This Sunday we are going to be focusing on current events. As believers we find nourishment in the past, hope in the future, and a considerable challenge in the present.
In the Old Testament reading from Isaiah 22 God, speaking through the prophet, ridicules those behind the crumbling walls of the besieged city who "eat and drink for tomorrow they die."
In the New Testament reading from the Gospel of Matthew Jesus tells his disciples not to worry about tomorrow.
There is an apparent contradiction here and it is a contradiction that is heightened by the passage in Matthew 24 in which Jesus wraps up a catalog of terribly alarming events with the instruction to not be alarmed when they occur.
That's so like Jesus, too, isn't it? "Something terrifying is going to happen and when it does, don't be scared."
But that's the wonderful thing about being a Christian. God scorned the inhabitants of a doomed Jerusalem because they said "let's eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die." But God is pleased when the believer says "let's eat, drink (grape juice) and be merry, for tomorrow we might die, but we are alive today and will be alive two thousand years from now." The liberty in being able to say that is a liberty beyond the repression of regimes or the confiscation of tyrrants. Praise the Lord!
Call to Repentance
Matthew 7:13-14 (page 1506)
Call to Worship
Psalm 65 (page 900)
OT Reading
Isaiah 22:1-14 (page 1090)
NT Reading
Matthew 6:25-34 (page 1505)
Message
Good News for People Who Like Bad News
Matthew 24:3-14 (page 1538)
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Thursday, June 18, 2009
Readings for June 21
This Sunday we'll be considering Paul's very heartfelt appeal to the Corinthians to respond to his sacrificial and open-hearted ministry to them with the same urgency and open-heartedness.
This matter of our hearts and their relative hardness has been a recurring theme in the hymns we've been singing at North Chittenden over the past year or so. I think we talk as much as any group of earnest believers about the importance of having hearts that are soft toward God and his people.
But even so, preoccupied with the condition of our hearts or not, it is hard to know how to measure the hardness of our hearts and even harder to observe our own hearts hardening. And our hearts do harden - by sneaky slight degrees or in great cynical bounds.
A heart made soft is vulnerable and risky. A soft heart looks like a soldier on the field of battle without any armor, without any weapons.
A hard heart does not risk and is not easily wounded. A hard heart misses the pain, dismay, and injury of the soft heart, but it also misses the point. Hardening your heart to protect it is like caging a dove for its protection: to the extent that you succeed you do so at the expense of the heart's very "heartness."
Call to Repentance
John 15:1-2 (page 1676)
Call to Worship
Psalm 95 (page 933)
OT Reading
Isaiah 49:8-18 (page 1138)
NT Reading
Hebrews 3:7-19 (page 1865)
Message
The Sadness of a Hardened Heart
2 Corinthians 6:1-13 (page 1799)
This matter of our hearts and their relative hardness has been a recurring theme in the hymns we've been singing at North Chittenden over the past year or so. I think we talk as much as any group of earnest believers about the importance of having hearts that are soft toward God and his people.
But even so, preoccupied with the condition of our hearts or not, it is hard to know how to measure the hardness of our hearts and even harder to observe our own hearts hardening. And our hearts do harden - by sneaky slight degrees or in great cynical bounds.
A heart made soft is vulnerable and risky. A soft heart looks like a soldier on the field of battle without any armor, without any weapons.
A hard heart does not risk and is not easily wounded. A hard heart misses the pain, dismay, and injury of the soft heart, but it also misses the point. Hardening your heart to protect it is like caging a dove for its protection: to the extent that you succeed you do so at the expense of the heart's very "heartness."
Call to Repentance
John 15:1-2 (page 1676)
Call to Worship
Psalm 95 (page 933)
OT Reading
Isaiah 49:8-18 (page 1138)
NT Reading
Hebrews 3:7-19 (page 1865)
Message
The Sadness of a Hardened Heart
2 Corinthians 6:1-13 (page 1799)
Saturday, June 13, 2009
Readings for Sunday, June 14th
This Sunday we'll be looking at the matter of demon possession and why it was that the demons Jesus cast out were all so loud about identifying him and why it was that Jesus was always so keen on silencing them when they did.
It presents us with a strange sort of challenge. The demons who had no reason to publicly identify Jesus as the Son of God and the Messiah did so loudly.
We, who have every reason to publicly testify to Jesus' divinity and identity, fail to do so.
It will also be a morning for considering the reality and implications of demon possession, along with the remedy for that condition.
Call to Repentance
Revelation 3:19 (page 1917)
Call to Worship
Psalm 107 (page 947)
OT Reading
Proverbs 28:1-14 (page 1026)
NT Reading
Matthew 12:38-45 (page 1516)
Message
Screaming Demons and Silent Saints
Luke 4:31-41 (page 1597)
It presents us with a strange sort of challenge. The demons who had no reason to publicly identify Jesus as the Son of God and the Messiah did so loudly.
We, who have every reason to publicly testify to Jesus' divinity and identity, fail to do so.
It will also be a morning for considering the reality and implications of demon possession, along with the remedy for that condition.
Call to Repentance
Revelation 3:19 (page 1917)
Call to Worship
Psalm 107 (page 947)
OT Reading
Proverbs 28:1-14 (page 1026)
NT Reading
Matthew 12:38-45 (page 1516)
Message
Screaming Demons and Silent Saints
Luke 4:31-41 (page 1597)
Wednesday, June 03, 2009
Readings for Sunday, June 7, 2009
Having preached for the last two weeks on the Holy Spirit and His gifts, it should come as no surprise that I will be preaching this Sunday on spiritual warfare. I read the books by Frank E. Peretti as a young Christian and, while I enjoyed them at the time, they have kind of turned me off from thinking about or deliberately taking part in spiritual warfare.
But I have found that reading old hymns on the topic has been a great tonic. Spiritual warfare is not the peculiar territory of contemporary Christians of a charismatic bent. It has been the earnest endeavor of committed believers throughout the ages.
The disciple's devotion and walk are incomplete without a consideration of the war in which we are engaged.
Call to Repentance
1 Peter 2:11 (page 1888)
Call to Worship
Psalm 56 (page 893)
OT Reading
Genesis 3:13-15 (page 5)
NT Reading
1 Peter 5:1-11 (page 1892)
Message
Welcome to the War
Ephesians 6:10-13 (page 1824)
Skirmishes, iron gates, and roaring lions.
Towers, drawn lines, and proud banners.
Clashes, crossed rivers, and bloody fields.
Schemes, drawn weapons, and marching armies.
Captain, I report. I long to lift your weapons, to hold for you the place where you post me, and to march beneath your banner of love.
But I have found that reading old hymns on the topic has been a great tonic. Spiritual warfare is not the peculiar territory of contemporary Christians of a charismatic bent. It has been the earnest endeavor of committed believers throughout the ages.
The disciple's devotion and walk are incomplete without a consideration of the war in which we are engaged.
Call to Repentance
1 Peter 2:11 (page 1888)
Call to Worship
Psalm 56 (page 893)
OT Reading
Genesis 3:13-15 (page 5)
NT Reading
1 Peter 5:1-11 (page 1892)
Message
Welcome to the War
Ephesians 6:10-13 (page 1824)
Skirmishes, iron gates, and roaring lions.
Towers, drawn lines, and proud banners.
Clashes, crossed rivers, and bloody fields.
Schemes, drawn weapons, and marching armies.
Captain, I report. I long to lift your weapons, to hold for you the place where you post me, and to march beneath your banner of love.
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