Union Church

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

Matthew: Jesus and Generosity

Listen along as we continue our series through the sermon on the mount. Today Jesus shows how he reforms our hearts and reframes our focus when it comes to money.

Notes/Quotes:

The true and victorious Christmas spirit does not look away from death, but directly at it. Otherwise, the message is cheap and false. Advent begins in the dark. Advent is not for sissies” Fleming Rutledge

“Do I belong to Jesus or to my desires? My desires didn't die for me. My desires don't care to wipe away my tears. My desires don't care if I'm happy. Jesus is the one who gave his life for me.” - Rachel Gilson

Matthew: Words, Reactions, Relationship

Listen in as we continue our series through the Sermon on the Mount and see how Jesus leads us toward wholeness.

Notes/Quotes:

“The rule was designed to prevent two wrongs—sever retribution that did not fit the crime and self appointed vigilante action.” Jonathan Pennington

Sometimes our hurt feelings are the very last things that want to sign on to holy instructions. If we have a right understanding of forgiveness, we start to see that we don't have to muster up the determination to forgive. Forgiveness is not based on our determination. Forgiveness is based on our cooperation with what God has already done. As God's forgiveness flows to us, we simply cooperate with letting it flow through us to other people. That's how I made the decision to forgive.” Lysa Terkeurst

Matthew: Anger, Lust, Divorce

Listen in as we look at Matthew 5 and see how Jesus aligns both actions and emotions with the Father's heart.

Notes/Quotes:

Anger embraced is, accordingly, inherently disintegrative of human personality and life. It does not have to be specifically “acted out” to poison the world. Because of what it is, and the way it seizes upon the body and its environment just by being there, it cannot be hidden. All our mental and emotional resources are marshaled to nurture and tend the anger, and our body throbs with it. Energy is dedicated to keeping the anger alive: we constantly remind ourselves of how wrongly we have been treated. And when it is allowed to govern our actions, of course, its evil is quickly multiplied in heart-rending consequences and in the replication of anger and rage in the hearts and bodies of everyone it touches. - Dallas Willard

Under Jewish law, a man can divorce a woman for any reason or no reason. The Talmud specifically says that a man can divorce a woman because she spoiled his dinner or simply because he finds another woman more attractive, and the woman's consent to the divorce is not required. In fact, Jewish law requires divorce in some circumstances: when the wife commits a sexual transgression, a man must divorce her, even if he is inclined to forgive her.

“Sin does something terrible to me. Sin turns me in on myself. Sin shrinks my life to the size of my life. Sin makes me obsessed with my wants, my needs, my feelings.Think about this, brothers and sisters. Sin is fundamentally antisocial, because sin causes me to love me more than anything else and to care for me more than anything else. It causes me to be obsessed by what I want, how I want it, when I want it, why I want it, where I want it, and whom I want to deliver it. Sin makes my life little more than “I want, I want, I want I want. Sin morphs all of us into a bottomless vat of demands. I’m a vat of expectancy. I’m a vat of entitlement. I wish I could say that this is not the true me, but it is.” - Paul Tripp

2 Corinthians 5:14-15

Matthew: Gospel Goodness

Listen along as we continue our study in Matthew's gospel and see how Jesus distinguishes between gospel and religious goodness.

 

Matthew: The Good Life

Listen in as we begin the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew's gospel and see how Jesus opens up true flourishing in life today.

 

Notes/Quote:

The Sermon on the Mount is:
Good news - God is present, working, and calling His people to life through Jesus
Centered on Jesus - It’s who He is and how He lives. 
All about flourishing - It invites us to the way that life works best
Tension producing - It places us in the already//not yet of the Kingdom

unBeatitudes:
Congratulations to the entitled, for they grab what they want.
Congratulations to the carefree, for they shall be comfortable.
Congratulations to the pushy, for they shall win.
Congratulations to the greedy, for they shall climb the food chain.
Congratulations to the vengeful, for they shall be feared.
Congratulations to those who don’t get caught, for they shall look good.
Congratulations to the argumentative, for they shall get in the last word.
Congratulations to the popular, for this world lies at their feet.

Have you ever met one person who believed and lived by this world’s unBeatitudes and came to the end a satisfied, radiant, wise person?  Even one? - Ray Ortlund

The Beatitudes of Jesus are nothing short of a revolution of evaluation. –Scot McKnight

The terrible, tragic fallacy of the last hundred years has been to think that all man's troubles are due to his environment, and that to change the man you have nothing to do but change his environment. That is a tragic fallacy. It overlooks the fact that it was in Paradise that man fell. - Martyn Lloyd Jones

What is blessing, then? Scripture shows that blessing is anything God gives that makes us fully satisfied in him. Anything that draws us closer to Jesus. Anything that helps us relinquish the temporal and hold on more tightly to the eternal. And often it is the struggles and trials, the aching disappointments and the unfulfilled longings that best enable us to do that. Vaneetha Risner

Matthew 4:12-25 - The Kingdom of Heaven

Listen in as Anthony leads us through Matthew 4:12-25 and unpacks how Jesus shows us the kingdom of heaven and it's implications for life today.

Sermon Notes/Quotes:

Reading: Matthew 4:12-2

“how you feel about it isn’t really the important thing. It’s what you do that matters.” -N.T. Wright

“pervasive, all-of- life-repentance is the best sign that we are growing deeply and rapidly into the character of Jesus.” - Timothy Keller

“He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.” (Colossians 1:15-20)

 

Matthew: Baptism and Temptation

As we look at Matthew 3:13-4:11 we see the baptism and temptation of Jesus. It's occasion to ponder the timing of God, the density of our hearts, the humanity of Christ, and the identity of the beloved son of God.

Sermon Notes/Quotes:

Matthew 3:13-4:11

If we hear the Father’s twice-repeated Voice at Baptism and Transfiguration correctly, the one fact the Father wants believers to know, above apparently all other facts, is how much we have in Jesus. “My priceless Son, deeply pleased.” If we know this, we know the most important fact in the world. “Here,” God is saying in so many words, “in this man, is everything I want to say, reveal, and do, and everything I want people to hear, see, and believe. If you want to know anything about me, if you want to hear anything from me, if you want to please me, get together with him” (or in the three words added emphatically by the Voice at the Transfiguration: “Listen to him!” Matt 17:5) - Dale Bruner

The Temptations:

Provision - “We’d rather be fed than fathered”
Protection - “Does he care? Will he protect?”
Providence - “Kingdom without a cross”

“No man knows how bad he is till he has tried very hard to be good. A silly idea is current that good people do not know what temptation means. This is an obvious lie. Only those who try to resist temptation know how strong it is. After all, you find out the strength of the German army by fighting against it, not by giving in. You find out the strength of a wind by trying to walk against it, not by lying down. A man who gives in to temptation after five minutes simply does not know what it would have been like an hour later. That is why bad people, in one sense, know very little about badness — they have lived a sheltered life by always giving in. We never find out the strength of the evil impulse inside us until we try to fight it: and Christ, because He was the only man who never yielded to temptation, is also the only man who knows to the full what temptation means — the only complete realist.” - CS Lewis

Romans 5:18-21

You have to keep unmasking the world about you for what it is: manipulative, controlling, power-hungry, and, in the long run, destructive. The world tells you many lies about who you are, and you simply have to be realistic enough to remind yourself of this. Every time you feel hurt, offended, or rejected, you have to dare to say to yourself: 'These feelings, strong as they may be, are not telling me the truth about myself. The truth, even though I cannot feel it right now, is that I am the chosen child of God, precious in God's eyes, called the Beloved from all eternity, and held safe in an everlasting belief. - Henri Nouwen

Colossians 2:6-15