This week we continued in the Gospel of Matthew, moving from the Sermon on the Mount into Matthew 8. Jesus has just finished teaching with astonishing authority. The crowds are amazed because he does not teach like the scribes; he speaks as one who truly has authority.

But Matthew does not let us leave Jesus on the mountain as merely a great teacher. As Jesus comes down from the mountain, we immediately see that his authority is not only in his words. His authority is also displayed in his power to heal, cleanse, restore, and make whole.

In Matthew 8:1–17, Jesus encounters a leper, a Roman centurion, Peter’s sick mother-in-law, and many who are demon-oppressed and ill. In each case, Jesus moves toward human suffering. He does not withdraw from what is unclean, complicated, ordinary, or overwhelming. He steps toward it with compassion and authority.

That is good news for us.

Jesus Touches the Untouchable
The first person Matthew places before us is a leper. In that culture, leprosy did not simply mean physical sickness. It meant isolation. It meant being cut off from worship, family, community, and ordinary human touch. A leper was pushed to the margins and forced to cry out, “Unclean,” so others would not come near.

And yet this man comes to Jesus and says, “Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean.”

What faith.

He does not question Jesus’ ability. He knows Jesus can heal him. His question is whether Jesus is willing.

Jesus answers not only with words, but with a touch: “I am willing; be cleansed.”

Jesus did not have to touch him. In the very next story, Jesus heals from a distance with only a word. But here, Jesus reaches out and touches a man who likely had not been touched in a long, long time.

In the Old Testament purity system, touching the unclean made you unclean. But with Jesus, the movement is reversed. His cleanness overcomes uncleanness. His wholeness overcomes brokenness. His life overcomes death.

This is who our King is. He does not turn his face away from the outcast. He moves toward them.

Jesus Has Authority Over Distance
Next, a Roman centurion comes to Jesus. This man is not only a Gentile; he represents the occupying force oppressing Israel. He is the kind of person many would have expected Jesus to reject.

But the centurion comes humbly: “Lord, I am not worthy to have you come under my roof, but only say the word, and my servant will be healed.”

Jesus marvels at his faith.

This is one of the stunning moments in the passage. A man from outside Israel, a man with power and military authority, recognizes the authority of Jesus. He understands that Jesus does not need to be physically present. He does not need to perform a ritual. He simply needs to speak.

And Jesus does.

The servant is healed that very moment.

Then Jesus says that many will come from east and west and recline at the table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. Outsiders will be welcomed in. Gentiles will be invited to the table. The promise to Abraham—that through him all nations would be blessed—is being fulfilled in Jesus.

That is also good news for us.

Most of us are not Jewish by birth. We are among those from “east and west.” We are the outsiders who, by grace, are invited to the table through faith in Christ.

But there is also a warning here. We cannot presume upon proximity. Growing up in church, knowing the Bible, having Christian parents, serving in religious spaces—none of these automatically give us life in the kingdom. The question remains: How are we responding to Jesus?

The centurion responds with humble faith. May we do the same.

Jesus Cares About Ordinary Suffering
Then Jesus enters Peter’s home and sees Peter’s mother-in-law lying sick with a fever. Compared with leprosy, paralysis, and demonic oppression, this might seem ordinary. A fever. A woman in bed. A household need.

But Jesus sees her.

He touches her hand, the fever leaves, and she gets up.

I find this deeply comforting. Sometimes we assume God’s power is only displayed in dramatic moments or extreme crises. But Jesus also cares about the ordinary burdens we carry. He sees the sickness in the home. He sees the quiet suffering. He sees what others might overlook.

There is no category of need that is beneath his compassion.

Jesus Bears What Is Broken
Matthew concludes this section by quoting Isaiah:

“He took our illnesses and bore our diseases.”

Jesus’ healings are not magic tricks. They are not merely displays of power meant to impress the crowds. They reveal who he is and what he came to do.

Jesus is the Servant who bears our burdens. He is the one who carries our infirmities. He is the one who enters fully into the pain and brokenness of the world in order to redeem it.

Ultimately, he does this at the cross.

Through his death and resurrection, Jesus begins the work of making all things new. The healings in Matthew 8 are signs of the kingdom. They show us where history is headed: toward restoration, wholeness, freedom, and life with God.

We live in the tension of the already and the not yet. Jesus is risen. He is King. He has authority now. We should pray boldly for healing, deliverance, and restoration.

And yet, we also know that not every healing comes immediately. Not every sickness is removed in this life. We still grieve. We still suffer. We still wait.

But our confidence is not in our ability to generate enough faith. Jesus is not a vending machine. Our confidence is in his goodness, his authority, and his kingdom.

Like the centurion, we come humbly and say, “Lord, I know you can. Just say the word.”

Bring It to Jesus
Whatever you are carrying—sickness, grief, shame, fear, spiritual oppression, emotional heaviness, or places in your life that feel hopeless—bring it to Jesus.

Lay it at his feet.

He is not afraid of what is unclean.
He is not distant from what is painful.
He is not indifferent to what feels ordinary.
He is not powerless before what feels impossible.

He is willing. He is able. He is King.

May we respond to him with humble faith. And may we, as his church, become the kind of people who move toward suffering with the compassion of Jesus—hands and feet ready to serve, pray, love, and bear witness to his kingdom.

Grace and peace.

This week we finished our journey through the Sermon on the Mount. And as we came to the end of Jesus’ teaching, I was struck again by how direct and gracious His invitation is.

Jesus does not end His sermon by asking the crowd if they were impressed. He does not ask whether they enjoyed it, whether they thought it was inspiring, or whether they would say, “Good word today.” He ends with a choice.

“Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and acts on them may be compared to a wise man who built his house on the rock.”
— Matthew 7:24

Jesus gives us two builders. Both hear His words. Both build a house. Both face the storm.

The difference is not information. The difference is obedience.

One hears Jesus and puts His words into practice. The other hears the same words and does not act on them. One builds on rock. The other builds on sand.

That is a sobering ending to the Sermon on the Mount.

Jesus Speaks with Authority

Matthew tells us that when Jesus finished teaching, the crowds were amazed because He taught as one who had authority, and not like their scribes.

That matters.

Jesus was not simply offering one religious opinion among many. He was not quoting teacher after teacher in order to build credibility. He was not saying, “Here is my interpretation of someone else’s interpretation.”

He said, “You have heard that it was said… but I say to you.”

Jesus speaks as the authority.

Matthew wants us to see that Jesus is like Moses, but far greater than Moses. Moses went up the mountain, received the covenant law from God, and brought it down to the people. Jesus goes up the mountain and teaches, but He does not merely deliver a message from God. He speaks as Emmanuel, God with us.

That means the Sermon on the Mount is not a collection of inspiring sayings from a wise teacher. It is the authoritative declaration of our King.

And if Jesus is King, admiration is not enough.

Hearing Is Not the Same as Following

This is where Jesus presses on us.

It is possible to hear His words and do nothing with them. It is possible to agree with Jesus in theory while building our lives on something else in practice.

We can admire His teaching on forgiveness while continuing to nurse bitterness.
We can agree with His words about prayer while rarely seeking the Father.
We can believe He is right about money while still clinging tightly to our possessions.
We can nod along when He tells us not to judge while refusing to examine our own hearts.
We can call Him Lord while resisting His authority in the places we most want control.

That is why Jesus’ parable is so important. Both builders heard. Only one obeyed.

Following Jesus is not simply identifying as a Christian. It is not merely knowing the Bible, attending church, or appreciating Jesus from a distance. Building on the rock means taking Jesus at His word, trusting His authority, and ordering our lives around His kingdom.

Not because we are trying to earn God’s love. Not because we are attempting to perform flawlessly. But because we have already received His love and grace.

Obedience is not the price of admission into the kingdom. Obedience is the response of people who have encountered the King.

The Storm Reveals the Foundation

Jesus says the rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew against both houses.

The wise builder was not spared from the storm. The foolish builder was not the only one who suffered hardship. Both houses were hit.

That is important for us to remember.

Following Jesus does not exempt us from suffering, disappointment, temptation, grief, or loss. The difference is not whether storms come. The difference is whether our foundation holds when they do.

Before the storm, the two houses may have looked very similar. Both may have seemed strong. Both may have looked stable from the outside.

But the storm revealed what appearances could hide.

That is true in our lives too. We can manage our image. We can polish the outside. We can appear spiritually healthy while internally building on sand. But eventually, storms expose what we have trusted in.

And while this parable certainly applies to the hardships of life, I believe Jesus is pointing us toward something even more final. In the context of Matthew 7, Jesus has been speaking about two roads, two kinds of fruit, and people who will one day stand before Him saying, “Lord, Lord.”

There is a final storm coming. A day when we will stand before Jesus without pretense, without image management, without the ability to hide behind appearances.

And Jesus loves us enough to warn us now.

What Are We Building On?

Every one of us is building a life.

The question is: on what?

We may build on success, reputation, money, control, comfort, politics, religious knowledge, family, career, or ourselves. Some of those things may be good gifts in their proper place, but none of them can bear the weight of our lives.

They are sand.

Only Jesus is the rock.

So the question at the end of the Sermon on the Mount is not simply, “Did I like what Jesus said?” The question is, “Where is my life out of alignment with His words?”

Where am I resisting reconciliation?
Where am I clinging to anger?
Where am I compromising integrity?
Where am I seeking recognition rather than serving in secret?
Where am I anxious because I do not really trust the Father?
Where am I condemning others while refusing to examine myself?
Where am I hearing Jesus but not obeying Him?

Those are not questions meant to crush us. They are invitations to come honestly before the One who already knows us completely and loves us fully.

Jesus is not calling us to hide. He is calling us to surrender.

Grace for the Building

The good news is that Jesus does not simply say, “Here are the rules. Good luck building.”

He gives Himself to us.

He is the King who teaches the way of the kingdom, but He is also the Savior who rescues us. He is the One who perfectly embodied everything He taught. He loved His enemies. He trusted the Father. He showed mercy. He practiced faithfulness. He went to the cross for us. He rose from the dead. And He gives us His Spirit so that, by grace, we can live in His kingdom here and now.

We do not build on the rock by sheer willpower. We build by surrendering to Jesus, receiving His grace, and allowing Him to shape us into His likeness.

And we do not build alone.

Jesus has given us His church. We need one another. We need brothers and sisters who will encourage us, pray with us, challenge us, and help us remain faithful to the words of Jesus.

The world tells us to be independent, to do life ourselves, to build our own kingdoms. Jesus invites us into a new family and a better kingdom.

What Will We Do Now?

The Sermon on the Mount has ended, but the decision has not.

We have heard from our King.

Now we must ask: what will we do with what we have heard?

My prayer for us is that we would not merely admire Jesus from a distance. I pray we would not be content with saying, “That was a good sermon,” while leaving our lives untouched by His authority.

Instead, may we be people who hear His words and put them into practice.

May we build on the rock.

And when the storm comes, may our lives be found standing—not because we were strong enough on our own, but because we built our lives on Jesus, our King, our Savior, and our sure foundation.

The Narrow Way: Choosing Formation Over Performance

This week, as we gathered for worship, many of us carried a heaviness with us. The fires across our region are not right in our backyard, but they feel close enough. We know people, churches, families, and communities who are being impacted. Some are evacuating. Some are trying to protect homes and property. Some are grieving what has already been lost.

In moments like these, we are reminded of our need for a prayer-first posture. Not because prayer is “all we can do” in a dismissive sense, but because prayer is the first and most faithful place to begin. We bring what we cannot control to the God who sees, knows, and holds all things. We ask for protection, strength, comfort, courage, and for the church to be the hands and feet of Jesus in real and practical ways.

And then, with that heaviness still present, we turned again to the words of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount.

We are nearing the end of this long journey through Matthew 5–7. Since Easter, we have been sitting with Jesus on the mountainside, listening as He describes a life that is far deeper than religious behavior. He has spoken to us about anger, lust, integrity, forgiveness, loving enemies, prayer, fasting, worry, judgment, and how we treat others. Over and over again, Jesus has pushed beneath the surface.

He has not been interested merely in what we look like on the outside.

He is forming something deeper.

And as His sermon begins to come to a close, Jesus asks a question that we cannot avoid:

What are you going to do with this?

Not, “Did you understand it?”
Not, “Can you explain it?”
Not, “Did you attend church while it was preached?”

But: Will you allow this to change you?

The Narrow Gate
Jesus says:

“You can enter God’s kingdom only through the narrow gate. The highway to hell is broad, and its gate is wide for the many who choose that way. But the gateway to life is very narrow, and the road is difficult, and only a few ever find it.”
— Matthew 7:13–14

When we hear “narrow gate,” many of us imagine something restrictive, as though God is trying to make entry difficult. But Jesus is not describing a God who is reluctant to receive us. He is describing a way of life that most people simply do not choose.

The wide road is easy because it does not require much honesty. It does not require surrender. It does not require us to let God beneath the surface.

The wide road allows us to manage our image, protect ourselves, keep control, say the right things, and keep our faith at a safe distance.

But the narrow road goes deep.

It is the road of dependence.
The road of honesty.
The road of surrender.
The road of being formed by Jesus rather than merely appearing religious.

And the narrow road is narrow not only because it is deep, but because it is specific. It is not a philosophy, a self-help plan, or one spiritual option among many.

The narrow way is Jesus Himself.

He is the gate.
He is the way.
He is the truth.
He is the life.

No one else can do in us what needs to be done. No amount of moral effort can transform the human heart. No amount of religious activity can reconcile us to God. Only Jesus can.

Fruit Tells the Truth
Jesus then gives a warning:

“Beware of false prophets who come disguised as harmless sheep but are really vicious wolves. You can identify them by their fruit, that is, by the way they act.”
— Matthew 7:15–16

This is a call to discernment. We should be careful about who we listen to, who we follow, and who we allow to shape our understanding of God. Not everything that sounds spiritual is rooted in Jesus. Not everyone who uses the right words is bearing good fruit.

But this warning is also deeply personal.

It is easy to hear “you will know them by their fruit” and immediately begin inspecting someone else’s life. But before we pick up a clipboard and start grading others, we need to ask what fruit is growing in us.

After months in the Sermon on the Mount, the question is not simply, “Do I agree with Jesus?”

The question is:

Is the life of Jesus actually being formed in me?

Am I more patient than I was before?
Am I more honest?
Am I more merciful?
Am I more dependent on God?
Am I quicker to forgive?
Am I slower to judge?
Am I becoming a person of peace?

Another way to ask it is this:

What do I leave behind when I leave?

When people interact with me, are they encouraged or drained?
Built up or torn down?
Drawn closer to Jesus or left more confused?
Does my presence bring peace or tension?
Grace or pressure?
Love or criticism?

That is fruit.

Not what we claim to believe.
Not what we post.
Not how spiritual we sound.

Fruit is what grows from the life that is actually rooted in us.

And the good news is that Jesus does not demand perfect fruit immediately. Fruit takes time. A tree bears fruit as it remains rooted and nourished. In the same way, our calling is not to manufacture fruit by our own strength.

Our calling is to remain in Jesus.

As Jesus says in John 15:

“Remain in me, and I will remain in you. For a branch cannot produce fruit if it is severed from the vine.”
— John 15:4

The fruit comes from remaining.

Activity Is Not the Same as Relationship
Then Jesus says some of the most unsettling words in Scripture:

“Not everyone who calls out to me, ‘Lord! Lord!’ will enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Only those who actually do the will of my Father in heaven will enter.”
— Matthew 7:21

He goes on to describe people who prophesied, cast out demons, and performed miracles in His name. These were not inactive people. They were busy. They were involved. They had impressive spiritual resumes.

And yet Jesus says:

“I never knew you.”

Those words should stop us.

Because the danger Jesus describes is not simply people who walk away from God. It is people who are close to the things of God but somehow miss God Himself.

It is possible to be around church, around worship, around ministry, around Christian language, and still avoid true surrender to Jesus.

It is possible to do things for God while refusing to be with God.

That is a sobering thought.

Because busyness can become a shield. Ministry can become a hiding place. Religious activity can allow us to avoid the vulnerability of actually being known by Jesus.

But Jesus does not call us into the light to shame us.

He calls us into the light to heal us.

To be known by Jesus is not to be exposed and rejected. It is to be fully seen and fully loved. It is to stop performing and finally surrender.

The Question Before Us
At the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus blesses the poor in spirit, the meek, those who mourn, those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. He begins with dependence.

And here, near the end, He brings us back to dependence again.

The whole sermon is an invitation to stop performing and start being formed.

So the question remains:

Am I remaining in Jesus, or am I just busy for Him?
Am I being formed, or am I performing?
Am I surrendering, or am I simply showing up?

These are not questions meant to condemn us. They are invitations. Jesus is inviting us onto the narrow road — the road that leads to life.

And that road is not walked by our strength, our effort, or our ability to impress God.

It is walked by grace.

It is walked with open hands.

It is walked one surrendered step at a time.

So may we be a people who remain in Jesus.
May we be a people who bear good fruit.
May we be a people who are known by Him.
And may we walk the narrow way — not as performers, but as disciples being formed by the One who loves us completely.

This past Sunday was not the morning I expected.

I was supposed to be on the road to Portland for a family reunion. Instead, I stood before our church family with a heavy heart because Pastor Ed Burns—who was scheduled to preach—had suffered a stroke. Many of you know Ed not only as a long-time part of our preaching team, but as the longest-serving lead pastor in the history of our church. For years, he has faithfully opened the Word, encouraged the church, and spoken with wisdom, warmth, and plenty of words.

So to see him unable to speak was deeply disorienting.

It was one of those moments where the word “bittersweet” feels painfully accurate. We gathered to worship a God who is good. We sang about joy in the house of the Lord. We proclaimed the power of Christ. And yet, we carried grief, concern, and uncertainty with us.

But even in that tension, we turned to the Word. Because that is what Ed would want us to do.

We continued in the Sermon on the Mount, looking at Matthew 7:1–12. It is a passage many of us know well, especially Jesus’ words: “Do not judge others, and you will not be judged.”

That phrase has taken on a life of its own in our culture. It is often used as a shield against any kind of correction or discernment. But Jesus is not telling us to turn off our brains, ignore sin, or pretend nothing is ever wrong. He is warning us against a judgmental spirit—a posture of harsh criticism, fault-finding, and superiority.

Jesus says:

“Why worry about a speck in your friend’s eye when you have a log in your own?”
— Matthew 7:3

Notice what Jesus does not say. He does not say there is no speck. He does not say ignore what is wrong. He says deal with the log in your own eye first.

That is much harder.

It is much easier to focus on someone else’s issue than to sit honestly with what is unfinished in us. Judging others can become a form of self-protection. It allows us to feel better about ourselves because, at least for the moment, the attention is on someone else’s mess instead of our own.

But Jesus calls us to a different way.

Before we correct, we examine ourselves.
Before we speak, we humble ourselves.
Before we point out another’s sin, we bring our own lives before the Father.

And then Jesus gives what might feel like a surprising instruction:

“Don’t throw your pearls to pigs.”
— Matthew 7:6

It is strong language, but Jesus is teaching us wisdom. Not every person, situation, or relationship is ready to receive what is sacred. Our vulnerability, our trust, the deep things of our lives and faith—these are holy things. Love does not mean naivety. We are called to love deeply and discern wisely.

Then Jesus moves into one of the most comforting invitations in Scripture:

“Keep on asking, and you will receive what you ask for. Keep on seeking, and you will find. Keep on knocking, and the door will be opened to you.”
— Matthew 7:7

This is not a random shift. Jesus has just called us to do the hard internal work of examining our own hearts. And that kind of work cannot be done in our own strength.

We need the Father.

We ask because we have needs we cannot meet on our own.
We seek because we need direction we cannot find on our own.
We knock because there are doors only God can open.

This is part of what we mean when we talk about having a prayer-first posture. Prayer is not our last resort after we have tried everything else. Prayer is our first response because God is not distant, reluctant, or stingy. He is a good Father who gives good gifts to His children.

And then Jesus brings it all together with what we know as the Golden Rule:

“Do to others whatever you would like them to do to you. This is the essence of all that is taught in the law and the prophets.”
— Matthew 7:12

This is not simply a nice moral saying. It is the fruit of a life being formed by Jesus.

A person who has dealt with their own log treats people differently.
A person who brings their needs to the Father treats people differently.
A person who trusts that God is good treats people differently.

How we treat others reveals what is forming inside of us.

Pastor Ed has used an illustration for years that has stayed with me. He says we all walk around with a teacup on our head. Most of the time, we cannot see what is inside. Others may not see it either. But when life bumps us, whatever is in the cup spills out.

And what spills out reveals what has been forming there all along.

That image felt especially fitting this week.

Life bumped us. It bumped the Burns family. It bumped our church family. And life will bump all of us at some point. The question is: what spills out?

When we are tired, afraid, frustrated, or grieving, what comes out of us?
Criticism? Contempt? Anxiety? Control?
Or mercy? Prayer? Patience? Love?

The good news is that Jesus does not merely teach this way of life. He lived it.

When all the weight of humanity’s sin was thrown onto Him, what spilled out was mercy. When He saw the full truth about us—every log, every speck, every wound, every failure—He did not move toward us with contempt. He moved toward us with love.

And now He invites us to become the kind of people who do the same.

So this week, I invite you to sit with this question:

What is my treatment of others revealing about what is forming inside of me right now?

Bring that honestly to the Father. Ask. Seek. Knock.

He is good.
He is near.
And He is still forming us.

Lifting Our Heads: A Reflection from VBS Sunday

This past Sunday was VBS Sunday, and what a joy it was to celebrate what God did in and through our church this week.

All week long, our building was full of kids, leaders, music, laughter, lights, crafts, games, snacks, and most importantly, the message of Jesus. We had around 140 kids registered, with over 100 here multiple days, and each night they learned about the light of Jesus.

Our theme verse was John 8:12:

“Jesus spoke to them again: ‘I am the light of the world. Anyone who follows me will never walk in the darkness but will have the light of life.’”

Throughout the week, the kids learned who Jesus is: the Messiah, the promised Son of God, the perfect Savior, the powerful Son of God, the risen Lord, and the only way to receive God’s forgiveness. They learned that Jesus is not just someone from history. He is our Savior now and forever. And because he is the light of the world, we are called to shine his light wherever we go.

Sunday morning gave the whole church a small taste of that joy. The kids came forward, lights in hand, and helped lead us in songs from the week. We sang, moved, clapped, and celebrated together. It was loud, colorful, and full of life — exactly the kind of joy that reminds us the kingdom of God belongs to children, and that sometimes adults need kids to help us worship with a little more freedom.

I also want to say thank you again to every leader and volunteer who helped make VBS happen. A week like this takes a lot of energy, preparation, patience, and love. It is exhausting, but it is holy work. Every song sung, every snack served, every small group led, every craft cleaned up, every child welcomed — it matters. Our prayer is that the truth these kids heard will take root and grow, and that the light of Jesus will continue to shine in their lives.

After the joy and energy of VBS, we returned to the Sermon on the Mount, where we have been since April. And in many ways, the passage we came to was exactly what we needed.

Jesus says in Matthew 6:25:

“That is why I tell you not to worry about everyday life…”

For weeks now, Jesus has been taking us deeper. He has gone beneath the surface of murder to expose anger, beneath adultery to expose lust, beneath religious practice to expose motives. He has challenged retaliation, self-protection, hypocrisy, misplaced treasure, and divided devotion.

It has been important work. But it has also been heavy work.

Then, in this passage, Jesus does something different. Instead of pressing further inward, he tells us to look outward.

Look at the birds.

Look at the lilies.

Lift your head.

That is such a gracious invitation. Jesus knows that after all the inner heart work, we need to remember the Father’s care. We need to see that our lives are held by someone greater than us.

Jesus is not shaming us for worry. That is important to say. “Do not worry” can sometimes sound like a rebuke, as if anxiety means we are failing spiritually. But that is not the tone of Jesus here. He is not dismissing real pain, real uncertainty, or real needs. He is redirecting our gaze.

Worry has a way of shrinking our world. It makes everything about the one thing we cannot fix, the one outcome we cannot control, the one fear we cannot shake. It convinces us that if we stop worrying, everything will fall apart.

But Jesus asks a simple and piercing question:

“Can all your worries add a single moment to your life?”

We know the answer.

Worry does not add. It only takes. It takes peace. It takes sleep. It takes presence. It takes our ability to be fully where God has placed us today.

And yet Jesus does not simply tell us what not to do. He gives us something better:

“Seek the kingdom of God above all else, and live righteously, and he will give you everything you need.”

Instead of worrying, seek.

Instead of gripping tighter, trust.

Instead of staring only at the problem, lift your head and look to the Father.

Seeking first does not mean pretending life is easy. It does not mean ignoring responsibility. Birds still forage. Farmers still plant. We still work, plan, pray, act, and make wise decisions. But we do so without pretending that we are the ones holding everything together.

There is a difference between carrying what God has asked us to carry and trying to carry what only God can hold.

That may be the invitation for many of us this week: to release what was never ours to carry in the first place.

Jesus ends this section by saying:

“Don’t worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring its own worries. Today’s trouble is enough for today.”

That may be one of the most compassionate things Jesus says in the Sermon on the Mount. He does not deny that trouble exists. He simply tells us not to borrow tomorrow’s trouble before it arrives.

Stay in today.

Be faithful today.

Pray today.

Obey today.

Trust today.

Let tomorrow belong to the Father.

As we came to the communion table on Sunday, we came with open hands — the same hands that had been gripping, managing, worrying, and trying to control. And we received again the reminder that everything we truly need has already been provided in Jesus.

The one who tells us not to worry is not untouched by suffering. He is the Son who prayed in the garden, “Not my will, but yours be done.” He knows what it is to entrust tomorrow to the Father. And he invites us to do the same.

So, church, may we be people who lift our heads.

May we look at the birds and the flowers and remember that our Father sees, knows, and cares.

May we shine the light of Jesus in a world that desperately needs him.

And may we go into this week without borrowing tomorrow’s troubles.

Our Father knows what we need.

He is already at work.

And he is enough.

What Has Your Heart?

This week, as our building fills with the colors, lights, and energy of VBS, I’m reminded that following Jesus is meant to involve our whole lives—not just our Sunday mornings, not just our songs, and not just the parts of us we already feel comfortable surrendering.

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus presses into one of the most practical and sensitive areas of our lives: our relationship with money, possessions, and security.

He says:

“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven…”
— Matthew 6:19–20

Most of us don’t wake up thinking, How can I become more greedy today? We don’t usually set out to become materialistic. Often, we’re just trying to be responsible. We want to provide for our families. We want stability. We want food in the pantry, money in the bank, and some sense that tomorrow will be okay.

Those are not bad desires. Scripture does not condemn wisdom, provision, or stewardship. But Jesus knows how easily responsibility can become trust, and how quickly trust can become worship.

What begins in our hands can move into our hearts. And before we realize it, the gifts God has given us can become rivals to God himself.

Earthly Treasure Cannot Carry the Weight of Your Life

Jesus uses vivid images: moth, rust, and thieves.

In other words, everything we try to cling to in this world is vulnerable. It can decay. It can disappear. It can be stolen. It can lose its value. It can become obsolete. It can end up collecting dust in a drawer, closet, shed, or storage room.

Earthly treasure is not necessarily evil, but it is temporary. It was never meant to hold the full weight of our hope, identity, security, or peace.

That’s why Jesus calls us to store up treasure in heaven.

This doesn’t mean we buy our way into heaven. It means we organize our lives around what matters in the kingdom of God: Christlike character, mercy, generosity, forgiveness, prayer, love of neighbor, care for the poor, obedience to Jesus, and devotion to the Father.

It means we live now in light of eternity.

Where Your Treasure Is, Your Heart Will Follow

Jesus says:

“For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”
— Matthew 6:21

That sentence is worth sitting with.

We often assume our treasure follows our heart. But Jesus says our heart follows our treasure. Where we invest our time, money, attention, energy, and affection, our hearts begin to attach.

This is one reason generosity matters so much. Giving is not merely a financial act; it is heart formation. It teaches our hearts to say, “This is not my god. This is not my master. This is not my ultimate security. Everything I have belongs to the Father.”

Generosity helps us hold God’s gifts with open hands.

Greed Is a Vision Problem

Jesus continues:

“The eye is the lamp of the body. So then if your eye is clear, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness.”
— Matthew 6:22–23

In the language of Scripture, a “good” or “clear” eye is connected with generosity, while a “bad” or “evil” eye is connected with greed and stinginess.

Greed is not just a wallet problem. It is a vision problem.

Greed causes us to see giving as loss, people as competitors, and possessions as identity. But a generous eye sees giving as worship, people as neighbors, and possessions as tools entrusted to us for the work of God’s kingdom.

The danger is that greed rarely feels like darkness. We often disguise it with respectable language: wisdom, caution, responsibility, planning. And to be clear, wisdom and responsibility are good things. But Jesus lovingly asks us to examine what is underneath.

Am I being wise, or am I afraid God will not provide?

Am I being responsible, or am I trying to stay in control?

Am I being careful, or am I refusing to trust my Father?

Jesus does not ask these questions to shame us. He asks them to heal our sight.

You Cannot Serve Two Masters

Finally, Jesus says:

“No one can serve two masters… You cannot serve God and wealth.”
— Matthew 6:24

He does not say it is difficult to serve two masters. He says it is impossible.

Money is useful. It can feed our families, support ministry, care for the poor, bless our neighbors, and meet real needs. But money does not always stay in our hands. It can move into our hearts and begin making promises only God can keep.

Wealth says, “Just a little more, and you’ll be safe.”

But “a little more” never arrives. It keeps moving ahead of us like a carrot on a stick.

Jesus loves us too much to let money master us. He is not against us having possessions; he is against our possessions having us.

The question is not simply, “What do I have?”

The deeper question is, “What has me?”

Living With Open Hands

I shared the story of Lillian Trasher, a missionary who went to Egypt in 1910. She left behind the life she had planned because she believed God was calling her to the mission field. Shortly after arriving, she encountered a starving baby whose mother was dying. That moment became the beginning of an orphanage that would care for thousands of children and women over the next 50 years.

She did not begin with great resources, a perfect plan, or financial security. She began with obedience, open hands, and trust in the Father.

God may not be calling each of us to start an orphanage in Egypt. But he is calling each of us to the same kind of surrendered trust.

Will we organize our lives around what we can keep, or around the kingdom that cannot be lost?

When money is no longer our master, it becomes a servant. Possessions become tools. Our lives become freer. Our hands begin to open.

A Question for This Week

This week, I want to invite you to pray a simple but honest prayer:

Father, what has my heart?

Maybe it’s money. Maybe it’s fear of not having enough. Maybe it’s comparison, comfort, success, security, or control.

Whatever it is, Jesus is kind enough to reveal it and powerful enough to free us from it.

May we become people who treasure what lasts, see with generous eyes, and serve the Father with undivided hearts.

Learning to Pray with Open Hands

There is a question I have been sitting with lately:

When was the last time I came to God with open, empty hands?

Not hands full of my agenda.
Not hands gripping a plan I had already formed.
Not hands carrying anxiety, expectations, or the exhausting need to control outcomes.
Just open hands.

That is not always easy for me.

If I am honest, my instinct is often to manage, plan, solve, and hold things together. I like to believe that if I can think far enough ahead, organize things well enough, or worry hard enough, I can somehow keep life from unraveling.

But the tighter I grip, the more exhausted I become. And the more exhausted I become, the less I actually trust God.

I know I am not alone in that.

Many of us carry things we cannot control: relationships, health concerns, work situations, family burdens, financial pressures, decisions about the future. We bring those things with us everywhere. Sometimes we even bring them into prayer, not so much asking God to lead us as asking Him to bless the plan we have already written.

But Jesus gives us a different way.

He gives us a prayer.

Most of us know it as the Lord’s Prayer.

Our Father, who art in heaven,
hallowed be thy name.
Thy kingdom come, thy will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our debts,
as we forgive our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom,
and the power,
and the glory forever.
Amen.

For many of us, those words are familiar. Maybe too familiar. We can recite them from memory, but sometimes familiar words can become words we no longer truly hear.

But when we slow down, this prayer does something to us.

It is not merely a script to repeat. It is a practice that forms us. It reshapes us. It reorders our hearts.

The Prayer Moves Us Out of the Center

Jesus does not begin the prayer with our needs.

He does not start with our pain, our plans, our worries, or our requests.

He begins with God.

Our Father.
Hallowed be thy name.
Thy kingdom come.
Thy will be done.

Before we ask for anything, Jesus teaches us to remember who we are speaking to.

God is Father, which means He is near, loving, and personal. But He is also holy, set apart, sovereign, and greater than anything we are carrying. His name is hallowed. His kingdom is ultimate. His will is better than ours.

That is a reorientation.

Prayer begins by moving us out of the center.

That does not mean our concerns do not matter. They do. God cares deeply about His children. But beginning with God puts our concerns in their proper place. It reminds us that our situations, while real and heavy, are not ultimate.

God is.

When we pray, “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done,” we are not resigning ourselves to hopelessness. We are learning rest. We are saying, “God, I trust You more than I trust my ability to manage this.”

That is hard. But it is also freeing.

The Prayer Forces Us to Be Honest

After Jesus re-centers us on God, He teaches us to pray:

Give us this day our daily bread.
Forgive us our debts.
Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

Every line is an admission.

I have needs I cannot meet on my own.
I have sins I cannot cleanse on my own.
I have vulnerabilities I cannot protect on my own.

This prayer does not let us pretend we have it all together.

And maybe that is one of the gifts of it.

So much of life tempts us toward image management. We want to appear strong, capable, put together, and in control. But the Lord’s Prayer strips that away. It invites us into honest dependence.

“Give us this day our daily bread” is not a request for God to set us up so we do not have to ask again for a while. It is a prayer of daily dependence.

Daily bread.
Daily trust.
Daily surrender.

Then comes one of the most uncomfortable lines:

Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.

Jesus ties our experience of forgiveness to our willingness to extend it. Not because we earn God’s mercy by showing mercy, but because a heart that refuses to forgive is resisting the very grace it is asking to receive.

That line will not let us hide.

It brings names and situations to the surface. It exposes the places where bitterness has been allowed to settle in. It asks whether we really want to live as forgiven people who also forgive.

Then we pray for deliverance.

We admit that temptation is real. Evil is real. Our weakness is real. And we need God’s protection and guidance.

This is honest prayer.

Not polished.
Not performative.
Not pretending.

Just open hands before a Father who already knows what we need before we ask.

The Prayer Reminds Us It All Belongs to God

The prayer ends with worship:

For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory forever.

Those words remind us that none of this ultimately belongs to us.

The kingdom is God’s.
The power is God’s.
The glory is God’s.

Not mine.

Not my reputation.
Not my control.
Not my ability to fix things.
Not my preferred outcomes.
Not the version of myself I am trying to protect or project.

It all belongs to Him.

And when we remember that, something begins to loosen in us.

The grip loosens.
The anxiety quiets.
The pressure lifts.

Not necessarily because our circumstances immediately change, but because we remember whose hands are underneath it all.

We are not holding everything together.

God is.

And that is very good news.

An Invitation for This Week

This week, the urge to control will probably rise again.

The grip may tighten.
The anxiety may return.
The situation may still feel unresolved.
The relationship may still be complicated.
The burden may still be heavy.

When that happens, come back to this prayer.

Not as a ritual.
Not as a last resort.
Not as words to rush through.

Pray it as an exhale.

Let it move you out of the center.
Let it make you honest.
Let it remind you that the kingdom, the power, and the glory belong to God.

Come to Him with open hands.

Empty hands.

Trusting hands.

Because our Father already knows what we need. And He is faithful.

Know Jesus. Know Yourself. Live the Mission.

This past Sunday was a gift.

We gathered, worshiped, prayed, gave, laughed a little through announcements, and then had the privilege of hearing from Reverend Dr. Eric Spangler, Area Director for Free Methodist World Missions in Asia. Eric and Virginia have served faithfully for many years, and it was a joy to welcome them and hear what God is doing across Asia through the Free Methodist Church.

As we continue walking through the Gospel of Matthew together—learning more about Jesus and what it means to follow Him—Eric brought us a timely and deeply important word:

Know Jesus. Know yourself. Live the mission.

That phrase has stayed with me.

Because before mission is about activity, strategy, travel, programs, or church growth, mission begins with Jesus. If we do not know Him rightly, we will not represent Him faithfully. If we misunderstand who Jesus is, we will misunderstand who we are and what we have been called to do.

Eric reminded us that Jesus is not merely a great teacher, a moral example, or a religious figure among many. Jesus is eternal. Jesus is fully God. Jesus is the Son. Jesus is the Word made flesh. Jesus is God with us—fully divine and fully human. Jesus is the Christ: prophet, priest, and king. Jesus is Lord, risen and reigning, calling us not simply to admiration but to allegiance.

That matters.

It matters because the church is not built on vague spirituality. Our hope is not anchored in sentiment, tradition, or religious preference. Our hope is fixed on the person of Jesus Christ—who was, who is, and who is to come.

And when we know Jesus more clearly, we begin to know ourselves more honestly.

Peter writes:

“But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light.”
—1 Peter 2:9

That is who we are in Christ.

Chosen. Royal. Holy. His.

Not because we earned it. Not because we are impressive. Not because we finally got our act together. But because of the mercy, grace, and love of God revealed in Jesus.

And that identity comes with purpose.

We are called to “proclaim the excellencies” of the One who called us out of darkness. In other words, we are called to bear witness. We are called to live the mission.

For some, that may mean serving across the world. For others, it may mean walking across the street. It may mean inviting a neighbor to dinner, praying with a coworker, sharing the hope of Jesus with a family member, or simply being present with someone who is hurting.

One of the most powerful reminders from Sunday was that mission often looks like faithful presence. Eric shared stories of pastors in Myanmar traveling dangerous roads to encourage believers in the middle of instability and violence. Their presence mattered. Their obedience mattered. Their willingness to go because they belonged to Jesus mattered.

That challenges me.

Because if Jesus is truly Lord, then our lives are not our own. Our schedules, our resources, our comfort, our relationships, our words, our homes—all of it belongs to Him. And the question becomes: How does Jesus want to use what He has entrusted to me?

At QFMC, we often talk about our mission as:

Belong. Believe. Bear Fruit.

Sunday reminded us that bearing fruit is both local and global. It happens in Quincy, in our homes, in our workplaces, in our schools, and also through our prayers and financial support for brothers and sisters serving around the world.

The mission belongs to God. But by His grace, He invites us to participate.

So this week, I want to encourage you to sit with three questions:

Do I know Jesus as He truly is, or only as I have imagined Him to be?
Am I living out of the identity He has given me?
Where is He inviting me to live the mission this week?
Maybe there is a conversation you have been avoiding.
Maybe there is someone you need to forgive.
Maybe there is a neighbor you need to notice.
Maybe there is a missionary or ministry you need to support.
Maybe there is a renewed surrender Jesus is asking of you.

Whatever it is, don’t wait.

Know Jesus.
Know yourself.
Live the mission.

Living Before the Audience of One

Happy Father’s Day again to all the dads, grandfathers, and father-like figures in our church family. Fatherhood is a gift from God, and today we celebrate the men who have loved, led, sacrificed, encouraged, and shown up in ways both seen and unseen.

At the same time, we recognize that Father’s Day can carry sorrow for many. Some are grieving the loss of a father. Some long to be fathers. Some have complicated or painful stories connected to their dads. In the midst of celebration and sorrow, we remember this: God is our good Father. He is present, compassionate, near, and faithful.

And how fitting that, as we continue through the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus turns our attention to our Heavenly Father.

In Matthew 6, Jesus says:

“Be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of others to be seen by them.”
— Matthew 6:1

Jesus describes the Christian life as “practicing righteousness.” In other words, we are learning to live rightly. We are practicing a life that reflects the character and kingdom of God.

But Jesus presses into a deeper question: Who are we doing it for?

That question matters. A lot.

In fact, Jesus repeats the same idea three times in this passage. When He talks about giving, praying, and fasting, He says again and again:

“Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.”

Your Father sees.

Your Father knows.

Your Father rewards.

That is the heartbeat of this passage.

The Danger of Performing Our Faith

Jesus warns us not to turn our righteousness into a performance.

I love the way The Message paraphrases Matthew 6:1:

“Be especially careful when you are trying to be good so that you don’t make a performance out of it. It might be good theater, but the God who made you won’t be applauding.”

That is such a needed word.

We can do the right things for the wrong reasons. We can give, pray, serve, attend church, volunteer, sing, and participate in Christian activities — all while quietly hoping someone notices.

And if the applause of people is what we’re after, Jesus says that applause is the reward.

That’s it.

If we are living to impress others, then when they notice us, compliment us, thank us, or pat us on the back, we have received what we were working for.

But Jesus wants more for us than that.

The applause of people is fickle and fleeting. It comes and goes. People forget. Opinions change. Approval can disappear overnight.

But the affirmation of our Heavenly Father is different. It is lasting. It is soul-satisfying. It reaches places in us that human applause never can.

God is the audience of One.

And when we begin living for Him, it changes everything.

When You Give

Jesus does not say, “If you give.”

He says, “When you give.”

Giving is part of practicing righteousness. It is part of kingdom living. But again, Jesus goes straight to the heart.

Why do we give?

Do we give to be noticed?
Do we give to keep our name on a record somewhere?
Do we give because we feel guilty?
Do we give because we don’t want to look bad?

Or do we give because we are overwhelmed by the grace of God?

Do we give because we are grateful for His provision?
Do we give because we trust Him?
Do we give because our treasure and our hearts belong to Him?

Paul writes:

“Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.”
— 2 Corinthians 9:7

God is always looking at the heart.

When the offering is received, God is not merely watching the amount. He is watching the motive. He sees faithfulness. He sees trust. He sees sacrifice. He sees joy.

And your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.

When You Pray

Again, Jesus does not say, “If you pray.”

He says, “When you pray.”

Prayer is not meant to be a performance. It is not about impressing people with our words or sounding especially spiritual. Prayer is conversation with our Father.

God actually wants to hear from His children.

That should still amaze us.

The living God of the universe invites us to speak to Him. He wants us to bring our fears, needs, burdens, joys, gratitude, questions, and confusion to Him.

Paul says in Philippians 4:

“Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.”
— Philippians 4:6

That is easier to quote than to live, isn’t it?

Many of us are good worriers. Worry can feel natural. Prayer can feel like work. But Jesus invites us into something better.

Instead of worrying about everything, pray about everything.

And what happens when we pray?

“The peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”
— Philippians 4:7

That may be part of the reward Jesus is talking about.

Peace when circumstances are uncertain.
Joy when life is heavy.
Strength when we feel weak.
The quiet assurance that our Father hears us.

Your Father sees. Your Father hears. Your Father rewards.

When You Fast

Jesus also says, “When you fast.”

Fasting is probably the least practiced of the three disciplines Jesus mentions here. But fasting is a way of turning our hunger into prayer. It is a way of saying, “God, I need You more than I need this.”

When we give up food, or another regular appetite or habit, we create space to seek God more intentionally.

Fasting is not about looking miserable so others will think we are spiritual. It is not about drawing attention to ourselves. Jesus says to wash your face, comb your hair, and act normal.

In other words: don’t make a production out of it.

The goal of fasting is not to impress people. The goal is to draw near to God.

Sometimes we say, “I don’t have time to pray,” or “I don’t have time to read Scripture.” But fasting helps us confront the truth that we often make time for what we value.

Maybe we fast from a meal.
Maybe we fast from television.
Maybe we fast from social media.
Maybe we fast from noise.
Maybe we give up something that has occupied too much space in our hearts.

And in that space, we seek the Lord.

Your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.

The Motive Check

This passage invites all of us to do a motive check.

Why do I give?
Why do I pray?
Why do I fast?
Why do I serve?
Why do I attend church?
Why do I worship?
Why do I do the things I do?

Am I doing them for God?
Or am I doing them to be seen by others?

That is not always an easy question to answer. Our motives can be mixed. We can genuinely love God and still quietly crave recognition. We can serve faithfully and still feel hurt when no one notices.

But Jesus is freeing us from the exhausting need to perform.

We do not have to live for the applause of people.

We can live before our Father.

He sees what no one else sees. He knows the prayers no one hears. He sees the gifts no one applauds. He sees the sacrifices no one thanks us for. He sees the faithfulness that happens in quiet, ordinary places.

And He will reward.

Communion and Remembering Jesus

As we came to the Lord’s Table, we were reminded again that even communion can become routine if we are not careful.

We can take the bread and cup without much thought. We can go through the motions. Or we can pause and remember.

Jesus gave His body for us.
Jesus shed His blood for us.
Jesus paid for our sins.
Jesus gave us life.

Communion is not a performance. It is remembrance. It is worship. It is gratitude. It is an invitation to come again to the grace of Christ.

Paul writes:

“Whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus.”
— Colossians 3:17

Whatever you do.

Giving.
Praying.
Fasting.
Taking communion.
Going to work.
Raising kids.
Serving quietly.
Loving your spouse.
Sitting with grief.
Celebrating joy.
Living ordinary life.

Do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus.

Your Father Sees

So this week, remember the repeated promise of Jesus:

Your Father sees what is done in secret, and He will reward you.

Live for Him.

Pray to Him.

Give because of Him.

Fast to draw near to Him.

Serve with your eyes on Him.

And when no one else notices, remember: your Father does.

Who Is Hardest For You To Love Right Now?
(A Pastor’s Reflections on Loving Our Enemies)

When I stepped up to preach this past Sunday, I knew we were heading straight into the deep end.

Before we opened our Bibles, I asked a question that had already been messing with me all week:

Who is the hardest person for you to love right now?

Not in theory. In real life.

The person whose name makes your jaw tighten.
The one who betrayed your trust.
The neighbor, coworker, family member, or former friend you replay arguments with in your head.
The person you feel absolutely justified in resenting.
I asked you that question because I’ve had to ask it of myself. There are a couple of people in my own life right now—outside our congregation—who, when I think of them, all I feel is anger. I can list the things they’ve done. I can point to the hurt and confusion they’ve caused. And if I’m honest, my default response isn’t compassion. It’s, “How do I get back at them?” Not “How do I love them?”

I don’t say that proudly. I say it because I want you to know that when Jesus calls us to love our enemies, he isn’t just pressing on your heart. He’s pressing on mine too.

The Comfortable Circle We All Draw

In Matthew 5:43–48, Jesus ends this section of the Sermon on the Mount with what may be the hardest command he ever gave:

“You have heard that it was said, You must love your neighbor and hate your enemy. But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who harass you, so that you will be acting as children of your Father who is in heaven.” (Matt. 5:43–45 CEB)

In Jesus’ day, religious teachers had quietly shrunk the definition of “neighbor” down to “people like us.”

Fellow Jews? Neighbor.
Romans? Enemy.
Samaritans? Enemy.
Gentiles? Enemy.
The logic went like this: if “neighbor” means “our people,” then everyone else is optional. At best, you can ignore them. At worst, you can hate them and feel justified.

We might not divide the world into Jews and Samaritans, but we play the same game with different labels:

People who vote like me / people who don’t
People who share my values / people who reject them
People who treated me fairly / people who hurt me
People whose lives look “put together” / people whose brokenness is on display
People with my citizenship status / people without it
We build a circle. We decide who’s in and who’s out. Those on the inside get our patience, our generosity, our forgiveness. Those on the outside get suspicion, distance, or outright hostility.

And into that, Jesus simply says:
“Love your enemies. Pray for those who harass you.”

Not tolerate them.
Not politely ignore them.
Not just “stop talking about them so much.”

Love them.
Pray for them.

That command is impossible if love is based on how “deserving” someone is. Which is exactly why Jesus roots it somewhere else.

Our Love Isn’t About Their Worthiness

Jesus doesn’t tell us to love our enemies because:

they finally apologized,
they suddenly became safe people,
or they’ve “earned back” our good will.
He says:

“He [the Father] makes the sun rise on both the evil and the good and sends rain on both the righteous and the unrighteous.” (Matt. 5:45)

God gives basic, life-sustaining gifts—sun, rain, harvest, breath—to:

the one who worships Him, and
the one who curses His name.
That’s what theologians often call common grace (or, in our Wesleyan language, prevenient grace). Before any of us ever sought God, He was already seeking us. Before we ever loved Him, He was already pouring out love, provision, protection.

Even more than that, Scripture says this:

“While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”
“While we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son.”
(Romans 5:8, 10)

Every Christian is living proof that God loves His enemies.

So when Jesus commands, “Love your enemies,” He is not saying, “Pretend they didn’t hurt you,” or “Call evil good.” He is inviting us to love in a way that reflects our Father’s character, not our enemy’s worthiness.

Our love for difficult people is not primarily about who they are.
It’s about who our Father is.

Family Resemblance

As a dad, I see this all the time. People will look at one of my boys and say, “That expression is exactly you,” or, occasionally (and less flatteringly), “That dramatic reaction? Yep. That’s you too.”

Whether we like it or not, family resemblance shows up.

Jesus uses that reality to talk about spiritual maturity:

“So that you will be acting as children of your Father who is in heaven…” (Matt. 5:45)
“Therefore, just as your heavenly Father is complete in showing love to everyone, so also you must be complete.” (Matt. 5:48 CEB)

Many translations say, “Be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” The English word perfect throws most of us off. We hear “flawless, never sin, never fail,” and we feel defeated before we even start.

But the word Jesus uses carries the idea of being complete, mature, brought to full purpose. The CEB captures that sense: your Father is complete in showing love to everyone—you, too, grow into that kind of completeness.

Think of:

A child is complete as a child.
An adult is complete as an adult.
A rosebud is complete as a bud.
A blooming rose is complete as a full flower.
Jesus is saying:
“As you grow up in my kingdom, grow into the mature, full expression of love you were created for—the kind of love your Father shows.”

Then He gets really practical:

“If you love only those who love you, what reward do you have? Don’t even the tax collectors do the same?
And if you greet only your brothers and sisters, what more are you doing? Don’t even the Gentiles do the same?” (Matt. 5:46–47)

Anyone can love people who:

love them back,
agree with them,
benefit them.
You don’t need the Holy Spirit to do that. You just need basic human instincts.

Kingdom love is measured in the opposite direction:

The true measure of Christian maturity is not how well we love the people who are easy to love,
but how we treat the people who are hardest to love.

That’s where family resemblance really shows.

Looking at the Cross

If anyone ever had a right to withhold love, it was Jesus on the cross.

Betrayed by a close friend.
Abandoned by His disciples.
Falsely accused.
Beaten, mocked, tortured.
Nails driven through His hands and feet.
Struggling to breathe.
And in the middle of that—not after the resurrection, not once everything turned out okay—He prayed:

“Father, forgive them, for they don’t know what they’re doing.” (Luke 23:34)

He didn’t wait:

for them to apologize,
for them to “learn their lesson,”
for the pain to go away.
In the very moment of being sinned against, He chose intercession over retaliation. That’s what love of enemy looks like in its fullest, most cruciform form.

When Jesus tells us to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us, He isn’t standing at a distance giving hard commands. He is inviting us to walk a road He has personally walked—further and more perfectly than we ever will.

Where Do We Even Start?

Most of us, when we hear “love your enemies,” think of huge dramatic acts: reconciliation meetings, tearful apologies, restored relationships. And sometimes, by God’s grace, those things do happen.

But often, especially at the beginning, it’s much smaller and quieter.

For many of us (myself included), the first step is simply honest prayer.

Not polished prayer. Not pretending-you’re-over-it prayer. Just this:

“Lord, I don’t know how to love this person.
I don’t even want to right now.
All I feel is anger, hurt, or disgust.
But I know this is what you’ve called me to.
I know this is how you have loved me.

So I’m asking you:
Change my heart.
Teach me how to pray for them.
Help me see them the way you see them.
Make me more like you.”

It might be that all you can honestly pray for a while is, “God, I’m willing for you to make me willing.” That’s still a beginning.

From there, the Holy Spirit can slowly:

soften your heart,
loosen bitterness’s grip,
give you compassion you didn’t think was possible,
and, in some cases, open a road toward reconciliation or at least peace.
But even if reconciliation never happens (because sometimes the person is unrepentant, unsafe, or unavailable), your heart doesn’t have to stay chained to hatred. Christ really can free you to love in a new way—not sentimental, not naïve, but Christlike.

Building on the Foundation of Love

We ended our service singing:

“I will build my life upon Your love,
It is a firm foundation…”

That line captures exactly what Jesus is calling us to.

We don’t build our lives on:

our feelings toward others,
our enemies’ behavior,
or our culture’s tribal lines.
We build on God’s love:

His love given to us when we were His enemies.
His love poured out through Christ on the cross.
His love that sends sun and rain on the righteous and the unrighteous alike.
From that foundation, we can begin to extend love in places our flesh would never go on its own.

So let me return to where we started:

Who is the hardest person for you to love right now?

Hold their name before God.
Don’t justify the hurt or minimize it—He already knows.
Ask Him, even if through gritted teeth, “Lord, make me more like You.”
My prayer for you (and for myself) is this:

That we would increasingly look like our Father in heaven.
That people would see, in how we treat even our enemies, a family resemblance to Jesus.
And that our community would know we belong to Him not just because of what we believe, but because of how we love.

Grace and peace to you as you follow Jesus into this hard, beautiful, cruciform way.

On Preaching About Lust, Adultery, and Divorce (When You’d Rather Preach on Almost Anything Else)

I didn’t exactly volunteer for this passage.

As we laid out our teaching plan for the Sermon on the Mount, we realized we were moving too fast and needed to slow down. After rearranging some weeks, it became clear that I’d be preaching Matthew 5:27–32.

Lust. Adultery. Divorce.

There are easier Sundays.

I’ve dreaded this passage—not because I don’t understand what Jesus is saying, but because I understand it too well. I’ve lived inside this struggle. I’ve felt the shame. I’ve seen the damage. And I know how deeply personal these topics are for almost everyone in the room.

So I want to share, from a pastor’s perspective, what it’s like to preach a passage like this—and what I most long for you to hear beneath the hard words of Jesus.

1. Preaching When You’re Not “Above” the Text
One of the great illusions of pastoral ministry is that the preacher stands over the text—explaining it to everyone else, as if they themselves are somehow past it.

I can’t do that with this passage.

In full transparency, there have been seasons of my life where I’ve wrestled a lot with lust and pornography. That means I don’t preach this as someone untouched by the battle, but as someone who has scars from it, and who’s still learning how to walk in freedom.

Before I ever stand in front of a congregation with this text, it has already confronted me. It’s exposed me. It’s forced me back into confession, into deeper honesty with brothers, and into a fresh dependence on the grace of Jesus.

Pastors don’t get a separate, easier version of the Sermon on the Mount. We sit under the same Word.

And honestly, that’s part of why I wept while writing and practicing this sermon. This isn’t theory for me. It’s my story too.

2. Jesus Isn’t After Behavior Management
One of the most important things I wanted to make absolutely clear is this:

Jesus is not in the business of behavior modification.

He isn’t satisfied if we simply manage our image—look nice, say the right things, avoid obviously scandalous sins—while our hearts remain full of anger, contempt, lust, or hardness.

The flow of Matthew 5 is relentless:

Murder isn’t just about killing; it’s about anger and hatred.
Adultery isn’t just about sleeping with someone; it’s about lust in the heart.
Divorce isn’t just about paperwork; it’s about covenant unfaithfulness.
Jesus keeps pressing deeper, past the externals, into the hidden life of the heart. And that’s where most of us would rather He didn’t go.

But that’s exactly where His love insists on going.

If all He wanted was nice, compliant religious people who never slipped up too obviously, He could stop at “don’t commit adultery.” Instead, He says:

“Everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart.”

That’s not Jesus condemning desire itself or attraction or our sexuality. It’s Jesus exposing how sin twists a good gift.

3. Lust Turns Image-Bearers Into Objects
We live in a culture that swims in sexual imagery and then shrugs at lust.

Pornography is normalized.
Sex is used to sell everything from shampoo to cars.
“You can look, just don’t touch” is treated like wisdom instead of the slow erosion of the soul.
The world tells us: as long as nothing “physical” happens, it’s private, it’s harmless, it’s nobody’s business.

Jesus disagrees.

Lust, at its core, is not simply noticing beauty. It’s not the normal spark of attraction. Lust happens when we take an image bearer of God and turn them into an object for our own gratification—someone we consume in our imagination, not someone we honor as a person.

And here’s what I know personally: if you cultivate that in the hidden places of your mind and heart long enough, it doesn’t stay hidden. It will eventually shape how you see everyone. It will leak into your marriage, your friendships, your expectations of intimacy, your ability to love.

This is why Jesus goes so hard after it.

Not because He wants to shame you, but because lust is not neutral. It deforms your ability to love.

4. The Lie of Secrecy vs. the Way of the Kingdom
When you preach about lust and sexual sin, you can almost feel the room tighten. Shame surfaces quickly. And with shame often comes the instinct to hide.

The enemy loves that.

He whispers:

“It’s not that big of a deal.”
“At least you’re not doing anything.”
“If anyone knew, they’d reject you. Keep it to yourself.”
Secrecy feels like safety, but it’s actually the soil in which sin grows strongest.

One of the most important lines I preached—and one I deeply believe—is this:

Secrecy is where sin grows.
Confession is where healing begins.

James 5:16 says:

“Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, so that you may be healed.”

I’ve experienced this firsthand. I’ve sat in a discipleship band with brothers, spoken out loud what I wanted to keep hidden, and found that what I expected to bring rejection actually brought healing and strength.

If you’re stuck in cycles of lust or pornography, I promise you: white-knuckling alone in the dark will not free you. You need the body of Christ. You need confession and prayer.

Not public shaming. Not a microphone in front of the whole church.

A few trusted, godly brothers or sisters who will:

Listen without shock.
Tell you the truth without softening it.
Pray for you and walk with you, week after week.
5. Why Jesus Uses Such Extreme Language
When Jesus says:

“If your right eye causes you to stumble, tear it out… If your right hand causes you to stumble, cut it off…”

He is using vivid hyperbole. He’s not calling for self-harm.

What He is saying is: stop treating deadly things casually.

Don’t flirt with the trap that is slowly strangling your soul. Don’t domesticate sin. Don’t negotiate with what is actively destroying your capacity to love God and people.

In our world, that might mean:

Deleting certain apps.
Putting real filters and accountability on your devices.
Cutting off a “harmless” emotional affair or flirtation.
Changing media habits—what you watch, when you watch, and with whom.
Getting real counseling for deeply rooted patterns.
Is that radical? Yes. But Jesus never describes discipleship as casual.

6. Divorce, Covenant, and the Heart of God
The second half of the passage deals with divorce. For many people, this topic is even more painful than lust.

As a pastor, I feel the weight of this. I know that in any given congregation, there are:

Those who have been abandoned.
Those who have been betrayed.
Those who carry deep regret.
Those who did everything they could and still ended up divorced.
I want to be absolutely clear: Jesus’ teaching about divorce must never be used as a weapon to beat already-wounded people.

What Jesus is doing in Matthew 5 and later in Matthew 19 is not trying to heap extra shame on the already broken. He’s confronting a culture where men were casually discarding their wives for almost any reason: poor cooking, embarrassment, loss of attraction.

In that world, a divorced woman was often left vulnerable—financially, socially, and physically. Divorce wasn’t simply emotionally painful; it often meant poverty and social shame.

So when Jesus speaks strongly about divorce, He is:

Protecting the vulnerable.
Honoring the weight of covenant.
Refusing to let marriage be reduced to a disposable convenience or a contract of personal fulfillment.
He reminds us that marriage is meant to be:

A covenant, not just a contract.
A reflection of God’s faithful love for His people.
Something we fight for, not something we casually discard when it stops “making us happy.”
At the same time, Jesus acknowledges that divorce exists because sin exists. Hardness of heart, betrayal, abandonment, abuse—these things are real in a fallen world. And sometimes, tragically, marriages rupture under the weight of that brokenness.

If that’s your story, hear this: you are not beyond the reach of God’s grace. You are not a “second-class Christian.” You are not the exception to Christ’s love.

The church’s job is not to build a hierarchy of shame, but to:

Hold up Jesus’ high view of covenant.
Walk gently with those who carry the wounds of divorce.
Help couples prepare well for marriage.
Support marriages relentlessly, especially when they’re struggling.
7. The Same Jesus Who Exposes You Is the One Who Heals You
When you preach a passage like this, you can’t leave people with only conviction. If all we hear is, “Lust is serious, divorce is serious, sin is serious,” many will walk away crushed and hopeless.

But the heart of the gospel is this:

The same Jesus who exposes your sin is the Jesus who forgives your sin.
The same Jesus who calls you to holiness is the Jesus who gives you His Spirit.
The same Jesus who says, “Blessed are the pure in heart,” is the Jesus who is in the business of making hearts pure.
So as a pastor, here is what I long for you to know:

There is hope.

Hope for those entangled in pornography.
Hope for those experiencing the corrosive power of lust.
Hope for those in hard, fragile marriages.
Hope for those who carry the grief and scars of divorce.
Hope for those crushed under shame.
Jesus is not interested in you pretending to be pure until you die and go to heaven. He wants to begin healing you now. He wants to reorder disordered desires. He wants to gradually, deeply, genuinely make you new.

8. Two Concrete Steps You Can Take This Week
Whenever I preach on something this raw, I don’t want to leave it in the realm of vague inspiration. So here are two simple but costly steps you can actually take:

1. Bring your sin into the light.

Confess to a trusted believer.
Join (or form) a triad, quad, or discipleship band where confession and prayer are normal.
If appropriate and safe, be honest with your spouse.
Talk to a pastor, elder, or mature Christian mentor.
Don’t wait for “the perfect moment.” Healing doesn’t start in vague future intentions—it starts with honest steps in the present.

2. Remove what is feeding temptation.

Ask honestly:

What are the “right eye” and “right hand” in my life?
What consistently leads me toward sin?
What habits, devices, apps, environments, or relationships keep pulling me back into the same patterns?
Then take radical, practical steps to cut those off. Not later. This week.

Not because you’re trying to earn God’s love, but because you’re responding to His love by taking your own soul seriously.

A Pastor’s Prayer for You
As I preached, I ended with a benediction. Let me adapt that here as my prayer for you:

May the Lord who sees your heart
give you a new heart and a new spirit.
May He remove what is hard within you
and make you tender to His voice.
May He strengthen you to walk in holiness,
faithfulness, and love.
And may you know, in the deepest places of shame and struggle,
that His grace is greater than your sin,
and His power to make you new is real.

If you’re wrestling with any of this and need someone to talk to, confess to, or pray with—please don’t stay in the dark. Reach out. This is exactly what the church is for.

Jesus Heals Every Kind of Oppression
A Pastor’s Reflection on Partnering with God’s Mission, Here and in Africa

On Pentecost Sunday, as we gathered for worship, I was reminded again that we are part of something far larger than one local church in one small town.

We’re caught up in the singular mission of God.

Not many missions.

One mission.

And it stretches from Quincy to Tacoma to Liberia and beyond.

This weekend we had the joy of hosting Glenn and Wendy Lorenz, Free Methodist missionaries serving in Africa (and globally). Our church has partnered with them for years now—financially, yes, but also relationally. They’re not just a name on a list; they’re friends. They know us, and we know them.

What struck me as they shared wasn’t just the stories from Africa; it was how clearly they tied everything they do to what Jesus did, and how he did it.

And I’ve been thinking about that ever since.

What Did Jesus Actually Do?
In Acts 10:38, Luke summarizes Jesus’ ministry in one powerful sentence:

“God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and power,
and he went around doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil,
for God was with him.”

That one verse has been echoing in my mind.

Jesus went around:

doing good
healing all who were oppressed by the devil
in the power of the Holy Spirit
because God was with him.
But if we’re honest, that phrase “healing all who were oppressed by the devil” raises a question: how can Luke say “all”?

Jesus never visited every nation. He didn’t walk the streets of Quincy or Seattle or Nairobi. How can the Bible say he healed all who were oppressed by the devil?

What Glenn pointed out (and what I think Luke is getting at) is this: Jesus healed all kinds of oppression.

Every form the enemy takes to crush and distort human life—Jesus confronted it and brought healing:

physical oppression
spiritual oppression
emotional and psychological oppression
social and systemic oppression
When Luke says “all,” he’s not saying Jesus physically laid hands on every person in every age. He’s saying the range of what Jesus addressed was complete. There is no category of brokenness the enemy inflicts that Jesus does not have authority over.

That matters for how we understand our mission as a church.

Salvation Is Bigger Than We Think
We often use “salvation” only in terms of forgiveness of sins and going to heaven. Of course that’s central—but Scripture paints a much fuller picture.

In Luke’s Gospel, the same Greek word for “save” also gets translated “heal” or “make well.”

Jesus tells the bleeding woman, “Your faith has saved you; go in peace.”
With Zacchaeus, he says, “Today salvation has come to this house.”
In both cases, something more than a private, internal decision is happening:

The bleeding woman experiences physical healing and emotional peace.
Zacchaeus experiences social restoration—Jesus calls him “a son of Abraham,” pulling him back into the family he’d been functionally kicked out of.
Salvation in the New Testament is multi-dimensional:

Spiritually – reconciliation with God
Socially – reconciliation with God’s people
Emotionally – peace, identity, belonging
Physically – healing, provision, justice
That doesn’t mean we worship physical comfort; it means Jesus cares about all of who we are, and he calls his church to do the same.

Following Jesus’ Mission Statement
In Luke 4, Jesus stands up in the synagogue and reads Isaiah:

“The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
because he has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
and recovery of sight for the blind,
to

When Happiness and Holiness Collide: Reflections on the Beatitudes
(A Pastor’s Heart After Sunday)

Every Sunday, right before I step up to preach, I look around the room for a moment.

I see people I know are grieving.

I see people who are quietly hanging on by a thread.

I see people whose lives are going well, at least on the surface.

And I remember: every single one of us walked in carrying something we don’t fully understand, with desires we often can’t name, and with a hunger for happiness that doesn’t go away.

That’s why I love the Sermon on the Mount, and especially the Beatitudes.

Jesus does something both disarming and deeply confronting: He speaks directly to our desire to be happy—and then defines happiness in a way that cuts against almost everything our culture (and sometimes even the church) has told us.

“God Doesn’t Want You Happy, He Wants You Holy”?

If you grew up in certain church environments, you may have heard a version of this:

“God doesn’t want you to be happy; He wants you to be holy.”

The implication, of course, is: you can be a “good church person,” or you can be happy—but you can’t be both.

That’s a devastating lie.

Not because holiness doesn’t matter, but because it pits holiness against happiness—as though God were somehow against your joy.

In the opening lines of His greatest sermon, Jesus dismantles that thinking. He starts eight sentences in a row with the same word:

“Blessed…”

The Greek word is makarios—which carries the sense of “deeply happy,” “fortunate,” “favored.”

Jesus isn’t saying, “Ignore happiness; just be holy.”
He’s saying, “Let me show you what real happiness actually is.”

Holiness in the way of Jesus is not the enemy of happiness; it is the only path to the kind of happiness your heart was built for.

A Different Kind of Blessed Life

In the Beatitudes (Matthew 5:3–12), Jesus describes eight “blessed” people. Last week we walked through all eight; this week I want to lean into the latter half—but let me recap the flow.

Poor in spirit – Those who know they need God more than they need control, money, or self-sufficiency.
Those who mourn – Those emotionally honest enough to face grief and loss instead of numbing or pretending.
The meek – Those who accept God’s valuation of them: not self-hating, not self-exalting, but humble and grounded.
Those who hunger and thirst for righteousness – Those who deeply want what is right before God, more than image, comfort, or convenience.
And then we move into the last four:

Blessed are the merciful
Blessed are the pure in heart
Blessed are the peacemakers
Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness
These four press directly into how we live with other people, how we steward our inner life, and how we respond when following Jesus costs us something.

Let me reflect on each from a pastor’s perspective.

1. Blessed Are the Merciful

“Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.” (Matthew 5:7)

Our world is addicted to payback.

We nurse grudges, replay wounds in our minds, and quietly hope that those who hurt us will “finally get what’s coming to them.”

The problem is:
You have never met a happy, bitter person.

You’ve never met a joyful grudge-holder.
You’ve never met a peaceful person whose inner life is fueled by the desire for revenge.

But you have met people who have been deeply wronged, sometimes horrifically so, who somehow come out the other side softer, freer, and strangely joyful.

What’s the difference?

At some point, they decided:

Not to wait for an apology.
Not to wait for the other person to “own it.”
Not to insist on being paid back.
They extended mercy—exactly what the other person did not deserve.

Mercy is not pretending the wrong never happened.
Mercy is not calling evil “good.”
Mercy is choosing to release the right to revenge, to stop drinking the poison of bitterness in hopes that the other person will die.

Jesus says those people are blessed.
Why? Because when we show mercy, we are aligning ourselves with the heart of the Father.

“Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.” (Luke 6:36)

When we give others what they don’t deserve, we are doing what God has done for us in Christ. And Jesus promises: the merciful will be shown mercy.

As a pastor, I see this play out again and again. The most joyful people I know are often the ones who have forgiven the most.

2. Blessed Are the Pure in Heart

“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.” (Matthew 5:8)

This one ought to make all of us sit up a little straighter.

“See God”?
We toss that phrase around easily, but imagine:

Seeing clearly what God is doing in your life.
Discerning His will in confusing situations.
Recognizing His activity in the world around you.
How many times have we said:

“How did I miss that?”
“Why didn’t I see this coming?”
“How could I have been so blind?”
We often see more clearly in other people’s lives than in our own—especially if you’re a parent watching your child walk straight into something destructive, thinking, “Why can’t they see it?”

Jesus tells us that clarity is directly tied to purity of heart.
Purity leads to clarity.

In a culture that almost never uses the word “purity” except on a water bottle label, Jesus calls us back to it—not as prudish moralism, but as the pathway to actually seeing.

“Above all else, guard your heart,
for everything you do flows from it.” (Proverbs 4:23)

Everything flows from the heart.

Every decision
Every word
Every relationship
Every compromise
Every brave step of obedience
If the heart is compromised, clouded, divided, we shouldn’t be surprised when our vision is foggy.

God’s call to holiness is not Him trying to keep you from joy—it’s Him trying to clear your vision so you can see.

“Trust in the Lord with all your heart
and lean not on your own understanding;
in all your ways submit to him,
and he will make your paths straight.” (Proverbs 3:5–6)

As a pastor, I’ve watched people make decisions in seasons when their hearts were distracted, compromised, or divided—and then ask, “Why didn’t God show me?”

Often, the issue isn’t that God was silent; it’s that our hearts were too cluttered to hear or see.

Purity matters because God wants us to live with clarity, not confusion.

3. Blessed Are the Peacemakers

“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.” (Matthew 5:9)

We live in an age of outrage.

We can turn anything into a fight:

Politics
Climate
Guns
Parenting
Education
Even how we load the dishwasher
And underneath so many of these battles is that word: control.
Who gets to decide? Who gets to be in charge?

Into that world, Jesus says:

Blessed are the peacemakers.

Not peace-lovers.
Not peace-talkers.
Peacemakers.

The biblical word for peace is shalom: wholeness, completeness, inner rest, nothing missing, nothing broken.

God Himself is the God of peace, who sent the Prince of Peace, so He says those who make peace will be called His children—because they look like their Father.

Think about how powerful that is:

You are never more like God than when you restore rather than retaliate.
You are never more like God than when you move toward reconciliation instead of escalation.
You are never more like God than when you carry your inner wholeness into someone else’s chaos.
And here’s a key reality:
You cannot give away what you do not possess.

If there is no peace inside, you cannot create peace around you.
If you are living from fear, anxiety, or unresolved anger, your attempts at “peacemaking” will often just be conflict-avoidance or appeasement.

Paul writes:

“If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone.” (Romans 12:18)

“…Let us therefore make every effort to do what leads to peace and to mutual edification.” (Romans 14:19)

“As far as it depends on you.”
We can’t control how others respond. But we can control whether we:

Own our part.
Seek reconciliation.
Refuse retaliation.
Bring calm instead of fuel to the fire.
As a pastor, I’ve sat in living rooms, offices, and sanctuaries where relationships were crumbling—and I’ve seen the joy that erupts when reconciliation actually happens.

There is a deep, quiet happiness in being used by God to bring estranged people back together. Jesus calls that blessed.

4. Blessed Are the Persecuted

“Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 5:10)

This is the one we don’t like.

“Blessed” and “persecuted” do not sound like they belong in the same sentence.

But Jesus not only says it—He ends the Beatitudes by repeating it and making it personal:

“Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me.
Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven…” (Matthew 5:11–12)

Notice two crucial qualifiers:

“Because of righteousness”
“Because of me” (Jesus)
This is not a blessing on being obnoxious, rude, or self-righteous and then claiming, “I’m just being persecuted for my faith.”

If we’re being persecuted because we’re behaving badly, that’s on us.

Jesus is talking about the pushback that comes when we:

Stand for what is right in God’s eyes.
Speak truth in love.
Live differently in a culture with different values.
Align ourselves publicly with Jesus.
There is and always has been a value-system conflict between the way of Jesus and the way of the world.

You can see it clearly in areas like:

Sexual ethics
The value of human life (from womb to grave)
Integrity in business
Forgiveness vs. vengeance
Generosity vs. greed
When a follower of Jesus says, “This is not just a ‘condom problem,’ it’s a character problem and a sin problem,” that is not going to be universally applauded.

When someone refuses to cheat on an expense report, or won’t join in the gossip about the boss, they may become, as I said Sunday, a “moral irritation” to the people around them—like the student whose A on the test ruins the grading curve.

They’re not trying to show anyone up. They’re just living before God.
But their presence exposes the curve.

Sometimes, simply living a God-honoring life will make others uncomfortable.

And Jesus says: when that happens because of Me—remember you are blessed.

He doesn’t just say, “Endure it.”
He says, “Rejoice. Be glad. Your reward is great in heaven.”

The early Christians took that seriously—and many died for it.
Some of our brothers and sisters around the world still do.

As a pastor in North America, I know our experience of “persecution” is relatively light right now. But scripture is clear:

“Everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.” (2 Timothy 3:12)

The more seriously we follow Jesus, the more we will clash with the values of the world—and sometimes even with the values of nominal religion.

The question isn’t if there will be a cost; it’s whether we believe Jesus enough to call that cost a blessing.

So What Do We Do With This?

The Beatitudes are not a nice list of religious slogans.
They are Jesus’ description of a truly blessed life.

So let me turn this into a few questions for reflection—questions I’m asking myself, and I invite you to ask with me:

Am I merciful?

Is there someone I’m still holding hostage in my heart?
Am I secretly waiting for payback or an apology before I’ll let go?
Am I pure in heart?

What is clouding my vision right now?
Are there compromises, secret habits, or divided loyalties that are fogging my ability to see what God is doing?
Am I a peacemaker?

In my family? At work? In our church? Online?
Do I bring calm or chaos into tense situations?
Where might God be inviting me into the hard but holy work of reconciliation?
Am I willing to be persecuted for righteousness and for Jesus?

Do I shrink back from owning my faith because I’m afraid of what people might think?
Am I more concerned with being liked than being faithful?
None of this is about guilt for guilt’s sake.
It’s about alignment with the One who knows how life actually works.

A Pastoral Prayer for You (and for Me)

My prayer for you, and for our church family, is that we don’t just study the Beatitudes—we embody them.

That we would:

Trust God instead of our own control.
Face grief honestly and receive His comfort.
Walk in humility instead of self-obsession.
Long for righteousness more than reputation.
Extend mercy instead of revenge.
Guard our hearts so we can see God clearly.
Make peace in a world at war.
Stand firm when following Jesus costs us something.
And that, in all of this, we would discover what Jesus has promised all along:

The truly holy life is also the truly happy life—
because it is the life lived with Him.

Grace and peace to you this week. May you be blessed—and may you live as one who is.

On Being Truly “Blessed”: Reflections From a Pastor’s Heart

Yesterday I preached the opening lines of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:1–6). Today I’m still sitting with them, and honestly, they won’t let me go.

From a pastor’s perspective, it’s easy to talk about “blessing” in ways that line up neatly with our culture: stable job, healthy family, answered prayers, a sense that life is “up and to the right.” But as we listened to Jesus’ words together, I was reminded how thoroughly He redefines what it means to be blessed.

The Beatitudes don’t just tweak our definition; they overturn it.

The Bible as a Mirror, Not a Trophy Case
One thing I emphasized yesterday—and that I have to keep reminding myself of—is this:

We do not read the Bible to feel good about ourselves.

We read the Bible like a mirror:

to see where our lives align with God’s will and character
and where they don’t.
As a pastor, I don’t stand above Jesus’ words, explaining them to everyone else as if I’ve mastered them. I stand under His words with you. There are parts of the Sermon on the Mount that genuinely unsettle me—because they’re so direct, so searching, and so honest about the things I still wrestle with.

But this is where discipleship begins: letting Jesus hold up the mirror and refusing to look away.

“Blessed” Does Not Mean What We Think It Means
The word Jesus uses—makarios—is often translated “blessed.” It can mean “happy” or “highly favored,” but not in the shallow, circumstance-dependent way we usually think of happiness.

It’s not:

“I got the promotion—blessed.”
“Our vacation pictures look amazing—blessed.”
“Everything is working out—blessed.”
Instead, Jesus speaks of a deeper, sturdier joy rooted in something eternal. Blessedness in the kingdom is:

an infinitely higher and better thing than mere happiness.

And then He starts naming the blessed ones:

the poor in spirit
those who mourn
the gentle (or meek)
those who hunger and thirst for righteousness
If we’re honest, none of these sound like the people we’d put on a “Most Blessed” brochure. They sound like the people we’d pity—or avoid.

And that’s the point.

Communion and the Beatitudes: The Same Posture
In our service, before we read Jesus’ words, we came to the Lord’s Table.

At communion we:

confess that we have sinned
admit that we are hopeless without God’s grace
remember that only through Jesus’ death and resurrection are we made right with God
We don’t bring trophies to the table. We don’t bring spiritual résumés. We come with empty hands and open need.

And Jesus says:

That is what blessing looks like.

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”
“Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.”

The doorway into the “good life” in God’s kingdom is not strength but honesty. It’s not arrival; it’s admission of need.

Facing Reality: Poor in Spirit & Those Who Mourn
When Jesus says, “poor in spirit,” He’s not talking about low self-esteem. He’s describing people who finally tell the truth:

“I don’t have what it takes. I need God. More than breath in my lungs, I need Him.”

Scripture tells a story that explains why this is so hard for us. In Genesis 3, Adam and Eve decide to define good and evil for themselves. They stop trusting God’s word and start trusting their own judgment. That’s the moment sin fractures everything.

We’ve been doing the same thing ever since:

“I know what’s best.”
“I can handle it.”
“I can go my own way.”
Being poor in spirit means rejecting that lie. It’s spiritual clarity: Something is broken in me. I can’t fix it myself.

And then Jesus blesses those who mourn—who look at the effects of sin (in their own lives and in the world) and don’t look away, don’t numb out, don’t pretend. They grieve what is not as it should be.

As a pastor, I sit often with people who are mourning:

broken relationships
failing health
prodigal children
deep loneliness
the death of someone they love
And I’m reminded that Jesus doesn’t call mourning a detour from blessing. He names it as a place of blessing—not because loss is good, but because it’s often in that honest, painful, undistracted place that we finally reach for God with both hands.

The World Says “Climb”; Jesus Says “Be Gentle”
Here’s where the Sermon on the Mount cuts right across our instincts:

“Blessed are the gentle (meek), for they shall inherit the earth.”

In the world’s system, the gentle don’t inherit anything. They get stepped on. Overlooked. Outpaced. We’re taught—subtly and constantly—that you must:

get ahead before someone else does
prove yourself
secure your position
protect your interests
And without realizing it, many of us baptize that attitude in Christian language:

“I’m just being a good steward of my opportunities.”
“I’m just trying to lead.”
“I’m just trying to protect my family.”
But if I’m honest with myself, much of my striving is not stewardship—it’s fear. It’s self-preservation cloaked in religious language.

Biblically, meekness is not weakness. It’s:

strength under God’s control
power that refuses to serve self first
a posture that says, “I could push my weight around—but I won’t. Not my will, but Yours be done.”
And here’s the surprise: it’s the gentle who inherit the earth.

Not the loudest.
Not the most aggressive.
Not the flashiest.

Those who entrust themselves to a good Father, who knows what they need and will provide it in His time.

As a pastor, I feel this tension. Part of me whispers:

“If you don’t assert yourself, you’ll be ignored. If you don’t push, nothing will happen.”

But Jesus is calling me—and you—to trust that the way of the cross is wiser than the way of control.

What Are You Hungry For, Really?
Jesus continues:

“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.”

Everyone is hungry for something:

security
validation
comfort
distraction
achievement
control
And we go to whatever is most available to us:

more work
more entertainment
more possessions
more affirmation
more religious activity (yes, even that can be a substitute)
The problem isn’t our hunger. Hunger is a gift. Hunger tells us we were made for more.

The problem is where we go to satisfy it.

Righteousness, in Matthew’s gospel, is not just rule-keeping. It’s:

right relationship with God
right relationship with others
life aligned with God’s heart and ways
Jesus is describing people whose deepest longing is:

“I want to be right with God. I want my life to line up with His will. I want what’s broken—between me and Him, and between me and others—to be healed.”

And He promises:

“They shall be satisfied.”

Not entertained.
Not briefly distracted.
Satisfied.

Satisfaction Has a Name
That word “satisfied” is easy to misunderstand. It doesn’t mean:

you’ll always get the outcomes you want
God will smooth out every hardship
life will suddenly be free of discomfort
When Jesus talks about living water in John 4, He’s talking to a woman who’s been going from relationship to relationship, well to well, trying to find something that lasts. He doesn’t rebuke her hunger—He redirects it.

“Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again,
but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty forever.” (John 4:13–14)

He’s saying: I am the satisfaction you’re looking for.

So when He says, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,” He’s not saying, “Try harder to be good.” He’s inviting us to find our deepest fulfillment in Him—in:

being reconciled to God
living in step with His Spirit
allowing Him to define what’s good, true, and beautiful
Over time, as we come to Him again and again, other “satisfactions” start to lose their hold.
The things that once ruled us become exposed for what they are: temporary, shallow, unable to bear the weight of our souls.

A Different Way of Being Human
If you put these Beatitudes together, you don’t just get a list of spiritual sayings—you get a new way of being human:

Poor in spirit: honest about our need for God
Those who mourn: honest about the brokenness of sin
Gentle/meek: surrendering strength to God instead of using it for self
Hungering and thirsting for righteousness: deeply desiring God’s will and presence more than anything else
This is not how our culture works. If you live this way, you will feel out of step sometimes. You might feel “behind” according to the world’s scorecard.

But from Jesus’ perspective, you’re not behind at all. You’re actually becoming more fully alive.

So What Do We Do With This?
From my perspective as a pastor, I don’t want you to walk away from the Beatitudes thinking:

“I need to try harder to be poor in spirit.”
“I need to push myself to mourn more.”
“I need to force myself to be meek.”
“I need to generate a hunger for righteousness.”
The invitation is simpler and deeper:

Come to Jesus with what is actually true of you right now.

If you feel strong and self-sufficient—honestly tell Him that, and ask Him to show you your need.
If you are mourning—bring your grief to Him and let Him meet you there.
If you recognize your tendency to control—confess it and ask Him to teach you gentleness.
If your hunger has been poured into a dozen other things—name them, lay them down, and ask Him to awaken in you a real hunger for His righteousness.
We practiced this at the communion table, but that invitation is open every moment of your life.

Right in the place where you feel most:

needy
ashamed
confused
tired
empty
He meets you. Not when you’ve cleaned things up, not when you’ve “become” the Beatitudes, but when you come honestly with your lack.

That, according to Jesus, is where blessing truly begins.

A Pastoral Blessing for You
Let me end with a simple pastoral benediction, echoing what I spoke over our church:

May you be a person who:

recognizes your need
grieves what is broken
surrenders your strength to Jesus
and hungers and thirsts for the righteousness that only He can give
And may you discover—in ways that surprise you—that this is where true blessing, true joy, and true life really begin.

Grace and peace,
Pastor Ryan

He Is Risen… Now What?
Reflections on Hearing – Really Hearing – the Sermon on the Mount

Yesterday, as I stood in front of our church family and said, “He is risen,” I could feel the weight and wonder of those words in the room. Some of you came in full of joy. Others came in heavy, grieving, anxious, or numb. And yet the same invitation of the risen Christ was extended to each of us:

“Come boldly to the throne of grace. Bring all of it. I’m alive, and I’ve already won the victory.”

That’s the starting point for everything we talked about yesterday, and it’s the only way to honestly approach what came next: hearing the Sermon on the Mount.

Why We Started Our Series This Way

For months, as a teaching team, we’ve been talking about how to handle Matthew 5–7. The Sermon on the Mount is often called “the greatest sermon ever preached,” but it’s more than that. It’s Jesus describing:

what His kingdom is like,
what life looks like for His disciples here and now,
what it actually means to belong to Him and bear fruit for Him.
We decided to begin this “mini-series” within Matthew by doing something very simple and very counter-cultural: we just listened.

Before explaining.
Before dissecting.
Before debating.
Before asking, “What does this mean for me?”

We asked a prior question:

Am I willing to hear Jesus speak?

So we read Matthew 5:3–7:27 straight through—Jesus’ own words, without commentary. That in itself is an act of surrender.

A Hillside, a Rabbi, and a Crowd Like Us

Matthew sets the scene like this:

“Now when Jesus saw the crowds, he went up on a mountainside and sat down. His disciples came to him, and he began to teach them.” (Matt. 5:1–2)

Jesus wasn’t in a classroom or a church building. He was on a hillside. The crowd around Him was a mix:

the curious,
the desperate,
the skeptical,
the hungry,
the broken.
Not that different from a Sunday morning crowd in our sanctuary.

His disciples drew close—not because they understood everything, but because they wanted to be near Him. He was their rabbi. They wanted to learn how to see, think, love, and live like Him.

And then Jesus began to teach—not just about “religion,” but about life:

anger,
lust,
marriage and divorce,
enemies,
giving,
prayer,
fasting,
money,
worry,
judgment,
discernment,
obedience.
He painted a picture of a kind of life that is actually good—a life that reflects the heart of God and stands firm when the storms hit.

Hearing the Sermon on the Mount Hurts (and Heals)

If you listened carefully yesterday, you likely felt a mix of things. I did too.

Some of Jesus’ words are deeply comforting:

“Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.”
“Your Father knows what you need before you ask Him.”
“Do not worry about tomorrow.”
“Ask… seek… knock…”
Other words are confronting and unsettling:

“Anyone who is angry with a brother or sister will be subject to judgment.”
“Anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.”
“Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.”
“Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”
“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven…”
There are phrases that almost make you want to say, “Jesus, I can’t do that. That feels impossible.”

And in a very real way, that reaction is the point. The Sermon on the Mount is not a cozy inspirational quote for your wall; it’s a radical invitation into a new life that we cannot live apart from the grace and power of Jesus.

Discipleship: More Than Agreeing With Jesus

As a church, we’ve defined a disciple this way:

A disciple is one who surrenders to Jesus, obeys His commands, reflects His goodness, and makes other disciples.

Notice what’s missing:

“A disciple is someone who knows a lot about the Bible.”
“A disciple is someone who agrees with Christian doctrine.”
“A disciple is someone who goes to church.”
Those things have value, but Jesus ends His sermon with a far sharper distinction:

“Everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock…
Everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand.” (Matt. 7:24–27)

Both people heard.
Both people “knew.”
The difference was obedience.

It’s uncomfortable to say this out loud, but I need to:
My life is not built on what I know or agree with. It’s built on what I actually obey.

That’s confronting for me as a pastor, not just for you as a congregant. I can preach sermons about loving enemies and still avoid the difficult person in my life. I can teach about worry and still stay up at night rehearsing worst-case scenarios.

The Sermon on the Mount exposes that gap between what we profess and how we actually live.

And yet—it does so as an act of love.

The Loving Confrontation of Jesus

I confessed yesterday that there are sections of this teaching that I would honestly like to skip. They cut too close. They expose my own sin, my own self-righteousness, my own comfort.

But the very places where we bristle are often the places where Jesus is doing His most loving work.

Why? Because the things He confronts in us—lust, anger, contempt, hypocrisy, greed, worry, judgment—are not small quirks. They are destructive. They destroy marriages, families, churches, communities, souls.

It is not unloving for Jesus to say, “Beloved, that way leads to death. Come out of it. I have something better for you.”

It may feel harsh at first, but underneath is the heart of a Savior who looks at us in all our brokenness and says:

“You’re a mess.
You’re My mess.
And I love you.
I want to make you whole.”

The Question for This Week: Will I Listen?

Over the next several weeks, we’re going to move slowly through the Sermon on the Mount. We’ll take it section by section and ask together:

What is Jesus actually saying here?
Where does this confront my current way of living?
How is He inviting me to change, repent, or trust Him more?
What would obedience look like in my real life?
But before all of that, we have to begin with a simpler, deeper question:

Will I listen to Jesus and begin to build my life on His words?

Not: “Will I admire His teaching?”
Not: “Will I debate the finer points?”
Not: “Will I apply this to other people who really need to hear it?”

Will I listen?
Will you listen?

Will we let His words have authority over:

our anger,
our sexuality,
our marriages and singleness,
our money and possessions,
our anxieties,
our relationships,
our enemies,
our secret lives?
That is the real fork in the road between the house on the rock and the house on the sand.

A Simple Practice: Pay Attention to Where You Bristle

One practical step for this week:

As you reread Matthew 5–7 (and I strongly encourage you to do that), notice your internal reactions.

Where do you feel comforted?
Where do you feel convicted?
Where do you feel defensive, cynical, or overwhelmed?
Where are you tempted to say, “That can’t possibly be what He means,” simply because you don’t want it to be?
Instead of running from those places, bring them to Jesus in prayer:

“Lord, this part makes me bristle.
I don’t like it. It feels impossible.
If this really is Your word, I need Your grace.
Change my heart. Show me what obedience looks like here.
Help me trust that Your way is better than mine.”

That honest, humble posture is where transformation begins.

Building on the Firm Foundation of His Love

We ended our gathering by singing, “I will build my life upon Your love, it is a firm foundation.” That line is not sentimental. It’s deeply connected to Jesus’ closing image in the Sermon on the Mount.

We don’t build our lives on:

our own willpower,
our performance,
our spiritual résumé,
our theological precision.
We build on His love—demonstrated at the cross and proven in the empty tomb.

The same Jesus who says, “Love your enemies,” is the One who loved His enemies all the way to death.
The same Jesus who says, “Do not worry,” is the One who holds your future in His pierced hands.
The same Jesus who says, “Be perfect,” is the One who gives you His righteousness as a gift.

Obedience to the Sermon on the Mount is not the ladder we climb to earn God’s love; it is the response of people who have already been radically loved and rescued.

As Your Pastor

Let me end this the way I ended yesterday:

You and I are, in many ways, broken messes.
And Jesus looks at us and says, “You’re Mine. I love you. I want to make you whole.”
So as we walk through the Sermon on the Mount in the coming weeks:

Don’t run from the hard parts.
Press into them.
Take them to the Lord.
Ask for grace to obey, not just to understand.
My prayer for you—and for myself—is that we would be people who don’t just admire the words of Jesus, but actually build our lives on them. That when the rains come, the streams rise, and the winds beat against our lives (and they will), we would stand— not because we are strong, but because our foundation is.

He is risen.
He is alive.
His words are still speaking.

Let’s listen. And let’s build.

Easter Sunday is always full.

Full of music, full of color, full of familiar words and faces. Full of visitors who said “yes” to an invitation and are now wondering quietly if it was a good idea. Full of long-time believers who know the rhythms of this day by heart.

But underneath all of that, it’s full of something else too.

Questions.

You can feel it in the room—especially on a day like Easter—this quiet, honest wondering that lives underneath our schedules, our smiles, and even our songs:

Does any of this actually matter?
Is there anything more than this—this life I’m living right now?
Is there any help here? Any healing here—for me?
As a pastor, I carry my own version of those questions too. I’ve had more than one season where the quiet title for my life could have been something like, “This Is Not How It Was Supposed to Go.” From the heavy things—losing loved ones, walking through my mom’s strokes—to the “ordinary” disappointments and frustrations that stack up over time, I know that sense of:

“This isn’t how I thought it would be by now.” “This is not the way it was supposed to be.”

If you’ve ever thought that, you are not alone—and you’re not wrong.

When We Feel the Weight of “Not Supposed to Be”
What’s surprising is how the big things and the small things often sit in the same place inside us. The medical diagnosis and the unending to-do list. The grief that lingers and the habit we thought we’d outgrow by now. The broken relationship and the quiet anxiety that won’t turn off.

They all leave us with that same ache: something is off; something is unfinished.

Then Easter comes.

We get dressed, we show up, we sing the songs, maybe we take communion, maybe our kids hunt for eggs. And for many people—maybe for you—the question remains on the car ride home:

“Does anything actually change because of this? Or is this just a meaningful moment in an otherwise unchanged life?”

If all Easter is, is a yearly tradition, then eventually we just walk back into the same unresolved stories we brought in with us. That’s true whether you’re new to church or you’ve been around church your whole life.

But that’s not the whole story.

Jesus Felt It Too
You are not crazy for feeling like the world is not the way it’s supposed to be.

Jesus felt that too.

There’s a moment in the Gospels where Jesus looks over Jerusalem and He weeps. He sees the brokenness, the lostness, the confusion, the pain. And He feels it deeply. It’s as if He’s saying, “This is not the way it was meant to be.”

But He did more than feel it.

He entered into it. He carried it. He allowed it to crush Him on the cross.

And then—He walked out of the grave.

When Jesus rose from the dead, it proved something decisive:

Physical death does not have the final word.
Emotional death does not have the final word.
The death of hope does not have the final word.
The death of expectations—of the way we thought life would go—does not have the final word.
If death does not have the final word, then neither does brokenness. Neither does the diagnosis. Neither does the failed marriage, the anxiety, the addiction, the grief or the long, quiet ache you can’t quite name.

That’s not wishful thinking. That’s resurrection reality.

But it doesn’t always feel that way, does it?

And that’s where Mary Magdalene’s story becomes so important.

Mary at the Tomb: Standing in the “In-Between”
John 20 gives us a front-row seat to the first Easter morning.

Mary comes to the tomb early, “while it was still dark.” That’s not just a time-stamp; it’s a description of where her heart is. She loved Jesus deeply. He had set her free. Her life had been completely changed by Him.

And now, as far as she knows, the story is over.

Jesus is dead. Hope is buried. The best part of her life is behind her.

So she comes to the tomb not expecting resurrection, but to deal with reality as she understands it. She’s grieving. She’s trying to make sense of what’s left.

When she sees the stone rolled away, she doesn’t think, “He’s alive!” She thinks, “Something else has gone wrong.” She runs to Peter and John: “They have taken the Lord from the tomb, and we don’t know where they’ve put him.”

Peter and John race to the tomb, see the grave clothes, and then… they go home.

Mary stays.

And there she is—standing in that space so many of us know:

The space between what God has done and what we can see.
The space between resurrection being true and resurrection being experienced.

She is standing in front of an empty tomb, and it still feels like nothing has changed.

That’s where some of us live:

We’ve prayed, we’ve hoped, maybe we’ve even believed…and we open our eyes and nothing looks different.
We’re trying to do the “right things,” and we still quietly ask, “God, are you doing anything here?”
Mary weeps at the tomb. She bends down, sees two angels, and they ask her, “Woman, why are you crying?”

Her answer is very human, very familiar:

“They have taken away my Lord, and I don’t know where they put him.”

She’s still trying to solve it. She’s still trying to explain the empty tomb. She is not looking for a risen Savior. She is looking for an explanation.

Again, that’s us. We want to make sense of a life that doesn’t feel like it’s supposed to be this way.

Then, everything changes—quietly, personally.

The Moment Jesus Says Her Name
Mary turns around and sees Jesus, but she doesn’t recognize Him. She thinks He’s the gardener. That’s not a bad guess; who else would be there this early?

Even standing face to face with the risen Christ, she doesn’t see Him for who He is.

Because resurrection is simply beyond her imagination.

So Jesus does something incredibly simple and incredibly profound.

He calls her by name.

“Jesus said to her, ‘Mary.’”

Not “Ma’am.”
Not “Follower.”
Not “Faithful disciple.”

Mary.

The same voice that once called her out of darkness now calls her again. The same voice that knew her story—her whole story—speaks directly to her.

And in that moment, everything that was abstract becomes personal.
Everything that was unimaginable becomes undeniable.

Her circumstances haven’t suddenly rearranged. Rome is still in power. The religious leaders who orchestrated the crucifixion are still free. The disciples are still fearful and scattered.

But Mary has encountered the risen Jesus. She has heard Him say her name.

That’s when she recognizes Him: “Rabboni!” (Teacher).

This is how resurrection becomes real. Not first as an idea we fully understand, but as a Person who meets us and calls us by name—even while our grief and confusion are still very much present.

This is how Jesus still meets people.

Resurrection Is Not Just a Story, It’s an Encounter
Mary doesn’t then sit down and work out a complete theology of resurrection. Jesus doesn’t give her a detailed explanation. He gives her a mission.

“Go to my brothers and sisters and tell them…”

The one who came in grief now goes out in witness:

“I’ve seen the Lord.”

She doesn’t go because she has all the answers.
She goes because she has met Him.

That’s the pattern:

Jesus meets us in the middle of our “this isn’t how it was supposed to be.”
He calls us by name.
He changes the direction of our life—not always our circumstances, at least not right away—but our trajectory.
And then He sends us back into the same world, the same city, the same relationships, the same job… as people who have encountered the risen Christ.

What Easter Means for Your Story
This is why Easter matters for the questions you’re carrying right now.

Easter is not just the announcement that Jesus rose from the dead back then.

Easter is the declaration that:

This is not the end of your story.

The grief you carry is not the last chapter.
The anxiety you can’t shake is not the last chapter.
The failure that haunts you is not the last chapter.
The diagnosis, the loneliness, the confusion, the “I thought I’d be further along by now”—none of that is the last chapter.
Because Jesus is alive, what feels final is not final.
What feels hopeless is not hopeless.
What feels beyond repair is not beyond redemption.

And maybe most importantly:

You don’t have to carry it alone anymore.

God Loves You. Really.
I know that can sound like a cliché, especially on Easter Sunday. But sit with it for a moment:

God.
Loves.
You.

Not the cleaned-up future version of you.
Not the religiously polished version of you.
You—as you are today.

Jesus knows your name.
He knows your story.
He knows what you walked in with, what you cried about this week, what you’re afraid to say out loud.

And He moves toward you, not away from you.

He died for you.
He rose for you.

As a pastor, that’s not just a line I’m supposed to say. It is the only hope I have for my own life and the lives of the people I shepherd.

Because if Jesus is not alive, then honestly, all we have is tradition and sentiment. But if He is alive, then everything—everything—is different.

If You’ve Never Surrendered to Jesus
If you’ve never actually surrendered your life to Jesus—beyond just liking the idea of Him—Easter is a beautiful time to turn toward Him.

I won’t sugarcoat it: following Jesus is not a quick fix.

It doesn’t mean everything in your life will suddenly fall into place.
It doesn’t mean your questions will instantly disappear.
It does mean a new direction.
A new center.
A new way to live, not alone but with Him.

It means learning to bring your real life—your fears, sins, hopes, and hurts—to a real Savior again and again. And you don’t do it alone. You do it in community, with other imperfect people trying to follow Him too.

You don’t need perfect words.
You don’t have to have it all figured out.

You can turn to Him today—honestly, simply:

“Jesus, I need you.
I can’t fix myself.
I believe you died for me and rose again.
Forgive me.
Lead me.
Make me new.”

If that’s where you are, reach out to someone who follows Jesus. Talk to a pastor, a friend, someone in your church. Don’t carry it alone.

If You Already Belong to Him
If you already belong to Jesus, Easter is an invitation to bring again to Him what you’re carrying:

The thing that still hasn’t changed, even after years of prayer.
The ache that whispers, “This is not how it was supposed to be.”
The areas you’ve quietly taken back control and tried to manage without Him.
You don’t have to pretend. You don’t have to be “strong.” You don’t have to act like you’ve figured it all out.

Bring it into the presence of the risen Christ.

Like Mary, you may not walk away with everything solved, but you can walk away having encountered Him again. And that changes how you carry what you carry.

A Moment of Stillness
One of the small but important things we try to do in our services is to create a moment of silence. Just a breath in the middle of the noise. A chance to ask:

“Lord, what am I carrying right now that feels like it’s not the way it’s supposed to be—and that I need to bring to you?”

You don’t need to wait for Sunday to do that.

You can pause even now, as you read this. Name that thing before Him. Picture yourself like Mary, standing at the tomb with tears in your eyes, grief in your chest, confusion in your mind—and then hear Him say your name.

He is not far. He is not indifferent. He is not done.

Communion and the Empty Tomb
Every time we come to the Lord’s table, we remember:

His body, given for us.
His blood, shed for the forgiveness of sins.
But we also remember:
The tomb is empty.

The One who said, “This is my body…this is my blood” is not a memory. He is not a concept. He is alive, and by His Spirit He meets us—even now.

We come to the table not because we’ve been good enough, but because He has been faithful enough.

“You who truly and earnestly repent of your sins…draw near with faith…”

That invitation is as real on a random weekday as it is on Easter Sunday.

As We Go
At the end of our Easter services, we said it again and again:

“He is risen.”
“He is risen indeed.”

Because He is alive:

What feels hopeless is not hopeless.
What feels final is not final.
What feels beyond repair is not beyond redemption.
You may walk back into the same circumstances this week. But you do not walk back as the same person—or with the same resources.

You go with the risen Christ.
You go with the One who calls you by name.
You go with the One who promises, “I am with you always.”

So whatever you are carrying today, you don’t have to carry it the same way you did yesterday.

Not because everything is instantly fixed.
But because Jesus is alive.

And that changes everything.

He is risen.
He is risen indeed.

Palm Sunday is one of those days in the church calendar that we can easily reduce to crafts, palm branches, and maybe a childhood memory of a flannelgraph Jesus sliding off a felt donkey.

For some of us, it’s memories of sword-fighting in fifth grade with palm branches. For others, it’s just “that Sunday before Easter” when we sing a couple of extra upbeat songs.

But the first Palm Sunday was far more than a cute story or a children’s object lesson. It was the trigger event that started the most important week in human history since creation.

And it all began with a donkey, a parade, and a weeping King.

The Week That Changed the World

When you read the Gospels, Jesus’ entire public ministry is covered in 61 chapters of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

But his final week?
That one week fills 29 chapters.

God clearly wants us to notice this week.

In that week:

Jesus turned over the tables in the temple.
He washed His disciples’ feet.
He shared the Last Supper and instituted communion.
He was betrayed, abandoned, falsely accused, convicted of blasphemy.
He was beaten nearly to death and nailed to a cross.
He died for the sins of the world.
And on the first day of the week, He rose from the dead, defeating sin and death.
Palm Sunday is the doorway into all of that. And it starts with a very strange command:

“Go get a donkey.”

1. Doing What Jesus Says (Even When It Doesn’t Make Sense)

Matthew 21:1–3 tells us:

As they approached Jerusalem and came to Bethphage on the Mount of Olives,
Jesus sent two disciples, saying to them,
“Go to the village ahead of you, and at once you will find a donkey tied there, with her colt by her.
Untie them and bring them to me.
If anyone says anything to you, say that the Lord needs them, and he will send them right away.”

We aren’t told which two disciples He sent. And that might be the point. It could have been any two.

Can you imagine the conversation between them on the way?

“So… we’re just going to untie a stranger’s donkey and walk off with it?”
“Yep.”
“This sounds like stealing, right?”
“Kind of.”
“And our explanation is… ‘The Lord needs it’?”

Imagine trying that with someone’s car:

“Hey, why are you taking my car?”
“The Lord needs it.”

They didn’t understand everything—but they obeyed.

Matthew pauses the story to explain why the donkey mattered:

This took place to fulfill what was spoken through the prophet:
“Say to Daughter Zion,
‘See, your king comes to you,
gentle and riding on a donkey,
and on a colt, the foal of a donkey.’”
—Zechariah 9:9 (written ~500 years earlier)

God had said “donkey” centuries before. So “donkey” it was.

The disciples didn’t know they were helping fulfill ancient prophecy. John later admits:

At first his disciples did not understand all this.
Only after Jesus was glorified did they realize that these things had been written about him and that these things had been done to him.
—John 12:16

They understood after, not before.

That’s often how obedience works. Understanding is not a prerequisite to obedience.

Sometimes, Jesus simply says, “Go get the donkey.”
Our job is to go get it—even when:

It feels odd.
It doesn’t seem “important.”
We’re not sure how it’ll turn out.
In your life, it probably won’t be an actual donkey. But you already know some of the things He’s said:

“Do to others as you would have them do to you.”
“Forgive.”
“Give, and it will be given to you.”
The question isn’t whether we know these things. The question is whether we’re doing them.

Palm Sunday invites us to ask:
Will I do what Jesus says, even before I fully understand why?

2. Seeing What Jesus Sees

Palm Sunday is noisy in our imaginations:

People shouting “Hosanna!”
Palm branches waving like national flags.
Coats spread on the road like a first-century red carpet.
It feels like a victory parade. In our day, we might compare it to a championship parade after the Super Bowl—crowds everywhere, many of them not entirely sure what they’re celebrating, just caught up in the moment.

But something happened during that parade that most of the crowd didn’t see.

Matthew, Mark, and John don’t mention it.
Only Luke records it:

As he approached Jerusalem and saw the city, he wept over it and said,
“If you, even you, had only known on this day what would bring you peace—but now it is hidden from your eyes.
The days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment against you and encircle you and hem you in on every side.
They will dash you to the ground, you and the children within your walls.
They will not leave one stone on another, because you did not recognize the time of God’s coming to you.”
—Luke 19:41–44

While the crowd is cheering, Jesus is weeping.

And not polite, quiet tears. The Greek word used here describes gut-wrenching, sobbing grief—the kind of weeping people do at the grave of someone they deeply love.

Why is He weeping?

Not because of the cross that awaits Him.
Not because of His own suffering.

He weeps over Jerusalem—over people who:

Don’t know what would truly bring them peace.
Don’t recognize that God Himself is visiting them.
Are about 40 years away from a horrific destruction (which came in A.D. 70 when the Romans leveled the city and the temple).
They wanted freedom from Rome.
He came to bring freedom from sin.

They wanted lower taxes.
He came to give them peace with God.

They were shouting, “Hosanna!” which means “Save us!”—but they had no idea what kind of salvation they really needed.

That’s not just ancient Jerusalem. That’s our world today.

People around us are:

Hurting.
Angry.
Numb.
Searching (even if they don’t realize they’re searching).
Life isn’t working very well for a lot of people. And since they don’t know who to blame, they blame everyone.

It’s easier for us to get frustrated and ask, “What’s wrong with those people?” than it is to weep for them like Jesus did.

Palm Sunday asks us:

Will I ask Jesus to help me see what He sees?

To see the brokenness behind the behavior.
To see the fear behind the anger.
To see people not as “enemies” or “idiots,” but as precious souls who don’t recognize the time of God’s coming to them.
If we begin to see like Jesus, we won’t just join the parade.
We’ll also share His compassion.

3. Telling People Who Jesus Is

In Matthew 21:8–11, we read:

A very large crowd spread their cloaks on the road,
while others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road.
The crowds that went ahead of him and those that followed shouted,
“Hosanna to the Son of David!”
“Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!”
“Hosanna in the highest heaven!”

When Jesus entered Jerusalem, the whole city was stirred and asked,
“Who is this?”

The crowds answered,
“This is Jesus, the prophet from Nazareth in Galilee.”

That question is still echoing today:

“Who is this?”

A good teacher?
A religious figure?
A moral example?
A political revolutionary?
The crowds on Palm Sunday wanted a political Messiah, a national Savior, “the Son of David” in the sense of restoring Israel to its golden age.

They wanted someone to topple Rome.
He came to topple sin and death.

They expected to crown Him.
He knew they would soon crucify Him.

Yet in the middle of all that confusion, people still answered the question, however incomplete their answers were:

“This is Jesus…”

And that’s our role too.

Palm Sunday reminds us that:

Our world is still asking, “Who is this Jesus?”
Our neighbors still wonder what the big deal is about Easter.
Many still think it’s mainly about eggs, candy, and a cute family photo.
Some will come to church out of tradition, curiosity, or because someone invited them. Underneath that, whether they know it or not, they are asking:

“Who is this, really? And what does He have to do with my life?”

We get to answer:
He is the King who came humbly.
He is the Lamb who died sacrificially.
He is the Lord who rose victoriously.
He is the Savior who still hears the cry, “Hosanna—save us!”

Becoming the Donkey

Corrie ten Boom once wrote about that first Palm Sunday:

“When Jesus rode into Jerusalem on the back of a donkey,
and everyone was waving palm branches and throwing garments on the road and singing praises,
do you think for one moment it ever entered the head of that donkey that all that praise was for him?”

She continued:

“If I can be the donkey on which Jesus Christ rides in His glory,
I give Him all the praise and all the honor.”

That’s it, isn’t it?

The donkey’s job was simple: bring Jesus to the people.

That’s our job too.

If He could ordain that a donkey would be waiting in the next village, He certainly knows what’s down the road for you and me:

He knows the outcome of the medical test you’re worried about.
He knows the job situation you’re unsure of.
He knows the family tension that keeps you up at night.
Understanding that Jesus knows all things gives us confidence to follow His directions, even when we don’t see the whole picture.

So What About You—This Palm Sunday?

I don’t think it’s an accident when you find yourself in church on Palm Sunday—or even reading a blog like this.

I believe God sets appointments with us.

So let me put a few questions before you, the same ones I’m asking myself:

Will you do what Jesus says?
Not just what you understand, or agree with, or find convenient—but what He actually says.
Even if it feels as strange as “Go get a donkey”?

Will you ask Him to help you see what He sees?
To break your heart for the things that break His—especially for people who are far from Him and don’t know it?

Will you tell others who Jesus is?
Not with pressure or arrogance, but with humility and clarity:
“This is Jesus…”

As we move into Holy Week and prepare for Good Friday and Resurrection Sunday, consider praying something like this:

“Lord, help me to obey what You’ve already told me.
Help me see people the way You see them.
And give me the courage and love to tell others who You really are.”

If all we remember from Palm Sunday is “Jesus and the donkey,” we’ve missed the heart of it.

But if we learn to obey like those two unnamed disciples,
to weep and care like Jesus,
and to carry Him into our world like that humble donkey,
then Palm Sunday becomes more than a story.

It becomes a pattern for how we live.

Hosanna.
Save us now, Lord—and then send us out, for Your glory.

If you’re anything like me, your days run on a kind of autopilot rhythm.

You wake up at a certain time.  
Maybe you make coffee a very particular way (I may or may not have an embarrassingly detailed brew routine…).  
You head to work or school, move through your meetings or classes, come home, navigate dinner, family, bedtime, and then you do it again the next day.

We live by rhythms — morning routines, weekly schedules, school calendars, sports seasons, even the way we spend our evenings.

The question isn’t, “Do I have rhythms?”  
The question is, “What are my rhythms *forming* in me?”

Because our rhythms are never neutral. They are shaping us — our desires, our priorities, our attention, our loves.

And here’s where Matthew, in just three short verses (Matthew 4:23–25), quietly does something brilliant: he pulls back the curtain on the *rhythm* of Jesus’ ministry.

If someone asked you, “What did Jesus actually *do* every day?” how would you answer?

He taught?  
He healed?  
He preached?

Matthew says: yes. All of that. But let me show you the *pattern*.

> “Jesus went throughout all Galilee, **teaching** in their synagogues and **proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom** and **healing** every disease and every affliction among the people.”  
> — Matthew 4:23

From a pastor’s perspective, this passage feels like Matthew pressing pause and saying, “Before we go any further, *notice this.* This is the daily rhythm of Jesus.”

Jesus:
1. **Teaches truth**  
2. **Announces good news**  
3. **Brings healing**

That’s the pattern. That’s the heartbeat of his ministry. And if we follow him, that rhythm is meant to shape us too.

---

## 1. Jesus Teaches Truth: Letting God Define God

Matthew tells us Jesus went from synagogue to synagogue, *teaching*.

In the first century, the synagogue was the center of spiritual life. It was where Scripture was read, explained, and applied. Jesus steps right into that space and begins teaching — but not like anyone they’d heard before.

He isn’t adding complexity.  
He’s cutting through it.

He’s revealing what God is really like.

As a pastor, I see this tension all the time — not just in others, but in myself. We all carry assumptions about God:

- “God basically agrees with my politics.”
- “God wants for my life exactly what I want.”
- “God is distant and mostly disappointed.”
- “God is safe and predictable and never really interferes.”

If we’re not careful, we start shaping *God* into *our* image — someone who affirms what we already think, want, and prefer.

But Jesus’ teaching does the opposite. It disrupts that.

He shows us:
- A God who is **holy** *and* **compassionate**
- **Just** *and* **merciful**
- Who moves **toward** sinners, not away from them

We don’t come to Jesus to get confirmation that we were right all along.  
We come to be changed.

That means discipleship always involves truth — a growing, sometimes uncomfortable, always beautiful understanding of who God is and what He’s like.

We don’t define Him.  
He reveals Himself.

And the primary way He does that?  
Through His Word, illuminated by His Spirit.

As a pastor, this is why I care so deeply about you actually *hearing* Scripture and learning to live in it — not just on Sundays, but in the rhythms of your week. Jesus is still teaching. The question is whether we’re letting His truth actually form us.

---

## 2. Jesus Announces Good News: Not Advice, Not a System

Matthew doesn’t only say Jesus was *teaching*.

He says Jesus was:

> “proclaiming the **good news** of the kingdom” (4:23)

That word “proclaiming” or “announcing” really matters. Announcements are about something that’s *happened*.

I never sat in a math class and had my teacher say, “I have an announcement: today… algebra!” That’s *teaching*.

But:

- “We’re engaged!”
- “We’re expecting a child.”
- “I got the job.”
- “The test results came back… and they’re clear.”

Those are *announcements* — declarations that reality has changed.

Jesus is not walking around Galilee saying, “Here are seven tips for a better life,” or “Here’s a new religious system for you to try out.”

He is announcing **news**:

> The kingdom of God is here.  
> God has come near.  
> Emmanuel — God with us.

That means:
- You are **not alone** in what you’re walking through.
- You are **not unseen**.
- You are **not forgotten**.
- You are **beloved**.

As a pastor, I wish I could sit across from every person reading this and say that sentence slowly:

**You are beloved of God.**

Not because you’ve earned it.  
Not because you’ve figured life out.  
But because this is the announcement Jesus brings: God has moved *toward* you in love.

Christianity, at its core, is not first:
- a moral code,
- a philosophy,
- or a set of spiritual techniques.

It is **good news** about what **God has done** in Christ to restore what sin has broken.

We don’t start by trying harder.  
We start by responding to what God has already started.

---

## 3. Jesus Brings Healing: The Kingdom Made Visible

If Jesus had only *taught* and *announced*, we might still be tempted to keep this all in the realm of theory.

But Matthew won’t let us.

> “They brought him all the sick, those afflicted with various diseases and pains, those oppressed by demons, those having seizures, and paralytics, and **he healed them**.”  
> — Matthew 4:24

“Whatever their sickness… He healed them.”

This is not random. It isn’t Jesus doing party tricks to get a following. This is what it looks like when God’s kingdom collides with our broken reality.

Where:
- bodies are broken, He brings healing  
- minds are tormented, He brings peace  
- lives are crushed under the weight of suffering, He brings relief and restoration  

This is the heart of Jesus on display.

He doesn’t stand at a distance and explain suffering.  
He *moves toward* it.

He moves toward *them*.  
He moves toward *you*.

As a pastor, I need this to correct my own defaults. It’s so easy to turn Jesus into mostly a teacher of ideas and principles. But Matthew insists: He is also the Healer. The Restorer. The One who carries real power into real pain.

Does He always heal exactly as we ask, and when we ask? No. Scripture and experience tell us that sometimes He heals immediately, sometimes gradually, sometimes ultimately in His presence.

But the point here is: healing *is* part of His kingdom. It’s not foreign to His character. He is not indifferent to brokenness. He steps right into it.

---

## Crowds vs. Disciples: Near Jesus vs. Following Jesus

When Jesus lives in this rhythm — teaching truth, announcing good news, bringing healing — word spreads. Fast.

> “And great crowds followed him…” (4:25)

From everywhere. Every direction. People come.

Some are desperate.  
Some are curious.  
Some are hopeful.  
Some are skeptical.

As a pastor, this is where I feel both encouraged and sobered.

Encouraged, because when people truly encounter the real Jesus — His truth, His good news, His compassion — they do come. They’re drawn.

Sobered, because the Gospels make something else clear:  
Not everyone in the crowd becomes a disciple.

It is possible to:
- be around Jesus,
- listen to His words,
- appreciate His teaching,
- admire His kindness,
- even participate in religious activity around Him,

and *never actually surrender* to Him.

It is possible to confuse **proximity** with **discipleship**.

To be “near” Him, but still cling tightly to control over your life.  
To keep your habits, your secret sins, your deepest fears and idols off-limits.  
To enjoy the spiritual environment without ever inviting Him to actually rearrange your heart.

From a pastor’s perspective, this is one of my greatest concerns — and one of the reasons I preached this passage the way I did:

Not to guilt anyone, but to ask an honest question:

> **Am I following Jesus, or have I settled for just staying near Him?**

You can:
- attend church regularly,
- sing the songs,
- know the answers,
- nod along with the sermons,

and still hold Jesus at arm’s length when it comes to your actual decisions, your relationships, your forgiveness, your finances, your sexuality, your future.

I’m not talking about perfection. None of us are there.  
I’m talking about *surrender*.

---

## So What Does Following Look Like?

Here’s the good news: following Jesus doesn’t begin with you having everything figured out.

It doesn’t start with:
- cleaning yourself up,
- fixing all your habits,
- untangling every doubt.

It starts with a **yes**.

A real, honest, often trembling yes:

- Yes, Jesus, I trust You more than I trust myself.
- Yes, I will let You define who God is and who I am.
- Yes, I will let Your Word confront and reshape my assumptions.
- Yes, I will bring my pain, my sin, my past, my confusion to You instead of hiding it.
- Yes, I’m done settling for just being “around” You. I want to follow You.

From there, His rhythm becomes ours:

- We let His **truth** confront and form us.  
- We live in and share His **good news**, not just good advice.  
- We participate in His **healing work** — in prayer, in presence, in compassion extended to others.

Not perfectly.  
But honestly.

---

## Where Are You in the Crowd?

If you’ve read this far, you’re somewhere in that Galilean crowd Matthew described.

Maybe you’re:
- Hungry and hurting, just hoping Jesus *might* actually help.  
- Curious, still figuring out what you believe.  
- Long-time churchgoing, but quietly aware you’ve mostly stayed near Him, not truly surrendered.  
- Deeply committed, but in need of fresh encouragement and realignment to His rhythm.

Wherever you are, hear this:

The same Jesus who:
- taught in synagogues,
- announced the good news,
- and healed every kind of brokenness brought to Him,

is the Jesus who is present with you **right now**.

He has already moved toward you.  
He’s not asking you to clean up before you come.

He is inviting you:
- out of mere proximity,
- out of spectatorship,
- and into a life of actual followership.

Not into a crowd.  
Into relationship.

Into a daily, ordinary-life rhythm of:
- listening to His voice,  
- trusting His good news,  
- and letting His healing and compassion flow *to you* and *through you*.

From a pastor’s heart, my prayer for you is simple:

That you would not settle for just being near Him.

That you would follow.

And that in following, you would discover — in the very real details of your week — that His truth is good, His news is better than you imagined, and His healing reaches farther than you thought possible.

 
(A Pastor’s Reflections on Matthew 4:18–22)

Every week I climb into a semi truck and drive Washington’s highways. I’ve done it for over 30 years. It’s big, it’s loud, and there are moments when it’s genuinely scary—but it’s familiar. I know what I’m doing.

Stepping onto the platform on Sunday mornings is the opposite.

My hands don’t smell like diesel, but my heart pounds a little harder. I don’t fear public speaking. What I fear is getting in God’s way. I feel the weight of knowing that, in some mysterious way, God wants to use my very ordinary words and very ordinary life to do something in your very real one.

And most weeks, if I’m honest, I don’t feel ready.

Which is exactly why Matthew 4:18–22 has gripped me recently.

> “While walking by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon (who is called Peter) and Andrew his brother… And he said to them, ‘Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.’ Immediately they left their nets and followed him…  
> Immediately they left the boat and their father and followed him.”  
> (Matthew 4:18–22, ESV)

When Jesus Walks Into an Ordinary Workday

We tend to imagine “spiritual moments” happening in obviously spiritual places: church, retreats, prayer nights, worship services.

But Peter and Andrew weren’t on a retreat.  
James and John weren’t in a prayer meeting.

They were at work.  
Smelling like fish.  
Doing what they did every single day.

No one had advertised an opening: “Disciple of Messiah – Apply Within.”  
They weren’t seeking him. Jesus sought them.

As a pastor, I need to remember this just as much as anyone else: most of what God wants to do in us will happen in the middle of ordinary life, not just in “spiritual environments.”

- In the office, mid-email.  
- In the kitchen, making lunch.  
- In the truck, on the highway.  
- In the classroom, or the shop, or the fields.

Jesus walks into ordinary Tuesdays and says, “Follow me.”

Jesus Chooses Before We’re “Qualified”

In the first century, rabbis didn’t usually recruit. Students applied. Only the best of the best were accepted to follow a rabbi—like a competitive apprenticeship program.

These fishermen had already washed out of that track. They were in the family business. Which, in that culture, almost certainly meant, “You’re good kids, but you’re not rabbi material.”

And yet Jesus walks up to *them*.

He doesn’t say:

- “Show me your qualifications.”  
- “Fix your life, then come back.”  
- “Clean up your theology first.”  

He simply says, “Follow me.”

This is incredibly important:  
Discipleship does *not* begin with us proving ourselves. It begins with Jesus choosing and inviting.

As a pastor, I see so many people stalled right here. They think:

- “Once I beat this sin habit…”  
- “Once I learn more Bible…”  
- “Once I’m more consistent…”  

…*then* I’ll really follow Jesus.

But Jesus didn’t wait for Peter to finish cussing, or for James and John to overcome their temper and pride. He called them mid-process. And he does the same with us.

 Immediately… and Costly

Twice Matthew uses the same word:

> “Immediately they left their nets…”  
> “Immediately they left the boat and their father…”

He wants us to see the urgency of their response.

That doesn’t mean they were reckless or irresponsible. It means Jesus’ call brought clarity. Not clarity about the future, but clarity about *who* was now at the center of their future.

They left:

- Nets (their income)  
- Boats (their business)  
- Father (their expectations and security)  

Not because those things were bad, but because Jesus now took priority over all of them.

We need to be clear on this:  
Following Jesus is free, but it is not cheap.

Grace is a gift. You cannot earn it.  
But grace always leads to surrender. It rearranges priorities.

For some, that will mean:

- Changing how you work, not necessarily *where* you work.  
- Reordering your schedule.  
- Letting go of a habit or relationship you know is pulling you away from Christ.  
- Saying “yes” to something you’ve been resisting because it’s uncomfortable.

Following Jesus doesn’t always mean leaving your job.  
But it *always* means reordering your life.

“Follow Me, and I Will Make You…”

This is the line that undoes me as a pastor:

> “Follow me, and **I will make you** fishers of men.”

Notice the order:

- He does *not* say, “Make yourself into something, then follow me.”  
- He does *not* say, “Prove you’re ready, then I’ll use you.”  
- He says, “Follow me, and I will make you…”

Discipleship begins with response, not readiness.

My temptation—maybe yours too—is to treat discipleship like spiritual self-improvement:

- read more  
- pray harder  
- serve more  
- try better  
- clean up faster  

But Jesus frames it differently. Discipleship is not primarily about self-improvement. It’s about *formation through relationship*.

They became like Jesus by:

- walking with him  
- watching him  
- listening to him  
- obeying him (imperfectly, often slowly)

No 12-week course. No quick certificate. No instant maturity.

Just time with Jesus, over time.

### Slow Growth, Real Formation

Peter didn’t become “Peter” overnight.  
John didn’t become “the apostle of love” in a weekend.

Read the Gospels and you’ll find:

- misunderstandings  
- bad questions  
- pride  
- fear  
- jealousy  

If they’d been part of our church, we’d have been tempted to say, “I don’t think they’re ready to lead anything yet.”

And Jesus kept walking with them.

As a pastor, I cling to that. Because I see my own slowness, my own blind spots, my own failures. And if I’m watching your life even a little closely, I see yours too. We’re all in process.

Jesus is not surprised by slow growth.  
He is committed to faithful formation.

Which is why we keep inviting each other into discipleship pathways—real relationships where we walk with Jesus together, not as a program to finish, but as a life to live.

 An “I See in You” Conversation From Jesus

One of the first times I served in church leadership, I was 26, taking over as treasurer from a man who had done it longer than I’d been alive. I was intimidated, convinced someone would ask a question that exposed how much I didn’t know.

I didn’t feel ready. Others saw something in me I didn’t see. They had an “I see in you…” conversation with me—long before I imagined ever standing in a pulpit.

Matthew 4 is Jesus having an “I see in you” conversation with fishermen.

- Peter just sees nets and fish. Jesus sees a preacher at Pentecost.  
- John just sees a boat and his dad. Jesus sees a man who will one day write, “For God so loved the world…”  

Jesus sees what we can become long before we do.

He sees you fully—what you show people and what you never say out loud.  
Your history. Your sin. Your fear. Your desire to change. Your reluctance.  

And he still says, “Follow me. I will make you.”

Not, “Make yourself.”  
Not, “Prove yourself.”  
“Follow me, and I will make you.”

So What Is Your Next Step?

The real question isn’t, “Am I ready?”

The real question is, “What is my *next* step of following Jesus?”

Not the whole journey. Just the next step.

For you, that might look like:

- Finally surrendering your life to Jesus for the first time.  
- Coming back after drifting or running.  
- Letting go of a habit you know is sin but you’ve been excusing.  
- Stepping into community instead of following Jesus alone.  
- Serving in a way that scares you a bit.  
- Opening your Bible daily and actually listening.  
- Having a hard conversation in obedience to him.

You may not feel ready.  
You may not know how it will turn out.  
You almost certainly will not have all the answers.

But you *do* know who is inviting you.

The same Jesus who walked along the Sea of Galilee and called fishermen is still walking into ordinary Tuesdays and calling people like you and me.

And his invitation is the same:

“Follow me… and I will make you.”

Not when you’ve cleaned up.  
Not when you’ve arrived.  
Now.

So from one ordinary person to another, from a pastor who often feels unready himself:

Don’t wait until you feel qualified.

Ask him, honestly:

“Jesus, what is my next step of following you?”

And when he brings something to mind, don’t overcomplicate it.

Take it.

Immediately.

This past Sunday I had the privilege of walking our church family through Matthew 4:12–17, a short but absolutely pivotal passage in the Gospel of Matthew. It marks the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry, and in many ways, it’s the moment the alarm clock goes off for the world.

I opened with a story from my college days, when the fire alarm went off in my dorm at two or three in the morning. You know that jarring, shrill sound you simply can’t ignore? Everyone shot out of bed, stumbled outside, and started looking for smoke and flames. Thankfully it turned out to be a false alarm. But even though there was no fire, no one treated the alarm like a joke. When the alarm sounds, you move.

In Matthew 4, Jesus sounds an alarm that is far more significant—and it absolutely demands a response.

Where Jesus Chose to Begin

Matthew tells us:

“Now when Jesus heard that John had been taken into custody, He withdrew into Galilee; and leaving Nazareth, He came and settled in Capernaum, which is by the sea, in the region of Zebulun and Naphtali. This was to fulfill what was spoken through Isaiah the prophet:

‘The land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali,
By the way of the sea, beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles—
The people who were sitting in darkness saw a great light,
And those who were sitting in the land and shadow of death,
Upon them a light dawned.’

From that time Jesus began to preach and say, ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.’” (Matthew 4:12–17)

Before Matthew talks about what Jesus said, he tells us where Jesus chose to base His ministry: Capernaum, in Galilee.

If you look at a map of Israel in Jesus’ time, you’ll see Galilee in the north and Jerusalem way down in the south. Jerusalem was the religious, cultural, and political heart of Judaism. It was where the temple stood, where sacrifices were made, where festivals were celebrated, and where the most respected religious teachers lived and worked.

Galilee, on the other hand, was out on the edge. It was surrounded by non-Jewish territories and cut through by trade routes. It was ethnically and culturally mixed—so much so that it had a nickname: “Galilee of the Gentiles.”

In other words, if Jerusalem was the polished, “proper” religious center, Galilee was… not that.

Many in Jerusalem looked at Galilee as compromised, less pure, less serious, less “right.” Still Jewish, yes—but not like us.

And that’s exactly where Jesus chose to plant Himself.

He did not head straight for the temple. He didn’t build His ministry around the powerful, the influential, the respected. Instead, He settled in the region that many viewed as dark, compromised, and second-rate.

In doing this, Jesus made a statement: the light of God’s kingdom does not first shine in the brightest, most polished places. It shines in the dark ones.

Fulfillment, Not a New Story

Matthew points out—again—that this is not random. For the seventh time in just four chapters, he says something like, “This happened to fulfill what was spoken through the prophet.”

He quotes Isaiah 9:

“Galilee of the Gentiles—
The people who were sitting in darkness saw a great light…”

Jesus’ movements are not detached from the Old Testament story. They are the continuation and fulfillment of it.

This is important for us. Our faith isn’t a New Testament idea stapled onto the back of an old religious book. The gospel is the climax of one continuous story God has been writing from the beginning. Matthew wants us to see: the God who spoke through Isaiah is the God who steps into Galilee in the person of Jesus.

And where does He step?

Into “Galilee of the Gentiles.” Into the region many would have written off. Into the place that was viewed as spiritually dim and culturally compromised.

The light goes there first.

The Fire Alarm Message: “Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven Is at Hand”

Once Matthew has located us in Galilee, he finally gives us Jesus’ first recorded message:

“From that time Jesus began to preach and say, ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.’”

That’s the alarm.

Those words would have landed with tremendous force on first-century Jewish ears. For generations, Israel had lived under foreign powers—Babylonian, Persian, Greek, and now Roman. They longed for the day God would come as King and set the world right: overthrow evil, restore justice, bring peace and healing.

That day had a name: the “kingdom of God” or, in Matthew’s Jewish way of speaking, the “kingdom of heaven.” Not “heaven” as in “the place you go when you die,” but “the rule and reign of God breaking in.”

When Jesus said, “The kingdom of heaven is at hand,” He was saying:

The moment you’ve been waiting for is here.
God is stepping in as King.
He is bringing His reign into human history in a new and decisive way.

That is fire-alarm language.

It means the status quo is over. You can’t hear that and just roll over and go back to sleep.

But notice how Jesus begins the sentence:

“Repent…”

Not, “Try harder.”
Not, “Be a better person.”
Not, “Fix yourself up first.”

Repent.

What Repentance Really Is (and Isn’t)

“Repent” is one of those church words we can say for years without really unpacking.

Many of us hear “repent” and think, “feel bad about your sin.” Maybe even “feel really bad”—like guilt and shame turned up to eleven.

But biblically, repentance is far more than a feeling.

The Greek word Matthew uses—metanoeo—literally means “to change your mind.” Not just a small opinion shift, but a deep, whole-person change of direction. A reorientation of how you see God, yourself, and the world—and then actually living differently because of it.

New Testament scholar N.T. Wright puts it this way:

“They have thought it means feeling bad about yourself. It doesn’t. It means change direction, turn around and go the other way and stop what you’re doing and do the opposite instead. How you feel about it isn’t the really important thing. It’s what you do that matters.”

Repentance is not just turning from something; it is turning to Someone.

It’s turning from sin, self-rule, and darkness, and turning to Jesus as King.

It’s leaving one kingdom—one way of being human—and stepping into another.

And because the “kingdom of heaven is at hand,” repentance is urgent. If the King Himself is standing in front of you, continuing life as usual is no longer a real option.

A Kingdom That Doesn’t Play by Our Rules

Part of what makes this so challenging is that Jesus’ kingdom does not operate the way ours does.

Our world runs on payback. You hit me, I hit you harder. You attack me with words, I fire back with something sharper. You hurt me, I hold on to bitterness and make sure you feel it.

We “fight fire with fire” and are surprised that we just end up with… more fire.

That’s the cycle of darkness. It’s the way of the kingdoms of this world.

Jesus steps into Galilee and announces a different kind of kingdom—one that breaks that cycle instead of perpetuating it. As we’ll see even more clearly in the Sermon on the Mount, this kingdom is built on:

Repentance and forgiveness
Healing and restoration
Grace and mercy
Love for enemies
Humility instead of self-promotion
Sacrificial love instead of retaliation
From the world’s perspective, that all looks weak or foolish. But from the perspective of Jesus’ kingdom, it’s reality. It’s sanity. It’s life in the light.

When Jesus calls us to repent because His kingdom is at hand, He’s not just asking us to clean up the rough edges of our lives. He’s inviting us to step out of one system—the dark, self-protective, revenge-soaked way of life—and into another.

Repentance as a Way of Life

One thing I stressed Sunday, and I want to stress again here: repentance is not a one-time box you check when you first come to Jesus.

Repentance is a posture. It’s an ongoing way of walking with God.

We are all, as that old hymn says, “prone to wander.” We drift. We get tired, stressed, hurt, distracted. Old habits resurface. Old lies start sounding true again.

Sometimes we find ourselves tolerating sin we know is wrong—making peace with attitudes or behaviors that slowly pull us away from God. Other times, our repentance gets stuck at the level of words and rituals, while our hearts stay mostly unchanged.

This has been a problem for God’s people for a long time. In the Old Testament, Israel would sometimes “repent” nationally—fasting, weeping, going through the motions—while their hearts and daily practices stayed the same. The prophets called them out for this. God wasn’t just after public displays of sorrow; He wanted hearts and lives realigned with His ways.

That’s the kind of repentance Jesus calls us to still.

Not perfection. Not sinless performance.

Reorientation.

Turning our whole selves—heart, mind, body, will—toward God’s rule and away from the darkness.

Where Might God Be Calling You to Turn?

During the service, we sat quietly and asked the Holy Spirit a simple question:

“Lord, is there anywhere in my life you’re calling me to turn toward You today?
What do I need to repent of today?”

I’m not the Holy Spirit, but as a pastor I see some common places where repentance becomes necessary for many of us:

Control – You sense that your need to control people, outcomes, or your own image is actually pulling you away from trusting God. Repentance looks like opening your hands and surrendering outcomes to Him.

Tolerated sin – There may be something you’ve decided to live with—an unseen habit, a secret pattern, a way of speaking or reacting—that you know is wrong, but you’ve given it a pass. Repentance looks like naming it before God, bringing it into the light, and taking concrete steps to turn from it.

Relationships – Maybe there is a relationship that needs repairing. Repentance might mean offering forgiveness where you’ve been withholding it, or humbling yourself to ask for forgiveness where you’ve caused harm.

Spiritual apathy – Perhaps you’ve been content with checking the bare-minimum religious boxes—showing up on Sundays, maybe praying when you remember—but keeping God at arm’s length from the rest of your life. Repentance might look like choosing to really follow: opening Scripture consistently, stepping into community, serving, actually doing what Jesus says.

Whatever the specifics, repentance always begins in the same place: humility and honesty before God.

“Lord, You are my King. I want my life to align with Your kingdom. Show me where I’m out of step, and give me the grace to turn back to You.”

Met by Grace, Not Condemnation

One of the most important things I wanted our church to hear—and I want you to hear—is this:

When you turn from darkness and turn toward Jesus, you are met with grace.

The alarm Jesus sounds is urgent, yes. It is serious. But it is not the shriek of a harsh judge waiting to crush you. It is the loving, insistent call of a King who has come to rescue.

He does not meet true repentance with rejection. He meets it with:

Forgiveness
Cleansing
Healing
Restoration
A fresh start
He has something far better for you than the sin that entangles you and the darkness that drains you.

If, as you read this, the Lord is bringing something to mind—a habit, a relationship, an attitude, a corner of your life—don’t push it away. That’s not condemnation; that’s invitation.

The kingdom of heaven is at hand.
The King is present and at work.

You don’t have to stay where you are.

Walking as Citizens of His Kingdom

As you go about your week—in your home, your workplace, your school, your neighborhood—remember this:

If you belong to Jesus, you are already a citizen of His kingdom. You are learning, day by day, to live under His good rule.

And that learning process will always include repentance: a thousand small (and sometimes big) turnings from darkness to light, from self-rule to Christ’s rule, from the old way of life to the new.

My prayer for you echoes Paul’s words in 2 Corinthians 13:14:

“May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ,
and the love of God,
and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit
be with you all.”

May His grace meet you wherever you need to turn.
May His love assure you that you are not turned away.
May His Spirit empower you to walk as a citizen of His kingdom, in the light of Christ.

And if the Lord is stirring something specific in you and you need someone to pray with you or walk alongside you, please reach out. Repentance is deeply personal, but it was never meant to be solitary. We are the church; we help each other turn toward the King.

Spring in the Wilderness: Why Feeling “Off” Doesn’t Mean God Is Gone
Reflections from the Pastor’s Chair

This past weekend, my wife Ruth and I slipped away for a short retreat.

Nothing dramatic, nothing exotic—just a needed pause.

The last season has been a bit heavy and complicated, and we needed space to reconnect, to breathe, to remember who we are and whose we are.

You probably know that feeling.

You get a weekend away where the pace slows down.

You finally go on that retreat.

You have a meaningful moment in worship or a deep conversation in your discipleship group.

For a brief window, things feel clear.

You feel grounded, hopeful, even light.

And then Monday arrives.

The trip home ends.

The inbox fills.

The diagnosis comes.

Your mom is suddenly in the hospital.

A friend calls with bad news.

Or maybe it’s nothing dramatic at all—the ordinary just returns with all of its weight.

And the question comes:

What happened?

Where did that peace go?

Did something shift between me and God?

Did I lose something?

As I’ve been sitting with Matthew 4—the story of Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness—I’m becoming more convinced that we misread these moments in our lives.

We tend to see them as proof that something has gone wrong.

Scripture seems to tell a different story.

From the Waters to the Wilderness

In Matthew 3, Jesus is baptized.
He comes up out of the water, and the heavens open.

The Spirit descends like a dove and the Father declares:

“This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.”

It’s hard to imagine a higher moment: identity, love, affirmation, clarity.

Then Matthew 4 begins:

“Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted there by the devil.”

Same Spirit.

New setting.

No sin in between.

No failure.

No drifting.

No rebellion.

The same Spirit who descended at Jesus’ baptism is the One who leads Him into the wilderness.

That matters.

Because it tells us this:

Being loved by God does not mean being spared from difficulty.

The wilderness is not evidence of God’s absence.

Sometimes, it’s a place of formation.

We tend to assume:

If life is calm and clear: “God must be pleased with me.”
If life is confusing or hard: “Something must be wrong—either with me or with God.”
But Jesus moves from the waters of affirmation to the wilderness of temptation, and nothing has gone off the rails.

He has not lost the Father’s love.

He has not lost His identity.

He is led.

Not away from love.

Deeper into it.

The Enemy Starts Where God Just Spoke

There’s another detail that stands out every time I read this passage:
Every temptation from the devil starts the same way:

“If you are the Son of God…”

God has just declared from heaven, “This is my beloved Son.”

The very next voice Jesus hears says, “If you really are…”

The enemy doesn’t start with behavior.

He starts with identity.

Because if identity becomes shaky, obedience becomes negotiable.

I see this as a pastor all the time—and honestly, I see it in myself.

Temptation often doesn’t sound like:
“Do something wildly sinful right now.”

It sounds more like:

“Prove that you matter.”
“Protect yourself—no one else will.”
“You’re on your own. Fix this.”
“You deserve this.”
It’s a whisper that questions our belovedness.

And once that gets fuzzy, we begin to grasp for control, for comfort, for shortcuts.

Three Familiar Shortcuts

Jesus faces three temptations in the wilderness, and every one of them is a shortcut—around trust, around suffering, around the slow path of obedience.

They’re not just His temptations.

They’re ours.

1. Stones to Bread: Meeting Legitimate Needs in Illegitimate Ways
Jesus is physically exhausted.

Forty days of fasting.

The devil says:

“If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become loaves of bread.”

On the surface, this seems reasonable.

He’s hungry.

He has power.

Why not use it?

This is the temptation to meet a legitimate need in an illegitimate way—to step out of dependence and into self-reliance.

Not always through dramatic sin, but through quiet control:

“I’ll handle this.”
“I’ll make this happen.”
“I’ll secure my own comfort, my own future.”

We do this with money, relationships, work, even ministry.

When we start to believe that what sustains us is our ability to provide, organize, manage, or produce, our core identity shifts.

Instead of “beloved,” we become “capable.”

Instead of resting, we begin grasping.

Jesus replies:

“People do not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.”

Needs aren’t the problem.
Hunger isn’t the problem.
Food isn’t the problem.

The question is:

What do I believe truly sustains me?

We are not meant to live on yesterday’s retreat, or last week’s worship service, or our own strengths and skills.

We live on daily dependence.

On the word and presence of God.

Bread fills for a moment.

The word of God forms us for a lifetime.

2. Jump from the Temple: Performing Faith Instead of Living It
Next, the enemy takes Jesus to the highest point of the temple:

“If you are the Son of God, jump off. For the Scriptures say…”

Now the enemy is quoting Scripture.

This temptation sounds spiritual.

It sounds bold.

“Make God’s protection visible. Make it obvious. Make it impressive.”

This is the temptation to turn trust into a performance.

To force God’s hand.

To demand that faith be dramatic, seen, validated.

We do versions of this too:

“God, if you’re really here, show me.”
“If this is really your will, open this door exactly this way.”
“If you really love me, remove this struggle.”
Most of the time, those prayers don’t come from rebellion; they come from fear.

But they slide us from trusting God to testing God.

From resting to controlling, in religious clothing.

Jesus refuses:

“You must not test the Lord your God.”

Because real trust doesn’t demand a spectacle.

It walks.

It rests.

It obeys—often quietly, without fireworks.

So much of discipleship is not dramatic.

It’s choosing patience again.

Opening the Scriptures again.

Praying again.

Forgiving again.

Serving again.

Not leaping from temples.

Just taking the next faithful step.

And this matters deeply:
Jesus does not need to manufacture a moment to confirm His identity.

The Father has already spoken.

And neither do we.

3. The Kingdoms of the World: Influence Without Formation
The third temptation is the most direct.

The enemy shows Jesus all the kingdoms of the world and their glory:

“I will give it all to you… if you will kneel down and worship me.”

In other words:

“You can have the outcome without the path.
Power without suffering.
Glory without the cross.”

This is the temptation to grasp influence without formation, impact without surrender, results without obedience.

It sounds like:

“There has to be an easier way to get what I want.”
“Surely I can have control and still call it faith.”
“I’ll bow just a little, compromise just a bit, to get to the ‘good’ result faster.”

Jesus knows what’s being offered: a real shortcut.

Authority and glory—just without the Father’s way.

He answers:

“Get out of here, Satan. For the Scriptures say,
‘You must worship the Lord your God and serve only him.’”

Because worship is not just what we sing on Sunday.

Worship is whatever shapes our direction.

Whatever we bow to—even internally—begins to steer our life.

When worship is misplaced, our lives drift toward control.

When worship is rightly placed, our lives move toward surrender.

And that runs straight against the grain of our culture.

We’re discipled every day by messages that say: faster, bigger, more visible, more control.

But Jesus chooses faithfulness over immediacy.

Trust over control.

Surrender over shortcuts.

The Wilderness Reveals, It Doesn’t Define

After the temptations, Matthew writes:

“Then the devil went away, and angels came and took care of Jesus.”

The wilderness does not last forever.

And it is rarely wasted.

In Jesus’ case, the wilderness doesn’t create His identity.

It simply reveals it.

Nothing new is added to Him there.

Nothing is taken away.

What is already true becomes visible:

He trusts the Father.
He lives from the Word.
He refuses shortcuts.
For us, it’s a bit different.

Our wilderness seasons do shape us.

Not to earn God’s love, but to deepen our roots in it.

Hard seasons can strip away the illusion that we’re in control.

They can reveal what we’ve been relying on.

They can strengthen what is real.

But hear this carefully:

Temptation and hardship are not signs that God has abandoned you.

They are not automatic indicators that you’ve failed.

Sometimes, they are places where God is quietly, patiently, forming you.

Not “Try Harder,” but “Trust Deeper”

It’s easy to read this story and walk away with a moral:
“Be stronger. Memorize more Scripture. Resist like Jesus.”

And yes—Scripture matters. Resistance matters.

But Matthew is not just offering a model.

He’s presenting a Savior.

Jesus stands firm in the wilderness where Israel failed.

Where humanity failed.

Where I fail.

Where you fail.

He does this not only as an example to copy, but as the One who now stands in our place and with us.

That means my identity as a disciple is not anchored in how perfectly I handle my wilderness, but in how faithfully He handled His.

So this is not fundamentally a call to try harder.

It’s an invitation to trust deeper.

To return—again and again—to the One who overcame temptation without sin and now walks with us in our own.

What This Might Look Like Today

In real life, outside the sermon and the sanctuary, this will often look quite ordinary.

It might look like:

Returning to Scripture when your emotions are loud and confusing.
Choosing patience when you really want to grab control.
Letting your faith shape your politics and worldview, instead of the other way around.
Refusing to perform spirituality for others, and instead choosing a quiet, honest walk with God.
Trusting God’s timing, even when you could force a quicker outcome.
Most discipleship happens in these small, undramatic moments.

In the space between the retreat and the next crisis.

Between Sunday and Monday.

Between the waters and the wilderness.

Maybe the crucial question is not, “How do I defeat every temptation I face?”

Maybe it’s:

“Where is God inviting me to trust Him today, instead of proving myself?”

You Begin as Beloved

Before Jesus ever preaches a sermon, calls a disciple, or performs a miracle, the Father says:

“This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.”

That’s the starting point.

Not the reward for good behavior.

The starting point.

And in Christ, that same word is spoken over you.

Not:

“This is my successful one…”
“This is my impressive one…”
“This is my perfectly-disciplined one…”

But:

“This is my beloved child.”

You don’t obey to become beloved.
You obey because you already are.

So if you’re reading this in a season where life feels more like wilderness than baptism—where clarity feels far away, where temptation and exhaustion are loud—hear this:

You have not been abandoned.
You have not lost what matters most.
You are not outside the reach of God’s care.

You are beloved.

The Spirit who leads you into hard places does not leave you there alone.

He is forming you.

Deepening you.

Rooting you.

One quiet step of trust at a time.

Grace and peace to you,

Christ Is Risen: Clearing the Path, Not Adding the Weight
A pastor’s reflection on Matthew 3 and a week of “turning”

“Christ is risen. He is risen indeed.”

We say those words a lot in our church—on Easter, yes, but also on ordinary Sundays like this past one. I keep coming back to that declaration because it’s the foundation under everything else we talk about: repentance, discipleship, confession, communion, spiritual growth—none of it makes sense unless Jesus is actually alive.

If Christ is risen, then what we’re doing together is not self‑help, self‑improvement, or religious performance. We’re learning how to live with a living Savior. That’s the lens I carried into Matthew 3 this week, and it completely shaped how I approached a passage that can easily feel heavy.

When “Repentance” Feels Like a Loaded Word
The main word in Matthew 3 is one most of us don’t love: repentance.

For a lot of people, “repent” feels like:

Try harder.
Feel worse.
Prove yourself.
Fix everything now.
But as I sat with Matthew 3, I was struck again that repentance is not about God piling more weight on our shoulders. It’s about clearing what’s already weighing us down.

John the Baptist appears in the wilderness proclaiming:

“Repent of your sins and turn to God, for the kingdom of heaven is near.” (Matthew 3:2)

That last part is everything: “for the kingdom of heaven is near.”

Repentance is not punishment.
It’s preparation for presence.

It’s not, “Do better so God might come near to you,” but, “God is already drawing near—will you turn toward Him?”

A Turning, Not a Beating‑Yourself‑Up
One of the clearest ways I can picture repentance is that story I shared about my wife driving from SeaTac.

We’ve driven the Quincy–Portland route so many times we could do it in our sleep. Years ago, Ruth drove to SeaTac to pick up her sister. On the way back, they were so absorbed in conversation that muscle memory took over—and suddenly they realized they were heading toward Yakima, not Quincy.

What did she do?

She didn’t pull over to sit in shame.
She didn’t stubbornly keep going in the wrong direction.
She didn’t wait for some mysterious “sign” to fix it for her.
She turned around.

That’s repentance in Scripture: the realization, “I’m going the wrong way,” followed by a simple but costly action—turning the wheel.

Repentance is less about beating yourself up and more about waking up. Less about self‑condemnation and more about reorientation.

And it’s not just “turn away from something bad.” It’s “turn to Someone good.” Turn to God. Turn toward life with Jesus.

Why the Wilderness?
Matthew makes a point of telling us that John shows up “in the Judean wilderness,” not in the city, not in the religious centers, not in the culturally comfortable places.

The modern equivalent I used in the sermon was this: instead of setting up shop downtown, in schools or at the grocery store, it’s like he goes out to Quincy Lakes and just lives there—simple clothes, simple food, simple message.

It’s inconvenient.

And yet, people went anyway.

They weren’t drawn to polish. The text doesn’t tell us John had great branding, a tight band, and compelling video packages.

They were drawn to truth.

That’s been part of our conviction as a church. We want to be intentionally non‑attractional in all the ways that compete with real discipleship. Not because there’s something inherently wrong with “flash,” but because transformation rarely happens in the flash. It happens in the quiet, the ordinary, the unspectacular places where we are finally still enough to hear God.

That’s why we keep pushing you toward:

Small discipling relationships
Sitting with Scripture together
Praying with and for each other
Actually obeying what Jesus says
You won’t always get something “polished.” But our aim is that you’ll always get something true.

Two Ways to Come to the Wilderness
In Matthew 3, everyone ends up out in the wilderness, but they don’t all come with the same posture.

The crowds come confessing.
They’re honest. They know they need to turn. They respond to the Spirit’s nudge.

The Pharisees and Sadducees come “to watch.”
They’re not there to turn; they’re there to evaluate. They trust in:

Their heritage (“We’re descendants of Abraham”)
Their knowledge
Their status
Their certainty
And John’s tone changes dramatically when they arrive:

“You brood of snakes! Who warned you to flee the coming wrath?
Prove by the way you live that you have repented of your sins and turned to God.” (Matthew 3:7–8)

The issue is not that they’re religious. It’s that they’re unrepentant.

Repentance becomes hardest when we think we’re already fine. When we’re secure in our own certainty, sure we can “manage” our sin, sure our perspectives are obviously right.

That posture hardens our hearts. It makes us defensive instead of receptive, proud instead of surrendered.

The fruit of that is telling. Instead of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, and self‑control, we get:

Self‑protection
Self‑importance
Self‑justification
Self‑centeredness
John’s call is not: “Perform for God.”
His call is: “Let your life show the true direction of your heart.”

The Axe That’s Poised, Not Swinging
Verse 10 is one of those passages that can sound terrifying if you only hear it in a certain tone:

“Even now the axe of God’s judgment is poised, ready to sever the roots of the trees.”

It’s important that Matthew says poised, not swinging.

That imagery isn’t about random divine anger; it’s about urgency.

It’s John saying, “Don’t waste this moment. Don’t assume you can put off responding to God forever. He’s serious about real transformation.”

But again, it’s invitation, not fatalism. The axe is poised. There is still time to turn.

God warns before He judges because His heart is restoration, not destruction.

John Prepares. Jesus Transforms.
John is so clear about his role:

“I baptize with water those who repent of their sins and turn to God. But someone is coming soon who is greater than I am…

From my perspective as a pastor, one of the most important things we did this past Sunday happened right at the beginning of the service:

“Christ is risen.”
“He is risen indeed.”

We usually reserve that call-and-response for Easter, but the early church used it constantly. It was their way of saying, “This is the center. This is what everything else hangs on.” Before we opened our Bibles, before a single word of the sermon was preached, we reminded ourselves that our hope is in a risen Savior, not in a set of religious techniques, not in self-improvement, and certainly not in our own perfection.

That truth shaped everything we did next, especially as we opened to Matthew 3 and met John the Baptist in the wilderness.

Heavy Words, Lightened Hearts
I’m aware that I have a reputation for preaching “heavy” sermons. Sometimes that’s fair. The Bible doesn’t always whisper. It speaks plainly, sometimes sharply. Matthew 3 is one of those passages that comes at us with strong language:

“Repent…”
“You brood of snakes…”
“The axe of God’s judgment is poised…”
Those are not coffee-mug verses.

So before I even got into the text, I wanted our church to hear this clearly: this passage is not about piling more weight on your shoulders. It’s about clearing a path. It’s about God removing what’s already weighing you down so you can actually live in the freedom Jesus offers.

If you were tired, guarded, or bracing yourself the moment you saw I had the mic—this sermon was meant to let you exhale, not tense up.

Why John the Baptist Matters for Us
In Matthew’s biography of Jesus, chapter 2 focused on Joseph and all the disruption, danger, and unexpected changes his little family faced. The question there was:

Will you trust God when the plan keeps changing?

In chapter 3, the camera shifts away from Joseph and Mary and lands on a strange figure in a strange place—John the Baptist, in the wilderness. And now the question becomes:

Will you let God change you so you’re ready for what He is doing next?

John is not a side character. He’s the one who prepares the way for Jesus to step into public ministry. He’s a prophet after 400 years of silence from God. He’s simple, blunt, and very aware that he is not the point. His whole life and ministry exist to point away from himself and toward Jesus.

I need that reminder as a pastor.

It is dangerously easy for any of us in ministry to become the center of attention: to be “the voice,” the one with the microphone, the one people look to. John shows us a better way. He lives and speaks in such a way that Jesus becomes clearer, not John.

That’s the posture I want for myself and for our church: not to build a brand, but to clear a path.

An Inconvenient Location, a Simple Message
Matthew tells us John preached in the Judean wilderness. To put that in our local terms, it’s as if God called him not to downtown, but to set up camp at Quincy Lakes—out of the way, not convenient, not polished, not optimized for “maximum reach.”

Yet verse 5 says people came from:

Jerusalem
All over Judea
The whole Jordan Valley
Why?

Because there was truth in what he was saying. It wasn’t flashy. It wasn’t attractional. It wasn’t comfortable. But it was real.

We’re used to polished presentations: high production value, smooth transitions, curated branding. A lot of church culture has adopted that same assumption: “If we make it attractive enough, people will come. And if they come, maybe some of Jesus will rub off.”

That’s not what we’re trying to do here.

We are intentionally pursuing a stripped-down, non-program-based discipleship:

Open Bibles.
Honest conversations.
Real relationships.
Ordinary obedience.
We don’t want to hook people with flash and then hope to slip Jesus in quietly on the side. We want Jesus—His Word, His ways, His presence—to be the unmistakable center.

John was not Instagram-ready. Camel hair and locusts won’t trend. But God used him anyway—precisely because the message mattered more than the packaging.

Repentance: Not Punishment, but Preparation
John’s central message is simple and disruptive:

“Repent of your sins and turn to God, for the kingdom of heaven is near.” (Matthew 3:2)

For many of us, the word repent is tangled up with shame, fear, or the sense that we’ve never done enough. But biblically, repentance isn’t about groveling. It isn’t about beating yourself up or promising God you’ll never mess up again.

Repentance is about turning.

I told the story of Ruth driving back from SeaTac. She and her sister were in such deep conversation that muscle memory took over and she found herself on the road to Yakima instead of Quincy. Once she realized it, she didn’t:

Keep driving in the wrong direction out of stubbornness.
Pull over and sit in shame.
Pretend it wasn’t really a problem.
She turned around.

That’s repentance in everyday language: realizing I am headed in the wrong direction and turning the wheel.

Repentance is not about God saying, “If you fix yourself, I might come close.” It’s God saying, “I am already drawing near; turn toward Me and live.”

This is why I phrased it this way on Sunday:

Repentance isn’t punishment.
Repentance is preparation for presence.

We’re not repenting to earn grace. We’re repenting because grace has already arrived and is knocking on the door.

The First Step: Honesty, Not Perfection
As people came out to John, they confessed their sins, repented, and were baptized.

That first step is not performance. It’s honesty.

Confession is not humiliation. It’s relief. It’s the end of pretending. It’s saying to God, “Here’s where I really am. Here’s the direction I’m actually going.”

And it’s important to say this: we are not called to do this alone. Real repentance, real turning, is hard work. Addictions, habits, relational patterns, anger, pride, thought patterns—we all have something that feels costly to turn away from.

That’s why I keep pointing our church back to discipling relationships, to actually being with other followers of Jesus in the Word, in prayer, in honest conversation. Repentance is personal, but it is not meant to be private. We help one another turn and keep turning.

When Repentance Feels Unnecessary
Not everyone came to John in humility. The Pharisees and Sadducees came to watch, not to confess. They were religious experts, confident that they were already in the right. They had heritage, position, influence, and a deep certainty in their own perspective.

That’s when John’s tone sharpens:

“You brood of snakes… Prove by the way you live that you have repented of your sins and turned to God.” (Matthew 3:7–8)

Repentance becomes hardest when we are most certain we don’t really need it. When we’re sure we can manage our sin, manage our image, and keep control of our lives, our hearts quietly harden.

The fruit of that isn’t love, joy, peace, patience, gentleness, and self-control. The fruit becomes a life subtly (or not so subtly) centered on:

My preferences
My timeline
My agenda
My sense of how things should be
John’s not saying, “Perform better for God.” He’s saying, “Let your life tell the truth about where your heart is facing.”

That’s a word for me as a pastor too. It’s possible to preach well, lead well, “do ministry well,” and still be living largely for myself. The question is not, “Do I look spiritual?” The question is, “Is my life actually facing Jesus?”

The Axe, the Fire, and the Invitation
The imagery of the axe and the fire in this passage can be unsettling:

“Even now the axe of God’s judgment is poised…”
“He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire.”

This is not about a short-tempered God waiting gleefully to swing. The axe is poised, not yet falling. It’s a picture of urgency, not random rage.

Before God judges, He warns. That warning is an act of mercy.

And the fire? Fire in Scripture isn’t only destructive. It also refines and purifies. It burns away what doesn’t belong so what is real can remain. The same presence of God that exposes and removes what is false is the presence that heals what is true.

John says, “I baptize with water for repentance. I’m preparing you. But someone greater is coming—Someone whose baptism is not just outward but inward. Someone who can actually transform you.”

Water prepares.
The Holy Spirit transforms.

John points.
Jesus fulfills.

So What Is God Asking of Us?
Across Matthew 2 and 3, the questions we’ve wrestled with are:

Will we trust God when our plans keep changing?
Will we let God change us so we’re ready for what He wants to do next?
Notice what those questions are not:

“Will you fix yourself?”
“Will you become spiritually impressive?”
“Will you clean up your life so God will finally accept you?”
Instead, the invitation is about direction and surrender:

Where is God inviting me to turn away from what leads me away from Him—sin, distraction, misplaced hope, stubborn self-reliance?
Where is God inviting me to turn toward life with Jesus—life as a disciple, not just an occasional religious consumer?
Before Jesus steps into the water in the next passage—though He has no need to repent—John calls us to prepare the way. Not by becoming perfect, but by becoming honest.

Repentance is not the end of the story.
Repentance is how we make room for the One who writes the story.

Meeting Grace in the Middle of the Turn
This is why we moved from a moment of silence straight into communion.

That silence wasn’t a space to fix yourself. It was space to be honest. The simple prayer I invited us to pray was:

“Jesus, prepare the way in me.”

If you prayed that, even haltingly, even with a mixture of desire and fear, Jesus hears that.

Communion, then, is not a reward for the already-arrived. It’s where grace meets us while we are still turning. We don’t come to the table with our act together. We come as people in process—people facing Jesus, even if our steps are shaky.

John prepared people with water; we come now to Jesus’ table, trusting that by His Spirit He is truly with us, feeding us, forgiving us, forming us.

A Cleared Path, Not Added Weight
If you remember nothing else from this Sunday, remember this:

This is not about weight being added. This is a path being cleared.

Christ is risen.
He is risen indeed.

That means the One calling you to repent is the same One who died for you, rose for you, and now lives to intercede for you. He is not standing at a distance with crossed arms. He is already moving toward you.

So this week, my encouragement to you—as your pastor and as a fellow disciple—is simple:

Take one honest look at your direction.
Name, before God, where you need to turn.
Don’t do it alone—invite another believer into that process.
Take one faithful next step with Jesus.
Not perfection.
Turning.

Not crushing weight.
A cleared path.

Walk that path in grace and peace, as a beloved child of God, a citizen of heaven, and a disciple of Jesus—just one faithful step at a time.

On Super Bowl Sunday, I stood up to preach in the same shirt I’d worn two weeks earlier.

That wasn’t the plan.

In fact, very little in the last few weeks has gone “according to plan.”

Our church lost a dear sister, Glenda, who went home to be with the Lord. Some of you walked into worship full of joy; others walked in just trying to make it through the week. And somewhere between Seahawks chatter and jalapeño poppers, we found ourselves opening Matthew 2 and sitting again with Joseph—the quiet man in the Christmas story we usually move past by January.

But this time, we didn’t meet Joseph at the manger.

We met him on the run.

And as I’ve sat with this passage as a pastor and as a fellow disciple, I’ve realized: Joseph’s story has a lot to say to people whose plans keep changing, whose hearts are breaking, and who are just tired of having to adjust… again.

Which, if I’m honest, is most of us.

“I wasn’t looking for any of this.”

Joseph didn’t go looking to become a Bible character.

He wanted a normal life: a trade, a home, a wife, a future. Instead, he gets an unexpected pregnancy, a visit from an angel, a radical call to trust God, and the responsibility of raising the Son of God in a world that is anything but safe.

Two weeks ago, we talked about how Joseph responded rather than reacted when Mary’s pregnancy came to light. Instead of anger, revenge, or self-protection, Joseph chose gentleness, trust, and obedience.

But in Matthew 2:13–23, we see something that we don’t usually say out loud:

Sometimes obedience doesn’t make life calmer.
Sometimes obedience makes life more complicated.

“After the wise men were gone, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream. ‘Get up! Flee to Egypt with the child and his mother…’” (Matthew 2:13)

No comforting preamble this time. No “don’t be afraid.” Just: Get up. Flee. Go now.

Imagine waking your spouse in the middle of the night:

“Hey… we need to pack up and leave the country. Now.”

That’s not a devotional moment. That’s panic, adrenaline, and a thousand unanswered questions.

Yet Joseph obeys. Again.

And his obedience doesn’t remove the danger; it moves him through it.

That distinction matters. Because many of us carry a quiet assumption: If I follow God, life should get more stable. And when it doesn’t, we wonder if we’ve done something wrong—or if God has.

Matthew gently tells us: no. Sometimes obedience puts us right in the middle of disruption.

A world that is not safe—and a God who doesn’t look away

After Joseph and Mary flee to Egypt, Matthew shows us one of the hardest scenes in the Gospels:

“Herod was furious… He sent soldiers to kill all the boys in and around Bethlehem who were two years old and under…” (Matthew 2:16)

Innocent children are murdered. Families are shattered. Grief floods the region.

Matthew doesn’t try to explain it away. He doesn’t soften the horror. Instead, he reaches back to Jeremiah and lets lament have its full voice:

“A cry was heard in Ramah—
weeping and great mourning.
Rachel weeps for her children,
refusing to be comforted,
for they are dead.” (Matthew 2:18)

Scripture refuses to pretend the world is safer than it really is.

And as a pastor, I am deeply grateful for that.

Because I sit in rooms where diagnoses are given, jobs are lost, marriages fracture, and caskets are closed. I hear the “this isn’t how it was supposed to be” that lives behind a lot of our polite Sunday greetings.

Matthew doesn’t tell us why every tragedy happens. He does something different: he shows us where God is when it does.

Not distant. Not indifferent. Not caught off guard.

Present. Guiding. Speaking. Staying.

One dream at a time

If you trace Joseph’s story in Matthew, you see a pattern:

First dream: Take Mary as your wife.
Second dream: Flee to Egypt. Go now.
Third dream: Return to Israel. Herod is dead.
Fourth dream: Don’t stay in Judea; go to Galilee.
Here’s what stands out to me:

God never gives Joseph the full blueprint.

No master plan. No timeline. No “Here’s how this will all work out; here’s how many years you’ll be in Egypt; here’s the political situation you’ll face next.”

Just the next faithful step.

Take Mary.
Get up and flee.
Go back.
Actually, go here instead.
As a guy who would love a detailed spreadsheet from heaven, that is both frustrating and freeing.

Because it means this:

God’s guidance is often incremental.
He gives enough light for the next step, not the entire journey.

God’s presence is constant.
Emmanuel—God with us—is not a Christmas-season slogan. It’s the ongoing reality of a God who doesn’t wait for life to settle down before He draws close.

Faithfulness doesn’t require certainty.
It requires trust and obedience in the present moment.

Joseph doesn’t know he’s fulfilling ancient prophecies. He’s not thinking, “Well, this will really help Matthew 2 come together.” He’s just trying to protect his family and obey God, step by step, in a dangerous world.

That’s discipleship.

Nazareth: Ordinary, unstrategic, and exactly where God led

The last detail in this passage is so easy to skip:

“So the family went and lived in a town called Nazareth. This fulfilled what the prophets had said: ‘He will be called a Nazarene.’” (Matthew 2:23)

Nazareth is not glamorous. It’s not strategic. It’s not Jerusalem. It’s not Rome. It’s a small, ordinary town.

And that’s where Jesus grows up.

Sometimes God leads us forward into things that look big, impressive, or clearly “impactful.”

But often, God leads us back into what is ordinary, familiar, and seemingly small:

Back to the same marriage that needs slow, faithful work.
Back to the same job where you’re trying to be a light.
Back to the same neighborhood, the same town, the same daily routines.
Not as punishment.

As formation.

Nazareth is where Jesus is formed. Ordinary places are where Christ is formed in us.

Where this touches us: disruption, uncertainty, and fear

As I look out over our congregation—and as I look at my own life—I see most of us living in one (or more) of three spaces:

A place of disruption
Something changed that you didn’t choose. You’re thinking, “It wasn’t supposed to be like this.” Illness, loss, a broken relationship, a financial crisis, a shattered expectation.

A place of uncertainty
You’re trying to be faithful, but you don’t have the clarity you want. You don’t know what’s next. You’re waiting on answers, and they’re not coming quickly.

A place of fear
You’re either afraid of what might happen, or you already sense what the next step is—and you’re afraid of what it will cost: your comfort, your reputation, your control, your opinions about how things “should” work.

If that’s you, Joseph’s story speaks a steady word:

God may not give you the full plan.
God will give you the next step.
And He will not leave you alone while you take it.
Emmanuel is not a stationary promise.

God is with you:

In disruption.
In uncertainty.
In fear.
In grief.
And in the very next step of obedience He is asking you to take.
The question I’m asking our church (and myself)

At the end of the sermon, we sat in silence around a single question. It’s the question that’s been working on me as a pastor, a husband, a dad, and simply a follower of Jesus:

What is the next faithful step God is asking me to take right now?

Not the ten-year vision.
Not the five-point plan.
Not the outcome you can’t control.

Just the next faithful step:

A conversation you need to have.
An apology you’ve been resisting.
A habit you need to release—or one you need to begin.
A call to serve, give, forgive, reconcile, or risk.
A willingness to move—or a willingness to stay.
Often, that next step will feel simple.
That doesn’t mean it will be easy.

And if you genuinely don’t know what your next step is, that’s okay too. Sometimes God reveals it over time as we keep walking with Him, listening, seeking wise counsel, soaking ourselves in Scripture, and showing up in community.

My encouragement to you—as your pastor and as your fellow traveler—is this:

Don’t underestimate the power of one small act of obedience.

Joseph’s story in Matthew 2 is not glamorous. It’s not a highlight reel. It’s a series of hard, costly, ordinary acts of trust in the middle of danger, grief, and constant change.

And through that quiet, steady obedience, God was doing more than Joseph could see.

He still is.

Wherever you find yourself today—in disruption, uncertainty, or fear—may you know:

God does not promise an easy path.
He does not promise a path that aligns with our expectations.

But He does promise His peace.
He does promise His provision.
And He does promise His presence.

Emmanuel.
God with us.
Right here. Right now.
All the way through.

And as we walk together as a church, my prayer is simple:

That we would not be people of quick reactions, but people of deep response.
That we would not be people who demand clarity before we obey, but people who trust the One who walks with us.
That we would take, together, the next faithful step He sets before us.

One dream at a time.
One decision at a time.
One ordinary “yes” at a time.

Good morning, dear friends,

As I stood before you this past Sunday, I was struck once again by the beauty and depth of God's Word. Our journey through the Gospel of Matthew brought us face-to-face with the story of the Magi, a story that is often wrapped in myth but rooted deeply in truth. Today, I'd like to share some reflections from that message, as we explored the important question: What do we do when Jesus is revealed as King?

As we traversed Matthew 2:1-12, we encountered King Herod, the Jewish scholars, and the Magi—three distinct characters offering three varied responses to Jesus’ birth. Each response serves as a mirror, challenging us to examine our own hearts.

Herod, a man driven by fear and a thirst for control, reacted with paranoia, scheming to eliminate a perceived threat to his throne. His story is a cautionary tale about the dangers of clinging to power and the facade of religious piety. It reminds us that even we can fall into the trap of saying the right words without genuine intent. How often do we hold onto control, masking it with spiritual language?

The scribes and religious leaders, on the other hand, had knowledge at their fingertips. They knew the scriptures well—so well, in fact, that they could immediately pinpoint Bethlehem as the birthplace of the Messiah. Yet, their knowledge didn’t move them. They stayed put, allowing indifference to overtake what should have been a holy curiosity. This is another familiar trap. In an age where information is abundant, we too can become informed yet unmoved. Does our knowledge of God’s word prompt us to action, or are we content merely knowing the facts?

Then, there are the Magi—wise men from the East, seekers of truth who ventured hundreds of miles, driven by faith sparked by a star. They understood that true worship requires movement. Their journey was costly, filled with risks, yet their response was one of humility and generosity. They opened their treasures and offered precious gifts to Jesus. Most importantly, they left changed, heeding God’s warning not to return to Herod, a testament to the transformative power of encountering Christ.

The question for us today is: Which response do we see in our lives? Are we clinging to control like Herod, indifferent like the scribes, or are we earnestly seeking Jesus like the Magi, ready to worship and be transformed by His grace?

The heart of true worship is recognizing Jesus as King and responding with our whole selves. It’s about seeking Him, surrendering to Him, offering our best, and leaving His presence changed. As we ponder how we will respond to God’s incredible revelation through Christ, let us remember that our journey of faith involves movement. May our lives be marked by a worship that moves us closer to the heart of God and out into the world, changed and ready to act.

Thank you for joining this journey through Matthew. I pray that as we continue, we remain open to the transformative work of God in our lives, responding with hearts full of worship and lives marked by change.

In Christ’s love,