Pastor Jonah preached 1 Corinthians 15:1-7. He said that three announcements have the power to transform you and your relationships: Your sins are forgiven. The peace of Christ is yours. The resurrection of Christ is yours. Lector: Melissa Gordon
Pastor Jonah preached 1 Corinthians 15:1-7. He said that three announcements have the power to transform you and your relationships: Your sins are forgiven. The peace of Christ is yours. The resurrection of Christ is yours.
Lector: Melissa Gordon
The last sermon before Sabbatical, want to say thank you.
We’ve worked hard over the last decade to become a church that values health over hype
We want a living faith, a transforming one. Not Walmart with crosses on it…
Not a religious product, but one that changes us, grows us and heals us.
By God’s grace and your faithfulness, we’re becoming that.
So, thank you for letting me and my family be humans, with real limits.
One of the great privileges of my job is the space to pursue a way of being in the world
Strive to become a certain kind of human. Thank you for letting me do that.
This morning, I hope to help us see what’s available to all of us through the grace of our Lord Jesus.
The most powerful place for hope to take root is the very place it is most absent.
Take a moment and consider: where do you feel stuck in life?
Try to focus on who you are, less on what you do. Maybe a relationship.
Maybe your anger, lack of patience, or self-control. Maybe loneliness or melancholy…
What about you feels so familiar, so persistent, that you’ve begun to think it will always be that way?
Sit with that for a moment…I pray that, by God’s grace, that place in you can experience a little hope this morning.
To that end, I want to talk about 2 verses and 1 name. 1 Cor. 15:3-4:
I passed on to you what was most important and what had also been passed on to me. Christ died for our sins, just as the Scriptures said. He was buried, and he was raised from the dead on the third day, just as the Scriptures said.
-1 Corinthians 15:3-4
What have you argued with Christians about in the last two years?
Here’s a list that people have argued with the pastors about:
President Trump
President Biden
Covid Protocols
Covid Vaccines
Systemic Racism
Bible Translations
Methods of Counseling
The temperature in the auditorium
The volume of music in the auditorium
The number of old songs we sing
The number of new songs we sing
Too many women in leadership
Not enough women in leadership
Services feeling too charismatic
Services not being charismatic enough
Should I keep going? You see where I’m going, right?
Of the things on your list, how many of them are part of the center?
How many of them are most important?
Some things are worth arguing about.
Men and women are made in God’s image, for instance.
Some things are worth having opinions about.
Looking at my list, though, most of the things we’ve fought about should be secondary issues.
That’s a symptom of something worth paying attention to.
It’s a symptom that something else has crept into the center of our hearts.
And what happens when that happens?
First, Jesus becomes an idea for us, not a transforming relationship.
What does that look like? Our lives become wildly inconsistent.
Not the normal inconsistency we all struggle with. Fundamental inconsistency.
For example, the same people that preach love and forgiveness stormed the US capitol building on January 6th.
They prayed in Jesus’ name, waving flags allegedly representing Christianity, while government officials have to hide in locked doors and capitol security fought for their lives.
When Jesus and his gospel are just an idea for us, not transforming our actual lives, not overthrowing the lesser allegiances we are pulled towards…well, we get stuck.
Hopelessness and helplessness fill our souls. We panic and make awful decisions.
Why else would people think Jesus wants them to do violence in his name?
The situation is hopeless. The country is lost. We have to do something.
Go back to that place where you feel stuck. What have you done to try and get out of it?
Have you not made destructive, painful decisions in pursuit of some relief?
We all have. I have. Paul reminds a struggling church, one that has a confession of faith more than a possession of faith, one that KNOWS the truth better than it LIVES the truth…and he reminds them of what’s most important.
Jesus and his gospel. His death for our sins, his burial, and his resurrection.
If you want to be free, you have to keep the liberating gospel of Jesus at the center, and you must stop being content to merely confess, but you must wrestle and strive until you possess.
How does the gospel get us un-stuck? I’ll try and explain, I think a story is most helpful though. This brings us to the name I wanted to talk about. Verse 7:
Then he was seen by James and later by all the apostles.
-1 Corinthians 15:7
Why point out this name here? Why not mention all the apostles?
Well, this name shows us the power of the gospel to transform us.
This is James, Jesus’ brother.
Maybe you didn’t know this, but James wasn’t always on board with the whole, “my brother is God” thing.
Understandable, amen?
What would it take for you to be convinced your sibling was God?
Seriously. What would it take for you to quit your job, move, and pursue a life of homelessness, imprisonment, and persecution because you were convinced your brother was God?
It wasn’t always this way with James, either!
one time, so many crowds were gathering around Jesus that there wasn’t enough time for Jesus or his disciples to eat.
People crammed into the house to hear Jesus. But look at how his family, including James, responds:
When Jesus’ family heard what was happening, they tried to take him away. “He’s out of his mind,” they said.
-Mark 3:21
They thought Jesus was crazy. And if huge crowds started coming around your sibling thinking they were God, and your sibling let them, you might too.
What got James un-stuck from seeing his brother this way?
Did you know James wrote an entire epistle? Book of James!
Listen to how he opens his letter:
This letter is from James, a slave of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ.
-James 1:1
Incredible. What happened? He saw his brother crucified for the forgiveness of sins.
He saw his brother buried and lay in a tomb for three days.
And then…
Then he was seen by James and later by all the apostles.
-1 Corinthians 15:7
Paul references James by name in 1 Cor. To show us what’s possible.
A brother can become a slave, an adoring worshiper, a fervent disciple.
And if that can happen to James…what could happen to you?
Let’s get a little more concrete…how can this happen to us?
Three announcements that have the power to transform you and your relationships.
Much of our lives are spent in image management.
Trying to get people to think of us a certain way, or to see us a certain way.
So, we hide who we really are, we hide what we’ve done, and we get defensive when we’re found out.
I don’t think this has so much to do with us hating God as much as it does wanting to feel safe. That’s a good desire God has given us…we just go about it sideways.
Listen to what Paul says about this at one point in Romans:
So now there is no condemnation for those who belong to Christ Jesus.
-Romans 8:1
Your sins have been forgiven. This empowers you to own and repair your failures.
Not hide them. Most practically, this means we strive to lay down our defensiveness.
If you’re feeling stuck, what might it look like for you to lay down your defensiveness as a way of embracing the announcement your sins are forgiven?
Who do you need to apologize to? How can you listen more curiously?
your sins are forgiven, which means you don’t have to fear being wrong.
Have you ever considered the first 3 messages Jesus says to his disciples after the resurrection?
First, “peace be with you.”
Second, “peace be with you.”
Third, “come have some breakfast.”
If your sins are forgiven, then Christ gives you his spirit.
If you have his spirit, you can be at peace.
What might happen in your soul if you weren’t afraid of getting in trouble or being thought poorly of? I bet you’d experience more of this peace.
So, as a way of life, Christians cultivate a non-anxious presence.
We are a flat-footed, relaxed group.
Cultivate is important because we’re planting a vineyard, not making popcorn.
This takes time. Soul work is slow work. So, going into a meeting?
Tough conversation? Hard decision to make? Pause. Take a deep breath.
Hear the voice of God say to you, “you are my beloved child. My peace I give to you.”
Remember your sins are forgiven, you have nothing to prove, and Christ is with you.
The peace of Christ yours, you can cultivate a non-anxious presence.
The cross Of Christ has dealt with your past.
The peace of Christ holds your present.
The resurrection of Christ secures your future.
This means you can hold your life loosely. Not everything will be resolved.
For some of us, we’ll go from being stuck to struggling forward.
Some will go from struggling forward to thriving.
All of us are on a journey, and we can hold that journey loosely knowing our future is secure.
All that means is we can be more dedicated to the process than the results.
How well we do or don’t do, how much progress that relationship does or does not make, is not a reflection of how loved we are, how presently secure in Christ we are, and how sure our future is.
So take a moment and try to imagine…wherever it is you are stuck…what could an experience like James’ look like for you?
What might it look like for you to become a calm, patient person, knowing that this has been made possible because your past is forgiven, your present is provided for, and your future is secure?
COMMUNION