The Joshua Victor Theory

  Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, Amen. Just last week we heard in Romans 11:33, “Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!” Since God’s wisdom and ways go far beyond our knowing or understanding, there are many things in life that just don’t make sense to us. We often grapple to understand His plan in our lives. The disciples likewise grappled with God’s mysterious plan surrounding Jesus’ death on the cross. It was a turning point in human and salvation history. Jesus tried to prepare them. In Matthew 16:21, Jesus brings it up for the first time. The Gospels record three distinct times when He openly told them about His coming death and resurrection. Listen again: “ From that time Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on t...

            Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord Jesus Christ, Amen. 1 Peter 4 & 5 tells us that Christians are to expect fiery trials and suffering for the name of Christ, and that Christ endured the same. Jesus Christ, being God’s own Son, and suffering in the flesh Himself, changes everything for us. That God would not remain aloof and distant from our sufferings but come down under it and in the midst of it, and feel the pain, the loneliness, and the struggle of it all, is amazing. No other god has wounds.             It’s hard in the midst of suffering not to be overwhelmed by a sense of the meaninglessness or injustice of it all. On the one hand, if a person believes in God, they are troubled by the question of evil, and wonder how God could allow it. On the other hand, if a person doesn’t believe in God, it must amplify the meaning...

Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, Amen.  A rapidly growing technology in our everyday lives is Voice Recognition, which tells one person’s voice from another. They say that our “voiceprint” is unique, just like our fingerprints.  The technology is rapidly being developed, even though it’s been around since the dawn of mankind. God designed our brains to be incredible information processing systems, and all of the mind-boggling “technology” of Voice Recognition is programmed into your mind, and works without you even having to understand how!  Just because it's so ordinary and common to us that we recognize so many unique “voiceprints”--we don’t ever really stop to be amazed by the huge processing and identification task that our brains go through instantaneously when we recognize, oh, that’s mom, or dad, or my sister or my friend from work or church or wherever. Not only do we need a finely tuned and worki...

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen. Earlier this week I was watching two famous professors debate—one an atheist, the other a Christian. They talked about suffering and the problem of evil. The widow in our reading was a real example of suffering. The Christian in the debate, John Lennox, said that everyone senses that there is too much suffering in this world. You can imagine the widow saying: “There’s too much suffering in my life—how can I bear it all?” When suffering strikes close to home—a husband, a son, or another loved one—we ask “why does God allow this to happen?” “How can God be good, when my loved one is dying?” Many turn away from God or simply say that He doesn’t exist, because of tragedies. But getting rid of God gets rid of the greatest hope and answer to suffering—while still leaving us with the suffering. If there is no God in the world, suffering is just a brute fact of existence, and the universe doesn’t care. If there is no G...

Sermon Outline:  In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen. ·          Isaiah 29—miracles of Jesus’ ministry. 700 years before Jesus. Example of the miracles in the Gospel reading—heal the deaf and mute. ·          Prophecy > fulfillment shows the Bible is God’s inspired Word ·          deaf hear, blind see, the meek and the poor rejoicing in the Lord. Reversals of injustice, suffering, oppression. ·          Reversals go beyond the suffering, to also oppressors >> ruthless come to nothing; scoffer ceases; all who watch to do evil, cut off ·          Take a sample at any age in history, and find suffering and injustice—different kinds, but ultimately the same. Progress in some ways, regress in others. ·     ...

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen. Gregory the Great, a theologian of the early church, once said the truth is not known unless it is loved. You could be brilliant and know all about the Bible, but if you don’t also love the Truth of God, you don’t really know it. Knowing Christian truth is not so much a test of your Bible knowledge, or your smarts—but rather loving Jesus and His Word. Loving His truth means you recognize it is good; that you want your life to follow that truth, even as you recognize your sins and mistakes, you love what is good and desire it. On the other hand, a person who does not love or keep God’s Word doesn’t truly know it. A twisted view of God or of life, can lead someone to know the facts, but not love God or His truth. Perhaps we mistakenly fear that God is not love; against the witness of the Bible. Maybe a person is captive to the power of sin in their life, and they resent the truth, because they don’t want God’s ...