The FIVE Sermons

Sometimes the most challenging next right step is to persevere right where we are.

This week’s ‘gift’ is the gift of perseverance. To explore this, we’ll look at the story of a couple named Zechariah and Elizabeth as told in Luke 1. Personally, Zechariah and Elizabeth are living under the grief of not being able to have children. Socially, they’re living under the brokenness of a world filled with violence, unrest and intense political turmoil. However, as challenging as their lives are, they don’t let the way things are determine who they are. Despite the personal and social turmoil swirling around them, they persevere in faith right where they are, just as they are and God honors their perseverance in big ways. You might say that perseverance creates space in our lives for God to disrupt our routines in the best sort of ways.

Sometimes faith simply means moving on and trusting God more than your past.

As we kick off the season of Advent (the period of time leading up to Christmas), we’ll be preparing our hearts for the gift of Christ by exploring a variety of gifts people gave God and us through the example of their lives. Today we’ll look at the gift of faith—modeled for us by a man named Abram. Abram was a normal guy, living a normal life ... until one day God spoke to him and set before him an invitation to do life in a new way. His response to God’s offer would have drastic implications for his family as well as the whole world. That’s the beauty (and tension!) of faith—we can never know just how far-reaching our saying yes or no to God will be.

In the third and final installment of our Lostology series, we’ll be exploring the story of the Prodigal Son as found in the last half of Luke 15. As we explore the text, it’s helpful to remind ourselves who Jesus is speaking to. While sinners and other unsavory folks have drawn near to Jesus, it is the complaints of the Pharisees that have prompted this story. Jesus’ storied response to their heckling suggests that rather than win an argument, Jesus would rather win them. His heart is for them, just as it is for the lost sinners and social stragglers who have drawn near to Him. Perhaps through this story Jesus can help them then and us today see ourselves in the grand story of God, draw near to Christ and join the party of redemption that’s breaking in through Jesus’ life, death and resurrection.

Throughout Luke 15, we’re given a varied picture of the different ways we might experience ‘lostness’. While these experiences cast a pretty wide net, they probably don’t account for every circumstance that might come our way. Through the examples of sheep, coin, and two lost brothers, a compelling picture is cast of what being lost can look like. But here’s the best news, while the sheep was distracted, the coin got dropped, the youngest son disobeyed and still the oldest son was deceived, in each of these cases, there is someone willing to chase after them. That’s what we’ll be exploring this week – the varied ways we’ve got lost upon the journey of life and more importantly, that God who chases after us anyway.

Because God can do more than we can even want or wonder, we must begin to dream dreams whose benefit and blessing reach far beyond the scope of our own lives.

For the last three weeks we’ve discussed how God is able to do far more abundantly than we can even desire or dream according to the power at work within us. God is more, not less and His power, the very power that set the universe in motion and raised Christ from the dead is presently at work within us. God not only has a vision for who we are to be, but God has placed the very power necessary for us to live these lives within our hearts through the presence of the Holy Spirit. But because this is true, because God is more not less, because God’s power is in us, because our imaginations are too small, not too big, we must begin to dream dreams for the church whose scope far exceeds our own lives. God is God and He is good “through all generations”. Long after we’re dead and gone or simply move away or leave this church, the goodness and glory of God will go on. Our hopes and dreams and visions for this community should do the same. Our faithfulness and generosity should far exceed the extent of our own lives and benefit in this community for the glory of God and the sake of the world.

The generosity of Christ has graced us with gifts to be used in and out of the church for the glory of God and the sake of the world.

After inviting us to imagine briefly the infiniteness of God, Paul reveals that from God’s unlimited resources and power, we have been gifted through the presence and power of the Holy Spirit. The gifts we are given are unique and distinctive, and are given to do the work of ministry and bring wholeness to the church. God has literally gifted us for the glory of God and the sake of the world and when the whole church lives freely from these gifts God has given, we become the kind of church God has envisioned for God’s people. This again offers us a glimpse of the infinite goodness of God – not only does God have a vision for the way church should be, God has equipped precisely for the fulfillment of this vision.

Because God can do more than we can ask or think, we are free to give humbly, patiently and lovingly.

After reminding us that God is able to do infinitely more than we can ask or think, Paul calls us to deeper, more joyful levels of faithfulness. Because God is more not less, we are to live in response to God’s infiniteness by living lives worthy of God’s great calling. Worthiness for Paul means much more than this, but it at the very least includes humility, patience and love. For this week, we’ll be exploring how humility, patience and love can inform each area of our lives, especially as it relates to our financial generosity. As men and women who trust God to save us, we also choose to believe God can supply us, sustain us and support us with our temporary treasures. Therefore as Christians, the infiniteness of God’s grace calls us to give generously and joyfully for the glory of God and the sake of the world.

God is more, not less, than any of us have probably ever stopped to really consider.

How have I limited God to what I can ask or think rather than seeing God as one who is able to do ‘infinitely more’ than my desires or dreams can even comprehend?

What does my current financial generosity say about God’s incalculable capacity?

What does how I presently use my time and talents say about God’s unbridled power?

Sometimes the question stated is not the question actually being asked. Thankfully Jesus is capable of answering what we say and what we really mean.