All the Sermons

Matthew 23:27-28 , Ephesians 2:1-5 & 2 Corinthians 5:17-21 Key Verse: "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come." 2 Corinthians 5:17 You may be familiar with this custom, but before living in northern New England, I was not. In the spring of the year, it is common, in some family traditions, for some people to wash the tombstones of their ancestors. I am familiar with placing new flowers, and on Memorial day, or Decoration day, flags, but to actually use bleach and scrub brushes to try to make the stones white again was a new custom, for me anyway. It is obviously another way of demonstrating care and respect for one's family and heritage. I found it interesting. However, no matter how clean the tombstone would become, the person it represented would never know, or see, how they continued to be cared for. The person behind, or under the marker remained dead. Only the living passerby would be able to appreciat

Matthew 23:25-26 , Luke 11:37-41 Key Verse: "Blind Pharisees! First clean the inside of the cup and dish, and then the outside also will be clean." Matthew 23:26 This woe is also a repeat of previous conversations that Jesus has had with and about the leadership of the Jewish people. Once again, the leadership is blind to just how off track they are in following God. There really isn't much new here for us to learn. The fact, however, that Jesus continues to issue these warnings to the leadership about their behavior and attitudes demonstrates clearly how much effort He was willing to put forth to bring even them to repentance. Following God truly is a matter of the heart. When the heart is right with God, everything else will follow. If the heart is not right with God, than no amount of good behavior, or following the law, or compliments from your fellow man will be enough to get you into right relationship with Him for eternity. The prophet Isaiah put i

Isaiah 5:20 , Matthew 23:23-24 , Luke 11:42 Key Verse: "You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel." Matthew 23:24 This is now the second woe in which Jesus calls the leaders "blind guides." He is not talking here about physical blindness, but spiritual blindness. This time Jesus is pointing out that the leadership is caught up in what they can control and measure, missing the true meaning of God's heart for building relationship. As a blind person can easily miss the way, or trip and fall, the leadership was missing the path spiritually and leading the nation of Israel astray in the process. Originally, tithing wasn't even one of the ten commandments, but the leadership had made following the tithe into an exacting art, ignoring the intent of the original ten commandments and denying justice altogether. It was so easy to measure whether or not they were following the tithing laws. It would be easy to know how much a crop produc

Matthew 23:16-22 , Key Verse: "You blind men! Which is greater: the gift or the altar that makes the gift sacred?" Matthew 23:19 I have been married for thirty-seven years. When Kathy and I were married, we were both still in college and very poor! We barely managed to purchase a set of brushed gold wedding rings for a little over $100, on sale. These gold bands have been rubbed smooth over time, yet, for Kathy, her band has come off only twice,  once for a cesarean for the birth of our first son, and once for another medical procedure.  It's too precious to her to risk losing. Unfortunately, my ring has a different story. Sometime during our fourth year of marriage, I was in an egg toss game and I didn't want to take the risk that the metal band might crack the egg. I put it in my pocket, and never saw it again! It was lost in the sand at the lake shore! What I wear now is a replacement, and believe you me, I never made that mistake again. Today, if someon

Matthew 23:15 , Luke 11:46 Key Verse: "Woe to you, because you load people down with burdens they can hardly carry, and you yourselves will not lift one finger to help them." Luke 11:46 There was a man, who has since passed, who attended our former church in Maine. When asked if he would be in Heaven when he died, he would always answer, "I hope so." I would then walk him through the gospel and the joy of the assurance of salvation because of Jesus and not because of works. This man would always agree with everything I said, and I would assure him, then you will be in Heaven. But then, I would end the conversation with the same question we began with, "Are you going to Heaven?" Sadly, even after all that, the man would give the same reply, "I hope so." Having the knowledge is far different from believing it, living it, and inviting others to join it. Sadly, probably many of the leadership in Jesus’ day, if you could get them into

Isaiah 5:21 , Matthew 23:13-14 , Luke 11:52 Key Verse:  "Woe to you experts in the law, because you have taken away the key to knowledge. You yourselves have not entered, and you have hindered those who were entering." Luke 11:52 The first thought that comes to mind for me here is the game of keep away, or the common taunt of children, "Nyah, Nyah, You can't catch me!" There is a whole sense of exclusivity here that Jesus finds distasteful, especially as it relates to welcoming those who desire to enter His Kingdom. The religious leadership displays a sense of arrogance. "We are God's chosen people! Yes, our God is the only way to heaven, but you are not chosen, sorry!" They thought that they had the corner on the market of God's favor through Jewish heritage and through the knowledge of His law, which, of course, they worked at keeping better than anyone else could; especially a pagan! Jesus is saying here, "Woe to you fo

Isaiah 5:8-25 , Matthew 23 , Luke 11:37-54 Key Verse: "The greatest among you will be your servant. For whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted." Matthew 23:11-12 I have placed these three passages of scripture together, in one place to demonstrate how hard God worked to speak into the sinful lives of His people. In Isaiah, seven hundred years before Jesus, God was already warning His people to stop, check and discern the situation. The contemporaries of Jesus, especially the leadership, are no better off in His day. Once again, Jesus issues the warning, "WOE!" Woe is a word of mourning, as in “woe is me,” it's   used to express grief, regret, or distress.  But it is interesting that Jesus seems to also use it as a call to repentance, so that it could mean “Stop!” as in “Whoa!” Woe to you experts in the law, or woe to you teachers of the law, and Pharisees, you hypocrites, or as we have learned, "

Matthew 21:20-22 , Mark 11:20-26 Key Verse: “If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer.” Matthew 21:22 Wow! That sounds good. All I have to do is believe and God will give me whatever I want? I can throw mountains around and curse stuff that I don’t like and maybe get a million dollars and…well; that’s what it sounds like Jesus is saying here. Right?  Well, we might think that’d be nice for us, but let’s take a closer look. We're back at the olive tree again and the first time we visited this tree we talked about how God is sovereign and has the right to do what he wants with his creation. Now Jesus is using this same tree to teach another lesson about faith and prayer. We call it the “name it, claim it,” gospel today. People who follow this teaching find it easy to be able to tell who really has faith and who doesn’t. If you aren’t getting what you pray for, or if you’re still suffering in some way, it’s easy to tell that it’s your fault, not Go

Psalm 110 , Matthew 22:41-46 , Mark 12:35-37 , Luke 20:41-44 Key Verse: "The Lord has sworn and will not change His mind: "You are a priest forever, in the order of Melchizedek."   -- Psalm 110:4 Jesus has turned the tables and is now asking a puzzling question of His own. It may seem that Jesus' subject matter is irrelevant to us today, after Christ's resurrection. We must understand, however that this topic was very important to His Jewish audience who were looking for and hoping for Messiah to come. Jesus was suggesting that He was Messiah and the leadership, as we have seen, was desperately trying to prove that He was not. Jesus now asks a question of them to demonstrate that their understanding of Messiah may not be as rock solid as they thought it was. "Now I have a question for you," Jesus seems to say. "How is it that the teachers of the law say that the Christ is the son of David? David himself, speaking by the Holy Spirit, decla

Deuteronomy 6:4-9 , Leviticus 19:18 ,  Matthew 22:34-40 , Mark 12:28-34 , Luke 10:25-37 Key Verse: "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind" and, "love your neighbor as yourself." Luke 10:27 Interesting how each gospel bills this a little differently.  Is this the greatest commandment, as in Matthew, or the most important commandment, as in Mark, or the way to eternal life, as in Luke?  Perhaps it is safe to say that it is all of the above. It was a question posed by an "expert in the law," to test Jesus. It is interesting that Jesus didn't exactly quote the first commandment which is " You shall have no other gods before me." ( Exodus 20:3 ) Instead, Jesus quoted part of the Shema, which was said every day in every observant Jewish home, based on Deuteronomy 6:4-9, and thus would be very familiar to His audience. Then he takes it a bit further by adding

Deuteronomy 25:5-6 , Matthew 22:23-33 , Mark 12:18-27 , Luke 20:27-40 Key Verse: Jesus replied, "You are in error because you do not know scriptures or the power of God."   --Matthew 22:29 The first thing we see here is that divided opinions among leadership was as much a part of Jesus’ day as ours. The break down was something like this. The religious leadership was mostly divided into two camps: the Pharisees and the Sadducees, or, the religious right and the religious left. The Pharisees would have been considered more on the religious right. They would be similar to the Orthodox Jews of today. They had conservative views of Scripture. They kept a kosher home, even today. They practice their religion zealously and they believe in the resurrection of the dead at the end of time. Later, Paul would declare himself to have been a prominent member of the Pharisees. The Sadducees were the liberal element of the day. They would be closely related to the reformed Jews of

Genesis 1:26-27 , Matthew 22:15-22 , Mark 12:13-17 , Luke 20:20-26 Key Verse: So God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. Genesis 1:27 Well, the religious angle wasn't working very well for the Pharisees. Jesus just wasn't saying anything that could clearly enough be defined as blasphemy. So, getting desperate, they put their heads together and decided to take another tack. "What if, we could maybe get Him to say something against Rome? Yeah, that would do it! Then, the Romans would take Him off our hands and we'd be done with this Jesus problem. Hmmm, but how?  Hmmm."  "Well, let's see, maybe if we were to ask Him a question about taxes. Yes, that would do it! No good Jew likes to pay taxes to the Romans, but no one would dare to say that publicly. If He were to say, "Pay your taxes," the people will be disgusted with Him because they're looking for someone like Him to

Matthew 22:1-14 Key Verse: "For many are invited, but few are chosen." Matthew 22:14 Is Jesus repeating Himself here? Maybe, but this time, His story of the banquet has a different emphasis. The first time that Jesus told this story, in Luke 14:15-24, He was a guest at a banquet Himself. The comment came up about the Great Banquet at the resurrection and Jesus took the opportunity to talk about who would actually be there. At this telling, the Triumphal Entry has taken place and this parable is part of Jesus’ teaching in the temple courts. As we have already said before, it wouldn't be uncommon for Jesus to repeat Himself. Lecturers do the same today, telling similar stories to different audiences, adapting the message as necessary. This time, however, instead of dwelling on just the feast, Jesus adapts the parable to become an illustration of, not the Great Banquet, but the Kingdom of God itself. "The Kingdom of Heaven is like a King who prepared a w

Isaiah 5:1-7 , Psalm 118:22-23 , Matthew 21:33-46 , Mark 12:1-12 , Luke 20:9-19 Key Verse: "The stone the builders rejected has become the capstone; the Lord has done this, and it is marvelous in our eyes." Psalm 118:22-23 Matthew 21:42, Mark 12:10b - 11, & Luke 20:17 While the Isaiah passage is not a direct parallel to the parable that Jesus tells here, I included it because, chances are, His listeners, and certainly the leadership who were present, would be familiar with this passage. It was common for the land of Israel to be compared to a vineyard. And the actual lesson from the story of the vineyard in Isaiah is very similar to the lesson that God taught Jeremiah at the Potter's house. ( Jeremiah 18:1-10 ) God ends His parable of the vineyard in Isaiah by saying: "The vineyard of the Lord Almighty is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah are the garden of His delight. And He looked for justice, but saw bloodshed; for righteousness, but heard

Matthew 21:28-32 Key Verse: Jesus said to them, "I tell you the truth, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are entering the Kingdom of God ahead of you." Matthew 21:31B As with the parable of The Prodigal Son, (Luke 15:11-31) we once again are given a story of a Father with two sons. Jesus uses this story to once again contrast the religious with the sinners. He also takes the opportunity to continue His support of John the Baptist and the authority given to him by God. Let's reverse the parable a bit and examine the second son first. He told his father to his father's face that he would be obedient. He would do what the father had asked of him. The religious leaders had promised to uphold the law of God and guide the people in the paths of righteousness, but in reality, they were obeying only as well as the second son who said he would go but didn’t. Just as the second son's obedience was in word only, an act to possibly avoid conflict, the religio

Deuteronomy 18:17-22 , Matthew 21:23-27 , Mark 11:27-33 , Luke 20:1-8 Key Verse: Jesus said, "Neither will I tell you by what authority I am doing these things." Matthew 21:27, Mark 11:33, Luke 20:8 Amazingly, here is one event that appears in all three synoptic gospels and there is no deviation. Jesus is in the temple courts teaching. Jesus is confronted by the religious leaders who seek to thwart Him. He manages to ask a simple question that exposes their hypocrisy and Jesus takes the situation in hand. It's basically that simple. The question posed by the leadership, "by what authority do You do these things?" reminds us of another question that Jesus asked His disciples much earlier: "Who do men say that I am?" (Matthew 16:15) The leadership wasn't necessarily wrong to be concerned about where Jesus derived His power, just as Jesus Himself examined His disciples to learn just how sure their faith was in Him.  In Deuteronomy, as we

Jeremiah 18:1-10 , Matthew 21:18-20 , Mark 11:12-14 Key Verse: When the disciples saw this, they were amazed. "How did the fig tree wither so quickly?" they asked. Matthew 21:20 What a confusing story this is. It appears to be a miracle in reverse. Why would Jesus curse a fig tree, especially when it wasn't even the season for figs yet? Who is this Jesus that we are coming to know? Yesterday, we saw His righteous anger and now, today, we see Him curse a part of His very own creation. We will be discovering other lessons from this incident in days to come. Today, however, what we should consider is similar to the lesson that Jeremiah learned from his visit to the potter's house. God told Jeremiah to visit a potter. When Jeremiah arrived, he saw a potter hard at work, creating some sort of container. Unfortunately, however, it wasn't going very well for the potter. For some reason, the pot wasn't turning out as he wished, so that potter picked