Tag: Steadfast Love

Are You Born Again?

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Biblical Text: John 3:1-17

I’m sorry, we had audio problems this morning. The audio recording of the sermon wasn’t good enough for me to really use. If I have a little time tomorrow I might do an after the fact recording. Which sometimes I hate Satan, because this one felt on fire with good material. The manuscript is never 100%. There is always something in the moment that is better. And a re-recording is never the same. An actual congregation just makes things live. The text has John 3:16, but the sermon and in my reading the text is really about the interaction between Jesus and Nicodemus. John 3:16 is a conclusion only earned in a very specific conversation. “Are you born again?”

And that question takes in baptism, faith and just who you think God is. Nicodemus’s last words in the middle of the story are “how can these things be?” As the sermon would develop, he’s got a very specific concept of God. A concept tied to the fleshy existence of the children of Abraham. Jesus challenges him and through him us to believe in the Spiritual God. The God who so loved the world.

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A Voice Says “Cry!” What Shall I Cry?

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Biblical Text: Isaiah 40:1-11

This is the call of 2nd Isaiah – a much better call than the first one. It is completely absorbed into the New Testament story in John the Baptist, but treating it as good news in its own right brings out a different emphasis. That is what this sermon does. Instead of a people already experiencing the inbreaking of the Kingdom, in its own context it is addressed to those who might rightly be despairing. The LORD has always claimed two things: 1) His love for his people is steadfast and 2) He is the only God of all the nations. Sitting in exile, neither of those seem right. But God tells his prophet to “Cry”. And the message is Good News.

It might be pride, it might just be the poorness of my file in general, but after delivering this one, it immediately feels like one for the portfolio.

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