In this week's teaching, RD McClenegan encourages us to consider three things about this passage in Matthew: Christ's invitation, His yoke, and His heart. Christ's invitation to us is three-fold: it's personal, offered to all who labor and are weary, and restorative. Being yoked with Christ provides a way of learning to live that is more restful and can change the quality of our souls. Christ is not austere and demanding in heart, rather gentle, lowly, and approachable.
Are You the One?
April 3, 2022 • Greg Pinkner • Luke 1, Matthew 11:2–19, Isaiah 35
This week, Gospel Sunday, Greg Pinkner continues our series in Matthew and speaks on the relationship of Jesus and John the Baptist. After all John the Baptist experienced in his life, he still questioned if he had chosen to follow the right person when he was in prison. John the Baptist was a symbol that the law was done, that the old kingdom had passed away. The law is not evil, it is good and it shows us that we have no chance of getting into heaven on our own, but the old kingdom asked us to prove our goodness. Only faith and trust can save us in the new kingdom. The old kingdom has to die and doesn't die easily because, like John the Baptist, we have all looked at Jesus and wondered if he was the one because of things that have happened in our lives.
Stewarding Leadership Power
March 27, 2022 • Rick Dunn, Harv Powers • Matthew 20:20–26, Matthew 23:1–12, Philippians 2:5–11
This week, Rick Dunn and Harv Powers speak on how Christ calls us to lead. It is easy to abuse leadership power for personal gain and human praise, but Christ calls us to make a radical shift in our thinking of what power is. We are to steward leadership power, with humility, for the glory of Christ and for the sake of others through a redemptive process of being transformed into the likeness of Christ in our inner being.
The Gift of Being Called to Die to Self
March 20, 2022 • Rick Dunn • Matthew 10
This week, Rick Dunn continues our series in Matthew and looks at suffering. When Jesus calls us to Himself, He calls us to die to ourselves and when our lives become His, His life becomes ours. Christ did not come to save us from bad things that may happen in our lives, but to allow us to overcome them through Him. When we are looking for rest in our weariness, we must let go of our expectations of what it is for God to be good to us. The world needs us to find our rest and hope in Him. We suffer with a good Father who never leaves us alone.
The New Wine
March 13, 2022 • Greg Pinkner • Matthew 9:14–38
This week, Greg Pinkner continues our series in Matthew. These verses show us that as new wine can not be stored in old wineskins, the works of the law can not be put into Christ's new religion. In blending them, they will both be destroyed. Like the five people in these stories, the Spirit has saved us because of our faith.
Expectations and the Kingdom of God
March 6, 2022 • Rick Dunn • Matthew 9:9–12
This week, Rick Dunn looks at the autobiographical text of Matthew as a tax collector and the expectations of Christ. We all have expectations of how God is going to act, what he's going to do. But, once we experience an authentic relational encounter with God, we should expect our expectations to be changed forever. We have expectations that we should be good enough for Christ to accept us, but he invites us to come to him in our sin.
The Dragon and The Word
February 27, 2022 • Greg Pinkner • Psalm 89, Matthew 8:28–34
This week, Greg Pinkner continues in Matthew 8. This text looks at the story of a demoniac and Jesus' interaction with him. This story in the mirror image to the text taught last week - Jesus calming the sea, in which we saw the chaos of the sea bring chaos into the disciples' hearts. Here, we see a man possessed by disorder be placed into order. As believers, we are the demon-possessed man. When we come to know Christ, He casts out the chaos in our hearts and we are to stay and tell the world what He has done for us.
Little Faith. Big God
February 20, 2022 • JC Neely • Matthew 8:23–27
This week, JC Neely continues on in Matthew and looks at how God is in control of the chaos. These verses show us that Christ led his disciples into the storm and that things will not always be easy for those that follow Him. However, in the storm, He protected and cared for them. We need to take our eyes off the immediate storm around us and focus on Christ, the one thing that is steady. As we learn to trust God in the chaos, over time we will see that He is a God that is trustworthy.
The Other Side
February 13, 2022 • Rick Dunn • Matthew 8:18–22
As Rick continues on in Matthew looking at how Jesus provides rest for the weary, we find that Jesus is profoundly disappointing to our flesh. We want to be numbed or medicated from the pain of a broken world. Jesus came to afford us life abundantly—the Bible is clear on that, but in the midst of pain and struggling, all our flesh wants is relief, not Jesus. We must die to our flesh’s expectations of how Jesus will fix our problems and trust Him. Trust Him in the pain, trust Him in the waiting, trust Him in the victories, and trust Him in the losses. By trusting God through these struggles, we find deeper and deeper comfort and hope for our souls.
From the East and West
February 6, 2022 • Greg Pinkner • Matthew 8:5–17, Romans 4:16, Isaiah 53
This week, Greg Pinkner, continues our series in Matthew and looks at Christ's healing of the Centurion's servant. The centurion was the second person that Jesus talked to after he preached the Sermon on the Mount and was part of the Roman army that was oppressing the Jews. The fact that Jesus would have talked to him or helped him was extremely significant to the Jewish people and it is a story that was included in all four gospels. The centurion was like us: he had never seen Jesus heal someone, he had only heard about it. But, he had faith that his servant would be healed and Jesus marveled at his faith. He received grace not because he earned it, but because he received it as a gift.
Be Clean
January 30, 2022 • Greg Pinkner • Matthew 8:1–4
This week, Greg Pinkner, continues our series in Matthew and looks at Christ's healing of the leper. Under Jewish law, lepers were total outcasts and considered unclean; they were to be removed from society and live in isolation. After teaching the Sermon on the Mount, the man with leprosy was the first person Christ encountered. The man came to Him and asked to be healed and Christ reached out His hand and touched him. He took his uncleanliness on Himself and restored his life. In the same way, when Christ died on the cross, He took our uncleanliness and restored our lives for eternity.
