New Life Downtown

In wrestling with the prospect of losing our faith, we are sometimes given the mercy of realizing that the faith isn't ours to lose; it is the Church's, and though we participate in it, we do not possess it. There are practices that have been handed down to us to keep us tethered to the Great Story of God's redemption in Christ. In this first week of the series on these practices, Pastor Glenn Packiam talks about the Holy Spirit, the One who works through these practices to carry on the mission of Christ, to form us as the Body of Christ, and to empower our witness of Christ. May we let go of control, banish the lie that we are alone, and pray from deep within, "Come, Holy Spirit."

In this final sermon of our series on relationships in the household of faith, Pastor Glenn Packiam discusses what it means to honor our elders and learn from the accumulated wisdom of our community. In the second half of the sermon, he interviews Clay and Sally Clarkson-- trusted teachers on family ministry who have taught and inspired the Packiams in their parenting-- on how to nurture and disciple your children. In the end, the foundation of right relationships with our elders and our children is the Gospel itself.

Don't be fooled by these easy-sounding titles; they are meant to be taken in a "tongue-in-cheek" sort of way. After all, as Pastor Glenn Packiam points out this week, the Bible's ideals about marriage are held in tension with its narratives of strained and broken marriages. The beautiful truth is that God meets us where we are, bring beauty out of our brokenness. We explore what it means to say that marriage is about becoming one, forgiving one another, and allowing Jesus to be the center. The whole sermon is brought to a powerful conclusion with a remarkable testimony of restoration-in-progress from a young couple in our congregation. What we find in the end is not a rosy picture of marriage, but a hopeful one because of the grace of God.

Pastor Glenn Packiam continues the series about all the relationships that matter most with a sermon on finding a good spouse. Drawing from the Old Testament Wisdom Literature tradition and the idealized stories of finding a spouse at the water well, Glenn helps us understand what it means to trust the Lord, take a step, and eventually make the leap of commitment. Yet, things aren't that simple. What if we are far from an ideal "find"? What if life has left us disappointed and rejected, feeling used up and unloved? We long to be known and loved. Yet too often, the more we are known, the less we are loved. Jesus meets a woman like this at a water well. But with Jesus, we can be fully known and fully loved.

In this series about all the relationships that matter most, Pastor Glenn Packiam begins with a sermon on friendship. Drawing from the Old Testament Wisdom Literature tradition, Glenn shows how the ideal of good friendships is often in tension with the reality of our experience with friends letting us down. What does Jesus -- God's Wisdom personified!-- show us about friendship? How might we learn from Jesus and begin to treat our friendships "eucharistically"?

Brad Baker brings us a word dealing with our perception of critic, exposure, and love. The reality is that when God exposes things within our hearts and lives, even though it can be difficult and painful to look at, it is truly God's love at work. When we walk in concert with His exposure, we open ourselves to His life and His healing.

Pastor Daniel Grothe sums up the series on the Sermon on the Mount by showing us how Jesus is inviting us into a life that cannot be shaken.

How do we know who the true teachers and true disciples are? Jesus says that the mark of a true disciple is not the miracles he performs, but the obedience he lives. In this second to last week of the series, Pastor Glenn Packiam helps us see how true faith produces good fruit? Obedience to the Father. But this fruit is not the result of merely trying harder; it is the overflow of a life hidden with Christ.

[NOTE: Due to technical issues, the podcast starts about 10-minutes in, with Pastor Glenn Packiam interviewing an artist about Makoto Fujimura's "Golden Sea".]

We live in a day where "freedom" is interpreted as "life without restraints." Yet, in light of God's arriving Kingdom, Jesus calls us to follow Him along a narrow road. Far from being a description of a popular hell and a sparse heaven, the wide and narrow roads contrast a life of ease with a life of difficulty. Drawing on illustrations from art, music, and marriage, Pastor Glenn helps us see that accepting the necessary constraints for the sake of a desired outcome is something we find many areas of life. What Jesus invites us into is much more than a life of constraints, however; he bids us, "Come and die." But this "death" is itself the beginning of abundant life; it is the "wonderful exchange", where we trade our nothing-ness for His everything.

When we face someone dealing with doubt, our first response is often defend the rationality of Christianity. While there is a place for apologetics, too often we reach for these attempts at certainty because we are uncomfortable with mystery. But to believe is the ultimate humility. It refuses to allow us to stand over and above religion, but under and within it. Following Jesus is foolishness, but it is a beautiful foolishness, a mystery that we have received through the centuries and embrace now. The ritual of water baptism is a picture of this beautiful foolishness. In baptism we identify with Christ, show a visible sign of His invisible grace that has made us new, join the family of God, and make a public declaration of our personal faith.