Argyle United Methodist Church Sermons

Sometimes we can look directly at something and still fail to truly see it. In Show Us the Father, Jesus challenges us to see with new eyes-to recognize what our assumptions and communities may have taught us to overlook. Following Jesus means practicing holy curiosity and making room to see others more clearly.

Jesus begins his command to love one another with a basin and a towel. Before agreement, affinity, or understanding, Christian love takes the posture of a servant. Love One Another challenges us to move beyond our comfort and quietly serve those we might otherwise keep at the edges.

It takes courage to change, to break out of whatever narrow paths we might find ourselves in. Just like Peter, if we are going to change, we have to take the first uncertain steps out of the boat onto the water and into the unknown. Luckily, we too have Jesus’ redeeming help and support, his hand reaching out to us, if we start to sink or lose our way.

In our scripture today, Jesus asks us to let go of life “as it is” in order to create and multiply the love that is eternal. What feels like the chaos, or recklessness, of change is the breaking-open of possibility and the sprouting of new life. This is what it means to follow the change-maker Jesus and serve his purpose of more love in the world.

Our Scripture this week invites us to remember the baptism of Jesus and the message that we, as followers of Jesus, are changed constantly “from the inside out.” Transformation does not start with the action of change itself, but a willingness within our own spirits to “lean into” the life path that is calling to us.

God’s creative activity is described as an ongoing active force for good. Rather than fashioning us of something that could not change, the biblical metaphor is that we are fashioned of clay, a malleable substance that can be reshaped again and again. When life requires change of us, let us embrace our ability to roll with it, for we were made for this!

AUMC is getting Back In The Saddle for the upcoming school year, kicking off our fall programming with our final Combined Service of the Summer. Join us this Sunday at 10 AM for our final Combined Service of the Summer.

What if the world we long for is not merely a dream, but a promise? Through Les Misérables and “Do You Hear the People Sing?,” we trace the biblical vision of a God who lifts up the lowly, fills the hungry, and ultimately makes all things new.

How far will love go to find us? Through Hadestown and “Wait for Me,” we explore the promise of Psalm 139 that there is nowhere we can go—not even into the depths—where God’s presence cannot reach us.

What happens when people who have been told they are powerless discover their voice? Through Newsies and “Seize the Day,” we hear Isaiah’s vision of a God who brings good news to the poor, freedom to the captive, and hope to those the world has overlooked.