Matthew 6:19–34

What does this have to do with me?

1. Taking New Ground

2. A vision of our families grounded in the word of God.

3. It is a vision of people loving the taste of Scripture and the supremacy of its Author.

4. It is a vision of explaining Jesus to a lost world.

5. It is a challenge to make room in life to connect people to God.

6. We are asking you to be generous givers, extravagant givers.

Matthew 20:1-15

What does this have to do with me?

1. Do you fully grasp the extravagance of God given to us who did not work for it nor deserve it?

2. Do you have the attitude of the last worker who is overcome with joy for receiving the extravagant grace of the Father?

“I am not going to Heaven because I have preached to great crowds or read the Bible many times. I’m going to Heaven just like the thief on the cross who said in that last moment: ‘Lord, remember me.” - Billy Graham

3. We are all the last worker, we are all the thief on the cross next to Jesus who receives God’s grace. Let’s go after this week, living in and extending the extravagance of the God of the kingdom.

Matthew 16:13-26

What does this have to do with me?

1. We Acquire the Nations by Dying and Living with Jesus, by Faith.

Galatians 2:20

"I have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. So the life I now live in the body, I live because of the faithfulness of the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me."

2. Will you die with him and live with him, by faith.

3. Whoever loses his life for Christ and the gospel will find it and will bring others through the gates of death to life.

Matthew 16:24-26

What does this have to do with me?

1. Your life belongs to God, and He decides what life is for.

2. Are you going to throw your life away?

3. Are you willing to lay down your life for Christ?

4. Is your passion to showcase the unrivaled worth of Christ, and treasure Him above all things?

Matthew 10:24-31

What does this have to do with me?

1. Don’t surrender to the spirit of the age.

2. Love the truth.

3. What you learn about Jesus in private, away from the public, speak in the light.

4. What you hear in the Scriptures proclaim from the housetops.

5. Do not fear the face of anyone.

Matthew 22:34-40

Review

1. God commands total allegiance to Himself.

2. Love for God precedes love for others.

3. Align yourself with causes that lead people to God

4. Practice the mission of Vail Christian Church.

What does this have to do with me?

1. “Love your neighbor as yourself" is a radical command. It gets to the core of our sinfulness, exposes it and, disconnects us from it. It’s called pride.

2. Pride is the motor or taproot of all sin.

3. The passion to be satisfied and happy (self-love) is contaminated and corrupted by two things:

A. The unwillingness to see God as the only source of true lasting satisfaction

B. The unwillingness to see other people as designed by God receive the satisfaction in him that you have.

4. In the first commandment, the focus is on the passion to be satisfied firmly in God and God alone.

5. The second commandment opens a whole world of expanding satisfaction in God. People are designed to receive your satisfaction and happiness in God.

Matthew 22:34-40

Motives determine our actions.

"Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind." "Love your neighbor as yourself."

What is the result of a person who Loves God with their whole being? The result is Godly actions driven by Godly motives.

Matthew 5:43–48  

What does this have to do with me? 

1. Power to love like this comes from The Lord.

2. Could anything show the truth and power and reality of Jesus more than this?

Matthew 5:11–12,

Blessed are you when people insult you and persecute you and say all kinds of evil things about you falsely on account of me. 5:12 Rejoice and be glad because your reward is great in heaven, for they persecuted the prophets before you in the same way.

3. Jesus says that not only can you endure the mistreatment of the enemy, but you can also rejoice in it because your reward is great in heaven.

4. The command to love your enemy is a command to find your hope and your satisfaction in the Lord and His reward—not in the way people treat you.

5. Loving your enemy doesn't earn you the reward of heaven. Valuing or treasuring the reward of heaven empowers you to love your enemy.

Matthew 5:43, 33

What does this have to do with me?

1. Jesus is calling us to do something different and deeper as Christ Followers

2. There is a way of life that is authentic, deep, and un-hypocritical that you must live if you want to arrive in heaven.

3. You can live and love (not perfectly, but powerfully), and your life can be the light of the world that proves you are the children of God.

4. Loving our enemies is proof that the power of the kingdom has entered your life, not a payment for the power of the kingdom to enter your life.

Romans 13:1–7

What does this have to do with me?

1. There is no authority except from God.

2. Some rules and governments are good, and some are bad. Some reward the right and punish the wrong. Most do a little of both.

3. The demand for subjection is relative, not absolute. It depends on whether the demands of the governing authorities require us to disobey Jesus.

But if the demands of the state do not require us to disobey Jesus (as with speed limits, stop signs, income taxes, curfews, building codes, fishing licenses, etc…), we will be subject for the Lord's sake (1 Peter 2:13)