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Sermons

Advent – Hope – Luke 21:25-28

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Today, we are starting our Advent series, which we will be in for the next four Sundays leading up to Christmas. I’ll just take a moment here to say that if you have never really involved yourself in an Advent practice before, I would like to invite you into that this year. It’s easy to find a plan and do some short daily readings, the Bible App has a 25-day reading plan you can easily start today. __________________________________________________________

Luke 21:25-28

25 “There will be signs in the sun, moon and stars. On the earth, nations will be in anguish and perplexity at the roaring and tossing of the sea. 26 People will faint from terror, apprehensive of what is coming on the world, for the heavenly bodies will be shaken. 27 At that time they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory. 28 When these things begin to take place, stand up and lift up your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.”

This is the text for week 1 of Advent this year. I don’t know about you, but this doesn’t sound like Christmas to me. What happened to the baby in the manger, no room in the inn, the star that showed the shepherds where to go? What happened to that Scripture that Linus reads in Charlie Brown Christmas? If you’re like me, this text seems out of place in this Christmas season.

I didn’t grow up in a church that practiced Advent, we weren’t like some Christians who didn’t acknowledge Christmas, but we didn’t do Advent. And I think that in this body here at New Garden, many of us are unfamiliar with Advent. We know it’s the time leading up to Christmas, but maybe not much else, so this morning I thought it might be helpful to briefly give some background on what Advent is and how it can help form our faith during this season.

Advent is the 4-week long anticipation and celebration of Christ’s birth and Christ’s return. Advent means arrival, so during this season we prepare ourselves for the arrival of Jesus, both God coming in the form of Jesus which we celebrate at Christmas, and we look forward to the arrival of Jesus again.

So a simple way that we can think of it is the same way that the Jews would’ve been hoping for and anticipating a Messiah before Jesus, we now hope for and anticipate Jesus’ return. So we do this Advent practice by reading Scripture, spending time in prayer, and reflecting on our need for a Savior.

Each week during Advent has a theme and different people do the themes in different orders, but just so we’re on the same page, we’re doing them in this order: hope, peace, joy, love, and then on the 29th with our friends at the Woodmont Hills Campus, we’ll celebrate the arrival or Advent of Christ. Today’s theme, as we’ve already mentioned is Hope.

Hope may seem like this abstract concept, but hope actually drives much of our behavior as humans. We take action in different ways because we are hoping for certain outcomes. We hope that brushing our teeth and flossing will keep our teeth and gums healthy. We hope that being a reliable and trustworthy worker will help us have job security and gain influence. We hope that the kindness we show to our neighbors will be reciprocated or at least appreciated.

And the fact that hope often drives us to good deeds, is concerning because sometimes the world that we live in can feel hopeless. In this room alone, we could probably share stories for days on end about moments in our life where we experienced serious disappointment. Times when we had put years of effort into a relationship only for it to fall apart. When we spent late nights studying but didn’t get the grade we wanted on the test. When we got laid off.

And to top it all off I’m sure all of us in this room if we’re being honest could identify a time in our life when we were disappointed because the thing that we prayed to God for and hoped for didn’t come through. The test results showed no improvement, that relationship is still strained at best, our desires haven’t been satisfied. And as Christians, as followers of Jesus, we have to live in that tension. We know we should hope in God, but we also know that we live in this unredeemed space.

And so, a lot of times we turn our hopes elsewhere. We put our hopes in other things to meet our needs, and our hopes are revealed in our actions. Country singer Luke Combs has a lyric: longneck, ice cold beer never broke my heart. And its not just vices that we turn to. We put our hope in systems, in ideas, in security. There’s a lot of people in our country who are really disappointed right now because of the election result. That thing that they were hoping for isn’t going to happen. And the other side, they got to experience that a few years ago.

As an escape from a world that seems hopeless, we put our hope in truly meaningless things like football. I hope you weren’t hoping in the Titans this year. If you were hoping in the Vols, you may be feeling ok right now but just wait… Hope is an unavoidable part of the human condition, so we all are hoping for something, putting our hope in something. What is that thing to us? To you? To me?

While we will experience inevitable disappointment here on earth, we can still have hope. Hope that God is going to redeem us. Hope that Jesus will arrive soon and set all things right.

There’s a preacher and author I’ve been taking in a lot recently named John Mark Comer. He describes hope in Scripture like this:
“The expectation of coming good based on the person and promises of God”

Notice that our hope, our expectation of coming good, is not based on us or our experiences. We have hope because of God and God alone. We cannot get ourselves to this coming good by trying harder. We cannot get ourselves to the goodness of God by voting for the right person. We cannot think or debate ourselves into a perfect society. This complete redemption only happens at the moment of Jesus return, and we can’t know when that’s going to be.

When I was growing up, I was not looking forward to Jesus coming back to earth. I had heard pieces of Scripture like the one I read earlier: nations will be in anguish and perplexity at the roaring and tossing of the sea. 26 People will faint from terror, apprehensive of what is coming on the world, for the heavenly bodies will be shaken. And that didn’t sound all that appealing to me. I’d lay in bed at night and if there was sirens going off or car horns, I’d go over to the window and look to the sky afraid that it might be time.

Dr. Earl Lavender who is one of the shepherds at the Woodmont Campus and teaches in the Bible department at Lipscomb said that in his formative years he would fend off Jesus’ return by mentioning in his prayers each night that he knew tonight was the night. The Bible says no one knows the day or the time so by letting God know he was expecting it, God had no choice but to wait til later.

And I think one thing that the Enemy enjoys about our society right now is our comfort. Why do we need to go to heaven? We’ve got iPhones and football and Thanksgiving leftovers in the fridge. We’re so insulated from pain and suffering unless its inside of our house that we rarely cry out, “Come quickly, Lord Jesus.” Over the last two thousand years, Christians have moved from daily hoping for Jesus’ return to accepting that it won’t be happening in our lifetime. But whether Jesus comes back today or in a thousand years, we should be hoping it’s today. Because it’s going to be awesome.

25 “There will be signs in the sun, moon and stars. On the earth, nations will be in anguish and perplexity at the roaring and tossing of the sea. 26 People will faint from terror, apprehensive of what is coming on the world, for the heavenly bodies will be shaken. 27 At that time they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory. 28 When these things begin to take place, stand up and lift up your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.”

Don’t be afraid! Stand up, lift your heads, your redemption is drawing near. The moment we’ve been waiting for has arrived. We get to meet Jesus! This is good news.

Lord Jesus, Come Quickly.

Each week, we gather at the Table together remembering Jesus until His return by eating this bread and juice that symbolizes Jesus’ body and blood. This is just a placeholder. Someday we will get to share a meal with Jesus face-to-face. That’s exciting.

December 1st, 2024

Watch here: https://youtu.be/yirz_sGpXt0?si=Z_9-ORu6w2dzIKK7&t=1681

Sermons

Advent – Joy – Luke 3:7-18

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7 John said to the crowds coming out to be baptized by him, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? 8 Produce fruit in keeping with repentance. And do not begin to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ For I tell you that out of these stones God can raise up children for Abraham. 9 The ax is already at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.”
10 “What should we do then?” the crowd asked.
11 John answered, “Anyone who has two shirts should share with the one who has none, and anyone who has food should do the same.”
12 Even tax collectors came to be baptized. “Teacher,” they asked, “what should we do?”
13 “Don’t collect any more than you are required to,” he told them.
14 Then some soldiers asked him, “And what should we do?”
He replied, “Don’t extort money and don’t accuse people falsely—be content with your pay.”
15 The people were waiting expectantly and were all wondering in their hearts if John might possibly be the Messiah. 16 John answered them all, “I baptize you with water. But one who is more powerful than I will come, the straps of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. 17 His winnowing fork is in his hand to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his barn, but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.” 18 And with many other words John exhorted the people and proclaimed the good news to them.

Luke 3:7-18

This is the text for week 3 of Advent. And its another text that may not seem like Christmas. But let’s remember, during Advent, we wait expectantly for the advent – or arrival – of Jesus. And these people here that John is baptizing they are also waiting expectantly. Waiting expectantly for the Messiah to come and be revealed. In fact, they think it might be John.

John was Jesus’ cousin, and he was born about six months before Jesus. John was also born in a miraculous way because his mother Elizabeth was old and unable to bear children. An angel appeared to John’s father Zechariah who was a priest, so it wasn’t a totally dissimilar experience from Jesus’ birth story.

But John knew what he was supposed to do. He knew he wasn’t the Messiah, he was just the one announcing the Messiah would come soon. There’s a lesson in there I think. We’ve got to know our role. We’re nobody’s savior, we’re just pointing people to Jesus.

And so during this Advent season, we can interpret John’s message as how to wait expectantly for Jesus.

“Anyone who has two shirts should share with the one who has none, and anyone who has food should do the same.”
“Don’t collect any more than you are required to,” 
“Don’t extort money and don’t accuse people falsely—be content with your pay.”

I hear this message from John pretty clearly: don’t have more than you need, don’t take more than you need. There’s enough for everybody. Be content and generous.

On the one hand, we’ve got these instructions from John about how to behave, and on the other hand, we’ve got our Advent theme for this morning: Joy. We know that the news of Jesus’ birth was good news that it would bring great joy to the world, and this time of year is one that brings a lot of joy. Fond memories of Christmases past. Excitement to watch that person open the gift that we got them. A couple days off work for most of us. Time spent with family we don’t see that often.

And we know those joys that we get to experience around Christmas. And yet, for a lot of folks, this Christmas will be a difficult time. We notice who isn’t going to be there on Christmas morning this year. We realize that Christmas is going to feel different this year than some of those fond memories of Christmas past. 

So how do we experience joy this holiday season? Does someone in our life get us a new Lexus with the big bow on top? Do we finally get the Red Rider BB Gun? I think John the Baptist would say, “take care of others.” “You’ve got too much stuff, give it to somebody else.” “You don’t need extra.”

This idea of simplifying your life and getting rid of your stuff isn’t only a Christian idea. Shows like Love it or List it and influencers like Marie Kondo have grown to prominence over the idea that having more stuff won’t make you happy. And it’s true that it won’t. But the joy that we’re talking about today is deeper than that. The joy that we’re talking about is only possible through a relationship with Jesus. A joy that transcends circumstances.

The apostle Paul is an example of this joy. In Colossians 1, he writes “Now I rejoice in what I am suffering for you.” He’s writing letters to churches from prison and yet he still has joy because he is connected to something far bigger than a self-help, simplify your life fad. When he met Jesus, everything changed. As a religious leader in the wake of Jesus death and resurrection, he was looking to imprison and kill followers of Jesus. But when he met Jesus on the road, his life was changed. He took on a new name. He was given a greater purpose. This joy that Paul was referring to was a deep, abiding joy.

So how do we get from where we are now to where Paul is. Where he can be in prison and still rejoicing. If you’re like me then being a joyful person is easier said than done. I experience a lot of joy when I’m here with you at 10am on Sundays, but what about when I’m running late on Monday? When I’m sick on Wednesday? When my boss makes a comment I don’t like on Friday?

It’s not going to be easy and it’s not going to be quick. Think of it like training to be a joyful person. If you decided today that you were going to run a marathon, you wouldn’t sign up for one on Saturday. You’d pick a date way out in the future because you know that it takes months to train. For me, I’d probably pick a date a few years off in hopes that everyone would forget I ever said that I was going to do that. But the first time you go running, you’re not ready for a marathon. And after a month of training 5 or 6 days a week, odds are you still won’t be ready to run a marathon, but your endurance is going to be way better than it was a month prior. It takes time, months, probably more like years, but you can become a joyful person.

So how? How are we going to do that? I’ve got a few suggestions. And I by no means am a finished product on this, but looking back, I can see how these things are forming me.

Ask God for Joy
This may seem obvious, but I think it’s important to mention. Like I said earlier, there’s a lot of stuff you can find out there in pop culture about how to be joyful, but that messaging is devoid of the provider of joy. God created joy for us to experience, and the deepest, most all-encompassing joy is found in God alone. So ask for it. God wants to give you joy.

Express Gratitude
This has been really helpful for me. In a world that wants to constantly remind us of all the stuff we don’t have, remind yourself of the good things in your life. When I’m pulling out of our neighborhood most mornings, I offer a simple prayer: thank you God for the work I get to do. There’s something in your life to be thankful for, express gratitude for it! Doesn’t have to be only through spoken prayer, for the journalers out there.

Practice Contentment
This is what John was talking about in our Scripture this morning. What you have is enough. Look for ways to provide for other people from your excess.

Remember Jesus Wins
We talked about this a couple weeks ago when we talked about hope. We know how the story ends. Jesus wins. Whatever our current circumstances may be, we have hope for a better future. We should be hopeful for Jesus’ return. Remembering this over and over and letting it sink deep down into our bones is going to bring us joy. And each week, we go to the Table together to remember Jesus. This should be a joyful time. I didn’t grow up in a church where talking during communion was acceptable. You passed the trays in silence. You could hear a pin drop. And growing up, I didn’t get the message that this was a time for rejoicing. I’m still learning more about what this time together at the Table means and how it can transform our lives. Jesus wins, and we can rejoice in that together this morning.


December 15th, 2024

Watch here: https://youtu.be/3rT5eldDJiw?si=RE7qvh42QKfBdEsN&t=859

Sermons

Wait – Acts 1:1-8

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As we begin the year, we’re going to be walking through Acts 1-15 together. We’re going to see God take this group of folks that was cowering in a dark room after Jesus Crucifixion and grow them into this big, bold, multi-national, multi-cultural group of Jesus like people. I know that maybe the more official title of this book is the Acts of the Apostles, but I think a more descriptive title of the book would be the Acts of the Holy Spirit.

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In my former book, Theophilus, I wrote about all that Jesus began to do and to teach 2 until the day he was taken up to heaven, after giving instructions through the Holy Spirit to the apostles he had chosen. 3 After his suffering, he presented himself to them and gave many convincing proofs that he was alive. He appeared to them over a period of forty days and spoke about the kingdom of God. 4 On one occasion, while he was eating with them, he gave them this command: “Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift my Father promised, which you have heard me speak about. 5 For John baptized with water, but in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.”
6 Then they gathered around him and asked him, “Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?”
7 He said to them: “It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority. 8 But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”

Acts 1:1-8

It’s the first week in January… This is the time of year where we all put our heads together to come up with a plan for how we’ll improve ourselves, how we’ll boost profits, how we’ll fix our businesses, our relationships, our churches. Because there’s a lot of work to do. There’s a lot of things to get done. There’s a lot of projects to get the ball rolling on, all that stuff when we said “we’ll circle back on this in the New Year” well now it’s time to start doing that thing we said we were going to do.

I personally have never been much for resolutions. I normally start well on January 2nd because I never know what I’m resolving to do until January 2nd, its not something I put thought to before then. And then I do really well for about 3 days. Then the 4th day I miss. Something comes up, and that thing that I was planning to do gets pushed aside for something more pressing or at least that’s what I tell myself. But I come back on day 5 ready to rock. Then two weeks later, that thing that I had resolved to do, I’ve totally moved on from.

And that frustrates me because every day all year long I see people sharing their wins. All this stuff that they’ve done and accomplished. Our culture values starting, going, trying, overcoming, succeeding, winning, to put it simply: doing. These values instilled in us from the time we are children: work hard, come up with solutions, if we’re not winning, we’re not trying hard enough.

And so, when something isn’t working. We try harder. We brainstorm. We spend more and more time trying to fix what it broken.

Our churches are not exempt from this. We’re not the only folks who come on Sundays and remember a time in our lives when there was more people in the room with us on Sundays. It’s happening all throughout our country. Each day we become a more secular society. And no political power grab is going to reverse that trend. And its not that our programs aren’t good enough. It’s not that churches aren’t doing enough things. Church growth strategies and church consultants are not the hope of the world. Even still in 2025 America, Jesus is the hope of the world.

We can’t try and do ourselves into going where God wants us to go. And this frustrates me and maybe you too.

In these first few verses of Acts, we see Jesus give a holy command to his disciples. And it’s not to scheme and plot how they’re going to grow church attendance. It’s not to go out and try really hard to win the approval of folks in town. Jesus tells them to wait. Wait expectantly for the Holy Spirit to move and when it comes, go where it’s taking you.

They’ve just been with Jesus for three years, walking with him, talking with him, seeing God work in mighty ways, and yet according to Jesus, they still need to wait. They need guidance from a source outside of themselves. Jesus knows that this new Kingdom He’s come to bring about is only possible with divine intervention and leadership. So he doesn’t take this time to give them a pep talk. He’s not saying you guys got this now that I’m leaving. He’s saying wait for more guidance. The Holy Spirit will lead you where you need to go.

There’s a book I got into last year titled, When Church Stops Working, it talks a lot about this problem that churches are facing as we move into a more secular time. Here’s a passage that connects with what we’re talking about today:

“In Acts 1:4 we read that the first command Jesus gives the disciples is “not to leave Jerusalem.” We might have expected that first command to be to go out, to witness, to start a program, to preach, to teach, to do something, anything, that would make the church bigger. But Jesus orders the disciples to stay in Jerusalem and wait. The real origin story of the church does not start in Acts 2 with progress and growth. The real origin story starts in Acts 1 with waiting for God to act. God is the hero, and the church waits.”

The problems we experience in our secular world do not require secular strategies, they need sacred solutions.

So I don’t think I’m really breaking any news here. Obviously, we need God to intervene in our world and the Holy Spirit to lead us. But how do we cultivate a culture where discernment alongside the Holy Spirit is our default mode? Now its common for us to have periods of discernment like when we are appointing new shepherds or something like that, but how do we become a group of people who naturally are attentive to and aware of the Holy Spirit’s direction in our midst? To borrow some language from Mark Love and his book It Seemed Good to the Holy Spirit and to Us, how do we become a sailboat instead of a rowboat? How do we as individuals become sails instead of oars?

Just for fun a couple images from pop culture come to mind. Here’s an image from the 1959 movie Ben-Hur. He’s depicted here as a prisoner in the bottom of a Roman ship where they were forced to row to keep the ship heading where it needs to go. Unfortunately, I think this is a great illustration for how we often attack problems both as individuals and as groups. Sayings like “if it is to be, it is up to me” tell us that with grit and determination we can exact our will on the world around us and bend it to be what we want it to be. Just keep rowing. I think this mindset leads us to a lot of places we were never meant to go. It leads to power grabs, burnout, and a lot of frustration when we don’t get the outcome we want.

On the other hand, here’s an image from one of Wesley’s favorite movies, Moana. Which one of these pictures looks like they’re having more fun? When we accept our role as a group of people being led by the Holy Spirit, we can walk forward into community with empty hands, willing to accept the moment we’re in and be transformed by God no matter what comes our way.

So how do we as a church community get from being a rowboat to a sailboat? What sort of practices can we begin now so that when there are needed moments of discernment and direction from the Holy Spirit, it’s not such a foreign concept to us?

We’ll talk about this at the end of our series, but in Acts 15, the apostles had to discern what to do in a big way. There were some people that thought one way and some people that thought another, but because they had taken on a lifestyle that was so dependent on the guidance and discernment of the Holy Spirit, they were able to meet the moment, and be in tune with what God’s plan was for the Church.

In his teachings from Practicing the Way, John Mark Comer claims that if we want to become like Jesus, we’ll have more success if we train well than if we try hard. To explain that simply, the idea is that if you just wake up every day and try to be like Jesus, that’s great and good, but if you have not been committing yourself to the spiritual disciplines of prayer, meditating on Scripture, fasting, giving, and living in community with other believers, going out and being like Jesus will be frustrating to you because you will fail. On the other hand, when your heart has been transformed by the Holy Spirit through these spiritual disciplines, being like Jesus will be far easier for you, because you will already have been transformed into someone more like Jesus than you are right now.

So as we enter into a New Year here together today, my invitation to you is not to pick up a flyer on your way out that outlines our 2025 strategic plan for improvement and growth. Instead, I am inviting you to envision a church that walks in step with the Spirit, and help us take a step in that direction by engaging deeper in spiritual practice this year. That may be participating for the first time in a practice of Sabbath. Setting aside time in your week outside of Sunday morning removed from the workings and worries of your day-to-day life where you can spend time intentionally with God and your family or a close circle of friends. It may be praying each day for the first time in your life when you wake up, when you go to work, when you go to sleep. It may look like reading Scripture in community with other believers as part of a Bible Reading Group. It may be fasting from something in your life to make more room in your heart, your calendar, your wallet for the Kingdom of God.

And now we point ourselves towards the Table, the spiritual practice that we do together each week as we wait expectantly for the return of Jesus. All are welcome to come and share communion with us around one of our tables today.



January 5th, 2024

Watch Sermon: https://youtu.be/y8RdOEz9XPs?si=HeHO7gwHWWqYknZS&t=1632