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Here and Now-Week 1 // We Believe, Now What // Pastor Kate Murphy

Scripture: John 21:1-19

Dear Church,

But these words are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.  (John 20:31)

These are the last words of the twentieth chapter of the Gospel of John. They sound like an ending, don’t they? But they aren’t.  Belief in the Risen Lord isn’t the finish line.  It’s the starting line.

So–what happened next? Well, Peter invited his friends to go fishing and they didn’t catch anything. Because there’s no turning back.

Once we ‘believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God’ we get ‘life in his name.’

Life in his name.

And life in his name will be different than the life we had before belief. You might even say it’s like being…born again. Which is why Jesus shows up on the beach and gives Peter (and all of us) a rapid orientation into our new life.

I hope you will join me as together we’ll learn how Jesus is calling us into something new–and nourishing us for the journey.

Peace,

Pastor Kate

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An Acceptable Sacrifice-Week 6 // Donkey Sunday // Pastor Kate Murphy

Scripture: Matthew 20:29 to 21:11

Dear Church,

Throughout this sacred season of Lent, we’ve been walking towards the glorious revelation of the cross and empty tomb which forms the heart of our faith and hope in Jesus. Now we are only a few steps away.

But first, a parade. A strange, but joyous parade. And at the center of that parade–not foliage, but foal. The revelation IS the donkey.

Because one sacrifice acceptable in God’s sight is to give up what appears to be good but isn’t, to not reach for what impresses and controls when you could grasp it, to set aside what is comfortable and safe, and commit instead to what is good, what is hard and apt to be misunderstood and costly.

This is the glory of the way of Jesus–all revealed in the donkey.

And friends–I really hope you will worship with me throughout this holiest of weeks. There is much the Spirit wants to show us in the final triumphant moments of the life of Jesus. Some of what we will see is astonishingly beautiful. And much of what we will behold is almost unbearable horror.

All of it is true. The beauty and the horror. And in Christ, God provides beautiful transcendent life for us in all of it.

Sooner or later, we will all experience the reality of these days in our own lives. We need to see how Jesus is with us in it all, is faithful to us in it all.

Peace,
Pastor Kate

Want to chat about what you have heard? Click here:
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An Acceptable Sacrifice-Week 5 // One & Done? // Pastor Kate Murphy

Scripture: Romans 3:19-26

Dear Church,

Early in the first century a man newly named Paul wrote a letter to a struggling church in the capitol city of the Roman Empire. These days we call that letter ‘the Book of Romans,’ and we read it as if it were the raw material for a volume of systematic theology (looking at you Karl Barth!).

But it wasn’t. It was a letter. To a real church–a struggling church–a small church. A church made up of different groups of people with very different life experiences and conflicting understandings of how to live as a disciple of Jesus Christ.

And Paul, who wasn’t their pastor, was trying to help them come to a common understanding of how the death and resurrection of Jesus was a spiritual revolution that changed everything–not just their future eternal destinies, but how they would live together righteously and courageously in their current lives.

Too often, we turn the death of Jesus into an abstract theological equation. Since ‘all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,’ ‘God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement,’ therefore ‘all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.’ For too long, we’ve understood that to mean that the cross was a ‘one and done’ sacrifice by Jesus for God and now we are all justified and empowered to live however we like with no consequences.

Beloved–that’s not true.

And, more importantly, if it were true–if the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross meant that we are justified to live however we choose to live–that wouldn’t be grace, that wouldn’t be good news, that would be a curse.

Paul is writing to people just like us, trying to help them understand how what Jesus did on the cross opens up a new way for us to be human and gives us a new way to live as children of salt and light in a brutal and violent world. Those of us who believe in the righteousness of Jesus Christ that we see on the cross, will joyfully pick up our own crosses and follow him–ready and eager to make acceptable sacrifices that glorify God every day of our lives.

I hope you’ll join me as we unpack Paul’s teaching and receive a vision for the kinds of life-giving atoning sacrifices we who believe in Jesus gladly make each day of our lives.

Peace,
Pastor Kate

Want to chat about what you have heard? Click here:
https://www.thegrovecharlotte.org/connect-with-us

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