Sermons from Second

These are a few of our favorite SINS: Pride & Humility (Lent 5)

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Friends, even more important than the kindest thing you’veever done is knowing Christ. 

More important that coming to church every Sunday,giving to the food pantry, helping out at the Easter egg hunt; more importantthan everything else you might do with your time is to know Christ and thepower of his resurrection—to know and to understand and to believe in yourheart that Jesus died for you. Before you were even born, Jesus died for you.Before you even knew what a sin was, Jesus died for yours. 

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I know you know this. But sometimes we forget.

We forget and sometimes we do good things and good works forthe wrong reasons—to impress others or to bring glory to ourselves or … maybeeven because we think God will love us more if we do more good things. 

And that’s when all those good things become like garbage.Worthless, because really they’re done for US instead of for God.

03.06.16 These are a few of our favorite SINS: Jealousy & Contentment (Lent 4)

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In a world that tries to tell us that we need more and moreand more, Paul says that Jesus is enough. If we have Jesus, we don’t needanything else.

Paulis strong enough to be content when facing any situation because of the One whogives him strength, NOT because of his own strength. Contentment comes from the assurance of knowing and trusting the God who created you andforgave you and continues to love you even on the ugly days of jealousy andenvy.

These are a few of our favorite SINS: Complaining & Gratitude (Lent 3)

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Instrumental complaining … THAT we can handle, when used appropriately, like complaining to your doctor about symptoms. Even the second kind of complaining--expressive complaining--is OK when it actually achieves the purpose of releasing the negative emotion that is building up inside of us.

The problem … the problem is when we grumble and complain and grumble and complain and never feel the release of emotion. In that case, we must be looking for something else. Something deeper.

What are we really looking for when we complain? We want to connect with someone else, to be heard by someone else, to be UNDERSTOOD by someone else.

That’s why we start out so many of our conversations with complaints --because when we complain, others respond to us. They sympathize with us. We connect with others through our complaining.

But if we never learn to move on from the complaining, we get stuck there. If we never learn another way to connect with others, eventually people will tune us out or change the subject, or even worse, avoid us altogether. 

These are a few of our favorite SINS: Shame & Belovedness (Lent 1)

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Once you believe that Jesus is Lord, it doesn’t matter who you are; it doesn’t matter what you’ve done; it doesn’t matter what has been done to you. 

Nothing about who you were matters anymore; through grace alone, when you believe that Jesus is Lord, you are claimed by God in the waters of your baptism. Through the power of the Holy Spirit, God forgives you. And he calls you his own. 

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As a new creation, God doesn’t hold your sin against you any longer … so why are you still holding your own sin against yourself?

Mini-sermon on the Transfiguration

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But let’s think about transfiguration in another way: of all the people in this story, who is really changed?

It’s not Jesus--he’s the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow. He is revealed in a new way but he doesn’t actually change. Really, it’s the disciples who are changed; the disciples are transfigured. 

Making Room for Jesus: Clearing out the clutter of UN-FORGIVENESS

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"The Christian thinker C.S. Lewis once wrote, “To be Christian means to forgive the inexcusable in others because God has forgiven the inexcusable in you.”

You see, friends, when it comes right down to it, forgiveness doesn’t really have anything to do with the inexcusable things someone did to you; instead, it has everything to do with the God who has forgiven the inexcusable in you and who calls you and commands you to “go and do likewise.”  

Forgiveness is the antonym, the opposite, of revenge. And it is one of the fundamental characteristics of the kingdom of heaven and of God himself, who, in Jesus Christ, has already forgiven every single one of our sins on the cross. He has forgiven the inexcusable in us so we should forgive the inexcusable in others."

Making Room for Jesus: Clearing out the clutter of FEAR

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Though the disciples' response to the danger started out as fear and panic, it quickly became a response of faith and certainty and even awe. The fear that was cluttering up their hearts was suddenly erased, and it was replaced by trust in Jesus. In one afternoon they learned the truth that though life with Jesus will never be easy, he is in control of ALL the chaos around them. 

Making Room for Jesus: Clearing out the clutter of WORRY

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And Jesus’ whole point here is that because God loves you, God will provide for you. The flowers of the field “do not labor nor spin”--they don’t do a darned thing except look pretty. So pretty, in fact, they put even Solomon’s wardrobe to shame! Certainly they don’t worry about getting enough sun or too much water; they just bloom the best they can wherever they are planted.

And if this is how God generously provides for and clothes the flowers of the field, how much more faithful will he be in providing for you, his beloved child? How much more will he provide for you, the one he died for in order to save? Because God loves you, God will provide for you.

Making Room for Jesus: Taking Every Thought Captive

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In the Christmas story, the innkeeper lets Mary and Joseph stay in the stable because there was no room for them in the inn. And each one of us is like an innkeeper, and we get to decide if there’s room for Jesus in our hearts. In order to make room for Jesus, we have to take control of the clutter.

This month we’re going to talk about making more room for Jesus by taking control of the clutter in our hearts. Specifically, we’re going to talk about the clutter of WORRY and FEAR and UNFORGIVENESS, three kinds of clutter that are particularly difficult to take control of; three kinds of clutter that need discipline and strategy and support and concentration to control. But we don’t want to just control our heart-clutter--we want to conquer and ultimately DEFEAT it so that we can live to as a servant of God, not as a slave to the clutter in our hearts. 

Called to do a difficult thing: Through the Shepherd's Eyes

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The shepherds face an unknown and uncertain future; but while it was unknown to them, it was known to God. Not just known, but it was planned and orchestrated and designed for this very day and this very hour and this very moment. When they said YES to God, God was glorified.

Micah says, “And he will be their peace …”

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When they said YES to this difficult thing God asked of them, they walked away from security and safety and the future they had planned for themselves and embraced a future that was uncertain and unknown to them.

And they discovered that God does know what he’s doing; he really was their peace.