June 24, 2020<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We are going to spend the next two weeks together as a church reading Jesus\u2019 teachings in the Sermon on the Mount! The Sermon on the Mount is the first of Jesus\u2019 major teachings recorded in the gospel of Matthew. In it, Jesus explains the ethics and values of the kingdom of Heaven as opposed to the ethics and values of the world. The values and principles that are to govern our lives as followers of Jesus and citizens of the kingdom of Heaven are wildly different from those that govern the various cultures of our world, including the culture in which we live. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Over the next two weeks, allow the words of the Lord Jesus to challenge the way you think, expose the worldly and idolatrous values and desires of your heart, and transform you to live in the new way that He has laid before us!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In this passage Jesus continues his teaching from verses 19-14 concerning how we must seek things of eternal value rather than earthly things. Here He confronts us in our anxieties and commands us to focus our attention on the kingdom!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Anxiety, worry, and fear run rampant in the world around us, especially in a season such as the one we face now. With COVID-19 and the fallout from it, either you or someone you know is likely facing hardship: the loss of a job, the loss of a loved one, fear of sickness or death, the inability to be with the ones we love due to quarantine, relational strife within families because of quarantine, loneliness\u2026the list goes on and on. It is so easy and so natural for us to look around at the situation and be crippled by fear, overwhelmed with anxiety by the sheer weight of what is going on around us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We cannot minimize or trivialize what people all around us, and we ourselves, are going through, and Jesus doesn\u2019t call us to. But Jesus does call His people, those who would follow after Him and call Him Lord, to respond to these situations differently than the world does!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
While the world remains bound up in anxiety, wondering if they are going to make it or if everything is going to be okay, Jesus calls His followers to entrust themselves to the sovereign care and love and faithfulness of the Father. He commands that we refuse to give anxiety a foothold. Rather than seeking after the things of the world that might give us some temporary comfort, Jesus calls us to seek God, His kingdom, and His righteousness above all. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
When we make pursuing God and His purposes our first priority, Jesus promises that we will have what we need. Let\u2019s trust in this promise and in His power to make good on it!<\/p>\n\n\n\n