Faith

PASTOR’S CORNER, David Harris, Fellowship Baptist Church, Liberal

Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount is as shocking now as it was when it first came from the Lord’s mouth. Matthew 5-7 is like an address given by a newly hired college football coach setting the tone for his administration: “If you want to play on my team” (Jesus tells us) “then everything is about to change.”

When readers come to the end of Matthew 5 (specifically, verses 43-47) they realize playing on this team will mean the upturning of the way things have always been. “Here is what you have heard,” Jesus tells the crowd, “love neighbors, hate enemies.” This is a distillation of the old administration, the status quo. Now the first part of the sentiment is quite biblical, coming from a direct quotation of Leviticus 19:18. The second half, however, is not a quote from God’s law, but an addition by Jewish teachers. “If God tells us to love our neighbor, he is giving us a license to hate everyone else,” so the logic went. Not anymore. Enter Jesus.

PASTOR’S CORNER, David Harris, Fellowship Baptist Church, Liberal

We are story-telling and story-loving creatures. That is why so many of our messages are visual, and appeal to our imagination - that part of us that is able to create and hold images, and draw meaning from them. This is why we pay good money to watch movies, why we binge TV shows, and why so much of our language depends on visual analogies.

Jesus of course is well aware of this, and during his earthly ministry he often taught through images. Pick up one of the gospels and peruse it, if you are so disposed, and you will discover the greatest Teacher the world has known was the consummate storyteller. The Son of God was not in the business of offering cold propositions: he constantly appealed to his listeners’ imagination.

PASTOR’S CORNER, David Harris, Fellowship Baptist Church, Liberal

“Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom. Sell your possessions, and give to the needy. Provide yourselves with moneybags that do not grow old, with a treasure in the heavens that does not fail, where no thief approaches and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.”  (Luke 12:32-34, ESV)

PASTOR’S CORNER, David Harris, Fellowship Baptist Church, Liberal

Becoming a Christian will not end all your suffering – at least it will not end it immediately. Jesus told his listeners as much in the Sermon on the Mount. Toward the end of Chapter 6, he is warning them against sinful anxiety (i.e. the kind that does not trust God to take care of his people).

Notice what he says toward the end of the passage.

“Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.’” (Matthew 6:34, ESV, emphasis mine).