Chuck Webster – Hoover Church of Christ: Recent Episodes
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The temptation to assimilate to one’s culture has always been strong, hasn’t it? God’s most frequent warning to Israel as they approached Canaan was for them to take drastic measures to avoid embracing the idol worship of the inhabitants of the land (a warning they largely ignored).
And the church is no different. So many times over the years the church has looked more like its surrounding culture than it’s been what God called it to be: “a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that [we] may proclaim the excellencies of him who called [us] out of darkness into his marvelous light” (1 Peter 2:9).
In the Lord’s letter to Pergamum he warned them about the “teaching of Balaam” and the “teaching of the Nicolaitans” . . . and both seem to have had something to do with compromising with one’s surrounding culture.
The pressure we feel today is enormous, as it always has been. Take sexuality, for example, which is specifically mentioned in this short letter. To hold to a traditional, biblical sexual ethic is to be completely out of step with the world we live in. Most of us are aware of denominations that have recently changed their official stance on marriage, gender, and sexuality (to the applause of the world, of course).
But that’s not the only issue. Movements on the left and the right encourage us to elevate some identity over our identity as followers of Jesus, and so many Christians happily (and ignorantly) comply.
I’ve often wondered what it would say if we had the privilege of reading a letter that Paul, John, or Peter wrote to our congregation. Even more interesting, though, would be reading a letter from Jesus. It would likely include elements of the letters that he sent to seven churches in Asia Minor (modern day Turkey) near the end of the first century, and recorded in the second and third chapters of Revelation. Probably, what these churches were doing poorly and what they were doing well would be similar to our successes and struggles today.
Recently we began a series of studies of these letters to learn what Jesus said to these Asian churches and, hopefully, to discern in these letters his message to us. Tomorrow we turn our attention to Smyrna.
In this letter Jesus used some of the most familiar words in the book of Revelation: “Be faithful unto death, and I will give you the crown of life.” We’ve sometimes read this admonition as if Jesus were saying, “Be faithful until death”–as if he were saying something like, “Be faithful until the day that you die”–but that’s not what he’s saying. The NIV gets it right: “Be faithful, even to the point of death, . . .”
Followers of Jesus near the end of the first century knew what he was saying to them, and it hit close to home. They lived in a time where confessing Christ might very well lead to execution.
For obvious reasons, it’s somewhat difficult to apply these words to ourselves–people who live in times where Christianity and other religions are protected by the government. But nonetheless we get Jesus’ point: discipleship includes the Lord’s claim on our entire lives . . . nothing takes precedence over our relationship to Jesus.
It’s a message that twenty-first-century western Christians need to hear. Christianity has never been a one-day-a-week commitment–show up for church, living a pretty decent moral life, and look forward to eternal bliss in heaven with Jesus. It’s a totalizing claim, i.e., an all-consuming, all-of-life commitment that changes absolutely everything about us.
We’ll wrestle with the difficult implications of this letter tomorrow morning. To whatever extent appropriate, perhaps you can incorporate some aspect of these thoughts into your part of worship leadership.
I’ve often wondered what it would say if we had the privilege of reading a letter that the apostle Paul wrote to our congregation. Even more interesting, though, would be reading a letter from Jesus. It would likely include elements of the letters that he sent to seven churches in Asia Minor (modern day Turkey) near the end of the first century, and recorded in the second and third chapters of Revelation. Probably, what these churches were doing poorly and what they were doing well would be similar to our successes and struggles today.
Over the next few Sunday mornings, we’re going to study these letters to learn what he said to these Asian churches and, hopefully, to discern in these letters his message to us.
The church at Ephesus was doing some things well. They were what we would call an orthodox church; i.e., they believed and taught the right doctrines, apparently, and they stood up to those who tried to steer the church in a different direction. So far, so good.
Jesus also commended them for enduring persecution for their faith and for “bearing up for [his] name’s sake,” without growing weary. Another good thing.
But–and it’s an important “but”–Jesus had something against them: “you have abandoned the love you had at first” (v 4). They needed to repent and “do the works [they] did at first” (v 5). If they did, they would “eat of the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God” (v 7).
Is it possible to be a theologically sound church while at the same time abandoning our first love? Is it possible to oppose false doctrine vehemently and faithfully while not having a vibrant relationship with the Lord?
It is, of course, and it’s a particular struggle of conservative-leaning churches. An emphasis on healthy Christian doctrine is crucial, but sometimes we can be so focused on being right in what we teach and practice that we forget Jesus’ call to a living relationship with him that’s characterized by loving devotion.
This message isn’t going to be an exegesis of the text above, but rather a consideration of different texts that focus on the need for what people in recent years have been calling a “non-anxious presence.” It’s a state of mind that gives people a spirit of calm and confidence even in the midst of the chaos around them.
Sort of like someone who can sleep in a boat in the middle of a raging storm.
It wouldn’t have been funny in the moment, but it’s a little humorous now to think about the disciples thrashing about in the boat fighting the storm, finally giving up hope as their boat started to fill with water. And then they notice Jesus sleeping soundly on the cushion. How in the world could he sleep through this?
In a world plagued by increasing anxiety, we need more of whatever enabled Jesus to sleep in the middle of chaos. It’s not apathy or inactivity or lack of concern, but rather a kind of confidence that allows someone to keep his mind when everyone else is losing theirs.
Kids need parents who are non-anxious. Wives need husbands (and husbands need wives) who are non-anxious. Churches need leaders who are non-anxious. Our stressed-out, overly anxious co-workers and neighbors need us to be non-anxious.
There’s a different way to do life than the one that characterizes most of the people around us, and when we have full confidence in the power and love of the One who controls all things, it leads to a preternatural calmness.
A kind of security that lets you doze even when the winds are howling.
You’re probably aware of the animosity the Jews had for their Roman occupiers, so something in this passage immediately jumps out. This centurion–a daily visual reminder of Rome’s presence–has the kind of relationship with the Jews that several Jewish elders willingly went to Jesus to plead on his behalf. “He is worthy,” they said, which is incredible. Worthy? Really? A Roman centurion?
They were obviously impressed with him, and so was Jesus. Luke tells us that “Jesus . . . marveled at him” and gave his faith a beautiful compliment.
Tomorrow we’ll explore this story together, focusing on the centurion’s faith. What made it so real? Why was Jesus seemingly so surprised by it?
And what does it teach us about the kind of faith Jesus is looking for in us?
Jesus seems to have been determined to let people know that he wasn’t interested in a certain kind of power. In the text above, he directly rebuffs Satan’s attempt to lure him into bypassing the suffering that lay ahead for the immediacy of some kind of political position with all of its trappings.
After one particularly notable miracle, the people wanted to make Jesus their king, a lifelong dream for many would-be rulers. Jesus quickly fled the area to spend time by himself in the mountains, completely uninterested in what they wanted for him.
One of the accusations Jesus’ enemies made against him on the eve of his death was that he wanted to establish himself as a rival to Caesar, which wasn’t true, at least not in the sense that they meant it. Jesus clarified it for Pilate: “My kingdom is not of this world.” In other words, I’m not that kind of king.
The disciples of Jesus also wanted to hitch themselves to this rising star so that perhaps they might sit at the table with the one with all the power in his hands. He quickly disabused them of that notion, to put it mildly.
And on it goes.
What Jesus went to great pains to teach is a lesson that’s been so quickly and completely forgotten by so many followers of Jesus over the years. Thinking that in order to make a difference in the world we need power as the world defines it–whether political or cultural or institutional or whatever–we’ve tried to co-opt Jesus for our own purposes. These desires inevitably lead to dangerous and damning places, as history has repeatedly demonstrated.
To all of that, Jesus emphatically says “no.” His “power,” such as it is, is in sacrificing himself for the good of those around him. One surprising outburst from Jesus came in response to Peter’s misguided suggestion that Jesus circumvent the cross and its suffering to achieve his goals, which seems almost exactly like what Satan tried to get Jesus to do in the wilderness. “Get behind me, Satan!” was Jesus’ unforgettable and shocking rebuke. I’m not that kind of king.
I think most of us probably engage in some sort of reflection as we end one year and start another. There’s the inevitable “I can’t believe another year has passed” thought, as well as the sometimes fretful or perhaps hopeful anticipation of flipping the calendar to another year.
This year I’ll lose the weight and keep it off. This year I’ll start an exercise program that I’ll stick to. This year I’ll get my finances in order. This year I’ll be less anxious and more joyful. This year . . .
Those commitments rarely work. As time goes on, the more I’m convinced that what we need on the deepest level is a strong belief in the faithfulness of God. Life is wonderful and exciting, and also scary and painful. We see evidence of both in our church family, of course. So many young families welcomed beautiful little babies into their homes in 2023, while others lost people they loved. Both good times and bad are the common lot of humanity.
No one knows what the next year will hold . . . we are notoriously poor prophets when it comes to predicting economic, political, or social outcomes. And that uncertainty can generate a significant level of angst.
But as Christians we hold onto something more substantial than the ups and downs of the world around us, and even the good and bad of our own personal experiences.
Our text for Sunday addresses fear and discouragement, but it points us beyond them to God’s presence.
I am with you. I am your God. I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.
Following Jesus is both wonderful and hard. It’s hard because he leads us to confront aspects of ourselves that we don’t like and that we struggle to overcome. But it’s beautiful because he gives us the resources to overcome whatever’s holding us back.
One thing we learn from the biblical Story is God’s patience as he works with his covenant people. We sometimes tend to idolize Abraham for his faith, but we might forget that he was an incredibly flawed man, and he passed on his sinful nature to his kids and grandkids.
In the message tomorrow we’ll look at Abraham and his family, focusing on how certain sinful patterns kept showing up generation after generation (dishonesty, favoritism, misogyny, sexual sin, etc.). But we’ll try to go a little deeper by reflecting on how similar patterns affect us all. As someone said, “Jesus may be in your heart, but grandpa is in your bones.” In other words, many of the things that are holding us back are things that have been in our family for generations, and failing to recognize this causes us to keep perpetuating a cycle of sin.
When you have children, you have ideas about what you want them to be like as they grow up. Depending on what’s important to you–or in some cases, unfulfilled dreams in your own life–you point them in certain directions. You might hope that they’ll be a gifted, dedicated athlete who gets a full ride to college. Or you want them to be brilliant academically, breezing through school with a perfect GPA and high test scores and the consequent college acceptance letters. You might hope that they’ll turn out to be visionary leaders who quickly climb the corporate ladder.
And so you get them involved in sports early, hoping they’ll develop the needed passion and self-discipline. Or you start reading to them at birth and always stress the importance of learning. You teach them independence and courage and create opportunities for them to learn to think big.
And of course there’s nothing inherently wrong with any of that . . . unless those emphases overshadow what’s most important.
Tomorrow we’ll think about your child’s heart. It’s easy to fall into the world’s trap and do all the things that shape your children athletically, academically, or socially, while not being as intentional about what you do in pointing their hearts toward Jesus.
If we succeed with all the rest, but our children’s hearts aren’t full of love for Jesus, what then?
We’ve all witnessed a child’s atrocious behavior in a public place and thought critical thoughts about his parents’ lack of ability to “control their child.” And, to be honest, we’ve all probably been the parents of a child who publicly (and embarrassingly) acts as if she has never learned what “no” means (though we’ve taught her many, many times . . .).
How do parents get their children to behave? How do we teach them to respect boundaries, control their impulses, and honor those in positions of authority?
There’s no magic pill, of course, and kids seldom live up to our idyllic expectations of immediate obedience to all instructions.
It’s important to understand that our goal as parents isn’t to raise toddlers who never throw tantrums, but rather to help our children mature into adolescents and then adults who practice self-control–the ability to deny their sinful impulses and to obey the One who created them. We want them to learn to obey out of love and respect instead of fear.
To that end Paul gives us brief but powerful guidance in Ephesians 6:1-4. In the “household tables” part of Ephesians–after having addressed husbands and wives–he turns his attention to the parent-child dynamic, encouraging obedience, discipline, and instruction. He doesn’t offer “Ten Rules for Raising Obedient Children,” but he does give principles that’ll help us navigate this thorny aspect of parenting.
A few weeks back we looked at how our view of God changed in Genesis 3, and a week later we reflected on how our view of self changed. But that’s not all.
In Adam’s “defense” to God in the Scripture reading above, you see a hint of how our view of others changed as well. “The woman you gave me . . .” No longer are they allies and partners; now she’s the “other,” the enemy, the one to blame.
It’s not hard to love people theoretically, but it’s another thing entirely to love them practically, in the real world.
We find it hard to love some people because of choices they’ve made, or lives they’ve lived, or attitudes they’ve displayed. Others are hard to love because they require so much of us. They’re needy.
But here, as in everything, Jesus came to “recover the story” . . . to show us how to remove the barriers that so often create distance between us and others.
A couple weeks back we looked at how our view of God changed in Genesis 3. Instead of seeing God as One to relate to and be in communion with, we started seeing him as One to fear and hide from. We lost something else too. Adam and Eve ate the fruit, and the very next thing that changed was the way they perceived themselves . . . they realized they were naked and tried to cover up. Tyler Staton […]
The phrase “born-again Christian” has become a fairly common phrase in the English-speaking world, particularly in America. It’s often used pejoratively to describe a particular flavor of Christianity . . . one characterized by emotional conversion experiences and usually accompanied by an especially conservative outlook on life. A “born-again Christian,” in other words, is someone outside the mainstream of “normal” American culture. For Jesus, the phrase itself would be confusing. For him, if you’re born again, you’re a Christian, and […]
This is the last of three messages that I’m sharing about John’s incredibly beautiful Prologue (John 1:1-18), one of the most enriching descriptions of the Incarnate Son of God to be found anywhere in Scripture. Tomorrow we’ll study the culmination of John’s Christological message: “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, . . .” We’ve spent a fair amount of time over the last two weeks discussing what John meant when he described Jesus as “the Word” (i.e., […]
We’re spending a couple of weeks on John’s incredibly beautiful Prologue (John 1:1-18), one of the most enriching descriptions of the Incarnate Son of God to be found anywhere in Scripture. Tomorrow we’ll study what John tells us about Jesus as the “life” and “light.” Notice John’s wording: it’s not just that Jesus gives life and brings light . . . he is life, and he is light. Consequently, we’re raised from our deadness because we become partakers of his […]
It’s not an exaggeration to say that the Exodus from Egypt via the miraculous crossing of the Red Sea in some ways is the most important single story of the Old Testament. From that point on it became for Israel the paradigmatic example of God’s protection of and provision for his people. Even before it happened, it was foreshadowed in other Genesis stories (e.g., Gen 3, 6-9, 12). But even more importantly, it points toward the overarching narrative of the […]
Habakkuk’s struggle is a classic one: where is God when wicked people and evil nations flaunt his ways through oppression, violence, and arrogance?
God answers with a series of “Woes” that he puts into the mouths of the nations Babylon was oppressing. He says a lot, but his message could be distilled to this: Evil will not have the last say (if you have time, read the whole passage: Habakkuk 2:4-20).
We’ll talk about that some tomorrow, but because that was part of the message from Habakkuk 1 that we studied a few weeks ago, we’ll focus more on the nature of evil that God describes.
This text is a vivid description of the kinds of evil that affect every worldly system–from Egypt to Assyria to Babylon to Rome to . . . America and the UK and North Korea and Sudan. It manifests differently, of course, and it’s held in check to different extents and in different ways, but worldly systems are inherently corrupt.
Tomorrow we’ll focus on those characteristics that infect every earthly system: violence, extortion, lust for power, drunkenness, shamelessness, ecological abuse, idolatry. And we’ll spend a little time reflecting on how the corporate/national evil “out there” can sometimes become individual evil “in here” (i.e., in us).
In the midst of it all, though, the most important word will be this: “But the LORD is in his holy temple; let all the earth keep silence before him.
I guess most of God’s sons and daughters have at some point cried out, as Habakkuk did, “O Lord, how long shall I cry for help, and you will not hear?”
It could be some personal calamity–a child’s rebellious ways, the sickness of someone we love–or perhaps more of a national or universal one–economic uncertainty or declining interest in spiritual things in the society surrounding us.
Habakkuk’s words are pretty strong; in fact, Hebrew scholars suggest that our English translations don’t adequately relate how frankly he’s speaking to God.
God’s response is fascinating. To paraphrase, he essentially tells the prophet: “Habakkuk, I’m about to do some stuff that’s so incredible you wouldn’t believe it if I told you.”
We’ll study the first chapter of Habakkuk’s book tomorrow, and I think it’ll be surprising how relevant the message is.
When times are bad–or when we think they’re heading that way–what we need more than anything is confidence that God is intimately aware of what’s going on, and he’s acting consistently with his own will and his own timetable.
If you’re following the church’s Bible reading plan this year, you’ve just begun the book of Numbers, so you’re about to read about a series of rebellions that culminate in an event at Kadesh-Barnea that seems to be the tipping point (the 12 scouts, Israel’s disbelief, etc.). God turns them back toward the wilderness where they’ll spend almost four decades.
Our story today falls into this period of time–after the Kadesh rebellion and during the wilderness wandering. It’s short, but Jesus elevates its importance by citing it here: “And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life” (John 3:14-15). And it’s interesting that what immediately follows that reference is the most frequently quoted verse in all of Scripture (“For God so loved the world . . .”).
I think it helps us read the difficult parts of Numbers–the parts that are filled with rebelling and complaining and questioning. In the middle of all of that, God provides a path to salvation. He never abandons his people . . . though they are unfaithful, he never forsakes his covenant.
The same is true for us today. As hard as we sometimes are on Israel (“How could they be so hard-headed? Why weren’t they more grateful? . . .”), we’re guilty of the same attitudes.
And yet God provides hope. Surrounded by death, God offers life. Like Israel, we’ve complained and rebelled, and we deserve the snakes. But God lifted Jesus up on the cross and offers salvation to us, a rebellious people.
There’s an obvious connection with Israel’s temptation in the wilderness in this story. Israel experienced “baptism” in the Red Sea, then went into the wilderness for 40 years, while Jesus was baptized by John then went into the wilderness for 40 days. Jesus’ response to the devil with each temptation was to quote from Deuteronomy, the book of the Torah that in many ways summarizes and completes Israel’s wilderness experience.
Israel failed, while Jesus did not.
That, in itself, helps us see the significance of this story. We might be tempted to focus entirely on learning from Jesus how to overcome temptation. That’s not wrong, and we’ll do some of that on Sunday.
But stopping there would be missing something crucial. Jesus went into the wilderness to face and overcome Satan, and he did that because we so often fail. Our final victory (thankfully) isn’t bound up in our ability to win all temptation battles, though as we follow Christ he empowers us to overcome. Our ultimate victory is based on the fact that Jesus defeated Satan, though . . . not only here in the wilderness, but most importantly on the pivotal battlefield of Golgotha that this story foreshadows.
This is a familiar story to most Christians, and it’s been preached many times over the years to help people realize how much Jesus cares about our attitude toward those who are disadvantaged. And that’s certainly a needed emphasis.
Tomorrow I plan to focus on an interesting nuance in the text, something that I’ve never thought that much about. For the most part, I’m going to ignore the last part of the story–about the ones who ignored the needs of the hurting.
Instead, we’ll focus on the fascinating fact that the ones who blessed others–the “sheep”–seemingly had little awareness of how they had helped people. They were surprised on judgment day because they found out that God had noticed all of the little things that they had done over the years. And it seems like they didn’t even really remember doing them.
Compassion had apparently become such a part of their character that they didn’t even think about it. This is interesting, I think, and also worth exploring.
How do we become so close to Jesus that his heart becomes ours? How do we become the kind of people who just instinctively help others, even without any apparent forethought?
We come to the part of this beautiful prayer where Jesus leads us to express our needs. There are three requests–Give us our bread, forgive us our debts, and lead us not into temptation–and we’ll consider the first one tomorrow.
The one about the bread is the only one that has to do with physical needs, and it’s very brief. You’ll notice there’s nothing extraordinary there–no requests for luxuries, obviously, and not even a request for something more than simply bread.
Now the bread represents something more than bread, I think; it probably stands for our recognition of the fact that all of our physical needs are supplied by the Creator. This part of the prayer is not just a request; it’s an acknowledgment. We recognize that if we are to have food to eat, it’ll come from the Father. If we have breath and health, they’ll come from the Father.
In fact, praying about the bread faithfully comes only when we’ve prayed the first part. We don’t just pray according to what we think we need, but rather after we’ve acknowledged that God–his kingdom, his will–is what we’re after. It’s not about the bread; it’s about the Father.
There’s nothing wrong with our making requests–a point we’ll make clear tomorrow–it’s just that we need to move beyond the personal requests to receive something more important.
Throughout the month of December, I’m focusing on the Person of Jesus. To some extent we always do that, of course, but each week this month I’m focusing more intentionally on some aspect of his character or role.
Mark wastes no time, as is his habit. Matthew starts with a genealogy, Luke includes a lengthy birth narrative, and John goes all the way back to creation. In contrast, Mark just immediately starts in on Jesus. It’s almost like he’s thinking, “Look–what you need to know is Jesus, so let’s get to it.”
An important thing in a place like America–where there’s interest in Jesus but sometimes the interest is very commercialized and superficial–is for people to see Jesus for what and who he is. At Christmas, people–even some secular people–get infatuated with the Christmas story of a baby born in a manger who grew up to change the world.
And then they forget. The story doesn’t change them because they never actually meet Jesus.
Mark skips the birth of Jesus and introduces him as Lord and King. He does so by connecting prophecies made years earlier about one who would come to prepare the way for the Messiah. And then, as he points us to John, the focus is on Jesus as King who demands a “baptism of repentance for the remission of sins” and who would baptize “with the Holy Spirit.”
People need to meet Jesus in all his glory, and that’s what John set out to do. And what’s what we need to do as well.
Throughout the month of December, I plan to focus each Sunday on some aspect of the Person of Jesus. To some extent we always do that, of course, but each week this month I’m focusing more intentionally on some aspect of his character or role.
This text is clearly Messianic. Throughout the Old Testament there’s this note of anticipation as Israel waits for God to do what he’d promised that he would do. They looked forward to the time when he would bring a king who would establish peace, freeing them from the constant threat of enemy powers and giving them the prosperity they dreamed of.
As Isaiah looks into the future he sees God fulfilling his promise through a “shoot from the stump of Jesse . . . a branch from his roots.” This points to the Davidic line of kings, of course. It would be one who would judge fairly and who would bring about equity and righteousness.
The images of tranquility are striking: “the wolf shall dwell with the lamb . . . the leopard shall lie down with the young goat . . . the nursing child shall play over the hole of the cobra.” Natural enemies would become friends, and violence would end.
This is the Messianic reign of Jesus, and I believe it points to the Lord’s reign over the kingdom that began at his resurrection but isn’t yet fully realized. Though Christ’s reign hasn’t been fully embraced, we look forward to that day in the “new heavens and new earth” when we experience the kingdom in all its glory.
Isn’t it wonderful to think about what it’ll be like when God makes everything completely right? Right now, we experience peace, but we also live in a world of violence. We see righteousness, but we experience injustice.
On that day–when the kingdom comes in all its glory–we will experience perfect peace. No more violence, no more fear, no more injustice, no more anxiety. Everything will be as it should be.
Most of us don’t enjoy waiting, but it’s interesting how God seems to think it’s an important part of the walk of faith.
How long did Abraham and Sarah wait for Isaac? Jacob waited for Rachel. Joseph waited for years in Egypt, and of course the Hebrews waited in slavery for 400 years. Throughout centuries of struggle, Israel longed for the anticipated Messiah.
And we wait as well. In the text above, Paul says that “in this tent we groan,” and that while we are away from the Lord “we walk by faith.”
We’ve all felt that, I think. We’ve waited for a relationship to be restored, for healing, for a spouse or for children, or for a loved one to come to (or return to) God.
We wait.
But in a sense we’re waiting in the same way that Israel was. We wait for the Messiah to come (again), for the day when God makes all things right.
And while we wait, we hope and trust and anticipate. We join hands with God in kingdom work, working with him to bring about justice, truth, and mercy.
Mark is a notoriously pithy writer who gets straight to the point and doesn’t mince words. And yet he devotes twenty verses to this interesting encounter between Jesus and a violent, demon-possessed man that ends up with pigs diving into the sea. That makes us think that Mark thinks there’s something important for us to see here. And there is. It’s a story about demon possession, of course, but it’s more than that. It serves as an illustration of how evil […]
After Elijah’s (God’s) great victory at Mt Carmel–where God sent fire from heaven–I think Elijah thought everything would change. All of Israel would return to the Lord after seeing such an incredible miracle. But they didn’t. After hearing that Jezebel had signed his death warrant, he ran and ran and ran, eventually finding his way to the same mountain where Moses had once sought and found God’s presence. God sent wind, an earthquake, and fire, but his presence wasn’t there. […]
In some ways, Christianity is taking a beating in our post-Christian society. Much of the secular media seems to jump at any opportunity to point out inconsistencies or hypocrisies in Christians. So I think it’s good for us to be reminded that the way of Christ actually is the best way to live, even when it seems counterintuitive. Since God knows our true nature, it shouldn’t surprise us that living according to his plan will be best for us. In […]
We aren’t Christians because it’s an easier life, but because we believe Jesus is the Son of God. Nevertheless, when we follow Christ we pursue a way of life that is consistent with God’s creative purposes for us. In other words, it may not be easier, but it leads to what Jesus calls the “abundant” life. In so many ways it’s counterintuitive, though. Jesus reigns over an upside-down kingdom . . . it subverts the way that comes naturally to […]
Our text describes the last meal that Jesus ate with his disciples as far as Luke’s gospel is concerned. And it’s a really important one. Luke seems intent on making sure we think about Jesus’ resurrected body (he passes through walls, yet has flesh and bones and eats real food). It’s interesting that Luke specifies that Jesus ate the fish “before” the disciples . . . and not just “with” them. Jesus clearly wants to make a point out of the fact […]
Meals play a central role in Scripture. Our presence in the new heavens and earth is sometimes described as a huge feast where we take our places at a banquet table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and the central part of our favorite Psalm is about God’s preparing a table in the presence of our enemies. It’s no wonder, then, that Jesus made meals an important part of his ministry, and of all the gospel writers Luke emphasizes them the […]
Meals play a central role in Scripture. The crucial holiday in Israel’s calendar was a meal that commemorated their deliverance from captivity, and the central commemoration of Christians is a weekly meal that reflects on God’s ultimate deliverance from bondage. Our presence in the new heavens and earth is sometimes described as a huge feast where we take our places at a banquet table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and the central part of our favorite Psalm is about God’s […]
Meals play a central role in Scripture. The crucial holiday in Israel’s calendar was a meal that commemorated their deliverance from captivity, and the central commemoration of Christians is a weekly meal that reflects on God’s ultimate deliverance from bondage. Our presence in the new heavens and earth is sometimes described as a huge feast where we take our places at a banquet table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and the central part of our favorite Psalm is about God’s […]
Meals play a central role in Scripture. The crucial holiday in Israel’s calendar was a meal that commemorated their deliverance from captivity, and the central commemoration of Christians is a weekly meal that reflects on God’s ultimate deliverance from bondage. Our presence in the new heavens and earth is sometimes described as a huge feast where we take our places at a banquet table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and the central part of our favorite Psalm is about God’s […]
Meals play a central role in Scripture. The crucial holiday in Israel’s calendar was a meal that commemorated their deliverance from captivity, and the central commemoration of Christians is a weekly meal that reflects on God’s ultimate deliverance from bondage. Our presence in the new heavens and earth is sometimes described as a huge feast where we take our places at a banquet table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and the central part of our favorite Psalm is about God’s […]
Have you noticed rising levels of fear and anxiety in recent times? The stock market is way down (a bear market?), inflation is way up (an impending recession?), and the price of gas is ridiculous. Political polarization feels worse than in the past, so many people–especially teens and young adults–are struggling with mental and emotional health, the war in Ukraine shows no signs of abating, and our culture seems to have lost its mind (one of many examples: gender and […]
In our text the people decided to build a city and a tower, but that wasn’t the problem. There’s nothing wrong with building, per se . . . the problems come from the reasons we build. The end of chapter 10 tells us that the “nations spread abroad on the earth after the flood,” but then immediately we’re told that the people decided to settle down in one place. It seems they wanted to maintain linguistic, cultural, and ethnic homogeneity […]
What kind of deity is Yahweh? In so many ways, that’s the question of the early chapters of Genesis. Is he angry? Is he harsh? Is he implacable? Does he care about his creation? It comes to a head in the Flood story of Genesis 6-9, and it’s interesting to compare the biblical account to other ancient near Eastern flood narratives. One of the most interesting is found in the Epic of Gilgamesh, an epic Mesopotamian poem that predates the […]
What happens when we try to redefine good and evil on our own . . . when we live our lives “east of Eden”? After observing the Fall of humanity in Genesis 3, we don’t have to wait long to see the effects on the human race. Cain–motivated by anger, jealousy, and fear–murders his brother Abel, and a disheartening trajectory is established. When you read the story carefully, you’ll notice quite a few parallels with the Fall narrative (God’s questioning, […]
Most of us appreciate power . . . geopolitically, we want our country to be strong; in our work life, we want our opinions and decisions to matter; even in something as trivial as sports, we want our team to dominate others–usually through some combination of strength, speed, and agility. In other words, we like power, because power gets things done. Israel, as you know, was looking for a powerful Messiah, a Davidic King who would follow in the footsteps […]
I think most of the people who will worship with us want to grow closer to Christ, but this growth seems so elusive for most of us, doesn’t it? There’s no magic pill, no magic formula, no five-step list to somehow force this to happen, but there are things we can emphasize in our lives to create an environment that’s conducive to spiritual growth. Last week we talked about repentance, and tomorrow we’ll emphasize faith–these are, as one writer puts […]
This is a second message in a short series on spiritual growth, and what I’d like to communicate in this sermon is the importance of recognizing what sin does to us. Notice the evocative images Paul uses in the text above: “you have died,” “put to death,” “the wrath of God is coming,” “put them all away,” etc. In other words, don’t play around with this stuff. One reason we don’t grow as we should is that we let sin […]
You may know the story of Hosea and Gomer, but if not, it’s ugly. So ugly. God commands his prophet Hosea to marry Gomer, a woman who’s going to break his heart. And she starts cheating not long after the wedding. It was so bad that Hosea named their third child, “Not Mine.” But tomorrow we’ll focus on the beautiful part of the story . . . sacrifice and reconciliation. Gomer had chased after various lovers, and for some reason […]
After finishing a practical series last week on how to cultivate discipleship in our day-to-day life, I plan to change the emphasis for tomorrow’s message. At the root of Christianity is the identity of Jesus. If we get that right, it changes everything. If we get it wrong, nothing else matters. Though C.S. Lewis didn’t invent the following argument, he perhaps presented it in its most memorable form. Here’s the famous paragraph from Mere Christianity, part of which I plan […]
A few weeks ago we started a short series on what it looks like to follow Jesus in the midst of busy lives, lives where we feel pressured by so many expectations and distractions. What does following Jesus look like day-to-day? How do we do what life demands while also finding time to cultivate a real-life relationship with Jesus? The answer is in actually following Jesus, not just in the abstract I’m-a-Christian-because-I’ve-been-baptized sense, but actually walking in his footsteps, doing what […]
Three weeks ago we started a short series on what it looks like to follow Jesus in the midst of busy lives, lives where we feel pressured by so many expectations and distractions.
What does following Jesus look like day-to-day? How do we do what life demands while also finding time to cultivate a real-life relationship with Jesus?
The answer is in actually following Jesus, not just in the abstract I’m-a-Christian-because-I’ve-been-baptized sense, but actually walking in his footsteps, doing what he did, learning to do life like he did it.
And how did he do it?
Sunday we’ll focus on how Jesus lived his life in view of possessions.
As far as his life was concerned, he possessed very little, having been born to poor Jewish peasants. When he died he apparently owned nothing except the clothes that he was wearing.
And what he said about the temptations of money was pretty harsh, as you probably remember. He saw that stuff got in the way of real discipleship, so he wasn’t shy about pointing it out.
I hope you’ll notice something interesting in the passage above from Matthew 6. You’ve heard it before–“You cannot serve God and money”–but look a little closer. He doesn’t say that we “shouldn’t” serve God and money, but that we “cannot.” I think it’s important to notice that Jesus isn’t giving us another command, telling us that we shouldn’t do both. He’s reflecting on the nature of reality . . . it is simply impossible to serve God and money.
What he says about possessions completely counters the American way, though, doesn’t it? Our economic system is based on buying and consuming, and then buying and consuming more, and then more, and so on.
Advertisers make millions when they’re good at convincing us that we need more stuff, and that if we can get it, we’ll be happier and more content.
But of course it’s a lie.
Jesus calls us to something simpler, something better. He calls us to see possessions for what they are and for us not to put on them more than they can bear. What we need are the necessities of life . . . anything beyond that won’t add any real value to our lives.
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Writing 700 years before Christ, Isaiah spoke of people who “walked in darkness”–certainly true of his own day, as even God’s people sought “mediums and necromancers” instead of God (mentioned in the verses at the end of chapter 8 just prior to our text).
And it was also true of the early days of the Roman Empire to which Isaiah pointed, when the Israelites also lived in dark times–those who were clustered in Judea as well as those scattered throughout the Empire. Their world was characterized by “violence, injustice, abuse of power, homelessness, refugees fleeing oppression, families ripped apart, and bottomless grief” (Tim Keller, Hidden Christmas: The Surprising Truth Behind the Birth of Christ).
But those words aptly describe our world as well, don’t they?
The people in darkness see “a great light” . . . on them “a light has dawned” (NIV).
There’s so much we learn from God’s entrance into the world, and tomorrow we’ll focus on the significance of Christ’s birth’s signifying the inability of all of our human schemes to fix the world’s ills, as well as our personal struggles. Apart from God, we are powerless to make much of a dent in the brokenness around and within us.
But God’s taking on human flesh is where we see true light. That, the gospel authors would later tell us, is the “gospel”–that is, “good news.” It’s God’s coming into a broken world and bringing healing and hope.
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I started a three-part series last Sunday called “Truth and Lies,” and in these three messages, I’m focusing on how Satan spreads “deceptive ideas that play to our disordered desires that become normalized in a sinful society” (those words come from Live No Lies by John Mark Comer).
The “deceptive ideas” are lies from Satan (last week).
The “disordered desires” are what the Bible calls “the flesh” (today).
And the “sinful society” is what Scripture calls “the world” (next Sunday).
Biblical writers–especially Paul–often discuss a struggle between “the flesh” and “the Spirit,” and when they do, they’re referring to the sinful desires that all of us have that war against the way God wants us to live.
The world tells us to “find ourselves,” “be true to ourselves,” and “speak our truth,” but God warns us that our hearts are “deceitful above all things” and not to be trusted (Jer 17:9).
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It almost sounds like Jesus is trying to discourage people from following him, doesn’t it? And yet, of course, we know that he came to invite everyone to follow him, so we know he doesn’t want to turn anyone away.
So what’s going on?
There’s a theme in Luke’s gospel that comes into play here, I think. The paragraph we’re studying tomorrow is at the beginning of a part of Luke that is often called The Travel Narrative or The Travelogue (Luke 9:51-19:27). This extended look at Jesus’ ministry begins with this note: “When the days drew near for him to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem” (9:51, emp. added).
Luke wants it to be clear that Jesus’ mission was always to go to Jerusalem to fulfill his purpose that had been foretold by the prophets: to die on the cross in our place. And throughout this journey to Jerusalem, Jesus periodically stops and speaks quite frankly to the crowd, many of whom were perhaps just following him out of curiosity or out of the hope that they might be the beneficiaries of another of his miracles.
But Jesus wants them to know that following him involves more than admiring him as a miracle-worker or just being one of many interested people lingering near the fringe. He’s going to Jerusalem to die, and identifying with him means being willing to go with him wherever it leads . . . even to persecution or death.
Discipleship is serious business. “I’ll follow you wherever you go,” one says. Will you really? Do you even know what you’re saying?, Jesus seems to ask.
“I’d like to follow you, but I’ve got some stuff I need to take care of first,” others say. Then you don’t understand the nature of the kingdom.
We’ll reflect on this tomorrow morning, Lord willing. What does it really mean to follow Jesus? In an age where people seem to pursue being comfortable more and more, perhaps Jesus’ words will challenge us to think more reflectively about what it means to follow Christ.
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Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you. Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. Resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same kinds of suffering are being experienced by your brotherhood throughout the world. And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you. To him be the dominion forever and ever. Amen. (1 Peter 5:6-11, ESV)
Brief thoughts about the text/sermon:
I suspect most people who will be present in worship tomorrow believe in the Devil, but CS Lewis was probably right when he wrote that many of us are either “superstitious” or “substitious” when it comes to what we believe about him. We either over-believe in him, which leads to an unhealthy fear because we see him everywhere in everything. Or we believe he exists, but we don’t really think he’s doing much of anything (e.g., he’s a cartoonish, harmless, semi-fictitious character).
The Bible generally–and Peter in this text specifically–paints a more nuanced picture. The Devil is real; the image of a “roaring lion” is vivid and frightening. But he’s not omnipotent, preying only on those weaknesses that we present to him. In this text Peter mentions two: pride and anxiety.
In our sermon time tomorrow, we’ll focus on the Devil’s work in our lives, and we’ll also speak to how the gospel addresses these attacks and helps defend us.
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“So I exhort the elders among you, as a fellow elder and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, as well as a partaker in the glory that is going to be revealed: shepherd the flock of God that is among you, exercising oversight, not under compulsion, but willingly, as God would have you; not for shameful gain, but eagerly; not domineering over those in your charge, but being examples to the flock. And when the chief Shepherd appears, you will receive the unfading crown of glory. Likewise, you who are younger, be subject to the elders. Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another, for “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble” (1 Peter 5:1-5).
Brief thoughts about the text/sermon:
When persecution starts, it usually begins with a church’s leadership, which is probably why Peter began with elders in our text for tomorrow. Some scholars think Peter had the following OT passage in his mind when he addressed the eldership: “And to the others he said in my hearing, ‘Pass through the city after him, and strike. Your eye shall not spare, and you shall show no pity. Kill old men outright, young men and maidens, little children and women, but touch no one on whom is the mark. And begin at my sanctuary.’ So they began with the elders who were before the house” (Ezekiel 9:5-6).
But not only that. When times are hard–whether from persecution or something else–a church needs strong leadership. So tomorrow we’ll spend some time studying what Peter wrote to elders and to the church. He uses the “shepherd” metaphor, reflecting an image that Jesus often used. Notice the balance Peter emphasizes: there’s “oversight,” but it’s not “domineering.” They willingly and eagerly exercise guidance primarily through the examples that they set for the flock that follows them.
And Peter encourages the rest of us to submit to our shepherds with humility. They’ve been placed into their position by the chief Shepherd himself, and he’s particularly interested in how sheep and shepherds interact.
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On each first Sunday this year, I’ve been reflecting on different passages in Scripture where the theme of Renewal is emphasized. I’ll continue that tomorrow.
Everyone–regardless of his or her faith orientation–wonders about the afterlife. What happens after death? Is there a heaven? A hell? Will I simply cease to exist? What will the afterlife be like?
Perhaps these questions become more vivid when life is hard, especially when we feel like our days on earth are numbered. Is this all there is? Will things ever get better?
Job had suffered incredible loss, so it doesn’t surprise us to hear his reflections about death and life-after-death. If you read the verses just prior to the ones pasted above, you’d hear a sense of despair, of desperation. Job lived in a time when he had very little clear revelation from God about life after death. It seems that in his misery he despaired of any kind of improvement in his situation.
But near the end of his crying out–in the verses we’ll focus on tomorrow–there’s a kernel of hope. “If a man dies, shall he live again? All the days of my service I would wait, till my renewal should come. You would call, and I would answer you; . . .”
Till my renewal should come. He had only an inkling of what he was pointing toward. He had no way of knowing that one day God would come to earth as a man and stand near the tomb of a good friend and call–just as Job had hoped–and Lazarus would answer.
Not too long after that Jesus went to his own tomb, of course. God called, and he answered, and because of that, we know the answer to Job’s desperate cry.
When we die, will we live again? Will God call us from our graves?
Yes, we will. And yes, he will.
We will live again.
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When we suffer, we’re tempted to question God’s presence and sovereignty, even more so when the suffering is directly tied to our following Christ.
Where is God? Does he know? Does he care? Why isn’t he doing anything?
Peter’s response–as it so often is for him and other biblical writers–is to go to Jesus, specifically to his death, resurrection, and exaltation.
There’s a significant interpretive difficulty in this passage, and we’ll spend a little time with it Sunday, but even if we don’t understand the particulars of Peter’s statement here, we can understand these truths:
- We will suffer, but Jesus, though righteous, suffered on our behalf (the unrighteous).
- He was raised to proclaim victory over all of the forces of darkness.
- Consequently, he has been exalted and now reigns over all “angels, authorities, and powers.”
Peter’s point is this: sometimes it might look and feel like evil is winning; we can imagine how the Christians during the dark days of the Roman Empire found themselves doubting their future. But because of what Jesus did for us, we know that all evil will ultimately be defeated. In fact, Jesus has already proclaimed victory over all demonic powers and now reigns as King.
As Christians, we trust in that fact, even when the world makes it difficult for us. We anticipate with great hope the day when the Lord’s reign will be realized throughout the world.
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When the world gets darker, light is more easily seen. In our text for tomorrow, Peter seems to assume this: people who don’t follow Christ will become curious about the source of our hope, and they will occasionally ask where it comes from. “I’ve noticed something different about you . . . you don’t seem to be affected by life’s difficulties as the rest of us are. How do you do that?” “How do you avoid getting caught up in all the hate, anger, and despair?” “I’ve noticed that you don’t join in with all of the slander and backbiting that goes on in our office . . . why is that? How do you avoid it?” If there’s a bright spot with the increasing secularism around us, it’ll be that some of the folks who embrace it will realize it doesn’t offer what it promises. There’s no sustained hope there. It doesn’t provide lasting contentment or happiness. Following a godless agenda only leads to despair and disappointment. In the midst of that, God calls us to something higher and more noble, and sometimes the people around us will ask where it comes from. Then, Peter says, we can respond kindly and respectfully, and God will use our examples and words to influence people for Christ. The post When They Ask About Your Hope appeared first on Hoover Church of Christ.
The theme for 2021 is “RENEW,” and we’ve been exploring some aspect of that theme on the first Sunday morning of each month. Tomorrow we’ll focus on Paul’s words to the young church planter, Titus, who was in a difficult environment on the island of Crete.
Paul uses a quite powerful word in verse 5 when he writes that salvation comes about by the “washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit.” The Greek word behind “regeneration” quite literally points to a re-genesis, a “new beginning.”
Here’s what I plan to emphasize tomorrow: Salvation isn’t a self-improvement plan, nor is it joining a church or just trying to live a better life. It’s an absolutely new way of viewing everything. It’s impossible to overstate how radically Paul viewed salvation. It’s not just smoothing out some rough edges, addressing a couple bad habits, engaging in some self-disciplined acts of moral improvement. It is literally the power of the new creation being realized in the lives of people who submit to Christ.
Notice the first part of the chapter: before this power overwhelmed us, we were characterized by quarreling, foolishness, disobedience, lust, malice, envy, and hate. “But when” are two of the most powerful words in the Bible . . . “But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared . . .”
Everything changed once and for all. He saved us, and life has never been the same.
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We’ve been working our way through 1 Peter lately, focusing on how the church should think about our relationships with those outside of Christ. In the text for tomorrow, Peter sums up his emphasis of the last section. You may remember how he’s just encouraged Christians to submit to “every human institution,” servants to submit to their masters, wives to submit to their husbands, and husbands to honor their wives. In 3:8-12, though, he’s careful to emphasize that he’s talking to the whole church (not a subset): “Finally, all of you, . . .” He first emphasizes how Christians ought to relate to one another (unity, sympathy, brotherly love, compassion, and humility). Then he urges the church to “bless” the ones who revile them because of their faith. When we do this, we’ll be eternally blessed. Couple of thoughts: as we think about how to engage the world for Christ, we need first to remember the importance of loving one another. If there’s disharmony and conflict in the church, we’ll never positively impact the culture for Christ. And Peter also returns to a theme that’s important to him: Christians must not strike back when the world insults or hurts us. We bless unbelievers, no matter what they do to us. This, Peter says, is what we were called to do. And when we do, God will use us to help people outside of Christ to know him. The post Loving Life and Seeing Good Days appeared first on Hoover Church of Christ.
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Our theme for 2021 is RENEW, and we’re focusing on a different aspect of renewal on the first Sunday of each month (because so many of our folks were at the retreat last weekend, I moved it to the second Sunday for May). I read straight through Lamentations earlier this week, and I was struck by a couple of things: it’s a bit discouraging, especially if you focus on what seems to feelings of hopelessness within Jeremiah. But this is very important: a second, more important theme present in the book is that it is crucial to recognize that even when things look bad around us, God is always present . . . his “mercies . . . are new every morning.” Judah had been taken captive, and they were languishing under the hard fist of a merciless pagan ruler. They despised their situation. They despaired for the future. “Why do you forget us forever, why do you forsake us for so many days?” And yet, Jeremiah strikes a tone of hopefulness in the book. Has God really forgotten us? Has he abandoned us? Will we stay in Babylon forever? In the middle of the book is this core message, the lyrics to a song that you can probably hear in your head right now: “The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. ‘The LORD is my portion,’ says my soul, ‘therefore I will hope in him.'” Jeremiah’s point, I think, is this: When we encounter situations that aren’t what we wish they were, a voice within us might tell us that God has abandoned us, forgotten us, turned his back on us. Instead, because we know God’s character, we remember that he always has reasons for what he does, and that he wants us to learn to trust him. So our prayer is like Judah’s: “Renew our days as of old” . . . help us to learn whatever you want to teach us. Help us to learn to lean on you and trust you–no matter what’s going on around us. The post Renew Our Days appeared first on Hoover Church of Christ.
Where is God when we go into the furnace?
Babylon, in some ways, was similar to many pluralistic nations today. Its leaders recognized the wisdom of tolerating all sorts of different deities in the private sphere, as long as everyone’s allegiance in public–at least nominally–was to the Babylonian gods. In other words, “Worship whatever God or gods you want to on your own time and in your own place, but when you’re in public, be willing to give homage to the gods that we all worship.”
In some ways, our experience is similar. Our nation is remarkably tolerant of a host of varied religious practices, but there’s pressure to keep it private. “Be a Christian, Muslim, Hindu, or whatever you want, but don’t bring it to work or school with you.”
The problem, of course, is that sometimes in the public sphere (at work or school or wherever), our Christian worldview collides in irreconcilable ways with a secular ideology.
So, like Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, we refuse to bow.
And when that happens, the powers-that-be usually don’t respond well, and believers’ faith is tested. In their response to their testing, we see perhaps three of the most powerful words about faith in the Bible: “But if not . . .”
They said: We know that God is able to deliver us, and we believe that he will, but if not . . . (there’s a good image of true faith there: trusting God even when he might not do what we want him to).
And then the fire: this is, I believe, a theophany, a time when God manifested himself in visible form for a special purpose. Here, it seems, he wanted to communicate his presence in the furnace of testing. God was present in the fire.
All sorts of lessons abound here, but the most important is this: Jesus Christ went into the furnace for us. At the cross he took upon himself the suffering and pain that we’d earned and “descended into hell” (as one of the ancient creeds put it). He went to the realm of the dead and was resurrected the third day so that no matter what happens–no matter what kind of furnaces we face–we can sense his presence and trust that he will bless us in the end.
I hope this text/sermon will encourage us in our walk with Christ as we face both temptation and suffering that living in this world inevitably brings.
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Jesus said a lot about his expectations that his followers forgive people who sin against us, seemingly going so far as to say that God’s forgiveness of us hinges on our forgiving others. It’s embedded in the Lord’s Prayer (“Forgive us, as we forgive those who sin against us.”), and in the story above, the forgiven servant who withholds forgiveness from his servant finds himself being punished severely.
And yet many people–even Christians–still harbor bitterness in their hearts from offenses from long ago, holding on to anger and resentment that eats at them, hurts their relationships with other people, and puts a barrier between themselves and God.
In the sermon on Sunday, we’ll look at this shocking story and glean several lessons that Jesus wants to teach us: why forgiveness is so crucial, what it looks like, and how we learn to practice it. We hope that God will use his Word to cause each of us to look within our hearts and find those simmering areas of anger or bitterness that might be there.
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We’re in the middle of a sermon series on 1 Peter, a letter the apostle wrote to Christians who were struggling to figure out how they were supposed to relate to an increasingly hostile world. Like them, we sense a change in the cultural tides against the practice of historic, orthodox Christianity, and sometimes we’re confused about who we are and how we’re supposed to live.
After laying the theological groundwork and encouraging his readers to remember the importance of living in ways that influence the surrounding world for good, Peter now turns to specific applications. In other words, he applies the theological principles to real-life situations, and he begins with how Christians ought to relate to the state.
Embedded in this short paragraph is the key to understanding Peter’s message: verse 16 says that Christians are “free . . . servants.” The gospel has set us free, and we’re citizens of a kingdom not of this world. So if that’s true–i.e., we’re not really part of the Roman Empire in their case or not truly American citizens in our case–are we free simply to disregard Roman (or American) laws?
The answer is complicated. Put simply, Peter says that we should willingly submit to “every human institution” so that we can “put to silence the ignorance of foolish people.” So the normal relationship between Christians and the state is one of submission.
But the Bible includes stories of God’s people resisting political powers when higher principles were at stake–we’ll look at a few on Sunday. And history shows examples of Christians engaging in civil disobedience.
We’ll struggle with some of this while emphasizing the overarching principle: Christians should be good citizens so that the gospel’s influence will not be hindered, but there may be times when we must resist.
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met a friend for lunch yesterday at 11:30, and at around noon it struck me that at that moment almost 2,000 years ago, the sun went dark in Judea, and three hours later Jesus cried out and took his last breath. It’s called Good Friday because of the sacrifice he made for us.
But of course, many people died of crucifixion at the hands of the Romans, including many other Jewish men in the years before and after Jesus’ death. One huge difference that set his death apart was that early Sunday morning God raised him from the dead. Of the thousands that Rome crucified, only One came back to life in the flesh.
Though we in Churches of Christ don’t historically emphasize holy days on the Christian calendar (other than each Sunday), there’s nothing wrong with our putting extra focus on this most important of events on Easter Sunday.
Because of that, we’ll focus on the resurrection of Jesus, using Philippians 3:3-11 (especially verses 10-11) to emphasize how the resurrection is more than just a historical event. It is that, of course, but it’s also something that we experience. It’s both head and heart, intellect and emotion, and I hope to help our congregation lean into the experiential aspect of our Lord’s resurrection.
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We’re in the middle of a sermon series on 1 Peter, a letter the apostle wrote to Christians who were struggling to figure out how they were supposed to relate to an increasingly hostile world. Like them, we sense a change in the cultural tides against the practice of historic, orthodox Christianity, and sometimes we’re confused about who we are and how we’re supposed to live.
What does the world think when they think of Christianity? Their opinions might be shaped by what they see on late-night talk shows, or YouTube, or Instagram, and what they think may or may not be accurate.
But more importantly, what do the people in our spheres of influence think about Christianity when they think of us? We really can’t do anything to change the “world’s” views of Christ–that’s much too overwhelming to even consider. But we can live out our faith in front of the handful of people with whom we have a measure of influence.
Notice Peter’s challenge: he tells us never to give up on the perpetual struggle against the “passions of the flesh” and to remember that the “Gentiles” (i.e., non-Christians) are watching us. Many of them won’t respond well to our faith; we’ve got to expect that. But some of them will be drawn to Christ because God uses something in us to stir a spark of interest in them.
In this sermon, I hope to challenge our congregation to take their faith seriously, particularly in how they live it out in front of a curious world.
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Peter wrote this letter to Christians who felt that the world was turning against them, and he wanted to help them think more clearly about how Christians can live in a world whose values are antithetical to theirs. So we’re taking several Sundays to walk through this important letter together.
In the first two verses Peter introduces a theme that he’ll return to repeatedly: Christians live as exiles in a strange land. Yet, the apostle suggests, God will help us live in ways that make a difference.
In much of this letter, Peter will tell the church about how Christians can engage a skeptical world, but before he does that he wants them to understand the importance of healthy relationships within the church.
So in our text for Sunday (included above), Peter tells them to “love one another.” I’ve known of churches who had arguing, division, and strife within the membership, and inevitably it leaked out to the community. It’s obvious what kind of effect a divided, contentious church has on a world that gets enough of that at work or school. Peter probably remembered something striking that Jesus told him and the other apostles on the eve of the Lord’s crucifixion: “By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:35).
So perhaps unsurprisingly, Peter tells the church first to have the right attitudes toward one another. A divided church will never win the world for Christ.
Love is, after all, the natural outgrowth of the new birth experience. We were born again to love, so that’s what we naturally do. And when we do that, we get rid of “all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander” (2:1).
On Sunday, I plan to encourage our congregation to remember that if we are to live as exiles in a strange land and hope to do good, it begins with healthy, loving relationships within the body.
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Peter wrote this letter to Christians who felt that the world was turning against them, and he wanted to help them think more clearly about how Christians can live in a world whose values are antithetical to theirs. So we’re taking several Sundays to walk through this important letter together. In the first two verses Peter introduces a theme that he’ll return to repeatedly: Christians live as exiles in a strange land. Yet, the apostle suggests, God will help us live in ways that make a difference. We’ll look at the first main section on Sunday . . . here Peter acknowledges the persecution that Christians sometimes experience, yet he wants us to remember that we have a “living hope” that leads to an “inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading.” Consequently, our emotions are not bound by the ups and downs of each day. We know that we weren’t created for this world as it is, and we look forward to the day when God makes everything right again. Peter wants us to know that we’ve been given an incredible gift that ought to change the way we think about life’s difficulties. Instead of being devastated by trials, we endure them with a spirit of hope and optimism. On the other extreme, instead of being overly excited about life’s temporary successes, we know that we’re living for something more. We can’t wait to “obtain the outcome of [our] faith, the salvation of [our] souls.” This salvation is so incredible that even the prophets were curious to learn about what exactly God had in store for his people. And now we know. As we look around us, we see a world that is becoming increasingly hostile to our faith. We don’t enjoy it, but neither are we devastated by it. Nothing this world does to us can take away the hope that is our foundation. The post Exiled but Living With Hope appeared first on Hoover Church of Christ.
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Our theme for 2021 is RENEW, and on the first Sunday of each month, I plan to address a different aspect of renewal. This Sunday we’ll focus our attention on a famous psalm of David.
The background of Psalm 51 is his sin with Bathsheba and his being convicted of his sin by Nathan the prophet. [To appreciate the context and to get a feel for David’s remorse, you might read the whole psalm.]
David is devastated by what he’s done, and he desperately wants God’s forgiveness. Beyond the cognitive aspect of forgiveness (i.e., the mental awareness of his being forgiven), David wants to feel forgiven. He wants to “hear joy and gladness.”
Beyond that, though, he recognizes that his brokenness led to his sin. He knows it wasn’t just a momentary lapse of good judgment or a “weak moment.” He knows that something is messed up inside him, so he asks God to give him a “clean heart” and a “right spirit.”
Notice the repetition of spirit in these verses: “renew a right spirit within me . . . take not your Holy Spirit from me . . . uphold me with a willing spirit” (vv. 10, 11, 12).
David knows he needs renewal . . . specifically he needs his spirit to be renewed.
I suspect that’s a prayer that many of us should probably pray. “Father, give me a new spirit, one transformed and controlled by your Spirit . . . one that is overwhelmed by your beauty so that I no longer fall prey to the temporary but ultimately unsatisfying experience of sin.”
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Christianity’s role in American culture is changing. Regardless of our political leanings, I suspect that we all agree that our society is on a trajectory that is inconsistent with the teachings of orthodox, biblical Christianity.
It’s confusing for many of us, and probably alarming. We fear that God might abandon us, and we’re scared of what our society will look like when our children or grandchildren are grown.
Those are real concerns. America is not and never has been “God’s elect people” in any sense, of course, but it is consistent with what we know of God’s nature to acknowledge that his patience with aggressive rebellion against him knows limits. In other words, God very well might choose to remove his staying influence from this country.
But he never abandons the church. The relationship between church and state that we’ve experienced since the founding of this country is unprecedented in many ways, and it’s an anomaly in the world today. The normal state of events between the nations of humanity and God’s people is hostility. The state views Christianity as a threat to its dominance, and it often acts with violence against people of faith.
And yet that is no reason to despair. The Christians to which Peter is writing in 1 Peter were struggling, and in some ways their struggles parallel our own. They were trying to figure out what it means to be Christians in the face of rising hostility.
As he writes this letter to these Christians, Peter calls them “elect exiles,” an important description for them and for us. Drawing on the background of Judah in exile in Babylon, Peter reminds Christians of some fundamental things about what it means to live as God’s people in a “strange land.”
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Mark begins his gospel by making it clear who the subject of his narrative is: “The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God” (1:1). Near the end he includes this confession–from the mouth of a calloused, pagan centurion: “And when the centurion, who stood facing him, saw that in this way he breathed his last, he said, ‘Truly this man was the Son of God!'” (15:39).
And in all the chapters in between, he’s concerned about this one question: Who is Jesus?
More specifically, who is Jesus to you?
Tomorrow we’ll trace this theme through Mark and focus on the famous story of Jesus’ confronting his apostles with that very question: “But who do you say that I am?” (8:29).
In these troubling times, it’s more important than ever for Christians in our culture to know who Jesus is. Is he merely a good man? Is he just an incredible teacher? Is he the inventor of a new religion?
Or is he more?
How we answer those questions changes everything about the way we view life . . . how we navigate turbulent moments, the attitudes we display when we face uncertainty, where we put our trust and hope.
Who is Jesus?
Who is Jesus to you?
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Many folks in our congregation are reading through the Bible again this year, and most reading plans–including the one we invited people to join–spend much of January in Genesis. One thing that jumps out at me every time I read through Genesis is this: these people God called aren’t particularly good people. I don’t mean that they weren’t at times characterized by faith or that they didn’t grow in their faith. I’m just always surprised again at some of the things that they did. A few examples: God called Abraham in the first part of Genesis 12, and one of the things about Abraham’s calling was that he was to be a blessing to “all the families of the earth.” So what was the first thing Abraham did? He went down to Egypt and brought plagues down on the Egyptians. Jacob’s very name means something pretty close to “aggressively taking someone else’s place through manipulation or deceit,” and he pretty much spent his life living up to his name: stealing his brother’s birthright and blessing, manipulating people to get what he wanted, and so on. Jacob’s 12 sons, the patriarchs of Israel? They slaughtered an entire village of people out of revenge, they plotted to murder their little brother but sold him into slavery instead, one of them slept with his daughter-in-law and got her pregnant then planned her execution, . . . And so on. The point here isn’t to glorify human weakness, but I think it helps us see an important truth about God’s work in the world: he works through broken people to accomplish his will. The main characters of the biblical narratives aren’t Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, or David. The main character is God. How the story turns out is based on his power, not ours. Perhaps we can learn from that. Acknowledging this doesn’t take away our responsibility to grow in faith and obedience, of course, but it should help us to focus on the One who is in control. If the story of redemption from Genesis to Revelation depended on Abraham, where would it have gone? Or Isaac, Jacob, or Moses? Thankfully, God’s accomplishing his purposes in the world depends on who he is, and that should give us hope. The post God’s Broken Heroes appeared first on Hoover Church of Christ.
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A year ago we had just announced our theme for 2020, which was, “Focus On What Matters,” using Philippians 3:13 as our theme text: “This one thing I do.” Little did we know what 2020 was going to hold for us and for the world.
Many of us probably have mixed feelings as we begin another year. There’s some hopefulness in us, I think, as we anticipate the vaccines’ distribution and subsequent slowing down (we hope) of the virus.
At the same time, evidence suggests that we’re still in the midst of a very serious situation, and unfortunately people aren’t going to stop getting sick just because we flipped our calendars.
But as we look ahead, fully recognizing that God will determine what the year ahead looks like, we intend to focus this year on Renewal. Using “Renew” as our theme word, we’ll begin tomorrow by focusing on Paul’s words in Romans 12:1-2, particularly this phrase: “be transformed by the renewal of your mind.”
Perhaps now more than ever, we need God’s Spirit to renew us. We can’t control our outside circumstances, but we can submit to God’s leading as he shapes our minds and hearts.
That’s what we’ll focus on tomorrow, and then on the first Sunday of each month during the year we plan to study a different aspect of renewal.
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As I’ve previously mentioned, in December I’ve deviated from the One Word devotional reading topics and have done something different.
2020 has been a hard year for many people, including many in our congregation. Anxiety levels for some people are higher than ever. Professional counselors are suggesting that they’re receiving a record number of requests from people who are seeking help for various problems.
For December I’m preaching a short series called, “Daily Practices for Anxious Times.” I sense there’s a need for us to revisit some of the most basic and ancient practices of the Christian faith to help us recenter and to make sure we’re grounded in our relationship with Christ.
The first Sunday of December was about prayer, and the second Sunday was about Scripture. Tomorrow we’re going to talk about serving.
One struggle that most of us have is getting wrapped up in self, especially during difficult times. We focus on our needs and our wants and our problems, and it can become a pretty miserable way to live.
But Jesus calls us to a different way, of course. The best way to get out of our own heads is to become outward focused. When we find ourselves becoming discouraged, that suggests that we’re probably not doing much to help others.
Notice the progression: we pray and we read Scripture . . . these are vertical disciplines; i.e., they focus on our relationship with God.
But the corollary to loving God with all our hearts is to love our neighbors as ourselves, so our commitment to prayer and Scripture leads us to take action, particularly to benefit the people around us.
In our text for tomorrow, Jesus teaches us a fundamental lesson. Like the disciples, we can obsess over personal advancement and glory, but he directs us to become servants. And, of course, he sets the perfect example in how he lived and died.
So . . . every day, we take time for prayer and Scripture, and we learn to be intentional about finding someone to serve and bless. These fundamental attitudes and actions might do wonders in helping us navigate anxious times.
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As I mentioned last week, in December I’m deviating from the One Word devotional reading topics and doing something different.
2020 has been a hard year for many people, including many in our congregation. Anxiety levels for some people are higher than ever. Professional counselors are suggesting that they’re receiving a record number of requests from people who are seeking help for various problems.
For December I’m preaching a short series called, “Daily Practices for Anxious Times.” I sense there’s a need for us to revisit some of the most basic and ancient practices of the Christian faith to help us recenter and to make sure we’re grounded in our relationship with Christ.
Last Sunday was about prayer, and tomorrow will be about Scripture.
A most basic tenet of the Christian faith is the inspiration of Scripture: when we read the word of God with an open heart and mind and a spirit of submission, the Creator of the Universe is speaking to us. That’s really an unbelievable thought, and one that we too often take for granted.
Tomorrow I plan to encourage our members to take seriously the daily discipline of reading and contemplating Scripture. It’s something we all know that we should do, but then life gets busy and stressful and it’s too easy to put it off until “we have more time.” And that time rarely comes.
Yet when we neglect Scripture we neglect one of the primary ways that God leads and teaches us.
On the contrary, when we engage in daily moments of Scripture reading and contemplation, we tap into a beautiful and bottomless resource of encouragement and guidance.
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This week we enter a four-week stretch in the One Word devotional readings where we focus on the nature of salvation. These four themes are Justification, Propitiation, Redemption, and Atonement.
Tomorrow we’ll study the first of those–Justification–by using a story Jesus once told about two men who went to the temple to pray. One pleased God, and one didn’t.
The punch line is verse 14: “I tell you, this man went down to his house justified, rather than the other.” That would’ve been scandalous to Jesus’ audience, of course, because he was commending a despised tax collector and condemning a well-respected Pharisee. But it reflects an oft-repeated theme in Jesus’ ministry and teaching: being right with God is based first on our recognizing that we don’t deserve it and that we’re hopeless on our own to obtain it.
Lots of first-century religious folks had that confused, thinking that if they did and said the right things, they would secure right standing with God. Justification, Jesus said, depends instead on admitting your own sinfulness and throwing yourself down at God’s feet in submission.
This is a hard lesson, isn’t it? Maybe we fear that believing this view of justification will lead to moral laxity, creating an environment where obedience is denigrated. But Jesus never deemphasized obedience . . . he just wanted it to be clear that obedience comes from a grateful heart, not one that’s trying to earn God’s favor.
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Next week our theme in our One Word devotional readings is Grief, so Sunday we’re going to study the story about Jesus’ weeping near the grave of his friend Lazarus.
Grief touches us all sooner or later, so there’s a good chance you’ve felt its burden. It’s real, it hurts, and to some extent it’s inevitable.
But it doesn’t have to be debilitating. One aspect of the Lord’s incarnation is that he experienced fully what it means to be human. While fully God, he was also fully man. He hurt, he got tired, thirsty, and hungry. And he grieved.
It’s hard to know everything that Jesus was feeling when he saw Mary and Martha and sensed their tremendous grief over losing their brother. The text simply says that Jesus cried. Maybe it was because he saw pain in the eyes of these two women, his good friends. Maybe it was because he felt the terrible burden of sin’s damaging influence in the world . . . after all, death wasn’t supposed to be part of the human experience.
Whatever the cause, Jesus experienced grief. Just as you have when you stood heartbroken at the grave of a mom or dad or spouse or child. Jesus cried.
Sunday we’ll explore what John 11 teaches us about grief. He doesn’t remove it entirely from our earthly experience, of course, but he changes the way we see it. He removes some of its sting.
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As you know, I haven’t preached at Hoover for the last two weeks, but there’s a theme that unites what we’ve been reading in the One Word devotional book and what we’ll read in the next couple of weeks. Two weeks ago the theme was Worry, this week it’s Shame, and next week it’s Guilt. When I was trying to think of a way to tie the ideas together, I ran across a book called, The 3D Gospel: Ministry in Guilt, Shame, and Fear Cultures. It helped me see how the gospel addresses all of our most basic needs. There are three types of cultures in the world–(1) guilt-innocence, (2) shame-honor, and (3) fear-power–and they correspond to the consequences of sin that we’ve experienced and which Jesus addresses at the cross. In churches in the West, we’ve emphasized the guilt-innocence aspect of the gospel; that is, our sin made us guilty before God, and Christ’s death restores our innocence. But we’ve probably underemphasized the other aspects. Our sin also gives us a sense of shame. We intuitively recognize that we’ve fallen short of what we were created to be and that we are ostracized from the community to which we belong (i.e., we’ve “lost face”). Also, our sin causes us to live in fear, because we know that there’s a war between good and evil forces in the world and that our sin has aligned us with evil. As a result, our lives are characterized by fear and worry. Tomorrow we’ll study several passages in Ephesians that show us how the gospel addresses our brokenness holistically, restoring us to communion with God that fixes everything that sin messed up. The post Set Free: How the Gospel Rescues You From Guilt, Shame, and Fear appeared first on Hoover Church of Christ.
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For centuries the Jewish people had been looking for “the Prophet,” the one Moses said was coming in our reading for tomorrow. It seems that at least some of them were looking for both a Prophet and a King/Messiah–two different people. Apparently they didn’t understand that the One who was to come would be a Prophet-King-Messiah.
Traditionally, we’ve focused a lot on Jesus being the fulfillment of the OT’s prediction of a coming King from the lineage of David, but tomorrow we’re going to study Jesus as the Prophet like Moses.
Like Moses, Jesus led the people out of slavery, except it was a greater form of slavery. Like Moses, Jesus gave the people bread and water, except it was the Bread of Life and Living Water. Like Moses, Jesus gave the people a revelation from heaven, except it was one that brought freedom and not bondage.
At the top of the Mount of Transfiguration, Moses and Elijah were transformed along with Jesus, and God emphatically said about Jesus, “This is my son, my Chosen One; listen to him!”
The message for us today is simple: who are we listening to? Jesus is the perfect revelation of God’s will . . . if we neglect him as Prophet, we turn away from God’s final offer.
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Pilate’s question makes it sound like he would fit quite well in our post-truth society. Asking “What is truth?” with a tone of skepticism is fairly common these days. As we studied a couple of weeks ago when our emphasis was on Scripture, most folks are comfortable with “truths” but not “Truth.” They’re even less comfortable with the idea of the Truth being a Person.
For whatever reason, Jesus wasn’t squishy on truth. Standing before the person who–from a human perspective, at least–held his life in his hands, Jesus spoke confidently and unashamedly of truth. For Jesus, truth existed and was, apparently, knowable.
Tomorrow we’ll think about both truth and Truth. We’ll focus a bit on what’s going on in our world and why it’s led us to a place where we’re reluctant to speak about truth with any confidence. And we’ll talk about why that’s problematic.
And, of course, we’ll find our way to the Truth, which is personified in the historical Person of Jesus Christ, “the way, the TRUTH, and the life.”
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You’ve probably heard talk about our living in a “post-truth” world, one characterized by news outlets that prevent different versions of events, all proclaiming to be “the truth.” Of all the characteristics of postmodernism, one of the most alarming is the lack of trust in institutions/people/religions to be purveyors of truth. In other words, we’ve become a society that has no absolute standard of Truth. We’ve got “truths” but no Truth. We don’t trust the government, we don’t trust the news, and we don’t trust religious leaders and the religions they represent.
Those are some of the reasons why this series will matter. As God’s people, we need to trust God, and trusting him means trusting the word that he inspired. “Your word is truth,” Jesus said, and in the midst of all the uncertainty in the world we need to cling to that now more than ever.
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hat do you say about baptism to a Church of Christ that hasn’t been said many, many times before? After all, we’re known in the religious world for being obsessed with baptism.
But of course, the point isn’t to say something new or different, but to emphasize once again the basic biblical truths about baptism . . .that beautiful moment when a person follows Jesus into the water in order to identify with his death, burial, and resurrection in a public way. With the baptism in Churches of Christ, there’s always the risk of over-emphasizing it–focusing on it to the exclusion of the faith and commitment that precede it–and under-emphasizing it–refusing to talk much about it because we feel like it’s been said so many times before.
So tomorrow–as the last three weeks have been–will be in many ways a return to the basics, and attempt to share with our church a faithful view of what Scripture teaches us about what it means to be “buried with [Christ] in baptism.” We’ll focus a little extra on the comparison with circumcision that Paul makes in the Colossians text.
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In some ways, confession is quite simple. A person stands before a church or before his family and friends and states that he believes in Jesus as God’s Son. But of course, it’s not that simple, or at least it shouldn’t be. Imagine what that confession meant for the people who made it in the first century . . . they were publicly identifying themselves with Jesus Christ and a burgeoning movement that had no social capital. In fact, depending on where you were, it could lead to your being disconnected from your family, cast out of the synagogue, or even beaten or killed.
Imagine what confession means to someone today in North Korea, Iraq, Iran, or parts of China?
I think we need to consider seriously the implications of confession, not just as a “step” on the way to salvation but as a day-to-day way of living that identifies us with the risen Christ. At our baptism, we said it publicly, and every day we keep saying it–not only with words, but with attitudes, actions, and priorities.
Every day we wake up and make the decision to confess Christ and also to confess those things we do that are inconsistent with someone who claims to follow him.
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“Kingdom” is the emphasis for our One Word devotional book reading for the upcoming week, so I plan to focus on that theme Sunday.
Kingdom is a hugely significant theme in the Bible–it’s used more than 200 times in the Old Testament alone–but sometimes we’re a bit vague on exactly what it means. Sometimes people think of kingdom as synonymous with the church, but that doesn’t come close to explaining the nuances and implications of kingdom thought in the Bible.
Sometimes people talk about social justice issues as “kingdom work,” and there’s nothing wrong with that, but that, too, is inadequate.
We’ll explore the idea Sunday morning, but kingdom essentially refers to God’s rule over a people in a specific place and time with significant implications for how those subjects live.
We live in the kingdom now in a sense, though there’s another very real sense in which we anticipate the day when God’s reign will be fully and completely realized.
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It’s an understatement to suggest that these are strange, chaotic, and difficult times. The pandemic alone interrupted “normal” lives in ways that we couldn’t have foreseen, and then racial tension boiled over in the last two weeks, of course. Tensions are high, and people are hurting and angry.
Your Twitter feed has probably been filled with bad news for quite awhile, and other social media outlets are no better.
Which leads us to this question: Where is the good news? What is the appropriate Christian response? How does following Jesus affect our attitudes and actions right now?
I plan to deviate from the One Word devotional books that we’ve been reading to begin a short series called, “Some (Really) Good News.” I think we need to think more reflectively about how the gospel affects the way Christians process difficult times.
The title, as you may have guessed, is taken from a pretty neat project that John Krasinski created several weeks ago. He started producing short videos called “Some Good News” where he highlighted good stuff that’s going on in the middle of all the chaos. I plan to take the idea and adapt it by talking about the Gospel (=Good News) of Jesus. I like John, but Jesus’s good news is better than his.
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Our One Word for the upcoming week is Self-Control, and it’s in the section of our devotional reading that has to do with Christian Character. In other words, Christians ought to be characterized by self-control. Everyone wants it, right? Or at least we want more of it. We want the ability to resist the slice of cheesecake after dinner, or to resist vegging out in front of Netflix for a couple of hours, or to stay away from mindless internet surfing, or whatever. But of course it’s more serious than any of those would reflect. Some Christians need to stay away from alcohol, or pornography, or gossip, or anger. Many Christians need to be more disciplined in prayer, in meditation, in Bible reading. All of us must confess that our self-control has let us down more than we’d like to admit. The age-old question is, “How can I develop more self-control?” How can we strengthen our ability to say “no” to things God has warned us about? Is it just something we’re born with (or without), or are there things we can do to grow in this area? The post Self-Control and the Christian Walk appeared first on Hoover Church of Christ.
1st and 3rd Sundays of the month we study from our “One Word” devotional book.
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1st and 3rd Sundays of the month we study from our “One Word” devotional book.
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Our One Word for the upcoming week is Love, and it’s in the section of our devotional reading that has to do with Christian Character. In other words, Christians ought to be characterized by love. Of all the gospels, John has the lengthiest discussion of what Jesus said and did on the eve of his crucifixion. In this part of Jesus’s life, there’s a consistent emphasis. After the Last Supper, Jesus washed the disciples’ feet, then he connected this action with what he was about to do for them the next day. In the verses just prior to our text (John 15:1-11), Jesus taught us about the importance of the branches’ connection to the vine. They bear fruit to the extent that they remain connected to the vine–a crucial point for us to understand. Then–in our paragraph–Jesus comes to his main point: his followers must show love for one another, a theme that consumes much of this chapter and the following ones. The command, “Love one another,” though, isn’t surprising, but Jesus doesn’t stop there. He says, “Love one another as I have loved you.” There’s a kind of pseudo-love that’s much easier and much less demanding. It’s a “love” that’s contingent on the actions of the recipient. I love you, perhaps, because I like you or because you’ve been good to me, or whatever. Or maybe we love one another as long as it doesn’t cost us too much. That’s not Jesus’s love, though. He tells us to love one another as he has loved us. What does that look like? Just a few hours later Jesus would go to a wooden cross not far out of Jerusalem and show us what he meant. “I love you like this,” he said. “So you love one another like this. The post As I Have Loved You appeared first on Hoover Church of Christ.
1st and 3rd Sundays of the month we study from our “One Word” devotional book.
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1st and 3rd Sundays of the month we study from our “One Word” devotional book.
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And Jesus cried out and said, “Whoever believes in me, believes not in me but in him who sent me. And whoever sees me sees him who sent me. I have come into the world as light, so that whoever believes in me may not remain in darkness. If anyone hears my words and does not keep them, I do not judge him; for I did not come to judge the world but to save the world. The one who rejects me and does not receive my words has a judge; the word that I have spoken will judge him on the last day. For I have not spoken on my own authority, but the Father who sent me has himself given me a commandment—what to say and what to speak. And I know that his commandment is eternal life. What I say, therefore, I say as the Father has told me” John 12:44-50, ESV).
Brief thoughts about the text/sermon: This year we’re reading the devotional book, One Word, together, and the “one word” we focused on in Week 1 was “word.” One of our readings was John 12:44-50, which will be our text for tomorrow morning. This passage has two parallel emphases. The first is Jesus’ clear statement that he came to save, not judge. God’s essence is love, and he truly wants everyone to accept Christ and be saved. That’s why Jesus came–not to bring judgment, but to offer deliverance. But of course not everyone accepts Christ, so the second emphasis is equally clear: a day is coming when for some people God will relate to them only as their Judge. Salvation “on the last day” will no longer be possible for those who reject Christ. This judgment, Jesus says, will be on the basis of “the word that [he has] spoken.” In other words, it will be according to Jesus’ testimony that he is the Son of God and consistent with the inspired witnesses who recorded evidence of who he is. If we reject the testimony about Jesus’ identity–if we refuse to follow the words of Scripture–we will meet God on the last day not as Savior but as Judge. This is an important text for us, because we (and our kids and grandkids) live in a world where it is considered inappropriate to speak of any kind of judgment. God, if he exists at all, cares little for the world’s rebellion and overlooks almost any kind of behavior. But Scripture reveals a different kind of God. It speaks of a God who fully gave himself to save us, but his offer of salvation will not always be open. He is also a God who judges, and we would do well to think of this divine role as well.
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Last week we introduced our theme for 2020: “Focus on what matters: ‘This one thing I do.'” I think probably everyone in our congregation realizes the importance of priorities, and we know that we have the tendency to get them out of order. The “one thing” that we know ought to get our focus sometimes gets relegated to a lesser position, even though we know it shouldn’t.
And so we try to do better. We make resolutions and commitments. We try to read our Bibles more, come to church more, pray more. And maybe that helps a little, but inevitably we slip back into old habits. The resolution we make on January 1 becomes a distant memory by March or April (or maybe even by February).
The problem, as we probably already know, is deeper than that. It’s the heart, the center of our being where our deepest affections lie and that influences everything we say and do.
Throughout the course of the year we’ll emphasize things related to our commitment to the “one thing,” and tomorrow we’ll discuss the importance of the heart: “Keep your heart with all diligence, for from it flow the springs of life.” The outcome of the battle–win or lose–will be determined there.
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Some people are quick to disregard old things, as if everything traditional is bad. Other folks, on the other hand, are irrationally committed to old ways, even when new approaches might work better. This partly explains the ongoing tension between generations that always seems to be felt. Jesus might’ve waded a little into a discussion like that with his challenge of the religion of his day. Many religious leaders rejected him because he was bringing something new, and for them, new = bad/false. He used an illustration that for many of us may be familiar. If you put new, unfermented wine into old wineskins, the skins would burst because they were no longer sufficiently pliable to stretch to contain the wine as it fermented. Jesus’ point seems to be this: “One cannot place the new wine of the gospel in the old wineskins of Pharisaic Judaism, for what will result is neither the gospel nor Judaism. Later history has shown that attempts to syncretize Christianity with another religious movement lead to an offspring inferior to both” (R.H. Stein). As we enter 2020, perhaps we should ask ourselves, what “old wineskins” do we need to be willing to discard to embrace the newness in Christ? A lifeless traditionalism? An inactive spiritual life? Empty ritualism? Would Jesus use this same parable if he were speaking to us? If so, how would he challenge us to embrace newness in 2020? The post Fresh Wineskins appeared first on Hoover Church of Christ.
Christmas is a time of year when many people reflect on the birth of Jesus. It has arguably become quite commercialized, of course, and sometimes it reflects attitudes that are considerably dissimilar to those that characterized Jesus. But any occasion that gives us an opportunity to talk about Jesus in meaningful ways is good.
Sunday we’ll study Matthew 2–about the wise men, about Herod’s decree, but particularly about Jesus’ trip to Egypt as a child and how that reflected a theme that began long ago. Jesus, like Israel, went down to Egypt. Like Israel, he came out of Egypt. But unlike Israel, he lived a life of perfect obedience and went on to offer himself as the perfect sacrifice (of which Israel’s animal sacrifices were mere shadows).
Jesus’ birth is remarkable, and it’s fascinating to think about how from the very beginning he was destined for something eternally significant. His miraculous conception prefigured his identity as the Son of God, and his early trip to Egypt further signified that he was the Son of God who could accomplish what Israel never could.
He was incarnated–God became a human being–so that he could do for us what we can never do for ourselves. May God help us take the spirit of Christmas beyond December, and may he help us to grasp the depth of his commitment to bring us back to himself.
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Most of us don’t like waiting, and yet one characteristic of the walk of faith is its emphasis on living in the present on the basis of what one anticipates in the future . . . on what one is waiting for. All of the Old Testament patriarchs, as Hebrews 11 tells us, believed that certain things would come true, even though they never got to experience them. They believed that God would give them the land of Canaan, though they only got to pass through the land as nomads. In the Isaiah text above, notice the emphasis on the future: “There shall come forth . . . the Spirit shall rest upon him . . . his delight shall be . . . He shall not judge . . .” And so on. Near the end of the passage, he uses the expression, “In that day,” which in the Bible is loaded language (notice that the phrase is also in verse 11, which isn’t included in the text above). “In that day” points to the time of Christ, the time when God would act in incredible and beautiful ways on behalf of his people. In a real sense, the entire Jewish experience was in view of what was to come . . . what God was going to do in Christ. A shoot will come from the stump of Jesse, and “in that day the root of Jesse . . . shall stand.” But what about us? We also live in anticipation of what God will do. In the sermon Sunday we’ll look briefly at James 5:7-11, where James writes that we should “be patient . . . until the coming of the Lord.” He points to the example of the patient farmer who waits for harvest and says that we too should be patient because “the coming of the Lord is at hand.” Our lives of faith are waiting lives. We look back to Jesus’ first coming, of course, but we also look ahead to his return. And we wait. Waiting with joyful anticipation is a real characteristic of what it means to walk in faith. The post “In That Day” – Waiting on God appeared first on Hoover Church of Christ.
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Depending on our particular situation, we can probably relate to Paul’s reminder that the “outer self is wasting away” and that “the tent that is our earthly home [may be] destroyed.” And we, like Paul, sometimes “groan” while we “are still in this tent.”
We feel the effects of aging, we get bad results from an MRI, we hear the news of a good friend’s death . . . and we’re reminded again about the brevity of this life as it is now.
But Paul helps us to focus on the fact that we don’t need to “lose heart,” because we “have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.” We “walk by faith, not by sight.”
Tomorrow we plan to study this text and reflect on how important it is for Christians to have an eternal focus. God wants us to remember that our hopes and dreams aren’t tied up in health and wealth here . . . that we were created for a different kind of world. We can look forward to what will happen when this sin-cursed world is gone and we live eternally with God in the new heavens and new earth when “what is mortal is swallowed up by life.”
“So we do not lose heart . . . So we are always of good courage. . . . Yes, we are of good courage.”
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Easy believism. Cheap grace. It’s called by different names, but it’s been around for awhile, probably since the beginning of time. Some people claim to believe, but they don’t live like it.
James apparently had people in his community of faith who made a big deal of their faith, but their lives didn’t show it. Some of them were showing favoritism to the rich, while others weren’t helping the needy even though they had the means to do it.
To them James wrote very frankly: “Faith apart from works is dead.”
James’ message is important for every Christian to hear, but perhaps more so for those of us who live in the Bible Belt. It’s so easy to refer to ourselves as Christians–to attend church some, give a little, pray sometimes–but actually being a Christian is something different. The post Faith Works appeared first on Hoover Church of Christ.
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Two weeks ago we looked at Jesus’ predictions concerning his upcoming crucifixion, and last Sunday we studied his taking the Passover meal and reinterpreting it for the apostles (and for the church). Tomorrow we’re going to reflect on a part of one of his trials that began early on that fateful Friday morning. The religious leaders had brought him before Pilate, the Roman prefect of Judea, whose primary goal was to keep the locals peaceful and relatively happy so that his somewhat shaky political position wouldn’t be endangered by reports of unrest. Recognizing that Jesus had been brought to him because of envy among the religious elites, he thought that he might release Jesus–whom he knew to be innocent–according a custom where he released a prisoner of the people’s choice during the weekend of Passover. He had in custody an insurrectionist named Barabbas, and he thought the people would want this violent man to remain in prison, but he misjudged them. When he asked them if they wanted Barabbas or Jesus to be freed, they asked for Barabbas. There’s an interesting spiritual point here. Pilate’s question, “Which of the two do you want?”, can be read as the kind of question that we all must answer. Do you want Barabbas, the one who offers the best short-term outcome? After all, Barabbas probably had as his goal the liberation of the Jewish people from Roman oppression–something that was very important to them. Or do you want Jesus, the one whose counter-intuitive kingdom ethic would likely bring about short-term struggle? Which one do you want? Do you want the one who does what you want or the one who does what you need? Do you want the strong-and-powerful Barabbas or the meek-and-mild Jesus? Do you want the one who leads guerrilla warfare, or the one who washes feet? Which do you want? That’s what Pilate asked the people, and in a way it’s what we’re being asked today. The post Which Do You Want? appeared first on Hoover Church of Christ.
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The disciples spent much of their time being confused, and they pretty much stayed that way until they were filled with the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. What really messed them up was when Jesus started talking about going to Jerusalem to be mistreated and then to be killed. If he’s the Son of God, how can anyone kill him? The Messiah is supposed to conquer his enemies, not be conquered by them.
Three times in our readings for this week Jesus stops to tell his disciples what lies ahead. It confuses and distresses them, even leading Peter to step in and try to persuade Jesus not to do it.
Jesus’s response to them is his response to us . . . “take up your cross and follow me.”
Jesus didn’t come to be pampered and served. He, quite literally, came to die. And he calls us to learn to live outward-focused lives and to be willing to live sacrificially, walking in his footsteps toward Jerusalem. It’s an all-encompassing and humbling call that we must spend our entire lives learning to follow.
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To be honest, the genealogies of Scripture are the parts we probably skim (or skip!) most frequently when we’re reading the Bible. After all, who cares that that Jehoshophat’s son was Joram, right? It might even be more perplexing that after reading the Old Testament for a long time and (finally) getting to the New Testament, the first page of Matthew is mostly names, many of which we don’t even really know or care about.
But as we probably ought to guess, God has important reasons for including genealogies in Scripture, and we’ll explore some of them tomorrow. There’s so much weight in the very first words of Matthew’s gospel, of course: “The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.” David and Abraham are the theological heavyweights of the Old Testament, so it’s not surprising that Matthew mentions them first.
But there are also some hidden gems in Matthew’s genealogy, and we’ll explore some of them tomorrow as well. For example, why are five women mentioned? And why these particular women? And what about some of these other, lesser-known characters?
Jesus is the “son of David, the son of Abraham,” but he’s also the son of Rahab and Ruth and Bathsheba and Shealtiel and Eliakim and others. All this, of course, is according to God’s plan.
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Naaman had everything, it seems, except one thing: “he was a leper.” Depending on what the text means when it says “leprosy,” Naaman’s condition was at best a disease that marred his appearance and at worst something that devastated his entire life. But the turning point of this story is what he does when he’s given the opportunity for the leprosy to be taken away. But he refuses to obey. Was it because he didn’t really believe it would happen? Was it pride? An inflated sense of importance? Did Naaman think he was too good to wade into the Jordan River’s dirty waters? It seems that way. Regardless, he wouldn’t do it until one of his servants finally talked some sense into him. And then, as you know, his leprosy disappeared. Lessons for us are abundant. We’re reminded that God is the God of the world, not just the small nation of Israel. He’s working among people who are different from us. And then there’s this lesson: Sometimes God tells us to do things that don’t make sense to us. He expects us to obey anyway. When we trust God, though, and when we know he’ll do what he promises, we’ll do what he says. Even when it makes no sense at all. And God blesses that kind of obedience. The post But He Was a Leper . . . appeared first on Hoover Church of Christ.
The world is a scary place, you know? People in our church family—including some of you, no doubt—are struggling with different kinds of anxieties and concerns today. Perhaps it’s an upcoming medical test, a troubled marriage, or tension and stress at work. Unfortunately, fear is part of what it means to be human—at least in the world as we experience it now.
But God offers a different way. Permeating the Bible from beginning to end is something called hope. I’ve found it fascinating lately how much it’s mentioned, and particularly in the last few chapters of Acts as Paul appears as a defendant before various councils and rulers.
Notice especially the bold-faced type in the passages below:
Now when Paul perceived that one part were Sadducees and the other Pharisees, he cried out in the council, “Brothers, I am a Pharisee, a son of Pharisees. It is with respect to the hope and the resurrection of the dead that I am on trial.” – Acts 23:6
But this I confess to you, that according to the Way, which they call a sect, I worship the God of our fathers, believing everything laid down by the Law and written in the Prophets, having a hope in God, which these men themselves accept, that there will be a resurrection of both the just and the unjust*. – Acts 24:14-15
other than this one thing that I cried out while standing among them: ‘It is with respect to the resurrection of the dead that I am on trial before you this day.'” – Acts 24:21
And now I stand here on trial because of my hope in the promise made by God to our fathers, to which our twelve tribes hope to attain, as they earnestly worship night and day. And for this hope I am accused by Jews, O king! Why is it thought incredible by any of you that God raises the dead? – Acts 26:6-8For this reason, therefore, I have asked to see you and speak with you, since it is because of the hope of Israel that I am wearing this chain*. – Acts 28:20
Notice that Paul connects hope with the resurrection of the dead. In other words, the hope that we have is that this world isn’t all there is. Because Jesus was raised, we know that there’s a coming resurrection where God will make all things right. That changes us.
It’s important to note that biblical hope isn’t that everything will work out here and now as we want, but rather that as God’s children we know that it eventually will.
YOLO—“You Only Live Once”—is, perhaps, a catchy motto, but it’s not the way we live. And knowing we will always live gives us a kind of peace and confidence that comes when we know that God created us for something more.
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The Bible is replete with theophanies–special occasions when God revealed himself to people in incredible ways. Think of God’s glory passing by as God covered Moses’ face in Exodus 33, for example.
But even at these special times God’s appearance is obscured or mediated in some way so that people can’t see him in all his glory. Apparently, it’s because of this: “No one may see me and live” (Exodus 33:20). There’s something so special about God’s holiness that we–presumably because of our sinfulness–can’t safely see him.
When Christ came, he revealed the Father, of course (John 14:9), so people saw God in that mediated sense.
In the middle of all of this, there’s this inner longing to see God, especially for those who have submitted to him and who love him. Like the psalmist writes, “”As a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and appear before God?” (Psalm 42:1-2).
Will that ever happen? Will we actually get to see God in all his glory?
Near the end of the Bible, as John gets glimpses of the new heavens and new earth, there’s this tantalizing verse: “They will see his face” (Revelation 22:4).
Tomorrow we’re going to explore the intriguing implications of the possibilities implied there.
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Most people in the church know something of this storyline: Judah rebelled against God and persisted in idolatrous practices in spite of myriad warnings, so God eventually sent Babylon to conquer Jerusalem and take many captives to Babylon.
What many people don’t know is how this theme actually reflects something much more than just that relatively short period of history. The entire biblical story–and many of the stories within Scripture–can be framed in terms of Exile and Return, and I plan to study some of those ideas with our congregation Sunday morning. In a sense, we live in Exile in Babylon, awaiting the return that will be accomplished only when Jesus comes to make everything right again.
But for now, we live as Exilic People in a world with strange gods and strange customs. One of our greatest challenges is figuring out how to be God’s People in the midst of a world that doesn’t honor him. We’ll reflect on some of the thoughts that the prophets shared with Judah as they adjusted to life outside of their homeland.
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These days were some of the darkest in Judah’s history. Manasseh’s fifty-five-year reign of terror was followed by the two-year reign of his son Amon, which was little better. Then came Josiah at the tender age of eight. He began his reign when the people had never known a king who cared about God. Idol worship filled the land, the priesthood was largely corrupt, and the people were lost. And then one day several years later when Josiah had come of age, his secretary came to him and said—almost casually, it seems—“The high priest found a book in the temple and gave it to me.” He read it to Josiah, and the king fell apart, tearing his clothes. Why? Because it was the long-lost Book of the Law, probably the book of Deuteronomy, or at least a book that summarized the Law of Moses. It’s unimaginable to us that God’s people had apparently lost the Bible. They had been led by such ungodly people and the Word of God had become so unimportant that they didn’t even know where it was. Imagine a church that had no Bible. When Josiah heard the reading of God’s Word, he instituted a series of reforms that completely changed Judah, at least in his day. Tomorrow we’re going to study these reforms and think about what happens to us when we give God’s word the power that it deserves to change everything about us. “I have found the Book of the Law.” It’s amazing what God does when we allow his word to shape who we are and what we do. The post I Have Found a Book appeared first on Hoover Church of Christ.
When considered within the scope of both testaments of Scripture, it clearly refers to Christ–something we would know even if we didn’t have Philip’s conversation with the Ethiopian Eunuch, a man who was confused by his reading of Isaiah 53. Luke tells us that Philip began with our text and “told him the good news about Jesus” (Acts 8:35). Perhaps the most obvious way this text reaches us is by teaching us again about Christ’s substitutionary death. Notice how many times Isaiah uses phrases like “he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows” . . . “he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities,” and so on. The text forces us to remember again all that he went through. For me. For you. But there’s another connection that I look forward to sharing with the church Sunday morning, Lord willing. Some verbal similarities suggest that Paul had this passage in mind when he wrote Philippians 2:1-11 (“Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, . . .”). The cross is more than just something that Christ did “for us.” It is an attitude that ought to fill our hearts, leading us to live out its principles “for others.” Jesus became a Suffering Servant for us so that we could learn to exhibit the same attitude for others. Just as he was abused, we will be mistreated. Just as the world disregarded him, so it will sometimes mock and scorn us. Just as Jesus received no immediate glory for what he did, our serving the world will usually be met with ignorance. But Jesus suffered anyway, because he knew what it would accomplish long-term–a lesson we must learn as well. So this beautiful text challenges us to be grateful for what Jesus did, but it also leads us to follow in the Servant’s footsteps. The post Pierced for our Transgressions appeared first on Hoover Church of Christ.
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The words of this Psalm may have been especially meaningful to Hezekiah. A few years earlier his kinfolks in the northern kingdom of Israel had been absolutely annihilated by the cruelest nation on earth–the Assyrians. And now the conquerors are back, this time with Judah and Jerusalem and Hezekiah in their sights. No army on earth was built to stop Assyria, and everybody knew that. Even Hezekiah knew that.
“. . . though the earth gives way, though the mountains be moved into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam, though the mountains tremble at its swelling . . .”
From a purely military standpoint, it must’ve seemed like Hezekiah’s world was indeed falling apart. Where do you turn when you hit bottom?
None of us have had the fortunes of a nation resting on our shoulders, but we’ve all had the uneasy feeling that everything is slipping out from under us. The career, perhaps, or the finances. Maybe our marriage or our kids or our health. Times when it seems we’re in freefall.
“though the earth gives way, though the mountains be moved into the heart of the sea . . .” Maybe that’s pretty much what it felt like.
What then? What now?
The confidence of the Psalmist is remarkable: “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear . . .”
“God is in the midst of her; she shall not be moved; God will help her when morning dawns.”
“The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress.”
“Be still, and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth!”
When the world seems to be falling down around us, we’ve got a kind of unshakable confidence that many people don’t. God is there, he’s present, he cares, he’s in control, and his fortress will never be moved.
That’s why we can Be still, and know that [he] is God.
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“Do not kill” is the sixth commandment, and everyone knows that it forbids murder–the intentional taking of an innocent human life.
But the implications of this commandment are far-reaching and address more than most of might think. In fact, the emphasis on the sanctity of life touches so many aspects of our lives–the way we think about murder, of course, but also how we think about the lives of the vulnerable, including the unborn. It also touches ethical issues that are prevalent in our modern society, including the death penalty, war, racism . . . any way in which we are tempted to devalue the lives of the people around us.
Lord willing, we’ll explore some of these implications this morning as we think about what God teaches us about life.
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Everyone has some sort of hope, I suppose . . . or at least almost everyone looks to something for security. For some it might be a job (i.e., “If I can accomplish this or that, then I’ll feel secure”). For others it might be money, or power, or relationships. When we hope in something, we turn to it for feelings of accomplishment, security, or identity. It gives us something to aim for, some reason to get up in the morning. People who lose hope struggle to function normally. As Christians, though, we turn to something more substantial and lasting. We don’t turn to “treasures on earth,” which are corrupted by moth or rust or are stolen by thieves (Matt. 6:19-21). Instead, God gives us hope of eternity . . . an “inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you” (1 Peter 1:4). For us, our jobs or our money don’t define us . . . because our hope–our identity–isn’t tied up in them. We know that we’ve got an inheritance that no one or nothing can take away. This hope, of course, is in Christ. It changes the way we live. It changes the way we face difficulty or disaster. It even changes the way we handle success. We know–because of the empty tomb–that this life is not all there is, and we hope for what Christ has waiting for all who trust in him. The post Hope appeared first on Hoover Church of Christ.
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The Christian life is difficult, at times–something we all can relate to. It involves sacrifices and sometimes persecutions, and occasionally we get discouraged. We might even want to quit.
The writer of Hebrews compares it to a race, and I suspect he’s thinking of a long-distance run, not a sprint. When you’re running a marathon, for example, the adrenaline runs out in the first part of the race, and you have to tough it out in order to finish.
The Christian life is similar. We begin with exuberance, so thrilled that we’ve been saved by God’s grace. Like the thorny soil in the Parable of the Sower, we’re excited about our new relationship with Christ. But then the sun starts to get hot, and the excitement wears out, and we’ve got to decide if we’ll keep going.
In our text, the writer beautifully urges his people to think about others who’ve run the race and to recognize the importance of endurance. He encourages them to identify the weights (sins) that might be holding them back, and then he helps them see Jesus as the one who’s run the race before them–and who endured the horrors of the cross in order to finish the race.
I hope this sermon and text will encourage all of our members to hang in there even when it gets hard, and that it’ll help younger Christians not to be surprised when the discouraging times come. God is faithful, and when we keep our eyes on Christ, he’ll make sure we finish the race and receive the crown.
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Jesus Christ meets our most basic human needs. We need companionship (we don’t want to be alone), we crave security (we don’t want to feel vulnerable), and we want a home–somewhere to belong (we don’t want to be rootless).
When God comes to Jacob, the patriarch is a fugitive who is alone and vulnerable. He’s been told by his parents to leave home–to leave the land of Canaan–and go about 450 miles to the northeast to find a wife. On that trip, he stops to sleep, and God appears to him in a dream and makes three promises: I am with you (you’re not alone), I will keep you (you’re not vulnerable), and I will bring you back to this land (you have a home).
It’s fascinating how Jesus uses this story in John 1 to show us something even more beautiful than what Jacob received. “Jacob’s Ladder,” for us, is actually a Person, and One who gives us everything that we truly need and want.
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This chapter is an odd and interesting conclusion to the book of Samuel. Chronologically, it almost certainly belongs to an earlier period in David’s life, so the author probably intended for it to be a kind of summary of David’s life.
In a similar way to last week’s text (Psalm 51), David shows an attitude of remorse–probably the reason why God blessed him with a kingdom that would survive his death.
But the focus here is on God, who does something that is almost inexplicable, and it should probably stand as something that we can’t fully explain. We simply can’t put God into a neat little box where all of his actions are fully understandable by our finite minds.
Where this chapter points, though, is toward God’s mercy. Israel and David had done something that deserved to be punished, but God stopped his punishment before it was fully realized.
Here’s what we’ll observe about this text Sunday morning . . . please notice particularly the last point.
- We don’t always understand God’s ways.
- But we trust in his sovereignty and mercy.
- We learn from David’s penitent and sacrificial spirit.
- This site becomes the place that most beautiful represents God’s mercy and kindness.
We learn from other texts that this is the same area where Abraham “offered” up Isaac, and the same place where Solomon would later build the temple. So this is a special place–one where God would repeatedly refuse to bring about the punishment that people deserved (symbolized by the thousands and thousands of animal sacrifices that would be offered on this site in future years). And, of course, Jesus’s sacrifice would be the one that would finally and ultimately bring animal sacrifices to an end. There God said once and for all that he forgives our sins completely . . . and gives us mercy instead of judgment.
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Psalm 51 is one of the most famous of all the Psalms, perhaps because we’re drawn to the emotional rawness and vulnerability that it reflects. According to tradition, David wrote this psalm after Nathan had come to him and convicted him of the sins he had committed against Bathsheba and her husband, but especially against God.
We’ll reflect Sunday morning on what this Psalm teaches us about the ugliness of sin and what it does to us. We’ll think about how David’s response models how we should feel when we rebel against God’s will for us. And we’ll talk about the beauty of a “broken and contrite heart.”
Sometimes our hearts need to be broken, and we need to acknowledge the secret sins of our own hearts. God often waits to bless us with healing and freedom until our hearts are truly convicted.
And then, of course, he showers with his grace.
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We’re about to send six high school graduates off as they begin the next phase of life. Their lives will change significantly as they experience the world without being watched as closely by their parents. So I planned this sermon with them in mind. As the sermon developed, though, I became more convicted that it is a message that everyone in our congregation needs to hear. The temptation that affected Israel in Samuel’s day–to allow the spirit of the age to become their own–is the same that affects people in our time. The movement afloat in America that is gaining traction in many demographics–particularly Gen Z and Millennials–is to embrace Christianity as little more than a way to engage in social justice issues. It is a form of progressivism that turns its back on the historic teachings of the Church regarding the deity of Christ, his virgin birth and bodily resurrection, the inspiration of Scripture, sex as God’s gift to a husband and wife only, the sanctity of life, etc. So many people are embracing a different form of Christianity–one that is defined more by its commitment to social and political agendas than it is to the inspired teachings of Scripture . . . one that encourages tolerance and acceptance over any kind of commitment to Truth and one that redefines love in terms of sentimentalism (“just love and accept everyone regardless of lifestyle”). So in this sermon I plan to talk briefly about 1 Samuel 8 and its context, but then we’ll use the principle embedded in it to speak to our time. I hope to point to some of the trends in our country that can draw us away from Christ if we’re not vigilant. The post How is Our Culture Affecting Us? “That We May Be Like All the Nations” appeared first on Hoover Church of Christ.
Sunday is Easter, of course, and people throughout the world will reflect in some sense on the resurrection of Christ. I chose Peter’s sermon in Acts 2 as my text because it was the first sermon preached after the resurrection, and so it was the first sermon from the apostles that was shaped by their new awareness of who Jesus really was.
Notice how Peter uses the phrase “This Jesus” three times in his sermon:
- “. . . this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men” (2:23)
- “This Jesus God raised up, and of that we all are witnesses” (2:32).
- “Let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified” (2:36).
And the angels also used it in the previous chapter: “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven? This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven” (1:11).
The phrase points to the theme of the preaching throughout Acts: “This Jesus.” I plan to focus on how Peter uses the phrase in Acts 2: “This Jesus” was proven to be the Son of God by his wonderful works, was delivered up to be crucified, was raised up from the grave, and was ultimately exalted to God’s right hand.
That’s where our faith is centered, and that’s where we’ll focus our attention Sunday morning: “This Jesus.”
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To be frank, the book of Judges is one of the most discouraging books in the Bible. If you’re caught up with our Bible reading plan, you’ll finish Judges this Saturday, and you’ll probably be relieved in some ways. There’s a lot of evil in this book. If you didn’t know how things were going to go, you probably began this book with a bit of hopefulness. After years of waiting, God’s people had finally entered the land of Canaan and possessed it. Joshua had led the people decisively and faithfully. Things were on an upward trajectory. Only they weren’t. Do you remember back in Deuteronomy when God warned the people about Canaan? He had said that they would need to be very careful when they entered Canaan because the pagan people groups there would “Canaanize” them . . . in other words, Israel would conform their practices and beliefs to those of the idolatrous Canaanite nations. What we see in Judges is the exact fulfillment of God’s warning, summarized by the Scripture reading for this sermon: “In those days there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes” (Judges 17:6; 21:25). What happens when people forget God and do things their own way? What happens when we follow our own wisdom apart from God’s revelation? To answer those questions, all you have to do is read Judges. It’s horrible, especially the last three chapters: selfishness, rape, mutilation, civil war, slaughter, more rape, . . . [And maybe, for a closer-to-home example, all you have to do is look around at our world . . .] In the sermon Sunday I hope to help us think about the story of Judges and what God wants to teach us in this book. It’s a negative book, but no story is ultimately negative when viewed through a gospel-shaped lens. Thankfully, we can read Judges from a perspective shaped by our commitment to Christ as King. There IS a King in Israel, and He is Jesus Christ, King of all kings. The post What Was Right in Their Eyes appeared first on Hoover Church of Christ.
After hundreds and hundreds of years and in spite of recent disappointments, the moment has come for God to lead Israel into Canaan, the land that he’d promised generations earlier to Abraham. Jericho stood before them, though, fully intent on resisting Israel’s attempts to take the city.
Will it work? Will Israel succeed, or will they doubt God as their parents had done a few decades earlier?
This is a story that has fascinated people for thousands of years. It’s been used in countless Vacation Bible Schools and Sunday School classes over the years because of the way that it dramatically illustrates how God works so powerfully when people trust him.
Tomorrow morning we’ll explore this story and what it teaches us about the power of God, and also about our own faith. We’ll try to dig beneath the surface a bit and discern why God preserved this story for Israel and for us.
Does God still tear down walls? If so, which ones, and how? The post The Walls Came Tumbling Down appeared first on Hoover Church of Christ.
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Is God kind or severe? Does he act out of love or justice? Is he patient or wrathful?
Our congregational reading plan had us beginning with Deuteronomy on Thursday, and if we haven’t read the Old Testament in awhile, we’re probably a bit overwhelmed with how God presents himself to the Israelites. In fact, if I may say so, sometimes God seems a little harsh and demanding.
We’re going to wrestle with this theme Sunday morning, considering how God is portrayed throughout Scripture. Our theme verse will be Romans 11:22 (“the kindness and the severity of God”), but we’ll actually spend most of our time in a couple of chapters near the end of Deuteronomy.
As you probably know, God can’t easily be put into any of our neat little theological boxes. He’s not an either-or kind of God. The post The Kindness and Severity of God appeared first on Hoover Church of Christ.
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Our goal as a church is to support one another in our walk with Christ. We want one day to hear these words from Jesus, “Come, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world,” and nothing will ever be sweeter.
But, of course, the Christian life isn’t easy, and we need a little help along the way. Sometimes that help comes in the form of an encouraging talk from a brother or sister, or even perhaps a corrective word.
The passage for Sunday is difficult–not because it’s hard to understand, but rather because it’s easy to understand but hard to practice. Most of us would prefer doing almost anything rather than confronting a fellow believer about something he or she is doing.
But that’s what Paul tells us to do. He says that believers ought to have difficult conversations with one another from time to time. After all, if we had no one who was willing to challenge us on something we were doing–in the interest of helping us on our journey of faith, of course–that would be sad, wouldn’t it?
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A few months ago a famous, extremely influential megachurch pastor preached a sermon in which he said Christians needed to “unhitch from the Old Testament.” He’s been roundly criticized by people all over the world, including quite a few in the Church of Christ. Though most of us wouldn’t say what he said out loud, we might’ve thought it. The Old Testament, to put it bluntly, makes us uncomfortable. Bad things happen, sometimes with God’s approval, it seems, and at other times when he just seems to look the other way. In some ways we might be tempted to “unhitch” ourselves from the first testament; it would help us avoid some of the thorny problems of rampant bloodshed and unthinkable immorality.
But Jesus doesn’t give us that option. In our text for Sunday morning, Paul points to a couple of examples in the Old Testament, and he doesn’t seem embarrassed in the slightest. Instead of making excuses or apologies for what happened there, he tells the church in Corinth that they’d do well to read the Old Testament more carefully, not less. In fact, the Old Testament was the Bible Jesus read, and it was the one used by Peter, Paul, James, and John as well. In fact, the 66-book Bible as we know it was quite a ways off throughout the years of the early church.
What does this mean? What do we do with the Old Testament? These are questions we’ll wrestle with Sunday morning. Truth be told, the first 3/4 of our Bible tells us things we dare not miss . . . things about the nature of God and how he relates to his creation. It was, as Paul put it, “written down for our instruction, on whom the end of the ages has come.”
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Timothy was probably discouraged by the demands of his ministry and needed a pick-me-up from his mentor, Paul. The apostle wanted him to do effective work, of course, so he wrote him a short letter to lift his spirits. It’s pretty amazing how much of this letter is good advice for all of us.
Near the end of the letter, Paul gives some quick hitters. It’s almost like Timothy needed his older mentor to sum it all up for him. What does it mean to be a Christian? What should I focus on?
It’s not easy, but it’s simple, Paul says: You need to run away from some things (like the dangers of money that Paul had just discussed). You need to run toward some things (like righteousness, godliness, faith, etc.). And you need to remember that the Christian life is a fight (it’s not something we do passively).
Sunday morning I’ll try to help our congregation embrace Paul’s take on the Christian life. It’s a life that requires constant diligence, but it’ll all be worth it when we see “the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ” (v 14). The post But as for You . . . appeared first on Hoover Church of Christ.
What is the best way to clearly show that no inconsistency exists between the creation stories of Genesis 1:1-2:3 and Genesis 2:4-22?
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In Genesis 3:16, God was talking to the woman, and most translations say that he told her that her desire would be FOR her husband. Why does the ESV state, “Your desire shall be contrary to your husband”?
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During the slave-holding past, pro-slavery proponents used Genesis 9:26-27 to justify slavery by saying that slaves were the descendants of Ham who were cursed to serve. The overall teaching of scripture supports the dignity of all humanity, and we can all agree that slavery is reprehensible, but . . . 1. Noah seems to be at fault for drunkenness and nakedness, so why is Ham in trouble for seeing him? 2. Is the problem one of disrespect because Ham told his brothers? 3. Is there a difference between being cursed by God and being cursed by Noah?
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Concerning Genesis 6:19 and Genesis 7:2-3, 9, 14, why are there so many differences in the numbers of animals gathered to be added to the ark?
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God’s beautiful story * Act 1: God establishes his Kingdom: Creation * Act 2: Rebellion in the Kingdom: Fall * Act 3: The King chooses Israel: Redemption Initiated * Interlude: A Kingdom Story Waiting for an Ending * Act 4: The Coming of the King: Redemption Accomplished * Act 5: Spreading the News of the King: The Mission of the Church * Act 6: The Return of the King: Redemption Completed
Key themes in Genesis 1-11 * Yahweh creates by bringing order and beauty out of chaos and darkness. * Humans are the divine image bearers * Human selfishness and sin lead to the fracturing of the divine-human relationship and the ruin of human relationship on all levels (chs 3-11) * Yahweh responds to human sin in two ways: He brings justice on rebellion and offers grace by promising future blessing for His world (chs 3-11)
Things to look for in Genesis 12-50 * Yahweh initiates his plan to rescue humanity through his covenant with the family of Abraham (ch 12) * God’s blessing to the nations through Abraham provides the foundational storyline for the rest of the Bible. * The drama of Gen 12-50 consists of the sin and folly of the family of Abraham and how they constantly put God’s promises into jeopardy. * God remains committed to this family and his promises, and constantly intervenes to rescue them. * The pattern of how God works in the world begins in Genesis and continues through the Bible: he works through people of low status who are weak or marginalized.
Source: The Bible Project
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“We become what we repeatedly do”–Sean Covey.
Every year as the calendar flips, many of us get caught up in the dream of change, and in so many ways this is a beautiful thing. Justin Earley writes, “There is common grace in a calendar that regularly presents us with opportunities to reconsider how we live. The flurry of resolutions made this time of year reminds us that we really do long to be made new.”
But true renewal is only in Christ, of course. As Christians, we should be more introspective than most, and we recognize the myriad ways that our hearts need to be reshaped. In the sermon Sunday I hope to challenge our congregation to consider focusing on habits this year. Resolutions are often vague and sweeping, and usually, collective amnesia sets in before winter ends. Habits, though, are different. We make daily choices that determine the kind of people we are, and I plan to encourage all of us to be intentional in developing daily habits that equip us to continue the emphases that we stressed last year: Love God and Neighbor. And good daily habits will also help us benefit from our commitment to delight in Scripture over the next twelve months.
In the text above Paul writes that his goal is to “gain Christ and be found in him” . . . to “know him and the power of his resurrection.” This year will pass, and it’ll probably pass a little more quickly than last year. But we have the unbelievable opportunity to partner with God as he reshapes us in his image.
He does this bit by bit, day by day, though, and a simple yet powerful way we work with him is through intentionally developing heart-shaping daily habits–what one writer calls “liturgies of worship.”
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Jesus’ birth narratives are fascinating, and they’re loaded with powerful statements about who Jesus was and what he came to do. Unfortunately, these important teachings are sometimes obscured by the Christmas season as the birth of Jesus is romanticized and sanitized (or ignored). Of all the gospel writers, Luke includes the most historical details about Jesus’ birth, and Sunday we’re going to study and reflect on his version of this beautiful story.
Last week we studied his account of John the Baptist’s birth, and Luke intentionally includes some parallels between the two births. He also writes about some significant differences, one of which was the “multitude of the heavenly host praising God” (2:13). Luke wants his readers to recognize clearly that this baby was different from John: greater in every respect, One so special that God sent the angels of heaven to sing a hymn on the night of his birth. This baby was the fulfillment of promises God had made years before, and the world would never be the same again. “For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord” (2:11).
But at the same time, God made a more subtle statement about the kind of Savior Jesus would be: the announcement came to a group of shepherds in the hills around Bethlehem. Contrary to how shepherds are often perceived–particularly in the Christmas season–they weren’t these idyllic, peaceful caretakers of sheep that we might’ve thought. They were generally regarded as dishonest and best left alone by good religious folks. But this fits with the theme of Luke’s gospel: Jesus came to minister to the humble and poor, so it was appropriate that the first locals to hear about the birth of God’s Son were these humble shepherds avoided by others.
In other words, this birth story encapsulates the theology of the incarnation: God–the eternal and sovereign Creator of the universe–became a helpless baby whose birth was first announced not among the rich and powerful of Rome but among the poor and humble of the Judean countryside.
This is why we live as people of hope–because of who this baby was. And what he did when he grew up.
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The way Luke chooses to begin this chapter is fascinating . . . he sets the stage by listing the most powerful people in the world, starting with the Emperor of Rome and narrowing in on the local secular and religious leaders. And then he takes us to John, an eccentric character who receives God’s word in the wilderness. Tiberius reigns in Rome, but Luke wants us to see what God is doing in the backwater region of Judea: he’s leading John the Baptist as he prepares the path for the One who comes after him.
Tomorrow I plan to lead our congregation in an exploration of what Luke teaches us about John as he prepares the world for the coming of the Messiah. Luke’s message for his world applies to us as well: God knows who’s ruling in Washington and London and Beijing, but he’s doing world-changing work in places few people have ever heard of.
John helped lead his world to Jesus, and he’s still doing that today.
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This is the last of the sermons I’ll preach in 2018 on the theme for the year: Love God. Love People. Change the World. I will try to wrap it up, summarizing the theme as we end the year and look toward a new one. There’s plenty of evidence around us that loving God and the people he created will need to be a continual emphasis of Christians everywhere. We’re surrounded by hate and violence and political division. What the world needs from us more than ever is for us to model love and compassion and truth.
Thought I won’t go into great detail, I will look briefly at the Parable of the Good Samaritan as an example of what Loving God by Loving People looks like, and I’ll encourage our church to let this emphasis be a motto for their Christian lives as we move forward.
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The essence of Satan’s nature is that he lies to and about us. He loves to make accusations concerning us, and here’s one of his favorites:
About the good news of Jesus Christ, he’ll say one of two things: For some people, he tells them that they’re too bad, that they have no hope for mercy. “Your sins are worse than everybody else’s . . . God doesn’t show mercy to people like you.” And many people believe him, assuming there’s no hope for them.
On the other hand, he tells some people that they’re good enough not to need the gospel . . . people like them don’t really need forgiveness. “Well, at least you’re not like those awful sinners who do _____ and ______. God’s actually pretty happy with where you are.” And many people buy in to this notion of self-righteousness. “I’m not really that bad . . .”
But as you know, the message of the gospel is for everyone. No sinner is beyond the reach of God’s mercy, and no one is good enough not to need it.
All have sinned, Paul says, and all need the gospel, regardless of what they’ve done. And the good news is–it’s freely accessible to everyone.
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A few weeks back I started a four-part series under the heading, “Why We’re Here,” focusing on Luke’s description of the earliest Christians in Acts 2:42-47. The previous sermons have emphasized the church as a learning community, a sharing community, and an eating together community.
For this last sermon in the series, I’m going to emphasize the church as a worshiping community.
If you’ve traveled to Europe, you’ve noticed that what used to be the center of Christianity–as indicated by the large number of vast cathedrals–is now largely irreligious. Many of these cathedrals exist as little more than stopping points for tourists who marvel at their beauty and architecture.
Surveys suggest that we’re following in the footsteps of our cousins across the pond. There’s a correlation between age and church attendance in America: younger people are much less likely to attend religious services regularly than older folks. Many people do not see the value in taking time out of their weekend to worship.
Are worship services going extinct? Should they? Are they irrelevant to the coming generations?
We’ll reflect on these questions in the sermon time Sunday morning. I believe–as I hope you do–that corporate worship is a crucial part of spiritual formation in the lives of Christian communities, and we neglect them at our own spiritual peril.
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On each month’s first Sunday morning in 2018, we’ve emphasized our theme: Love God. Love People. Change the World. As we near the end of the year I’m using a couple of these Sunday morning sermons to emphasize the last part of that theme: Change the World.
God put us here to make a difference, not for us just to meet weekly and talk about how bad the world is, but for us to worship so that we might be present in the world as people who reflect Christ’s light to those who need it so badly. In the text above Paul challenges the Christians at Philippi to recognize their role as “lights in the world” (v. 15). In the “midst of a crooked and twisted generation,” Christians are to be “blameless and innocent.” In a world of darkness, we are to be light.
No one would argue with the darkness of our world: hatred, division, violence, immorality. But what are we doing about it? How are we challenging the prevailing norms of our society? How are churches–small communities of Jesus-followers–functioning as darkness-dispelling beams of light?
How are we salt? How are we light?
In this text Paul helps us think about this, and he challenges us to live so that the world takes notice and wants to know more about the Source of this light.
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This is the third of a four-part series called “Why We’re Here.” I’m aiming to help us as a church think introspectively about some practical reasons why God put us here. To do this, we’re considering Luke’s description of the earliest Christians.
The third thing Luke writes that these Christians were devoted to is “the breaking of bread.” Sometimes that expression means the Lord’s Supper, and it may very well have that meaning here. But sometimes it refers to normal meals, and since verses 46-47 (included above) suggest that these Christians were “breaking bread in their homes,” we’re going to reflect on the importance of Christians engaging in table fellowship (part four will be on worship).
Actually, this Sunday we’ll do more than think about eating meals together . . . we’ll think about the significance of meals throughout Scripture with an emphasis on the life of Jesus and how he seemed to spend quite a bit of his ministry time sitting around a table with people. And we’ll think about what that means to us. In Scripture it’s clear that God wants us to fellowship with one another around tables, but he also wants us to think about the table in other, fascinating ways. We’ll flesh those out Sunday morning, Lord willing.
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We live in a world where many people—especially younger adults—are turning away from organized religion. They still believe in God, but for different reasons they no longer see the need to be a part of a church—a local, visible community of people who are following Jesus.
In this world, we in the church need to ask ourselves: Why are we here? Why should Christians be involved in a local church? Why did God put us here?
This was the second of four sermons in a series that discusses those questions. We’re using the four things to which the early Christians had “devoted themselves”: “the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers” (Acts 2:42). On the first Sunday we looked at “the apostles’ teaching,” and this past Sunday we considered the second: “the fellowship.”
The basic meaning of the word translated “fellowship” is “association, communion, fellowship, close relationship.” It often refers to the sharing of possessions or money with people in need, and the context suggests that it refers to that idea here. The early Christians shared what they had with one another. We also notice that Paul uses this same word in 2 Corinthians 8-9 to discuss the need for churches to send financial relief to struggling churches.
Here’s the most important point we observed Sunday: a fundamental change that Christians embrace when they decide to follow Jesus is that because they know God has poured out his grace on them, they pour out blessings on the people around them. God has given everything to us, so we freely share with others.
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It’s important for churches to ask themselves the question in the sermon title: Why are we here?
And it’s important for members of churches to ask themselves a similar question: Why am I a member of this church? What is God doing through this church and through me for us to experience a mutual blessing?
Luke’s description of the earliest Christians is exhilarating: these men and women had found what they had been searching for their whole lives–the promised Messiah, the descendant of David who would bless the nations. In our text, Luke describes what these early Christians emphasized, and Sunday we’ll focus on one verse initially, and then one phrase within that verse. The followers of Jesus “devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers” (v. 42).
The first of those phrases is the “apostles’ teaching,” and it points to the importance of their being learners, or disciples. They needed to learn so much about who Jesus was and how they should follow him.
This text helps us think about a couple of things: One, we in the church are to be in the disciple-making business. We’re not here to fill pews or balance budgets . . . we’re here to help people become what they were created to be: fully invested, sacrificial, totally devoted followers of the resurrected Christ. When we get too busy with the minutiae of “doing church,” we can forget about this calling.
Two, every member of the Hoover church should be committed to being a disciple, a learner. Becoming a Christian isn’t like joining a club; it’s a complete change in how we think, live, believe, and act.
Here are the four questions we’ll conclude with:
- Who are the disciples in a church community, and who are called to make disciples?
- When does it happen?
- Where and how does it happen?
- What does it mean for you to be a part of the Hoover Church of Christ?
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As you know, our theme this year has been “Love God. Love People. Change the World.” This Sunday we turn our attention to the last of those three descriptions of what we are called to do: Change the World.
Few would disagree with the fact that the world is messed up in so many ways. Our country is struggling: raging political rivalries, persistent racial tension, widespread addictions, increasing immorality. But of course this is not a new development; the world apart from God has always embraced attitudes that are self-destructive.
In the middle of this mess God has placed us, his church, to be an influence for good. That has always been his plan for his people, which he hinted at when he said Abraham’s descendants would bless “all the families of the earth.” And God’s church has been an active force for good in many ways since Jesus created it 2,000 years ago.
But it’s tempting for us to forget that God put us here to make a difference in the world. We’re called to do more than “go to church” . . . we are to “be” the church, which means that we avoid an inward-focused selfishness, look out at the world, and ask: “Why has God put us here in this community? How can he use us to change the world?”
God put the Hoover Church of Christ here to be agents for change in the lives of people who ignore what they were created to be. I plan to emphasize that truth Sunday morning.
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In so many ways Abraham’s life has always been moving here. It’s been 40+ years since God first appeared to him, making him the promise about a land, a nation, and a blessing. It’s been 15+ years since the promised son Isaac was born, and Abraham and Sarah have certainly been thinking about the future. All of their hopes were bound up in this young man. Or so it seemed.
And now this. God asks the unthinkable. A human sacrifice? Of Isaac, the beloved son?
For thousands of years, people have wrestled with this story, trying to make sense of it. At some point, though, we must simply recognize that God is sovereign and loving and that he has the right to test his people. He already knows how Abraham will respond, of course.
For Abraham who lived out this story and for Israel who later read it, they needed to know that God is always to be trusted. He is God, and his ways are beyond ours.
From our vantage point, we read the story and see hints of something else, something better. We think of another hill, another young man, another sacrifice.
After Isaac’s life had been spared and Abraham saw what God had done, he named this place, “The LORD will provide.”
God provided what Abraham needed most att that moment, and we serve the same God today. He will provide–and has provided–what we so desperately need.
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It had been almost a quarter of a century since God promised Abraham that he would be the father of a great nation. Now he’s 99 years old, and (one would think) he’s pretty much given up hope. What 99-year-old man and 89-year-old woman are able to bring a child into the world?
But of course God’s timetable is different from ours, and for reasons only he knows he decides now is the time for the long-awaited promised son to be conceived. He reaffirms the covenant-promise to Abraham and asks him to demonstrate his trust in the promise by being circumcised. This physical act would become an incredibly important ritual act for Israel, the nation that descended from Abraham.
Circumcision would distinguish Israel from other nations, but it would also take on some of the trappings that many rites do—becoming little more than a physical act and losing its connection to a larger purpose: God’s selecting Israel to be his people to bless the world.
In the sermon Sunday we considered how God’s covenant-promise still requires a kind of circumcision of those who want to be his children. We also reflected on the potential pitfalls of religious rites.
At the foundation of this story—as is so often the case—is a matter of trust. Abraham still struggles to trust that God can bring life out of barrenness . . . and perhaps that’s something we still struggle with as well.
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What do we do when we face unfulfilled dreams? When life doesn’t turn out the way we want? When God doesn’t seem to be doing the things that he said he would?
Sometimes we “help” God. We do his work for him to “encourage” him to do what he said he would.
The problem is—that rarely turns out well.
But we can probably relate to Sarai’s frustration, can’t we? She was older and the chances of her conceiving a child were almost non-existent. That would be devastating for her, especially given God’s promise that she and her husband Abraham would be the parents of a family that would eventually bless the world.
If you had been in her shoes, what would you have done? What should she have done?
In this story, what do we learn? About God? About trusting God?
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Broadly speaking, we look at the world in two ways: by sight and by faith. Looking by sight is viewing the world around us in an unspiritual way–the way most of the world looks at things. So we make decisions based on what makes us most comfortable, what’s the easiest, what will bring the most immediate and greatest pleasures, etc.
Looking by faith is looking at the world through a spiritual lens. We look beneath the surface to the true essence of things–the way they really are. We look beyond the temporal to the eternal, beyond the mere physical to the spiritual.
Our text gives a clear example of both: Abraham trusted God, so he was willing to give Lot first choice on which land to inhabit. When you live by faith, you become open to risk . . . you know God controls the future.
Lot, on the other hand, looked around him and saw what everybody could see: the land to the east was well-watered and prosperous and offered him the greatest chance of living the good life with prosperity and success.
Which kind of life are we called to live? Which approach offers the greatest hope?
We’ll consider this story and those questions on Sunday.
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It’s a good thing that we don’t always get what we deserve, isn’t it? And it’s a good thing that God’s carrying out his plan doesn’t depend on our doing what we’re supposed to do.
Here’s a true statement that should bring us joy: God is faithful . . . even when we aren’t.
In the first part of Genesis 12 God called Abraham and promised to use him to make a huge difference in the world, with the culminating promise that through him all the families of the earth would be blessed. After receiving this promise Abraham’s very first action was to leave the land God had promised him and travel down to Egypt where he promptly brought plagues on the people there. Instead of bringing blessings, he brought plagues.
An inauspicious beginning to Abraham’s walk with God, no doubt.
And yet at the end of the story that we’ll study tomorrow, God has protected and blessed Abraham, in spite of the patriarch’s poor choices.
One of the takeaways for us is that this is the kind of God we serve: a God who blesses us in spite of ourselves. He’s faithful, even when we aren’t.
The Bible is a book filled with stories of faithlessness on the part of God’s people, yet God accomplishes his purposes anyway. Ultimately, God faithfully offers himself to bless the world. The sacrifice of Christ is the most beautiful expression of faithfulness that we’ve ever seen.
God is always faithful to his promises. He’s a God who accomplishes his purposes . . . even when we (like Abraham) don’t act as we should.
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It’s hard to love people who make us angry, isn’t it? And the people with whom we disagree on very fundamental things, like God, morality, and good and evil.
And people who have hurt us or our families, or who make life difficult for us at work or school. Or people who talk about us behind our backs.
The list could go on, I suppose.
Jesus says to love even them. Especially them.
Part of what makes us different from those who don’t follow Jesus is that we try to follow his spirit of selfless love, of loving the unlovable . . . the “Father, forgive them” kind of love that he extended to the people who nailed him to the cross.
Perhaps no command he gave is harder, and maybe no command is more important in our world that needs so desperately to see a Jesus kind of enemy-love. The post Love Your Enemies appeared first on Hoover Church of Christ.
Three weeks ago I introduced a short sermon series (click here to view) about the importance of seeing Jesus as he is portrayed in the Bible, and not just in the way that makes us most comfortable. We all like to think about the Jesus who held babies and forgave sinners and ate dinner at tax collectors’ houses. We may not be as comfortable with “that other side of Jesus”: the one who turns over tables, talks about “weeping and gnashing of teeth,” and excoriates the “scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites.”
But in order to read the Bible faithfully, we need to see Jesus as he is, not necessarily as we wish him to be. Tomorrow we’ll look at one of the stories he told, and this one has this interesting and quite scary language: “fiery furnace . . . [where] there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”
A fiery furnace? Weeping and gnashing of teeth? Do these words actually come from the mouth of Jesus, the “Prince of Peace”?
Yes, they do, and you may be surprised (or not) to know that he spoke fairly often of a frightening judgment that awaits those who reject him.
What do we do with this side of Jesus? What do we do with our loving Savior when speaks in such negative ways?
It might challenge us, but one option that is not available is to dismiss him. To accept only the version of Jesus that makes us feel good isn’t really accepting him at all, because he comes to us as one who is both loving and holy, a God of both mercy and judgment.
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Two weeks ago I introduced a short sermon series about the importance of seeing Jesus as he is portrayed in the Bible, and not just in the way that makes us most comfortable. We all like to think about the Jesus who held babies and forgave sinners and ate dinner at tax collectors’ houses. We may not be as comfortable with “that other side of Jesus”: the one who turns over tables, talks about “weeping and gnashing of teeth” and excoriates the “scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites.”
But in order to read the Bible faithfully, we need to see Jesus as he is, not necessarily as we wish him to be. This Sunday we’ll look at one of the more famous stories about “that other side of Jesus”–the one where he goes into the temple and drives the money-changers out and turns over their tables.
It’s fascinating to consider: what would make Jesus angry enough to engage in such uncharacteristically violent behavior? What was going through his mind? And what does this teach us today?
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I ran across an article that was published back in February, and it inspired the sermon for this Sunday (as well as a few to follow). If you’d like to read the article, it’s here.
All of us like to think about the Jesus who welcomes sinners and speaks words of compassion to those who are hurting. And people need to see that Jesus because some of them never have.
But there’s another side of Jesus that’s presented in the gospel accounts as well. It’s the Jesus who turns over tables, talks about “weeping and gnashing of teeth,” and calls people “hypocrites.” These two “sides” of Jesus don’t contradict each other; rather, they present Jesus as he was–a complicated Being who shows us what God is like.
This Sunday morning we will reflect on these two presentations of Jesus and think about how followers (and would-be followers) of Jesus need to think about him from different vantage points so that we learn him as he is. He is the epitome of love, and he’s also someone who makes us squirm in our seats.
And then later this month we’re going to look at a few specific examples that illustrate this “other side of Jesus.”
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Is there a greater responsibility than that given to parents? We have many families-with-children in our congregation, and most of us probably wring our hands in despair at times over the challenges that come with being parents. Every era has its challenges, and ours certainly contains its share: changing views regarding sexuality, the always-on, always-available entertainment culture, increasingly busy schedules, etc. . . . What do we do? How do we raise kids who love the Lord and resist the pressures of our time?
We’ll reflect on these questions tomorrow, along with the psalmist who hints at the answer with these beginning words: “Unless the Lord builds the house . . .”
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Judah was in a truly desperate situation—exiled in Babylon with no hope of ever getting home (from a human perspective, at least). To illustrate their situation, God takes Ezekiel and by the Spirit puts him in a valley of dry bones. There was no sign of life in them, representing Judah’s hopeless existence.
But then God breathed new life into them, and he told Ezekiel what this vision meant. God would breathe new life into his people and restore them to their land. And, as you may remember, this is exactly what happened. God raised up a Persian king who defeated the Babylonians and let the people return to Jerusalem and rebuild the walls, the temple, and their lives.
The story had real significance to the exiled people, of course, but perhaps it’s appropriate to extrapolate certain applications from the story to our lives. It applies to our spiritual situations—we were (or are) dead in our sins and consequently helpless and hopeless (see Ephesians 2:1-10). But God stepped in through Jesus Christ . . .
Perhaps it also applies to other desperation situations in which we find ourselves. Can God resurrect a dead marriage? Can he restore the faith of our children or other loved ones? Can he heal our addictions? Can he take truly hopeless situations and breathe new life into them?
The valley of dry bones says he can. And of course, we see that most clearly in the dead body that lay in the tomb from Friday till everything changed on Sunday morning, foreshadowing our own future resurrections when our “dry bones” will live again. God loves to breathe new life into things that are dead.
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In the month of May, we’re having a “Train up a Child” campaign—we’re hoping to be able to fill all of our children’s Bible class rotations with teachers through May 2019.
In conjunction with this emphasis, we studied the text above. We discussed how children weren’t highly valued in the world of antiquity for different reasons, which may explain why the disciples discouraged people from bringing them to Jesus. The disciples also probably had an inflated sense of their own importance, and they may have thought Jesus was too busy to take time for kids. There were badly mistaken, of course—Mark’s account demonstrates this more clearly than Matthew’s: “But when Jesus saw it, he was indignant . . .” (Mark 10:14). Jesus wasn’t happy with people who ignored children.
It must’ve been a memorable sight: the hands that fashioned this world into existence reached down and scooped up little kids and blessed them (“And he took them in his arms and blessed them, laying his hands on them,” Mark 10:16).
We applied this story to our church family: (1) Children matter; and (2) Children’s souls matter. Most of us have attended or visited churches with few children, and it doesn’t speak well of those churches’ future. At Hoover we’ve been blessed with a lot of young children, and God expects us to treat them as Jesus did: to love them and bless them. We have an hour or two each week to shape the hearts of these children, so we must take advantage of these opportunities.
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One of the most amazing things about the Bible is its beautiful unity and cohesiveness . . . It tells one over-arching story about what God is doing in the world. One remarkable symbol of that is the Tree of Life, which is mentioned first in the creation narrative of Genesis 1-2. Then, after the Fall, God casts humanity out of the Garden of Eden and away from the Tree.
But it’s interesting that we find subtle references to the Tree throughout Scripture. At various places in the Old Testament, echoes of the Tree are found in the Tabernacle and Temple. And then we find the culmination of the story at the very end of the Bible when John sees us reunited with the Tree once again. So in a way, the Tree of Life frames the entire biblical narrative: it’s mentioned at the beginning of Creation, and it’s emphasized in the last two chapters of Scripture.
In this sermon, we’ll study how the Tree symbolizes God’s presence and how the Fall led to our being separated from him. But we’ll also emphasize the beauty of what God has waiting for us: that day when all of God’s people will once again eat of the Tree of Life and will be restored to his presence in a way that we can only imagine.
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Our 2018 theme is “Love God. Love People. Change the World,” and this Sunday we’re going to continue this emphasis by studying Jesus’ post-resurrection interaction with Peter. Just a few weeks earlier Peter had infamously denied any connection to Jesus and had almost certainly been dealing with overwhelming guilt and regret since then. Corresponding to Peter’s denial of Jesus three times, Jesus asked Peter if he loved him three times. We’re going to focus primarily on the first question: “Do you love me more than these?”
Scholars debate what the word “these” refers to, and we don’t know for sure. Perhaps the ambiguity is intentional, though, leading us to wrestle with the things we’re tempted to love more than Jesus. Elsewhere in Scripture we read writers referring to competitors like money, self, the world, and even family.
After looking at John 21 and briefly considering the competitors mentioned elsewhere, we’ll use the question as a springboard for application to our church family. What is your “these”? What do you love more than God? Power? Money? Sex? Recognition? Approval? Security?
All of us are tempted to find our sense of identity and value in something beside our relationship to Jesus, so hopefully God will use this lesson to probe our hearts for these temptations. I pray that God’s Spirit will convict us to seek and love God above all else.
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Today is Easter and millions of people around the world commemorated the resurrection of Christ. Of all the events in Jesus’ life, none is more significant or more life-changing than the empty tomb. He died on Friday, but that death would have been meaningless had his tomb remained occupied early Sunday morning. When the apostles preached, they emphasized the resurrection more than anything else.
We studied 1 Corinthians 15, probably the earliest account of the resurrection in the New Testament. The Corinthians apparently had been influenced by some early Greek thinking that led them to believe that there would not be a bodily resurrection, and Paul responds to that in this chapter.
He grounds his thoughts about a bodily resurrection in the resurrection of Christ and explores its implications for believers today. The main point here is that the resurrection changes everything. It validates Jesus as the Christ, and for us it confirms that the God who raised Jesus’ body from the tomb will one day raise our bodies to live eternally in the new heavens and earth. This conviction completely changes how we live our lives (our priorities, our values, the way we face difficulties, etc.).
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Last Sunday we studied the importance of trusting God: it changes everything about us, from the way we face tragedies to the consistency with which we obey.
All of us want to trust God more, but how do we? That’s the point of the message this Sunday. Romans 8 is one of the most beautiful and most-loved chapters in the whole Bible. In the culminating paragraph at the end, Paul encourages the Christians at Rome to know that nothing can separate them from God’s love.
In the context Paul has emphasized God’s sovereignty: God is in control of everything, and he makes sure that everything works together for good (8:28). Then in the section we’ll study, Paul walks his readers through a litany of potential obstacles to trust in God: enemies, distress, difficulties, death, etc. Nothing–nothing at all!–can separate one of God’s children from his love.
So here’s the main point again: if God is all-powerful, all-loving, and all-knowing, and if he has promised to work everything out to our ultimate good, and if he always keeps his promises, why would we ever fear anything in this life?
How can we trust God completely? Paul answers in this key verse: “He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?” (v. 32). We know God is faithful because of the cross.
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The more I read the Bible and try to follow Jesus, the more I realize that the basis of our relationship with God—at least on our part—is learning to trust him completely and unreservedly. Most of us struggle at times with doubt, anxiety, fear, and uncertainty. We don’t obey God as fully or consistently as we should. Sometimes (often?) we make choices based on what WE think is best rather than trusting that God’s way is best.
Why is that? Why do we have fear and anxiety? Why do we disobey?
I think the answer is simple—we don’t really trust God: that he’ll work things out, that he’ll keep his word and do what is best for us.
This isn’t as much of a textual study of the passage on Hezekiah above, but rather more of an exploration of the principle of trust throughout Scripture. We’ll use Hezekiah as an example of someone who learned to trust God, and we’ll discuss the aspects of biblical faith (trust). Trust changes everything, embracing every aspect of our being: intellect (our thoughts), volition (our desires), emotion (our feelings), and practice (our actions).
In other words, as we learn to trust God it changes us completely. It’ll reduce anxiety and fear, and it’ll help us obey more consistently . . . In short, it’ll help us live the lives God created us to live.
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Brief summary (what’s the point of this text/sermon?):
This was the last sermon in a four-part series on biblical words/themes that help us understand the overall Story of Scripture. The first three were Glory, Holiness, and Covenant, and Sunday’s sermon was on Atonement.
“Atonement” is based on a Hebrew word group that has “cover” as one of its root meanings — you can see how this might be related to sin with the idea that God “covers” (atones for) our sin. It’s also reflected by the New Testament concept of “propitiation” (see 1 John 2:2 in our text), which is a big theological concept that has to do with how God addresses the sin problem in our lives.
The sermon emphasized the problem of sin and how God deals with it. We discussed how God’s work on our behalf in overcoming our rebellion is an important theme from Genesis to Revelation. We discussed how the cross fulfills the sacrifices of the Old Testament and how it beautifully portrays God’s love for us as Christ atoned for our sins (“covers” them) on the cross.
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As you know, our theme for 2018 is Love God. Love People. Change the World. That’s easy enough to say, and it’s so obviously taught in Scripture that none of us would argue against its importance. But still, this question remains: we want to do it, but where do we find the motivation? We want to love God, but how do we? We want to love people, but sometimes that’s really hard, so how can we?
In other words, how do we do what we know is right, especially when it’s hard? How do we become people who instinctively love God and the people he created?
We’re planning to return to our theme monthly and emphasize a different aspect. This Sunday we’re going to look at John’s thoughts near the end of 1 John, the letter that’s all about love: love for God, love for people, love for our spiritual siblings. In this text he particularly emphasizes where our love for God and people comes from.
The summary statement is near the end: “We love because he first loved us” (v. 19).
Why do we love God? Because he first loved us.
Why do we love people? Because we’ve experienced his love for us.
God loves us unconditionally, and he loved us even when we were living in a state of rebellion against him. In fact, there’s nothing we can do to make him love us any more or any less. That’s incredible to realize.
Only when we realize that—and truly believe it from the depths of our hearts—will we be freed to love as we should. We’ll experience a deep and abiding love for him, and our hearts will be open to love people—all people, even (especially) the ones who are hard to love.
How do we love? Why do we love? Because he first loved us, and because he expresses that love so clearly and beautifully in the gift of his Son.
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At the end of 2017, I preached two sermons on key concepts that help us see the Bible’s storyline more clearly. The first focused on holiness and the second on glory. In this sermon, we will study a third idea: covenant.
In one sense, a covenant is easy to understand—it’s similar to a contract that two parties make with each other, each agreeing to fulfill his side of the agreement. In biblical contexts, though, it’s different, and significantly more important.
God—the Creator of the world—has condescended and taken our hands and made covenants with us. It’s remarkable to consider.
In Genesis 15 we have an unusual story of God’s covenant ceremony with Abraham: it involves animals cut in half, God walking between the dead animals, etc. It sounds weird, but it has enormous implications for us.
God recognized the inability of Abraham, Israel, David, or anyone to keep the covenant, but he gave the covenants in anticipation of the One who would keep them perfectly. On the eve of his crucifixion, Jesus said, “This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood” (Luke 22:20).
Here’s the point: no one who ever made a covenant with God kept it, except Jesus Christ. He’s the better Noah, the better Abraham, the better Israel, the better David. He kept the covenant perfectly, and when he offered himself on the cross, his body was broken as a sign that God had established the final covenant that was based not on our faithfulness, but on his. He is the faithful covenant-keeping God who walks between the slain animals. He offers himself as the guarantor of a better, once-for-all covenant.
For that reason, today we live under the perfect covenant, sealed by the blood of the Perfect Lamb, and we trust absolutely that he will be faithful to the covenant. In return, he calls on us to honor the covenant in our obedience, even though we so often fall short.
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Every organization must constantly reexamine its reasons for existing, why it “does business,” so to speak. If it doesn’t, it’ll wake up one morning engaged in frenetic activity that has little to do with its purpose.
A company that provides products or services may find itself on the wrong side of changes in the market and may be left behind its competitors. Sales fall off, revenue decreases, and the company goes out of business.
A similar problem faces churches. We’re not interested in “making sales,” of course, but we do face pressure to stray from our Founder’s original intent. Presented with millions of good opportunities, how do we choose? What questions do we ask when we decide what we’re going to do, who we’re going to be?
At first glance, we might assume that the church’s purpose is obvious and that every church member knows it. We might point to passages like this one and suggest that our purpose is clear: “Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen” (Ephesians 3:20-21, emphasis added).
The church—the congregation in Hoover we call home—should bring glory to God.
That sounds simple enough, but what does it mean? And are we doing it? Is “glory to God” something we can measure? If so, how?
We’ve selected a theme for 2018 and presented it to you several times already: Love God. Love People. Change the World.
You’ll hear quite a bit about it in the coming days, but crafting a theme means nothing on its own, of course. Creating catchy graphics and putting banners up are insufficient to change who we are.
But God still shapes his people, and he works powerfully among those who are interested in submitting to his leadership.
Once Jesus was asked the question that we’re asking this year: What’s most important? Why are we here? How do we glorify God?
His answer was simple: Love God. Love People. This, he said, is why we’re here. This is how we glorify God. This is how we fulfill our reason for waking up every morning.
So this year we’ll explore this theme. We’ll ask ourselves some soul-searching questions. We’ll ask God to help us submit more fully to him. And we’ll seek to follow more consistently the leadership of the One who created his church to do his work in the world.
It’s simple but easy to forget: Love him. Love his people. And make a difference in his world.
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Text: Matthew 1:18-25
18 Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. 19 And her husband Joseph, being a just man and unwilling to put her to shame, resolved to divorce her quietly. 20 But as he considered these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, “Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. 21 She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” 22 All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet: 23 “Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel” (which means, God with us). 24 When Joseph woke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him: he took his wife, 25 but knew her not until she had given birth to a son. And he called his name Jesus. (ESV)
Brief thoughts about the text:
The birth of Jesus gets a lot of attention this time of year, and that’s good: Scripture strongly emphasizes it, including a lengthy account in Luke and a shorter one with different details in Matthew. When cultures appropriate biblical stories, though—especially with something as commercialized as Christmas—we run the risk of missing the essence of the event itself.
Perhaps no word distills the meaning of Jesus’ birth as beautifully and completely as Immanuel. Jesus is “God with us.” He is both God and Man. We see his deity in that Mary was a virgin when she conceived and gave birth to him; he had no earthly father, but rather he was conceived “of the Holy Spirit.”
We see his humanity (he is “with us”) in the fact that he was born as every other human being has been born, yet in more humble circumstances than many. He was born to Mary, a remarkable young woman in so many ways, but a woman who was completely human nonetheless. Jesus was a helpless baby—totally dependent on his mother as she held, patted, nursed, bathed, and changed him.
Imagine that—God as a helpless newborn! And yet that’s how God chose to come to us. The Creator of heavens and earth—the One who spoke the galaxies into existence—came to be with us as one of us, subjecting himself to the limitations and frustrations of human existence in our world.
And Matthew sums it up with this word: Immanuel. He is “God with us.” God among us, in us, and for us.
It’s no coincidence that Matthew ends his gospel with these words: “I am with you always, to the end of the age.” He came to Bethlehem to be with us, and he remains with us to this day.
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Brief thoughts about the text/sermon:
- “Glory, hallelujah!!!”
- “Lord, just help us to bring you glory.”
- “We all sin and fall short of your glory.”
- “When the Lord comes in all his glory . . .”
“Glory” is a word that’s all over Scripture—and it’s a word we use fairly often, especially in church—but its meaning is a bit nebulous and confusing. When God’s “glory” appears, what does that look like? If we bring him “glory,” what does that mean? What exactly is his “glory”?
This is another of those words we use but probably don’t really grasp. But as it turns out, understanding “glory” helps us understand God, and it helps us understand how we relate to him.
Literally, “glory” means “heavy” and is sometimes used of heavy things (or people). From that literal meaning is derived its metaphorical meaning (important, worthy of honor) and sometimes the physical things associated with that importance (e.g., riches).
Significantly, though, God’s glory is seen in the universe that he created (“The heavens declare the glory of God . . .”). But more importantly, it’s seen in the pinnacle of his creation: you and me (he “crowned” us with “glory and honor”).
This is powerful: God created us to reflect his glory to the world. People should look at us and see the glory of God as we reflect his image.
Unfortunately, though, that image became distorted in the fall of Genesis 3, and the story of the Bible is God’s work in the world to restore that image.
That’s what he wants to do in us—conform us more and more into his image so that his glory is seen more clearly. And in a way that’s our commission when we wake up each day: Look like God so that others may see him.
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The nine healed lepers probably had several reasons to keep them from turning around and thanking Jesus. They needed to see the priest, who would officially pronounce them clean and admit them back into the community. And they had families they hadn’t seen in months, maybe years. Who would blame them for wanting to hug their wives and kids as soon as possible? But Luke focuses our attention on the one who thought to turn back. Consistent with his emphasis throughout his gospel, Luke shows us another “Good Samaritan,” another outsider who had more spiritual sensitivity than the religious insiders. Like the ungrateful nine, most of us are religious insiders as well. We grew up in Christian homes, or if not, we’ve been in Christ for awhile. Maybe even long enough for it to lose its newness. One of the disadvantages of longevity in Christ is that we can get used to it. We lose the wonder, the amazement, the gratitude for what God has done for us in Christ. We had something much worse than leprosy, and Jesus cleaned us. As we look ahead to Thanksgiving week, this Sunday morning we’ll reflect on what the grateful Samaritan teaches us about how to respond to God’s goodness toward us. The post Gratitude and Grace appeared first on Hoover Church of Christ.
In some fundamentalist-type religious groups, you hear about the second coming all the time, usually pointing to something going on in the world today as a sure sign that “Jesus is coming soon!” so you’d better “Repent or perish!” But in others (probably most), you hear little, maybe because talk of judgment and Jesus’ second coming is usually associated with the kind of church mentioned above, and most of us don’t want to be connected to that.
But, truth be told, Jesus spent quite a bit of time talking about his next coming, and our text for Sunday comes in the middle of a long section filled with Jesus’ warnings about the end of time. In our passage Jesus uses a wedding illustration to make two points: (1) His coming will be sudden, so (2) We must be prepared.
Most of us are quite overwhelmed with just trying to make it to the weekend, so we have little time or energy to think much beyond that. But we must. At the risk of sounding cliché, much of the stuff we spend our time on won’t matter a hundred years from now. But our relationship with Jesus and how it affected our lives will matter a lot. In fact, it’ll be all that matters.
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It seems almost cruel, doesn’t it? Moses had tolerated a rebellious group of people for 40 years, and now he doesn’t even get to enter the Promised Land. As you may remember, he had earlier blatantly disobeyed God and struck the rock instead of speaking to it, but still . . .
Here–in this last chapter of the Pentateuch–Moses gets a glimpse of Canaan, and then he dies and is buried in an unknown place. The focus, as always, is on the real Leader of Israel. Taking possession of the land doesn’t depend on Moses, as great as he was. God would lead the people to the land that he had promised Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
Here’s a thought: to the very end of his life, Moses “leaned into the tape” . . . he pressed on toward God’s promises. He was certainly disappointed, but along the way he had learned to trust God, and so he and Israel–at the very end of this long chronicle of their deliverance from slavery–anxiously looks ahead to God’s fulfillment of his promises.
We learn from that, of course. We’re reminded that this life will often be characterized by disappointments, by unfulfilled dreams, by goals that lay just beyond our grasp. But instead of becoming disheartened, we lean into the tape . . . we trust that God is faithful. He always keeps his promises.
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There’s a lot of talk these days about the relationship between Christians and government. This isn’t a new kind of tension, because apparently Jesus’ peers had similar discussions. In this short text, Jesus doesn’t solve all of the difficulties, of course—Paul would later reflect on this this theme more in Romans 13—but he speaks to some of the tensions in his world: he didn’t side with the Zealots, who wanted to rebel against the government, and neither did he side with certain sects who wanted to curry favor with Rome.
Jesus’ ultimate point was our allegiance to God—that’s an important point. Just as the coin bore the image of Caesar and belonged to him, we bear the image of our Creator and owe all things to him. Perhaps this text has something significant to say to things going on in our world right now.
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Going through hard times tests your faith–where is God? Does he care? Why isn’t he doing something? But we probably don’t talk as much as we should about the opposite problem: the dangers of prosperity. In our text for tomorrow, God warns Israel as they prepare to enter Canaan. He knows they’ll be tempted to forget who is responsible for giving them the land. He knows that many of them will turn away from him and worship false gods, giving them credit for what the Lord did for them. Are we sometimes like that? We live in a prosperous country, and God has blessed many of us significantly. Tomorrow we’re going to look at ways that our situation may parallel that of ancient Israel and ask ourselves: What am I doing to keep remembering who is responsible for the good in my life? A lack of gratitude results in idolatry and unfaithfulness. The post Be Careful That You Do Not Forget appeared first on Hoover Church of Christ.
Text: Genesis 50:15-21
15 When Joseph’s brothers saw that their father was dead, they said, “It may be that Joseph will hate us and pay us back for all the evil that we did to him.” 16 So they sent a message to Joseph, saying, “Your father gave this command before he died: 17 ‘Say to Joseph, “Please forgive the transgression of your brothers and their sin, because they did evil to you.” ’ And now, please forgive the transgression of the servants of the God of your father.” Joseph wept when they spoke to him. 18 His brothers also came and fell down before him and said, “Behold, we are your servants.” 19 But Joseph said to them, “Do not fear, for am I in the place of God? 20 As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today. 21 So do not fear; I will provide for you and your little ones.” Thus he comforted them and spoke kindly to them. (ESV)
Don’t you love this text? The background, of course, is a long story, but it includes Joseph’s brothers plotting to kill him and then changing their mind and selling him into slavery. The years that followed included many ups and downs for Joseph, but by the time of our text Joseph has risen to an incredibly high position in Egypt — one which God used to save all of Joseph’s extended family. Now, Jacob, the patriarch, has died, and Joseph’s brothers are worried that Joseph will now pay them back for everything they did to him. Joseph’s response is one of the most remarkable in all of scripture: “you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good.” From his vantage point Joseph was able to look back at all the suffering and see how God had used it to save his family and to do so much good.
This applies to us in so many ways: bad stuff happens in the world, and sometimes it happens to us, and we wonder if God is there and if so, what he’s doing. Joseph sees God’s purpose, and he helps us to see the many ways which God might be using the bad stuff in our world to bring about good. After all, if he can take the most wicked act in all of history — the murder of God on the cross — surely we can trust him with the evil we see in our lives.
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Text: Matthew 18:15-20 If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses. If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. And if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector. Truly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. Again I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them.” (ESV) Everyone’s familiar with the story Jesus tells about the shepherd going into the wilderness to save the sheep who wandered, but what if the sheep doesn’t want to come back? The text above–which we’ll study Sunday–immediately follows the story about the sheep, and I think it’s here so that we can see the biblical tension between grace and discipline. God goes to great lengths to bring his wandering children back to him, but some of them stubbornly resist his pleas. What then? Craig Keener writes: “By holding discipline and grace in their proper tension (with a greater but not imbalanced emphasis on grace), Matthew summons the church to practice tough love.” The post When a Christian Sins Against You appeared first on Hoover Church of Christ.
We present our bodies as living sacrifices to God (what we studied last Sunday), but what does that mean? Specifically, does it have any meaning within the body, the church, in our relationships with one another?
Paul explores this in the verses immediately after the text from last Sunday. In order for us to be living sacrifices, Paul encourages us to use the gifts God has given us. Paul mentions several gifts: prophesying, serving, teaching, exhorting, contributing, leading, and extending mercy. Sunday we’re going to encourage our congregation to examine the ways which they’re using their gifts to his glory. God has gifted everyone–how are we using it? The post The Gifts of Grace appeared first on Hoover Church of Christ.
A frequent theme of Scripture is this: “Based on what God has done for us, what should we do?” God led the Israelites out of Egypt (saved them), and then he gave them the Law (taught them how to live as saved people). In a similar way, for the first 11 chapters of Romans Paul explores the inestimable depths of God’s love for us and his work in saving us. Then at the beginning of chapter 12 he writes, “Therefore, I urge you, in view of God’s mercy, . . .” (NIV). In other words, because God has done all of this for you, this is how you should respond. And then he gives an evocative, visceral image: Present your bodies as living sacrifices. First-century people, whether Jew or Gentile, knew about animal sacrifices, so they immediately got Paul’s point. God is calling his people to offer their bodies as living, breathing, continual sacrifices to him. Jesus gave himself as the once-for-all sacrifice of atonement, and we respond by presenting ourselves to him as living offerings. Think of all of the implications of this image: if we view our bodies as sacrifices that we offer continually to God, what parts of our lives are not subject to him? How do we respond to the world’s pressure to conform us to its spirit and set of priorities? The post A Living Sacrifice appeared first on Hoover Church of Christ.
The pinnacle of creation week was man and woman, created “in [God’s] own image.” There’s some sort of mystery involved in God’s assertion that he created us in his image, but it certainly means that we are so highly valued. All of us, regardless of ethnicity or gender, of intelligence or accomplishment, are loved and honored by the God of heaven and earth. Many implications flow from this fact, affecting our views about ethnicity (racism, discrimination, etc.), gender (gender inequities, gender relationships, etc.), as well as our identity (who are we? what’s most important about us as human beings?). The image of God in us has long been referred to as the imago dei, and when we understand it we recognize how not fully believing it is the source of so many of society’s problems, as well as our own individual struggles. The imago dei in us has been distorted through the fall, but the Spirit’s work in us as Christians is one of reshaping that image–what Scripture calls sanctification. God is conforming us once again into his image, and we must commit ourselves to submitting to his sanctifying work and engaging the world in ways that help them see the imago dei in us . . . and in every human being. The post In His Own Image appeared first on Hoover Church of Christ.
Notice the pivotal question of the text: “Why does the way of the wicked prosper?” Jeremiah was struggling because when he looked around him he saw bad people thriving, and he couldn’t understand why God was letting it happen. Why doesn’t he simply punish evildoers quickly and harshly? Why do we look around us and see evil people who seem to get away with their wickedness? Examples are numerous on the world stage: terrorists, cruel dictators who bask in luxury while their people live in squalor, etc. Closer to home, we’ve probably been hurt by someone, or maybe someone we love has been hurt, and our initial reaction is to hope that the perpetrator gets punished quickly.
And yet so often it doesn’t happen. Why? What is God doing? And how should we respond to the evil in the world and those who commit it? Why does the way of the wicked prosper? The post Why do Good Things Happen to Bad People? appeared first on Hoover Church of Christ.
This is the last sermon of this four-part sermon series. Three weeks ago I spoke on The Great Compassion (Matt 9:35-38 — Jesus’ love for us); two weeks ago we studied The Great Confession (Matt 16:13-23); last Sunday: The Great Commandment (Matt 22:34-40 — love God and neighbor). Notice how the series progresses from Jesus’ love for us (Compassion), to our response to him (Confession: He is the Son of God), to our living out the call of discipleship (Commandment: Love God and neighbor).
Today we will look at the inevitable result of loving God and neighbor: we tell our neighbors about God. Not long before he ascended, Jesus assembled with the men he’d spent the last few years training and discipling . . . and he told them to continue the mission. The post The Great Commission appeared first on Hoover Church of Christ.