Maybe you already know this, but for those who don't, one of my main responsibilities as a pastor on staff is to oversee the preaching and teaching on Sunday mornings. Along with preaching on a regular basis, that also entails scheduling other preachers and coming up with content. When it comes to preaching, I hope (along with others who preach at Grace) that the preaching is simply one of the various ways through which God shows up and speaks to our church family. From our singing together, to the prayers prayed, to communion, to the preaching of God's word, the desire and prayer is that our worship together on Sunday mornings would be an opportunity for us to be directed to Jesus Christ, the author and perfecter of our faith, the one in whom we have life and salvation. Seen in this way, my prayer is that the preaching at Grace is continually pointing us to be in relationship to Jesus, the Good Shepherd, who offers us abundant life and invites us to follow him into that life every hour of every day.
At the end of last year, 2019 felt like one massive blank slate and, to be honest, a little overwhelming. The question is always: What might be important for our church family to hear right now? What books of scripture, or themes, or topics might be refreshing, encouraging, restorative, and challenging for us? Those are big questions, and I knew I couldn't (or didn't want to) sit alone in a room answering those questions in solitude. To that end, I brought together a few different people from our church family—Steve Porter, Esther McCurry, Eric Balmer, and Wil Rogan—to pray and discern what content God might have us explore together in the preaching and teaching. It was a wonderful time, and there were quite a few ideas that were shared among the group. It's funny how God works that way, at least in my experience. When I listen to God WITH others, I have greater clarity on what he might be up to and how he might be leading us.
One area of agreement among each of us was that it would be good to start off 2019 with a reminder and saturation of God's love. Does life with God begin anywhere else other than his first loving us? As it says in 1 John 4:10, "This is love: it is not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son as the sacrifice that deals with our sins" (CEB). The love of God is where it all begins and ends, and yet, it's often so difficult for me to live life in response to that love. If I'm honest, it's easy for my spiritual life to be lived so as it get God to love me, accept me, forgive me, etc...In other words, it's easy to live the Christian life in a backwards way. And when that happens, life with Christ becomes a difficult yoke and a very heavy burden.
As a way to engage God's love, we are going to start a new sermon series this week titled If God So Loved Us..., based on 1 John 4:7-21. Over the next four weeks, we will saturate ourselves in this passage. We will hear this passage read every week, and through the sermons, we will consider different aspects of God's love for us: What does it mean that our lives with God begin with love? What might it look like for us to abide in God's love? How do our fears affect the way we engage with God's love? How does our trust in God's love shape the way we relate to one another?
Over the next four weeks, I'd like to invite you to read 1 John 4:7-21 over and over again. Mull over things that stick out to you and bring them before God in your prayer life. Ask questions. Write down things that confuse you. And as we go on this journey together, I'd like to invite you to pray. Ask God to ground us first and foremost in his love, which he has so faithfully demonstrated through the life, death, and resurrection of his son Jesus Christ. Ask God to speak through his word (to you and to us) in such a way that his love is something we encounter afresh. Ask God to impress his love upon us in such a way that it sinks deep into the very core of who we are and how we live.
I am grateful to be alongside you, discovering together what God has for our wonderful church family.
