The Fisherman, a sermon based on Isaiah 6: 1-8 and Luke 5: 1-11, preached on February 9, 2025

It’s hard to imagine Jesus recruiting His first disciples, considering how the Church has grown since this moment by the Lake of Gennesaret. At last count, in 2020, there were 2.4 billion professing Christians in the world. That’s more than 25% of the world’s population. We just baptized another one, Adeline Elizabeth Garcia. This room is full of His disciples. In just the city of Soel, Korea there are as many Presbyterians as there are in the entire United States of America, so while today, our world is full of His disciples, as we read this Gospel lesson, we are asked to imagine Jesus trying to recruit the first one. How did He do it? Where did He go? How did He start? Last Monday, at the funeral of Dr. Clem Doxey, who founded what became the largest dermatology practice in the state of Georgia, Dr. Bob Harper, who became his friend and colleague, told the story of Clem coming to Marietta and trying to recruit his first patients. Having few patients to care for in his new office, he spent time at Kennestone Hospital asking doctors to please refer to him some sick people. Today, we stand in line for our appointments at that same practice, but it started slow, and this is how it is for most everything in the beginning. The ministry of Jesus begins, and it wasn’t much different. Jesus wasn’t born having followers. He had to go out and find them. To do so, He didn’t stand in some grand pulpit like this one, waiting for disciples to come to Him. No, He went out into the world. Standing beside the lake of Gennesaret, He saw two boats there at the shore. The fishermen had gone out of them and were washing their nets. Jesus got into one of the boats, the one belonging to Simon, and asked him to put out a little way from the shore, so that He could preach from the boat. Our daughter Lily helped me to notice the significance of this detail of our Gospel lesson. Our daughters are preacher’s kids, so they’re a little different. We were discussing this Gospel lesson over the dinner table last Thursday night. Lily told me that she remembered a sermon preached on this same Gospel lesson by Sadie Robertson of Duck Dynasty fame. When she preached on this Gospel lesson, she wisely observes that Jesus steps onto Simon’s boat and preached from there. Then Sadie Robertson asked, “What boat are you preaching from?” Jesus didn’t need some grand pulpit like this one to proclaim the Gospel. He went out into the world and preached the Gospel from Simon’s boat. What boat are you preaching from? If you have a desk job and know the Good News, then you can preach the Gospel from right where you are, and it serves the Kingdom for you to preach from your boat or your desk or your neighborhood walking group, for it’s out there where the people are who need to hear what is said within these walls. Jesus went out into the world looking for sinners to save. In the same way, Dr. Doxey went into the hospital looking for sick people to heal, but when Simon Peter saw the catch of fish that Jesus provided, he fell at Jesus’ knees, saying, “Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!” I can’t get over this part of our Gospel lesson, yet this is the way it always happens. Maybe this is the way it always is. If you remember our first Scripture lesson, which tells the account of the prophet’s call to ministry, when God comes to speak to Isaiah, Isaiah is so amazed by the glory of God and amazed by his own sinfulness in comparison to God’s glory that he says, “Woe is me! I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips.” I think about this because Jesus the Savior came to earth not looking perfect people. No more did He come looking for perfect people than Dr. Doxey was searching for perfect skin, yet Simon said to Jesus after Jesus provided him a catch of fish so large that their nets began to break, “Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!” This is the power of shame. I read in a book about Alcoholics Anonymous that guilt and shame are different. Feeling guilty can be OK. Guilt tells us when we’ve made a mistake and provides the motivation we need to make it right again. Shame is more destructive, for while guilt tells me “I’ve made a mistake,” shame tells me, “I am a mistake.” This is another lesson that the Church needs to learn from AA, for it’s been said that “AA is to shame as a hot knife is to butter.” Reading our Gospel lesson and hearing the call of Isaiah, I realize that the Church should be no different than AA, for when we reveal to Him our brokenness, we are saved, only sometimes the Church makes such vulnerability even more difficult than it already is. Denominations will literally look at the demographic breakdown of neighborhoods before they’ll consider building a new church, looking at things like rates of college diplomas, value of homes, and median income, as though building the Church of Jesus Christ were no different than franchising the Publix grocery store chain. Now, I love Publix, but our call is not to sell fancy produce to rich people. The Great Physician came to heal the sick. As His disciples, our target is the lost and the lame, the blind and the hopeless, the poor and the afflicted, and yet church youth groups try to recruit the popular kids as though recruiting people for the church were just like recruiting players for a football team. My friends, when Clem Doxey went looking to build his dermatology practice, he was looking for people who suffered with skin cancer and melanoma. When you go out into this world and you find your boat to preach from, don’t try to bring the good news of Jesus Christ to the people with perfect skin, but the people with broken hearts. I began this sermon saying that there are 2.4 billion professing Christians in this world. That’s true, but it’s also true that there are more than 800,000 people here in Cobb County, and more than half of them have no religious affiliation. Some of you remember the days when everyone in your neighborhood, or it seemed like everyone in your neighborhood, went to church on Sunday morning. I don’t remember that. That time in human history was already ending when I was growing up. The only business I knew of that was closed on Sunday was Chick-fil-A, and by the time I was old enough to buy beer, I could buy it any day of the week I wanted. The world outside our doors is not as full of disciples as many remember it being. For many, today, Sunday, is a day for playing soccer and going to Home Depot, and the way I hear people talk about Christianity these days, they’re describing a religion that barely resembles what I read in the Bible, for people suffer from a level of Biblical illiteracy that’s reaching epidemic proportions. But don’t let me get self-righteous here. That’s not what the world needs. The world is cloaked in shame. Many out there would respond to the Gospel the same way Simon did: with shame and misunderstanding, and while some have said that our religion is under assault, if we take that mindset, if we go out into the world defensive and braced for attack, then how will we comfort those who are just as full of shame as Simon Peter was? My friends, today let us take this account of the calling of the first disciple as an example for us, for the world is full of sick people who are suffering. Full of people who are isolated and alone. Full of people who are hopeless and distracted. Full of people who are anxious and afraid. So full of people who are hurting that rates of suicide in our community have risen by 14% in the last year. My friends, when Simon Peter revealed his brokenness to Jesus, Jesus stepped towards him. Jesus gave him a new name, a new identity, a new calling, a new purpose, yet when the church hears of brokenness, do we not too often step away? There’s a story that so broke my heart that even though I read it 15 years ago, I still remember it vividly. It’s a story that Bishop Gene Robinson told when he was interviewed by GQ magazine. I used to subscribe to GQ magazine, which explains why I’m so fashionable. Well, when the good Bishop was telling his life story to this journalist, he remembered how present the church was on the day he was married to the woman who became his wife. On their wedding day, the church was there in full force, celebrating that happy day, but on the day they were divorced, no one was there. There were no flowers. There was no reception. There was no music, nor singing, nor presents, nor words of encouragement, and as he looked back on it, he reflected that he needed the Church far more when he was going through his divorce than he did on his wedding day. My friends, when we step away from broken people, we do not bear in our actions the image of Jesus Christ. We do when we step towards them. You may have read this, but you need to know it because it’s miraculous. As we’ve been more and more involved in the Cobb County Jail, we’ve become more and more aware of the realities that the men and women who work there and who are incarcerated there face. We started with livestreaming our worship service, then after one of our members felt called to serve as a chaplain in the jail, he made us aware of the bare shelves of the jail library. You filled those shelves, and now hundreds of books are checked out every week. Then, more recently you were made aware of those men and women who are released from jail and are handed the clothes they were arrested in as they reenter society. If they were arrested in July but are released in January, that means they’re walking out of the jail in a t-shirt, shorts, and flip flops. Those outfits are not warm enough for the winter, not to mention how those clothes carry the shameful memories of what happened the last time they were worn. My friends, when the call went out to provide the jail with seasonally appropriate clothing, you so fulfilled the call that after just a couple weeks, the jail has already said, “No more. We have enough. We have no more room to put these clothes!” I’m so thankful to be a witness to such an act of love. I’m so thankful for the way you have stepped towards the imprisoned. If there is a Simon Peter among those who you have clothed, I expect that by the grace of God, our world will be transformed by the ministry of that new disciple of Jesus Christ. May it be so. Amen.

The Divine Agenda, a sermon based on Nehemiah 8 and Luke 4: 14-24, preached on January 26, 2025

A good friend of mine is the president of the chamber of commerce in Bentonville, Arkansas. Every Sunday, he listens to my sermon, and every Monday, he calls to let me know how it could have been better. He’s a good friend. Last Friday, we were talking. He asked me how this sermon was going, and I told him that after reading and studying our Gospel lesson, “I can’t help but think that Jesus might care more about the poor than we do.” “I don’t think there’s any might about it, Joe. Jesus definitely cares more about the poor than we do,” my friend said, and he’s right. The Bible spends more than 300 verses telling us how much the poor matter to God, and Jesus, God incarnate, having been baptized by John and having turned the water into wine at the wedding in Cana, is now beginning His preaching ministry by declaring: Our God has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. This is His divine agenda. This morning, let’s take time to realign ourselves with His words and His priorities because the human agenda and the divine agenda are not often the same thing. As we always have, we are distracted by issues that matter to us but hardly matter to God. There are more than 300 verses in Scripture concerned with the poor. Jesus begins His earthly ministry, declaring, “God has anointed me to bring good new to the poor,” and our church does a lot: We feeds hungry people every Tuesday, and our church members fill up the church vans with cold families looking for a warm place to sleep all winter long, yet think with me about why churches divide and what gets Christians really upset. I’ve witnessed near fistfights break out over the color the poinsettias should be at Christmastime. So much time and energy has been spent deciding who can serve as a church’s pastor and who cannot. The elders will ask, “Now, when is that meeting?” And the deacons will ask: “When I light candles, is it the right and then the left, or do I light the left one and then the right?” When Jesus stood in the synagogue to make plain His purpose, how close to the top of His agenda was lighting candles in the correct order? He was focused on the poor. He was focused on people. In this new year, let our agenda be realigned with the divine agenda. Let us take notice of the words of Jesus, who laid out His purpose clearly in the synagogue. He told the people clearly what He was about and what He had come to do. It was all rooted in Scripture, for He read from the scroll handed to Him. Likewise, the priest Ezra, in our first Scripture lesson, did basically the same thing. When the people returned from exile in Babylon where they were exposed to so many new ideas, where they had lived in a foreign culture, they returned home, and he read to them from the book of Moses, that their agenda might be realigned with the divine agenda. That’s what it takes. We return to Scripture, to see what it says, and to judge our agenda against the divine agenda. Our minds and our purpose must be realigned by what Scripture says and what Jesus said He had come to do because sometimes, our focus drifts to poinsettia colors and candlesticks. That’s just human nature. We are easily distracted, and once distracted, we get stuck in our routines. I’ve told you before about Neale Martin. Neale Martin sits in the balcony at the 8:30 service. He just had knee surgery last week, so he’s not here with us this morning, but I’ve had the pleasure of getting to know Neale. Neale is an expert in human habit formation, and so he’s consulted with product developers who want to get their products on the grocery store shelves so that they can meet the daily needs of consumers and make a lot of money in the process. Neale told me that introducing a new product in a grocery store is incredibly difficult, and it doesn’t always matter how great your product is because it’s so hard to grab the attention of shoppers. A typical grocery store carries anywhere from 30,000 to 60,000 products, but when we go to the neighborhood Kroger, we end up buying the same products again and again. We don’t spend time debating which mayonnaise to buy. There’s no time for that. We just buy Duke’s or Hellmann’s or the cheapest one on the shelf. There’s just not enough space in our brains to make decisions about everything. We walk into the grocery store and we’re thinking about stress at work or if our kids are going to get into college. We’re not thinking about the best toilet paper brands or a whole lot about which carton of eggs to buy. We’re just grabbing the same one we bought last time again and again and again, until the day a dozen eggs costs $7.50. The only time the masses are likely to entertain a new product is when we are shocked out of our patterns. We won’t consider having toilet paper delivered until it’s gone from the shelf. We’re not interested in raising chickens in our backyards until we have to take out a loan to buy a dozen eggs. Something has to happen to knock us out of our routines. Likewise, people are going to go about their business Sunday after Sunday. If they go to church, they’re going to go to the same one. If they don’t go to church, they’re going to sleep in. If anything disrupts their patterns, if suddenly they walk through our doors, it’s because they went to the shelf and the shelf was empty. If you break a habit and walk in here, it’s no small thing. The first time you came here, it’s because something big happened. You moved, or your old church didn’t feel right anymore, or your mother died, or you hit a dark time in your life. If you suddenly go from not going to church to going, it’s because you’re looking for something, so the work of the deacon is not to pay attention to the candles but to pay attention to the people who just walked in the door. The primary task of the elders and the pastors is not to review the words that they have to say or worry over the next meetings, but to greet the lost sheep whom the Good Shepherd is calling home. Pay attention to the people, Jesus was saying. Especially the poor ones, whom we are often slow to see. My friends, we all need a wakeup call. I need one, for I find myself worrying about the state of my car until I look out my office window to see how many people are waiting outside in the cold for the bus. I get stressed about how much work I have to do until a landscape truck drives by, and I remember that I used to cut grass and blow leaves for $7.00 an hour. I avert my eyes from some people walking towards me on the sidewalk, worried about making it on time to my next meeting, until I remember the divine agenda. Did you see the front page of the paper yesterday? My favorite reporter who writes for the Marietta Daily Journal is Hunter Riggall. His article made the front page, and there were these numbers: 1,535 – That’s the number of homeless students enrolled in Cobb County Schools. 259 – the number of homeless students in Marietta City Schools. 283 – the number of people living in tents within the city limits last January. Jesus said, God has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. The poor are everywhere. But do you see them? Do I see them? Or am I so stuck in my own concerns and my own routine that I am blind to God’s people? Maybe you’ve heard the story of the man who wrote that great hymn of salvation, “Amazing Grace.” The man who wrote it is named John Newton. His name is listed in your hymnal, for all the hymns in our hymnal list the name of the one who wrote the words and the name of the one who came up with the tune, if we know the tune writer’s name. Who came up with this great tune? Where did it come from? Well, you may know that John Newton sailed on slave ships. He made a living shipping people from the western coast of Africa across the Atlantic, and one tradition tells us that from the belly of that ship, he heard the tune sung by the men and women who were chained in the bowels of that boat. Can you imagine that sitting upon the deck of that ship while those people were taken from freedom to slavery, Newton heard the tune coming up from the people below and began to realize that he, who called himself a Christian, was complicit in putting men and women in chains? To the tune he heard them singing, he penned the words: Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound. I once was lost, but now am found, was blind but now I see. My friends, we are all blind to the suffering of people, yet Jesus said, “He has anointed me to bring good news to the poor, release to the captives, and recovery of sight to the blind.” Coming out of the 8:30 service, LouAnn Sago looked me straight in the eyes, and she said, “When I could no longer look away, He set me free.” When we recognize the poor as our brothers, the imprisoned, our sisters, and remember that their struggle is our struggle, we are made whole. As disciples of Jesus Christ, we are called to feed hungry people and to pay attention to all God’s people in our midst, and that’s not just in response to their need. We serve in response to ours. I’ve had the recent pleasure of interviewing about 20 members of our church, several of them because they’re involved in our food distribution program, and I’ve asked them why they do it. Why do they give out food? Why do they come back again and again, in the rain and the cold, to help people they don’t know? Is it because Jesus told you to? Is it because of some sense of duty? They all said the same thing: “The reason I do this is because it makes me happy.” I used to be a kid most concerned with making the baseball team and having the right kind of shoes on my feet. Then, one summer this church took me on a mission trip to Mexico, and I looked into the face of the poor, and I was set free: set free from a culture that worships wealth and beauty, where people have so much stuff that we fill our attics, and when our attics can’t hold it, we rent storage units; where doctored pictures of beautiful people flood our consciousness and keep us chained by insecurity. Consider with me that the more money we have, the bigger the house, the bigger the yard, the more isolated we become. My friends, when He said, he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor, release to the captive, and recovery of sight to the blind, He was talking about setting all of us free. He was talking about setting all of us free from this consumer culture, where people are isolated and afraid, to care about each other again. Let us follow Him in the path of our salvation. Amen.

Every Wedding Needs a Miracle, a sermon based on John 2: 1-11, preached on January 19, 2025

Our second Scripture lesson is the account from the Gospel of John of Jesus’ first public miracle. The miracle takes place at a wedding, which is the perfect place for a miracle because every wedding needs a miracle. Every marriage needs a miracle, doesn’t it? Marriage isn’t easy. I’ve had the great honor of officiating around 200 weddings. At several of them, I’ve quoted Ruth Bell Graham, who was married to the great evangelist Billy Graham. Rev. Billy Graham traveled the world preaching the Gospel. Traveling like that can put stress on a marriage, so a reporter once asked Ruth Bell Graham if she’d ever considered divorce. “Divorce? Never,” she said. “However, I often considered murder.” Maybe you get that. I know my wife, Sara, does. She’s perfect, but she’s married to me, and I leave a lot to be desired. Marriage is hard. Think with me about marriage this morning. We just read that there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding. When the wine gave out, the mother of Jesus said to him, “They have no more wine.” Now, it’s no surprise that the wine gave out at this wedding because something goes wrong at every wedding. As wonderful as weddings are, there’s always something that goes wrong, but when the problem comes along on the big day, it’s extra hard because we’re already tense. I remember well the reaction of a bride whose mother-in-law-to-be insisted on making the dresses for her bridesmaids but hadn’t finished them on time and was still working on them when the wedding was scheduled to start. The bride was panicked. Her father looked like he was going to have a cardiac event. I had to ask the congregation to talk amongst themselves for an hour or so until the bridesmaids could get dressed. Or there was a wedding at a Baptist church. The groom walked out into the sanctuary through the wrong door and fell into the baptismal font. On that occasion, everyone laughed, except for the bride’s father, who suddenly realized that he had been right about this guy all along. My point is that something always goes wrong. The preacher gets COVID, or the DJ has too much to drink. The bridesmaid’s gowns are sleeveless, and one has a giant tattoo of an AK-47 on her arm. The groomsmen leave their dip cups for the wedding guild to clean up, or the bride is showing that she has a baby on the way. All these things happen, but on the wedding day there is this pressure not to let the congregation know because while every wedding needs a miracle, no one wants to let the cat out of the bag. The wine has run out. Has anyone told Jesus? Bible scholars say that the entirety of the Gospel is here in this short passage from the Gospel of John. Everything that you need to know about the Christian life is right here in these 11 verses. Don’t worry about studying theology or Christian doctrine, just notice that the wine runs out and someone let’s Jesus know about it. That’s step one of being a Christian. Step one of being a Christian is admitting that we have a problem and need His help. There’s a great article written by a champion of Alcoholics Anonymous. You may know that churches have supported AA since the very beginning. Many churches started substituting grape juice over wine at the communion table because the AA groups who met in their buildings requested it. This article written to the church by a champion of Alcoholics Anonymous is titled, “What the church has to learn from AA.” You can google the article. It will come right up. It’s by Samuel Shoemaker, and while it was written many years ago, it makes the great point that every member of AA knows that she needs help and has come ready to ask for it. She has stopped the charade of pretending that everything is fine. How much healthier would our churches be if every member of every congregation felt that same freedom to let Jesus know that he’s scraping the bottom of the barrel? The wine has run out. We’re grasping at straws. We need His help because we’re lost, yet how many of us feel comfortable getting out of the car to ask for directions? Which brings me back to marriage. A few weeks ago, we were focused on the magi. The Church started calling them magi rather than the three wise men a couple generations ago because someone finally noticed that there were three gifts, but no mention of three men, and they probably weren’t all men because when they got lost on the road, they stopped in Jerusalem to ask for directions. Is that joke still funny? In another generation, no one will even get it because now we all ask for directions using our phones, but what we used to have to do was stop at a gas station, get out, and ask the gas station clerk, “How much farther is it to Lawrenceville?” and if you weren’t even close, he might laugh at you, and if he didn’t like people from out of town, he’d tell you to go the wrong way. I’m so thankful for these phones because I don’t have to stop to ask for directions as much as I used to, but what about when the wine runs out? Will I then have the courage to ask for help? Or will I be so out of the practice of being vulnerable that I’ll suffer in silence, afraid to let the Savior know that I need His help? In AA, they practice the art of confession in every meeting. They’ve all admitted that there is a problem in their lives that they need help with, and there’s less shame in that circle of folding chairs because everyone is doing it. Every wedding needs a miracle, but when the wine runs out, are you comfortable asking for guidance? Have you asked a trusted friend to pray for you? Have you sought out help from a counselor? There’s a book out by a divorce lawyer entitled, If You’re In My Office, It’s Already Too Late. Don’t wait. Help is near. When the wine has run out, go find Jesus. Every wedding needs a miracle. Every mortal needs a miracle. Every marriage needs a miracle, and you can’t go looking into the eyes of your spouse expecting her to turn water into wine. Do you know what I mean by that? It’s hard for us to ask for help, so we’ll only admit that we need it to those we trust the most, which creates a second problem. If you only trust your spouse, might you be expecting a miracle from a mortal? Or might you be putting all your relationship needs on just one person? We know from studies that many men in this world work for years and years dedicating so much to their careers that they don’t develop any hobbies or make any real friends outside of the office, which puts so much pressure on their spouses once they retire. Do you know that saying, “I married you for better and for worse, but not for lunch?” There’s a lot of wisdom in that. While some needs should only be met within the bonds of marriage, while emotional and physical intimacy belong within the bonds of committed relationship, don’t expect a miracle from a mortal. Go and find Jesus when the wine has run out. Have friends. Play golf. Don’t count on one person to do everything for you. And this is just where the church fits perfectly into human life. This is where the Christian walk meets so many of society’s needs. When people show up to do good work here, they find purpose and they make friends. Notice something with me in our second Scripture lesson. The wine had run out, and Mary, the mother of Jesus, said to the stewards, “Do whatever he tells you.” Emphasis on “He.” What does Jesus tell us to do? That’s what we ought to do, because Jesus calls us to give of ourselves, which brings us joy and fulfillment. Jesus tells us to love our neighbors as ourselves, which saves us from isolation. When the church does what Jesus commands and when we follow His instruction, suddenly this institution, this Church, becomes the balm for so many of our wounds. This place can be the antidote for isolation, providing purpose and community, faith, hope, and love, but I was watching Young Sheldon this week, and if you’ve seen this series, then you know that the church that Sheldon and his family attend isn’t always like that. Interestingly, (this is an aside) last time I mentioned Young Sheldon, our superintendent of schools was here, and he told me that his brother-in-law is the preacher on that show. More than that, did you know that the youth pastor on that show is the son of two of our church members, Jeff and Rachel Byrd? The whole pastoral staff on that TV show has roots here in Marietta. Amazing, but that’s beside the point. Let me get back to my point. My point is that when Sheldon’s brother gets a girl pregnant, that whole congregation turns their backs on Sheldon and his family. His mother gets fired from the church staff, and no one in the family feels comfortable attending that church again, but where in the Gospels did Jesus tell us to turn our backs on anyone? “Do whatever He tells you,” Mary said, for in obedience to His word lies freedom and abundant life. I told you before that the entirety of the Christian life is right here in these 11 verses, and I wasn’t kidding about that. Step 1: Let Him know that the wine has run out, then, step 2: Do whatever He tells you. Step 3: Notice with me that this first miracle of the Lord Jesus Christ occurred on the third day. The third day of what? The Gospel of John isn’t clear on whether it was the third day of the wedding or the third day of the week. That’s because we don’t really understand the significance until we get to the end of the Gospel and discover that He was crucified, dead and buried, but on the third day, He rose again from the grave. My friends, did you know that we can worry about the wine running out, yet we are promised an inheritance of such abundance that the memory of our present suffering is not worth comparing to the glory that is going to be revealed to us? We get so focused on what people may say that we’re afraid to reveal our brokenness. We get so deep into despair that we’re afraid the light will never come. Jesus told the servants to fill six stone water jars, each built to hold twenty or thirty gallons. “Fill them with water,” He said, and they filled them to the brim. Then He said, “Now draw some out, and take it to the chief steward,” so they took it. When the steward tasted the water that had become wine and did not know where it came from, the steward called the bridegroom and said to him, “Everyone serves the good wine first, and then the inferior wine after the guests have become drunk. But you have kept the good wine until now.” Jesus did this. Halleluia! But someone had to ask Him. Let Jesus know that the wine has run out, then do what He tells you. Come here to this place where there is not condemnation for broken people but abundant grace. When we do what He tells us, this is not a place of judgement but of forgiveness. When we do what He tells us, this is not a place of fear, but of love, as together we walk the great Christian life of discipleship that leads to joy. Should you dare to open up about your struggle, you may just find the community that you’ve been looking for. If you are looking for purpose, then take advantage of one of the many ways that you can serve right here, and above all else, remember that the Miracle Worker, the One who turned the water to wine, promises us a life of abundance so great that the sufferings of today will be washed away by the glory of tomorrow. Thanks be to God. Amen.

Wrapped in Bands of Cloth, a sermon based on Luke 2: 1-14, preached on Christmas Eve 2024

Friends, this is it. Christmas Eve. Some of us have been getting ready for this moment since Halloween. Do you remember what happened in Walgreens on the day of Halloween? There had been Halloween candy. When I walked into Walgreens, it was there on the shelves, but by the time I checked out, it was all gone. All that candy was pushed out of the way by a green and red wave of lights and gifts. The pumpkin Reese’s cups had to be replaced by Christmas tree Reese’s cups. The Halloween costumes were replaced by tinsel and lights. We all skipped right over Thanksgiving, and we can’t go back now. This is Christmas, but yesterday I was at Kroger, and they were putting out the Easter egg Reese’s cups, so if we’re not careful, this moment is going to speed right by, too. I don’t want that to happen. In so many ways, this is my favorite day of the entire year, only it’s not easy to savor something that you’ve been rushing towards since October 31st. You can’t just stop on a dime to savor something you’ve been sprinting towards, so some of us aren’t in this moment, at least not fully. There’s just too much to do, right? My wife, Sara, sent me a meme the other day. Do you know what a meme is? Or a gif? It doesn’t matter. She sent me something that said: “Here’s your annual reminder that 95% of that ‘holiday magic’ is actually just the invisible and physical work of women.” That’s true. I can remember my grandmother coming home from her Christmas Eve shift in the maternity ward of Roper Hospital to make us Christmas dinner. She’d been up all night delivering babies, then she’d come home to cook us macaroni and cheese, ham, and a turkey. I can see her in the kitchen, still in her pink scrubs. At some point, she’d ask me to pour her a Tab with a little vodka in it. That’s all she needed to keep going so that we could enjoy that “holiday magic” the meme was talking about, but this is Christmas, so I want to address those of us to whom Christmas means working hard, and I’m guilty of it, so I can talk about it because I’m talking to myself. Some of us are so used to preparing for the next thing that, while the rest of the family is opening presents, we’ll have the garbage bag ready to pick up all the wrapping paper. Only what is the next thing after this? What are we cleaning up for? This is it. Christmas Eve. It’s a day that we work for because we want it to be perfect, which is the absolute pinnacle of irony if you think about it. It’s like we’re all working for perfect, forgetting that He came because we can’t ever achieve perfection no matter how hard we try. Remember that Martha Stewart spent five months behind bars. That’s where chasing perfection will get you. There is no “perfect” for mortals like us. If we could save ourselves, we wouldn’t need a savior. If we were without sin, there would be no need for Him to take upon Himself the sins of the world. What’s worse is that all this work we’re doing to reach towards perfection always keeps us from noticing the baby wrapped in bands of cloth. That’s what happens in all the best Christmas movies, right? The turkey is so dry that it’s nothing but skin and bones, and the dog destroys the kitchen. The tree goes up in flames, and a squirrel gets in the house, which is what it takes for the Clark Griswolds of the world to take notice of the real reason for all of this, the gift from God wrapped in bands of cloth. That first Christmas broke into our world, and yet the innkeeper didn’t notice. What was that innkeeper doing? He was worried over the guests who had already checked in. He had put little mints on their pillows and was getting ready for breakfast. The inn was full. There was no more room. Toilet paper was in short supply, and he was moving quickly from one task to another. When Mary and Joseph showed up at the door, I imagine that their knock interrupted that peaceful moment when he finally had the chance to sit down to take a breath. His glass of wine had been poured, he had knife in hand to carve a lamb shank or break the loaf of bread, freshly baked from the oven, when that knock on the door interrupted the moment that seemed so perfect. He snatched the napkin from his collar or laid down his carving knife not too gently, and with thinly-veiled frustration opened the door to see Joseph and Mary standing there. What did he do? “There is no room,” he said. Might as well have been, “Bah humbug.” “Go to the barn, and don’t bother me again. Don’t you know it’s Christmas?” Of course, he wouldn’t have known anything about Christmas. The baby hadn’t been born, and yet, how ironic that the Christ Child was born in the innkeeper’s stable, and there is no record that he ever went out to see that baby wrapped in band of cloth. Who did? The shepherds. Do you know anything about shepherds? Shepherds smell like sheep. Shepherds never took the time to brush their teeth or wash their hands, but the innkeeper and his family were too busy, so the angel invited the shepherds, and the shepherds saw the miracle of Christmas because the ones who know they need a miracle are the first to find it. Those who of us who are busy picking up discarded wrapping paper in the living room don’t always see that it’s here. This is it. Our temptation this Christmas Eve is the same as our temptation all the rest of the year. We are in a rush moving in the wrong direction, missing all the miracles that God provides. Let me give you an example of what I’m talking about. I was giving the children’s sermon two weeks ago, and I’m a Presbyterian minister. If you don’t know much about Presbyterians, then know this: There are two things that Presbyterians want from their minister: 1. That he pick hymns that they know the words to. 2. That he doesn’t preach for too long. Therefore, our worship services last one hour and not a minute more, and I must achieve that goal because I’m prone to picking hymns that no one knows the words to. I’ve got to move from the children’s sermon to the next step in the worship liturgy because if the service goes past 12:00, First Presbyterian Church will go up in flames and no one will make it to Piccadilly before the Baptists get there, so when little Charlie still had his hand raised as I was making my point in the children’s sermon, I was so tempted to ignore him. I was tempted to just keep going on to the hymn that would follow the children’s sermon, for I had already asked them what they wanted for Christmas and had already heard plenty of cute and interesting comments, and yet there was Charlie’s hand raised as it had been since the children’s sermon began. Something told me to call on him. When I said, “OK, Charlie. It looks like you really have something you want to say,” he boldly declared: “Peace will come to our land.” That’s what Charlie said, and I nearly missed it because I was worried about what I had to do next, not what God has already done. Notice that Charlie didn’t say, “Peace will come to our land once everyone gets in line.” He didn’t say, “Peace might come to our land if we’re all good little boys and girls.” He said, “Peace will come to our land,” for God brings us a gift wrapped in bands of cloth. Have you stopped to notice? If there is darkness in your life, consider this with me: Maybe you’re moving in the wrong direction. So much of the time we’re in such a hurry that we don’t take the time to ask, “Why is my life so full of shadow?” Where is satisfaction? Where is hope, peace, joy, and love? This is our pattern. To keep going. To strive. To work. To spend so much time looking into the future and what’s to come that we fail to be satisfied. The gift, though, is here already. Glory to God in the Highest, they sing. Lay down your burdens. Rest in the promise that peace will come to our land, or you’ll never be at peace. Rest in the promise that you are forgiven, or you’ll never find it in you to forgive. Rest in the promise of salvation or go on trying to save yourself. My friends, I’m a preacher. It’s my job to preach sermons on Christmas Eve, and sometimes I wonder if my Christmas Eve message, while under 14 minutes so that we can get out of here on time, just sounds like me giving you one more thing to do on an already overwhelming to-do list. That’s not what this is about. This is about a gift that comes from God to people who walk in darkness. Take this moment to notice His light. Amen.

Love, a sermon based on Luke 1: 39-55 preached on December 22, 2024

After preaching a sermon the week before last on a long-awaited answered prayer, I’ve been moved by a couple members of our church who encouraged me to preach a follow-up sermon on the reality that God doesn’t always answer our prayers in the way that we want Him to. In fact, sometimes we pray, and then we need to brace ourselves for God’s answer to our prayers because God’s answer may shock us, require something from us, or force us to change in uncomfortable ways. On this fourth Sunday of the season of Advent as we light the candle of love, let us recognize that loving God and trusting God with our prayers is so much like any other loving relationship: To love God means that we change. It means that we let go of control. We trust His will, have faith, and all kinds of other uncomfortable things. This morning as we light the candle of love, brace yourself for love, for love hurts. Right? This morning in our second Scripture lesson, we turn to Mary, who, in the presence of Elizabeth, sang the song of an unwed, pregnant, teenage mother filled with joy, anticipation, and the knowledge that her whole life and the fate of this entire world was about to change, and so she sang: My soul magnifies the Lord. He has scattered the proud. He has brought down the powerful. He has lifted up the lowly. He has filled the hungry, and sent the rich away empty. What we’ve just read is one of the most beautiful and well-known passages of Scripture in the Bible. It’s been set to music and sung for thousands of years now. We call it the Magnificat. It’s the song of Mary, the mother of Jesus, whose soul magnified the Lord, and doing so required that she be willing to change everything. Think with me about Mary this morning. Mary, who was pregnant with the baby Jesus. While her song has been set to music for generations and sung in weddings and other such happy occasions, we don’t know to what tune Mary first sang these words, but if you’ve ever been in a situation anything like hers then you know that the tune to which she sang her song likely wasn’t the bright, happy tune of sappy Christmas music. I imagine that her melody was different because all the best love songs will lift your spirit but they might also break your heart. I googled “Best Love Songs of All Time,” and at the top of the list is, “I will always love you,” by Dolly Parton, which is so bittersweet a song that it will rip your guts out. Do you know that song? I’ll sing it for you. Hit it, Chohee… I’m just kidding. But listen to this. This is what Dolly sang in what’s considered to be the greatest love song of all time: If I should stay, I would only Be in your way So I’ll go, but I know I’ll think of you, each step of the way. And I will always love you When you think about the history of music and all the great music you’ve ever heard, isn’t it true that some of the music that we love best are the songs that help us put into words the strong feelings of our human hearts? Take the Blues, for example. Memphis, Tennessee claims to be the home of the Blues, yet the songs and the beats came up the river from the fields where enslaved men and women sang while they worked. Songs like: Nobody knows the trouble I’ve seen. Nobody knows my sorrow. Nobody knows the trouble I’ve seen. Nobody knows but Jesus. Think about Taylor Swift. One of her most well-known songs goes: “When you’re 15 and somebody tells you they love you, you’re gonna believe them.” She also sings of someone who is “so casually cruel in the name of being honest,” and, “Puttin’ someone first only works when you’re in their top five, and by the way, I’m going out tonight.” The best love songs put to words all the most complicated human emotions. The heartbreak and the joy. The excitement and the sorrow. And so when I ask you to imagine the tune to which Mary sang her song so long ago, this ancient song that came forth from her soul so many years ago, I ask you to think with me about the cost of loving someone and knowing that love is going to cost you something. That’s what she expressed. Was this child the long-awaited answer to her prayer? Yes. Had she, along with all her people, been praying for a savior? Absolutely. In fact, we know that so many hoped for a Messiah named Jesus that “Jesus” was the most common name given to boys at that time. We can imagine that there were so many named Jesus at the time that the Kindergarten teachers at the Bethlehem Elementary School had to call them by their first names and last initials. Surely, there was Jesus S. and Jesus T., and you all know Jesus of Nazareth. That’s a joke, but my point is an important one. Everyone was waiting for the Savior. Everyone was praying for the Savior. Mary grew up longing for the Messiah to come so that He would get the Roman soldiers out of her neighborhood, and her mother could finally come home from the market without being harassed. She longed for the Savior who would chase out the tax collectors who were shaking down her father for his profits. Everyone wanted the Messiah to come. Everyone was praying for His birth, maybe Mary especially, for she had this song ready to sing, the perfect one to sing at His coming, but did she expect to be His teenage mother? When she was already engaged to another man? When unwed pregnant women were stoned in her streets? My friends, we pray for miracles. We pray to God for help. Yet, do not think for a second that your answered prayers are going to be all gumdrops and marshmallow dreams. Do you know that song? It’s a marshmallow world in the winter When the snow come to cover the ground Dean Martin sang it, and it’s pure fluff, which is what so many of the songs that we sing this time of year are. Our theologian in residence, Dr. Brennan Breed, Old Testament scholar and professor at Columbia Theological Seminary, sent me a meme the other day that said, There are five types of Christmas songs: 1. Look, snow! 2. I want presents! 3. Santa is in love with my mom. 4. Pour me another drink! 5. The birth of Christ has ushered in a new age and no mortal shall taste eternal death. Mary’s song fits right into number five, but many in our world are singing about snow, presents, and mommy kissing Santa Clause, yet Mary didn’t know what her parents would say. She didn’t know what Joseph, the man to whom she was engaged, was going to say. She didn’t know how the gossips in the neighborhood would respond to this young, pregnant, unmarried woman walking through the streets. Surely, part of her was ready to hide or run away. Surely, there was a big part of her that was angry at God for calling her to play such a role. Why must I be the one to make a sacrifice? Why must I be the one to put my reputation on the line? And yet, she sang, From now on, generations will call me blessed. For the Mighty One has done great things for me, And holy is his name. That’s what Mary sang. Because there can be pain even with answered prayers, for there is sacrifice with every relationship. Why should our relationship with God be any different? A good friend of mine whom you probably know, Tom Clarke, when he met and fell in love with Marjorie, knew that being in a committed relationship with her would require him to give up his lifestyle as a bartender in Colorado. Do you know what it’s like to be a bartender in Colorado? It sounds like it was awesome. Tom lived in a cabin with a stream in the back that had trout in it, so he would flyfish during the day and bartend at night. What’s more, he had a horse, only he knew that in order to settle down with Marjorie, he’d have to give all that up. That was hard for him. It wasn’t easy to even consider the sacrifice, yet today, he can’t even remember that horse’s name because, while we must sacrifice for love, the gift we receive is far greater than the cost of what we’ve given up. Think with me about love. Love that requires sacrifice. Love that only the truly great song writers have ever been able to put into words. Love that hurts. Love that requires something of us. Love that lifts us up beyond where we are and who we are to transform us into someone new. That’s what Mary was singing about. My soul magnifies the Lord. God has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts. He has brought down the powerful from their thrones and lifted up the lowly. My friends, your prayers, like love, require us to give up something, and when they do, I hope you’ll sing. And I hope you’ll sing with this church, just as Mary sang in the company of Elizabeth. Sing about those hard feelings. Sing about God’s grace. May the world be transformed by what God is doing in you. Amen.

Peace, a sermon based on Malachi 3: 1-4 and Luke 1: 67-80 preached on December 8, 2024

My friends, prayers may not be answered in the way that we expect them to be answered. Miracles may not arrive on our timetable, but may they always come in such a way that you recognize them and receive them with thanksgiving. That’s my introduction to the story of John the Baptist’s birth, which we are focused on this morning. Jesus said that among men there has been none greater than John, and yet he was just the opening act to the main event, so in these weeks leading up to Christmas Day, today our focus is the birth of John the Baptist, which, like the birth of our Savior, was miraculous. Like our daughters, Lily and Cece, John was a preacher’s kid. His father, Zechariah, was a priest at the Temple in Jerusalem; his mother, Elizabeth, born into a family of great priests, and the two had longed for a child. They had been waiting for years for a child to be born. In fact, it had been so long that, as they were getting on in years, Elizabeth and Zechariah had pretty much given up on ever being parents. You know how this works. Some of you know their struggle personally. You get married, and for the first few years, you don’t even think about it. “We’ll have kids at some point,” so many newlyweds assume. In the beginning, getting pregnant is something that scares you. No one walks into a relationship expecting to have any trouble conceiving, and we may imagine that it was this way for Elizabeth and Zechariah, yet by the time Zechariah the Priest was given the high honor of going into the Temple, they had already gone through all the steps. They had tried and tried. They had gotten their hopes up. After their hopes were dashed, they finally went and asked for help. Maybe Elizabeth finally opened up about it to her sister who already had three kids. Maybe they sought advice from a wise woman in town. Maybe they requested prayers from a priest or a ritual from a healer. Whatever it was that they tried, none of it had worked. Some here know how that can stress a marriage. Somehow, they stuck together; perhaps they stuck together by making peace with the bitter reality of their situation. That’s what people do. To survive, many people make peace with sad situations. They accept that not all dreams come true. We can’t know for sure, but we can safely assume that they had pretty much made peace with the reality that children would never come because when an angel of the Lord, Gabriel, appeared to Zechariah to say that Elizabeth was pregnant, he didn’t believe it. From Luke’s first chapter, the angel Gabriel said: Do not be afraid, Zechariah, for your payer has been heard. Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you will name him John. You will have joy and gladness, and many will rejoice at his birth, for he will be great in the sight of the Lord. With the spirit and power of Elijah he will go before the Messiah, to make ready a people prepared for the Lord. Can you imagine? Zechariah couldn’t. This morning, I invite you to think with me about why. Why would it be that a priest married to the daughter of a priest would not believe that their prayers had been answered, that their dream of a child would come true? Why would they make their peace with infertility? I imagine that it’s because, while they’d read the stories in the Bible of Abraham and Sarah who had a child in their old age, they’d also felt the pain of miscarriage. While they’d heard, and while Zechariah had even preached, that our prayers never go unanswered, they knew how bad it hurts to keep waiting with anticipation for something that never comes. This morning, as we light the candle of peace, I ask you to think with me about that word: peace. Sometimes, we make peace with disappointment and unanswered prayers. Sometimes, we make peace with disappointing realities that may never change. While we talk about peace, we also constantly read about war, and this unfortunate reality becomes such a part of our lives that we make peace, not with the promise that peace will come, but that it may never. Last week, maybe you read the story of the chef who was preparing food for the sick in a hospital in Palestine. He was targeted by a drone and was killed. We wait for peace, but we’ve grown used to war. Haven’t we? What else have we grown used to? At the recommendation of Jimmy Johnson, my wife, Sara, and I have been watching a new TV show on Netflix. It stars Ted Danson, who, in the show, has grown used to loneliness. The first episode begins with the toast he gave to his wife at their wedding: “I’ve found the one I want to grow old with” he says, but he has grown old, she died, and every morning, he wakes up on his side of the bed. He gets out of bed and makes just one cup of coffee. Then, he takes a walk by himself. He reads the paper by himself. He does the crossword with no one to ask for help when he gets stuck on 11 down or 17 across. After the crossword, he snips out interesting articles and sends them to his daughter, who doesn’t want to read the articles he sends her, but he sends them anyway because this is his only connection with another human being. Every night, after spending the day alone, he goes to sleep alone, anticipating the same lonesome existence to continue tomorrow. His wife died. The one he wanted to grow old with left him alone, and he’s made peace with his isolation. He’s made peace with that echo in the empty house. He’s made peace with his routine, even though there’s no brightness to it. He’s made peace, not with being alone, not with solitude, which can be good and healing and healthy, but with loneliness. Let us never make peace with loneliness. Loneliness will kill you, but yet, is it not easier sometimes to make peace with such hardship rather than get our hopes up for fear that our hopes will be dashed once again? Therefore, when the angel Gabriel said to Zechariah: Your prayer has been heard. Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you will name him John. You will have joy and gladness, and many will rejoice at his birth, for he will be great in the sight of the Lord, Zechariah couldn’t hear it. He wasn’t prepared for this news. He had made peace with the disappointment and wasn’t expecting his hopes to be fulfilled. Therefore, the angel said, “because you did not believe my words, which will be fulfilled in their time, you will become mute, unable to speak, until the day these things occur.” “Because you did not believe my words,” the angel said. Now, maybe a priest should be punished for not believing what an angel said, and yet, remember that priests and preachers come to doubt the miracles just as some of you may. When our prayers go unanswered, we are just as disappointed as anyone else. To make peace, though, with disappointment is a dangerous thing because prayers are answered all the time, and nothing is more tragic than an answered prayer that goes unrecognized. That’s the warning from the story of Zechariah. Make peace with your unanswered prayers so that your heart isn’t shattered, but don’t make such peace with your unanswered prayer that you miss the signs that God has heard you. What’s more tragic than an unnoticed miracle? I imagine such a thing just breaks God’s heart, and yet it happens. We get so fixated on the door that closed that we ignore the door that opened. What I’m talking about this morning is this strange reality of accepting disappointment, heartbreak, and isolation to such a degree that when salvation comes, we are too resigned to our dreadful lot that we can’t accept the invitation. It happens to the young: When their love goes unrequited, they become so fixated on the one who rejected them that they ignore the one who loves them in return. That happens. We have to learn to accept that not all our prayers are answered in the way that we expect them to be answered. Miracles may not arrive on our timetable, but may they always come in such a way that you recognize them and receive them. I once went to visit a woman who hadn’t been to church in weeks. She told me that no one from the church cared enough to call. No one knew her name. She’s been out, and not even the people who sit next to her have noticed that she’d been gone. As she was telling me all this, the phone rang. It was Gloria, who sits just across the aisle. “I was just calling because I’ve missed you and wanted to know how you were,” Gloria said to her. “I noticed you’ve been gone. Is everything OK?” I heard Gloria ask the woman these things because I was eavesdropping, and that’s the kind of nosy person I am, but I was so thankful for this miracle of caring in the church. This was the most obvious and tangible answer to the lonely woman’s prayer, and yet she said to Gloria, “Joe is over here. Thank you for calling, but I’ve got to go.” She hung up and then said, “Pastor, what was I saying? Oh, yes. No one in the church cares about me.” It's not that the reality she perceived was pure fantasy. It’s not that her sadness and disappointment wasn’t real. It’s not that her perception of the church was completely inaccurate. It’s just that situations change, people change, prayers are answered, and there are few tragedies greater than a miracle that falls in your lap yet goes ignored. There are few tragedies greater than the open door you missed walking through because you were still fixated on the door that closed. What is more discouraging than a priest who had made peace with his unanswered prayer in such a way that when the angel showed up to tell him that his prayers were answered, he didn’t believe it? My friends, heartbreak is real. Disappointment is real. There are sad realities in our broken world. If your hopes are getting dashed again and again and again, it is only natural to protect yourself by no longer getting your hopes up, but when an angel shows up in your life, I pray that you see him and that you believe what he has to say. A miracle is on its way to you. The King of Kings draws near to save us, but not everyone is going to see Him. Not everyone will have her head lifted in expectation. Some people will be so focused on their dreams dashed on the ground that they’ll only see the pieces of all their disappointment shattered across the floor, even while the King of Kings descends from the clouds from on high. Don’t stop waiting for peace. Don’t get so used to war that you begin to tolerate the bullets and the bloodshed, for hope is real. Peace is real. Christ is coming. And He’ll come in some place you least expect Him. Like a manger. Like as a child. Like as a miracle that those who walk by faith will see, and those who have become permanent residents of this broken world will miss. Don’t make peace with this broken world. Don’t treasure your shattered dreams. Get ready for the dawn of peace. Amen.

Hope, a sermon based no Jeremiah 31: 31-34 and Luke 21: 25-36, preached on December 1, 2024

There’s a history quiz that comes out every Saturday. My wife, Sara, does it first, and then I try to beat her score. Yesterday, she beat me pretty badly, and one that I missed was the year that Jane Fonda popularized the phrase “Feel the burn!” It was 1982. I won’t forget it again. In fact, I’ve been thinking a lot about that phrase, “Feel the burn.” It is an interesting one because it’s counterintuitive. When it comes to exercise, you want to feel that burn in your muscles. The burn means that the exercise is doing something. You’re getting stronger and more physically fit. You’re burning calories, losing weight, and toning your figure. To “feel the burn” is a good thing, and it was wise for Jane Fonda to point that out and celebrate that feeling because a newcomer to exercise might misinterpret that sign, thinking that the unpleasant feeling means that you should quit. In our second Scripture lesson, Jesus is doing essentially the same thing. He is helping us to understand the signs. We just read that: There will be signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars, and on the earth distress among the nations confused by the roaring of the sea and the waves. The nations will be confused because signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars sound like bad things. They’ll be confused by the roaring of the sea and the waves because most people think that a calm sea is good and that a roaring sea is bad. When it happens, some will faint from the fear and foreboding, but not you. “Do not fear,” Jesus says, “stand up and raise your heads” when these things begin to take place because these signs mean that your redemption is drawing near. Don’t misinterpret the signs. Don’t be afraid. Don’t panic, for fools misinterpret the signs to their own detriment. For example, my friend Tom Clarke works for a company that manages investments, and often, he must help clients understand that when the stock market slumps, that’s not the best time to sell. That’s when some people want to sell, however. When the market fluctuates, sometimes their clients will call the office nervous or afraid. They’ll say, “But I’m losing money. Get rid of those stocks! Make it stop before I lose more.” The calm response of the company is always the same: Don’t panic. “Wait,” they’ll say. “The market does this from time to time. Don’t be afraid. Let’s talk next week. Allow me to interpret what you’re seeing.” All that is good advice, and it’s not just good investment advice, although it is very good investment advice. In 2008, we owned two homes in Decatur, Georgia. We bought one before the bubble burst, then a second with plans to sell the first, only once the bottom fell out of the housing market, we could sell neither. Then, we moved to Tennessee and needed to sell them both. Unable to sell the two in Decatur for anything close to what we’d paid for them, we bought a third in Tennessee. That was a terrifying situation in which to be; however, do you have any idea what those homes would be worth today? My point is that in fear, sometimes we panic. We lose faith. We lose hope. We don’t make good decisions when we’re running around like chickens with our heads cut off. When we’re in such a panic, we just want to do something, even if it’s the wrong thing. Therefore, the best advice can be to wait. Don’t panic. Hold on. Fear not. Such advice isn’t just practical, it’s also faithful, so when you see the signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars, the roaring of the sea and the waves, while many people will faint from fear and foreboding of what is coming upon the world, don’t misinterpret the signs. Consider how the leaves change color. When the leaves change, no one responds as though the tree were dying, yet when the stocks go down, we rush to sell as though they’ll never go back up again, or when criticism comes our way, so many of us crumble. Don’t misinterpret the signs. Stocks fall then rise again, as leaves change their color. Likewise, criticism may feel like failure. It may feel like rejection. Yet, no one takes the time to criticize people who don’t matter. Don’t misinterpret the signs. Criticism is the sign that you matter, that you can be better, and yet, how many look at the scoreboard and quit before time has run out? The Yellow Jackets and the Bulldogs lasted how many overtimes? Eight overtimes. My friends, we lose when we quit. We lose when we panic. We lose when our hope runs out. We lose when we’ve misinterpreted the signs. Don’t misinterpret the signs. This old world will fall away to be replaced by a new heaven and a new earth. Don’t be weighed down by the worries of this life, for each step we take is one step closer to the gates of Heaven. All our pain is like pain of childbirth. It is not punishment, for from our struggle comes new life, a new life far better than what was before. I’m talking about hope here. As the waves roar and the heavens shake, get ready for the new thing. Go out into the world today expectant, for our best days are not behind us, but before us. Christ Jesus, who will come again, comes not to judge us or condemn us, but to set us free. Don’t misinterpret the signs. I’ve been watching this TV show about the world’s greatest soccer player. He left his hometown to play in Europe where he rose to celebrity status, only then, at the very height of his career, his heart began to trouble him. His doctors told him he could never play again, and so he returned to his hometown, this tiny Mexican village on the ocean, and he began to drink himself to death, believing that his life was over. My friends, he had misinterpreted the signs, for his best days were still ahead of him. Each day in this small town brings with it new life. He starts to grow and mature. While celebrity had given him fans, in his hometown, he discovered his family. While Europe had given him a mansion to live in, this village gave him a home. So it will be with us, so don’t misinterpret the signs. Do not be weighed down with the worries of this life. Hope. “The days are surely coming,” says the Lord, “when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel. No longer shall they teach one another or say to each other, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest,” says the Lord, “for I will forgive their iniquity and remember their sin no more.” That’s the sign of what’s to come. Not condemnation, but salvation. Thanks be to God. Amen.