State Road Church: Recent Episodes
State Road Church
What human heart doesn’t rise with hopeful longing to the words of Jesus recorded in Matthew 11:28-30, “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” Those are wonderful words, and they are made even more hope-inspiring by the knowledge of who spoke them. These words were not spoken by a huckster during a late-night infomercial or an election-year politician. They were spoken by the very embodiment of truth. It is Truth Personified who promises rest to those who come to Him. He promised a light burden and an easy yoke. God Himself who never lies spoke these words to the stooped and exhausted children of Adam, and they are true! Wonderfully true!We could also dwell for a long time on the amazing fact that Jesus begins by saying “come to me.” There is a whole world of grace in that simple invitation. That He beckons us to draw near is amazing enough— that He even wants us near and has made it possible for us to draw near!!!— but then to attach such kind and generous inducements to that invitation. It boggles the mind to think of how deep His goodness to us is. However, and this brings us to the paradox that we’ll be studying together this Sunday, in Matthew 7:14 Jesus describes the path we must walk in coming to Him this way; “For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few.” How do we reconcile the promise of rest and a light, easy burden with this language about a “hard way?” And of course, Jesus also said, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me?” (Matthew 16:24) Is the cross an easy or light burden? Or what about Acts 14:22, “that through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God?” That doesn’t sound very restful or easy.
How do we reconcile these paradoxical teachings in our minds as we live the Christian life?
The post Is Following Christ Hard or Easy? appeared first on State Road Church.
Last message we introduced the paradoxical truth that the Bible calls Christians both to judge one another within the church and to judge not. We studied 1 Corinthians 5 which describes how Paul responded to a difficult scenario that was playing out within the Corinthian church by calling that church to confront a man’s unrepentant embrace of sin in order, “that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord.” The question we were trying to answer last week was when is it appropriate for Christians do that and what guidance does Paul’s example provide that might instruct us how to go about it.
This Sunday, we want to study the other side of the paradox, which is the command to judge not. In John 8, we find the account of a time when the scribes and pharisees bring a woman to Jesus who had been caught in the very act of adultery. This account famously ends with this exchange between Jesus and the woman, “Jesus stood up and said to her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?” She said, “No one, Lord.” And Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you; go, and from now on sin no more.” Why, we might wonder, is this scenario different from the one we studied last week in 1 Corinthians 5? Why was the command there to judge, but here to judge not?
The post Neither Do I Condemn You appeared first on State Road Church.
This Sunday, we’ll be blessed to have Greg Moody return to State Road’s pulpit. If you’ve only recently begun attending State Road then you may not have met Greg yet, but for longtime attenders he is obviously a very familiar figure. Greg served on staff at State Road from 1993 until 2017, first as associate pastor of student ministries and then as lead pastor. He continues to serve on State Road’s Deacon Team, the worship team and in other ways as he has opportunity.Greg provides the following as a preview of where he hopes to take us in God’s Word this Sunday:
“I remember when I started to attend State Road as a college student in 1982. My girlfriend had started attending at the invitation of her boss. To be honest, I wasn’t crazy about the idea. I was a junior at the university of Maine at Presque Isle and Elaine’s boss had given me a Bible and I had begun to read it. However, I wasn’t sure how I felt about being surrounded by Christian strangers. Two years later, I would make the decision to turn my life over to Jesus Christ. It is obvious to me now that God’s Spirit had been at work in me for a long time, perhaps all 22 years of my life, perhaps from eternity past. God was using His Spirit, and the faith community to guide me to a relationship with Him that He had planned all along. I suspect some of you can identify with these experiences.
For those of us who are “amazed and perplexed” (Acts 2:12) by the growth of our church attendance these last few years, we can’t help but see God at work through His Spirit in the lives of men and women and whole families here at State Road. I encourage each of us to read Acts 1 and 2 as we approach Sunday morning and our time together. Let’s pray for God to reveal Himself and His message for each of us”.
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As we continue our study through some of the paradoxical teachings of the Bible, we’ll be taking up the Biblical doctrine of the trinity, which teaches that there is one God who exists eternally in three persons- Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Down through the years people have employed a number of analogies to try and explain the mystery of God’s three-in-oneness. Although perhaps apocryphal, the legend goes that Saint Patrick explained this mystery using the three-leafed shamrock. Others have used the three corners of a triangle to make much the same point. I knew an acquaintance in college who tried to explain the trinity using that most time-honored and classic analogy of “Voltron,” the cartoon from the eighties where robot lions would combine into one mega-robot. These analogies fall short because they imply that Father, Son and Holy Spirit are parts of a whole, and that each part (or person as it were) is not fully and sufficiently God in Himself. These analogies make the false assumption that it is the combination of the three, like three ingredients in a dish, that makes up God. Father, Son and Holy Spirit are not part of God, but rather each is fully and equally God in their divine essence and power. Yet, somehow, it cannot be said that Christians worship three Gods. God is One. That’s the paradox of the trinity. Others have tried to explain the trinity by saying that God is like water. Water can exist in three states, solid (ice), liquid, and gaseous (water vapor). But this also falls short as a representation of the triune nature of God. The Bible is clear that God does not merely appear in three different forms, but rather that He (singular) is three (plural). It would represent a serious departure from Biblical truth to think that, just as water might change progressively from ice to liquid to vapor, that the Father might have become the Son, who then became the Holy Spirit. The Bible is clear that God always was and always will be three Persons who exist equally, simultaneously, and eternally. Words fail us when we come to this subject, but words are exactly what I will try and do this Sunday. Pray for me, and I will pray patience for you. A preacher can make a big pile of words, but it would not make a sufficient ramp for us to clamber up above the foggy limits of our creaturely comprehension. As 1 Corinthians 13:12 says, “For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.”The fullness of God’s nature within the perfect community of the godhead is something that exists out beyond the finite limits of human intellect, and, as such, it is a thing we can apprehend but never fully comprehend. That is to say we can grasp the essential truth of the trinity, but we cannot understand all the ins and outs of it. We know what we know about the triune nature of God because God Himself has told us so in His Word, but we do not know and cannot know anything beyond what He has revealed to us. It is simply out of reach. This is one of the frustrating aspects that comes from living in relationship with an infinite God. We just can’t contain Him in our minds. There will always be mystery surrounding Him. We can know truly that God is One, and that He exists eternally in three persons, but what we know truly we may not understand fully.The post The Three-in-Oneness of God appeared first on State Road Church.
Have you ever noticed that the word “down” is rarely associated with anything good in the English language. We’ve all heard of things in decline described as “going downhill,” and we’ve also heard of the “down and out” and the “downtrodden.” We’re familiar with words like “downfall,” “downscale” and expressions like “feeling down in the dumps.” Of course, on the other side of the coin is that word “up,” which is contained in such expressions as “upwardly mobile,” “upper class” and “upscale.” We speak of things “looking up” and we described people on the rise as being “up and comers.”It is paradoxical the way that the Bible calls us to think of such things as up and down, first and last, and high and low. The law of gravity says that what goes up must come down, but the law of our God states that people who lower themselves will, in the end, be raised up. This Sunday as we continue our study of the paradoxical teachings of the Bible we’ll be looking at a number of scriptures that confound fallen expectations surrounding such notions as greatness, and becoming first.
If you’re looking for a passage to begin preparing your heart for this subject, try spending a little time this week with Philippians 2:3-11. That might be a good place to start, and it would be a great scripture to commit to memory.
The post The Downward Path to Greatness appeared first on State Road Church.
The Bible often confronts us with paradoxical truths that require us to hold two seemingly contradictory ideas in tension. The trinity is a famous example of this. The statement that there is one God who exists eternally in three persons is inherently paradoxical. We might ask, “Is God one or is He three?” The answer, however, at least according to the Word of God, is not an either/or sort of proposition. He is one in three, not one or three. That’s hard to wrap our mind around. That’s paradox. The nature of Christ, that He is fully God and fully man at the same time without being less of either, is another example. There are many such teachings in the Bible. A paradox is a seeming contradiction that, when properly understood, reveals the fullness of truth and what is closest to God’s heart. An unseemly and lopsided Christianity develops when we adopt part of the truth and not the whole. Every time scripture confronts us with paradox it is an invitation to go exploring with God, and to discover the full scope of a truth.This summer we’ll be exploring some paradoxical teachings that we find in the Bible, and my hope is that God will use these studies to deepen our understanding and commitment to the truth.
There are many famous paradoxes in the Bible, and we’ll get to many of those, but we’ll begin this Sunday with a lesser-known paradox found in Proverbs 26:4-5:
Answer not a fool according to his folly,
lest you be like him yourself.
Answer a fool according to his folly,
lest he be wise in his own eyes.
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In Acts 2 we read the following about the early church:42 And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. 43 And awe came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles. 44 And all who believed were together and had all things in common. 45 And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need. 46 And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, 47 praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved.
Throughout 2024 and in between sermon series we’ll be returning to those three statements that are so central to our efforts to become better disciples and to make disciples of Jesus here at State Road. Those three statements are “Loving God, Loving Others and Love in Action.” This Sunday we will be revisiting the passage above from Acts 2 and talking about this picture of the early church and what it means for us in our disciple making efforts here at State Road.
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One generation shall commend your works to another,
and shall declare your mighty acts.
Psalm 145:4
C.S. Lewis once wrote this about God, “For He seems to do nothing of Himself which He can possibly delegate to His creatures. He commands us to do slowly and blunderingly what He could do perfectly and in the twinkling of an eye.” That is one of the mysterious things about our God. It must please Him more and is somehow more glorifying to Him to use broken human means to accomplish all kinds of divine ends. This reminds me of mothers. God in His wisdom gave us Moms, and to be more precise, He gave each of us our own specific Mom. In so doing, God delegated (or you might prefer other words like “charged,” “called,” or “commissioned”) to them the important work of raising their children to become fully committed followers of Jesus.
I suppose the same could be said of dads, but it goes almost without saying that moms and dads are different. They are not more than or less than dads, of course, but they are definitely a different kind of wonderful. We all intuitively grasp the beautiful synergy and the complimentary balance that flow from those ancient words found in Genesis, “male and female He created them.” When God said of Adam that it was not good for him to be alone, what He meant was that Adam could not on his own reflect the fullness of who God is, but Adam and Eve did. Moms represent God to us in a way that dads typically don’t and vice versa.
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We’ll be spending time in the twentieth chapter of John where we find the account of Thomas’ post-resurrection encounter with Jesus. This account is interesting to read in conjunction with Hebrews 11:1, which famously defines faith as “being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.” If you have time between now and Sunday, give Thomas’ story a read. When Jesus had originally appeared to His disciples (John 20:19-23) Thomas wasn’t there for some reason, but the disciples sought him out and told him the exciting news that Jesus had been raised from the dead. However, Thomas didn’t believe them. He flatly stated, “Unless I see in his hands the mark of the nails, and place my finger into the mark of the nails, and place my hand into his side, I will never believe.” Maybe Thomas was from Missouri, famously known as the show me state. I have certainly known people like Thomas who stated that they could not believe unless they saw Jesus with their own two eyes.Later, of course, Jesus appeared to Thomas and invited him to see and even touch the proof that he had been bodily resurrected. In response to this compelling proof (understatement of the century) Thomas confessed his belief saying, “My Lord and my God!” However, Jesus concluded this interaction in a curious way. He posed a strange question and then made something of a strange statement. Jesus said to Thomas, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”
Why is it more blessed to believe without having seen?
As we think back on the other post-resurrection encounters that we have studied together we are reminded that it was the act of physically seeing the resurrected Jesus in the flesh that convinced the disciples on the road to Emmaus, and Paul and Thomas that he had indeed been raised from the dead. However, Jesus looked beyond those disciples and He had you and me in mind when He said “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”
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Jere Vincent of Family Builders Ministry will be bringing a message on Deuteronomy 6:4-9. He writes, “What has your heart? Is it your family, friends, your hobbies, or your career? Maybe it’s a passion for travel, music, entertainment, or food. It’s easy to find ourselves living with half-hearted devotion to God. Jesus is inviting us to live a life of total devotion to him. To do this, we must submit every part of our lives to his kingdom’s purposes. We must learn to filter our decisions and desires through his value system, not ours.”The post Our Relationship with God appeared first on State Road Church.
Paul’s conversion to Christianity is unique. Not only did Jesus Himself take the lead in seeking his conversion, but Paul’s change of mind was nearly as sudden as the flipping of a switch. One minute he was breathing threats and murder against the church, but then came the voice on the Damascus Road, “I am Jesus,” and in a flash everything changed. All of his seemingly well-reasoned arguments against Christians were overthrown, and all his wayward passions were confronted. It was proof of the resurrection that caused this 180-degree turnaround n Paul. This Sunday we’ll look at Paul’s post-resurrection encounter with Jesus in Acts 9.The post The Changing Mind of Paul appeared first on State Road Church.
There’s something gripping about an eyewitness account, isn’t there? It’s one thing to hear a news anchor report on some far away happening, but it is quite another to listen to someone give a firsthand account of what they actually witnessed with their own two eyes. After Jesus was raised from the dead He appeared in the flesh to many different people, and the Bible recounts some of these firsthand encounters with the Risen Jesus.This Sunday and for the next several Sundays we’ll be studying some of these post-resurrection encounters with Jesus. This Sunday we’ll be in Luke 24:13-35, which contains an interesting account of two of Jesus’ disciples who encountered Jesus on the road to Emmaus.
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I can recall witnessing the baptism of a young man while I was on staff at Camp Maranatha in Southern California. The young man had put his trust in Jesus for salvation that very night following an hours-long conversation with his youth pastor, a man named Jack Williamson. I don’t recall the exact time, but it was after midnight when they came knocking on my door to ask if I’d open the camp’s pool so they could baptize him. I was not the only one who had been awakened for the baptism. Several young men who had been praying for this young man and who had invited him to come with them to camp had run through the grounds pounding on cabin doors and calling all the campers out of their sleeping bags and bunk beds. I sat on a deck chair and watched as they all filed in and stood in reverential silence along the edges of the pool. Most of them looked sleepy and were wearing their pajamas. Jack Williamson went down into the pool first, and without any introductory remarks he began singing “Father, I Adore You,” and over a hundred young people joined him. It was beautiful. As the last notes of the song died away, the young man joined Jack down in the water. After the appropriate questions were asked and answered, Jack baptized him in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and as the young man came back up out of the water Jack proclaimed, “Buried with Christ in baptism, raised to walk in newness of life.”I had witnessed lots of baptisms before that, many in that very pool, and up to that point nothing too surprising had happened, but that baptism concluded in a way that I had never seen before or since. All of the assembled young people ringing the pool, shouted out in unison, “See ya!,” and then jumped into the water with the young man. There was a big, group hug, as well as tears and laughter. Afterwards, Jack told me that they had yelled “see ya!” because who the young man had been, was washed away in the waters of baptism. I liked that.
The next day a lot of wet pajamas were hung out to dry throughout the campground.
It is altogether appropriate to celebrate Easter with baptisms because baptisms beautifully reflect the meaning and the hope of the resurrection. “Buried with Christ in baptism, raised to walk in newness of life!”
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The way Jesus entered Jerusalem on His way to the cross on that first Palm Sunday was very deliberately done to fulfill a prophecy that we find in Zechariah 9:9.9 Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion!
Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem!
Behold, your king is coming to you;
righteous and having salvation is he,
humble and mounted on a donkey,
on a colt, the foal of a donkey.
It seems to me that much of the misunderstanding between Jesus and those who received Him into Jerusalem so enthusiastically on that long ago day was that they misunderstood the relationship between Zechariah 9 and 10. As they witnessed the language of Zechariah 9 being so clearly fulfilled before their very eyes they imagined that verse 10 would likewise follow immediately. That verse reads as follows:
10 I will cut off the chariot from Ephraim
and the war horse from Jerusalem;
and the battle bow shall be cut off,
and he shall speak peace to the nations;
his rule shall be from sea to sea,
and from the River to the ends of the earth.
This Sunday, I hope you can join us as we study Palm Sunday through the eyes of Zechariah. We’ll see not only the beauty of that glorious day when Jesus entered Jerusalem on His way to the cross (verse 9), but we’ll also look beyond that to a day that has been promised but has yet to be fulfilled in its fullness (verse 10).
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Ever since last fall, I have tried something different in my personal devotions. Rather than reading my way through books of the Bible I selected ten blocks of scripture and set out to memorize them over the course of the winter. I printed them out and stuck them in my car, the pockets of my jacket, and used them as bookmarks. I began the day with an hour focused on memorization and prayer, but throughout the day I would visit and revisit the passages. I was surprised at the ways God used them in my life. At times it felt eerily conversational in a way that I had only rarely experienced before in my walk with God. You would think that after spending a week or two with a passage of scripture that it would stop yielding fresh insights, but not so. God kept speaking to me in new ways even months after I had first committed a passage to memory. With each portion of scripture, I had the same experience. It was like crawling into a cavern through a narrow opening, but then as you went further in the passage opened up and it just kept going and going, widening out and surprising me with all that it contained.One of those passages that I committed to memory this past winter (Is it ever safe to describe the winter as “past” here in the County?) was 2 Corinthians 9:6-15. These verses proved very useful to me this past winter and I’m excited to gather our whole church around them this Sunday.
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Genesis 22 records some unexpected words that God spoke to Abraham. He said, “Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you.” Now, those words are surprising for a number of reasons, but so too is Abraham’s response. Insofar as scripture records, Abraham made no attempt to argue with God over this extraordinary command, and his only response was to make ready to do as God had instructed. Today we’ll study this amazing account. We bring this series to a conclusion by taking up what is arguably the most well-known chapter from this man’s extraordinary life. Genesis 22 is rich with significance and application for us as Jesus followers today.The post The Sacrifice of Isaac appeared first on State Road Church.
Repetition is something we see a lot of in the Bible. Joseph had duplicate dreams with the same meaning. Pharaoh did too. Jesus told the parable of the lost coin and the lost sheep and the lost prodigal son all in a row to communicate the same, singular truth. On two separate occasions two different women washed Jesus’ feet with expensive perfume. On two separate occasions Jesus fed large crowds with just a little bit of food. We have the Gospel accounts of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John all telling the same basic story. Paul’s conversion to Christianity is described for us in Acts 9 and then again in much the same detail in Acts 22. Often the Bible quotes itself repeating the same exact phrases over and over again. 250 times the Old Testament is quoted in the new. The great themes and lessons of the Bible are revisited and reinforced in lots of different stories and scriptures, but all making the same basic points. And it’s not just good examples and instruction that are repeated. We also see cautionary tales and patterns of sin repeat in the lives of the people profiled in the Bible. Think of Samson’s lady troubles. Peter infamously denied Jesus three times, and then in Galatians 2 we are told that because he feared some men who had come from Jerusalem he denied any association with the Galatian Christians. The book of Judges is a merry go round of repetition as Israel descends into sin and idolatry only to be saved and rescued by a gracious God, but once delivered they go right back to it, and Round and round we go. And on two separate occasions, in Genesis 12 and 20, Abraham lied telling kings that Sarah was his sister rather than his wife.The post Here We Go Again appeared first on State Road Church.
Today, “Sodom” and “Gomorrah” have become almost bywords for unchecked depravity and divine judgment. The author of Genesis highlights the sexual immorality and violence of these cities, and the author of Ezekiel highlights their pridefulness and their fat-hearted disregard for the needy. (Ezekiel 16:49-50) We find the story of Sodom and Gomorrah in Genesis 18:20 through the end of chapter 19. This Sunday we’ll be exploring this controversial account, seeking to understand its meaning to its original audience and also asking what lessons this ancient story holds for us as God’s people living in Aroostook County, Northern Maine in 2024.The post Sodom and Gomorrah appeared first on State Road Church.
Some of you are undoubtedly wrestling with big decisions right now. According to a study cited in Psychology Today human beings make an eye-popping 35,000 choices a day. If that’s true, and I must admit that is a hard number to believe, then an average person makes 12,775,000 decisions a year. Multiply that over the span of a lifetime and the total number of decisions that we make is truly staggering. Now, most of the decisions that people make will be small and inconsequential, like whether to finish listening to a song on the radio or change the channel. However, some choices will be truly momentous. Sometimes we have a sense of the gravity of a choice as we are making it but often times we don’t fully appreciate the far-reaching consequences of a choice until much later. Our choices powerfully shape our lives for good and for bad.The 13th chapter of Genesis tells the story of a momentous choice. There were some circumstances that gave rise to a problem, and that problem forced a decision between two men, Abram and his nephew, Lot. Those choices would, in time, lead to some unintended consequences. This Sunday we’ll study the choices that each of these men made and see what helpful principles it holds for us as we wrestle with big decisions in our own lives.
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At Houghton College there is an indoor pool contained within the athletic complex. During my years there it was kind of a tradition for students to break into the gym after hours and go swimming in the dark. I was always kind of a stick-in-the-mud, rule-follower, and so I never took part in this particular rite of passage, but beyond it being against the rules it also seemed really terrifying to me because part of the tradition was to climb up onto the high dive in the dark and, without being able to see the water below, dive in. From what other students told me it was pitch black in there, so dark that you could not even see the end of the high dive platform as you inched your way out onto it, feeling for the edge with your toes. They knew the water was below them, but they couldn’t see it, and it was unnerving not being able visually gage how far down it was. That is a great picture of faith though.In Hebrews 11, sometimes called the faith hall of fame, more ink is devoted to telling Abraham’s story than any other. The first verse of that chapter defines faith as being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see, and when we read the beginnings of Abraham’s story in Genesis12:1-9 God asks Abraham to leap out into the dark. He speaks to Abraham of many hopeful sounding things that he could not yet see with his eyes. His following of God was exemplified by faith not by sight.
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It was during my early teenage years that my parents gave me a devotional book by Chuck Swindoll entitled “Abraham…The Friend of God.” As I typed this sermon preview for the mid-week email that same dog-eared copy sits on the desk next to me. I read it through during my teenage years, and then once again during my Senior year at Houghton college. Looking back on it now, it seems obvious that God wanted me to spend time with Abraham’s story during those formative years when I was stepping out from under my parents’ authority and venturing forth not knowing where the adventure of following God would take me. The lessons to be gleaned from the life of this man, which sometimes comes as a shining example and other times as more of a cautionary tale, are one’s I revisit often in my mind. Abraham’s story is ancient, multi-faceted, at times controversial, but it is also chock-a-block full of powerful lessons for God’s people today. For the next eight Sundays, God willing, we will be spending time with the story of this extraordinary God-follower. I’m looking forward to seeing how God uses this study in each of our lives individually and in the life of our church.You can find Abraham’s story in the book of Genesis, and in the coming weeks that’s where we’ll be hanging out, but we are going to begin our study of Abraham in the fourth chapter of Romans. The question at the center of that chapter is this; If Abraham was a sinner, and he most certainly was, how could he be saved when he lived and died thousands of years before Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross? If we are saved by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, was Abraham, who never heard the name of Jesus, saved on the basis of something else?
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Here at State Road we have been called and set apart for the Great Commission purpose of making disciples of Jesus. That word, “disciple,” isn’t used much outside of Christian circles. It’s a Bible word meaning a fully committed follower of Jesus- a sincere, from-the-heart imitator of His example, and the way we go about making disciples here at State Road is by emphasizing those things which Jesus commanded in His teachings and modeled for us during the days of His earthly ministry. We have summarized those things in three statements— A disciple of Jesus is someone who loves God, loves others and loves in action. We didn’t invent these three statements. They are derived directly from those things Jesus taught and modeled for us during the days of His earthly ministry.Occasionally, throughout 2024, and in between sermon series, we will be returning to these critical truths because they are so foundationally important to our efforts together as a church. I hope you can join us this Sunday as we study 1 Corinthians 13 together.
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George McLaughlin serves this morning as our guest speaker. George, of course, is well-known to many as he served for years as pastor of our sister church in Dunntown. He currently serves as chaplain and bereavement coordinator for Northern Light Home Care and Hospice. In this message he teaches from Mark 12:28-34.The post How Deep Is Your Love appeared first on State Road Church.
Last January I was with a team from State Road in Palenque, Mexico joining a team from Tijuana to run Brigadas in some remote villages with missionaries Craig and Kristi Libby from Mexican Medical. We had an unexpected stay at a hotel the first night we were in country and that first morning we all funneled our way into a dining area for breakfast. It was a buffet and most items were tagged with name cards that were thankfully in Spanish AND English. One of them items in particular, that is common to most hotel breakfasts, was labeled, “Huevos Revueltos” and beneath it was in English, “Revolved Eggs” Have you ever had revolved eggs? What they meant of course was scrambled eggs.That’s the trouble with language. Had it not been for the fact that I could physically see what was in front of me, I might have been a bit more perplexed by the words it was representing. My familiarity with the phrase “scrambled eggs” for what I saw in front of me left me confused and disoriented for a minute making me a bit hesitant to scoop any up and onto my plate. In the Catholic liturgical calendar they call the times between Christmas and Easter and Easter and Christmas, “Ordinary Time”. The first Sunday of the New Year is the first Sunday after Ephipany on January 6th, the day celebrated for the visit of the wise men. It marks the return to ordinary time. And at first hearing one might be too familiar with the word ordinary to do much with it, we treat it with the average, unexceptional, run-of-the mill feelings that go with such a word. The decorations come down quickly, faster often than they were put up, the Christmas music stops on the radio, and the Merry Christmas greeting tucked away in our repertoire of phrases til December of next year. In the in-between-times, the “ordinary times” what do you do with your faith? In the months after Jesus birth, through prophecy, Jesus began drawing the nations to himself. Matthew 2:2 says, “Where is he who has been born king of the Jews? For we saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.” Jesus calls us to himself as well, not just on Christmas or at Easter. The relationship with God that He calls us to is far from ordinary and deserves significant attention in the in-between times. Are you ready to keep looking for Him?
I hope you can join us this Sunday as we look at the prophecies of Isaiah 60 and the account of Matthew 2 to see how we too can respond with our best gifts in the in-between-times.
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One of the things that impresses people when they study the Christmas narrative in depth is the way it mingles high and low things. We see a heavenly host of angels, with the glory of the Lord shining around them, but who is their audience? Simple, earthbound shepherds. Then the awesome spectacle of an angelic choir gives way to the shepherds hurrying through the darkened streets of a small, unimportant farming, community, and into a stable where two poor teenagers had laid a newborn baby in a manger for a bed. The angel had invoked the name of the great King David, and spoke high and lofty words like Savior, Christ, and Lord about this baby, but where is this King to be found? In a feeding trough. We look up at angels, a bright star, at high exalted language of a savior and a King, and then we look down into the mean streets of Bethlehem, at Mary and Joseph, and most of all into the amazing depths of a manger- where the almighty, Creator God has humbled Himself so low that he has become like the shepherds, a servant living among the animals. This mingling of high and low is what must necessarily follow when God comes down among us.The post Christ appeared first on State Road Church.
John 3:16 tells us that it was because of His love for the world that God the Father gave His only Son. And what is that giving of Jesus except a description of Christmas? How appropriate that Christmas began with an act of giving. And the motive of the Giver was love.This messages marks the fourth Sunday of Advent when we light the love candle and think deeply about love as Jesus’ motivation in coming into the world.
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Joy came bubbling up in me like it was under pressure and it would have broken out of my chest if I had not let it vent out through my mouth in singing. That’s how I felt when I was a little boy, and my family would gather in our pew down at Chillum Community Church for the annual Christmas Eve Candlelight Service. I won’t pretend with you that I was a particularly spiritual-minded little boy. I wasn’t. Back then I didn’t doubt the truth of the Christmas story, but I also wasn’t particularly moved by it. Like children who spoil their appetite eating junk food and then feel no hungering for a good meal when it is offered, my heart was so full of earthbound fascinations that I felt no craving for the things of God even though they were regularly set before me. Yet, still, there was that wild, riotous, runaway joy in my heart as I held my candle and sang “Silent Night.” What a strange, distorted moment when I sang a song celebrating the lowliest of circumstances surrounding Jesus’ birth with a heart full of excitement over the pile of presents that waited for me at home.After the last note faded, and my dad, who was also a pastor, prayed the closing prayer, everyone gathered their jackets and bid each other good night and Merry Christmas. Our family, always the last to leave, would lock up the church and walk home in the dark. I don’t know if we always walked home after the Christmas Eve service. For all I remember it may have only happened once, but it stands out in my memory as a happy occasion. With the weight and responsibility of the worship service behind him, my dad seemed lighter and more present. Mom was full of Christmas secrets, and all of us kids were wild as chimps. There were extra cars in many of the driveways we passed, and lights were turned on in guest rooms that were dark the rest of the year. Once we were home, we jumped into our pajamas and hung our stockings. Then it was off to bed where we tried to fall asleep as quickly as we could because, we reasoned, that would make Christmas come all the sooner.
Over the years, God has done a work of grace in my life where He has given me a growing warmth of feeling for what Christmas truly signifies and not for those things that so captured my imagination as a little boy. Thank God for that! How fragile was that joy I knew as a little boy! How sturdy and indestructible is the one I enjoy now! It is altogether better and more abiding. In this message we will give thought to the JOY that was born at Christmas.
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This message marks the second Sunday of Advent when we light the Peace Candle. We will be celebrating the appearing of the One who was described in Old Testament prophecy as the “Prince of Peace” and whose birth the angels announced to the shepherds singing “And on earth peace to those on whom God’s Favor rests.”God is a peace-loving God, and a peace-making God. The whole history of redemption, that climaxed in the death and resurrection of Jesus, is God’s strategy to bring about a just and lasting peace between rebellious man and himself. As Romans 5:1 says, “Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,”
When the angelic choir proclaimed peace to the shepherds, they were not declaring a cease fire between truth and error. There was no summit where God and rebellious man ironed out their differences and agreed to disagree. No, the peace that the angels proclaimed was born out of the total victory of truth over error on the cross.
And so we need to see, as a foundational starting point, that peace with God comes first through surrender not a cease fire. The only way to be at peace with God is to surrender to Him. Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 2:14, But thanks be to God, who in Christ always leads us in triumphal procession, In the first century Roman world a triumphal procession was a Roman military parade in which the defeated, one-time enemies of Rome were paraded through the streets in chains as a trophy of the conquering power of Rome. So, when Paul says that Christ always lead us in triumphal procession, he is saying that he regarded himself as a trophy of God’s victorious, conquering power in Christ. He is celebrating the fact that he had been conquered and made to surrender. Paul was, amazingly, celebrating his defeat!!!
Paul understood himself as few men do. C. S. Lewis once said, “Fallen man is not simply an imperfect creature who needs improvement: He is a rebel who must lay down his arms.” Paul had been a rebel, and the gracious, merciful thing that God did for Him was to defeat Him in his rebellion. He was conquered and captured by the love of Jesus.
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Anyone who was once a child on Christmas Eve knows something about waiting with hope. My brother, Job, and I shared a bedroom back then and it was an annual tradition for us to try and stay up and listen for Santa Claus on Christmas Eve. I can recall after being sent to bed I would lean over from the top bunk and whisper excitedly to Job on the bottom bunk. Back and forth we would talk as we listened for the sound of reindeer hooves on the roof. I was so excited that it seemed impossible that I could ever fall asleep, but at some point, the whispering became less frequent and then stopped altogether, my eyelids became heavier, my breathing leveled out and then…visions of gumdrops danced in my head. I was asleep.And yet, even though I slept, I did not miss out on Christmas.
Above that deep and dreamless sleep the silent hours ticked by, until that glorious moment when my eyes blinked open, and it was Christmas day! In the living room we would find the heavy stockings, the gifts and all the other Christmas surprises that bore mute testimony to the fact that our hopes had been vindicated.
How many generations of believers have looked excitedly for the promised day? They spoke often to one another about their hope in Christ as Job and I spoke with hope on those long-ago Christmas Eves. They looked to the sky and listened for the trumpet, but at some point, their limbs grew heavy, the spark went out of their eyes and their breathing stopped altogether.
And yet, even though they fell asleep they will not miss out on the promised day that they had longed to see. For Christians, Christmas is a forward-looking holiday. It is a celebration of the hope we hold that after all those deep and dreamless years of sleep in the grave those same eyes will blink open again and find that their hope in Christ was vindicated.
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In this message we’ll be looking at the Festival of Booths (Tabernacles), which is, I think, the closest approximation in the Bible to our own holiday of Thanksgiving. It came annually at the conclusion of their harvest season and was a time of feasting and a time to express gratitude to God in worship. It was called the festival of booths because when God instituted the holiday (Leviticus 23:33-43) He commanded that all the people live in makeshift shelters made of branches for seven days to commemorate the years of wandering when they lived in dependence on God in the wilderness and without a fixed place to dwell in. The symbolism is rich for us as New Testament believers who are living, as it were, between the Red Sea deliverance that we experienced when we first put our trust in Jesus for salvation, and the Jordan River entering into the promises of God when Jesus returns. This age in which we are living is the church’s time of desert wandering while we wait for the day when we will enter into all that has been promised to us.Whereas the thanksgiving of Passover seems designed to remind us of how God addressed our greatest need in salvation, the festival of booths seems designed to celebrate how he meets our lesser needs (Manna and water from a rock) in these days while we abide and wait in Christ.
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It was 160 years ago, at the height of the Civil War, that President Lincoln declared the last Thursday in November as a national day of Thanksgiving. In his Thanksgiving Proclamation, issued on October 3, 1863 and published a couple days later in the New York Times, he spoke of the many ways that God had blessed and helped the United States. Speaking of those many blessings he wrote, “No human counsel has devised, nor has any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who while dealing with us in anger for our sins, has nevertheless remembered mercy.”The Thanksgiving Proclamation of 1863 is, in my opinion, one of the wisest and humblest directives of any American President in the history of our country. I say humble because, although today’s politicians attempt to credit every benefit that the nation enjoys to the wisdom of their own policies, Abraham Lincoln humbly pointed to God as the source of those blessings. And although the nation was facing many difficulties at that time Lincoln did not assign blame for them to his political opponents but led the nation in confessing our national sins and thanking God for being gracious and merciful towards us despite them. That demonstrates a remarkable humility. And I say it was “wise” because a posture of Thanksgiving before God almighty will help individuals and nations in the midst of both desperate and prosperous times.
In a difficult season Thanksgiving protects the heart from anxiety, envy and bitterness. In times of prosperity a season of Thanksgiving will protect an individual or a nation from the destructive influence of pride. President Lincoln seemed to understand that it is in our best interests to be reminded that everything we have is a gift from God. Without gratefulness, we become arrogant and self-centered. We begin to believe that we have achieved everything on our own. Thankfulness keeps our hearts in right relationship to the Giver of all good gifts.
So I am grateful to President Lincoln who gave us a national season of Thanksgiving by which we might be reoriented, as a people, in a Godward direction and to be reminded that these blessings, which threaten to make our hearts fat and our ears dull, were not, as Abraham Lincoln said, devised through human counsel or worked out by mortal hands, they are the gracious, merciful gifts of the Most High God to a sinful people who do not deserve them.
But long before Abraham Lincoln directed the nation to set aside a day to for the purpose of Thanksgiving, God instructed His people, the church, to continually give thanks. Just a couple of examples… 1 Thessalonian 5:18 says, “In everything give thanks; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.” And Psalm 106:1 says, “Oh give thanks to the Lord, for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever!”
In this message we’ll look at the connection between the Old Testament Passover feast and the Lord’s Supper.
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We turn our attention to the final greetings that mark the end of the letter (Colossians 4:7-18). At first blush these verses might strike us as being not particularly worthy of study and reflection. The main body of the letter, with its weighty exhortations and deep teaching, concluded in verse 6. These verses, by contrast, seem breezy, perfunctory and not nearly as momentous as what came before. There is a rush of names, a smattering of final instructions and then “Grace be with you.”As we complete our study of these final verses, however, let’s lean into the truth contained in 2 Timothy 3:16 that “all scripture is breathed out by God, and is useful…” These final twelve verses of Colossians are every bit as “breathed out by God” as the rest of it, and it remains for us to uncover their usefulness to us as followers of Jesus living in Aroostook County, ME in 2023. Give them a read before listening in on this message. I’d be interested to hear your thoughts about what God showed you in your own personal study of Colossians 4:7-18.
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We turn our attention to the final greetings that mark the end of the letter (Colossians 4:7-18). At first blush these verses might strike us as being not particularly worthy of study and reflection. The main body of the letter, with its weighty exhortations and deep teaching, concluded in verse 6. These verses, by contrast, seem breezy, perfunctory and not nearly as momentous as what came before. There is a rush of names, a smattering of final instructions and then “Grace be with you.”As we study of these final verses, however, let’s lean into the truth contained in 2 Timothy 3:16 that “all scripture is breathed out by God, and is useful…” These final twelve verses of Colossians are every bit as “breathed out by God” as the rest of it, and it remains for us to uncover their usefulness to us as followers of Jesus living in Aroostook County, ME in 2023. I’d be interested to hear your thoughts about what God showed you in your own personal study of Colossians 4:7-18.
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We continue our study through the New Testament book of Colossians by studying Colossians 3:18-4:1. This passage describes a number of relationships and how they ought to be lived out within a Gospel-shaped community. I hope you can join us as we spend time in this challenging portion of scripture together.
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We will be continue our study through the New Testament book of Colossians by studying Colossians 3:12-17. In these verses we will see the important role that our church family holds as a means of grace in our lives to help us put on the new self.The post Church Family appeared first on State Road Church.
At the heart of these verses is the command to put off the old self and to put on the new. That sort of talk from Paul raises questions in my mind. Like, how would one do that precisely? And, why does Paul use the analogy of putting on new clothes to describe our transformation in Christ? Wouldn’t there be better ways of describing the transformation of our inner world than to speak of clothes which only adorn our outward appearance? I mean, if I put on a dress it would not make me a woman. Can we “put on” the new self while remaining, deep down, our old self?The post Put On Christ appeared first on State Road Church.
I remember a time when Sarah and I moved out of a crummy apartment and into a better one. While we were living in the old apartment, we had been full of energy, ideas and enthusiasm to improve the place, but once the decision had been made (or even nearly made) to move into a new apartment I stopped seeing the place as it might possibly be some day and began to see it only as it was. My mind became full of the new place and its potential, and it wasn’t that it made me look on the old apartment with new, less hopeful, eyes, but it made me look not on the old apartment at all anymore.In verse 2 Paul wrote something that reminded me of that experience of changing apartments. He wrote, “Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth.” When this world is our home, it is natural that we would be full of energy, ideas and enthusiasm for this place, but one of the very definite proofs that we are no longer of this world (John 17:14-16) is that we begin to set our minds on things that are above, not here on the earth.
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In ancient Greek and Roman mythology, the sirens were creatures who would sing in such an alluring way that sailors would be lured in and become shipwrecked on the rocks. In Homer’s Iliad, Odysseus saved his ship and crew by plugging his sailors’ ears with beeswax and giving instructions for them to tie him securely to the mast. Thus, restrained and deafened they were able to avoid being shipwrecked. However, in The Argonautica, written several hundred years later, a character named Orpheus came up with another plan to counteract the intoxicating song of the Sirens. He played a louder and even more enchanting song on his lyre and thereby broke their spell.Of course, Sirens aren’t real, they are just a product of human imagination, but they broadly represent all those tempting things that call out to us, but which would cause us to make a shipwreck of our lives if we ran after them. To be sure, there is wisdom in both Odysseus’ and Orpheus’ plans. Sometimes, in the presence of false teachers and their “plausible arguments” we should stop up our ears and we might even need to, in a sense, to restrain one another from going after their bad ideas, but we should also fill our minds with something higher and more excellent that makes all these lesser things appear…well…lesser.
In Colossians 2:8-23 Paul employs both methods to counteract the siren song of false teaching. He speaks negatively about various errors that were threatening to lure these new believers onto the rocks and interspersed throughout we find high, exalted language about Jesus and the Gospel which is meant to break the spell of these ruinous errors.
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The Colossian church to whom Paul wrote the letter that we find in our New Testaments would have been comprised almost entirely of new believers. Most of them were likely recent gentile converts who were probably not even very familiar with the Old Testament scriptures of Judaism. In the language of Colossians 2:6, they had received Christ, but were just learning to walk in Him. They were rooted in Christ but had not yet been built up into maturity. This represented a vulnerable time for these new believers in Jesus. They were sincere in their faith, but their lack of depth and maturity made them vulnerable to false teachers and their “plausible arguments.” (verse 4) Paul’s counsel to them in Colossians 2:1-10 contain a timely word for all of us who are invested in the effort to grow as a disciple of Jesus personally and to help others grow as well.The post Learning to Walk appeared first on State Road Church.
During my recent vacation I read through the book of Colossians in my personal devotions. On July 31, I made the following entry in a journal of sorts that I keep, “This morning I spent time with God in Colossians. I struggled to concentrate though. I had to read portions over and over again because my mind kept drifting. I had no excuse. There were no distractions. How is it that I can read while simultaneously thinking about other things? I might marvel at the capacity of the human brain to multitask if that was truly what I was doing, but I was not. It cannot be said that I was multitasking if at the end of it I can’t recall a single word that I read. It’s true, you really cannot serve two masters. I was especially bothered by my inability to grasp the meaning of Colossians 1:24. I read and reread it a bunch of times. I turned it around, examining it from different angles, but at the end of all that I do not understand this verse.”In verses 24-29 Paul is going to talk about his work as a missionary, and in so doing he describes three essential aspects of authentic Christian ministry- a willing embrace of suffering, a clear proclamation of Christ, and a dependence on Christ for the doing of it all. We’ll be spending time with each of these ideas this Sunday. However, that verse, verse 24, really bothered me, and no matter how many times I read it I couldn’t seem to understand what it meant. Paul writes, “Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church…” What did he mean by “what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions?” And how does Paul make up in his own flesh what was apparently lacking in Christ’s afflictions? At first blush, that sort of talk has the slight whiff of heresy, doesn’t it? Let’s give Paul the benefit of the doubt though. If we know one thing from reading Paul’s letters in our New Testament it is that he believed in the sufficiency of Jesus’ death to cover all our sins and that no person can add to that. So what did he mean?
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The portion of scripture that we’ll be studying, Colossians 1:15-23, contains lyrics (verses 15-20) from what was probably an early hymn of the church. Peppered throughout the New Testament we find fragmentary evidence of the church’s earliest hymns. John 1:1-5, Philippians 2:6-11, Ephesians 2:14-16, 1 Timothy 3:16, 2 Timothy 2:11-13, Hebrews 1:3, and 1 Peter 3:18-22 are commonly cited as other examples of early hymn lyrics that are quoted in scripture. Around AD 111, the Roman Governor Pliny the Younger wrote a letter to Emperor Trajan regarding the early church. His report included the following description of Christians singing together, “They had met regularly before dawn on a fixed day to chant verses alternately among themselves in honor of Christ as if to God.” The tune that accompanied the lyrics found in verses 15-20 has long since been forgotten but the lyrics still have the ability to make our hearts sing as we think about their meaning.
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Unlike Corinth, Thessalonica, Rome, Phillipi or Ephesus which were large cities, Colossae was a small town. By the time Paul wrote his letter to the church in Colossae during the first century AD, the town had become a small and insignificant place located on the road between larger population centers. Today Colossae exists only as a heap of ruins near the modern-day Turkish town […]
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The average person will spend 90,000 hours at work over a lifetime according to Andrew Naber, (industrial-organizational psychologist and data scientist). That is roughly 10.3 years. Greg Moody shared with us a couple weeks ago that the jobs we work and businesses of our employ, have a mission statement that directs the efforts of its […]
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From a historic perspective it’s fascinating to think of ourselves as the people of time who are between Christ’s first coming and his second. When we read through the Bible from a top down perspective we see that God has been at work through the ages and eras of time. From the great flood, to […]
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Paul’s letter to the Ephesians has always been a popular one for believers. It offered to the early Christians necessary guidance on Christian thought and devotion. We continue to need truth about the role of grace and unity, devotion and daily living in a culture that would try to disable our commitment to Kingdom principles. […]
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It’s kind of a murky tale that leaves a lot of readers wondering who to believe. It’s the case of Mephibosheth v. Ziba. For the full context you can read 2 Samuel 4:4, 2 Samuel 9, 2 Samuel 16:1-4 and 2 Samuel 19:24-30. The principal players of this confusing story are King David, Mephibosheth (a […]
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As we worship God through the study of His Word, we’ll be learning about a woman named Rahab. You can find her story in Joshua 2. It’s an interesting story filled with spies, danger, double agents, and narrow escapes. Rahab was a resident of the doomed city of Jericho and her life took an unexpected […]
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In Luke 7:36-50 we find an account of 1st Century party crashing. A woman who was known around town for her sinful lifestyle entered the home of a pharisee named Simon who was hosting a dinner party in Jesus’ honor. She was uninvited and unwelcome in Simon’s house but she came anyway. I imagine it […]
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This Sunday is Father’s Day and what could be more appropriate than to continue our study through the parables of Jesus by studying that of the prodigal son. You’ll find this parable in Luke 15. That chapter begins, “Now the tax collectors and sinners were all drawing near to hear him. And the Pharisees and […]
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Jesus is coming back. Maybe soon. Maybe even today. Perhaps last Sunday was my last chance to preach the Gospel from the pulpit and maybe, just maybe, it was the last chance for somebody to respond to it. The date of the promised day when Jesus returns has been set and is even now fast […]
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If someone asked us to explain what it is that we believe as Christians I doubt that we could go much beyond a sentence or two without speaking of forgiveness. It goes almost without saying, but forgiveness is an idea that is so central to what we celebrate as Christians that there is no virtually […]
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Pastor David hails from Cento Christiano Cultural de Guatemala (CCCG). Over the years a number of people from State Road have gotten to know Pastor David through Neighbors First projects in Guatemala or by sponsoring a child through the ministry of CCCG. Additionally, he is the brother of Roberto Alvarez whom we support through Provee […]
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The parable of the dishonest manager is found in Luke 16:1-9. R.C. Sproul once said about this passage that it is “universally considered by biblical scholars to be the most difficult of Jesus’ parables to understand.” William Barclay said that “this is the most puzzling parable that Jesus ever spoke.” James Montgomery Boice begins his […]
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You’ve heard of Mary the mother of Jesus, and Sarah the mother of Isaac, and maybe you’ve even heard of Hannah the mother of Samuel or Elizabeth the Mother of John the Baptist. Each represents an inspiring example for us of faith and Motherhood, but have you ever heard of the wife of Manoah? Her […]
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Luke 10:25-37 contains the parable of the Good Samaritan. It is certainly one of Jesus’ most famous and well-known parables. Even those who are not very familiar with the Bible will know something about what it is to be a good Samaritan, but they often miss the full depth of meaning that Jesus intended when […]
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We are in week three of a four part focus on our responsibility as Christ followers to be engaged in missional living. Each year we believe it is important to re-orient ourselves in an intentional way around God’s mission. God’s mission is to redeem his whole creation, and the mission of the people of God is to be the agents of God’s blessings that in doing so we might draw close those that are far from God. Knowing the necessity for each of us to engage in sharing the life of the son through actual faith…in practice, we must look at where we as Christians must give concerted effort towards if we want to see God glorified through this fellowship. We’ve looked at Prayer: If we want the movement of God, we are going to need resilient roots. Ones created by hearts that are conformed to Christ through diligent prayer together. They are a pleasing aroma to Him as His bride, the church, unites together with a shared conviction for the advancement of the Gospel both here and across the globe. We’ve looked at Discipleship: the passion, commitment, and discipline to help others grow deeper in their relationship with Christ. This takes work, work beyond what Pastors and Programs can achieve. It takes people. People make disciples. And we are calling on you the people at State Road to embrace your identity as disciple makers.Today we look at Gospel Motivation. If we want to effectively live on mission, we need to look at the model Jesus established here on earth. To be effective, we must know why we are on mission. God’s mission is too important to be serving with misguided motive. And so why do we do what we do? Is your goal to help people feel better or to help them be better?
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Before you listen in, carve out some time to read the parable of the wheat and the tares found in Matthew 13:24-30 and its explanation in verses 36-43. In this message we explore this parable, seeking its meaning and its application in our lives.The post The Wheat and the Tares appeared first on State Road Church.
When I was a boy, my dad introduced me and my brothers to Old Time Radio programs. The era of Old Time Radio was long gone by the time I was born in 1978, but a few times a year my dad would get us cassette tapes featuring shows like George Burns and Gracie Allen, The Jack Benny Program, Edgard Bergen and Charlie McCarthy, The Great Gildersleeve and many others. I remember particularly liking a radio adaptation of Alfred Hitchcock’s classic “The Birds.” We listened to these cassettes every night when we went to bed, and, boy, we wore those tapes out! We listened to them so many times that even to this day I can still quote some portions word for word.One day my dad introduced a new tape to us featuring “The Pineapple Story” by a missionary named Otto Koning. I remember thinking when my Dad gave it to us that a missionary talk wouldn’t be very good, at least not as good as Jack Benny, and certainly not as funny. I was wrong though. The Pineapple story quickly became one of my favorites. It is a true story and also very, very, very funny. Not only was his story engaging, interesting and riotously funny, but it was also convicting. With wonderful humility, honesty and rich humor Koning told a story, and that story conveyed a powerful truth that he learned on the mission field. I think because the lesson came packaged in an engaging story it stuck in mind with greater permanence and force than most sermons I had heard. That’s the power of storytelling.
Story-telling has always been a powerful tool for conveying truth, and Jesus was a master storyteller. Today we dive into a new sermon series in which we’ll be exploring some of Jesus’ parables. We’ll start with a parable contained in three of the four Gospel accounts (Matthew 13:1-23, Mark 4:1-20, and Luke 8:1-15), the Parable of the Sower.
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For those of you that weren’t here last week, you are stepping into a conversation about missional living. For the rest of this month and the first Sunday in May, we are setting aside a time each Sunday to emphasize the mission of God here amongst us in a time we call Mission’s Emphasis. This year rather than an information dump about the ministries and missions we support we are looking at the characteristics of a believer engaged in missional living and it is our HOPE that in doing so we would call each of you into sharing in the life of the son. Last week’s focus was that we must not, as a church, neglect prayer. Prayer is the deep roots of faith that connect us both to the Living Water and connect us together. The church is not merely “resigned” to pray while others go and do, it’s where we TOGETHER take root to reach the incredible heights that God has for us.The second practice that must be present for someone desiring to live missionally is discipleship. Discipleship is simply the passion, commitment, and discipline to help others grow deeper in their relationship with Christ…….and this can happen in the life of a believer as both the disciple and the discipler simultaneously. Paul himself an example of this in that he instructs the church in Corinth to “Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ” We must each lead while also being led.
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I said it last year as I introduced missions emphasis in 2022, but there is no better place for missions emphasis than following the act that made us all missionaries. Maybe not all “travel to another country” missionaries, but men and women who have repented and put God’s will for our lives first. Those who through obedience to God’s call enter into God’s mission to save his people in the world.God’s mission is to redeem his whole creation, and the mission of the people of God is to be agents of God’s blessings to the nations. Over the next few weeks I will be sharing a short element in each service about some of the marks that need to be woven into the fabric of our daily lives as we share in the life of God’s son Jesus here on earth and how some of our missional partners are living those marks out effectively in their context.
This week we look at prayer at length, rather than in short, for it’s foundational and necessary place in the life of a missional believer. In Colossians 4:2-3, Paul says, “Continue steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in it with thanksgiving. At the same time, pray also for us, that God may open to us a door for the word, to declare the mystery of Christ, on account of which I am in prison— that I may make it clear, which is how I ought to speak.” Paul likely had never met the Church in Colossae face to face as it wasn’t a church he had planted. Yet he demonstrates language of mutual care through prayer for the sake of the Mission of God. How are you praying for the advancement of God’s kingdom through not only you, but through the rest of His church in this town, this county, this state, this country, and the world?
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In the Bible baptism is presented as the decisive, public moment when Christians proclaim that they are followers of Jesus. The act of being baptized is meant to visually depict the basis of a Christian’s hope in the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus. As a person goes down into the water it is a picture of being buried with Christ, and then they are raised up out of the water to walk in newness of life. Baptism does not save a person; only one’s faith in Christ does that. However, it does provide every believer with an opportunity to proclaim and celebrate what God has accomplished for them in the Gospel. Christian faith is meant to be proclaimed and celebrated and this Easter Sunday promises to be a meaningful one as we will witness four believers enter the waters of baptism. I can’t think of a better way to celebrate the resurrection hope that we have in Jesus!The post Newness of Life appeared first on State Road Church.
In his letter to the Galatian church, the Apostle Paul wrote, “But far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.” (Galatians 6:14)The cross is so ubiquitous and such a familiar symbol of Christianity that it has lost much of its ability to shock us. However, the adoption of such a symbol by the early church was intentionally provocative. In the first century Roman world into which Christianity first emerged the cross was as ugly as an electric chair and as shocking as a noose, and so Paul’s statement that he boasted in the cross would have been an attention-grabbing claim.
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On the Sunday before being crucified Jesus entered Jerusalem a hero, the great hope of the people, and on Friday he would leave the city condemned, rejected and despised. He had entered Jerusalem being carried on the back of a young donkey, but he would exit the city just a few days later as a beast of burden himself, carrying a cross on His back. On Sunday they cheered for the fact that Jesus had called Lazarus alive out of a tomb and on Friday they cheered as He was killed and placed into one. On Sunday, they had excitedly declared Him to be their King, and on Friday they sought to kill him, and on the basis of what charge? That he said He was their King.Earlier this week I was speaking with Pastor Dave Goupille from Perham Baptist Church. He made the observation that since most churches no longer have a Good Friday service we tend to skip from the Triumphal Entry on Palm Sunday to the Resurrection on Easter morning without ever pausing to reflect too much on the crucifixion itself. I thought there might be some truth to that. So, although this Sunday is not Palm Sunday, we’ll be talking about the triumphal entry, and on Palm Sunday proper we’ll be studying the strangest coronation that ever occurred when a blood-stained crown of thorns was pressed rudely onto the head of Jesus.
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In this message we conclude our study through Psalm 107 by taking up verses 33-43. Try to carve out some time before you listen to give these verses a read. It is, in some ways, a challenging and difficult portion of scripture to understand and apply to our lives, but there is real value in wrestling with difficult verses like these.The post Rivers Into Wastelands appeared first on State Road Church.
Do you remember the scene from the Bible when Jesus and His disciples were out in a boat in the middle of a storm? (Mark 4:35-41) Mysteriously, Jesus was sound asleep in the stern even though the wind was howling, the waves were breaking over the sides, and the boat was filling with water. His disciples, who were justifiably terrified, woke Jesus up and asked him, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” Maybe an English teacher would classify that last sentence as a question, but to my mind it was more of an accusation thinly disguised as a question. Maybe you’ve tossed the same question heavenward in the midst of a stormy season? “Do you even care, God?”Jesus responded by rebuking the wind saying “Peace, be still!” and everything became as quiet as a cloud passing in front of the moon. But then came the most interesting part of the story. It says that this filled the disciples with “great fear.” In other words the disciples became more terrified in the stillness than they had been in the storm. Of course, it wasn’t the stillness that scared them. It was Jesus himself who did. They asked one another, “Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?”
Of course, we know the answer to their question, but put yourself for a moment in the sandals of those men. They did not have the fullness of the New Testament writings to guide them in understanding the identity of the man in their boat. What possibilities were there? “Who exactly is this Jesus,” they wondered to themselves. How would you have answered if you knew only what they knew? Could a man command the sea? And if not a man, what? It’s terrifying to suddenly find yourself in a boat with Almighty God.
I wonder how well they knew the psalms. The answer to their questions about Jesus’ identity could be found there.
In psalm 65:7 almighty God is described as the one “who stills the roaring of the seas, the roaring of their waves.”
In Psalm 89:9 it says of God: “You rule the raging of the sea; when its waves rise, you still them.”
Psalm 93:4 repeats this idea of God as the sovereign master of the sea, “Mightier than the thunders of many waters, mightier than the waves of the sea, the LORD on high is mighty!”
And then, of course, we come to the text that we will be studying together this Sunday, Psalm 107:23-32.
23 Some went down to the sea in ships,
doing business on the great waters;
24 they saw the deeds of the Lord,
his wondrous works in the deep.
25 For he commanded and raised the stormy wind,
which lifted up the waves of the sea.
26 They mounted up to heaven; they went down to the depths;
their courage melted away in their evil plight;
27 they reeled and staggered like drunken men
and were at their wits’ end.
28 Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble,
and he delivered them from their distress.
29 He made the storm be still,
and the waves of the sea were hushed.
30 Then they were glad that the waters were quiet,
and he brought them to their desired haven.
31 Let them thank the Lord for his steadfast love,
for his wondrous works to the children of man!
32 Let them extol him in the congregation of the people,
and praise him in the assembly of the elders.
Are you in the midst of a storm today? Are you questioning if God even cares? Give some thought to these verses.
The post The Love That Brings Us Peace appeared first on State Road Church.
An Open Letter to My Children…“Dear Tate Kids,
I need to apologize to you for something. It’s not my fault exactly, but I will apologize anyway because unfortunately I’m not entirely blameless in the matter either. Your Mom and I have passed on to you a fatal genetic condition which runs in our family. We went ahead with our plans to conceive you even though we knew there was a 100% chance that you would also be born with this fatal condition. I know how you must feel. I’m sorry for that. I felt the same way when my parents told me. This condition is inextricably woven into the very fabric of our DNA, and if you don’t seek help for it you will die. It has run in our family for untold generations and has been the cause of a lot of pain and misery down through the years. As your father, who loves you very much, I’m saddened to think of you having to struggle with the symptoms of this dread disease. I too have struggled. It is hard enough for me to experience personally, but it is, in some ways, harder still to watch you suffer.
This disease has numerous symptoms, principally self-destructive, sinful cravings (Eph. 2:1-3). These manifest in sinful conduct, pain, misery and, if untreated, it will eventually lead to death (Rom. 3:23 and 6:23). Don’t be surprised when these symptoms flare up, or when you witness others suffering the ravages of this horrible disease. Such symptoms are terribly common (1 Cor. 10:13) to all of us who have descended from patient zero, Adam (1 Cor. 15:21-22).
Thankfully, there is a cure. In Psalm 107:17-22 we read this:
17 Some were fools through their sinful ways,
and because of their iniquities suffered affliction;
18 they loathed any kind of food,
and they drew near to the gates of death.
19 Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble,
and he delivered them from their distress.
20 He sent out his word and healed them,
and delivered them from their destruction.
21 Let them thank the Lord for his steadfast love,
for his wondrous works to the children of man!
22 And let them offer sacrifices of thanksgiving,
and tell of his deeds in songs of joy!
Additionally in Romans 10:9 it says, “if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.”
Here’s what happened; Jesus voluntarily took our disease onto himself and suffered its consequences so that we could be freed from its dread grip. Our sin nature is the disease. The Gospel is the only cure. Your Mom and I have prayed for your healing and salvation since even before you were born.
Your Loving Father
P.S. I should warn you that the application of this cure to your inner being comes with some notable side effects such as love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.”
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Christians talk a lot about being free in Christ, but to many non-believers they see life in Christ as the very opposite of freedom. From their perspective, Christians have a “Lord,” and a pretty demanding one at that. They think, “how would I be free if I became a Christian? If you become a Christian then you must submit to the will of your Lord, right? Isn’t it true also that the Bible has a bunch of rules in it, and Christians have to follow those rules?”“I’m sorry,” they think to themselves, “but people who have to do whatever their ‘LORD’ says and who have all these rules they have to live under and who have to give up things even if they enjoy them- They Cannot be called free!”
Do they have a point? How would you answer such a person if they raised these questions with you?
This Sunday we’ll be continuing our study of Psalm 107 by unpacking verses 10-16 together. This stanza is a celebration of the love that makes us free, but, again, what does a Christian mean when they say that they have been made free?
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We will be continuing our study of Psalm 107 by unpacking verses 4-9 together. The first three verses of the Psalm introduced the main theme that God is good and that His steadfast love endures forever. Then the next four stanzas go on to provide four showpiece demonstrations of God’s goodness and love toward us. In the coming weeks we will be celebrating each in turn. In verses 4-9, which we will be studying in this message, we are told about the love that brings us home.4 Some wandered in desert wastes,
finding no way to a city to dwell in;
5 hungry and thirsty,
their soul fainted within them.
6 Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble,
and he delivered them from their distress.
7 He led them by a straight way
till they reached a city to dwell in.
8 Let them thank the Lord for his steadfast love,
for his wondrous works to the children of man!
9 For he satisfies the longing soul,
and the hungry soul he fills with good things.
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In our study of 2 Timothy 4 from last week, we read Paul’s words at the end of his life, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.” I’m willing to bet that many Christians who read those words come away feeling some measure of sadness because they could not say the same if the end of their own life came into view today. Their track record has been more checkered than the Apostle Paul’s apparently was. Rather than fighting the good fight some of us may have demonstrated a habit of avoiding fights altogether, or maybe we fought bad fights. Rather than running the race some of us may have stopped striving, or, worse, we have actually been running in the wrong direction. And rather than keeping the faith some of us may have struggled to trust God along the way and have lived very inconsistently. If that’s you don’t wallow one more day in discouragement. Read Psalm 107 and be encouraged. This is a Psalm that has come to mean a lot to me personally. It talks about God rescuing people from all kinds of trouble, but the most encouraging thing is that it depicts God rescuing people who are in trouble precisely because of their sinfulness. There is hope for Christians who have a checkered, inconsistent past.The post Psalm 107 appeared first on State Road Church.
Over the course of his time as an Apostle, Paul was responsible for speaking a great many words. His writings alone fill a large portion of our New Testaments, and everywhere Paul goes he is described as proclaiming, teaching, preaching, exhorting and defending the Gospel with words. Interestingly, the very first reference in the Bible to this man of words making an utterance was in Acts 9:1 when we are told that he was “breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord.” Fast forward then to 2 Timothy 4:22 which contains his last recorded words, “Grace be with you.” What an amazing story of grace and Spirit-filled transformation lies between the threats and murder of Acts 9:1 and these last recorded words in 2 Timothy. Jesus once remarked that it is out of the abundance of the heart that a person speaks. That’s what makes these last words of Paul’s so heartening. They are a window into a heart that has been captured and transformed by the Gospel.With this message we wrap up our sermon series through the book of 2 Timothy by studying chapter 4. This is a powerful chapter in which Paul will issue a solemn charge to Timothy and to all successive generations of the church.
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Try to carve out some time to read chapter three of 2nd Timothy before you listen to this message. That’s the passage that we’ll be studying together on Sunday. True to form, Paul will continue his final letter with his characteristic, laser-like focus on the Gospel. If the message of chapter 1 was “guard the Gospel” and the message of chapter 2 was “be willing to suffer for the Gospel” than the message of chapter 3 is “continue living the Gospel.” It’s a chapter that is rich with helpful insights.The post Continue Living The Gospel appeared first on State Road Church.
In the first chapter of Paul’s last letter (2 Timothy) he talked about the importance of guarding the Gospel that has been entrusted to us. Then, in the second chapter, which we will be studying this coming Sunday, Paul will go on to talk about some of the costs and sacrifices that followers of Jesus will be called upon to make for the Gospel. If the main message of chapter 1 was guard the Gospel then the main message of chapter 2 is to stand ready to suffer for the Gospel. In the opening verses of the chapter, Paul uses three different professions (soldier, athlete and farmer) to explain both why we must suffer and also why any sacrifices we make for the Gospel will be worth it in the end. I hope you can listen in as we continue our exploration of 2 Timothy together by studying chapter 2.The post A Solider, An Athlete, And A Farmer appeared first on State Road Church.
The book of 2 Timothy was Paul’s last and final letter. It was most likely written shortly before he was martyred in Rome. There is evidence from within the letter itself that Paul knew the end was near even as he wrote to his young friend, Timothy. For example, in chapter 4 he said, “For I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my departure has come.” His parting words to Timothy are tender, personal and they focus on the hope of the Gospel with laser-like focus. There is a sense as you read this letter that Paul is consciously passing the baton to the next generation of leadership. His Spirit-led counsel to Timothy echoes down even to this present generation of Christ-followers and his words have continued to challenge and encourage successive generations of the faith.The post Paul’s Last Will and Testament appeared first on State Road Church.
The word “new” is one of God’s favorite ways of describing His work in the world. NEW commandment (John 13:34) NEW covenant (Luke 22:20). NEW creation (2 Corinthians 15:17). NEW heavens and a NEW earth (Isaiah 65:17). NEW spirit (Ezekiel 11:19). NEW song (Isaiah 42:10). He is the God who is “making all things new.” (Revelations 21:5)In Ephesians 4:22-24, which we will be studying together on this New Year’s Sunday we find another great example of a God who loves transformation and newness. It says, “to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, 23 and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, 24 and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.”
There are no geographic solutions to problems that we carry around within us. This coming year will be no different from the last if we ourselves remain the same. It is not at all uncommon for people to leave jobs, schools, churches, relationships, etc… because things went bad, but when they try to start over in a new setting, or with new people, or with a new turning of the calendar they find that the same problems they experienced in the old context crop up in the new. No matter how far you go or how fast you run, you can’t put distance between you and yourself. So, God’s Word calls us to put off the old self and put on the new. These words are full of hope for those of us who desire to see change in the coming year.
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Of all the unexpected visitations that occur in the Christmas story by far the most unexpected is that of Jesus Himself. His coming into the world was unanticipated by most and misunderstood by nearly all. The profound mystery of the incarnation (That’s a five-dollar word meaning that Jesus became a human being like one of us.) wherein God clothed Himself in flesh and became really, truly and fully man without becoming any less divine is a truth that we can grasp and know truly without understanding fully. “How could the creator become a part of His creation,” we might wonder. However, although the Bible is largely silent on the matter of how such a thing could come to be it is not silent at all on the question of why it happened, and on Christmas morning that is what we will spend a little time thinking about.The post Christ’s Journey To Earth appeared first on State Road Church.
In this message we be consider the story of the wise men found in Matthew 2:1-12. The Christmas story is not the only place in the Bible where we bump into this mysterious caste of foreign priests known as the Magi. For example, they are mentioned in the Old Testament books of Daniel and Esther as wise men who could give supernaturally derived counsel, wisdom and insights to the rulers of their day. They were practitioners of an ancient form of astrology. Interestingly, the same exact word that is translated “wise men” or “magi” in the Christmas story is translated as “sorcerer” in Acts 13:6 to describe a wicked, false prophet named Bar-Jesus. This man was also known by his Arabic name, “Elymas,” which means “wise.” So this man was a Magi, a sorcerer, named “wise.” All of this background information begs the question; Who exactly were these Magi who came to pay worshipful homage to Jesus in Matthew 2?The post The Magi’s Journey appeared first on State Road Church.
I wonder how the shepherds announced themselves when they arrived outside the place where Jesus had been born. Was their arrival in the night as loud and surprising as the angel’s had been? I wonder if they barged right in or did they “hallooo” from the street? Maybe they approached with reverential trepidation, quiet and wide-eyed. I wonder how many of them there were, and what were their names. Was it at all unwelcome for Mary to receive male visitors so shortly after giving birth? I wonder if the arrival of visitors made Mary and Joseph embarrassed by their impoverished surroundings and did they self-consciously second-guess their decision to use the manger as a crib? Was the baby asleep when the shepherds arrived? Or nursing? Were the shepherds shushed by Mary as they launched into their tale of what they had seen and heard up in the hills? Did they whisper the news?The Bible doesn’t provide answers for these kinds of questions. God’s Word tells us all that we need to know, but it does not always tell us everything that we’d like to know. God provides us with other details because, I assume, they must be what we need most to see. So, although we may not be able to satisfy our curiosity about many of the details surrounding this evocative chapter in the Christmas story there still remains plenty for us to chew on as we study Luke 2:8-20 together.
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The Christmas story is one of the most well-known and beloved portions of scripture in the Bible. Perhaps the mention of the Christmas story conjures for you images of camel-riding wise men pointing toward a distant star, or a very pregnant Mary riding on a donkey being led by Joseph, or awe-filled shepherds surprised by a heavenly choir, or a newborn baby boy wrapped in swaddling cloths and laid in a manger.The narrative of the Christmas story is marked by a number of journeys. First, we have Mary and Joseph making their way to Bethlehem, the city of David. Then we have the shepherds also traveling down into Bethlehem to see for themselves what the Angels had made known to them. Of course, there is also the journey of the Wise Men who came following the star. However, the most important and significant journey that the Christmas story chronicles for us is the coming into the world of Jesus. We’ll save that one for last!
In this message we be study Luke 2:1-6, which tells us about Mary and Joseph and their journey to Bethlehem.BroadC R
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Have you ever asked the question, “Why does God let bad things happen?” As I get to know people and hear their stories, I become aware that this question, when it is asked, is not posed by philosophers sitting in ivory towers who just like debating interesting ideas. This is a burning question on many […]
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We’ll be looking to the life of Gideon in the Bible to find some helpful insights on how we can find the courage necessary for Christian mission. You’ll find the story of Gideon, an unlikely and somewhat reluctant, hero in chapters 6-8 of the Old Testament book of Judges.
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In the Old Testament book of Daniel we find the example of some people who lived as a small minority in the midst of a wicked, pagan society that not only did not share their values, but who were often openly antagonistic toward them. However, For the sake of God’s name and for His glory […]
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When I first felt a calling to pastoral ministry, I knew I needed some formal Bible training and equipping, but there was a problem. It was a money problem. Seminaries were expensive, I had a pile of kids to provide for, and the income I was earning from my job at the time was barely […]
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I love the scene in the Wizard of Oz when Dorothy accidentally kills the Wicked Witch by dousing her with water while trying to save the scarecrow who had been set on fire (not accidentally) by the witch. The whole land of Oz, which had been living under the fear-filled oppression of the witch, burst […]
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Fear of the unknown is a particularly difficult form of fear because it refuses to take the shape of anything definite, real or concrete. If it did, it would no longer be properly a fear of the unknown but a fear of that thing. A fear of the unknown flourishes in the shadowy world of […]
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As we continue our study on fear and courage we’ll be spending some time with the Apostle Peter. Peter is one of the most fascinating personalities that we encounter in the New Testament, and unlike most of the other men who formed Jesus’ inner circle of disciples, we are actually given a lot of information […]
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When she was told that her starving, peasant subjects had no bread to eat, Marie Antoinette infamously quipped, “Let them eat cake.” This quote is commonly cited as proof that she was oblivious to the plight of the common people and was blithely indifferent to their troubles. I wonder, is it possible that someone might […]
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“… and may the Lord make you increase and abound in love for one another and for all, as we do for you, 13 so that he may establish your hearts blameless in holiness before our God and Father, at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all his saints.” How can we talk about […]
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Colossians 3:12-17 is one of those portions of the Bible that speaks to us in a real-life, pragmatic way about the challenges that we will face in trying to become a one-another people, but it also speaks to the beauty that makes facing those challenges worth it. Give this short portion of scripture a read. […]
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Fellow Christian, you have been called to a life of striving. Living for Jesus in the midst of a fallen world means that all of your movement toward Christ and Christlikeness will be opposed strongly by a powerful current running in the opposite direction. Even now, the prevailing current of the culture and our own […]
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Romans 12:10 The first sentence of this verse contains two different Greek words for love. Love (philostorgos) one another with brotherly affection (philadelphia). What does it mean to philostorgos one another with philadelphia? And how do these Greek words for love differ from “agape,” that Greek word that we commonly associate with the sacrificial […]
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James 5:16 says, “Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.” When it comes to our struggles with sin, lonely defeats will one day bring lonely victories, and God is not glorified in […]
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1 Thessalonians 5:11 says, “Therefore encourage one another and build one another up, just as you are doing.” The one-another commands in this verse are to encourage and build up, but that instantly begs a follow up question, doesn’t it? Encourage toward what? Should a person be encouraged in every behavior and attitude? Clearly, not. […]
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“One another” is such a common phrase in the Bible that it would be easy to skip right by it without pausing to dwell on its significance. For example, In the Bible we are told to Love OA, Be Devoted to OA, Honor OA, Live in Harmony with OA, Accept OA, Look out for OA, […]
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Those of us who have found Jesus and who have put our trust in Him for salvation know what a treasure He is. We have found in Him a hope that will not fail. There is a shining excellence that hangs around all of His promises. We have found a better and an abiding possession […]
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Listen in as we hear what the Lord has laid upon the heart of one of our Deacons, Tim Tarr.
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There is something in all of us that resists change. I believe much of it is rooted in our fear of the uncertainty of it. I was thinking of the Hebrews as they left Egypt. Just a mere 45 days after being freed from the slavery and oppression of Pharaoh their cry was to turn […]
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We conclude our current sermon series focusing on those passages that highlight pieces of clothing by studying Isaiah 61 together. One the occasion when Jesus returned to His hometown of Nazareth, Jesus stood up in the synagogue and read a portion of this chapter (Luke 4:16-21), and after reading it He said, “Today this scripture […]
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Poor, Jairus! His daughter was dying. His child who he had quieted after nightmares, and carried on his shoulders to the marketplace, and who he had served and protected with all the tender devotion of a Father was struggling to draw another ragged breath. He stood there feeling helpless. Terribly helpless. When he had left […]
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In this message we are going to be spending time with a dreamer named Joseph. We find his story at the end of the book of Genesis (Chapters 37-50). In the Bible clothing is a marker of identity for all classes of people. A king is recognized by his robes of office, just as a […]
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As we continue our study of scripture passages that highlight articles of clothing, we are going to take up the topic of spiritual warfare as we unpack Ephesians 6:10-18 together. This portion of scripture, commonly known as the Armor-of-God passage, describes number of different items that God calls us to put on. We are going […]
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What comes to mind when you think about Father’s Day? Is it power tools and BBQs? New ties and #1 Dad Shirts? My family recently vacationed in Florida and spent a few days at Universal Studios. Just about every souvenir shop we entered had displays of fake Oscar awards. These awards display a man, standing […]
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Towards the end of each year a group of my friends and I make predictions for the coming year. I recently looked over our predictions from last December and I was struck by the fact that neither I nor any of my friends predicted Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, or Will Smith slapping Chris Rock at […]
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There is a sense as you read the Gospels that Jesus saw a lot of things that others did not. He saw hidden motives. He saw hidden needs. He saw hidden sin and hidden potential. He saw a hidden future and the hidden stratagems of the enemy as they tried vainly to change the future […]
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There is a sense as you read the Gospels that Jesus saw a lot of things that others did not. He saw hidden motives. He saw hidden needs. He saw hidden sin and hidden potential. He saw a hidden future and the hidden stratagems of the enemy as they tried vainly to change the future […]
The post What Do You See appeared first on State Road Church.
It was pointed out to me recently that most Mother’s Day remarks issued from Christian pulpits down through the years have been given, somewhat ironically, by men. To which I responded, “That is definitely true, but this Sunday I don’t plan to speak about motherhood as a man but rather as a son.” And, speaking […]
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In the Revolutionary War a young teacher and spy for the Continental Army, named Nathan Hale, was caught by the British for spying and he was subsequently hung. His last words were “My only regret is that I have but one life to give for my country.” I remember reading that in a history book […]
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“Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves.” Philippians 2:3 Over the past few years as we have been raising our children, one scripture that has repeatedly found its way into our life is Philippians 2:3. At times it has been a refrain prayed at night, […]
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As Christians we live in light of the startling claim that we believe that even though we will die we will be resurrected and live eternally. Why do we believe that? Well, chiefly, because Jesus was resurrected, and God has promised in His Word that all those who put their trust in Jesus alone for […]
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Palm Sunday is when the church has traditionally remembered the triumphal entry of Jesus into Jerusalem at the beginning of Holy Week. What a difference a few days can make. On the Sunday before being crucified Jesus entered Jerusalem a hero, the great hope of the people, and on Friday he would leave the city […]
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There is a revealing moment at the center point of Paul’s letter to Philemon. It comes in verse 9, “…yet for love’s sake I prefer to appeal to you—I, Paul, an old man and now a prisoner also for Christ Jesus— I appeal to you for my child, Onesimus…” Right in the middle of the […]
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I think one of the most eye-catching and thought-provoking things that God ever says to anyone in His word is found in Numbers 27:16-17, when He tells Moses, “Appoint a man over the congregation, who shall lead them out and bring them in, that the congregation of the Lord may not be as sheep that […]
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A number of years ago, my brother, Joel, who pastors a church in Vermont wrote a piece entitled “In Praise of a Strange Tribe,” in which he reminisced about the church he and I grew up in outside Washington D.C. He wrote, “There was the homeless cab driver who worshiped with manic intensity. The bachelor […]
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I think it was Vance Havner who used to tell the story of two men who were going up a steep hill on a bike built for two. It was hard work, and when they got to the top they had to stop and catch their breath. The guy at the front turned to his […]
The post Conflict appeared first on State Road Church.
There are few moments in the Bible that crackle with electric tension as much as when two estranged people come together again. I’m thinking of when Joseph revealed himself to his brothers, or when Jacob and Esau met on the plain, or when David called out to Saul from the cave. The Bible is full […]
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The African slave trade that was practiced in the early part of America’s history has cast a long shadow over our national psyche, and the scar of that evil practice has never really healed among the American people. The legacy of slavery in our own country also potentially makes the reading of Philemon uncomfortable because […]
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At the heart of the Gospel is the idea that fallen human beings need God to do for them what they cannot do for themselves. A Gospel-shaped heart and mind is one that looks to God in trust to provide what is needed. This spirit of dependence on God is often expressed in a believer’s […]
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This message is the first in a series through the New Testament book of Philemon. The main, overarching thread that will link this series together is the way that Philemon demonstrates how the Gospel should be lived out amidst the messy reality of our lives. Other letters written by Paul make the Gospel (both what […]
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Psalm 63, which was penned by David when he was in the wilderness of Judah, begins with these words, “O God, you are my God; earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you; My flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.” The extraordinary thing being […]
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Every Psalm is special and needed and beautiful, but some of them have won a special place in our hearts. Charles Spurgeon, one of the greatest Bible teachers of the 19th century, called the 84th Psalm, “one of the choicest of the collection.” He wrote, “If the twenty-third be the most popular, the one-hundred-and-third the […]
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In our time together this Sunday we will be spending time in two psalms which describe two different forms that unbelief takes. Psalm 14:1 says, “The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.” And Psalm 50:19-22 says, “You give your mouth free rein for evil, and your tongue frames deceit. You sit and […]
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The Psalms are a masterclass on the topic of how to worship. They are a collection of Holy-Spirit-inspired song lyrics, but, of course, worship is more than just singing songs. God makes it plain in His Word that all of life- every day, every season, every pursuit, every relationship, every gift and every facet of […]
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Darren Bonville brings us a message on Luke 2:25-33. This portion of scripture contains the fourth and final Christmas song that Luke records in his Gospel account. 25 Now there was a man in Jerusalem, whose name was Simeon, and this man was righteous and devout, waiting for the consolation of Israel, and the Holy […]
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Stories of spooky encounters with beings from another realm seem more in line with the traditions of Halloween than Christmas, but as the Christmas story unfolds in the opening paragraphs of Luke’s Gospel we find three instances of an otherworldly being suddenly and unexpectedly materializing out of the unseen realm much to the terror of […]
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Christmas card images of that long ago time when Jesus came into the world are indelibly etched into my mind. I know they are probably not very accurate pictures of how it all went down on that first Christmas, but, in truth, I don’t really care. Accurate or not, I love and cherish those hallmark […]
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I always think it’s funny the way that musicals ask their viewers to suspend reality. In a musical people will break out suddenly into unrehearsed singing. Large crowds will dance in seemingly unchoreographed spontaneity. I have yet to see this happen at a board meeting or in Walmart. That just doesn’t happen in real life! […]
The post Mary’s Song appeared first on State Road Church.
Last week, in our study of what is to be a peacemaker, one of the many verses that we spent time with was Romans 12:18, “If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all.” A few things jump out at us as we think about this verse. First, and this really […]
The post The Persecuted for Righteousness Sake appeared first on State Road Church.
In this message we spend time with the seventh beatitude found in Matthew 5:9, which says, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.” It is fitting that our study of this beatitude follows our exploration last Sunday of the one that comes immediately before, “blessed are the pure in heart.” […]
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“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” There is a lot to think about and consider in connection with this statement that Jesus made, and I’m looking forward to exploring it this Sunday, but perhaps we should begin with the simple and obvious observation that what Jesus is concerned about is […]
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The phrase “just deserts” comes from a now obsolete meaning of the word “desert” which was something a person deserved or merited. You’ve probably heard the expression applied to people who get what was coming to them. We tend to take a certain amount of pleasure when our enemies, adversaries, and those people who manage […]
The post The Merciful appeared first on State Road Church.
In the fourth beatitude Jesus says, “blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.” Those words, “hunger” and “thirst,” are descriptive of a longing for something that is so powerful it feels desperate and necessary. It is a gnawing pang, an uncomfortable awareness of a thing’s absence, that not […]
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In his book, “The Treasure Principle,” Pastor and author Randy Alcorn writes about a visit he made to Cairo, Egypt. His guide took him down an alleyway in an obscure, and poor quarter of the city until they passed through a gate into a square filled with trash and overgrown with weeds. It was a […]
The post The Meek appeared first on State Road Church.
Our study through beatitudes (Matthew 5:1-12) brings us to verse 4; “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.” In last week’s message we saw that the Greek word for blessed, “makarios,” essentially means happy, but whatever the translation and whatever English word is used the juxtaposition of “makarios” (blessed, happy) with “pentheo” […]
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The sermon on the mount spans three chapters (5-7) in Matthew. If you have one of those Bibles that prints the words of Jesus in red then you will find that those chapters are nearly a solid block of red ink. I say “nearly” because the actual content of the sermon is sandwiched between two […]
The post The Poor in Spirit appeared first on State Road Church.
In the Bible, God often compares His Word to food. Consider the following examples: When Jesus was being tempted by Satan He quoted Deuteronomy 8:3 saying, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’” Psalm 119:103- “How sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter […]
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The Bible gives no word of encouragement to those who would quit the life of a sojourner and make a home for themselves down here. We are, after all, the spiritual descendants of Abraham who lived in tents, not Lot who settled on the plain. 1 John 2:15-17 warns against some dangerous affections that threaten […]
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Are you lonely? If you are, you might take some small comfort in knowing that you are not alone. A new report finds many Americans are lonely. The study, published by the global health service company Cigna, found that 46 percent of U.S. adults report chronic feelings of loneliness, being disconnected, and feeling as though they […]
The post The Root and the Fruit of Christian Fellowship appeared first on State Road Church.
Here at State Road we talk a lot about becoming a people who love God, love others and love in action, but those statements rest on an implied assumption that we know what love is. In our culture, love is a notoriously difficult word to define. This is owing, at least in part, to the limitations of the […]
The post By This We Know Love appeared first on State Road Church.
When I was a boy growing up in Vermont I used to make a little extra money in late spring and early summer by gathering morel mushrooms in the woods and selling them to a local restaurant called “The Countryman’s Pleasure.” For whatever reason morels can’t be farmed or grown commercially, and so they have […]
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I don’t know about you, but along the way I have related to Jonah’s mistakes. When he tried to quit his job as prophet and run away from the Lord’s calling on his life, I thought of times when I’ve been out of the Lord’s will and resisted doing the things that He wanted me […]
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What do the biblical accounts of Noah’s ark, the destruction of Sodom and Gommorha, and Jonah all have in common? In all three we find a wicked people living under the imminent threat of divine judgment, and we also find a servant of God who goes out with foreknowledge to warn the wicked to flee […]
The post Fitting the Messenger appeared first on State Road Church.
One of the interesting things about the book of Jonah is that, unlike other prophetic books, it focuses on the prophet rather than on the prophet’s message. Throughout Jonah is the object of God’s concern rather than the mouthpiece through whom God speaks His concerns as would normally befit a prophet. This Sunday we will […]
The post From A Dark Place appeared first on State Road Church.
Have you ever heard of Roy “Wrong Way” Riegels? He was an All-American center from the University of California, Berkeley. In 1929, his team, the “Golden Bears,” were facing the Georgia Tech “Yellow Jackets,” in the Rose Bowl. Riegels was playing both on both sides of the ball, offense and defense, that game. It was […]
The post Go On Back appeared first on State Road Church.
My wife hates it when I go grocery shopping with her. I always thought it would be a good time of fellowship and connection as we sauntered down the aisles looking for things to buy to eat for the week. Inevitably though, the grocery bill is often much more than it would be if she […]
The post Mind the Gap appeared first on State Road Church.
Pride and humility both have the same motto, “Look out for #1.” The difference is that pride and humility have different ideas about who precisely is numero uno. So in a sense both Orpah and Ruth were looking out for #1 when they made their respective decisions in the first chapter of Ruth. In the […]
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Verses 16-17 of the first chapter of Ruth are undoubtedly the most famous lines of the entire book. They contain Ruth’s determined vow to remain with her mother-in-law no matter what forces tried to separate them. She said, “Do not urge me to leave you or to return from following you. For where you go […]
The post Steely Resolve appeared first on State Road Church.
Down through the years people had some interesting reasons for changing their names. For example, in 2015 a young man named Adam Armstrong legally changed his name to Adam West because it was cheaper to change his name than to change his flight booking which had been made under the wrong name by his girlfriend’s […]
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In today’s day and age the copious amount of information, both secular and Christian alike, inundates the consumer culture that it is born from. Even as Christians we must be in the practice of effectively discerning the truth, as it aligns with the scriptures, within the materials we consume or else we run the risk […]
The post The Wrong Well appeared first on State Road Church.
The Great Commission is not just a to-do list item. It is not a command that can be obeyed in the same way as taking out the trash or paying our taxes. It can’t even be done as someone might deliver a letter. We might be tempted to think of it that way. For example, […]
The post Brought Low appeared first on State Road Church.
Last message we were introduced to a man whom the Bible identifies as “The Rabshakeh.” He was a trash-talking envoy of the great and terrible King Sennacherib of Assyria. In 701 bc the Assyrian army encircled Jerusalem and the Rabshakeh sidled up to within earshot of Jerusalem’s defenders and fired off the opening volley in […]
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In Isaiah 36 we are introduced to a man who is called “the Rabshakeh.” Rabshakeh is probably not the man’s name but rather a title that translates roughly to “field commander.” He has been charged by King Sennacherib of Assyria with overthrowing Jerusalem. As I mentioned in last week’s worship service this Rabshakeh is a […]
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In this message we will be getting to know Bezalel and Oholiab who the Bible mentions in Exodus 31, 35 and 36 as the two artists chiefly responsible for creating the tabernacle, its decorations, the ark of the covenant and the garments worn by the priests. In Exodus 31 we are told that God “called […]
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In this message we study the life of one of Judah’s lesser known Kings, Uzziah. We find his story in 2 Chronicles 26. In the Old Testament we are given the names of 46 men who were kings over Israel and Judah. Some of these names are famous (like David for example), some of them […]
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Sarah and I have pretty much decided on the name “Oliver” for the newest Tater Tot who is due to arrive in just a matter of weeks. It seems a fitting handle to us because “Oliver” means olive tree and Sarah’s family have been olive growers for generations in Southern California (and in Italy before […]
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At the far end of our quiet mall there is a small collection of children’s rides. Now, you might not have travelled far enough down the empty corridors to know the specific ones I am talking about, but imagine the rides you used to see outside of a grocery store. The ones you put a […]
The post Through Not To appeared first on State Road Church.
In this message we will wrap up our mini sermon series on Advent Christian Doctrinal Distinctives by posing the question, “What is the final end of those who do not put their trust in Jesus for salvation?” At the center of Christianity is the joyous reality of “good news.” The Christian message is, at its […]
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Thoughtful and careful Bible students have come away from God’s Word with different answers to the question of what precisely follows in the minutes, hours, days and years after a person dies. Does a person’s spirit go to heaven as their body suffers decay? If so, is their soul then rejoined to their body in […]
The post When We Die appeared first on State Road Church.
In this series we’ll be exploring the doctrinal distinctives of the Advent Christian Denomination. I don’t generally make a habit of focusing on that too much as it tends to emphasize what separates us off rather than what unites us to the broader family of the Church. However, it does seem appropriate to reacquaint ourselves […]
The post Is Man Immortal appeared first on State Road Church.
All human beings are either of Adam or of Jesus. The first Adam was the great bringer of death, and all who are born in the line and lineage of Adam remain under its curse. Jesus, who scripture describes as the second Adam(Romans 5 and 1 Corinthians 15) , was the great life-bringer, and anyone […]
The post Empty Tomb, Full Hearts appeared first on State Road Church.
Have you ever, in a moment of pain, frustration or anger, said something you later regretted? Have you ever mashed your thumb with a hammer and almost reflexively a swear word came flying out? Our mastery (or lack of mastery) over our tongues at such times is very revealing. The missionary Amy Carmichael once said, […]
The post A Strange Coronation appeared first on State Road Church.
Way back in August we spent some time studying the fifth chapter of John’s Gospel in which Jesus was quoted as saying to the Jewish religious leaders, “You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me…” And after the resurrection when […]
The post To Fulfill the Scriptures appeared first on State Road Church.
Pontius Pilate hailed from a minor aristocratic family in the region of Samnia in what is now Italy. He served as Governor of Judea during the reign of the Emperor Tiberius. History does not tell us how Pilate rose to this position or what became of him later in life, but it seems most likely […]
The post Truth on Trial appeared first on State Road Church.
In the last four chapters of John that we have studied (chapters 13-16), Jesus has been talking to the disciples about the Father, but now in chapter 17 he switches gears and talks instead to the Father about the disciples. Both activities are critically important. As Christians, we should follow Jesus’ example in talking often […]
The post The High Priestly Prayer appeared first on State Road Church.
Chapter 16 of John’s Gospel account marks the last discourse between Jesus and His disciples before going to the cross, and it begins and ends with words of explanation from Jesus. “I have said all these things to you to keep you from falling away.” (verse 1) and “I have said these things to you, […]
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If you get a chance before you listen to this message, read the fifteenth chapter of John. That’s the portion of scripture that we will be studying together. If your preferred version of the Bible is the King James, ESV or NASB count the number of times the word “abide” occurs as you read. If […]
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This Sunday fell on Saint Valentine’s Day. According to church history, Valentine was a Christian priest, or possibly a Bishop, living in Rome who was martyred on February 14th in 269 AD during the reign of Claudius II for the crime of marrying Christian couples against the orders of Caesar. In time, he would be […]
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As I was reading my way through chapter 14 this week I was brought up short by something Jesus said. In verse 12, Jesus explains to His disciples, “Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do, and greater works than these will he do, because […]
The post Greater Works and the Means to Accomplish Them appeared first on State Road Church.
Back in 2011, for our tenth anniversary Sarah and I talked her Mom into watching the kids for a week and we made reservations at The Clement Hotel in Monterey, California. We had originally planned to do something really, super-duper splashy for our tenth but then reality and certain pesky things like budgets, car repairs […]
The post A Thumbnail Image of Heaven appeared first on State Road Church.
In the book of 1 Peter the Apostle Peter writes to his fellow believers scattered abroad and encourages them, among other things, not to fear those who would seek to harm them because of their association with Christ. “Have no fear of them, nor be troubled…,” he writes. Then he continues, “but in your hearts […]
The post Disciple In Training appeared first on State Road Church.
Have you ever seen a counterfeit bill? I’ve never actually seen or handled one myself, but I have seen some pictures online that looked pretty convincing. I suppose if it’s done well a counterfeit bill will look and feel very much like the real thing. This Sunday as we continue our study through the Gospel […]
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In Acts 20:27 Paul told the Elders of the Ephesian church, “I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole counsel of God.” It is because we desire to receive the whole counsel of God that we have set out to study our way through an entire book of the Bible. We want to […]
The post Exploring a Mystery appeared first on State Road Church.
A family dinner creates connection, and, as Christians, we ought to know this from church. Too often when churches speak about “creating community” they mean some new program or a small group strategy or something slick and new that they feel will get people together. But in the Bible the focus of community is not […]
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There are many crossroads in life that we come to, and New Year’s strikes me as a sort of little crossroads moment where the meandering path of our life, all the days that have come before, brings us to this new day, this new turning of the calendar. At the beginning of a new year […]
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Luke 2:8-20 describes three startling and unexpected visitations. First the shepherds were visited in the most spectacular and awe-inspiring way by a whole heavenly host of angels who proclaimed to them the savior’s birth, and then the shepherds in turn visited Bethlehem to see this sight for themselves and to tell anyone who would listen […]
The post Surprised by Joy appeared first on State Road Church.
What an Incredible Story We Are Living In! (Matthew 1:21; Philippians 2:6-8; Isaiah 9:6; Luke 2:7, 10-12, 52; John 13:5; Matthew 26:39 NIV) She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins…Jesus Christ- King of kings, Lord of lords, […]
The post Why the Manger appeared first on State Road Church.
The Christmas story is an old familiar one to most of us, isn’t it? In sermons and Sunday school lessons, Christmas pageants, carols and Bible readings, we have all heard the story loads of times. And besides just hearing the story, sometimes I feel like I have actually seen it. That’s probably because of all […]
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In this message we dive into the twelfth chapter of John which begins in a very seasonally appropriate way with a Thanksgiving dinner. This Sunday we’ll be studying verses 1-8 of John 12 and thinking deeply about the nature of Christian Thanksgiving. One thing is for sure, a quick survey of all the Bible says […]
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It has been a few weeks since we were last in the Gospel of John, but this Sunday we’ll be picking things up where we left off in chapter 10. From beginning to end this chapter illustrates powerfully the perfect sovereignty of Jesus. By sovereignty I mean the absolute right of Jesus to do whatever […]
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Ecclesiastes 4:9-12 says, Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their toil. For if they fall, one will lift up his fellow. But woe to him who is alone when he falls and has not another to lift him up! Again, if two lie together, they keep warm, but how […]
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I can still remember the moment when I first understood that Ronald Reagan wasn’t going to be president anymore. I was downstairs in the fellowship hall at the Advent Christian church in Hyattsville, MD. It was 1988, and I was swilling down some punch with a big glob of vanilla ice cream in it. As […]
The post The Politics Of It All appeared first on State Road Church.
Back in 2010 I was riding my bicycle after dark, when I made an unexpected and violent exit from my normal, day-to-day routine. An enraged dog charged out of nowhere and became entangled with the smoothly whirring operation of my 10-speed, which, in turn, caused me to proceed over the handle bars and land with […]
The post We Are The Body appeared first on State Road Church.
Sheep are the animal most often mentioned in the Bible, and although many analogous comparisons are employed in the Bible to describe the relationship between God and His people, that of shepherd and sheep is definitely a favorite among the biblical writers. In John 10, the next portion of John’s Gospel that we will begin […]
The post The Good Shepherd appeared first on State Road Church.
I once had a friend who told me the unorthodox story of how he first came to put his trust in Jesus for salvation. His Dad had unexpectedly pulled him and his younger brother out of school one day to take them on an impromptu field trip. He was just a young boy at the […]
The post Free Slaves appeared first on State Road Church.
If you turn in your Bibles to the next section of the Gospel of John you will find the story of the woman caught in adultery (John 7:53-8:11), which contains one of Jesus’ most memorable quotes, “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.” If you […]
The post Is The Bible Reliable appeared first on State Road Church.
As you all may know, Sarah and I lived and served for nearly a decade at Camp Maranatha in the San Jacinto Mountains of Southern California. During late summer when the San Jacinto Mountains become a dry, brittle and thirsty place, and the dust along the walkways becomes as fine as baby powder there was […]
The post Chained Lions appeared first on State Road Church.
In this message we will continue our study through Jesus’ exchange with the crowds and religious leaders at the festival of booths in Jerusalem. The portion we’ll be spending time in this week is John 7:25-36. Jesus hated puffery and domination of any sort. At every opportunity he confronted those who looked down on others […]
The post Coming and Going appeared first on State Road Church.
In the previous message we studied the first thirteen verses of John 7 and now we will be exploring the rest of the chapter. It is a long block of scripture spanning 39 verses. It chronicles more sparring between Jesus and the Pharisees. This time, however, it is playing out in front of a very […]
The post High Stakes Exchange appeared first on State Road Church.
In John 7:1-13 we read about an interesting exchange between Jesus and his siblings. Like everyone else, they are very excited about the miracles he has been working. So, in verses 3-5 they say to Jesus, “Leave here and go to Judea, that your disciples also may see the works you are doing. For no […]
The post Unbelieving Brothers appeared first on State Road Church.
Last October we studied the feeding of the 5,000 as part of our message series on the eight miraculous signs of the book of John. This week we’ll be studying what happened next by exploring the second half of John 6. The sixth chapter of John is interesting because it begins like a big bonfire […]
The post Barrier to Belief appeared first on State Road Church.
Imagine if I made some over-the-top, extraordinary claim about myself. You would probably want to see some proof before you accepted what I was saying as true. For example, what if I made the claim that the Queen of England and I were best friends? You would probably be a little skeptical about that. My […]
The post Blinded to the Light appeared first on State Road Church.
As we open God’s word together we find ourselves at John 5:18-29. As you study His word in your home, we hope you are encouraged by just who Jesus is and where His authority comes from. “Those who hear will live!”
The post Like Father, Like Son appeared first on State Road Church.
When ordering off the menu at most restaurants, I find myself first eyeing what has passed its way by my table. Not because I am particularly impressed by presentation, but one important factor for me in food decision making is how filling the meal I order will be. Often I stick to what I know […]
The post He Had Said appeared first on State Road Church.
In this message we hear from the Lord through Ron Kofstad, Jr. while studying Jeremiah 6:16 together. I encourage you to read Jeremiah 6:16-21 as you prepare your heart and mind to receive the Lord’s instruction. May the Lord open your eyes to the compass we should use to make decisions and to the impact […]
The post Making Decisions And The Decisions We Make appeared first on State Road Church.
Imagine with me the scene. It’s high noon on a hot day outside the Samaritan village of Sychar. The sun is directly overhead, beating down on the head of a woman who is carrying a large, heavy water jar on her shoulder. She is making her way along a well-worn path that leads out of […]
The post In Spirit and Truth appeared first on State Road Church.
This Sunday we’ll wrap up our study of the third chapter of John by exploring verses 22-36 together. This portion of scripture begins with John the Baptist’s disciples complaining to him that everyone is now going to Jesus to be baptized rather than them. They are losing market share on the spiritual pie chart. John […]
The post The Wrong Love appeared first on State Road Church.
“Drawing a line the sand” is a common idiom in English meant to describe an action which, once taken, signifies a permanent and decisive commitment to an ideal, cause or person as well as a willingness to suffer any possible consequences that might come from taking that stand. This coming Sunday, we will continue our […]
The post Light and Dark appeared first on State Road Church.
My favorite stanza from the old hymn, “I Love to Tell the Story,” is the one that goes: “I love to tell the story For those who know it best Seem hungering and thirsting To hear it like the rest” If you’re like me than you’re very familiar with the old, old story, but the […]
The post Sacrificial Love appeared first on State Road Church.
In this message we tackle the first fifteen verses of John 3 in which Jesus has a nighttime conversation with a Pharisee named Nicodemus. For the most part, Jesus’ interactions with the Pharisees were pretty contentious, but this time it is different. Nicodemus is a genuine truth-seeker with humility in great enough measure to celebrate […]
The post Born Again appeared first on State Road Church.
In this message we continue our study through the Gospel of John by studying verses 13-22 of chapter 2 in which Jesus cleanses the temple. This account shows us a side of Jesus that we don’t often see. He is angry. He overturns tables. He takes people’s money and scatters it on the floor. Most […]
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This Sunday we’ll be continuing our study through the Gospel of John by unpacking John 1:35-51 together. In these verses John recounts how Jesus first began to gain a following of disciples. One of the things that often strikes me when I read the Bible is how different the recruitment strategy of Jesus and the […]
The post What Are You Seeking appeared first on State Road Church.
For the most part the Bible depicts people in a warts-and-all kind of way, which is to say that both their good and bad points are highlighted. However, whereas the stories of personalities like David or Peter reveal a complicated and nuanced portrait of a fellow struggler, other figures seem to be depicted in a […]
The post Who Are You appeared first on State Road Church.
I’m a bit embarrassed to admit this, but I have a fairly serious sleep walking problem. Over the years I have had many nocturnal adventures like the time I wandered around a horse ranch, destroyed a drop ceiling, went outside and yelled at my neighbor’s house, went into work at a police department, climbed out […]
The post Light and Sight appeared first on State Road Church.
Of the four Gospel accounts contained in the New Testament John begins his in a very unique way. Whereas Matthew and Luke, who both begin their Gospels with a genealogy, seem intent on demonstrating the humanity of Jesus, and Mark opens his Gospel by describing the ministry of John the Baptist who preceded Jesus, but […]
The post In The Beginning appeared first on State Road Church.
In this message we finish our series through the prison prayers of Paul by studying Colossians 1:9-14. I invite you to join me in praying this beautiful prayer over your brothers and sisters in Christ this week as the Spirit brings them to your mind. If you like a challenge try committing this prayer to […]
The post Filled appeared first on State Road Church.
Pastor and author, John MacArthur posed the following exercise: Imagine that you are granted the amazing opportunity to build a new church from the ground up in a community that needs a good church. From the following list you can pick three things to start with, which three things would you choose? Rank them by […]
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Jesse Ventura, former governor of Minnesota, once said, “Organized religion is a sham and a crutch for weak-minded people.” Edgar Allan Poe wrote, “All religion, my friend, is simply evolved out of fraud, fear, greed, imagination, and poetry.” Thomas Jefferson said, “Religions are all alike…founded upon fables and mythologies.” You can find similar quotes from […]
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This Sunday we will continue our study through the prison prayers of Paul by doing a deep dive into Ephesians 3:14-21. Much like the previous prayer that we studied in Ephesians 1, a major emphasis of this prayer is focused on the idea of “power.” It contains the famous line, “Now to him who is […]
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In James 5:17-18 we find a short but very instructive passage about prayer. It says, “Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed fervently that it might not rain, and for three years and six months it did not rain on the earth. Then he prayed again, and heaven gave rain, […]
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Matthew 26 begins with Jesus telling His disciples, including Judas presumably, “The Son of Man will be delivered up to be crucified,” and just a dozen verses later we read, “Then one of the twelve, whose name was Judas Iscariot, went to the Chief Priests and said, ‘What will you give me if I deliver […]
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Once there were just a handful of people who were infected and they were all congregated in one city. That represented the best chance to completely isolate and eliminate this new contagion before it could spread. The Government tried to do just that, but they botched the whole operation and their bumbling efforts only caused it to spread further afield. Infected people fled into other cities and neighboring regions causing the number of exposures to multiply exponentially. Soon it was racing across international borders, and, vigorous as a weed, it was passed from person to person and town to town. Along the way it up-ended lives and radically altered entire civilizations. Am I talking about covid-19? No, I’m talking about Christianity. The growth of the early church was like a powerful contagion that burst onto the scene in the first century Roman world and spread like wild fire. In Acts 17:6 the men of Thessalonica captured the mood well when they said of Christian missionaries, “These men who have turned the world upside down have come here also.” It’s as if there had been no confirmed cases of Christianity in Thessalonica up to that point, but then all of a sudden it showed up in their midst and they were alarmed.
As we seek to stop the spread of a virus we must not lose sight of our calling to actively spread Christianity but what does it look like to be an evangelist in the days of Coronavirus? It’s a good question because most of our evangelistic tools have historically involved face-to-face interactions and invitations to come to worship gatherings.
I hope you can listen as we take up this question and worship our God through the study of His Word.
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During the past week the number of confirmed cases of Covid-19, both in Maine and across the country, has continued to rise and in response the state and federal government have offered stronger recommendations for social distancing. This past Wednesday morning Governor Mills issued an order that, in part, prohibited groups of 10 or more from gathering. As part of a coordinated regional effort to slow the spread of this virus it is our intention to comply with this order. As such, we will be canceling our regular Sunday morning worship services, small groups, and student gatherings until such time as it seems wise to resume them. This is uncharted territory for us as a church, and Pastor Andrew and I are doing our best to anticipate needs and serve our church family well during this strange season of separation. If you would like to talk, need help or would appreciate prayer I am always just a phone call away. My cell phone number is 207-762-2109 and my email address is joshbtate@gmail.com. This Sunday at 9:30am we will be live streaming a modified worship service on the church’s facebook account (@stateroadhcurch). I hope you can join us for that!
Years ago I read the Little House series by Laura Ingalls Wilder to the kids at bedtime. One of Ma Ingalls’ favorite quotes that I remember from those books was, “There is no great loss without some small gain.” To be sure, these are days of great loss. Some of the losses have been trivial like canceled events and toilet paper shortages while others are serious like shuttered businesses, anxiety and a loss of corporate worship. However, in this season of great loss there does exist the potential for some small gains. The message this Sunday will be entitled “Don’t Waste Our Time Apart.” We will be exploring ways to make the most out of being alone and the unique potential of this season for growth and service.
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Lots of times when I read the Bible, especially the Old Testament, it makes me wish that I could peek through the veil of time and share in the story, or at least witness it with my own eyes. However, as I read 1 Samuel 30 this week, the very thought made me feel soft and unprepared. Like a lap dog running with wolves, I think I would be too spoiled by the age in which I live to even think of going toe to toe with the kind of people we encounter in this chapter. Imagine the scene, I mean really try to imagine it, as David and his men returned to their home, the city of Ziklag, and found the site sacked, burned-out and strewn with bodies. Their wives and little children had been carried off by who knows who, and, if they remained alive, were experiencing who knows what. The kind of scene that they arrived home to would have been all too familiar to these hard men. Back in chapter 27 we were informed that David and his men had set out from Ziklag many times to “strike the land” of the Geshurites, the Girzites and the Amalekites and they had made it their policy to “leave neither man nor woman alive” when they did so. And now as they surveyed the bitter wreckage of Ziklag I can only imagine what images, memories, and emotions filled their minds.
1 Samuel 30:4-6, “Then David and the people who were with him raised their voices and wept until they had no more strength to weep. David’s two wives also had been taken captive, Ahinoam of Jezreel and Abigail the widow of Nabal of Carmel. And David was greatly distressed, for the people spoke of stoning him, because all the people were bitter in soul, each for his sons and daughters. But David strengthened himself in the Lord his God.”
Many times we have made the observation that David is a complicated figure. He’s rarely, if ever, purely a role model or a villain. David is both famous for his faith, and infamous for his failures. He was a shepherd, a giant killer, a musician and song writer, a worshipper, a husband, and father and friend. He was a warrior King, a prophet, and someone whom God’s Word describes as “a man after God’s own heart.” However, he was also, at times, a philanderer, a murderer, a liar, and a self-willed, disobedient man. In the final analysis, despite all of his accomplishments, David was a sinner in need of a Savior just like you and me.
I hope you can listen in as we study what happens next and seek what God has to say to us through this difficult chapter in David’s life.
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If I mentioned witches and ghosts and people in costume coming around after dark to a stranger’s house you would probably think I was talking about Halloween, but I’m not. All this and more can be found in 1 Samuel 28, which we’ll be studying together this Sunday. It has been quite a while since we spent time in our study through the life of David, but as we rejoin it in chapter 28 we find a nation and its king in crisis. An existential threat hangs over the countryside in the form of an invading army, and it seems that the aging and isolated despot, King Saul, is no longer equal to the task of repulsing them. As any of us might do in a crisis, Saul casts about for some bit of counsel that would tell him what to do, but his longtime spiritual adviser, the Prophet Samuel, is now dead, and in a fit of homicidal paranoia he has killed all the priests in the land. Most importantly the Spirit of God has utterly left him. He is alone, desperate, and, without God’s help, he is crumbling under the weight of his own crown. He apparently still clings to the hope that God will guide him as He did in the old days. However, in the absence of genuine repentance on the part of Saul, God remains stubbornly silent. Saul becomes so desperate with fear that he can’t eat or sleep and this drives him to do something very strange. He attempts to communicate with the Prophet Samuel from beyond the grave through the medium of a necromancer. We long ago abandoned our search for reason in the things Saul decides to do, but wouldn’t that be like using your girlfriend’s phone to give your wife a call? It’s not exactly going to start the conversation off on the right foot.
I hope you can listen in as we tackle this strange and confusing chapter, and ask, what does any of this have to do with us?
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I was baptized at the now defunct Advent Christian Church in Hyattsville, MD. I was only 9 or 10 years old at the time but I remember well sitting down in my Dad’s office (he was the pastor) to question me if I had sufficient personal understanding of the Gospel and to instruct me on the meaning and symbolism of baptism. I had just made a decision for Christ recently, and despite my stage fright I was determined to obey Jesus’ command to be baptized. I remember that the baptismal was a large metal tank above and behind the pulpit. It was a mysterious space to me because when me and my siblings would play hide and seek in the empty church we were forbidden from going into the baptismal. It was accessed by two little changing rooms, one on either side. The metal walls of the tank had been painted, but the paint had begun to flake off so that when I did eventually enter the water I would stir up loads of paint flecks to swirl around me and cling to my wet skin. In previous generations, the church had been more prosperous, but by the time I got baptized it was in decline and it had been very a long time since the baptismal had seen any use. I remember that when my Dad turned the old valve to fill the baptismal the water ran as red as tomato soup. With its rusty red tinge and swirling paint sediment I think I may have actually been dirtier coming up out of the water than going down into it, but in my soul I felt washed clean of every impurity. Listen in as we consider this thing called baptism together.
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In Psalm 63:3 we read, “Because your steadfast love is better than life, my lips will praise you.” This verse communicates the startling truth that there are things that should be preferred even over continued life. What do you think is better than life? What would you die for? And if it is true that there are things better than life than wouldn’t it also stand that there are fates worse than dying? This Sunday we will study the account of Daniel and the lion’s den in the sixth chapter of Daniel. In Daniel’s example we are challenged by a man who chose worship over life and power and money. What does this mean for us individually and, also, what does this mean for us as a church? The post Tried and True appeared first on State Road Church.
The French literary icon and war-hero, Antoine De Saint Exupery, once wrote, “Love does not consist in gazing at each other, but in looking outward in the same direction.” This reminds me of our study from last May when we studied the remarkable friendship that flourished between Jonathan and David. In 1 Samuel 18 it describes their friendship in terms of Jonathan’s soul being knitted to that of David’s. This notion of one soul being knitted to another is describing a deep attachment. The deepest bond described among human beings in the Bible is that experienced in marriage, where two people are joined together by God so that they actually become one new person. This description of friendship—two souls being knit together— falls short of that kind of bond, but only just barely. It describes two people who remain separate individuals, but their souls are tethered by invisible chains of admiration, shared values and those mysterious, indefinable traits that draw friends to one another. It is significant that the Bible says it was their souls that were knit together. This isn’t just a deep attachment, it is an attachment formed at the deepest, truest part of who they were. They didn’t just find common interests or a shared hobby or a similar upbringing. They see things the same and they hold their convictions with the same spirit, and at the center of it all— the sun around which this friendship orbits— is a shared passion for God and His people. If this is true for a friendship like David and Jonathan’s than it is certainly also true for our marriages, which represent the highest form of friendship. The deepest, soul-knitting kind of friendships are formed around shared passions and a shared treasuring of what is most important. The prophet Amos posed the question, (Amos 3:3), Can two people walk together without agreeing on the direction? This Sunday I hope you can join us for the final message in this four-part sermon series on marriage, which I have entitled, “Looking Outward In the Same Direction.” The post Looking Outward In The Same Direction appeared first on State Road Church.
Let’s start our discussion about sex with God. I think you’ll agree that’s the most logical place to start. After all, sex finds its very genesis in the person of the Creator. He is the inventor and the origin of sex. Some talk as though God is against sex, and that the church’s attitude toward sex is one of prudish disapproval, but that is patently false. Sex was God’s idea in the first place. Marriage, which is also a divine invention, was created, in part, to fulfill our God-given longing for sexual intimacy. God is responsible for making sex what it is- pleasurable, and emotionally satisfying. Man is responsible for perverting that gift and making it into something selfish, sinful and exploitive. Sex within marriage is like a fire in a fireplace- it lends a cheery warmth to a home. It’s altogether right and productive. Sex outside of marriage is like a structure fire, which is to say that it’s destructive. The blaze of such a fire may be exciting for a time and, yes, even intense, but ultimately it consumes homes and brings lives to ruin. Outside of marriage sex rages to ash and all that is left is bitter aftermath. Good fire. Bad fire.
The church is perhaps more practiced at speaking negatively about sex than positively, but why should that be? How amazingly extravagant is the Creator of this world who authored the colors of a sunset and poppies in the dunes, the smell of wood smoke on the beach and good things cooking, the sound of waves crashing and loons at daybreak, the taste of coffee and raspberries? He didn’t just give us the minimum, the barest essentials that we need to survive and propagate the earth. No, he gifted us with all of these extraordinary things and more besides. He’s extravagant and wonderfully generous, and in the gift of sex we see another example of God’s generosity and goodness to us.
I hope you can listen in as we continue our sermon series on marriage by seeking God’s Word for a Biblical view of sex and intimacy in marriage.
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Once when we were living in California Sarah and I went over for dinner at the home of some married friends. As soon as we walked in the door we could feel that something was off. I couldn’t put my finger on it precisely, maybe it was something about their body language or the way they talked (or didn’t talk) to each other, but after a few minutes of hanging out it began to dawn on us that our arrival must have interrupted a fight. They were trying very hard to act normal, but something was clearly amiss. Sarah, who has always been a very direct sort of communicator, asked, “Were you guys just fighting before we got here?” That opened the floodgates, and they began to share their story. It was over something silly, but no fight ever feels silly at the time. They may have been able to joke about it later but right then the feelings were still raw and close to the surface. Then Sarah and I shared about our most recent fight, and back and forth we went swapping war stories until by the end of the night we were all laughing together again.
There is a reason why we take marriage vows, not wishes, and that reason is conflict. The presence of vows at a wedding ceremony give voice to an implied expectation that it will be hard at times to remain together. The best marriages are not usually marked by an absence of conflict, but rather by the ability to work out and negotiate differences with one another. Anyone who has been married for more than five seconds can tell you a thing or two about fighting with their spouse, but unlike other things that we get lots of practice at for some reason many couples get worse at conflict the more they experience it.
I think God’s Word can help look at conflict in their marriage differently, and break existing patterns that are doing harm to some of our marriages.
In this message we return to Ephesians 5:22-33 to see what principles it holds about managing conflict in our marriages. I hope you can listen in.
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