Matthew 17:24-27

A friend and I sat around the cafeteria table discussing the never-forgettable 'Bush or Kerry' for the 2004 election. My friend's dad said, "John Kerry is the antichrist." Upon hearing one of our friends, also a follower of Jesus, was going to vote for Kerry, my friend disgustedly spat, "What's going on with him?" Another friend said matter-of-factly, "All Christians vote Republican."

The fact is, Jesus holds no political party. I know that's one of the most-used slogans during presidential election year, but let's look at it a little deeper. Jesus doesn't say, "Vote this way, vote that way." What he does say is, "Give to the government what is the government's." In other words, honor the government. Whether or not you like it, it's been set there by God. Maybe God will allow a brutal dictatory to take the presidency and start committing horrible crimes against Christians; even still, that person was allowed by God to take that place!

This may sound far-fetched, but it's already happened once, and has happened many more times. In the first days of the early church, much of the world was under Roman rule. The Roman Emperors often beat, persecuted, hunted and killed Christians. At the time, the Christian leaders are fervently saying, "Honor the government." They're not saying, "Revolution! Revolt! Uprising! Riot! Protest!" They're saying, "Honor the government. It's been set there by God." The early Christians did honor their government - and the faith of Jesus spread faster than the speed of light!

Matthew 17:20,21

We have forgotten, don't you think? As I sit here I think of Jesus sending out the seventy-odd followers, commanding them to perform miracles, cast out demons, and humbly spread the good news of a new life. I remember how they returned, excited and overcome with awe that they were actually able to do it! I remember how Jesus jumped up and down, completely foolish before them all, and I remember Jesus falling to his knees, and praying out loud, unashamed, to the Maker, "Thank you!" Have we ever wondered why Jesus thanked his father? I think it's because Jesus saw that SOME people understood. Some people finally understood that they weren't just mucky two-handed creatures, but living and breathing life-forms with whom the Creator is in communion. They understood that they had power at their fingertips - power not of their own, but of God. This power is faith.

No magic spell, no magic wand, no incantations or rituals were able to cast out the demons. No chanting of confusing tongues healed the sick. It was faith, simply faith. Faith - belief that you stake your life on - that God is bigger than the world, he isn't contained by the world, and so let's rely on him. These people understood that it was faith in God that made it able for the deaf to hear and the lame to walk.

Faith is often forgotten in our world. Amidst politics and business and busy day-to-day lives, we chant the name of faith but it's not something we really know first-hand. I am speaking from what I have seen, and am sure there are numerous exceptions. But what I've seen is this: we lack faith. It isn't going to be healed with a quickie formula or a hit on the head. Faith is something on the inside, something that can't be made through molding clay. It is rooted both in the consciousness and the subconscious.

If we had faith as 'small as a mustard seed' we could do things that we see as impossible in our 'enlightened' day and age. Things like healing broken hearts, setting captives free, and even seeing the lame walk again. I believe this with all my heart. Faith. It's a lot powerful than we think, eh? No wonder Jesus was dancing like a madman!

Matthew 17:5

Jesus takes three of his best friends on a weary mountain journey. Peter, James and John are panting, chests heaving, legs bursting apart under their tunics, the latest fashion fad of the day. They soon forget their own sufferings when suddenly their friend Jesus starts glowing like a candle. The fact that Jesus was speaking to two ghosts didn't much help with their own stubborn fear and well-deserved amazement. Heaven's PA system throws them to the ground as the Creator bellows, "Jesus is my Son, marked by my love, focus of my delight. Listen to him."

It's easy to hear Jesus. Open your Bible and you can hear him day or night, you can peek into the stories of his life, the conversations he had, the great words he preached here and there during his ministry. But it is so easy to not really listen. Jesus is constantly saying, "He who has ears to hear, let him hear." Another translation reads Jesus crying out to the people, "Are you listening? Really listening?"

Listening is different from hearing. I hear my mom all the time. I hear her tell me to clean the dishes, to take Doogie outside, to clean the shower mirror and wash my clothes. But not always do I listen. Listening has a trademark that sets it off from run-of-the-mill hearing. That trademark is obedience. Mom's plaintive requests have become hollers and yells and that makes me skip. Then I listen. God is saying, "Listen to my Son. Don't just hear what he says, don't just observe what he does. Really listen - hear, see, and do." Don't just hear - hear or see - and DO.

Obedience may be an acquired taste, but so is coffee - and Starbucks is very good.

Matthew 16:24-26

There are some people you'd never believe even if you met them. One man wakes up three hours early before his office job every morning and serves breakfast to the homeless in the city. A woman and her family give up several bedrooms in their home to those looking for a warm bed, nice food, and some loving company. A man forfeits a relished job and an amazing paycheck to rent out a dumped-on food joint so he can just spend time getting to know other people and hopefully tell through a developing friendship the story of God and his love for us.

These aren't the people you meet on the streets. They're different, somehow, from most of society. They love the unlovables, touch the untouchables, embrace the social rejects and social pariahs of our day. They enter the modern-day leper colonies and love with a passion unlike anything the world has seen before. These people make heads turn. They're hard to find, but you bump into one every once in a while.

One man asked such a person, "Why is it you do what you do? Opening your house to strangers? That's dangerous. Serving breakfast every morning at 5:00! How could you get up that early?" The answer given was this: "If we aren't willing to die to ourselves every morning when we wake up, maybe we ought to question whether or not we are really following Jesus."

Jesus tells the disciples, "Self-help is no help at all." Worrying about yourself, your comfort, your own interests, thinking ME, ME, ME, ME and ME all the time isn't going to do you or anyone else any good. "Self-sacrifice is the way, my way, to finding yourself, your true self." Sacrificing your time, your comfort, your energies, your interests, your sleep - this is the way of God.

Our selflessness and obedient sacrifice reveals to us who we are: it brings out our God-colors and our God-flavors, brings out the salt and light that we are when we follow Jesus. It reveals our true identity: patriots of God, followers of the Messiah, sons and daughters of the Creator of the Universe.

Matthew 16:13-16

Who is Jesus? Everyone has different answers. Walk onto a college campus and start asking around. "Who is Jesus?" Some would say, "A philosopher," others, "A scholar." Many more might throw out, "He was a great moral teacher." How nice. Few will say, "He is the Son of God." A handful might even say, "Jesus never existed. He's made up." We can ask this question on a campus, but it wouldn't be the first time it's been asked. It's been asked millions of times, all around the world, but it all originates in the ancient texts.

Jesus asks his disciples, "Who does the average Joe say I am?" The disciples tilt their heads back and start rattling off answers: "John the Baptizer, Elijah, Jeremiah, a prophet..." They are cut short, though, as Jesus looks all of them in the eye and demands, "Okay, so what about you? Who do you say that I am?" They all look at each other. You'd think by now they'd know what was up, that God was in their midst. I imagine an awkward silence, and then someone speaks. It's the runt, the guy who never shuts up, the one so rambunctions he would jump out of a boat thinking he could walk on water (really, who does that?). He says, "You're the Christ, the Messiah..." As if to add some potency, "The Son of the living God."

I don't think Jesus just asked this question to see where loyalties lay. It rests much deeper than that. Why else would Matthew include it in his gospel? When Jesus asks this question, it's as if he is saying, "Look: you have to figure this one out, because you're going to havta put the stake of your life down somewhere. In the rock, in the sand, your choice. You can't ignore me, you can't pretend I don't exist, you can't write me off. So who am I? Your life depends on it." If he is only a philosopher, why should we really follow anything he says and does? If he is only a teacher, whether or not we follow doesn't matter that much.

But if Jesus really is the Son of God, the Messiah - what does that change?

Matthew 16:5-12

Brian and Jessica both have hearts for God. They both serve on the praise team at their church. They started dating about three months ago. Nothing really hot and heavy at first, but things kind of heated up. They started thinking, "We love each other." Brian tells his friend, "She's such a blessing to me. She's been put in my life clearly from God." Jessica says, "We're perfect, we're meant to be together - we will be together." It isn't long before the back window of the Caddy is steaming. Brian says, "It's okay - God marries us. We love each other. It doesn't matter."

The girl gets pregnant. Their relationship breaks apart. Jessica's relationship with her parents crumbles; Mom is silent and Dad is cold. The youth group, shocked, are turned off. Those kids are our leaders? Brian's own parents have turned against him. He leaves the church in shame and doesn't return. Lots of the kids who looked up to these star models are torn apart inside and dealing with trials of faith. The youth minister has a hard time trying to get everything under control, and is unable to do it. Kids just stop coming, wondering, What's all this about anyway? They're a bunch of hypocrites. The community snaps because of two kids' false beliefs about God marrying them.

This really happened.

False beliefs are poisonous. As Jesus and his disciples are rowing across a lake, he says, "Be careful not to follow into the Pharisee-Sadducee teaching - teaching that leads people from God. Because of their false beliefs, the Pharisees and Sadducees led many people astray.

Jesus calls this false teaching "Pharisee-Sadducee yeast,' and for good reason. Only a little bit of yeast will make a whole loaf of bread dough rise. Only a little bit of false teaching, only a little bit of clinging onto false beliefs, can make a huge situation out of something that we were just saying ten seconds ago, "How could this little wrong really affect anyone?"

Matthew 15:32

Jesus says, "I hurt for these people." Why? It isn't something political. Jesus doesn't "hurt for us" - he doesn't love us - because he has to. Really, Jesus loves me because there's something inside me that he likes. He really like us! He finds each and every one of us interesting and fun and really likes hanging out with us.

I imagine that if I were to walk up to him, his eyes wouldn't just graze over me. He would focus on me, and his eyes would light up, his energies would burn, and a giant, excited smile would cross his face. He would beg me over, and we'd talk. I'd tell him my stories, and he'd tell me his. He would laugh at my stories, and I would laugh at his.

We would do all sorts of crazy things together - like sledding into creeks, practical jokes of all shapes and sizes, flipping over porter-potties with friends inside, doing donuts in the snow. We would talk about deep, spiritual stuff as well, and he'd energize me with his words on just about anything. I would tell him about all my problems, frustrations, struggles and angers, and he would listen, and when I'm done, he would give me loving advice and help.

We would hang out all day, then I'd have to go, but he'd beg me to stay, and I would, and then I'd say, "See you tomorrow," and he'd say, "Not yet!" I'd get home late and Mom would yell at me.

Jesus likes you. He likes me. He wants to laugh with us, cry with us, live life with us. The Creator of all you see and all you don't likes you!

Matthew 15:29-31

Jesus' compassion is like nothing else. Our compassion isn't even a petty rival to his. It is no small wonder that he spent so much time just healing people. The crippled, the blind, the maimed, the mute, the sick - they all came to Jesus because he was willing to heal them. They would throw themselves down at Jesus' feet, and he healed them all. It is Jesus' passion to heal. It's been said that the Gospel of Jesus is a Gospel of Healing.

Sometimes we get so caught up with the forgiveness of sins that we forget that that's not entirely why Jesus came. He came for a host of reasons, one of them being to heal us. If we think it's all about being forgiven, where is the healing, the life change? Jesus healed more people publically than he forgave people publically; I think this says something about his passion to heal us. I may not be crippled, blind, maimed, mute or sick, but I'm in need of healing just as much as they. My own shortcoming and pitfalls - the lust, the greed, the hot-headedness, the lies - speak volumes of a sickness of which I need to be healed. Jesus wants to heal us; we must let him, and bear through the chemotherapy.

When the people saw the mutes speaking, the maimed healthy, the paraplegics walking around, the blind looking around, they were astonished and made sure everyone knew that God was blazingly alive among them. It was not so much Jesus' words - "You are healed" - but the fact that they were healed that sent this Kingdom-news flying around Judea. When I read this, I am reminded once again that it is not so much our words that stick to peoples' hearts, but our actions - in that sense, it is our changed lives that show the world that there is something big with Jesus.

Matthew 15:3-9

Two college students sit down in the library. It's quiet. They grab study materials - books, pens, pencils, highlighters - and get to work. The hours clock by. Both lean over their work. One keeps looking at the clock. The other loses himself in his studies. They both leave at the same time. The kid who kept eyeing the clock gets a D, and the other student flies home for Christmas break with an A for the semester.

Remember in high school when all the teachers hung up posters of good study habits? I tried some of them; they didn't work. God has a poster up, too. The poster includes such spiritual disciplines as prayer, fasting, worship, meditating on the scriptures. The high school posters weren't lying - their outlines were of great quality and if you really applied them instead of just copying them, you'd get somewhere. Why is it any different with God? If we simply pray without our hearts, if we fast because we want to lose weight, if we worship just because the song is pretty or out of obligation, if we open our Bibles only because we have to go to a Bible study the next morning, how can we expect to grow spiritually?

Prayer, fasting, worship, meditating on the Bible - all that is great when you do it with your heart turned towards experiencing God, hearing from God, conversing with God, loving on God. But when we just go through the motions, we end up empty-handed, sometimes even more hollow than we went in. The reason why is simple: God isn't interested in our obedience to spiritual disciplines, but our growing closer to him through them. The Pharisees were just going through the motions - and if you read through the rest of chapter 15, you can see how much he didn't appreciate this.