He is not here

series: a week to live

title: He is not here (Easter 2017)

date: April 16, 2017

teacher: Jacob Bender

scriptures: Mark 16:1-8, Mark 10:33-34, Isaiah 57:15

Jesus Curses the Fig Tree

series: A week to live

title: Jesus Curses the Fig Tree

date: April 9, 2017

teacher: Jacob Bender

scriptures: Mark 11:12-25, Luke 6:40, Luke 11:11-14, 2 Chronicles 7:14, Matthew 25:14-30, Ezekiel 17, Mark 11:27

#3 Seeing Our Neighbor

series: Neighbor(ing)

title: Seeing Our Neighbor

teacher: Jacob Bender

date: March 5, 2017

scriptures: John 8:3-11, Genesis 2:9, Genesis 3:4-5, Genesis 3:17, Genesis 3:22-33, Psalm 106:23, Ezekiel 22:30, Revelation 22:1-4

#9 Love Your Enemies

series: Red Letter City

title: Love Your Enemies

date: June 12, 2016

teacher: Jacob Bender

scriptures: Matthew 5:43-48, Matthew 16, Matthew 18, Leviticus 19:18, Proverbs 24:17, Romans 12:21, Luke 22:36, Matthew 26:52-53, Luke 23:34, Luke 6:46, Matthew 22:34-40, Matthew 10:34-36, Revelation 19:15, Isaiah 49:2, Isaiah 11:4, Ephesians 6:17 (rhema), John 1:14, Hebrews 4:12 (logos), Romans 12, Psalm 23, Psalm 23:5

FEATURED VIDEOS:

#7 Oaths

series: Red Letter City

title: Oaths

date: May 29, 2016

teacher: Jacob Bender

scriptures: Matthew 5:33-37, Numbers 30, Ecclesiastes 5:2, Luke 8:17, Matthew 12:36, Matthew 16:16-19, Matthew 18, James 4:7, Ephesians 6, Ephesians 4:27, 1 Peter 5:8, Luke 13:15

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I don’t know Rick Warren. 

But I have met him. 

somewhere out there, there is a picture of me that I have, of Dawn and I with Rick Warren, but I couldn't find it this week. I only have a picture because when I met him, he said “lets take a picture for facebook!” and so we took one… but I guess I never posted it to facebook. and I now I can’t find it. But it exists somewhere. But I don’t know Rick Warren. I had emailed him a couple of times about our bands music because we wrote one particular song that I thought he would really like, and he was very encouraging and said that he did. 

The last time that I put out an album with my band was in 2011, and on release day, because of our previous conversations, Pastor Warren very graciously sent out one tweet on twitter encouraging people to go and check out our record. 

One tweet, and suddenly thousands and thousands of people were going and checking out our songs. For a few hours our page had more visits than it had had the whole month. Until he sent out another tweet, and the one about us got lost. 

His name brought me a temporary sense of popularity. 

Because he said it was good, people wanted to hear for themselves.

and I could scream from the rooftops how great I thought my own music was, but when someone who had already done something significant… 

like written the best selling book of all time other than the bible… when he puts his name on it, people listen. 

It is very easy to use other people’s names to elevate our purposes. 

There are certain name drops that become trump cards in conversations. and in Jesus’ time and in the generations leading up to Jesus it was no different. People made promises all of the time, it was not really a big deal. But if a person were to make a “vow” or an oath, it would almost automatically be believed… and that is what Jesus was addressing here. The concept of oaths. Of promising something with someone else’s name attached to it. 

But do you even know the one whose name you have attached to your purposes? 

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#3 The Law

series: Red Letter City

title: The Law

teacher: Jacob Bender

date: April 24, 2016

scriptures: Matthew 5:17-20, Luke 24, John 16, Matthew 11:29, Romans 7:7, Romans 7:13, Galatians 5:4, Matthew 23, Acts 15, John 1:14, John 19

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One of the key questions to understanding the sermon on the mount, is the order of the sermon.

Is it coincidence that Jesus first gave us the beatitudes, speaking a blessing over the broken people who were there with him, before telling them that they were salt and light? 

was it laid out in advance?

I am not sure, but I don’t really get an image of Jesus going into his sermons with an outline. I think its probable that everything he said was incredibly timely and that he discerned what it was the the people needed to hear next, and I think that its very likely that he said what he said here about the law, because he realized that these people were beginning to go somewhere in their minds. 

again, you have to consider the crowd. Just take the disciples… the bible says that they were often slow to understand. they were uneducated fishermen… beyond the uneducated fishermen were a group of outcasts who had just been told that they are blessed… that they are salt and that they are light.

Could it be that these things were already getting to their heads? 

He says “do not think…”

did he get the impression that they had begun to think this?

Jesus has brought a brand new, upside down Kingdom, and with it he has promised the marginalized crowd on the outskirts of the mountain and his ragamuffin group of disciples, that they were ultimately going to be the image bearers of hope. 

Could it be that these people began to think in their minds, that everything he was teaching meant he was replacing the law with himself… and that in the new role he had just given them, of being salt and light, meant that they no longer needed to follow the law, but instead needed follow this new teaching.

So right away he brings them back to reality. He says “I didn’t come to do away with the law. Heaven and earth will pass away before the law does… I came to fulfill the law!’

I am sure they were thinking, okay, awesome, glad we got that out of the way. Now lets go back to our beards that we can’t cut, our side burns we can’t trim, the foods we can’t mix together, and the 613 laws that we have spent our whole lives trying to keep even though we know that it is impossible for anybody to ever keep them all perfectly… Why would we have thought that he came to do away with those laws? Silly us.

He only is claiming that he will fulfill them.

"oh... much better... and to think I actually thought he was saying........"

and then its likely they had another moment… one of those “Wait a second!” moments. 

Fulfill the law? Is this guy crazy?!!!????!?!!?!?!?!!!!?

The law was not something that the Hebrew people thought needed to be fulfilled. They thought the law was a book of rules that they were bound too. They didn’t understand that they all pointed, as did the rest of the bible, to the coming Messiah. and so for him to come here and say, “I am going to fulfill the law” they would have been totally, utterly, shocked. 

but not only the law… but the prophets as well! For those of you who have been joining us at Equip as we have been studying each beatitude in depth, we have been talking a lot about Luke chapter 4, when Jesus said that he had fulfilled the first half of what the Prophet Isaiah said in Isaiah 61… and how the crowd was shocked by that statement.

But here, Jesus is making, without a doubt, the boldest statement anybody could ever had made in that culture.

He is saying in this moment… “I am going to fulfill the entire thing.” 

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#5 Culminating at Grace

Series: The Narrative of Grace

Title: Culminating at Grace

Teacher: Jacob Bender

Date: December 13, 2015

scriptures: Matthew 1:16-15, Matthew 1:1, 1 Corinthians 1:27, Matthew 18:20, Leviticus 25:1-7, Leviticus 25:5, 2 Chronicles 36:18-21, 1 Peter 2:5, Galatians 6:2.

Q: is everyone’s sabbath year the same? So if I start working in 2003, and you start in 2005, is my sabbath year 2010, yours 2012 or both in 2010?

A: You can read about it in Leviticus 25, but essentially what Happened was God said to the Israelites “when you come into the land I have given you… The land shall keep a sabbath.” So the way I have always understood it (I am not 100 percent though) is that from the time they all arrived, together, the cycle began.

How that applies to you today may vary… For me the primary takeaway from the sabbath year is, “do you trust God, truly? With everything?”

Simple, but in the new covenant, that is how I personally apply it.

Q: Do you think that Luke’s genealogy pertains to Mary & not Joseph? It would resolve some apparent contradictions between Matthew and Luke’s genealogies, but wouldn’t that also mean that Jesus was physically of the line of David through Mary?

That’s a great question, one that I wish I had mentioned in the sermon, and one that we don’t know for certain the answer to. It would make sense that the genealogy would belong to Mary because they are the same until we get to King David, and then the genealogy in Matthew continues through David’s son Solomon (the King) and Luke’s genealogy continues through David’s son Nathan. However, it is hard to say for sure because even Luke’s genealogy begins by saying (Luke 3:23) Jesus, when he began his ministry, was about thirty years of age, being the son (as was supposed) of Joseph, the son the Heli… Luke’s genealogy is listed in the more traditional way, only listing the Father and son, and actually takes it all the way back to Adam.

The other question that arises in Luke comes from Luke 2:4-5, when it says that Joseph goes to Galilee to register, because HE was of the house and lineage of David. It said that he went to be registered with Mary, who he was engaged to, who was pregnant, and it was during that trip that she gave birth to Jesus. The way this is written seems to emphasis that he needed to be registered, not her, and that she was marrying into the family.

Matthew in general follows the story of the birth of Jesus from the perspective of Joseph, while Luke takes it more from Mary’s perspective, also adding more weight to the possibility that the genealogy in Luke belongs to Mary. (ie – in Luke, we read about Mary’s encounter with her cousin, Elizabeth, about John the baptist leaping in Elizabeths womb when he is in the presence of the Christ living in a pregnant Mary. It also records Mary’s song the magnificat, and the angel of the Lord visits Mary in Lukes account, where Matthew records when the angel visited Joseph, and the battle that Joseph had internally to keep Mary as his wife after everything that had happened. Romans 1:3 also says that Jesus descended from David “according to the flesh” which many also use as evidence that Mary was also a descendant.

In this message, I should have made this more clear, because it is very possible that Mary was also of the line of David, but we know without a doubt that Joseph was, and because this study is on the genealogy in Matthew, we tried to look at it from the perspective of whom Matthew was writing to. Matthew was written to the Jews, to win the Jews to Jesus, and he knew that in that culture, if the Father, adopted or not, was not of the family line, they would never have accepted him as the savior.

So at the end of the day, Mary needed Joseph to not leave her alone on Christmas, and the Jews needed Joseph to accept Mary if they were going to accept Jesus. It can be said with certainty that Joseph was of the family line of David, and in the case that the genealogy in Luke does belong to Mary, it would reconcile some complicated issues between the two genealogies and would have fulfilled the prophecies with or without Joseph but it would not change the fact that to the Jewish culture whom Matthew was writing to win to Christ, Joseph was a key to this story.

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#3 Women of the Narrative

series: the narrative of grace

title: women of the narrative

teacher: Jacob Bender

date: November 29, 2015

scripture: Matthew 1:3, Hebrews 11:31, James 1:27, Hosea 4:14, Romans 12:19, Genesis 38, 

A lot of people talk about Justice. It is something that is very close to the heart of God, but I think that a lot of people talk about it, without even knowing what it is that they are talking about.

I have, in recent months answered questions about what I believe the church should be, and what I believe is important, by talking about Justice. And often when I start talking about that, people get a bit uncomfortable. They are not quite sure how to respond to me, because they don’t understand what I am talking about. They think I mean vengeance.

It is very easy to confuse the two. Vengeance, in Hebrew is the word “naqam” which essentially just means vengeance, – Holmans Bible Dictionary tells it slightly differently when it defines it as “to avenge” or “to be punished”

The idea is to get back at someone… to make them hurt more than you hurt because what they did to you hurt.

It is an anti-gospel that many of us at times have adopted when we allow our emotions or our politics to shape our convictions rather than the truth found in the word of God.

But if you were to ask me, “What is important to you?” and I were to answer “Vengeance” – run. Any pastor who would say that, get as far away from them as you can.

Vengeance is a poison.

The bible says we must never, ever take vengeance. It says vengeance is the Lords (Romans 12:19) but it says that we must seek and defend Justice. Isaiah 1:17 says “Learn to do good; seek justice, correct oppression; bring justice to the fatherless, plead the widow’s cause.”

The word Justice in Hebrew is the word tsadaq

it literally means “to have a just cause, OR to be in the right, or WHAT IS RIGHT…”

Justice is the right thing to do.

Thats the definition. The right thing to do.

Now,

My entire life growing up was always about abstaining. What am I not doing? Am I pure? Do I lust? Do I sin? and there is absolutely no justifying sin, there is no justifying what Tamar did, or what Rahab did, or what David and the wife of Uriah did… There is no justifying sex in any context outside of a marriage, there is no justifying doing any of those things, but I have found, for me,  in all my efforts to not do things, I didn’t do much of anything for other people, at all. 

In my little “mission” of staying away from the sinful things I got so caught up in that, that I didn’t notice people who were hurting.

I always noticed people when they were sinning.

I was really good at that. I always knew when people were doing what they weren’t supposed to be doing.

But I didn’t notice the stranger.

I didn’t think about the stranger. I thought about my friends. I didn’t entertain angels. I entertained my friends! I entertained people who knew me and had something to offer me, and who made me feel comfortable.

and though those things are all great, if your life is limited to only that, then that is not the right thing.

You know, the bible is full of stories of people who did the wrong thing. Paul talked about it constantly. He said he always did what he didn’t want to do…

King David and the wife of Uriah, they did the wrong thing. And an affair lead to a cover-up, and then lead to murder. But even King David’s mess of a life culminated at grace. It culminated at God looking at him and saying “That is a man after my own heart…. a man who does ALL that I say”

Every instance of people doing the wrong thing all throughout the bible is met with grace.

Because the entire gospel of Jesus Christ is that:

We are people who do the wrong thing.

Yet the bible speaks over and over of a God who is extremely gracious to people who do the wrong thing.

But it seems that He is far less gracious toward the people who do NOT do the right thing (JUSTICE).

The people who ignore justice, when it is right in front of them. The harshest judgments are set aside for them. James 4:17 puts it mildly when it says that “for him who knows what he ought to do, to not do it is a sin.” And Matthew 25 speaks of the harshest judgments going to the ones who ignore injustice.

Yet we focus on the sin part.

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#2 a Family Narrative

series: The Narrative of Grace

title: a family narrative

teacher: Jacob Bender

date: November 22, 2015

scriptures: Luke 1:46-56, Matthew 1, Genesis 15:1-6, Genesis 18:1-8, Matthew 25, Hebrews 13:2, Galatians 3:28, Genesis 18:9-15, Deuteronomy 31:6, Revelation 3:20, Genesis 12, Genesis 20, Genesis 21:1, Genesis 21:6

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Mary’s Song of Praise: The Magnificat

“46 And Mary said,

“My soul magnifies the Lord,

47  and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,

48  for he has looked on the humble estate of his servant.

For behold, from now on all generations will call me blessed;

49  for he who is mighty has done great things for me,

and holy is his name.

50  And his mercy is for those who fear him

from generation to generation.

51  He has shown strength with his arm;

he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts;

52  he has brought down the mighty from their thrones

and exalted those of humble estate;

53  he has filled the hungry with good things,

and the rich he has sent away empty.

54  He has helped his servant Israel,

in remembrance of his mercy,

55  as he spoke to our fathers,

to Abraham and to his offspring forever.”

56 And Mary remained with her about three months and returned to her home.”

We are in a series called “The Narrative of Grace” and the entire series is a look through the genealogy of Jesus Christ as recorded in the gospel of Matthew.

The reason that we started a message in a series based on Matthew 1, by looking at Luke 1, with  Mary’s song, “The Magnificat,” is because it is an incredibly important, often overlooked part of the Christmas story. One of the first things that she says, essentially, and its so powerful, is that God is doing something, and it is going to bring injustice to its knees. I love how it says “He will fill those we are hungry with good things, but the rich he will send away empty.” This is not because it is bad to be wealthy… It is just like we talked about last week, Jesus has come for the ones who are hungry. They know that they need him and so he feeds them. It is the ones who think that they have everything figured out all on their own, because of what they have gained in their own lives, and in their own strength, that God is literally unable to work through. But Mary’s song is saying that no matter what you think you have or don’t have, God is going to level the playing field. If you hold what you have, you will lose it. Because He is God. and he hates injustice.

We will look at this song a little more in depth later in this series, but the part we are going to focus on today is the last part of the song.

what Mary was saying was this: The promise that was passed down from generation to generation is finally coming to pass.

and that promise was made to Abraham, for the first time in Genesis 12 and affirmed through the next several chapters in Genesis. That promise said that from Abraham’s seed, all of the families of the earth will be blessed. He promised a man with no children that he would be the Father of a great nation.

But Jesus’ genealogy in Matthew recorded 42 generations between that promise and Jesus birth. That is a lot of waiting. A lot of stories from Father’s being passed down to their sons for generation after generation. A lot of people thinking that the savior would come in their generation, only to watch their fathers who believed the same thing, pass away, and realize that their time was coming next.

It was 42 generations of disappointment.

It probably was beginning to feel more like a fairy tale than a reality.

But what Mary’s song says is essentially that grace is about to break through the broken genealogy, and the promise to Abraham will finally be fulfilled.

But at the beginning of the genealogy, God had another promise to fulfill.

Because Abraham could never be the Father of a great nation if he wasn’t a Father at all.

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#4 Peace

Date: July 26, 2015
Series: The Fruit of the Spirit
Title: Peace
Teacher: Jacob Bender

scriptures: Philippians 4:6, 1 Corinthians 12:4, 1 Corinthians 12:8-10, Isaiah 53:5, Psalm 112, Psalm 51:10-12, Proverbs 12:25, Proverbs 10:28, John 16:33, Hebrews 10:5-7, Ephesians 6:12-15, Hebrews 12:2

note: There was an audio issue during the first ten minutes of this sermon. This does not continue through the entire message.

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