In the second part of Q&A 27 and our passage today from Matthew 10, Jesus appeals to providence to assure If you trust in your heavenly Father, the promises you read in Matthew 10 and Q&A 27 reveal that His

Matthew 3:13–17 (NIV) 13 Then Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to be baptized by John. 14 But John

The warning Jesus shares in Matthew 7:15 is to be aware of false prophets.

Warning: what Jesus says here will absolutely crush you. Read / Listen Listen to passage & devotional: Heidelberg Catechism Q&A 94 Q. What does the Lord require in the first commandment? A. That I, not wanting to endanger my very salvation, avoid and shun all idolatry, magic, superstitious rites, and prayer to saints or to other creatures. That I sincerely acknowledge the only true God, trust him alone, look to him for every good thing humbly and patiently, love him, fear him, and honor him with all my heart. In short, that I give up anything rather than go against his will in any way. Summary Jesus makes three counter-intuitive claims that are really hard to understand in this short passage: Those who love their family more than Jesus are not worthy of Him: This passage comes on the heels of an even harder saying from Jesus, that He "did not come to bring peace, but a sword," and that He came to set family members against one another! Certainly as a Christian you must love, honor, and respect your family. Thankfully, in most cases you can glorify God in how you relate to your family as you fulfill the numerous scriptural commands to care for your parents and children. But as soon as your familial allegiance begins to eclipse your allegiance to God, it becomes an idol. Those who do not 'take up their cross' are not worthy of Christ: D.A. Carson says it well, "'Taking one’s cross' does not mean putting up with some awkward or tragic situation in one’s life, but painfully dying to self. In that sense, every disciple of Jesus bears the same cross." It means that process we reflected on last week - dying to sin and coming to new life in Christ - must be your top priority. We all stand convicted of idolatry when we see how far down the priority list this effort actually is - if, in fact, it even shows up at all. Those who 'find' their life will lose it: We live in a world defined by a philosophy called existentialism, in which each of us can define our own reality, morals, and objectives. It's easy to 'find' yourself in a made up reality. Jesus here only echos what His Father had said millenia before: that you will find true life when we lose your own definitions (gods) for the sake of Christ. This is what it means in our day and age to have no other gods before me. Dig Deeper I do not think it is a harsh judgment to say that the most obvious feature of the life of the Christian Church today is, alas, its superficiality. - Martin Lloyd Jones, circa 1959 Putting other 'gods' before the one, true, triune God is the very definition of superficiality. If these words of Jesus don't 'cut you to the heart (Acts 2:37),' stop what you're doing and read them again. We're not even 10% of the way into God's law, and already the load is crushing. Let go of whatever 'gods' you have placed before the One True God - your family, your sins, even your pursuit of 'happiness' - and cling to the cross of Christ. Be thankful that even this most heinous sin of idolatry has been paid for on the cross, and that as a redeemed sinner you've been set free in order to fully submit yourself to God. AAA Prayer (About) ACKNOWLEDGE WHO GOD IS: Our Father, who must be held above all things. ALIGN YOUR LIFE WITH GOD'S WILL: Pray that the Holy Spirit will help you prioritize your life so that nothing stands between you and following Christ. ASK GOD FOR WHAT YOU NEED: Read the New Testament in a year, a chapter a day - 2 Corinthians 2

No matter how often we try to keep ourselves from sin, we cannot completely live a sin free life. It simply is not possible, no matter how righteous a person may appear.

A bite sized piece of bread & tiny cup of wine is able to nourish your soul for eternal life. Read / Listen Listen to passage & devotional: Heidelberg Catechism Q&A 75 Q. How does the Lord’s Supper remind you and assure you that you share in Christ’s one sacrifice on the cross and in all his gifts? A. In this way: Christ has commanded me and all believers to eat this broken bread and to drink this cup. With this command he gave this promise: First, as surely as I see with my eyes the bread of the Lord broken for me and the cup given to me, so surely his body was offered and broken for me and his blood poured out for me on the cross. Second, as surely as I receive from the hand of the him who serves, and taste with my mouth the bread and cup of the Lord, given me as sure signs of Christ’s body and blood, so surely he nourishes and refreshes my soul for eternal life with his crucified body and poured-out blood. Summary One of the most indelible marks of man's fall into sin is our propensity to be controlled by our appetite. The forbidden fruit 'was 'good for food and pleasing to the eye (Gen 3:6).' The Israelites who had just been freed from slavery in Egypt longed to go back because they were tired of eating manna. So it's not surprising that the first tactic the devil uses to tempt Jesus is by way of His stomach. After fasting for forty days it only makes sense that Jesus hungered in a way that most of us can't even begin to imagine, so the devil seizes the opportunity by planting an idea which doesn't seem all that unreasonable. He tempts the one who turned water into wine and multiplied a few baskets of bread to feed 5,000 to simply turn the surrounding stones into a some loaves of bread - bread that Jesus desperately needs at this point. Certainly it's not wrong to eat, so why would it have been wrong for Jesus to give into this temptation? Because Jesus wasn't in the wilderness on His own accord, He had been led there by the Spirit for the express purpose of withstanding the devil's temptations, reasonable though they may be. The Spirit had not yet given Jesus permission to resume eating yet, so it would have been sinful for Him to do so. Jesus responds to each of the devil's temptations by quoting scripture, which is just one more reason for you to know scripture well. This first time, Jesus quotes Deuteronomy 8:3, which is a promise God makes to bless Israel if they put following 'every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord' ahead of their own appetites in life. Dig Deeper We come to this passage today in the context of understanding the significance of participation in the Lord's Supper. The entire sacrament is predicated on God's command to Israel to not live on bread alone, but to rather be fully dependent upon everything God has spoken in His Word. But God knows our weakness, and how central our physical appetites are to our decision making process, so what a blessing it is that God communicates the gospel to us physically through bread and wine. Notice the language the catechism uses to summarize scripture: the bread and cup nourish and refreshes your soul for eternal life. In most churches, the communion bread is a tiny bite sized square and the wine comes in the smallest of all cups. These portions aren't going to physically nourish or refresh anyone! Yet the spiritual nourishment you receive as you participate in the Lord's Supper, which is always accompanied by the proclamation of God's Word, surely feeds your soul with the assurance of God's grace enabling you to realize His blessing in your life. AAA Prayer (About) ACKNOWLEDGE WHO GOD IS: Our Father, whose every word is more necessary than bread; ALIGN YOUR LIFE WITH GOD'S WILL: Praise God that Jesus put God's Word ahead of His appetite on your behalf, and pray for the strength to do the same. ASK GOD FOR WHAT YOU NEED: Read the New Testament in a year, a chapter a day - Luke 10

In Matthew’s account, we can see how Jesus is aware of all that will occur.

Christ teaches us this in summary in Matthew 22— Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with From Matthew 22 we learn that this type of question was around during the time of Jesus. Dig Deeper Details matter.

Jesus looks at two extremes when it comes to keeping God's law and says 'Nope.' Read / Listen Listen to passage & devotional: Heidelberg Catechism Q&A 62 Q. Why can’t the good we do make us right with God, or at least help make us right with him? A. Because the righteousness which can pass God’s scrutiny must be entirely perfect and must in every way measure up to the divine law. Even the very best we do in this life is imperfect and stained with sin. Summary The Sermon on the Mount comes near the beginning of Jesus' earthly ministry, and right out of the gate He seeks to squelch the two biggest misunderstandings that people would have about Him. He begins by stating that He in no way, shape or form will be an excuse for sinners who seek to abolish God's Law. The latest incarnation of this in our own society comes from those who seek to pit Jesus' love against God's law by claiming that it's unloving, and therefore un-Christlike, to uphold Biblical standards that come into conflict with people's personal choices. Jesus lays out a stern warning to those who set aside even the least of God's commands, stating that they will be "called least in the Kingdom of Heaven." Next Jesus calls out those on the opposite end of the spectrum: those who think they're so high and mighty and righteous that they can ride their own awesome law keeping efforts right into the Kingdom of Heaven. Not so fast, warns Jesus. If this is your plan, your righteousness better far exceed the pseudo-righteousness of the Pharisees. But these super-duper rule followers were so hung up in dotting the i's and crossing the t's that Jesus mentioned in v18 that they missed the righteousness of God standing right in front of them. Trying to make yourself right with God on your own is hopeless. If this were the extent of Jesus' ministry, the gospel would be hopeless! Thank God it's not! Dig Deeper Last week we focused on one of the pillars of Reformed theology known as Sola Fide, a Latin phrase that simply means Faith Alone. By this we mean that you are made right with God solely because your faith in Christ and not because of works or rule keeping. But this understanding, while good, needs to be nuanced a bit. You actually are saved by works. God will not set aside His holy, righteous and perfect standards. The nuance comes in that you are not saved by your own works, rather you are saved by Christ's perfect obedience which has been credited to you. God's law must be kept - down to the smallest letter and the least stroke of a pen. Nobody born in Adam had the ability to keep this law since we were all conceived and born in sin, but Jesus Christ, born of a virgin, could and did. We'll spend most of the second half of 2023 looking at how you, as one who "can pass God's scrutiny" because you've been included in Christ, now relate to God's law. But suffice it to say for now, that although you are certainly saved by faith alone, you are not saved by a faith that is alone. As we'll see on Friday, true faith and trust in Christ produces a strong desire to live according to all of God's good and perfect law. AAA Prayer (About) ACKNOWLEDGE WHO GOD IS: Our Father, who defines goodness, holiness and righteousness and communicates them in His law; ALIGN YOUR LIFE WITH GOD'S WILL: Pray that as your faith in Christ alone increases, that so will your desire to live according to God's law; ASK GOD FOR WHAT YOU NEED: Read the New Testament in a year, a chapter a day - Ephesians 4

Why do Protestants confess to believing in a holy catholic church? Read / Listen Listen to passage & devotional: Heidelberg Catechism Q&A 54 Q. What do you believe concerning “the holy catholic church”? A. I believe that the Son of God through his Spirit and Word, out of the entire human race, from the beginning of the world to its end, gathers, protects, and preserves for himself a community chosen for eternal life and united in true faith. And of this community I am and always will be a living member. Summary Put yourself in the place of the disciples. Everything you've heard Jesus teach on has been mind blowing and has shattered nearly every preconceived notion that they had prior to meeting Him. So every time Jesus asked a question, they probably sweat bullets hoping that Jesus wouldn't pick them to answer, because chances are they'd get it wrong. But here Jesus asks a question that's easy to answer: "who do others say that I am?" It's always easy to report what others say, so the disciples are quick to give an answer to this first question. It's the second question that gets them. "Who do you say that I am?" You can imagine the awkward silence that followed the question. Finally the boldest of the group spoke up, and I don't think it was with a wavering voice. Peter finally gets it. "You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God." Jesus rewards Peter's bravery and correct answer with a new name: Petros - the Rock. What comes next has been the subject of oceans of ink: "on this rock - petra - I will build my church." You can see the slight difference in the Greek words. Does this mean that Simon Peter is the rock that the church is built on, or is 'this rock' that Jesus refers to a different rock - perhaps Himself? But focusing on the slight variation in wording misses the point of this passage. Don't miss Jesus' huge promise here: "I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it." Peter plays an important role for sure in church history, but clearly the foundation, architect, builder and finisher of the Church is our Lord and Savior, Jesus the Christ, the Son of the Living God. Dig Deeper The doctrine of the Church (known as ecclesiology) is one of the primary differences between the Roman Catholic and Protestant churches. The Roman Catholic Church (RCC) understands Jesus here to be appointing Peter as the head of the Church, and they then extrapolate from this other doctrines like apostolic succession and the papacy. Since those concepts lack Biblical support, the Reformers turned away from them. So it often seems odd to us in Protestant churches to recite the line from the Apostles' Creed stating that we "believe a holy catholic church." After all, the reason we're called protestants is because we're protesting the Catholic Church! But understand the Apostles' Creed far predates the formal RCC, so it's referring to something different when it uses the word catholic (small c). The Latin word it originally used is catholicus, a word that simply means 'universal.' So when you confess to "believe in the holy catholic church" you are confessing that Jesus Christ has been and still continues to build His church over all times and places and among every language, tribe, and people. He's making His Church holy, that is, He's separating you and every other member of His Church from the sinful world we live in. Praise God that the gates of hell will never overcome it! AAA Prayer (About) ACKNOWLEDGE WHO GOD IS: Our Father, who revealed to His elect that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God. ALIGN YOUR LIFE WITH GOD'S WILL: Thank God for making you a member of His Church, and pray that it will be the biggest priority in your life. ASK GOD FOR WHAT YOU NEED: Read the New Testament in a year, a chapter a day - Romans 5