Biblical Truths from West Palm Beach church of Christ

Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth (Matthew 6:19). Jesus is in the midst of showing us how we fall far from the standard God has set before his people. After warning about performing your righteous acts to be seen by people, Jesus then says, “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth.” Do not treasure earthly treasures…

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Why do you pray, if you pray? One of the things that Jesus is concerned about is praying in the wrong way and for the wrong reasons. You will notice that in the middle of discussing the need for the people of God to practice their righteousness to be seen by God and not by people, he expands on what prayer should look like. In Matthew 6:5-6 he warned against praying on the street corners to be seen by people. We spoke about this idea in the last lesson. But Jesus has another warning about how we should not pray before he explains how we ought to pray…

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God is always showing us how much he loves us. The book of Zechariah is often a neglected book but found in its visions and images are pictures of how much God loves his people. The third chapter of Zechariah gives us an amazing picture of the spiritual problem and solution God provides for the world to enjoy. These images all point to what Jesus would do for the world when he came to earth and gave his life on the cross…

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There are many times in life where we can feel like does not care about us. God can seem so far away when we are going through life’s struggles. The people in the days of Ezra, Haggai, and Zechariah felt the same way. They had come back to do God’s work but it was not going well. In trying to serve the Lord, the people were experiencing resistance and ridicule. So God sent Haggai and Zechariah to encourage the people to continue to work for the Lord. The encouraging messages of Zechariah can give us the same encouragement when we need to see how much God cares for us. The second chapter of Zechariah is going to give three encouraging pictures showing how God cares for them and why they should be stirred up to continue God’s work…

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Chapters 6-7 contain a number of warnings regarding righteousness and spirituality. As Jesus talks to these religious people, he wants to make sure that we are not losing our way as we try to seek him and serve him. One of the great temptations humans face is wanting others to pay attention to us. We have a natural inclination to want to be seen by other people, especially if we do something good or praiseworthy. This appears to have been a significant problem in Jesus’ day with the religious people as much as it is a problem in our day. In Matthew 6:1-18 Jesus identifies three areas where the people were practicing their righteousness but making sure other people knew they were doing it…

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The book of Zechariah is often neglected by Christians because of its complicated yet amazing visions that are found in it. The book immediately dives into eight consecutive visions and concludes with complicated visual prophecies. The problem is further exacerbated by the fact that we can struggle with seeing any relevance or practical application to our lives in the 21st century. So we need to get a handle on this book so that we can appreciate its messages and see its timeliness for us today.

The background and context of Zechariah is important for us to understand… We should not come to this book fearful of what we will read nor afraid from what we did read. This book is a message of hope. This book gives pictures of God’s work for his people. The imagery is given to encourage the people to return to him and do the work God has placed in their hands…

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In this section of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus is correcting the false teachings that circulated regarding the Law of Moses. What the teachers were doing in their day is something that we like to do also today. We take the commands of God and interpret them in such a way so that it looks like we are doing exactly what God said. So we focus on do not murder but Jesus reminds that the law said to not be angry. We focus on not committing adultery but Jesus said that lust in your heart is adultery. We say that you can divorce for any reason but Jesus says marriage is for life at that there is only one acceptable reason for divorce: sexual immorality. We focus on only keeping our word if we take a vow but Jesus says that you must follow through with every word you say. This brings us to Matthew 5:38-48 where Jesus addresses the final two ways that we lower God’s standard…

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So how do you clean up a big mess? In particular, how do you clean up a big mess that you have created in your life? What do you do when you realize you have made a big mistake? This is what Ezra the priest walks into. In Ezra 7-8 we see Ezra leading a group of people from Persia back to Jerusalem to participate in working on the temple. The good hand of God was with him as he devoted himself to studying God’s law, doing God’s law, and teaching God’s law (Ezra 7:10). But as he comes back to Jerusalem to do the work of restoring the temple and restoring the hearts of the people to God, he learns that there is a big mess that must be dealt with. Open your copies of God’s word to Ezra 9 and notice the problem that is recorded in the first two verses…

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We are in Matthew 5 where Jesus is teaching about the different ways that we relax God’s commands. The religious leaders in Jesus’ day were lowering God’s high standard to make it look like they were righteous. This is why Jesus declares the need for our righteousness to exceed that of the scribes and Pharisees. They had the look of piety and righteousness, but actually they had lowered the standard. Jesus addresses two more areas where we want to lower God’s standard for life in Matthew 5:31-37. So let us look at what Jesus says to challenge our lives to see the true standard God has for each of us…

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I have heard this told to me many times. Maybe you have heard others say it to you. Maybe you have thought this or said it yourself. “I just do not see God’s hand in my life.” “I do not see what God is doing.” “I feel like God is not with me.” I think everyone feels this way at various times in their lives. But Ezra 7-8 is going to show us God’s hand at work. The text is going to show us how to find and see the good hand of God.

Ezra 7 opens by telling us that about 60 years have gone. Sixty years is quite a long time. Sixty years is enough time that we are talking about a new generation and we are talking about a time when things can be very different from the past. If we do the math, 60 years ago for us would be all the way back in 1962. America was a very different place with a very different culture in 1962 than where it is right now. So it is important to keep this in mind. Even though we have gone forward only one chapter in the book of Ezra, we have fast forwarded 60 years, which is enough time to have new people and a new culture in place…

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