A Divine Introduction
Only God can draw a confession from the hearts of the lost! Only Christ can convince the pluralist, the atheist, the agnostic, that He is the Christ, the Son of the Living God. It isn’t all on you and me. We do have work to do, but He does the heavy lifting.
Getting Into Jesus
We aren’t just spectators watching the Jesus Network, looking for a good recipe for biblical ethics. No! We are IN Him just as He is IN us! We participate in the actual events of His life by virtue of our union with Him. This is our “quantum leap” into Jesus! This is how we get into Jesus! What a privilege! What a joy!
Those Who are Far Off
God is still at work! He is still drawing men, women, and children to himself! He is in all the far off places, lighting the hearts of Magi who may live next door, work in the next cubicle, or on the next treadmill over.
Living Where You Belong
We must expose our own darkness to the light so that we can live the reality that we are always in God’s presence. We can live in such a way as to deny this reality, but that does nothing to change it.
Clothed in Christ
“Like Adam and Eve, we reach for fig leaves that cost us nothing when what we need are the covering of skins that cost the blood of another.”
The Scandal of the Incarnation
And more than that, let us as a church think: Who are we here to serve? We are a high church, liturgical church, in downtown Jackson. Who has God put us here to serve? Is it the intact marriages, the intact families, with 2.5 kids and a dog? Is it the picket fences on the 3 story homes? Or is it regular people with regular lives? Messy, scandalous, difficult, confusing? Yes. This is where God wants us to work.
From Belief to Doubt to Belief
The human condition tells us, and Jesus highlights it in the scriptures, that we are going to have belief and we're going to have doubt. But He says if you will cling to me and to my works and to my words, you will have a belief that can be unshaken.
I Heard the Bells
And I think of all the bells everywhere this time of year––on doors, on trees, on cars, on everything…and when I feel despair, I close my eyes and I listen for the bells, and I reaffirm God’s declaration of peace. The bells remind me that the table is open. I open my eyes and I get back to work.
Something to Hope For
When Peter tells us in 1 Peter 3:15 to “always be ready to give an answer for the hope that we have inside us,” the way people see that we have that hope is through that participatory hope, when we roll up our sleeves and when we get engaged in the community around us, sharing the gospel in both word and deed. Then people will start to ask us questions and we can give an answer for the hope.
The Scepter of Life
…and this is the mystery of the crucifixion. By subjecting himself to the pinnacle of earthly power, the scepter of death, Jesus sets himself up to display the power of life. No one has this power but him.
The Lens of Faith
All of our safety measures, all of our checks and balances, all of our laws and rights, at best, are impressive Temple stones. Before long, they will crumble and fail us.
Resolved to Ministry
“Ministry is not something that happens when we feel good. It's not something that happens when we all have our act together. It's something that happens through the tragedy. It's something that happens through the mourning. It's something that happens alongside all of it.”
A Blessedness That Lasts
“Furthermore, [the Beatitudes] provide ultimate hope that even the deplorable in society are no further away from the Kingdom of God than the supposed righteous, because they single out God’s children, proving that His blessing is truly available in circumstances that are beyond all human hope.”
It’s Not About You
As each of us participate in these prophetic and beautiful earthly realities, they all find their end, their telos, in the Church’s marriage to her Lord. It is not all about you!
Don’t Let Go
“With all the burdens that all of you are carrying, raising families, struggling with health, struggling with finances, trying to push back bad decisions from years ago that haunt you. Put all that aside and just trust Him, and bother Him, pray to Him, talk to Him…”
Living the Celibate Life
Just because you are single does not mean you are alone. In Christ, you are complete! In Christ, you are in the kingdom. In Christ, you prophetically point to our eternal union with God. This, too, is very good!
The Blessing of Children
Children are not a by-product of love, they are the product of love!
The Meaning of Marriage
“Our sexual activity expresses something about God, whether we believe in Him or not, whether we agree with Him or not. God designed us for intimacy with Himself. Marriage is an analogy for this intimacy, and we are right to uphold it, but sexual intimacy, even within marriage, is not the highest good.”
The Goodness of Gender
If woman is the glory of man, she can only reflect what glory [men] receive from God and if we obscure the glory [we] receive from God by our selfishness and sinfulness, there is nothing left to reflect but our own ugliness and sin.
God Doesn’t Create Junk
The deepest longings of your heart, however mingled with sin and selfishness they may be, have their origins in God’s grand design, His intentions, His purposes. We don’t have to invent our own meaning. We don’t have to craft our own identities based on what we want, because what we want most is given to us as a gift.