Sermon Archive

As America once again deals with national unrest and racial tensions, we take time to see what the bible teaches us about the Christian’s role in these times. Paul’s letter to a fellow church leader about the return of a former slave gives us insight into the heart of the Christian faith. At the core of our faith is the deep need for reconciliation. That reconciliation begins with the sinner’s reconciliation to God, but the overflow of that is a relentless pursuit of reconciliation in the lives of those around us.

Paul had spent his entire life preparing for a future that would never come. Paul might be the best example in all of scripture of someone that received a massive curveball in his life. He had trained, studied, and disciplined himself to be an elite pharisee. He was the most dedicated of the dedicated. Yet that day on the road to Damascus, everything changed for Paul. He went from a man brimming with confidence in his abilities and achievements to a man that had his eyes opened to the utter lack of confidence he had before God. Paul’s life was wrecked, but in the same moment, it was saved.

When life gives us a curveball, it can feel like our lives are falling apart. From our perspective, they might be. Our ability to control the situation and the narrative can be disorienting. For King David, this happened to him far more often than he would’ve liked by some of the people you’d least expect- his own children. Yet when David’s life seemed the most out of control and the most disorienting, that is when David would find his rest elsewhere- not in his ability to control it, but instead in God’s promises.

In life, sometimes our emotions can get the best of us. At times, those emotions can be warranted based on what we have observed, but sometimes those emotions are rooted not in facts, but in ignorance. When David tried to return the Ark of the Covenant to its proper place, David had one of those moments when one of his men, Uzzah, was struck dead for trying to steady the Ark as it fell. David was furious, but that was because he was ignorant of just how much he needed God’s grace. Later though, once his eyes had been opened, he was dancing because God let him walk just six small steps.

A picture is worth 1000 words. If that’s true, then what’s a “live photo” worth? Or a movie? While a picture can tell us a lot, it can also be misleading and limiting. So much so that, Satan can love to live in the snapshots. He loves to make us either feel great about ourselves (when the snapshot looks good) or hate ourselves (when the snapshot is painful and messy). The call from the good news of the Gospel is to remember that God works in full-fledged, well developed, profound stories. And the story of the gospel is where we find our hope and our humility.

In baseball, Curveballs are two things- a.) unexpected and b.) meant to make things harder. In the bible, there are all kinds of stories about unexpected things happening to people, and often times that makes things harder. However the overall story of the bible is very unexpected, but it has the opposite effect. The story of the bible is an unexpected, unmerited action that results in overwhelmingly good news. As we begin a few weeks looking at the life of King David, we can see how sometimes the unexpected is, in fact, a very welcome thing. And what makes this so unexpected is because we have done so little to deserve it.

Have you ever signed up for something only to find once you got there, it was nothing like you had expected? We all have experiences where we thought we knew what we were getting ourselves into only to find that perhaps what we got was more than we had bargained for. The disciples probably know that feeling well. At every turn, it seems like they are confused and bewildered by the things Jesus does and says. If you’re a follower of Jesus, you can probably relate. The reality is we don’t know what Jesus will call us to- but we do know that he’s in control and our task is to follow him where ever he leads.

What happens when we get a curveball thrown to us in our lives? The book of Ruth is the story of how two women dealt with some massive changes they never saw coming. It’s the story of bitterness and pain. It’s the story of providence and sovereignty. Sometimes we can see what God is doing. Sometimes we can’t see it at all. How do we push on in life when everything seems to fall apart.

What would it mean for us if we could just have a little warning about what was about to happen? Just a little heads up to know that something was about to happen. A little preparation could take us a long way. Unfortunately in life, we don’t really get that warning- at least not about specifics. All we are given is the command to follow God where ever he goes. So what does that look like? What happens when we don’t listen to that warning?