The Extraordinary Ordinary Life of the Christian is one that Seeks Spiritual Wealth. What exactly does that look like? Our Lord points us in the right direction with a series of parables. Once you find spiritual wealth, it is worth more than anything else in the world.
What is it like to live in a world where you don’t fit in? This Sunday we continued our series from the Gospel of Matthew – The Extraordinary Ordinary Life of the Christian. We saw how God calls us to live as wheat among the weeds. That isn’t always an easy task, but it’s also not something that the Christian has to do alone. God is with us every step of the way.
“Oh, what of that? …and what of that?!” The sower sows his seed. With a wanton disregard for the safety of the word he casts it like a sower in an ancient field. Some of the seed falls on rocks, some among weeds, some on the path, and some on fertile soil. This Sunday we’ll look at Jesus’ famous Parable of the Sower. We’ll see how this impacts our life and how we are planted by God’s word.
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.
As a witness we are charged with telling people what we see. At the end of the Sermon on the Mount, in the verses just before our text in Matthew 7 Jesus writes, “Small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few will find it.” This Sunday we will see why only a few will find that narrow door. We’ll see how we can Witness to the Truth.