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Tag Archives: 1 Kings 19

Chaos. Fear. God. Community.

09 Aug

Our scriptures are rooted in chaos and fear, which is seemingly appropriate for 2020. But, our scriptures also communicate the presence of God and community.

Elijah can be overly dramatic and apparently unaware of consequences for his actions. Elijah opposed Ahab, the Israelite King, and his Phoenician Queen, Jezebel. Elijah stood against their national institution of the worship of Baal and he defeated the prophets of Baal in a battle of “my God is better than your God”. Afterwards, Elijah had the prophets of Baal captured and he murdered them.

Jezebel was clearly not pleased and threatened his life. Thus, he fled to the wilderness. Chaos and Fear.

God promises to ‘pass before’ Elijah, in order that he may experience that intimate presence of God.

  • There was a violent wind, a traditional sign of God…
    but God was not in the breeze.
  • There was an earthquake, another traditional sign of God…
    but God was not in the trembles.
  • There was a fire burning, again a traditional sign of God…
    but God was not in the flames.

Afterwards, a deafening, unsettling, and terrifying silence fell upon that place. There was no noise from humans or critters of any size. There was no rustling of leaves in a breeze. And yet, God was present Read the rest of this entry »

 
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Posted by on August 9, 2020 in Sermons

 

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Offending the Crowd

15 Aug

We are in this series, this summer of bread, which is one long story we take piece by piece. Thus, it might be helpful to re-cap where we have been.

This morning marks the half-way point.

It begun two Sundays (God Provides) ago with the miraculous feeding of the 5,000.
Jesus was met on the shoreline by a crowd who was not just hungry for his teachings, but who were also hungry physically. The disciples pointed this out complaining they did not have the resources to feed all these people, but a boy in the crowd had 3 fish and 5 loaves of bread.  Although it was not nearly enough to feed the 5,000 people, yet after each had their fill and the bread fragments were collected it filled 12 baskets. God provides abundantly, it is our job to share that grace.

Afterwards, Jesus wants to get away from the crowd who now is seeking to make him king, in order that they might manipulate and control him to continue performing these miracles to meet their physical needs and wants. Jesus flees, but the crowd catches up with Jesus and his disciples.

Last week (The Nature of Our Quest), Jesus’ words were a little harsh. He asked the crowd if they sought him and his teachings or were simply seeking more bread, more physical food to eat. Jesus tells the crowd he is the bread, the living bread, that has come down from Heaven.

This morning, the crowd is baffled by his statements.
If we are honest with ourselves, we would have been baffled too.

At this time (and still today), the Israelites/Jews who uphold the dietary restrictions in the Torah (Teachings) would have found this particular teaching of Jesus not only unbelievable but sacrilegious.  Read the rest of this entry »

 
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Posted by on August 15, 2018 in Sermons

 

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Discipleship: Neat Box or Muddled Mess?

17 Aug

YouTube Video

Transcript:
Our texts today comes from 1 Kings 19, Galatians 5, and Luke 9.

All our texts are about discipleship whether its the call into, the challenges of, or the importance of stick with discipleship. We live in a time when people may say ‘I consider myself to be Christian and believe in Christ’, yet their lives don’t mirror the teachings of Christ. And increasingly, the world is demanding ‘don’t tell me your a Christian, but show me’. That is discipleship.

We live in a time when we are expected to take your lives, divide it up, and to neatly organize it OCD labeled boxes. One box may be “Religion” where we keep our beliefs and our practices and where we try to confine God, Godself.  Other boxes may be “Family and Friends”, “Work”, “Politics”, and “Play”, but as convenient as that may seem when we do that our boxes seem to be in tension with one another. We seem to be two-faced, hypocrites, and unauthentic. Read the rest of this entry »

 
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Posted by on August 17, 2016 in Sermon Summaries

 

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