John 14:15-31; Acts 2:1-13

The Holy Spirit is the most abused, neglected, and misunderstood person in the Church today.  He is abused as a means to sensationalize charlatans through the manufacturing of miracles for their own personal gain.  The Holy Spirit is neglected in many of our evangelical churches in exchange for programs and projects as the means for church growth and personal transformation because we believe that we are more than capable of accomplishing the mission Jesus gave his Church through our own strength, talents, and ingenuity.  Francis Chan, in his book, Forgotten God, makes the following observation:

If I were Satan and my ultimate goal was to thwart God’s kingdom and purposes, one of my main strategies would be to get churchgoers to ignore the Holy Spirit.  The degree to which this has happened (and I would argue that it is a prolific disease in the body of Christ) is directly connected to the dissatisfaction most of us feel with and in the church.  We understand something very important is missing.  The feeling is so strong that some have turned away from the church and God’s Word completely.

I believe that this missing something is actually a missing Someone—namely, the Holy Spirit.  Without Him, people operate in their own strength and only accomplish human-size results.  The world is not moved by love or actions that are of human creation.  And the church is not empowered to live differently from any other gathering of people without the Holy Spirit.  But when believers live in the power of the Spirit, the evidence in their lives is supernatural.  The church cannot help but be different, and the world cannot help but notice.[1]

In the Upper Room, hours before God gave his Son to be crucified for our sins, Jesus made the following promise to His discouraged and frightened followers:

If you love me, you will keep my commandments.  And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him.  You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you. 

I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.  Yet a little while and the world will see me no more, but you will see me.  Because I live, you also will live…. These things I have spoken to you while I am still with you.  But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you. (John 14:15-19, 25-26)

So, who is the Helper Jesus promised to his followers?  He was promised, he is a person, and he is the Christian’s saving of power. 

The Holy Spirit was Promised

Jesus’ promise of the Helper was not the first time the Holy Spirit was promised.  Jesus’ statement just before he promised that a Helper would be sent to His followers served to remind his disciples of the history of Israelites.  Jesus said, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.”  The two things Israel failed to do time and time again was to love God and keep his commandments.

Throughout the Old Testament, God promised a day when he would do a new work within and among His people.  After Moses led Israel out of the bondage of slavery from Egypt, God spoke to the nation through Moses: “Now therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession among all peoples, for all the earth is mine; and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation” (Exod. 19:5-6).  Israel’s answer was in the affirmative: “All that the LORD has spoken we will do” (v. 8).  However, time and time again they proved that all that the LORD had commanded they, with great regularity, did not do.  Their problem was they could not live up to their commitment to obey God, because their problem was the same problem as ours: the human heart is wicked (Jer. 17:9).  We have a spiritual heart problem.

We have a h

Hebrews 1:1-5

I want to fill your head with some random facts that I learned this week, and I will leave the fact checking up to you:

Some cats are allergic to humans.The apple pie is not really American.The national animal of Scotland is… the Unicorn.The 100 folds in a chef’s hat represent 100 ways to cook an egg.The largest known living organism is an aspen grove in Utah.Facebook has more users (2.89 monthly) than the total population of China (1.4 billion) or India (1.3 billion)The odds of getting a royal flush are exactly 1 in 649,740.Four times more people speak English as a second language than as a native language.There is an Australian bird (The Lyrebird) that has the ability of mimicking almost any sound including car alarms, camera shutters, and even the sound of a chainsaw. There is a world record for the most world records held at a time.The largest sandcastle in the world measured 54 feet high.Chocolate is a fruit… in the sense that cocoa powder comes from the fruit of the cacao tree (which is really a bean).Baby elephants suck their trunks for comfort.Roller coasters were invented to distract Americans from sin.People used to say “prunes” instead of saying “cheese” while having their picture taken.It is impossible to hum a melody while holding your nose.

In some ways, we treat our relationship with God in the same way we treat some of the things we learn.  We receive it, decide whether or not we want to remember it, and then file it for a time we might want to use it during our lifetime.  I think we treat the Gospel of Jesus Christ this way in the same way that we believe the message of the gospel saves us, in the sense that it initiates us into the Christian faith.  However, in order to grow as a Christian, we must move beyond the gospel to continue to grow as a Christian.  I believe Hebrews 1:1-5 shows us, in the words of Dane Ortlund: “The gospel is not a hotel to pass through but a home to live in. Not a gateway into the Christian life but the pathway of the Christian life.  Not jumper cables to get the Christian life started but an engine to keep the Christian life going.”[1]

The book of Hebrews does not begin with its statement about Jesus as a refresher, but a statement that sets the tone for every proceeding verse.  The epistle was written to encourage suffering Christians that Jesus is worth the losses they suffered resultant of their faith.  The first five verses serve to show its readers that unlike the gods that other people worship, our God speaks to his people and that Jesus is the best and most complete way he communicated himself to the world.

Last week I began this sermon series by telling you that generosity is a character trait of God that he does not need to improve upon.  His generosity is as complete as his love, his grace, his mercy, his justice, his power, his wisdom, and his holiness are complete.  I said last week that his generosity is limitless as is his worth.  I also said that our worship of him is not something we do because he needs something from us, but that we acknowledge his worth by coming to him with empty hands that only he can fill and empty hearts that only he can fill.  I concluded our time last week by telling you that God created you for the purposing of loving you, and the way he has made that love possible is giving his Son for the forgiveness of your sins and your reconciliation to him.

God Has Spoken to Us

According to the author of Hebrews, God has gone out of his way to make himself known to humans.  How has he made himself known to humans?  “Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke… by the prophets” (v. 1).  The assumption made by the author is that his readers did not need proof that God exists, but what they did need was to be reminded that he is not indifferent, distant, or emotionally unattached from his creation.  He is a God who, out of his generosity, has invited all to know him. 

There is no explanation for the origin of

Genesis 1:1; Psalm 100

Who is God?  There are well over two thousand recognized deities that have been or still are worshiped today.  The quest for that answer is not just an important question, it is the most important question anyone could ever ask.  A. W. Tozer said it well when he wrote, “What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.  The history of mankind will probably show that no people has ever risen above its religion, and man’s spiritual history will positively demonstrate that no religion has ever been greater than its idea of God.”[1]  So what I thought we could do as we get started this morning is to take a look at four of the world’s deities.

If you are the gassy type, you might want to worship the deity Crepitus who is the god of flatulence.  If you are the type who likes to sleep all the time, then Morpheus is the god for you, for he sleeps in a cave surrounded by poppy flowers and is the god of dreams.  And for those beer drinkers out there, there is Silenus, the god of beer, buddies, and drinking; he is described as being fat, bald, hairy, and drunk.

The last god that gave me a laugh is a god who goes by the name Bumba, an African creator god of vomit.  I found out about Bumba on the website: www.godchecker.com, and I think the best way to describe Bumba is let godchecker.com do it for me:

In the beginning, all was dark.  Then out of the darkness came BUMBA, a giant pale-skinned figure.  He was not feeling well.  In fact, he had not been feeling well for millions of years.  He was lonely, and the unbearable solitude was making him ill.

Troubled by a ballooning bellyache, he staggered, moaned and vomited up the Sun.  Light burst forth into the Universe – and he coughed up the Moon.  The stars came next and then, with a tremendous effort, he threw up the planet Earth.  This nauseating display was brought to a triumphant conclusion when, as an encore, he vomited forth nine animals, an assortment of humans, and a pile of diced carrots.

Exhausted from his labors, he sat and watched as the nine creatures multiplied.  After a while, they had evolved into every living thing on Earth…. Then BUMBA’s three sons appeared.  NYONYE-NGANA, CHONGANDA, and CHEDI-BUMBA added the finishing touches and thus the world was made.  BUMBA spoke kindly to his human creations before ascending to Heaven, never to be seen again.  So far as we know, his stomach has never troubled him since.

Now I share all of this in good fun, but the reality is that there are hundreds of religions out there with thousands of gods representing them.  The majority of people in the world believe that there is at least one god, and they also understand and see that there is a creator who is responsible for all we see in the universe.  Just by looking around, one can see the evidence of design and not random chance. 

God Gave the Gift of Creation (Gen. 1:1)

God didn’t vomit up the earth and then leave us humans to fend for ourselves; He created everything with design and intent.  We learn from Genesis 1:1, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.”  And God did it all in six days.  How did God create the universe?  He commanded it to come into existence and it obeyed:

“By the word of the LORD the heavens were made, and by the breath of his mouth all their host.” (Psalm 33:6)

“Let all the earth fear the LORD; let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of Him!  For he spoke, and it came to be; he commanded, and it stood firm.” (Psalm 33:8-9)

“Praise the LORD… For he commanded and they were created.” (Psalm 148:1, 5b)

Our solar system is one of many solar systems in our galaxy, which is about 100,000 light years in diameter; if you are not sure how big that is, it is the equivalent of about 587,000 trillion miles.  Our sun is 332,776 times the size of our earth, and our sun is roughly one star among 200 billion in our galaxy.  Our galaxy is very, very big; ou

James 4:1-3

Good morning saints! Good morning sinners!

So – Has anyone here ever been angry?

Really? I didn’t think Christians got angry.

Remember the TV series The Incredible Hulk? It ran from 1978 until 1982 and starred Bill Bixby as David Banner, and Lou Ferrigno as The Hulk. Most of the time Dr Banner was a nice guy. But when someone got in his face – and it seemed to happen every week – he would utter those famous words, “Don’t make me angry. You wouldn’t like me when I’m angry.” But if the person ignored this warning and made him angry – which also seemed to happen every week – Banner would transform into a big, green, angry monster called the Incredible Hulk, and destroy things.

Have you have ever been so angry at someone that, if you could get away with it, you would transform into the Hulk and settle things?

Oh, wait a sec, I forgot who my audience is. We are all good church folks. None of us has ever felt that way — have we?

Oh, we have, haven’t we! Truth is, we have all been angry.

Sometimes anger can be irritation. It really doesn’t bother us that much, and it quickly disappears, is forgotten, and we go on. When I get angry, I can mutter under my breath in the moment and make noise when I get alone. I can wallow in it for hours, or even weeks. But when some people get angry, they become like the Hulk. They literally lose control of their thinking, their words, and their actions. They destroy things, like relationships. To destroy a relationship in anger is probably the worst, yet it happens way too often.

This all raises an important question, even if we don’t get Hulk-angry:  what purpose does our anger serve? Broadly speaking, don’t we tend to think that, besides making us feel better, expressing our anger will make the other person feel bad, see the error of their way for not agreeing with us, and come over to our side. Sound about right? But does it ever do that? Think about it – when someone got angry at you did you ever think, “Oh silly me, I am so happy they got angry and showed me the error of my ways so I might repent and follow them!” Nope. You’ve never done that.

I think we live in a culture in which more people become Hulks more often. Pick a topic and you can find stories and videos of people getting angry and then getting into fights. And it seems to me at least that more and more of those conflicts involve weapons of some kind. The use of guns doesn’t surprise us anymore. People use vehicles. Early last month a guy in Norway used a bow and arrow to kill 5 people. Parents fight with, and even kill, each other and referees over a bad call at elementary age sporting events.

Today blacks are angry with whites; republicans are angry with democrats; women are angry with men; police are angry with the crowd; straight with gay; rich with poor; pro-masker/pro-vaxers with anti-masker anti-vaxers. It’s Sunday, and I guarantee you, this afternoon football players and fans will get angry with each other. On a related note, if you are coming here this afternoon to watch the Eagles vs Broncos game, you better not get angry!

And perhaps the worst part is, it’s not just people “out there,” in the world, who are getting angry and fighting. It’s us, in the church, too.

I read about a fight in a Memphis, TN church that broke out between two women during a Sunday morning communion service. Police had to be called, and when they arrived, they had to forcibly separate the women.

In one church I served as pastor, the kid’s Sunday school leaders repainted the white classroom walls with bright, colorful paint. Shortly thereafter I got a visit from a woman who had nothing to do with Kid’s Ministry but who was very angry that they repainted the walls. She stayed angry at me for years over that.

Church people get angry over what kind of filing cabinet to buy, what kind of coffee to serve, even which photo of Jesus to put in the foyer. And worse.

About 25 years ago I attended a conf

Psalm 23

Edward Sheeran is one of the world’s best-selling music artists of our time with more than 150 million records sold worldwide.  He has a total of 43 singles and five albums he has recorded and two of those albums are in the list of the best-selling albums in UK chart history. 

As a child, Sheeran sang at a local church choir, learned how to play guitar at eleven, and started writing his own songs while in high school.  In 2004, his classmates voted him “most likely to be famous.”  They were right.  In 2008, Sheeran moved to London where he played in small venues.  Through videos he posted on YouTube he accumulated a large fanbase and caught the attention of Elton John.  In 2010, he released his first EP and by 2011 reached number two in the iTunes chart with little help from anyone but his own natural talent.  Since then, Sheeran received four Grammy Awards, five Brit Awards, six Billboard Music Awards, and the Ivor Novello Award for Songwriter of the Year in 2018. 

One of the men who is credited with Ed Sheeran’s rise to stardom is Michael Gudinski, who was a highly respected and influential Australian record executive and promoter. Gudinski was a longtime friend and father figure to Sheeran; on March 2, 2021, Gudinski died during his sleep at his home in Melbourne at the age of 68.  His autopsy report revealed cocaine, oxycodone, and morphine in his system at the time of his death. On March 24th, a memorial service (concert) was held in Gudinski’s honor.  It was the wish of Gudinski that Sheeran play at his memorial service.

Because he had to travel from Britain to Australia to participate in his mentor’s memorial service, Sheeran was required to quarantine for two weeks upon entry into the country.  It was while in quarantine that he wrote “Visiting Hours.”  There is a line in Sheeran’s heartfelt song that echoes what many believe about the afterlife:

I wish that Heaven had visiting hoursAnd I would ask them if I could take you homeBut I know what they’d say, that it’s for the bestSo I will live life the way you taught meAnd make it on my own

I will close the door, but I will open up my heartAnd everyone I love will know exactly who you are‘Cause this is not goodbye, it is just ’til we meet againSo much has changed since you’ve been away.

In a study done by Barna, most Americans expect to go to heaven after death and about 5% expect to come back in another life form and another 5% believe that there is no life after death.  Of the many funerals I have done, it has been my experience that most people assume that a person’s suffering ceases to exist after death and that they will look for the slightest bit of evidence of faith in the life of the loved one who has died.  What most people clearly understand is that there are no visiting hours in heaven. 

Psalm 23 is not only the most familiar chapters in all of the Bible, and is often heard in a funeral or at the bedside of the sick.  But how many have thought about the words it contains?  David begins with a description of who God is, he then shifts to focus on him as a person: “He makes…. He leads…. He restores…. David then addresses God more intimately in the second person: “You prepare a table before me…”, “You anoint my head…”.  This Psalm, like all of the Psalms, teach us something about God and what it means to belong to him. 

Who The Shepherd Is

David begins: “The LORD is my shepherd…”. The first time we encounter LORD (Yahweh) in the Bible is in Exodus 3 when Moses encountered God in the burning bush that did not burn (see Exod. 3:1ff.).  God called out to Moses from the burning bush and when Moses responded, he was told: “Do not come near; take your sandals off your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground” (v. 5).  Then God said to Moses, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob” (v. 6).  Moses did not come looking for God, God sought out Moses.

After Moses a

Psalm 112

Jordan Davis was born in Shreveport, Louisiana on March 30, 1988.  He grew up attending church at an early age where his mom played piano in a Southern Baptist church.  In one interview he said that he grew up attending church at least three times a week, twice on Sundays and once on Wednesday nights.  His EP, released in 2020, includes a song titled “Church in a Chevy”, a song about Jordan’s faith and how God is not only found in church buildings.[1] He said of his faith, God “wants a relationship with all of us, but sometimes we don’t wanna hear it. For me, the way that I get to listen is getting by myself and getting quiet and really working on hearing what he’s got to say. That’s when I feel like I’m most in-tune with the good Lord.”[2] 

About one year after the release of his EP, Davis released his song, Buy Dirt.  Davis describes the songs on his Buy Dirt EP as a ‘returning to his roots’ as a song writer and musician.  He said that he would not have been able to develop his latest album, “without the re-shifting of priorities he experienced over the course of the last couple of years, due to pandemic shutdowns as well as becoming a new father.”  He further explained why he wrote Buy Dirt, “I’m in a different spot in my life than I was when I released Home State. We all are!  2020 was a tough time for everyone. I was able to use that time to re-center some things in my world, and I didn’t want those lessons to go to waste. I wanted to create something special. The best way to that was to write honestly, and we did a lot of that on this record.”[3]  Since its release this summer, Davis’ “Buy Dirt” music video has had nearly 4 million views, his song has peaked at #4 on Billboard Hot Country Songs, and it is currently #34 on Billboard Hot 100 and climbing. 

Davis, during an appearance on Today’s Country Radio with Kelleigh Bannen on Apple Music Country, said of his song: “’Buy Dirt’ to me is about faith, family and friends, and really finding your happiness.”  The song is the advice of an 80-year-old person who imparts his wisdom on what really matters in life:

Find the one you can’t live withoutGet a ring, let your knee hit the groundDo what you love but call it workAnd throw a little money in the plate at churchSend your prayers up and your roots down deepAdd a few limbs to your family treeAnd watch their pencil marksAnd the grass in the yard all grow up

‘Cause the truth about it isIt all goes by real quickYou can’t buy happinessBut you can buy dirt

Before you get caught on that ladderLet me tell you what it’s all aboutFind you a few things that matterThat you can put a fence around

So, what really matters in life?  What is life really about?  Jordan Davis’ song isn’t bad, but don’t you think that there is more than family and your individual faith?  I think that Davis’ song is a good picture of American Christianity.  When I listened to the song for the first time, what I would say to Davis is, “Yea, but… there is more.”  For me, Psalm 112 fills in the blanks that Davis’ “Buy Dirt” leaves empty. 

The Promise of the Righteous (v. 1)

The Psalm begins with a promise not all that dissimilar to the promises Jesus made in his Sermon on the Mount: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.  Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth” (Matt. 5:2-5).  We know these blessings Jesus made as Beatitudes.  A beatitude is a blessing that also serves as promise.  Psalm 112:1 is a beatitude and the verses that follow show how fearing the LORD and delighting in his commandments are a blessing.   

For the Psalmist, a fear of Yahweh and a delighting in his word is what matters in life.  The rest of the Psalm is a description of what the righteous person looks like who fears God and is satisfied in his Word.  Essentially verses 2-9 is everything that the wicked is not (v. 10).  Psalm 112 picks up where the

Psalm 16

Ryan Tedder, the front man and co-founder of OneRepublic, is the genius behind most of the band’s success.  Tedder was raised by extended family that consisted of missionaries and pastors, and it is through his upbringing in the church that his musical roots can be traced; in fact, one of the songs released on a previous album is about his grandfather titled, “Preacher.” 

Having learned to play piano at just three years old, his love for music only grew and developed throughout his life.  Tedder once admitted in an interview that he would sing at least two hours a day and enjoyed imitating his favorite artists, such as The Beatles, Peter Gabriel, Stevie Wonder, and Sting.  While growing up, Tedder honed his musical talents by performing in church, school, and with various bands.  Needless to say, music was a very important part of Ryan Tedder’s life.

Tedder moved to Colorado Springs in his senior year where he attended Colorado Springs Christian School.  It was there Tedder met his future band mate, Zach Fillkins, on the soccer team they played on together.  After he graduated from High School, Tedder attended Oral Roberts University in Oklahoma where he graduated with a Bachelor in Science in Public Relations and Advertising. 

When interviewed by the Houston Chronicle in 2008, Tedder was asked, “You were raised by an extended family of missionaries and pastors.  Has that played into your music?”  To which Tedder replied:

I got offered a Christian record deal.  I’m Christian, I grew up in church.  But I’m not going to tour churches.  I was raised in Oklahoma.  Tulsa’s like the buckle of the Bible Belt.  I grew up in that environment.  I was in Nashville for two years, (and) I quickly became friends with probably half a dozen of some of the biggest Christian recording artists.  Every single one of them was absolutely miserable with the fact that they were “Christian” recording artists.  I saw some stuff in Nashville that turned my stomach.  Some of the most pretentious, insecure people I ever met were Christian recording artists.”

Tedder is not afraid nor ashamed of his Christian roots, but he has made it very clear that although he is a Christian, he is not a Christian artist. 

Throughout his career, Tedder has produced and written music for other artists.  However, it wasn’t until 2007 that Onerepublic debuted their first official album, Dreaming Out Loud.  The album received mixed to mediocre reviews. However, when Timbaland (an American record producer, songwriter, and rapper) was given permission to remix one of the songs on Onerepublic’s Dreaming Out Loud album, “Apologize,” it became a smash hit. This launched Tedder and his band to become a global phenomenon.  The remixed version of “Apologize” peaked number one globally, remained on the Billboard Top 100 for eight consecutive weeks, sold over 5 million copies, and was the #1 song in sixteen countries.

Since then, the band has released three other studio albums, have been nominated for all kinds of awards for their music, and their music video “Run” has had over 19 million views since it debuted on May 1, 2021.  In an interview with the UK newspaper The Sun, Tedder said that he wrote “Run” after the news of COVID started to scare him, yet he desired to not become paralyzed by bad news.  Tedder’s advice to his fans is this: “Chase whatever it is you want because life goes quick.  I’m constantly doing things that scare me and chasing new experiences and goals.  In that chase, I’m having fun because I’m living.”  One of the stanzas in the song is the heart of Tedder’s message to his fans:

They tell you that the sky might fallThey’ll say that you might lose it allSo I run until I hit that wallYeah, I learned my lesson, count my blessingsLook to the rising sun and run, run, run

On one level, I agree with Tedder that we can’t allow what scares us to paralyze us into despondency and immobility.  Everything about us is made to experience l

Psalm 87

Janelle Monáe was born in Kansas City, Kansas on December 1, 1985.  She grew up in the Baptist church where her family also performed as musicians; it was in the church that Monáe learned to sing.  Her mother worked as a janitor and motel maid while her father was a truck driver.  When Monáe was only five, her parents divorced and sometime later, her mother remarried a postal worker.  Monáe has released 3 albums, 20 singles, and 18 music videos to-date.

Not only is Monáe a gifted singer, but she is also a very good actress.  In 2016, she made her theatrical debuted in two high-profile productions in the academy award winning movie, Moonlight (Best Picture) and in Hidden Figures, where she stared as the aerospace engineer, Mary Jackson.  Monáe has received 8 Grammy Awards, she received the Billboard Women in Music Rising Star Award in 2015, and the Trailblazer of the Year Award in 2018. In 2013, Monáe was honored by the Boston City Council with the naming of October 16, 2013, as “Janelle Monáe Day” in recognition of her artistry and social leadership. 

Sometime last year, Monáe was asked to write the theme song for the critically acclaimed documentary, All In: The Fight for Democracy, which examines “the history of voter suppression and the activists who fight for the rights of U.S. citizens.”  It is worth noting that the documentary (which can be seen on Amazon Prime) received 100% positive reviews on Rottentomatoes.com.  Monáe was in a writing funk because of the emotional and mental toll the pandemic was having on her, but after one of the producers showed her a rough cut of the documentary, she wrote “Turntables.” 

After Monáe watched the film she said that she reflected on something said in the film by Stacey Abrams regarding voter suppression: “I’m not optimistic nor pessimistic.  I’m determined.”[1]  As she began to think about how hope and rage without action is useless, she concluded that “there is no solution to our nation’s problems if people do not act and do whatever they can to help amplify the truth.”  In her interview with Variety about her song, Monáe explained what she meant by her lyrics:

when I said, “America, you a lie”… this is important, because when I was writing that lyric, I was not excited about saying it, but it was also a cathartic experience. I think that we have to remember that truth is at the center of any healing and any reconciliation. We can’t heal or reconcile without the truth. And the truth is that America has not held up to its promise. The folks who were in or have been in the position of power have not taken care of the people that it promised to take care of. And because America is a place that I call home, a place that I’m proud of, a place that my ancestors helped build, it’s hard to call America a lie. But the reality is that there are people who are treated unjustly, and I don’t need to go down the list of what those people look like or where those people come from. We see it; we know it.[2]

The song’s release in 2020 came in the midst of a pandemic that we still find ourselves in and the prominence and rise of both the Black Lives Matter movement and the organization.  It also was released when Critical Race Theory was a national conversation.  For many, the lines from Monáe’s song resonates: “Hands dirty, mind clean, A different vision, with a new dream.”  What dream is she referring too?  I think it is the dream Martin Luther King talked about in his “I Have a Dream” speech.  In his speech, King said something that many, like Monáe, still feel is true:

“When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men – yes, black men as well as white men – would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

It is obvious today that America h

The post The Kinsmen Redeemer appeared first on Meadowbrooke Church.

Brokenness in Christ

The post Men’s Breakfast Sermon appeared first on Meadowbrooke Church.