Crossing Community Church

Today, our newest Elder, Kevin Reilly, shares about the power of "the Word" -- as the Son of God who reveals the Father to us and spoke creation into being as well as the written Word of God that refreshes us and cleanses us in our daily life. 

Love your enemies. Pray for those who persecute you. To those who first Jesus say this, such things were mind boggling. That meant they were expected to love Gentiles, tax collectors and their Roman oppressors. For us in 2022, we don't have the same caliber enemies here in the USA, but we do have plenty of people that we don't like or find hard to love and based on Jesus' teaching on hate in our hearts, we are still found lacking. Christ closes this passage with the admonition to be perfect as your Heavenly Father is perfect. The only way we can attain such perfection is to allow Jesus to do it on our behalf!

Jesus opens our text today by reciting Old Testament laws that the Pharisees had perverted for their own good. In only a way that Jesus could do, in five verses He challenges all the rights we cling to and when we look at His teaching later in the Gospel of Luke, Jesus affirms we have to set aside our rights to follow Him, "If anyone wishes to come after Me, he will deny himself," (Luke 9:23). 

As Jesus keeps pulling down the man-made righteousness of the Pharisees, he comes to the issue of honesty. After attacking the loopholes used to excuse their dishonesty, he goes straight to the point - just say what you mean and do -- let your yes mean yes, and your no mean no. Pastor Tim speaks about how this applies in the local church, specifically how we esteem being nice over being honest. 

This week Pastor Tim speaks from Matthew 11:28-30 where Jesus calls the weak and heavy laden to come to him for rest. If we look through the gospels, we find that Jesus repeatedly is calling out to those who are forgotten, isolated, ostracized and invisible, those who are invisible in plain sight.  Pastor Tim encourages us to continue to see these same people in our daily lives and extend the love of Christ to them -- just as Jesus did. 

Changes are commonplace. Some are welcomed. Some are not. But it's not uncommon for us to make plans and for God to interrupt and change them. And when He does, God always infuses those changes with His purpose! Trust God despite the interruptions. Keep your faith in Him no matter what happens!

Do you wish it was Christmas every day of the year? Tonight, Dr. Michael Breece suggests that the appeal of Christmas is the wonder of it all. But he explores the wonder of Christmas not from our perspective as we usually do, but from the perspective of the angels who are so involved in the Christmas story. Finally, Dr. Breece concludes that for most people the wonder of Christmas fades -- the decorations are put away and there are no more gifts. But that is not the case for those who follow Christ, for them the miracle of Christmas is that God became our Saviour. In Christ, the wonder of Christmas is every day.

Teaching from Isaiah 9:6, Nathan speaks about the anticipation of the child Messiah referenced in the verse and asks us to consider whether we have as much anticipation for the return of Christ as we do for the things of this world. 

The Bible is full of names of people that we know little about, but they are spoken of as important in the work of the Gospel. Their name is probably only mentioned once, but the fact that they are mentioned means they must have played an important role in the ministry at that time. All of us have people that have been important to our spiritual life and probably will never get little recognition for the role they played this side of heaven. But aren't we grateful for those people! Now ask yourself this question -- are you one of those people in someone else's life? Have you played in an important role in helping someone else come to faith or grow in their faith? Very few will ever know your name as being important in the way the world counts importance, but that person that you loved and helped will know your name and forever be grateful for you!

Christmas is that odd time of year when people who never think about Jesus all year long, sing about Him for an entire month! This Sunday, Pastor Tim strongly encourages us to redeem the opportunities that Christmas brings for spiritual discussions and especially for invitations to Christmas related events. But ultimately, this sermon is a challenge to those of us who call ourselves followers of Christ, but never talk about Him to others.