QUOTES FOR REFLECTION

“Trust thyself […] Nothing can bring you peace but yourself.”

~Ralph Waldo Emerson, American writer and philosopher, in “Self-Reliance”

“I am the master of my fate,

I am the captain of my soul.”

~William Ernest Henley, English poet and writer, in “Invictus”

“I have got so much to do and life is so short, I am going to hustle.”

~Thomas Edison, American inventor

“The opportunity cost of going to sleep is too high. If you go to sleep, you won’t be with your 20 AI coding agents.”

~Marc Andreessen, American venture capitalist and entrepreneur

“The best cure for insomnia is to get a lot of sleep.”

~W.C. Fields, American actor and comedian

“Sleep is a parable that God is God and we are mere men. God handles the world quite nicely while a hemisphere sleeps. Sleep is like a broken record that comes around with the same message every day: Man is not sovereign. Man is not sovereign. Man is not sovereign.”

~John Piper, American Baptist pastor and theologian

“We are able to have children because our hope is in God, who makes it possible to do the absurd thing of having children. In a world of such terrible injustice, in a world of such terrible misery, in a world that may well be about the killing of our children, having children is an extraordinary act of faith and hope. But as Christians we can have hope in the God who urges us to welcome children.”

“Nothing is more hopeful than the birth of a child. Such births defy the unknown, claiming that we can in fact trust in God. […] What we are about as Christians is the having of children. That must come first, and then we must subject other aspects of our lives to that reality. I am not suggesting that children become an end in themselves, but rather that children are the way we remember that it is God that matters, not making the world safe or rich.”

“Christians, single and married, are parents. ‘Parent’ names an office of the Christian community that everyone in the community is expected faithfully to fulfill. […] God has not willed the church to be reproduced through biology but through witness and conversion.”

~ Stanley Hauerwas, American theologian and Christian ethicist

SERMON PASSAGE

Psalm 127 (ESV)

Psalm 127

1 Unless the Lord builds the house,

  those who build it labor in vain.

  Unless the Lord watches over the city,

  the watchman stays awake in vain.

2 It is in vain that you rise up early

  and go late to rest,

  eating the bread of anxious toil;

  for he gives to his beloved sleep.

3 Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord,

  the fruit of the womb a reward.

4 Like arrows in the hand of a warrior

  are the children of one’s youth.

5 Blessed is the man

  who fills his quiver with them!

  He shall not be put to shame

  when he speaks with his enemies in the gate.

Luke 12

22 And he said to his disciples, “Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat, nor about your body, what you will put on. 23 For life is more than food, and the body more than clothing. 24 Consider the ravens: they neither sow nor reap, they have neither storehouse nor barn, and yet God feeds them.… 27 Consider the lilies, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.… Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.”

Psalm 3

5 I lay down and slept;

  I woke again, for the Lord sustained me.

6 I will not be afraid of many thousands of people

  who have set themselves against me all around.

Jeremiah 29

4 “Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: 5 Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat their produce. 6 Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and do not decrease.… 11 For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.

Matthew 16

18 And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.

QUOTES FOR REFLECTION

“I miss my home, [although I] don’t remember it. Sometimes, I perceive a glimmer of it nonetheless. A longing for a feeling I can’t remember or even name. But I know it’s real, just beyond the sunset.”

~The Stranger, Rings of Power S02E01

“But according to his promise we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.”

~2 Peter 3:13

“You are both free and bound. Free, paradoxically, because, now, you have a home… And bound: to that mystery, precisely, a bondage which liberates you into something of the glory and suffering of the world.”

~Zadie Smith, contemporary English writer

“And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.”

~John 1:14

SERMON PASSAGE

Psalm 85 (ESV)

1 Lord, you were favorable to your land;

   you restored the fortunes of Jacob.

2 You forgave the iniquity of your people;

   you covered all their sin.                      Selah

3 You withdrew all your wrath;

   you turned from your hot anger.

4 Restore us again, O God of our salvation,

   and put away your indignation toward us!

5 Will you be angry with us forever?

   Will you prolong your anger to all generations?

6 Will you not revive us again,

   that your people may rejoice in you?

7 Show us your steadfast love, O Lord,

   and grant us your salvation.

8 Let me hear what God the Lord will speak,

   for he will speak peace to his people, to his saints;

   but let them not turn back to folly.

9 Surely his salvation is near to those who fear him,

   that glory may dwell in our land.

10 Steadfast love and faithfulness meet;

   righteousness and peace kiss each other.

11 Faithfulness springs up from the ground,

   and righteousness looks down from the sky.

12 Yes, the Lord will give what is good,

   and our land will yield its increase.

13 Righteousness will go before him

   and make his footsteps a way.

QUOTES FOR REFLECTION

“The deepest problems of modern life derive from the claim of the individual to preserve the autonomy and individuality of his existence.” 

~Georg Simmel (1858-1918), German sociologist, philosopher, and critic

“Faith does not eliminate questions. But faith knows where to take them.”

~Elizabeth Elliot (1926-2015), missionary, author, and speaker

“Never be afraid to trust an unknown future to a known God.”

~Corrie ten Boom (1892-1983), Dutch survivor of a Nazi death camp

“The condition of the Psalmist’s mind was complex—he feared, but that fear did not fill the whole area of his mind.... It is possible, then, for fear and faith to occupy the mind at the same moment. We are strange beings, and our experience in the divine life is stranger still. We are often in a twilight, where light and darkness are both present and it is hard to tell which predominates. It is a blessed fear which drives us to trust. Unregenerate fear drives from God, gracious fear drives to him.”

~Charles Spurgeon (1834-1892), famed London pastor

“Stand fast in the faith, and love one another, all of you, and be not offended at my sufferings.”

~Reported to be the last words of Perpetua (c.182-c.203), a 22-year-old noblewoman and new mother, killed for her Christian faith in Carthage (modern-day Tunisia)

“Loving God—really loving Him—means living out His commands no matter what the cost.”

~Charles Colson (1931-2012), attorney, political advisor, convicted felon, advocate for prison reform, and midlife convert to Christ

“…reason is not king in human beings, the heart is. Therefore, to change your actions, you must change your desires. But your desires will change, only if the Holy Spirit who wrote the Bible also writes his laws on your heart.”

~John Ashley Null, theologian at Humboldt University Berlin and North African Bishop

“The faith of the church must be tried by God’s word, and not God’s word by the church; neither yet my faith.”

~Jane Grey (1537-1554), English noblewoman and very brief de facto monarch of England

SERMON PASSAGE

Psalm 56 (ESV)

To the choirmaster: according to The Dove on Far-off Terebinths. A Miktam of David, when the Philistines seized him in Gath.

1 Be gracious to me, O God, for man tramples on me;

  all day long an attacker oppresses me;

2 my enemies trample on me all day long,

   for many attack me proudly.

3 When I am afraid,

   I put my trust in you.

4 In God, whose word I praise,

   in God I trust; I shall not be afraid.

   What can flesh do to me?

5 All day long they injure my cause;

   all their thoughts are against me for evil.

6 They stir up strife, they lurk;

   they watch my steps,

   as they have waited for my life.

7 For their crime will they escape?

   In wrath cast down the peoples, O God!

8 You have kept count of my tossings;

   put my tears in your bottle.

   Are they not in your book?

9 Then my enemies will turn back

    in the day when I call.

   This I know, that God is for me.

10 In God, whose word I praise,

   in the Lord, whose word I praise,

11 in God I trust; I shall not be afraid.

   What can man do to me?

12 I must perform my vows to you, O God;

   I will render thank offerings to you.

13 For you have delivered my soul from death,

   yes, my feet from falling,

  that I may walk before God

   in the light of life.

1 Samuel 21

10 And David rose and fled that day from Saul and went to Achish the king of Gath. 11 And the servants of Achish said to him, “Is not this David the king of the land? Did they not sing to one another of him in dances,

         ‘Saul has struck down his thousands,

          and David his ten thousands’?”

12 And David took these words to heart and was much afraid of Achish the king of Gath. 13 So he changed his behavior before them and pretended to be insane in their hands and made marks on the doors of the gate and let his spittle run down his beard. 14 Then Achish said to his servants, “Behold, you see the man is mad. Why then have you brought him to me? 15 Do I lack madmen, that you have brought this fellow to behave as a madman in my presence? Shall this fellow come into my house?”

QUOTES FOR REFLECTION

“Have you realized that most of your unhappiness in life is due to the fact that you are listening to yourself instead of talking to yourself?”

~D. Martin Lloyd-Jones (1899-1981), Welsh minister and medical doctor

“Every week I preach justification by faith to my people, because every week they forget it.”

~Martin Luther (1483-1546), German theologian

“The central basis of Christian assurance is not how much our hearts are set on God, but how unshakably his heart is set on us.”

~Tim Keller (1950-2023), American pastor and author

“To preach the gospel to yourself, then, means that you continually face up to your own sinfulness and then flee to Jesus through faith in His shed blood and righteous life. It means that you appropriate, again by faith, the fact that Jesus fully satisfied the law of God, that He is your propitiation, and that God’s holy wrath is no longer directed toward you.”

~Jerry Bridges, American author

SERMON PASSAGE

Psalm 103 (ESV)

1 Bless the Lord, O my soul,

   and all that is within me,

   bless his holy name!

2 Bless the Lord, O my soul,

   and forget not all his benefits,

3 who forgives all your iniquity,

   who heals all your diseases,

4 who redeems your life from the pit,

   who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy,

5 who satisfies you with good

   so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.

6 The Lord works righteousness

   and justice for all who are oppressed.

7 He made known his ways to Moses,

   his acts to the people of Israel.

8 The Lord is merciful and gracious,

   slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.

9 He will not always chide,

   nor will he keep his anger forever.

10 He does not deal with us according to our sins,

   nor repay us according to our iniquities.

11 For as high as the heavens are above the earth,

   so great is his steadfast love

  toward those who fear him;

12 as far as the east is from the west,

   so far does he remove our transgressions from us.

13 As a father shows compassion to his children,

   so the Lord shows compassion

  to those who fear him.

14 For he knows our frame;

   he remembers that we are dust.

15 As for man, his days are like grass;

   he flourishes like a flower of the field;

16 for the wind passes over it, and it is gone,

   and its place knows it no more.

17 But the steadfast love of the Lord is from   

  everlasting to everlasting on those who fear him,

   and his righteousness to children’s children,

18 to those who keep his covenant

   and remember to do his commandments.

19 The Lord has established his throne in the heavens,

   and his kingdom rules over all.

20 Bless the Lord, O you his angels,

   you mighty ones who do his word,

   obeying the voice of his word!

21 Bless the Lord, all his hosts,

   his ministers, who do his will!

22 Bless the Lord, all his works,

   in all places of his dominion.

   Bless the Lord, O my soul!

QUOTES FOR REFLECTION

“Smoke went up from his nostrils, and devouring fire from his mouth; glowing coals flamed forth from him. . . He bowed the heavens and came down; thick darkness was under his feet. He rode on a cherub and flew; he came swiftly on the wings of the wind. He made darkness his covering, his canopy around him, thick clouds dark with water. Out of the brightness before him hailstones and coals of fire broke through his clouds.”

~Psalm 18:8, 9-12 (ESV)

“What is obvious is the power of a religion whose secret is perhaps, simply, to get rid of the distance, the transcendence, and the remoteness of the divine… A present God this time; a God who is there, behind the door or the curtain, and asks only to show himself; a God without mystery; a good-guy God; almost a human being, a good American, someone who loves you one by one, listens to you if you talk to him, answers if you ask him to—God the friend, who has your best interests at heart.”

~Bernard Henri-Levi, secular journalist experiencing an American megachurch

“There is a paradox in Old Testament narrative ethics: on the one hand God is terribly demanding, he looks for nothing less than godlike perfect behavior, yet on the other, despite human failings, he does not forget his covenant loyalty to his people… Old Testament ethics are therefore, as much about grace as about law: they declare that God, the all-holy, is also God, the all-merciful.”

~Gordon Wenham, Old Testament scholar

“There is in God a sweet conjunction: majesty and meekness joined together: he is sweet and gentle, and holy majesty; and also a majestic meekness; an awful sweetness; a high, and great, and holy gentleness.”

~Jonathan Edwards, American pastor

“The God of the Bible localizes himself. In great condescension, the Lord of Hosts rends the heavens and comes down and dwells in the midst of his people. And he sets apart and makes holy the temple, the symbol of that dwelling; or he sets apart for his use Bible and cup and bread, in order that flesh and blood persons can see and remember and know that the holy God is in their company.”

~Elizabeth Atchemeier, Old Testament scholar

SERMON QUOTES

Psalm 99 (ESV)

1 The Lord reigns; let the peoples tremble!

  He sits enthroned upon the cherubim; let the earth quake!

2 The Lord is great in Zion;

  he is exalted over all the peoples.

3 Let them praise your great and awesome name!

  Holy is he!

4 The King in his might loves justice.

  You have established equity;

 you have executed justice

  and righteousness in Jacob.

5 Exalt the Lord our God;

  worship at his footstool!

  Holy is he!

6 Moses and Aaron were among his priests,

  Samuel also was among those who called upon his name.

  They called to the Lord, and he answered them.

7 In the pillar of the cloud he spoke to them;

  they kept his testimonies

  and the statute that he gave them.

8 O Lord our God, you answered them;

  you were a forgiving God to them,

  but an avenger of their wrongdoings.

9 Exalt the Lord our God,

  and worship at his holy mountain;

  for the Lord our God is holy!

QUOTES FOR REFLECTION

“There is no duty we so much underrate as the duty of being happy.”

~Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894), Scottish writer

“God’s goodness is a communicative, spreading goodness…. If God had not a communicative, spreading goodness, he would never have created the world. The Father, Son and Holy Ghost were happy in themselves and enjoyed one another before the world was. But that God delights to communicate and spread his goodness, there had never been a creation nor a redemption. God useth his creatures not for defect of power, that he can do nothing without them, but for the spreading of his goodness.”

~Richard Sibbes (1577-1635), Anglican-Puritan theologian

“So why did God create? Because God delights to spread His goodness. In other words, He is like a sun of goodness, blazing out with love. God didn’t create because He needed to, because of any lack. He created because He was so happily bursting with goodness. God is so overflowingly, superabundantly full of life in Himself that He delighted to spread His goodness. His innermost Being is a sun of light, life, and warmth, always shining out; radiant and outgoing!”

~Michael Reeves, theology professor and author

“God is wonderfully generous by nature; to give is His delight. His gifts are immeasurably precious and are given as freely as the light of the sun. He gives grace to His own because He wills it, to His redeemed because of His covenant, to the called because of His promise, to believers because they seek it, to sinners because they need it. He gives grace abundantly, seasonably, constantly, readily, sovereignly; the value of the blessings is doubled by the manner in which it is given.”

~C.H. Spurgeon (1834-1892), famed London preacher

“You can give without loving, but you cannot love without giving.”

~Amy Carmichael (1867-1951), Irish writer and missionary to India

“The unselfish effort to bring cheer to others will be the beginning of a happier life for ourselves.”

~Helen Keller (1880-1968), author and activist

“Generosity is giving more than you can, and pride is taking less than you need.”

~Khalil Gibran (1883-1931), Lebanese writer, poet, and artist

SERMON PASSAGE

Numbers 6 (NASB95)

24 The Lord bless you, and keep you;

25 The Lord make His face shine on you,

   And be gracious to you;

26 The Lord lift up His countenance on you,

   And give you peace.’

Psalm 67 (NASB95)

1 God be gracious to us and bless us,

  And cause His face to shine upon us—          Selah.

2 That Your way may be known on the earth,

  Your salvation among all nations.

3 Let the peoples praise You, O God;

  Let all the peoples praise You.

4 Let the nations be glad and sing for joy;

  For You will judge the peoples with uprightness

  And guide the nations on the earth.                  Selah.

5 Let the peoples praise You, O God;

  Let all the peoples praise You.

6 The earth has yielded its produce;

  God, our God, blesses us.

7 God blesses us,

  That all the ends of the earth may fear Him.

Revelation 7

9 After these things I looked, and behold, a great multitude which no one could count, from every nation and all tribes and peoples and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, and palm branches were in their hands; 10 and they cry out with a loud voice, saying, “Salvation to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb.”

Revelation 22

1 Then he showed me a river of the water of life, clear as crystal, coming from the throne of God and of the Lamb, 2 in the middle of its street. On either side of the river was the tree of life, bearing twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit every month; and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. 3 There will no longer be any curse; and the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and His bond-servants will serve Him; 4 they will see His face, and His name will be on their foreheads. 5 And there will no longer be any night; and they will not have need of the light of a lamp nor the light of the sun, because the Lord God will illumine them; and they will reign forever and ever.

Matthew 28

18 And Jesus came up and spoke to them, saying, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. 19 Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”

QUOTES FOR REFLECTION

“We all are born into the world looking for someone looking for us, and…we remain in this mode of searching for the rest of our lives.”

~Curt Thompson, psychiatrist and author

“Instructions for living a life.

Pay attention.

Be astonished.

Tell about it.”

~Mary Oliver (1935-2019), Pulitzer Prize-winning poet

“What you pay attention to shapes what you care about. And what you care about shapes what you become.”

~Jonathan Haidt, social psychologist and professor at New York University

“You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in You.” 

~Augustine (354-430), North African theologian

“It would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak.”

~C.S. Lewis (1898-1963) in “The Weight of Glory”

“There is no duty we so much underrated as the duty of being happy.”

~Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894), Scottish writer

“…if we doubt or do not believe that God is gracious to us and is pleased with us, or if we presumptuously expect to please Him only through and after our works, then it is all pure deception, outwardly honoring God, but inwardly setting up self as a false god…. [God] has promised His grace freely, and wills that we begin by trusting that grace, and in it perform all works, whatever they may be.”

~Martin Luther (1483-1546) in his “Treatise on Good Works”

“God wants so much to be trusted.”

~David Wilkerson (1931-2011), Christian leader and founder of Teen Challenge

SERMON PASSAGE

Psalm 67 (NASB95)

1 God be gracious to us and bless us,

 And cause His face to shine upon us—   Selah.

2 That Your way may be known on the earth,

 Your salvation among all nations.

3 Let the peoples praise You, O God;

 Let all the peoples praise You.

4 Let the nations be glad and sing for joy;

 For You will judge the peoples with uprightness

 And guide the nations on the earth.          Selah.

5 Let the peoples praise You, O God;

 Let all the peoples praise You.

6 The earth has yielded its produce;

 God, our God, blesses us.

7 God blesses us,

 That all the ends of the earth may fear Him.

Numbers 6 (NASB95)

22 Then the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, 23 “Speak to Aaron and to his sons, saying, ‘Thus you shall bless the sons of Israel. You shall say to them:

24 The Lord bless you, and keep you;

25 The Lord make His face shine on you,

And be gracious to you;

26 The Lord lift up His countenance on you,

And give you peace.’

27 So they shall invoke My name on the sons of Israel, and I then will bless them.”

QUOTES FOR REFLECTION

“It takes courage to love, but pain through love is the purifying fire which those who love generously know. We all know people who are so much afraid of pain that they shut themselves up like clams in a shell and, giving out nothing, receive nothing and therefore shrink until life is a mere living death.”

~Eleanor Roosevelt (1884-1962), diplomat, activist, and longest-serving U.S. first lady

“The condition of the Psalmist’s mind was complex—he feared, but that fear did not fill the whole area of his mind.... It is possible, then, for fear and faith to occupy the mind at the same moment. We are strange beings, and our experience in the divine life is stranger still. We are often in a twilight, where light and darkness are both present and it is hard to tell which predominates. It is a blessed fear which drives us to trust. Unregenerate fear drives from God, gracious fear drives to him.”

~Charles Spurgeon (1834-1892), famed London pastor

“The Psalter is the prayer book of Jesus Christ in the truest sense of the word. He prayed the Psalter and now it has become his prayer for all time.”

~Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945), theologian-pastor, executed for his opposition to the Nazis

Question 1: What is the chief end of man?

Answer: Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever.

Question 2: What rule has God given to direct us how we may glorify and enjoy him?

Answer: The Word of God, which is contained in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, is the only rule to direct us how we may glorify and enjoy him.

Question 3: What do the Scriptures principally teach?

Answer: The Scriptures principally teach, what man is to believe concerning God, and what duty God requires of man.

~Westminster Shorter Catechism (1647)

“Don’t bother to give God instructions; just report for duty.”

~Corrie ten Boom (1892-1983), Dutch survivor of a Nazi death camp

SERMON PASSAGE

Psalm 56 (ESV)

To the choirmaster: according to The Dove on Far-off Terebinths.

A Miktam of David, when the Philistines seized him in Gath.

1  Be gracious to me, O God, for man tramples on me;

  all day long an attacker oppresses me;

2  my enemies trample on me all day long,

  for many attack me proudly.

3  When I am afraid,

  I put my trust in you.

4  In God, whose word I praise,

  in God I trust; I shall not be afraid.

  What can flesh do to me?

5  All day long they injure my cause;

  all their thoughts are against me for evil.

6  They stir up strife, they lurk;

  they watch my steps,

  as they have waited for my life.

7  For their crime will they escape?

  In wrath cast down the peoples, O God!

8  You have kept count of my tossings;

  put my tears in your bottle.

  Are they not in your book?

9  Then my enemies will turn back

  in the day when I call.

  This I know, that God is for me.

10 In God, whose word I praise,

  in the Lord, whose word I praise,

11 in God I trust; I shall not be afraid.

  What can man do to me?

12 I must perform my vows to you, O God;

  I will render thank offerings to you.

13 For you have delivered my soul from death,

  yes, my feet from falling,

  that I may walk before God

  in the light of life.

QUOTES FOR REFLECTION

“The Psalter is the prayer book of Jesus Christ in the truest sense of the word. He prayed the Psalter and now it has become his prayer for all time.”

~Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945), theologian-pastor, executed for his opposition to the Nazis

“As long as you have not yet reached Christ, the divine word has only one piece of advice for you: ‘Come nearer; you are not yet in a place of security.’”

~Augustine (354-430), North African church leader and theologian

“When you are being pursued and certain ones are perpetrating slander….do not succumb to weariness, but being confident in the Lord and hymning him, recite the things in [Psalm 56].”

~Athanasius (c. 296-373), theologian and church leader, in his “Letter to Marcelliuns”

“The condition of the Psalmist’s mind was complex—he feared, but that fear did not fill the whole area of his mind.... It is possible, then, for fear and faith to occupy the mind at the same moment. We are strange beings, and our experience in the divine life is stranger still. We are often in a twilight, where light and darkness are both present and it is hard to tell which predominates. It is a blessed fear which drives us to trust. Unregenerate fear drives from God, gracious fear drives to him.”

~Charles Spurgeon (1834-1892), famed London pastor

“God hath so great compassion on his servants in trouble that he reckoneth even the steps of their wanderings and pilgrimage, and numbereth all their tears, and keepeth the count thereof, as it were in a register; and therefore every troubled servant of God, when he looks upon his sufferings, should look upon God also taking as particular notice of his troubles as he himself can do.”

~David Dickson (1583-1662), Scottish pastor and theologian

“…is it fair for a loving God to sit on His throne in Heaven and let us struggle and suffer on our own? …It makes perfect sense to me that God decided to come among us, live like us, and die a horribly painful death after being tortured. This is a God I can love with all my heart. A God who sets an example. A God who has bled and whose heart has been broken. This is who Jesus is to me. I don’t pretend that I understand the Holy Trinity. But I understand love and sacrifice. I understand faithfulness.”

~Marina Nemat, author of After Tehran: A Life Reclaimed, former political prisoner and inaugural recipient of the European Parliament’s Human Dignity Award (2008)

SERMON PASSAGE

Psalm 56 (ESV)

To the choirmaster: according to The Dove on Far-off Terebinths.

A Miktam of David, when the Philistines seized him in Gath.

1  Be gracious to me, O God, for man tramples on me;

  all day long an attacker oppresses me;

2  my enemies trample on me all day long,

  for many attack me proudly.

3  When I am afraid,

  I put my trust in you.

4  In God, whose word I praise,

  in God I trust; I shall not be afraid.

  What can flesh do to me?

5  All day long they injure my cause;

  all their thoughts are against me for evil.

6  They stir up strife, they lurk;

  they watch my steps,

  as they have waited for my life.

7  For their crime will they escape?

  In wrath cast down the peoples, O God!

8  You have kept count of my tossings;

  put my tears in your bottle.

  Are they not in your book?

9  Then my enemies will turn back

  in the day when I call.

  This I know, that God is for me.

10 In God, whose word I praise,

  in the Lord, whose word I praise,

11 in God I trust; I shall not be afraid.

  What can man do to me?

12 I must perform my vows to you, O God;

  I will render thank offerings to you.

13 For you have delivered my soul from death,

  yes, my feet from falling,

  that I may walk before God

  in the light of life.

QUOTES FOR REFLECTION

“God creates, not that there may be witnesses to render Him His due glory, but beings who shall rejoice in it as He rejoices in it Himself and who, participating in His being, participate at the same time in His beatitude. It is not therefore for Himself, but for us, that God seeks His glory; it is not to gain it, for He possesses it already, nor to increase it, for already it is perfect, but to communicate it to us.”

~Étienne Gilson (1884-1978), French philosopher and historian

“There is something which unites magic and applied science (technology) while separating them from the ‘wisdom’ of earlier ages. For the wise men of old, the cardinal problem of human life was how to conform the soul to objective reality, and the solution was wisdom, self-discipline, and virtue. For the modern, the cardinal problem is how to conform reality to the wishes of man, and the solution is a technique.”

~C.S. Lewis (1898-1963), writer and scholar

“God who gave us life gave us liberty. And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are a gift from God? That they are not to be violated but with His wrath? Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just, and that His justice cannot sleep forever.”

~Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), third U.S. President, inscription from the Jefferson Memorial

“God governs in the affairs of man. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without his notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without His aid? We have been assured in the Sacred Writings that except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it. I firmly believe this. I also believe that, without His concurring aid, we shall succeed in this political building no better than the builders of Babel.”

~Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790), polymath and statesman

“…we have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge, or gallantry, would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”

~John Adams (1735-1826), second U.S. President

“Democracy is the art and science of running the circus from the monkey cage.”

~H.L. Mencken (1880-1956), journalist, scholar, cultural critic and outspoken atheist

“It is fatal to let people suppose that Christianity is only a mode of feeling; it is vitally necessary to insist that it is first and foremost a rational explanation of the universe.”

~Dorothy L. Sayers (1893-1957), English novelist and playwright

SERMON PASSAGE

Psalm 33 (ESV)

1 Shout for joy in the Lord, O you righteous!

   Praise befits the upright.

2 Give thanks to the Lord with the lyre;

   make melody to him with the harp of ten strings!

3 Sing to him a new song;

   play skillfully on the strings, with loud shouts.

4 For the word of the Lord is upright,

   and all his work is done in faithfulness.

5 He loves righteousness and justice;

   the earth is full of the steadfast love of the Lord.

6 By the word of the Lord the heavens were made,

   and by the breath of his mouth all their host.

7 He gathers the waters of the sea as a heap;

   he puts the deeps in storehouses.

8 Let all the earth fear the Lord;

   let all the inhabitants of the world

  stand in awe of him!

9 For he spoke, and it came to be;

   he commanded, and it stood firm.

10 The Lord brings the counsel of the nations

  to nothing;

   he frustrates the plans of the peoples.

11 The counsel of the Lord stands forever,

   the plans of his heart to all generations.

12 Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord,

   the people whom he has chosen as his heritage!

13 The Lord looks down from heaven;

   he sees all the children of man;

14 from where he sits enthroned he looks out

   on all the inhabitants of the earth,

15 he who fashions the hearts of them all

   and observes all their deeds.

16 The king is not saved by his great army;

   a warrior is not delivered by his great strength.

17 The war horse is a false hope for salvation,

   and by its great might it cannot rescue.

18 Behold, the eye of the Lord

  is on those who fear him,

   on those who hope in his steadfast love,

19 that he may deliver their soul from death

   and keep them alive in famine.

20 Our soul waits for the Lord;

   he is our help and our shield.

21 For our heart is glad in him,

   because we trust in his holy name.

22 Let your steadfast love, O Lord, be upon us,

   even as we hope in you.