Month: May 2019

Jesus was a terrible dinner guest. Invited to an impromptu supper with the Pharisees, Jesus offends everyone by refusing to wash his hands before the meal. When his host protests, Jesus lays into him, accusing all the Pharisees of caring more about religious purity rituals than ethical integrity. He says they are like white washed tombs—beautiful and clean on the outside, but inwardly full of decaying flesh. When a lawyer, a fellow dinner guest, sticks up for the host, Jesus slams him (and all of his kind) for murdering the prophets.

Jesus wasn’t at this supper for food and polite conversation; he came hungry for a fight. What was it about their rule-following that had Jesus so bent out of shape?  Listen in to find out.

Luke 11:37-54

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At the moment God called Gideon a “mighty warrior” and chose him to lead the Israelites into battle against a vast and powerful army, Gideon was hiding—trying to thresh the family wheat in a wine press so that he wouldn’t be seen and attacked by the enemy.  Gideon was the youngest member of the weakest tribe in Israel.

Gideon—the young, fearful, wouldn’t-be warrior—wasn’t the type of leader we would expect. He was physically, mentally, and spiritually weak.  But God didn’t choose Gideon in spite of his weakness.  God chose him because of it.  Looking at Gideon’s story in Judges 7:1-12, we actually get the sense that God delights in our weakness.  But God does not use our weakness to then make us strong.  God uses our weakness to show God’s own strength.  Gideon’s story is also an example of the tragedies that can happen when God’s anointing on us makes us overly confident in our own abilities.

Listen in as we learn how we can prepare to trust God and delight in his faithfulness when we need it most.

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We’re always going to feel “too something” to follow Jesus—too busy, too scared, too sad, too whatever. There isn’t an ideal time to choose to follow—only now.  This Sunday, we tackle what might be the most difficult thing to follow Jesus through—our own “success,” at least as our culture defines it.  How can we choose to follow when we feel like we don’t need to follow to get what we want? And when we feel that way, how do we go abut trying to change the things we want?  Listen in to find out.

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This week we talk about what it means to follow Jesus through our fear.  Jesus’s disciples said “yes” to trusting him even when experiencing circumstances outside their comfort zones, and part of us being disciples means learning to do the same.  We learn to be led in the “valley of the shadow of death,” where we are willingly guided past our ability to control.  If we are honest, we know that most things — and certainly most important things — are beyond our control.  It’s when we follow Jesus past that point where we truly experience the beauty and holiness of trust. 

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