Sunday, November 1
Jesus writes to a prosperous church that has grown so comfortable it no longer notices its own need, and he stands at the door offering himself as the thing it was actually looking for.
Sunday, October 25
We were made to belong, and Jesus says the belonging we are hunting for is not finally carried by family or friends but by doing the will of his Father, which makes us his brother, sister, and mother.
Sunday, October 18
We keep looking for someone in charge to make the world right, and Pilate is the one who has the power. Jesus stands before him and says his kingdom is not from this world, so the justice we want does not come through the systems we hand our allegiance to, but through a king who rules by a cross.
Sunday, October 11
A wealthy man asks Jesus how to inherit eternal life and walks away sad, because the security he was hunting for was standing right in front of him. The sermon asks what we are holding so tightly that it keeps us from seeing Jesus, and where our security actually rests.
Sunday, October 4
Every person carries a God-given hunger for meaning, and religion built on our own effort cannot satisfy it, but the God Paul announced in Athens is not far off and has made himself known in Jesus.
Sunday, September 27
Everyone is looking for love, and the woman at the well shows what happens when we try to satisfy that God-given longing in people and things that cannot deliver. Jesus takes the harder road to find her and offers the love she has been searching for all along.
Sunday, September 20
We were made to look for satisfaction, and the trouble is never that we look but where we look. Israel traded the living God for broken cisterns, and Jesus stands up at the feast and offers himself as the living water that actually satisfies.
Sunday, September 13
Jesus heals a man born blind, and the story shows that every person is blind in some way: we are all looking for something, but true sight only comes when we encounter Jesus, who is closer than we think.
Sunday, September 6
David waited fifteen years from his anointing to the throne over Judah and seven more before all Israel crowned him, and the sermon holds that up as proof God finishes what he starts, in his own timing and true to his promises. The years in caves, in civil war, and in a town full of graves were not wasted; God was growing roots while David waited for branches.
Sunday, August 30
David has Saul cornered in a cave and lets him walk out alive, choosing to trust God's justice instead of taking the throne with his own hands.