Continuing our walk through Holy Week in Matthew's gospel, this week we look at the two highest commandments: "love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind," and "love your neighbor as yourself." While these commands are good, they don't give us the power to follow them. Further, they inspire our sinful hearts to will their opposite. It's God's grace, His one-way love toward us, that fuels our Christian life and inspires us to follow God's law out...

This week, we take a look at an exchange Jesus has with the Sadducees in Matthew 22:23-33. In this passage, the Sadducees pose a figurative supernatural predicament to Jesus regarding the nature of marriage in Heaven. Jesus responds with another "astonishing" answer. Why does it matter that our bodies will also be resurrected? What is the ultimate meaning and purpose of marriage? And how can our understanding of these things topple the idols of our hearts?

Our Matthew series resumes with Pastor Kevin Maloney's return from sabbatical! Kevin picks up where we left off in Matthew 22, focusing on verses 15-22. In this passage, the Pharisees seek to manipulate Jesus through flattery and political incitement. Jesus responds in an unexpected way and the Pharisees are "amazed." How should we approach spiritual and political authority? What does it mean to render what is Caeser's to Caeser and to God what is God's? How might our understanding of God's a...

This week, Reid Ferguson, former pastor of Evangelical Church of Fairport, shared with us from the book of Haggai. Haggai is structured on the prophet's four oracles given by God to the Israelites who were returned to the Promised Land from Babylon. Reid exposits the text and exhorts us to consider how the postures of our hearts might resemble those the Israelites are convicted of in this book. How do we neglect to consider God's priorities of our lives instead of our own? Are we simply about...

Throughout the Bible, the concept of marriage is used as an image of the relationship between Christ and His church. This week, we look at the parable of the wedding feat in Matthew 22:1-14, in which Jesus alludes to the wedding supper of the Lamb found in Revelation. Through this parable, Jesus demonstrates the consequences of apathy, the lavishness of God's call to us, and the importance of Jesus' imputed righteousness. What does it mean to "put on Christ?" How does our own self-righteousne...

As we continue through Matthew 21, the Pharisees persist in challenging Jesus' authority. Now, Jesus gives them a second parable to demonstrate himself as God's son. This parable is a type of prophetic autobiography, in which Jesus foreshadows his own death. What is Jesus communicating to the pharisees about the nature of God's kingdom? How is Jesus the better prophet? Join us as Cody unpacks these questions and more.

Cody continues our journey through Matthew 21 this week as Jesus' authority is challenged in verses 23-32. Jesus answers this question posed by the Pharisees by giving them a parable of two sons: one who first denies his father's authority but then changes his mind and one who claims fealty but denies in action. Cody charges us to ask ourselves: which son are we most like? What does true repentance look like? Will we be relentless rebels or repentant ones?