Month: June 2017

 

On this Father’s Day, we are diving into a couple of stories in the Bible that are pillars of the Scriptures and have influenced our culture at large.

The Parable of the Prodigal Son, which has inspired some amazing artwork through the centuries, teaches us about God’s unrelenting Fatherly love.  The image of the Father, day after day, waiting and longing for his train-wreck of a son to come home gives great hope to a total train-wreck like me!  The Hebrew has a word for this kind of love, it’s called Chesed (sounds like the King James Bless-ed but with a really rough “CH” sound on the front – imagine trying to mimic the static on a radio)

The account of Abraham and Isaac is the other story we examine this morning, and it is a ROUGH one.  God gives Abraham and Sarah exactly what they’ve longed for their entire married life (a long marriage!), and then tells Abraham he has to sacrifice their young, long-awaited son of promise.  It’s confusing, and heartbreaking, and torturous to read.  The ending is wonderful, because the angel says, “Abraham, Abraham, don’t lat a hand on the boy or do anything to him!”  A happy ending indeed, but only because an alternate sacrifice was provided.

I was reading a great book called, The Forgotten Jesus, by Robby Gallatry.  While he has PLENTY of quote-worthy things, one of the best things in the book is a quote from Donald Barnhouse who wrote – “God was instilling a reflex in the minds of his people that every time they thought of sin they would think of death.  For Sin means death.  It means the death of the sinner or the death of a Savior.”

In this week’s sermon, we explore WHY God would have the story of Abraham’s call to sacrifice Isaac in the Bible.  When we see GOD as our Father, and understand what HE sacrificed for us, we can then see what it means that he is also the Father in the story of the Prodigal Son.  This GRACE is the hardest thing for us to ever understand.  But it is also the biggest blessing we will ever have in our lives.

Happy Father’s Day!

 

Painting of the Holy Spirit descending by Alessandro Filipepi Botticelli

Pentecost is the celebration of the birth of the Church.  Jesus had ascended into heaven 10 days before the feast, and in his parting words to the disciples he said, “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” (Acts 1:8)

The Holy Spirit did arrive in a powerful way during the Jewish festival of Pentecost, a commemoration of Moses going up on the Holy Mountain to receive the 10 Commandments.  The first Pentecost did not go so well.  Moses came down the mountain to see that the people had managed to break the First Commandment in dramatic fashion just moments after the command had been given!  They worshiped other gods, golden calves.  The result was ugly – 3,000 people lost their lives.

Centuries later, when the Holy Spirit caused Peter to preach the Gospel, the result was beautiful, 3,000 people were baptized and brought into God’s eternal family.  Instead of 3,000 going from life to death, 3,000 were led from death to life.  We see that God wants to be in relationship with his people – and his people to be in relationship to one another.

Today we introduce our Summer Sermon Series:
We will spend the summer exploring how God calls us to constantly reconnect with three key relationships – With God, with our Church and Family, and with our Community. We kicked off the series with this sermon on Pentecost.

This is an essential lesson for our current cultural climate.  We live in times when we are surrounded with superficial connections.  These connections promise a substitute for the messiness of real relationships and conversation, but fail to deliver.  Think of all the variety of apps available to help people find a ‘hook-up,’ but fail to help people find truly fulfilling relationships.

If you simply search the terms “Connected But Alone” you will find all kinds of articles come up.  I wanted to share four with you here.

THIS is a wonderful TED Talk by the very insightful Dr. Sherry Turkle
THIS is an article from the Independent
THIS is an great article from Christianity Today
THIS is from the NYT blog awhile back

All are worth checking out.

We live in a culture that is desperate for real and substantial relationships.  And God’s church, born on Pentecost, is uniquely positioned to be the answer to the isolation so many face.  God wants us to know HIM, and to know HIM together.  Let’s go on this journey of reconnection TOGETHER this summer!