Sermons from St. John the Divine: Recent Episodes
The Church of St. John the Divine
We all want to be noticed. What is behind this desire? Jesus shows us that if we are not careful this desire can become twisted. He offers us the attention we seek from the world.
John records, “Jesus was deeply moved in his spirit and greatly troubled.” The original Greek means he was highly agitated. As one commentator writes the verb “indicates an outburst of anger.” Jesus approaches Lazarus’ grave mad as hell and at hell. God did not create human beings to die like this. Sin brought death into the world, and Jesus has come to undo what humanity has created by following the leading of Satan. Jesus is not mad at Lazarus or any person. He directs his anger at Satan.
The vision of the coming Kingdom of God from Revelation is less about your personal salvation than your social fellowship with all the saints who worship Jesus.
The blind beggar becomes the perfect example of what it means to be a follower of Christ. It is not until we recognize ourselves sitting beside the road as a beggar in need of mercy and healing that we truly be a grateful follower of Christ.
On his way to the cross, Jesus redefines the disciples’ expectations of glory. True glory is Jesus' love for us on the cross.
The rich young ruler kept the Ten Commandment listed by Jesus. It was the unspoken commands that held him back: the first four about God and the last commandment about coveting. His money had become an idol. Is money an idol for you, something you put before God? When you ask yourself, “what about me and my money,” how do you answer?
Jesus' teaching about marriage and divorce is not just about rules, but about the powers of separation that have been put to death on Christ's Cross. Ultimately, we learn that marriage is a created image of what Christ has done for us. He has made us "one flesh" with Himself, bringing peace between Jew and Gentile by enjoining them together in His One Body. So, let no one separate what God has brought together; for, the the Kingdom is at hand!
In an age of anxiety and uncertainty, we hold to the promise that Jesus is mindful of us and for us.
Perhaps our wealth is a barrier to faith. Instead, we are called to put our trust in Jesus who provides for all your needs and pray to him in all circumstances. And when we trust him and speak to him in all circumstance, we will find peace.
Jesus embraces a little boy to demonstrate that his love is given to those who embody the very opposite of striving after acceptance, status, or success. That ought to sound like awfully good news to those of us who strive a lot.
The noted 20th century scientist Albert Einstein said, “I do not fear the explosive power of the atom bomb. What I fear is the explosive power of evil in the human heart.”
What combats evil in the human heart? The fruit of the Spirit. The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. We all need this fruit to ward off the power of evil in our hearts and truly follow and serve Jesus.
In Mark 8, Jesus is addressing the crowd, the religious leaders and his disciples, all of whom were asking "who is he and why does he do these things?" Jesus wants to say that the signs are clear if only they had the eyes to see and minds to understand. Those who devote to following Jesus, see and understand his mission in the world.
The Body of Christ is essential for revealing Christ to the world. When the Church is divided and imitates the world, Christ becomes invisible. Others are amazed by seeing Christ in His people, so let us be united in embrace of the Love that embraces us and show Jesus to the world.
How do we understand how Jesus talks with the Syrophoenocian woman? Jesus shows that his ministry includes Gentiles in this enacted parable.
It would be so much easier if the Gospel worked like the rest of our lives where hard work, keeping the rules, and striving for success won the day. But it doesn’t work like that.
God seeks those who worship from the heart. God is spirit, and Jesus teaches us to worship in spirit and in truth. For genuine worship is that which comes from deep in one’s heart. It is a worship motivated by love: love of God and love of fellow humans.
God has always wanted to be in relationship with us and has always offered forgiveness. Jesus’ gift of his body and blood are sure signs of God's forgiveness. So, taste and eat and be forgiven.
Satan wins when we despise one another. He wins when we no longer see the image of God in others. He wins when we hide ourselves from God because of our sins.
Jesus invites us to recognize Him as the true source of sustenance, the only one who can genuinely satisfy our deepest longings. We will discuss what it means to hunger for Christ and how embracing Him as the Bread of Life can transform our lives, filling us with enduring peace, joy, and purpose. Join us as we seek to understand and embrace the profound truth that in Jesus, our souls find their true nourishment and fulfillment.
God dwells among us: in the Ark, in the Temple, in Jesus, in the Spirit. He does not stand far-off but has drawn close, close enough to touch.
Jesus pours out his compassion on his people, pushing us to grow in him, and caring our physical and spiritual health. Whether we be as devout and knowledgeable of him as his apostles or as lost as those sheep without a shepherd, the love that Jesus shows for his people is without bounds. All we have to do is say yes and come into the embrace of his open arms.
Today’s readings give us two stories of dancing: one party ends with John’s disciples laying his body in a tomb, and the other with all of Israel under King David joyfully returning home. But, in the end, they are both stories that point to how all of our lives and deaths are caught up in the life and death –– and life, again! –– of Jesus Christ.
The Church is a community of people entirely dependent on the grace and love of Jesus Christ, as shown by the Gospel story of Jesus being rejected in his hometown of Nazareth and the disciples being sent out with nothing but faith and the support of others. Our participation in the Eucharist and our journeys of discernment are deeply rooted in this reliance on Christ and our mutual love and support of one another as the Body of Christ.
As a Light for the City, we ask God to create here a missional ecosystem, a catalyzing Kingdom movement, that each of us would more and more embrace all the opportunities our Lord gives us to bless those he places before us in all spheres of life.
Just as Jesus has touched down in the world in his body as an offering for you and for me, so he empowers us to be his physical presence to a world desperately in need of healing, peace, and salvation.
Fierce winds of fear and anxiety threaten to swamp our lives. Storms of cultural clashes sometimes steal our peace and make it difficult to stay in the boat of faith with our fellow Jesus followers. How can we find the deep peace of Jesus during these turbulent times?
Jesus' parable of the growing of the seed tells us about how we should live into the kingdom of God. That the mysterious growth of the seed only happens by the grace of God in his perfect timing and that with patience and trust, the same will happen to us.
Jesus teaches about the Kingdom of God through the parables of a wheat field and a mustard seed. The Kingdom of God is growing today, and Jesus brings us into this new creation.
Despite inevitable failures and disappointments, Christian congregations are to be new families whose head is Jesus. In family with him, members see in each other not only a fellow sinner, but also one for whom Christ died. Within the family of the church, we always see each other in baptismal garments.
Christ is Lord of the Sabbath who gives us rest by sharing his life with us, making us one with himself. As Christ’s Body, we are made into a people called to witness to that life we've been given, not in the form of a “welcome sign,” but in the very form of our shared life as St. John the Divine.
So many of us long for the exuberant, joyful life of self-abandonment to the call to be Christian, to be living within the inner life of God that is forever inviting us in.
Before his death, burial, resurrection, and ascension, Jesus promised his disciples that he was sending the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit would bear witness to all that Jesus did and spoke. Jesus further promised his disciples that they would receive power when the Holy Spirit came and would bear witness to him as well. This promise of empowerment is for disciples (believers in Jesus Christ as Saviour and Lord). Both St. Luke and St. John help us to see the need for this empowerment. We each need this Pentecost experience for an effective life of witness.
The Holy Spirit continues to be poured out upon all who will yield to his movement, assuring us more and more that we are God’s possession, loved beyond measure, given God’s power working through our weakness.
Jesus both speaks of loving the world and seems against the world. Which is it? How are we supposed to live in the world faithfully?
On the night he was betrayed, Jesus prayed for his disciples and those who would come to believe him later. That’s us! He prayed for protection and sanctification as they go out into the world. Jesus assures this prayer when he goes to the cross.
This Sunday's Gospel passage follows that of last week where Jesus describes himself as the Vine and his disciples are his branches. Today's passage stays on that theme of 'abiding' in terms of love. What are the practical implications of 'abiding in the love of Jesus Christ'?
We can always be connected to Jesus as our phones connect us to one another and the world. Yet the connection to Jesus will always be stronger because he chose you for his eternal, abiding, unconditional love!
Jesus calls us to look to him as the true vine, the one from whom we receive the nutrients and subsistence that sustains us and allows for our growth. By dwelling in him and his word, we can live out God's purpose for our lives. We must look first to Jesus, focusing on our relationship with him before we can live out his will and produce the fruit of the Kingdom of God.
This low and dangerous moment for the culture is actually a glorious opportunity for the church – at least for churches filled with people who are learning more and more how to abide in Jesus, to love the Father as he loves the Father, to love the people he loves, to love the works he does. This is the life that truly is abundant life, the source of flourishing that matters most.
Through the Holy Spirit, we hear the voice of the good shepherd and experience God's loving-kindness.
Jesus, like a shepherd, is willing to lay down his life for us. He calls us to love him as our top priority, use him as a living example for our lives, and be committed to giving him to others.
Missional joy arises in Christian community. How do people become Christian? They see other people living in such beautiful, joyful fellowship that they want that kind of life for themselves too – one that only makes sense if Jesus is raised from the dead and alive with his people.
God has called us to be a witness who testifies to what they have seen and know. We are called to be witnesses to the Good News, the received testimonies of those who saw and knew the risen Jesus - that He is the Son of God, who died and was raised from the dead.
The Christian story is a grand comedy. We can laugh with joy because Jesus defeated death, sin, and bring us back to right relationship with God. But he does much more than even that.
The most powerful word we can ever hear is our own name spoken in tender love. The risen Christ speaks to you by name as he speaks to Mary. He knows everything about you, and he wants everything for you that is good and true and loving and lasts forever.
Jesus asks us whom do we seek in his cross? God, a perfect and innocent man? Yes. But the cross is also his way of seeking us out.
Jesus took bread, his body, everything that is.
He gave thanks, thanks to his Father.
Everything came from God.
He broke it - offered everything that that is.
Sacrifice accepted.
Death defeated.
Life broken, Life given.
His life in you.
Do this!
Jesus enters Jerusalem on a humble donkey as hands wave palms in welcome of another. Into those same hands, turned against him, Jesus still goes and gives himself triumphant. No one is here by accident - not the blinkered disciples nor the demanding crowds; all show who Christ had come to triumphantly gather to himself by going to the cross.
The heart of Mark’s Gospel is verse 10:45: “The Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” Jesus came to serve, to give, to die, and to pay a humanly unpayable ransom.
At the cross, God showed the world there is no sin, there is no evil too great that he cannot bring from it everlasting righteousness and joy. During this Holy Week, remember Jesus went through hell to bring us to his, to our, Father.
Our Gospel passage focuses on the passion of Jesus as he approached his death and resurrectionn. His passion was to glorify his Father by offering his life for the salvation of the whole world. He would achieve that by doing three things simultaneously: glorifying the Father, judging the world, and rescuing all people. What are we passionate about as believers in Jesus Christ?
The secret of living inside the glory of God is to share in the pattern of Jesus who is the grain of wheat that is sown and dies. But we carry around a lot of seeds that we let go of, that never die, and they never bear any fruit. Only the work of Jesus being lifted up for our sake can help us let those seeds go.
In our Gospel passage, Jesus states why he came into the world. He used God's remedy during the plague of poisonous snakes in the days of Moses to foretell his coming death on the Cross of Calvary. There, he would be lifted, and anyone who looks upon him in faith will receive eternal life.
Guest preacher, the Rev. Dr. Matthew S. C. Olver leads us in a meditation on the strange connection that Jesus draws between his own lifting up, and how Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so that Israel might be saved.
Jesus would have us always trust that it is his grace that cleans our spiritual “house” and not our religious activities.
Jesus pronounces judgment on the Temple and its authorities, saying that he will destroy it and rebuild it in three days. The Temple in Jerusalem will be destroyed and Jesus' body, too, but the latter will be raised. Jesus' body suffers God's judgment on the Temple's injustice and is raised as the new Temple, the renewed organ of divine mercy.
God is not only found in bright and happy places, but in the sewers of life. We can take up our cross and follow him because we know that even there—in the midst of pain—God works.
Jesus explains that his destiny involves suffering and death prior to his resurrection. This claim scandalizes his disciples and they abandon Jesus when that promised moment comes. We know that Jesus regathers them after his resurrection and that the disciples do learn to pick up their crosses. That gathering and picking up is what Jesus' death does.
We are not meant to be distant spectators of the Cross. Jesus' death touches our whole lives and enjoins us to his sacrifice. Jesus’ self-offering makes it possible for our lives to become offerings, received as gifts and given back to God. Jesus' call to pick up our cross is an invitation to life.
We do not overcome temptation by a stiffened resolve. We overcome temptation by loving Jesus more than the things that tempt us.
Throughout the Bible story, God makes covenants with his people, from Noah to Abraham, Moses to King David until Jesus comes along and initiates a new covenant. The old and former covenants find their fulfillment in Jesus’ new covenant that brings healing, hope, and the Holy Spirit.
On this day we declare as believers in Jesus Christ our intention to die to all those things that keep us from living a life of total dependence on God. We start the season in ashes and if we remain steadfast, we will end in a garden teeming with new life as a resurrection people.
The issue is not whether you are good enough to ascend the mountain and have an experience with Jesus. The issue is whether Jesus is good enough to come down from the mountain and have an experience for us.
Life is hard but we are not alone. We follow a God who was willing to live in this world, show us how to be human, and then go all the way to the cross for the love of us. He fills us with his Spirit and gives us everything we need to live sacrificially for others. He also makes us his body, his family, friends to walk through life with. And as we follow him, we will behold his glory, shining in our lives and the lives of our brothers and sisters, and we will be changed.
If you do not need healing, you likely do not need Jesus! Jesus is not the founder of a philosophy, but the Savior of the world. I want to share where and why Jesus is available to heal you.
Those whose lives have been touched by Jesus usually begin to serve. When we have a clear sense of how good Jesus has been to us, we want to serve him, those who love him, and those who expect to love him. We are grateful for what he has done for us.
How many of us take the time in our busy lives to pray? If the Son of God needed to take the time to pray even when busy serving others, do we not also have this same need?
Perhaps the only thing worse than continuing on and on as if we are not in fact susceptible to bondage to the enemy, is to go on being Christian as if there is no Christ who alone can free us, bringing us freedom by the power of his cross.
Jesus shows us the power of living in the Kingdom of God through the Holy Spirit. He calls us to live in his kingdom, proclaiming the good news, healing the sick, and praying for others.
Jesus has never fooled anyone into following him. Instead, he invites us to come to faith in him as he changes our hearts and minds and our very lives. Then he calls us to bring others to him.
In the Gospel, after meeting Jesus, Philip invites Nathaniel to "come and see" Jesus. This invitation extends to us as well. To come and see Jesus, to learn about him, regardless of how much we may think we know. We are invited to grow in our knowledge and love of him so that we may recognize his voice and presence in our lives.
Mark's Christmas begins with a baptism: Jesus'. In Jesus' baptism we are invited to see the One in whom all things were made and are being remade. The nativity scene in Mark is our own - the new creation of God.
From the beginning, God desires a relationship with us. The miracle of Christmas is that when Jesus is born, God dwells with us in a renewed relationship. Jesus dwells with us and gives us his very life.
The Lord gives a new life to all who believe in him – not a life of flesh and blood that goes to dust, but an everlasting spiritual life. Just as the human body needs food to sustain it, this new spiritual life needs food for its sustenance. This food is found in Jesus Christ, the true “bread of life.” This spiritual food is found by the power of the Holy Spirit through the fellowship of the Church, Scripture, and prayer. Such enrichment transforms believers’ souls, maturing them spiritually, strengthening their faith, and preparing them to be his witnesses. For 2024, perhaps we might add a “spiritual resolution” to the resolutions that we make on December 31st. It will surely be enormously beneficial to the Christian walk in life, bringing tremendous joy and peace in this life and the life to come.
The announcement of the birth of Jesus is made first to socially insignificant shepherds. This reveals to us that God does not wait to come to you once you have achieved any sort of worldly, moral, or spiritual success. On the contrary. Thanks be to God.
Isaiah speaks a word of hope to a people in exile. He speaks of a coming servant who will bring restoration and justice. Jesus is this servant sent to lead us from our own exile back to life with and in God, our true home.
How many people do you know in painful, difficult situations who would love to have a fresh start in life? The first voice in Isaiah 40 declares, “The depressing part of exile is finished. Comfort and revival are on the way.” The second voice says, “God is not distant; he will come near.” This voice calls for all humanity to prepare to see the revelation of God’s glory. The last voice tells us to behold our God, for he is our gentle defender and our good shepherd. We will be revived and comforted.
The testimony of God’s messengers – of the prophets Isaiah and John the Baptist – is that our God comes to comfort the comfortless that his promises may be forfeited for a season but never finished in the end.
On the first Sunday of Advent, we encounter some of Jesus’ tough teachings on the end of the world. However, Jesus doesn’t just talk about one end to the world, but multiple. The spiritual posture he encourages us to have when the world is ending is wakefulness.
In the face of sin and injustice, both our own and the world's, we actively wait for Christ's second coming. This waiting is not passive; it is much more like the waiting work of active labor. As we begin the season of Advent, we wait, remember, repent, and believe, trusting that Jesus will come again.
When the day comes to be judged once and for all, all that judges us – our sins, our consciences, our false dominions – will itself be judged. The love that judges all these things on the Cross will be the same love that judges us when Jesus comes again. The One who judges us from the right hand of God is the One who loves us most.
Why do we think Jesus is so hidden? He is not playing tricks on us. We must learn where to discern his presence. The hidden Lord is present in scripture, in his body - the Church, in the Eucharist. He is also present with the hungry, the thirsty, the poor, and the outcast; with the prisoner, the immigrant, and the downtrodden. What we do for the least of them, we do for him.
Giving thanks is more than a religious compulsion marking our service to God. Our offerings of thanks and praise recognize the Compassion prior to our existence itself and everything we know and hold dear. From God’s gift to Israel, we see both God’s first and final gift to us in Jesus: creation and, finally, resurrection and new creation. Let us give thanks.
Jesus’ parable tells about loving God and neighbor. Two of the three men loved God and their neighbor by using the riches of their gospel faith given to them to influence people around them, while the third simply lived as though his faith really didn’t matter. The parable’s ultimate concern, however, is about salvation, an abundance of joyful salvation, of all kinds of people, everywhere in Houston and around the world.
The teachings of the Nicene Creed are so prevalent within our prayers and worship that studying them opens up our Episcopal faith and tradition. In this sermon, Bishop Doyle preaches on the faith statement that we believe "Christ ascended into heaven and sits at the right hand of the Father."
We must remember not to separate our identity by living a spiritual life at church and a secular like at work or school. We should, instead, strive to be consistent, bold, and intentional as we live for Jesus at all times.
Through his promise to be with his disciples always, and by the power of the Holy Spirit, Jesus is already coming and coming and coming… to meet us now as we go forth into the world, back into the various realms of city life, to look, to point, and to radiate his light.
The main audience for the Sermon on the Mount was the disciples of Jesus, though the crowd also had the privilege to listen. The lesson from the passage is simple: whoever desires to be happy and content must accept Jesus Christ as Lord. "I have come that you may have life and have it more abundantly".
The Beatitudes of Christ's Sermon on the Mount describe Jesus and those whom Jesus blesses. We should expect to see these blessed amongst the Church, but what does it mean to be a people where the poor, the merciful, and the meek are not only welcomed but loved? This work is the people called Church, that strange solidarity made of Christ's own desire.
Christ is the fulfillment of the law and the prophets, therefore, the love we’re called to points to Jesus himself. And, because God is love, if you want to learn how to love you must look where God is, you have to look at the cross.
With his typically devastating insight, Jesus is getting at our real priorities, our deepest loves, how we regard what is ultimate in relation to the things of this world that are not ultimate even if they are very important.
If you only love those who are worthy of your love, is that really love? We call that conditional love. How do you set the standards for loving others? It seems to me that as followers of Jesus, we have to look to him and to him only for setting the standards: Love your neighbor as yourself. How do you set the standard for loving God? Jesus says, give to God what is God’s. How does our giving show our love for God?
Jesus said as the gospel is preached, it will attract both “the bad and good.” If you say you are a Christian but evidence no fruit in your life that you are a Christian, then are you really a Christian?
We have a wonderful mission statement at SJD: Changing Lives for God in Christ. But does it mean that changing your life for God in Christ is a one-time event? As Leigh has been teaching, we need to grow in Jesus’ likeness as his disciple and become more like him.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer once said Christianity without discipleship is always Christianity without Christ. Discipleship means living simple lives with Jesus.
The challenge for all who are followers of Jesus Christ is to ensure that we are always properly dressed. The major point in the parable is that while God is willing to clothe us in the garments of Christ as His followers, it is up to us to put them on and wear them faithfully to the glory of God, the Father. God is calling all believers to "put on Christ" and bear witness to His grace and love in the world around us. God wants us to "put on Christ" in church on Sunday morning, throughout the week at home, at work, and in our neighborhood. When we do, others see the Spirit of God at work in us and are encouraged to follow our example.
God gave the Law to Israel to provide community boundaries so that they would be a community of justice and love. God goes further in sending his Son to die for those who do not even keep the law.
What happens on Sinai is a kind of vision of cosmic harmony: what it looks like when God comes to live with God’s people and God’s people let him!
We can change our minds. Usually, it takes either great suffering or great love. Change happens when we have an encounter with the radical love of God. A love that sees us first and foremost as beloved children. A love that also sees all the things that keep us trapped and wants to set us free. Free to step into the flowing stream of the reign of God.
We may think that compared to some we are first-hour workers. But not when we take honest stock of our lives and receive again the grace of our Lord Jesus whose vineyard – the church – we have been invited to work for the sake of other would-be 11th-hour workers as well. We are all 11th-hour laborers, showing up late and undeservedly getting a full day’s wage because the landowner is ridiculously generous.
Throughout the biblical story, people make themselves miserable by comparing themselves to others. From Adam and Eve to Joseph and his brothers to the vineyard workers who receive the same pay, instead of practicing gratitude, people lose their joy by thinking they deserve more. Gratitude toward God will bring us intimate joy while comparison drives us far from the One who created us in his image.
We are created in the image of God. Each of us has an intrinsic value. Forgiveness of others springs from this value, meaning we are created in the image of God to forgive.
As we practice forgiveness, we are bearing the image of a kind and merciful God and witnessing to the very heart of the gospel – the forgiveness of sin at the cross. By forgiving others, the image of God in us is gradually restored, and the wounds
that have damaged us healed.
Despite the miraculous story of the Red Sea crossing and its unique prominence in the story of Israel, it is one we are asked to live out repeatedly. This familiar and foundational story is both a singular event in the Bible but also prefigures the ongoing power of the crucified and risen Christ. By grace, God’s mighty hand opened a path for the fleeing Israelites, it opened a tomb for Jesus, and it opens still the way of freedom and abundant life to all who believe in him.
Resentment is one of the worst sins in a community. Jesus calls us to set aside resentment and practice forgiveness and gracious confrontation.
Jesus builds for us a vision of what the community of the church should be like. One where qualities like humility, concern for one’s neighbor, and forgiveness are plentiful and prized among its members. This sort of community requires a commitment to being in relationship with one another, a commitment that is not always easy to make. But, when we do come together as a united body, with Christ as the head, we truly are better together.
It is Christ in the power of the Spirit who transforms us. Our call is to form ways of living that open us to His work in us. And as that happens more and more, not only will we grow into his likeness. More and more others will look at this community and see people who live in our lives what we say on our lips.
God practices mercy at all times and in all places, even when we cannot see it. At Jesus’ crucifixion, no onlooker saw God’s mercy in action. When his brothers sold Joseph into slavery, Joseph did not see God’s mercy. When bad things happen to good people, we do not see mercy. But that does not mean God’s mercy has left the building. Do you understand the mystery of God’s mercy?
The naming of the mother as a Canaanite in Matthew’s Gospel recalls Israel’s history of conflict with its Gentile neighbors. This history of violence we are permitted to see in the violence Jesus suffers for sin on the Cross and has overcome. Her cry for mercy for her tormented daughter is the world's cry for healing, reconciliation, and peace. The healing of the Canaanite daughter shows us the healing that the Cross and Resurrection accomplish: reconciliation with God and our neighbors. This is the peace Jesus is and gives us through the power of the Spirit.
Central to the Christian faith is not escape from a sinking world. It is to witness to a sinking world that there is more, there is rescue, there is hope that has a name. His name is Jesus Christ.
In today's Old Testament reading, Moses is transformed by his time in God's presence. From there he is able to draw the people out of hiding, so that they too can know God on an intimate level.
We are transfigured as we come up to the table each Sunday. Expect an encounter with Christ as you commune with him. Then go out from here, back down to the plain of your life, refreshed, restored, and ready to shine the glory of God in your world.
According to Jesus, the kingdom of heaven is like a great many things. Jesus' parables in our gospel reading this week are a challenge, an invitation, and a source of comfort for us -- the ones through whom Christ intends to establish that kingdom on earth.
Under what conditions would we decide that Jesus is the most precious discovery in the world, and we will completely sell-out to have a relationship with him? What would that look like?
Jesus is teaching about the reality of life in this world. Good and bad both exist together, at the same time, in the same place. This is true about our own individual lives, as well as our churches, our nation, and society as a whole. The problem is that we don’t always know which is which. In the end good will prevail. God is in the messiness of our lives and this world. Keep awake and watch for him. Our role is to stay in the process of growing in love, and to continue to follow our master in sowing love wherever we go in the world.
Just as Christ has the dual nature of being both fully human and fully divine, so we too have a dual nature of being created in the image of God while also being awash with original sin.
Christ's message is the seed our heart needs to grow spiritually. His words are the sure foundation of our faith.
Only God can cultivate the various soils of our lives to bring forth the abundant harvest that is ours to have in Christ.
In our Old Testament lesson, Abraham sent his servant to his homeland to find a wife for his son Isaac. The servant finds a willing bride in Rebekah and brings her back to her new husband and home. The loving relationship between Isaac and Rebekah prefigures the spiritual unity of Christ with his bride -- the Church. Our lesson from the Gospel of Matthew provides a glimpse of what that intimate relationship with Jesus is like, if only we will choose to come to him.
In all the verses for the day, Jesus contrasts man’s law with God’s law. Man’s law was formed because of the Ten Commandments given to the Jewish people to guide them through the moral traps of life. However, well-intentioned religious leaders added to the Ten Commandments until it became its own trap. The rules and regulations became a huge burden.
Jesus responds to this situation with an invitation: "Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me, for I am meek and humble in heart and you will find rest for your souls". In those verses, Jesus is saying that people might be learned in religious rules, customs, and teachings, but our main source for understanding God’s ways does not come from that knowledge. It comes from receiving Jesus’ invitation and his message. Jesus does not propose that we go yoke-less, but that we accept his yoke, which is manageable as opposed to the harsh yoke of religious rules and regulations.
Jesus requires total allegiance in this world. Our reaction to Jesus will be the basis of judgment in heaven. As a follower of Jesus Christ, we (the church) are the light that drives away the darkness in this broken world.
The most potent spiritual weapon we have in culture is not to point out how desperately others need Christ but how much we need Christ.
Before sending them off, Jesus tells his disciples twice to not be afraid, which makes us wonder: what did they have to fear in the first place?
In today's passage, the Lord Jesus shows us that it is his will to share the responsibility of the spreading the Good News of his Kingdom with the world. In his recruitment strategy, he turns conventional wisdom on its head by choosing a most unlikely group to lead his mission.
We cannot be Jesus’ disciples in our own power. Yet the call is not to do nothing: we can desire to follow him. We can surrender our lives again and again to him. And even if that surrender feels partial and incomplete, God can do powerful things with those whose lives are yet still growing.
Jesus was interested in every person he encountered. He didn't wait for them to get it together first.
Trinity Sunday is an opportunity for the Church to celebrate her unique understanding of God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Our Gospel passage gives to the Church her mandate: " to make disciples of all nations". The sermon therefore is a challenge to all who believe in Jesus Christ to obey this Mandate.
As we practice breathing as one, as we forgive and live in God’s peace with each other, God will send us out in power, with the Good News that there is love and forgiveness for all in Jesus.
The Holy Spirit is not just about new conversions and baptisms. It is about transforming the lives of those perhaps already committed but still not walking in the fullness of the power of God already given.
Of all the gospel writers, John gives us more teaching on the last days of Jesus’ life than the others. Jesus focuses especially on the coming of the Holy Spirit and the formation of the early Church. Because we are created in the image of God, the Holy Spirit will come and dwell within us. Jesus will build his Church upon that fact. As he approaches the Garden of Gethsemane, he prays for his disciples unity and ours as well, such that the world will come to know him.
Eternal life isn’t about relaxing in a sweet mansion for all eternity, but about knowing the Father.
Today's passage gives encouragement for troubled hearts. Though the disciples were saddened by the impending death of Jesus, their Rabbi, they knew that the world would not end with his death. Jesus assures them of his return to take them and all who believe in him to the glorious Kingdom of God.
We all face personal problems and hear and read of troubles in the world. In spite of all that, Jesus assures us, as he did with his disciples, “Let not your hearts be troubled, believe in God; believe also in me”. In our day-to-day difficulties, let us have faith in Jesus Christ who is the way to get to the room he has prepared for us, the truth we hold onto to get to our room, and the eternal life we will enjoy when we get there.
It is easy to seek out Jesus plus many other things that we think will bring us happiness. But Jesus promises a rich and full life if we follow him.
Jesus promises us life to the fullest. He shows us that he is the way to that life, he leads the way to that life, and he makes a way for us to have that life.
In spite of our griefs and sorrow and disappointments and questions, the valleys of life may offer the very places for refreshment and growth as a gift of grace alone, refreshment from the Lord himself.
We look at the story of the men on the road to Emmaus, their loss of hope, and then their plea to Jesus to stay with them after they recognized who he was and heard him explain how all the events in Jerusalem were foretold by the ancient prophets!
The disciples on the Road to Emmaus grieved Jesus’ death. They were not well-versed in God’s word, not understanding that the Messiah must suffer. The prophets did not hide his suffering, but humans overlooked the suffering and focused on the glory of the Messiah. To help them, Jesus began a systematic study of the Old Testament. He connected all the dots to help them see that he was in every book of the Old Testament. Then he opened their eyes, breaking bread with them.
We live in a world filled with expectations that we cannot meet. We think God is like our world, stingy with love. But Jesus rose again from the dead even when no one believed he could. He rose again to free us from the fear of sin and death and to give us new life.
For those first disciples, the Easter event is less a happy ending for Jesus than a confounding new beginning for themselves. And one thing they do: they move into the new reality with faith overcoming fear.
Today on this Good Friday, I pray that you will fall on your knees at the foot of the cross, thanking the King of Glory for his self-sacrificing love and salvation. Then let him raise you up and send you out to walk the way of the cross, the way of love, in your world.
In a world that holds deep convictions, some of which agree with and others that are antithetical to the gospel, what are we to do? How do we enter into the conversation of deeply held ideas and convictions? Our greatest weapon is love. It is not that Christians do not hold beliefs, but if we do not have love, we are just more noisy gongs and clanging cymbals in our culture.
Jesus said, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”
What a witness we can be when we love.
As we choose not to skip from Palm Sunday to Easter, and walk step by step this Holy Week, in solidarity with our Lord Jesus, the healing, forgiveness, and love that we experience on Easter will be much deeper. I invite you to not just be a bystander, a person in the crowd, but enter this week as a disciple, a follower of Christ, walking the way of the cross with Jesus.
Jesus’ celebratory parade into Jerusalem was a deliberately staged demonstration full of symbolic actions designed for maximum impact upon the suspicious Jewish authorities. His plan was to have them drive him to the cross for our salvation. Jesus entered Jerusalem not on a warhorse, like a victorious king or general would do, but on a humble colt. Jesus humbled himself for the sake of those he served. He knew exactly who he was and what he was doing. Jesus was in control.
Jesus’ weeping at Lazarus’s tomb proves God to be not remote and unmoved, but the one who is hurt by our hurts and scarred by our wounds, and who grieves at our anguish. Jesus went to a certain death to diffuse death, and to save Lazarus — and us — from a permanent grave.
The humanity of Jesus teaches us how to grieve and the divinity of Jesus gives us hope. Jesus could be both human and divine at the same time. He could be both full of grief and full of life at the same time too. And he offers us the same possibilities.
The New Testament isn’t about how Jesus died so that we can get into heaven, but that God is in the process of creating the new heavens and the new earth in the here and now. Jesus was always wooing people into the tapestry of the kingdom of God. Our good works, as insignificant as they may seem, will also be used by God in this tapestry of the new creation when people are born again. Through the gospel and the Spirit, God puts humans right so they can be part of putting the world right in the present, rescuing it from sin and death and darkness. As Jesus is the Light of the World, we are to be lights, his lights, in the world.
Jesus meets us where we are and respects our humanity, but doesn’t leave us there. He showed the woman her deep thirst and used her daily mundane routine to reveal that thirst. What are your thirsts? How does Jesus quench your deepest thirsts through his Spirit? How can you use your own thirst to relate to your neighbors and friends and invite them to drink from Jesus’ well of living water?
To the person who thinks they are the captain of their own soul and own will, Jesus’ declaration that you must be born again is a devastating blow. How much control did you have over your first birth? None. How much control do you have over a second birth? “The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”
Listen and hear his voice: “Come to me that you may have life.” Whoever has the Son has life. If you come, you will be finally and truly and invincibly alive.
You will be born again!
The assurance you have in Jesus Christ as your savior is the most important thing about you.
Jesus was tempted in every way as we are, and yet he completely resists. Matthew 4:1-11 shows how his time in the wilderness points to how we are invited into the grace and forgiveness of God's mercy.
Satan tempts Jesus to take a shortcut and bypass his humanity. Jesus refuses and gives us the grace we need to resist temptation.
What would it look like if the presence of God were so manifest here that all of us and more and more people were drawn to this place: "What is going on there? Let’s go and see." What would it look like if more and more people in the City of Houston started saying of us streaming out of here on Sundays, "They are making a big difference in our city. What is it about them?"
Love is the greatest spiritual gift for every believer. The greatest impact you will ever have is the love that others feel from you. Love is the greatest of spiritual gifts — the one gift that requires you to focus on others rather than yourself. It’s the only force that can turn an enemy into a friend. Love is truly measured when we give it without receiving it. When you love someone who is different from you, it is a blessing to both of you. Even with the best of intentions, human love can come up short, but the love of God never fails. When all else passes away, love will remain. What this world needs most is a community who can love across all boundaries. That is the way we show the love of God to the world.
Jesus calls us to a complete and full life and gives us the grace we need to live into this calling.
The gospel is not found in an iron will to be a better person. It is found in a broken will that surrenders to the best person, Jesus, our Savior in whom the law – God’s desire for our life – is perfectly manifest.
This is the way Jesus describes His followers in our Gospel Reading for this Sunday. In those words, Jesus is declaring what already is; and it means believers in Him are to become and manifest what they already are. This is both the good news and the challenge: to believe and become what we already are.
Jesus gives the kingdom of heaven to the poor in Spirit. Jesus transforms the useless into the useful. Jesus makes us salt and light to fire up his love in the world. Thirsty wicks are saturated with the oil of gladness. Useless salt is made to ignite again. This is all God’s work. That is why when we shine, God is glorified and not us.
To recognize one’s beggarly spiritual condition is not to denigrate oneself. It is to turn to God, to come to the place where we confess: “God, if there is any hope, it is up to you. I cannot do it, try as I might on my own.” And this is where Jesus finds us – where the Kingdom touches down in our midst, in our lives, in our hearts.
Jesus calls us to follow him boldly and to go out into our world proclaiming in word and deed the good news.
Jesus does not call the prepared but the willing to follow and imitate him in teaching, preaching, and healing.
Following Jesus means attending to these two questions: what do we truly want? And, where is Jesus found?
A lot of us don’t share the good news about Jesus with others because we think it must be compelling, polished, and well-received. We think we need to have our act together, be free of doubt, know all the theological implications of our faith. But the simple truth is, it is not about you. God is the one who is drawing people to Jesus. Just like John the Baptist and Andrew pointed those they knew to Jesus by sharing their own experience, that’s all we need to do as well. God will do the rest, and God is already working before we even open our mouths.
At the baptism of Jesus, God the Father calls from heaven: “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.” God loves his Son before Jesus does anything. God is grace, and our relationship with him begins with his love, approval, and affection. If you are in Christ, then you too are beloved. The Father is pleased with you. You too are his child.
Because of Jesus, those extraordinary words of God spoken over him are spoken over you, and over me, every day, all the time: “You are my beloved son. You are my beloved daughter. You are mine. You are special to me. I love you. And I want to bless you. Let me show you how much. I am coming on in the waters of life with you.”
Love and vulnerability commingle in this holy child to reveal the meaning of the Incarnation, the miracle that changes everything.
Joseph’s story can give us a way forward into hope as we approach Christmas. We can ask God to give us new eyes to see his dream for all people. We can allow God to show us where the Holy Spirit is moving in surprising ways. Then we can name that work of the Spirit and join it and nurture it in the world. Like Joseph, it might seem small — like taking care of a mother and baby. But God can take it and change the world.
Isaiah’s prophecy is a song of deliverance for the people of Israel who were in exile. In the slave camps of Babylon, they would rehearse the stories of their deliverance. Though defeated and humiliated, the people of Israel in the days of Isaiah still believed that God was with them, and, in time, God would redeem them and give them safe return. There would come a day of rejoicing, not only for the captives; creation itself would bear witness to the presence and power of God almighty.
Comedian Fred Allen once said, "Most of us spend the first six days of each week sowing wild oats; then we go to church and pray for a crop failure." That pretty much sums up the human condition. We are afraid about our future and want to do something about it. Grace is hard to wrap our heads around when we’ve been taught throughout life that we need to earn God’s love by being holy.
As Peter explains in 2 Peter 1:15-16, "Just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; for it is written: 'Be holy, because I am holy.'” We are not to live holy lives to be saved. We are saved to live holy lives in the here and now. When we live holy lives in the present, God transforms the future through us.
Deep in every human heart is a desire to repeat some experiences from the past. Deep within our human memory is a picture of that reality that no longer exists. A time and place that the people of the Bible called Paradise — a time of innocence, a time of peace. Then came the Fall, and Paradise was lost. Though we are far removed from that innocence, peace, and harmony, a memory of Paradise is still present in the background of our lives.
The words of the prophet Isaiah speak to that longing to recover what is now only a memory. Jesus is the new branch Isaiah prophesied — able to withstand the forces of evil and the powers of destruction and death. No wonder his birth which we celebrate at Christmas is so marvelous, and Advent is such an important group of Sundays for us. We are getting ready for the One who brings a new world.
Maybe deep down we intuit that we need to face the reality of our wilderness if we are to be delivered from it. Maybe this is what John the Baptist is preaching. But he is also a voice of hope for the One who is coming into our wilderness himself.
If you knew that the world was ending, what would you do? Advent is about an incredible beginning (the birth of Jesus) and the end of all things when Christ returns in glory. If we know the beginning of the story and know that it is soon ending, how does that change how we live?
Advent reminds us we are to be ready for the return of Jesus, our righteous judge, in whom we place our hope. Praise God we can be ready through the Spirit because Jesus removed our guilty judgment on the cross so that we can put our full hope in the promises of the Father.
On Christ the King Sunday, we make clear the Church's faith in one God. Christ existed before all creation, and all things come into creation through Christ and for Christ, including us. We are made for God and God's purposes. This faith is meant to lead us into action. We are meant to do the work of Christ, releasing his goodness into the world.
When the thief on the cross heard Jesus say, “ Today you will be with me in paradise,” he likely did not understand the fullness of the forgiveness of his sins, but he must have felt the celebratory love of God. The work of Jesus on the cross brings us into a reconciled relationship with God where we experience deep community in forgiveness and celebration. Like the Prodigal Son, we are welcomed home by the Father and Christ the King.
The challenges of today will be dwarfed by the glory to come. Pray for it. Watch for it. Crane forward into it. Point toward it. For those who believe, despair is presumptuous. We are people of hope. For the Lord says, “I am about to create.”
Making meaning of our suffering not only comforts us but it enables us to tell stories that help others understand how God can be with them in their troubles.
Paul mentions the inheritance Christians have in Christ three times in the first chapter of Ephesians. This inheritance implies a family that we belong to, and consists of the gift of the Holy Spirit.
The story of Zacchaeus is often thought of as a story of someone who has a passion to meet Jesus. Yet the real story is about the passion of Jesus to meet Zacchaeus and to carry out his stated mission to seek and save the lost!
We all need revival in our lives, and we see this in the story of Jesus and Zacchaeus. We learn four things in Zacchaeus’ story:
- God alone can satisfy the hunger in our heats
- God has a purpose for your life
- God’s mercy and love is greater than our sins
- God’s Spirit transforms us
We are never more blessedly human than when we each make our humble way before God with nothing to offer except our need for righteousness only Christ can give: “God be merciful to me, a sinner.” And God is, always.
When we quit the spiritual comparison game, we find that we can finally get what we really need--God's mercy.
Rather than fighting injustice with hatred and violence, we can bring God’s love and peace to the situation. We can be the relentless widow, powerless on our own, but fearless and persistent as our hearts are infused with the heart of God as we pray.
Jesus encourages us to keep praying even when we don't see results yet from our prayers. God is always listening.
We all have a yearning to be loved and accepted without having to "measure up." Christ has taken every hint of "it’s never enough" off of me to the cross, and that it is enough for me … more than enough and forever.
Most of us are challenged by walking the way Jesus calls us to go. He asks us to take up our crosses, to die to our wills, to think of others before ourselves. That’s not easy. But Paul gives Timothy some helpful ways to rekindle all the gifts God has already given him. These are like way stations along the road that help support our journey of faith.
Will God use us in revival? Like Saints Paul and Timothy, we need to perfect our imitation of Jesus. Our character and our lives must reflect his. Our lifestyle must be consistent with his message.
If we want God to use us in revival, we must be willing to give ourselves wholly to him to use us in his mission: for God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control. Filled with the Spirit of Jesus, we are ready for revival.
For Christians, real contentment is to know that sufficiency and self-satisfaction come from beyond ourselves. Whatever we have or do not have, whatever we gain or whatever we lose, nothing can bring us what Paul calls “the life that truly is life” except Christ Jesus.
How can we really know God and what he says? Paul simply directs us to look at Jesus. If we want to really know God, we must know Jesus.
Perhaps we see this best at the cross. At the cross of Jesus, we see the unfailing pursuit of God’s righteousness intersect with his equally unfailing love. We know revival is coming when our lives are focused on the cross where God gave up power. We know revival is coming in our own lives when we can give up power as well.
Jesus doesn't give us trite advice but wants us to be fully alive. One of the things that keeps us from this life is a love of money.
Do you feel disconnected from God—out of touch, out of conversation with the Lord? Do you think you need God to revive you? We all need revival.
Revival begins with you and me. It begins with being born again, living again as you let the Holy Spirit breath new life into you. It begins as you commit to following Jesus in all aspects of your life, of serving God and no other master.
Jesus eats at the table of the lost sheep, the broken, the sinners, and the unclean. God celebrates everyone who comes to him and repents.
What does it look like when a whole congregation of various sorts and conditions of people has been freed from a false world where success and flourishing and happiness are mistakenly thought of as a product of human achievement or merit? Well, it would look like a joyful community.
Being a disciple means loving Jesus above all else, above even good things like family. It is a hard call, but with God's help we can surrender our lives and our lives to him.
When you become a believer, your bonds are to Christ. You are set free from the bondage to all the worldly ways we sort and judge and relate to different people. We are one in Christ.
We are never closer to Christ than we come before him stripped of pretense, fully confessional that our lives may be filled with all kinds of good things that get us good seats, but humble to acknowledge it’s never enough. We need God’s grace and life.
When Jesus teaches at the synagogue, you know it's not going to be an ordinary sabbath. On this particular sabbath day, Jesus heals a woman, shows that the healing work of God is never out-of-bounds, and catches the entire assembly off-guard.
Jesus wants to bring freedom to us all. And he wants to use us to do it. Sometimes we need to be the one leading the other by the hand, supporting them, taking them to the throne of God in prayer. Sometimes we need to let someone else lead us. We all serve something or somebody. Christ sets us free so that we can serve God. That is where true freedom is found.
The Rev. Dr. Doug Richnow provides a short, basic view of the theology of baptism in the Episcopal Church in preparation for the baptisms of five children.
The beautiful crescendoing mix of objective and subjective faith sets our hearts ablaze for God, ignites love, and fuels the fiery torrents of hope, the lifeline of the soul.
The story of Abraham, in our Hebrews reading, is a story of someone following their heart. What does that say about where he found his treasure?
Paul wants the young Christians in Colossae to know they are vitally connected to Jesus through the Holy Spirit, giving them access to the Father. Because of this, they, and we too, can live holy lives, using our minds, our bodies, and our voices to bless God and our neighbors.
The life of Jesus is too grand, too magnificent, too beautiful to allow our lives to be scrunched down to a mere quest for wealth, success, and security.
A mediation on the purpose of prayer and the expectations around it, with an emphasis on God's desire for a relationship with us.
But the Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, but one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her.
Martha and Mary demanded something from Jesus, but he responded that only one thing is important. If we but dwell in him, what he gives can never be taken away. Being grounded in Christ will hold us stable, centered, and strong.
God is the one who is moved by gut-wrenching compassion and moves near to those who need God’s life and love. Therefore, it is God who will inspire us to go ahead and look. God will put that fire of compassion in our bellies, and God will enable us to act, to do something, to bring life to this hurting world.
It may be the hardest thing about being Christian, being a believer, is truly trusting that it is God and God alone who justifies our lives in the gift of Christ. When we are assured of God’s justification of our lives, we no longer need to obey this instinct to justify ourselves before others or even before God.
Luke alone in the gospels tells the story of the sending of this large group of 72 disciples. This is part of a larger strategic missionary movement that disciples of Jesus will follow after his death, resurrection, and ascension as they go further and further away from Israel into Gentile territory. Like Jesus, do you have an urgency for sharing his message? Do you have a heart of flesh full of the Spirit in tune with the needs of the world? Jesus was always aware of the needs of the world and wanted his disciple to be as well.
The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. As we pray to the Lord of the harvest our vision and heart become for those who are not yet part of the church. The call of the disciple is to be “all in”; the call of the apostle is to be “all out” in the world in evangelical mission.
Jesus calls his followers to be completely devoted and dedicated to him. He has done everything for us to set us free from the bondage sin and death. Walk in the freedom he has graciously given you by being “all in” with the Holy Spirit and the free gift of God’s salvation.
Both of our passages—Luke and Galatians—speak of freedom in Christ. In Galatians, when Paul says that Christ is our clothing, it means that in God’s sight we are loved because of Jesus’ work and salvation. When God looks at us, he sees us as his children because he sees his Son. That is how Jesus saw the demon-possessed man in Luke. A Christian never needs some additional commitment to the law in order to receive or maintain full acceptance with God, since we are clothed in Christ in whom we are free.
Our fears reveal what we love most. Jesus brings freedom from fear by giving us the thing most worth loving.
We can experience God the Father in the wonders of creation. We can know Jesus as the Son who brings us salvation. And we can be filled with the vital presence of the Holy Spirit. God is Trinity, and we can experience him that way.
Deep down, we wish to be animated by nothing more than to live in the center of all reality: the inner life of God that goes forth to invite us in, such that the love the Father has for the Son and the Son for the Father is ours as well.
There is a great gulf between the outward appearance of a successful life and the inward assurance of Christ’s love. And it is a difference of power!
The story of the world is to make a name for oneself – the ego drama. In Christ and through the Holy Spirit, God is uniting the world in his Name. The promise of Pentecost: everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved.
The challenge of the book of Revelation is that there’s more to life than what we see or experience. Without connection to the author of life and surrender to the grand story, life becomes merely a trivial pursuit. Jesus informs everything. He alone gives significance meaning and abundant life to those who will surrender their hearts and lives to him. The Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the End, Jesus is Lord over all.
The end of the Bible is a vision when finally and fully we will be united with God the Father through the fruit of the sacrifice of Jesus. That ought to shape a people whose responses to the events of the day are shaped by a particular way of thinking and praying about the events of the day.
The New Jerusalem is a vision of the Church. During these last days, we are the place where God comes down and dwells with people on earth. The need for the healing of the nations here and now is enormous. The good medicine of God’s love, forgiveness, presence, reconciliation, and peace is needed now. We are the ones to bring the healing leaves from the tree of life to the world, continuing the work of Jesus.
In the 21st chapter of Revelation, we hear God’s final plan for his people after death has been defeated and cast into the lake of fire.
Jesus shows us that we do not make our way up to heaven. Heaven comes down to us. That is good news because I would never make it to heaven in a million years on my own no matter how good I tried to be.
As we go through great tribulation in our day, an eternal perspective provides great hope. One day all the pain and suffering and sorrow will be no more. The lamb upon the throne will wipe away every tear from our eyes.
When the Apostle Paul wrote to the church in Rome, he personally addressed 28 individuals in chapter 16 before he ended his letter. Today I am addressing 28 of our graduating seniors. I want you to remember the foundation of your faith: Jesus.
Jesus is not some great philosopher, prophet, or professor. He is God. He is Savior. He is Lord. He is here with us. He is alive because he has risen from the dead. Remember this. Listen to his voice. Know the truth, because his truth will set you free to be the women and men God created you to be.
This morning, although we read the appointed text from the book of Revelation, the appointed reading skipped the intro. We went straight to a glorious song: "Worthy is the Lamb that was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing!" It was still good — what with myriads upon myriads of angels surrounding the throne singing "Worthy is the Lamb" — obviously Handel’s setting. But by itself, it is not entirely clear what occasioned this big musical finish.
When we sing, "Worthy is the Lamb!" it is not simply his general worthiness, his deservingness of all praise and honor, glory, might, and power that we extoll. If we do not "skip the intro," we see that he is designated as uniquely worthy to take the scroll, to break its seals — which is to be seated on the throne, scepter in his hand, ruling the cosmos, leading his people finally home.
Where is Easter resurrection hope in places of fear, brokenness, and defeat? John's vision gives a framework of how to live in between Jesus’ resurrection and his coming in the clouds. God loves us, God has freed us, and God is coming back for us.
The statistics are sobering, the disembodied virtual world of social media has led to an epidemic of loneliness and sadness. The glorious revelation of Jesus Christ alone gives the eternal perspective needed to bring life and hope to those lost in the malaise of social disconnect.
The day of Jesus’ crucifixion was the day of humanity’s greatest shame. Our Maker appeared among us, and we killed him. All our other human sins are dim echoes of that great crime.
Today, however, is the day of our greatest gift. Our great sin did not cut us off eternally from God. Instead, the resurrection proves Jesus’ powerful words from the cross: “Father, forgive them, they do not know what they are doing.”
What was the darkness of Christ’s death upon the cross is now our light. What seemed unbelievable, we can now believe. What seemed hopeless is now our hope. The Easter resurrection of Jesus changes everything.
The world often confuses authority and worldly power. Nowhere is this dynamic more clearly seen than in the passion narrative of our Lord Jesus Christ. True authority is exercised in the power of the Spirit bearing witness to the truth.
Jesus tells us that he is our example. Jesus humbles himself and passes on the love he has received, to us, through self-sacrificing service. And he tells us to do the same. To love like he loves, to love like we have been loved by him, so that people can know what love feels like. So, people can know the love of God. This is our new commandment.
The crucified life is one lived in fellowship with the sufferings of Christ. The Lord calls us to empty ourselves.
God created us out of his joy. He is in the business of joy and has destined us to enjoy him and one another forever. Therefore, joy is central to our lives grounded in the work of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
In this life, nothing is ever truly final or definitive without reference to all that God has done for us in our past, the pattern of restoration again and again, and ultimately finalized in Christ Jesus.
Shame and guilt tend to move us to self-hiding. God is a loving father who knows our failings. By confession and repentance, we find forgiveness and a true safe hiding place.
Let us never believe that our sins have no consequences. But let us never forget that our sins are no match for God’s forgiveness.
God loves it when we speak to him from our hearts. The Psalms are excellent examples of conversations with God. The psalms cover all human emotions from joy to depression, from anger to love, from desperation to satisfaction. What a blessing they are when we embrace the psalms in our own devotional life as followers of Jesus who desire to speak to the Father as the Son himself did!
Psalm 63 provides a beautiful spiritual blueprint for the heart. We are designed by God for a loving worshiping relationship with him. This Lenten season, examine your heart. Incline your affections and longings on the Lord.
Whether we feel confident in the Lord, or find ourselves asking hard questions, Psalm 27 invites us to dwell in his house.
The Psalms never let us get away with reflection on God in the abstract. They are born of real living and sinning and suffering and struggling and dying under the face of the Lord who reigns over it all. Which is why we can praise him.
The Devil is not very creative but he is relentlessly consistent, offering almost plausible reasons for Jesus to look at his calling a little differently, in ways that would avoid any suffering, any rejection, any death. Jesus refuses.
We are called by Jesus to be a source of blessing to the world. From the Taliban to Isis, from the hurting to the sick, we are to be a source of joy and peace to all people.
The message of Lent is not that we need to do a better job managing our sin. The message of Lent is that we need to do a better job of recognizing how our sin is dealt with.
As we gaze in the face of the beloved son of God, our character is changed. His likeness becomes our likeness. His light becomes ours.
We, who are Christ’s body, eat the mystical body of Christ and we are transfigured into his likeness. What is true of us in eternity is made available to us in this transfiguring moment at the table. We have been given a glimpse of a greater reality and we know that we are a part of it with God.
It makes all the difference that Christ was raised after being crucified rather than coming back to life after dying of natural causes.
Do you understand what happens when you die? The hope of the resurrection does not have as powerful a place in our thinking today as it had for the early Christians. We have a messed-up understanding of our physical bodies in the age to come. We tend to conceive of heaven as a faraway place filled with non-material, disembodied spirits, but we too will receive resurrection bodies just like Jesus’s.
Is there more to life than this? For the church in Corinth, many of its members were living for this life only. The encouragement is to see beyond the “now” to the “not yet” of eternal resurrection life. Living with a larger perspective impacts everything from our morals, to our view of wealth and poverty, to our understanding of the problem of evil in this world.
Resurrection faith may not change the outcome of events we all experience – like sin and death. But resurrection faith changes our relationship to what happens. Ultimately, it is all taken up in the resurrection of Jesus.
The Good News, that Jesus died for our sins and was raised to new life, continues to save us so that we can join God, as Christ's resurrected body, in this great project of love.
Chapter 13 of First Corinthians is perhaps the most important chapter in the Bible. It is a poetic explanation of the meaning of love that Jesus shows us on the cross. Let the words of Paul speak as a vision for how to live your life grounded in the transforming love of Jesus.
In so many ongoing ways we see in a mirror dimly. But it is God who sees perfectly – who we really are, what we are worth to Him, and what we will one day be.
The body of Christ has many members. Jesus’ vision for the Church includes a great diversity of gifts and types of people. How can we honor all the gifts and ministries of the spirit? Let us grow into the fullness of all that God has for his Church. What is your spiritual gift?
When Jesus said the Messianic prophecy in Isaiah 61 had been fulfilled in him, we are left to wonder why there are still disunity, conflict, and suffering in the church and world. First Corinthians addresses these issues and more, especially in regard to problems in the church. It reminds us of why we need each other with our differing gifts, all unified in the Spirit.
Despite living in a wine-depleting, party-pooper world, nothing can defeat the power of God to create new life in us.
We see from the abundance of good wine that Jesus’ glory is to bring God’s abundant blessings into the world of human lack. Jesus’ hour to act through us is the minute the wine runs out for our brothers and sisters.
As we enter this New Year it might be more helpful if, instead of resolutions, we simply make space in our lives to treasure who we are in Christ. That we will, like our brother Jesus, know who we truly are as God’s beloved children. And that that knowledge would propel us to be about our father’s business of love in this world.
Jesus is as much about his Father’s business today as ever. Would you believe that business is about you?
The first 18 verses of the gospel of John (called the Prologue), is John’s story of the birth narrative of Jesus. But John, as always, gives us the Christmas story in a deep theological fashion that penetrates into one of the core truths he wants us to know about Jesus our Savior. Jesus, who is the “Word” was both WITH God (he was co-eternal with God) and he WAS God (co-equal with God), but he became flesh (his birth as a small baby in Bethlehem) and lived among us as a real, human person. But John wants us to know that he is the "Light of the World" who drives out the darkness in which we are so often enveloped and leads us to safety in the fallenness of this world.
God calls us to see our lives as part of a grand divine drama. As the Word became flesh, God enters the story of our lives that he would bring us to himself and make us children of God.
Tonight, we bend the knee and bow our heads before the full majesty of a reality that no one in the imperial courts of Rome could have ever imagined… a light shining in the darkness, in those out of the way and perhaps hidden places of powerlessness in our lives like Bethlehem, some space in your life you are ready to let die, so there Jesus may be born instead.
In our very creation, our origins, and formation in the womb, God has endowed us with the capacity to discern his saving love, his redeeming power. God gives us the Spirit to do so.
God gave Mary the most intimidating task of all time: to bear his One and only Son. The emotional burden on Mary seems unreal. But look at the amazing support her gave her. Her cousin Elizabeth also had a miraculous pregnancy, and she too God was moving to make all things new. And Joseph too had an angelic visit. Mary was never alone and neither are you because, like Mary, watches over you.
Those with the fruit of compassion show themselves to be children of God. In his immortal words from the cross, Jesus said, “Father, forgive them for they do not know what they are doing.” If Jesus can be the God of all compassion during crucifixion, then cannot we show compassion in our lives? The good news for us is that when Jesus returns, he will be our compassionate judge.
John guides our feet toward Christ on the path of repentance. We can rejoice because this good news is for all people, whether you are comfortable and need of inspiration, or you are downtrodden by the circumstances of this life – the way of peace has come for you.
We need self-examination. But we need more than that too. We need more than John the Baptist as he himself tells us. We need something else, something more, something different entirely. For only God can raise up valleys and move mountains. But how does God do it? That is the event we are being prepared once more to watch for, once more to receive.
The Lord is coming! How can we prepare for his arrival? The prophet Isaiah tells us that our lives need to be leveled and straightened to make them like a great highway. For the Lord to travel straight into our hearts, the call is to repentance.
Advent reminds us that Jesus will return one day to be your judge, and believe me, you want him to be your judge. There is no one else in all the universe who has more mercy, forgiveness, and love than he has.
Good morning, how are you? When was the last time you had the opportunity to really consider that question? To take stock if you will. It’s an important question at any time, but especially considering current circumstances.
This is the first of the four Sundays in Advent set aside in our faith tradition for preparation; for self-examination; for reflection and expectant waiting. It seems to me that a season of intentional, disciplined reflection on what God has done, is doing, and promises for his people, and for all creation, is more vital than ever considering current circumstances, and what we have been dealing with over the last several years.
The end is coming. No matter how great the pain, the loss, the destruction, new life emerges. When the world seems unhinged in transition, do not be alarmed, Christ comes. Focus on Jesus and breathe.
Maybe a definition of a saint is someone who has glimpsed this vision of heaven described in Revelation with the eyes of their heart, lives like they truly trust this vision, and in so living passes this vision on to others.
How does Jesus see us? What does he think about us? While the Church militant has been ravaged by false teaching, divisions, persecution, and trial, her beloved Bridegroom reveals a glimpse of a glorious coming day of delight in her. He speaks a word of encouragement to give us hope as we labor on through the great tribulation.
How do hearing and listening to what is true about God, and about us as God’s image-bearers, enable us to love our neighbor as ourselves? Self-sacrificing love only comes from self-knowledge that we are all God’s image-bearers. We are the image and likeness of love. Love is who we are, and it is what we do.
The place to find God, if God will be found, after profound loss is not to deny the pain or run from it, but to have enough courage and faith to go straight to where the portal of pain is in your life and trust that God will meet you there, as God does, through the cross.
Mark intends Bartimaeus as a model for us to imitate:
- He calls Jesus the son of David
- He believes Jesus can help him—Jesus says his faith saved him
- He left his begging behind and followed Jesus faithfully on the way.
With Jesus, faith is open to all. And often it is the unexpected people who have it most strongly—the ones who really know they need a savior—someone to rescue them from their afflictions. Faith in Jesus means recognizing who Jesus is and trusting that he has the power to rescue, and then responding with all we are, including being generous to the one who has been so generous to us.
Jesus taught his disciples the nature of his messianic mission three times as mission of death and resurrection. Not only was this path applied to him but also to the individual disciple he called, the community he built, and the leaders he developed.
In both Baptism and at the Table, we practice the way of the cross, the way of following Jesus. When we come here and eat this bread and drink this wine, we become the body of the one who gave himself up as a servant of all people. So, instead of continuing to live by the ways of the world, the buying of security for ourselves, at the expense of others, much like the Gentile rulers who lord their power over those below them, we participate in the way of the cross, the way that gives up it’s privilege to support and serve others – just like Jesus did.
Having treasure in heaven is like having money in the bank. You don’t spend money in the bank. You have money in the bank to spend to live. Our treasure in heaven is to use in this life such that the richness of heaven intersects with our daily lives.
The universal struggle we all have is allowing good things to become ultimate, even as know the only true ultimate thing about our purpose in life is to give ourselves entirely over to Christ Jesus.
Marriage can be a foretaste of heaven on earth or it can be a place of weeping and gnashing of teeth. There are divine resources available to our marriages that will keep them from feeling like a miserable prison. The Lord purposes that your marriage will be a source of tremendous freedom, abundant blessing, mutual joy, and life.
So often we leave out the setting on Jesus’s teaching on divorce. When you understand he’s back at the Jordan River where John the Baptist took on Herod Antipas and Herodias, his wife, who divorced to marry Herod, Jesus’s teaching begins to make much better sense. Jesus, after all, is a forgiving, restorative savior.
The key question in the Book of Esther revolves around living in society as a religious minority with wisdom and courage. Could there be a better question for us to engage today?
God sees us and knows what we are dealing with. We can trust that he will meet us where we are and give us what we need to clear the way for our fellow weak humans, to find and experience the life and love of Christ.
When we connect to the most basic place of our own reality, we will be able to welcome the basic humanity of those we see as less. Once we see the truth that we are the least of these, we can connect with the least-ness of the other. It’s as if we can say, “The human in me, sees the human in you, and we can meet there.”
Jesus calls his disciples to a transformational mission. The challenge for them was to capture the vision, scope, and heart of his plan. They often missed it. Let us not miss the life-changing mission that God has for us right under our noses if we will only have the ears to hear and the eyes to see.
I wonder if deep down, people out there intuit that the stories they have been told or taught about themselves have been disrupted or have failed to fill the void that only Christ can fill… What would it be like if others looked to us as the church and wondered what we had that gave us such peace, such joy, such love despite the times?
Calling Jesus “Messiah” does not mean Peter understands him to be divine or the 2nd person of the Trinity. Peter sees him as the successor to David—his final heir, the true king of Israel. The disciples are not expecting a divine redeemer, so Jesus begins a new teaching, giving the Messiah a "face-lift."
God’s kingdom has more to do with the radical defeat of deep-rooted evil than with the destruction of the good world that God made and loves. Jesus seems to be thinking that evil will be defeated, and the kingdom will come through his suffering and death. This passage makes clear following Jesus is the only way to go.
Jesus invites us to be open to the work of the Father, even when it means getting a little too close for comfort.
The healing of the Syrophoenician Woman’s daughter comes directly after Jesus’ teaching on clean and unclean. It is not just another healing but a political incident. The old barriers and taboos are crumbling between people.
The second healing references the prophecy of Isaiah 35:5-6: blind eyes will be opened, deaf ears will be unstopped, and silent tongues will start to sing. To quote N. T. Wright, “It always was and is, and perhaps supremely so in Jesus’ actions, a sign of God’s love breaking into the painful and death-laden present world. It was and is a pointer to the great Healing that will occur when the secret is out, when Jesus is finally revealed to the whole world, and our present stammering praise is turned into full-hearted song.”
It is easy to mistake having your religious act together for spiritual maturity. The heart of true religion is a matter of the heart. The Lord came to make the unclean clean from the inside out. May his heart be ours.
Jesus saw in the fault-finding Pharisee commission a group of hypocrites, who substituted their traditions for the authority of Scripture. By focusing on outward appearances, they were avoiding the deeper challenge of the gospel. We too can fall into this trap when we rally around dirt rather than love.
We are in a spiritual battle as God is using us as the Christian church to reconcile the world to himself and liberate the people of this world from the bondage to sin and Satan. Put on the full armor of God!
Congregations that experience revival, renewal, or revitalization begin by praying for them.
Christian singing is not natural, but supernatural singing that comes from the heart as we are filled with the Spirit. Singing to God and to one another can even heal an aching soul. Singing makes us not only vulnerable to God but to one another as well. It increases intimacy and grows us in Christlikeness.
Paul understands a fundamental principle: the gospel is far more than a principle, far more than a new religious truth. The gospel can never be truly known apart from people who live it, who are for others and for the world the imitation of Jesus.
God’s plan for redemption includes the creation of a new community, the Church. Thus the distinctive witness of the Church, the alluring and compelling demonstration of God’s gracious gift in Christ for the sake of the world, is intrinsically linked to the Body of Christ manifesting a community life radically different from the world; a kingdom outpost concretely manifesting God's transforming love in the world.
Our deep need is to feel connection, and that need is only truly met in God. As a living growing body of Christ on this earth we experience God’s love and unity through the difficult and messy relationships within our spiritual family.
Our deep need is to feel connection, and that need is only truly met in God. As a living growing body of Christ on this earth, we experience God’s love and unity through the difficult and messy relationships within our spiritual family.
Today, we pray for an infilling of the Holy Spirit that Christ may take up residence in our hearts, that our inner being may be fully alive, deeply animated, set on fire for all that is… and all that is to come.
The Bible teaches there are four ways to seek the power of the Holy Spirit:
First, immerse yourself in God’s Word. Second, believe in the promises of God’s Word. Third, ask God to fill you with the Holy Spirit. Fourth, obey the Spirit working in your life.
Is the cross of Christ, that broke down the dividing wall between Jews and Gentiles, powerful enough to break down the walls among those of us who have been brought near to God? Is there still power in the body and blood of Jesus for us today?
To people who may feel far off or strangers to deep immersion in Christian community, what is most inviting is the living testimony of people in that community who can share what it was like to live AT ONE TIME a certain way BUT NOW in Christ.
The Father has lavished with a feast of blessings. He has chosen us, loved us, redeemed us, enlightened us, and endowed us in Jesus Christ. As we begin this series on the book of Ephesians, let us marvel in our inclusion in the master plan of God’s restoration project for the cosmos.
First: It’s Not About You. It’s About Jesus Second: God Elected (Chose) You. Third: Election is an incentive for us to live holy lives filled with the Spirit. Fourth: God adopted you; you are God’s possession. And Fifth: You, Your Life, and History are not meaningless.
In our gospel today, we heard that Jesus could not do miracles in Nazareth with the same magnitude and manifestation as in other places. A few were healed there versus the many who were healed in other cities in Galilee. So what limited the manifestation of God’s power in his hometown? Are there things that we can do to see his power more manifest in our lives?
What a time for the church to be her very best! I think the most patriotic thing you and I could do for our country right now is to be Christian first and foremost; to be ambassadors of Jesus’ love, grace, truth, justice, and peace.
In assessing the status of your faith, would you consider anew that it is precisely when you realize you cannot be freed, healed, or truly alive through your own efforts, that you may be very close to Jesus?
We all have stories to tell. Most of us have suffered in some way especially in this past year. How we frame our stories of pain and who we entrust them to matters. When we share our stories with one another we allow Christ’s body to touch us, and redemptive healing is made possible.
We continue to have a hard time believing that when we find ourselves across the battlefield from any of today’s Goliath figures, we will never win wearing his clothing as our own.
The kingdom of God is something unseen working out God’s purposes while human heroes are seen and often let us down. But God acts in our lives in amazing, miraculous ways, especially when we know Jesus as king.
In so many realms of life, the world around us applauds our work and striving and achievements. Not so with the work of the gospel. And our biggest spiritual challenge is to allow God to do that work.
Jesus looks around his home and sees the group gathered there, hungry for the freedom of his kingdom. In them he sees a family, and it feels like home. We don’t have to fear losing what makes this place a home by making it accessible to others.
What if the most powerful evangelical asset is our commitment to Christ lived out in total dedication to one another here as our most important set of relationships?
Jesus perceives the heart of the human dilemma. Nowhere does his insight become more apparent in Scripture than his discussion with Nicodemus. The Pharisee that comes to Jesus by night will learn of his problem and hear God’s solution not only for him, but for the whole world.
God works his ways through simple things. Think about it. Jesus did a series of relatively simple things. He showed up for a little while (about 3 years), did a few healing miracles, walked on water, went into the catering business on a Galilean hillside, said some amazing words, died on a cross, returned resurrected, and then left. On Pentecost, God used a simple thing, language, to reach all kinds of people. All these simple acts changed the world. God works through simple things.
As we open ourselves up to be conduits of Holy Spirit love, we will no longer be overwhelmed by how big the problems in our world are. We will have courage to let the Holy Spirit burn in our hearts for the same things that burn in Jesus’ heart.
The most foundational aspect of being a disciple is the phrase from the Lord’s Prayer, ‘Hallowed be thy name’. This phrase is not a statement of fact. In this context, this is an expression of desire in the person who is praying. We are asking God to help us honor and keep his name holy.
When we say this from the heart, it can remind us that all of our daily activities, however mundane, are potential intersections for representing the heart of Christ to the world. The phrase is a call to action - the person praying is calling himself to do this. We are expressing the desire to hallow God’s name.
You come from love. It is the truest story of who you are. And it gets even better! You are a gift of love that the Father gives the Son. This truth sets us apart from the ways of the world, and frees us to be one with one another.
Jesus calls us to bear fruit that abides for eternity. Too often, we put much confidence and hope in the temporal things of this world that will pass away, but there is that which will abide forever—that is our loving relationships with God and with one another. How can we prioritize the fruit that will last?
The overall thrust of what we hear this morning in John’s gospel is simply this: Jesus wants us to receive and live inside the love that he and God the Father share with one another. What Jesus has with his Father, Jesus wants for us as well. And he lays down his life for us so we can have it.
We live in a day where the fruit of love is often lacking in our society and common life. Much of our problem comes from role confusion in our relationship to Jesus the vine and the Father who dresses the vine. Jesus teaches the importance of being a branch knowing and abiding in him as the source of life and love.
We are brought into the mutual love that the Father and the Son share. Through Jesus’ death, we are given his life. Their mutual knowing becomes our knowing. It becomes who we are. In Christ, in our deepest being, we too are made to be lovers like God.
Jesus is the Good Shepherd. We know his voice because it speaks the truth. We know his voice because his words are life. We know his voice because the Holy Spirit helps us discern the Good Shepherd’s voice from that of strangers. We know his voice because he calls us by name.
Even Jesus’ closest friends had doubts believing in the resurrection and power of God. Most of the letters they later wrote were to overcome doubts the first generation of Christians had. That is why these letters in the New Testament are still relevant.
The greatest joy in mission is not only in seeing people come to Christ. It is in knowing the joy that Christ experiences seeing people come to him, in having one of his own lost sheep come home to the fold.
The resurrected Lord Jesus Christ invites us into the light of God. The incredible act of giving his life and rising to new life enables us to enter into a restored fellowship with the triune God. Walk in the light.
We too are Christ’s body. We too are sent out to the world as a wounded body. To bring the forgiveness we have received. To stop the cycle of violence. To own our wounds and allow the presence of Jesus, to heal us and forgive us. How do we do that? We do it the same way the disciples did, through intimate encounters with Jesus’ wounded body.
Before there is the joy, before we sing our “alleluias,” would that the news of the empty tomb might leave us a bit freshly disconcerted, perhaps even speechless for a moment…. How is it going to end for you?
The prophet Zechariah foretold The incarnation and crucifixion of Jesus Christ. Hundreds of years before the advent of the Messiah, God spoke hope into a people returning from exile of a priestly king who would give his life as a great Shepherd. We are of people returning from the exile of the pandemic. Zechariah's words of hope bring encouragement to us as we regather in the Lord.
When we are honest with ourselves, that somewhere deep down we know we were made for more than this, we confess that we cannot get to it on our own. Then we may turn again to this broken and bloody body hanging by a beam and nailed to a tree. Here we can lay our lives down where Jesus laid down his for ours.
The Greeks who old Philip, “Sir, we wish to see Jesus,” is a reminder behind everything we do in the church and everything we Christians attend to in the world as living witnesses to him. People want to see Jesus and we need to introduce others to him by what we say and do.
These words also remind preachers that the people have come to see Jesus and hear the gospel message. We’d better preach about him and not some abstracted, Christless, cross-less Christianity of moral therapeutic deism where the message is a feel-goo about ourselves message and that good people go to heaven. Instead, we need to preach about the reality of sin and the good news of the cross in which we experience the sacrificial love of God in Christ.
The arrival of a group of Gentiles signals the great climactic moment in the ministry of Jesus, the cross. As he gives his life for the life of the world, the world would never be the same. As Jesus is lifted up—glory! All nations stream to His light.
Like the bronze serpent Moses lift up for the Israelites to look at and be saved, Jesus says that he too will be lifted up and that all who look at him and believe in him will receive eternal life. The gospel declares that Jesus paid the penalty for our sins so that we can be forgiven. In an ironic twist, Jesus defeats Satan, not in power, but in weakness, giving a new definition and meaning to grace. The gospel declares that the cross both heals us from our sins and from those sins committed against us.
The only dark things in our lives that will judge us forever are those things we refuse to lay bare to the light of Christ and his Cross.
What does Jesus have against pigeons? The cleansing of the temple is one of the only times we see Jesus visibly angry. But why? They had missed the heart of the authentic worshiper, and the heart of God.
What happens on Sinai is a kind of vision of cosmic harmony: what it looks like when God wants to live with his people and God’s people let him!
This is the thread that runs all the way through the Scriptures: our identity, our belonging, and our purpose flow from covenant faithfulness to God’s covenant faithfulness to us; it binds us to God, to one another as God’s people, and to God’s purposes to bless the whole world.
Jesus invites us to follow him, to imitate him, to see what he sees, as he sees it. Jesus is offering us life, new life, life that is full and meaningful. But we must set our minds and hearts on the things of God. Those things that lovely, pure, beautiful, and true. We must stop trying to suck the life out of things that only make us blind or half-blind.
Who are you? What is your identity? The most important thing about you is that through Christ you are in relationship to God who will never break his promises to you.
We have been through some real hardships in Texas this past week. Houston keeps having a series of 100-year floods and now a deep chill. In Genesis, after becoming disgusted with the state of human sin, God makes a covenant promise never to drown all flesh again. That, however, does not mean we won’t have natural disasters. At the cross, Jesus definitively deals with human sin, making a new and final covenant in his blood that promises eternal life to those we believe in him.
Moses and Elijah, who died centuries before, engage in a mountaintop conversation with a transfigured Jesus. They are not dead but alive, speaking with God face to face. We await a similar future, receiving glorified bodies like Jesus’.
In the transfiguration event, we are given a preview glimpse of who Jesus is in the fullness of his divine human nature. More than that, we are given a glimpse of the glory that is yet to be revealed in us. As we embark on the journey of Lent, let us see the vision of God’s glorious future in Christ as inspiration to fully enter into the transfiguration process.
When our desire to be with God exceeds our desire to get everything else done, then we shall know we are growing in Christ and in his power and authority. . . Yet we become more and more like Jesus not by nature but by grace.
In our day of party politics and personal divisions, members of the church can often find it difficult to know how they ought to relate to the culture, and to one another. This is nothing new. The apostle Paul deals with a dividing issue of that day but gives guidance and principles applicable to our day.
I want our vision at St. John the Divine to be nothing less than that we seek to be a congregation where every member experiences himself or herself as called, chosen, and cherished by Jesus and sent by him as a missionary into one’s everyday life.
For many years, this congregation has been well-led. You have been well-formed. You have been well-blessed. But this is a new day. And the question before us is how can we together carry forward all the best that makes St. John the Divine who she is – all of her unique strengths and charisms - carry that forth into a new and pioneering expression of the gospel for the sake of our family and friends, for the sake of the City of Houston, for the sake of the larger church that so desperately needs examples of thriving, faithful, innovative congregations going forth for Christ.
God called his creation very good, but Adam and Eve’s rebellion plunged the world into moral chaos as they (and we) determined what is good and evil. Jesus came to redeem humanity that we might hear the voice of God calling us in Christ his beloved.
We all live in the shadow of the curse, but the light of the blessing is higher and brighter. Our pain, our fear, our brokenness can bring us down into despair, or it can draw us into the love of the God who calls us beloved. The truest and deepest thing about us is that we are God’s beloved children and that God’s presence is with us as we walk through our lives.
8 tidbits of biblical wisdom from Ephesians 1:
1: It’s Not All About You. It’s All About Jesus.
2: Location is Everything. We are Located in Christ
3: Remember You are Blessed by Being in Christ.
4: God Chose Us
5: You are Blessed to be Adopted
6: History is not Meaningless but Moving Toward a Glorious Goal
7: Worship Jesus at All Times and in All Places
8: Read your Bible this Year and Minister to Others
When the magnificent prose of the Prologue of John (1:1-18) does not work for you, turn to Luke and the nativity story with the infant Jesus. God became flesh and dwelt among us that we might be as innocent as the Christ child. Jesus died not only for our sins but the create a new humanity in himself freed from sin and the effects of sin. One day, at the resurrection of the dead, there will be no more sin, no more pain, no more tears, and no more death.
The son of God is an amazing gift. Do not be fooled by the humble wrappings of swaddled cloths and the animal manger. For the opener of the gift, glorious wonders are revealed.
God chose Mary for his purposes. Like Abraham, Moses, and David, I’m sure there were days Mary wished she hadn’t been chosen. Being chosen has its rewards, but it also comes with suffering. The Christian life always involves suffering. God chose Mary for his most important mission. Her work and her obedience stand head and shoulders above the men who preceded her.
The Lord has a good pleasing and perfect will for our lives. The blessed virgin Mary shows a godly response to the message and claim of the Gospel upon us. “Behold, I am your servant, let it be unto to me according to your word.” How will you respond to the good news?
John the Baptist had the incredible privilege and awesome responsibility of being the first believer and witness to Jesus Christ. His testimony was true, and he laid the groundwork for the dawning of the light of the world. Believe and receive the good news and the free gift of God in his Son.
Whatever your calling, your profession, your talent, your unique place in this world, live it out like a lamp reflecting the true light of Christ. The paradox is that what is important is you being you, but it is not about you! You are not the true light but the true light shines through you.
The prophets of the Bible, Isaiah and John the Baptist, challenge us to turn away from the small idols of this world. Let us turn our hearts and lives to greater horizons and make way for the advent of the Lord.
John invites the people to turn around and get ready to receive Jesus. The obstacles in the path are not for us to get over, but for us to clear away so Jesus can freely come to us. We are the destination and Jesus is the traveler.
Jesus calls us to wake up and notice him here and now. He knows our troubles and comes as quietly and gently as fresh new leaves on a tree in spring. This advent comes to us in a year of prolonged waiting. So much in our world has shaken the ground we stand on. The call of Jesus is to trust that he will always be our firm foundation. And to continue watching and waiting for him to break into our lives.
The judgement of the Son of God, is the judgment of the one who identifies with our suffering and lifts us to the dignity we all have been given. Our calling as Christ followers is to pick up our crosses, deny ourselves and do the same. Jesus invites us to see each particular person we encounter as the beautiful image bearers of the God who created them and the Son who died for them. I pray that we all will see with the eyes of King Jesus.
The final sermon of Jesus challenges us to live in light of his first and second coming. As we look forward to the coming day of the Lord. Only two things will matter: that we love him and that we love those whom he loves.
The Lord absolutely delights in his people's stewardship of their entrusted wealth and abilities. May we live to hear the blessing of “well done good and faithful servant, come enter my joy”.
In the Lord’s prayer, we say: “Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy Name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” What is in heaven that needs to come to earth? The answer is the richness of Jesus and all he has done for us and taught us. At the cross he stood in as a substitute for us. The reason he died is found in what he taught consistently: Love God and love neighbor. He loved God so much, and he loved us so much, that he was willing to die in our place. What you and I are called to do is to live our lives in response, loving God with all our heart, soul, and mind, and our neighbor as our self.
Christ knows us because we look like him. Loving God with all our minds allows Christ to transform us into his image. But the fuel that Jesus gives us, is not just for our own personal relationship with God. It has a much greater purpose. Lamps are meant to bring light to the darkness.
John’s vision of heaven reveals we are part of a great multitude of God-worshiping people from every tribe, language, and nation! We have come to the great tribulation and have received a great salvation.
Every commandment that comes from God is there to love him and to love our neighbor in some fashion. This is the divine work of the church, and we can do it because in Jesus, God has generously loved us. We have all the money we need for the divine work of the church. It just needs to be relocated from stocks, bonds, and bank accounts and devoted to the God we love with all our heart, mind, and soul, so that in this difficult time of a pandemic and struggling economy, we can also love our neighbor as ourselves.
Political parties often wrestle with each other over the things of this world. Factionalism and party spirit often is accompanied with malice and contempt for the other. The Lord would have us be responsible in our civic responsibilities, without losing our souls in the process. Ultimately, true worth is in that which bears the image of God and not on the coins bearing the image of man.
If we want to know if we are willing to marry all that the Son stands for, we can look at our lives and see if we are living lives committed to justice, compassion, and love just like our groom. Are we willing to remove the garments of our self-centeredness. And put on the garments of self giving love of the Son?
We live in a world right now full of separation, isolation, and fear. Much like the religious leaders of Jesus’ day we talk amongst ourselves and reason only with those who agree with us. Our isolation makes us feel threatened. We close out those who threaten our security and power. Jesus knows that the only way we can experience all the fruitfulness of the kingdom of God is if we work together to share that fruit with all God’s people.
In your life, do you put God first, your neighbor second, and yourself third? If God is first, you are keeping commandments 1-4. If your neighbor is second, you are keeping commandments 5-10. Keeping these commandments are vital to coming in third, picking up your cross daily, dying to self, and receiving the bronze medal crafted for you on the cross of Christ.
Redemption and forgiveness are available to the son who at first disobeys and embarrasses his father but then says “Yes” and means it. It is not available to the son who refuses to do what is asked. This parable is about the choices we make to honor God and obey his commands. We know these commands. Jesus summed them up well for us: Love God and love your neighbor.
Politically motivated leadership gains its authority from the consent of the people. Jesus’ authority comes from God the Father. It’s not a question of whether he has it or not, it is a question of whether we will give our hearts to him.
Envy can be a rather pesky sin of the faithful. God’s mercy and generosity knows no bounds. Our hearts can get a little resentment when we see someone who doesn’t “deserve it” being shown divine favor.
Anxiety is the dis-ease and fear that one can never have enough or be enough. Anxiety spoils contentment and robs us of enjoying life in the moment. We are either stuck in the wrongs and pains of the past or preoccupied with the uncertainty of the future. Anxiety is the antithesis of trusting in a good and gracious God and the enemy of the fruit of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. This spiritual fruit, growing in us, produces contentment.
Since Joseph knew God was always behind the scene, he was able to overcome hardships. He knew God was good and loved him and was using him for his greater purposes. Joseph’s mind prioritized God over evil. He chose to see God’s light in dark times and was able to love God and his neighbor.
The Lord has called together in the Church a group of forgiven people. Learning how to live as a community that will eventually sin against each other is challenging. Jesus teaches us the way!
We follow a crucified Lord. The call of the disciple of Jesus must not only understand who Jesus is, but also what he came to do. As we become clear on Jesus' mission, the focus of our calling takes a cruciform shape.
While we might not all be called to be great leaders like Moses, God does call each of us into our own vocations. The calling of Moses has much to teach us about God’s heart, and how God can give each of us purpose for our lives as we respond to the needs of our current situation. God hears the cries of his people. I believe that he sees the troubles we have. And I also believe that God uses people like you and me to relieve their suffering.
In the present spiritual battle, the fog of fear and uncertainty has descended on our culture. But God grants his people a clarity of identity and purpose grounded on the solid rock of King Jesus that not even the gates of hell can stand against.
Keys open barriers. Seeing the reality of who Jesus is and bringing that truth out into the world opens a portal between heaven and earth. No longer are we limited to this earthly plain, and God now has a way in, to do his will.
A lot of us are being asked to look honestly about our cultural beliefs. We have been invited to question some of our treasured views about how our world works. How can we move from a scarcity mentality to one that trusts there is enough for all? How can we move from seeing the other outside the door, to seeing them at the table with us?
Shallow leadership only seeks conformity. Jesus looks deep for true authentic transformation. The heart of the matter is a matter of the heart.
When you feel like the challenges confronting are beating you down, Jesus comes. He challenges “little faith”, fears, and doubts with his presence and salvation.
Jesus did not come to be Uber Eats, delivering food to the hungry. He came to be the living bread for our souls. He came to offer abundance to those living in scarcity. We need to change our scarcity model of God being absent to an abundance model of God being present, especially during these days of Covid-19. Our church may be closed to in-person worship, but look at the abundance of what God has given us for this season.
Unfortunately many disciples have the vision and heart of Jesus in compassionate mission, but do not consider Jesus’ immeasurably great power in their engagement. The disciple of Jesus must learn to account for God’s creative dynamism as he or she engages in the mission and call of the kingdom.
My focus today is on Paul’s lament — his sorrow, grief, and anguish — that his fellow Jews and the Jewish nation as a whole are cut off from Christ. To understand more fully lament and the power of lament, I want to look at four aspects of Paul’s lament at the beginning of Romans 9: 1st) the cause of his lament; 2nd) the intensity of his lament; 3rd) the authenticity of his lament; and 4th) the fruit of his lament. Ultimately, we all want to see fruit from lamenting.
Expressing honestly our feelings to God is a way to move through our grief together with our Father who never stops loving us. God is groaning in us all. Find a way to join him. Allow your losses to lead you to a deeper intimacy with the God who suffers with you. Cry out to him in your anger, distress, desperation, frustration, or whatever it is you are feeling. Find a groaner to help you.
What does radical Christian love look like? It is love that springs forth from our foundational love in Christ. It is not a love that complains about harassment or the short comings of others. No. It is a compelling love that says, “I may not be at my best; I may not feel everything is going right in my life; I may not like you very much today; but in spite of all that, I am going to love you sacrificially as Jesus has loved me.” If God so loved us on the cross, we can love each other because we have the power of Christ dwelling within us through his Spirit.
As God’s children we are meant to live and work in this in between time to bring forth the future realty of God’s vision. In this extended time of quarantine and isolation, we know what it is to wait. Know that God is with you in the waiting. He has given you everything as his heir. And THAT EVERYTHING is himself. I invite you to build that relationship by listening and sharing your heart with God. The Holy Spirit will guide you in what is your part in the labor of bringing forth the glory that is to come.
Romans tells us that our inheritance also includes our own glorification. Our glorification allows us to enjoy our inheritance. If we stay in our present condition physically, emotionally, and spiritually, we will lack the capacity to enjoy and benefit from all God will give us. Therefore, through the Spirit, God promises us not only an incredible inheritance, but new capacities to enjoy it forever. We call this sanctification. The Spirit works in our lives, transforming us into the very likeness of Jesus, giving us new capacities. These capacities are our glorification, of becoming more like Jesus.
I pray that you yield to the ongoing work of God's Spirit in your life. Trust in the finished work o God's Son on the cross for you. And praise the greatness of God's love and the glory of his grace that planned it all so that the Holy Spirit can grow you in Christlikeness in good soil.
God loves us so much that he makes his home in our hearts. The Sprit of God never stops working in the depths of our souls. God’s Holy Spirit causes growth and bears fruit, love, joy, peace. Paul is telling us that as we live by the Spirit, we can stop trying so hard on our own strength, and go along with what the Spirit is already doing in us.
In this sermon, guest seminarian Julian Borda discusses Matthew 11:18-19 and what Jesus has to say about the widespread problem of hypocrisy in our lives, in our nation, and in our church. It is one of the most destructive forces in human life - but, as Jesus says, “wisdom is justified by her deeds".
“For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 6:23)
The last verse of Romans 6 sums up all that Paul has written about. That verse may be the most famous that his hand, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, penned. Yet when it comes to understanding this verse, we don’t usually acknowledge the fact that the sixth chapter and its summation is about sin in our personal lives, not someone else’s life.
The Apostle Paul provides a stark choice to the believer in Jesus. We will surrender our hearts in obedience to the Lord and his life or return to the bondage of sin submitting ourselves to its authority and power. As Bob Dylan sang, “you gotta serve somebody!”
Being a disciple means living into the freedom granted by our baptism into Jesus. The pressure is on to return to the old ways of being human. The tyranny of sin and corruption would have us surrender our witness to the Gospel out fear of others, enticement to temptations, and intimidation to shame. But, the world desperately needs bold disciples who are deeply connected to God the Father. The world needs godly fathers who will lead their homes and communities with freedom and bravery.
The world advocates a proximation of justice, peace, and access. Yet the world’s solutions to the world’s problems will always leave us feeling harassed and helpless. God proves his love for us in that while we were sinners, Christ died for us. In the grace of God, we are given true justice, true peace, and full access.
Compassion is the heart of the matter for Jesus. Compassion springs forth from love, the greatest power in the universe. Compassion is the ethos of God. Compassion kept God from immediately killing Adam and Eve, Cain and Noah, Abraham and Isaac, Moses and the Israelites, David and Solomon, and Peter and Paul when they blatantly disobeyed him. We see divine compassion at its greatest height and depth at the cross when Jesus said: "Father, forgive them for they do not know what they do." Even at the point of death, Jesus, barely able to breathe, was full of compassion.
Justice is the minimum requirement of love. But Jesus' followers are commanded to do so much more. We are called to love as Jesus loved with self-sacrificing Agape love, that flows perpetually through the Trinity to us. It is so much more than the minimum.
No group of people is better than another. All people have equal dignity and value in the sight of God and equal access to him through the Spirit. God has always planned to have a diversity of believers as his people.
Cain asked God: “Am I my brother’s keeper?” Are we our brother’s keeper? We the church are called to bring healing, restoration, and justice to our society, to our neighbors, to our city, to our nation, and to the world. We are our brother’s and sister’s keepers. We are called and equipped to speak the truth of God as revealed in Jesus Christ. The message is for all. The cross is for all. The power of the resurrection is for all. Through the Holy Spirit may our mouths be opened to speak out for the hurting, the suffering, the defeated, the defenseless, the despised, the persecuted, and the outcast.
Let us not be tongue-tied when it comes to love. But with our words, thoughts, and deeds, let us love one another as Christ loved us. We know that we abide in Christ’s love and his love abides in us, because he has given us his Spirit.
As Christians, we are promised incredibly great power available to us - more than we could ever ask for or imagine. Learn how to obtain access to that power in order that God's strength may manifest more fully in your life.
Following Christ is what Christianity is all about. Each of us must seriously consider what this means in and for our own life. In addition to considering this in our individual lives, it must also be considered in our corporate life as a church. In this sermon, we’ll explore the place of Core Purpose and Core Values in following Jesus. These values come right from his life and his teaching.
There is tension between the safety and rest of staying, and the going out to meet the challenges of our lives. The tension is found at the door. The space between is found in Jesus. It’s hard to know sometime which is the greater need, to rest in our relationship with God, or to occupy ourselves in the work he has called us to do. Jesus invites us into an intimacy with him. During these times of uncertainty we can lean into our loving shepherd and he will show us the way.
In our day of trial and crisis, true and false leadership is tested and proven. Ultimately, all human leadership falls short, but Jesus is the gate back to life and abundance. He alone is the good shepherd and true overseer of our souls.
Jesus’ desire for us is the same today as it was on the day of his resurrection: to understand what he accomplished for us on the cross and through his resurrection. As Peter writes: “Through Jesus you believe in God, who raised him from the dead and glorified him, and so your faith and hope are in God.” Jesus wants us to have faith and hope in God, that in spite of what’s going on today, God is in control.
There is so much grace and hope for us in this story. When we forget all God is and has done for us, or if we run away from his way out of fear, Jesus walks up beside us. He’s listens to our sadness. He remind us, correct us, and call us back. If we call to him to stay with us in our hunger for more of him, Jesus responds eagerly. But most of all Jesus is known in all our secret small actions of self sacrificing love. Keep your eyes open and notice him there.
Jesus teaches that we need to focus on him when under pressure and when anxiety builds. He calls himself the Light of the World and the Good Shepherd. Both titles encourage us to trust in him.
While some people see the bad in circumstances, Jesus challenges us to see the light shining in the dark place. In this time of fear and anxiety, we are given the opportunity for blessing in our relationship with Jesus and our families.
Unmet desires, pain and sickness, and feelings of powerlessness can make us wonder, does God really see me, much less care about me? Lent can be an opportunity to walk in this wilderness place of questioning God’s love. Sometimes it doesn’t hurt to listen to the devil’s temptations in order to look underneath what they might be suggesting.