Friends Church Sermons

Pastor Matt expands on the ideas presented in previous sermons in this series. Specifically he explores the biblical roles of women as mothers and wives.

We started this series several weeks ago with a disciples earnest plea. One of the twelve watches Jesus as He prays and comes to Him and says “Lord teach us to pray”. This morning I want to bring us back to the Sermon on the Mount and Jesus teaching on prayer for I think will be the final time. I want to use it as a launching point to share with you some final thoughts about prayer this week and next week. Jesus calls us to pray in the inner room – it’s possible that He is being very literal here and intends to say that when we pray we should find a quiet, private room with little in the way of distraction and pray in that spot. It is also probable in my opinion that He is speaking both literally and figuratively about an inner room for prayer. It’s time for each of us as disciples of Christ to construct an inner room where we can pray and that is what I want to talk to you about this week.

We are nearing the end of this series on prayer but there are a few more things that we need to learn about prayer before we return to the book of Matthew. To this point we have focused on the process of prayer and how it changes and transforms who and what we are. As we learn to pray we learn to find intimacy with the Father. When we pray our hearts, minds, and souls are turned toward God. When we pray we find our place of abiding in God. Today I want to turn to the next part of prayer. We return to a familiar passage of scripture in Matthew 7. What happens when God answers prayer?

Today we come to the conclusion of Jesus model prayer given to His disciples. Over the last couple of weeks we have been learning how to use this passage of scripture and really any passage of scripture as a framework on which to hang our prayers. Jesus uses this framework to teach His disciples how to pray. The framework begins with orienting us with a right relationship with God – He is our Father – and also engaging our faith in Him as Father. Two sets of petitions are made – the first orients us to a right understanding of God – hallowed be They name. The next two establishing our goal His kingdom and His will. One could spend many days in prayer just on these few pieces alone before finding the end of the prayers that could and should be prayed. But Jesus continues. “give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. And do not lead us into temptation but deliver us from evil”

We have spent several weeks looking at this idea of prayer. It began with the words of one of the disciples as he watches Jesus pray. “Lord teach us to pray…” he says. Today’s text brings us to some of the most familiar words of the New Testament. It has been called “The Lord’s Prayer” and it has been the focus of countless books and teachings. I hesitate to tackle this because so many theologians and preachers far smarter and more educated than I am have been here before me. But here we are – and here is the text before us – let’s look at it together.

We began two weeks ago to look at this longest teaching of Jesus on the subject of prayer. We started in verse 9 last week looking at the framework for prayer give by Jesus and how we can hang our prayers on the framework of His words. I want to remind you that these are not the only words that can be used as a framework for prayer. Almost any scripture can be used this way. We started with the first 6 words – Our Father who art in heaven and found in them both the establishment of our position as sons/daughters but also the establishment of our faith in Him as Father. We continue this week with the first set of three petitions made within the prayer.

It is impossible to plumb the depths of prayer without spending deep moments in what is Jesus longest teaching on the subject. He evidently teaches these principles many times over His 3 year journey with His disciples. Matthew’s Gospel gives the longest teaching of Jesus on the subject. It is included as part of His sermon on the mount and it wasn’t long ago that we addressed it in that context. This week and next I want to dig a little deeper into this section and see what Jesus teaches us about prayer.

As we continue our series on prayer I want us to dig deeper into Jesus answer to His disciples urgent request; Lord teach us to pray. Let’s read forward a bit and see how Jesus answers.

This morning I want, in the time we have left, to introduce the reason we have taken a break from our study of the Gospel of Matthew. I want to talk to you very personally and very purposefully on the topic of prayer. It’s not often that I say this so please understand that I mean it from my heart – God has been breaking my heart in this area – in some ways I feel like Nehemiah when he was told about the walls of Jerusalem being in ruins – the scripture says that he sat down and wept and fasted for many days. He saw the foundation of his faith in ruins and knew he needed to do something about it. I feel the same way – I see the foundation of our faith in ruins and my heart is broken. It wasn’t long ago that my prayer life was a broken tatter or walls. Oh, I prayed and I prayed often but prayer was something I did, a discipline, it wasn’t something I really enjoyed. My life and ministry changed the day I prayed a simple prayer to God at our first Intercessors Prayer meeting; Lord, I prayed, help me to fall in

Pastor Matt continues the Joshua House series by expanding on Jesus' definition of Marriage and connecting this concept to generational discipleship.

Brief Here

Last week we spent the morning looking at the cup that Jesus drank for us on the cross. The cup of God’s wrath emptied as Jesus hung upon a cross. If the story had ended on the cross our lives today would be very different. Paul says to the church at Corinth: 1 Corinthians 15:14 (NASB) 14 and if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is vain, your faith also is vain…17 and if Christ has not been raised, your faith is worthless; you are still in your sins. 18 Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. 19 If we have hoped in Christ in this life only, we are of all men most to be pitied. If Christ is who the Bhuddist, the Muslim, and the atheist say He is – a man who taught good things – if this is all He is then we are in deep trouble. If His bones are lying in some unmarked grave somewhere in Palestine then friends Paul says your faith is worthless and you are still lost in your sins. The cup of wrath is still yours to drink and judgment is coming for us all. But if Christ is who w

This morning we are closing chapter 13 of Matthew’s Gospel with the remaining 6 parables of the Kingdom. This chapter marks the halfway point in the Gospel and a transition in Matthew writing – What follows is the teaching of the rejected King. After this morning we are going to take a short break from the Gospel and we will return to the second half in early summer. As we look at these 6 parables we see Jesus revealing to His disciples the deeper plans and heart of God for the Kingdom. To understand what Jesus is about to teach them you have to understand what they have already been taught. The Tanakh – the collection of the Old Testament writings including the Torah and Neviim (prophets) and the Ketuvim (poetry) point to a picture of what Messiah will be when He comes. That picture, however, is somewhat confusing. On one hand we see a Messiah who will be the lamb of God (Isaiah 53:4-5; 7) but on the other hand we see Him as a King who will bring judgment and rule over all nations (Isaiah 40:10, 11:4-5). We

Pastor Matt continues the Joshua House series by focusing on how the Trinity interacts in relationship and how that relates to our relationships as being made in the Image of God.

This morning I would have you peer back through time with me – we take up the lens of scripture to watch events unfold that have been planned from the moment of God’s first creative word spoken into the void. We find Jesus kneeling in an olive grove alone. His face covered with the sweat mingled with drops of blood. So fervent has been His time of prayer that as He bows with His face to the ground capillaries in his skin have ruptured and blood has mingled with His tears and He cries out “My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me…” Just five days earlier the scene was much different. Jesus is riding on a colt (a donkey) from Bethphage to Jerusalem passes by this same spot. The hill above him that day was lined with people laying palm branches on the road and crying out “Hosana, blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord”. Jesus entered the city to the fanfare of the people. The week would be a time of preparation – cleansing the temple, teaching in the streets, and preparing for the P

We return this morning to the parable that Jesus began in verse 1 of chapter 13. After a discussion with His disciples about why He chose to use parables the way He did Jesus returns to the subject at hand; the parable. So let’s backtrack a bit to verse 1-9 to set up today’s text. The parable of the sower is the first of seven parables Jesus uses to give deeper understanding of the Kingdom of Heaven and what is going to happen in the future of this Kingdom. This first parable deals with the inception of the Kingdom the others will deal with its span between the Messiahs coming and His return. Let’s start with this parable of the sower and the seed. In verse 1-9 Jesus sets up the story. A story about a farmer who goes out to a field to sow his grain. As he goes about sowing the field the seed is cast far and wide and falls on four types of soil that are common in Palestine.

I want to start today by admitting to you that I really struggled with this passage of scripture this week. I read it over and over from different perspectives. I read a dozen commentaries and searched for sermons written by others. It is possible to pull some select verses from this passage and create many sermons – the unpardonable sin, out of the abundance of the heart, seeking for signs – but all of those seemed to me to take the passage out of its context. As we have studied the book of Matthew I have tried to be true to what I believe Matthew (and God) intended when it was originally written. I am going to do the same today. Up to this point Matthew has presented to his primarily Jewish audience the evidence for Jesus as King of Israel. We now come to the conflict. His audience is having to deal with what we looked at last week; a confrontation between the Pharisees view of the Torah and Jesus view. They can’t both be right. Either Jesus broke the law and was not of God or He kept the law and is showing

The context of chapter 13 is once again found in the preceding chaper. Opposition is rising among the Jewish religious elite to Jesus teaching as a new Rabbi. They are now not only monitoring His teaching they are actively seeking to destroy Him. We saw in chapter 12 the two paths of people who are hearing Him speak. One group is increasingly asking themselves if this could be the Messiah – the other group led by the Pharisees have already decided that He is not and are actively opposing Him. Today in Chapter 13 we see how Jesus responds to this set of events as a Rabbi.

As we launch into chapter 12 of Matthews gospel this morning we find the growing resistance among the Pharisees to the teachings of this new Rabbi. We find Jesus and His disciples walking through the grain fields on the Sabbath day. I want you to think with me about how unusual this would be for a group of Jews to be traveling on the Sabbath.

Two weeks ago we finished chapter 10 with its power call to those who would be His disciples to commit to the hard road. Perhaps its not unusual for Matthew then to turn his attention to another difficult subject – doubt. In chapter 11 we find Jesus speaking into the heart of three kinds of doubt that can trouble our spiritual lives. See if you can pick out all three as we read.