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© Church of the Desert
Description
A church community in Scottsdale, Arizona working out what it means to follow Jesus in our time and place.
54 Episodes
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Moses tells the people that the wisdom and way of God is accessible to them, it is right in their midst. Then he warns them that giving their hearts to false gods is what will lead them away from life and into misery.
Paul continues his contrast of world, human wisdom and the wisdom of God revealed in Jesus and given through the Spirit. He points to how he didn’t come to Corinth with impressive traits by worldly standards, only with the message of Jesus and the power of the Spirit.
We start with a discussion about our recent change to using the lectionary as a guide for worship. We then discuss how the revelation of Jesus (Epiphany) as the true messiah leads to the call to leave everything else behind and follow him.
Understanding the Spirit’s role in the life and ministry of Jesus is critical to understanding what it means to be followers of Jesus. We discuss what it means that the same power that raised Jesus from the dead has been given to us.
We are prone to be self-protective, hoarding good things for ourselves, suspicious of people who are different than us. But the way of Jesus is inclusive, open to all who want to follow him. And his body is strengthened when it has a diversity of members.
God became flesh and dwelt among us in Jesus. But people didn't recognize him or receive him. We like to think we wouldn’t make the same mistake. But it’s worth considering whether we recognize or want the REAL Jesus. Because all who do become children of God.
The author of Hebrews points to the profound reality of Jesus being fully human, our brother, and sympathetic high priest. As we continue the Christmas season we meditate on the beautiful implications of Jesus’s humanness.
King Ahaz faces a threat in which he is encouraged to trust that God is with him and for him. God gives him a sign: a child with a miraculous birth whose name means “God with us”. Later, Matthew shows how Jesus’s birth is the ultimate fulfillment of God’s presence with us.
Isaiah encourages the people of God to “Strengthen the feeble hands, steady the knees that give way; say to those with fearful hearts, “Be strong, do not fear; your God will come.””. For his part, he paints a hopeful picture of our approach to Zion as the desert bursts to life.
Isaiah writes as Israel experiences a season of desolation, like a forest that has been cut down. But there is hope as a branch emerges from one of the stumps. The branch represents a child that will become king and establish his peaceful kingdom forever.
We enter the Advent season of longing by looking at the promise of God in Isaiah that God will bring about a day when the nations come to worship him and beat their swords into plowshares. For unto us a child is born and he is the Prince of Peace.
The world we live in prizes autonomy and personal freedom above all else. But we were created to live in relationship with others. We would do well to rediscover a sense of communal identity and a commitment to live for one another.
When we have an us vs. them mentality we miss out on so much of what God would have for us. As we pursue Jesus we are meant to prioritize love, unity, and hospitality over exclusion.
We see the emergence of shame in the first moments of the fall in Genesis 3. It is the feeling that there is something so wrong with us that we deserve to be rejected. As a result, we hide - from God, from one another, and from ourselves.
When we succumb to prideful arrogance we start to believe the lie that we are self-sufficient, that we don’t need anyone, even God. And when we live to defend our image and status it undermines our ability to receive God with humility and joy.
Through life’s disappointments we can become skeptics, assuming the worst, apathetic, developing a self-protective armor of mocking and sarcasm. But this undermines our ability to experience the power and presence of God. How do we reclaim a joyful hope?
What better picture of the trials of life than a storm at sea? The disciples show us that following Jesus doesn’t mean we are sheltered from the storms. But we are reminded that Jesus is with us in the midst of them.
If we place a caveat on our commitment to Jesus, or tell him that we’ll follow once we take care of something else, he will want to address whatever it is we are more committed to than him.
After the Sermon on the Mount we may be prone to think of the way of Jesus as some lofty philosophy and the kingdom as some imaginary idea. But Jesus descends the mount to ground it all in reality and show us what it looks like when the kingdom breaks in.
Jesus uses imagery of a home being battered by a storm. Storms in life will come, will the foundation of our lives be strong enough to withstand? We’re told the only way to be sure is to build our lives on Jesus.
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