Hearing the Music

Anxious and Troubled

"Now as they went on their way, Jesus entered a village. And a woman named Martha welcomed him into her house. And she had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to his teaching. But Martha was distracted with much serving. And she went up to him and said, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Tell her then to help me.” But the Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, but one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her.” (Luke 10:38–42)

Over the last several weeks Jesus has been zeroing in on our hearts, teaching us to ask questions about things like anger, lust, truth-telling, our motivations for spiritual disciplines, etc... This week in Matthew 6:25-34, Jesus continues his deep heart dive by honing in on our worry and anxiety. Like Martha in the passage above, it could be said of us that we are "anxious and troubled about many things". This is understandable; the world is full of trouble and our lives reflect that reality. Jesus certainly does not deny these realities nor does he invite us to a way of viewing the world that glosses over its difficulties. But Jesus does invite his followers to engage their difficulties through their relationship with him, with hearts that are fully surrendered to his care. This is a timely subject and I look forward to uncovering these deep and precious promises with you.

art by Morgan VanderMaas

Who's Your Boss?

Throughout the scriptures there are over 500 verses talking about prayer. Certainly talking about something 500 times underscores the weight of that thing. Similarly, there are roughly 500 verses referencing faith. That makes sense seeing that prayer and faith are closely linked. I highlight this because it provides a comparison to the enormity of the weight that the scriptures put on our topic for Sunday, money, as money is talked about over 2,000 times!

That's right, the scriptures talk about money, possessions, generosity and greed 4 times more than they talk about prayer! In fact, it is estimated that roughly 25% of Jesus' teaching had to do with money. 16 out of Jesus' 38 parables capture these themes. And so we are not surprised, as Jesus is detailing the lifestyle of those who would call themselves his disciples, that he tackles the topic of one's treasure (Matthew 6:19-24). These are pretty famous verses, "Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also" (vs.19-21). I am sure that many of you are familiar with them. But why does Jesus put such an emphasis on money? Let's face it, if a church today focused 25% of it's teaching on money there wouldn't be much of a congregation left!

Jesus is so forthright on the issue of one's treasure because he know the power that it has. One writer puts it like this, "What Jesus is saying is that money gives orders. It bosses you around. If you have your priorities right, there is only one boss, and that is God himself" (N.T. Wright). And while an urgency, a force, exists to Jesus' warnings, there is also a strong invitation to the treasure that cannot be taken and will not be destroyed. There is an invitation to security and significance that goes beyond anything our world can promise and which will never fade. It is an invitation to be yoked to the best boss you could ever dream of. One that will never take advantage of you. One that will always provide, above and beyond what you could ask, imagine or deserve. As we traverse this Lenten season, it is an invitation to look at Christ who spent himself fully in order to ransom a people hijacked by an enemy. It is an invitation to have our hearts captured.

Photo by Adam on Unsplash

Mortification

Over the last several weeks as we have been tracking through the Sermon on the Mount, we have been confronted with the numerous ways in which our sin and rebellion plague us. Anger, lust, deception, revenge all finds ways to grow within our hearts and creep into our lives. So how do we go forward? How do we make progress against hearts that would betray us?

I want to mention two things. First, we need to anchor ourselves to the righteousness that is greater than the scribes and the pharisees, that is, the righteousness that Christ earned through his life, death and resurrection and which we receive by faith. Throughout our days we need to remember Christ (the Biblical term of remembering being that of an action directed toward someone, rather than a mental recall of a subject), being in awe of the love of Christ whose depth can't be plumbed or whose height cannot be scaled. We need to believe that we are watched over and cared for by our Heavenly Father.

Then secondly, being grounded in this love, we need to get to work putting to death the tendrils of sin. Or as generations past referred to it, to begin the work of mortification. John Owen asks it poignantly: "Do you mortify? Do you make it your daily work? Be always at it whilst you live; cease not a day from this work; be killing sin or it will be killing you". Mortification has strong Biblical roots. We find it in places like Romans 8:13, Galatians 5:24, and Colossians 3:5. In each of these passages, we are to give sin no ground in which to grow, no space to get up the speed necessary to derail our happiness in Christ. Mortification is not easy work, but as Owen puts it, it is necessary work: "be killing sin or it will be killing you". For the believer it is also joyful work, for in the work of mortification we truly experience the nearness of Christ.