Water City Church - Oshkosh: Recent Episodes
Water City Church
The opening chapter of the book of Ruth is complicated for a variety of reasons. One reason is that the message we choose to hear shapes our hearts more than we realize.
So the question is: What are you listening for?
Are you listening for offense? For criticism? For failure?
Or are you listening for grace, truth, and the whisper of God’s voice?
"Our unimpressive, very ordinary lives make us feel like outsiders to such a star studded cast. We disqualify ourselves. Guilt or willfulness or accident makes a loophole and we assume that what is true for everyone else is not true for us. We conclude that we are, somehow, just not religious and thus unfit to participate in the big story.
And then we turn a page and come on this small story of two widows and a farmer in their out-of-the-way village."
Eugene Peterson, Introduction to Ruth
We tend to see what it is we are looking for.
Confirmation bias is the tendency to search for, interpret, favor, and recall information in a way that confirms or supports our prior beliefs or values.
We believe we understand Peter's story from that night. However, there is a crucial aspect we often overlook. "Inconsistency seems to be a lifelong battle for Peter."
John 18:15–16
15 Simon Peter and another disciple were following Jesus. Because this disciple was known to the high priest, he went with Jesus into the high priest’s courtyard, 16 but Peter had to wait outside at the door. The other disciple, who was known to the high priest, came back, spoke to the servant girl on duty there and brought Peter in.
The Resurrection story is incredible on many levels, one of which is what does not happen after Jesus returns from the grave. Unlike modern power narratives, this is not a story of revenge.
Art Study Link - "Christ's Entry into Brussels" by James Ensor
https://www.getty.edu/art/collection/object/103QSA
“Love cannot exist in isolation: away from others, love bloats into pride. Grace cannot be received privately: cut off from others it is perverted into greed. Hope cannot develop in solitude: separated from the community, it goes to seed in the form of fantasies. No gift, no virtue can develop and remain healthy apart from the community of faith.”
Eugene Peterson, “Reversed Thunder”
"WE BELIEVE that one day, Jesus will return to judge the living and the dead, and each will go to their eternal reward – forever life in union with God or the final death, forever separated from God. In the age to come, the new heavens and the new earth will be revealed."
John 3
“God has infinite attention, infinite leisure to spare for each one of us. He doesn't have to take us in the line. You're as much alone with Him as if you were the only thing He'd ever created.”
C.S. Lewis, Beyond Personality
Psalm 8 & the last chapters of Job “People do not seem to realize that their opinion of the world is also a confession of their character.”Ralph Waldo Emerson
"When we gather together as followers of Jesus reading these texts, something happens." Five ways we are meant to read the Bible. We are meant to read the Bible in community.
Full Video: Rethinking our relationship with the Bible
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wK0WGniMPCU&ab_channel=PracticingtheWay
Mark 4 and the Parable of the Soils. Maybe we've heard this story so many times that we only catch part of the warning. What if the point isn't just about being a plant but about being fruitful? And what if the weeds that choke don't kill us, but simply make us unfruitful... which misses a massive point of life in the kingdom of God.
“To know oneself is, above all, to know what one lacks. It is to measure oneself against Truth, and not the other way around. The first product of self-knowledge is humility . . ." Flannery O'Connor, Mystery and Manners
The story of Jephthah in Judges 10 and 11 is not easy. Yet it is so important to soak in this text, which pulls no punches and challenges us to examine which God we believe in.
"Just because I'm talking about God doesn't mean I 'm talking about God."
Jesus began with "Come and follow me". These are words of invitation that are repeated to us. And Paul writes to the church, "Live a life worthy of the calling..." All are called just where you are. All who respond are challenged to live a life worthy of that calling. This is the beautiful mess of the Christian life.
Be in the Psalms. They say things that stories and even didactic teachings don’t say in the same way. And they penetrate our deep places in ways that other things don’t.
We are in the Psalms because we are REMEMBERING who God is.
It’s hard to follow in faith when you can’t see the big picture. Yet, the life of faith says, "I will have enough for today. I will trust God with tomorrow."
Isaiah 12:1 – 6
"In that day you will say..."
The good news is good news because it is first hard, honest news. This is an invitation to move beyond the trap of "fake it until you make it" Christianity. The good news is that you are not the source of meaning and purpose. That can only truly be found in Christ Jesus.
God's desire is for all to be saved. The good news is that "all people" really does mean "all people". So, how do we live in light of this grace?
Titus 2:11
11 For the grace of God has appeared that offers salvation to all people.
“…so that in every way they will make the teaching about God our Savior attractive.”
The call to a sacrificial life has many layers. One is to live in such a way that the Good News of Jesus is actually attractive to outsiders. At least, that's what Paul tells Titus anyway.
A mark of our generation is that too many have been hurt by bad leadership in the church. Paul knew that good leaders were necessary for healthy churches. Character matters.
"How do we live as Christians in a dishonest, harsh, selfish culture? How can we survive without adopting those attitudes? How can we live the good life in this situation? These are the question the letter of Titus addresses, and these are the questions we need help with each day as we seek to lie a gospel-changed life in a society that seeks change and finds truth in many places, but so rarely in the gospel.”
Tim Chester
Titus is a unique glimpse into the beginning. Paul left Titus in Crete to establish healthy leadership and challenge the believers to represent Christ well. This was the start of a new household, and beginnings matter.
A prevailing narrative of our time is "You are enough." Which, on the surface, feels right. A response to the comparison trap that always leaves us wanting. "Not pretty enough..." "Not wealthy enough..." "Not educated enough..." Always just beyond our reach. But what if this "You can do it on your own" business is just as burdensome because we know we each come up short at the end of the day? That's the good news of the Gospel of Jesus. We cannot do it on our own... and we don't have to.
"There was one time every Sunday where you take off your hat, and you sit under one roof with a group of people, and you say, ‘We're in this together, aren't we?’" Ethan Hawke
Community matters. We were designed for life together with others, especially in exile. We see this in Daniel 1 and 2. This is the living out of Jeremiah's letter to exiles.
Exile is our reality. Do we allow God to shape us, or are we getting bitter?
Psalm 137 is a difficult example of a people being hardened in exile.
Too often, we read the words of Jeremiah 29:11 out of the context of the exile. There is promise in these words, but not away from the work of exile. Followers of Jesus must be careful to avoid edits even when they are "small and carefully considered.”
Promise without difficulty leads to entitlement.
Today, we circle back to John 18 and take a second look at the story of Jesus' resurrection.
https://watercitychurch.org/garden
https://watercitychurch.org/cross
The story of the resurrection of Jesus is amazing and difficult. It is that way for us today, and it was that way for John and Peter then. Yet even though they didn't understand what they saw, they still believed. How do our lived experiences reflect theirs?
We tend to focus on Jesus' "Triumphal Entrance" into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, but that is not the only scene that day. Jesus clearing the temple is an essential moment for reasons so much deeper than just "he flipped some tables".
A deep reading of Isaiah 56 touches on the elephant in the room.
John 11
“What we have at the moment isn't as the old liturgies used to say, 'the sure and certain hope of the resurrection of the dead,' but a vague and fuzzy optimism that somehow things may work out in the end.”
N.T. Wright, Surprised by Hope
Jeremiah 18:1 - 10
The Potter is responding to the clay. God tells Jeremiah (us) that He responds to the people. Our free will - choices, actions, heart matters in how God deals with us.
link to art
“If we find ourselves with a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that we were made for another world.” C.S. Lewis
"The point of the Bible is not the Bible. The point of the Bible is to know God and respond rightly to God."
Luke 19:28 – 44
“It is an essential part of Jesus’ message of warning and judgment that it is uttered, finally, through sobs and tears.” N.T. Wright
We are incapable of speaking purpose into our own lives. We are not the source or the definer of our purpose. If we try to be the source it will always come up short. God alone is able to give this life deepest purpose.
“Asleep On The Deep” by Thomas John Carlisle
Though the LORD sendswinds as His messengers,some sleepthrough tempestsand revolutions.
Does God's Plan = God's Blessing?
How we read the book of Jonah shapes and is shaped by our working belief of the deepest things — including the authority of Scripture.
Intro to the book of Jonah beginning at the beginning which is actually 2 Kings chapter 14, not Jonah chapter 1.
“If someone has the Spirit in them – if they are a Christian – the fruit will grow. It’s inevitable. This is encouraging to us as we think of how marble-like our sinful nature is; but it is also challenging. It forces us to ask, if we’ve been Christians for a few years or more: Is there fruit growing in my life? We are saved by faith, not by growing fruit; but we are not saved by fruitless faith. A person saved by faith will be a person in whom the fruit of the Spirit grows.”
Tim Keller, Galatians For You
Our times of "Culture Wars" says "Kindness is weakness..." God calls his people to grow in the Fruit of the Spirit, which also includes kindness. This is no easy message. Yet there is no wiggle room for those who call themselves Christ followers.
Galatians 5:22 - 23
Link to picture study:
Picture Study – Profetie van Agabus, Jacob Folkema, after Houbraken, 1702 – 1767 (Public Domain)
John engages the problem and tension of sin in the lives of Jesus followers. If we say we have no sin, we're lying. We're to live without sinning. Jesus for real took the penalty for our sins. We need and have access to forgiveness.
Part of our series moving through Spiritual Disciplines, or the life habits of maturing followers of Jesus. What does the Bible teach us about finances and obedient generosity?
First in our next series "The SE7EN Letters of JESUS: A Revelation Series for Today". Where we begin matters. This week's introduction sets the trajectory for the weeks to come.
“The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.” Frederick Buechner
2 Corinthians 5:11 – 6:2
Peace through the lens of Jospeh. Matthew 1 & 2
Want to watch the service instead? Watch the video here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4msTTqQRZZw
“There’s a huge difference between believing what God has promised and praying for things you’d like to be true.” Francis Chan
"It is good to give thanks..." Beginning of a walk through THANKFULNESS from the Psalms.
“To be grateful for the good things that happen in our lives is easy, but to be grateful for all of our lives—the good as well as the bad, the moments of joy as well as the moments of sorrow, the successes as well as the failures, the rewards as well as the rejections—that requires hard spiritual work. Still, we are only truly grateful people when we can say "thank you" to all that has brought us to the present moment. As long as we keep dividing our lives between events and people we would like to remember and those we would rather forget, we cannot claim the fullness of our beings as a gift of God to be grateful for. Let's not be afraid to look at everything that has brought us to where we are now and trust that we will soon see in it the guiding hand of a loving God.”
Henri J. M. Nouwen, “Bread for the Journey”
“Doubt is not sin. It is an essential element in belief. Doubt is honesty. Things are not as they appear. We see contradictions between what we believe and what we experience. What is going on here? Did God give us a bum steer? Why aren’t things turning out the way we were taught to expect? No mature faith avoids or denies doubt. Doubt forces faith to bedrock.”
Eugene Peterson, “Psalms: Prayers of the Heart”
Psalm 25 A psalm of trust...
"I have never had clarity; what I have always had is trust. So I will pray that you trust God."
Mother Teresa to John Kavanaugh when he requested she pray for him to have clarity.