Testing the Status Quo

April 13, 2025 PastorPartridge Sermon Alliance, Broadway, Christ, church, faith, God, Jesus, Jesus Christ, John Partridge, Methodist, Ohio, Palm Sunday, status quo, triumphal, United Methodist

Testing the Status Quo

(Palm Sunday)

April 13, 2025*

By Pastor John Partridge

Luke 19:28-40

Are you familiar with the word, status quo? It’s used in English, although it is one of those terms that came into our language unchanged from its original Latin. Status quo simply means “the way that things are.” Referring to the status quo often refers to how the politics of power and bureaucracy exist and function in our world. This term can be used to describe everything from the World Bank to the United Nations, the government of the United States, or even the way that chores are divided in our homes. It can be difficult to fight the status quo to reorganize our household chore chart if everyone has done the same thing for a long time. But using this language of changing the status quo might also be a part of the conversation when we remember that the United States Constitution does not enshrine a two-party system, and we are free to elect people from as many parties as we wish. There are no rules against dividing power differently than we currently do, as it relates to the number of political parties that we have, but any sort of change would require a major upheaval of the status quo. And you can be sure that those people who currently benefit from the current system, the current status quo, would fight tooth and nail to preserve things the way that they are.

What does any of that have to do with our remembrance of Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem on what we now celebrate as Palm Sunday? If we’re honest, it has everything to do with it, and understanding the status quo is almost required if we are to understand what is happening in the story of Luke 19:28-40 where we read this:

²⁸After Jesus had said this, he went on ahead, going up to Jerusalem. ²⁹As he approached Bethphage and Bethany at the hill called the Mount of Olives, he sent two of his disciples, saying to them, ³⁰“Go to the village ahead of you, and as you enter it, you will find a colt tied there, which no one has ever ridden. Untie it and bring it here. ³¹If anyone asks you, ‘Why are you untying it?’ say, ‘The Lord needs it.”

³²Those who were sent ahead went and found it just as he had told them. ³³As they were untying the colt, its owners asked them, “Why are you untying the colt?”

³⁴They replied, “The Lord needs it.”

³⁵They brought it to Jesus, threw their cloaks on the colt and put Jesus on it. ³⁶As he went along, people spread their cloaks on the road.

³⁷When he came near the place where the road goes down the Mount of Olives, the whole crowd of disciples began joyfully to praise God in loud voices for all the miracles they had seen:

³⁸“Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord!”

“Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!”

³⁹Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to Jesus, “Teacher, rebuke your disciples!”

⁴⁰“I tell you,” he replied, “if they keep quiet, the stones will cry out.”

One of the first things that you notice is the emphasis on trust. Jesus sends two of his disciples ahead into the village of Bethpage, tells them what they will find, what to do, and what to say if anyone questions them. We’ve read it so many times that it is familiar and comfortable to us, but if we read it as if it were happening the first time, it is incredibly weird. Jesus hasn’t been to this place, as far as anyone knows, and yet he knows everything about it. But, despite the strangeness of it all, the disciples choose to trust Jesus and do what he asks of them. Once they get there, and they find the colt just as Jesus had said, as expected the owners of the colt ask them what they’re doing, and they say what Jesus told them to say, “The Lord needs it.” Oddly enough, the owners accept this as an explanation and we find that the owners of the colt, who had no advance warning or explanation that this was going to happen, simply choose to trust that this weirdness is okay and let the disciples take the colt for Jesus to use. Thus, from the very beginning of this story, we are led to understand that the entire story, regardless of where it goes next, is a story about trust.

And so, let’s look at where it goes next.

As Jesus, riding the colt, begins the descent down the Mount of Olives, which is the last bit before starting up the road into the city of Jerusalem, and from which the Temple and it outer courts were not only plainly visible but would have completely dominated the view, and it is here that the people begin to shout praises to Jesus. The problem, however, is that the praises that are being shouted are the praises of a king and a conqueror and not that of a wandering rabbi and teacher. As such, some Pharisees confront Jesus and demand that he quiet his disciples and stop saying those things.

But the whole reason that the Pharisees wanted Jesus’ disciples to stop shouting was because they wanted to protect the status quo. The status quo, in this case, was that the Romans controlled the government of Israel while sharing a small portion of their power with the ruling elites of Israel, most notably many of the Sadducees, and also allowing a mostly free practice of the Jewish religion which was overseen by the Pharisees. If Jesus were to be accepted as the king, or as much of anything more than a wandering rabbi and teacher, then the Romans would be unhappy, they might change the status quo, and the Sadducees and Pharisees might not have the power, authority, and freedom that they currently had. And so, the Pharisees were intent upon doing everything that they could to maintain the status quo and keep hold of the power that they had in the existing system.

But Jesus replies to them that if the people kept quiet, then the stones themselves would cry out. Looking deeper, what Jesus tells them, is that it is more important that God be obeyed than for the status quo to remain the same. And that, my friends, is a question that we must constantly be asking ourselves, even in the twenty first century.

How often do we do the things that we do simply because that is what is expected, or how we’ve always done it, or because it’s traditional, or because our political leaders say that this is how things should be done? Maintaining the status quo and satisfying our political leaders, or church leaders, or the school board, or even our laws and our law enforcement officers should not be our primary objective. Instead, our first, foremost, and overarching goal should be to obey God.

As I noted a few moments ago, the story that we just read began with a story about trust, indicating that the entire story would be something that we should connect to that theme. And so, as we think about the status quo, we should think about our trust in God. Should we trust God, or our political party? God or our favorite politician? Should we trust God or the status quo?

If our local schools or libraries enact policies that are contrary to the teachings of God, we are called to stand against them. If our government acts unjustly we are called to oppose it. If our political party, or our favorite politician acts unjustly or acts in other ways that do not follow God, then we are obligated to stand in opposition or to violate those laws as an act of justice. We cannot support authority, tradition, or the status quo if doing so causes us to take a position in opposition to God.

If Jesus and the disciples trust God so much that they were prepared to disobey the law, tradition, and church leaders in defiance of an unjust and ungodly status quo, how can we do any less?

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*You have been reading a message presented at Christ United Methodist Church on the date noted at the top of the first page. Rev. John Partridge is the pastor at Christ UMC in Alliance, Ohio. Duplication of this message is a part of our Media ministry, if you have received a blessing in this way, we would love to hear from you. Letters and donations in support of the Media ministry or any of our other projects may be sent to Christ United Methodist Church, 470 East Broadway Street, Alliance, Ohio 44601. These messages are available to any interested persons regardless of membership. You may subscribe to these messages, in print or electronic formats, by writing to the address noted, or by contacting us at secretary@CUMCAlliance.org. These messages can also be found online at https://pastorpartridge.com . All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.comThe “NIV” and “New International Version” are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.™

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Forward from Worthless

April 6, 2025April 6, 2025 PastorPartridge Sermon

Forward from Worthless

April 06, 2025*

By Pastor John Partridge

Isaiah 43:16-21 John 12:1-8 Philippians 3:4b-14

Have you ever had a time when everything went wrong. Maybe you got laid off, or fired, or maybe it was a health problem, or bankruptcy, or any one of a few hundred other situations where you just felt like things couldn’t get any worse and you felt like the world thought you were worthless. One form of conventional wisdom is that when you find rock bottom, the only direction that you can go is up, but the more cynical conventional wisdom is that no matter how bad things are, they can always get worse. And so naturally, a worthwhile question arises, “When I find myself at the bottom, where should I go next?”

As we begin this morning, we read the words of the prophet Isaiah who, at the time, was writing to the people of Israel who had been carried off into captivity in Babylon. Their nation had been defeated, their cities destroyed, their Temple and their worship had been demolished, and many of the people, especially anyone who had any nobility, royal blood, or even demonstrated leadership skills, had been carried off into slavery. The only people left in Israel were peasant farmers and shepherds that Babylon needed to generate tax money.

It isn’t hard to imagine that the people were, at this point, highly discouraged, without hope, and struggling with a feeling of utter worthlessness. And so, it is at this moment that God, through his servant Isaiah, send this message to his people in Isaiah 43:16-21:

¹⁶This is what the Lord says— he who made a way through the sea,
a path through the mighty waters,
¹⁷who drew out the chariots and horses, the army and reinforcements together,
and they lay there, never to rise again, extinguished, snuffed out like a wick:
¹⁸“Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past.
¹⁹See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?
I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.
²⁰The wild animals honor me, the jackals and the owls, because I provide water in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland, to give drink to my people, my chosen,
²¹ the people I formed for myself that they may proclaim my praise.

God says, Remember who I am. I am the one who made a path for Israel to walk across the sea and defeat the army of a superpower at the same time. I know that things are terrible, but let’s forget how things used to be and look forward to something new. Just as I led your nation through forty years in the wilderness and led you into the Promised Land, I am making a path for you through the desert today. If captivity feels like being lost in the desert, then I want you to know that I am the one who will bring you water, food, and protection from the wild animals. I am the God who cares for his people, I have a plan for you, and I am, even now, making a path for you into the future. In this way, despite their feelings of worthlessness, God was declaring Israel’s value.

But there is another kind of worthlessness that we should consider this morning but to understand that we must begin with a story about someone who believed that they were worth more than the people around them. We find that story in John 12:1-8, where we hear the story about Jesus’ betrayal at the hands of Judas Iscariot as it is contrasted with the selflessness of Lazarus’ sister Mary.

^12:1 Six days before the Passover, Jesus came to Bethany, where Lazarus lived, whom Jesus had raised from the dead. ²Here a dinner was given in Jesus’ honor. Martha served, while Lazarus was among those reclining at the table with him. ³Then Mary took about a pintof pure nard, an expensive perfume; she poured it on Jesus’ feet and wiped his feet with her hair. And the house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume.

⁴But one of his disciples, Judas Iscariot, who was later to betray him, objected, ⁵“Why wasn’t this perfume sold, and the money given to the poor? It was worth a year’s wages.” ⁶He did not say this because he cared about the poor but because he was a thief; as keeper of the money bag, he used to help himself to what was put into it.

⁷“Leave her alone,” Jesus replied. “It was intended that she should save this perfume for the day of my burial. ⁸You will always have the poor among you, but you will not always have me.”

The story begins with Mary pouring out a bottle of perfume that cost the equivalent of a year’s wages just so that she could honor Jesus. Lazarus, Mary, and Martha were not wealthy. This was an extravagant gift that they certainly could not afford. That bottle of perfume was, quite likely, a part of Mary’s retirement saving’s plan or other long-term investment rather than trusting her money to the bankers, moneylenders, or the priests at the temple. But she poured it all out on Jesus’ feet as a demonstration of trust, loyalty, and honor.

In contrast, John shows us the reaction of Judas to Mary’s gift. Judas immediately complains that if Mary was going to give Jesus such an expensive gift, then they should have sold it rather than pouring it out so that they could use the money to help the poor. But John editorially tells us that Judas really didn’t care about the poor, Judas only cared about himself. If they had sold the perfume, then Judas, as the club treasurer, could have embezzled a bunch of it without anyone noticing.

As we look at these two characters, we see that while Mary was selfless, giving, trusting, and honorable, Judas was disingenuous, selfish, and self-centered. Even from a superficial reading of this story, it is obvious that Mary is the person that is supposed to be the hero, and whom we are supposed to admire, and after whom we are to model our lives. But even so, as we look at our culture, both in the first century and today, the people that our culture admires have more in common with Judas than Mary.

Paul addresses this cultural flaw in his letter to the church in Philippi and explains that while he once followed the self-centered path modeled by Judas and admired by his culture, he has found a different path in Jesus Christ. In Philippians 3:4b-14 Paul says:

If someone else thinks they have reasons to put confidence in the flesh, I have more: ⁵circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; in regard to the law, a Pharisee; ⁶as for zeal, persecuting the church; as for righteousness based on the law, faultless.

⁷But whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. ⁸What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ ⁹and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith inChrist—the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith. ¹⁰I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, ¹¹and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead.

¹²Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. ¹³Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, ¹⁴I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.

Paul says that if anyone had a self-absorbed, narcissistic reason to be confident in who they were and in what they had accomplished, it would have been him. He was, and had done, everything that a good Jew aspired to do be and to do. He was born into the right family, had the right pedigree, went to the right schools, had the right teachers and the right training, was associated with the right people, had the right resume, was known for his enthusiasm and passion, was found to be faultless in understanding and in obeying the law in every aspect, and was even a Roman citizen.

And yet, no matter what things he had and his record of accomplishments, once he met Jesus on the road to Damascus and had chosen to follow him, Paul considered everything else to be a stinking pile of garbage. He understood that a resume of righteousness built on what “I” have done, the family from which “I” came, and who “I” am because of how I have studied, understood, and obeyed the law, was utterly and entirely worthless. Paul realized and understood that, in Christ, the “I,” “me,” “my,” of everything in my life became worthless except as it leads us to know the power of Jesus’ resurrection and in our participation in his suffering so that we can receive the gift of resurrection from him.

Once he recognized how following Jesus changed his life, and once he understood how following Jesus made his narcissism, self-confidence, and self-reliance worthless, only then did Paul begin a new life in which he could move forward toward the goal for which God had called him through Jesus Christ. As humans, the more that we crow about who we are and the things that we have done, the less that we are useful and valuable to God. It is only when we realize the worthlessness of our pride, selfishness, and narcissism that we can move forward towards our calling in Jesus Christ.

It is said that addicts cannot accept help and begin to heal until they find themselves at rock bottom and this has much in common with our journey in faith as we follow Jesus Christ. We cannot begin to move forward towards the life to which God has called us, until we understand the worthlessness of trying to do it ourselves. How we were born, who we know, and what we have accomplished mean nothing. Our righteousness and value to God comes from Christ alone. And, until we understand that, we cannot begin to move forward.

May we, like Paul, understand that we need to surrender our resume if we want to gain our resurrection in Christ.

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Reconciliation, Restoration, and Prejudice

March 30, 2025 PastorPartridge Sermon Alliance, Broadway, Christ, church, faith, God, Jesus, Jesus Christ, John Partridge, Methodist, Moses, Ohio, Paul, prejudice, reconciliation, restoration, transfiguration

Reconciliation, Restoration, and Prejudice

March 30, 2025*

By Pastor John Partridge

Joshua 5:9-12 Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32 2 Corinthians 5:16-21

Have you ever done major, even irreversible damage to a relationship? You said the wrong thing, spoke hastily in anger, didn’t show up when you needed to be there, failed to stand up for a friend, or walked out when you should have given a hug instead? There are many things that we can do, or fail to do, that can damage our relationships with the people that we care about. But if we want those people in our lives, then we need to find a way to make amends, to apologize, mend fences, and rebuild the trust that was broken. Sometimes that isn’t possible, but you can never know for sure if you don’t try. But sometimes the relationship that was damaged was the one between us and God. And when that happens, we have some choices to make about how we go about restoring our relationship and rebuilding trust. And so, this morning, we take a look at several scriptures that speak to restoration, reconciliation, and the obstacles that can stand between us, distance us from God, and cause damage to our relationship.

We begin this morning reading from Joshua 5:9-12 and we hear about the return of Israel to the land that God had promised to them from the time of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

⁹Then the Lord said to Joshua, “Today I have rolled away the reproach of Egypt from you.” So, the place has been called Gilgal to this day.

¹⁰On the evening of the fourteenth day of the month, while camped at Gilgal on the plains of Jericho, the Israelites celebrated the Passover. ¹¹The day after the Passover, that very day, they ate some of the produce of the land: unleavened bread and roasted grain. ¹²The manna stopped the day afterthey ate this food from the land; there was no longer any manna for the Israelites, but that year they ate the produce of Canaan.

On the day of Passover, everyone eats a meal that is laid out in the tradition of that celebration: green vegetables or potatoes symbolizing the coming of spring, Haroset, a combination of fruits, wine or honey, and nuts, symbolizing the mortar that the Israelites used to built the temples in Egypt, bitter herbs symbolizing the bitterness of slavery, boiled eggs symbolizing hope, a roasted beet symbolizing the blood of the Temple sacrifice, and matzah or unleavened bread symbolizing the bread of affliction that the Israelites ate during their time in Egypt. But as the people celebrate Passover, and the fulfillment of God’s promise seen in their arrival in the Promised Land, the very next day, the manna that had fed them for forty years in the desert… stopped.

And now, rather than eat the manna that God provided, the intermediate necessity given to aid in their survival, the people now ate the food that God provided by means of the land itself. No longer were they wandering in the desert, now they were home in a fertile land that could provide them with the food that they needed. Now, God had fulfilled his promise, and the people were restored to the land. The ending of God’s daily provision of manna represented their restoration to the land and the restoration of their relationship with God.

The problem that we have, as the people of God, is when we get in our own way and decide that groups of people aren’t good enough even when God hasn’t said any such thing. Jesus makes this point in Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32 and exposes the prejudice of the Pharisees as he tells the parable about the prodigal son saying:

^15:1 Now the tax collectors and sinners were all gathering around to hear Jesus. ²But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law muttered, “This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.”

³Then Jesus told them this parable:

“There was a man who had two sons. ¹²The younger one said to his father, Father, give me my share of the estate.’ So, he divided his property between them.

¹³“Not long after that, the younger son got together all he had, set off for a distant country and there squandered his wealth in wild living. ¹⁴After he had spent everything, there was a severe famine in that whole country, and he began to be in need. ¹⁵So he went and hired himself out to a citizen of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed pigs. ¹⁶He longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating, but no one gave him anything.

¹⁷“When he came to his senses, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired servants have food to spare, and here I am starving to death! ¹⁸I will set out and go back to my father and say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. ¹⁹I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired servants.’ ²⁰So he got up and went to his father.

“But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him, and kissed him.

²¹“The son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’

²²“But the father said to his servants, ‘Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. ²³Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let’s have a feast and celebrate. ²⁴For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’ So, they began to celebrate.

²⁵“Meanwhile, the older son was in the field. When he came near the house, he heard music and dancing. ²⁶So he called one of the servants and asked him what was going on. ²⁷‘Your brother has come,’ he replied, ‘and your father has killed the fattened calf because he has him back safe and sound.’

²⁸“The older brother became angry and refused to go in. So, his father went out and pleaded with him. ²⁹But he answered his father, ‘Look! All these years I’ve been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders. Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends. ³⁰But when this son of yours who has squandered your property with prostitutes comes home, you kill the fattened calf for him!’

³¹“‘My son,’ the father said, ‘you are always with me, and everything I have is yours. ³²But we had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’”

Let’s review the highlights of that conversation. The Pharisees accuse Jesus of consorting with the wrong kind of people whereupon Jesus tells them a story in which the son that was always faithful and who did everything right, and the son who clearly represented the Pharisees in this case, got angry because the father, who represents God, chose to be merciful to the son that made mistakes, repented, and returned to his father. The elder son goes as far as to declare that the younger son is not his brother, but his father gently reminds him that his brother was once dead but is alive again. The critical piece is that while the father is willing to forgive and reconcile with his lost son, the older brother’s prejudice corrupts his heart into excluding the people that don’t fit into the roles that he expects them to fill. It is his prejudice that excludes his brother and not the sins of which he believes his brother to be guilty.

By means of this story, Jesus was telling the Pharisees that their attitude towards those that they labelled as sinners was the same prejudice seen in the older brother. It was that prejudice that prevented them from extending God’s grace and forgiveness to the people who wanted to repent and return to God. But how does that extend to us? In 2 Corinthians 5:16-21, Paul tells us how this applies to the work of the church and how it applies to us in our modern day lives. Paul says:

¹⁶So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. ¹⁷Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! ¹⁸All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: ¹⁹that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. ²⁰We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. ²¹God made him who had no sin to be sinfor us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

Paul says that we all need to stop looking at the people around us the way that the world looks at people. Instead, we must see the people around us as the new creations of Jesus Christ. Each person who repents and comes to Jesus is reconciled to God because of the sacrifice that was made on the cross. Jesus’ sacrifice made it possible for all of us… and the emphasis here should not be missed, all of us… to become the righteousness of God.

But as Paul warned the church in Corinth, we must be careful that we see the people around us as new creations in Jesus Christ and not to judge them with the prejudice of the world. We cannot see people as sinners and outcasts as the Pharisees did, or as traitors and scoundrels as the older brother did, or even as Democrats, Republicans, poor, rich, immigrants, or any other label that our modern culture wants to use, but instead we must see the people around us as the Jesus and as the prodigal son’s father did, and be open to forgiveness, grace, reconciliation, restoration, peace, and love. Holding on to our prejudice, as the older brother did, will prevent us from receiving the grace, forgiveness, and the blessings that God intends for us.

We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us.

May the people around us see God in us… and not our prejudice and bias.

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Not Just Average

March 16, 2025 PastorPartridge Sermon Alliance, Bible, Broadway, Christ, christianity, church, excellent, faith, God, Jesus, Jesus Christ, John Partridge, Methodist, Ohio, tranformed, transform, water, wine

Not Just Average

March 16, 2025*

By Pastor John Partridge

Isaiah 62:1-5 John 2:1-11 1 Corinthians 12:1-11

It’s no secret that some of us do better than others when it comes to things like standing in front of a crowd to speak, or even to make an announcement. We have members of our staff-parish relations committee that are happy to do work behind the scenes, even if that is most, or even all of the real work, as long as someone else stands in front of the church to make the announcement and present appreciation gifts to the staff. The same is often true whenever your pastor, or church growth consultant, or anyone else suggests that you invite your friends to church or share your faith in Jesus with your friends and neighbors. Even for many of us who are comfortable speaking in public, suddenly, we freeze up and don’t want to do it.

There are a lot of reasons for that, and I’m sure that a psychologist or behaviorist would have a lot to say about it, but much of it boils down to it being the fear of the unfamiliar. But of course, that isn’t what we tell people, or even what we will admit to ourselves. At some level, that fear is felt as an innate shyness that we try to explain away. We don’t want to admit, even to ourselves, that we are afraid.

And so, we tell ourselves things like, “I’m not anybody important.” “Nobody wants to hear what I have to say.” “I don’t stand out. I am not one of the beautiful people. I am not particularly smart. I do not excel at anything. Nobody will listen to me. I don’t speak very well.” Or even, “I’m just kind of average.”

But we need to stop doing that.

We are not average.

You are not average.

God’s people were never intended to be average even though the people around them sometimes saw them as average, or worse. In Isaiah 62:1-5, God explains that there is a day coming when the world will see his people the way that they really are. While Israel’s neighbors and enemies saw them as defeated, destroyed, and desolate, God saw his people differently.

^62:1 For Zion’s sake I will not keep silent,
    for Jerusalem’s sake I will not remain quiet,
till her vindication shines out like the dawn,
    her salvation like a blazing torch.
²The nations will see your vindication,
    and all kings your glory;
you will be called by a new name
    that the mouth of the Lord will bestow.
³You will be a crown of splendor in the Lord’s hand,
    a royal diadem in the hand of your God.
⁴No longer will they call you Deserted,
    or name your land Desolate.
But you will be called Hephzibah,
    and your land Beulah
for the Lord will take delight in you,
    and your land will be married.
⁵As a young man marries a young woman,
    so will your Builder marry you;
as a bridegroom rejoices over his bride,
    so will your God rejoice over you.

God says that a day will come when Israel will be vindicated, and people will see them the way that God sees them. Rather than seeing the nation of Israel as a defeated, destroyed land full of desolation, the world will see them as God’s splendorous crown, the royal gemstone in the scepter of God. And new names will be upon the lips of the nations, instead of being named as deserted, God’s people will be known as God’s delight, and the land as the land of God’s family. God will rejoice over his people in the same way that a bridegroom rejoices over his bride.

I also offer as evidence of the standards that we see in God’s creative power, the story of Jesus’ first miracle at the wedding at Cana in Galilee that we read in John 2:1-11:

^2:1 On the third day a wedding took place at Cana in Galilee. Jesus’ mother was there, ²and Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding. ³When the wine was gone, Jesus’ mother said to him, “They have no more wine.”

⁴“Woman, why do you involve me?” Jesus replied. “My hour has not yet come.”

⁵His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.”

⁶Nearby stood six stone water jars, the kind used by the Jews for ceremonial washing, each holding from twenty to thirty gallons.

⁷Jesus said to the servants, “Fill the jars with water”; so, they filled them to the brim.

⁸Then he told them, “Now draw some out and take it to the master of the banquet.”

They did so, ⁹and the master of the banquet tasted the water that had been turned into wine. He did not realize where it had come from, though the servants who had drawn the water knew. Then he called the bridegroom aside ¹⁰and said, “Everyone brings out the choice wine first and then the cheaper wine after the guests have had too much to drink; but you have saved the best till now.”

¹¹What Jesus did here in Cana of Galilee was the first of the signs through which he revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him.

Once again, this story is well known to us and a great many sermons have been written about it, but for today I want to focus simply on the quality of the miracle, or expressed another way, the quality that we see in this expression of God’s creative power. When the wine was taken to the master of the banquet, he declared that what he had tasted was “choice wine” and he was so struck by the quality of it, that he called the bridegroom aside and complimented him on it, and noted that it was ordinary for cheaper wine to be brought out at this stage of a banquet because the guests would have already had too much to drink and wouldn’t notice the difference. In this case, cheap wine of inferior quality would have been both ordinary and acceptable. Wine of even average quality would have been more than was expected and likely would still have received praise from the master of the banquet and good quality wine would have made a positive impression. But the wine that Jesus made was not inferior, was not average, and was beyond even that of a good quality vintage. The wine that Jesus created was top shelf, top tier, premier, choice quality wine, the best of the best.

Just like we heard from Isaiah, God did not create his people to be average, God created them to be his delight and a gemstone in his scepter. Likewise, God’s creation is not something of average, or even of good, respectable quality. God’s creation is choice, premier, and the best of the best. This is what I want you to keep in mind as we read Paul’s letter to the church in Corinth as he reminds them where they came from, what God has done for them, and how God is transforming their lives. In 1 Corinthians 12:1-11 we hear this:

^12:1 Now about the gifts of the Spirit, brothers and sisters, I do not want you to be uninformed. ²You know that when you were pagans, somehow or other you were influenced and led astray to mute idols. ³Therefore I want you to know that no one who is speaking by the Spirit of God says, “Jesus be cursed,” and no one can say, “Jesus is Lord,” except by the Holy Spirit.

⁴There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit distributes them. ⁵There are different kinds of service, but the same Lord. ⁶There are different kinds of working, but in all of them and in everyone it is the same God at work.

⁷Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good. ⁸To one there is given through the Spirit a message of wisdom, to another a message of knowledge by means of the same Spirit, ⁹to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by that one Spirit, ¹⁰to another miraculous powers, to another prophecy, to another distinguishing between spirits, to another speaking in different kinds of languages, and to still another the interpretation of languages. ¹¹All these are the work of one and the same Spirit, and he distributes them to each one, just as he determines.

Paul spells out the idea that although the people of the church had once been pagans, they could now easily say things like, “Jesus is Lord.” That alone, Paul says, is evidence that they have been transformed from a life devoted to pagan gods, filled with the Holy Spirit, and transformed into a new creation in Jesus Christ. And, because they are a new creation of Jesus Christ, every one of them have been given gifts by God’s Spirit. Although the gifts that they have been given are different from one another, Paul says that each of them should be seen as a manifestation, an embodiment, or an outward and visible sign of the working and the presence of the Spirit of God in them. All these gifts are from the same God, from the same Spirit, and all of them are to work together to accomplish the mission and ministry of God.

But just to make sure that you all see my point, I want to remind you of what Paul said, “There are different kinds of working, but in all of them, and in everyone, it is the same God at work.”

In everyone.

Quite simply, that means that you… have gifts. The God who created the universe has given you gifts. Moreover, the God who said that his people are a delight and a cherished treasure, and the God who creates, always and everywhere with excellence even when average would be more than good enough, that God has given you gifts. It is that God who has sent his spirit to live in you, it is that God that has transformed your life, and it is that God that has called you into his service.

You are not average.

You were never intended to be average.

We need to get out of our own heads, and we need to stop saying things like, “I’m not anybody important.” “Nobody wants to hear what I have to say.” or “I’m just kind of average.”

You are important because the God of creation, who never created anything less than wonderful, has chosen you, has taken up residence inside of you, and has transformed your life to become his new creation.

You are not average. You were never intended to be average. You… are a saint of God, renewed, transformed, and empowered to do God’s work.

Let us put behind us any pretense that we aren’t good enough, live into the reality that we are a part of God’s magnificent excellence, and get busy telling the world that God can transform their lives too.

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Fear and the Unexpected

February 23, 2025February 23, 2025 PastorPartridge Sermon Alliance, blame, Broadway, call, Christ, Christ Church, church, fear, forgiveness, frightening, God, grace, Jesus, Jesus Christ, Joseph, Methodist, Ohio, Pharoah, terror, unexpected

Fear and the Unexpected

February 23, 2025*

By Pastor John Partridge

Genesis 45:3-11, 15 Luke 6:27-38

What kinds of things scare you?

It might be things that jump out at you, or strange noises at night, or it might be those worries that keep you awake at night. We worry about our children, about our finances, insurance, taxes, and all sorts of other things. But in our story this morning, the fear that is unlocked begins with a fear of hunger and starvation, but ultimately shifts into a nightmare when the sons of Jacob, also known as Israel, discover that the brother they had nearly murdered, left for dead in an empty cistern, and then sold into slavery, is now standing in front of them and is the second most powerful person in Egypt. As Joseph reveals himself in Genesis 45:3-11,15, we feel the fear in the room as we hear this:

³Joseph said to his brothers, “I am Joseph! Is my father still living?” But his brothers were not able to answer him, because they were terrified at his presence.

⁴Then Joseph said to his brothers, “Come close to me.” When they had done so, he said, “I am your brother Joseph, the one you sold into Egypt! ⁵And now, do not be distressed and do not be angry with yourselves for selling me here, because it was to save lives that God sent me ahead of you. ⁶For two years now there has been famine in the land, and for the next five years there will be no plowing and reaping. ⁷But God sent me ahead of you to preserve for you a remnant on earth and to save your lives by a great deliverance.

⁸“So then, it was not you who sent me here, but God. He made me father to Pharaoh, lord of his entire household and ruler of all Egypt. ⁹Now hurry back to my father and say to him, ‘This is what your son Joseph says: God has made me lord of all Egypt. Come down to me; don’t delay. ¹⁰You shall live in the region of Goshen and be near me; you, your children and grandchildren, your flocks, and herds, and all you have. ¹¹I will provide for you there, because five years of famine are still to come. Otherwise, you and your household and all who belong to you will become destitute.’

¹⁵And he kissed all his brothers and wept over them. Afterward his brothers talked with him.

Our storyteller says that Joseph’s brothers were terrified and, truthfully, without exaggeration, they had every reason to be terrified. As soon as they learned that Joseph was the man in front of them, a man who ruled over the nation of Egypt second only to Pharaoh and surrounded by armed guards. All that Joseph had to do was to give the order and all of them would simply disappear into the desert… or worse. He had every reason to hate them and to want revenge for what they had done to him. Their terror was real. It was as if their worst regret and guilt married their worst nightmare and jumped out at them in the dark of night. They were totally doomed, and they knew it.

But then, Joseph tells them a story about how God had sent him to Egypt so that he could save his family and protect them. Even more than the surprise and fear of discovering that this powerful ruler was their brother, Joseph’s grace and forgiveness was far more unexpected.

And this is the same sort of unexpected grace that Jesus teaches in Luke 6:27-38 as he teaches how his followers ought to behave towards the people around them, the people that abuse them, and even the people who hate them and try to kill them. Jesus said:

²⁷“But to you who are listening I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, ²⁸bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. ²⁹If someone slaps you on one cheek, turn to them the other also. If someone takes your coat, do not withhold your shirt from them. ³⁰Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back. ³¹Do to others as you would have them do to you.

³²“If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners love those who love them. ³³And if you do good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners do that. ³⁴And if you lend to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, expecting to be repaid in full. ³⁵But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked. ³⁶Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.

³⁷“Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven. ³⁸Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.”

Jesus teaches that being nice to the people who are nice to you is neither remarkable nor admirable. Anyone can do that, and some of the most evil people on earth have done so. But being a follower of Jesus Christ takes us on a different, unexpected, and sometimes frightening path upon which Jesus calls us to show grace and forgiveness to those that don’t deserve it. Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, and pray for those who mistreat you are not the things that our culture, and ordinary human nature, wants us to do. Giving a shirt to someone who has already taken your coat runs entirely against our instinctive response to fight back, and giving to everyone who asks goes far beyond the nature of even the most generous among us.

Our culture has trained us to blame others, to paint those who disagree with us with a broad brush and assume a list of prejudices that they must have. Surely, everyone who voted for the candidate you supported is good, and everyone who voted for their opponent is evil. Surely, my friend lost their job because of immigration, or because of big business, or because taxes are too high, or because government is inefficient, or something else, because we feel we absolutely must point blame away from ourselves. But Jesus commands us not to judge people, or to condemn them, but instead to forgive because the way that we judge, the way that we condemn, the way that we give, and the way that we forgive, is the way that God will judge, condemn, forgive, and give to us on the day that we stand before him in judgement. If we want the blessing of God, then we must be the people who give, and who show grace and forgiveness to the people around us.

God’s love and grace is often unexpected. We live out our lives and sometimes we find ourselves in situations that frighten us. We worry about our children, our grandchildren, our finances, our health, our future, our safety, and all sorts of other things. But no matter where we go, and no matter what frightening situations that we face, God goes with us. And, like Joseph and his brothers, sometimes God uses those frightening situations to reveal his grace and bring about our rescue. And, like Joseph and his brothers, sometimes God uses our trials and suffering, sometimes some of the worst experiences of our lives, to prepare us to be instruments of God’s grace, forgiveness, and rescue to others. If Joseph had not been sold into slavery by his brothers, and later thrown into prison because of the false accusations of rape by Potiphar’s wife, he never would have met Pharoah, never would have interpreted Pharoah’s dream, never would have become Pharoah’s second in command, and never would have been able to rescue his family, God’s people, and all of Egypt. God’s grace was revealed, and made possible, by Joseph’s suffering.

And that unexpected grace is passed on to us. Sometimes, like Joseph, we might become instruments of God’s grace because of what we have suffered, experienced, endured, or learned from our past. But sometimes, we become instruments of God’s grace and forgiveness because we do the unexpected thing and follow Jesus instead of our culture and human nature. We become Jesus to the people around us when we love our enemies, do good to the people who hate us, bless the people who curse us, pray for the people who mistreat us, turn the other cheek, do not judge, and do not condemn, but instead become the people who are known for their forgiveness, their generosity, their compassion, and their love.

Because, in the end, we must remember the unexpected, and frightening, call of Jesus.

“For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.”

May we be so filled with God’s grace and forgiveness that the people around us will see and experience the love of Jesus through us.

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The Curse of Wealth and Happiness

February 16, 2025 PastorPartridge Sermon Alliance, blessing, Broadway, Christ, church, curse, faith, faithful, faithfullness, God, happiness, Jeremiah, Jesus, Jesus Christ, John, John Partridge, Luke, Methodist, Ohio, Paul, power, resurrection, trust, United, United Methodist, wealth

The Curse of Wealth and Happiness

February 16, 2025*

By Pastor John Partridge

Jeremiah 17:5-10 Luke 6:17-26 1 Corinthians 15:12-20

How many of you, at one time or another, have watched some of the television preachers or televangelists? Most of us have. Although the names have changed over the years, televised church services, and sometimes even just pre-recorded Sunday school lessons, remain a staple of national programming. The problem is that what motivates television stations to air a particular church, or a particular pastor isn’t whether their message is theologically sound or morally edifying, their motivation is based almost entirely on popularity and the ability to sell commercials or, in some cases, to be paid by the churches themselves in such a way that the television station makes money.

And so, as many of you may have noticed, the messages that air on television are often flawed theologically. In particular, many television preachers promote what is referred to as prosperity theology, which is, simply put, if you are prosperous, God must have blessed you, or put another way, if you are genuinely faithful, then God will make you rich. And just in case you haven’t heard me mention this a dozen time before, that message cannot be found in the Bible and is entirely contrary to much of what the Bible actually teaches.

We begin this morning by reading a message from Jeremiah, in which God’s prophet pronounces what might just be one of the most anti-political, and anti-cultural messages of all time. Here, Jeremiah speaks out against anyone who believes that their king, president, political party, or military might will make their lives better, happier, or more prosperous. Worse, Jeremiah declares that anyone who believes those things will be cursed by God. The good news is Jeremiah also teaches us what we need to do if we genuinely want to be blessed by God. We begin this morning by hearing the words of Jeremiah 17:5-10 as Jeremiah declares to the people:

⁵This is what the Lord says:

“Cursed is the one who trusts in man,
    who draws strength from mere flesh
    and whose heart turns away from the Lord.
⁶That person will be like a bush in the wastelands;
    they will not see prosperity when it comes.
They will dwell in the parched places of the desert,
    in a salt land where no one lives.

⁷“But blessed is the one who trusts in the Lord,
    whose confidence is in him.
⁸They will be like a tree planted by the water
    that sends out its roots by the stream.
It does not fear when heat comes;
    its leaves are always green.
It has no worries in a year of drought
    and never fails to bear fruit.”

⁹The heart is deceitful above all things
and beyond cure.
Who can understand it?

¹⁰“I the Lord search the heart
and examine the mind,
to reward each person according to their conduct,
according to what their deeds deserve.”

Jeremiah declares that anyone who trusts that the actions of human beings, such as governments or people in positions of power, will make their lives better, or who looks to those people for emotional strength, will be cursed and not blessed because, in most cases, putting our trust in humans is a path toward losing our trust in God. When we do that, God says, we become starved like a bush in the wasteland that never sees prosperity even when it comes to everyone else. However, blessing comes to the people who put their trust and confidence in God. When we do that, we live as if we were a tree planted by a river so that we gain strength and courage even in times of heat and drought.

In the end, God says that what matters is your heart condition. If you trust God, that is what matters. God isn’t going to judge us by which human being we followed but at whether we behaved the way that God has taught us to behave. Moreover, God’s blessing doesn’t come to us because we said the right words, or because we believed the right sorts of cultural things, but because we lived the kind of life that God taught us to live and did the things that God has taught us to do.

And, as much as people sometimes try to dismiss the Old Testament, this is much the same message that Jesus preaches in his sermon in Luke 6:17-26that we now refer to as the beatitudes, where it says:

¹⁷He went down with them and stood on a level place. A large crowd of his disciples was there and a great number of people from all over Judea, from Jerusalem, and from the coastal region around Tyre and Sidon, ¹⁸who had come to hear him and to be healed of their diseases. Those troubled by impure spirits were cured, ¹⁹and the people all tried to touch him, because power was coming from him and healing them all.

²⁰Looking at his disciples, he said:

“Blessed are you who are poor,
    for yours is the kingdom of God.
²¹Blessed are you who hunger now,
    for you will be satisfied.
Blessed are you who weep now,
    for you will laugh.
²²Blessed are you when people hate you,
    when they exclude you and insult you
    and reject your name as evil,
        because of the Son of Man.

²³“Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, because great is your reward in heaven. For that is how their ancestors treated the prophets.

²⁴“But woe to you who are rich,
    for you have already received your comfort.
²⁵Woe to you who are well fed now,
    for you will go hungry.
Woe to you who laugh now,
    for you will mourn and weep.
²⁶Woe to you when everyone speaks well of you,
    for that is how their ancestors treated the false prophets.

If we look at this well-known message of Jesus with the words of Jeremiah in mind, we can understand the first section about blessings almost as one long, run-on sentence that says that if any of these things that sound bad happen to you because of your faith and trust in Jesus, or because you are doing the things that Jesus taught us to do, then God will bless you. Your blessing might not happen here on earth, but God will give you a reward in heaven. Jesus points out that all these sorts of mistreatment are exactly the sorts of things that happened to the prophets of the Old Testament.

And then, in the second half of the reading, Jesus lists a bunch of things that sound like they would be good things, things that Israel’s culture, and our culture, normally think of as blessings. But these things, wealth, prosperity, comfort, abundant food, laughter, and the admiration of others, Jesus says are warning signs that you are in trouble with God. Why? Because, once again, if we examine Jesus’ words in light of what we read in Jeremiah, it’s because our trust has been misplaced, and we have come to trust humans instead of God. Like Jeremiah, Jesus warns us all that the comforts and temptations of wealth, prosperity, happiness, and the admiration of others can distract us from our faith and obedience to God while the situations that we think of as misfortune, such as poverty, hunger, sadness, and the hostility of others are precisely those things that often shift our focus towards God and compel us to trust God for the things that we need.

And finally, in his letter to the church in Corinth, Paul adds one more thing upon which our faith pivots. Jeremiah preached that we needed to put our trust in God and to live and act the way that God has taught us. Jesus preached that those things that draw us toward God, even if we often think of them as undesirable, are good simply because those misfortunes will become the source of heavenly blessings when God examines our faith. And to these important things, Paul writes to the church in Corinth and adds this pivotal belief in 1 Corinthians 15:12-20:

¹²But if it is preached that Christ has been raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? ¹³If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. ¹⁴And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith. ¹⁵More than that, we are then found to be false witnesses about God, for we have testified about God that he raised Christ from the dead. But he did not raise him if in fact the dead are not raised. ¹⁶For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised either. ¹⁷And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins. ¹⁸Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost. ¹⁹If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.

²⁰But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.

Paul says that our entire faith, as the followers of Jesus Christ, hinges on the central belief that Jesus died and rose from the dead. Although there have been those throughout the centuries that have taught that Jesus did not physically die, or that rising from the dead is impossible, Paul says that our entire faith hinges on this one point. Because if Jesus only swooned, or passed out, and didn’t really die, then our entire faith falls apart. If Jesus didn’t rise from the dead, then we believe in nothing because Jesus was a mortal human being the same as us and has no power to rescue us from sin and death. Jesus’ death and resurrection is a core doctrine and belief of our faith and so, that faith must be combined with our faith and trust in God, and our rejection of those things, like wealth, prosperity, comfort, abundant food, laughter, the admiration of others, and the influence and power of politicians, and persons of power that would tempt us to trust in anything other than God.

Prosperity theology and far too many television preachers teach that if you are prosperous, God must have blessed you, or that if you are genuinely faithful, then God will make you rich.

But what the truth of scripture teaches, is that the people who are blessed, trust in God and have confidence in God. But those who put their trust in other human beings, and anything else that distracts us from God will be cursed like a bush in the wastelands and will not see prosperity even when it comes to everyone else.

May we always keep Jesus Christ in the center of our lives and trust only in him.

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Hot Coals, Dead Fish, and Grace

February 9, 2025February 16, 2025 PastorPartridge Sermon Alliance, Broadway, call, calling, Christ, church, faith, fish, God, Gospel, hot coals, Isaiah, Jesus, Jesus Christ, John Byron, Methodist, Ohio, Partridge, Paul, Peter, teach

Hot Coals, Dead Fish, and Grace

February 09, 2025*

By Pastor John Partridge

Isaiah 6:1-8 Luke 5:1-11 1 Corinthians 15:1-11

Have you ever studied physics? Even basic physics would do to understand what I want to ask, and I’m not sure that even the basics are necessary to get a grip on my next question. In physics, we talk about mass, momentum, velocity, and force. If a mass is moving in one direction, some force must be applied to change its velocity. One force that can be applied is if that mass collides with another mass that is moving in the opposite direction or is not moving at all. But then the age-old question arises, what if an irresistible force collides with an immovable object? Of course, there is nuance to how you can answer this, but the simple answer is that when an irresistible force collides with an immovable object, both are utterly destroyed. If you need a picture in your head, imagine a head-on collision of railroad trains. There are no winners, everyone loses.

So why does this matter?

Well, there is an analogy to this question that we encounter from time to time in scripture, and that is, what happens when an imperfect, flawed, and sinful human being encounters a perfect and holy God? And the answer for most of biblical history is simply… death. The underlying assumption throughout most of scripture is that an imperfect human being would not survive an encounter with God’s perfect holiness. Far from the mutual destruction we would expect in physics from a collision of an irresistible force and an immovable object, in the theological realm, nothing imperfect and sinful survives an encounter with God’s perfect holiness.

And that is exactly the assumption that Isaiah has in mind as we read Isaiah 6:1-8:

^6:1 In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord, high and exalted, seated on a throne; and the train of his robe filled the temple. ²Above him were seraphim, each with six wings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying. ³And they were calling to one another:

“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty;
the whole earth is full of his glory.”

⁴At the sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook, and the temple was filled with smoke.

⁵“Woe to me!” I cried. “I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty.”

⁶Then one of the seraphim flew to me with a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar. ⁷With it he touched my mouth and said, “See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for.”

⁸Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?”

And I said, “Here am I. Send me!”

Isaiah says that he had a vision in which he was transported to the throne room of the universe, saw God seated on his throne, and heard the worship and the praises of the seraphim. And as he took in this scene, Isaiah knew that he was a dead man. He knew that he was sinful, that he lived in a nation of sinful people, and he knew that, as such, he would not survive a meeting with a just and holy God. But just as Isaiah is expecting to die, the unexpected happens. A seraph, an angel with six wings, flies to Isaiah with a live coal from the altar, touches Isaiah’s mouth with this white-hot live coal, and declares that his guilt has been taken away and his sin has been forgiven. And it is at that moment when God asks, “Whom shall I send?” Having stood in the throne room of God, witnessed God’s holiness, seen the angels in attendance, heard their praises, and received God’s forgiveness, Isaiah answers God’s call by saying, “Here am I, Send me.”

And that, is how Isaiah left behind a life as a priest from a privileged family and became God’s prophet. But then as we move forward seven or eight hundred years, we see a similar reaction on the part of Peter when he meets Jesus after a hard, and unsuccessful night of fishing with his partners. We find that story in Luke 5:1-11 where it says:

^5:1 One day as Jesus was standing by the Lake of Gennesaret, the people were crowding around him and listening to the word of God. ²He saw at the water’s edge two boats, left there by the fishermen, who were washing their nets. ³He got into one of the boats, the one belonging to Simon, and asked him to put out a little from shore. Then he sat down and taught the people from the boat.

⁴When he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, “Put out into deep water, and let down the nets for a catch.”

⁵Simon answered, “Master, we’ve worked hard all night and haven’t caught anything. But because you say so, I will let down the nets.”

⁶When they had done so, they caught such a large number of fish that their nets began to break. ⁷So they signaled their partners in the other boat to come and help them, and they came and filled both boats so full that they began to sink.

⁸When Simon Peter saw this, he fell at Jesus’ knees and said, “Go away from me, Lord; I am a sinful man!” ⁹For he and all his companions were astonished at the catch of fish they had taken, ¹⁰and so were James and John, the sons of Zebedee, Simon’s partners.

Then Jesus said to Simon, “Don’t be afraid; from now on you will fish for people.” ¹¹So they pulled their boats up on shore, left everything and followed him.

The story begins with Jesus preaching and, having already become known in the region and having attracted a following of people curious to hear him speak, the crowd begins to press Jesus until he is up against the water. He asks that the fishermen, who are there repairing their nets after a night of fishing, would allow him the use of their boat so that he can preach from just offshore. As a matter of politeness and curiosity, they comply. But, after Jesus has finished preaching, he tells the fishermen, who had already worked all night, to load up their nets, go out into deep water… again, and do it all over again at a time that they were hoping to be going home to a warm meal and a comfortable bed. But again, out of politeness, and out of respect for this new wandering preacher, they do as he asked. (pause) And, despite having caught nothing the previous night, they caught more fish than they had ever caught before. Their nets were breaking, their boats were sinking, and Peter knew that what he was witnessing was not a normal circumstance. Although it wasn’t an angel with a hot coal from the altar of God, Peter knew that he was in the presence of the divine, he knew that Jesus was something more than human, and he fully expected something terrible to happen because he was a sinful man who stood in the presence of God. But much like the experience of Isaiah, Jesus tells Peter not to be afraid and calls the fishermen to leave behind their old lives and follow him.

And finally, we turn to Paul’s letter to the church in Corinth where he remembers the calling that God had put on his life and explains how God has called each one of us as well. As we read 1 Corinthians 15:1-11, we hear this:

^15:1 Now, brothers and sisters, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand. ²By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain.

³For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, ⁴that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, ⁵and that he appeared to Cephas, and then to the Twelve. ⁶After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers and sisters at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. ⁷Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, ⁸and last of all he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born.

⁹For I am the least of the apostles and do not even deserve to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. ¹⁰But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me was not without effect. No, I worked harder than all of them—yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me. ¹¹Whether, then, it is I or they, this is what we preach, and this is what you believed.

Paul doesn’t mince words or dance around his point. He says “I want to remind you of the gospel that I preached to you” the one that you heard, accepted, and upon which you have taken a stand. This is the gospel that I was taught by Jesus and by the disciples in Jerusalem and I want you to remember and to hold tightly to the most important thing. Paul then offers a summary that is short, sweet, memorable, and easily memorized. He said that what we must remember is that Christ died just as the prophets said that he would, that he rose from the dead on the third day just as the prophets said that he would, and afterwards he was seen by Peter, the disciples, and more than five hundred others, and then he appeared to his brother James, to all of the apostles, who by definition were all of Jesus’ followers that were not disciples, and then finally he appeared to Paul as he traveled the road to Damascus.

Paul emphasizes that he was an enemy of Jesus and only became a follower of Jesus because of God’s grace. It is because of God’s grace that Paul has become the disciple and evangelist that he is, and it is because of God’s grace that he has done all that he has done. But notice that at the end, Paul changes the personal pronouns in his speech. Where before he was saying “by the grace of God I am what I am” he changes up the pronouns at the end and say, “Whether then, it is I or they, this is what we preach, and this is what you believed.” Suddenly, instead of speaking in the first person, Paul shifts from “I” to “we” and “you.” This is what we preach, and this is what you believed. And so we should not miss the point by thinking that Paul was only reminding the church about his history, but should remember that Paul’s intent, was to remind the people about the importance of the message, and then make it clear that preaching this message is something that all of us do.

Paul said that it is because of God’s grace that he was who he was, and that he had become the man that he had become. But Paul is also saying that:

We are alive because of God’s grace. We are forgiven because of God’s grace. We are called because of God’s grace. We follow, we preach, we share, we witness, we are bold, and we are unafraid because of God’s grace.

Isaiah was forgiven and sent out into the world by means of a white-hot coal from the altar of God.

Peter and his partners were called to follow Jesus by means of a net full of dead fish.

But Paul and all the rest of us are being sent out into the world by means of Jesus sacrificial death, resurrection, and the grace of God.

Like Isaiah, Peter, and Paul, let us answer God’s call upon our lives and tell the world the Good News of Jesus Christ.

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Motivation, or Just Excuses?

February 2, 2025 PastorPartridge Sermon Alliance, Broadway, call, Christ, church, Corinth, excuse, excuses, faith, God, hope, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Jesus, Jesus Christ, love, Luke, Methodist, mob, motivation, Ohio, Paul

Motivation, or Just Excuses?

February 02, 2025*

By Pastor John Partridge

Jeremiah 1:4-10 Luke 4:21-30 1 Corinthians 13:1-13

Nearly all of us have, at some time or other, had a conversation with our parents, grandparents, or one of their friends, in which we may have asked a question that somehow made them uncomfortable, and their response was “Well, I knew your parents before you were even a twinkle in your daddy’s eye” or “Child, I knew you when you were just this high.” But no matter what words they used, or how humorously they pushed it off, the message was clear, “I’m older than you, so don’t question my choices in life.”

We’ve all experienced that sort of brush-off, but to be fair, as we get older, some of our own bad, or even marginal, decisions can sometimes be a sore spot that we don’t care to have questioned. We are open about some of those. I understand myself well enough to know that I am not a type ‘A’ personality, I am not ultra-career driven. Sure, maybe I could have been more successful in advancing in my engineering career, but when I had to choose between spending long hours at work and spending time with my children, work came second, and some people at my place of employment didn’t like the choice that made. Yes, I was angry at first, but I can sleep at night.

As we read our scriptures for this morning, we will find some conversations that sound like the brush-offs we heard from older adults in our own lives. And just like the ones we experienced; these conversations were excuses for the choices that those adults had made. But we will also hear some sound advice on how we can make genuinely good choices about how we live our lives… choices that will let us sleep soundly at night.

We begin this morning with the prophet Jeremiah, whose words sound a lot like those older adults in our lives, but since Jeremiah is speaking for God, those words carry a different meaning for us and for our excuses. Reading Jeremiah 1:4-10, it says:

⁴The word of the Lord came to me, saying,

⁵“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,
before you were born, I set you apart;
I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.”

⁶“Alas, Sovereign Lord,” I said, “I do not know how to speak; I am too young.”

⁷But the Lord said to me, “Do not say, ‘I am too young.’ You must go to everyone I send you to and say whatever I command you. ⁸Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you and will rescue you,” declares the Lord.

⁹Then the Lord reached out his hand and touched my mouth and said to me, “I have put my words in your mouth. ¹⁰See, today I appoint you over nations and kingdoms to uproot and tear down, to destroy and overthrow, to build and to plant.”

God spoke to Jeremiah and said, I have known you all along. I have known you since before you were born, not just because I knew your parents, but because I knew everything about you, because I knew who I created you to be, and what I called you to do. Before you were born, I knew about the scar you would get on your knee when you fell as a child, I knew who your friends would be, and who you would marry. I knew every decision you would make and all that I had made you capable of doing. But even so, Jeremiah immediately begins to argue with God. Granted, at the time of his calling, it is possible that Jeremiah was as young as twelve, so arguing that he is too young to carry messages from God to the king and to the royalty and ruling powers of Israel.

But God knows what he is doing.

God tells Jeremiah not to be afraid, because when he goes where God commands, and speaks the words that God has sent, God will walk with him, protect him, and rescue him from trouble. Then God touches Jeremiah’s twelve-year-old mouth, puts his words in Jeremiah’s mouth, and appoints him as his messenger that will carry words of power to kings and to nations.

And then we rejoin the gospel story from last week, as Jesus read the scriptures in his hometown of Nazareth. You will remember that Jesus read a passage from the prophet Isaiah that spoke of the coming messiah and then Jesus announced that the scripture that he had read was being fulfilled in their presence. And by doing so, Jesus was claiming that he was the Messiah that God had promised, and the people didn’t take it very well. We rejoin the story right where we left off as we read from Luke 4:21-30.

²¹He began by saying to them, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”

²²All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his lips. “Isn’t this Joseph’s son?” they asked.

²³Jesus said to them, “Surely you will quote this proverb to me: ‘Physician, heal yourself!’ And you will tell me, ‘Do here in your hometown what we have heard that you did in Capernaum.’”

²⁴“Truly I tell you,” he continued, “no prophet is accepted in his hometown. ²⁵I assure you that there were many widows in Israel in Elijah’s time, when the sky was shut for three and a half years and there was a severe famine throughout the land. ²⁶Yet Elijah was not sent to any of them, but to a widow in Zarephath in the region of Sidon. ²⁷And there were many in Israel with leprosy in the time of Elisha the prophet, yet not one of them was cleansed—only Naaman the Syrian.”

²⁸All the people in the synagogue were furious when they heard this. ²⁹They got up, drove him out of the town, and took him to the brow of the hill on which the town was built, in order to throw him off the cliff. ³⁰But he walked right through the crowd and went on his way.

As soon as Jesus makes the claim that the people are witnessing the fulfillment of Isaiah’s scriptures, they begin to make excuses. Their assumption, is that nothing important can happen in their little town, that no one important can come from there, and that clearly, if Jesus had been anyone important he would have been born to an important family, or a rich family, or that someone would have recognized that Jesus was somebody important before now. But because of the biases that they carried, and the because of the decisions that they had already made, they immediately started to say those words that we have all heard before, “I knew you when you were little,” “I knew your parents before you were born,” “Isn’t this Joseph’s son, the kid we watched grow up?” “How could he be anyone important?”

And Jesus reminds them that every prophet has suffered from the same problem, the blindness of the people, and the town that knew them best. And, because of that blindness, God often sent those prophets to do miraculous things somewhere else or to perform miracles for other people, even for Israel’s enemies. Not surprisingly, having already been in a bad mood and making excuses, Jesus’ speech makes them angrier still, and they drove him out of town toward the cliffs which today are about a mile and a half from town, with the mob having every intention of throwing Jesus off the precipice. But Jesus, somehow, just walks through the crowd and goes on his way.

What? Does that mean that a mob suddenly because reasonable? Probably not. We understand mobs cannot be reasoned with. Does it mean that Jesus became invisible or somehow paralyzed the crowd, or used some other superpower? Honestly, we don’t know. But something amazing, even miraculous happened, and Jesus just walked away.

Okay, so we know that we, even God’s prophets, are human and like to make excuses. And we know that we have a habit of discrediting or even getting angry at the people that question our bad choices. But how do we make better choices? How can we test ourselves when we make decisions so that we can make better choices that let us sleep at night? And that is exactly what the Apostle Paul tells us as he writes to the church in Corinth in 1 Corinthians 13:1-13 when he says:

^13:1If I speak in the languagesof men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. ²If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. ³If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

⁴Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. ⁵It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. ⁶Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. ⁷It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

⁸Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. ⁹For we know in part, and we prophesy in part, ¹⁰but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. ¹¹When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. ¹²For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

¹³And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

Paul says that the answer… is love. There are two questions that we need to ask ourselves when we make important choices, and they both have to do with love. Before we decide, we should consider our motivation for choosing to act the way we do, or to do the thing we think that we want to do. The first question is, what is our motivation towards others? And the answer is… love. Our motivation should not simply be selfish at the expense of others, our motivation should consider the effects of our decision and be loving towards others. And the second question is similar, what is our motivation towards God? Again, our motivation cannot be selfish at God’s expense and should consider the effects that it will have on God, and on God’s kingdom. Simply put, it isn’t that God doesn’t want us to be happy, or that God doesn’t want us to have nice things, it is simply that if we want to make choices that let us sleep at night, we should consider whether those choices are loving, towards God, and towards others. Even when we are compelled to make choices that hurt other people, we can be loving and try to find ways that hurt those people less, or which hurt fewer people. We must consider how, and in what ways, we can be the most loving.

Paul says that if we want to make good choices, there are always three things to consider, faith, hope, and love, but the most important is always… love.

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Hearing What We Didn’t Know

January 26, 2025 PastorPartridge Sermon Alliance, Bible, Broadway, Christ, church, Ezra, faith, gifts, God, hear, Jesus, Jesus Christ, John, Methodist, Nehemiah, Ohio, Partridge, Paul, unique, weirdness

Hearing What We Didn’t Know

January 26, 2025*

By Pastor John Partridge

Nehemiah 8:1-10 Luke 4:14-21 1 Corinthians 12:12-31a

Have you ever relearned something that you forgot, or had to learn something that you should have learned much earlier? There are a host of videos on the internet in which college students or the “average man or woman on the street” are embarrassed by failing to answer questions about history, government, fractions, cooking, or other things that most of us learned, or should have learned, in high school or from our parents. Personally, I cringe whenever people ask, “Why don’t they teach how to fill out tax forms in high school?” But also insist that “Learning algebra was useless.” Because, from my perspective, our tax forms are one giant algebra test where we calculate the value of ‘x’ and then add that to the value of ‘y’ where ‘y’ is something that we calculated two lines earlier and then insert that sum on line 17. It is frightening to watch these videos online, or sometimes to see the results of nationwide surveys, and see the lack of understanding some people have of truly basic things that many of us take for granted. I’m thinking about people who insist that New York is a city and not a state, or who seem to have absolutely no awareness of any event that happened prior to 1980.

Granted, there are a lot of things that can be known, and which are taught, that we do not need to know. But some of the things that we never learned, or which were taught but to which we weren’t paying attention, turn out to be critically important. Many common conspiracy theories are rooted in a fundamental lack of understanding, or misunderstanding, of general principles of science, law, or government. And while we might just be irritated at the people who believe the earth is flat, some of these misunderstandings can be fatal to us or to our children.

It is this sort of thing that we observe as we read the story in Nehemiah 8:1-10. After 70 years of captivity in Babylon, the scrolls of the Law of Moses, likely at least the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Torah, and others, were brought out and read aloud because Nehemiah wanted to be certain that the people understood. And this appears to be, for many people, the first time that they had heard it. And this is the story that we hear:

^8:¹All the people came together as one in the square before the Water Gate. They told Ezra the teacher of the Law to bring out the Book of the Law of Moses, which the Lord had commanded for Israel.

²So on the first day of the seventh month Ezra the priest brought the Law before the assembly, which was made up of men and women and all who were able to understand. ³He read it aloud from daybreak till noon as he faced the square before the Water Gate in the presence of the men, women and others who could understand. And all the people listened attentively to the Book of the Law.

⁴Ezra the teacher of the Law stood on a high wooden platform built for the occasion. Beside him on his right stood Mattithiah, Shema, Anaiah, Uriah, Hilkiah and Maaseiah; and on his left were Pedaiah, Mishael, Malkijah, Hashum, Hashbaddanah, Zechariah and Meshullam.

⁵Ezra opened the book. All the people could see him because he was standing above them; and as he opened it, the people all stood up. ⁶Ezra praised the Lord, the great God; and all the people lifted their hands and responded, “Amen! Amen!” Then they bowed down and worshiped the Lord with their faces to the ground.

⁷The Levites—Jeshua, Bani, Sherebiah, Jamin, Akkub, Shabbethai, Hodiah, Maaseiah, Kelita, Azariah, Jozabad, Hanan and Pelaiah—instructed the people in the Law while the people were standing there. ⁸They read from the Book of the Law of God, making it clearand giving the meaning so that the people understood what was being read.

⁹Then Nehemiah the governor, Ezra the priest and teacher of the Law, and the Levites who were instructing the people said to them all, “This day is holy to the Lord your God. Do not mourn or weep.” For all the people had been weeping as they listened to the words of the Law.

¹⁰Nehemiah said, “Go and enjoy choice food and sweet drinks, and send some to those who have nothing prepared. This day is holy to our Lord. Do not grieve, for the joy of the Lord is your strength.”

In many readings, the mechanics or the logistics of this passage are skipped over, but I find them interesting enough and important enough to include them. In an era that was thousands of years before any kind of electronic amplification, Ezra brings out the Law of Moses and reads it aloud to the gathering of hundreds, even thousands of people. Of course, there is no way that Ezra could have shouted loudly enough for everyone to hear him, and so Ezra stood on a raised platform and the Levites, thirteen of which are named here, were out in the crowd. As Ezra read, the Levites repeated and interpreted, so that everyone could hear and understand.

And having heard and understood, again possibly for the first time, the people began to weep, not from joy, but from grief, when they realized how far from God they had wandered and, without realizing they were doing it, how sinfully they had been living. In this case, it wasn’t because the people had been deliberately disobedient, but because they had not heard the words of God read and taught. But Nehemiah instructs them not to mourn or weep, but to celebrate because although it was true that they had fallen short of God’s commands because of their ignorance, now they knew better so tomorrow they could do better.

Tomorrow would be different. The world had changed because of what the people had heard and what they had learned.

And, although the situation is different, the same thing happens when Jesus makes an announcement at the synagogue in Luke 4:14-21, where we hear this:

¹⁴Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit, and news about him spread through the whole countryside. ¹⁵He was teaching in their synagogues, and everyone praised him.

¹⁶He went to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue, as was his custom. He stood up to read, ¹⁷and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. Unrolling it, he found the place where it is written:

¹⁸“The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
    because he has anointed me
    to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
    and recovery of sight for the blind,
to set the oppressed free,
¹⁹    to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

²⁰Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him. ²¹He began by saying to them, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”

When Jesus says that the prophecy of Isaiah has been fulfilled, he is making an incredibly exclusive claim. Everyone knew that the prophecy of Isaiah pointed to Israel’s expected messiah, and so when Jesus says that the prophecy of Isaiah is fulfilled, he is making a claim that the Messiah had come and that he was that messiah.

For the people who believed him, tomorrow would be different. The world would change because of what the people had heard and what they had learned.

And then in his letter to the church in Corinth, Paul explains how the church, filled with people who were all so vastly different from one another, could work together for the greater good. In 1 Corinthians 12:12-31 Paul says:

¹²Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ. ¹³For we were all baptized byone Spirit so as to form one body—whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink. ¹⁴Even so the body is not made up of one part but of many.

¹⁵Now if the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason stop being part of the body. ¹⁶And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason stop being part of the body. ¹⁷If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be? ¹⁸But in fact God has placed the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be. ¹⁹If they were all one part, where would the body be? ²⁰As it is, there are many parts, but one body.

²¹The eye cannot say to the hand, “I don’t need you!” And the head cannot say to the feet, “I don’t need you!” ²²On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, ²³and the parts that we think are less honorable we treat with special honor. And the parts that are unpresentable are treated with special modesty, ²⁴while our presentable parts need no special treatment. But God has put the body together, giving greater honor to the parts that lacked it, ²⁵so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. ²⁶If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it.

²⁷Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it. ²⁸And God has placed in the church first of all apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then miracles, then gifts of healing, of helping, of guidance, and of different kinds of tongues. ²⁹Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Do all work miracles? ³⁰Do all have gifts of healing? Do all speak in tongues? Do all interpret? ³¹Now eagerly desire the greater gifts.

Most of us are familiar with this passage. And although we live in a culture that talks a lot about diversity and inclusion, this is a reminder to us that we are far from the first to grapple with the differences of the people around us. In many ways, the people of the Roman empire may have done it better. There were generals in the Roman army from nearly every nation in the empire and Caesars from nearly as many nations. Travel and migration throughout the empire was common, as evidenced by this letter in which Paul writes to Christ followers in Greece that were both Jew and Gentile, slave and free. And there were many stories, such as that of Pentecost, in which people from all over the Roman world were gathered in one place. In fact, such things were quite common.

But like people everywhere, the church in Corinth was a collection of people with different skills, interests, and abilities. As such, there were disagreements from time to time and some of them wondered how they fit. Paul explains that despite our differences and abilities, not only do we all fit in, but every one of us is necessary. For the last two weeks we have been talking about the gifts of the spirit that God gives to us when we choose to follow him and we learned that God’s purpose in giving those gifts is for us to use them for the greater good, which is to use them for the benefit of the people around us and to make our communities, and our world a better place. With that in mind, Paul’s letter to the church in Corinth tells us that we can’t use our weirdness or our uniqueness as an excuse. Each of us has gifts, and although some of us have gifts that are different, or weird, or unique, Paul tells us that somehow we still fit, that somehow God still has a calling and a purpose for us, and that somehow God wants us to use our weirdness and our unique gifts so that there would be no division in the body of Christ.

And now that we have heard the story, we cannot ignore it.

Tomorrow should be different from today. The world should change because of what we have heard and what we have learned.

Do not grieve or mourn for what we might have done differently yesterday but let us celebrate because although we might have fallen short of God’s commands yesterday, today we know better, and tomorrow we can do better.

Let us go out from this place, use our gifts for the greater good, to help the people around us, and make our communities, and our world…

…a better place.

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A New Name, A New Purpose

January 19, 2025 PastorPartridge Sermon Alliance, Broadway, Cana, change, Christ, church, faith, Galilee, God, Jesus, Jesus Christ, John, Methodist, mission, name, new, Ohio, Partridge, purpose, wedding

A New Name, A New Purpose

January 19, 2025*

By Pastor John Partridge

Isaiah 62:1-5 John 2:1-11 1 Corinthians 12:1-11

Names mean something.

Most of us can name several large American corporations that have changed their names to better reflect their business. The National Cash Register Corporation long ago stopped manufacturing cash registers and is now known as NCR, “Brad’s Drink” became Pepsi-Cola, “Pete’s Super Submarines” became Subway, “Kibble” became Netflix, Kentucky Fried Chicken is now officially just KFC so that there isn’t so much emphasis on the word “fried” in a culture that is more health conscious, International Business Machines sells software and other services as well as computers, and so their legal name is now just IBM.

But people do the same thing. Women, and sometimes men, change their names when they get married, I know a number of people who legally changed their names because the names that their parents had given them didn’t match their personality, and we all know a few people who have chosen to go by their middle names, or nicknames, instead of the first name on their birth certificate. Cassius Clay changed his name to Muhammad Ali when he changed religions and so have many others. Thousands of immigrants have changed their names to fit into the culture of their new homeland and to let everyone know that they belonged here and had left their past behind. And, of course, none of that counts the people who are in the witness protection program or who have changed their names so that they can run away from their past or to hide from abusive spouses.

Whether it is a corporation or a person, changing your name is a statement to the world that something different is happening. Either your original name didn’t match your personality, or it doesn’t match your present reality, or you want your name to better reflect your goals, purpose, and future mission. In ancient times, and in the world of magic and mysticism, names were often seen as the heart of a person’s power and an insight into their soul. And all those ideas are at play as we read Isaiah’s message to the nation of Israel in Isaiah 62:1-5 when God says:

and your land Beulah; [Beulah means married]
for the Lord will take delight in you, and your land will be married.
⁵As a young man marries a young woman, so will your Builder marry you;
as a bridegroom rejoices over his bride, so will your God rejoice over you.

God says that he will not keep silent until Jerusalem is vindicated, and the world sees the truth of God’s blessing and the glory that he has given to Israel. When that happens, God says, Israel will be given a new name from God to reflect its goals, purpose, mission, and connection to God. Once, Jerusalem was called deserted and desolate, but on that day, it will be known as the delight and the bride of God himself because God rejoices over her in the same way that a groom rejoices over his beloved.

With that in mind, we move to John 2:1-11, where we see Jesus beginning for the first time, to move and to live into the purpose for which he had been born and to the mission to which God had called him and sent him into the world.

⁴“Woman [Greek usage here denotes no disrespect], why do you involve me?” Jesus replied. “My hour has not yet come.”

⁵His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.”

⁶Nearby stood six stone water jars, the kind used by the Jews for ceremonial washing, each holding from twenty to thirty gallons.

⁷Jesus said to the servants, “Fill the jars with water”; so, they filled them to the brim.

⁸Then he told them, “Now draw some out and take it to the master of the banquet.”

¹¹What Jesus did here in Cana of Galilee was the first of the signs through which he revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him.

Even though Jesus tells his mother that the time of his ministry has not yet come, Mary knows that God has sent him for a purpose. Did Mary know that Jesus could perform a miracle? I don’t think so. Did she know that Jesus could do… something? I think yes, but I doubt that she had any idea what that something would be. In any case, Mary, who must have been well known and respected in the household and by the household servants, simply instructs the servants to do whatever Jesus tells them to do. And so, Jesus changes 120 to 180 gallons of water into wine. That’s a lot. It must have been a big party, but still, that’s a lot. Think about that in terms of containers that are more familiar to us. That’s between two and a half to three and a half 55-gallon drums full of wine. Or, more than two hundred refrigerator wine boxes, or nine hundred standard size wine bottles. Again, that’s a lot.

But more to the point of today’s message, this moment, as the Apostle John notes, is the first time that Jesus performs a sign that reveals who he really is. And this is a suitable time for a quick refresher about the meaning of Jesus’ name. In Hebrew, Jesus’ name is Yeshua, which is the same Hebrew name that we translate as Joshua. But, in Hebrew, Yeshua means “Yahweh saves,” or “God saves.” And so, at this moment, Jesus not only reveals who he is and begins his earthly ministry, but he begins to live into the meaning of his name.

Remember that I said, names mean things.

And that brings us to the present day and to our relationship with God and with Jesus Christ. What does all this naming, and calling, and purpose stuff mean for us? And much of this is explained by Paul in his first letter to the church in Corinth as he explains some of the gifts that God gives to those who love him. Reading from 1 Corinthians 12:1-11, we hear this:

Paul says that the gifts that God gives are not all the same. Each of us was made differently by God and as such we have each been given different gifts that suit our lives, our personalities, and the mission and calling that God has put upon our lives. Some of us have been given gifts of wisdom, some knowledge, and some faith, others are given discernment, or gifts of languages but all the gifts come from God. But Paul is clear that the reason that we have been given gifts is not simply to satisfy our curiosity, or to provide an income, or to make us rich, or famous, or powerful, or influential. The reason that we have been given gifts by the Spirit of God is for the common good. Just as Jesus was called by God to rescue others, and to save the world, we are called to use our gifts for the common good and to make the world a better place.

If you think about it, it wouldn’t make a lot of sense for a company to have a name like the National Cash Register Corporation if they didn’t make cash registers any longer. Having a name that matches your mission makes much more sense. It is the same reason that many people change their names. They want their names to match their personalities, to let the world know that they have a new life as a married person, or that they’ve changed their religion. And we should include ourselves among that last one even if our name has stayed the same. When we chose to follow Jesus, then we identified our lives with Jesus, with his mission, and with his purpose. If you want to think of it that way, at the moment we chose to follow Jesus our name changed. Where it once was John Doe or Jane Doe, it became John Doe Christ Follower or Jane Doe Christ Follower.

And with our new name, we received gifts from the Spirit of God, a new mission, and a new purpose. We are called to use the gifts that we have been given for the common good, to help the people around us, to make life better for everyone in our community, and to make the world a better place. We have been called to change the world.

Let us live into our purpose and live into our new name. As John Wesley said, “Do all the good you can, by all the means you can, in all the ways you can, in all the places you can, at all the times you can, to all the people you can, as long as ever you can”.

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Pastor Partridge

Sermons, blogs and other things from Pastor John Partridge

Sermon

Testing the Status Quo

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Not Just Average

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Fear and the Unexpected

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The Curse of Wealth and Happiness

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Hot Coals, Dead Fish, and Grace

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Motivation, or Just Excuses?

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Hearing What We Didn’t Know

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A New Name, A New Purpose

A New Name, A New Purpose

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