RoboPreacher

from the enemy A sermon on Revelation 21 & 22 : I remember in college when I was going through some tough times. My pastor noticed what my real problem was. And it wasn’t my circumstances. It was how I was trying to fix them. “All your old survival skills aren’t going to serve you anymore .” He said. “You’re going to have to learn some new one.”   And he was right. Everything I was doing to try and fix my situation was only making it worse . You ever been there? Those disorienting times when all your old skills don’t work anymore. When they only make everything worse . We all have.   In fact, it’s a part of a pattern called “the hero journey.” And even if you don’t know the formula, you are familiar with it. It’s been made famous by George Lucas and the Star Wars films.   In the hero’s journey the hero is thrust into some circumstance where they must adapt to new surroundings in order to survive. And it’s like that for us when we go through some life-alterin...

we feebly struggle, they in glory shine A Sermon for All the Saints The Gospel for today’s Festival of All the Saints is  when Jesus raises Lazarus. It’s a relatively familiar story. The Gospel reading is only part of this story, though. The conclusion. In fact, the ending is probably the most familiar part of the story; so let me tell the whole story… In John 11 it’s noted that a certain man was ill, the brother of Mary and Martha. Now at this point the two sisters are well acquainted with Jesus, so they send for him; “Lord, the one who you love is ill,” they report. W hen Jesus gets the message, though; he just says the illness does not lead to death, but rather to God’s glory. So, although Jesus loved Martha, and her sister and Lazarus; after getting the news, Jesus stayed where he was for two more days… After those couple days, Jesus tells the disciples they need to return Judea. To which the disciples protest, of course . “Lord, they just tried to s...