The Cost & The Commander...Matthew 8:18-27

 

The first snow has hit our little town and church at 8400 ft.  I'm documenting this event for years to come.  Really this blog for the last 14 years and nearly 2000 entries and my facebook page have been documenting places for my life moments and the life of the churches I have been apart of.  It has been a spot to think again of the sermon I just preached and also thoughts along the way now on the trails of the Rocky Mountains of Colorado.  

I could not go much further without telling you that we have a new sister of the kingdom of God through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ and the faithful ministry of the Stillwater Community Chapel sharing His gospel.  Please pray for this dear sister as she starts her walk with Jesus.  I am so thankful for those of the church family here who were part of this surrender to Christ.  A miracle happened at SCC last week.  Praise the Lord!

The healings and miracles of Jesus point to His authority and also His place as the Messiah that Matthew is laying out for his Jewish readers.  What Jesus was doing was documented in the Old Testament scriptures of what the coming Messiah would do and also only those things that God can do.  In the midst of these manifestations, Jesus starts to share what it means or what the cost is of following Him and who He really is.  It is nothing less than total surrender and He is no one less than God.

Jesus can't just be another teacher, He needs to be your Lord, the One you belong to.  We need to not just call Him Lord but follow Him as Lord with us abiding by His terms rather than dictate to Him our terms.  The scribe sees Jesus as just another teacher, a great one for sure, but Jesus lets him know that shelter is not part of the deal.  The disciple calls Jesus Lord but wants to dictate the terms of his following but Jesus lets him know they don't measure up to His terms and therefore He must not really be his Lord.  

So the cost of following is high but the One who we are to follow is the Lord Most High.  I feel the disciples are starting to connect the dots.  Jesus is doing only what they know from the Scriptures that God can do.  Jesus is making the waves and the winds still like God in Psalm 107:25-29.  The answer to their question, "Who can this be, that even the winds and the sea obey Him?" is God.  God is worthy of the high cost of following.

I have been reading along with J.C. Ryle and his expository thoughts on the Matthew gospel.  Here is a quote of his thoughts on this passage.

"Let us all remember this.  Let us keep back nothing from young people and enquirers after Christ.  Let us not bring them in on false pretenses.  Let us tell them plainly that there is a crown of glory at the end.  But let us tell them no less plainly that there is a daily cross in the way."

Our message of following Jesus needs to be centered on His words standing on their own.  We, men, have done, I fear, a great disservice at times to present following Jesus in lesser terms than He laid out Himself.  What has resulted is a church that has made Jesus more of a teacher than a Lord.  "Lord help us to trust and live what You have said."

Adam



A simple man serving a great God and the local pastor of Stillwater Community Chapel (stillwater-chapel.org). We are in our 38th year of full time ministry. God directed us to this local body of believers on the Western Range of the Rockies to grow with them in mission and mindedness of Christ.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Galatians #15 - Galatians 6:11-18 - "On The Road Again..."

Image
  Another week closer and it involves some more travel for the Wolfgangs.  I feel like the Willy Nelson song, " On the road again... "  I don't know if I agree with the next line though. " ...I can't wait to get on the road again. " One of the members of the church in Wisconsin calculated that I will travel well over 10,000 miles to make this transition.  Traveling mercies prayers please. Last Sunday we will look at Paul's final words to the churches in Galatia.  He brought them the gospel (good news) message of Jesus and what resulted were churches forming throughout the region.  The letter is to defend that message that our salvation comes from and is in Christ alone.  Christ's sacrifice on the cross was sufficient for the forgiveness of our sins.  The summary statement of the letter is found in  Galatians 6:15 (LSB) .  " For neither is circumcision anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creation. "  Translated another way earlier in  Ga
Read more

God gave us a good weather window to travel...yeah God!!!

Image
  Berthoud Pass Here we are at the top of Berthoud Pass.  It was a whirlwind week to conduct a " hand off " service in Wisconsin on 3/17 and then preach a Palm Sunday sermon in Colorado on 3/24.  We give God all the glory for this happening.  So there are two video links at the bottom of this blog.  One is for the Wisconsin service and the other is for the Colorado service.  I racked up over 12,000 in the last 7 weeks.   I love to take these pictures sitting from the front row of chairs and listening to the one God has provided for the church I had been serving for 20 months.  I now have 3 and I am so thankful for the opportunity God gave us to serve Him in this type of ministry over the last 5 years.  It has been great to add to our daily prayer list Zach in Maine, Chris in Ohio and now Stephen in Wisconsin. This was our set up for the 2000+ mile trip.  No " hiccups " except for the strong eastern winds in Kansas.  Of course everything was quite a bit dirtier when
Read more

Resurrection Sunday in a new space...Matthew 27.62-28.20

Image
  Resurrection Sunday has come and gone but it was a sweet day to be with the gathered saints of the Stillwater Community Chapel .  We are venturing through the Gospel of Matthew and this Sunday will take us back to Matthew 1.1 but last Sunday we were in Matthew 27.62-28.20.  It was a lot to cover so the white board was truly a help to keep me on track.  This year in my Resurrection Sunday message, I focused on the contrast of the cover-up story of the disciples stealing the body of Jesus fueled by a bride and the commission of speaking of a risen Lord fueled by boldness . After the service upstairs, we ventured downstairs to the lower level and had a great meal together.  The conversations around the tables allowed us to continue to talk about the passage of Scripture we covered upstairs.  Maybe this is a very informal picture of what happens at the  Waushara Community Church called the " Going Deeper " classes of the Come For More hour following the Sunday morning worshi
Read more