Highrock Church Haverhill

We're kicking off a new summer sermon series called Spoiler Alert: God's Story Rules.  We are going to explore the end, or perhaps the culmination, of God's story.  We will talk about the ways that knowing the trajectory of God's story informs how we think and live now.  What's the reason we do anything? The end of God's story, the last pages of Revelation, give us some reasons.   The picture we see in Revelation is one of restoration. The leaves of the tree of life will be the healing of the nations.  What has been broken will be restored.  At the culmination of God's story, we will experience God's glorious presence in ways we have never known. God wants to dwell with. If we look backwards, we see God wanted to give us a physical place to be with God–the Tabernacle and the Temple. In Jesus, God came as a person. In the future, we will experience God's presence in an even more direct and intimate way than we do in Jesus—in a way that is perhaps beyond what we can comprehend or grasp right now.

We all tend to overestimate our abilities. For example, 93% of drivers think they're above average drivers. But what's that based on? How do we arrive at these conclusions? Similarly, do we overestimate our ability to know and understand how God works? Maybe we've defaulted to think God works in predictable ways. Or, maybe we think God doesn't, can't, and won't work in other ways. In Acts 9, the Lord spoke to Ananias in a dream and tells him to visit and pray for Saul. Ananias is understandably resistant to the idea that he is supposed to go and visit someone who was authorized by the leading priests to arrest everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord. Ananais chose to do what God wanted him to do, even though it went against what he knew to be true. God is always doing a new thing—moving in surprising and unexpected ways.

In his book Transitions, Bill Bridges notes that when we're in the middle of change, we're more aware of how little control we have over our circumstances. Yet in those moments when we're the most uncertain about what will happen next, we can affirm with more certainty the things that won't change. In other words, we might not know what will happen today, tomorrow, or a year from now—but we can know who we are—today, tomorrow, and a year from now.  Even as the winds shift around us, we can affirm our gifting and personality, our core values, our purpose, our identity, that we are God's people, we are rooted and anchored in Christ, the solid rock on whom we stand. We are part of Christ's new kingdom, a family that is on a mission to share the good news of God's unfailing love through our words and actions. This is who we are and will always be.  This morning, our first Sunday in this new space, was an opportunity for us to affirm our identity, even while navigating the disorientation that comes with change. Instead of a traditional sermon, we explored who we are as a community and the values that define who we are. To access the activity guide click here.

We've all experienced transitions. You start a new job, you move from elementary school to middle school, a relationship ends, another begins. Your daughter goes off to college. Your hair starts turning gray.  Even something as simple as your favorite pizza place going out of business—all transitions that involve change and loss and disorientation.  How well have you navigated your own life transitions? Over the next three weeks, as we transition from one church space to another, we wanted to try and navigate that transition well. Transitions begin with an ending. This was our last Sunday gathering in the physical space we've been worshiping in for the past four years—it was an ending. To acknowledge this end we invited members of our community to share a memory of something that has taken place or something God has done in their lives during our time together in this particular space.

We're all more comfortable interacting with people who are like us. Often when we encounter difference, which can lead to the belief that they're not just different—they're wrong. And then next thing you know, the world is divided into us and them. We can become so entrenched in our way of thinking that we'd rather be right than be in relationship. Paul fights for unity in these young churches—it would have been much easier for him to endorse different churches for different kinds of people. But he refuses to let people go their separate ways. He pleads with both sides to embrace humility and set aside their own preferences and agendas. He asks them to consider the example of Christ and put the needs of others first. He pleads with them to live with grace and work through their differences.

Maybe you feel like you're alone making major decisions or struggling through transitions, changes, and challenges. And if so, you might wonder, “Where is God?” Is God on the sidelines, judging how well you're doing or does God jump in and do it all for us? God cares about this world and God has chosen to change individual people, to give them life by the Holy Spirit, so that as God's people, the church can be the change that God wants to bring about in this world.   God empowers, energizes, puts in us new desires and new abilities, but it's not coercive.  God has begun a work in us and God will continue that work and at the same time, Paul repeatedly encourages the Philippian Christians to choose to live the way God is calling them to live. 

Maybe you feel like you're alone making major decisions or struggling through transitions, changes, and challenges. And if so, you might wonder, “Where is God?” Is God on the sidelines, judging how well you're doing or does God jump in and do it all for us? God cares about this world and God has chosen to change individual people, to give them life by the Holy Spirit, so that as God's people, the church can be the change that God wants to bring about in this world.   God empowers, energizes, puts in us new desires and new abilities, but it's not coercive.  God has begun a work in us and God will continue that work and at the same time, Paul repeatedly encourages the Philippian Christians to choose to live the way God is calling them to live. 

That morning, the women who had witnessed Jesus' death and burial came to tomb. They came needing to grieve and express their love for him. They needed a tangible way to embody the deepest loss they'd ever experienced. This is their lament; it's the funeral they're holding for Jesus.  They see the stone has been rolled away and an angel appears and says “Do not be afraid.” Then the angel commissions them to go preach the first Gospel sermon–go tell the disciples that Jesus is alive. Then Jesus appears. If our faith starts with a resurrection, with a dead man walking out of a grave, why would anything else be off the table for us?  If our God brings life from death, is there anything that God cannot do?  And if our God bears scars for us, if forever a person of the Trinity lives with holes in his hands for our redemption, is there any length to which God will not go to pursue us, to demonstrate God's love for us, to make us whole?

We've all been in situations where we're somewhere in the middle of our journey, trying to find the strength to keep going, but we're so weary that we don't know what else to do but give up. In the poetry of Lamentations 5, Israel finds itself somewhere in the middle of their own journey, collapsed on their own mountain, exhausted, depleted, ready to give up.  Lament is a gift. In a way, lament is like a good pair of hiking boots—a tool that helps us keep going along the journey of life, through the struggle, through the storm, through the pain. Lament gives us permission to ask questions of God, and Jesus meets us in those questions. Lament gives us words and structures to express how we feel and keeps us from being at the mercy of how we feel.  Lament is one of the ways we say, “Things are wrong.” When we lament, we're not minimizing what's broken, we're not staying silent. Instead, we're bringing the pain of this world to God, trusting that God hears us, that God cares and can act. 

The road to restoration and healing is long, there can come a point where we feel like we don't have the strength to continue. The Israelites have good reason to be feeling exhausted and defeated. They've lost everything they once knew. Ironically, the prophet Jeremiah warned the people that their greed would be their downfall. Their desire for the luxuries and delicacies that come with wealth and privilege overpowered their desire to obey God and His commands, leading them to seek their own gain at their neighbors' expense. Even though the Israelites were God's chosen people, they were not exempt from the consequences of their sin. We could say the same thing about America today. Just like the Israelites, we too crave the security that comes with status and wealth. Consumerism and materialism run so rampant in today's culture. Christ died on a cross to defeat the power and influence that sin has over us through his death and resurrection. To invite us to desire Jesus more than our pride, greed, and sinful nature, and to walk with Christ as our guide and the Holy Spirit as our companion away from death and towards the path that leads to life.

We love it when things are simple, when there's a straight line between cause and effect. We're conditioned to reduce the complexity of life down to things we can understand. But reality isn't straight-forward. Of all the chapters of Lamentations, this one, chapter 3, is the messiest. It's all over the place. A tone of remorse will shift to anger will shift to assurance. Sometimes the poet is talking to God, sometimes about God. It's hard to even tell who's speaking. In short, grief is complicated. Messy. A giant knot that's not easy to understand or untangle. We're invited to put our grief onto the framework of some structure that helps us express the inexpressible; we can remember that we're not alone, that God is with us, with unending love, new mercy every morning, and great faithfulness. And we're invited to do this together. To make the concerns of others ours, regardless of who is responsible.

Jesus could have established an earthly kingdom or endorsed a leader or government. Instead he changed the whole concept of “kingdom.” He changed the whole purpose of power. In him, God was among us as one who served. And the picture we get of God's kingdom is one that transcends not only national boundaries, but all boundaries.

Sometimes we open scripture expecting it to be a photograph and to read as if every single word is “true” in a really narrow sense. At times, it does communicate that way. Other times, the bible is more like an abstract painting than a photograph. It's communicating something true and real through imagery and metaphor—something that is supposed to help us feel in response. Lamentations is poetry. This poetry is written in dialogue. One voice is that of a narrator, describing the events from a more detathced, third person perspective. The other voice is the voice of the city of Jerusalem, “the daughter of Zion.” She is grieving—and the narrator bears witness to her grief by mirroring it back to her. Jerusalem doesn't view her suffering as random, she believes that her suffering is connected to the choices she's made to turn away from God and worship idols and her failure to live out her ethical obligations as God's people. God removes the eternal consequences of our sin, but God might not remove the earthly ones. Therefore, we lament and we confess.

Has your world ever broken? If it has, what did you do? In 586 BCE, the Babylonian Empire, conquered all of what was left of Israel. Jerusalem, was destroyed, burned to the ground, along with the great temple that King Solomon had built.  It's one thing to read about a death in an obituary. But the book of Lamentations is like going to the funeral and hearing the sobs and songs of an entire people, collectively grieving the death of their capital and their country. When our world breaks, we have this impulse to pull away from others—to bury our feelings rather than be honest about them. When the world breaks, we're still suckers for quick fixes. Easy answers and cheap promises. Instead, the prophet Jeremiah encourages us to lament. To cry out in our moment of great need. Lament is grief shared. We may be tempted to bear life alone, but lament offers another way. We're encouraged to bring it all to God, our only hope for ultimate deliverance and justice, and pray, “We need you, Lord! Come!” 

Often when we're turning to God with the question, “Now What?” it's in response to some calamity or challenge. Our world falls apart, we get bad news, we're faced with a difficult situation, a disagreement, a conflict, another troubling headline…we're not sure what to do, so we turn to God and say, “Now What?” But there's another way to approach the question, “Now what?” Instead of holding the broken pieces of our lives in a desparte, exasperated, “Now what?” we might also be in a place to look towards the future and be open to new possibilities. “What do you have for me, Lord? What are you calling me into? What's next?” It's the same question, “Now what?” but asked with a tone of curiosity and hope, with faith that God is moving and inviting us to participate with God in the renewal of all things.  On this particular Sunday, instead of another sermon, we shared in an experiential gathering, practicing learning the ways of God together.

This morning we're asking, "Now What?” when we disagree. Acts 15 paints a picture of how we discern amidst disagreement and maybe even discern through disagreement—about what it looks like to learn, and live, the ways of God when we come to the table with different opinions. In our current moment, compromise is often viewed as a dirty word, a sign of weakness.  But in this passage, that's exactly what's happening.  Both sides are coming to the table, listening to each other's needs and concerns, and then choosing in a spirit of love and unity, to compromise so they can be together.  We see a radical commitment to the Gospel of grace lived out in humility with self-sacrificial concern for others.  There was lots of space to hear each other, to make concessions, to give up rights for the sake of unity.  The Jews were still Jewish, and the Gentiles still weren't.  They still had different practices, different cultures.  But they did it in fellowship with one another, in unity, because they submitted to the leading of the Holy Spirit and to each other.  They chose to make room at the table for those who did not agree with them on everything. And what was the result?  Joy.

A rich, young, ruler asks Jesus, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” We know from the story he is exactly the kind of person you'd expect to inherit eternal life. So, why would he ask this of Jesus? Perhaps he knew he was missing something. Jesus says, “There is still one thing you haven't done. Go and sell all your possessions and give the money to the poor—then come, follow me.” The man's face fell, and he went away sad, for he had many possessions. So, what about us? What are we holding on to, unwilling to give up? Jesus' invitation is clear. Let go of all of that and follow me. Why would we ever let go of everything and follow Jesus? We may come to realize that we've been living the wrong story and that the right story is about broken relationship with God and that our separation from God explains our wars, our hatred, our fears, our divisions. But there's another reason we might let go of everything and follow Jesus. Jesus, who came from the ranks of the poor and oppressed, loved this wealthy man with the same love he lavished on everyone else. A love that called him away from living a false, incomplete story. A love that called him into a relationship with God and with one another.

Gideon is a son of Joash from the tribe of Manasseh, one of Joseph's two sons. He is beating the grain in a wine press, hiding his efforts from his enemy. It is here an angel appears to Gideon. He responds to the angel by asking why the Lord has forsaken the Midianites, his people. This is a feeling many of us can resonate with. Whether in times of personal tragedy, financial ruin, torn apart families, a cancer diagnosis, or a desolation of one's community or country. We sense the absence of His presence. However, the great irony is that God has not forgotten or forsaken his people. In fact, he has come to save them and calls upon Gideon in this effort. Gideon says that he and his clan are not able. In reality, none of us who have been up for this task, but that's the point. Only God is able. The Midianites leave victorious because of their trust in the name of the Lord. In Gideon we can see that God meets us and can use us even when we don't recognize his calling, when we feel the least qualified, when we're uncertain despite his promises, when we're fearful of others, and when we doubt his resources.

1 Samuel 16 opens with the Lord instructing Samuel to go out and search for a king to replace Saul. Samuel arranged to meet the sons of a man named Jesse. The eldest son Eliab stepped up, and Samuel was impressed: ”Surely, this is the guy.” Strong, tall, overall good looking. But Eliab was not the guy. The Lord said to Samuel, “Don't judge by appearance or height, for I have rejected him. And then the key phrase: “The Lord doesn't see things the way you see them. People judge by outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.” How different would our lives be if we lived by this truth? David, who had been doing the meager work of a shepherd, was chosen. What separated him from his brothers? God looked at David and saw a man after God's heart; a man who was willing to listen to God and do what God asked him to do. This is God's way. The Spirit of God working through ordinary people to do extraordinary things. We each have talents and passions. And God calls each one of us to seasons of preparation where we'll grow and learn. Those years aren't wasted. They prepare us for what comes next. Whatever we're doing in Jesus' name matters. It doesn't always feel like it, but even when we don't see the difference it makes, what we do in Jesus' name lasts forever.

How well are we hearing from God?  Every day is full of choices. Does God guide our every step or does God leave it up to us? And if God is nudging us down one path instead of another, how are we to know? How do we hear the voice of God? In 1 Samuel, when God reaches out to him, he hears it. He's open and available, but he doesn't recognize God's voice until the more experienced Eli tells him it's probably God. God wants to be known. The God of the universe came to Samuel four times with the same patient invitation. God wants to speak to us, too. Eli didn't want to hear from God, he didn't want to deal with his choices, and he didn't want to change. And in the end, he lost the ability to hear from God at all. Samuel's posture was so powerfully different: “Speak, your servant is listening.” It's an open-handed, trusting, unconditional posture. The more we learn about God, the easier it is for us to recognize God's presence and voice on the pages of our lives.

Most of us probably know the feeling that accompanies the expression, “When it rains, it pours…” This feeling was not lost on the apostle Paul as he penned his second letter to the Corinthians. Paul had been through it. He'd been in prison, severely flogged, and exposed to death again and again. He spent a night and a day in the open sea. He was in danger in the city, in the country, and at sea. He had labored and toiled and often gone without sleep and food; he was often cold and naked. And if that wasn't enough, false “teachers” claimed Paul was inadequate and cast doubt on his teaching and rumblings grew throughout the church that Paul couldn't be trusted. While we may not ever have been imprisoned or beaten or shipwrecked, we do know what it's like when the rain starts pouring and it seems like the storms of life will not relent no matter what we do or how hard we try. Paul reminds us that the comfort we experience from God and share with others fully strengthens us to endure the surging storms we face. And when we choose to be present in the midst of another's pain—we embody God the Comforter who has chosen to walk through with us in order to bear the brunt of our surging storm. And in doing so, we will come to see the promises of God answered with a resounding “Yes” and “Amen.”

For the past month we've been looking at the hope we have because of Christmas. Stronger than a wish. Deeper than good vibes. Tougher than “thoughts and prayers”. The hope we have as followers of Christ is like that, strong and tough. It's strong because it's anchored in the one whose life and death holds the weight of our salvation, the world's restoration. Our hope is tough because of the way God entered the world. In poverty and humility, instead of wealth and power. Prioritizing the overlooked and the misunderstood. Knowing that God does the unexpected makes our hope flexible, adaptable, and resilient.  This kind of hope doesn't hang on a presidential election or the stock market or the discovery of a cure for cancer. Our hope isn't that a certain set of things will happen. Our hope is a character trait. A disposition. A way of moving in the world. We move through the world hopefully, because we are saved by Jesus and living in the light of his grace, hopeful that God is doing more than we know, redeeming and including people that we cannot imagine, just as his grace included and changed us. 

The writer of the Gospel of Matthew doesn't tell us much about exactly who the wise men are or where exactly they're from. These Magi were not Jewish. So, they had not been waiting around for over 400 years to hear from God, like the Israelites had been. But it seems they had done enough research to know that the star they saw rising in the sky wasn't just any old star. It awakened hope in their hearts—a hope that didn't remain theoretical or sentimental—but a hope that compelled them into action.  Wherever they were coming from, this was not a quick journey. The Magi dedicated a long period of time to their search for the king of the Jews when they embarked on their journey across deserts and foreign land. They left their home, their comforts, and likely even their safety to follow the star. While most of us probably aren't planning to spend three months or more walking across a desert fighting exhaustion and homesickness, I imagine we all know what it feels like to hope for something only to be met with seemingly endless setbacks, draining us of energy until our reserves of hope are completely tapped out. This is why hope is nurtured and sustained within the context of community. Just like it was for the magi, the journey of hope can be long and arduous. But we are not meant to walk it alone.

Some religious traditions teach that we suffer because we have desires. If we want to avoid suffering, we should eliminate our desires. Stop longing, stop wanting, stop hoping. A lot of people think that not caring is the smarter way. If caring hurts, and hurting is bad, then maybe it's better not to care. If we don't care, we don't hurt. What have you stopped caring about? Where in your life have you given up? Where have you chosen apathy over the pain of showing up?  Eight days after Mary has given birth to her son, Jesus, she brings him to the temple. There a man rushes forward, takes the baby right out of her arms, and begins praising God. The man was Simeon. He waited at the temple day after day for God to fulfill the promises made to prophets like Isaiah 700 years earlier.  The Holy Spirit had revealed to Simeon that he would not die until he had seen the Lord's Messiah. Simeon could have given up, but he didn't. He kept showing up. Until the day Mary and Joseph brought their son, the salvation that God had prepared for all the people, for Israel, and for the nations.

Many of us are familiar with Charles Dickens' short story, a Christmas Carol. The story centers on Ebenezer Scrooge, a wealthy, grumpy old man. Every time someone says “Merry Christmas,” Scrooge replies “humbug.” In other words, “Liar, that's fake!” To Scrooge, things aren't merry. Scrooge thought Christmas was a lie and maybe we've got a little Scrooge in us. In Luke 2, the shepherds are invited to follow a star and in a lowly manger, they find a young family and a baby, who happens to be the hope of the world. Joy for all the people. Peace on earth.  At the manger, God asks us to lay it all down. All power. All honor. Our reputation. Our arrogance. Our pride. Our skepticism. Our bah humbugs. Our cynicism. Our resignation to the pessimism that things will never change.  Will you lay all of that down so that you can see the glory of God precisely in his lowliness. Will you see in Jesus, God in a manger, that things have changed? That in Jesus, things are changing, and will be changed forever? Do we join the the choirs of the angels who sing “God to God in the highest” and pronounce peace on earth or will we stick to our humbugs? 

What does it look like to have hope in a world that doesn't always feel hopeful? Advent reminds us that we're invited to hope in what God has done and what God is going to do. But hope is often hard to find, misplaced, or misunderstood. Hope is one of those gritty, active, deep words that culturally we've gutted. Too often, we're sold a shallow version of something rich and beautiful. There's a whole lot of waiting and hoping and longing and silence in the story of Zechariah and Elizabeth. They're old. They've been faithful their whole lives, righteous, doing what they're supposed to do. And yet, they don't have the one thing every good Jewish couple was supposed to have: a child.  In addition to their waiting, scholars estimate that by the time of Jesus, it had been 400-450 years since God had last spoken to Israel through the prophet Malachi. Is waiting evidence that God isn't working or has forgotten us?  Or, could it be an invitation to lean into what God is doing? In those moments when we cannot see what God is doing, when the waiting feels like being forgotten or the silence feels like absence, we're invited to lean into our relationship with God. And perhaps, in the waiting, our faith just might grow.

The implication of the words “deliver us from the evil one” is that Christ's followers were facing a severe and pressing danger. To combat such evil, it might be tempting to pick up a sword, or a gun, but here's the problem: swords only work against human beings. Paul says that our fight is not against flesh and blood, not against human beings, but against the powers and principalities. And swords don't work against them. Even today, some Christians believe that the best way to build God's kingdom is by grabbing a sword. The sword is one way to build a kingdom. It's not Christ's way. When his disciples tried to use them, he said, put those away. It's hard for people to experience the love of God at the end of a sword.  God didn't defeat evil at its own game, God defeated evil with grace, and evil never saw it coming. Jesus didn't pick up a sword, he surrendered to one…and freed us from its power. When we pray “deliver us from the evil one,” we're not only asking for God's help, we're also committing ourselves to God's cause. We're saying yes to entering the places of pain, of bondage, of enslavement, and to hold that pain prayerfully in the presence of God, trusting that God will empower us to do what we don't think we can do.

According to the World Health Organization, more than 90% of human beings live in places where we breathe contaminated air. That dirty air gets into our bodies and the consequences are terrible. Respiratory problems are the second most common cause of death worldwide. We can't see it, but air pollution is out there—and then it gets in here—and it's killing us.  Which reminds me a lot of the insidious nature of evil in the world. Similarly, we absorb fear and anxiety, we inhale notions about race and gender and ethnicity into our spirits—and then exhale them back out into the world—whether we want to or not.  Describing Jesus as he faces his death, NT Wright says, “In that moment of horror and deep darkness, Jesus fears, with good reason, that the whirlpool of evil which is about to engulf him will suck down his close followers as well.” So Jesus, in that moment, inhales all of the darkness onto himself so that the world would go free.  Jesus was not delivered from evil, he was led to it, he was served up to it so that it could do its worst—to him, so that it would not destroy us. Even though we experience it, it has been defeated. Even though we breathe it in, it will not destroy us. 

What does it mean to pray “forgive us our sins, as we have forgiven those who sin against us?” And what does it mean to pray “forgive us our debts, as we have forgiven those who owe us something?” The story of Zacchaeus, a despised, traitorous tax collector, shows us that this clause of the Lord's Prayer is about what forgiveness does to us and for those around us. While we don't know exactly what happened between Jesus and Zacchaeus, we do know that right there, standing in his own home before Jesus, experiencing grace and forgiveness and mercy, Zacchaeus commits to give half his wealth to the poor right now, and restore to those around him what he took from them.  The forgiven becomes the giver. Sometimes in election season we can feel like "things are the way they are." It's as if we're resigned to the brokenness, the anger, the prejudice, the name calling, and the dehumanization, and content to point the finger at our enemy and say, "thank God I'm not like that person." But just as Jesus disrupted the way things were for Zacchaeus with grace and forgiveness, so with us he says, "things do not have to be this way" and then invites us to forgive, to release, to love, to serve, to give half of what we own to the poor, to change the way things are and in doing so, our world becomes more on earth as it is in heaven.

Today, the verbs change. The first half of the Lord's Prayer reminds us that God is a good father who loves us, that God's kingdom is good, and that God's is trustworthy. Our requests of God come after, and in the context of, a trusting relationship with God. But now, we get three direct, second person appeals: “please give us,” “please forgive us,” and “please rescue us.” So, when we pray, “Give us today the food we need” are we praying for physical bread or spiritual bread? Jesus, the bread of life, also fed thousands of hungry people with real physical bread and real physical fish. The people who followed Jesus were primarily poor. “Give us the bread we need today” almost certainly included a request for real bread today. Maybe some of us can relate to that kind urgent physical need, but many of us, because of our affluence, our middle class privileges, are able to secure, on our own, the physical things we need to make it through most days. Which is kind of ironic, because for people who act like we've got it all under control, we sure do worry a lot about a lot of things.  We encourage you to check out https://www.bread.org to discover how we can partner with the work God is doing to feed those who need bread today.

When Jesus was asked by a lawyer “What is the greatest commandment” he replied, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul and mind, and the second is like it love your neighbor as yourself.” Our neighbor is the person neigh unto us.  The one in the cereal aisle next to us. Or in the ditch on the other side of the road from us. Or the Samaritan outcast, who showed what loving one's neighbor really means. And Jesus, himself is our model for this.  He met the physical, spiritual and relational needs of the whole person. Ultimately it was God who brought heaven to earth—in the incarnation, in the person of Jesus, who not only reconciled us to a relationship with God but showed us the way to respond to others in need of the same. Jesus shows us that the kingdom of heaven is among us, and often, in places we don't see as so pleasant, amongst people we might otherwise avoid, in circumstances we would rather not face. He asks this of us not by heaping burdensome to-dos on our already weary selves, but by moving our hearts to love in action, those He loves. Not for rewards or recognition but to reflect  Jesus to others. Recognizing the worth of every person God has made and for whom Jesus died. 

Trust is part of the prayer Jesus taught us to pray, “May your kingdom come, may your will be done.”  As we talked about last week, the grammar here is important. It reads closer to “help us do your will” and implies some action on our part. When we pray your kingdom come, your will to be done, we're choosing to admit that our understanding, knowledge, and perspective is limited, partial, incomplete. We're choosing to trust God, to defer to God when we do not know, do not understand, and do not agree—and also, when we think we know, assume we understand, and happily agree.  We're choosing to defer to God in all things.  What trust falls are you facing? Are you considering a new job? Are you trying to let your children make their own choices, trusting that God loves them like you do? Are you trying to show up for a grieving friend, trusting that God can work in and through you even when you're not sure what to do or say?  Can we yell our anger at God over injustice and war and senseless death and still lean into God, taking the next step of faith that God asks us to? Trust takes full surrender and full courage all at the same time. It takes great strength to let go.  Where do you struggle to pray, Your will be done? Are you facing a situation where it's hard to defer, hard to surrender, hard to trust God?

Have you ever felt in your body that you were somewhere special?  Call it awe or reverence. You knew, deep down, that the ground beneath your feet was was special. Different. Sacred. That's what's happening when Moses encounters God in the burning bush. God assures Moses that he can go to Pharaoh because God promises that he will be with him. This assurance is embedded in God's strange, wonderful, mysterious name. When Moses asks about God's name, God replies, “I Am that I Am.” God is—present, located here, with us, among us and God is active, engaged, doing, alive. God's name is a twofold reassurance. God promised to be with Moses and to work through Moses. God was also with us and present and working in and through the life of Jesus. Jesus kept God's name holy. Set it apart. Among us and different from us. When Jesus teaches us to pray the Lord's Prayer, he invites us to participate in keeping God's name holy. “Our Father in heaven, help us keep your name holy.” And as God did with Moses, God promises to be with us and empowering us to what is impossible for us to do on our own: Reflect and reveal Christ. Show the world who God is. In the world, but not of the world. Be among, but be different. 

The very first recorded words of Jesus as a child when he was found in the temple were, “Why are you searching for me? Didn't you know I had to be in my Father's house?” Now, as the son of God, Jesus easily could have reserved the title of Father to refer to God for himself. He invites us to pray to “Our Father”, not just his Father. With just a word, Jesus grants us permission to access the presence of God like never before. While acknowledging that “Father” might not be the easiest or most comforting title for some of us to use for God, maybe it can actually help us redeem the meaning of the word by giving us a fuller, more perfect picture of what a father should be. It can remind us that God desires to be in relationship with us—to nurture and provide for us, to pour out love to us, to be present with us through the dark moments of our lives. Praying to our God, who is in heaven, does not mean that He is separated from us. God's done the opposite in drawing near to us and our broken world, coming to dwell with us in the person of Jesus, and inviting us to partner with God in following the example of humbly giving up power and privilege to make God's infinite grace and wisdom known to the world. Not to escape the world, but to transform it.

We can experience joy at many times and in many different ways, but often it sneaks up on us when we weren't quite expecting it. Joy isn't something we conjure up, hoping if we can just figure out how to escape our sadness, change our situation, or figure out an easier way forward, then we'll finally grasp joy.   The key to joy is knowing God.  It's a deep, fundamental acknowledgement that God is God and I am not, which opens the door to seeing with a different perspective.  It quiets my demands that God do things my way.  And it opens the door for us to look for God, to see God with us, in the midst of difficulty and suffering, instead of putting our whole focus on looking for the way out.  Perhaps so much so that we miss God in the midst of our circumstance.   In order to really truly experience deep joy, we need to be willing to feel all the other things that we also feel, and to bring them to God.  When we numb ourselves to feeling sadness or grief, we also numb ourselves to experiencing joy. 

We can experience joy at many times and in many different ways, but often it sneaks up on us when we weren't quite expecting it. Joy isn't something we conjure up, hoping if we can just figure out how to escape our sadness, change our situation, or figure out an easier way forward, then we'll finally grasp joy.   The key to joy is knowing God.  It's a deep, fundamental acknowledgement that God is God and I am not, which opens the door to seeing with a different perspective.  It quiets my demands that God do things my way.  And it opens the door for us to look for God, to see God with us, in the midst of difficulty and suffering, instead of putting our whole focus on looking for the way out.  Perhaps so much so that we miss God in the midst of our circumstance.   In order to really truly experience deep joy, we need to be willing to feel all the other things that we also feel, and to bring them to God.  When we numb ourselves to feeling sadness or grief, we also numb ourselves to experiencing joy. 

Experiencing anxiety and doubt are part of what it means to be human. The Psalms invite us to be honest to God about what we think and feel. Hiding behind showered bodies, shaved faces, and spiritual facades can be a barrier for God to enter and act, and closes the door to meaningful relationships with one another, inhibiting transformative change. As followers of Christ, a particularly distressing element of anxiety is reconciling our belief that there is a God, a loving Father, and the reality of not seeing God remove the dangers that threaten us. This is the writer's dilemma in Psalm 77. Where are you God? If you are the great I AM, why aren't you now? And these questions can lead us to question God's very existence. What if God isn't? God is not threatened by these questions. Instead, these questions are the very place where God enters into relationship with us. Relationship inherently implies the trust and giving of one's self to another. Even in our most intimate human relationships we can never know for certain the heart and mind of the one we love but we abandon ourselves to the other, to trust they will be there. It is no different with God. We determine to let go of the cliff's edge of certainty on which we hang, not into a black abyss of nothingness but into the unseen arms of the One who says, “I am here to catch you and carry you home”. 

This Sunday, Ethan May, Pastor of Community Life and Outreach at Anchor Bay Church, joined us to remind us that God's love and mercy removes any perceived distance we feel from God. While “confession” isn't quite a big feeling as much as it's an act, it's still an important theme that we see throughout the Psalms. And, the idea of confessing does often bring with it other big feelings or thoughts. Sometimes we can think of confession as being the thing right before punishment. We confess, then we're punished. If we think of confession in that way it's obviously a bad thing in our minds. So then what happens when we hear the Bible say, “Confess your sins to God”?  It's easy to think of confession like that, like it's a big “gotcha!” moment. But what happens when we live like that and avoid it at all costs? When we don't come to God, we hold it all in. And as time passes, and we feel as if this great abyss forms between us and God. It feels like our sin is keeping us from God. But there is no abyss—because Christ has already died on the cross, defeating sin once and for all. He doesn't have to do it again, our sins don't mean we're putting him back up on the cross. Christ has already died for us, already risen, and already bridged any gap that we've let our sins convince us we've created. 

The Psalms take us through the fullness of the human experience, from deep, soul aching grief and despair to exuberant joy and thanksgiving.  This series is an invitation for all of us, each and every one of us, to bring all of us, the fullness of our being, as an offering to God.  To see in the Psalms a model for worship, not just a song sung on Sunday morning, but worship as we see it in Scripture—something that encompasses all of life, all of us, the totality of our being, surrendered to God.   Thankfully, we're not the first people in human history to ever feel lonely, forgotten, or disconnected. Psalm 42 is filled the kinds of questions we ask when our world is falling apart.  God, do you see me?  Do you care?  Will I always feel as disconnected and sad and lonely as I do right now?  God, are you here with me?  Israel was always to be a remembering people and so are we. Remembering the goodness and faithfulness of God gives us a way to become present to both our feelings of grief and to God with us in our grief.  In this Psalm, and in many others, we see a pathway into and through our grief that encompasses past, present, and future, that doesn't deny anything, but also gives us hope. 

When believers hold different convictions, practice different ethics, or believe in different theological convictions, they face a choice: stay together…or go their separate ways. This is what Paul is addressing in these final chapters of his letter to the Roman church. Our positions matter, they do, but so does our posture: our approach, our attitude, the way we engage and communicate. If our positions are the keys on a piano, the raw notes, our posture is the way we play them: the order and sequence, which ones hit harder and  emphasize. Despite their shared faith in Christ, the two groups clashed over important issues. What were they allowed to eat? What days were sacred? Who gets to decide? If we choose to accommodate rather than separate, we're living into the principle of loving our neighbor, willing their good, building them up. Paul isn't saying, “think the same things.” Harmony, musically, isn't possible if everyone sings the same note. Harmony musically, isn't everyone singing the same note. Harmony is when different notes work together to produce a fuller, richer, more amazing sound. 

Most Americans hear “Trump” or “Biden” and run for cover. In fact, when it comes to politics, one of the strongest dividing lines in America is between those who care a lot…and those who don't. There were also plenty of reasons for the believers at the church in Rome to disconnect from their governing authorities, too. In Romans 13, Paul urges believers not to disconnect, but to engage. In this sermon we present a framework for engaging politically as Christians in America today.

Why difference does theology make? All the difference in the world. It starts with our minds: upending the destructive patterns of the world and replacing it a pattern that builds up and encourages. A pattern that offers wholeness to our souls as we seek to conquer evil by doing good, and put our trust in God that His righteousness and justice will prevail in every aspect of our lives and in the world around us

In Romans 11, we see Paul wrestling with one of the great tragedies of his life. His people had rejected him and rejected Jesus, but Paul found meaning in that loss. God was able to use Israel's transgression, their rejection of Jesus, to bring the rest of the world to faith. It's almost as if the rest of the nations were watching Israel from the sidelines, and Israel, play after play, kept stumbling, kept going backwards, kept fumbling the ball. And as Israel stumbled, the rest of us were learning.   Learning that we cannot be perfectly faithful but that God is still faithful. How did we learn this? By watching Israel try and fail, over and over again. Though it broke Paul's heart, he found meaning in that loss because it led him to tell everyone else about Jesus. Paul didn't get stuck in grief, he believed that God would turn tragedy into triumph. We, too, experience grief and the danger is that we'll get stuck in our grief. If you've been in the deep waters of grief, if you're sinking down or at the bottom even right now, our hope is that we trust that God is present to us as we grieve, that God is moving even in the loss, that God is transforming even the tragedy, and that God can take the ashes and make something beautiful.

What happens when you hold onto your plan so tightly that you almost miss the new thing God is doing in your midst? In Romans 9, Paul begins by lamenting that Israel had chosen the sense of safety and security provided by the Law over faith in Jesus. God's plan for the Israelites was for them to experience new life in Christ and to share that new life with others. The Law was not a bad plan. After all, it was the plan that God had given to Israel. But it was part of a larger plan and Jesus was the culmination of that plan. But instead of embracing Jesus, the Israelites chose instead the comfort of what they thought they knew. To embrace new things means we often have to let go of old things. Admittedly, that is scary. In Israel, we see our own tendency to retreat to what is safe and secure instead of embracing the new thing God is doing. But when we let go and see the new thing God is doing in us, we also begin to see the new things God is doing in our communities.

When we're talking about the current activity of God in our lives and on the earth, we're talking about the activity of the Holy Spirit. If we're in Christ, then the Spirit lives within us. The same Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead lives within us. When we put our trust in Jesus, we are changed. We are no longer slaves to sin but alive in the Spirit. One of the ways Paul tries to convey the significance of the indwelling spirit is through the language of adoption. We are chosen, permanently part of God's family. This passage also tells us that the Holy Spirit, even now, groans over the brokenness and suffering of the world. A sound that pours out to say what words cannot. A sound of lament, of anguish, of sorrow. God groans over creation, which means, God cares. And we have the power to embody the future glory of God's kingdom into the world around us right now. When people wonder if God cares, they'll look at us, God's people, to see if we care.

Each of us has a story of shame. We feel shame for the wrong we've done, but we also feel shame for the wrong that's been done to us. The horrible truth is that sin is indiscriminate. It hurts and shames the one who is guilty and it hurts and shames the one who is innocent. Adam and Eve were given a commandment: do not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Incredibly, they were naked and they felt no shame. Then the serpent deceived them, and she and Adam did the one thing God told them not to do.  God's command was good. It protected them, connected them…but the serpent used the command to cause them to sin. Shame researchers agree that the only way to counter shame is to do the opposite of what shame wants us to do. Shame wants us to hide from the possibility of being hurt. But the only way forward is through. Shame research is “discovering”what God has been doing all along: turning towards us with vulnerability. Crucifixion was designed to not only kill but to humiliate. The cross is not only about sin, it's also about shame. Jesus confronted sin and shame on the cross through vulnerability, defeating it once and for all and making a way for us to be healed.

We live in a polarized world where people on both sides of contested issues are convinced they are right and the other side was wrong. Often we're convinced that the other side isn't just wrong, they're evil. Nothing could be more polar opposites than God's righteousness and our unrighteousness. But the love of God was so great that God crossed that divide, died on a cross, and rose again to save us and bring us back into the righteousness of God.  In Romans 1-2, Paul is addressing the relational divide between Jewish and Gentile Christians in the church in Rome. In these verses he's articulating the Jewish story of the world's rebellion, one that paints a caricature of the moral failings of everyone not Jewish. Paul then knocks the Jews off their high horse in order to give them something better. Grace. Identity in Christ. Unity in the Spirit.  In what ways have we gotten comfortable on our high horses? No matter how superior we might feel, our deep, fundamental need for mercy and grace is what unites us.

We live in a polarized world where people on both sides of contested issues are convinced they are right and the other side was wrong. Often we're convinced that the other side isn't just wrong, they're evil. Nothing could be more polar opposites than God's righteousness and our unrighteousness. But the love of God was so great that God crossed that divide, died on a cross, and rose again to save us and bring us back into the righteousness of God.  In Romans 1-2, Paul is addressing the relational divide between Jewish and Gentile Christians in the church in Rome. In these verses he's articulating the Jewish story of the world's rebellion, one that paints a caricature of the moral failings of everyone not Jewish. Paul then knocks the Jews off their high horse in order to give them something better. Grace. Identity in Christ. Unity in the Spirit.  In what ways have we gotten comfortable on our high horses? No matter how superior we might feel, our deep, fundamental need for mercy and grace is what unites us.

We live in a polarized world where people on both sides of contested issues are convinced they are right and the other side was wrong. Often we're convinced that the other side isn't just wrong, they're evil. Nothing could be more polar opposites than God's righteousness and our unrighteousness. But the love of God was so great that God crossed that divide, died on a cross, and rose again to save us and bring us back into the righteousness of God.  In Romans 1-2, Paul is addressing the relational divide between Jewish and Gentile Christians in the church in Rome. In these verses he's articulating the Jewish story of the world's rebellion, one that paints a caricature of the moral failings of everyone not Jewish. Paul then knocks the Jews off their high horse in order to give them something better. Grace. Identity in Christ. Unity in the Spirit.  In what ways have we gotten comfortable on our high horses? No matter how superior we might feel, our deep, fundamental need for mercy and grace is what unites us.

We live in a polarized world where people on both sides of contested issues are convinced they are right and the other side was wrong. Often we're convinced that the other side isn't just wrong, they're evil. Nothing could be more polar opposites than God's righteousness and our unrighteousness. But the love of God was so great that God crossed that divide, died on a cross, and rose again to save us and bring us back into the righteousness of God.  In Romans 1-2, Paul is addressing the relational divide between Jewish and Gentile Christians in the church in Rome. In these verses he's articulating the Jewish story of the world's rebellion, one that paints a caricature of the moral failings of everyone not Jewish. Paul then knocks the Jews off their high horse in order to give them something better. Grace. Identity in Christ. Unity in the Spirit.  In what ways have we gotten comfortable on our high horses? No matter how superior we might feel, our deep, fundamental need for mercy and grace is what unites us.

The book of Romans is one of the most oft-cited books of the Bible. It's got a great chorus. It's the chorus of the song of salvation that completely upended Martin Luther's world and launched the Protestant Reformation. But do we know the verses? Our hope in this new sermon series, which we're calling The Romans Road Less Traveled, is to learn the whole song of Romans. We begin by addressing the assumptions we might make about Romans if all we know is the chorus. Romans is not necessarily Paul's systematic theology, rather, it's a letter to a church Paul hasn't visited yet. Nor is Romans argumentative text. Paul's writing to a church community feeling the pain of Jewish-Gentile relationships. Yes, these two groups are debating and arguing with one another, but Paul wants to heal those divisions, not escalate them. What Romans is is a proclamation of what God has done for us. Instead of jumping to the part where you and I get to make a decision, Paul wants us to first consider God's faithfulness to us in raising Jesus from the dead.