“Catering for 5,000” – August 2, 2020 – Matthew 14:13-21
The story of the feeding of 5,000 must have been a favorite in the early church, because it appears in all four Gospels, which is rare. The story shows clearly the character of the disciples, the crowd, Jesus and God the Father. If we surrender what we have the Lord can make a lot out of it.
“Never Give Up” – Romans 8: 26-39
When things are going badly, don’t ever give up, because God is still with you in the valleys of life and He is still working to bring something good out of a bad situation.
Matt. 13: 24-30, 36-43
Jesus warns against being too quick to judge people, comparing them to wheat or weeds. Some folks that look like weeds may actually be wheat. We need to let God sort it out and not us.
Matt. 13: 1-9, 18-23
Jesus always made up stories to help people think about things in a new way. The story of the sower of seeds answers the question of why some people grow in faith and some do not and why we need to keep sowing the seed of God’s love anyway.
Jesus felt sorry for how burdened people were by their legalistic, nitpicking religious rules. His solution was that if you are going to be yoked to something (and you are), why not let it be with someone you enjoy, who is going to do most of the pulling – like the Lord.
Matt. 11: 1-19, 25-30
(This is an alternate Gospel lesson not listed in the Celebrate inserts) “Bad Company”
There are a lot of dirty jobs in this world, but at Jesus time the dirtiest was to be a tax collector. The religious leaders wondered why Jesus hung out with this kind of people, but Jesus made it clear that he came to heal those who were sick, not those who were well. Jesus did not take shape from sinners, but gave shape to them.
Politicians today are always testing the winds to see what middle America will accept, but Jesus was no politician. He had an uncompromising message that was offensive to many people, because it went against the cultural currents of the day. Is there anything offensive and radical about our brand of Christianity today or are we just blending in with our culture?
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