C.S. Lewis said so profoundly, “If I find in myself desires which nothing in this world can satisfy, the only logical explanation is that I was made for another world.“ That other world is the Kingdom of God and through Jesus, we all have the invitation!

The Sermon on the Mount teaches us, amongst other things, that living out of and into Jesus' Kingdom vision — a vision of whole-person flourishing — transforms and renews our approach to money, resources, and all material things!

We need wisdom/hokhmah IF we’re going to rightly live into the Story of God and IF we’re going to receive money as the good gift that it is, using it in a way that rightly worships God as the gift giver and promotes the righteousness and justice he calls us to.

We are all formed by a story. In the book of Deuteronomy, we see that if Israel remembers God’s story—and their’s of redemption—they can negate the Canaanite practices so that the land takes on the character/quality of Israel’s faith (i.e. revealing God’s true story).

“God is continually giving gifts to his people. Whenever he does, the most appropriate response on our part is to thank him for them, worship him through them, make good use of them, and seek more of them—and in doing so, we will avoid earning them, spurning them, or idolizing them.” — Andrew Wilson

Though this week’s passage has some serious implications, it’s also home to one of the Bible’s most beautiful truths that “God has ordained that his elect will persevere and he has ordained that it is a community project!” (John Piper)

Prayer is simply acknowledged helplessness—a confession and petition to God to move. Prayerlessness, then, is simply arrogance—a misguided view that we are capable of transcendent things on our own.

Being “imitators of God” (cf. Ephesians 5:1-2) means, among other things, that our words should be like his — life-giving and truthful. Our speech is to be invisibly oath-laden and transparently honest.

Jesus was the reality the temple was supposed to point to all along—the real place where Heaven and Earth united (e.g., John 1:1-2; 14; 2:13-22). Now, as his body, the church, we are the new temple and emissaries of the Kingdom.