Sermons

Invitation to a Journey - Session 11: Corporate Spirituality

Invitation to a Journey

Session 11: Corporate Spirituality

based on the book Invitation to a Journey, by: M. Robert Mulholland Jr.

Certainly the body isn’t one part but many. If the foot says, “I’m not part of the body because I’m not a hand,” does that mean it’s not part of the body? If the ear says, “I’m not part of the body because I’m not an eye,” does that mean it’s not part of the body? If the whole body were an eye, what would happen to the hearing? And if the whole body were an ear, what would happen to the sense of smell? But as it is, God has placed each one of the parts in the body just like he wanted. If all were one and the same body part, what would happen to the body? But as it is, there are many parts but one body. So the eye can’t say to the hand, “I don’t need you,” or in turn, the head can’t say to the feet, “I don’t need you.” Instead, the parts of the body that people think are the weakest are the most necessary. The parts of the body that we think are less honorable are the ones we honor the most. The private parts of our body that aren’t presentable are the ones that are given the most dignity. The parts of our body that are presentable don’t need this. But God has put the body together, giving greater honor to the part with less honor so that there won’t be division in the body and so the parts might have mutual concern for each other. If one part suffers, all the parts suffer with it; if one part gets the glory, all the parts celebrate with it. You are the body of Christ and parts of each other.

1 Corinthians 12:14-27 (CEB)

Welcome to Session 11 of Invitation to a Journey.

Before watching each video session, I encourage you to read the corrosponding chapters in the book which you can order here. I also invite you to have a pen and journal handy as we will begin each week with a contemplative Lectio Divina exercise using a related passage of scripture for each week. You may want to pause the video at various points to journal and reflect on your own spirtual journey as it relates to the themes we are discussing.

Below the video you will find a PDF of the notes, lectio reading, reflection questions, and next steps for each week. Feel free to download them as you follow along with the video.

Be sure to read chapter 12 before watching this session.

May God richly bless you as you enter into this journey toward a deeper relationship with Christ.

_____

Watch video session on YouTube here.

Resources for Session 11: Corporate Spirituality

Spiritual Connection

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SPIRITUAL - PART 5

Spiritual Connection
Sunday, May 14, 2023
Acts 16:9-15

A vision of a man from Macedonia came to Paul during the night. He stood urging Paul, “Come over to Macedonia and help us!”…

…On the Sabbath we went outside the city gate to the riverbank, where we thought there might be a place for prayer. We sat down and began to talk with the women who had gathered. One of those women was Lydia, a Gentile God-worshipper from the city of Thyatira, a dealer in purple cloth. As she listened, the Lord enabled her to embrace Paul’s message.

Acts 16:9, 13-14

Listen to this week’s sermon here:

Lydia is one of the few named women we have in the early church, and it is generally believed that she became one of the leaders and hosts of the church at Philippi. We know plenty about this church from Paul’s letter to the Philippians, but here in Acts we find the beginning of her story. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say, we meet her at a significant transition in her life of faith and perhaps at the moment of her call to ministry.

To understand the beginnings of this new church movement in Philippi, we have to step back a few verses to see how the Holy Spirit was at work in Paul’s missionary journey.

Paul and his companions traveled throughout the regions of Phrygia and Galatia because the Holy Spirit kept them from speaking the word in the province of Asia. When they approached the province of Mysia, they tried to enter the province of Bithynia, but the Spirit of Jesus wouldn’t let them.  Passing by Mysia, they went down to Troas instead.

Acts 16:6-8

Don’t you just hate it when travel plans get messed up? Clearly Paul’s mission trip was not going as planned. He and his companions tried to proclaim the Good News of Christ in Asia, Mysia, Bithynia, Troas, and no doubt many other places along their route. But in each case it says the Spirit of Jesus wouldn’t let them.

At first glance this seems absurd. Why would the Holy Spirit not allow them to proclaim the Good News?

Personally, I don’t believe God wanted to withhold the message of salvation from these places. It may be that they were either not yet ready to receive the message or that Paul was not the one God wanted to use to bring this message to these particular groups. Instead, God was calling Paul to answer the prayer of this man from Macedonia.

When Paul responds, he finds Lydia, a woman of means who believed in God and already hosted a prayer-gathering in her home.

This is the key to the work of the Holy Spirit. God doesn’t expect us to simply drop into a new place or knock on a random door, pray a miraculous prayer with a perfect stranger, and expect them to be saved and change the world.

We have a bad habit of practicing what I call “Air Drop” Christianity. Whether it’s a quick in-and-out mission trip, door-to-door evangelism, or a quick handshake on Sunday morning and then we move on, we have a bad habit of sprinkling ourselves here and there as if our faith is a garnish, rather than at the heart of who we are. I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again, I’m sure: INVEST IN PEOPLE. It’s hard work, but it’s the stuff of life when we have the proper perspective

Christian Piatt, Sojourners (https://sojo.net/articles/ten-antidotes-christian-cliches)

The Holy Spirit works primarily by making connections between people. In this case, the Spirit connected Paul and Lydia through the prayers of another unknown third party from Macedonia. When Paul saw how God was already at work in Lydia’s life and incorporated her ministry into the larger work of the Church, the Church grew and a new faith community was planted.

Who might God be calling you to connect with? We were never meant to do this work of ministry alone.

Invitation to a Journey - Session 10: The Inner Dynamics of Spiritual Disciplines

Invitation to a Journey

Session 10: The Inner Dynamics of Spiritual Disciplines

based on the book Invitation to a Journey, by: M. Robert Mulholland Jr.

When you pray, don’t be like hypocrites. They love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners so that people will see them. I assure you, that’s the only reward they’ll get. But when you pray, go to your room, shut the door, and pray to your Father who is present in that secret place. Your Father who sees what you do in secret will reward you.

When you pray, don’t pour out a flood of empty words, as the Gentiles do. They think that by saying many words they’ll be heard. 8 Don’t be like them, because your Father knows what you need before you ask.

Matthew 6:5-8 (CEB)

Welcome to Session 10 of Invitation to a Journey.

Before watching each video session, I encourage you to read the corrosponding chapters in the book which you can order here. I also invite you to have a pen and journal handy as we will begin each week with a contemplative Lectio Divina exercise using a related passage of scripture for each week. You may want to pause the video at various points to journal and reflect on your own spirtual journey as it relates to the themes we are discussing.

Below the video you will find a PDF of the notes, lectio reading, reflection questions, and next steps for each week. Feel free to download them as you follow along with the video.

Be sure to read chapter 11 before watching this session.

May God richly bless you as you enter into this journey toward a deeper relationship with Christ.

_____

Watch video session on YouTube here.

Resources for Session 10: The Inner Dynamics of Spiritual Disciplines

Spiritual Discomfort

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SPIRITUAL - PART 4

Spiritual Discomfort
Sunday, May 7, 2023
Acts 11:1-18

I heard a voice say, “Get up, Peter! Kill and eat!’” I responded, “Absolutely not, Lord! Nothing impure or unclean has ever entered my mouth.”

Acts 11:7-8

Listen to theis week’s sermon here…

We all want to live good, moral, and righteous lives, yet in truth, Paul reminds us that we all sin and fall short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23). Yet somehow in our “righteous minds,” we have created our own hierarchy of sins. If someone calls us out when we disobey God’s law, we quickly respond as though our infraction is relatively insignificant on the larger scale. “I’m only human,” we say. “Nobody is perfect.”

Yet when someone else commits a sin that we could never imagine committing ourselves, that sin becomes so repugnant to us that we are quick to condemn. As Jesus says, we rarely notice the “logs in our own eyes” (Matthew 7:3-5).

“Morality binds and blinds. It binds us into ideological teams that fight each other as though the fate of the world depended on our side winning each battle. It blinds us to the fact that each team is composed of good people who have something important to say.” 

“If you really want to change someone’s mind on a moral or political matter, you’ll need to see things from that person’s angle as well as your own. And if you do truly see it the other person’s way—deeply and intuitively—you might even find your own mind opening in response. Empathy is an antidote to righteousness, although it’s very difficult to empathize across a moral divide.” 

― Jonathan Haidt, The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion

This description of the endless moral, ethical, ideological and political battles in our culture and our world sounds a lot like Peter’s dilemma when he was called to the home of a Gentile, and not just to his home, but to dine with him at a table full of unclean foods.

“Absolutely not, Lord,” he responds.

Notice the irony and the confusion present in Peter’s response.

On one hand, he is saying “Absolutely not” to something which he considers to be a horrible sin, that is, eating unclean foods that go against the Jewish dietary laws.” This is admirable and proves Peter’s desire to remain pure and righteous.

But in the same response, he says, “Lord”. The very Lord and King he is seeking to honor by not eating with the Gentiles is the same Lord and King he is defying by refusing to do so. How can this be? Would God call us to sin?

Of course not.

But as Jonathan Haidt says, morality binds us together but also blinds us to the stories and experiences of others who do not share our moral values.

Consider these words from the Apostle Paul to the church at Corinth.

Everything is permitted, but everything isn’t beneficial. Everything is permitted, but everything doesn’t build others up. No one should look out for their own advantage, but they should look out for each other. Eat everything that is sold in the marketplace, without asking questions about it because of your conscience.  The earth and all that is in it belong to the Lord.  If an unbeliever invites you to eat with them and you want to go, eat whatever is served, without asking questions because of your conscience.  But if someone says to you, “This meat was sacrificed in a temple,” then don’t eat it for the sake of the one who told you and for the sake of conscience.  Now when I say “conscience” I don’t mean yours but the other person’s. Why should my freedom be judged by someone else’s conscience?  If I participate with gratitude, why should I be blamed for food I thank God for?  So, whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, you should do it all for God’s glory.  Don’t offend either Jews or Greeks, or God’s church.

1 Corinthians 10:23-32

Everyone has a conscience, and that conscience or moral code is determined in life by a number of factors including upbringing, culture, education, religion, etc. And because everyone’s experience is different, everyone’s conscience is slightly different. For one person a single glass of wine may be as bad a sin as drunk-driving. For another, a fully stocked wine cellar in their home tells a different story. Has either one sinned? Not necessarily.

God wasn’t calling Peter to sin, but God always puts relationships first. Our conscience should never prevent us from “building others up”. Our conscience should never allow us to “put someone else down”. God isn’t interested in our personal moral values. God is interested in how we treat those whom he loves, regardless of how their conscience may or may not differ from our own.

If we view someone else as morally repugnant and keep our distance, we may just be keeping our distance from Christ. Jesus says, “Whatever you do (or do not do) for the least of these, you have done (or not done) it for me” (Matthew 25:45).









Invitation to a Journey - Session 9: The Nature of Spiritual Disciplines

Invitation to a Journey

Session 9: The Nature of Spiritual Disciplines

based on the book Invitation to a Journey, by: M. Robert Mulholland Jr.

People whose lives are based on selfishness think about selfish things, but people whose lives are based on the Spirit think about things that are related to the Spirit. The attitude that comes from selfishness leads to death, but the attitude that comes from the Spirit leads to life and peace. So the attitude that comes from selfishness is hostile to God. It doesn’t submit to God’s Law, because it can’t. People who are self-centered aren’t able to please God.

But you aren’t self-centered. Instead, you are in the Spirit, if in fact God’s Spirit lives in you. If anyone doesn’t have the Spirit of Christ, they don’t belong to him. 10 If Christ is in you, the Spirit is your life because of God’s righteousness, but the body is dead because of sin. If the Spirit of the one who raised Jesus from the dead lives in you, the one who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your human bodies also, through his Spirit that lives in you.

Romans 8:5-11 (CEB)

Welcome to Session 9 of Invitation to a Journey.

Before watching each video session, I encourage you to read the corrosponding chapters in the book which you can order here. I also invite you to have a pen and journal handy as we will begin each week with a contemplative Lectio Divina exercise using a related passage of scripture for each week. You may want to pause the video at various points to journal and reflect on your own spirtual journey as it relates to the themes we are discussing.

Below the video you will find a PDF of the notes, lectio reading, reflection questions, and next steps for each week. Feel free to download them as you follow along with the video.

Be sure to read chapter 10 before watching this session.

May God richly bless you as you enter into this journey toward a deeper relationship with Christ.

_____

Watch video session on YouTube here.

Resources for Session 9: The Nature of Spiritual Disciplines

Spiritual Authority

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SPIRITUAL - PART 3

Spiritual Authority
Sunday, April 30, 2023
Acts 9:36-43

Peter sent everyone out of the room, then knelt and prayed. He turned to the body and said, “Tabitha, get up!” She opened her eyes, saw Peter, and sat up. 

Acts 9:40

Have you ever been in the room with someone in a coma? Sometimes the family is there and we may offer a few words of comfort or a prayer, but there are times as a pastor I have visited hospital rooms where nobody is present and the patient is completely unresponsive. In some cases they are completely brain-dead and will never recover. I cannot imagine walking into a room like this, standing over the hospital bed and saying, “Jim, get up!” or “Ann, get up!”.

Could you imagine the response if the nurses overheard you, or worse yet, a family member. Everyone would think you were crazy.

When I read today’s passage, however, I wonder if I, and we, might be underestimating our spiritual authority.

Peter walked into the room of a person not only in a coma, but a woman who had already died, and he simply had the audacity to tell her to get up, as if she were a child struggling to get out of bed for school in the morning. He didn’t hesitate. He didn’t offer a prayer. He didn’t whisper words of encouragement to her family. He walked in with the certainty that Tabitha would get up and walk out of that room with him.

When I was doing my CPE (clinical pastoral education) at the hospital, I loved talking to one of the ICU volunteers. She sat with families in the waiting room and offered them whatever comfort and care she could as they waited and worried about their loved ones. She told me about the time she was in a deep coma for several months. Nobody expected her to live. It was a spiritually dark place for her. She has vivid memories from that time of seeing visions and hearing voices. She describes darkness in her visions, like black smoke and even dragons reaching out to claw at her mind. But she also remembers the voices. I know she was not hallucinating because when she miraculously awoke, she recounted specific things certain people said when they were alone in the room with her. No one else could have known what was said.

Much of her darkness, however, came from what she heard the voices saying. Her own family members would stand over her hospital bed talking about funeral arrangements as if she wasn’t in the room. As the weeks passed, they moved from worry and grief to frustration and hopelessness. There was no way she would ever wake up, the doctors said, and so they treated her like she was already dead. She could not see them, but she heard every word. She tried to reach back with her own voice. “I’m right here!” she shouted over and over again through her tears, but on the outside there were no tears and no sound came from her mouth.

Somewhere deep within her, God’s Spirit breathed new life into her darkness, but part of her darkness always remained because she heard so many heartless things people said about her in their grief and anger and she could never see her loved ones the same again. That’s why she volunteers at the hospital. She wants people to know that even at the brink of death, their loved ones can still hear them and respond, even if we never see or hear a physical response on the outside. She doesn’t want patients to feel alienated by their families in these incomprehensible circumstances.

I don’t know if we will ever see a dead person raised before our eyes, but I imagine the Spirit wants us to speak and live with the kind of authority Christ gave to Peter and his disciples to raise the dead. Whether a person is fighting for their final physical breath or lost in a bottomless pit of emotional or mental death and despair, we have the authority to speak life… not death. We have the authority to encourage them to “Get Up”, no matter how long and painful the process might be. But it is indeed a process. They cannot get up on their own. With our spiritual authority comes the responsibility to walk alongside them for the long haul until they can once again stand and walk on their own.

How are you using your Spiritual Authority to speak life into someone right now?










Invitation to a Journey - Session 8: Classical Spiritual Disciplines

Invitation to a Journey

Session 8: Classical Spiritual Disciplines

based on the book Invitation to a Journey, by: M. Robert Mulholland Jr.

Therefore, if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort in love, any sharing in the Spirit, any sympathy, complete my joy by thinking the same way, having the same love, being united, and agreeing with each other. Don’t do anything for selfish purposes, but with humility think of others as better than yourselves. Instead of each person watching out for their own good, watch out for what is better for others. Adopt the attitude that was in Christ Jesus:

Though he was in the form of God,
he did not consider being equal with God something to exploit.
But he emptied himself
by taking the form of a slave
and by becoming like human beings.
When he found himself in the form of a human,
he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death,
even death on a cross.

Therefore, my loved ones, just as you always obey me, not just when I am present but now even more while I am away, carry out your own salvation with fear and trembling. God is the one who enables you both to want and to actually live out his good purposes.

Pbilippians 2:1-8, 12-13 (CEB)

Welcome to Session 8 of Invitation to a Journey.

Before watching each video session, I encourage you to read the corrosponding chapters in the book which you can order here. I also invite you to have a pen and journal handy as we will begin each week with a contemplative Lectio Divina exercise using a related passage of scripture for each week. You may want to pause the video at various points to journal and reflect on your own spirtual journey as it relates to the themes we are discussing.

Below the video you will find a PDF of the notes, lectio reading, reflection questions, and next steps for each week. Feel free to download them as you follow along with the video.

Be sure to read chapter 9 before watching this session.

May God richly bless you as you enter into this journey toward a deeper relationship with Christ.

_____

Watch video session on YouTube here.

Spiritual Strength

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SPIRITUAL - PART 2

Spiritual Strength
Sunday, April 23, 2023
Acts 9:1-31

Ananias countered, “Lord, I have heard many reports about this man. People say he has done horrible things to your holy people in Jerusalem. He’s here with authority from the chief priests to arrest everyone who calls on your name.”

The Lord replied, “Go! This man is the agent I have chosen to carry my name before Gentiles, kings, and Israelites.

Acts 9:13-15

Listen to this week’s sermon here:

Our culture greatly values strength. We put a lot of stock in power, control, and victory. The weak often find themselves on the margins and if someone finds themselves in a low place, the most common advice people will give is to toughen up or grow a thicker skin.

Spirituality, for many people, is a source of strength. There is something empowering when we tap into sources of power and strength beyond our own understanding. The first few steps of any 12 Step recovery program involve admitting that we are powerless and that we need rely on a higher power for the strength to overcome whatever addiction we may be trying to break through.

Yet in our text today, we find two very strong individuals brought to their knees by an encounter with the Holy Spirit. A genuine “spiritual experience” with God may indeed give us strength, but that spiritual strength comes first through vulnerability and humility.

Saul is a great religious leader feared by anyone who would challenge his authority or teach against his understanding of God. He stood over Stephen with approval as the people stoned him for blasphemy because of his faith in Jesus Christ as Lord. He was on his way to Damascus to destroy the Jesus movement in that community. He was indeed a strong and powerful man.

Ananias was also a strong man. In spite of such great persecution from people like Saul, he continued faithfully proclaiming the Gospel and following the way of Christ. His understanding of the Spirit’s voice indicates a strong prayer life and a strong faith.

Two strong men with completely opposite beliefs about God and about the nature of Jesus and neither are willing to back down. An unlikely pairing to say the least. The thought of a friendly meeting between Saul and Ananias so soon after the stoning of Stephen might be comparable to Osama Bin Laden and George W. Bush sitting down for tea the week after 9/11.

Yet when each encountered the Holy Spirit, they were humbled. Saul was blinded before the Lord and became physically weak and dependent on his servants and even on his Jesus-following enemies. Ananias was challenged in his desire for self-preservation and in his understanding of who could truly be saved by God’s grace. Could there be mercy and forgiveness for one as evil and opposed to Christ as Saul, who even now was on his way to Damascus to kill Ananias and all of the believers?

Both had to admit that they were wrong about Jesus and about God’s will. Both had to admit that they had something to learn from each other and that God’s love was far greater than the hatred and fear that stood as an unbreakable barrier between religious leaders like Saul and the followers of “the Way” of Jesus.

The spiritual strength granted to both Saul and Ananias to humble themselves, set aside their fear and animosity, and sit down at the table together resulted in unprecedented church growth among the Gentiles across the known world along with the writing of nearly half of our New Testament Scriptures. This simple act of spiritual strength, of listening to God and listening to one another’s stories, quite literally changed the history of the world.

Spiritual strength is always about the strength to love… especially the unimaginable strength of loving our enemies. This kind of love demands the strength of humility, vulnerability and risk. At the bottom of this post, you will find a link to one of my favorite books, “Tea with Hezbollah.” While none of the stories in this tale involve the kind of radical conversion that Saul experienced, they do teach us a lot about what it means to sit at the table with our enemies, to humble ourselves and to risk everything just to listen to each other. And out of these humble and vulnerable conversations, the strength of the Holy Spirit shines through.

A modern day reflection on sitting at the table with our enemies…



Invitation to a Journey - Session 7: The Classical Christian Pilgrimage

Invitation to a Journey

Session 7: The Classical Christian Pilgrimage

based on the book Invitation to a Journey, by: M. Robert Mulholland Jr.

“I’m not praying only for them but also for those who believe in me because of their word.  I pray they will be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. I pray that they also will be in us, so that the world will believe that you sent me.  I’ve given them the glory that you gave me so that they can be one just as we are one.  I’m in them and you are in me so that they will be made perfectly one. Then the world will know that you sent me and that you have loved them just as you loved me.

John 17:20-23 (CEB)

Welcome to Session 7 of Invitation to a Journey.

Before watching each video session, I encourage you to read the corrosponding chapters in the book which you can order here. I also invite you to have a pen and journal handy as we will begin each week with a contemplative Lectio Divina exercise using a related passage of scripture for each week. You may want to pause the video at various points to journal and reflect on your own spirtual journey as it relates to the themes we are discussing.

Below the video you will find a PDF of the notes, lectio reading, reflection questions, and next steps for each week. Feel free to download them as you follow along with the video.

Be sure to read chapter 8 before watching this session.

May God richly bless you as you enter into this journey toward a deeper relationship with Christ.

_____

Watch video session on YouTube here.

Invitation to a Journey - Session 6: One Sided & Holistic Spirituality

Invitation to a Journey

Session 6: One Sided & Holistic Spirituality

based on the book Invitation to a Journey, by: M. Robert Mulholland Jr.

We urge you, brothers and sisters, warn those who are idle and disruptive, encourage the disheartened, help the weak, be patient with everyone. Make sure that nobody pays back wrong for wrong, but always strive to do what is good for each other and for everyone else. Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.

Do not quench the Spirit. Do not treat prophecies with contempt but test them all; hold on to what is good, reject every kind of evil.

May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. The one who calls you is faithful, and he will do it.

1 Thessalonians 5:14-24 (CEB)

Welcome to Session 6 of Invitation to a Journey.

Before watching each video session, I encourage you to read the corrosponding chapters in the book which you can order here. I also invite you to have a pen and journal handy as we will begin each week with a contemplative Lectio Divina exercise using a related passage of scripture for each week. You may want to pause the video at various points to journal and reflect on your own spirtual journey as it relates to the themes we are discussing.

Below the video you will find a PDF of the notes, lectio reading, reflection questions, and next steps for each week. Feel free to download them as you follow along with the video.

Be sure to read chapters 6 & 7 before watching this session.

May God richly bless you as you enter into this journey toward a deeper relationship with Christ.

_____

Watch video session on YouTube here.

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