Sunday Sermons

In verse 12, Jesus wraps up a major section of his teaching with one of the most quoted portions of the Bible. The “Golden Rule” is a text that is known well beyond the walls of the church, but it serves to bring a proper close to a great portion of what Jesus has already taught in the Sermon on the Mount.

As we start to wrap up Jesus' teaching on how we treat others in the Sermon on the Mount, we come to another passage about prayer. But instead of teaching us how to pray, our Lord gives us a word about the confidence we ought to have when we pray. It is an encouraging word about the level of access we have to our loving father in heaven.

This week, we shift from the personal nature of what our hearts are serving and depending on, to our interactions with those around us. As we consider the concept of judging whether someone else is right or wrong, Jesus had strong words for us to consider before engaging in casting that judgment on others.

Last week, we looked at Jesus’ teaching on earthly versus heavenly treasure. In this Sunday’s passage, Jesus addresses a consistent pitfall that everyone experiences: anxiousness over necessities. Jesus provides a perspective that serves to free us from the worry that takes our eyes off the kingdom. He encourages us to remember that God knows us better than we know ourselves and that our daily nee...

After multiple weeks focusing on the Lord’s Prayer, we now move onto the next part of the Sermon on the Mount. In Matthew 6:19-24, Jesus begins to teach on money and possessions. And although the way we view and spend money is not a popular idea to be confronted with, it is indicative of what our heart truly values.

We now reach the last part of the Lord’s Prayer in Matthew 6 and it covers something that we may not give much thought to in our prayer lives, temptation and evil. Matthew 6:13 is an acknowledgement that evil truly exists and that we are vulnerable without the protection of God. And so our Lord commands us to include these things in our prayers to God.

After a week in First Kings, we are back to the Lord’s Prayer. And in verse 12, we are taught to pray for our forgiveness. In fact, verse 12 is such a key part to Jesus’ teaching in this section that he adds commentary in verses 14-15. How we approach forgiveness is a chief indicator of the condition of our hearts.

In reflecting on a great week of VBS, we took a slight detour this Sunday from the Sermon on the Mount to look at the story of Elijah and the prophets of Baal from 1 Kings 18. It serves as a reminder that the Lord we worship really is the One True God.

In Matthew 6:11, we come to a short petition asking for God to give us our daily bread. And while this may be a familiar phrase to many of us, our regularity in praying this way might be lacking. In this verse, Jesus is teaching us something very important about God and the way that we daily interact with him.

We continue through the Lord’s prayer in Matthew 6:10 with a plea from Jesus concerning the kingdom. He is teaching us to have a heart that prays for the Kingdom’s arrival and willing obedience from its citizens to the King. Though the words of this verse are often repeated weekly in churches without much thought, it is a request for the up-ending and restoration of everything.

This Sunday, we start to narrow our focus onto individual sections of the Lord‘s prayer. And while this may be a passage that is very familiar to many of us, there is much to glean from looking at it so closely. In 6:9, we see how Jesus addresses the Father as well as a prayer concerning his name.

This week, we begin a new chapter in Matthew and a new section of our Lord’s Sermon on the Mount. Here, Jesus warns his listeners of practicing their righteousness before others in order to be seen. It is a message that shows us that God not only cares about what we do, but why we do it.

We now come to the end of chapter 5, as well as this section of the Sermon on the Mount. This section concludes with a command that, at first glance, might make us think that Jesus couldn’t actually be serious about. He calls us to be perfect. And while our normal use of the word “perfect” might cloud our understanding, it is a command we are meant to obey.

In this final paragraph of Matthew 5, Jesus gives a teaching that is truly emblematic of the high calling of being a citizen of the kingdom of heaven. We are called to love our enemies. While this certainly would have been radical in Jesus’ day, it's still radical when it is truly lived out today and confounds a world that is watching.

Jesus' teaching throughout chapter 5 has set a different tone for what true righteous living actually looks like. His words on retaliation in this week's passage are no exception. Like the rest of this chapter before it, Jesus' words here present to us a standard for dealing with insult and injustice that can only be categorized as radical by those looking in.

s we continue on with Jesus’ teaching from the Sermon on the Mount, we come upon his words concerning oaths. While we may not live in the same type of oath-taking-culture as his original hearers, the principles remain the same. We are to be people of our word that follow through with what we promise.

In this week’s passage, Jesus seamlessly moves from the subject of lust to divorce and remarriage. And in these topics, he continues to teach a righteousness that goes much deeper than the surface. While these subjects may make us uncomfortable, how we approach them as citizens of the kingdom matters immensely to the Lord.

In this week’s passage, Jesus talks about the sin of lust. Just like anger, it is a far deeper issue than what we see on the surface. For citizens of His kingdom, it is not only a matter of how we outwardly act, but also of what we entertain inwardly. Jesus is calling us to a fuller righteousness.

As we enter into the main body of Jesus’ teaching, he begins with a word on anger and dissension amongst brothers. And while it may seem excessive at first glance, Jesus’ instruction on these matters is a testimony to how serious God takes our relationships with one another.

After a break for Holy Week, we are now back to our Lord’s teaching from the Sermon on the Mount. This passage is the first one that comes after the Beatitudes and connects us into the main body of Jesus’ sermon. Here, the Lord shows us that following him is a higher call than what we may expect.

Today, we celebrate together the resurrection of our Lord as Holy Week and the Lenten season come to a close. Resurrection Sunday is the highest holy day in our calendar because if Jesus isn’t raised from the dead, then we don't have a foundation for our faith. As we see in Psalm 16, not only has God raised him, but this was the plan all along.

We begin Holy Week by celebrating Palm Sunday together and walking through Psalm 118. Throughout the week we will dive into psalms that apply to the events of Christ’s passion throughout the week. Psalm 118 is not only quoted during the events of Jesus’ entrance into Jerusalem, but it also tells us so much about our Savior and the nature of his deliverance.

We have now come to the end of this section called the beatitudes, and Jesus concludes it by comparing his people to salt and light. We get a chance here to see the impact that living rightly has for those who witness it. If last week’s passage (Matthew 5:10-12) was about the world’s effect on God’s people, this is about the effect of God’s people on the world.

This Sunday concludes our time together in the beatitudes and it ends with a word on the world’s response to the righteous. Hostility and persecution are not just a probability, they are to be expected. And even though this is the reality for God’s people, we are to rejoice because of what we already have reserved for us.

As we approach the end of the beatitudes, our Lord gives the penultimate description of the citizens of his kingdom as peacemakers. And while peace is a term that the world uses quite frequently, the worldly understanding of it certainly lacks the fullness of what Christ means by it. So as God’s people, we go forward as His representatives of the kind of peace he offers.