Kindle Notes & Highlights
by
Russ Ramsey
The nobleman would have to accept that Jesus’s word was as good as his presence.
John’s purpose was to run wild with the hope that the Messiah had come.
When Jesus stepped out of that river, he knew he was entering into a life of opposition and sorrow.
The desert had long been a place of struggle and testing for the people of God, as it had also been a place where God often met them.
They were trying to find the easiest ways to satisfy the rules for worship, as though this was the same thing as loving God. Their bartering voices filled the halls of the court, but their hearts were nowhere to be found.11
Though there was some price gouging going on, the far worse crime was the theft of true worship by presenting the great “I am” as no different than any other foreign god who demanded tribute in exchange for prosperity.14
Every year they seemed to care less about knowing God and more about being right, and this was robbing them of their childlike sense of curiosity and of their true courage. They traded in credibility, and credibility looked better dressed in answers than in questions.
“Listen, when God gives you a mission, that’s your mission. No one else can do what has been given to you.
But his marriage to Herodias stood in direct opposition to the Law of Moses.5 So John spoke out against Antipas’s sin publicly and often.
When the cup of Peter’s joy got too full, it spilled over into other emotions. He looked at the fish and then at Jesus with a smile on his lips and sorrow in his eyes. He fell to his knees and said, “Leave me, O Lord. I’m a sinful man. I do not deserve this.”
All their lives, they’d established their significance according to what they could produce.
Peter’s house.
To forgive I must possess the authority of God, otherwise my words are empty. But isn’t the same thing true about healing? You’ve seen me doing these wonders. Where do you suppose this ability comes from?
These signs are so that you might know that I am sent from God to forgive sins.
Over the years Matthew had grown accustomed to the scorn of his neighbors. The money coming in eased the pain of the community he lost. But he was never fully at peace with the life he had chosen.
Matthew searched Jesus’s face for scorn, but found none—only a sincere invitation to go with him.
We’re calling them to leave their lives of sin and join us in righteous living. But you and your disciples, you go into their homes. You eat and drink with them. And you even seem to enjoy it. You fly so close to the flame. How will they ever decide to change if they see you condescending to make your home among them? How will they ever know that God wants more for their lives?”4 Jesus said, “So what do they need? A change in behavior? Is that all? It’s the sick, not the healthy who need a doctor. But you despise the sin-sick among you. Didn’t God say through Hosea, ‘I desire mercy, not
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No one had ever defended his dignity like this before. Jesus knew the ugly truth—he knew that Matthew had chosen money over God. Yet here stood Jesus in his home, defending his right to befriend the marginalized and outcast. Wherever it took him, whatever it cost, he would follow Jesus, even if it meant following him all the way to the end of his own life.7
They were beginning to put their hope in him in ways they had never done with the religious leaders.
His was a ministry of incarnation—touching the infected, dining with sinners, defending the defenseless. The sick needed a physician, and the Physician had come.
Only say the word and my servant will be healed.”
Jesus marveled at the man’s faith. Few bore such confidence in him to believe his word was as powerful as his physical presence.
When the disciples looked at Jesus, they didn’t see a man organizing his thoughts into a speech to comfort the grieving. Instead, they saw grief itself.
There has never been a man greater than John, yet he came to you in poverty as one of the least among you.”
He was the friend of sinners—of drunks, gluttons, prostitutes, tax collectors, and all manner of social outcasts. He dignified the lives of liars and adulterers, people who habitually hurt those closest to them, by tending to their moral wounds just as he tended to the lame and the blind. He accepted them, he ate with them, and he seemed to enjoy their company even as he told them to stop their patterns of destruction. The kingdom of God would not be imposed by force, but by forgiveness, grace, love, and acceptance. This was the kingdom Jesus was building.
You’ll be dragged before kings and rulers because of my message of a coming and present kingdom. When they drag you into court, do not worry about what you should say. God will speak through you.
Could someone usher in a new kingdom without having to overthrow the current one?
“Behold the King of Glory!
These people wanted him as their king because of the wonders he had performed. But they didn’t really want him. They wanted more miracles. They wanted someone to step into their broken world and put it right.
Though they were right to pick up on his kingly qualities, their desire to take him by force only revealed that while they knew he could do things for them, they did not know him. They only thought they did.
Jesus knew the quality of Peter’s faith. He knew Peter was a man whose faith rose and fell, and that it could turn on him quickly. But he also knew Peter was the only one who dared to step out of the boat in the first place.
“Did the miracle awaken nothing in you? You want the food but not its source.
No one can unless the Father who has sent me opens their eyes.
Still, Jesus persisted, and the more he did the more their hearts were hardened toward him.
We believe you are the Holy One sent from God. We believe everything you just taught. Where else could we go?”13 Peter spoke to the ever-increasing reality that Jesus divided people.
continued to divide people.
He offered himself not as the One who could merely show the way to God, but as the One through whom men must pass to find God.
