Newland Presbyterian Church: Recent Episodes
Newland Presbyterian Church
Gifts.
We all love to receive them.
And God loves to give them. But God's gifts also come with a purpose.
Moses discovered this as he received the seemingly strange gifts of a staff that transformed into a snake, a leprous hand made clean, and Nile River water turned to blood.
How could these gifts possible help Moses to conquer Pharaoh and a foreign army?
In this morning's text (Exodus 4), we discover the hidden meanings of these gifts, and take a second look at the gifts that God has given us, too. Some of those gifts are NOT what we would have necessarily chosen for ourselves, but they are precisely the gifts God wants us to use as we share Christ and participate in his leading of people from bonded slavery to Gospel freedom.
Moses. The beginning of his story has two parts.
As an infant, he escaped death by drowning to find a home in the palace of the king. The king who enslaved his people.
In midlife, he reacted against the domination of Pharaoh and found freedom, family, and vocation in Midian. It seemed like "happily ever after."
But God wasn't done with Moses. And God isn't done with you.
Whether you find yourself leading a double life as Moses did walking the courts of Pharaoh in Hebrew skin. Or whether you find yourself in your own Midian, with a spouse, and family, and a 9 to 5 that puts food on your table. God still has plans for you.
Midian wasn't the end of the story for Moses. And it isn't for you either.
Because in Christ, you're meant to set people free, to lead people up the mountain, to feast on bread sent from heaven, and cross over Jordan with a multitude. In Christ, you're meant for glory. But it rarely comes without suffering.
Exodus is a dramatic book. Pharaoh provides the cruel villain, with Moses cast as the unlikely hero. There are earth shaking plagues, a dramatic and miraculous escape, a long journey, a climb up the mountain of God, who remains hidden in darkness. And then, in the grand finale, the glory of the Lord comes down from the top of the mountain and fills the little mountain that is the Tabernacle with His glory. As we give our attention to this Exodus story, I hope that you will come to realize that everything that happens in that book is also happening in you. And that even as God sent Moses to the Hebrews, God has also sent Christ to us. Christ. He who is the greater Moses who delivers not just Israel, but the whole world from bondage. So come. Journey with us!
When Mary stood at the empty tomb, overwhelmed by grief, Jesus showed up, bringing joy. When the disciples huddled in the Upper Room, overcome by fear, Jesus showed up, and brought peace. When Thomas stood doubting, Jesus showed up, producing faith. When the disciples on the Road to Emmaus journeyed in confusion, Jesus broke bread and gave clarity. Jesus shows up! It's one of the beautiful truths about Easter. Jesus shows up and changes things. And Christ still shows up, giving another command: "Just as the Father sent me, so I am sending you." The question is, where will you show up this week, carrying with you the joy, peace, faith, and clarity of Easter Life?
Faith. Hope. and Love. Historically and practically, these qualities are called the "theological virtues," commended to us in 1 Corinthians 13. In the history of the church, they are also paired with the cardinal virtues of practical wisdom, justice, courage, and temperance. Grounded in humility, these characteristics are expressions of love that we can offer to God, even as they also serve as the means of our sanctification. Since last week we focused on what to set aside, in this sermon we are going to focus on what to acquire as we live in Christ - the one who shares his very character, virtue, and being with us by the Spirit, to the praise and glory of God the Father.
Encounter leads to Faith. Faith in Christ to discovery of the Triune God of Grace. God's grace presents the possibility of Transformation. And so as we begin this 40-day Lenten season, a time fashioned after Jesus' 40-day temptation in the wilderness, we look at the gospel according to both Mark and Matthew, noting three temptations from Satan and how Christ's response demonstrates true humanity, setting right the failures of Adam, Eve and all of us, to those same temptations. And then, a new practice for you to take up this Lent, a practice tried and true, of daily examination and a pleading for God's grace which leads to change. The possibilities are incredible to imagine: You, set free in Jesus. Listen in : )
Faith. My Faith. Our Faith. Of course, faith is so very important. But more important than either my faith or our faith...is Christ. The One in whom our faith is placed. As we continue in this second sermon in a series on the foundations of Christian Faith, let's "look to Jesus," the "author and perfecter or our faith." Let's look even like Peter, James, and John, who looked at Jesus upon the Mount of Transfiguration, and in whose Light they were able to see light, and to make sense of the world around them and to run the race they (and we) are called to run.
Encounter. When Isaiah the prophet encountered the Living God in the Temple, he said, "...I saw the Lord, sitting on a throne, high and lifted up, and the train of God's robe filled the Temple." Isaiah also saw seraphim, those angelic ministers imaged as a flame of fire, and heard their eternal hymn, "Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of hosts, the whole earth is full of His glory." It was amazing.
Even more amazing is to recognize that the basic pattern of Isaiah's experience (1. perceiving the glory of God 2. being undone in God's presence 3. being put back together by God's grace & 4. being sent by God into the world) is also the basic pattern of Moses' encounter with God at the burning bush; of Paul's encounter on the Demascus road; of John the Revelator's encounter on the Isle of Patmos...and our's every Sunday we gather for worship. Join in, and enter that pattern with us now, as we gather around God's Word, being undone, put back together, and sent into the world in this most foundational, God-glorifying process.
Deep down, we know that we need to be saved. It is a truth so fundamental to our lives that we write books about it and tell stories about it and watch movies about people experiencing salvation. You can find it in Tom and Jerry, James Bond, High Noon, and Little Red Riding Hood. The experience of salvation coming in the midst of seemingly hopeless circumstance. Human beings are so obsessed with salvation because it lies at the center of reality: finding ourselves in trouble, facing death from which there is no escape, we know that if we are to be saved it must come to us from outside of us. That is what Christmas is all about: God enters the world. God arrives as the bringer of salvation. In fact, that's what the name "Jesus" actually means. It means, "God saves." So listen in for a moment, and hear of that thing given by God that goes to the very core of all your longing.
The wise men were, "warned in a dream not to return to Herod [so they] returned to their own country by another way." Since we have now celebrated Christmas, many of us are back to our familiar routines. Perhaps, as we make our own way "back" to everyday life, this word to the magi, this invitation to "return by another way," can preserve in us the gifts that we have received in Christ: hope, love, joy and peace. And that, of course, would be a gift to the world. In the words of Leiva-Merikakis, "By returning quietly to their homeland full of the joy of the Lord, the Magi were doing a great deal to preserve the spiritual peace and sanity of the world."
After hearing from angels, receiving heavenly messages from shepherds, and, of course, giving birth to Jesus, the Scriptures tell us that Mary, "treasured up all these things, and pondered them in her heart." So, come! And treasure with us in this online worship service, pondering in your hearts the great love of God with us, the incredible truth that God chose to be bounded by the womb of Mary (without ceasing to be God), and the wonder of a child whose weight (of glory), takes away all other burdens. Truly, when he appeared, the soul found its (infinite) worth. Merry Christmas, dear ones. The Lord has come. Glory to God!
"Prepare the way of the Lord," cries John the Forerunner, the one whose task it was (and is) to get us ready to meet Jesus. John does this in a variety of ways: through his verbal proclamation, the witness of his own life, and even by and through the ways that the church remembers him. Depictions of John the Baptist in religious art (paintings and architecture) aid us in understanding John's witness, which itself patterns the possibility of our own participation in Christ's Christmas work. Listen in to discover how your life might eventually become like "a finger pointing," to the Savior who draws near.
Ambrose of Milan said, in regards to heaven and earth, that Jesus Christ is "the reconciliation of those two realms." This morning, Psalm 85 leads us a little further into Advent, offering us actual steps that we can walk as we see heaven and earth cohering in Jesus, the one that Isaiah the Prophet speaks of when he says that, "Unto us a child (of earth) is born; unto us a Son (the only begotten) is given." As we long for that day when all is set right, as we long for Christ Jesus to come again in glory, Psalm 85 frames our prayers with an encouragement to 1. Remember 2. Cry Out 3. Listen & 4.Hear. Perhaps as we pray in this way towards Christmas, Christ's glory will once again, "fill the land."
"And going into the house, they saw the child with Mary, his mother. And they fell down and worshipped him." This is the end towards which Advent (and the whole Christian life) points. To find ourselves in the presence of the humble Savior, is to find ourselves in a posture of adoration, and of worship. Join us this morning as we journey with these wise kings from the east, who see a star (an angel?), who follow it to Herod's courts (but aren't sidetracked), and who arrive, ultimately, to Bethlehem, where they worship Jesus and offer him gifts that correspond to Christ's identity as King, God, and Savior.
Therefore, says the Apostle Paul, "be imitators of God, as beloved children." As we delve a bit deeper into this mystery this morning, hear how the doctrine of the Trinity, the call to imitate God, and the life of a child, coalesce into a great invitation to simply "be with" God, receiving there all of His love, and offering our love in return. This is the basis of the Christian life of participation: a desire to be with him, to be with Jesus, who is always open (from womb to tomb) to the Father's generative giving, and also to us.
This morning we were privileged to share in the Word and in both sacraments, baptism and communion. Word and Sacrament, the twin pillars of Reformed Worship. As we remember with Paul that there is, "one Lord, one Faith, one Baptism, one God and Father of all, over all, through all, and in all," we journey back to the creation, to the flood and to the ark; we remember Moses pulled from the water and adopted into a royal family, who then led the people from slavery to freedom. We remember all of that because it points us to the "one baptism," of our Lord Jesus, who entered the Jordan, brought a new creation, washed us clean, adopted us into God's family, and who leads us into freedom. These snapshots reminds us of our own baptisms, which participate in the one baptism of the Savior. Of course, once we remember, we must also heed Paul's words to "walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which we have been called." And that requires the power of the Spirit just as much as a new creation. Come then, Holy Spirit! May we be people of humility, gentleness, love, and peace.
Anselm, about 1000 years after Christ's death on the Cross, was tasked with leading the English church. It was a position of immense power. Anselm promptly caught a nosebleed, haha! It has always been difficult for Christians to understand a proper orientation to power, for we serve a God who is all-powerful, yet who demonstrated that power by emptying himself in love on a Cross for us. In this morning's passage from Ephesians, Paul reminds us of the power of God that is at working in our "inner being," so that we may know the "bread, and width, height and depth," of God's love for us in Christ Jesus. That power doesn't look quite like the power pursued by the rest of the world, in 1st-century Israel or in 21st-century America. Let's dare to approach the life and cross of Jesus this morning, to see what God's power on display actually looks like. Because it looks like love. A Love so powerful that it makes a new heaven and a new earth.
Paul speaks of a mystery, a mystery revealed. It's the mystery of the gospel, of Christ, of all creation made one in Him. It's the mystery of how Jew and Gentile become co-heirs and one body with the Savior. And, perhaps most important for us, it's about how the church becomes the people who make known this mystery. So the call this morning is to "become" a mystery in order that we might reveal it. To become that people unified in Jesus Christ, so that we are able, in turn, to reveal the beauty of God's unifying love. That is hard to do in a society dominated and marked by division. Which makes it even more valuable and blessed when it is manifested in Christ's church.
In Ephesians 2, Paul says that upon the cross, Jesus breaks down the dividing walls of hostility that lie between us, so making peace. It is at this highest level of reality that we discover our unity in Him, who then sets the pattern for our own lives, where Jesus is both the "cornerstone," and the "keystone," the rock at the pinnacle of an arch which holds everything in place, giving meaning, shape and purpose to our lives. When Jesus reigns supreme in our hearts (not family, not country, not politics), we too become people of peace. Perhaps this is what the church can offer the world in our own polarized moment, fraught as it is with divisiveness at every turn. A people who, in Jesus Christ, make peace.
We were spiritually dead. "But God, being rich in mercy, because of the love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ," says the Apostle Paul in Ephesians 2. So we were dead. But now God has made us alive with Christ. And by God's grace God has called us to good works. It's a three fold patter that is true for all of us. Death. Life in Christ. Good works. Hear three stories in this morning's sermon that illustrate this pattern. Hear three stories from folks living in places as different as Newland, Nicaragua, and 1st century Israel. And then consider your own story. Consider how God has brought you from death to life in Christ. Consider what good works God has already prepared for you to do, even now.
Where did you learn to pray? From whom did you learn to pray? Or more importantly, how are you STILL LEARNING to pray? In today's passage, Paul offers up a prayer for the church...one that he prays for us, but also one that we can take up and pray for ourselves and others. At its core, Paul's prayer asks God's help in our knowing of Him...which results in a dramatic change. If you need proof of that, look no further than Paul's own life, and the incredible transformation that "knowing God," effected in his own person. Maybe we ought to ask and hope for the same things in our own lives? Maybe you can begin to pray? Maybe you can begin to pray like Paul.
"I do not cease to give thanks for you," Paul tells the saints in Ephesus. Why? Because, "I have heard of your FAITH in the Lord Jesus Christ, and your LOVE towards all the saints." Faith and love are the fruit produced by all of God's work in us, work that Paul has catalogued in chapter 1 as Grace and Peace and Blessing and Inheritance, and the guarantee of the Holy Spirit. And so we, too, give thanks for the ways faith has been apparent and love has been enacted, even in the last week in the folks who constitute NPC.
"In him you have an inheritance," says the Apostle Paul in Ephesians 1. An inheritance that actually includes EVERYTHING, for everything belongs to Christ, including us. The Holy Spirit helps us to connect "things" as we typically experience them, to the shared life of God, where sanctified reality becomes a sacramental experience, and a participation in God's good news story. Listen in, and discover how even pickup trucks can be transformed into a conveyor of the heritage that is our in God's economy of grace!
As we enter in to Paul's letter to Ephesus, we get no further than the first word before the reality of BLESSING meets us: we bless God because God has blessed us, and within that mutual blessing, we discover that God has set us apart to extend His own blessing to the world. In this message, we pay particular attention to the SPIRITUAL nature of God's blessing that Paul celebrates.
As we gather on the lawn this morning, within the theater of God's glory, we take a moment to remember. To remember God's goodness; to remember how God has spoken to us, comforted us, and led us during these last months. And then, we turn to Ephesians, where we hear from the Apostle Paul, who speaks to us "by the will of God," a word of Grace and Peace.
As we conclude our series on the Travel Narrative in Luke, we discover, in Christ's tears overlooking Jerusalem, the revealed truth of God's heart towards us, which is "compassion," a willingness to "suffer with us" in such a way that all of our past sin and all of our future suffering can be redeemed and transformed. And finally, an invitation for Jesus to enter the Temple of our hearts and make it clean, so that we, too, can bear the compassionate life of God in the world.
In Luke 18 we hear Christ's call to enter the kingdom like a child, for "the kingdom belongs to such as these." Perhaps such child-like qualities as dependence and delight, worship, prayer and curiosity will aid us as we seek to "receive the kingdom of God like child," so that we might truly enter.
As we worship this morning, we'll give thanks to God, cry out for Christ's mercy, gather around the Scriptures, and fall down before Jesus in worship. Interestingly, all of these things happen in our Scripture this morning from Luke 17, which presents to us a picture of the Gospel and aids us in our understanding and practice of worship.
In this recorded sermon we take on the strange parable of the Dishonest Manager (Luke 16), compare it with the parable of the Prodigal Son (Luke places these stories side by side), and trace the theme of Grace that Christ has been placing before us at each step of the journey.
Listen in as we continue through the Gospel’s travelogue (Luke 15), and the stories that Jesus tells as we learn of that which was Lost, those who were Found, and the great rejoicing of Heaven and Earth. Perhaps you'll be as surprised as Christ's first listeners to discover who chooses to remain outside the banquet feast and who enters in?!
On this Lord's Day, we continue our journey with Jesus in Luke 14, hearing three parables which culminate in an invitation to a great banquet table. So, after praise, after gathering around the Word, after prayer, we all join together at the Table, where we feast with Christ and all the saints.
In this teaching for the Avery County Prayer Group, Michael reflects upon Christ's statement in John 6, "I Am the Bread of Life." We'll follow this statement from the lips of Jesus all the way to Israel's wilderness journey, all the way to the New Testament Letter to the Hebrews, all the way to the Ark of the Covenant, to Mary, and to the universal church. After this journey, you ought to be able to connect Christ's statement, "I Am the Bread of Life," to your own life, and to your place in the world.
Join in for this first NPC Worship on the Lawn Sunday service. We continue through Luke's travel narrative, focusing now on Luke 13 and Christ's healing of a woman with a disabling spirit, and two parables that he shares about the Kingdom.
As we continue our journey through Luke's Samaria (Luke 12:13ff), this message connects our personal pandemic experiences with Israel's exile, the Christian life, and the story of the world, which moves from 1. Garden through 2. life in the Fallen World, towards 3. Heaven. Jesus meets us along the way, listens to our questions, and then plumbs the depths of our hearts by calling forth the ways we life self-referential lives intent on consuming the world around us. Of course, the invitation is always there to open our hearts to the One who comes to journey alongside us, and towards whom everything moves. Indeed, it is sweet freedom to realize that our lives are hidden with Christ, in God. Truly, it sets us free from ourselves, and bends us back towards God and all those created in God's image.
This teaching for the Avery County Prayer Group connects the classic offices of Jesus, namely his priestly role, to his work in becoming "sin" for us, as the Apostle Paul puts it in 2 Corinthians 5: 20-21, so that we might become the righteousness of God. This, in turn, clarifies our call now to be ambassadors for Christ, as we live out Jesus' ministry of reconciliation in the world around us. Perhaps this is a timely meditation during a week of pandemic and racial strife.
This message helps to connect our journey through Luke with the means of grace (specifically prayer) that God's shares with us along the way. We'll contextualize our own travels through pandemic by locating them in the grand story of God's journey to be with us in Jesus. This transcendent story is focused in a manageable way for us in the story of Jesus' passage through Samaria as he travels with his disciples from Galilee to Jerusalem. This journey through uncomfortable Samaria is, of course, where Jesus "taught his disciples to pray," using the words of the Lord's Prayer.
In other words, as we journey with Jesus, he gives us gifts, gifts whose primary purpose are to help us receive, share, and participate in God's own life of love, beauty and glory. Prayer is one of those gifts!
This teaching 1) shares two ways the ancient church read the Bible 2) applies those ways of reading to the Exodus, the story of Isaac's (near) sacrifice, and the relationship between Adam & Jesus (the second Adam). Then, we bring it all together with a literal sketch of how Ephrem the Syrian pictured Adam in Eden, and Jesus on Mt. Calvary (see Jonathan Pageau for more on this).
This sermon reflects on the Parable of the Good Samaritan, giving emphasis to the questions asked of Jesus, "What must I do to inherit eternal Life," and, "Who Is My Neighbor?" Jesus then flips our questions around, demonstrating that HE is the "Good Samaritan," who draws near, washes clean, feeds, clothes, and promises to return. In other words, the well known parable of the Good Samaritan tells the Good News about Jesus.
This message is the first in a series titled "On the Road with Jesus," which covers that middle portion of the Gospel of Luke as Jesus travels from Galilee (home), through Samaria (an unwelcoming land), to Jerusalem (victory). Perhaps Jesus can help us navigate this unwelcome Covid-19 space as we journey from past comfort towards future victory.
This sermon is about Psalm 61. When we call out to God in crisis, the psalmist reminds us to look up to the Rock, look back upon our Heritage, and look forward to the coming Kingdom. Now, we're ready to live today.
This conversation on the Lord's Prayer was produced for an online "service" for the Avery County, NC Facebook Prayer Group. Originally filmed for YouTube, feel free to grab a piece of paper for notes as you listen. Or, pick up a copy of Mike Breen's "Building a Discipling Culture," if you'd like to go deeper.
This podcast is about how Jesus connects heaven to earth by way of the Cross, opening space for a life of meaning. The first 5 minutes describe Raphael's, "The Transfiguration."
In this message, Michael shares three practical things that you can do to participate in the life of God. Then, he offers a reflection on the disciples encounter with Jesus as he walked to them across the water. Perhaps this will be helpful to those of us who are trying to navigate the tumultuous passage that is the corona virus 2020.
A Sermon from Newland Presbyterian Church on Life Together during the time of the coronavirus. Spiritual Disciplines come together with Psalm 1 as we discover what happens when we become "like trees planted by streams of water."