“Honor the Lord with your wealth
and with the firstfruits of all your produce;”
– Proverbs 3:9

We live in a time and place of great abundance, yet many struggle with a deep desire for more. When we get more, we remain unsatisfied, wanting still more. Despite having more stuff than the overwhelming majority of people and cultures throughout the history of the world, we are increasingly desperate to get more and increasingly anxious and afraid of losing what we have. We’ve built an entire industry around storing and protecting all the stuff that we don’t have space to store ourselves.

These is symptomatic of a heart problem, a problem that can be healed by following this proverb. Too often our stuff own us rather than us owning our stuff. The best and most reliable cure for this is to honor God with our possessions. When we give the first and best of our income and possessions to God and His work it transforms our relationship with our stuff.

When we give generously of our first and best to the Lord to support the local church, ministries that care for the poor and most vulnerable in our community, and the Kingdom-building mission of God across the world, our mindset and relationship with money and possessions changes radically. We no longer covet and fear but eagerly look forward to what we can give back to God. It’s both personally liberating and glorifying to God all at the same time.

This proverb continues with a principle that may not exactly be a promise, but is definitely a common experience for those who consistently commit their first and best to the Lord, “then your barns will be filled with plenty, and your vats will be bursting with wine.” God rewards our faithfulness with our material possessions – often by giving us even more to devote to Him while always redefining our understanding of plenty and filling our hearts with Him!

“Then they understood that he did not tell them to beware of the leaven of bread, but of the teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees.” – Matthew 16:12

The Pharisees and Sadducees were well-respected, scholarly religious leaders and teachers. People admired them and gave them prominent roles in society. But Jesus warned His disciples to beware of the infectious nature of their Bible teaching. We too must beware of Bible teaching by well-known teachers and scholars who aren’t actually teaching what Jesus taught.

Pharisees were meticulous about rule-following and zealous for God’s Law, but did so to save themselves. They taught and labored so they could be good enough to not need a Savior and it was a fraud! Christian teachers can fall into the same trap, encouraging moralism, good works, and onerous rule following without explaining and embracing the beautiful truth of the gospel: none of us can ever be good enough to save ourselves, yet God in His grace and mercy provided a Savior through the life, death, and resurrection of His Son Jesus. Beware of the Pharisees who teaches that you can do it yourself, to wash your face, clean up your act, and be the best you without confronting your own sin and ongoing need for a Savior. Seek teachers who humbly embrace the Gospel in their own lives and invite you to do the same!

Sadducees served as the priests of the people, but edited out the parts of the Bible they didn’t like: Old Testament prophets, angels, and the resurrection of the dead. We live in an era where many pastors and teachers also want to edit out part of the Bible they don’t agree with: the Old Testament, God’s moral law, the miraculous, the substitutionary atonement of Jesus on the cross. Beware of the Sadducees who teach what you want to hear. Seek teachers who will embrace and teach all of Scripture!

“And great crowds came to him, bringing with them the lame, the blind, the crippled, the mute, and many others, and they put them at his feet, and he healed them, so that the crowd wondered, when they saw the mute speaking, the crippled healthy, the lame walking, and the blind seeing. And they glorified the God of Israel.” – Matthew 15:30-31

What’s remarkable about this passage isn’t the comprehensive healing and numerous miracles being worked. These are the signs of Messiah and the work of the Kingdom of God which Jesus has been doing since chapter 4! What’s remarkable is that this group doesn’t give glory to God, they give glory to the God of Israel. This is a group of Gentiles, foreigners, non-Jews who don’t yet know YHWH of Israel.

By these actions, Jesus makes clear that Messiah has come for all who will believe in Him, Jew and Gentile alike. The Kingdom of God is open to all people, all nations, and all backgrounds, not just the select few born in ethnic Israel. This was God’s ancient promise and yet it was completely unexpected to the people of the time!

In the same way, we can forget the breathtaking scope of God’s desire to seek and save the lost today. As followers of Jesus, we must share the good news of Jesus Christ indiscriminately rather than pre-screening people based on whether they are “our kind of people” or “likely to believe in Jesus”. We must love and share with those who are similar to us and those completely unlike us. We must love and share with those actively seeking God and those who seem very far from God. We must do the work of the Kingdom in all places of the world, not just the “good” places and we must offer the Kingdom to all without exception as Jesus Himself did.

“He said, ‘Come.’ So Peter got out of the boat and walked on the water and came to Jesus. But when he saw the wind, he was afraid, and beginning to sink he cried out, ‘Lord, save me.’” – Matthew 14:29-30

There’s a remarkable difference in what we can do when we’re looking only to Jesus and doing what He tells us to do versus when we’re busy looking around ourselves at all the challenges we face! Peter walks on water when his eyes are on Jesus and his heart focused simply on obedience. Peter sinks when he loses focus on Jesus and notices the wind, the waves, and the fact that he’s doing the impossible.

As the church, we’re routinely called to do the impossible: make disciples, love the unlovable, glorify God in a fallen world. We should never doubt that God will empower us to do these impossible tasks as long as we’re focused on Jesus. When start worrying about the obstacles and challenges that surround us: numbers, culture change, financial constraints, practicalities, opposition, etc. we begin to sink. Unfortunately this is the default mode for many Christians and churches – we worry about what we can’t do rather than simply focusing on Jesus and doing what He called us to do. It’s time to get our focus right because there’s a lot of work to do!!!

“He sent and had John beheaded in the prison” – Matthew 14:10

On this day in which we remember the life and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., this verse reminds us that the people of God must be willing to be unpopular, to be opposed by the crowd and by those in authority, to be imprisoned, to suffer, and even to die for the truth of God. Whether it be the truth that God created all persons of every race, nationality, and ethnicity equally in His image and all are therefore worthy of equal rights and dignity, or whether it be taking an uncompromising stand for the moral principles and standards of God before corrupt and powerful leaders or applauding mobs, there is a price to be paid for speaking God’s truth and we must be willing to pay it!

As followers of Jesus, we must always be careful that we are unpopular and persecuted for the truth and principles of God, not simply because we are being unpleasant or rude. It’s too easy to be obnoxious, find yourself disliked, then pat yourself on the back for being strong. That isn’t the call of Jesus – we must be winsome, gentle, and firm in our presentation of hard truth.

As followers of Jesus, we must be careful that we are standing up for His truth in a manner that glorifies Him: full of gospel authenticity, firm and steadfast love, humble acknowledgement of our own weakness and failures, and genuinely desiring to offer forgiveness and experience deep reconciliation. Ungodly language and ungodly behavior do not advance the Kingdom of God in the face of evil, they are tools that serve the purposes of the Evil One. We must never trade our Christian integrity and witness for short-term success or power – that’s the work of the devil not Christ.

Our path and calling is not easy. The cost of truly following Jesus will increase in this country. However, we have countless examples across the centuries who make it clear that we can and must be willing to pay that price.