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God requires something of us. Three somethings, actually, according to the prophet Micah; to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with our God. That is the beautiful way that the gospel of John is talking about when it declares that Jesus is “the way, the truth and the life.” The good news is that, whatever God requires us to do, God gives us the grace to accomplish. So what is this beautiful way that God is inviting and empowering us to walk into?  

This week, we talk about kindness. Kindness is having a marketing moment right now—t-shirts, mugs, Instagram filters. But there’s a backlash as well. Does loving kindness mean we have to focus on making everyone around us happy all the time? Does loving kindness mean we have to throw our healthy boundaries out the window? Many times, people experience talk of injustice as divisive and hostile, so is there even a way to do justice and love kindness at the same time?

The key to answering these questions comes in exploring the uncomfortable kindness practiced by Ruth and recognizing that our understanding and God’s understanding of kindness is not the same. 

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Jesus calls us to new life. When we are filled with his Spirit, we become totally new creations. And it is grace that gives us the power to live the way the Lord calls us to—the beautiful way. We become new, but the beautiful way is not new. It’s the same way God was teaching Adam and Eve when he walked with them in the cool of the evenings. It’s the same way of living laid out in the covenant God gave Moses on Mount Sinai. It’s the same way the judges and prophets continually called the people to return to. The beautiful way of living is to do justice, love kindness and walk humbly with our God. It’s the old way that, by the power of the Spirit, makes us new. But what does it mean to do justice? No one consciously chooses injustice over justice. We all find a way to justify ourselves—to define justice in a way that proves our actions are just. But how do we know that what seems like justice in our eyes is, in fact, justice in God’s eyes? We turn to scripture. The Bible reveals to us clearly what justice looks like in a fallen and broken world (hint: it usually looks like good news for the powerless, not the powerful). I hope you will listen in as we explore the story of Naboth’s vineyard and discover how God intervenes through a prophet to demand justice of a King.

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This Sunday, we begin a new worship series called “The Beautiful Way,” a four-part exploration of the way Jesus calls us to live. And the whole month is going to center on just ONE verse from the book of the prophet Micah:

What does the Lord require of you but to do justice, love kindness and walk humbly with your God.

I remember singing these words in one of the first songs I learned in church choir. I bet you’ve learned a version of it yourself, have worn it on a t-shirt, or have hung it on a wall somewhere. In the coming weeks, we’ll break down what it means to do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with God. But in our haste to get to the beautiful words, let’s not skip past the really surprising part.

Does God require something of us?

Doesn’t Jesus’ death and resurrection mean that we have an amazing grace that frees us of obligations? Isn’t God in the business of loving us no matter what? If we are saved by grace, how can we be required to do anything?

This is another one of those scary news/good news situations. The scary news is that we are God’s people and, as such, God requires things of us. But the good news of the gospel is that whatever God requires of us, God’s grace will empower us to accomplish.

Listen in to hear more about how beautiful it is to live this way.

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What do you do when the whole world turns against you? How do you choose between your body and your soul?

This Sunday, we wrap up our “Holy Uncomfortable” worship series with the story of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, three extraordinary young men who kept their faith in God while living in a foreign land. Yet, in spite of their steadfast faithfulness (actually, because of their steadfast faithfulness), they found themselves condemned to death by fire. Given a final chance by the King to abandon their faith and save their lives, they make the most beautiful and pure declaration of faith in scripture. I imagine Jesus himself remembered their story as he prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane.

If you’ve been taught that believing in God means that nothing bad will ever happen to you, this story will break your heart—and then it will show you an even more excellent way.

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This week in our worship series “Holy Uncomfortable,” we turn to the book of Judges. And it doesn’t have such a great reputation. People who complain that the “Old Testament” God is violent and angry usually turn to Judges as exhibit A. At first glance, it’s stories of war, rebellion, vengeance, power struggle, and violence seem the antithesis of our series theme—both unholy and completely familiar. But let’s dig a little deeper, because in the book of Judges we see God’s design for holy community—a structure of power and leadership that is completely unfamiliar to us. No standing military? Leaders who rule only as long as God calls them to? Women and men leading the people collaboratively? We tell ourselves such a thing isn’t possible, but our spiritual ancestors were living this way millennia ago. And, it’s true—again and again—we see the chosen people turn away from the covenant and conform to the values of the world, always with disastrous consequences. And, also—again and again—we see God turning and rescuing the people. We see God’s faithfulness to unfaithful people. We see that no matter how often we give up on God, God never gives up on us.

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We’re wrestling with the unsettling truth that proximity to God is both holy and uncomfortable. Our scripture lesson is one of many perfect examples—the story of the apostle Philip’s encounter with an Ethiopian eunuch. Fair warning: this means we are going to have to have our own uncomfortable conversation about the e-word—that once wide-spread practice that most of us now find embarrassing and borderline barbaric.

I’m talking, of course, about evangelism.

Because, this is a story about a time God called a believer to leave the safety and familiarity of his faith community and embark upon an encounter with a stranger considered foreign, inferior, and ritually unclean. What began with an open-ended prompt by the Holy Spirit ended with an unsanctioned baptism and a clear demonstration of God’s radical desire to reconcile A-L-L people through the salvation of Jesus Christ. That’s a message the church has been burying and domesticating ever since.

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We come to church and we come to God because we want to feel good. We seek help, hope, forgiveness, peace, love, and joy. The good news is that Jesus has all of these things for us in limitless abundance. But, that is not all he has for us. Our savior has even more good gifts for us—growth, new life, holiness, wisdom, repentance, and sanctification.

But some of those good gifts don’t feel good.  

Every gift that Jesus has for us is good and is for our good, but not all of them feel good to our sin-shaped souls. When we demand God give us nothing but comfort and pleasure—when we automatically reject anything that disturbs or troubles us—we turn away from abundant life.

This Sunday, we start our “Holy Uncomfortable” worship series. For the next month, we’ll explore the not-at-all-hidden truth in scripture that not every encounter with God is pleasant and comfortable. But, here’s the thing—every single one of them is good. The stories of the saints teach us that being uncomfortable is not always a sign that something is wrong, and that we must learn to recognize and embrace this holy discomfort because it signals the beginning of healing and new life.

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We are sheep.  That’s not an insult, it’s really good news.

The morning radio show I listen to has a recurring segment these days where they ask different people to answer the question, ‘what is keeping you up at night?’  There is a heartbreaking divide among the answers, the only common ground is–everybody has one.

Everybody has something that is keeping them up at night.

Psalm 23 can also be common holy ground in these days.  Whatever is breaking your heart, whatever is keeping you awake at night, there is consolation here.  The psalm reminds us that the Lord is our shepherd.  That means we are sheep, not saviors.  

Many of the things keeping us up at night are more than we can handle.  But we aren’t left on our own to handle them.  We have a shepherd, a good one.  That doesn’t mean there are not really dangerous days.  It does mean we aren’t facing them alone.

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Who do you hate? If you answered the question at all, you probably said, “No one.” What else do you say in response to a question from a pastor? We’re not supposed to hate anyone, right? So, therefore, we don’t hate anyone, right? Wrong. Psalm 137 is a hauntingly beautiful psalm of lament. The writer has survived horrific trauma. The nation of Babylon has invaded Israel, conquered them in battle, destroyed the holy city, brutally murdered half the civilians, and carried the rest away into slavery. The first verses poignantly express the numbing grief, despair, and excruciating pain of the victims. But, in the last verse, the psalm—which is a prayer—makes a disturbing turn as it begins to talk about the Babylonian invaders: Happy are they who dash your infants against the rocks. Pain turns to hate. There is no human who isn’t susceptible to the cancer of hate. Our natural instinct is to hide our hate from God. We know we shouldn’t hate, so we pretend we don’t.  But faith isn’t a performance—we can and should bring to God all of ourselves. The beauty, the pain, the brutality. We bring this all to God because where else can we find hope and healing? I hope you’ll listen as we seek the Lord’s wisdom and grace to flood every corner of our weary hearts.

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When I was a kid, I had more trouble falling asleep before the first night of school than I did on Christmas Eve. Even though it’s been many years since I walked into a new classroom, I still love this time of year. This change of season gives all of us a chance for a fresh start.

Usually.

But nothing is usual this year. It seems like we’ve been living the same day over and over again for months, and when we think about how much longer this pandemic might last, it’s hard not to despair. Instead of hopeful and excited, these days I’m feeling frustrated, overwhelmed, and powerless. We’ve never been more eager for a fresh start and we’re just not getting it. So, where is God in all of this? How do we find the heart to worship and praise God when life feels so hard and hopeless? Are we, Christians, even supposed to feel this way?

Well, I don’t know about “supposed to,” but I do know we aren’t the first people to feel this way. The book of Psalms provides a record that however we are feeling in these days, those who came before felt this way too. As long as people have been in relationship with God, we’ve been pouring the whole truth of our hearts out to him in prayer. Not all of those prayers are pretty or comforting, but they are all holy.  

And, sometimes, when we are overwhelmed by our own powerlessness, we can find hope and strength in proclaiming the power of God. We are small. Our God is not.

I hope you’ll listen in. People have turned to God in seasons just as hard as this one. God was faithful then. God is faithful now and, forevermore, will be.

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