The Neighbor at Midnight – Sermon (Comments)

1/27/10 •

Below are notes from The Neighbor at Midnight sermon from January 17,2010. To listen to this sermon click this link
Luke 11:1-13
The Neighbor at Midnight
FCF: We have a tendency to give up in prayer because we think God is withholding or evil.
Telos: Jesus teaches us to pray.
Intro:

Series Intro: Parables of Jesus in Luke’s travel narrative

Jesus [...]

Letter from a Birmingham Jail by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (Comments)

1/20/10 •

But when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your sisters and brothers at whim; when you have seen hate filled policemen curse, kick and even kill your black brothers and sisters; when you see the vast majority of your twenty million Negro brothers smothering in an airtight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society; when you suddenly find your tongue twisted and your speech stammering as you seek to explain to your six year old daughter why she can’t go to the public amusement park that has just been advertised on television, and see tears welling up in her eyes when she is told that Funtown is closed to colored children, and see ominous clouds of inferiority beginning to form in her little mental sky, and see her beginning to distort her personality by developing an unconscious bitterness toward white people; when you have to concoct an answer for a five year old son who is asking: “Daddy, why do white people treat colored people so mean?”; when you take a cross county drive and find it necessary to sleep night after night in the uncomfortable corners of your automobile because no motel will accept you; when you are humiliated day in and day out by nagging signs reading “white” and “colored”; when your first name becomes “nigger,” your middle name becomes “boy” (however old you are) and your last name becomes “John,” and your wife and mother are never given the respected title “Mrs.”; when you are harried by day and haunted by night by the fact that you are a Negro, living constantly at tiptoe stance, never quite knowing what to expect next, and are plagued with inner fears and outer resentments; when you are forever fighting a degenerating sense of “nobodiness”–then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait.

Who is my neighbor? (Comments)

1/10/10 •

But mercy in not earned. It never is and never will be. God’s mercy is rich, free and inexhaustible. Mercy comes to the undeserving, to sinners who are rebels and do everything but deserve mercy. The Gospel helps me become a neighbor by reminding me that I did not and do not deserve God’s mercy. It is a free gift.

Psalm 122: Worship-Why Do We Do It? (Comments)

12/30/09 •

Psalm 122 is a psalm of ascent for pilgrims going to Jerusalem to worship as required by God three times per year. Following their long, weary, dangerous journey, they arrived in Jerusalem with great joy. The Psalm begins with the refrain: “I was glad when they said to me, “Let us go to the house of the LORD.” The Message puts it this way: “When they said, “Let’s go to the house of God,” my heart leaped for joy. And now we’re here, O Jerusalem, inside Jerusalem’s walls!” How is it that people could go to worship with such joy? In the 21st century is it possible that we could find that same joy? The answer to that question is discovered as we consider why we worship.