Tag: The Kingdom of God

Digging in Deeper: Mark 15:6-13

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“At the festival Pilate used to release for the people a prisoner whom they requested. There was one named Barabbas, who was in prison with rebels who had committed murder during the rebellion. The crowd came up and began to ask Pilate to do for them as was his custom. Pilate answered them, ‘Do you want me to release the king of the Jews for you?’ For he knew it was because of envy that the chief priests had handed him over. But the chief priests stirred up the crowd so that he would release Barabbas to them instead. Pilate asked them again, ‘Then what do you want me to do with the one you call the king of the Jews?’ Again they shouted, ‘Crucify him!'” (CSB – Read the chapter)

Sometimes a single story in the Bible can have multiple different angles of interpretation, all of which are correct. Which one rises to the top in a particular season depends on the needs of the season. The author of Hebrews describes God’s word as living and active. The words themselves are not alive, but God’s Spirit is present in and around us, and He uses the words to reveal truth to us. Because they are His words first, He can use them to reveal different aspects of the truth to us at different times depending on our need and the particular growth He is working to draw out of us. One such story is the story of the release of Barabbas on the cusp of Jesus’ crucifixion. We’re here this morning because I had a conversation with one of my boys last night about what I was going to write about today, and this was his suggestion. It was a good one, so here we are.

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Digging in Deeper: Matthew 16:19

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“I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will have been bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will have been loosed in heaven.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

About halfway through Jesus’ earthly ministry, He took His disciples on a little field trip. They went deep into some nearby Gentile territory to a region that was about as pagan as it could be. It was pagan, and it had been pagan for a very long time. They were near the city of Caesarea Philippi, named both for the Emperor as well as the grandson of Herod the Great who ruled over the region. They were not far from the site of an ancient shrine to the Greek god Pan, located in a cave that was believed to be one of a handful of entrances to the underworld, also known as the “Gates of Hades.” There, when the distractions of home were about as far from their minds as they could be, Jesus asked them a question: Who do you say that I am? This led into a key confession from Simon whose name was there changed to Peter. Even more importantly than that, Jesus revealed to them His plans to leave behind an institution that would carry on His work when He departed from them. This institution would be known as the church, and this is perhaps the most foundational passage in the Scriptures as far as shaping our understanding of what the church is and what it should be doing. You could write a whole book on these few verses, but today, I want to explore just one idea Jesus introduced and an implication it has for what the church should look like today.

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Digging in Deeper: Philippians 3:17-20

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“Join in imitating me, brothers and sisters, and pay careful attention to those who live according to the example you have in us. For I have often told you, and now say again with tears, that many live as enemies of the cross  of Christ. Their end is destruction; their god is their stomach; their glory  is in their shame; and they are focused on earthly things. Our citizenship is in heaven, and we eagerly wait for a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

Films and series about villains don’t typically do very well. There are a handful of exceptions to this, but not many. Sony’s attempting at creating their own Spiderverse (mostly) separate and apart from the MCU is a great example. They took a bunch of villains, removed the hero who gave them substance, and tried to sanitize them by making them complicated antiheroes. And most of them bombed. Badly. The Joker 2 is another good example. By all accounts it was unbelievably awful. A villain-based series from HBO Max, though, seems like it could be an exception. I’m only three episodes in, but the story is pretty good, if frustratingly depressing. Let’s talk about The Penguin.

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How to Be Great

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Today we are kicking off a brand-new teaching series called, Leverage. Over the next four weeks we are going to be working through Matthew 18 where we find Jesus giving a lot of focused attention to how life in the kingdom of God should work. He starts here at the beginning of the chapter with a discussion on what it looks like to be great in the ways that matter most. Let’s tune in together and see what He has to say.

How to Be Great

How do you move something heavy? Well, nowadays, if it’s big enough, you get a big piece of machinery and use that. For smaller things that don’t merit heavy equipment, you call some friends to help. A couple of years ago we got a new TV stand from Sam’s. Seeing it in the context of the enormous store did not give me a proper appreciation for how big it really was. After we bought it, I drove the family home so I could drive back to Sam’s with all of the seats down in the van and pick it up. I should have known what I was really in for when they loaded it into the van directly off of the forklift they were using to carry it…so that they didn’t have to carry it. It fit…barely. Once I got it home, and went around to the back and started pulling at the box to get a sense of what I was in for. I couldn’t budge it. So, I got on the phone and called TJ and Kevin who, much to their credit but as no surprise at all, came right over to help. The three of us did a further assessment of the box. Then they each got on the phone to call for more backup. I think we finally managed to get it into the house with four of us working together with lots of grunting and sweating. I don’t think it has moved much from the place we set it down since that day. 

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Live like You’re Free

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This week we celebrate the Fourth of July, the founding of our great nation. The United States of America, in spite of its flaws and struggles, is nonetheless still the greatest, freest nation in the world. If we are going to be a free people, though, we have to learn to live like it. This week, as we celebrated, we took a look at some words from the apostle Paul encouraging us to live like free people as followers of Jesus. This lesson is profoundly important not just for our relationship with Jesus, but for our nation as well. Listen in as we unpack these important ideas together.

Live like You’re Free

Our freedom is under attack. How’s that for the start of a sermon? Do you feel like you’re at a political really of some sort yet? I’d better explain what I mean, or I’ll have you heading for the exits before I even get to my first point! Let me try that again: Our freedom is under attack. Sound any different that time? No? Well, let’s talk about it anyway.

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