Jesus talked about being “born again.”

Paul spoke of the “new creation.”

In this passage Peter tells us Christians have a “new birth” through Jesus.

Everywhere we look in the New Testament the writers talk about the life-changing experience that is Christian faith.

Our church’s vision statement says “First United Methodist Church of Tulsa seeks to bring all people into life-transforming relationships with Christ and other people.” To be in relationship with Christ is to be in a life-transforming relationship. We cannot know Christ without changing.

So what is “new” about the new birth?

It is a life of hope instead of defeat.

It is a life of power instead of despair.

It is a life of joy even in the midst of difficulties.

Peter calls it an inheritance—we receive it from God. And it is the most precious gift we can ever receive.

This is who we are—people born anew through the gift of Christ and the work of the Holy Spirit. Join us Sunday as we celebrate our life transformation through Jesus Christ!

It’s Mother’s Day so we are going to skip ahead in I Peter to his words to husbands and wives.

In some ways Peter’s words to wives will seem out of touch with modern life. He asks them to be “submissive”—to live a pure and reverent life and to minimize their desire for jewels and clothes. In our modern world this sounds old-fashioned and insulting!

It may help to look Peter’s words to husbands—he tells the husbands to respect their wives and treat them as equal heirs of God. And he warns them that, if they do not, God will not listen to their prayers!

Peter is not in any way giving men the “right” to run roughshod over their wives and claim absolute authority. If there is not a genuine respect and partnership in marriage, then we are falling short of God’s ideal.

I think Peter wanted to encourage marriage as a means of serving each other. Rather than asking, “What is my right?” Peter wanted us to ask, “What does my partner need?” Rather than asking, “How can I get what I want?” Peter hoped we would want to give what the other needed.

I think Christian marriage and Christian families should be counter-cultural. Our goals are different. Our hopes are different.

Instead of being fear-based, we can be love-based. Instead of being about possessing and controlling, we can be about blessing.

Let’s celebrate our mothers and the women in our lives—and let’s think about who we are. We are very different kinds of families because we are people who belong to Christ.

The Gospels tell the story of the resurrection of Jesus—of the empty tomb and the appearances of Jesus to the women and the disciples. Matthew, Mark, Luke and John make it clear that Jesus appeared with a real body and talked with all sorts of people in different places and at different times.

The book of Revelation gives us a different view of the resurrection. In chapter 1 we see the ascended and resurrected Jesus—Christ in his heavenly form. And in chapters 19-21 we see the returning Christ, coming to put an end to evil and sin once and for all.

The end of the book of Revelation gives us a vision of the purpose of the resurrection: to heal the gap between what is and what should be. The tears of life are wiped away. Everyone who had their life cut off too early is brought back. The wounds of life are healed. The distance between God and people is bridged.

Christ’s final agenda is to restore the world to the state God intended in creation. All things broken and wounded will be healed. All things will be made new.

The resurrection of Jesus is the first step in God’s plan for restoring all things. The resurrection marks the beginning of the end for the reign of death and sin—and the beginning of new life for those who believe.

All the Gospels tell us that Jesus came to die—that he came “to give his life a ransom for many,” as Mark 10:45 tells us.

At times this made no sense to the disciples. How could the kingdom come if the Messiah died? Later Paul would admit to the Corinthians that the cross of Christ was “a stumbling block to the Jews and foolishness to the Greeks,” and claim that for those who believed the crucified Christ was “the power of God and the wisdom of God” (I Corinthians 1:23-24).

The death of Christ has always been one of the hard things to swallow in the gospel. Why did Jesus have to die?

And the Gospels tell us that Jesus knew he would be killed and saw his death as an integral part of his agenda.

We call the Friday of the crucifixion, “Good Friday,” because Christ’s death was good for us. Christ’s death brought the power of God to us to make us good.

We cannot have a Christian faith without the cross.

But what does it mean to have a cross-centered faith?

This is Palm Sunday and we are going celebrate the Christ who died for us.

It’s an old cliché, but it’s still true: religion is humanity working their way to God. Christianity is God coming to us.

Jesus said, “Come to me you who are weary, and I will give you rest.”

It’s not about what we do for God, but what God does for us and in us through Christ.

We live in a world full of striving. At birth they test the new born baby for its vitality—and the pressure just keeps going. As our children grow up, do they fall within normal ranges for height, weight, and development? Do they pass third grade reading tests,

sixth grade math? Do they do well on their ACTs and SATs? Do they get into a major college—the Ivy League perhaps?

Then we go to work and we are graded, tested, evaluated. Did we make our sales quota? Are profits up?

As a pastor, I get graded and evaluated. Did the church grow in the year? Did we make budget? How many professions of faith?

In marriage spouses look at each other and ask, “Are you making me happy?” Are we good parents? Our children may become a measuring stick for our own success: do they achieve more than our neighbors?

In the midst of all this striving, Jesus offers rest.

The Gospel tells us of a God who is unremittingly for us.

Jesus has an agenda and it is not to shape us up. It is to give us rest. His yoke doesn’t strap us to a heavy weight that we pull—it lifts the weight from us.

Jesus is good news for every weary and worried person in this world. His agenda is good news.

One of the first stories that a lot of children learn is the story of Zacchaeus. They do not learn the story because it is one of the most pivotal stories in the New Testament. They learn it because it is one of the most popular children’s Bible songs. So go ahead and sing it, “Zacchaeus was a wee little man...” While it may not be one of the most pivotal stories, it does illustrate one of the most pivotal agenda items for Jesus. As Zacchaeus told Jesus that he would give half of his possessions to the poor and pay people back four times the amount that he had wronged them, Jesus told him this, “Today salvation has come to this house, because this man, too, is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost” Luke 19:9-10. “To seek and to save the lost.” There is a lot in this brief phrase. It communicates that there are lost people out there. It communicates that lost people won’t know they are lost until they are found. And it communicates that they need saving. And it communicates that Jesus can save. If that was Jesus’ mission, then that is our mission as well. Join us in the sanctuary for a tag-team sermon from Dr. Paschal and Rev. Tiger on this great story, and how we can join Jesus’ agenda to seek and to save the lost.

John the Baptist is imprisoned and evidently begins to wonder if all is going as it should. He sends word to Jesus asking, “Are you the one who was to come, or should we expect another?” He asks if Christ is the Messiah, the one who will usher in the new age of God’s rule.

To answer, Jesus points to the fruit of his ministry: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk. He points in large part to his healing ministry as an answer to John’s question.

Jesus came to heal.

The world is broken—and broken bodies remind us of the flaws and wounds that exist everywhere in creation.

Creation is not good the way it is. And Christ comes to start the renewal and the restoring of creation.

Healing reminded people of the power of God and the goodness of God. When Jesus healed, people knew that God was breaking into life.

Of course, when we talk about the healing ministry of Jesus, we run into all sorts of questions. Does God still heal? And if so, why doesn’t God heal everyone right now?

My answers to the above questions will not satisfy everyone. But I believe God does call the church to pray for healing and to expect to see healings.

This Sunday is Valentine’s Day. Depending on your relationship status and your happiness in a relationship, this day is either a celebration of love or a lament of the lack of it. While the world sings “all you need is love,” most people live without a true understanding of what love is. Our culture has made an idol out of romantic love, and so many of us have participated in the myth of “true love.” Now, romantic love does have some incredible value. For couples that have been married for ten, forty, or sixty-five years, we celebrate with them, and they are a testimony to God’s grace and the gift of that brand of love. However, when Jesus talked about love, he primarily did not talk about romantic love, instead he talked about something much deeper: agape love. C.S. Lewis in talking about agape love said this, “Love in the Christian sense does not mean an emotion. It is a state not of feelings but of the will; that state of the will which we have naturally about ourselves, and must learn to have about other people.” The Four Loves Love is a choice. It is a decision. And the great news for you and me is that God has decided to love us unconditionally, and God has invited us to love one another in the same way. Join us this Sunday as we talk about the amazing love of God that empowers us to love one another.

We are starting a new series that we are calling, “The Jesus Agenda.” Between now and Easter we will be looking at the life of Jesus and asking, “What really mattered to him?” Of all the things that Jesus said and talked about, what were the key points that he emphasized about life and faith? We start with the Lord’s Prayer—a prayer that summarizes what a relationship with God is all about. In Matthew Jesus contrasts this prayer with the prayer of the Pharisees. Jesus believed too many prayers that he heard were more about impressing other people than bringing life into connection with God. Prayer is not about saying a lot of words—but our prayer can be a time of powerful influence in our lives. The Lord’s Prayer is a powerful insight into the purpose and agenda of the ministry of Jesus— and a powerful guide to our own walk with God. Join us Sunday as we let the agenda of Jesus take over as the agenda for our lives.

We are starting a new series that we are calling, “The Jesus Agenda.” Between now and Easter we will be looking at the life of Jesus and asking, “What really mattered to him?” Of all the things that Jesus said and talked about, what were the key points that he emphasized about life and faith? We start with the Lord’s Prayer—a prayer that summarizes what a relationship with God is all about. In Matthew Jesus contrasts this prayer with the prayer of the Pharisees. Jesus believed too many prayers that he heard were more about impressing other people than bringing life into connection with God. Prayer is not about saying a lot of words—but our prayer can be a time of powerful influence in our lives. The Lord’s Prayer is a powerful insight into the purpose and agenda of the ministry of Jesus— and a powerful guide to our own walk with God. Join us Sunday as we let the agenda of Jesus take over as the agenda for our lives.