Sermons

God is love and therefore the essence of the Gospel is love, not just for those we think are deserving, but for everyone. Jesus commanded that we who call ourselves his disciples must “love our neighbors as ourselves,” a command that requires empathy to fulfill.

Today, we will throw caution to the wind and dine not only with friends and family and strangers, but also with people we perceive to be antagonists, apostates, weirdos, sinners, and perhaps even enemies.

Because we have access to this kind of hope the rest of the world does not, our job is to witness to it as Jeremiah did, so that others will not despair, but be inspired instead to lean into that future in faith.

He may have been partially motivated by self-interest. But he also was able to do good in a way that benefitted the poor and his boss, by making his reputation better. As his master recognizes in the end, he was really shrewd with what he was given.

The lesson is not that we can find the ruins of Eden if we look hard enough, but that Eden can still find us.

We try to look our best in public, but even the best among us has qualities and moments we would just as soon no one else ever sees. If the psalmist is right, then God knows everything, including the ugly and imperfect things about us: our short fuse in traffic and messy piles under the bed, our quickness to judge, indulge, or deny, and our reluctance to change. We have no secrets because God has known us since even before we were born.

In Western culture especially, we value independence and self-determination very highly and see dependence as weakness. Do you think of yourself as dependent upon God?

Paul believed that our ability to endure, even thrive in the face of difficulty, is the proof that God is with us, extending live-saving grace.

To be a faithful, obedient, living, awake disciple, you must nurture your faith and relationship with God, and do the work of Jesus Christ. If you do not constantly refuel your lamp, you cannot be a light for Christ.

The hard truth is that it can be very difficult to discern false prophets from true ones sometimes. History is littered with horror stories that demonstrate this.