Word of Life Church Podcast

In Matthew's account of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus opens his sermon with the Beatitudes -- eight blessings. In Luke's account of the Sermon on the Plain, Jesus also opens his sermon with the Beatitudes -- this time four blessings. But in the Sermon on the Plain Jesus also pronounces four woes. Luke's Gospel reminds us that the Kingdom of Christ brings both blessing and woe.

You may feel like a sinner; you may feel guilty; you may feel like a failure; but none of that matters. Keep believing in the boundless mercy of the Lord Jesus Christ and you will see the goodness of God in the land of the living.

The Bible is a dangerous book — especially if you emphasize the parts people would rather overlook. In his hometown the people of Nazareth tried to throw Jesus off a cliff. Why? Because Jesus told the stories prophets tell — and no prophet is accepted in his hometown.

Throughout history the Bible has been misused to justify wars of conquest, genocide, the institution of slavery, women held as property, and any number of other egregious abuses. But to do this we have to ignore the greatest truth the Bible gives us: Jesus Christ is Lord of All! As Christians we are not allowed to use the Bible to disobey Jesus! All Scripture is fulfilled in and by Jesus Christ. So if we don’t see it in Jesus, we let it go—because even the Bible must bow to Jesus.

Every baptism is a new Exodus from the bondage of Egypt and a new entrance into the Promised Land of freedom and forgiveness in Christ. Every baptism is a spiritual incorporation into a new Israel — an Israel no longer defined by ethnicity, circumcision, and Torah observance, but defined by faith, baptism, and loyalty to Jesus. This new Israel is what the Apostle Paul calls the Body of Christ or the New Humanity.

On January 6 we commemorate the epiphany granted to the magi from the east—Persian astronomers, astrologers, magicians who discerned an auspicious sign in the stars and made a thousand mile journey to worship the Christ child in Bethlehem. These magi were the first Gentile worshipers of the King of the Jews and with their famous gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh, they foretold that Mary’s child would not just be King of the Jews, but King of Kings. After seeing and worshiping the infant King indicated by the Christmas star, they returned to their own country, but by another way, because they would never be the same.

When we think of Jesus we mostly think of the man of his ministry years. At Christmastime we also think of the baby Jesus lying in the manger of Bethlehem. But there’s one episode in the Gospels that takes place between infancy and ministry. It’s the episode of the boy Jesus when he was in Jerusalem at the age of twelve

In the eighth century BC the Hebrew prophet Micah of Morasheth said that Bethlehem would be the place where a new king of the Jews would be born. Bethlehem was a small village five miles south of Jerusalem, but it was also the place where three hundred years earlier King David had been born. In other words, Micah was prophesying that in Bethlehem a new kingdom of Israel would begin. But we who know the Christmas story can say much more than that — we can say that Bethlehem is where The Second Half of Human History began!

When God lives among us salvation will swallow up our sorrows, sweep away our troubles, and we will fear no more. When God lives among us our salvation will have come. Salvation is not a program or a plan, salvation is not three steps or four laws—salvation is what happens when God lives among us.