Matt Chandler - Light and Likeness

If you have your Bibles, I want you to open to Matthew chapter five. If you can get a hardback one or a physical copy instead of the one on your phone, that would be better because I’m going to jump around and show you a couple of things before Matthew 5 and then something in Matthew 5, maybe something in Matthew 6 if time allows. This way, you can navigate it in a more friendly manner.

Now, before we dive in, let me say this: I want to remind you and invite you out tonight. At five o’clock, we have an Encounter, which lasts from 5 to 6:30. Really, what we’re doing at Encounter is creating space to praise the Lord, to sit in His presence, and to practice those things He reveals to us. So, I want to lay out my vision for it over the next year, based on Acts 1:8, where Jesus tells His disciples, «And you will receive power.» It is this idea that there is available to you and I a power, a vitality, a force within us that moves us from being good moral people who may even be saved and attend church occasionally, doing the best they can to become more and more moral by their own strength. If you want to do that, go ahead, and I’ll cheer you on and preach to encourage you. But there’s something more available.

As I’ve been here for over 20 years now, I’ve watched the light come on in good men and women who are doing their best to remain morally upright. They attend church, they would call Jesus Lord, and I think He is, but they are quickened and awakened to something deeper and more powerful, leading them to be set loose on the world. I want to discuss that and pray for some of it for us tonight. This is the place where we pray for our sick and for spiritual freedom for people who might be in bondage. So, if you’re sick, why don’t you come and let us pray for you tonight? God has healed people in this room in truly unbelievable ways. I mean, won’t He do it? I don’t know; let’s get together and find out. We can’t make Him do anything; He’s God. We don’t rub the lamp and expect Him to obey us; we just lay our hearts before Him, and He loves us and is good and kind. So, won’t you join us tonight? I’m eager to see what the Lord will do.

Now, in John chapter 4, there’s a really awkward moment between Jesus and a woman that is simultaneously beautiful and contrasts how most of us operate, right? This is Jesus we’re talking about. Jesus encounters this woman, and nothing about the scene makes sense. She is at the well in the middle of the day. You don’t go to the well at that time; it’s hot. You go early in the morning. So, she’s there at midday while He has sent His disciples to get food because they were hungry, and He was tired. The Bible says Jesus was tired. Yes, He is fully God and fully man; He got tired. So, He starts this conversation with the woman, and she’s shocked that He engages her because the Jews hated the Samaritans. If you are hated by a group of people, you don’t typically respond in warm and fuzzy ways. So, she’s literally shocked in the text that Jesus would speak to her, asking, «How are you, a Jew, saying these things to me, a Samaritan woman?» The Jews would pray that God wouldn’t hear the prayers of the Samaritans and that He wouldn’t forgive their sins. That illustrates the animosity between these two groups, yet Jesus begins to walk her through life and the good news of His coming.

There’s a moment where, if you’re just reading the Bible like you would a newspaper, you’ll miss it. He says to the woman, «Go get your husband.» She replies, «I don’t have a husband,» and Jesus responds, «I know you don’t; you’ve had five, and the man you’re living with now is not your husband.» It’s like, «Hey, slow down a little bit, Jesus. There are better ways to approach this.» Tell me you wouldn’t coach Jesus to maybe soften that approach, right? «Go get your husband.» «I don’t have one.» «Oh, I know you don’t have one; you’ve had five, and the guy you’re with now isn’t even your man.» It’s like a «sex-for-rent» situation, and you’re in a mess, lady. You wouldn’t go hard at people like that, right? You’ve got to be sweet and kind. Yet, Jesus loves her too much to avoid confronting her deepest wounds. He is not interested in her shame or guilt, except to free her from them. To not touch the wound is to ignore its need for healing. Jesus does something that almost everyone in this room would advise against—don’t go hard at people’s deepest hurts like that. Approach it from a different angle, but instead, He paints the scene with truth.