Sermons from St. George's

Sermon from The Table on 8/11/19.

It pleases God to give us the infinite gift of the kingdom. But it does not always please us to accept this gift. To accept it, we know we must make room in our hearts. W.H. Auden once wrote that “The desires of the heart are as crooked as corkscrews.” As we push deeper into our hearts, we discover that what we desire spirals back and forth between God and the things that keep us from God.

Sermon from the 10:00am service on 8/11/19. Micah Latimer-Dennis served as our 2019 summer intern.

The real failure of the Rich Foolish Farmer in all of us is that despite the big barns we have built for ourselves, despite the countless days devoted only to storing up figurative crops to secure our futures, we fail in thinking to take off our shoes, having forgotten we are always walking on holy ground, to trust the presence and provision and purposes of God in all of life.

Sermon from the 10:00am service on 8/4/19.

The only way to be free in the present is to trust God, because God is our loving parent, from whom we came and to whom we will return.

Sermon from The Table on 8/4/19 on Hosea 11:1-11.

"Prayer is a mystery; an inexplicable fact. It was John Wesley/St. Augustine who said "without God, man cannot, and without man, God cannot." Wesley also says that it appears as if God cannot intervene in human history without prayers from humans. Prayer has effects and bears marks on the one who prays. The effects of prayer are positive changes in the atmosphere, environment and human lives within the vicinity of prayer. The marks of prayer are positive changes in the character of the one who prays. They develop peace, patience, self control, love, joy, endurance and faithfulness. A simple form of prayer is 'The Lord's Prayer' - "Our Father." A simple format of prayer is the acrostic ACTS - A = Adoration of God (worship); C = Confession to God for our sins to be forgiven; T = Thanksgiving to God for his blessings; S = Supplication to God for our needs to be met."

Sermon from The Table on 07/28/19

“When Jesus taught his disciples how to approach God, he wanted them to know that despite God’s power and perfect holiness, he loves us tenderly and personally and gently.”

Sermon from the 10:00am service on 7/28/19

“You see, the problem with distractions is that we cannot cultivate a contemplative life—one established securely in Christ, like Mary—if we are not present to the world as it is right in front of us. If I am always itching to be somewhere that more nearly matches my own desires, then I simply reinforce what is going on internally, and I don’t have a relationship to what is going on externally in my immediate surroundings. Distractions play into our unsettled hearts. A restless and relentless extension of superficially new experiences actually stunts our maturation and mires us in a kind of perpetual childishness.”

Sermon from the 10:00am service on 7/21/19

God has an extraordinary purpose for us in these times: to be as the Good Samaritan to those near us, to help heal the wounds in our fractured society. More than ever, we are called to the places that we can actually influence – the people God has physically placed around us, next door and across the street, literally! – such that isolation gives way to neighborliness, loneliness gives way to friendship, and habitual absence gives way to faithful presence.

Sermon from The Table and the 10:00am service on 7/14/19.

How is it that Jesus is calling to you, “Come, follow me?” He loves you, and so surely he is calling you to come closer to him. And how is he calling you, “Go forth for me?” The world needs you – it needs the healing, the binding up, the setting free, the new life that your words and your life can bring.

Sermon from the 10:00am service on 7/7/19.

The power of God’s kingdom is so amazing, so life-transforming, Jesus is saying, “Do not let anything stand in your way of being a part of it.” Jesus is calling us to leave behind our old lives and follow him to a new life. What’s standing in your way? For this new life, what is Jesus challenging you to do – to give up – to leave behind?

Sermon from the 10:00am service on 6/30/19.