The Cross on which our Savior died is at the epicenter of human history.  It defines everything that goes before it and determines everything that comes after it.  One of the seven sayings or utterances of our Lord from the cross was “It is finished.”  This cry was not the wobbling, woeful words of an abused victim but the triumphant trump of a valiant Victor.  “It is finished” is not the rant of a tragic resignation but the regalia of treasured redemption.  These powerful and poignant words of Jesus announce not only the “finish of the start” but the “start of the finish.”  

This sermon is Part 2 of a two-part series. It introduces “huddle disease”, the malingering, malicious, malignant malady that cripples the contemporary church. Huddle disease frustrates the church’s efforts to develop laborers for the spiritual harvest that Jesus said, according to the Gospel of Matthew, Chapter 9, verses 35 – 38 , “is plentiful”.  This disease accounts for the anomaly of a “church on every street corner,” yet this massive physical presence failing to impede the moral, spiritual, social and economic decline in our cities and communities.  We have become hostages to the huddle, and it has crippled our ability to model the Master’s ministry and to fulfill the Great Commission.  Do not listen to this message if you don’t want to be challenged.   

The Gospel of Matthew, Chapter 9, verses 35 -38, provides a preview of the primary parameters of the ministry of Jesus.  The priorities, perspectives and principles that Jesus models in this passage is a blueprint for the contemporary church.  In the first sermon of a two-part series, Dr. Stubblefield will focus on how Jesus was committed to reaching out, reaching in and reaching down.  

In our Bibles, Psalm 86 is ascribed as a “prayer of David”.  The psalm expresses the comprehensiveness of the care David expects and experiences as a member of the covenant community.  As members of the Lord’s church, we are the bountiful beneficiaries of that care and coverage as well.  In this sermon, Dr. T. D. Stubblefield, in vintage form and focus conducts a policy review of stanzas four through seven and concludes that our relationship with the LORD provides coverage you can count on.  Refresh Community Church in University City, MO, one of the St. Louis Region’s fastest growing churches was blessed by this compelling message during their 2024 African American History Sunday Worship Celebration.  You will be too!    

In the Gospel of John, Chapter 14, verse 6, Jesus reminds His disciples and us that He is the “Ultimate Treat”.  He has no equal!  Jesus is “the way, the truth and the life.”  This passage uniquely highlights the uniqueness of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  He is both God and man and, according to this sermon, is the path that marks our purposes, the principle that molds our perspectives, the provision that motivates our participation and the Person that mediates our pardon.  

In the Book of Lamentations, Chapter Three, verses 21 – 24, the prophet Jeremiah is overrun and overwhelmed by ruin.  Exiled from his homeland and having to sing the Lord’s song in a strange land, he recalls the calamitous and catastrophic failure of a nation that had been destined for greatness.  He was taking this failure personally because it had happened on his watch.  He painfully laments the plight of the people.  The words in the text flow from the vortex of national and spiritual disaster.  But while he starts with ruin, he does not end there.  He chooses not to focus on the ruin but found rest, assurance; encouragement and comfort in his faith in God's faithfulness; this confidence became the basis of his hope in the present and for the future.  He experienced rest in the ruins.  You and I can too.  This sermon explores that possibility.    

The first five stanzas of Psalm 103 are reminders that forgetting the blessings that we receive from God can be spiritually deadly, debilitating, damaging and destructive.  Any such incidence of “spiritual amnesia” dampens and detaches our worship from its True Source who is the LORD.  According to the Psalmist, the LORD “satisfies our desires with good things” (stanza 5a).  Because of our sin nature, worship is not a natural response but requires us to be intentional about remembering what the LORD has done and blessing or worshipping Him.  This sermon focuses on three components of that response: our temptation, our task and our testimony.    

Jesus is not considered one of the Seven Wonders of the World, but He is the Lover of our souls who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despised the shame and is now set down at the right hand of God.  Chapter 15, verses 1 – 2 of the Gospel of Luke introduces us to the “World’s Greatest Attraction”.  This sermon tells us why this is true.  

Rare is the person who has no need for truth, self-understanding, purpose or significance.  The search for meaning is weaved into the very fabric of our humanity.  Unguided, this search can leave us frustrated, unfulfilled, unmoored and restless.  This sermon based on two key passages in the Gospel of Matthew is a reminder that we can only find our true selves in the True Savior.  

This sermon is based on a pivotal passage pocketed in 2 Corinthians, Chapter 12 and is "rated for mature audiences only".  It is for survivors; for those learning how to live with living without; for those who are discovering the advantages of adversity and finding strength in the struggles of life.  Grace for survivors is characterized by a new perspective, persistence, power and pleasure.