Hearing the voice of God and seeing his hand at work can be difficult in the midst of crisis. Yet the prophetic voice of Isaiah is as relevant now in 2020 as it was over two thousand seven hundred years ago. Whether it's national turmoil, global pandemic, political division, financial downfall or personal crisis--God is sovereign and works all things for His glory. 

Deadly pandemic. Social strife. Political division. Everywhere you look, the world is in trouble and experiencing very hard times. The good news is, we have the hope that people are searching for – and it’s only found in Jesus.

What does it mean to be live out as the people of God in the kingdom of Heaven? Matthew's gospel opens with three chapters containing Jesus' longest recorded message – a sermon given to His disciples early in His ministry to articulate what the life of a Christ-follower would look like. The Sermon on the Mount is the most complete delineation in the New Testament of the Christian counter-culture. We are going to study what life in the Kingdom of God is, fully human but lived under the divine rule of Jesus.

We live in a fallen world full of people with sinful human natures. As a result, we are a broken people fractured by past hurts, emotional wounds and traumatic experiences. But the good news is that God can bring genuine restoration in our whole personhood of spirit, soul and body (1 Thessalonians 5:23-24). It is God alone who can work wonderfully to bring "... a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of joy instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair" (Isaiah 61:3).