The Master and His Mission
Matthew 8-10
The King Arrives
April 2, 2023 • Joe Parker • Matthew 21:1–11
Like Facebook or One Drive attempts to do, considering the evil, misery, and sadness we all face in our lives, this story of Jesus entering Jerusalem is meant to bring hope through seven pictures, pictures that give us subtle, but important details of God’s love for us.
Rupture and Reward
March 26, 2023 • Walter Henegar • Matthew 10:34–42
Following Jesus means our supreme allegiance belongs to him alone. This commitment can generate conflict in our relationships, even within our own families. However, it does not leave us alone with Jesus against the world. Rather, we express our allegiance to him by “receiving” or welcoming into relationship everyone who belongs to him, from great prophets to the “littlest” disciple. Jesus underscores this reality by promising to eternal reward for those who do so. These rewards are not earned by works but gifts, a grace upon grace.
Fears and Promises
March 19, 2023 • Walter Henegar • Matthew 10:26–33
What frees us from fear of people is the fear of God. Fear of people paralyzes us, whereas fear of God energizes us. Here Jesus names four particular fears and counters each with a powerful promise of God: 1. Fear of exposure with the promise of public vindication 2. Fear of death with the promise of bodily resurrection 3. Fear of meaningless suffering with the promise of providential care 4. Fear of abandonment with the promise of permanent belonging in his family Ultimately, Jesus pays infinitely more to associate with us than we ever pay to associate with him.
The Cost
March 12, 2023 • Walter Henegar • Matthew 10:16–25
The cost of following Jesus is persecution. It takes different forms in different times and places, but there are no exceptions. Thankfully, Jesus provides for us in the midst of persecution, including opportunities for mission, the Holy Spirit’s guidance, and escape for the sake of mission. Ultimately, Jesus’ promise that “the one who endures to the end will be saved” is based on his own enduring commitment to love us to the end.
Now You
March 5, 2023 • Walter Henegar • Matthew 10:1–15
If Jesus calls you to follow him, he will always send you to represent him to the world with both your words and your actions. This doesn't look exactly like the disciples' initial ministry to their fellow Jews, but it does include sharing fellowship and the tasks of ministry with all different kinds of other believers. Ultimately, God holds us accountable for what we know, and supremely for what we know about his love for us.
Harassed and Helpless Harvesters
February 26, 2023 • Walter Henegar • Matthew 9:27–38
When Jesus heals two blind men and warns them not to tell, they tell everyone. When he heals a mute man, the crowds are wowed, but the Pharisees think he's in cahoots with evil. We might expect Jesus to be frustrated by these divergent reactions to his ministry. Instead he has compassion for the "harassed and helpless" crowds. He sees us as sheep needing a shepherd, and like a harvest field needing laborers to gather us in. It turns out that the Good News of his kingdom is about more than healing or even forgiveness. Jesus wants us to become sheep who shepherd, harvested harvesters, and followers who lead.
Fortified Faith
February 19, 2023 • Walter Henegar • Matthew 9:18–26
A distraught father and a sick woman who come to Jesus have more in common than we might think. Both exercise desperate, risk-taking faith in the power of Jesus to heal, and both are rewarded with a bigger vision of Jesus and a new relationship to him. As we learn to distrust our own limited resources, we discover Jesus to be more than enough for us, too.
Company He Keeps
February 12, 2023 • Walter Henegar • Matthew 9:9–17
By calling a tax collector as a disciple and eating a meal with his friends, Jesus sparks a debate: What sort of people should God's people associate with? His response uses metaphors about weddings, garments and wine to reframe the whole question. Rejecting simplistic binaries like righteous vs. sinners, fasting vs. feasting, or new vs. old, Jesus centers everything on his own person and work. Before we can decide which people to associate with, we must ask what sort of people we ourselves are, and how Jesus is working in our lives.
Authority to Forgive
February 5, 2023 • Woonny Kim • Matthew 9:1–8
Jesus healed a paralytic in front of the religious leaders, which, perhaps unexpectedly, sparked a controversy. This is because Jesus healed the paralytic by saying, “your sins are forgiven,” which the scribes felt was a right only ascribed to God. Exactly. Jesus is clearly revealing that he is God, not just some teacher or healer. Moreover, we won’t see Jesus is God if we fail to believe that God forgives for the same reason he heals: out of mercy and kindness. His authority is not only powerful, but merciful. This also means that if you’ve experienced one form of God’s kindness, believing in Christ means you can depend on him to provide the other.
Prince Against Darkness
January 29, 2023 • Walter Henegar • Matthew 8:28–34
Jesus’ healing of two demon-possessed men illustrates his authority over the forces of darkness. It also raises some sticky questions about the reliability of the Bible and the reality of evil. By wrestling with them we learn that Scripture is reliable and trustworthy, even if it keeps us a bit off-balance with some of its little riddles; that demons are real and active in the world, but they are created beings destined for destruction; that until then, their main goal is to divert our worship using lies about God and accusations about us; and that Jesus has absolute authority over evil, and he exercises it to deliver us not just from evil and suffering, but from sin and death itself.
Ruler of All Nature
January 22, 2023 • Walter Henegar • Matthew 8:23–27
Jesus' calming of the storm reveals his authority over all of creation, not just sickness and evil spirits. His disciples' surprise suggests that even they hadn't fully grasped who he is—and Jesus' gentle challenge confirms it: "Why are you afraid, O you of little faith?" (v. 26). Our faith in Jesus, then, can be little or great, weak or strong, and everywhere in between. Ultimately, though, the question is not "How big is your faith?" but "How big is your God?"
Insiders Out
January 15, 2023 • Walter Henegar • Matthew 8:14–22
Jesus' healings remind us that his grace always comes first, and our faith is always a response to it. Faith means confidence in the absolute power of Jesus and a willingness to follow wherever he leads. Actually following him in the details of our lives is harder. Learning to trust him requires us to name our own internal obstacles and compare them to the soaring promises of Jesus to those who follow him.
Outsiders In
January 8, 2023 • Walter Henegar • Matthew 8:1–13
When Jesus heals people, it's not just about their bodies. The leper needs more than being restored to community, and the centurion needs more than a healed servant. Like us, they both need a deeper kind of inclusion that only Jesus can give and only Jesus can ensure. That's why faith—trusting in the absolute power and wisdom of Jesus—is the instrument for entering into his new kingdom reality, both now and for eternity. Then, once we have entered in, he gives us the privilege of drawing others in with us.