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Like the money manager in the story, your time in the game will come to an end, and then the only thing that will have any real lasting value is the relationships that you made while you were in the game. So many guys get caught up with the money, the big league lifestyle and the attention that you get from being a Major League Baseball player. But then once the game is over, all of this starts to slowly fade away. And if you haven’t built solid relationships during your time in the game, you begin to feel isolated and desperate for what you once had.

Psalm Reading: Psalm 57:9-11

Scripture Reading: Luke 16:1-13

How should followers of Jesus respond to the threat of a global pandemic, the increasing political division in this country, and the underlying issues of injustice, inequality and racial tension that are front-and-center in our society right now?

If I had to pick one word that describes the way most people are feeling right now, it would probably be the word anxious. For most of this year, life as we know it has been completely disrupted. What the future will look like is a little uncertain. And this lack of certainty and this disruption to daily life naturally creates some level of anxiousness.

Psalm Reading: Psalm 47:6-9

Scripture Reading: 12:22-39

There is a trap that Jesus addresses, and all of us can fall into it. We get selective in the way that we obey what God has said in the Scriptures, and then we find subtle ways to twist the Scriptures to justify certain preferences and behaviors in our life.

We had spent the last several months going through the gospel according to Matthew, and so I wanted to wrap up that series with a bird’s-eye view of the entire account so that we could see the big idea that Matthew is trying to present to his readers. A big reason that I wanted to do this is that I wanted to challenge some of our popular ideas and preconceived notions about what the gospel is all about. Many people in the church hear gospel and think of Jesus dying on the cross so that we could be forgiven by God and go to heaven when we die. I wanted to challenge that way of thinking.

The bigger picture of the good news about who Jesus is and what he is doing in this world has transformed my life and the way that I view the world. It’s changed my approach to how I teach the Bible to my children, and it’s changed the way that I pray and what I find myself praying for.

So, I am humbled by the fact that you are taking time to listen to this right now, but I am also hopeful that this particular message will give you a fresh perspective on what this whole Jesus thing is all about. The gospel is a much bigger idea than many of us are imagining.

Thanks for listening!

For more resources, check out www.upi.org

Many of us, even those who read our Bibles and say our prayers, end up with misconceptions about who God is and what he is doing in the world. We are the sheep of his pasture and when one of us goes wandering off, he comes looking for us. Jesus said, “I have come to seek and to save the lost” because God does not give up on people as easily as we give up on people.

In this teaching, Jesus is warning is his own followers and he is pronouncing judgement against the leadership in Jerusalem. In their own efforts to do what they thought was pleasing to God, God’s own people were blind to the fact that they were rejecting him in the process. That is a very sobering reminder for all of us.

This was a difficult message to prepare for and not the kind of message that you get excited to share. But it was a good reminder to me of what God truly wants from us; it really is more about a real relationship than a religion.

Thanks for listening!

For more resources, check out www.upi.org

There are times when we are desperate for help (we’re going through a difficult time, we’re in a slump, or our marriage is struggling, or a pandemic is occurring, or whatever), and so we cry out to God for help and we are willing to do whatever he tells us to do. But then when he gets us through it and things start to go well for us again, we forget about God and we just get back to life as normal.

In this teaching, Jesus is clearing up some misconceptions that his own disciples had about belonging to his kingdom and exactly how the kingdom of God was going to go about exercising power, overcoming evil and conquering the world. In this particular teaching to his disciples, Jesus directly challenges our normal ideas about power and redefines greatness and status in a way that was just as revolutionary then as it is today.

This was a good reminder for myself and just like most of Jesus’ teachings it has challenged me in the way that I carry myself at home and when I'm around other people. I think we as men especially need to hear what Jesus is saying in this teaching and respond to it with a new approach to all of our relationships.

Thanks for listening!

Like the money manager in the story, your time in the game will come to an end, and then the only thing that will have any real lasting value is the relationships that you made while you were in the game. So many guys get caught up with the money, the big league lifestyle and the attention that you get from being a Major League Baseball player. But then once the game is over, all of this starts to slowly fade away. And if you haven’t built solid relationships during your time in the game, you begin to feel isolated and desperate for what you once had.

Psalm Reading: Psalm 57:9-11

Scripture Reading: Luke 16:1-13