The link to sermons

Here's the link to the sermons by week preached at UALC. I don't visit the website frequently, and don't find it intuitive, so I'm providing the link. You can listen or download. It's not each sermon--some services have the same speaker/topic more than once, so if there are 2 X-alt or 2 traditional, you'll find just one recording. Also the list now includes Preacher's Notebook, which is the preparation for the sermon, not Sunday School. I think it really helps focus on what is heard on Sunday (I attend on Thursday, so I have some time to think about it.

The Audacity to Hope

Here's the sermon by Jeremiah Wright preached in 1990, from which it is said comes Barack Obama's theme.

The Audacity to Hope

The assistant pastor of Obama's church was at Lakeside the summer of 2007. He was a fine preacher with a good message.

The message of the Bible

is not "The Lord helps those who help themselves," but "the Lord helps those who are helpless." Christianity has to do not with man reaching up to God, but with God reaching down to man and offering him salvation as a free, undeserved gift; not with man attempting to justify himself, but with God invading history and making forgiveness possible by taking the sins of the world upon Himself. According to the Bible, we live in a fallen, sinful world, a world populated by men and women who are in rebellion against God and who are thus separated from His loving presence. We all are guilty of sin; we all possess what the church calls "original sin," but which the Bible more accurately calls a "sinful nature." . . . Christians do not gain salvation by their own merit (trying to do so would be like mopping a floor with dirty water), but because the God-man, Jesus Christ, who was the only human to live and not sin, took the punishment for our sin upon Himself. . ." From "Culture, religion, philosophy, and myth: what Christianity is not," by Louis Markos, Christian Research Journal, Vol. 29, no. 2, 2006, pp. 32-39

Salvation isn't earned; it is a gift. Good deeds follow salvation; works are not a means but an outpouring of love. But every Sunday, in thousands of churches in our land, preachers will stand before their congregations and turn this message upside down, offering an endless "to-do list" instead of the gospel.

The "purpose" in Rick Warren's best seller, The purpose driven life, is all about you and me, not Jesus. In fact, I'm not sure he gets to salvation until the end of the book, where he says he can provide a list of books on how to share the Good News (the gospel). He bounces around the NT at such speed, that if I hadn't already known the gospel when I read this book, I'd get to the end with another "to-do list" about the local church and global mission.

The final entry in volume one of the Brethren Encyclopedia (3 vol) says: "Saving faith can be known only by a life of piety and obedience to Christ. Justification (declared righteous) is assured only in those whose faith manifested itself in obedience." What a message of works! For the last 30 years I believed I didn't hear the gospel because my ears were closed and I was rebellious, thinking I didn't need to be saved. Now I think I didn't hear it because it wasn't preached where I attended church (Church of the Brethren and United Church of Christ, one of the parent denominations of First Community Church in Marble Cliff, OH). [This doesn't excuse me--there was enough sin in my life it should have been obvious.] And although I'm in a believing church now with godly pastors, they too often slip into the theme of the day without first announcing why we have gathered to worship the Creator and Redeemer of the universe. [You have a better chance of NOT missing the point if you attend a liturgical service, but most don't because they like happy clappy music.] The gospel settles us down and reminds us of who we are--people precious in God's sight for whom Christ died. Then we can get down to the business of worshiping and serving a mighty God.

How do you plan to get to heaven?

I don't know how you're doing, but I'm not good enough to go to heaven. Someone else is getting me in for free. Jesus. Jeff Marian, one of our pastors at UALC, noted in the church newsletter,

A recent study asked church-goers: Can a good person earn his or her way to heaven?
52% of Presbyterians,
54% of Lutherans,
58% of Episcopalians,
and 82% of Roman Catholics said YES! Are you among them?

The truth is that we are saved by grace through faith in Jesus’ death and resurrection, not by any good deeds that we do. The Bible tells us that salvation is not a program, but a relationship with Jesus! People still need to hear that very basic message of our faith. Are you willing to be a messenger of God’s free gift?

The people in the pew need to hear this every Sunday from the pastors too, because they can be lulled into a works mentality--particularly in our American culture where "bootstrapping" is considered a virtue. They can get so busy and so proud of their accomplishments (or so discouraged by their lack of them) that they forget what the good news is all about. I don't mean the entire message of the sermon has to be on the cross and resurrection followed up with an altar call, but it needs to be the foundation of the sermon. Peter and Paul always laid the ground work when writing to the young Christians in the first century of the church. Then they moved on to the "to do list" of faith.

Accompanying that sermon, it also helps to have a well written liturgy that expresses "and for HIS sake forgives you all your sins," a fabulous, spirit-led choir and director , and some solid hymns that reinforce the good news. That will send us out eager and ready to be a messenger.

402

Tony Campolo

Last Sunday I had the opportunity to hear a sermon by Tony Campolo, professor emeritus of Sociology at Eastern University and an ordained minister in the American Baptist Church, at Lakeside Sunday service at Hoover Auditorium (I'd already attended worship on the lakefront). He was the "Chaplain of the Week." Regardless of what you think of his theology or the larger umbrella of "the emergent church" you'll never hear a more entertaining Christian. He even jokes about being a bald guy with a son named Bart and a daughter named Lisa. He's a member of a predominantly African American congregation, and can preach it with patois better than anyone I know. If you were to hear it on a recording, you'd never guess he's an Italian American.


I always listen carefully for the gospel--not the social, feel-good, do-gooder peace and justice gospel, but the real Jesus-died-on-the-cross-for-your-sins, because without that you're just kiddin' around, giving people false hope that they can get into the kingdom with good works. Jesus didn't set aside any of the ethical and moral codes of the Jews developed over hundreds of years--the good news was about him. And Tony did mention it--at the end of the sermon. If you're in a liturgical church that sings traditional hymns and has a lesson from the NT and OT, you can fill in what the preacher misses. But why should you need to?

Thirty some years ago I had the impression that Prof. Campolo and I were on the same page. Of course, I'd been a works-Christian most of my life before 1974, so maybe it was just that with the fresh blush and bloom of the Gospel, I didn't notice that some people who called themselves Evangelicals had become bored with the Good News of Jesus and wanted to "move on." Or maybe he came to the conclusion that there were no unbelievers in the pew. Wrong. If the folks aren't saved, Tony, there's not much point to a stunning sermon about the spirit.

Cross posted from Collecting My Thoughts

398 Grace

Two weeks ago I bought a book at our public library branch (for sale items by Friends of the Library) titled, "My mother's favorite song; tender stories of home to deepen your faith" by John William Smith (Howard Publishing, 1995). It looked brand new; the publisher's statement on the verso of the title page included a statement about Jesus coming again, and the book flap story appeared to be sound. So for $2 it looked worth the price to purchase "one of America's best storytellers." Now after having read several selections during my morning devotions, I'll say, "money well-spent."

Often when I'm told that such-and-so gave a wonderful, moving sermon (our church has 10 services in 3 locations, and sometimes I wouldn't even recognize the speaker if I saw him), I ask, "Did he present the gospel?" And I get a blank stare or a stammer. That's why I like a liturgical service (we have two); it clearly says, "and for his [Jesus] sake, forgives you your sin." Brings me up real smart, that does. Nothing in what I did or will do makes me worthy of forgiveness. It's all grace.

On p. 121 of Smith's book he writes my story:

"When I was growing up, I never heard much about grace at church--I mean, in sermons or classes. I slowly figured out that it was important and that we needed it, but we were sort of embarrassed by it."

Actually, I'm not sure I heard about grace at all. We didn't even sing "Amazing Grace" in those days.

"Now that we've discovered it, we're trying to make up for lost time and make the most of it. It has become an issue. Can we have too much grace? Will grace fix anything? Does grace mean that everybody is saved? Does grace mean that we don't have to do anything? . . ."

"Nothing crucifes the self more than grace. And nothing is more painful than self-crucifixion. Nothing strikes a more savage blow against our basic pride and sense of self-worth than grace. Being able to accept grace is very hard, because it makes such intense demands. On my road to God, nothing I have encountered has baffled and frustrated me more than grace. It is the most nonsensical, illogical, unpredictable, unreasonable thing in all of God's arsenal of weapons that are designed to defeat the enemy within all of us--ourselves."

Our sermons at UALC are grace-lite, or Jesus-lite, I think because if not done right, they can sound legalistic or harsh. I mean, who wants to be told she is sinful? Who wants to know he doesn't measure up? It might turn off the seekers; it might shake up the members. It's far easier to admonish the congregation to do more, be more, adore more. Grace? You can't earn it, but it sure isn't cheap.