Sometimes God’s solution to my problem is more terrifying than the problem itself - David Hertweck

Chapter 8 of Matthew’s account of The Gospel is a reminder to us that Jesus is more than “just” a character in God’s Story. It reminds us that He is God. He performs Mighty Acts that can only be accomplished by God Himself. We see Jesus displaying that power to lepers, over time and distance and to many many people without any sense that there is an end to His Mighty Power! We also see that following Jesus must be done by faith, and that we must reckon with the truth that when Jesus does a miraculous work in our lives we cannot hold onto our lives, or sin patterns but that we must allow His Mighty Power to possess our lives. That is what He paid for on the cross!

Here's what we are zeroing in on: We must follow Jesus and where He's taking us in our lives. If we listen to the way of the world or the "wisdom" of others that causes us to live in a way that we are ADDING something to what we believe about Jesus, then we are doing stuff to please others, and ourselves and not Jesus. Rooted in when Paul says: 10 Obviously, I’m not trying to win the approval of people, but of God. If pleasing people were my goal, I would not be Christ’s servant. That is the footnote to a rebuke that the listeners had added stuff to the gospel so PEOPLE would be happy with the way they were living.

The contrast of the answer to Jesus’ questions in Mark 10:36 and Mark 10:51 show us that Jesus has ONE way of dealing with the brokenness in us. It’s Himself. The results of what His response to our answer to the question “What do you want?” Jesus has already “written” the way things should be, could be and are. We can ask for anything. God will accomplish His will whether we ask for GLORY or MERCY. It will be done according to His will even if we get what we ask for in a way that is different than the way we SEE it.

Jesus RESTORES the broken!

One of the most misunderstood things about Jesus is that He is a character in God’s story. The truth is, He IS God’s story. Because He is God. If we get that wrong, we get the whole Bible wrong. We can very easily forget that the whole of scripture points to the Story of Jesus and how He has come to rescue and restore humanity into right relationship with God The Father. One of the gravest mistakes we make is to see the Bible as a collection of stories of how we can be better people so God will love us. If God waited until we were “good enough” to save we’d be lost forever. Jesus is different than any other ‘god’. He was in His time too. People “pushed forward to touch Him”. Why? Because He is able to restore brokenness to wholeness, dark to light, death to life. We need His restoration, not moral lessons!

Jesus is the True and Better Noah. Noah was like a “second Adam”. Adam’s failure led to the Fall. Even though God mentions Noah’s righteousness, Noah could not outlast his corrupt sin nature from the fall and maintain his own righteousness. Jesus is God’s “Final” Adam. The TRUE and BETTER. Noah made it through the flood, but then failed. Jesus made it through death itself and WON!

It reminds us that this present fallen world is not all there is; soon we will live with and enjoy God forever in the new city, in the new heaven and the new earth, where we will be fully and forever freed from all sin and will inhabit renewed, resurrection bodies in a renewed, restored creation.

Christ physically ascended on our behalf, just as he came down to earth physically on our account, and he is now advocating for us in the presence of his Father, preparing a place for us, and also sends us his Spirit.

Christ triumphed over sin and death by being physically resurrected, so that all who trust in him are raised to new life in this world and to everlasting life in the world to come. Just as we will one day be resurrected, so this world will one day be restored. But those who do not trust in Christ will be raised to everlasting death.

Christ rose bodily from the grave on the third day after his death and is seated at the right hand of the Father, ruling his kingdom and interceding for us, until he returns to judge and renew the whole world.