where our hearts really are.

 

2. Apart from our loved ones, what or whom do we most dread losing?

 

3. What is it we measure others by? (This question is a very revealing mirror because we measure other people by that which we treasure.) Do we measure others by their clothing? Their education? Their homes? Their athletic prowess? Do we measure others by their success in the business world? If so, we know where our treasure lies.

 

4. Lastly, what is it that we know we cannot be happy without?

 

“When you practice some appetite-denying discipline to better concentrate on God, don’t make a production out of it. It might turn you into a small-time celebrity but it won’t make you a saint. If you ‘go into training’ inwardly, act normal outwardly. Shampoo and comb your hair, brush your teeth, wash your face. God doesn’t require attention-getting devices. He won’t overlook what you are doing; he’ll reward you well. (The Message)

 

Matthew: Praying with Jesus

Listen in as we look at Matthew 6:5-15 and see how Jesus invites us to pray personally, powerfully, and practically.

Sermon Notes/Quotes:

 

Matthew 6:5-14

Luke 11:1

Perhaps they could see that Jesus’ ministry emerged out of his relationship with his Father. - Darrell Johnson

Today’s approach to prayer:
Guilt - You don’t pray enough
Shame - You don’t pray right
Pragmatic - You can master it

“God could complain about us a great deal more than we about Him. We complain that He does not make Himself present to us for the few minutes we reserve fro Him, but what about the twenty-three and a half hours during which God may be knocking at our door and we answer ‘I am busy, I am sorry’ or when we do not answer at all because we do not even hear the knock at the door of our heart, of our minds, of our conscience, of our life. So there is a situation in which we have no right to complain of the absence of God, because we are a great deal more absent than He ever is. - Anthony Bloom

“The Lord’s Prayer stretches from the Father at the beginning to the devil at the end, from heaven to hell, and in between in six brief petitions everything important in life.” Dale Bruner

“Prayer gives us relief from the melancholy burden of self-absorption.” Timothy Keller

We come to prayer, aware of urgent needs, or at least wants. It’s tempting to race through the Lord’s Prayer, as far as ‘on earth as it is in heaven’, so that we can then take a deep breath and say ‘Now look here: when it comes to daily bread, there are some things I simply must have. And then off we go into a shopping list. To do this, of course, is to let greed get in the way of grace. NT Wright

Deut 8:1-3

“Every time we take bread in our hands we are handling answered prayer” Darrell Johnson

https://www.unionaz.org/blog/resourcesonprayer