Biblical Truths from West Palm Beach church of Christ

We observed in our last lesson that Jesus set up this section of his teaching by warning about relaxing any of God’s commands. But Jesus does not simply tell everyone that their righteousness needs to exceed that of the scribes and Pharisees. Nor does he simply tell everyone to stop relaxing his laws. Instead, Jesus is going to spend quite a bit of time illustrating how the religious leaders in his day were actually doing what he said they must not do. If you scan through chapter 5 you will see that Jesus begins each topic with the phrase, “You have heard that it was said” (Matthew 5:21, 27, 31, 33, 38, 43). It is important to observe that Jesus does not say, “It is written.” Jesus is not saying, “Here is what the Law of Moses said, but I am telling you something new and different.” Often the Sermon on the Mount has been understood in this way. But Jesus said that he did not come to abolish the Law but to fulfill it. Jesus’ concern is about the teachers of the relaxing what the commandments said. Therefore, what Jesus is doing is not giving new law in contrast to the Law of Moses. Rather, Jesus is exposing what the religious teachers are saying and how they are relaxing the law. Then Jesus places God’s standard back where it ought to have been in the first place…

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In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus is setting up the parameters for belonging to his kingdom. Jesus is telling us how we can have a blessed life. The first picture of the blessed life is to live countercultural. The blessed life is being poor in spirit, mourning over sins, being meek, hungering for righteousness, being merciful, being pure in heart, being peacemakers, and being persecuted for the sake of righteousness. The second picture Jesus gave is regarding our life purpose. We are here to be the salt of the earth and the light of the world. We must fulfill our purpose so that God is glorified. But now in Matthew 5:17-20 Jesus addresses a misconception that people might have regarding his purpose. In the process of explaining what he is doing Jesus will show us one of our worst problems as we stand before God. If we do not understand what Jesus says in this paragraph about our standing before God and our perception of him, then we will never be able to belong to Jesus and his kingdom…

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The final accounts in the book of Judges are not about the people God used to save Israel, but what happens when people do what is right in their own eyes. In Judges 17-18 we learned that doing what is right in our own eyes means that worship will no longer be God-centered, but will be corrupted into fulfilling our desires. We read about people attempting to worship God in every way but the way God had commanded. Worship is not worship unless it is offered the way God says. Further, we learned that when people live according to what is right in their own eyes that freedom is lost. Might makes right and the weak and innocent are devastated…

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The book of Joshua is the account of Israel by the power of God conquering the land of Canaan. Joshua is the leader of Israel after the death of Moses and successfully leads the people in conquering the land. The book of Judges picks up at the death of Joshua, as Judges 1:1 reveals. But the book of Judges should not be consider an account of what happens next. We must not approach the scriptures as if each book is merely a historical account of what took place a long time ago. Rather, every book and every narrative has a theological purpose. The book of Judges is no different. As we read and study the book of Judges we must approach it, not merely looking at what the people in the account are doing, but what is God doing through all these events…

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Ezra 4 concludes with these words. “Then the work on the house of God that is in Jerusalem stopped, and it ceased until the second year of the reign of Darius king of Persia” (4:24). The people and leaders of the land are discouraging the people from building and are frustrating their plans (4:4-5). For 16 years the people stop working on the temple. Ezra 5:1 tells us that Haggai and Zechariah were prophets sent by God. We spent the last few lessons looking at Haggai’s message. Haggai told the people that they must make the Lord their priority. It is not time to worry about your houses. It is time to put the Lord and his house first. Further, God told them that he would bless them if they would make the temple their priority. Ezra 5:2 tells us that the leaders and people responded to the prophets’ messages. They rise up and began to rebuild the house of God in Jerusalem…

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Jesus has called people to enjoy the blessed life. However, the blessed life comes to us in a way that we would not expect. Jesus has called for his followers to live in an upside down kingdom that is countercultural to what the world proclaims to be the blessed life. God want to bless his people and shows the way to enjoy the blessed life. But the characteristics of those who belong to his kingdom are different than what the world proclaims as virtuous and right. Jesus moves on in his sermon to speak about our life purpose. Everyone is seeking the answer to these questions: Why am I here? What is my purpose? What am I supposed to do with my life? Jesus presents two pictures to show why we are here, what we are to do with our lives, and grasp our life purpose…

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God wants to bless his people. This is a common teaching that we see through the scriptures. God wants to be with his people and he wants to bless his people. Jesus even opens his sermon by talking about the people that God blesses. But God’s people can look around and wonder why God does not seem to be blessing his people. If God wants to bless his people, why doesn’t he just do it? We noticed in Haggai 2:4 that God sent a message to the people that they needed to be strong because God was with him. But we need to remember the first message from the prophet Haggai as recorded in the first chapter. God was not blessing his people because they had the wrong priority. Rather than being busy with God’s house, they were busy with their own houses. So long as they were concerned with their own priorities rather than God’s priorities, God was not going to bless them. As we come to the end of the prophetic messages from Haggai, we are going to see that there was another reason why God was unable to bless his people…

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It must have been strange and even shocking for the crowds to hear the words of Jesus’ sermon. See if your life experiences agree with these declarations. The poor in spirit are blessed. Those who mourn are blessed. The gentle are blessed. Those who hunger and thirst for righteousness are blessed. The merciful are blessed. The pure in heart are blessed. The peacemakers are blessed. Those who are persecuted for righteousness are blessed. Those who are insulted and persecuted are blessed. Does this match your experiences? These are the most counterintuitive, upside down ways to look at life. We really need to think about what Jesus is saying. Jesus is overthrowing everything we know about our culture and our way of life. None of the conditions that Jesus says gets you ahead in this world. From what we see, the people who are blessed are those who are strong, who are proud, who do not care about righteousness, who are merciless, who are harsh, imposing, and demanding, who are impervious to problems, and who cause strife and make war…

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Do you ever feel disappointment by life? You might have had in your mind that things in your life would be different than where they are now. So what do you do with disappointment and discouragement? We can come to different seasons in our lives where we can be filled with disappointment. What we do with this disappointment can directly affect how we look at God and how we look at the work God has given to us to do. The people of God who have come back to Jerusalem to build the temple to the Lord have been dealing with disappointment. We noticed in Haggai 1 that they needed to be encouraged to restart the work. For 16 years the work had stopped after laying the foundation for the temple. As come to Haggai 2 we are told by the dates in verse 1 that the people have been working for about 4 weeks. But God has another message for the people regarding their discouragement as they continue the work on the temple. So let us look at the message of Haggai and consider how this message can help us deal with disappointment and discouragement…

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I do not like daylight savings. There are a few reasons that I do not like daylight savings. The first reason is that when I get up in the morning it is dark. My body does not want to get up when it is dark. There is an intrinsic signal that is sent to the body when the light dawns that it is time to get up and get going. The second reason is that when it is time to start winding down, it is still light out. Night tells our bodies to wind down, to be tired, and be ready to get rest. A few years ago we were able to take a trip to Alaska in the summer. In the summer in Alaska, the sun hardly goes down. There were nights where it was past 11pm but I did not feel tired because the light was still shining. The light dawning has significance and meaning. It points to a new day in which new work can be done. This is the imagery that we encounter as we come to Matthew 4. With the success of Jesus in the wilderness, it is now time declare the shining of the light, the dawning of a new day. Open your Bibles to Matthew 4:12 and we are going to look at what the light of the king means for our lives…

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