9.13.20 - Matthew 11 & 12: On Purity and Prodigality (Kenny Camacho)
SCRIPTURE: Matthew 11-12
As Jesus resumes his ministry following the Sermon on the Mount, he begins to encounter doubt from all sides: certainly, the Pharisees and religious leaders continue to question whether he is “of God” or “of Beelzebub,” and even the people of his hometown express uncertainty about whether or not Jesus is the Messiah. But the real challenge, it seems, comes from Jesus’s own cousin and the man who baptized him: John the Baptist. As the author of Matthew explores these questions about who Jesus is, we see, time and again, that the proof of Jesus’s identity can be found in the radical kingdom values he embodies and enacts. Our hope this week is that we can learn how to follow in Jesus’s footsteps by being similarly “good news” to others.
REFLECTION/DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:
When have you doubted who Jesus is and what he is capable of?
What are your experiences--either good or bad--with “purity culture”?
In the message, Kenny said that the Kingdom of Heaven is marked by a culture of “how we live” instead of “what we avoid.” Does this resonate with you? How so?
What does it say about Jesus that proof of His arrival is the healing of the disabled, and the poor receiving good news?
Mathew 11:28-30 quotes Jesus saying,”my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” Does it seem easy to have faith in Jesus? What could he be saying here?
If spending more of our time learning from Jesus about how to live, resulted in a better life, why aren’t we spending more time learning from Jesus?
What are some ways you can “live out” the hope we have in Jesus this week?