To KNOW Jesus and To BE Always Dependent on His Grace

To KNOW Jesus and To BE Always Dependent on His Grace. Thoughts in preparing for a sermon on Matthew 9.27-34.

It so interesting that the week after Easter, we will look a passage that addresses how we respond to Jesus. Will we “get” Jesus, “reject” Jesus or just be safe in the crowd and “like” Jesus but not commit to Him? In the blind men we see acceptance of the claim that Jesus is the Messiah, as they recognize their other dependency on Him. At the end of the passage the Pharisees flat reject Jesus and claim that He uses the power of the Devil to cast out demons. And in the middle of the passage are the masses. The crowd gets so close to understanding Jesus as they are amazed by Him but do not confess Him nor worship Him. Close is not good enough.

I fear that pandering to the crowd is too good of a description of the current church in America. We are great at using human centered and market centered approaches. We bend over backwards to entertain the masses, producing great emotions. So like the crowd that followed Jesus, they are “amazed” but I wonder if they really KNOW Jesus. How many people in our churches understand who Jesus is? How many confess him as their Lord? How many are utterly dependent on him? How many are willing to pick up their cross daily and follow Jesus (in the way of sacrifice)? How many consistently walk in grace? In the name of being a utilitarian we seek to attract large crowds and I fear is that we dumb down the gospel.

Ironically, this dumbing down of the gospel tends to be completely Orthodox but misses Jesus. We want a little Jesus in our slick church buildings once (or maybe a few times a week) and then we live like we want Jesus to leave us alone. We want to be good Americans and do it all ourselves. We want to use or intellect and resources to solve our problems and we might even pray for the Lord to bless our plans. Problem is that grace does not work that way. The problem is that that is not how Jesus rolls. It is not the Jesus way. What do we do when Jesus’ will is different than ours and He re-directs our plans, do we fall apart? does our faith waver?

Jesus wants us to come to Him. That precludes our leaving of the world/ourselves to confess that we need Him to be in charge. (Matthew 9.27 “two blind men followed Jesus; 9.28 “the blind men came to Jesus”.) Jesus wants us to acknowledge who He is. To know what and why we believe what we do about Him. (9.27 “Calling out, “Have mercy on us Son of David!””.) Jesus wants us to admit that He is powerful enough to do whatever He wants whenever He wants. (9.28 “He asked them, “Do you believe that I am able to do this?” “Yes, Lord.” they replied”.) Christians, when was the last time you meditated and contemplated Christology (a study of who Jesus is)? And I’m not talking simple thoughts that make us feel good but actual theological reading? Especially in our world that twists and distorts our Messiah, we ought to KNOW the Biblical Jesus.

The following context of participation is wonderfully rich. In Matthew 9.25-28 we see the heart of the King and are commanded to pray for people who will proclaim and live like Jesus. Then in Matthew 10.1 and following, Jesus invites the disciples and us to live as answers to those prayers? I pray this for our church community! That we might listen to Jesus so closely, that we love Him so much, that we cannot help but cooperate with His Kingdom living. Oh that we would continue to be people dependent on Jesus’ grace as His Holy Spirit flows through us!