The Joshua Victor Theory

  Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord Jesus Christ, Amen. In 1 John 5 let’s consider how you’re “Children of New Life.” We’re familiar with our old life under sin and the condemnation of the law. Our daily experience in a broken world. Old life is as familiar as worn-out shoes. But Christ calls us to a new life. Learning, growth, and a new identity. Children of God are born for a new life. 1 John teaches our new life centers around simple things: faith, love, and the true confession of Jesus. First, in v. 1, John writes: “Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves the Father loves whoever has been born of him.” Believing in Jesus as the Christ and loving God the Father are marks of the children of God. Believing and loving. We don’t become children of God by doing those things, but because Christ first loved us, and by His own will, we were born of God (John 1:12-13). We become who we are by being...

    Christ is Risen! He is Risen indeed, Alleluia! Easter called us to trust Jesus’ reliable Word, and witness how our Risen Good Shepherd comes to His beloved sheep. These next six weeks of the Easter season we’ll study 1 st John to explore Jesus’ resurrection gifts and blessings to His church. In 1 John 1, I want to zero in on verses 3-7. They tell the effect of the resurrection message: “ that which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you, so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ. And we are writing these things so that our joy may be complete. This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses...

(Singing with the Exiles Series, Rev. Reed Lessing)  “Fear not, you worm Jacob, you men of Israel, for I myself will help you, declares Yahweh, your Restorer, the Holy One of Israel.” Isaiah 41:14.   If you could become any animal in the world, which one would you choose?   Maybe like Isaiah you would soar on wings like an eagle. Or like Amos perhaps the lion is your animal of choice, because you love to rumble in the jungle! Or maybe like Elisha you boast in the bear because when it comes to obstacles you maim and you maul. Or if your name is Caleb – which in Hebrew means dog – you just might choose to be a sweet and faithful little dog. Question. How many of you would like to become a worm?   May I see a show of hands? That’s just what I thought. None of you are worm wannabes!   I don’t blame you. Worms have no arms, no legs, and no eyes! They’re small and insignificant and, if you ask me, worms don’t have a lot of personality! No one ever stops their ...

·          The first part of our Gospel today is a confrontation between Jesus and the Pharisees about the Sabbath. It’s not His first bout with them. First it was a complaint about His disciples eating grain on the Sabbath. There Jesus asserts that He is the Lord of the Sabbath. Then, a second time, He heals a man with a withered hand on the Sabbath, and again, they were closely watching Him to find a reason to accuse Him. Like our reading, Jesus ask them (ch. 6): “ I ask you, is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do harm, to save life or to destroy it? ” Then, in chapter 13, it gets even more heated as Jesus heals a woman at the synagogue who was crippled by an evil spirit. This time, the ruler of the synagogue rebuked Jesus for this act of mercy, saying: “ There are six days in which work ought to be done. Come on those days and be healed, and not on the Sabbath day. ” The Lord answered: “ You hypocrites! Does not each of you on the S...

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen. The book of Job is a remarkable book that is like a magnificent mountain range of great peaks and valleys worthy of deep reflection and exploration. Job was tormented by horrible suffering, having lost all of his children in a single day, all of his servants were killed by raiders, and he lost all his flocks and herds. As if that were not enough, he was then inflicted with painful sores all over his body, from head to foot. The book as a whole answers Satan’s jeering question, of “Why do the righteous serve God?” and the closely related concern of “How can the righteous trust in God in the midst of suffering?” While Job is by no means a perfect example of a believer bearing up under their sufferings and still trusting in God—he is certainly one of the most remarkable examples in the Bible. And our Old Testament reading from Job 19 has everything to do with the reason why. If the book of Job is a complex mountai...

Grace, mercy, and peace to you, from God our Father, and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, Amen. Something new that I learned about the Gospel of Luke, in preparing for this sermon, was how much of Luke’s Gospel focuses on Jesus’ journey to Jerusalem. For 9 chapters Luke describes Jesus’ birth, childhood, baptism, and early Galilean ministry. The next major chunk of the Gospel of Luke focuses on Jesus’ movement toward Jerusalem—a shift toward His ultimate goal and mission. And then, like all the Gospels, the last major section focuses on Jesus’ Passion, in Jerusalem. But today’s reading introduces that major “travel section” or the beginning of Jesus’ journey to Jerusalem. And the things that Jesus encounters in this reading today, become recurring themes along this journey building up to Jesus’ death, resurrection, and ascension. Themes of rejection, and instruction in the cost of discipleship. Warnings of the things that would hinder or prevent us from following Jesus or en...