St. Andrew United Methodist Church - Sermon Study Guides

Sun, 23 Jun 2019 05:00:00 GMT https://www.standrewumc.org/sermons/Tower_Play https://www.standrewumc.org/Uploads/Messages/StudyGuides/20190623_Tower_Play.mp3 St. Andrew United Methodist Church

Sun, 16 Jun 2019 05:00:00 GMT https://www.standrewumc.org/sermons/Children_of_God https://www.standrewumc.org/Uploads/Messages/StudyGuides/20190616_Children_of_God.mp3 St. Andrew United Methodist Chur

Sun, 09 Jun 2019 05:00:00 GMT https://www.standrewumc.org/sermons/Sisters_and_Brothers https://www.standrewumc.org/Uploads/Messages/StudyGuides/20190609_Sisters_and_Brothers.mp3 St. Andrew United Methodist

One of the most paradoxical of all of Jesus’ teachings is this: “Whoever finds their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life for my sake will find it.” How can we lose life by finding it, or find life by losing it? Consider: we spend our lives trying to find the “good life,” yet never achieve the fulfillment we seek. Jesus invites Nicodemus to be born again, but in order to be born again, we must die to the old self first.

Is God all-powerful or all-loving? The presence of evil in the world would seem to nullify one or the other: either God is all-powerful but allows sin, and therefore doesn’t fully love us, or God is all-loving but lacks power to remove sin. Since it is hard to reconcile the two, we tend to minimize one at the expense of the other. How are we to resolve the tension between a God who can do anything and a God who is pure love?

Sun, 12 May 2019 05:00:00 GMT https://www.standrewumc.org/sermons/Gift_and_Responsibility https://www.standrewumc.org/Uploads/Messages/StudyGuides/20190512_Gift_and_Responsibility.mp3 St. Andrew United Method

Somehow, we Christians have come to believe the idea that when we follow Jesus, our life should be free from trouble. Yet Jesus, nor the Scriptures, ever make such a promise. In fact, the Bible tells us that to everything there is a season and a time to every purpose under the heaven, including both mourning and laughing. What if the full Christian life includes both sorrow and joy - sometimes at the same time?

Salvation comes through faith alone. This is a basic concept of Christian faith and was the cornerstone of the Protestant reformation 500 years ago. Yet, as German theologian and Nazi resister Dietrich Bonhoeffer reminded us, grace without response is cheap. God’s mercy compels us to act. How are we to resolve the tension between the call to simply believe and the call to do something about it?

Sat, 20 Apr 2019 05:00:00 GMT https://www.standrewumc.org/sermons/Easter https://www.standrewumc.org/Uploads/Messages/StudyGuides/20190420_Easter.mp3 St. Andrew United Methodist Church

The Christian belief that Jesus came to save the world and establish the kingdom of God is a given. But what does “kingdom” mean? For first century Jews, a kingdom didn’t mean a state of truth, spirit and relationship, but a physical ruling government. His followers expected Jesus to begin a revolution: attack the Romans and seize political control of the region. But that wasn’t Jesus’ plan at all. When Jesus entered Jerusalem, he had a different plan in mind.

It’s typical to think of true Christianity as a pure transfiguration experience. But the truest experience of Jesus isn’t found on the mountaintop, but down in the valley and in the grime of the city, at the foot of the cross. We love the shiny moments, but Christianity isn’t shiny and smooth, but dingy and gritty, among the people of the world, whom God loves.

The Jewish people were waiting for a Messiah to release them from Roman oppression. But Jesus had a different image of what it meant to be released. When he travels to the east side of the Sea of Galilee and heals a man chained in a graveyard, he shows us what it really looks like to be a part of God’s kingdom. As Jesus sends out the man released from his demons, so he sends us - healed, released, and unqualified, yet ready. 

Some assume the story of Jesus is only about his death. The story of Jesus is also about serving, which is about life. Ministry is not only for the select few. Even when you have every excuse to say no, Jesus is still calling you to serve others.

Jesus entered into human flesh without our modern technologies but with the same temptations. Temptation is as much a part of his first-century world as it is our 21st century world, because temptation is part of the Christian life. It is not that we are tempted, but how we respond that matters.

The story of Christ begins with the shadow of the cross falling across the manger. God knew his death was going to happen the day he entered into human flesh. While we may assume being a good Christian brings health and wealth, suffering and crucifixion are part of life, for Jesus and for us. But there is no suffering we experience that Jesus hasn’t known.

Talking about money makes us nervous because while we want it to be permanent, it is not. Money is a sign of faith. Rather than something to idolize or something to reject, Jesus teaches us that money comes from God, and how we tackle our money says a lot about how much we trust in God and how well we treat other people.

The gap between Jesus and the lifestyles of those who claim to follow Jesus can be so wide that it becomes the reason an unbelieving world does not believe. Our basic nature is not to love God and our neighbor—this is why the Christian life is hard. When Jesus redeems us, he also calls us to a new way of living. This means something very different than simply avoiding immoral actions; it means changing our hearts and lives.

We know we need God's grace—so what do we do? Jesus tells us to "Seek first." We do this with God by engaging in the practices that allow God to have the biggest impact on our lives. Through the routine habits of daily faith, God is trying to reach us and give us transforming grace, care and love, to do something profound and life-changing.

The world wants to hand out participation trophies for life. But acknowledging our brokenness and limitations isn’t a downer; it is the starting place of wisdom. Sin is a reality—as is the grace that God offers to heal us.

Even as God offers us unlimited grace and love, God calls us to a life of perfection. This is not an unattainable goal, either but something we can achieve when we follow God’s moral laws and allow the Holy Spirit to guide and shape our lives.

What happens the day after a person accepts Jesus as their savior? While the life of the almost-Christian practices the rituals of religion and tries to be nice to other people, the life of a real Christian is characterized by real love - sacrificial, giving love, which can begin only on the full realization that God has first loved us.

On the surface, asking the question, “are you saved?” seems simple - it is a question about the soul. But at different times, Jesus talks about four different kinds of salvation. That’s because Jesus was concerned with the whole person - heart, mind, soul and strength. Salvation is both for the future, and for right now.

The kingdom of God is not a set of correct opinions or beliefs, nor is it a physical destination in the clouds for us to go to when we die. It is a state of the soul. The overriding message of Jesus, and therefore of the whole Bible, is that in Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection, the kingdom of God has come. Christianity is a religion of the heart.

The beauty of a good home is that it is a place for love and building one another up. Home is about people - those that are with us now, and the ones who have come before. The promise of Christmas is that ultimately, we will get to be with everyone - those we are with now and those with whom we will one day be reunited.

Earth is our home. God made this earth for all of us, and there is no other option or place to go! When God comes home he invites us to join him in making things right again. Our task is to help prepare the way through our love for each other.

Whether we’re children waiting for Christmas morning or adults longing for home, Christmas brings out a wish list in all of us. But wishes are little more than foolish little lies we tell ourselves to make the day better. The difference between wishful sentimentality and confidence in the future is Jesus. The arrival of God incarnate is the basis for a hope that cannot be shaken. The Prophets weren’t fools, and neither are we.

Ever since our original habitat and fellowship with God was broken, God has been calling us home. Because Jesus came to Earth at Christmas, we can indeed go home again. And in the end, we will be at home in a new heaven and a new earth, with no more suffering nor memory of it, where we are present and at peace with God and one another.

In the middle of several stories in Matthew’s gospel about meeting people in their place of need, Jesus stops the most selfish man in town and challenges him to learn what it means to give. When we give, we see that God does more than give us things in return - God is giving himself, through his son Jesus and through the Holy Spirit, who reshapes our hearts to be like Christ’s. Our generosity becomes a reflection of the love, sacrifice and self-emptying of the Creator, who is the source of all gifts.

Paul describes the church as an interconnected organism in which nutrients benefit the whole body and not just one part. While our motivation to give may begin with our own needs, we soon discover that the need is great, and when we give, we help others. As Jesus says, “The size of the harvest is bigger than you can imagine, but there are few workers. Therefore, plead with the Lord of the harvest to send out workers for his harvest.”

While it may seem counter to the selflessness Jesus aspires us to attain, why we give begins with our own story. Just as people asked Jesus for help, and he responded with compassion, why we give may begin with us - for the betterment of our loved ones, our families and friends, and ourselves. Be encouraged! Jesus loves us and meets us in our places of need.

We end with the vice of pride, which is the chief of all vices, as it aims to replace faith with self-sufficiency. Our creative impulse is good, and God-given. The secret is to bathe our view of the world in a rightly-ordered vision of creation, as God designed. The result of this right-ordering, and the practice of good habits, is that we end up creating both the desire of our heart (Psalm 37:4-5) and the desire of God, which become one and the same.

To be human isn’t simply to know things, but to be directed toward something. When we’re on the move, we’re alive. This movement and purpose comes from what we want. We are defined not by what we know but by what we desire. Jesus isn’t content to simply deposit new ideas into our minds; he is after nothing less than the passionate regions of our hearts. The practice of worship points our hearts in the right direction.

Consumerism is the act of buying something because of the momentary elevation it offers our lives. In a world built on consumption, we can treat our faith as a consumer activity, too. But often, spiritual moments are unsustainable. Instead, God wants a relationship, built on daily habits. In a consumer culture where indulgence leads to a form of spiritual poverty, discover the joy of a restraint that leads to abundance.

Right thinking doesn’t necessarily bring right living. A life of faith truly begins when we are honest about what we want, and discovering what we truly want in life begins in relationship and not detached isolation. We begin to understand God’s desires for our lives as we spend time with others in Christian community, and in talking with God in prayer.

Improving the problems in our lives start not with fixing our beliefs, but changing our behavior. Our actions form our character, which over time shapes our belief. While the conventional wisdom says that we believe then act accordingly, science is learning that we form beliefs out of our actions. We are what we love. Fixing the problems of our lives begins with re-ordering our desires from what the world calls “the good life” to a life oriented around God.

On this Labor Day weekend, we explore the purpose of our work as Christians in the world. A good theology of work is rooted in the Holy Spirit and the transformation of the new creation. If we want to flourish, to hit “pay dirt,” then our best bet is to accept God’s kingdom invitation to both receive and carry the seed of the kingdom through all of the land. The test of our work is its meaningfulness in relationship to this new creation.

Our understanding of fruit has become detached from the garden. Like Cain in Genesis 4, we’re removed from the soil. We act like the purpose of fruit is consumption. As disciples of Jesus, we’re called to cultivate “fruits of the Spirit” - but the purpose of God’s fruit in us isn’t just to eat, but also to till new soil with the good news of Jesus Christ. In fact, it is the measure of untilled land which marks the inauguration of God’s kingdom. How dirty are your hands?

Our lofty theological word “incarnation” really just means to be “of the flesh”. It is simply a way of saying, God got down in the dirt to be with us. God invites us to be with him in the garden, living in a full, four-season rhythm of tending and tilling. Jesus is God “in the dirt,” coming to give us full life - body, mind and soul; spring, summer and fall; joy, sadness and pain.

The word that gives us humanity is the word that gives us earth. We're made of dirt. But that doesn’t mean we are worthless; rather, we are both part of creation and God’s greatest creation. The garden - the world - is God’s and it is good. Our understanding of creation has direct bearing on how we treat the world today. Though marred by sin, the world we inhabit is God’s, and it is worth our work.

Two by two, the story tells us - every kind of living thing boards the boat. At the end of the great storm, God sends Noah a sign in the form of a rainbow. Animals, boats and rainbows may decorate our nurseries, but is this the worst children’s story ever? It’s the time when God was so frustrated with humanity that God wiped everything out and started over.

In the famous story, Jonah is swallowed by a whale. But the Bible actually tells us that it's an unspecified "big fish" - like a killer whale, except what is getting killed isn't Jonah or the sailors on the ship but Jonah's insistence that he ought to go his own way in life.

Born in his father Jacob’s old age and by his father’s first love, Joseph was both set apart from and despised by his older brothers from the start. When Jacob gives Joseph a luxurious, ornamental robe (the famous “coat of many colors,” as described in the King James), his older brothers plot to kill him. But from the things people plan for evil, God turns to good.

It’s the original underdog story. The enemy Philistines stand before King Saul and the Israelites in the Valley of Elah. For weeks, the massive Philistine warrior Goliath calls for the Israelites to send out a challenger. Saul is afraid, but offers a reward to anyone willing to fight Goliath. The young David hears and accepts. He declined the king’s armor and takes only his staff, a slingshot and five smooth stones.

Zaccheus, whose name ironically means “pure,” was a hated part of the Jewish community. A corrupt employee of the Roman oppressors, he extorted tax money on their behalf from his own people. He has money in his pocket and a hole in his heart. But when Jesus comes to town, Zaccheus gets more than he bargains for.

In an age of church division, it can seem fashionable, even righteous, to be willing to divide the church for the sake of ideological purity. While not eschewing the need for sound doctrine, Methodism counters this divisive trend by emphasizing relationship and community. Since its beginning, Methodism has been a vast river that cuts through the middle of the wide range of Christian faith.

Understanding how to reconcile the idea of a single body of Christ with the reality of so many different beliefs and institutions is one of the greatest challenges to Christian faith. If we are one, why are there so many denominations? We dismiss people because they’re different, and emphasize our rightness, but in Christ, we’re called to live as one body.

The Trinity is both mysterious and central to Christianity. It is the belief that God exists as three persons, but is one being, having a single divine nature. The members of the Trinity - Father, Son, and Holy Spirit - are co-equal and co-eternal, one in essence, nature, power, action, and will. The Trinity is both relational and of one essence.

Debate over which gospels and letters were true and which weren’t led the church body to formally declare a canon, or an agreed upon understanding of what makes up the Scriptures we hold to be true. Though we may disagree on interpretation, these shared texts have remained constant for centuries. It is through them we have access to Jesus.

In the third century, some began to teach that Jesus was a created being and therefore different and subordinate to God the Creator. Eventually the church declared what seemed like a paradox: Jesus is fully God and fully human. We continue to debate this today when we emphasize the divine or human side of Jesus. As the two natures are equally present, the challenge is to live set apart from, and yet sent into, the world.

The presence of God's Spirit is the sign of the new believer. Yet some in the early church insisted that new believers adopt certain laws, too. Do we do the same today? We teach that grace is sufficient, yet do we expect the Holy Spirit to see to it that other people become like us? What does it mean to be one in the Spirit?

The sayings in the book of Proverbs are like a parent passing down life lessons to a child. Wisdom doesn't come from a guru on a mountain, but from the community. Wisdom is passed down from parents to children, and grows roots through the interactions of God's people.