Sojourn PDX

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Exodus 17: 1-7. As the Summer rush began to wane, and the next season of study grew closer, Sojourn Church took a month-long pause of operation to consider what godly rest looks like. We even took a week off to actively practice the idea of godly rest and made space for a local concert that some local church’s had organized for the community. This sermon comes as part one of two teachings given during this pause.

Exodus 17 might not come to mind at first when initially considering places of great rest in the Bible. By this point the people of Israel are all but totally stranded in the desert and on the verge of insurrection against Moses and the God who dragged them out of their comfy homes in Egypt. The people were so turned off from the environment around them that they failed to put their trust — that is, their rest — in the God who had broken them out of slavery to bring them into His promised land with him. This passage, then, serves as a potent object lesson in trusting the Lord for the provision we need, in order to fully rest in our lives.

Luke 24:13-35. In a brilliant logical proof for the evidence of Jesus’ Resurrection from the dead, Paul writes to the church in Corinth (1 Cor. 15) that Jesus showed himself alive to several people, to as many as 500 at one time! While most of these interactions were not recorded into writing, some of them were, and they are all as exciting as they are amazing. One of these recorded instances can be found near the end of Luke’s Gospel account and in fact concludes his motif of Jesus’s food-oriented ministry. As such, it seemed only right to conclude our tour of the Gospel with this story of Jesus seated at the Table. 

Personally, it’s one of my favorite stories of Jesus. 

Join us as we finish our series on Table-centered Evangelism and enjoy the shock of Jesus’ disciples meeting their Living Lord for the first time!

Luke 22:7-20, 24-30. Before the Resurrection, Jesus’ ministry was marked by a distinct way that he would take something his audience thought they knew well enough and frame it in such a way that exposed just how little they actually understood about it. Even the things many Jews held close to their identity as God’s Chosen people, he would take and throw upside-down; Passover was no exception to this upheaval, as the Disciples found out only a few hours before Jesus’ arrest and murder at the hands of the Pharisees.

Join us as we discover with them that to Jesus this meal was not simply a reminder of God’s first redemption from the Egyptians but actually a symbol and predictor of their final redemption from Sin and Death

Luke 11:37-52. Have you ever been in a social setting and realized you had been set up? Maybe that person your friends had been trying to get you to date was “coincidentally” there too, or you mention a certain topic only to realize someone there had been waiting for you to bring it up. Our seventh week exploring dinner scenes of Luke’s Gospel—Luke’s primary way of displaying Jesus’ approach to evangelism—brings us to exactly that kind of setting, where Jesus once again springs one of the religious elite’s traps only to turn the tables on them.

One disclaimer here: Jesus’ attitude in the majority of this text can come off to a casual reader as unexpectedly confrontational, or even rude. It’s important to remember here that Luke’s goal in presenting Jesus throughout his Gospel is to show him as someone who comforts the vulnerable and holds those to blame for injustice responsible for their actions.

So, join us as we watch Jesus confront those he holds responsible for the suffering of those he loves.

Luke 10:1-42. Our sixth stop in the gospel according to Luke brought us to the moment Jesus instructs his disciples on how to spread the news of God’s Kingdom and his ministry on Earth. But that’s not the only image of service to God this section of Luke’s Gospel has to offer; instead, we’re given two others as well to complete the picture. Join us as we learn what it means to be an ambassador, a neighbor, and a worshipper as we gather together around the King’s Table.

Luke 9:7-20. As Jesus’ ministry continued to gain the attention of those around him, one crucial question came up: Who is this guy? Everyone had their own spin and interpretation of what they thought was going on, but no one really knew for sure. No one except the Disciples, that is, and to illustrate how they knew who Jesus really was, Luke poses the question on either side of one story: a story of a great feast.

Luke 7:36-50. As we continue our tour through Luke’s Gospel account, we find ourselves at yet another dinner scene. Instead of Jesus eating with the rejected and unclean of Jewish society, however, this time Jesus’s host is a Pharisee. Oddly enough, a prostitute crashing the party and throwing herself at Jesus was only the second most controversial thing that happened that night. Join us as we learn about Jesus’s take on faith, forgiveness, and his power over the sins of the world.

Luke 5:27-32. It’s easy to look down at the Pharisees in the Bible; they’re shown in a pretty poor light, after all. But what if they were the only ones acting rationally, according to their way of living, and Jesus was some strangely popular rebel who needed to be dealt with before things got out of control? Take Levi, for instance. He claimed the parts of being a Jew that benefitted him, but besides that he was a walking betrayal of God’s chosen people! Ritually unclean, hasn’t been to Synagogue in years, morally disgusting—this guy was as far up the organized crime ladder that Roman authorities would let a Jew get, and he had done whatever it’d taken to get there. But Jesus doesn’t seem to mind. He doesn’t do anything like how upstanding citizens should act towards people like that—he invites him to dinner. More than that, he invites him to be one of his disciples and tells him to get as many of his mobster friends together for a party to celebrate it! The Pharisees are angry, to put it politely. Who wouldn’t be?