Hold On, Coming Soon

Erik preached on Christ’s letter to the church in Philadelphia, a small but faithful congregation. He focused on Christ’s assurance to them, “I’m coming soon.”

“Soon” is a two-edged sword. On the one hand, it’s a promise: not long! But on the other hand, it’s an acknowledgement: not yet! Not long but not yet. When you tell someone “soon,” chances are you’re actually asking for patience. It’s a way of buying time If you’ve managed children, you know: “soon” is one of the most powerful tools available to you when you’ve got impatient kids. The “not yet” is easier to accept when it’s paired with “not long!” I think that’s what’s happening here. Jesus acknowledges that the Christians in Philadelphia have been “enduring patiently” all the threats and temptations of the Roman empire. But he needs them to be patient a little longer. To buy a little time, a little patience, he offers them this double-edged word: Hold on, I’m coming soon. Not long, but not yet. Be patient.

tombstone from the Church of st. john in philadelphia

The Only Program

David preached on Christ’s letter to the church of Sardis in Revelation 3. This church looked healthy, but Jesus saw that it was spiritually dead. What can churches learn about revitalization from this example?

 Our attention should always be paid to Jesus, what he said, and what he did. We should hear the word of the Lord, receive it by faith, and obey it carefully. This is the only program of revival and revitalization that God gave to us.

Deb preached on Christ’s fourth letter to Asia Minor in Revelation, finding both troubling judgments and extravagant promises. Addressing the question of how Christians can know they haven’t fallen prey to false teachings, she offered this as part of Christ’s answer:

Woven throughout this letter to Thyatira is the word “works” or “deeds.” We see it repeated four times. At the start, in verse 19, Jesus commends the church by saying “I know your deeds,” or I know your works of love and faith. When speaking of next-generation Jezebel in verse 22, he refers to “her ways” or literally “her works.” In verse 23, we read that the believers will be judged according to their “deeds,” or their works. And in verse 26, the one who “does my will” or, literally, “keeps my works” to the end will be rewarded. Deeds, or works, or acting rightly out of faith is an important indicator that our beliefs are genuine. Our works are the dashboard showing the evidence that our beliefs are sincerely held, that we take seriously the fact that we’re one of God’s people. The things we do - the choices we make every day - they matter.

Loyalty Tests

Erik preached on Christ’s letter to Pergamum. Pergamum’s Christians were faced with the question of whether or not to sacrifice to the Roman Emperor and Roman Gods. This question can seem removed from the issues modern Christians face, but Erik described these rites as fundamentally loyalty tests, not at all different from the loyalty tests Christians face regularly today.

When Christians burned incense to emperor before finishing a business deal or joined their neighbors at the temple meat markets outside, they were a pulling capital G God into the pluralistic, polytheistic pantheon of lower case g gods, where the empire could manage Him alongside all the other cultures, interests, and gods encompassed by the empire. Sacrifices tested and revealed loyalties. 

Between Creation and Recreation

David preached on Christ’s letter to Smyrna in Revelation 2. Our series on the Bible’s first and last books has emphasized themes of creation and recreation, but David called our attention to an essential element of the transition between the two: destruction.

Jesus death on the cross and his resurrection provides us with “mighty power” to live heaven on earth right now. As in the lives of Jesus and his disciples, this power is quite destructive, destroying every chain that binds us to the world and demolishing every obstacle that stops our journey to follow Jesus. Through his death and resurrection, we are renewed everyday away from the world and closer toward Jesus.                                                     

A Letter to Maladjusted Christians

Erik preached on the first of the seven letters to the churches, delivered from Jesus via John. Our Lord praises the Ephesians for refusing to get adjusted to the world of Roman imperial rule. But he follows with a rebuke, a warning, and promise. Here is part of Erik’s conclusion:

“To the one who is victorious, I will give the right to eat from the tree of life in the paradise of God.” Pointing us back to the beginning of creation is a brilliant conclusion to this sermon. The Ephesians couldn’t accept a world in which the bad guys win and evil triumphs…The danger for maladjusted Christians is wanting to be saved by God the destroyer, who will destroy everything the evil empire has put its name on, from the money to the plumbing. But by pointing us back to creation, Jesus reminds us that we are saved by God the creator. No matter how much the world around is and the people in it are marred by sin, they were created by God and loved by God. Our savior isn’t the destroyer, but the creator.”

Churches in Jesus's Hands

Our guest preacher Steve Nordbye preached on the beginning of John’s vision in Revelation. He shared this quote from Craig Keener:

John was writing to persecuted Christians, reminding them that God was bigger than their trials, and that day John’s message spoke across the centuries to our church in our trials. Our tension quickly gave way to celebration as we recognized the awesome power of our faithful Lord… Like Jesus’ triumph over death, the fact that Jesus holds the churches in his hands reassures us that in the end God’s benevolent purposes will triumph

Transcendent God

Our sermon series on beginnings and endings made the jump from Genesis to Revelation. Deb introduced this strange, difficult, and fascinating work of prophecy for us. Here is part of her overview:

John begins the account of his revelation by ensuring that we know who God is, who Jesus is, and who we are. Having this wide perspective, like a view from an airplane, will help the believers understand the message he is bringing from the Lord. It helps us remember how we fit into the grand scheme of God’s creation. While Jesus makes God tangible to us, and accessible at a human scale, we should not forget that his nature is so much bigger than anything our minds can hold. Our God is a transcendent God.

A Call is a Gift

David closed our study of creation in Genesis with a sermon on Abraham that challenged us to reconsider what it means to be called by God:

We may think that God calls a person in order to make him to do a job for God. This idea is not wrong, but there is a more important purpose of God’s calling. It is that God would do something for me, and for many others through me.  And it is the greatest blessing in our lives that God is revealed to the world through my life.

Erik preached on the tower of Babel this Sunday, where scripture establishes that humans will not be able to save themselves, repairing the relationships with God and one another that were broken in the fall. But that doesn’t mean that we should give up helping to alleviate the consequences of sin:

Is all our work in medicine, technology, education, art, and politics just self-defeating pride? No, not at all! God isn’t opposed to achievements. He’s not even opposed to giant construction projects. Remember, right before Babylon’s tower is Noah’s ark, and building a floating zoo was as much of an achievement as any city skyscraper. But the difference in instructive. The ark was built out of humility, not pride: Noah didn’t want to make a great name for himself, instead he was ridiculed by everyone for building a boat on dry land. And Noah acted in obedience to God, not disobedience: he followed God’s commands, even when they made no sense. And Noah became a servant, not a tyrant: we imagine Baylon’s rulers carrying whips, but Noah spent all those days on the water caring for the animals. The tower was built of pride, domination, and disobedience. The ark was built of humility, service, and obedience.

The Rainbow Covenant

David preached on the second half of Noah’s story. The story includes some sobering insights about our own inclinations towards sin, but it uses these insights to teach us about God’s extraordinary love and patience, which we ought to remember each time we see a rainbow in the sky.

Despite people’s stubborn heart that is like an impregnable fortress, God never gives up and he works hard to come closer to us. God’s love, wisdom, and power is nothing but all of his struggles to bear with sinners and to be together with them. Only in this God, we have hope.

A God of Second Chances

Deb preached on the famous story of Noah and the flood. Despite being a staple of children’s Bibles, this is an unsettling story about violence and judgment. Yet Deb maintained that at it’s core, it shows us God’s love for sinners.

God’s regrets expressed here are not about his own actions in creation, but in humanity’s actions. If he had wanted to really restore factory settings, he could have made a new Eden, a new Adam and a new Eve. But he didn’t do that. He found a bright spot amid a world that was all evil all the time. That bright spot was Noah and his family. Restarting things with Noah was a fallback plan to the original plan of humanity being faithful. Because humanity had chosen to go against God and become corrupt and violent, it was time to go to Plan B. He is giving humanity a second chance.

Erik preached on Cain and Abel this past Sunday. It’s a story of jealousy, anger, and murder, but more importantly, it’s a story about grace:

If Cain is confused by God, how much more must Abel. His older brother gets all the attention, but consider Abel. We remember him as the one God favored, but what did that favor get him? Killed. God’s favor gets him killed…To Cain, God was unfair. But to Abel, God was unjust. It’s hard to understand an unfair God, but much harder to understand an unjust God. Try to wrap your head around this: Cain, the murderer, is the one God truly favors in this story.

The confusion is mounting, from unfairness to injustice, but at the same time, something else is coming into focus: the thing that is so confusing about God is God’s grace.

Where are You

David preached on the consequences of the first sin in Eden, introducing his subject with the help of a Disney move and a philosopher.

There is a famous line in the animated movie Lion King. The spirit of father king Mufasa says to his son Simba: “You have forgotten who you are, so have forgotten me.” Then, the father reminds the son of who he is. “Remember who you are. You are my son and one true king.” I believe this word reveals the most fundamental problems that we humans have. We have two problems. One is that we have forgotten who we are. And this problem begets another serious problem, which is that we have forgotten God the Father…Kierkegaard said: “The greatest hazard of all, losing one’s self, can occur very quietly in the world, as if it were nothing at all. No other loss can occur so quietly; any other loss - an arm, a leg, five dollars, a wife, etc. - is sure to be noticed.” Through our lifetime, we experience various painful losses, and we work hard to recover them. However, there is the gravest loss. It is the loss of the self. And it is the loss of God.

Gullible Thieves and the Gifts of God

Erik preached on the Fall from Genesis three. This primordial passage introduces us to the true nature of sin. Here is part of his conclusion:

We are victims of a con. This is a humbling truth about humanity. In exploring the depths of human depravity, we often talk about our fundamental sin as pride (we want to be gods) or covetousness (we want to possess everything). You can see hints of all that in Genesis 3! But these are epic sins, the stuff of Homer or John Milton. In fact, the root of sin might be a bit more embarrassing. Our sin is that we are gullible. Our sin is that we are easy marks. We thought we were stealing from God, but in fact we were being conned by a snake. In every sin, we fall for a fake when God would freely give us the real thing! Real pleasure, real wisdom, real flourishing. But only if are willing to trust him and receive it as a gift, in God’s way and on God’s time.

The First Relationships

Deb preached on the creation of Eve this past Sunday. She quoted Matthew Henry, the 17th-century nonconformist minister in England: in making Eve out of Adam’s rib, she was “not made out of his head to top him, not out of his feet to be trampled upon by him, but out of his side to be equal with him.” Deb concluded with this powerful reminder about God’s desire that all of us find relationships of vulnerability and mutuality:

Just as God breathed life into the first human he created, relationships are the life breath of our community, allowing God’s spirit to flow through our life together as the people of God.

The Gospel in the Garden

David preached on the creation of the Garden of Eden. He found the basis for God’s gracious promises to all of humanity already built into the garden’s landscape itself:

According to verses 10-13, there was a river flowing from Eden, which watered the garden and separated into four headwaters. Their respective names were Pishon, Gihon, Tigris, and Euphrates. The river flowing from the Eden became the origin of the four great rivers. This means that water from the garden of Eden supplies life to the whole earth. The garden of Eden is itself the paradise, and it is also the source of life to all the lands. The fictional paradises such as Shangri-La and Utopia have the common characteristic, which is that they are totally isolated from the world, enclosed with high mountains or deep waters…But the Garden of Eden planted by God embraces the whole world and shares its blessings from God. When God gives heaven to a man, God expects that the heavenly blessings may flow to the world through the man.

The Day God Took Off

Erik preached on the seventh day of creation in Genesis 2, when God rested. He described God’s rest as the rest of “settling”—settling down and settling in—and explored what what it teaches us about creation, God, and our relation to both. Here is part of his conclusion:

We rest only by entering God’s rest. So rather trying to build a new sabbath practice, or letting go of some ambition, or giving up some pastime that disturbs your peace, my hope is simpler. It’s that once in a while, this thought occurs to you: creation is the space God made so that he might settle down with us. It’s easier to entertain this thought outside on a nice day or a clear, starry night. But you don’t need the grandeur of a natural park or even a trip out into the county. You just need to look up, look around and notice that all of this, the trees and sky, this planet, its sun, and all the 93 billion lightyears of stars: God made them all so that he might have a place to settle down with us. All that work—creation and recreation—to create a place and a people with which to settle down.

In the Beginning there was Darkness

David kicked off our new series on Creation/Recreation with a sermon the opening verses of Genesis. He connected the great cosmic work of God with the work he does in each one of us:

God is the only one who we trust and hope. It is because God created such a beautiful and perfectly harmonious world full of lives out of sheer disorder, emptiness, and darkness. In God, disorder, emptiness, and darkness are not “despair” but “hope.” It is the beginning of God’s creation work. We must always remember this.

The Birth of the Church

Erik preached on Pentecost, where the Holy Spirit descends on Jesus’s followers in Acts 2. Here is part of his conclusion:

What does the Holy Spirit do? Makes churches. The Holy Spirit gathers selfish and scattered individuals from every nation, every neighborhood, and every internet platform and unites us into one body. Holiness is a language you cannot learn or use by yourself. Sanctification is a conversation that requires everyone of us to give what we have and receive what we need. That is good news for a lonely generation, like ours. And it’s good news for sinners, like us. Apart, each one of us is unholy. But together, the Spirit is making us into the very body of Christ.