Acts 4 picks up the story a few hours after the crippled man has been healed… Peter and John are arrested and detained for upsetting the peace with their “uneducated” teaching, and for convincing people to join the “Jesus is Lord” movement. For the first time, the apostles find themselves in the exact same place Jesus was just weeks prior: in front of the ruling religious council of their day, being strongly questioned. Previously, this environment was the catalyst for Peter’s cowardly denials of Jesus as he observed the hostility and authority of the council to put his master to death. However, in this “second chance,” Peter stays on offense, yet respectfully. Through his response to the council’s intimidation, he provides one of the strongest case studies in the power of the Holy Spirit to transform people fully, into who they were created to be, in the image of Jesus himself.
Sermons by Dan Kaskubar (Page 4)
Our cultural default and the tradition of America is to be completely in control and to live out our dreams. The culture in Jesus’ day was to live “in-control” in a religious sense – full of prim-and-proper religiosity. When Jesus is asked a question about fasting, He replies with a veiled correction followed by 2 mini-parables that almost seem out of place, but after examination, highlight how humanity’s need for control and the familiar has to be given up if one is to have real, deep, intimate relationship with God. Jesus Himself perfectly demonstrated this, maybe no more tangibly and beautifully than in the Garden of Gethsemane.
Any look at “living out the gospel” is vastly incomplete without diving into the world of work. We often have a view of work that’s too self-centric: either we hold a defeatist view where we expect the worst and believe work is a natural evil to be endured until each successive Friday evening; or we hold an idolized view where we attempt…
Having just spent 2 weeks on what it means to be messengers of the euangelion, we now turn to what it looks like to live out the gospel. Is it ever difficult for you to connect your life inside the church building to the life outside it? Do the truths you sing of in the “embassy” seem less true when you’re not…
We as Christians often have a hard time sharing the “good news,” for a mix of 3 reasons: First, we’re not really that compelled; second, we’re afraid; and third, we don’t really know how. As ambassadors of God’s peace treaty with the world, we need to be sure we (1) understand its significance, (2) understand our cultural context, and (3) are equipped with a clear “reason for the hope that we have.” It turns out, our culture is very open to dialogue on spiritual things, and the lack of sharing has more to do with our own discomfort than a lack of opportunity. When we share “with gentleness and respect,” what follows can be a beautiful, engaging conversation with our neighbors. We have to get the shape of the gospel right. James Choung’s tool, Big Story, from his book True Story, gives us one example of a holistic Christian worldview that’s theologically grounded and starts with finding common ground with our culture, through drawing 4 simple circles.
What exactly is “Christian Mission”? When we talk about the whole church, taking the whole gospel, to the whole world, what do we mean? Often, Christians think evangelism is something other people do. But what is the origination of that word, and what, exactly, is the content of our “evangelism”? We need to be reminded of what Jesus himself declared to be “the gospel,” and how that understanding was clarified by Paul in his writings to the early church. We also need to understand our neighbors. When we have clarity about what it means to be an ambassador for Christ, and clarity about who we’re being an ambassador to, it will give us joy to share the good news in ways that truly “love our neighbor.”
These four verses are one of those “head-nodders” of scripture. One of these short nuggets that’s easily passed by, because it makes enough sense and sounds familiar enough on the surface, not to feel the need to go deeper. But when we engage Jesus’ words, we find more there than we first realized. Our eyes are the lens through which we perceive reality, and they’re closely connected to our hearts. What we see informs what we serve, and what we serve informs what we see. What we believe leads to what we perceive. What we choose to focus on, leads to what we become. Jesus is the light that our eyes need to be focused on, to expose our own inner darkness, so that we can become wholly bright!
Maybe more than any other way, humans understand our reality through story. We just spent 31 weeks journeying together through The Story, an abridged version of the Bible from Genesis through Revelation. The last 7 weeks, we’ve been working our way through the Parables of Jesus; story was his most preferred method of communicating the Kingdom he was ushering in, to the…
The Prodigal Son just may be the best short story ever told. It’s incredibly concise, yet has both deep sorrow and joy in the midst of scandal and strained relationships. As we look at each of the story’s three characters in succession, it’s obvious that the one thing even more extravagant than the younger son’s self-indulgence, is the Father’s self-sacrificing love. Yet it’s all lost on the older son at the end of the story, and his reaction exposes our tendency to…
After Jesus’ announcement of the Kingdom, He clarifies it and demonstrates it in numerous ways, through direct teaching and parables, through demonstrations and miracles, and ultimately through His declaration of His own impending suffering and death. Unfortunately for many, it is not what they expect. Jesus disappoints, upsets, and frustrates those who are looking for their version of what the messiah should be: a Conquering King, a Righteous High Priest, and/or a Populist Governor. Jesus supersedes all those expectations, and points to Himself as the way, the truth, and the life.