2025-04-13: Pastor Mark Quist – Palm Sunday: Juxtaposition: From Confidence to Confusion

5 years ago, March 2020 as we entered Passion Week, there was much confusion, uncertainty… What is to come?  The sun came up every morning as it always did, flowers were breaking out of the thawed ground like they always do… yet, a little known coronavirus was bringing a powerful juxtaposition to our reality.

I think of Palm Sunday and Good Friday as being prime examples of juxtaposition.  When two things are placed close together with contrasting effects.  The nearness of contrasting realities.  Jesus is hailed as King and yet, in a few short days suffers in agony and is crucified.  This must have been so confusing to the people at the Passover festival and certainly for the disciples.  No wonder they scattered, it made no sense.  What is to come?

As passion week unfolds this week, praise God for Jesus, for Palm Sunday, for Good Friday, and for Easter.  Because of Jesus’ joy, crucifixion and following resurrection, we have life abundant and eternal.

Let’s begin Sunday, Palm Sunday by crowning Jesus King.  Reread the stories of Jesus Triumphal entry into Jerusalem in preparation for Sunday’s celebration (Matthew 21:1-11, Mark 11:1-11, Luke 19:28-44, and John 12:12-19).

See you Sunday!

2025-04-06: Pastor Mark Quist – To Love God is to Love Others – Things Indifferent: Of Conscience, Love, and Stumbling Blocks

2025-03-30: Pastor Mark Quist – The Gospel and the Married and Unmarried: Part 2

2025-03-23: Pastor Mark Quist – The Gospel and the Married and Unmarried: Part 1

When our sexuality is grounded in God’s design for us and our satisfaction found in Him, God’s Kingdom comes.  When we are not mastered by anything other than the Holy Spirit’s wisdom and power at work in us, God’s Kingdom comes. How do you know when Jesus is Lord of your life, Lord of everything?  When the fruit of the Spirit flows in us producing the fruit of self-control.  When our desires are under the Holy Spirit’s direction.  How does one know that one’s heart, mind, strength, and body are one in Christ?  When we are most satisfied in God and it flows in our love one to another in the ways God loves us.

Paul has something for everyone in chapter 7, whether married, unmarried, single, divorced or widowed.  It’s all good news.  It’s all life giving.  And filled with God’s grace.  As you read chapter 7 of 1st Corinthians, make note of what Paul, through the Holy Spirit may be speaking to you.  Where are God’s words of grace for you?  How might the Holy Spirit be whispering God’s guidance, grace, and goodness for you?

In Jesus name,

2025-03-16: Pastor Mark Quist – God be Glorified in my Body

He describes well the trouble of the struggles of our sexuality and gives us hope by pointing us to Jesus, the Lord and Savior of our body and soul.  Paul gives a powerfully convicting call to sexual integrity in the Lord and with one another.

We live in a hyper sexualized culture today.  Combined with a plethora of easy access fingertip technology, powerful media and social media influences, peer pressures, and an overly permissive spirit of this age, we experience powerful temptation, trial, suffering, and brokenness.  If nothing else, it can be attractive to compromise our sexual integrity, whether in the heart, the mind, or the body before God, growing guilt and shame, leading us to hide from God, pulling us away from the good and beautiful design for intimacy in relationships God has invited us into.

Is there a way out?  Is there a way forward?  Is there a way to freedom and sexual integrity?  Absolutely.  Jesus died and rose again and has given us his Spirit, who dwells within us.  Giving us grace, truth, and power to walk in faithfulness to God and with one another.

Our next text for Sunday comes to us from 1 Corinthians 6:12-20.  Already, we know from Paul, “In Christ, we are washed, sanctified and justified.”  What does that mean for the body that God has given us?  Paul is a master teacher on this one.

See you Sunday,

2025-03-09: Pastor Mark Quist – The Gospel and Lawsuits

It appears that followers of Jesus were suing other followers of Jesus and taking them to the public courts.  Paul is aghast at this.  “Don’t you know that a watching world is waiting to meet Jesus?!”  Then he rattles off a wide ranging list of sinful behaviors to make essentially the same point, “A watching world is waiting to meet Jesus!  And when you do these things, people can’t meet Jesus.”  (He doesn’t say exactly that – but close to it.).

What’s Paul’s solution?  Similar to Jesus’ solution.  Why not turn the other cheek?  And then points them to Jesus, “This is what some of you were. But no longer.  You have been washed, sanctified, and justified in the name of Jesus and by the Spirit of our God.”  So… live like it!

That’s a good word! 1 Corinthians 6:1-11 for Sunday, see you then,

2025-03-02: Pastor Mark Quist – Christ Crushes the Little Compromises Before it Crushes Us

It’s the little things, the little compromises that lead us into bigger trouble.  The 10 commandments for example speak to ‘big’ things – lying, stealing, adultery and murder.  Yet, these don’t happen in a vacuum or suddenly out of the blue.  No.  It’s the culmination of 100 preceding compromises that leads us there.

For example, Jesus teaches about this sinful nature in us by pointing out that –  a little lust, a little hate, a secret this and that, a twisting of the truth – and before we know it, we are in deep trouble.

Why is this troubling?  Because these little compromises leading to big trouble actually reveal the treasure of our heart.  God’s solution?  Jesus makes it simple, “Find your treasure in me.”

To side step bigger trouble, we must get at the treasure of our heart and rid ourselves of the little compromises that lead us away from our treasure, Jesus.  In the cross of Christ and his resurrection power, we can be set free and empowered to follow Jesus wholeheartedly.  What does that mean for the here and now-now?  In our life in Christ moving forward, Christ crushes our little compromises before they crush us!  So, find your treasure in Jesus today!

Text for Sunday is 1 Corinthians 5.  What’s the big trouble?  How does it involve everyone?  What guidance does Paul give in moving forward and towards Jesus?

In his name,

2025-02-23: Pastor Mark Quist – Blessed are the Meek, the Weak, the Hungry and Thirsty

It’s an amazing letter covering a host of issues: incest, lawsuits among believers, sexual immorality – issues for married and unmarried, the eating of food sacrificed to idols, lots of great teaching on christian freedom, the need for self-discipline, practices for worshipping well – promoting the unity and honor of all, guidance on spiritual gifts, warnings to pay attention to the past, and a most famous exposition on love, finishing with one of the grandeous passages in the Bible on resurrection… that’s a lot!

So this Sunday, Paul wraps up his discouragement of certain behaviors and encouragement of others addressing the call of pastors and leaders.  It’s a fascinating passage, so here we go, 1st Corinthians 4.  I will be reading it from Eugene Peterson’s paraphrase, The Message, this coming Sunday in worship.  If you are a regular reader of the text for Sunday messages, check out The Message version and compare it to another of your favorite more direct translations.  Make note of some of the different ways the teaching of Paul is worded.

For the glory of God alone!

2025-02-16: Guest Speaker Pastor Rob Byker – Growth Pathways:  From Toddler to Mature Christian

2025-02-09: Pastor Mark Quist – The Holy Spirit – God’s Wisdom Revealed