We Listen, Learn, and Obey The Commands of Jesus

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Take #3

This past week in my class at Pathway, I had the privilege of asking my students, “What is the mission of the church?”

What is it that makes the church special and unique?

If I asked you that question, what would you say?

If you open your Bibles to chapters 4-7 of Matthew, I think we get some clues as to what the mission of the church is

In Matthew 4:17 we read that as Jesus came of age and began His public ministry, He preached this message:

“REPENT FOR THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN IS AT HAND”

A simple, short message with tremendous implications.

A new Kingdom is close at hand.

What is a Kingdom? It is a realm, a sphere, an area under the rule of a king

And a king is one who wields soveriegn power. Or at least, that is the way it used to be understood

The power to rule without consulting a congress or advisors

A new rule is coming.

The implication is that A new way of life is coming.

It is time to change course. It’s time to start living differently, expecting something different

For all of your lives you have been under the rule and the expectations of the Law, the Mosaic Covenant.

But something new has arrived and it’s time to repent

This word repent,

to change one’s life, based on complete change of attitude and thought concerning sin and righteousness.

And if your attitudes and thoughts about what sin and righteousness is changing, my guess is that your entire life is going to change

Because we as people do want to know what is right and what is wrong.

What is sin? What am I supposed to stay away from?

What is righteousness? What am I supposed to pursue? These are extremely important questions. And the answers to these questions have the ability to change the course of your life

Repent for the kingdom of Heaven is at hand

And in order to usher in this new Kingdom, Jesus does 3 things:

in verse 18 to call followers who will be His closest companions. These men are going to see and experience first hand over the next 3 years this New Kingdom

They are going to be disciples

They are going to learn and be trained by their teacher

And after he begins to call His followers, Jesus shows by action and by word what life in the New Kingdom is like 4:23-25

He went into the synagogues, their centers of worship and learning, and taught about the kingdom.

“He proclaimed the Gospel of the Kingdom

That is, the good News of the Kingdom

He healed their sick

This is a Kingdom where the ruler has power over physical diseases

He cast out demons

This is a Kingdom in which the ruler has power over the spiritual realm

So, Jesus shows by word and action that the arrival of this Kingdom is indeed good news!

In chapters 5-7, Jesus teaches extensively about what it takes to be a citizen of the Kingdom of Heaven.

What their attitudes should be like

How their lives should be different

He teaches about what God, the ruler of the Kingdom of Heaven values

Those who are poor in heart

Who mourn over sin

Those who are meek

Those who desire righteousness more than food and water

Those who don’t just say they like peace, but those who actively make peace

Who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness

And then to really stretch his listeners, Jesus procedes to teach that the Law of Moses was not strict enough

Jesus says, in the Law, you could be punished if you committed adultery with a woman

But in the Kingdom of Heaven, you break the law if you just lust after a woman

In the Law of Moses, you could be punished if you murder someone

But in the Kingdom of Heaven, you have broken the law if you are angry with someone and you don’t make it right!

The Kingdom of Heaven is the kind of place where, if someone smacks you on the right cheek, turn and offer him the left one as well!

These are things that had to have left his audience stunned.

This was not at all what they had learned about the Law as they were growing up.

This was not at all what their forefathers had believed or how they had lived!

But Jesus said “Repent!”

In order to be a citizen of the Kingdom of Heaven you must think differently about what it means to live righteously.

And if that weren’t enough, Jesus winds up his sermon with this little story:

Matthew 7:24-27 “24 “Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. 25 And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. 26 And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. 27 And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it.””

And it says that when Jesus had finished His teachings, the crowds were astonished at His teaching because He taught as one who had authority, and not as the Scribes

Well, do you blame them for being astonished?

I don’t! Even on this side of history, after having read this “Sermon on the Mount” so many times

If I just take a moment to meditate and let it soak in, I am amazed and somewhat intimidated by the words of Jesus

I am astounded at what it takes to be a citizen of the Kingdom of Heaven.

Nevertheless, these are the commands of Jesus and He said to His listners (and to us)

“If you want a life that is steady and strong, and can withstand the storms that will come your way, you must

Hear my words

Obey my words

So you might be thinking, “I thought that we were going to be talking about the Mission of the Church”

That’s what we all were thinking, right?

Good, I’m glad that we are still on track

Because now we skip forward to the end of the Gospel of Matthew.

In chapter 28, as Jesus is preparing to ascend back to The Father, he gives this commission to His followers (including us)

Matthew 28:18-20 “18 And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.””

Do you see how the Great Commission is tied directly to what Jesus said in chapter 7?

In chapter 7, Jesus says “Hear my words and obey them.”

In chapter 28 Jesus tells us “Teach others to do the same”

It is the commission to listen to, learn, and obey the Commands of Jesus

And folks, this is the mission of the Church

As citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven, as Image Bearers of God, it is our mission to

Listen to the words of Jesus

Learn what they mean

And then to obey

And then to teach others to do the same

It is to declare to the world that the Kingdom of Heaven has come.

We are not here to judge the world. It is not our mission to declare judgement to the world

It is our mission to

declare to the world, to all nations, all the ethnic groups of the world, the Good News about the Kingdom, and it is our mission

Teach them about what it means to be a citizen of this Kingdom.

To teach them what our King has commanded

And how He has taught us to live

Last weekend at our Leadership Retreat, we were talking about what it is that connects us as a people here at Fairview

What is our identity as a people?

We have seen a lot of change over the years, and especially in the more recent years

And as we experience change

As ways of dressing and practice change

As expressions of worship and singing change

As some structural things have changed

My guess is that maybe we are starting to ask more questions about our identity.

Questions like

Who are we

What is our purpose or mission

What do we actually agree on

What are we unified about?

For me, personally, that has been the case.

When I’m in a season of change, especially significant change, I have started to ask questions like these

When God changed the course of our lives from doing what we thought we would be doing for a very long time

To returning to Iowa and doing something very different

Honestly, some of those questions swirled around in our heads.

And still do sometimes.

And when we struggling with those questions, our whole life feels unsettled

And maybe that is when, especially as a congregation, we can start to look at each other cross-eyed. And begin to be suspicious of each other and unhappy with each other

So, we were talking about this as a leadership team and the idea was brought up of composing some statements that we can read together as a church

Which would remind us of our identity, to remind us of our mission to help connect us as a people.

And these would be statements that are all drawn from Scripture, from the words of Jesus to avoid confusion

And we said, what better place to start then in the Sermon on the Mount

Our “constitution” as citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven.

This passage describes for us in such detail about what Kingdom citizens are like

So each couple took a piece of paper that had at the top of it

“We are People Who...”

And then we sat down with Matthew 5, and we wrote out statements which finished that sentence and which described the identity and priorities of Citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven.

Then we compiled everything that we came up with and said

What are 4 statements that we can focus on the next number of months which would help to remind of of who we are and what we believe

And so for today and for the next several Sundays I would like to focus on these statements and have us read them together

Because when we voice what we believe together, I believe it strengthens us and helps to put it in the front of our memory.

So here is the first one.

At Fairview, “We are people who listen, learn, and obey the commands of Jesus”.

This is a statement which encompasses the other statements that we will be looking at, because they all come from the commands of Jesus

Is this statement something that can work toward unifying us

I would invite you to stand as we close this service.

And I invite us to read this together.

But with this statement and the others to follow, don’t read it just because I say let’s read it together.

I want us to believe it together.

James Swanson, Dictionary of Biblical Languages with Semantic Domains: Greek (New Testament) (Oak Harbor: Logos Research Systems, Inc., 1997).