2010 March 21- Endurance
Colossians 1:9-14. How do we endure and for that matter what does endurance do for us? Listen to see…
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Saint James Blog
Thoughts from our faith community about life
2010 March 14- Love
1 John 4:7-12. Thank the Lord for do-overs… wasn’t so on target with the morning sermon but 5:00 came together. What is love and what might we do about it?
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Pursue love, pursue Love
We come to week 4 asking what it means to pursue love in the context of our following Jesus. It seems obvious and maybe that is part of the problem. Love is so “obvious” that we walk right by it without engaging it. We speak of it with such frequency that it has all but lost meaning- the word anyway. Words are, after all, merely an attempt to represent a reality so we can communicate. My word “love” may seem so very different from what you mean when you say “love.”
What is clear is that love is important for our faith, for our connection to God and God’s connection to us. Love is from God, God is love. There is a lot rolled up in this word and this week trying to figure out how we can use it and make it meaningful in life was a challenge. Looking forward to sharing some thoughts about it in worship… Here’s a taste of the text we’re using for worship:
1John 4:7
Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9 This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. 10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. 11 Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12 No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.
2010 March 7- Faith
Luke 17:5-10. What a BIG topic to try and boil down for us in this third sermon in the Fight the Good Fight sermon series! What is faith and how do we exercise it?
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2010 February 28- Godliness
This second sermon in the Fight the Good Fight sermon series deals with what it means to be godly in everyday living.
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Faith: week 3 in Fight the Good Fight Sermon series
Seems like I keep coming back around to faith but since it is a central topic for Jesus-followers, I guess we’ll keep re-visiting it! I’ve already received some good questions and thoughts regarding the topic. Here they are:
So now I have been thinking abt faith. Many of the passages I have been reading during Lent talk abt how the season and the message is always the same – it is a constant backdrop for us who are called to change. It is only the “constancy” of Christs story that we can notice how much our lives change. Which led me back to poor old Peter when he said —-In this you should rejoice though now for a little while you may suffer various trials, so that the genuineness of your faith, more precious than gold, which though perishable, is tested by fire. (1 Peter 1:7)
Does this mean we really have to experience trial by fire to have faith? I know it is in the toughest times that I feel the deepest faith – that in crisis I can feel Gods presence now quiet and calm and full of love but is that really necessary? Can we live, see and feel God absent the contrast of hardship? Or is just nitwits like me that need to be smacked a few times to really get it!?
As a topic, faith is filled with possibility and uncertainty. Where to go and what to say about this third topic? Faith is the underpinning of all we do in following Jesus. More than simply giving in to a set of thoughts, faith calls out a pattern of living. Still, how will we express this pattern? What does faith look like in everyday living? Is “true” faith borne only in the crucible of struggle and hardship as 1 Peter implies or is faith “true” no matter the context in which it is borne?