You know that image of US President Richard Nixon stepping off the presidential helicopter flashing peace signs with both hands?  It’s a classic moment in US history, as Nixon had recently been on a diplomacy trip to China, an extremely rare feat for presidents before and after. It was quite a successful trip, and upon arriving home a photographer snapped the photo of a triumphant Nixon.  What I have learned since, however, is that Nixon often flashed the double-V peace sign, raising his arms in the shape of a V, using his hands to make two more V's.  

You and I are more accustomed to people making a single V sign as way to communicate, “Peace.”  For Nixon, it was much more likely that he meant the sign to say, “Victory!”  Sadly, for Nixon, and for the United States, his victory led to the opposite of peace.  After being caught cheating the rules of the election, he was impeached and resigned in August 1974.  Better known as the Watergate scandal, named after the hotel where the illegal activity occurred, Nixon’s legacy is one of turmoil.  In fact, stemming from Nixon’s original sin, the word “gate” is now tacked onto scandals of all kinds.  When NFL quarterback Tom Brady used slightly deflated footballs, which was against league rules, we called it “Deflategate.”  Wikipedia has a page dedicated to the hundreds of other “Gate” scandals in sports, politics and culture.  The “Gates” scandals are a reminder that so often our world lacks peace.  

What is peace? And how do we grow peace amid the scandals, anxieties, pressures and frustrations of the world.  Jesus once said to his disciples, “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”  I love that, but I also have to admit that there are plenty of times when I still don’t feel peace.  We Christians say things like, “I can’t imagine not having a relationship with Jesus.  I don’t know how non-Christians get through the hard times in life.”  And yet, if we’re honest, we Christians can really struggle with a lack of peace sometimes.  

In our continuing series on the Fruit of the Spirit, we are learning to walk in step with the Spirit, which means growing the Fruit of the Spirit in our lives.  We’ve learned about growing love and joy, and now we’ll take a look at what it means to grow peace.

If you had to describe God in one word, which is impossible I know, what word would you use?  Pause reading this, think about it, maybe write down the word, and then come back.  

What word to you land on?  Holy?  Pure?  Trinity?  Jesus?  Perfect?  All-powerful (or its fancy synonym, “omnipotent”)?  Another option?  There are so many options.  

A couple years ago I did a Wednesday evening prayer meeting study through the characteristics of God using the classic book by A. W. Tozer, The Knowledge of the Holy: The Attributes of God: Their Meaning in the Christian Life.  Tozer makes the following claim that I agree with: “What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.”  More than likely the one word you chose to describe God says something about not only what you think about God, but also what you might overemphasize about God.  For example, if the one word you use to describe God is “justice,” then you might not be giving enough attention to God’s mercy.  If the one word you use to describe God is “perfection,” then you might not be giving enough attention to God’s grace.  

What Tozer suggests in the book is that the first word we think about God should be his incomprehensibility, which I find quite helpful.  What Tozer means is that “God’s ways are higher than our ways.”  We will not ever fully understand God, which means that God will always be somewhat incomprehensible to us.  That might sound wrong, as if Tozer is telling us that we should be frustrated because we’ll never really know God.  But that is not what Tozer is saying.  Instead, he is saying what the Bible teaches, that we humans are and will always be limited in our understanding of the totality of who God is.  We should take heart, though, because God has revealed himself to us to the point where we can have a real relationship with him.  We can know God, and we can know him very well.  Yet we should be humble and teachable, with a healthy self-awareness of the truth that in our finite minds we will not fully know the infinite God.  As theologian Thomas Oden said, we should be comic theologians. What Oden meant is that we should have an ability to laugh at our attempts to fully understand God.  In other words, let us not put God in a box, as if we have him figured out.  

With all that in mind, if you answered one of the words I listed above, you are not wrong.  All of those words describe something important about God.  But I think there is one that is superior to them all.  Love.  God is Love.  Years ago I would have said that God is “holy” or “perfect” at his core.  But the more I study Scripture, the more I believe that love is his core.  I would suggest that every other attribute only defines his love.  He is holy love.  Gracious love.  Merciful love.  Perfect love.  And so on.  Everything God is and does is flowing from his love.  What does it mean that God is love?  Listen to the sermon, post any questions or comments below, and we can talk about it further, as we continue our sermon series on the Fruit of the Spirit, looking at the first in the list, love.

What is your Kryptonite?

You know how Superman is utterly powerful and has no weakness, except for the rare mineral Kryptonite?  When he is in the presence of even a small pebble of Kryponite, he cowers and becomes like an ordinary human.

Is there something like that in your life?  It could be a certain food, or better yet, a dessert.  I love tiramisu.  It is really hard for me to just have one piece.  Or apple pie.  Or brownies. Or chocolate chip cookies.  Or ice cream. Or…okay…you get the picture…I love dessert.  Every month at Community Night there is a table full of desserts, and I want to try a sample from each!  Do I need any dessert? No.  Is dessert healthy? No.  It’s also not wrong to eat dessert in moderation, but I have a hard time saying No to not only the first helping, but the second…and sometimes the third.  Maybe you know what I’m talking about!

Dessert is my Kryptonite.  Well, it is probably more accurate to say that it is ONE of my Kryptonites.  I can be tempted to waste time playing phone games, or watch too much TV.  What is your Kryptonite?

My guess is that we all have our own Kryptonite.  More than likely those various Kryptonites are not just sweets, but might be deeper and darker, and we would be embarrassed to admit them.  What I am talking about are the temptations in life that tap into our cravings and desires, and we can feel powerless to say No to them.

We might have been battling them for years or even decades, and we wonder if we’ll ever have victory.  We might say No once or twice and have a smidgeon of victory, but then we relapse and give in, feeling more shame than before.  We can hate the struggle, want to be done with the struggle, and fight hard against the struggle, and still struggle.

Is there hope for us?  Or do we just give in and say, “Well, that’s just what it means to be human”?  There is hope for us! Open a Bible to Galatians 5:16-26, and then listen to this episode as we begin a new sermon series on the Fruit of the Spirit.

This is my 12th year in a row preaching Easter sermons.  I’ve preached on the resurrection story from each of the Gospels, except for Mark, because, well, that’s just a strange one.  I’ve preached on the wonderful resurrection chapter, 1st Corinthians 15.  One year I preached on Psalm 103, which seems like it was written for Easter (though it wasn’t). As I thought about the significance of Jesus’ resurrection, I decided to preach Romans 8, which is usually considered to be a Holy Spirit chapter.  It is that.  But it is so much more.

Let me back up a minute and talk about Romans.  Romans is one of the most revered and substantive books of the Bible, and for good reason. Through Romans we learn the importance of the theology of God’s grace.  Do a search on the blog, though, and you’ll find I have rarely written about Romans.  I suspect the reason for that has to do with the fact that Romans is quite complex.  That said, open up your Bible and read Romans 8 ahead this weekend.  I think you’ll find it to be familiar, and quite encouraging, especially about the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives.  As you listen to this sermon about Romans 8, notice how Paul talks about the resurrection.  I hope you'll find hope if you're feeling the pain and loss of separation.

We observe Palm Sunday every year, but did you ever wonder why?  I get why we celebrate the birth of Jesus, and of course his death and resurrection.  Those are, by far, the three most momentous events in his life.  But why Palm Sunday?  It’s not nearly as important as Christmas and Easter, right?  Why do we celebrate a day that is less important?

There are a few other days on the Christian calendar that we might say are on a similar secondary level of importance.  We give a slight nod, for example, to Jesus’ Ascension.  Then for the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, we change the sanctuary colors to red.  But we don’t make a day out of these second-tier holidays.  We don’t normally sing special songs about them.  I have rarely preached about the Ascension and Pentecost on those Sundays, except for when I was preaching through the Gospels or Acts, and often those scripture passages didn’t align with Ascension and Pentecost Sundays.

Some Christians are very committed to observing the events of the Christian calendar, some having a special day for nearly every Sunday of the year.   The Amish make a big deal of Ascension.  Liturgical churches that  follow the lectionary have tons of special Sundays. But us evangelicals?  Not as  much.  We have tended to focus on two seasons of the Christian calendar.  The  four weeks of Advent that culminate on Christmas Eve, and the seven weeks of Lent that culminate on Easter.   Actually, the Baptist church I grew up in didn’t celebrate Advent or Lent.  Just Christmas and Easter.

Perhaps because Easter is such an important event, the most important event, Christians through the centuries have created an entire week building up to it.  Next week we will celebrate Maundy Thursday and Good Friday, as you can see in the Upcoming Events below.  But this Sunday we kick off Holy Week with Palm Sunday.  What is so important about Palm Sunday? We always sing songs about the events of that day, we wave palm branches, and often have a sermon about Jesus’ Triumphal Entry.  Why, though?  What’s the big deal with Palm Sunday?  Is it just fun to give kids palms and watch them parade around the sanctuary?  Yes, it is.  But that’s not what Palm Sunday is special.

You can probably remember the basic details of the first Palm Sunday in your mind, having heard it so many times. Or you can review it in any of the four Gospel accounts.  This coming Sunday we’re going to be following Mark’s account, which is nearly identical to the other versions, but Mark mentions something unique that, of the four, only John also alludes to.  Skim through the four stories of Jesus’ Triumphal Entry, and see if you can find the unique feature in Mark 11 and John 12.  It is this feature that I believe is so important, and why we make a big deal about Palm Sunday.

Listen in as we talk about it further.

In this episode, we welcome guest teacher Clint Watkins who shares how the practice of lament guided and shaped him and his wife Jillian during deep personal pain.  Learn more about Clint here.

It's time for our once per quarter sermon about Current Events, where we scour that week's headlines searching for what everyone's talking about.  This week, as it has been for over a month, the top headline is the Russian invasion of Ukraine.  The purpose of the Current Events sermon series is to think Christianly about what is happening in our world, and thus in this sermon Joel Kime talks about Just War Theory and Pacifism.  What does the Bible say?  Can Christians support war?  Can they support and join the military?  Why do some Christians say "Yes" and other Christians say "No"?