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NOT A ONE DAY SABBATH - from Sunday, August 25, 2019

8/26/2019

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The Sabbath is one day, right? What about the other six days? Yes, they matter as Isaiah teaches and as Jesus pushes back against token, meaningless spirituality. 

If you haven't got a solid foundation, then the rest of the structure is going to have big problems. (Okay, our own 115 year old sanctuary was built on Florida sand and has to be periodically re-balanced every few years, for example.)

Some think that you can disconnect devotional spirituality from the real world, as if such spirituality can be a thing all in itself. In fact, without real-world engagement, you end up with a token spirituality that God finds insulting. God gets ticked.

Isaiah declares God's word to God's people, comparing the still-wrecked city of Jerusalem to the state of the peoples' faithfulness (or sinfulness). Their devotions ring hollow since the society is filled with oppression, poverty, and injustice. They haven't done the work of God, but think that if they pray or fast or observe the Sabbath, then they will have fulfilled God's will. Not so, says the prophet. On the topic of the Sabbath, you can't be faithful on one day and sinful on the other six and think that God's will has been fulfilled.

Jesus is on a similar track in Luke 10. While teaching in a synagogue, Jesus spontaneously heals a crippled woman. He draws the ire of the synagogue ruler for breaking the Sabbath prohibition on labor. Jesus minces no words in reply, calling him (and his buddies) hypocrites. He calls attention to how they would act to minister to a farm animal and yet criticize him for healing a "daughter of Abraham." Ouch.

The same teaching applies to us. If we think that attending worship on Sunday, or doing our regular devotionals, while ignoring the gospel's radical calls for equity, justice, and peace all the rest of the time are somehow pleasing to God, we've missed the foundation of God's priorities. We make our puny spirituality no more than a token substitute for what God seeks from the faithful. Our faith structure lacks a solid foundation and collapses.

Get the whole story in the sermon below.

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08-25-19-ff-answers.pdf
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08-25-19-not_a_one_day_sabbath.pdf
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A TOUGH LOVE DECISION - from Sunday, August 18, 2019

8/19/2019

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Decisions about tough choices can be vexing. Add love to the context of decision-making, and that complicates things greatly. God's loving providence has expectations in Isaiah 5, and Jesus pushes his listeners to decide because the time has come - no more fence-sitting. 

Consumer choices can be overwhelming as a trip to the supermarket quickly discloses. Our biases can cloud our judgment as we seek to discern what is best. If we know our bias, we can better manage our decision-making.

God has a bias for God's people. In the metaphor of a vineyard, Isaiah 5 describes the lovingly created, perfect vineyard that God provided God's people. Yet all that the vineyard produced was bad grapes. 

What began as a love song turns into divorce court. God renders judgment, deciding that if the vineyard won't produce good grapes, then it should be destroyed and made a wasteland. What was God looking for that God did not find? Read verse 7.

Jesus has the surprising teaching about bringing fire, and bringing not peace but a sword. The mentioned "division" is more problematic than simply dividing, having the weight of "dissension," that some will be viewed as betraying the others.

Jesus tells them that if you can tell the change in weather by simple signs - as pictured above - surely you know that now is the time for decision.

Check out the sermon video below and find out the whole story.

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08-18-19-ff-answers.pdf
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08-18-19-a_tough_love_decision.pdf
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READY TO SERVE - from Sunday, August 11, 2019

8/12/2019

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For meals, "ready to serve" is great; someone else did all the work for you. For living faithfully, "ready to serve" means you need to get to work and keep at it. We look at how young Samuel and Jesus' stories about the faithful servant and the moron householder speak to us.

Young Samuel had been committed into the care of old, useless priest Eli of the Temple of Shiloh. This would hardly have seemed the right conditions to raise up one of the most outstanding, pivotal leaders. Eli's sons were known to be thoroughly corrupt, and Eli himself refused to restrain them. Still, Samuel learned through it all, made himself ready to serve, and grew into God's constant favor.

Jesus is continuing his discussion about values - remember last week was the foolish rich man. Here, the concern is about knowing the date and time of the coming of the end of the age. Jesus cites the servant who diligently remains alert, awaiting the return of his master. The servant doesn't know when the master will return and simply remains faithful to the master. Jesus gives a surprise twist to that story.

Then Jesus switches to a different scenario, from servant-awaiting-master to householder-and-the-thief. If the householder knew when the thief would come, the householder could prepare. Of course, the wise householder had already prepared - been faithful! - but the moron householder left the door open, had cash and keys on the counter, and left out a handtruck so the thief could cart off the big screen TV, the refrigerator, stove, and washer-dryer.

Get the whole story in the sermon video below and from the downloads below the video panel.

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08-11-19-ff-answers.pdf
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A WORTHY, LASTING TRUST - from Sunday, August 4, 2019

8/5/2019

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Relationships require trust. How much do the faithful trust their God? The track record isn't good. The prophet Hosea sees God and Israel in a parent-child relationship, while Jesus addresses riches and what they can do to a person.

Take away trust from a relationship and there isn't much left. In our country as well as other countries, trust has become scarce as partisan sides get drawn and neither values or trusts the other. I don't have the answer, but I know it involves building trust. In Broken relationships, that takes quite a bit of time and effort.

Israel broke its trust in relationship to God so often that God has about had enough, according to the prophet Hosea. Having used the husband-wife marital relationship as an analogy earlier, in ch. 11 Hosea is wrapping up a larger discussion of the parent-child relationship between God and Israel. It has been fraught with dire problems as Israel seeks to trust in its political schemes rather than turning to God and conducting itself faithfully.

Jesus gets asked in Luke 12 to settle am inheritance dispute. Wisely, he isn't touching that issue. But he does use it as a chance to speak about possessions as he renders the parable of the rich fool. Already rich, this man has a windfall harvest and wonders what to do. Rather than think of anyone but himself, and trusting that his now-mammoth will deliver him to easy street - as pictured above -  something else is in coming for him.

Watch the sermon video below to discover what the English translation smooths over in vs. 20, but which rendered accurately in Greek gives a whole new meaning to the parable. Wow!

08-04-19-sermon.mp3
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08-04-19-ff-answers.pdf
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08-04-19-a_worthy_lasting_trust.pdf
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