The Joshua Victor Theory

  Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, Amen. These are ordinary questions: “Do you read the Bible?” “How do you interpret that passage?” Now flip them around. What if I asked you: “Do you let the Bible read you?” “Are you letting this passage interpret you?” God’s living and active Word reads and interprets our lives. Sharper than any two-edged sword, God’s Word searches our hearts and minds (Heb. 4:12). The real question is how God’s Word is reading and interpreting our lives. How is God’s Word at work in us? So instead of us acting on God’s Word, God’s Word is acting on us. Let’s try this with Psalm 28, our Introit. On the one hand we could read the Psalms like a Bible study of the prayers and hymns and laments of Old Testament believers. But that wouldn’t let God’s Word “read us.” It keeps God’s Word at arm’s length. For God’s Word to “read and interpret us”, we must find ourselves, our unnamed fears and emotions in the ...

Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father, and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, Amen. Does God really hear or answer our prayers? Why does it so often seem like He is silent, or deaf to our pleas? Our Introit, Psalm 28, explores this common fear. David, some 3,000 years ago, cried out this theme, found in all the other readings as well. The fear of rejection, silence, unanswered requests…these themes show up all throughout the Bible. We’re not the only ones. It’s the common experience of faith. Faith lives in this tension between the invitation to trust God and call out to Him for help, and His seeming slowness or inaction. Faith lives in this real tension between our present struggles and how and when God will respond.             It’s the Canaanite woman’s struggle in our Gospel reading, Matthew 15. She is crying out for help for her daughter. At first Jesus won’t even answer, then His disciples try to push her aw...

The readings I selected and preached on for this midweek service are: Psalm 9, spoken responsively; Psalm 25; Luke 12:4-7; and Isaiah 49:15-16.  In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen. In the past couple weeks we’ve seen how God’s people have a sinful tendency to forget both God and His Word, and how God remembers His people and forgets our sins. We’ve seen how great the cost is to forget God, or to live with the illusion that God forgets or ignores our sins when we think we’re getting away with it, but how God is patient to call us back to Him, and that when we repent, He does truly forget our sins. No doubt most of us have unintentionally forgotten countless things. Our human memory is not so good. But on some occasions when we wish we could forget—we find it nearly impossible to forget something on purpose. Perhaps bad memories we wouldn’t wish to keep—physical, mental, and emotional scars in our life. And then there are the good memorie...

David wrote the Psalm in a time of crisis—he speaks of his illness, his enemies wishing harm and death upon him, hoping for his death and the end of his legacy. And as if that weren’t bad enough, his close and trusted friend betrayed him. “Even my close friend in whom I trusted, who ate my bread, has lifted his heel against me.” It probably felt like being kicked when you were down….by your friend . Or one you thought was your friend. Betrayal was one of the worst wounds. Psalm 41 may refer to the time when David’s kingdom was in turmoil, with his son Absalom plotting his overthrow and stealing the hearts of the people. One of David’s most trusted friends, his advisor Ahithophel—betrayed him and joined with the treasonous Absalom in the conspiracy. Ahithophel fits the bill for a close, trusted friend, who dined with David, but then betrayed him. And when the conspiracy began to fail, Ahithophel saw the writing on the wall, and hung himself. Regardless of whether the unnamed traitor ...

Sermon Outline: ·          Psalm 118 finds its prophetic connection to Jesus in the Gospel reading (Matt. 21). Triumphal entry: both Ps. 118 & 8 are quoted. Jesus coming into Jerusalem on the donkey, fulfilling Zechariah’s prophecy (Zech. 9:9). The people shout triumphantly the words of this Psalm to praise and acclaim Jesus as the promised Messiah. “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!” Their confidence in His identity reached a fevered pitch. The city was exuberant with excitement, and the chief priests and scribes were trying their worst to quell the fervor. But when the celebration continued into the Temple courts, and the priests protested to Jesus, He replied with the words of Psalm 8, that “Out of the mouths of infants and nursing babies you have prepared praise.” God Himself had prepared this worship for Jesus from the mouths of children. ·     ...

Sermon Outline: ·          Prayed first by David, but amplified and fulfilled in Jesus. Quoted multiple times in NT, in reference to Christ: the hatred of Jesus without cause, His zeal in cleansing the Temple, the sour wine to drink in crucifixion, His betrayal by Judas, and Judas’ desolation afterward; Paul speaking about the hardening of Israel when they do not receive Christ. ·          Like Psalm 22, a portrait of the crucifixion—Jesus drowning in the waters, losing His foothold on life as He’s surrounded and attacked by those who hate Him and lie about Him. Describes His weariness and thirst, His longing for God’s help while facing apparent silence from God, the alienation and rejection from His own brothers. He laments the mockery and dishonor He’s faced, and His distress at the hiddenness of God’s face. He appeals for God’s vengeance against malicious enemies, that they would suffer God’s wrath ...

The concluding Sermon from a series on "Psalms for Advent." May your celebration of Christ's birth be filled with joy!             “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth, peace good will toward men!” Our sermon text for this Christmas Eve is Psalm 98, and I’ll be quoting it as we go along, if you’d like to follow. As you may have already guessed, the great Christmas hymn “Joy to the World” is directly based on this Psalm, and I’ll be making references to both.      1     Oh sing to the Lord a new song, A song that celebrates God’s new work of salvation—a song to praise the redemption that Jesus brings as He is born to Israel, to all the earth—yes to all creation! For he has done marvelous things! He has made a new marvel for all time, the Virgin conceives and bears a child. The infinite and all powerful God, whose scepter rules over all creation, has joined Himself to lowly mankind. The Virgin conce...