So, before we think about anything else this morning, I want you to remember what it was like to learn to ride a bike. Do you remember that day?
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So, in the last two weeks, we’ve pondered two essential features of what it means to walk in faith in this world: perspective and presence. Faith has the potential to help me to see things differently, to not just default to what I think is everyone else’s point of view or default to the point of view that I’m told any rational person would take. I look…and then I look again. At the same time, faith doesn’t drive me to focus on some other world, whether heaven or hell. Rather, authentic faith brings me fully into the present moment, not to ride the emotional roller coaster that life can easily become, but to stand in the present and see the real choices that are mine to make. The bottom line is that faith should lead us to live differently, to play by a different set of rules.
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So, it’s an interesting thing to “manage” worship.
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On a blustery, warm summer day in northern Minnesota, just north of Grand Rapids, a man named Jack Rajala is out tending his garden.
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Ecclesiastes is known as the Book of Wisdom. For a long time, the book was attributed to King Solomon—David’s son—who built the temple and was considered the wisest king of all. Now, scholars question that attribution. What isn’t questioned is the wisdom which the book contains.
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So, I want to be completely honest: the Genesis creation story is not a video recording of the first days of the earth. (The second creation story isn’t a videotape, either. That’s right. There are two!) This truth makes some people uncomfortable. This truth makes other people angry. Truth has a tendency to do that these days, right?
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2 Samuel 12:1-7
There is a neighborhood in Seattle that used to be its own little town: Ballard. It was a place full of single family homes and small businesses. It continued to have that feel even after it was annexed in 1907.
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1 Samuel 17:1-11;17-31
Sometimes what looks like a weakness turns out to be a strength. Sometimes, what we are so sure is a strength turns out to be an incredible weakness. Things aren’t always what they seem.
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1Samuel 16:1-23
So, sooner, rather than later, King Saul’s reign ended. All reigns end, right? That’s a given. What was unusual was that Saul knew it was coming, long before it actually happened.
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1 Samuel 15:1-23
So, when Samuel reluctantly agreed to give the people their wish and anoint a king, Saul was nowhere to be found. Samuel looked high and low until he found him hiding in a pile of baggage.
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1 Samuel 10:17-24
The story that I want to share is a true story, a story that found me this week and stopped me dead in my tracks…
This happened thirty years ago. Ben Calhoun was seven. His younger sister was two.
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1 Samuel 8:1-22
So, for the next few weeks, I would like to turn to the Old Testament, or what is more appropriately called, the Hebrew Scriptures. In Christ, we celebrate the New Covenant,
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