Jesus First

Matthew 18 is rarely understood because people tend to chop it up into little bits and miss the big picture. However, this is not a chapter about spiritual warfare and personal conflict and how many people it takes for Jesus to be present in a prayer meeting.This is a chapter about one thing: the call upon Christians to be agents of restoration in the name of our king.

Jesus used miracle power to pay a tax? Even though he didn't need to? All because he didn't want to offend someone?That's a side of Jesus people don't talk much about but perhaps we need to remember.

We have all experienced great moments of the sublime, and we long for them to last longer, but you don’t need to manufacture a moment or maximize your moment if you are willing to trust the maker of the moment.Jesus had a mountaintop moment of glory followed by a dark valley of suffering, but another mountaintop of glory was still in the future!

It’s a terribly contagious idea that God wants to give you a king just like you, who will defeat your enemies, and make you great. It is, as we have been talking about for some time now, the rule of the schoolyard. Get the biggest bully on your side.Jesus calls that thinking a virus and has plans to build something better.

For centuries, people have been using religious traditions to get them something of personal benefit. Religion can empower selfishness. Jesus, however, calls that evil.If you have ever been tempted to use a religious rule to mask your own selfishness, this lesson is the challenge you need to hear. Oh, I think it will be encouraging too, but the challenge comes first.