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The question today is: Why do some people believe the Gospel and others don’t? And by that I mean that you can have two persons, similar upbringing, similar education, similar life experiences, both exposed to the same story of Jesus… and one will believe and receive it and the other will reject it.
Read More about To hear or not to hear. (Series on the Gospel of Luke #4)
The Gospel of Luke used to drive me crazy because it is so obviously out of chronological order. And, as an Engineer, I like order. But as an Engineer I also like Logic; and it wasn’t until this go around that I realized that a logical exposition was precisely what Luke set out to give us. Two blogs ago, I began my excursion into this Gospel by focusing on what I called, the formula: Repentance + faith = forgiveness of sins which produces Love. Today I want to continue where I left off. In doing so, I need to flesh out in more depth some of what I talked about then.
Read More about The sign of contradiction. (Series on the Gospel of Luke, #3)
I have been going through the Gospel according to Luke with his admonition in mind that what he has written there was done with method: arranged to teach us, the way Greek tutors taught their pupils. As he says in the introduction to the Gospel, his purpose is to enable us to know the certainty of those things in which we have been instructed, the things we have believed.
If there were a formula for turning paper into gold, and you had it, what would you do with it? You’d use it and get rich, why not? If there were a formula for turning water into gasoline, and you had it… Hey, no more $3, $4 a gallon fill ups, right? If you knew the formula for living a successful life, and you could apply it, wouldn’t you?
What’s a formula?
Most of the sermons posted on this blog come from the Sunday services that I have held at a local Jail, over the years. This one is from a service there this Christmas. Sometimes we just need to let Scripture speak for itself. And sometimes another worker of the harvest has already said something better than I could ever say it. That was the case this Sunday. (All my scripture quotes are taken from Darby’s translation.)
In our journey through the Sermon on the Mount, last time we reached Chapter 7 of Matthew’s gospel. The admonition – or commandment – Judge not lest thee be judged gave us two important themes that we should always keep in mind as we strive to follow Jesus. First, was the concept of like for like: If I really want my Father in Heaven to bless me, to take care of me, to be merciful with me when I need it, to rescue me when I have stumbled, to rescue me when I have fallen so far that I can’t even tell where I am, to feed me when I am starving, to give me shelter when the storm has just torn my life apart… if that’s what I want and what I need, then like for like: I need to turn around and do all these things for his children. It is a law of the universe our Father created. We cannot walk in the Kingdom and ignore it.
There is another dimension to the rule “Judge not lest thee be judged” that we need to talk about. Remember back when Jesus was talking about anger? He said that to call someone Raca (empty headed) makes us answerable to the court. But calling anyone a fool puts us in danger of the fire of hell. Why? Why is calling someone a fool, so wrong? Because, as Jesus’ Jewish audience would understand, this is an allusion to Psalm 14:1 (and Psalm 53) The fool says in his heart, there is no God.
We already pointed out that in the middle of the first section of the Sermon on the Mount Jesus says: (Matthew 5:48) Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect. And then He starts laying out how God our Father expects us to live in relationship to the people around us. That continues in the section in chapter 7 of Matthew’s gospel we are about to start. But before going forward it is worth recapping where we’ve been because it will help us see a thread that runs throughout this teaching. It is one of those threads that helps make sense of the whole because it reveals an underlying law that connects the various requirements. These requirements are not individual stand-alone commandments, they are interconnected by one truth: My relationship with God and my relationship with my neighbor are inseparably coupled by the concept: Like-for-like.
Read More about A reasonable Faith – A Journey through the Sermon on the Mount. Part 3.3
Matt. 6:19-21 “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
Treasure, wealth stored, is security against an uncertain future. The treasure we can store in this world is well known: riches, money, things we acquire. But what treasure is Jesus talking about that we can store in Heaven?
Read More about A reasonable Faith – A Journey through the Sermon on the Mount. Part 3.2
Last time we finished with the Lord’s prayer. It takes the choices that Jesus asks us to make and puts them in prayer form. It is an acknowledgement of the difficulty of the task. As I said, making the choices isn’t hard. It is the consequences of those choices that can quickly become an uphill battle. Jesus likened that journey to picking up your cross and following Him. Why?
Read More about A reasonable Faith – A Journey through the Sermon on the Mount. Part 3
