The Material Matters
April 12, 2026
CENTRAL TEXT: MATTHEW 6:9-10
Matt. 6:9 Pray then like this:
“Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name.
10 Your kingdom come,
your will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven
CALL TO WORSHIP: PSALM 8:1, 3–9
LEADER: O LORD, our Lord,
how majestic is your name in all the earth!
You have set your glory above the heavens.
ALL: When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars, which you have set in place,
what is man that you are mindful of him,
and the son of man that you care for him?
LEADER: Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings
and crowned him with glory and honor.
ALL: You have given him dominion over the works of your hands;
you have put all things under his feet,
all sheep and oxen,
and also the beasts of the field,
the birds of the heavens, and the fish of the sea,
whatever passes along the paths of the seas.
O LORD, our Lord,
how majestic is your name in all the earth!
PRAYER/SCRIPTURE READING/CONFESSION OF FAITH: Jeremiah 9:4-7
LEADER: Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: 5 Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat their produce. 6 Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and do not decrease. 7 But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the LORD on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.
The Word of the Lord
ALL: Thanks be to God
BENEDICTION: 1 Corinthians 15:58
LEADER: Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.
DISMISSAL: Amen.
RELATED SCRIPTURES:
Genesis 1:26-29
Leviticus 19:9/Ruth 2:15,16
Proverbs 14:31
Jeremiah 29:7
Amos 4:1
Zephaniah 3:19
Matthew 25:31-46
1 Corinthians 13:1-3
Revelation 21:5
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:
- At risk of sounding brusque, when’s the last time the doctrine of the Resurrection made a bit of difference to you? What were the circumstances? What effect did it have?
- Why might someone have been inspired to first utter the now hackneyed phrase, “so heavenly-minded they are no earthly good?” What are examples of that mindset? What’s off about that mindset?
- Now consider the converse. What happens when one adopts exclusive concern for material conditions, without reference to anything more, anything immaterial and spiritual in nature?
- We pointed to examples in Scripture of attending to the material conditions of the earth. What are others we didn’t have time to mention?
- Make the case to a naysayer like Marx who thinks Christian faith has no interest in material conditions by pointing to the irreducibly spiritual and miraculous acts of the Incarnation and Resurrection. Why would those two events alone be enough to prove (and compel) that concern?
- A question for group reflection, prayer, and ideation–or one for your prayer closet: what now? In light of the Resurrection’s particular relevance to attending to the material problems of this world, what’s one thing to which you (and y’all) might give your new (or renewed) attention?
Quotes:
“All religious ideas, all ideas about any little god, even of flirting with a little god, are an unspeakable abomination.”
- Vladimir Lenin
Take away Easter and Karl Marx was probably right to accuse Christianity of ignoring problems of the material world. Take it away and Freud was probably right to say Christianity is wish-fulfillment. Take it away and Nietzsche probably was right to say it was for wimps.
- N.T. Wright
Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature… It is the opium of the people. The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness.
- Karl Marx
So the sum of this supplication is that God will illuminate the heart by the light of his Word, bring our hearts to obey his righteousness by the breathing of his Spirit, and restore to order at his will, all that is lying waste upon the face of the earth.’
- John Calvin
“The greatness of a civilization can be judged by how it treats its weakest members”
- (origin uncertain; often misattributed to Mahatma Gandhi).
“The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons”
- (origin uncertain; frequently attributed to Fyodor Dostoevsky, though Russian literature scholars regard this attribution as erroneous).
Christian teaching, from the first, placed charity at the center of the spiritual life as no pagan cult ever had, and raised the care of widows, orphans, the sick, the imprisoned, and the poor to the level of the highest of religious obligations.. . . .A world from which the gospel had been banished would surely be one in which millions more of our fellows would go unfed, uncured, unsheltered, and uneducated.
- David Bentley Hart, Atheist Delusions.
If you read history you will find that the Christians who did most for the present world were just those who thought most of the NEXT. The Apostles themselves, who set on foot the conversion of the Roman Empire, the great men who built up the Middle Ages, the English Evangelicals who abolished the Slave Trade, all left their mark on Earth, precisely because their minds were occupied with Heaven. It is since Christians have largely ceased to think of the other world that they have become so ineffective in this. Aim at Heaven and you will get earth “thrown in”: aim at earth and you will get neither.
- C.S. Lewis
Books/Docs:
“Saving Calvin from Cliches,” an interview with Marilynne Robinson
“Save us, Wheelbarrow Jesus,” Chris E.W. Green