Sermons 2010

Out of Egypt
Matthew 2:13-15 (12/26/2010)

We provide a place for Jesus to be among us! If we will, we provide a place for Jesus to be among us, in the midst of our bumbling and stumbling and halting and imperfect and utterly beautiful humanity!

Joy embodied: Helen Hutchison
Matthew 1:18-25 (12/19/2010)

We have taken an important step in realizing that joy does not come from the outside, dependent on fate and circumstance, but from somewhere within us, but we have one more step yet to take. And it is this step that relieves every one of us of the burden, or the guilt, of having or failing to manufacture joy, no matter what. And that step is this: the joy we have on the inside, doesn’t come from the inside!

Love embodied: Bob Sheridan
Luke 1:46-55 (12/12/2010)

Love may be tender. Love may be tough. Love may be merciful. Love may be demanding. Love may tell us what we’ve been longing to hear. Love may tell us what we dread to hear. And, sometimes, love may not say anything at all, simply leaving us room to see what we need to see, to understand what we need to understand, to do what we need to do.

Peace embodied: Lucius Weathersby
Isaiah 1:1-10 (12/5/2010)

Peace is about establishing new relationships where none existed before. Peace is about establishing new relationships where none were wanted before.

Hope embodied: Lory Hornung
Isaiah 2:1-5 (11/28/2010)

Until hope becomes embodied, until peace becomes a self-conscious way of life, until love shows itself in practical acts of selflessness and generosity, until joy sings in the midst of real hardship and real loss, these things mean nothing.

Are we there yet?
Colossians 1:11-20 (11/21/2010)

There is still work to be done. God’s business is not yet finished. We are not there yet. But the crux has been passed! The game has been won! The cure has been found!

Ready or not
2 Thessalonians 3:6-13 (11/14/2010)

Are you going somewhere? Are you on your way? Are you gonna swing and sway? Or are you just too tired?

Hold on
2 Thessalonians 2:1-5, 13-17 (11/7/2010)

Sure it’s easy to lose your faith if your faith is wimpy and childish and insubstantial. So grow up! Let your faith grow up! Put some substance into your faith! Make it something you can hold on to!

It’s spooky
2 Thessalonians 1:1-12 (10/31/2010)

Now that’s really spooky! Because you don’t dabble with the holy God!

That Day
2 Timothy 4:6-8 (10/24/2010)

You have this day to get ready for that Day!

Pass it on
2 Timothy 3:14 – 4:5 (10/17/2010)

You are a believer, a humble believer, a man, a woman, who has experienced the healing power of the grace of God in your life. All you need to do is tell your story …

And when you do, it will matter. It will surely matter to your children, to your friends, to any who hear it, because it is something real. You won’t be offering them your take on the latest religious debate. You will be offering them a glimpse into your heart.

The word of God is not in chains
2 Timothy 2:8-15 (10/10/2010)

You have the Christian Right and the Christian Left, soldiers of truth and servants of love, but where are the Christian Christians? Where are the followers of Jesus bold enough and humble enough to speak the truth in love?

I am sure that God is able
2 Timothy 1:1-14 (10/3/2010)

It takes courage to talk about what you believe, to talk about Jesus – with pride and excitement and genuine affection. It takes courage to tell people the truth about where your strength comes from, about where your hope comes from, about where your priorities lie. It takes courage to follow Jesus.

We’re rich!
1 Timothy 6:6-19 (9/26/2010)

“Religion does make us very rich … if we are satisfied with what we have.”

If we are satisfied with what we have? That doesn’t make sense. We are rich, if we are satisfied with what we have? But if we are dissatisfied with what we have, we are poor?

Does that make sense to you?

You and me against the world?
1 Timothy 2:1-7 (9/19/2010)

This kind of church may think it is loving the world, but it leaves the world it supposedly loves in just as much of a mess as it ever was.

God wants everyone to be saved! Not to be left alone, but to be saved! Because God loves the world and every person in it, God will not let any of them, any of us, rot in our own foolishness and rebellion.

So God calls the church to be a witness!

The worst of sinners
1 Timothy 1:12-17 (9/12/2010)

“Christ” Jesus – “Christ” means anointed one, messiah – the messiah Jesus, came to save sinners. Not to teach students, not to provide an example for disciples, not to point the way for people who were momentarily confused, but to save sinners.

Useful
Philemon (9/5/2010)

You may be like Philemon, a member of a church, even perhaps a church leader – a member, a leader, who needs to be reminded that our oneness in Christ supersedes all other differences, crosses all other boundaries.

Yesterday, today, and forever
Hebrews 13:1-8 (8/29/2010)

Fear closes us in and shrinks us down. Fear hardens us and makes us defensive and less willing to take risks. Fear robs us of energy and joy and turns us against each other, making life that much more miserable, that much less rich and full, for ourselves and everybody around us.

This is not what God wants for us!

Nice doggie
Hebrews 12:18-29 (8/22/2010)

And God is not nice. God is not nice, but good, and nice and good are two very different things.

A great generation
Colossians 1:1-14 (7/11/2010)

I learned from them a style of faith that is a life calling, not merely a Sunday morning duty. There is no way you could separate their faith in Jesus from the rest of their lives because it was so closely and intimately intertwined in everything they thought and said and did.

Gently, gently
Galatians 6:1-5 (7/4/2010)

We cut them off or excuse them or hope they get what’s coming to them or think how glad we are we are not like them, but we don’t try, or rarely try, to set them right. We keep our distance. We watch them rise and fall – maybe with pity, maybe with sympathy, maybe with anger, maybe with resentment – but always from a distance. They will rise or fall, on their own, with no help from me.

Getting what you want
Galatians 5:1-26 (6/27/2010)

All of us routinely substitute politeness for kindness, modesty for humility, pleasantry for love. We really want love and joy and peace and patience and kindness and goodness and faithfulness and humility and self-control, but we settle for poor substitutes, mere shadows or even opposites of the real thing.

This changes everything
Galatians 3:23-29 (6/20/2010)

You are all one in union with Christ Jesus, and if you do see a difference, if you do believe there is a difference, if you do act as if there is a difference, you are wrong, terribly wrong.

WDJD
Galatians 2:15-21 (6/13/2010)

“Margaret, daughter of Eve, frail and beautiful, full of compassion and overcome by grief, bearing the burdens of others’ sins as well as your own, come and eat. Come and eat at my table!”

What does this mean?
Acts 2:1-12 (5/30/2010)

The true church is a global, multicultural church. If our worship creates the impression that all Christians speak and sing and pray the same way, or that being American or being Iowan or being congregational or being wealthy and white is as important a feature in us as belonging to Christ, then we are witnessing to a false gospel and hurting the cause of God’s kingdom in this world.

Exploitation, intimidation, transformation
Acts 16:16-40 (5/16/2010)

Exploitation is all around us! Without a sense of higher duty, without allegiance to a higher authority, an economic system predicated on the aim of maximizing profit is readily susceptible to that evil. Paul himself said it: “The love of money is a source of all kinds of evil.”

Things are not always as they seem
Acts 16:9-15 (5/9/2010)

It is ironic that a church that claims “there is no difference between Jews and Gentiles, between slaves and free people, between men and women,” rather that “we are all one in union with Christ Jesus” – it is ironic that such a church should have for so much of its history kept women “in their place” and outside the circles of power, consigning them instead to the margins of community life. Actually it is a double irony! It has taken so long and women have had to fight so hard to attain the kind of recognition and respect and status in the church … that they had at the beginning!

You can’t put bridle on the Spirit of God!
Acts 11:1-18 (5/2/2010)

What we have received is not a tradition, but a relationship. We are stewards of what God has given us, but the best of what God has given is himself, and what God is and does is not subject to our control. The wind of God’s Spirit blows where it will, where God wills. We can’t keep God or our faith in a box. You can’t put a bridle on the Spirit of God!

Great expectations
Acts 9:32-43 (4/25/2010)

What bothers me, as I think about this text, is that sometimes we, the church, you and me, expect God to do … nothing.

Damascus Road
Acts 9:1-6 (4/18/2010)

That’s the key. That is what makes the difference. That is what makes us different – when we do not charge into the world with the strength of Jesus behind us, but when we charge into the world with the face of Jesus ahead of us!

Acedia
Acts 5:27-32 (4/11/2010)

When did the church become harmless? When did nice replace good? When did it become the highest of Christian virtues to not make waves? When did it become the worst of all sins to cause offense? When did we decide to talk about Jesus only among ourselves?

Nonsense
Luke 24:1-11 (4/4/2010)

Nonsense! That’s what the apostles thought of the report Mary and Joanna and the other women brought them. Nonsense!

The end of the road … for death!
1 Corinthians 15:19-26 (4/4/2010)

But Jesus faith, resurrection faith, does not offer a way out, but a way forward. It does not promise escaping the body, but redeeming it. It does not promise escaping this world, but redeeming it. It is a faith in love with what God has made, and it makes a far more radical, if less palatable, claim. 

Unreasonable love
John 12:1-8 (3/21/2010)

She gave – not just an extravagant gift – but herself, holding nothing back, pouring it all out, pouring herself all out, in whole-hearted, fully-surrendered, beyond the boundaries, impractical, unreasonable, holy love!

Join the party!
Luke 15:1-32 (3/14/2010)

And when the gospel works, when that good news touches a broken heart, turns around a wandering soul, puts a stumbling man back on his feet, gives new hope to a despairing woman, why, that’s cause for celebration! That’s good reason to throw a party, don’t you think?

Never give up
Luke 13:1-9 (2/28/2010)

Do you believe everything happens for a reason?

Staring down the fox
Luke 13:31-35 (2/21/2010)

Fear’s power is the power of imagination. Fear does not directly do you harm, but fear hurts you by changing your behavior.

They saw his glory
Luke 9:28-36 (2/14/2010)

Do you see? Do you understand? The source of light was not the sun!

They left
Luke 5:1-11 (2/7/2010)

Regardless of the ramifications and the risks and the costs, it makes me sad to think there is no love above all other loves, no adventure beyond all other adventures, no calling above all other callings, no holy passion, for which we would be ready to leave … everything.

When the truth hurts
Luke 4:21-30 (1/31/2010)

Why are we afraid of the truth?
Because we’re human …
Because the truth hurts …
Because it shatters our view of reality …
Because it changes us …
Because it makes us uncomfortable …
Because we think we know everything already …

Today
Luke 4:14-21 (1/24/2010)

The poor will hear good news, not someday, but today! The sick will be healed, not someday, but today! The oppressed will be set free, not someday, but today! You will be saved, not someday, but today!

Le chaim
John 2:1-11 (1/17/2010)

It’s all about life! Abundant and full and overflowing life! “Le chaim!” To life!

Also
Luke 3:15-17, 21-22 (1/10/2010)

“Also” means you matter. You matter to Jesus, and since you matter to Jesus, you matter to God. You are not alone. You are not left on your own. You are understood. You are appreciated. You are wanted. You are loved.

Word and picture
John 1:14 (1/3/2010)

We saw his glory! We weren’t just told about it. We were not merely given a message, a secret, a new law. We were not merely pointed in the right direction, shown a new way.

We saw it!