Category Archives: Matthew

Posted on

Confidence In The Un-Random God

Read: Matthew 2

“For thus it is written in the prophets…” (Matthew 2:5, 15, 18, 23)

The birth and life of Jesus Christ, the Son of God and Savior of the world, was not the product of random events. It was the direct result of prophetic fulfillment. Thus the phrase linking Christ’s life to Old Testament prophecy is repeated four times here in this second chapter of Matthew’s Gospel.

Those details of Jesus’ life had been laid out in the mind of God from eternity past and had been written down in the inspired utterances of the prophets of old hundreds of years before Christ was born. The fulfillment of scores of prophecies in minute detail of the birth, life, death, and resurrection Jesus leaves us with a pretty amazing track record of prophetic accuracy…leaving no doubt that those prophecies detailing his second coming will most certainly be fulfilled, too.

There is nothing random about God; nothing is left up to chance. The God of the Bible is the sovereign Lord of the universe, and is ruling over the details of history to bring about his perfect plan. What may seem like happenstance or coincidence, God has foreordained, caused, or permitted in his perfect will. Coincidence is simply a sovereign act of God for which he chooses to remain unseen, a miracle for which he prefers anonymity.

God is in control of all things, and that includes your life. David wrote in Psalm 139:16,

“You saw me before I was born.
Every day of my life was recorded in your book.
Every moment was laid out
before a single day had passed.”

God’s Word invites you to live with amazing confidence today, knowing that he is in control of all things, including even the smallest details of your life. Therefore you can say, “all things will work together for my good and his glory.”

“We serve a gracious Master who knows how to overrule even our mistakes to His glory and our own advantage.” ~John Newton

What If God Took Over?

Offer this prayer of confidence to God: 

“Lord, I will live confidently and expectantly this day, and this year, knowing that my life is a part of your greater plan. Take over my life completely, and may every detail of my existence serve your purposes perfectly and bring great glory to your name.”

Posted on

A Day To Begin Again

Read: Matthew 1

“All of this occurred to fulfill the Lord’s message through his prophet: ‘Look! The virgin will conceive a child! She will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel,’ which means, ‘God is with us.’” (Matthew 1:22-23)

For me, New Year’s Day is always the day I begin again. I’ve set new goals for myself, and today I begin anew the march toward that which God has called me: The transformation of my life into complete Christlikeness.

“Until Christ is formed in you!” (Galatians 4:19)

One of those critical goals that will propel me forward toward Christlikeness is to have a “quiet time” with God every single day this year. I know of no more powerful and profound, yet simple key to Christian growth, spiritual health and life change than to read, meditate on, and pray over God’s Word. You cannot grow and you will not be “blessable” without the intimate relationship with God that comes through his Word.  It will not be apart from reading, memorizing, meditating, absorbing, obeying and loving God’s Word that God will truly take over Ray Noah in 2011.

So I want to invite you to join me on this journey. I will be reading the Gospels four times this year—one chapter each day from the New Living Translation.

Now as you start off today’s reading in Matthew 1, you are immediately confronted with a list of names, which, for the most part, are meaningless to you. You may be tempted just to skip past these names, but I want to challenge you not to do that. You see, each name, just like in your own family history, tells a story. And that story reveals God’s activity in fulfilling his divine purpose to bring about the birth of his Son, Jesus Christ. Jesus did not just suddenly appear in history without context—his birth was the result of God’s eternal plan.

Not only do these names show us how God was fulfilling his sovereign purpose, they show us how he was fulfilling his divine promise. Jesus was born as a result of a promise God had made hundreds of years before, first to Adam and Eve (Genesis 3:15), then to Abraham (Genesis 12:3) and to King David (I Chronicles 17:11-14). God never breaks a promise—you can count on that!

Furthermore, these names not only tell the story of God’s purpose and God’s promise, but they tell us the story of God’s grace in using fallen and quite flawed human beings as the conduit through whom his Son would be born. In this listing of the Messiah’s progenitors are some unlikely and undeserving people: Tamar, a Gentile woman who slept with her father-in-law, Rahab, a Gentile prostitute, Ruth, a Gentile woman from the hated Moabite nation, and Bathsheba, who is listed as the “wife of Uriah the Hittite”, the woman with whom King David had an adulterous affair.

It is nothing less than amazing that God would use people you would never expect as the human conduit through which he would fulfill his purposes and his promises. And if God would use people like them, he will use people like you and me. That is the grace of God!

This opening chapter here in Matthew’s Gospel that begins with all these strange and boring names tells us the amazing story of how our purposeful, faithful and gracious God went to extreme lengths to reach us and redeem us with his love. He didn’t send his love through a written message, or a public service announcement, or a sign in the heavens. He sent himself! He sent his love through a baby born in a manger, who was called Immanuel—which means, “God is now with us.”

Here we are on the first day of 2011, and I don’t know what this year holds for you and me, but I know Who holds this year. He is the God who will accomplish all of his purposes. He is the God who will fulfill each of his promises. He is the God who will yet again reveal his grace. He is Immanuel.  He is God, and he is with us!

And he is the one person who has the right to fully take over my life—and yours!

“Never look down to test the ground before taking your next step; only he who keeps his eye fixed on the far horizon will find the right road.”  ~Dag Hammarskjold

What If God Took Over?

Have you set some action steps that will allow God to more fully take over your life this year?  I hope so.  I have—I’ve listed 5 of them below (I have a few more that I’ll not bore you with at the moment).  Take a moment to right down your action steps—and if you don’t mind, share one of them with me.

  1. To have a daily quiet time with God—Bible reading, journaling and prayer.
  2. To share my faith with a lost person at least once per month.
  3. To live a morally pure and God-pleasing life each of the next 365 days.
  4. To look more like Christ in my thinking, feeling and acting life—that my growth in Christ-likeness will be evident to my family, associates and followers.
  5. To know and do God’s perfect will.
Posted on

Big Hairy Audacious Prayers

Matthew 26:1-28:20

Big Hairy Audacious Prayers

At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom.
Matthew 27:51

Going Deep: There is a high likelihood that you will pass by this curtain-tearing incident too quickly in light of all of the other amazing details of the crucifixion.  If you do, you will miss one of the most significant events in the history of God’s dealing with mankind.

A little background information on the curtain may help.  Kimberly Southwall writes,

“The temple had two important rooms in it. One was called the Holy Place, and the other was called the Most Holy Place. A curtain separated the Holy Place from the Most Holy Place. (Exodus 26:31-33.) The Most Holy Place represented the presence of God Himself. Because of that, the Most Holy Place was so special that God only allowed a priest to enter into it one time each year. No one else was ever allowed inside that room. The priest entered the Most Holy Place once a year to take the blood from a sacrificed animal to sprinkle inside to atone or try to make up for the peoples’ sins during that past year. For many years, this was the only way God’s people could hope to atone for their sins. But even this way wasn’t really good enough. That’s why God sent His only Son, Jesus, to die and atone for everyone’s sins, once and for all.

Keep in mind that this curtain was not like the ones in your home.  To begin with, only the High Priest could get near it; and then only once a year.  Not only that, it would have been impossibly tall to rip from the top to the bottom without a ladder.  Moreover, it was so thick that, ladder or not, no human hand could ever have torn it in two.

So what is going on here?  At the moment Jesus died to atone for our sins, it was as if God reached down from the unseen realm where he dwells, grabbed the curtain with both hands, ripping it with a vengeance, and thus opening up a new way for you and me into his very presence.

How awesome is that!  No longer do we need to come to God through an ineffective system of religious laws, procedural sacrifices, or by a high priest.  We can now boldly, confidently, and regularly come right into the very presence of God himself to obtain what we need.  That’s right, you can confidently bring those big, hairy, audacious prayers before God yourself.  You can go right to the top.

The writer of Hebrews describes it this way,

“Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain, that is, his body, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near to God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful.” (Hebrews 10:19-23)

The writer puts it similarly in Hebrews 4:16, “Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.”

Now, aren’t you glad God ripped the curtain?  I sure am.  Next time you read Matthew 27, pause at verse 51 for a little while.

And while you’re at it, be a little bold before God in your prayers!

Just Saying… I love how Martin Luther describe the righteousness by which we access the Father’s presence:  “This is the mystery of the riches of divine grace for sinners, for by a wonderful exchange our sins are now not ours but Christ’s, and Christ’s righteousness is not Christ’s, but ours.”

Posted on

Holy Risk Takers

Matthew 23:1-25:46

Holy Risk Takers

“The kingdom of heaven is like a man traveling to a far country, who called
his own servants and delivered his goods to them.  To one he gave five
talents, to another two, and to another one, to each according
to his own ability; and immediately he went on a journey
… But he who had received one went and dug in
the ground, and hid his lord’s money.”
Matthew 25:14-15,18

Go Deep: You probably know this Parable of the Talents well. Each of the servants was given talents (a sum of money) according to his ability, with the expectation that they would use endowment to produce something of benefit for the master.

The first two did—and were rewarded handsomely; the third didn’t—and was rebuked harshly. In fact, the talent was taken from the latter and given to the first servant, since he had proven to the master that he could increase exponentially whatever was placed in his care.

Now I have no way to prove this theologically, but I have a strong suspicion about this third servant. I don’t think he would have experienced the master’s rebuke had trying at least preceded his failure. I think it was because he didn’t try that the master’s anger was unleashed on him. He played it safe. He feared failure, so he didn’t risk anything. This one-talent servant simply took what he had been given, protected it, and turned it back over to the master in the same condition in which he had received it. And the master blew a gasket!

This gracious but just master had entrusted something special to the servant and the servant did nothing to expand it. Now here is a crucial part of this story: The master had given his servant the talent according to his ability (verse 15). In other words, the master knew, even though it was small, there was production potential in this servant. But the servant wasted it! He let a golden opportunity slip by, and paid a heavy price for it. He didn’t damage the talent; he didn’t lose it; he preserved it—thinking he was doing the master a favor. However, the master found that kind of fear-based, lazy-hearted stewardship odious.

You, too, have been given a talent—probably more: talents in the literal sense of the word, and talents in the sense of kingdom potential and kingdom opportunity. You have been given them according to your ability—not anyone else’s. You won’t be judged against either another’s potential or their production. Your only benchmark is your own faithfulness. As Charles Robinson pointed out, “The reward of being ‘faithful over a few things’ is just the same as being ‘faithful over many things’; for the emphasis falls upon the same word; it is the ‘faithful’ who will enter ‘into the joy of their Lord.’”

It matters not if you have five, three or one talent potential.  What matters is what you do with what you have been given.  You have been given your talents with the expectation that you will leverage your abilities to increase those talents and enlarge the kingdom for the real Master—for Jesus’ sake.

The whole point of the story is this: Don’t waste your opportunities. Don’t let the possibility of failure paralyze you; don’t let inaction define you. If there is any regret at the end of your faith journey, may that be that you tried and failed, not that you didn’t try.

Risk a little. Even if you fall flat on your face, the fact that your heart was pure and your motive was to increase your Master’s kingdom will bring you to the joyful place of hearing him say to you on that glorious day,

“Well done, good and faithful servant; you have been faithful over
a few things, I will make you ruler over many things.
Enter into the joy of your lord.”
Matthew 25:23)

Just Saying… John Chrysostom, a church father and bishop of Constantinople in the fourth century, said, “Do you seek any further reward beyond that of having pleased God? In truth, you know not how great a good it is to please Him.”

Posted on

The All-Inclusive, Exclusive God

Matthew 20:1-22:46

The All-Inclusive, Exclusive God

“Many are called, but few are chosen.”
Matthew 22:14

Go Deep: I am always amazed at people’s reaction to the tragic and untimely death of a pop culture icon like Michael Jackson, or a venerable political figure like Ted Kennedy.  Adoring fans, devotees and sycophants assume that no matter what kind of life the famous led and what kind of dysfunctional behavior might have contributed to their death, they get a free and easy pass to heaven.

How often have you heard a heartbroken fan trying to find some comfort in their favorite celebrity’s death say something like this: “I’ll sure miss ’so and so’, but I know they’re in a much better place. I’ll bet they’re smiling down on us right now.”

Of course, death is tragic, whether it is a celebrity or not. And of course, God loves famous people just as he loves not so famous people. God love all people so much that he has made room for everyone in his eternal kingdom. But no one gets a free and easy pass to heaven—unless, that is, they go through Jesus. He is the only free and easy way to the Father. (John 14:6)

“Many are called, but few are chosen.” Those sobering words appear at the very end of the Parable of the Banquet, and if you read that entire parable (Matthew 22:1-14), you find that Jesus is not painting the picture of a narrow, exclusive God. Quite the opposite—he invites pretty much everybody to the party. The problem is, most reject the invitation. They want to come to it when they are good and ready. They don’t want to change into proper banquet attire. In the words of that famous theologian Frank Sinatra, the vast majority of people want to do it “my way.” But it doesn’t work that way. Only a few get chosen, not because of the exclusivity of God, but because of the resistance of those who demand entrance into the banquet on their terms.

Let’s be very clear about this: God is not willing that any should perish; He desires that all should come to repentance. (II Peter 3:9) But we don’t get to tell God how we are going to get into his heaven. We can only get there on his terms.

And his terms are very clear: Complete and total surrender to Jesus Christ as Savior AND Lord. We must receive him as the only one who can save us from our sins, and we must crown him as the Lord and Ruler of our lives—which means every dimension of our being. It is on those terms that we are given the free and easy pass to heaven.

Many get invited, but only the few who come on God’s terms will get in on the party that will never end.

Just Saying… The great Bible commentary Matthew Henry wrote, “None shall be saved by Christ but those only who work out their own salvation while God is working in them by His truth and His Holy Spirit. We cannot do without God; and God will not do without us.”

Posted on

The Downside of a Spiritual High

Matthew 17:1-19:30

 

The Downside of a Spiritual High

“Now as they came down from the mountain,
Jesus commanded them …”
(Matthew 17:9)

Go Deep: We love mountaintop experiences; “spiritual highs” — experiences so wonderful that we never want to lose the good feeling of their warm afterglow.  Like the good feelings we had at the moment of salvation, or an ecstatic encounter with the Holy Spirit, or when we cried our eyes out at the altar during summer youth camp, or at a revival meeting when God’s presence seemed so thick you could slice it.

The problem with those kinds of experiences is that we tend to fixate on them, and then rate the rest of our Christian walk against them.  Unfortunately, nothing can quite live up to the warm fuzzies of a mountaintop high.

We love to stay on the mountaintop with Jesus, Moses, and Elijah, don’t we?  That feels so good, and going back down to the valley where life is lived is so…well, so mundane.  But following Jesus always means we have to “come down from the mountain to do as he commands.”  We have to leave the sanctuary, the worship service, the warm incubator of our small group Bible study and get back into the game of extending the Kingdom to those who don’t know Jesus yet.

Jesus took Peter, James, and John to a high mountain where he was transfigured—literally, morphed—right before their eyes.  And not only that, two of Israel’s greatest prophets appeared before them—Moses and Elijah. Peter, predictably, suggested what the other two disciples were thinking:  “Lord, it is good for us to be here; if you wish, let us make here three [shelters]: one for You, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” (Matthew 17:4)

Who wouldn’t want to stay there!  I would.  I would want to can that spiritual experience and pull it back out of the can everyone once in a while—okay, a lot—to enjoy the moment of that “spiritual high” all over again.

Here’s the deal: God never intends for us to fixate on “spiritual highs”; they are meant for fuel to empower us for some spiritual assignment.  Jesus didn’t have this encounter with Moses and Elijah just so he could feel special.  Luke 9:31 says that these two Old Testament prophets came to encourage him about his upcoming departure—literally, in the original text, his “exodus.”  Jesus was about to face the greatest assignment of all—the cross.  This mountaintop experience was meant as fuel for his impending death for the sins of the world.

Now don’t misunderstand, I am not down on “spiritual highs.”  They are wonderful, and necessary.  Just don’t fixate on them!  Resist the urge to erect a shelter just so you can bask in their warm afterglow.  Don’t rate the rest of your Christian experience against them.  Simply see them for what they are:  fuel for the assignment ahead.

Then get off the mountain and back in the game.  And while you’re at it, get out there and give ‘em some heaven!

Just Saying… Charles Spurgeon gave a good dose of spiritual reality to all of us mountaintop types:  “Serve God by doing common actions in a heavenly spirit, and then, if your daily calling only leaves you cracks and crevices of time, fill them up with holy service.”

Posted on

Self Therapy of the Divine Kind

 

Matthew 14:1-16:28

Self Therapy of the Divine Kind

When Jesus heard [of John’s death], He departed from there by boat to a deserted place
by Himself. But when the multitudes heard it, they followed Him on foot from
the cities. And when Jesus went out He saw a great multitude; and he
was moved with compassion for them, and healed their sick.
Matthew 14:13-14

Go Deep: Karl Menninger, founder of the famed psychiatric clinic in Topeka, Kansas that bears his name, was once asked, “What would you do if you thought you were going crazy?”  Without even having to think about it, he said, “I’d go out and find someone less fortunate to serve.”

There is just something so self-healing about serving somebody else—especially if they are worse off than you. When you are going through your own hardship, whatever that may be—sickness, loss, disappointment, depression—God’s therapy is to find those who cannot help themselves, somebody who cannot pay back your kindness, and minister God’s love to them.

Don’t get me wrong—I am not suggesting denial or avoidance as it relates to your own hurt. Not at all! But to love, serve, and bless the less fortunate is to initiate a spiritual law that we find in Acts 20:35, “And remember the words of the Lord Jesus, that He said, ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’”

Jesus said it another way in Luke 6:38, “Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.”

In other words, when you are the conduit of God’s love and grace, and when heaven’s generosity is being poured through you to those in need, on the way through you, that same flood of love, grace and generosity will leave the Divine touch in your own life.

Jesus is practicing his own preaching here in Matthew 14. King Herod had just beheaded Jesus’ cousin, John the Baptist. When Jesus heard the news, he was deeply affected with unbearable sorrow over the loss of a loved one. And he did what most of us would do: He got away from the crowd for some time alone to pour out his grief before God.

But Jesus didn’t stay there long. He didn’t make the retreat into isolation his permanent address; he didn’t accept the paralysis of grief; he didn’t allow loss to define him. Rather, as other people who were hurting for reasons different than his own found him, he allowed compassion to flow, and out of that, he began to minister to their needs.

Jesus was setting a pattern for us, don’t you think? Not to minimize the pain that we experience from loss, but to turn it into a productive force that initiates God’s healing therapy in our own lives as we become the conduit of Divine love and grace to hurting people.

Perhaps you are licking your wounds today from the loss of something dear and near to your heart—maybe even the death of a loved one. If that is the case, try doing what Jesus did. See the needs of other hurting people around you and love them.

You probably won’t feel like doing it, but do it anyway. It won’t take away your own pain, but it will unleash God’s healing therapy for you. And at the end of the day, you will find that your journey through grief will be a lot healthier and a whole lot more productive.

One More Thing… Sir Thomas Browne put it well: “By compassion we make others’ misery our own, and so, by relieving them, we relieve ourselves also.”