Here is a long sermon with a long title from a long text that I pray you will remember for a long time.
“In the beginning” (ref. Genesis 1:1), God made everything, including plants, animals, and man. It was a vegetarian paradise, where only the plants were sacrificed to feed animals and man. Then, things changed.
Though we don’t know what Jesus’ face looked like during His earthly ministry, we do know what He did with His feet. He ran against the wind. He railed against the prevailing religious establishment, particularly for the ways in which they had perverted the worship of God.
Most countries don’t have kings any more in our world. But there is one kingdom that has always been ruled by an absolute monarch. It is “the kingdom of heaven” (“kingdom of God” in the other Gospels), and God is the everlasting king.
We remain where we were last Sunday, in Caesarea Philippi, where Jesus took His disciples for a weeklong retreat. You may remember this city is the location of the famous Banias Waterfall, a double drop that deposits two streams into the Jordan River. It is here that two streams of revelation fell, as well.
Everybody I’ve ever know wants to go to Heaven and see God in all of His glory. Even unbelievers want to believe there is a Heaven. Believe me, there is! But heavenly glory is only for true believers who make a credible confession of faith while on earth.
Yes, doo-woppers, “the book of love” was indeed written by “someone from above.” His name is God and He has given us the book of love, life, liberty, and the pursuit of holiness. It is called the Bible, a collection of sixty-six works written over the span of two millennia by some forty or so human authors who were especially inspired by the Holy Spirit.
We are not saved by works, but we are saved for works. We are not saved by a moral gospel, but when we are saved we live by a gospel morality. 1 Corinthians 6 fleshes this out in full.
Sex education shall be taught in church today, using the pivotal fifth chapter of Paul’s first canonical letter to the Corinthians as our textbook. It addresses a singular subject with a double standard, one for Christians in Christ’s church, the other for non-Christians in a lost world.
In Matthew’s timely retelling, the miracle of the loaves and fishes is a love story about God and His people. It defines for us the love of God. It demonstrates some of the things God’s love can do. And, since every miracle of Jesus is a parable of the gospel, it declares to us the one thing, namely salvation, that only God’s love can bring.
