Four Points Church

Not everyone who claims to be a follower of Jesus actually is. Jesus warns us that false teachers will come. They don’t show up wearing t-shirts that tell us they are untrustworthy. Instead, they come saying “listen to me because I know what you need.”

After hearing Jesus speak on having planks in our eyes we are left with a hopeless feeling in our gut.  Deep inside we are asking the questions, “Who can be saved” and “What are we to do.”  This is why Jesus now diverts our attention back to praying to our heavenly Father. The answer is simple.  Jesus uses three verbs that remind us that there is great help available to us in our shortcomings.  There is a righteousness that is higher than that of the Scribes and Pharisees, and we have been given access to Him.

The most known Bible verse of my generation was John 3:16.  Whether you learned it in Sunday school or from the rainbow colored wig man at a baseball game, you were familiar with it.  Our world has turned its attention to another verse in the Bible that is now its most familiar teaching.  We find that verse in this text… “Judge not.”  You hear this verse constantly quoted in churches, political speeches, and especially from our educational institutions.  Our world has adopted the idea of relativism, which is a system where there is no absolute truth or right way of doing anything.  Instead, we must assimilate what all cultures and sub-cultures value as true.  The worst thing you can be deemed in our societal melting pot is someone who is “intolerant” of other ideas, which is by the way… a judgment.  Anytime, Christians find themselves disagreeing with others we are told, “don’t judge me.”  Is this what Jesus was teaching in Matthew 7?

Three times Jesus commands us to “not to be anxious.” Jesus gives one other command in this text and it shows us how to dismantle the anxiety we feel in our lives.  Jesus says, “seek first the kingdom of God." When Jesus becomes our treasure, our anxiety can find rest in His perfect work and will.

In the Old Testament there are many people who fasted for a wide variety of reasons.  Prophets like Moses, Kings like David, Queens like Esther, and Scribes like Ezra all fasted as a way to seek the Lord in the times of their distress.  While much fasting was being done in the Old Testament, there is actually only one time every year, at the day of Atonement, that the Lord required His people to fast.  Groups like the Pharisees saw this command and the examples in the Old Testament and determined they were going to be holier by doing much more fasting than was commanded or what they saw God’s people before them perform. Once again, Jesus saw through the charade.  He knew they really weren’t seeking His Father.