Redeemer West Side

TODAY’S SCRIPTURE | Matthew 5:38-48
Eugene Peterson wrote, “The world is no friend to grace.”  Jesus’ summary of the currency of love in his culture as selective and conditional (You have heard) stands in contrast to the love he has come to demonstrate and restore.  One of the ironies of our cultural moment is that the call for tolerance has coincided with a religious zeal to identify and excommunicate heretics who disagree with us.  Loving an enemy means forgiveness fueled by grace, which Jesus accomplished on the cross where all things in heaven and earth were reconciled to him (Col 1:19-20)

TODAY’S SCRIPTURE | Matthew 5:17-20
The current cultural narrative (You have heard it said) with respect to ethics and morality, can be summarized as ‘everyone has the right to do what is right and wrong for themselves’.   Jesus roots the ethics and morality of his Kingdom in the objective law of God, which he has come to fulfill.  This sermon is an opportunity to demonstrate the flawed logic of moral relativism, the oppressive nature of religious moralism and the Christian’s opportunity to say with the Psalmist, “I love your law!” (Psalm 119:97)

TODAY’S SCRIPTURE | Matthew 5:13-16
The current cultural consensus concerning identity is that it is chosen not received.  In other words we are free to the extent we can choose who we are and how to live without external constraints.  The modern answer to the ancient question: “Who am I?” is:  be true to myself.  Jesus counters that answer with the first two worlds of this text: “You are”.  In other words, human identity is defined externally and ultimately by God, and that to the degree we heed Jesus’ call to be ‘salt and light’ to that degree do we discover our true selves.

TODAY’S SCRIPTURE | Luke 6:17-26
Jesus compares and contrasts two different visions of how to live in this world. Every individual and culture has basic beliefs about the nature of reality that is based on faith.  These are often defined as worldviews and are unconscious assumptions that inform our daily lives.  How we spend our time.  How we view our money.  How we define happiness and purpose and morality.  Jesus makes very clear the nature of the world he has come to bring and how different it is from the one we have come to inhabit.  This is the upside down Kingdom.

TODAY’S SCRIPTURE | Matthew 11:25-30
The series begins with Jesus calling those who are weary and burdened to come to him and yoke themselves to him.  Our increasingly post-Christian culture has left us weary and burdened by cynicism, despair, depression and disillusion.  This is the fruit of yoking ourselves to the current cultural narratives we will be exploring.  Discipleship begins with trusting that Jesus’ invitation to yoke ourselves to him is one that will liberate us from our burdens and give us rest.

TODAY’S SCRIPTURE | Revelation 21:1-6; 22:20-21
Knowing the end of a story transforms how you see every earlier chapter of the story. Here we get a glimpse of the end of the story, and it is beyond our wildest dreams. All evil, every last vestige of it, has been finally defeated and expunged from the world. All suffering will be made up for and swallowed up. The people of God will enjoy him forever in the richest and deepest relationship of love. This is better than the grandest utopias that humanity has ever imagined. Such a prospect has been criticized as too good to be true and leading to a passivity in the present life. But if we properly understand the trajectory of the story, it will make Christians the most paradoxical people on earth.

TODAY’S SCRIPTURE | Revelation 19:6-10
The future is heading toward a feast, which will be a great unending celebration. Feasting is a joyful response of thanks for the fruitful end of our labors. The church’s mission is to prepare for the feast of Jesus, to invite everyone, and to be changed into beauty. For God’s glory and out of love, Christians gather all people with the message: God will make all things well.

TODAY’S SCRIPTURE | Matthew 25:31-46
The verse, “Judge not”, may be the most recognized verse in the Bible today. Our culture recoils at the idea of judgment. And yet it’s impossible to live as a human being in the absence of all judgment. We are all evaluating one another, all the time, though we may each have different standards for doing so. And in the end, our hearts cry out for judgment. We long for judgment against injustice and evil, and for good and right to triumph in the end. Without righteous judgment, justice is sacrificed to power. And we also long for judgment because our hearts long for meaning. Without any standard for what makes a human life good or evil, it makes no difference whether we live a life of love and service or of oppressing and abusing others. The good news is that Jesus not only brings righteous judgment, one which all people will one day see is just and right, but he has also taken the ultimate judgment in our place to all who will freely receive it.

TODAY’S SCRIPTURE | Romans 8:18-25
We need hope to get through life. We need to believe that there’s a better future possible, that there are good days ahead. To live utterly devoid of all hope is to live in despair. But hope can often be little more than wishful thinking unless there is a solid basis for it. For the Christian, hope is a guaranteed assurance of glory on the horizon, and it infuses our days in this world with a buoyancy and strength. Though our present life is marked by groaning, Christian hope can carry us through everything we face in life because of the glorious future that is marked out for us.

TODAY’S SCRIPTURE | Hebrews 2:5-11
The world, according to the biblical story, is heading somewhere. We’re not going round in circles, with civilizations rising and falling for ages without end. There is indeed a “world to come” in which Jesus will rule over all things with perfect justice, wisdom, power, and love. In fact, that world is already here in part, breaking into the present form of this world, but it is not yet here in its fullness, which will only take place at the end of this age. Christians live in this current tension, and both aspects must be held together if we are to live with the power and joy that Jesus offers.