title: Food

themes: bread-of-life spiritual-hunger disordered-love idolatry atonement

text:
**Scripture:** John 6:35-40
**Series:** 2022

> Fourth in a 'Survival' series, this sermon on John 6:35-40 uses the pastor's Appalachian Trail experience of hunger and caloric density to explore how survival reshapes desire. He argues that physical hunger is a metaphor for spiritual desire that can never be permanently satisfied in this world, warning against bad spiritual food and against turning the body into an idol. Christ as the bread of life is the only food that satisfies, giving purpose and meaning to family, body, job, and hobbies rather than competing with them, and is found in communion, worship, prayer, service, and scripture.

**Illustrations:** appalachian-trail-caloric-density, mother-food-drops, medieval-gluttony-insatiable-desire, turkey-induced-nap, wild-foraging-bad-food-dangers, jesus-unhandsome-appearance

---

# July 10
## Food

Jesus replied, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty. But I told you that you have seen me and still don’t believe. Everyone whom the Father gives to me will come to me, and I won’t send away anyone who comes to me. I have come down from heaven not to do my will, but the will of him who sent me. This is the will of the one who sent me, that I won’t lose anything he has given me, but I will raise it up at the last day. This is my Father’s will: that all who see the Son and believe in him will have eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day.”
John 6:35-40

I was never a big athlete growing up. I was never the best at any athletic thing. I was mostly like a solid average. I would never be the first one picked, nor the last one, but often just right in the middle.

When I went hiking on the Appalachian trail, I was not in great shape coming out of college. I did not expect to get into great shape. That was not my original goal. I thought that it would take me at least six months to do the 2000 miles. When I started in July, 18 years ago, I did not go very fast or very far any day. I was going seven miles, 12 miles, 10 miles a day.
It was taking me all day and it was hard. I hurt. I didn't eat very much. I just didn't know that I should eat more. My pack was too heavy.
Over time, though, I lightened my load. I sent back the unnecessary items like a guitar. I sent most of my books back, but I got stronger, I walked further in a day than I ever could have imagined. It got to the point where I was walking between 20 and 30 miles a day with a pack that had a base weight of about 12 pounds. It was about 20 pounds with food and water. Because I was walking so much, I needed to eat a lot more food than I ever had eaten before in my life. The food drops my mother amazingly sent me were fantastic. She was great to do those. But I still just needed more.
Growing up, my family tried to practice healthy nutrition and a balanced diet. Our dinner plate was always colorful, with lots of vegetables. I didn't eat a ton of sugar or sweets or sodas growing up. I didn't crave them. That was not super desirable for me. But when I went hiking, I began to have a different relationship to food. I was burning about between 4,000 and 6,000 calories a day. And it was almost physically cumbersome to eat that much food. I would never eat enough food to have a balanced, but so, and I couldn't carry that much. I adapted to look for caloric density. It's usually not something that you're looking for. What I mean be caloric density is that I would look for foods that had the most calories to ounce of weight possible. How can I eat the fattiest, sugariest foods imaginable?
Because I was carrying the food, I didn’t have as much food as possible, which meant that I would overeat  every time I got into a town. I was looking for calories and protein. And I got to the point where even while I was still in New England, I would go into a town and find a pizza place. There was almost always an Italian pizza place in rural Massachusetts that had a Bulgarian family running it. And I would order an 18 inch cheese pizza with a 44 ounce cup of soda, usually a grape or orange soda (I don't like the flavor, but it's, it's more calorically dense than Coke). And then a pint of peanut butter Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream. Peanut butter ice cream has more calories than any other flavor of ice cream. That would be a meal that I would eat in one sitting. And I would be content and move to the next thing in the day.
I had a different relationship to food when I was hiking. If I were in a survival situation, I would, as well, have a completely different relationship to food.

Friends, we are continuing our series on Survival. We are looking at how to survive in the wild as well as in the brokenness of this world; how our souls can survive and thrive. I started with the first week, Don't panic.
If you're panicking, you can't do anything else. So that's why it's important to start with don't panic. The next step we did was on shelter and looking for shelter. Last week, I spoke of water and the need for water. Water as the Spring which God offers us through the grace of Jesus Christ. That we have a spring of Spiritual water offered within us that does not run dry, but we still have to go back to it. We can run through life dry if we do not go to the source of God's grace and God's love.

Today, we're talking about food. There is a survivalist adage that says that you can live about three weeks without food. That is not a hard scientific fact. I don't think you should test it. There are people that fast longer than three weeks. There are people who would probably die of starvation before three weeks. It depends on what you're doing. If I were hiking 25 miles a day and hadn’t eaten for three weeks, I would not survive. But food need not be the number one priority you have. When you're trying to survive in the wild. It is a priority. You will need to eat. Next week, we're going to talk about getting rescued and what we can do to help that. But that happens after you are able to sustain your life, which takes food. Our lives cannot be sustained without food, but what kind of food are we looking for?
In John 6, Jesus offers this wonderful teaching to his disciples to say, I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.

That thirst connects again to the spring of the Spirit that Jesus offers to you. The spring that does not run dry. We have to keep going back to it, but it is there and offered to us. The hunger and the food that Jesus is talking about is what we absolutely desire. Hunger is connected to desire in every language I've ever encountered.
Hunger is a metaphor of desire. What do you long for? Hunger for? Yearn for? These are all connected. In the medieval world, the sin of gluttony was described as an impossible to satisfy desire. It's a desire for food or whatever object that can never be enough.
There's never enough. And yet the reality with food is that if you eat one meal, you will be hungry again. It doesn't matter if you are burning 6,000 calories or 600 calories a day, you will be hungry again.
In this world and in this life, you cannot finally defeat hunger.
There are good foods for you, and there are not as good foods. There are bad foods. There are foods that may delight you mouth, but destroy your body.
There's a lot of focus in this world about good foods and bad foods.

“oh, I shouldn't eat that. I should eat that.” I think a lot of it is pretty intuitive that even children understand: vegetables are better for you than candy, water is better than soda. They may not taste the same for you, but they are. It's better for your body. I think it is important to have a balanced and healthy idea of what you eat. It is also important to have a healthy relationship with your body, you remember that you were created by God. Your body is lovely and beautiful and your body matters. Your body is a temple, as the scriptures say, and what you put into your body matters. It's not the most important thing in the world, but it matters. It should be taken with thought and care.
However, there are ways that the body can be turned into an idol, and this happens a lot. We have to be on guard of turning our bodies into idols, to worship and care for our bodies into a different God.
Jesus Christ was not of a handsome appearance. No one was drawn to him because of his appearance. Jesus probably couldn't do a lot of squats or bench press a ton.
His power was not in those things, but in the Lord, God almighty. Our power is not in ourself or our body but in the Lord, God Almighty
When we come back to food, what I want us to think about is not just the physical foods that I mentioned, the foods that we hunger for after church, the lunch that you're longing for right now, but the spiritual foods. Spiritual foods that are good for you and spiritual foods that can rot your soul. Spiritual foods that can bring you life and Spiritual foods that can tear you down.
Jesus says, “I am the bread of life.” He's offering us a way to satisfy our spiritual hunger that cannot be found elsewhere. If we do not see it in Jesus, though, we are going to look for it elsewhere. We are going to try to satisfy ourselves and our souls elsewhere.
We're going to be looking elsewhere. We're going to be looking for something that gives us purpose in this world; that gives us meaning in this world where we will be looking for anything that gives us meaning in this world, it may be physical fitness. It may be politics. It may be a sports team. It may be our children or our neighbors, but ultimately these will not satisfy and we will be hungry again.
We will not survive if we do not seek and find the bread of life.
When I was hiking, I could eat anything I wanted and there weren't any consequences. It was a short time thing. And I was exercising like crazy. There are some consequences to our diets that are pretty obvious. A big turkey dinner doesn’t leave you wide awake, right? They're always consequences to our spiritual food, to what we feed our soul with, to how we spend our time with. But those consequences aren't as obvious as a Turkey induced nap.

If your in a survival situation, bad food can knock you out faster than bad water. If you don’t know the kind of berry that you find, you shouldn’t eat it. If you don’t know the kind of mushroom, that goes doubly sure you shouldn’t eat it. If you are able to hunt and trap a mammal, you need to check its belly to make sure it is not sick and to field dress it as soon as possible. Fish are a safer bet, but you can still get sick from it. Yet when you are starving, you may not think about those consequences.
Each of us, in our own way, we train ourselves to look away from those consequences. But our God is a God of truth.
My brothers and sisters, there's grace. This day, Christ has offered you the bread of life. That doesn't mean everything else in your life is useless, but in fact, even more so, the bread of life gives purpose and meaning to the rest of the things in your life.
We should see the bread of life at communion but also wherever Christ is present, where two or three are gathered. The bread of life is found in worship, in prayer, in service, and in scripture itself. Jesus is here in the Bible. The food that satisfies. Seek this food here.

It gives purpose and meaning to your family, to your body, to your job, to your hobbies. All of those are made full in Christ. They're not lessened. Christ is not competing for your time, like a hobby. Christ is the Lord of all creation, who is redeeming your time. As he's redeeming your life. You are loved and you are forgiven already. What it takes to receive this love is to step forward into Christ’s new life. You don't have to do the things you used to do. You don't have to have the habits you used to do. You don't have to live like you used to live. You are free, you're free and you will not only survive, but you will thrive on the bread of life.

Let us pray.
Heavenly father, we thank you for your food that takes away our hunger. We admit, O Lord, that we are restless unless we rest in you. Help us to find your rest this day. Help us to share your rest with those around us who are restless or wandering, who are lost and seeking, but do not even know it. Help us to be witnesses to your grace and your peace and your truth. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.


site: sermons

title: Fragments

author: Wilson Pruitt

church: bee-creek-umc

themes: prayer mercy-not-sacrifice resurrection gods-unconditional-love

scripture: Hosea 6:6

text:
**Scripture:** Hosea 6:6
**Series:** 2022

> A brief Lenten reflection arguing that God desires mercy, not sacrifice (Hosea 6:6) — the offering God wants is our hearts and minds, expressed most clearly in prayer. Drawing on Tertullian, the sermon frames prayer as the true offering, an act of faith that cannot be justified apart from God and stakes everything on the resurrection: if Jesus rose, prayer is the greatest privilege. It closes by insisting God desires not fancy words or robes but us.

**Illustrations:** tertullian-prayer-offering

---

# Fragments

God says, I want mercy not sacrifice. The offering to God for us is not a lamb or a turtledove. It is our hearts and our minds, most clearly understood in prayer

“Prayer is an offering that belongs to God and is acceptable to him: it is the offering he has asked for, the offering he planned as his own. We must dedicate this offering with our whole heart, we must fatten it on faith, tend it by truth, keep it unblemished through innocence and clean through chastity, and crown it with love.”[^1]

Prayer is an act of faith. We do not see it. We cannot hold it. When we pray, we believe beyond ourselves. Prayer can’t be justified apart from God. If Jesus didn’t rise from the dead, prayer is a total waste of time. But if he did, if Jesus did die for us and offer us life, prayer is the greatest honor and privilege in the world. We can overcomplexify it or denigrate ourselves when we feel inadequate, but God doesn’t desires fancy words or flowing robes. God desires us. God desires you.

[^1]: Tertulian

method: authored, not translated

license_apparatus: CC BY-NC 4.0


title: Freedom: A New Covenant for a New Year

themes: freedom-in-christ new-covenant self-denial curvatus-in-se wesleyan-covenant-renewal love-of-neighbor grace

text:
**Scripture:** Jeremiah 31:31-34; Ecclesiastes 1:9; Matthew 6:21
**Series:** 2022

> Opening a new-year sermon series called 'Freedom,' the preacher contrasts the world's freedom-of-choice with biblical freedom. Using Roman consul history, Luther, the Wesleys, Augustine, and the Methodist covenant service, he argues that true freedom in Christ is the paradoxical freedom to love God and neighbor against our own sin-curved desires, not unobstructed individualism, and invites the congregation into covenant renewal for the new year.

**Illustrations:** roman-consuls-january-calendar, coke-pepsi-plaid-stripes-choice, martin-luther-free-and-dutiful, steve-earle-aint-ever-satisfied, wesleys-coal-mine-preaching, wesley-covenant-service-prayer, augustine-saving-for-children

---

# January 2

The time is coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the people of Israel and Judah. It won’t be like the covenant I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt. They broke that covenant with me even though I was their husband, declares the Lord. No, this is the covenant that I will make with the people of Israel after that time, declares the Lord. I will put my Instructions within them and engrave them on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. They will no longer need to teach each other to say, “Know the Lord!” because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord; for I will forgive their wrongdoing and never again remember their sins.
Jeremiah 31:31-34

Our annual calendar comes from the Ancient Rome and the innovations that Julius Caesar did about 45 BC that put us on a schedule of a 365 and a quarter days a year, with a leap year every four years. January 1st was an important day in ancient Rome.
Ancient Roman Republic was ruled by two consoles. So the consoles had a one year term and they had a ton of power. I could go into a lot more of the details of this, but the main thing is that you were immune from prosecution while you were a console, but once you got out of office, you were open for trial. And the office of the console was January 1st until December 31st.
So if you had done some shady things by the Consoles at the end of the year because they would want to put themselves in positions so that they would not be prosecuted once leaving office. They would want to make sure the next year consoles would not prosecute them,
I don't know this for sure, but my assumption is that the reason why in the original US constitution, presidential inaugurations were in March, was to avoid the end of year violence that sometimes happened in ancient Rome. The founding fathers read Cicero and other Roman’s voraciously and tried to learn from them.
Now we are in a new year, 2022, and the new year is stil important and tumultuous. There is this idea that anything can happen.
My friends, we are starting a new sermon series and this new year called Freedom. How should we understand God's freedom and our freedom and God? The world today has a different idea of freedom than the Bible. Today, freedom is most often portrayed as a freedom of choice. I'm free to drink Coke or Pepsi. I'm free to wear plaid or stripes. I am free to root for A&M or Texas or even Tech. This is not the freedom of scripture.
In the Bible, we are given the freedom to love God to do the cut.
Because on our own, we do not do the things of God. We do not seek the good. Even if we end up doing good things, it is not for good reasons. We give away a couch because it is taking up space. We give to the poor to make ourselves feel good. We seek whatever our heart desires and good or bad fits only within our prior desires. So scripturally, whether you pick plaid or stripes, whether you pick Coke or Pepsi, you are not free. You are not free because you're limited by what your heart desires. And our hearts are limited by sin. We are curved inward what we desire so that what we desire is what makes us feel happy. But ultimately this is not freedom, but a different kind of servitude.
This is why a lot of contemporary political language around freedom is very antithetical to the freedom of the gospel. A hyper focus on individuals seeking what they find as good and not being obstructed in that is nowhere found in the Bible. Jesus sends out disciples in pairs and calls folks to join a new body. Jesus calls us to turn the other cheek when we are hurt, not lift up the right of self-defense upon all others.
But what God offers is not this freedom to be individuals to the fullest possible extent, But the freedom to love God to do something that our heart doesn't want on its own. The freedom to love our neighbor, not for personal benefit, but because of who God is.
As Martin Luther said, “the Christian is utterly free, master of all, subject to none. The Christian is utterly dutiful, servant of all, subject to all.”

Our freedom is a paradox. It is not about rights or contracts or what we deserve. In Christ, we are free to love and serve and find joy in love in service. In Christ we are free to build up our treasure in heaven, where their cannot steal, because where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

The freedom of Christ is to love people who don’t love us back. To delight in giving more than receiving. The freedom of Christ is to not have an angle for every relationship. The freedom of Christ is that you don’t need to win at life, Christ has won for you. You don’t need to prove yourself, Christ has found you worthy. Grace is grace because we don’t deserve it, and there is freedom in that. We are free to see ourselves as more than consumers or workers or leaders, but as children of God.

The word for conversion in Greek is metanoia, it means changing direction, it means your life was going one way and now it is going another. This change of direction is not wrought by a strength of will. God is with us from before we are aware of God. And God desires all to be saved. So God is working in us to help us change directions so that we can be more free. God doesn’t want us to slaves to our own desires. Because our own heart is never satisfied. The human heart without God is just like that Steve Earle song, “I ain’t ever satisfied.”

And then if we are blessed to change directions in life. If we are blessed to enter the freedom of God, the old way of life is still there. We are called to a life that is filled more and more with love, it is easy to become complacent in faith. To think that we have done enough or given enough or loved enough. The root of idolatry is thinking you are finished.

The Methodist movement took fire in England and the colonies 250 years ago in a world that had heard of the church and grown complacent. The world thought that it was finished with faith. You get baptized and you are fine. John and Charles Wesley hoped all people to be offered grace but also the discipline to stay in love with God. The Wesley’s preached in front of coal mines before 6am shifts because the workers were too tired on Sunday to come to service. They also organized meetings for everyone to grow in faith together. It was this combination of the head and the heart. A heart on fire for God is amazing, but life in the world needs a good head to navigate together.

From the early time of the Methodist movement, John Wesley would recommend a covenant service at the beginning of the year. It would be a time to re-commit to God for the year: to make covenant. Not because we had left God, but just in anticipation that the human heart does sway and we should seek to stand firm in who God is for us. This is how it starts

I am no longer my own, but thine.
Put me to what thou wilt, rank me with whom thou wilt.
Put me to doing, put me to suffering.
Let me be employed by thee or laid aside for thee,
exalted for thee or brought low for thee.
Let me be full, let me be empty.
Let me have all things, let me have nothing.

The covenant language is hard to hear if you're focused on freedom being purely individualistic. If freedom is about me and my choices and what I want to do and making sure nobody tells me what to do, it doesn't make sense. But in the same way, if my focus on freedom is solely about me, the gospel of Jesus Christ doesn't make sense because the gospel of Jesus Christ is not about me. It isn't. It’s not about you as individuals. That is not the focus. God calls us together to be the body of Christ together, to care for our neighbors together, to care for widows and orphans together. Even if it impinges upon my freedom, even if the existence of others means I can't do all the things I want to do. God shows us a world where we are more free in spending our time caring for others than if we spend our time just for ourselves, we are more free in giving of ourselves for others than when we are saving all the things we have for ourselves. We are more free in giving away our resources with generosity now than saving things up for our children and our children's children and our children's children. This is something that's been going on for a long time. Augustine writes in an early sermon

“I’m saving it for my children!” a marvelous excuse. He’s saving it for his children. Let’s see, shall we? Your father saves it for you, you save it for your children, your children for their children, and so on through all generations. [^1]

As it says in Ecclesiastes, there is nothing new under the sun.

We are in a new year. We are offered an opportunity to step into a new kind of freedom this year, the freedom to love, the freedom to seek God, the freedom to not be slaves to our own desires. You don't need to protect God from this world. You don't need to be a servant to your desires. God has created you for more.

Let us pray,

[^1]: Augustine Sermon 9.20


title: Freedom for Neighbor

themes: love-of-neighbor temptation self-giving-love freedom-in-christ service-and-mission

text:
**Scripture:** Luke 4:14-21; Luke 4:1-13; Isaiah 61:1-2; 1 Corinthians 13:1-4; James 1:22-23
**Series:** 2022

> Closing sermon in a Freedom series: Jesus' wilderness temptations (Luke 4) reveal three false worldly freedoms (to have whatever you want, to rule, to escape consequences/death), all of which Jesus rejects. True freedom, declared in his Nazareth reading of Isaiah 61, is freedom for the neighbor: self-giving love rather than self-satisfaction. Pruitt closes by inviting Bee Creek UMC into deeper local service, from the Farmacy Garden to the Bee Creek Village project.

**Illustrations:** chuck-e-cheese-urban-air, lyle-lovett-if-i-had-a-boat, retirement-retreat-etymology, grand-inquisitor, bitcoin-apple-superbowl, leaders-think-about-constraints, bee-creek-village-survey

---

# January 23
## Freedom for Neighbor
Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit to Galilee, and news about him spread throughout the whole countryside. He taught in their synagogues and was praised by everyone. Jesus went to Nazareth, where he had been raised. On the Sabbath he went to the synagogue as he normally did and stood up to read. The synagogue assistant gave him the scroll from the prophet Isaiah. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written:

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
    because the Lord has anointed me.
He has sent me to preach good news to the poor,
    to proclaim release to the prisoners
    and recovery of sight to the blind,
    to liberate the oppressed,
    and to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.
He rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the synagogue assistant, and sat down. Every eye in the synagogue was fixed on him. He began to explain to them, “Today, this scripture has been fulfilled just as you heard it.” Luke 4:14-21

Chuck E Cheese is a very strange establishment. It is a pizza place where the mascot is a giant rat. Humans have to get in this giant rat costume at least once an hour while the store is open. Kids are given stamps on their hand when they enter and, really, they are not allowed to leave without their adults who also have the same stamps. There are games and pizza and arcades and loud noises and tickets. It is a lot of stimulation.

Inside Chuck E Cheese, if you give them money, your kids are free, Free to do what they want. And what do they want? They want to have fun.

Urban Air, in Lakeway, has a similar vibe minus the being trapped inside. Kids run around. Jump. When you pay the entrance fee, they are free to do what they want in a modestly safe environment.

Kids just want to have fun. Freedom in Urban Air and Chuck E Cheese is about maximizing fun. What about everyone else. What do we really want?

My friends, we're finishing our series on Freedom, on our quest for true freedom. We began by talking about the Covenant Prayer of John Wesley. And then we looked at the freedom. Christ offers us from sin in baptism. Last week, we talked about our freedom in Christ, the giftedness we were given in Christ, how it may not seem equal at first, but God did not offer us a spirit of competition but a Spirit of Love.

And what does that look like? That's what we have for today.
Freedom is a concept that cannot exist in itself. You are free for something. If you are unfree, you can't do things. If I am currently being constrained, if I am strapped down in a chair or in a straight jacket, I am not free to do what I would like to do. But when those straps are removed, we become free to do what we want to do.
What do you want to do in life? What would you most like to do? The older we get, the harder the question becomes because we see more clearly the constraints we have in our life.
It's not just the limitation of our gifts. It's the material constraints. If I could do whatever I want, I might be on a mountain somewhere. As Lyle Lovett said, if I had a boat, I’d go out on the ocean. If I had a pony, I’d ride him on that boat.” Riding a pony on a boat feels like freedom. If I didn't have obligations to other people.
It's funny how quickly, when we think about what we want, our obligations to other people come up. Obligations to people in our family, people we like, or we don't like, obligations in our community. And with obligations, we just don’t feel as free.

Well, let's imagine that for a minute. If you didn't have any obligations to anybody else in your life, does that look like freedom? If you didn't have to go to school. If you didn't have to work. If you didn't have to do anything. If you had all the money you needed to do all the things you would want to do: is this freedom? The world says it is. This is the kind of freedom that we are presented in our culture. Save enough money so that you can do what you want. For a lot of people, that may be their goal in life. But what it ends up looking like is a grown-up Chuck E cheese or a grownup urban air. This kind of constrained circumstance where you don't have to think about the outside world. Where you can blissfully say to yourself, “I don't want to think about it. I don't want to think about sad things. I don't want to think about negative things. I just want to do I want to do.”
This may be desirable from time to time. And there's definitely a place in the Christian tradition for retreat, for getting away, for having space to clear our head. The word retirement, a word that some of you experience and many of us plan for, comes from the French word for retreat.
## The Wilderness
Jesus goes on a retreat right before this passage. He goes into the desert.
Jesus does not get himself ready to go back into the world. He faces a different challenge.
You see, for many of us today, this idea of what we want as freedom from want, as ability to fulfill all of our desires, is entirely a lie. It is as false a reality as assuming that the inside of a Chuck E cheese is the real world. And if you get enough tickets, you did good.
Christ did not become flesh so that we would have a kind of freedom that lets us do whatever we want. The freedom to do what we want looks a lot like sin. Our desires in themselves are distorted and without grace, they only go back towards ourselves.
Christ came to break us out of this loop of self destruction. To show us freedom in how he lived, but also to give us, through the Holy Spirit, the freedom for something more than self-satisfaction.
After his baptism, Jesus goes into the desert and he is tempted by the devil after fasting for 40 days and 40 nights, He does not eat for 40 days and 40 nights. The end of his fast is not a moment of great weakness, as we would often think about it. We may think, “oh my gosh, he's so hungry. He can't think of anything else but food.”
And yet, fasting does not offer weakness. It offers strength. Christ strengthens himself for temptations to come by fasting. And when he's ready, he's offered these three questions that sum up the challenge of the world.
Dostoevsky, in his great novel,
The Brothers Karamazov hinges the entire book on the prose poem Ivan tells his younger brother, Alyosha. It is called the Grand Inquisitor. Jesus comes back to Seville, Spain, in the 16th century, during the Spanish inquisition and he, Jesus, arrested for interfering in the work of the church.
The Grand Inquisitor talks to Jesus about his time in the wilderness. The Inquisitor says,
> “was it possible to say anything more true than what (the devil) proclaimed to you in those three questions…For in these three questions all of subsequent human history is as if brought together into a single whole and foretold; three images are revealed with will take in all the insoluble historical contradictions of human nature over all the earth.”[^1]
The first question is, since you are the son of God, command this stone to become bread. In other words, make whatever you have into whatever you want. If you are so powerful, do that so that you will never be hungry. So that you will always have what you want. Is this a goal for us, to always have what we want? Wouldn't it be great to be able to turn stones into bread? Wouldn't it be great to turn lead into gold? Wouldn't it be great to have bought Bitcoin when it was selling for a hundred dollars or bought apple when it was selling for two? Wouldn’t it be great to have that? Wouldn't it be great to know who's going to win the super bowl and bet the odds. Wouldn't that be great. If you're the son of God, don't you want to do that? If you had all the bread you wanted, you could be free.
But then Jesus says, “as it is written, one does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.” The bread does not make us free. The material resources do not make us free. God makes us free.
Next, the devil takes him to the top of a mountain and shows him the world and says, “I will give you all of this if you worship me.” And through these temptations, we should think about Jesus being asked, but also what would happen if we were asked the question. Would you worship the devil if it could make you king of the world?
It is not a simple question. You would have absolute power over all the places on the earth: you could reorder the world however you see fit. You could be in charge of the country. You could be in charge of all of the resources. You could do all the things. Wouldn't that be great? If you had the power, gosh, if Jesus had the power, the world would be a better place, right? Maybe get the people we like in power. Everything will be better. And yet Jesus responds again in the negative, “As it is written. You shall worship God and serve only him.” Power is not freedom. Many of are it have been people in authority over others. In my experience, people in authority, whether they be CEOs or Senators or Bishops, think a lot more about what they can’t do than about what they can.
Finally, the devil takes Jesus to the top of the temple and says, “since you are the son of God, jump down from here and your angels will come and rescue you.” And then the devil quotes scripture to Jesus, which is important to remember. The devil quotes scripture. Just because someone is quoting the Bible doesn't mean they are of God.
 What the devil is offering is immortality. You wouldn’t have to die. Wouldn't that be great? We can freeze your brain. We can extend your life forever. You don’t have to suffer any consequences in this world. And then Jesus responds, do not put the Lord, your God, to the test.

Ultimately, in the temptations, Jesus is offered three forms of freedom, first, the freedom to have whatever he wants (turning stones into bread), second, the freedom to rule and have power over whomever he wants, the freedom to control, and finally, three, the freedom to not suffer the consequences of his own actions, the freedom from death. This is not why Jesus came. This is not what God offers us in baptism. This is not the covenant Christ gives us in that the early Methodist movement claimed in the covenant prayer.
After the temptations, after he has left the wilderness, Jesus starts to proclaim and to heal. And he goes to the synagogue and he's given the scroll of Isaiah. And he goes to Isaiah 61 and he reads this passage and here we see what holy freedom looks like. It's not freedom for ourselves and our desires. It is not freedom for people who look like us. It's not freedom for our family and curses for others.
> “The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
    because he has anointed me
    to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
    and recovery of sight for the blind,
to set the oppressed free,
     to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

Christ offers us the freedom to love our neighbor, to really do it, to really give of ourselves. We are given freedom for our neighbor. Freedom is not for ourself, for our savings, for our storage, for our talents, but for others.

The freedom of Christ is nothing if we don't love, it's like a Paul says in first Corinthians 13,
> If I speak in tongues of human beings and of angels but I don’t have love, I’m a clanging gong or a clashing cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and I know all the mysteries and everything else, and if I have such complete faith that I can move mountains but I don’t have love, I’m nothing. If I give away everything that I have and hand over my own body to feel good about what I’ve done but I don’t have love, I receive no benefit whatsoever. 1 Corinthians 13:1-4

Or James says,
> You must be doers of the word and not only hearers who mislead themselves. Those who hear but don’t do the word are like those who look at their faces in a mirror. They look at themselves, walk away, and immediately forget what they were like. James 1:22-23

We are offered this freedom to love our neighbors fully, not in a kind of charity way, not in a kind of NGO way, in a Christ way. Christ rejected the worldly notions of freedom in the devil’s temptations and Christ offers us a heavenly notion of freedom. You are free not to have as much me time as you can, but to be the child of God you were created to be. You are free to use your gifts, not in competition with others, but out of love for others.
So what can that look like? What are you doing for other people in your life right now? That's what it comes down to. That's the question of, of this passage with Luke. That's the question of first Corinthians 13 That's the question of James: what are you doing? Do you realize that you are free to do more? Do you realize that you are free to love more. James or Jesus aren’t asking us to stretch ourselves thin but to go deeper. And when we go deeper, instead of being draining, service becomes even more life-giving.

One of my great joys of ministry is connecting people to meaningful service opportunities. Ways of giving of yourself more. We have a number of those opportunities at the church from helping at the Farmacy Garden on Tuesdays and Thursdays and a few Saturdays a month. Or helping with the prayer team or Visitation Team that works as the hands and feet of Jesus. We have service opportunities within the church on Sunday morning in worship behind the scenes running power point or AV. There is also opportunities for greeting and ushering, for volunteering with our children’s and youth ministry and in the nursery.

Each of these ministries is friendly and accessible and eager for more people to help out.

If you were with us at Christmas Eve, you heard me talk about Bee Creek Village. And I am going to keep talking about it. It is a dream to offer a community here for those in need of those struggling and for all of us. We gave our Christmas offering to Bee Creek Village to help get some surveys done. Over Christmas we raised $9608 for this project. When we received a bid for a survey of the lots the bid came back for $9600. We are just getting started and we want all of you to be a part of it. We don’t want to go across the world to build something together. We want to do it here. We don’t want to go across the world to give people a chance to start over, we want to do it here.

We are ready and free to go deeper together, but we need you. I need you. God needs you to take that step into the freedom of love this season.

Let us pray,
Heavenly father, thank you for Jesus. Who came to set us free. Help us to step into the heavenly freedom of love willingly and excitedly. May we risk greatly for your glory. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

[http://youtube.com/channel/UCGQEILBeB0znhR-kcZzp4w/live](http://youtube.com/channel/CHANNEL_ID/live)

[^1]: Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov, 251-252.


title: Freedom from Sin in the Waters of Baptism

themes: baptism sin-as-missing-the-mark freedom-from-sin grace-not-merit holiness baptismal-identity transformation

text:
**Scripture:** Luke 3:15-17; Luke 3:21-22; Romans 3:23; John 3:16; Ephesians 2:8-9; Micah 6:8
**Series:** 2022

> Preached in the 'Freedom' series, this Baptism of the Lord sermon argues that we cannot understand baptism or redemption until we recover the biblical meaning of sin. Sin is not merely breaking ethical or sexual norms (a secularized, paganized notion) but missing the mark and a wrong direction away from God. Baptism is therefore not about making us good people but about being washed of original sin, incorporated into the body of Christ, and freed by grace from slavery to sin. Through three composite character stories (Joe, Frank, Noelle), the preacher shows that an encounter with the risen Christ transforms the inner life without necessarily changing outward circumstances. Grounded in Jesus' own baptism in Luke 3, where the sinless Christ entered the waters for our sake, the sermon ends by inviting the congregation to remember their baptism, touch the water, and claim the freedom and sacred worth God gives.

**Illustrations:** dabbling-mandarin-chinese, baptism-easter-bunny, holier-than-thou, joe-encounter-changed-life, frank-porn-addiction, noelle-fifteen-hypocrites, jordan-river-water-bottles, theologian-christ-stood-with-sinners

---

# Jan 9

The people were filled with expectation, and everyone wondered whether John might be the Christ. John replied to them all, “I baptize you with water, but the one who is more powerful than me is coming. I’m not worthy to loosen the strap of his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. The shovel he uses to sift the wheat from the husks is in his hands. He will clean out his threshing area and bring the wheat into his barn. But he will burn the husks with a fire that can’t be put out.” When everyone was being baptized, Jesus also was baptized. While he was praying, heaven was opened and the Holy Spirit came down on him in bodily form like a dove. And there was a voice from heaven: “You are my Son, whom I dearly love; in you I find happiness.”
Luke 3:15-17, 21-22 CEB

 I've dabbled with learning Mandarin Chinese a little bit over the last year. And I heavily emphasize ‘dabbled.’ I can say the two words that I could say before I started learning:  Nǐ hǎo and Xièxiè, hello and thank you. I vaguely have some understanding of a few pictograms. I can count a little bit, but I just dabble.
One of the interesting things about getting into a language and non European language, inflected language and pictogram language is just, you have new ways of misunderstanding and not knowing what is going on.
And then there's this level of difference where you have languages like Japanese and Mandarin Chinese, which have the same alphabet, but the pictograms are pronounced completely different. In Mandarin, it is hanzi, in Japanese it is kanji. They just have similar pictures. For instance, chéng in Mandarin Chinese but makoto in Japanese for the same character.
I was thinking about Japanese and Chinese concerning the issue of sin. it's a word. It's a phrase that has a kind of common understanding in contemporary America, especially in the contemporary south, but the sin often described in movies, TV shows, or with TV preachers, or online preachers, it's not quite the sin of the Bible. If we don't understand sin, we can't understand baptism. If we look at the idea of sin and we see one thing, when God says it's something different, we'll not understand redemption.
My friends, we're continuing our series called freedom that pastor Matt ably began last week. Last week, we focused on the covenant prayer and the covenant God offered to us, that even in our brokenness, we can receive from God. We have the freedom to claim God. This week, we are continuing that search into what true freedom is. We are looking at the freedom from sin in Christ. We are free not to sin as well as we are free from sin through the waters of baptism. But again, what is sin?
Hamartia in Greek and  חטאה (hhatah) in Hebrew. First, it's a term in archery for missing the mark. In some ways, in Hebrew, it's a failure to do the good, to not perform a good deed when you are able to do it is an actual affront to God. In both biblical languages, iIt's a directional term. Where are you going?
Latin went ahead and screwed the pooch on this one, which is a technical linguistic term. The roman’s had a number of legal practices and sin fit into this line of thinking. If we look at our contemporary cultural understanding, sin is almost universally about ethical norms, usually something to do with either current laws on the books or sexual practices. Those are the ways we understand sin. Culturally, sin has become  completely secularized. It's not about God anymore. It's about what you do or don’t do. There is no need for baptism and it's an empty gesture. Sprinkling magical water with a wink and a nod. It is like the Easter bunny of Christian practices.
The goal in life is to be a little less wrong. You'll be good. And then at the end of your life, as long as you have more rights than wrong, you'll be good. That's fine. That's not Christianity. It's really just a distorted kind of paganism. You can't make it on your own. I can't make it on my, own. The heart of the gospel is not do a little more good than bad and you'll be fine. It is for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. And yet we're glad that he gave his only begotten son that whoever believes in him shall not die, but have everlasting life. By grace you have been saved through faith. This is not your own doing.
Baptism is not about making us good people. It is about washing us clean from the separations we have made from God. This is about washing us clean of original sin. It is about incorporating us into the life of the body of Christ. It is about being buried in Christ’s death and rising in Christ’s life. It is grace all the way down. We may sin after baptism, but you are free not to do it. Apart from grace, we are all slaves to sin. Apart from grace, we all missed the mark.
Sure, there are good people outside of the Christian faith. God works in mysterious ways. God works in the hearts of all people, even those who have never heard the Christian witness, but to do a good deed does not make you righteous. To do a good deed does not make you free.
Grace lets us freely seek what is good. Grace lets us freely want a life of holiness.
Holiness is another word that has a lot of cultural baggage, especially in the south. We have this cute phrase, holier than thou, that we have distorted what is good by God. Who made turned holiness into something that is undesirable? “Oh, she's a little bit holier than thou,” Holiness is not about a comparison, but a profound humility and acceptance of God's grace. Holiness is not about what you do as much as who you are. Holiness is about a changed life.
Here’s an example. So you've got a guy named Joe. He lives a normal life. He has a wife and kids. He thinks he is a good person. He tries to do a good job at work. He’s faithful, yet is unfulfilled. There's a God shaped hole in his life He has some friends that he knows are not good for him, that bring them into bad places, and convince him to say mean things. And when he does things with them, his wife says, oh, boys will be boys. You know how the story goes. And then he had an encounter with the risen Christ, whether that be on a walk on a Sunday morning, with a beer and front yard and conversation about the theology, wherever it may have been. It may be have been a late night text message.
He has an encounter with God and his life changes. His inner life changes. He doesn't change jobs. He doesn't leave his wife. In fact, he begins to love her more. He's honest. He loved his children more. He's more dutiful in his work because he's doing it out of a love of God and a gratefulness for what God has done for him.
And then, as well, he no longer desires those things he used to like. He no longer desires the late nights with his friends. He no longer desires the text messages to his wife from the bar where he's unsure how much to share. That kind of life is just not interesting. It's not fun. It's not who he is in Christ. He is free from that.
Or maybe it's Frank. And just to be clear, the names have been changed to protect the innocent. So we have Frank, again, happily married, three kids, two grandkids. He goes to church. He sees himself as a good person. He loves watching football and thinks that he could coach UT better than any of the past coaches. Yet, he has a porn addiction. And he thinks it's fine. He’s not proud, but he’s not harming anyone. His wife may even know and just let him have his fun.
Then he has an encounter with the risen Christ. He realizes that he is loved and forgiven. He is met right where he is and God offers him something more. And in that the transformation and in that new direction, Frank doesn't leave his job. Frank doesn't leave his wife. He loves her more. He loves his kids more. He is grateful for every second of every day and sees it all as a gift.
And he no longer seeks out those stimulations online. As well, he is able to humbly confess, not just to a spouse, but to new friends in Christ and ask them to pray for him and lift him up because he does not want that life.
Or maybe it is Noelle, who is 15. She grew up in the church. She goes to youth from time to time. She goes to church from time to time. Sometimes she sits in the back or in the sunrise room. She looks around on Sunday morning and sees a bunch of hypocrites. People who say one thing with their words and do another thing with their actions. People who say they believe in God and think God loves them, but then they don't love their neighbor, they don't seek justice, they don't walk humbly. She thinks she's better off figuring everything out for herself.
Then she goes off to college and finds out there among folks with similar circumstances and think they have it all figured out.
Then she has an encounter with God. Instead of now suddenly thinking that everything in her family's church was hunky-dory, she realizes that not only was it un-tasteful, it was sinful. And that she needs to speak up. And she is free to speak up because God offers her the grace to speak the truth, not knowing how it will be received. No matter what, she knows she is of sacred worth, no matter what they say. She is free.
That freedom from sin is because of who Jesus is and what he did.
We see this in the passage from Luke. Jesus received baptism. Jesus entered the waters that he did not need. Christ knew no sin, he had no need to be washed of sin, but he stood there and received that blessing for us. As a theologian wrote,
He stood with all sinners when He awaited John’s baptism, the washing in the Jordan as sign and act of repentance. He did not hold Himself apart and aloof from this evil generation; rather He joined it. Not for his sake. For ours.

We offer the water Christ was baptized in. There is a little bit of the water of the Jordan in each of our baptisms and in each of those bottle we are giving you. Jordan River water is not magical. Baptism is not magical. It is holy. It is set apart. It is sanctified because Christ entered it, received it, and gave it to us. Christ gave us freedom.
We offer this freedom through the waters of baptism. We offer the waters of baptism to all who seek Christ. We offer it to children, to youth, to adults, to the elderly. We offer it once. You cannot be re-baptized because God does not make mistakes.
You may have been baptized in a church you no longer attend or you may not even believe what they say, but God does not make a mistake. You are not a mistake. You are free.
We are free. True Christian freedom is about us. It's not about me. It could never be about me. It could only be about us. There is no Christian as an individual. There's only the body of Christ.
Today, I want you to remember your baptism. If you have not been baptized, I would love to talk to you about it. Moreover, if your children have no been baptized, I'd love to talk to you about it.
I want you to take a moment, touch the water, touch your forehead. Say the prayer. “May I remember my baptism and be thankful.” Remember that you are loved. Remember that you are free. Remember that you don’t have to sin. Remember all that you can give. Let us pray,

Heavenly Father, thank you for the freedom of baptism that lets us thrive in ways we could have never imagined. Help us to accept the freedom God has given us to love our neighbors, to love ourselves. In the name of the Father in the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.


title: Freedom in Christ

themes: spiritual-gifts freedom-in-christ jealousy christian-community life-is-not-fair

text:
**Scripture:** 1 Corinthians 12:4-11; Matthew 25:14-29; 1 Samuel 16:6-7; Philippians 4:8-9
**Series:** 2022

> Third sermon in a series on freedom, preached at Bee Creek UMC on January 16, 2022. Pruitt confronts the painful reality that spiritual and natural gifts are not distributed equally ('life's not fair'), reading Paul on the diversity of gifts given by one Spirit for the common good (1 Corinthians 12:4-11) alongside the Parable of the Talents (Matthew 25). He argues that the unfairness only stings if our goal is worldly competition—college, sports, money; but God's goal is different, and God looks at the heart, not outward stature (Samuel anointing David, 1 Samuel 16). True freedom is being released from the competitive, comparing, fearful mindset (like the servant who buried his talent) to love fully with whatever gifts we've been given. Drawing on Bonhoeffer, he locates this freedom in Christian community and Paul's exhortation in Philippians 4 to dwell on what is true and lovely, closing with a reflection exercise and prayer for release from jealousy.

**Illustrations:** growing-up-others-better-than-you, mothers-lifes-not-fair, barry-switzer-born-on-third, 10000-hours-elite-athletes, comparing-attendance-and-preaching, looks-like-a-duck

---

# January 16
## Freedom in Christ

There are different spiritual gifts but the same Spirit; and there are different ministries and the same Lord; and there are different activities but the same God who produces all of them in everyone. A demonstration of the Spirit is given to each person for the common good. A word of wisdom is given by the Spirit to one person, a word of knowledge to another according to the same Spirit, faith to still another by the same Spirit, gifts of healing to another in the one Spirit, performance of miracles to another, prophecy to another, the ability to tell spirits apart to another, different kinds of tongues to another, and the interpretation of the tongues to another. All these things are produced by the one and same Spirit who gives what he wants to each person. 1 Corinthians 12:4-11

One of the hardest things about growing up is realizing that there are some people who are better at things than you are. There are people who are faster, who are stronger, who have better coordination, who are better at sports than you. There are people who are smarter than you. People who have more symmetrical faces, their hair is perfect, they always seem in better shape. All of these kinds of things. And you get to the point when you realize that it is not fair. It is not fair. Why do they have those things and I don’t?
Sometimes, when you're 10 or 12, and there's a kid that is faster than you, you know that you are smarter than them or, you know that they may be able to shoot more three-pointers in basketball than you, but you know that you can defend better than they can. But then there's also those kids that are just better at all the things than you. This becomes more acute in high school and you start getting ready for college applications and things like that.
And it's not fair. There are people who are better at all the athletics than you and get better grades and write better essays and have better connections and always look effortlessly perfect and get into better schools than you. It does not seem fair.
It seems like it would be fair if everybody had an equal bucket of talent. The word talent actually comes from the Bible and we'll get to that in a little bit. But it seems like it would be fair if everyone has this bucket of talent or gifts or stuff that they're naturally good at and it's just doled out equally so that if you add up everyone's gifts, it all equals the same around the world.
It's nice to think about that, but it's just not true in reality. And at some point, everyone has to come to grips with this fact. As my mother would say, “life's not fair, Wilson.” This is not fair. Why do they get more than me?
### Series Intro
My brothers and sisters, we are continuing our series on freedom on our search for the true freedom that God offers us. A few weeks ago, we talked about the covenant prayer of John Wesley and, and how it offers us a model of freedom. Last week, we were talking about baptism and the freedom Christ offers us from sin; the freedom to love God.

But in what is our freedom located and what does it look? That's what we're talking about today: our freedom in Christ. The gifts Christ has given us to live free.

But again, if we look at the world and the different gifts some people receive, it seems like there's not any freedom here. It seems like we are limited, like we are constrained by our genetics. We're constrained by our condition. If we were born wealthier, if we were born with more gifts, it would be different. It may seem like life is a genetic lottery: some people have to struggle every day of their life and others are born on third and think they hit a triple, as Barry Switzer said. Life is not fair.
It doesn't seem like we are free in that kind of way. It seems like much of our life is predetermined and outside of our control. We cannot pick our family. We cannot pick the place we are born. We cannot pick our circumstances. Sure, We have some agency on marginal positions here or there. We can choose to practice more. We can choose to study more. We can will ourselves in certain directions, but you can't will yourself to grow six inches. You can't will yourself to suddenly be good at something that you're not. You can practice 10,000 hours and still not be able to throw a football like Aaron Rogers or Tom Brady. You could practice 10,000 hours and still not be able to shoot a basketball like Steph Curry. Doesn't that seem a bit constrained?
In that parable where the word talent comes from, Jesus doesn’t exactly settle the situation. A talent was a unite of weight about 80 lbs., so each talent is about 80 lbs of silver. It is a lot of money in any culture.  Here is the parable from Matthew 25

> “The kingdom of heaven is like a man who was leaving on a trip. He called his servants and handed his possessions over to them. To one he gave five valuable coins, and to another he gave two, and to another he gave one. He gave to each servant according to that servant’s ability. Then he left on his journey.
> “After the man left, the servant who had five valuable coins took them and went to work doing business with them. He gained five more. In the same way, the one who had two valuable coins gained two more. But the servant who had received the one valuable coin dug a hole in the ground and buried his master’s money.
> “Now after a long time the master of those servants returned and settled accounts with them. The one who had received five valuable coins came forward with five additional coins. He said, ‘Master, you gave me five valuable coins. Look, I’ve gained five more.’
> “His master replied, ‘Excellent! You are a good and faithful servant! You’ve been faithful over a little. I’ll put you in charge of much. Come, celebrate with me.’
> “The second servant also came forward and said, ‘Master, you gave me two valuable coins. Look, I’ve gained two more.’
> “His master replied, ‘Well done! You are a good and faithful servant. You’ve been faithful over a little. I’ll put you in charge of much. Come, celebrate with me.’
> “Now the one who had received one valuable coin came and said, ‘Master, I knew that you are a hard man. You harvest grain where you haven’t sown. You gather crops where you haven’t spread seed. So I was afraid. And I hid my valuable coin in the ground. Here, you have what’s yours.’
> “His master replied, ‘You evil and lazy servant! You knew that I harvest grain where I haven’t sown and that I gather crops where I haven’t spread seed? In that case, you should have turned my money over to the bankers so that when I returned, you could give me what belonged to me with interest. Therefore, take from him the valuable coin and give it to the one who has ten coins. Those who have much will receive more, and they will have more than they need. But as for those who don’t have much, even the little bit they have will be taken away from them.

What do we do with this? It doesn’t seem fair? The servants aren’t given equal talents.
But the question we need to hold on to is what is the goal? What were they asked to do? What are we asked to do?What are we striving for? If the goal of the Christian life is to get into college, it's unfair that some people have more gifts than others. If the goal of the Christian life is to play varsity sports or to get the highest paying job or to make the most money possible, then yes, this dispersion of talents is deeply unfair. If that is the goal, then we are deeply unfree and deeply constrained in this life.
And yet, thanks be to God. That is not our goal. God doesn't say, “make as much money as you can or else you will go to hell,” right? That's not in the Bible. Instead, we have this idea of gifts offered to us by Paul in first Corinthians:

> There are different spiritual gifts but the same Spirit; and there are different ministries and the same Lord; and there are different activities but the same God who produces all of them in everyone. A demonstration of the Spirit is given to each person for the common good. A word of wisdom is given by the Spirit to one person, a word of knowledge to another according to the same Spirit, faith to still another by the same Spirit, gifts of healing to another in the one Spirit, performance of miracles to another, prophecy to another, the ability to tell spirits apart to another, different kinds of tongues to another, and the interpretation of the tongues to another. All these things are produced by the one and same Spirit who gives what he wants to each person.

Not everyone has received the same gifts, nor are they given in an equal amount, but they are given as the Spirit wishes. And again, if we are stuck in this mindset of competition, it is not fair. But when we break free of that mindset, when we realize that we are not competing against each other for God's love, we are free to love fully wherever we are with whatever we have, with whatever talents we have been given. We are also free because even in those moments where we make mistakes, when we don't fulfill our potential, there is grace and mercy. We are offered gifts to share, not gifts to horde. And so the kids who are faster and stronger, smarter, and funnier, more handsome and more beautiful, their life is their life. The standards that we set as a society to compare ourselves to each other are not the standards of God.

When the prophet Samuel comes to Jesse's farm, looking for the new king of Israel, by all the standards of the ancient world, by all the standards of the modern world, the oldest son should be king. He is handsome and tall and strong and smart. He looks like a king. He acts like a king. If it looks like a duck and quacks like, it’s a duck. This works for humans, it does not work for God. The oldest so. Looks like he should be king, but he is not.
Then the next and the next is they're all handsome and tall and smart and strong king lik, but no, none of them are enough because God does not look at the side of God, looks at the heart. We have not been given gifts in equal amounts.
There is a bucket of heavenly gifts, offered to each of us, but it's hard to know what we have been given. If we don't pay attention to who we are.

### reflection
I want us to take a little time now to breathe, to pray, to think about what God has offered you.

	What has God given me?

	How am I using my gifts?

	How can I use them more this year.

It is easy to say we’re not comparing ourselves to others. Its easy for me to say that I am not comparing our attendance to other church’s, or my preaching to otehr pastors. It is another thing to put that into practice.

Thanks be to God that we are not left alone. The freedom Christ gives us is the freedom for life together.

As Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote,

> Christianity means community through Jesus Christ and in Jesus Christ. No Christian community is more or less than this. Whether it be a brief, single encounter or the daily fellowship of years, Christian community is only this. We belong to one another only through and in Jesus Christ.
> What does this mean? It means, first, that a Christian needs others because of Jesus Christ. It means, second, that a Christian comes to others only through Jesus Christ. It means, third, that in Jesus Christ we have been chosen from eternity, accepted in time, and united for eternity.

In this we are free together to remind, uplift, encourage, rebuke, hold up and sometimes simply just hold each other when the tribulations of this world are strong.

Thinking back to the parable of the talents, the third servant hid his talent because he was afraid. He was afraid of what would happen. Whenever I find myself in a place of negativity thinking about what others have that I don’t, I am trapped there. I am afraid to do anything there. I am not free. This is not what God offers us. This is not what we are offered together. We are free together to not think of the lack. We are free not to make comparisons but to focus, with Paul in Philippians, on “whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me—put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you.”

In this we are truly free.

Let us be a community that is free to seek Christ together. Let us be free to accept the gifts we have been given and accept that we were not given everything. Let us stop seeking salvation and competition in ourselves. Let us seek God’s gifts together. Let us be grateful for the giftedness of those around us. Let us be grateful for whatever portion God has given us.

Let us pray,

Heavenly Father, thank you for your many gifts. Help us to be satisfied in you and in what you offer us. Help us be free to be ourselves. Release us from jealousy and draw us further into your love. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.


title: He Ascended into Heaven

themes: ascension apostles-creed bodily-resurrection kingdom-here-and-now wesleyan-general-rules advent-expectation faith-as-risk

text:
**Scripture:** Acts 1:9; Psalm 68:18-20; 2 Corinthians 12:2; Luke 1:68-75; Matthew 5:48
**Series:** 2022

> Continuing a series on the Apostles' Creed, this Gaudete Sunday sermon takes up 'He ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of God the Father almighty.' Wilson uses space imagery (moon landing, McDonald Observatory, Webb telescope) to press the question of where the ascended Jesus went, insisting on a bodily, not disembodied, resurrection and ascension grounded in Acts 1:9 and the empty tomb. Heaven is not a place in the cosmos but the Triune God who is the source of all being; by faith, because we are Christ's body, we already share heaven now while Christ remains present with us, quoting Augustine. Turning to Advent and Zechariah's song in Luke 1, he argues we can follow Christ without fear in holiness, then applies Wesley's General Rule (do no harm, do good, attend to the things of God) as the shape of living into the kingdom of heaven now. He warns against denying that kingdom through self-justification and complacency, citing Matthew 5:48's call to be complete/perfect, and closes by rejoicing in Christ's coming.

**Illustrations:** moon-landing, mcdonald-observatory-stargazing, st-andrews-paul-physicist, star-trek-starship-heaven, oil-rig-roughneck-priest, augustine-ascension-sermon

---

# December 11
## He ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of God the Father almighty,

You ascended the heights,
    leading away your captives,
    receiving tribute from people,
        even from those who rebel
        against the Lord God’s dwelling there.
Bless the Lord!
    The God of our salvation
    supports us day after day! Selah
Our God is the God of salvation,
    and escape from certain death comes through God my Lord.
	- Psalm 68:18-20

Some of you were alive during the moon landing. Some of you may remember it vividly. Some of you were in school at the time and you remember how they brought in the TVs to show you this phenomenal moment. I mean, a man on the moon! It was literally science fiction. They didn't find any green little men up there, but it was this astonishing moment, a human from the earth to the moon through space.

That word itself, space, is curious. We use it to describe everything beyond the world. Space is unique and beautiful. My family loves going out to West Texas to look at the stars. We went to the McDonald Observatory earlier this year with the kids for the first time and they loved it: walking around the giant telescopes, seeing pictures from Hubble. We watched as the new James Webb satellite was unfurling earlier this year. I love pictures from space.
The ancients never talk about space as such. It was all part of the heavens: the moon, the stars, the sun, the planets, shooting stars, all of these observable phenomena that are really quite astonishing. The moon and the stars fill the scriptures. They matter again and again. When Jesus ascended into heaven as he does at the beginning of the Book of Acts, and as we say it in the creed, where did he go?

## Series Intro
My friends, we are continuing our series on the apostles creed, that historic doctrinal statement of the faith. We are going to look at how the creed encapsulate scripture and offers it to us in a way that shows us what has been revealed from God about who God is, how the world is, why we are in need, how Jesus saves us, and what we should do about it.

Today, He ascended into heaven.

I have a friend of mine who's a professor of New Testament at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland and he was giving an interview recently and spoke about how Paul the Apostle, was a really wonderful physicist. Paul loved talking about the physical world. Paul talks about the third heaven. He doesn't talk about the second heaven or the fourth heaven, but the third one, and someone he knows who went to this third heaven and came down.

Second Corinthians 12.  “I know a man in Christ who was caught up into the third heaven fourteen years ago.” 2 Corinthians 12:2- CEB

Since there's been a church, there's been Christians like arguing and debating about what Paul means. What is the third heaven? Some say that the first heaven is the sky, the second heaven is outer space, and the third heaven is the presence of God beyond that, but I don’t think Paul is super clear on this fact.

And then a similar question, is the third Heaven where Jesus goes when he ascends?
Part of the challenge in understanding this is that Jesus’s body ascends, it's not just a disembodied spirit. Disembodied spirits are not very important in the Bible. Many cultural images of life after death include disembodied spirits, but these are not based on scripture. Resurrected physical bodies are not as important for many Christians and many people who have claimed to be Christians over the years, but they are very important in the Bible. All the resurrection accounts in Matthew, Luke, and John, have Jesus eating fish and doing something material, something concrete. And then at the ascension, Jesus goes up. It's hard not to have in your mind, when you read this, an image of someone being zoomed away into space as if by an alien spaceship,

Jesus didn’t slowly fade into nothingness. His body was there and then it went up.

“After Jesus said these things, as they were watching, he was lifted up and a cloud took him out of their sight.”
Acts of the Apostles 1:9 CEB

It matters that there's not a tomb of Jesus anymore. The tomb is empty. He is risen in flesh and sinew. If anyone ever claims to have the bones of Jesus, they're either lying or the faith is a fraud. Like it's that concrete of a thing. Our belief in resurrection is also that the resurrected body of Jesus is no longer present as it was on earth. Christ is seated at the right hand of God the Father Almighty. Where is that?

Heaven is not another planet or solar system. We can’t visit there through a star ship like Star Trek 5. Heaven is not a proper noun. If God is the creator of heaven and earth, of all reality, then God is not just another aspect of reality. The Triune God is the source in whom we live and move and have our being.

To believe that Christ ascended to be with God the Father is an act of Faith.

And when Christ goes up to that space beyond space, because we are Christ’s body, we can go with him, as well.

> For just as he remained with us even after his ascension, so we too are already in heaven with him, even though what is promised us has not yet been fulfilled in our bodies.

> Christ is now exalted above the heavens, but he still suffers on earth all the pain that we, the members of his body, have to bear…Why do we on earth not strive to find rest with him in heaven even now, through the faith, hope and love that unites us to him? [^1]

Christ’s ascension does not simply give us something to look forward to after we die. Christ takes part of us into heaven. As well, Christ remains here with us through the body of Christ. The kingdom of heaven is here. It has already started. Resurrected life is possible here and now. But it is an act of faith. It is taking a step beyond what is comfortable into a space where we don't exactly know what the result is going to be. Living into the kingdom of heaven is an act of faith.
## Advent
Even as we speak of the ascension, we are in the season of advent. Most of the biblical stories of advent come from Luke 1. Luke gives us the account of the coming of Jesus, starting with this man named Zechariah.
Zechariah was a priest. He had duties at the temple. The priestly function in second temple Judaism usually had a rotational system. Kind of like being a roughneck on an oil rig. And you'd have two weeks on, two weeks off. And it'd be pretty intense. I don't know what is more intense: working on an oil rig or working in the temple, with all the blood from the sacrifices.
Then in Luke, an angel comes to Elizabeth, his wife, who is elderly. The angel tells her that she's going to have a son who is going to be a prophet. Zecheriah, the man of God, does not believe her. Thus, he becomes mute. He cannot speak.
But then near the end of chapter one, after John is born, Zechariah not only speaks, he sings.

>Blessed be the Lord, The God of Israel; He has come to His people and set them free. He has raised up for us a mighty Saviour, Born of the house of His servant David. Through His holy prophets He promised of old That He would save us from our enemies, From the hands of all who hate us. He promised to show mercy to our fathers And to remember His holy Covenant. This was the oath He swore to our father Abraham: To set us free from the hands of our enemies, Free to worship Him without fear, Holy and righteous in His sight, All the days of our life.

For us today, we can follow Christ without fear in holiness and righteousness all our days because Christ ascended and is present with God the Father, and yet still present with us here. We can follow him without fear in holiness and righteousness.
What does that mean? One tool to help us is called the General Rule. It has three parts. It starts: first, do no harm. That is how we live in holiness and righteousness or justice.
Do we believe our actions are causing harm to people? Do we see that? Is it clear? If it is, then we need to assess and change the behavior. If we actually seek Jesus and wish to follow without fear, the onus is on us. If we want to follow with fear, we would be afraid of the consequences of our actions and wish to put our head in the sand. Without fear, we are free. We start with not harming the people around us and being willing to question our actions when they do reach to harm. And this means going down the rabbit hole of the consequences of our actions.
If you're not willing to think about how your choices of diet, of travel, of home impact other people and the world, then you are shutting off Christ's power in your life.
The next step is to do all the good we can. Are we doing all the good we can or only a limited amount of good? Do you live without fear in holiness and righteousness because Christ has ascended and is present with God and is ready to offer justice? Or are you the one offering justice?
Next week we're gonna talk about judgment, but it's still implicit in the presence of Christ with God, the Father on the right hand side. And justice is not ours, but the Lords. Our position is not to make others suffer or pay, but to do the good we can. That is what holiness can look like.
And then finally, to do the things of God: Feed the hungry. Clothe the naked worship. Come to worship together, give to God. I mean, the kingdom of heaven is either here or it's not.

We each are offered the opportunity to live into Christ’s Kingdom or not. We can reject God's call on our heart. When we choose to ignore the harm we do, when we choose to blame other people, when we choose to always put ourselves as the victim of a situation and never take accountability for our own actions, we are denying the presence of the kingdom of heaven. When we stop at a threshold of doing good, when we say, “this is enough.” When we say, “God didn't ask me to be perfect.” I’m sorry to tell you that God does.
Matthew 5:48 Be perfect. As your Father in heaven is perfect. Which doesn’t mean Don't make mistakes, but be complete. Be complete in Christ. You are not complete in yourself. God is calling you to be complete. And so to do all the good you can, which just means taking the time to discern what is all the good you can do. And then to participate in the practices of God, to worship together, to share the table together, to conference together, to speak in a Christian way, in a holy way together. If we do not do that, we are denying the reality of the kingdom of heaven.
We don't have a discernment meeting today. We're gonna start back up in the new year.
If we do not talk together humbly, we're denying Christ's presence, the physical location of the presence of God. It's irrelevant when we choose to deny God by our actions.
There is grace for us, my brothers and sisters, but there is also a need.
In this season of advent, may we remember the two meanings of Advent: the waiting for the birth and the waiting for the return of Jesus. Today is Gaudete Sunday. The Sunday of rejoicing. The pink candle on the advent wreath. We rejoice in Christ’s coming when we live into his kingdom now. Not push it off, not pretend it doesn't matter, not think we've already passed the test. We have to seek first Christ’s kingdom and all these things will be added. Christ ascended the heights for us. Let us live a heavenly life of love in response,

Let us pray,
Heavenly Father, may we remember the presence of your Son, Jesus, in this season. May we wait for his coming by living into the Kingdom of Heaven here and now. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

[^1]: From a sermon by Saint Augustine, bishop (Sermo de Ascensione Domini, Mai 98, 1-7: PLS 2, 429-495)


title: He Descended into the Dead

themes: apostles-creed harrowing-of-hell second-coming addiction-and-recovery

text:
**Scripture:** Psalm 16:9-10; 1 Peter 3:18-19; Matthew 24:42; Matthew 12:40; Acts 2:31; John 3:16; 2 Corinthians 12:2; Luke 16:19-31; Revelation 21:1; Romans 8:38-39
**Series:** 2022

> A first-Sunday-of-Advent sermon in a series on the Apostles' Creed, expounding the clause 'He descended to the dead.' Using mountaintop versus cave/rock-bottom imagery, Pruitt argues that discipleship is more about the pit than the summit, and that Christ descends to the lowest depths to redeem the dead. He surveys the biblical evidence (Sheol, Matthew 12, Acts 2, 1 Peter 3), the Bible's evasiveness about the afterlife, Gregory the Great's image of the abyss made a road, and the Wesleyan history of the clause being cut in 1792 and restored in the 20th century. The descent affirms that no death, pain, or happenstance separates us from God's love (Romans 8), and that we live in a Holy Saturday world where Christ is present even in suffering, calling us to stay awake and give ourselves to those in need.

**Illustrations:** false-summit-mountain-top, fifteen-miles-to-go-hike, rock-bottom-cave-not-valley, addiction-last-straw, dog-treat-wine-advent-calendars, staph-infection-bandage-surface, wesley-39-to-25-articles

---

# November 27
## He descended into the dead

That’s why my heart celebrates and my mood is joyous; yes, my whole body will rest in safety, because you won’t abandon my life to the grave; you won’t let your faithful follower see the pit. Psalm 16:9-10

One of my favorite things about climbing a mountain is that you always know when you're at the top because you get to a point where you cannot go up anymore. If you can go up anymore, you are no longer at the top of a mountain. A lot of times, if you're climbing larger mountains, there are a lot of false summits. You look up and there's a high point and it looks like you're almost there. You get a little thrill. And then you get to the point and you see, nope, there's actually four miles to go.

When I'm hiking with my kids, i always try to instill in them a stoic philosophy of mountain climbing. Oh, just 15 miles to go. Even if we're going on a two mile hike, I want them to not be thinking about the end, but to be thinking, Oh, it's 15 miles to go. The more you think that we're almost there, the more unbearable the last bit of a hike is.
So climbing mountain's great because you know when you're at the end, you know when you're there.

Rock bottom is horrible because you do not know when you're there. When I visualize the metaphor of rock bottom that's often used in addiction response services, is not a valley, but a cave. If you're in a valley, you know when you've hit the bottom. In a cave, you do not because you cannot see. You cannot tell if you are at the bottom. You can only tell when you're at rock bottom after you've hit it and started coming back up. If you could tell you are there, it wouldn't be rock bottom.

In the language of addiction, many of us have friends and family who have suffered and sometimes outside of it it seems like, “Oh, this surely must be it.
This surely must be rock bottom. This surely must be the last straw.” And you know, unfortunately, it is not.
What seems like the bottom for you is not the bottom for them: they can always go lower.
But how deep does Jesus go for us?
### Series Intro

My friends, we are continuing our series on the apostles creed, the historic doctrinal statement of the faith. We are going to look at how the creed encapsulate scripture and offers it to us in a way that shows us what has been revealed from God about who God is, how the world is, why we are in need, how Jesus saves us, and what we should do about it.

Today, he descended to the dead.

It may feel strange, on this first Sunday of Advent, to hear about Holy Saturday, the day before Easter. Advent has always had two meanings. The first is the most common today. It is the coming of the baby Jesus at Christmas. It is easy to sell. Many brands sell advent calendars. You can find dog treat advent calendars, wine advent calendars, all sorts of things. They don’t mark the Christian calendar but the month of December. You can market a baby and gifts and a mother in blue and animals making funny noises. The second meaning of advent is harder to sell. It is the coming again of Jesus Christ to judge the living and the dead. The historical lectionary reading for the first Sunday in Advent comes from Matthew 24: Keep awake therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming.

Or as an early church father wrote, We do not preach only one coming of Christ, but a second as well, much more glorious than the first. The first coming was marked by patience; the second will bring the crown of a divine kingdom.

Advent is a looking back and a looking forward. The looking forward is harder because we don’t know when it will be. We must stay awake, and this is why we have the church, the body of Christ, to encourage and remind and uplift each other in this season. Advent isn’t about nostalgia but discipleship. And discipleship is not just about the mountaintop. It is more often about the pit, the hole, the rock bottom.

He descended to the dead. What does that mean? It is confusing.
In Greek, the phrase is to the depths. In Latin, the phrase is to those below.

It functions in large part as a holding area. The Hebrew word, Sheol, also functions in this manner. It refers to some kind of holding area for dead souls after they pass. Hell is a word that comes from pagan and Norse mythology. It's not an historically Christian word.

Many Scriptures speak of this descent, even if it has not spread in popular Christian consciousness. Matthew 12[^1] and Acts 2[^2] are two such examples.

So we have these scriptures that refer to what Jesus does after he is buried, but this leads to the larger question of what happens after anyone dies.

This is one of the essential questions of the faith. Death is not the end of us. There are a lot of wonderful scripture around salvation. “For God so loved the world that he gave his only son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish, but have.”
Eternal life. Life everlasting. Our hope and our faith is in God's love. The object of our faith is not a place or time but Jesus Christ, God for us.

The Bible is actually fairly evasive concerning what life after death will look like. Instead of rules and declarative statements, Scripture has images, images of life with God. Sometimes there's language of heaven, sometime Abraham's bosom, sometimes language of paradise. Ouranus, the Greek word for heaven is the same word for sky. Only in English do we differentiate heaven from the sky.

Paul speaks of the Third Heaven in a confusing passage from 2 Corinthians 12, but that is for another sermon.

Genesis and Deuteronomy speak of a heaven of heavens where angels and Patriarchs are located. We see this partially in the parable of Lazarus and the rich man  with the bosom of Abraham.

Some things are clear from the Bible: the afterlife is not simply a continuation of life here on earth. In the story of Lazarus and the rich man, Lazarus was poor and week and he is lifted up to the highest place. The rich man was rich and he is sent to the lowest place.

In Scripture, there is also this distinction between life after death and the new creation, which is what happens and is described at the end of the book of Revelation 21.
Then I saw “a new heaven and a new earth,” for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea.

Now we are back to Jesus and the creed and the descent to the dead.

What happened to people who died before Jesus? Are the forsaken because of chance and timing?

Gregory the Great writes of this beautifully.

>Christ went down into the deepest abysses of the sea, when he went into the Lowest Hell, to fetch forth the souls of his elect. Before the redemption, the depth of the sea was a prison, not a way…But God made of this abyss a road…”[^3]

What humanity made into a prison through sin, Christ made into a road. Where we have said no, Christ has said yes. The hardest no imaginable was not impenetrable to the God who created everything and loved us so much to seek even the depths.

Peter, in the strongest Scriptural evidence for the descent to the dead, speaks of a proclamation, an evangelism to the dead The heart of the matter is 1 Peter 3 “For Christ also suffered for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, in order to bring you to God. He was put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit, in which also he went and made a proclamation to the spirits in prison.” Or as a theologian I like put it, The proclamation…should be understood as an action which plants within eternal death a manifesto of eternal life.

The descent to the dead, like the second meaning of advent, is rarely emphasized. Many Christians go through their lives with little thought to the descent to the dead. I certainly didn’t think about it until seminary. Some versions of the Apostles Creed don’t even have it.

This is a phrase in the creed that early Methodists in the United States debated heavily. It was included in the first Sunday Service from 1784. In 1784, at the first general conference of the Methodist Church, John Wesley sends over an edit of the book of Common Prayer. He's a significant editor. John Wesley liked to cut and shift things a lot. The Church of England had 39 articles. John Wesley sends over 25, We don't need 39 articles.
25 is good.

It was cut out of the creed in 1792. Those early conferences were used to the quick pen of Wesley making lots of changes, so they cut the phrase out of the prayer service and baptismal service.

In the 20th century, with renewed interest in the early church, the phrase was returned.

The creed is truer because of this phrase.

If you have a Staph infection, you can bandage the open wound. You can clean it ten times a day, but the infection will not go away. To believe in Christ without the descent is to literally stay on the surface. We stay on the surface of the world and on the surface of sin.

On the contrary, to affirm the descent is to believe that there is no depth of death or pain or suffering to which Christ has not gone down. It is to believe that those chosen and loved by God are not limited to timing or happenstance it is to believe and affirm boldly the words of St. Paul from Romans 8.

>For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

What was a prison is now a road. What was eternal death is now eternal life. Our hope in Christ is not limited by our imagination. Christ offers himself fully for us.

Even more, the descent shows us what we see every day. The total victory of Easter is in the future. We still live in a Holy Saturday world of brokenness and pain and suffering and doubt and longing for Jesus. Easter is not an instant triumph over death but a total one. Saturday is where we are until then, and Christ is here with us even in the darkness. Christ will come but Christ is already present in the faces of those who suffer and hunger.

In this season of Advent, if we seek Christ, we cannot stay in the safety of our status quo lives but break forth in giving ourselves to others. Stay awake! Do the things of God. Love those in need. Hold firm in faith. You are not alone. At rock bottom, Christ is there. Even when we deny it, God has come to us in Jesus.

Let us pray,

Heavenly Father, thank you so much for your love, that reaches to the depths of sorrow and pain, because through Jesus, you have already proclaimed life in the midst of death. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

[^1]: “For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the sea monster, so for three days and three nights the Son of Man will be in the heart of the earth.”
[^2]: “Foreseeing this, David spoke of the resurrection of the Messiah, saying, 'He was not abandoned to Hades, nor did his flesh experience corruption’”
[^3]: Gregory the Great