bread church episodes:

• December 17, 2024Advent 2024: the scandalous love of God.

  As Mary and Joseph participated in the unique miracle of Jesus' birth, they

  experienced deep blessing mixed with profound personal sacrifice. But, they

  willingly accepted the certain risk of scandal and rejection in order that

  God's loving purposes for the world might be perfectly fulfilled in Jesus.

  Texts: Luke 1:26-45; Matthew 1:18-25

  By Keith Beebe

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• December 10, 2024Advent 2024: Christmas Joy.

  For as long as our history is traceable, we homo sapiens have been

  progressing, and by all accounts we’re set to hit warp speed on all that

  with the dawn of AI. But the Christian joy that is celebrated at Christmas

  is not about progress, it’s about a different kind of rescue altogether.

  The wisdom of God stands totally outside of all our ideas of progress and

  advancement (which we’d be fools to put too much faith in, if we look lack

  in earnest at our past) What Jesus came to do was to set us right on a

  cosmic level - forever, and completely. And what the spirit is here for, is

  our daily access to Him, while we wait for the life we were always made

  for.

  By Hannah Flint

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• December 02, 2024Jesus, deliverer from distress.

  There is an epidemic of anxiety in the west. 50 million people in US have

  been diagnosed with an anxiety disorder. The number is rising. In today’s

  talk we find the disciples in distress. Something they experience whenever

  they are, or feel, separated from Jesus. This is something we will all

  experience. Whenever we’re dislocated from Jesus, our anxiety will rise,

  because we’re made for closeness to him. But Jesus meets his disciples in

  all his power. He is the lord of glory - the great I am. He displays his

  authority over all evil by trampling on the waves of the deep. And his

  compassion and closeness is seen as he gets into the boat with his troubled

  disciples. And as soon as he does so he alleviates all their fear.

  By Ed Flint

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• November 25, 2024Jesus, revolutionary shepherd.

  Who is leading you?

  Jesus sees the crowd in Galilee as sheep without a shepherd. But rather

  than be the revolutionary zealot leader the people want him to be, he

  reveals a different kind of leadership. He is the servant God who gives his

  life up for the sake of others. And in word and deed, he alone is the bread

  of life who brings satisfaction to the human condition.

  We’re called to let him, the revolutionary shepherd, lead all aspects of

  our life. Not least our finances. As we launch our end of year giving

  campaign, we’re calling the church to let him be lord over our money, to

  invest in his kingdom, and to be vulnerable with our finances, allowing him

  to be our source of all security and protection.

  By Ed Flint

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• November 18, 2024Jesus, power for good.

  In a rare moment when Jesus does not appear in the gospel, Mark tells the

  story of Herod’s beheading of John the Baptist.

  Herod’s story is a cautionary one about the misery that comes when someone

  devotes their life to the pursuit of earthly power. Where Herod’s power

  destroys, Jesus’ power, exemplified in the life of John, by contrast,

  creates, redeems and sets free. It’s his power that we are made for and we

  find it by dying to our broken versions of power and rising with him in his

  mighty strength.

  By Ed Flint

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• November 11, 2024Jesus, scandalously lowly.

  This might be as good a moment as ever to be reminded of the type of power

  Jesus came to display. God of all creation, gave everything up, to live

  among the poor and downtrodden, and face the offense that this wrought.

  Jesus' lowly statues was an offense to everyone - to the elites, the

  priest, and in our passage, his hometown.

  And his answer in Mark 6? To send out the disciples in his power; to get

  close to people, to free them from evil, heal their sick and preach the

  good news. There is no clearer way to see the kingdom Heaven, than in the

  moments we see worldly power fail so spectacularly. So, whatever it is we

  feel about what’s happening on world stages, let us not fail to worship

  Jesus today.

  By Hannah Flint

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• November 05, 2024Jesus, powerful kindness.

  Power over disease. Power over demons. Power over death. What would a power

  like that feel like? Is it scary? Is it intimidating? Is it comforting? Is

  it kind?

  In this talk, we zoom into two miracles given to seemingly opposite people,

  and find out that they have more in common than meets the eye. Along the

  way we’ll see how the power of Jesus and the kindness of Jesus are

  intertwined, and how Jesus meets us in the midst of our circumstance, if we

  open our hearts to him.

  By Tavia Grubbs

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• October 14, 2024Jesus, Lord of the Sabbath.

  Jesus declares himself Lord of the Sabbath. This is less about him arguing

  over Sabbath law, and more about him establishing his Lordship over

  everything, including that which we most hold dear.

  This is confrontational and necessarily requires his hearers, as well as

  us, to consider where our hearts have wandered to other gods. When we’re

  confronted like this we have a choice: we can react defensively, with

  avoidance, or rejection. Or we can choose to humble ourselves and receive

  his Lordship over our lives - to do so is to experience not enslavement but

  freedom, life not death. His offer is of Sabbath rest for all of us -

  reconnection to God, and life as it was alway intended.

  By Ed Flint

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• October 07, 2024Jesus, the forgiver of sins.

  Jesus first encounters opposition to his ministry when he begins to

  proclaim the forgiveness of sin.

  Things get confrontational when Jesus refuses to be limited to the surface

  issues of our lives. Declaring himself as the one who forgives sin means

  not only equating himself with God, but tells us we have a fundamental

  problem which only He can solve.

  Often our requests to Jesus reveal that we only really want him to scratch

  the surface issues of our lives. But Jesus is primarily fixated on the

  state of our hearts. If we let him, he will transform our hearts to be ones

  after his own. This is where lasting peace, joy, praise, and freedom is to

  be found.

  By Ed Flint

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• September 30, 2024Jesus, the inaugurator of the Kingdom.

  Jesus’ first public pronouncement concerns the arrival of the Kingdom of

  God. The Kingdom is God’s just rule over the universe where all pain and

  evil cease and joy and peace abound. The Kingdom has come because Jesus,

  the King, has come. So entrance into the Kingdom is available to all who

  follow him. Its markers are evil banished, the sick healed, and the

  authority of Jesus revealed.

  By Ed Flint

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