In addition to guiding us personally, God loves to guide His people together. If we ask, seek and knock together, our Heavenly Father promises to give us what He describes as “good things.” So, in this message on the 1st Sunday of 2020 we discover why we will ask God for clarity on His vision for this local church’s future together and how we plan to do so throughout this next year together.
Sermons by Dean Wertz (Page 21)
He was “born a child and yet a king.” So the Sermon on the Mount is His vision for the King’s kingdom – how things look when everything goes according to His way. This vision includes an ongoing conversation between God and His people that leads to His glory and our peace. His path to divine peace, revealed in Matthew 7:7-11, is a gift for all as we head into the New Year and beyond!
On the night of Christ’s birth the angels announce the good news that Jesus is “Christ the Lord.” She who has ears to hear, let her hear and he who has ears to hear, let him hear.
The Christmas Hymn, “I Heard the Bells” was originally a poem written in 1863 by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. With the country in civil war, Henry’s son heading off to fight against his wishes, the death of his first wife followed by a recent house fire which killed his second wife and left his face permanently disfigured, Longfellow knew sorrow. Yet he, like the prophet Isaiah and Jesus himself, also knew God’s peace. On this 2nd Sunday of Advent we discover how God’s people can experienced divine peace in the midst of deep anguish.
Alexander the Great is credited for saying, “The more I get to know my neighbor, the more I love my dog.” Relationships are hard because they cause conflict and conflict is hard because it causes anxiety. As we know, God made us to experience people and peace. In this part of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus shares God’s brilliant approach for sustaining relationships and tranquility. For this wisdom, we give thanks to God on this Sunday before Thanksgiving and every time we begin to feel the honest and painful emotions of Alexander the Great.
Jesus announced and demonstrated that the kingdom of heaven is at hand. In other words, a tectonic shift in governance is taking place. How we respond determines the quality of our lives now and for eternity. For those who awaken (i.e. repent) there is, among other things, the potential to displace apprehension with exhilaration. Greater than any medical university or clinic can provide, Jesus’ wisdom transforms anxiety into sustained peace.
In this portion of the Sermon on the Mount Jesus reveals a crucial reality. As those with good eyes can observe the world beyond the capacity of those with impaired vision, so everyone with God has the privilege to see Him and His ways more clearly than those apart from Him. Beyond this revelation, Jesus also provides hope for those of us who long to know God and His ways more clearly in the form of activities we can do that enable us to do things that we can not do by our own direct effort (i.e. spiritual disciplines).
Beyond praise, what does God want us to talk with Him about? The Lord’s Prayer is Jesus’ answer to this question. After teaching that prayer is a genuine conversation with God, Jesus now relays some of the subjects God loves to discuss with His children. To more fully enjoy life with God in His kingdom, we meditate on the Lord’s prayer not to say it mechanically, but to converse with our King relationally.
Why does God command us to praise God? Many wise people ask, “Isn’t the desire to be seen and worshiped egotistical?” In this portion of the Sermon on the Mount Jesus explains that God’s vision is for prayer to be a genuine conversation with God and the first subject Jesus guides us to include in our conversation with God is praise. In this message we explore why it is loving, not egotistical, for God to call us to praise and we consider practical ways to praise Him when we are alone and, on this 20th birthday of Hope Church, when we gather.
When Jesus conversed with the Father it was in genuine conversation about realities occurring in real life. Those around Him who thought prayer was formal or formulaic were invited to disappear from sight having been freed from the need to impress others in order to speak freely with God having been freed from a mechanical process to impress God. This kind of genuine conversation is still available to all who rely on Jesus and afford themselves to the way of genuine relationship and conversation in His kingdom.