Humility is Grace Received and Extended

Erik preached on the parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector this Sunday, using the scripture to explore the relationship between God’s grace and our humility. Here is his conclusion:

Humility boils down to this: receiving grace from God, and extending grace to others. Humility is receiving grace and extending grace. That is our salvation: by grace, with humility. This parable warns that the door into God’s kingdom is low and the path is slippery. Some pretty good people fall, some pretty bad people make it. That’s unnerving, certainly. But take comfort: God’s kingdom is full of tax collectors and pharisees. From Jesus’s disciple, Matthew the tax collector, to his apostle, Paul the pharisee – they were knocked down by grace and lifted up by grace so that they might become conduits of grace. It’s all grace, no merit, no separation, no superiority. If you’re humble enough to accept that gift, the kingdom of God is yours.

Hope amidst Injustice

David preached on the parable of the widow and unjust judge (Luke 18:1-8) this past Sunday, a parable which both acknowledges the stubborn injustice we see daily and encourages us to put our hope in God’s justice. Here is David’s explanation for why the widow continued praying even when injustice seemed so strong.

Praying in hope was the only thing that she could do. When surrounded by unjust enemies and rulers, she might sit and cry alone in darkness, cursing the world and complaining to God. But she didn’t do so. She didn’t put out the flame of hope. She rose up and went to the judge. And she pleaded. She continued to do that. At last, she made him move. She made him do justice for her. It was not the judge’s power that did justice. It was her persistent prayer. Her prayer was much powerful than the judge’s power. By the prayer, she won what she wanted. It was because her prayer prevailed. Her prayer prevailed over the judge, over the enemy, and all the injustices.

Money Practice

Deb preached on the parable of Lazarus and the rich man. She included this great gem of wisdom:

My Grandson likes to help a in the kitchen. He has a set of plastic knives that he can use, so while my daughter is cutting up carrots with a sharp metal knife, he can be cutting up a banana with a not-very-sharp plastic knife. He’s learning how to prepare food, so when he is old enough to handle a metal knife, he will be familiar with what he needs to do. He has learned this by practicing with a plastic knife. 

For us, money is like the plastic knife. It’s something we practice with so we can develop the heart and the ability to handle the things that God considers to be truly valuable. Jesus says, “If you have not been trustworthy in handling worldly wealth, who will trust you with true riches?” The way we handle money is a proxy for us to practice using our resources in a godly way.

Eternal Retirement

Erik preached on the parable of the unjust steward on Sunday, from Luke 16. He tied Jesus’s command to share money generously with the gospel of eternal life. Here is the question he posed in conclusion:

What do our finances reveal about our hearts? Do they show people who are responsible and frugal, enjoying the good things of God’s creation while also planning for the future, all while paying our taxes to IRS and God? Great – that’s no small feat! But the thing that really matters is: Do they show people who long for the kingdom of God? Who know that death has been defeated and are preparing for eternal life? Who want to experience as much of that future right now as possible?

The Banquet Means Joy

The parable of the great banquet in Luke 14 can seem intimidating, with some refusing an invitation to a feast and others being compelled to join. But David reminded us that the whole point of describing the kingdom of God as a banquet is that God intends it to be a joyous affair:

When God holds a wedding banquet for his son, his joy is not over his son but over those who repent and come to the banquet. Through the banquet, God is not celebrating for his son, but for the returning of the sinners. That is God’s joy. For this joy, God prepared such a great banquet, redeemed us by paying the price, and prepared a snow-white robe of righteousness by sacrificing his son. Each of us is such a great joy to God. And each of us is the one to be celebrated by God in the banquet. This is how God is connected to us

Kingdom without Limits

Deb preached on a pair of related parables, the mustard seed and yeast. She observed that Jesus is trying to teach us something about the nature of God’s kingdom:

The Kingdom of God as described by Jesus is one without limits. With a geopolitical nation, you have a border that is in a fixed place. Cross the river and you’re in or you’re out. But, in contrast, the Kingdom of God can keep on growing. It doesn't reach a limit. In fact, science tells us that the universe itself – stars and galaxies and all created matter – is continuing to expand and speeding up the rate at which it is expanding. The Kingdom of God is a kingdom without limits. Our part in it as the people of God is to fertilize and remove weeds, to stir and to knead, to prepare the way, to maximize its growth.

The Barren Tree and its Keeper

Erik preached on the parable of the barren fig tree (Luke 13), encouraging us to hear more than the warning “repent or perish.” Here was part of his message:

When we read this passage in fear, all we can hear is the threat—be fruitful or else—and respond by trying to force out as many holy emotions and good works as possible. But this no more possible than it is for a tree in shallow, shady, sandy soil to produce good fruit. When we read this passage in faith, however, we can hear God’s promise to take responsibility for us, doing everything necessary to help us produce love and the works of love. When Jesus told this parable, he wanted us to see God as the vineyard owner, who planted each of us, and the Holy Spirit as the vineyard keeper, who tends and cares for us. Like we read in this morning’s psalm: “You transplanted a vine from Egypt; you drove out the nations and planted it. You cleared the ground for it, and it took root and filled the land… Watch over this vine, the root your right hand has planted, the branch you have raised up for yourself.” God is like a vineyard keeper, cultivating the fruits of the Spirit in each of us.

Rich toward God

David preached on the parable of the rich fool in Luke 12, calling us place relationships above possessions, and our relationship with God about all else. Here is part of his conclusion:

When we possess things in the world, we may think we are the owners of the things. But that is not true. The more we possess things, the more we are possessed by the possessions. We are trapped by our property, we are disconnected from God and others, we lose freedom, and finally we lose our lives. But when we are possessed by God, we are set free and we come to have everything in God. And we praise joyfully, “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not be in want.” Even we have the power to serve others as God’s priests.

How to be a Good Neighbor

Erik preached on the parable of the Good Samaritan, one of the most familiar pieces of Jesus’s teaching. He focused on the questions the lawyer asked Jesus, and the (different) questions Jesus chose to answer:

…the key thing is how the question changes. What makes the good Samaritan good is that he doesn’t ask the lawyer’s question: Who is my neighbor? Instead, he asks: How can I be a neighbor? The difference is subtle. You might notice that the second question presumes an answer to the first: not exactly that everyone is one’s neighbor, but anyone might be one’s neighbor, even a stranger or an enemy. But the question “how” completely reverses the perspective of the question of “who.” First, the focus shifts from others to you: not do they qualify as your neighbors, but do you qualify as their neighbor? And second, the focus shifts from status to action: being a neighbor is not about how close you live or similar your culture is; certainly not about skin color or nationality or religion; it is about what you do. “Which of these three do you think was a neighbor?” The expert in the law replied, “The one who had mercy on him.” Jesus told him, “Go and do likewise.” Neighborliness is not about their status; it’s about your action.

David opened our series on Jesus’s parables in the Gospel of Luke with a sermon on the Parable of the Sower, which he described as “parable 101.” Building on the image of the Word of God as a seed, here is part of his message:

We have two Bibles. One is that on the desk, and the other is that in my heart. The Bible on the desk is like a seed not planted yet. And the true Bible is that in my heart. Only the Bible in my heart sheds light on my way, guiding my steps to the truth and life. The Bible in my heart should be exactly the same as that on the desk. So, by reading the Bible and synchronizing my heart with it, we should transform our human DNA into God’s DNA.

This-Worldly God

Erik preached on the incarnation for our Christmas service. Here is the introduction from his homily:

Did you know you have 206 bones in your body, each of which has an outer density of about 2 grams per cubic centimeter and an inner density of about .5? That is because they need to be light and strong on a planet like earth, which has a mass of just under 6 septillion kilograms and a diameter of 12 million, 742 thousand meters, and thus a force of gravity of 9.8 meters/second. You have about 650 muscles, which allows you to move that 25lb skeleton and a hundred or so pounds of flesh on a planet where gravity is 9.8m/s. 30-50 pounds of that flesh is fat, and you have as many as 4 million sweat glands, all of which helps you to regulate your temperature on a planet that is 93 million miles from a red dwarf star, giving it an average temperature of about 60 degrees Fahrenheit with a typical range in either direction of about 60 degrees Fahrenheit. Your lungs have 300 million alveoli in them, little air sacks that allow oxygen to pass into the blood stream but filter out nitrogen, allowing you to breathe in an atmosphere that is 78% nitrogen, 21% oxygen, and 1% argon. We could keep going, but you get the point: the human body is fitted for life on the planet earth. Adapted, you might say. Evolved, most likely. But for Christians, no matter what other verbs you use, the most important is “created.” The human body is created for life on earth.

On the first Christmas, 2,028 years ago—give or take—Jesus of Nazareth was born with one of these bodies. It was in its infant form: 64 extra bones, because they hadn’t had time to fuse together yet; muscles too weak to stand against earth’s gravity; too little fat to keep himself warm so far from the sun. But still, Jesus Christ arrived in the manger with one of these bodies created for life on earth. God arrived with a body created for life on earth.

Anna's Version

Deb took up the prophet Anna’s perspective in our final Advent sermon, an easily overlooked but fascinating character in Luke’s telling of the Christmas story. Here is one passage, in Anna’s voice:

But, as I told Simeon, we need more than encouragement. We need someone who can fix the situation. We need more than consolation, we need someone to bring redemption, a release from the situation in which we find ourselves. Yes, we need comfort and encouragement. But we also need for our situation to change, for Israel to be released from from the oppression we are experiencing.  

And God has promised to redeem Israel. If you read through the Prophets, it’s unmistakable.

Peace in the Midst of the Storm,

Steve preached on the Angel’s song of peace this past Sunday. To illustrate—literally—what Christians mean by peace, he shared this story and painting.

Long ago a man sought the perfect picture of peace. Not finding one that satisfied, he announced a contest to produce this masterpiece. The challenge stirred the imagination of artists everywhere, and paintings arrived from far and wide. Finally, the great day of revelation arrived. The judges uncovered one peaceful scene after another, while the viewers clapped and cheered…Last to be uncovered by Christian artist Jack Dawson and the crowd gasped in surprise. Could this be peace?

 A tumultuous waterfall cascaded down a rocky precipice; the crowd could almost feel it’s cold, penetrating spray. Stormy-gray clouds threatened to explode with lightning, wind and rain. In the midst of the thundering noises and bitter chill, a spindly tree clung to the rocks at the edge of the falls.  How can this be a depiction of peace?  Look carefully…

One of its branches reached out in front of the torrential waters as if foolishly seeking to experience its full power. A little bird had built a nest in the elbow of that branch. Content and undisturbed in her stormy surroundings, she rested on her eggs. With her eyes closed and her wings ready to cover her little ones, she manifested peace that transcends all earthly turmoil.

“Peace in the Midst of the Storm,” Jack Dawson

Knowledge is Power

Advent is a time to remember Christ’s arrival that first Christmas, but also to deepen our faith in his promise to come again bearing salvation. In his sermon, David described the knowledge of this promise as a kind of power. To illustrate this, he used this illustration from the movie Force 10 from Navarone:

In this movie, a group of elite soldiers planned to destroy a gigantic dam in order to stop the advance of the German Army. The group had Miller who was an explosive specialist, and he prepared three bags of explosives for the plan. Then two other soldiers sneaked into the deep base of the dam, planted the explosives, and detonated them. They knew that if the dam was blasted they wouldn’t have enough time to escape, but they did it, giving up their lives. When the explosives exploded, however, the dam was not damaged at all. Another soldier, who was looking down the dam from the top of the mountain and waiting for its collapse, was greatly disappointed and complained to Miller. “It didn’t do a thing! Nothing!” But Miller was calm. Lighting a cigarette, he said with composure, “You can’t expect an enormous volcano with three tiny bags of explosives. You have to let nature take her course. Give it time. It’ll work.” Exactly as Miller said, after the lapse of a few minutes, the concrete walls of the dam began to crack and water gushed down through the cracks. And the water trapped in the dam pushed the dam down and collapsed it completely. Miller knew everything. He knew the exact amount of explosive required to destroy the huge dam while giving enough time for his fellow soldiers to escape after planting the explosives. What he used for destroying the dam was not “explosive.” He used his “knowledge.” He knew the “power of nature.” He relied on the power of water blocked by the dam. As he knew how powerful it is, he was calm and peaceful. And with a few tiny bags of explosives, he did a great job and saved many lives.

What a great example of waiting for what God has already done in Jesus Christ!

The Future in Past Tense

To kick off our Advent series, Erik preached on the Magnificat (Luke 1:46-55). Mary’s song reminds us that God has made promises that He has not yet kept. When we have faith in these promises (in other words, hope), we can see them fulfilled in the present. To show how what we believe about the future changes how we live in the present, Erik offered this illustration:

You may have noticed the irony that enormous companies like General Motors sometimes have a lower value in the stock market than upstart companies like Tesla. Some of the most valuable companies aren’t even profitable. That’s because buying a stock is a way of betting on a company’s future: you buy stock in Tesla rather than GM because you think the future of cars is electric. What you believe about the future dictates how you behave in the present.

Returning to Advent: what do you think would happen to the stock market if we learned that Christ was returning in a couple years? The stock market would crash today. Not in couple of years, but right now. Why? Because stocks are bets on the future, and you don’t want to be caught with all your money tied up in investments if thy guy taking over preached “woe to the rich,” turned over the moneychangers’ tables, and warned against storing up wealth. A few might try to invest in bibles, but the wisest would start giving money away as fast as they could, because that’s how you “use unrighteous mammon to make friends” and “store up treasure in the kingdom of heaven.”

Quiet Blessings Upon the World

David concluded our series on James with a sermon on true wealth in a world that seems ruled by money. In one memorable moment, he said that the true power sustaining the world are not the plans of the wealthy, but the prayers of the faithful:

God’s blessing comes down so quietly and unknowingly. Numbers 11:9 says, “When the dew settled on the camp at night, the manna also came down.” When the people were sleeping in peace, God sent the dew and the manna quietly without disturbing their sweet sleep. And this is how believers’ prayers and God’s blessings are for the world. Our prayers look like nothing. But our prayers carry God’s blessings down upon the world. People may think that the world is ruled by rich men….But it is not true. The world is sustained and blessed by God through the believers’ prayers behind the curtain.

Pray Selfish Prayers

Erik preached on James’ guidance regarding prayer from Chapter 4: “You do not have because you do not ask God. When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.” His sermon made the case that if we really have faith in God’s grace and power, we shouldn’t be afraid to pray selfish prayers. It took inspiration from his quote by Richard Foster’s book Prayer: Finding the Heart’s True Home:

“we all come to prayer with a tangled mass of motives-altruistic and selfish, merciful and hateful, loving and bitter. Frankly, this side of eternity we will never unravel the good from the bad, the pure from the impure. But what I have come to see is that God is big enough to receive us with all our mixture. We do not have to be bright, or pure, or filled with faith, or anything. That is what grace means, and not only are we saved by grace, we live by it as well. And we pray by it.”

Word of Peace

David preached on James’ admonition in Chapter 3 to “tame the tongue.” Our model is Jesus:

Jesus is “a silent lamb,” but at the same time, he is “the Eternal Word.” However, Jesus’ word is not for arguing or striving. Jesus is “the word of peace” sent by God to us (Acts 10:36). All the words and deeds of Jesus originated from “peace,” and they are for “peace.” Not even a word from Jesus’ mouth is tinted with hating, cursing, grumbling, flattering, slandering, or gossiping. All the words from his mouth are for peace.

Faith with Shoes On

Deb preached on one of James’ most famous statements: “faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead,” (2:17). She calls this “faith with shoes on,” faith that’s ready to leave the house. Here is Deb’s conclusion:

Faith with shoes on is a living faith. It’s a faith that includes actions. It’s not a question of inner faith versus outer actions. The fact is, you need both. You can’t earn your way to heaven by chalking up a whole list of good works. But you also can’t agree with the idea of who Jesus is without letting that inner conviction work its way out through your hands and feet. Faith needs to have its shoes on if it’s going to go anywhere. 

As we wrap up our time of worship and put our metaphorical shoes on to go out into the rest of our lives, think about what situation you will face this week where God is asking you to live your faith outwardly. Is there a relationship that needs repair? A situation that needs God’s grace? A tough knot that needs God’s wisdom to unravel? May God lead each of us this week as we lace up our shoes of faith and follow him.

Amazing Grace in the Mirror

Erik preached on the short parable of the mirror in James (1:22-27). Here is part of his conclusion:

Doing, not just hearing, is the path to self-knowledge. But pay close attention, and you can learn even more about God. Can you see it, God’s grace? When you try and follow Jesus, you learn that you’re a sinner in need of God’s grace. Look a little more carefully, and you will see that you’re a sinner that is already receiving God’s grace. By God’s grace—forgiving us, helping us—sinners can see themselves following Jesus. Remember what we sang: T’was grace that taught my heart to fear; and grace my fears relieved. T’was grace that taught you that you were a sinner. T’was grace that taught you that you could be a saint.