Argentine Mennonite Church

As I read these words today, I want to reflect on my time with the members of Argentine Mennonite Church and the practical ways you have expressed your faith in Jesus Christ. There are many things I could share but let me highlight a few. Firstly, this congregation has been one of the most diverse congregations I have ever come across. AMC has had people who are rich and poor, Caucasian, African American, Hispanic, Asian Indian, educated and not so educated, traditionally Mennonite and completely non-Mennonite, young and old, formally dressed and informally dressed, able bodied and disabled. I can't think of a category of people that AMC has not been able to welcome. To have diversity in a large congregation is easy. But to have diversity in a small congregation means that anytime you have a handful of people together you have diversity even in that setting. That is what we had here at AMC.

Today we are going to look at one of the problems the early church faced and how the Apostles solved it. Our passage is in the start of the 6th chapter of Acts. Scholars who do the chronological research tell us that we are about 5 years past Pentecost at this point. The church at this time is growing extremely fast and when you grow that fast you are crossing into new ethnic groups. In this case the ethnic group that is coming into the church are the Greek speaking believers who were originally Jewish. They were Jews who grew up in other parts of the world and therefore had different mother tongues. But these Jews had returned to live in Jerusalem at the time. We also know that this community many widows. How so?

When I preached last Sunday, the text I used went all the way to the end of chapter 5. My focus was on looking at Professor Gamaliel's thinking that helped navigate a very difficult situation. He did not try and convince them of an new truth that they not already believe. Rather he simply take the elements of their existing world-view and come up with an action plan that would avoid spiritual harm and keep open the possibility of discovering the truth of who Jesus Christ might be. So, we looked at how professor Gamaliel saved the day but we also looked at how his reasoning can be applied to the issues we are facing today. But there is something we did not look at. And that is the last three verses of last Sunday's text. This deals with what happened to the Apostles after their Sanhedrin clash and that is what I am going to focus on this week.

The passage we are going to work with today is something that interests me in a special way because I have meditated on Gamaliel's approach and thinking for a long time now. The portion we are looking at today is a long one. I could not break it into smaller chunks because we have to take in the whole story and then look at the competing forces going in there and then draw out the principles being put forth for our understanding. This is our task for today. First let's take a quick look at the story.

Returning to our journey through Acts, this weeks passage you may have noticed is not a narrative of dramatic events. This week's passage is instead a summary statement of the early church. We saw another summary statement previously at the end of chapter 4. That statement talked about how much unity there was in that church and also how much they shared their possessions to take care of each others needs. In contrast, this summary statement focuses on the healing ministry of the early church. Just recently in Acts chapter 3 you will remember, we witnessed a dramatic healing story of the man who was born lame and begged in front of the temple gate called beautiful. In our passage today, we are told that there were many such stories. In in verse 15 and 16 it says, “As a result of the apostles' work, sick people were brought out into the streets on beds and mats so that Peter's shadow might fall across some of them as he went by. 16 Crowds came from the villages around Jerusalem, bringing their sick and those possessed by evil[a] spirits, and they were all healed.”

Last Sunday we looked at the end of Acts 4 where the early Christian community was at its best almost ideal state. They had an incredibly high level of unity of mind and spirit, they had boldness to witness to preach the Word of God and they had a community in which no needs went unmet. As a result, the author declares that God's great blessing was upon them all. That kind of blessing, I hope is the goal of anyone who is walking the Christian life. But even in those days it was not like 100% of the members of the church were in of the same mind and spirit. There will always be those problematic individuals everywhere. Ananias and Sapphira were a couple who were not of the same mind as everybody else. And God chose to use them as negative examples and a warning for everyone. But this is also a very unique story that has almost no exact parallels in other parts of scripture and so it is one of those stories that is extremely hard to interpret. Yet it is an important story meant to teach us something. So that is what we will wrestle with today and examine how God is speaking to us through it. When dealing with difficult territory, it is always helpful to start by defining the boundaries, by identifying what it is not. So that is going to be where we begin.

Today we will focus on a miracle that happened when Peter and John were going about their business on day. This entire section from chapter 2 to 5 focuses on the events that took place in Jerusalem. And in Jerusalem it is always Peter who is the center of the action. In the later part of Acts when the action moves beyond Jerusalem, you will find that it is Apostle Paul who is at the center of the action. But whether it be Peter or Paul or anybody else, these narratives are laid out to show the reader how closely linked these miracles and teachings were to what Jesus himself did and taught. The only difference between Jesus and his Apostles you will find is that while Jesus did miracles under his own authority or the authority of His Heavenly Father, the apostles did their work in the power of Jesus' name.

Let's look at some key points in David's life in this Psalm, to see how God led him through this tragedy. David Sought God through the pressure he faced...

In Acts two we started with a look at the awesome events of the day of Pentecost. We followed that by digging into Apostle Peter's sermon which included both a Biblical explanation of these events and a convicting tie-in to Jesus Christ who is ultimately responsible for these events. And the mark of a good sermon is that it moves its listeners to action. And moved they were. In fact we are told that 3000 people were added to the church that day. That fact alone is astounding. But what is most informative for us is to look at how did these brand new Christians did church. But before we go there, I want to just remind you of what human society has become from the time Adam and Eve were ejected out of the Garden of Eden. Trouble began quickly starting with their two sons Cain and Abel....

Friends we will continue our journey into the events of the Day of Pentecost for two more Sundays including today. Our focus today will be on Peter's sermon. This was not a preplanned sermon. When the events of Pentecost happened some people in the crowd where in awe and others were coming up with silly speculations. Peter understood clearly what God was doing and wanted to explain it to the gathered Jewish diaspora. So he gets everybody's attention and preaches and this sermon is what we are looking at today.

Today we are going to look at signs and wonders associated with the day of Pentecost. In the very first chapter of Acts, we saw how God had prepared his disciples for this day. Jesus made sure his disciples had first hand knowledge about all the essentials about Himself including his rising from the death. He made sure to jog their memory about what He had taught them about the Kingdom of God and finally He gave them their assignment for after he had physically left them. Then he rose to heaven again in a manner that they could testify to first-hand. Now post ascension, his disciples knew “what” to do. They just needed the power to do it. Even there, Jesus had promised his disciples the special power they would need to accomplish their assigned mission. On the day of Pentecost this empowerment promise of Jesus was fulfilled. This is how it all went down.Firstly, the action.

In our first couple steps into the book of Acts we looked at Christ's work in preparing His disciples for the birth of the church. In the first sermon we looked at key aspects of Christ's last 40 days with his disciples. In the second sermon we looked at the next 10 days when the disciples came together in unity to prayerfully prepare for the Pentecost. In the third sermon today, I am going to dwell on one last thing that needed to be taken care off before the church was ready to be born, the replacement of Judas Iscariot. We will look at why Peter thought Judas needed to be replaced, how they went about it and what this replacement tells us about the role of witnesses to Christ Jesus.First we will start with the “why replace” question.

As we started our journey into the book of Acts, the first thing we observed is that Jesus used the 40 days he had on earth to prepare his disciples. And to prepare them he exposed them to all the defining moments of his life like his baptism, death, resurrection and ascension. Secondly, He reminded them about the essence of what he taught which is about the kingdom of God. Finally, to told them what he expected of them, which was to be his witnesses everywhere when the power of the Holy Spirit came upon them. After that He ascended into heaven.

Today we embark on a new journey through the book of Acts. I have no idea how long this journey will take but we are looking at a journey through 28 chapters. It was written as a second part to the narrative in the Gospel of Luke, a physician and companion to Apostle Paul through most of his journeys. In the opening verse of this book the author refers to his first book that he wrote concerning everything that Jesus Christ did and taught. You will notice other similarities especially in the introductions of both these books. For example both books were dedicated to Theophilus. We don't know who Theophilus is but most likely scholars tell us that he was a patron of Luke, who paid for the expenses of writing these two volumes. Another connection between the two books in seen in this super crisp one line summary of the previous book where he says and I quote, “In my first book[a] I told you, Theophilus, about everything Jesus began to do and teach 2 until the day he was taken up to heaven after giving his chosen apostles further instructions through the Holy Spirit.” End of quote.With that summary he gets into the meat of this record which gives an overview of Jesus' 40 days post resurrection work.

This is the third and last sermon in the miniseries I have called, The State of the Body, detailing the most serious issues affecting the evangelical church from the book the Great Evangelical Recession by John Dickerson. Today I am going to focus on two things that the book talks about. The way the church is bleeding and the way the church is sputtering. This is not cheery stuff, but this is real and if we have the capacity to receive an honest assessment, then we will also have the capacity to be part of the solution. Also, the only reason I am talking about the Evangelical church in the US is because this is the church that we identify with.First, we will address the bleeding.

This is going to be our second dive into looking what ails the church in the US today. Last Sunday we saw that when we look with sober eyes we see that the evangelical church forms a smaller percentage of the US population than many in the church used to think. We also saw that the culture around the church is growing more and more hostile to what the Bible names as sin. All opposition is not the same, however. External opposition to us does not automatically mean we are doing a bad thing. Some opposition comes because you are doing the right thing. But you have to be able to have the strength to stand against this opposition. Also, a lot of opposition we face is not because we are doing the right thing but because we have badly messed us our job as Christ’s ambassadors. But whether it is the church’s fault or not, opposition is increasing folks. And author John Dickerson describes our state to be like a tree that is suffering internal rot while great big storm clouds gather on the horizon. Today I am going to raise two issues that feed the internal health of the church.

In this next season of our church I will be starting a journey through the book of Acts. The book of Acts as you know is the record of the things that happened at the birth and early years of the church of Jesus Christ. It is a record of an incredibly vibrant and faithful church that was growing at an unimaginable rate across both the Jewish and Roman worlds and spreading across all of Asia and beyond. The early church is our gold standard and we can gauge the health of any church by comparing it to the early church. But if we want to get any place we also need to figure out where we are, right? Because to navigate we need at least the knowledge of current location and destination. So before we get into the weeds of the book of Acts, I will be spending three weeks addressing the present condition of the church in the United States. And as we see the bigger picture, we can figure out for ourselves where we stand locally in the context of this bigger picture.

In his lifetime Jesus did many miracles, but this one, rising from the dead is the greatest of them all. Why? Because when Jesus did other miracles like say the turning of water into wine, he caused the material in that location to behave differently from the normal laws of nature for that period of time. The Resurrection miracle is different, because in Col 1:18 Jesus is called the “first born from among the dead”. That means there will be a second born and a third born and so on from the dead as well. So when Jesus rose from the dead, something happened to change not just the laws of nature in his physical body but something happened to change the laws of nature in the whole universe. The Bible also tells us that one day, this universe as we know it will end and there will be a New Heaven and New Earth. When Christ rose from the dead my friends, we got our very first glimpse of what our bodies might be like in this New Heaven and New Earth....

As a disciple of Christ our cross is not the physical cross but the cross of “self-denial”. And self-denial is very empowering. You know why? Because this “world” is designed to cater to our “flesh”. If you are not driven by your “flesh” then this world cannot give you anything that you truly hunger after. And if the world cannot give you anything you really hunger after then this world has no power over you. And if this world has no power over you, then you have all the power over this world. And if you have all the power then you can boldly proclaim the Gospel that God has called each of you to proclaim. You see if Peter became a bold proclaimer of God’s message after Jesus told him how his end would be, then we should become bold proclaimers of the Gospel after Jesus’ has told us to deny our selves and take up our cross and follow Him as well. ...

So you must be wondering, how does this interaction Jesus had with Peter apply to your life?Well, the first thing to know is anything you have done in the past however terrible is not a disqualification. Jesus can redeem the worst of your actions and your worst memories by rewiring them all into new positive associations. The biggest example is the cross itself, the most negative of images has been transformed into the most powerfully positive one. So you don’t have to be stuck in the past or be stuck in the pit because Jesus can change your charcoal pit of denial into the charcoal pit of your restoration.The second thing to remember is that before we can account for how much we love Jesus, we have to face our weaknesses. If you don’t know yourself, no commitment you make has meaning. But remember Jesus will help us face ourselves and he will be with us and we do it so don’t be worried about anything.Thirdly, when you say you love Jesus, do you know what it actually means to you individually? Church people are quick to say that we love Jesus and we sing about our love for Jesus effortlessly. But for it to mean something we need to hear what Jesus’ call on your life is. Each of us have our own unique calling. And we need to be clear about it because without that we might be doing one thing when Jesus wants us to do something else. And if we are not doing what we are called to do Jesus is not going to feel loved by your actions.So remember this friends. It is never to late for Jesus to come into your life and restore or renew you. But to be restored we need to face ourselves and have clarity on what Jesus Christ is calling us to do.I pray that each of us will have our own charcoal pit moments with Jesus as he restores us and helps us to face ourselves and whispers his call into our ears. Then we too can say, Lord you know everything. You know I love you. And Jesus will say, yes I know. Let us pray.

Jesus understands that we are tired and will get tired. That is why he himself makes breakfast for us.Three lessons to focus us here are: Firstly, it is only when we are on the water that will we be in a position to hear Jesus telling us, where to throw the net. So let’s give it all we got friends! A pastor friend of mine says, “you cannot steer a parked car”. When we get moving, Jesus will tell us which way to go. Secondly, remember that Jesus already has caught fish without us. He does not need us but he wants to give us the privilege of contributing fish to the table and then showing off our work for all eternity. We don’t want to lose the privilege of giving our Lord Jesus that joy. Thirdly, he knows that we will get tired. But he has made a provision for our tiredness as well. So let’s not grow weary in doing good because if we persist and not give up, we will reap a rich harvest...

The book of John opened with the prologue in poetry form describing God and Jesus. It starts by describing God and His Word as both separate and unified. And then it goes on to say that the Word became a person and dwelt among his people. And that person was Jesus Christ. And Jesus Christ was the Son of God. And that meant that the One true God that the Jews always believed in consists of a Father and a Son. Why, was the Book of John written? It says so that you may continue to believe who Jesus is. the entire Gospel of John will all its beautiful construction comes down to this one thing. And in the end, its readers would recognize the power of the name of Jesus. I hope each of us, in the rough moments and low moments of our life will remember to go to this Gospel and walk as the first disciples did with Jesus and renew your love for Him, strengthen your faith and be empowered to fulfill the tasks he has given to each one of us no matter where in life we are.

Earlier in Jesus’ prayer He talked about how disciples are those people who believe, accept and live out or keep God’s word. As they do that they are going to face opposition in the form of sowing disunity in their midst. Of course Jesus prays for protection from disunity for us in the power of His father’s name. In the next part of his prayer, he presents three more characteristics of being a disciple. Being joyful, being holy and being hated by the world. Today we are going to dive into all three and we are going to start with joy.

This is our fourth sermon in Jesus’ High priestly prayer. First we looked at the deeper insights we get from this prayer about the Trinity, and the meaning of salvation. Then we wrestled with the difference in Disciple DNA that demonstrates a unique capacity to believing and accepting the revelation if God the Father through Jesus His Son followed by the process of getting to know the Trinity and finally the power to keep God’s word.But Jesus knows that there is a big challenge coming. As He anticipates His leaving the earth, He knows that his disciples and going to get attacked and specifically the bonds between them making unity a challenge. That is what we are going to look at today.First let’s look at how Jesus prays in these 3 versus we are looking at. Our passage starts with these words, “All who are mine belong to you, and you have given them to me, so they bring me glory”...

Mervin Hershberger 00:25:40 noBible,science,salvation,history,atonement,theories,anabaptist,peace,Christ,Jesus,Sandeep,Thomas,Argentine,Church

Last Sunday we started with the opening of Jesus’ High priestly prayer in which he prayers for his glorification. Now within the first 5 verses of Jesus’ opening there were two verses we skipped over last Sunday. It has to do with the meaning of eternal life. Let me read it again. “For you granted him authority over all people that he might give eternal life to all those you have given him. 3 Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent”. This is such a loaded two sentences that I decided they deserved to be a focus just by themselves. Because Jesus is giving us the very definition of eternal life here. And part of that definition involves having two personal relationships. One with the Father and the other with the Son. This involves wrestling once again with the Trinity and so today I am going to focus on these words of Jesus, when he says, this is eternal life that they know the only true God and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.

This Sunday we are going to return to the Gospel of John and pick up where we left off. We will get into the 17th chapter of John which encapsulates Jesus’ high priestly prayer. This prayer has distinct sections and we will deal with each section separately. Today we will deal with the opening 5 verses of this prayer, Jesus’ petition for glorification. The opening of this prayer reminds you of another prayer of Jesus, the famous Lord’s prayer. The Lord’s prayer as you know opens with the famous line, “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name”. Another way of saying, may your name be glorified. I bring that up because it does seem that the first concern that Jesus expresses when He prayers to his heavenly Father is that His father is glorified. But in our prayer, he says, “Father, glorify me so that I can glorify you”. These words may seem strange to our ears because we live in such a self-promoting culture. So it is possible that many might hear these words today and think that Jesus is asking to be glorified for some selfish motive. So let me deconstruct the background we come from so that we can hear more clearly what Jesus is saying...

Samuel Dodda 00:35:15 noBible,science,salvation,history,atonement,theories,anabaptist,peace,Christ,Jesus,Sandeep,Thomas,Argentine,Church

After three sermons focused on Job’s friends and looking at how people sometimes add to suffering by dealing in self-centered and insensitive ways with those who are suffering, we turned last week to how Job responded to his suffering. We looked at a model of grief pioneered by a famous psychologist called Elizabeth Kubler Ross. This model describes 5 stages of grief, denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. Each of these stages can be done well or badly. When I say well, I mean in a Biblical and Godly way. And when it is dealt with well it leads to healing and spiritual growth. On the other hand each stage can be dealt with in a worldly way that leads to bad outcomes. Now Job is commended by God both in the beginning of this ordeal, that means to start with, he was someone who lived a God-fearing life. And God vindicates him at the end of the book as well, that means he dealt with the challenges he was thrown within the book well. We know this because in the 10 speeches that Job has given you see each of the first 4 stages of grief circulating throughout these speeches. Thus looking at Job’s response is an opportunity for us to learn how to grieve well. And that means doing all the stages of grief well. Last week we looked at the first two stages of grief, denial and anger. This week we are going to look at the next three stages, bargaining, depression and acceptance. So let’s get started.

Three ways we can be real friends to the “Jobs” in our life. Make sure that we don’t make their pain worse by pining the blame carelessly, especially not on the mourner themselves. Secondly, make sure to weep with those who weep so that they know that you are with them in the time of their suffering. Finally take their “why” questions to God for them. God can handle all questions and God promises that those who mourn will be comforted. If we have experienced that comfort from leaving our questions and problems at the feet of Jesus, then we will be able to pass that comfort on to those whom we are trying to comfort.

We are going to turn our attention back to the book of Job. In our first sermon on Job we looked at the opening where the scene was being set for us, with God and Satan setting up a trial for Job in heaven. We also looked at how the trial plays out here on earth and we looked at the question that the book of Job is exploring. One way of framing the question is, is God just? The other approach to the question is, if God is good, then why do good people suffer? This is where Job’s friends come in. Because Job’s three friends soon appear to console him. Now each of Job’s friends have a slightly different take on how they respond to Job’s laments. These responses represent different philosophical perspectives to the question of God’s justice and human suffering. We are going to look at how these perspectives are formed and what is helpful and unhelpful about each of these perspectives when dealing with a grieving friend. Today our focus is going to be on Eliphaz, the Temanite.

My question to us this morning is, how does the amazing facts of Resurrection Sunday and the amazing promises to us impact our life today? I want to offer three quick things and stop. First, if God can do what He did for Jesus, is there any challenge that happens here on earth too great for God to handle? Because of Easter, the answer is no. There is nothing too great for God to handle. Can I get an Amen! If you have something in your life that feels impossible or dead even and you have lost all hope, can God bring life into the dead things in your life? Because of Easter, the answer is yes my friends! When you don’t see the plan and the way ahead is pitch dark, does God have a plan? Because of Easter, you and I can say with a resounding yes, God does have a plan forward.

For today, we will look at chapters one and two of the Book of Job. In these two chapters we are introduced to an exceptional human being. He is one of the richest people in the land. But he is also tremendously righteous. He was considered blameless by God. It does not get better than that! As an illustration of his righteousness, we are told that he even regularly made sacrificial offerings even for those sins that his children may have unknowingly committed. So Job is presented to us as a man who has all the possible bases of his life covered....

In an average year, the United States of America is a buzzing beehive of activity. On average Americans drive 3.5 trillion miles a year, take more than 16 million flights, spend $330 billion on big meetings, almost a $ 1 trillion on sports, make 45.5 billion trips to restaurants and over 20 million visits just to Magic Kingdom in Disney world. That is a lot of activity, burning a lot of fuel and it costs about $22 trillion in total to make all that happen. If that does not make your head spin, I don’t know what does. But here is the deal. When there is so much happening, so much activity, so much running from this task to that, it is super hard for us to hear anything but the noise of our own activity. But there are also times in history when God wants to be heard, especially when He wants to do something big and He needs His people to listen. So He decides to shut the whole world down. Yes you heard that right. God can shut the whole world down when He wants to get our attention.  Ps 65:7 says this, “You quieted the raging oceans with their pounding waves and silenced the shouting of the nations”. God has certainly quieted us. Here are some observations about this shutting down that God has effected.

Today we are going to deal with the Article 22 that addresses the things that Mennonites are most well known for, peace, justice and non-resistance and I am going to hit upon all three today. First I want to address is this idea of making peace. The Old Testament word for peace (shalom) includes healing, reconciliation, and well-being. You see, shalom is more than the absence of war. It starts with making peace with oneself. This includes your looks, your talents, your circumstances and even your past. When people are not at peace within themselves, they tend to take it out on others. They want to make fun of others or put others down to feel better about themselves. In that process relationships are broken, and trust is lost. When relationships are broken a certain wellbeing is lost as well. But the Bible is very clear that at the root of all broken relationships is the broken relationship between human beings and God. Peace is so important to God but we have to remember that violence has an incredible power. The power to spread to anyone it touches. That is why in the New Testament we are warned to “not resist evil”. I want to touch upon what it means. To not resist evil means to not engage violence with violence.

Today we are going to talk about Article 18 which addresses another dimension of discipleship, Christian Spirituality. If you look up the definition of Spirituality you will get something like this “the quality of being concerned with religion or the human spirit”. As you can see, this term spirituality is actually an extremely general and broad term that means very little. Christian spirituality on the other hand means something very specific and is spelt out well in Article 18. Article 18 opens with these words, “We believe that to be a disciple of Jesus is to know life in the Spirit”. Spirit is the capital S Spirit which means the Holy Spirit. In other words, it is saying, we believe that to be a disciple of Jesus is to know life in the Holy Spirit”. Now, to summarize Article 18’s take on “life in the Spirit”, in one sentence, I would say, “to know life in the Spirit of God is to have an extraordinary relationship with the Savior of the world”. While we have focused the meaning of the word “spirituality” considerably by this point, we are still speaking in broad terms here. To get us even more focused, I will address just two aspects of a disciple’s relationship with their Savior that Article 18 brings to our attention.

Today we are going to dwell a little deeper into what it means for individuals within the church to give the outside world a glimpse of what it is like to be under the reign of Christ. This is the focus of Article 171. Now article 17 states that “conformity to Christ includes non-conformity to the world”. This statement implies that you cannot have dual citizenship between Christ’s kingdom and the kingdom of this world which is ruled in fact by Satan. Take your pick, it is one or the other. There is no fence-sitting either. So what does it look like when you choose to be in Christ’s kingdom? Today I will present to you three sets of choices addressed in Article 17 involved in choosing Christ over the world.

The Mennonite church depends only on the power of the Holy Spirit. It receives into its membership those who have voluntarily received the saving power of Christ. The Mennonite church also encourages regular attendance to reaffirm one’s identity in Christ, to express one’s highest loyalty to Christ and to seek the will of Christ for one’s life. Today I am going to be talking about Article 10, and this time I mean it Article 10 refers to the mission of the church and that is what we are going to focus on.

Life is a balancing act. We have to constantly balance between our work and home lives, balance between attending to things that are important versus things that are urgent, between spending and saving. But have you every wondered about balancing the old and the new? Dwelling on the past versus looking to the future? Well, focusing on the old helps us learn from past mistakes and build old skills, deepen old friendships. It is a reminder of where we came from. Focusing on the new helps keep life fresh and exiting as well as helping expand our horizons and grow in new ways. In the Bible we have versus that ask us both to remember what God has done in the past but also to journey with God into the new. God wants us to cherish the lessons from the past but also be sensitive to the new things that God is doing in our midst. Today we stand at the beginning of not just a new Year but a new decade as well. So I think this is a good time to think about the new. Entering the New Year is like reached the shore of a new land waiting to be explored.