last sunday of the year. special schedule, 2 services 9.45 + 11.15.
rumor has it the normal preacher is leading the singing.
a new preacher
my friend + ministry partner Kristian Murray is speaking at good news in the neighborhood tomorrow. i’m excited for her to minister to us. she is doing so at my request, as the pastor of our church. my 25 year old self would have struggled to understood this. i have always tried my best to value female leaders + their gifts, but also wanted to obey the bible well.
a big part of your 20’s + 30’s is deciding which values you were raised with you want to keep and which ones you want to discard. if you love your parents (which i do) and were raised in a church you loved (which i was) and were educated in places you appreciate (which i mostly feel), this is challenging. because every embrace of a new biblical insight need not be a rejection of the PEOPLE who got you to where you are.
- sometimes you are continuing down further down a path they led you to.
- sometimes you are refining values that weren’t super important to them.
- sometimes you are responding to things they themselves now wish they had done differently.
so anyway, my friend + Kristian Murray is speaking at good news in the neighborhood tomorrow. she is a tremendously gifted woman of God and i know she will be used.
none of the theological words used for men + women in the church totally fit what i believe theologically. i believe the bible teaches something like:
1. men + women are made by God with equal but different roles in the home + the church.
2. the way those roles have been wrestled out often favors a male sensibility about the world that should be examined very carefully.
3. the current cultural wave towards female empowerment has both wonderful + unhelpful components to it.
4. strong men desire to platform capable women. capable women desire the support of strong men.
5. the bible speaks of women doing all sorts of public-facing ministry, we are living in that tradition (Acts 2.17 + Acts 16 as NT examples)
so anyway, i hope to see you tomorrow. and i hope you are ministered too. and if any of this is something you would like to discuss, feel to free to text me, 847.321.1770
Good Cheer Story - Brian
Last Weeks Sermon
2 sermons this week
last sunday: ‘God’s Never-ending Promise to You’
Christmas Eve: the announcement
(enjoying my holiday week with family, but generosity has been on my mind)
We want God to be generous to us but when it comes to others we are quick question the same God’s generosity.
In the gospels Jesus tells some parables to describe the kingdom of heaven. In Matthew 20 He likens it to a group of vineyard workers who were hired to work the land and when the day was over they would receive their wages. There were workers who worked the whole day, even in ‘the burning heat’ and there were some who showed up later and received the same pay even though they had arrived for the last hour. Pause… even as I read this part I could feel in my spirit this injustice rising up. Thinking, they worked 7 or so hours longer than the others and they deserve so much more…
But, I kept reading and Jesus telling the parable asks the question - “but didn’t you agree to a denarius for your pay?” Insinuating that the workers were just fine with one denarius for their wage until they found out that someone gets something that they felt like was unfair.
Then the clincher that really got me is in v. 14-16, “Take what’s yours and go. I want to give this last man the same as I gave you. Don’t I have the right to do what I want with what is mine? Are you jealous because I’m generous? So the last will be first, and the first last.”
Are you jealous because I’m generous? ←—--- I can’t shake this statement. First of all because often our jealousy gets in the way of the great gifts that God has given to us. It’s cheesy but this saying is true: ‘Remember the days you prayed for the things you have now.’ Jealousy usually has a tinge of entitlement to it.
Generosity is who God is. He is generous in spite of our depravity, be it love he shows us, prayers he answers, patience toward us, mercy shown, the price he willingly paid for our sin even while we were still sinners… the list goes on.
In the last week at our house, there’s been a lot of celebrating because our oldest and youngest sons have birthdays six days apart. When they were a little younger, our middle son, whose birthday is in November, would have a really hard time with watching them open all of these gifts when he knew he had to wait another several months to be celebrated. There was one particular year that Luke bribed him into having a good attitude so that he didn’t completely ruin the other brothers’ celebrations.
But, how often do we do the same thing? Be it our judgements from social media or our inner battles with our own frustrations of how things are going in our own life. We spend so much effort in asking ‘why,’ rather than thanking God for his lavish generosity toward us. I don’t think we are going to get to heaven and think God owes us a better room in the mansion, I think we are going to be blown away by the fact that we even get to enter the doorway.
I’m preaching to the choir every week, but I think asking yourself this question is helpful to right-size the kindness God has shown each and every one of us. Are you jealous because (I, God) am generous?
Fasting Season
as you prepare for 2025, would love to invite you to start pondering our 14 days of prayer + fasting
all details are here .. things are launching off January 12.
this is good news,
luke + kristen