Disciples of Grace Today

  Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire. - Hebrews 12:28-29 The Book of Hebrews has always been a favorite of mine. It's a wonderful balance of Old Testament hope and New Testament fulfillment which produces an endurance that is sometimes lacking in our world of extremes. The writer of Hebrews doesn't gloss over the sufferings his readers are facing but he encourages them with the whole truth of God's faithfulness in times of good and times of challenge.  Once again many work places are on lockdown, more out of an abundance of caution than anything else, but this time it's during a holiday season and that makes things a little more difficult. We're asked not to gather in large numbers with our families and Thanksgiving is all about family, football and food. Black Friday is a time when families go shopping to purchase gifts of love an...

  Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God - Matthew 5:9 Expressions such as “Like father like son” and “the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree” are common and we know what’s being communicated when people use them whether in a flattering context or a resentful one. Jesus is still shifting our gaze upward. He is laying bare the heart of the Law of God and intentionally making us feel the weight of our unworthiness and inability all the while calling us to Himself to receive the relief our souls desperately need. He began this tiny shift in verse 7 where He commands us to be merciful considering the mercy we have received and then in verse 8 where He commands us to live out of a pure heart renewed by The Spirit. Here He is calling us to be present day peace makers, but what is that exactly? To answer that question, we must look to our example, Christ Jesus – The Son of God. What is the peace that Christ came to bring? Well, certainly there is the coming da...

  Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God - Matthew 5:8 This one statement packs such a punch! Everything that was lost in Genesis 3 Jesus makes a reality for those who will come to Him. From the dawn of creation, we see man walking with God and enjoying fellowship with Him and then the unthinkable happens, man sides with evil and commits treason against the High King of Heaven. God casts man out of His presence and sin separates man from his Creator, but God who is rich in mercy makes a promise in Genesis 3:15. He promises that a Seed is coming and that Seed will crush the head of the Serpent, thus begins God’s unfolding plan of redemption, settled before the foundations of creation were laid. First God chooses a man Abraham, through whose line the Seed would come, from that man comes a people, Israel, who would represent Him among the nations and then there is a deliverer, Moses, who would lead His people out of the bondage of slavery and then there would be the king...

  Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy - Matthew 5:7 Jesus has an uncanny way of staying focused even as He shifts gears just a bit. Thinking back to the 10 commandments we see the same. The first 4 deal with our relationship with God and the last 6 deal with our relationships with each other. Our love and treatment of one another flows from our fear and obedience to God. Jesus Himself gives an excellent example of this in His parable on The Unforgiving Servant in Matthew 18:21-35. Parables are stories with earthly settings to speak of a spiritual truth. In short in this parable a man owed a king a large sum of money, which he could not pay. He begged the king to have mercy on him and the king being merciful forgave the man his debt, but this same man went out and found his brother who owed him a few dollars. The brother could not pay the debt and begged for mercy, but the man would have none of it! He threw him into prison until the debt was paid. This naturally ...

  Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be satisfied - Matthew 5:6 Someone wrote a song about not being able to be satisfied no matter how hard he tried. That seems to be the anthem of life sometimes doesn’t it? We fill ourselves with so much and we are still empty. We chase the rainbows of our dreams only to find there is neither a pot of gold nor a pudgy leprechaun waiting for us. We climb ladders that promise success only to find there’s no one up there and we’ve burned people, not bridges, to get here. Just like happiness, we all want a satisfying and fulfilling life and that’s exactly what Christ is promising us here in this statement. Now, before all my Reformed Theology friends think I’ve lost my mind and gone all prosperity-preacher remember what Jesus is doing here. He has climbed this mountain and is giving the people the heart of The Law. The Law was given to show the way we were to live and flourish and worship God. The law was to...

Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth - Matthew 5:5 My Grandfather would often say, “Just because you can do something doesn’t always mean that you should.” At the time I had no idea what he was saying to me but as I’ve grown, and particularly as I’ve grown in Christian Faith, what he said makes perfect sense, especially in regard to being meek. Meekness is not weakness. Meekness is strength under control. But how is it that those who are poor in spirit and mourning over sin have strength? How does the eternal worldview play out in the area of meekness and inheriting the earth? This statement is extremely nuanced because it carries with it a humble submission that defers to another. Remember this entire sermon is a description of how people of God are to live in relation to God, each other and those around us. Our meekness towards others stems from our submission to God. The first act of meekness is to lay our rebellion down. We have all sinned against a Just and Ho...

Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted –  Matthew 5:4 As we continue our walk through the first blessings and promises of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, we want to make sure that we keep the entire sermon in mind. This sermon spans 3 chapters in the Gospel of Matthew (5-7) and even though chapters and verses make it easier for us to find things, it may also contribute to our picking out parts and parcels and forgetting that Christ is conveying a central idea in this sermon, and that overall idea is the heart of the law and the prophets. He summarizes this in Matthew 22:37-40, where He says the greatest commandment is to love the Lord our God with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength and to love our neighbor as ourselves. In these two commands hang all the law and the prophets. Here, he is spelling out what that love looks like and He starts with God. We started this by defining blessing as being happy, content, satisfied and prosperous; with that in mind how is...