Losing Our Religion.

Pastor Bryan Wilkerson

March 20, 2022

grace.org/still

Donkey King by Grace Chapel Sermon Media

For more information please visit grace.org/easter

John 13: 1-17 (NIV)

We have all been through change, and while looking at the world around us we often think change is needed. But why? Why do we feel the need for change? And how do we go about working for change? However we feel about Jesus, he changed the world. Jesus was a changemaker. What can we learn from Jesus about bringing about good change that lasts?

How to change? How to bring change? How to be a changemaker? How did Jesus bring change? How to serve? What to do with my status or privileges?

Change, changemaker, Jesus, status, service, humility

Pastor Leah Knight Breton

Isaiah 65:17-25

It seems everyone is having a hard time envisioning what our future holds, or at least envisioning a future that is realistically hopeful. We have a tendency to turn toward a nostalgic past in the face of uncertainty, but does the past hold everything we need to build our future? Or is there something more? Is a better future really possible?

superbowl, nostalgia, halftime show, past, future, hope, freedom, delight, harmony, joy, black church, contemplation

https://www.amazon.com/Joy-Unspeakable-Contemplative-Practices-Church/dp/150642161X

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/14/arts/television/super-bowl-nostalgia.html

The Rev. Christopher W. Haydon

Hearing Christ's call out of the wilderness of our brokenness into forgiveness, redemption, and new life.

What is our wilderness/brokenness?

What is God's promise/healing for us?

wilderness, brokenness, suffering servant, healing

Pastor Leah Knight Breton

Life these days feels like a game of chutes and ladders. Up and down. Some days feeling like we get a boost, get ahead and climb up a ladder. And other days, like we’ve slid far back down the proverbial chute. Is God still with us when we are at the bottom of the chute? Can God really meet us in our deepest longings?

Is God still with us when we are at the bottom of the chutes of life? Can God really meet us in our deepest longings? How does God promise to fill us?

longing, idolatry, idols, worship, remember, God, restless, spirituality, antidote, soul

When we're in a time of trouble, God promises to be with us, to be for us, and to see us through.

Where is God when life is hard?

What does God really promise us?

Where is God during the pandemic?

Trouble

Hardship

Danger

Promises

Deliverance

Isaiah

COVID

We can’t be the people who attend services in-person or online, read our Bibles, read a devotion, and ignore the pain and needs around us. We can’t pray for God’s will and turn a blind eye to injustice and not show love to others – that is literally what Isaiah 58 is calling out.

When we read the gospels, Jesus took issue with the hypocrites and the self-righteous and it was the sinners that he showed mercy and invited them to know his Kingdom. May we show that same mercy and love to those around us!

What if we could confront our empty religiosity, our false piety, and our self-righteousness and undergo the type of heart-change that would worship God fully with our full being, that would show a Christ-rooted justice, a Kingdom-informed kindness and Jesus-gospel shaped love to our neighbor, and to the stranger, to the foe, to all others?

I bet if we were that kind of Jesus-followers for the long haul that the perception of Christianity in the West would change. I bet years from now our children will be at their own backyard bbqs and when the big questions of life came up, or when the topic of religion came up, the conversation might shift from, “I gave up on the church a long time ago” to “I think the way of Jesus is truly good for the world …”

My friends, right now, we are making decisions that are going to determine what type of church our children and grandchildren will not only receive from us, but will create for themselves, God-willing. May we pursue lives, not of self-righteousness but of true heart-change that gets to live fully in the promises of God – that we experience his nearness, his guidance, and his joy.