Psalm 96:1-13 & Matthew 8:5-13 (ESV) - If you were to make a mental list of the sort of person who is most likely to reject the gospel of Jesus Christ, what sort of person would be on your list? If we had lived in Israel in the 1st c., I expect that a Roman centurion would certainly make the cut. A centurion was a man of war, an invader, an occupier, a man with influence and power to bully and compel normal people. Above all, he was a Gentile, someone outside the kingdom of God by birth, a barrier that (it was thought) nothing could change. But the centurion of Matthew 8 would accomplish something quite impressive: He surprised the Lord Jesus because of the faith that he had that Jesus could help him when no one else could. Faith in the Lord is at the heart of our next sermon, and may the Lord use it to increase our faith in Him as well!

Ezekiel 36:33-36 & Matthew 8:1-4 (ESV) - What is the point of a barrier? To keep one thing away from another. Sometimes that might be good; oftentimes, it's bad. But there’s a major barrier that all people experience: a helpless separation from the Lord, our creator. It’s not a barrier that we usually see visibly, and many people act as though it hardly matters. But it is a real problem, and one that we are incapable of removing on our own. As we leave the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew describes a man who had a living, daily reminder of his separation from God, in the form of a leprous disease. How could that barrier be removed? The leper believed, as Matthew urged his readers to believe too, that Jesus can do something about that barrier. As we will see, disease was no barrier to the love of Jesus, and neither is anything else able to stand before His power to restore men and women to the love of our Maker and Creator.

Ezekiel 18:30-32 & Matthew 7:24-29 (ESV) - At long last, we’ve reached the end of the Sermon on the Mount. For many months now, we’ve read of Jesus’ teaching and interpretation of the Law and the Prophets, and now we’ve come to the conclusion of this phase of ministry. So, how does He finish after He’s said so much? He finishes by centering everything on Himself. The disciples and the rest of the crowd have heard Him, so now, He wants them to do what He’s said. As we read this last part of Matthew 7, we must ask what it means to really hear Jesus, and whether we have really come to grips with the Man who requires much but promises everything to those who obey Him.

1 Samuel 15:10-23 & Matthew 7:21-23 (ESV) - In the past two weeks, we’ve heard Jesus explain the importance of being part of the Kingdom on His terms. It’s involved entering His kingdom by the narrow gate and the hard way. It’s called for recognizing the rotten fruit of false prophets and rejecting them in favor of the true Prophet. Now, Jesus sets another difficult reality before His disciple; that not everyone who claims to be His follower is. And those who lack a genuine relationship with Him, He says, will be kept from eternal paradise with Him. Why does the Savior say this? Why does a loving God basically promise to expel people who say they know Him, when it seems He should welcome them with open arms? We need to grapple with this difficult passage because it comes from the mouth of Christ Himself. And the implications of it will shape how we see Jesus, ourselves, and all the Sermon on the Mount.

1 Kings 22:10-28 & Matthew 7:15-20 (ESV) - People are pretty good at recognizing the signs of danger. If you see a blue, fuzzy spot on an apple, you know that the apple has gone rotten and it’s not safe to eat. If you live in a place where rattlesnakes are known to live, you’ll take care when you hear a rattling sound outside. We know that some things are dangerous and need to be avoided carefully. But as much attention as we pay to the signs of physical danger, Jesus says that His church needs to pay just as much attention to signs of spiritual danger. Specifically, this passage warns us of false prophets, who appear harmless but are dangerously destructive to the people of God. Our true prophet will tell us about false prophets and their fruit, and the people of God must give their attention to the word of God’s final prophet.

Micah 6:6-8 & Matthew 7:12-14 (ESV) - We’ve seen Jesus explore many different parts of what it means to follow Him and live as a citizen of the kingdom of heaven. At this point in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus is beginning to summarize His message. If you were to try to distill all of His teaching concerning how we are to treat one another, this is how He’d do it. The Golden Rule. But far from being an easy, “Go and do likewise” passage, the Golden Rule gets right to the heart of love for neighbor. This is a love that cannot be divorced from the rest of the Christian life or our walk with the Lord. Jesus will teach us what it means to do unto others as we would have them do to us, and in doing so, He will teach us how much we need Him in order to be like Him.

Acts 9:1-9 (ESV) - The conversion of Saul is a story of one who is transformed from monster, to defender of the faith. Let's look together at what this conversion means for Saul - and for us.

Zechariah 8:1-8, 14-17 & Hebrews 10:19-25 (ESV) - Over the last few weeks of our Easter series, the author of Hebrews has told some amazing things about the Lord Jesus. We’ve Jesus’ exaltation, His bearing of God’s word, His high priestly service, His glorification, and more besides. On Easter Sunday, we shall see what all these things mean. How do they come together for the people of God? What is the result of Jesus’ work for His people? And how shall the people of the church live because Jesus has risen from the dead? God gives the answers to these things in Hebrews 10, so let us prepare to hear His voice as we join to celebrate the resurrection of our Savior, Jesus Christ.

Genesis 14:17-24 & Hebrews 7:26-28 (ESV) - If we had to summarize what we’ve seen of Jesus’ work over the past two sermons, we’d say that we’ve mainly seen him act on His Father’s behalf, serving as a representative from Heaven to a sinful people. But what about the other side of that relationship; we’re a sinful people who need to come into the presence of a holy God. We need a representative who can lead us to God and purify us from our sin. How did we receive our representative? The author of Hebrews explains that Jesus is the High Priest of the church, and one uniquely fit to our spiritual needs. How our Savior served as our High Priest, what His efforts wrought, will be shown to us when we read Hebrews 7:26-28.

Numbers 12:1-16 & Hebrews 3:1-6 (ESV) - There are so many things that compete for attention in your brain. Any number of thoughts and ideas want you to look at them and think about them for as long as possible. But as Christians, we have Scripture to tell us the sorts of things that should take the most room in our minds. Things of godly excellence, things that are worthy of praise from the Lord, these sorts of things should be on our mind. As we get closer to Easter, we will read the author of Hebrews tell us about one person to think about. “Consider Jesus,” he says. Think deeply about Him; meditate on Him. Why is Jesus worthy of that sort of attention? We will see on Sunday, when Scripture describes the infinite glory that belongs to Christ Jesus, our Savior.