Preaching For Your Drive Home

On Trinity Sunday, we spend too much effort trying to understand the Trinity and explain the Trinity, when the Trinity is actually about experiencing the love and grace that is Godself. The unfathomable love and grace of the eternal, almighty God was poured out for the world and can be experienced personally by you in lavish richness that must be shared, that's the Trinity. Ephesians 1:3-14

The Holy Spirit comes upon us at our baptism to constantly, day in and day out, remind us who we truly are. We are children of God, saved by grace and empowered to write a story and sing a song every day in praise of Jesus Christ. Romans 8:9-17

Society wants "normal" to be without struggle, a false sense of self-sufficiency. But God uses our struggle and suffering to help us see our dependence on him - on grace. And God's grace is enough.

2 Corinthians 12:7-10

So often we don't talk about things that are uncomfortable or too powerful for us. But God loves us as whole persons and Jesus wants us to bring all of our struggles, physical, spiritual, social, and mental, into his light for healing. Luke 8:26-39

The difference between Jesus and all the other wannabe "Messiahs" is that Jesus was raised from the dead. His bodily resurrection, really a living, breathing, eating, solid new body, is the source of our hope, the most important foundation of the Good News, and the reason we can live in the ways Jesus called us to live without fear of death, but with confidence that we to will share in a resurrection like his.

1 Corinthians 15

Jesus gives us what we need to believe. John 20:19-31

Jesus was raised from the dead and that changed everything. The Good News of the new life that is possible spread one by one, from Mary to Peter and John, across the world. The new life Jesus gives us is the power to spread God's love, peace, and justice through acts of kindness and mercy, one by one.

John 20:1-18

Nevertheless, Jesus persisted in teaching, healing, and loving as the powers of the age and the changing currents of the people aligned against him. Nevertheless, the women disciples persisted, all the way to the foot of the cross. Our call is to bear each other's burdens, endure when all seems lost, persist when everything looks wrong, and witness to the truth of God's sacrificial love. Nevertheless. 

Matthew 27:55-56

You can be a hero every day when you have the courage and trust to join God's mission by simply doing unto others as you would have them do to you.

Gideon is a lot like us, not too heroic, not too bad, just a normal guy who makes some mistakes and doesn't understand why God is not helping his people. The trouble is that Jesus didn't die for "mistakers", he died for sinners. Until we realize that we are sinners, that the things we do affect our relationship with God, we are not ready to accept the grace of God. Judges 6-8