St. Peter's Anglican Cathedral

"I believed the Devil's lie that being alone is forever but God has finally shown me that nothing here on earth is forever - I am here to be used by Him to share the Gospel. He has given me a new word, a word that He has written on my heart: TEMPORARY..."

"We follow Jesus who prepares us for whatever we face, and He gave His life for us – not just so that we could live another day, but so that we would be God’s treasured possessions, His sons and daughters forever. Jesus was seen again after His death because in Himself, He is the resurrection and the life, and therefore He is our hope. Our ultimate preparation for whatever we face in our lives is placing our hope in Him."

"As much as I love America, any country will let you down, it will faulter, it won’t always be just because we’re filled with sinful people in a broken world. But if you love that country, then I will tell you about another country, another kingdom. One that will not, one that will not let you down. If our earthly country is one you love so much that you would lay down your life for it, let me tell you of this other country that loves you so much, that her very king laid down His life for you."

"We can trust His word; we can rest in His word. We have this hope – not wishful thinking – but certainty. We can know that we are the Lord’s now and forever. Now obviously, Jesus and the scriptures don’t give us the kind of details that our curious minds would like to have, but that’s really a blessing because our focus is on God, the Living God, the God of the Living."

"Not knowing the scriptures and not knowing the power of God condemns us to a sort of withered Christianity – a Christianity that offers no good news and no real hope. If God is no bigger than we are, if God’s purposes are no larger than our own, there really is no hope. But one of the great gifts of genuine faith is that it admits us to the presence of the real God. The God who is finally beyond anything we can imagine and whose goodness, and wisdom, and power are gloriously beyond our reckoning. "

"So the summary is this: present warfare with heaven breaking in, followed by victory and joy at the last. It’s been a story worth the telling and a year worth the living."

“When we depend upon the grace of God, when we seek it, when we cry out for God’s mercy, when we cry out for His grace, we become more than ourselves. And that’s good news.”

"Because, in Jesus, we’re not banking on ourselves to be acceptable on our own before God, it means we no longer have to hide our sin from God. Jesus has freed us from the separation that our sin places between us and His Father, which means we’re free to actually be honest with God. We’re free to stand before God, in the midst of our sin and name it and acknowledge it, just like the tax collector did. And one of the wonderful, really paradoxical, mysteries of this freedom, is that as we bring those things before God – our sin and our shame – God not only welcomes us in for the sake of His Son, but He also begins to set us free from the bondage of our sins, to set right in us those things that sin has twisted and confused."

"There’s an image here of this pilgrim being sent back out from Jerusalem back on his journey again and the blessing that God would go with him. If the God goes with you, that’s the best-case scenario. But this is a potent promise of God that we have that God will be with us. And it’s not just reserved for the heroes of the faith, for Moses and for Joshua, but it’s a promise for us as ordinary believers as we leave this building today that God goes with us. In fact, we have something even better than the Psalmist did. We have the guarantee that Jesus Himself does go with us. That the Spirit of the Living God goes with us."

"Let us be reminded through this 3000 year old story, that even in the worst circumstances that we find ourselves in God is at work to restore His people. That the God we – you and I – are worshiping here today, right now at this very moment, is a God who has made promises to keep and sustain and lift up His people – even from death."

“And when completely emptied, destitute, and lost, He, God, the great kinsman redeemer, chose to save her. Brothers and sisters, just the same Jesus Christ is our kinsman redeemer. He alone has the right to take away the spoils and the ruins all of our loss and our pain and the alienation and brokenness of sin. And it is through Christ alone by His sacrifice that our stains were washed clean that he bore our curse upon that cross and His death made satisfaction for us, all so that we could be reconciled to God the Father – by no merit of our own – but because of the mercy of our Lord. And it is in this complete, and life-giving grace that we all do indeed get to live the greatest story ending of all time: life everlasting.”

"Like the early Christians, let our love – and the giving which is a sign of that love – be the means by which treasure and heart come together, and by which this broken world comes to know the generosity and joy of God himself"

"Angels dwell in the immediate Presence of God and play a role in God's providential care of creation. They are, as the Swiss theologian Karl Barth put it, the crown witness to the glory of God."

“At the end of all things that great dragon who is our enemy, the one who deceives us, the one who accuses us and holds our sin and shame in our face, the one who is opposed to all that is good and true and beautiful in the world will be cast down by God’s heavenly army and destroyed once and for all.”

“Do we hear His great call to join Him in His work, to pull back the veil and allow the world to know heaven? Because He is the King, but he’s also our Daddy who loves each of us beyond measure and deeply desires for the entire world to accept such love.”

"Our desire as Christians must always be give God the first-fruits in everything – not just in our worship, but also as we seek to be formed as His disciples and to serve as His agents in the world. Nevertheless, our worship is the font and the wellspring."

"We can see the total, transforming love of Christ that has now encapsulated, and is overflowing out of the 60-year-old, end of his ministry Paul. He isn’t bitter. He isn’t griping about being in prison, or his living conditions, and he’s not even using his apostolic authority in the letter – like he has for most of his ministry. The spirit that’s within Paul as a fellow Christian is just overflowing in his letter: in his grace, in his dealing with these hard issues, in his love for Philemon, in his love for the slave turned brother in Chris, Onesimus. It’s the transcending nature of the Christian life. Remember that Paul wrote in Galatians, 'There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, neither male nor female, for you are all one in Christ.'"

"As sinners, our inclination is not to want to worship and we can find all kinds of rationalizations for not doing it. ‘The weather’s really nice today’, ‘I really had a hard night last night’, ‘You know, the sermon’s probably going to be deadly dull – I saw that Michael Petty was preaching this Sunday’. We can rationalize and rationalize away. And so for us, worship is a discipline. It’s important for all of us to get to the place as Christians where we recognize that we need to worship God – even though we might not feel like it or we might not want to, we need to - because worship is part of God’s therapy for we who are prideful and self-absorbed. We need the therapy."

“Arrogance is hateful before the Lord and before the people, and injustice is out of tune to both.” -Ecclesiasticus 10:7

"Jesus calls His followers to the same standard: to strive, to be diligent, to be active, and to be earnest, neglecting no opportunity to participate in the unveiling of His Kingdom."

"The Gospel is more than just a set of beliefs or moral teachings about peace and love. It’s radical, it’s transformative, it’s powerful, and it’s the only way to salvation, and it’s the only way to God the Father. Even just saying that statement is enough to get you fired in a lot of places today, to lose an election, to be chastised publicly, or boycotted. But we should not be afraid to proclaim Christ crucified as we are commanded because the world desperately needs to hear it."

"He’s saying that God saves us, not out of some internal sense of duty or obligation to us, but that God saves us because He finds delight in saving and redeeming sinful people like you and me. That it makes our Father glad to see His work in our hearts. To see His mercy and forgiveness towards us in His Son Jesus creating faith and trust where there once was none. That God takes joy in fixing our hearts on the only treasure that has the power to bring us true and lasting peace: Himself. So, fear not little flock, for your Father delights to give you the kingdom. Your Father delights to give you peace. Your Father delights to save you."

"Let us remember that as Christians we should be set apart from this world and not hinge our life on building richness on this earth but on the riches of the Kingdom of God."

"Being generous towards God means that our generosity reflects God’s generosity towards us. Our very lives are a gift from God. Creation is a gift from God. What do we have that we did not receive from God? Nothing. Jesus is saying here that success in life is measured by how well our generosity reflects the generosity of our Creator. And that’s a call for radical generosity that can only come from a radical trust in God."

"If you don’t know how to pray, are not comfortable with praying, you don’t know what to say: simply offering the Lord’s Prayer is enough because it covers everything that is necessary. We learn to pray by praying."

"To my brothers in the room: see with what dignity and respect the Lord Jesus imparts to the women in His life. His example is, if you are anything like me, convicting yet inspiring. He is our model for how to treat women: with equity, respect, and graciousness. Brothers, how do our hearts measure up? To my sisters: sit at the feet of Jesus. It is not only where you are allowed but where you belong – as a beloved daughter of Almighty God. Live into this world-changing reality with grateful hearts: that the Lord sees you as precious and equal in His sight."

"In the parable of the Good Samaritan Jesus tells us a story that is ultimately about Himself - an unexpected, misunderstood, and often unrecognized messiah."

"The most significant thing about each of us is not where we went to school, or how we vote, or what we possess, or what other people think of us. It is that the Lord Jesus Christ has graciously united our little lives to himself for the purpose of redeeming and sanctifying them."

“So friends, what is our work? Simply to go before Him, to show His love, His power, His grace, His desire to heal, and to redeem, and to deliver. To show those who do not know Him what the kingdom of God looks like.”

"Out triune God really has given us the possibility of His Kingdom experienced here and now. Not just in salvation by the Cross of Jesus, or liberation from our slavery to sin by the will of the Father, but also in the reality of personal transformation by the work of the Holy Spirit within us – enabling us to walk by the spirit without gratifying the desires of the flesh."

“Our Discipleship is cross-shaped, because in it we walk to the path to the cross. What makes this path one worth taking is that, just as we follow Jesus to the cross, we also follow Him into new life.”

"The question is this: as we serve, as we come to church to join the other believers, do we know who He is? It’s possible to be a preacher like me and we don’t know who He is."

"Remember that we are gathered in eternal worship with the heavens, and that God is our audience, not us. Our corporate worship is just the culmination of that. It is a model – a little glimpse – of how we are supposed to live every day as Christians."

"The doctrine of the Trinity is not simply a doctrine about God but the doctrine of the Trinity is the Gospel. Through Jesus Christ the Son and in the power of his Holy Spirit, God the Father reconciles us to himself, frees us from our sin and enables us to share in his own life."

"The collision of two worlds - the unveiling of the Kingdom that came in full force at Pentecost - is more than our own personal intimacy with the great counselor. Remember, it's when the fire jumped from the hearth and began burning throughout the entire house. God is pouring out His spirit on all flesh and has come for the whole world and he has chosen His people, you and I, to be His messengers."

"The collision of two worlds - the unveiling of the Kingdom that came in full force at Pentecost - is more than our own personal intimacy with the great counselor. Remember, it's when the fire jumped from the hearth and began burning throughout the entire house. God is pouring out His spirit on all flesh and has come for the whole world and he has chosen His people, you and I, to be His messengers."

"You will need to constantly remind yourself that while you are not the Good Shepherd, you do represent Him...The important thing is that the people among whom you minister will see Christ working in you."

"The Ascension of Christ to glory completes the Resurrection and allows our Lord to send the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, to pray for us as our High Priest, to be the Head of the Church, his Body, to speak to us through the Holy Scriptures, and to be present with us in the Holy Eucharist."

“To look upon the face of God is to share in God’s own joy, for God does not simply have joy, but He is joy – eternal joy.” Sermon 'God’s Purposes Fulfilled' by the Rev’d Canon Dr. Michael Petty | The Sixth Sunday of Easter – May 26, 2019