Get your rest! That’s good advice for mental health, letting your body recover, disease prevention, weight loss, and -yes- spiritual health. Spiritual rest can’t be found under Egyptian cotton sheets and a down pillow. Spiritual health can only be found in Jesus. We continue our series on the Extraordinary Ordinary Life of a Christian: Find Rest in Jesus.
The life of a Christian can be ordinary, but don’t let the world fool you. This Sunday we begin a new sermon series – The Extraordinary Ordinary Life of a Christian. In this first message from the Gospel of Matthew we’ll see how a Christian loves God above all things. That isn’t flashy. You won’t make the papers for bearing your cross. At the end of it all, God promises a reward.
Witnessing for Christ isn’t always easy. Jesus warns his disciples that a servant isn’t above his master. We know how Jesus was treated; should we expect to be treated any different? This Sunday we’ll look at the persecution of the church and how God has preserved his faithful through the ages. Christ is our King.
When (Jesus) saw the crowds, he had compassion on them. What was the problem? They were like sheep without a shepherd. What was the solution? Send out the shepherds. Jesus send his disciples to serve God’s people with the word. The dual focus this Sunday is on helping hurting people with the gospel of forgiveness in Jesus and sending people to do that work. We continue our sermon series Witnesses for Christ under the theme: Witness through Compassion.
The call of Matthew is powerful example of mercy from our Lord. Matthew didn’t fit the description of a model Jew. He wasn’t a logical choice, according to the logic of that time. Most people wanted to stay away from tax collectors and sinners. Jesus went out of his way to minister to those who need mercy. This Sunday we saw how we can Witness to Those Who Need Mercy.