Intersections

     Destruction. That’s what awaited Jonah as he walked into the town of Nineveh. Nobody wants to be the bearer of that news! But he’d recently been through a rather traumatic event, and so there was no turning back from the task that he was told to do by God. I don’t want to get too deep into it, but how many times in the last ten-odd years have we heard that “The end of the world is coming!” The biggest of which I remember happened in 2012 because of the Mayan calendars, along with other conspiracy theories that there would be a collision of Earth with another planet, aliens arriving, and a bunch of other nonsense. But people were caught up in it! We don’t want to be the last ones at the end of the world, do we? Just because someone has personal convictions doesn’t mean that they have proof to back them up, right - I mean - there were movies made about this, and it just added to the anxieties people feel toward ancient prophecies. We’ve lived through the Y2K sca...

    Introduction      Most of you know that my background has been in the legal field. I earned my bachelor’s degree in public affairs from IPFW, including political science, philosophy, and public policy classes. One of my classes was specifically in law & philosophy. At the time, I thought I was a hot shot, wanting to discuss what my books and classes were discussing. But now - not only can I not remember it, but I’ve also learned over the years… no one cares. This is unfortunate because we have so many laws; we should figure out why they exist. Right?        The Purpose of Laws      So - in my opinion, laws are made - whether they’re religious, natural, or legislated laws - really, what we’re doing here is regulating relationships, how things relate to one another. For example, a law on the books says it’s illegal to fish with your bare hands. Not sure how that one came about, but… it’s real. You may be wondering what ki...

  Last week, I talked about how our itchy ears can get in the way of the truth of salvation and how we can be distracted in our pursuit of holiness. Paul still encourages Timothy & even us now to “carry out your ministry fully”, in verse 5. But at the start of our excerpt today, the mood has changed. Paul seems weak and very convinced that death is coming soon.   This part of the letter has become amazingly personal, almost like it’s a little awkward for us to be reading it. Should we close the door to the hospital room that they’re conversing in, to give them a bit of privacy?  Although, we’d miss the lesson Paul has for us. He is continuing where he left off last week to his final words for Timothy. As we’ve gone through this letter, we’ve talked about rekindling the gift God has presented to us, showing up in service for God, staying encouraged and faithful when it’s difficult. But now, at least for Paul, it’s the end of the journey and we are the benefactors of ...

  This morning we are celebrating Trinity Sunday - that may not mean a whole lot to each of you, but it’s a celebration of the triune nature of God - the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. In the celebration of these three - in some pastors, there’s a desire to try to explain the relationship between these, and so this might be a really quick sermon or much more than anyone bargained for today. To help out - let’s take a twenty minute meditation as I have my children come in here with blown up photos of puppies and kittens.   Ok - they’re not coming. But this is one of the most difficult concepts in the whole Bible to try to explain. And any of my words will not do it any justice, even if I was an expert on the topic, but I am not. What do you think of when you think of wisdom? Your teeth? - all four of my wisdom teeth are out. Do you think of the term “collective wisdom” - wisdom seems to be more than just one individual thing, right? Like - let’s put our brains together...

  As much as I've enjoyed the winter weather... I can't help but to look ahead to when it's a little warmer outside. I know it's a little before the season, but does anyone enjoy garage sales? I mean, it's a great way to clear out stuff from your house you've accumulated, and if you're lucky, then you can get some cash out of it to do whatever you want with, whether it's to trade it for more stuff or not!   Anyway - about five years ago, at our old house, we tried to have a garage sale. We got all our stuff around, put on a half dozen tables, labeled & priced everything to move. It was part of a whole neighborhood two-day sale; we thought - how can we not get rid of this stuff?? We opened the garage on the first morning, hoping there'd be a line down our street. There was no one. We said, maybe it's just early - the people will come later.  At the end of the first day, we had no customers. What we didn't realize is that as much as w...

  Happy New Year everyone! May our God of new beginnings refresh His mercies for you and your loved ones, and to the ends of the earth.  Well done… well done, my good and faithful one. These are lyrics from a song called “Well Done” by the Afters. I assume they are referring to the baptism of Jesus out of Luke when the sky opened, and there was a voice saying “Well done, my good and faithful servant;” to Jesus as he was baptized. We all want that greeting some day when it’s our turn at the gates of Heaven.  What does it mean to be a good and faithful servant? Is it just reading the Bible, and memorizing verses? Is it coming to church, and giving your offering every week? Yes, those help, but in addition, is to build relationships of faith. Our goal is to be disciples - to take the words of Jesus Christ to bring light to the darkness of this world. Hope is not just a catchphrase, it’s a lifestyle. As believers, we embody faith and hope to a world that just cannot und...

  Is your bunker ready yet? It seems like we should all be investing in them now. I’m not stockpiling canned goods, but maybe Jesus is on to something.  Seriously, our reading today is challenging. But let’s go back through and get some context for what’s happening. The passage read today is directly after what happened last week . Namely, Jesus was teaching at the temple with some of the scholars of his day and made an example out of a widow who gave everything she had for the Lord, even what she had to live on.  The reading today starts with Jesus leaving the temple with his disciples. The disciples are looking around because they may not travel much - it was a lot harder in those days, with the walking and all… But here they are in Jerusalem, in the big city. The buildings may look like they reach the sky, depending on what they’re used to seeing.  I like tall buildings. I don’t mind heights; it’s the falling that I don’t care for. So - I’ve been to New York a ...

  It has arrived - the final week of our series on Job. This reading seems to tie it all up, and hopeful even. But let’s take a step back for a minute. The title for the sermon today comes from verse 5, “My ears had heard of you, but now my eye has seen!” He had survived the suffering and accepted God’s power. Job had been told about all of this, as the Scripture says, but now… it was real. It wasn’t enough to hear of the grace; it needed to be experienced. On the outside looking in, Job appears to be blind. But maybe it was the darkness of his soul that we offered in our prayer earlier. If there is no light no hope, are we blind or just without resources? Blindness has several definitions. The first is the apparent lack of eyesight. But more relevant, it means unquestioning - as in loyalty without question, having no regard for rational thought (as in a blind choice), or even without all information to consider data without bias (like in science for a single- or double-blind test...

  As we’ve been alluding to for a couple of weeks now, our guy Job has finished talking with God, and this week, it’s God’s turn to respond. Now - here’s where we’ve been, as a quick recap of the story the last couple of weeks. Week 1, we learned about Job and how he was a super awesome guy, upright and genuinely faithful. He had lost nearly everything in his life: his children, his business, and his wealth, and then his health was attacked. This is part of the story that the adversary - imagine, again, a dissenter on God’s executive council, wanted to prove that even the most righteous would curse God when their life was reduced to pain and anguish.  Last week , Job talked to his friends, responding to his pain and suffering, wondering where God was in the midst, and thinking that he had been abandoned. Job asked for a meeting with the Almighty so that he could plead his case and be acquitted so that he could be released from suffering. Well - here we are in the third we...