September 5, 2025 - Matthew 17-20

All over the world, even in non-Christian traditions, Jesus is recognized as a great moral teacher.  We recognize that he taught, not merely ethics and morals, but a kingdom ethic that results only from a supernatural change of heart.  That is, it is possible for people to do good things apart from the gospel, but the change of heart that comes with the gospel causes a complete change of disposition, the person always saddened when doing wrong and always looking to do what is right, always looking to please God.  This person is a kingdom citizen and, thus living a new life, is just a recognizably different person.  To spend time with Jesus is to be changed.  The one who is changed loves the teaching of Jesus.  Consider . . .

“I say to you, if you have faith like a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move, and nothing will be impossible for you” (17:20).

“Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.  Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven” (18:3,4).

“Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God” (19:24).

“And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or lands, for my name's sake, will receive a hundredfold and will inherit eternal life.  But many who are first will be last, and the last first” (19:29,30).

“But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be your slave, even as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (20:26-28).

I think when I read that sweet story of old,

When Jesus was here among men,

How He called little children as lambs to His fold,

I should like to have been with them then.

I should like to have been with them then,

I should like to have been with them then;

How He called little children as lambs to His fold,

I should like to have been with them then.   --Jemima Luke (1841)