Peace and the Over-Shepherd

November 23, 2025 PastorPartridge Sermon Alliance, Bible, Broadway, Broadway Street, Christ, christianity, church, Colossae, Colossians, faith, God, Jeremiah, Jesus, Jesus Christ, John Partridge, King, Luke, Methodist, Ohio, overshepherd, Paul, savior, shepherd, undershepherd

Peace and the Over-Shepherd

(Christ the King Sunday)

November 23, 2025*

By Pastor John Partridge

Jeremiah 23:1-6 Luke 23:33-43 Colossians 1:11-20

C.S. Lewis once said that we simply cannot say that we accept Jesus as a great moral teacher but not accept that Jesus is God. Lewis explained it this way in his book, Mere Christianity:

“I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God. That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic — on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg — or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.”

Going in a different direction to explain Lewis’s point, if you haven’t yet done so, I strongly recommend reading the classic novel, Pilgrim’s Progress by John Bunyan. This book was originally published in February 1678 and has been rewritten in modern languages many times since. It was in reading this book that I first encountered the term “under-shepherd” which refers to those people, such as pastors and lay leaders but also sometimes kings, who lead and guide the flocks of God’s followers and who therefore serve under the Chief Shepherd, Jesus Christ. And it was this word, and this understanding, that came to mind as I read our scriptures for today. We begin by reading from Jeremiah 23:1-6 as God condemns the spiritual and political leaders that have led Israel and Judah astray and caused them to come to harm. Jeremiah writes:

^23:1 “Woe to the shepherds who are destroying and scattering the sheep of my pasture!” declares the Lord. ²Therefore this is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says to the shepherds who tend my people: “Because you have scattered my flock and driven them away and have not bestowed care on them, I will bestow punishment on you for the evil you have done,” declares the Lord. ³“I myself will gather the remnant of my flock out of all the countries where I have driven them and will bring them back to their pasture, where they will be fruitful and increase in number. ⁴I will place shepherds over them who will tend them, and they will no longer be afraid or terrified, nor will any be missing,” declares the Lord.

⁵“The days are coming,” declares the Lord,
    “when I will raise up for Davida righteous Branch,
a King who will reign wisely
    and do what is just and right in the land.
⁶In his days Judah will be saved
    and Israel will live in safety.
This is the name by which he will be called:
    The Lord Our Righteous Savior.

It doesn’t take a genius to understand that God is not at all happy with the failed shepherds that had been, and were still, leading his people. By their actions, and their inaction, they had caused God’s people to lose their faith, to be defeated and captured by their enemies, and to flee to wherever they could to find safety. God goes as far as to say that Israel’s leaders had driven God’s people away from him by their failure to adequately care for them and, for doing so, God intended to punish those leaders for their evil. But God wouldn’t stop there. God also announces his intention to gather those who remained faithful, from all of the nations to which they had been taken or to which they had fled, bring them back to his pasture, and enable and empower them to be fruitful and increase in number. God would then appoint replacement shepherds who would protect them and keep them safe. In addition, God then promises that there will be a day when he would send a new king, a new over-shepherd or chief shepherd, who would rule wisely, with justice and righteousness, and who would rule over both Judah and Israel, and who would be known as both Lord and Savior.

At this point, we all know who Jeremiah was describing, but we can hear Luke’s answer to the prophecy of Jeremiah as we hear the way that he describes the events of Jesus’ crucifixion in Luke 23:33-43 where he says:

³³When they came to the place called the Skull, they crucified him there, along with the criminals—one on his right, the other on his left. ³⁴Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” And they divided up his clothes by casting lots.

³⁵The people stood watching, and the rulers even sneered at him. They said, “He saved others; let him save himself if he is God’s Messiah, the Chosen One.”

³⁶The soldiers also came up and mocked him. They offered him wine vinegar ³⁷and said, “If you are the king of the Jews, save yourself.”

³⁸There was a written notice above him, which read: this is the king of the Jews.

³⁹One of the criminals who hung there hurled insults at him: “Aren’t you the Messiah? Save yourself and us!”

⁴⁰But the other criminal rebuked him. “Don’t you fear God,” he said, “since you are under the same sentence? ⁴¹We are punished justly, for we are getting what our deeds deserve. But this man has done nothing wrong.”

⁴²Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.”

⁴³Jesus answered him, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise.”

As we consider this conversation, we realize that the man described only as “the other criminal,” after only a few hours on the cross next to Jesus, has grasped something that even Jesus’ disciples struggled to understand. This man looks to Jesus and asks that he remember him when Jesus comes into his kingdom. (pause) In that moment, the man known as the “other criminal” understands that Jesus has power and authority far beyond an ordinary human being and beyond that of chief priests and kings. And having made this request, Jesus answers that before the day was over, they would meet again in paradise. Although it is unlikely that the “other criminal” made any connection between Jesus and the person described by Jeremiah, I think that Luke certainly made that connection and uses this story to tell the world that Jesus is the Chief Shepherd, King, and eternal savior of God’s people.

Paul obviously understands this, and goes one step further in his description of Jesus and of Jesus’ authority as he writes to the church in Colossae in Colossians 1:11-20, saying:

¹¹May you be strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience, ¹²and giving joyful thanks to the Father, who has qualified youto share in the inheritance of his holy people in the kingdom of light. ¹³For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, ¹⁴in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

¹⁵The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. ¹⁶For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. ¹⁷He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. ¹⁸And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have supremacy. ¹⁹For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, ²⁰and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.

Paul says that because of the work of Jesus Christ, God has qualified you to share in the inheritance of his people, rescued us from darkness, and brought us into the kingdom of Jesus Christ. Because of him, we have been forgiven of our sins and redeemed from sin and death. Further, Paul says that Jesus is in control of all that exists and is the force that keeps everything in the universe from coming apart. Jesus is the head and chief shepherd of the church, the first to rise from the dead, and through him God created a path for all people to restore their relationships with God. It was through Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross that God is able to bring peace to our lives and to the world.

To summarize, God got angry that the under-shepherds that he had sent to oversee his people broke trust with both God and the people, and God promised that he was going to make things right first by sending replacement shepherds, but would also, eventually, send a new chief shepherd, king, and savior. Luke makes it clear that Jesus is the fulfillment of that promise, and Paul expands on this and explains that Jesus not only oversees God’s people but also oversees the entire universe and holds it all together. It is Jesus that has rescued us from sin and death, it is Jesus who has made it possible to receive a portion of the inheritance of God’s people, it is Jesus who has made it possible to repair our relationship with God, to make our home in God’s heavenly kingdom, and it is Jesus who has made peace possible, both in our lives as individuals, but also between the peoples of the world.

The message of scripture is clear. Jesus simply cannot be reduced to a description of “just a great moral teacher” because God’s promises, and Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection, make it abundantly clear that he is much, much more than that. Jesus is the Chief-Shepherd, the king of the universe, the savior of the world, and the source of all peace.

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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.™

Finding Hope Amid Crisis

September 28, 2025 PastorPartridge Sermon Alliance, Babylon, Bible, Broadway, Christ, church, crisis, death, enjoyment, faith, God, hell, hope, Jeremiah, Jesus, Jesus Christ, life, Methodist, Ohio, Paul, seige, Timothy, treasure

Finding Hope Amid Crisis

September 28, 2025*

By Pastor John Partridge

Jeremiah 32:1-3a, 6-15 Luke 16:19-31 1 Timothy 6:6-19

There is a curse that dates to the early 19^th century that says, “May you live in interesting times.” For most of us, whether we want to admit it or not, boring is good. Boring lives are predictable. Interesting times tend to be filled with tumult, unpredictability, stress, rapid change, crises, and unpleasantness. Despite being interesting, life is not as enjoyable as it might be when we spend our time worrying about war, violence, pestilence, disease, political upheaval, inflation, healthcare, financial ruin, death, and destruction. In comparison, boring predictability is much more likely to allow us to find happiness and contentment. But that wasn’t the world in which the prophet Jeremiah found himself. Jeremiah had been born into a world that was facing one of his nation’s greatest upheavals and was called by God to bring messages of warning and hope to his people. As we read our first scripture, we find the army of Babylon at the gates of Jerusalem and God’s people filled with fear and despair. But into this pit of worry, we hear God bring his people a word of hope for the future (Jeremiah 32:1-3a, 6-15).

^32:1 This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord in the tenth year of Zedekiah king of Judah, which was the eighteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar. ²The army of the king of Babylon was then besieging Jerusalem, and Jeremiah the prophet was confined in the courtyard of the guard in the royal palace of Judah.

³Now Zedekiah king of Judah had imprisoned him there, saying, “Why do you prophesy as you do? You say, ‘This is what the Lord says: I am about to give this city into the hands of the king of Babylon, and he will capture it.

⁶Jeremiah said, “The word of the Lord came to me: ⁷Hanamel son of Shallum your uncle is going to come to you and say, ‘Buy my field at Anathoth, because as nearest relative it is your right and duty to buy it.’

⁸“Then, just as the Lord had said, my cousin Hanamel came to me in the courtyard of the guard and said, ‘Buy my field at Anathoth in the territory of Benjamin. Since it is your right to redeem it and possess it, buy it for yourself.’

“I knew that this was the word of the Lord; ⁹so I bought the field at Anathoth from my cousin Hanamel and weighed out for him seventeen shekelsof silver. ¹⁰I signed and sealed the deed, had it witnessed, and weighed out the silver on the scales. ¹¹I took the deed of purchase—the sealed copy containing the terms and conditions, as well as the unsealed copy— ¹²and I gave this deed to Baruch son of Neriah, the son of Mahseiah, in the presence of my cousin Hanamel and of the witnesses who had signed the deed and of all the Jews sitting in the courtyard of the guard.

¹³“In their presence I gave Baruch these instructions: ¹⁴‘This is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says: Take these documents, both the sealed and unsealed copies of the deed of purchase, and put them in a clay jar so they will last a long time. ¹⁵For this is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says: Houses, fields and vineyards will again be bought in this land.’

Although everyone in Jerusalem was worrying and wondering what tomorrow would bring, and whether they might even live to see the sunrise, God brings a message of hope through the simple act of selling a small plot of land. It is likely that in a city under siege, food was becoming scarce and expensive and many things that were normally valuable were becoming useless and cheap. After all, when you are hungry, you can’t eat gold or jewels. And so, in a similar way, Jeremiah’s uncle comes to him in hopes of selling him a field outside the city, that neither of them might ever see again simply because the money that he would get from Jeremiah might buy him enough food for another day or two. In such a situation, you might ordinarily expect that Jeremiah would be completely uninterested and would prefer to keep his money so that he could buy his own food. But God calls Jeremiah in advance and commands him to buy the field from his uncle as a sign to the people of Jerusalem that there is hope for the future. Through the transfer of property, and the sealing away of the documentation, God declares that there will be a time, within the lifetime of Jeremiah, that God’s people will return to Jerusalem and the houses, fields, and vineyards will again be bought and sold. God’s message of hope is that despite the interesting, horrifying, and violent days ahead of them, a stable and boring life of normality will one day return.

But the reality was that many of the people inside the walls of Jerusalem would not live to see a new day. The violence and destruction of Jerusalem’s siege would claim many lives and still more would not live long enough to return from their captivity in Babylon. But aside from ancient violence, death is an everyday reality for all of us. Life is short in the best of times, and we are all painfully aware of our mortality. And in Luke 16:19-31, Jesus gives us a warning about how we should live so that we can be with him when we reach the end of this life. Jesus said:

¹⁹“There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and lived in luxury every day. ²⁰At his gate was laid a beggar named Lazarus, covered with sores ²¹and longing to eat what fell from the rich man’s table. Even the dogs came and licked his sores.

²²“The time came when the beggar died and the angels carried him to Abraham’s side. The rich man also died and was buried. ²³In Hades, where he was in torment, he looked up and saw Abraham far away, with Lazarus by his side. ²⁴So he called to him, ‘Father Abraham, have pity on me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, because I am in agony in this fire.’

²⁵“But Abraham replied, ‘Son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things, while Lazarus received bad things, but now he is comforted here, and you are in agony. ²⁶And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been set in place, so that those who want to go from here to you cannot, nor can anyone cross over from there to us.’

²⁷“He answered, ‘Then I beg you, father, send Lazarus to my family, ²⁸for I have five brothers. Let him warn them, so that they will not also come to this place of torment.’

²⁹“Abraham replied, ‘They have Moses and the Prophets; let them listen to them.’

³⁰“‘No, father Abraham,’ he said, ‘but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent.’

³¹“He said to him, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.’”

First, I want to note that despite this being a parable, Jesus speaks of hell as if it is real. This is important to remember when we hear voices in our culture that say that there is no such thing. If Jesus said that hell is real, then I must believe that it is. Second, the clear message of this parable is that we each have choices to make in this life that cannot be undone in the next and we must live our lives in such a way that we end up on the right side of the chasm that separates comfort from torment. Third, even before his death and resurrection, Jesus was clear that some people will never be convinced of the truth regardless of the evidence presented.

In an odd sort of way, the message of Jesus is like that of Jeremiah. There is hope for our future, but we must seek to make good choices if we want to reach a place of comfort.

But if that is the case, then how do we do that? How do we make good choices? And what kind of choices are good? And as we often do, we find help in the guidance that Paul sent to his friend Timothy in his letter (1 Timothy 6:6-19) where he says:

⁶But godliness with contentment is great gain. ⁷For we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it. ⁸But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that. ⁹Those who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. ¹⁰For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.

¹¹But you, man of God, flee from all this, and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance, and gentleness. ¹²Fight the good fight of the faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called when you made your good confession in the presence of many witnesses. ¹³In the sight of God, who gives life to everything, and of Christ Jesus, who while testifying before Pontius Pilate made the good confession, I charge you ¹⁴to keep this command without spot or blame until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ, ¹⁵which God will bring about in his own time—God, the blessed and only Ruler, the King of kings and Lord of lords, ¹⁶who alone is immortal and who lives in unapproachable light, whom no one has seen or can see. To him be honor and might forever. Amen.

¹⁷Command those who are rich in this present world not to be arrogant nor to put their hope in wealth, which is so uncertain, but to put their hope in God, who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment. ¹⁸Command them to do good, to be rich in good deeds, and to be generous and willing to share. ¹⁹In this way they will lay up treasure for themselves as a firm foundation for the coming age, so that they may take hold of the life that is truly life.

Paul says that godliness and contentment are good things to which we should aspire but that we should be content with what we have. Whenever we begin to desire more, when we aspire to become rich, we are tempted to do things that are both foolish and harmful and those things have caused the ruin and destruction of many lives. The love of money has led many people to wander from their faith and caused themselves no end of suffering. Instead, Paul says, the followers of God are called to flee from that sort of temptation and to instead pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance, and gentleness. Paul charges Timothy, and all of us, to keep the command to fight the good fight of faith.

It is important to note that Paul does not say that the rich are automatically doomed simply because they are rich, especially because we are citizens of one of the richest nations in the history of the world. Instead, Paul instructs the followers of Jesus Christ to command those who are rich to do what is right. Paul says that the rich should not be so arrogant that they put their hope in wealth, which can be lost so easily, but to put their hope in God who richly provides us with all that we need and with everything for our enjoyment. Rich and poor alike should do good, be rich in good deeds, be generous and willing to share. When we do these things, we store treasure for ourselves in our future home and take hold of the things that are truly life giving.

No matter what crisis we face, we are never without hope but some of the choices that we make in this life cannot be undone in the next. Some people will never be convinced of the truth regardless of the evidence presented, but each of us must spend our lives in pursuit of what is good. We must seek godliness, and be content with what we have, resist the temptation to desire wealth at the expense of everything else, and instead pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, and gentleness. Be rich in good deeds, do good, be generous with what you have, and be willing to share with those who are in need.

If we do these things, we will increase our enjoyment in this life, draw others to the truth of Jesus Christ, and store up treasure for ourselves in the next.

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Who Do You Serve?

September 21, 2025 PastorPartridge Sermon Alliance, Bible, Broadway, Christ, christianity, church, drift, faith, God, Jeremiah, Jesus, Jesus Christ, John Partridge, Luke, Methodist, Ohio, servant, service

Who Do You Serve?

September 21, 2025*

By Pastor John Partridge

Jeremiah 8:18 – 9:1 Luke 16:1-13 1 Timothy 2:1-7

Have you ever gone through a time in your life when God seemed distant and far away? Or just a time when it seemed as if God didn’t care about what you were going through? If we’re honest, I think that most of us have felt like that from time to time. But in times like that, I have been reminded of a poster that I saw many years ago that simply said, “If God seems far away… who moved?” Let me say that again, “If God seems far away, who moved?” Now, I admit that summarizing the complexities of life this in way may be a little over-simplistic, but it does seem to get to the core of the issue. While scripture tells us that there have been times when God didn’t seem to listen, the far more common theme tells us of times when God has chosen to appear distant because his people turned their backs on him first. Our first scripture for today recounts an example of such an occasion that was recorded by the prophet Jeremiah as God’s people mourn over the destruction of Jerusalem and the captivity of God’s people in Babylon and we hear these words in Jeremiah 8:18 – 9:1:

¹⁸You who are my Comforterin sorrow, my heart is faint within me.
¹⁹Listen to the cry of my people from a land far away:
“Is the Lord not in Zion?
Is her King no longer there?”

“Why have they aroused my anger with their images,
with their worthless foreign idols?”

²⁰“The harvest is past,
the summer has ended,
and we are not saved.”

²¹Since my people are crushed, I am crushed;
    I mourn, and horror grips me.
²²Is there no balm in Gilead?
    Is there no physician there?
Why then is there no healing
    for the wound of my people?

^9:1Oh, that my head were a spring of water and my eyes a fountain of tears!
I would weep day and night for the slain of my people.

Jeremiah reaches out to God because he is filled with sorrow and God is the one who he normally seeks out to find comfort. Jeremiah asks that God listen to the voices of his people as they weep in sorrow and asks why God is no longer in Jerusalem. But God answers that his people have angered him by worshiping images and idols instead of him and, because of God’s displeasure, the people feel disconnected, they know that God has withdrawn his saving power, and they feel crushed, horrified, and wounded. Jeremiah declares that he is so filled with sorrow that if his head were a spring of water, and his eyes were fountains, he would weep day and night over the deaths of his people.

But as sad as the story is, it is important to remember that the disconnection from God started long before the invasion of the Babylonians. God’s people turned their backs on him and worshiped foreign gods, images, and idols and refused all of God’s attempts to call them back to himself. It was only then that God turned his back, and it was only then that God allowed the Babylonians to rise in power and bring punishment to the people, and to the nation, of God.

But in Luke 16:1-13, Jesus tells a story about changing allegiances with an entirely different sort of spin while still being a story about obedience.

^16:1 Jesus told his disciples: “There was a rich man whose manager was accused of wasting his possessions. ²So he called him in and asked him, ‘What is this I hear about you? Give an account of your management, because you cannot be manager any longer.’

³“The manager said to himself, ‘What shall I do now? My master is taking away my job. I’m not strong enough to dig, and I’m ashamed to beg— ⁴I know what I’ll do so that, when I lose my job here, people will welcome me into their houses.’

⁵“So, he called in each one of his master’s debtors. He asked the first, ‘How much do you owe my master?’

⁶“‘Nine hundred gallonsof olive oil,’ he replied.

“The manager told him, ‘Take your bill, sit down quickly, and make it four hundred and fifty.’

⁷“Then he asked the second, ‘And how much do you owe?’

“‘A thousand bushelsof wheat,’ he replied.

“He told him, ‘Take your bill and make it eight hundred.’

⁸“The master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly. For the people of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own kind than are the people of the light. ⁹I tell you, use worldly wealth to gain friends for yourselves, so that when it is gone, you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings.

¹⁰“Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much. ¹¹So if you have not been trustworthy in handling worldly wealth, who will trust you with true riches? ¹²And if you have not been trustworthy with someone else’s property, who will give you property of your own?

¹³“No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.”

In the story that Jesus told, we discover that at some point, the manager decided that his allegiance was to himself more than it was to the owner, to ethics, to morals, or the teachings of God. The manager began to siphon the owner’s money in wasteful ways that we would describe as graft, theft, and embezzlement. When the owner gives the manager a few days to show him his accounting ledgers, the manager seeks out some of his boss’s biggest clients and debtors, and allows them to settle with him for enormous discounts so that they then become indebted to him rather than to his boss and he can count on them for employment and support after he loses his job.

The point that Jesus makes is that while the manager was shrewd in his dealings, he had lost faith with his employer and shifted his loyalties to himself, to his pleasure, and to his vanity even at the expense of his continued employment. While Jesus compliments the shrewdness of the manager and encourages us to use those same kinds of street smarts to the advancement of God’s kingdom, Jesus also notes that we cannot serve two masters. If we allow our bank account, pleasure, vanity, other gods, family time, politics, or any number of other things to become our master, then God becomes secondary and no god at all. Christian radio show host Larry Burkett, in his weekly show on finance, used to be fond of saying that if he could spend five minutes with your checkbook, he could tell you what your priorities were. Your priorities, and your master, are the things that you put first.

If we want to get our priorities right, if we want to serve the right master, and put God first, then it is worth looking at the advice that Paul has for his protégé Timothy in his letter that we find in 1 Timothy 2:1-7 where he says:

^2:1 I urge, then, first of all, that petitions, prayers, intercession, and thanksgiving be made for all people— ²for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness. ³This is good, and pleases God our Savior, ⁴who wants all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth. ⁵For there is one God and one mediator between God and mankind, the man Christ Jesus, ⁶who gave himself as a ransom for all people. This has now been witnessed to at the proper time. ⁷And for this purpose I was appointed a herald and an apostle—I am telling the truth, I am not lying—and a true and faithful teacher of the Gentiles.

Paul says that what God really wants from us is godliness and holiness. These are the things that we should make central to our lives and the things that we should give priority in our lives. God wants all people to come to a knowledge of truth, to know that there is one God, and one mediator between God and humanity, found in the man Jesus Christ.

Yes, there are times in our lives when it seems as if God is far away, but most often when that happens it is not because God moved, but because we did. We wandered off, we drifted, we forgot, we allowed our focus to shift to other things, we allowed other things to become our priorities and take a central place in our lives. The way to keep God close is to make God our first and most important priority. God wants us to have peaceful and quiet lives, but to do that we are called to live lives of godliness and holiness and expend ourselves in pursuit of God’s mission to save all the people of the earth and help them to find a knowledge of the truth.

Any attempt to serve more than one master causes us to abandon one of them. Dividing our loyalties causes us to give priority to one and to hate the other.

We can only serve one master.

Choose wisely.

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Hospitality: Curse or Blessing?

August 31, 2025 PastorPartridge Sermon Alliance, Bible, blessing, Broadway, christianity, church, curse, faith, God, Hebrews, hospitality, Jeremiah, Jesus, Jesus Christ, John Partridge, Luke, Methodist, Ohio, Street

Hospitality: Curse or Blessing?

August 31, 2025*

By Pastor John Partridge

Jeremiah 2:4-13 Luke 14:1, 7-14 Hebrews 13:1-8, 15-16

You’ve heard it plenty of times, sometimes even within these walls, when churches proudly proclaim that “We are a welcoming church!” But whenever you hear that, it always pays to look a little deeper. A year or two ago, as I walked around downtown Akron during a break from our Annual Conference, I stopped in front of a parking deck for a downtown church. The signs were strikingly specific, and while there were several of them, the clear and emphatic point was that these parking spaces were to be used only by church members. While there was one sign that noted visitor parking, two others clearly said, “No Parking Members Only,” and “Church Parking Only – Decal Required – All others will be towed at the owners expense.” Despite the sign noting that visitors were welcome, the other two would cause me to be quite reluctant and anxious to park there if I didn’t belong.

In another case, I have often heard stories about new pastors or evangelists who dressed as a homeless person and spent the night, or at least the early morning before their first Sunday at a new church, sleeping on the steps of the church. They were often shooed away, or they watched as members of the church made a wide berth around them on the way to their fellowship inside. In the story, the people were then deeply embarrassed to discover that the disheveled person that they had seen outside was their new pastor or visiting evangelistic speaker.

It is often an unfortunate truth that when churches, and many other groups, proclaim that they are welcoming, the implied message is that they are only welcoming of a certain kind of people. It was clear in my last appointment that while everyone agreed that they wanted their church to grow, some (only a few) of them were only welcoming to the people who were like them and who worshiped like them. They openly opposed everything to do with our non-traditional worship service (which was growing) and insisted that if we eliminated it, that everyone could worship together in their traditional worship service. I warned them that many of the people who attended the non-traditional service felt that service was their home and would have chosen the traditional service if they had preferred it. The message, in any case, was that “we are a welcoming congregation… as long as you look like us and like the things that we like.”

And so, the question of the day is this: What does real hospitality look like? How do we accept it when it is offered to us? And how do we offer it, openly, honestly, and without reservation? And for that, we begin once again with a message that God sent to the people of Jerusalem through his prophet Jeremiah as we read the words of Jeremiah 2:4-13:

⁴Hear the word of the Lord, you descendants of Jacob,
all you clans of Israel.

⁵This is what the Lord says:

“What fault did your ancestors find in me,
    that they strayed so far from me?
They followed worthless idols
    and became worthless themselves.
⁶They did not ask, ‘Where is the Lord,
    who brought us up out of Egypt
and led us through the barren wilderness,
    through a land of deserts and ravines,
a land of drought and utter darkness,
    a land where no one travels and no one lives?’
⁷I brought you into a fertile land
    to eat its fruit and rich produce.
But you came and defiled my land
    and made my inheritance detestable.
⁸The priests did not ask,
    ‘Where is the Lord?’
Those who deal with the law did not know me;
    the leaders rebelled against me.
The prophets prophesied by Baal,
    following worthless idols.

⁹“Therefore I bring charges against you again,”
declares the Lord.
    “And I will bring charges against your children’s children.
¹⁰Cross over to the coasts of Cyprus and look,
    send to Kedarand observe closely;
    see if there has ever been anything like this:
¹¹Has a nation ever changed its gods?
    (Yet they are not gods at all.)
But my people have exchanged their glorious God
    for worthless idols.
¹²Be appalled at this, you heavens,
    and shudder with great horror,”
declares the Lord.
¹³“My people have committed two sins:
They have forsaken me,
    the spring of living water,
and have dug their own cisterns,
    broken cisterns that cannot hold water.

God sends word to Jerusalem, Israel, and all the descendants of Jacob that he is disappointed, hurt, and angry that he has given them freedom, land, a nation, and many other gifts of his hospitality, but after he gave it to them, they abused and destroyed them. For that, God says that he is bringing charges against them in court. No other nation, God says, has ever changed its gods. They might be completely wrong about who is god, but at least they were faithful. But God’s people have exchanged their true God for a pocket full of worthless beans, or in this case, worthless idols. They exchanged gold and riches for lumps of clay. God says that his people have turned their backs on his hospitality and walked away from their God because they decided to worship themselves even though they have no power of their own.

And then in Luke 14:1, 7-14, we find Jesus people-watching at a banquet at the home of a prominent Pharisee, and after he watches for a while, Jesus comments on how we should show hospitality in a way that would please God.

^14:1 One Sabbath, when Jesus went to eat in the house of a prominent Pharisee, he was being carefully watched.

⁷When he noticed how the guests picked the places of honor at the table, he told them this parable: ⁸“When someone invites you to a wedding feast, do not take the place of honor, for a person more distinguished than you may have been invited. ⁹If so, the host who invited both of you will come and say to you, ‘Give this person your seat.’ Then, humiliated, you will have to take the least important place. ¹⁰But when you are invited, take the lowest place, so that when your host comes, he will say to you, ‘Friend, move up to a better place.’ Then you will be honored in the presence of all the other guests. ¹¹For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”

¹²Then Jesus said to his host, “When you give a luncheon or dinner, do not invite your friends, your brothers or sisters, your relatives, or your rich neighbors; if you do, they may invite you back and so you will be repaid. ¹³But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, ¹⁴and you will be blessed. Although they cannot repay you, you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.”

Jesus says that if you use your hospitality to show off, make yourself feel important, impress the right people, or to move up in your social and business circles, then God may knock you down and teach you something about humility. But, if you use your hospitality to humble yourself, then God will exalt and lift you up. Jesus says that the right way to show hospitality is to use it to care for people who can’t afford to give anything back, to feed the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. The core value here is that God will repay you when you use your hospitality to show genuine generosity and grace.

This same sentiment is echoed by the author of Hebrews as he reflects on hospitality, marriage, and how we should choose our heroes and leaders. As we read Hebrews 13:1-8, 15-16, we hear this:

^13:1 Keep on loving one another as brothers and sisters. ²Do not forget to show hospitality to strangers, for by so doing some people have shown hospitality to angels without knowing it. ³Continue to remember those in prison as if you were together with them in prison, and those who are mistreated as if you yourselves were suffering.

⁴Marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure, for God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral. ⁵Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said,

“Never will I leave you;
never will I forsake you.”

⁶So we say with confidence,

“The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid.
What can mere mortals do to me?”

⁷Remember your leaders, who spoke the word of God to you. Consider the outcome of their way of life and imitate their faith. ⁸Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.

¹⁵Through Jesus, therefore, let us continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise—the fruit of lips that openly profess his name. ¹⁶And do not forget to do good and to share with others, for with such sacrifices God is pleased.

The writer of Hebrews says that while we should continue to love one another as brothers and sisters in Christ, we should not forget to show hospitality to those who do not belong to our church, our fellowship, or even to our faith. It is through our hospitality, generosity, and kindness that people will see, hear, and feel the love of Jesus Christ and be drawn to faith in him. Similarly, while we should continue to love one another as brothers and sisters, we should also continue to love, and be faithful to, our spouses. But, when it comes time to choose our leaders, or to identify the people that we admire and respect, we should first consider the outcome of their faith and their way of life. Consider whether their example is worth following by looking to see how they have modeled their lives after Jesus Christ.

When we consider these things together, we understand that hospitality isn’t just about inviting people to our homes or to our churches. It’s about loving the people with whom we worship, but also about showing compassion, generosity, and love to the people around us who don’t belong to our fellowship, our church, or our faith. Hospitality is about using what we have to care for people who have less than we do. It’s about loving our spouses in a way that is exclusive, monogamous, and faithful to them and to the vows that we took before God. Hospitality is about remembering the things that God gave us, giving thanks for them, continually offering God a sacrifice of praise and worship so that we don’t turn our backs on him and exchange the richness of our God for a lump of clay.

Don’t fall into the trap of believing that hospitality is just occasionally offering an invitation to your church or to your Sunday school class. Hospitality is about giving thanks for what we have been given, it about how we live our lives, how we model Christ’s example to the people around us, it’s about doing good, and it’s about sharing what we have with others.

Hospitality isn’t just one thing; it’s the whole package of how we live our lives and reveal Christ to the people around us.

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The Danger of ‘No’

August 24, 2025 PastorPartridge Sermon Alliance, Bible, blessings, Broadway, Christ, christianity, church, consequenses, danger, faith, God, Hebrews, Jeremiah, Jesus, Jesus Christ, John, John Partridge, Luke, Methodist, no, obedience, Ohio, Saying no, worship

The Danger of “No”

August 24, 2025*

By Pastor John Partridge

Jeremiah 1:4-10 Luke 13:10-17 Hebrews 12:18-29

How familiar are you with the word… ‘No?’

I mean, certainly we all know it and use it. Some of us are better at using it while others of us say ‘yes’ more often than we should. But other than that, there are different kinds, or different levels of saying no. The repeated refrain that we hear in public, and that we teach our young people, is that “No means no.” That healthy and respectful relationships require both parties to consent. The concept of “No means no” applies not only to romantic relationships, but also to group dynamics such that peer pressure should not unduly compel individual members of a group to do things that they are not comfortable doing.

In these situations, saying no, and hearing and accepting no, are important. But there are other situations where no is not as meaningful, and where saying no can cause problems. If your boss gives you an assignment, saying no may not mean anything at all. Your boss may simply ignore your refusal and assume that the task will be done regardless and, if it is not, then you can expect that there will be consequences. In the military, there are obvious situations where ‘no’ is simply not an acceptable answer. In my own career, in which the bishop appoints itinerant pastors to move where and when they say, the unwritten rule of thumb is that you can say no… once… in your career, and even then, saying no to the bishop may have significant career implications.

But what happens when we say no to God?

Sometimes, it may not seem as if there are any consequences at all. We say no to God and stay home from worship, we don’t read scripture, we live in ways in which we know God would not approve, and we do our best to ignore the call that he has on our lives to do his work in our community and in the people around us. But the operative word here is “sometimes.” Scripture is filled with warnings about the potential consequences of ignoring God or saying ‘no’ too often. Some of those warnings tell us that God will withhold his blessings, others that God may punish you, but often it is that God will simply allow you to suffer the natural consequences of your actions, or in today’s language, God will allow what goes around, to come around.

In any case, today we will look at three case studies from scripture and we will begin in Jeremiah 1:4-10, where we hear God call Jeremiah, possibly only twelve years old, to speak for him as his prophet, we hear Jeremiah attempt to say ‘no,’ and finally we hear God command Jeremiah’s obedience anyway. Jeremiah begins by saying:

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 tells Jeremiah that even before he was born, God had a purpose and mission for his life. Despite that, Jeremiah makes excuses, saying that he is too young to do anything useful for God, but God isn’t buying it. Rather than even consider Jeremiah’s objections, God simply reaches out and equips Jeremiah with the things that he needs to get the job done.

And then in Luke 13:10-17, we hear the synagogue leaders say ‘no’ to Jesus because, in their mind, Jesus isn’t following the rules correctly.

¹⁰On a Sabbath, Jesus was teaching in one of the synagogues, ¹¹and a woman was there who had been crippled by a spirit for eighteen years. She was bent over and could not straighten up at all. ¹²When Jesus saw her, he called her forward and said to her, “Woman, you are set free from your infirmity.” ¹³Then he put his hands on her, and immediately she straightened up and praised God.

¹⁴Indignant because Jesus had healed on the Sabbath, the synagogue leader said to the people, “There are six days for work. So come and be healed on those days, not on the Sabbath.”

¹⁵The Lord answered him, “You hypocrites! Doesn’t each of you on the Sabbath untie your ox or donkey from the stall and lead it out to give it water? ¹⁶Then should not this woman, a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan has kept bound for eighteen long years, be set free on the Sabbath day from what bound her?”

¹⁷When he said this, all his opponents were humiliated, but the people were delighted with all the wonderful things he was doing.

Just to be clear, Jesus was teaching, on a sabbath day, in church, and paused to heal a woman who had been crippled for eighteen years. Rather than be excited that they had witnessed a miracle, or simply happy that the woman had received healing after a lifetime of pain, the synagogue leaders get upset because, somewhere along the line, someone decided that healing is work. As such, since faithful people were taught to refrain from working on the sabbath, Jesus should have waited until the following day, and made this woman wait yet another day, before healing her. But Jesus isn’t buying it. Jesus reminds them that even his accusers feed and water their animals on the sabbath because, clearly, decency and kindness shouldn’t be restrained by deciding that they are work. The leaders of the synagogue said ‘no’ to God and defended their refusal in language that sounded both religious and traditional.

Our final case study is found in the book of Hebrews, current scholarship believes that this was written by Barnabus or Apollos, and reminds the people of the church that we have good reason not to say no. We hear these words in Hebrews 12:18-29:

¹⁸You have not come to a mountain that can be touched and that is burning with fire; to darkness, gloom and storm; ¹⁹to a trumpet blast or to such a voice speaking words that those who heard it begged that no further word be spoken to them, ²⁰because they could not bear what was commanded: “If even an animal touches the mountain, it must be stoned to death.” ²¹The sight was so terrifying that Moses said, “I am trembling with fear.”

²²But you have come to Mount Zion, to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem. You have come to thousands upon thousands of angels in joyful assembly, ²³to the church of the firstborn, whose names are written in heaven. You have come to God, the Judge of all, to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, ²⁴to Jesus the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.

²⁵See to it that you do not refuse him who speaks. If they did not escape when they refused him who warned them on earth, how much less will we, if we turn away from him who warns us from heaven? ²⁶At that time his voice shook the earth, but now he has promised, “Once more I will shake not only the earth but also the heavens.” ²⁷The words “once more” indicate the removing of what can be shaken—that is, created things—so that what cannot be shaken may remain.

²⁸Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful, and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe, ²⁹for our “God is a consuming fire.”

First, we are reminded that we do not live in the time of Moses when God lived on the top of a mountain and everyone was terrified of his presence. Instead, because we have chosen to follow Jesus, instead of coming to the foot of a scary mountain, we present ourselves to God in the new heavenly city of Jerusalem. There, we come to God where Jesus stands as our mediator and speaks on our behalf. Because of that, we should not refuse the commands of God and say ‘no.’ The writer then reminds us of how it often did not end well for those persons in scripture who had said no to God. And so, since we are receiving the kingdom of God, we should be thankful and worship him with reverence and awe because our God consumes those who refuse him, but we are consumed with passion for his kingdom.

There is danger in saying ‘no’ to God.

Jeremiah said ‘no’ and God equipped him for his mission and ministry and sent him out anyway.

The leaders of the synagogue said ‘no’ to God and made up a bunch of traditional and religious sounding reasons why, but Jesus called then out on their hypocrisy and explained that God doesn’t place limits on kindness, decency, and compassion.

And the writer of Hebrews reminds us that it often didn’t end well for those in scripture that said ‘no’ to God. If we don’t want to be consumed by God, we should worship him with reverence and awe, be consumed with a passion for his kingdom, and say ‘yes’ to his calling, his vision, and his mission as he sends us out into the world.

Saying ‘no’ to God is a dangerous thing.

Let us do our best to say ‘yes’ instead.

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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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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.”

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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Coming Soon!

October 23, 2022October 25, 2022 PastorPartridge Podcast, Sermon Alliance, Broadway, Christ, church, coming, coming soon, faith, future, God, Jeremiah, Jesus, John, Methodist, mission, Ohio, Partridge, Paul, soon, Street, StreetAlliance, Timothy, United

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Click here to watch the recorded livestream: https://youtu.be/psvtD_P47Lc
Or click here to skip straight to the sermon: https://youtu.be/05dgjGhOKY4

Children’s message: How is Jesus like a steam locomotive? https://youtu.be/iHXcL3eD4O0

This week’s challenge: What does it mean to “be prepared in season and out of season”? https://youtu.be/wL-8uCk8TAw

Coming Soon!

October 23, 2022*

By Pastor John Partridge

Jeremiah 31:27-34 Luke 18:1-8 2 Timothy 3:14 – 4:5

For those of us who grew up going to real movie theaters, as well as possibly the Netflix generation in a different format, we remember the movie posters and the movie trailers that would run, interspersed with commercials for popcorn, candy, and soft drinks, for fifteen minutes before the movie started. And the banner under which all these appeared was, “Coming Soon.” “Coming Soon” was meant to inform us that something amazing, spectacular, and wonderful was about to happen and build our anticipation and desire to see it when it came to town. This was, I think, especially true for the golden age movie serials as well as the Star Wars type movies that were patterned after them. Coming soon, is a phrase that is designed to get our attention, to take our focus, of only for a moment, away from our present troubles and busyness, and look forward to the future and the appearance of something new.

And, although we won’t find the words “Coming Soon” anywhere in scripture, the idea that it represents is a common theme of the prophets, Jesus, and the gospel writers alike. We heard the words in the scriptures that Susan used last week, and I’m going to use some of those same scriptures this morning but will look at them from a different direction. The first words that we heard last week from the prophet Jeremiah, and will hear again this week, compare almost exactly to the modern usage of “Coming Soon.” In Jeremiah 31:27-34, we hear…

“The days are coming,” declares the Lord… doesn’t that sound a lot like “Coming soon?”

²⁷“The days are coming,” declares the Lord, “when I will plant the kingdoms of Israel and Judah with the offspring of people and of animals. ²⁸Just as I watched over them to uproot and tear down, and to overthrow, destroy and bring disaster, so I will watch over them to build and to plant,” declares the Lord. ²⁹“In those days people will no longer say,

‘The parents have eaten sour grapes,
and the children’s teeth are set on edge.’

³⁰Instead, everyone will die for their own sin; whoever eats sour grapes—their own teeth will be set on edge.

³¹“The days are coming,” declares the Lord,
    “when I will make a new covenant
with the people of Israel
    and with the people of Judah.
³²It will not be like the covenant
    I made with their ancestors
when I took them by the hand
    to lead them out of Egypt,
because they broke my covenant,
    though I was a husband tothem,”
declares the Lord.
³³“This is the covenant I will make with the people of Israel
    after that time,” declares the Lord.
“I will put my law in their minds
    and write it on their hearts.
I will be their God,
    and they will be my people.
³⁴No longer will they teach their neighbor,
    or say to one another, ‘Know the Lord,’
because they will all know me,
    from the least of them to the greatest,”
declares the Lord.
“For I will forgive their wickedness
    and will remember their sins no more.”

God announces through Jeremiah that something new is coming. The days are coming, when God will once again plant his people, kingdoms, and nations and watch over them as they rebuild. In those days, as we heard last week, everyone will be held responsible for their own sin because… in those days, in the days that are coming soon, God will make a new covenant with his people that will be different from the covenant that he made with them when he led them out of slavery in Egypt. This will be a new covenant, a new contract, a new promise that God will write upon the minds and hearts of his people. It will be a new day, a new era, and a new relationship between God and his people. And that day is… coming soon.

No matter how you translate it, whether you say, “the days are coming,” or “coming soon,” or “I will…” God presses his people to look forward, to look past their present suffering, to put their trust in God, and look toward the future. And in the parable that we heard last week, and again this week, this is very much what Jesus is doing as well as we hear these words in Luke 18:1-8:

^18:1 Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up. ²He said: “In a certain town there was a judge who neither feared God nor cared what people thought. ³And there was a widow in that town who kept coming to him with the plea, ‘Grant me justice against my adversary.’

⁴“For some time he refused. But finally, he said to himself, ‘Even though I don’t fear God or care what people think, ⁵yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will see that she gets justice, so that she won’t eventually come and attack me!’”

⁶And the Lord said, “Listen to what the unjust judge says. ⁷And will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off? ⁸I tell you; he will see that they get justice, and quickly. However, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?”

God promises to bring justice to his people who cry out to him, but Jesus encourages us not to stop, to continue praying, to continue to cry out to God for justice, because prayer is the expression of our faith. Prayer is a mechanism by which we shift our focus, look past our present condition, and look forward, because fundamentally, prayer is an expression of our faith in God and our hope for the future.

But… as we hold on to our faith, and as we look toward the future, how do we live, love, and care for the people around us… today? These are exactly the kind of questions that Paul answers in his second letter to his protégé Timothy as we hear these words in 2 Timothy 3:14 – 4:5:

¹⁴But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of, because you know those from whom you learned it, ¹⁵and how from infancy you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. ¹⁶All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness, ¹⁷so that the servant of Godmay be thoroughly equipped for every good work.

^4:1 In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who will judge the living and the dead, and in view of his appearing and his kingdom, I give you this charge: ²Preach the word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke, and encourage—with great patience and careful instruction. ³For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. ⁴They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths. ⁵But you, keep your head in all situations, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, discharge all the duties of your ministry.

What should we do today? We should continue to do the things that we’ve been taught to do, to teach the things that we’ve been convinced of by the Spirit of Jesus Christ and continue in our faith. We should continue to study scripture, and use it to teach, rebuke, correct, and train others in righteousness so that the people of God might be fully equipped for every good work.

Paul’s charge, or assignment, to Timothy carries forward to each of us two thousand years later. Preach the word, be prepared, at all times, to tell the gospel story and the message of salvation and rescue. Correct, rebuke, and encourage, and offer instruction, but do these things with great care and patience so that the message that we bring is the message of scripture and not just a modern interpretation that resonates with our culture and makes us feel good. Keep your head, stay calm… no matter what, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, and be in ministry, at all times, to all the people around you.

Paul’s instruction to Timothy, much like the words of Jeremiah and the parable of Jesus, remind us that the day is coming, and coming soon, when we will all stand in judgement. Our mission is not to get bogged down in the troubles of today, but to look forward past our present troubled and divisive times, to look past our present condition, and live, love, teach, preach, correct, rebuke, and encourage so that we can bring as many of our neighbors, friends, coworkers, and classmates into the gates of heaven as we possibly can.

No one can know the day or the hour of Christ’s return, but just as God’s people were called in the time of Jeremiah, and just as they were in the time of Jesus and Paul, we are called to look forward, to look past our present struggles, to put our trust in God, and look toward the future. Because even if we don’t know when he’s coming, we know that he is… coming soon.

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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 references are from the New International Version unless otherwise noted.

Broken Trust

September 18, 2022September 19, 2022 PastorPartridge Podcast, Sermon Alliance, balance, Broadway, broken, broken trust, Christ, church, citizenship, coexist, empire, faith, fraud, freedom, God, government, holiness, honesty, integrity, Jeremiah, Jesus, Jesus Christ, loyalty, Methodist, Ohio, Partridge, peaceful, rights, shrewd, sin, Street, theft, trust, United

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Broken Trust

September 18, 2022*

By Pastor John Partridge

Jeremiah 8:18 – 9:1 Luke 16:1-13 1 Timothy 2:1-7

When our children were just beginning elementary school, our school district had a problem. They had too many elementary school-age children and not enough space to fit them all. That is not a unique problem. The problem was that they had an additional elementary school building that was in good repair, that they couldn’t use. Immediately behind the district administration building was an empty elementary school whose steam plant was active and supplied heat to the administration building. The problem, and the reason that the school was empty, was asbestos.

Before the school could be safely filled with children and teachers, the district would need to spend a half a million dollars to remediate the asbestos. At the same time, they couldn’t tear it down because it provided heat to the administration building and because… it would cost a half million dollars to remediate the asbestos. The obvious solution would have been to ask the taxpayers for a one-time, emergency, tax levy to raise the half million dollars that would be needed to remove the asbestos and return that school to its useful purpose. But, because taxpayers have been lied to by politicians for so long, it was impossible to pass a temporary tax levy because no one trusts a politician when they say that a new tax would be temporary.

The trust between taxpayers and their government has been broken so repeatedly, that we now simply assume politicians are lying most of the time. Frank Sonnenberg said that “Trust is like blood pressure. It’s silent, vital to good health, and if abused it can be deadly.” And Dr. Jane Greer had this to say about trust, “Broken trust forces us, first, to acknowledge a painful reality we may have chosen to ignore, then, to make some difficult decisions.” That’s exactly what the taxpayers of our school district did. They made some difficult decisions, which caused more problems and more difficult decisions later. It is this cycle of broken trust that has complicated the administration of our government, the operation and conduct of our churches, our schools, and it creeps into every facet of our lives.

And, as we read the words of Jeremiah 8:18 – 9:1, what we hear underneath the words of a nation mourning from its captivity in Babylon, is the pain of the trust that was broken between the people of Israel and their God.

¹⁸You who are my Comforterin sorrow,
    my heart is faint within me.
¹⁹Listen to the cry of my people
    from a land far away:
“Is the Lord not in Zion?
    Is her King no longer there?”

“Why have they aroused my anger with their images,
with their worthless foreign idols?”

²⁰“The harvest is past,
the summer has ended,
and we are not saved.”

^9:1Oh, that my head were a spring of water
and my eyes a fountain of tears!
I would weep day and night
for the slain of my people.

Jeremiah speaks for his people and says that they faint with sorrow over the loss of their nation and their God but, at the same time, he is angry that his people broke their trust with God and aroused his anger by abandoning him and worshiping the idols of another nation. The people are saying that “the harvest is past, and the summer is ended, and we are not saved.” The realization of reality is finally hitting them that God isn’t going to bail them out easily and quickly this time and that they are not going home any time soon. Jeremiah says that with this realization, horror grips him and there is no comfort, no physician, and no healing to be found as they mourn what they have lost, come to grips with their new reality, and weep for all those who died because of their rebellion and broken trust.

And then in Luke 16:1-13, Jesus tells a story about an entirely different kind of broken trust but compliments the man who does wrong because of the lesson that the church should learn from him about how we can operate within a system that often struggles with trust issues.

⁵“So he called in each one of his master’s debtors. He asked the first, ‘How much do you owe my master?’

⁶“‘Nine hundred gallons of olive oil,’ he replied.

“The manager told him, ‘Take your bill, sit down quickly, and make it four hundred and fifty.’

⁷“Then he asked the second, ‘And how much do you owe?’

“‘A thousand bushels[about thirty tons] of wheat,’ he replied.

“He told him, ‘Take your bill and make it eight hundred.’

¹³“No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.”

Jesus praises the dishonest man for his shrewdness in using the tools that he had available to him. Despite being fired, he had time left, and tools at his disposal, to prepare for, and to secure resources for his future. Clearly his actions amount to fraud and theft, and certainly Jesus expects that we will not do those things. But, although we are held to a higher standard, and expected to be trustworthy and live up to our promises to our employers and the people around us, we are encouraged to use the tools that we have been given by our employers, by our community, our leaders, our governments, and by our Constitution, to further the cause of the kingdom of God. We are to prove ourselves trustworthy with what we have been given here, so that we can demonstrate to God that he can trust us with real wealth and true riches in heaven.

But how do we connect that story with the heartbreak experienced by Jeremiah and the people of Israel during their captivity in Babylon? We begin with the idea that the phrase “we cannot serve two masters,” can be about money, it can also be about other things that take the place of God. In a letter to his young friend and protégé Timothy, Paul briefly describes the relationship that we should be cultivating with the powers that surround us. (1 Timothy 2:1-7)

^2:1 I urge, then, first of all, that petitions, prayers, intercession, and thanksgiving be made for all people— ²for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness. ³This is good, and pleases God our Savior, ⁴who wants all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth. ⁵For there is one God and one mediator between God and mankind, the man Christ Jesus, ⁶who gave himself as a ransom for all people. This has now been witnessed to at the proper time. ⁷And for this purpose I was appointed a herald and an apostle—I am telling the truth; I am not lying—and a true and faithful teacher of the Gentiles.

Paul urges Timothy and the church to pray for kings and the people in authority in their governments even though, like now, those leaders had often broken trust with the people over whom they ruled. Some had not only broken trust but had actively persecuted their citizens. And yet, Paul’s encouragement isn’t to rebel, or to resist, but to pray for them, and to do whatever they could do to live peaceful and quiet lives of integrity and honesty that were both godly and holy.

Our goal is to peacefully coexist with our government, not to put our trust in the government and not to break our trust with God by putting our faith in money, power, or government officials. Neither should we abdicate our responsibilities to God or entrust our government with do the work that God has commanded us to do. Our calling is to shrewdly use the freedoms and the tools that we have been given, but to remain faithful to our God, to our integrity, honesty, and to the promises that we have made.

The missionary journeys of Paul and the other disciples were made possible by the infrastructure and the safety and freedom to travel brought about by the Roman empire and its military. In his letters, we sometimes see Paul use his Roman citizenship as a tool to accomplish his mission for Jesus Christ, but Paul never concedes that Caesar is lord, and he never puts his faith and trust in the Roman government. For Paul, citizenship was a useful tool, but his loyalty was always firmly in Jesus Christ, and his faith and trust always belonged, without question, to the kingdom of God first. We are similarly challenged. Finding the balance that Paul had will be as challenging to us as it was for him. But our calling is to remain faithful to Jesus Christ, to put our whole trust only in God, and to shrewdly use the rights, freedom, citizenship, money, and other tools at our disposal to further the interests of God’s kingdom wherever we can. At the same time, we must live lives that are trustworthy, honest, filled with integrity, and remain faithful to the promises that we have made so that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness.

If he were here, I am certain that Paul would confess that finding that balance, while living in a powerful military empire, was challenging, and doing so is likely to be similarly challenging for us in twenty-first century United States. But one thing we can learn from Jeremiah is that getting that balance wrong can have devastating, and sometimes eternal, consequences.

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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 references are from the New International Version unless otherwise noted.

Sinners Welcome!

September 11, 2022September 12, 2022 PastorPartridge Sermon Alliance, Broadway, Christ, church, God, grace, Jeremiah, Jesus, Jesus Christ, Jonathan Edwards, lost, lost sheep, mercy, Methodist, Ohio, Partridge, reconciliation, rescue, restoration, sheep, sin, sinners, Street, United, welcome

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Sinners Welcome!

September 11, 2022*

By Pastor John Partridge

Jeremiah 4:11-12, 22-28 Luke 15:1-10 1 Timothy 1:12-17

In 1781, famed preacher Jonathan Edwards presented a message to his congregation in Northampton, Massachusetts entitled Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God. He preached that same sermon again in Enfield, Connecticut later that same year and, by many historical accounts, triggered the beginning of what is now considered to be the First Great Awakening which brought countless waves of people across the new United States and England to faith in Christ. In that message, Edwards proclaimed the horrors of hell and forwarded the idea that it is only the grace and the powerful hand of God that holds back the demons of hell and allows sinners to remain in this world so that they will have an opportunity to repent.

Present day preachers tend not to preach with that kind of style or fire, though many of us would agree with much of Edward’s message. What’s worse, however, is that somewhere along the line, our churches established a reputation as places where you needed to get right with God before you came in, or as places where sinners, the unclean, the tattooed, bikers, persons of color, the poor, the homeless, smokers, gamblers, and any other kind of outsiders aren’t welcome. And, in many churches, that characterization is unfortunately true.

But that isn’t the message that we find in scripture at all. Yes, God does have a problem with some people, but God’s list almost never seems to overlap with the people that our churches like to exclude. In Jeremiah 4:11-12, 22-28, we hear this:

¹¹At that time this people and Jerusalem will be told, “A scorching wind from the barren heights in the desert blows toward my people, but not to winnow or cleanse; ¹²a wind too strong for that comes from me. Now I pronounce my judgments against them.”

²²“My people are fools;
    they do not know me.
They are senseless children;
    they have no understanding.
They are skilled in doing evil;
    they know not how to do good.”

²³I looked at the earth,
    and it was formless and empty;
and at the heavens,
    and their light was gone.
²⁴I looked at the mountains,
    and they were quaking;
    all the hills were swaying.
²⁵I looked, and there were no people;
    every bird in the sky had flown away.
²⁶I looked, and the fruitful land was a desert;
    all its towns lay in ruins
    before the Lord, before his fierce anger.

²⁷This is what the Lord says:

“The whole land will be ruined,
    though I will not destroy it completely.
²⁸Therefore the earth will mourn
    and the heavens above grow dark,
because I have spoken and will not relent,
    I have decided and will not turn back.”

God condemns Israel not because of everyday, ordinary sin, but because of their conscious decision to act in ways that they knew were in opposition to God’s will. They had known God… but forgot God and had become so desensitized to wrongdoing and injustice that they only did evil and entirely forgot how to do good. God had created Israel to be a light to the nations but whatever light that they had… was gone.

God’s intent is better demonstrated to us in the actions and the teaching of Jesus such as we find in the story contained in Luke 15:1-10.

^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: ⁴“Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Doesn’t he leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it? ⁵And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders ⁶and goes home. Then he calls his friends and neighbors together and says, ‘Rejoice with me; I have found my lost sheep.’ ⁷I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent.

⁸“Or suppose a woman has ten silver coins[each worth a day’s wage] and loses one. Doesn’t she light a lamp, sweep the house and search carefully until she finds it? ⁹And when she finds it, she calls her friends and neighbors together and says, ‘Rejoice with me; I have found my lost coin.’ ¹⁰In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”

The accusation against Jesus was that he must be a bad person because he welcomed “sinners” and shared the relationally intimate act of eating meals with them. As I noted last week, during communion, a shared meal is an intimate act. Only an exceedingly small number of people will be invited into our homes and in the even smaller inner circle that sits at our table and shares food with us. Even in a group setting with larger numbers of people, there is still a decision-making process by which we choose who will be given access to that level of closeness. The Pharisees and the teachers of the law would never do such a thing and they thought that doing so cast doubt on Jesus’ authority, credibility, and likability.

But the parables that Jesus uses to craft his reply reveal that these are exactly the people that God wants to welcome. When you have one hundred sheep, and lose one, you use all your time, talent, and resources to find the one that is lost, not to nurture the ninety-nine that stayed home. And when you lose a coin that’s worth an entire day’s wages, you don’t just keep counting the nine that you have, you expend all the effort that you can to find the one that you lost. The people who were in the Temple and who worshipped in the synagogues weren’t lost. The lost people that God wanted back were the people that had left the church and had left God’s family in one way or another.

And as the Apostle Paul writes to his friend Timothy in 1 Timothy 1:12-17, he writes from the perspective of a person who was once lost, but has been found, welcomed, and redeemed. Paul says…

¹²I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, who has given me strength, that he considered me trustworthy, appointing me to his service. ¹³Even though I was once a blasphemer and a persecutor and a violent man, I was shown mercy because I acted in ignorance and unbelief. ¹⁴The grace of our Lord was poured out on me abundantly, along with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus.

¹⁵Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners—of whom I am the worst. ¹⁶But for that very reason I was shown mercy so that in me, the worst of sinners, Christ Jesus might display his immense patience as an example for those who would believe in him and receive eternal life. ¹⁷Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory for ever and ever. Amen.

Too often our churches are so laser-focused on the chaplaincy of our church, which is the mission of caring for the day to day needs of the congregation, that they completely ignore, and sometimes are downright unwelcoming, to the lost people that God wants to rescue. How often do we hear stories or jokes about people who felt unwelcome because they visited a church and accidentally sat in the spot that Mrs. So-and-so had sat in for sixty-three years? Or folks who were angrily stared at because they wore the wrong kind of clothes? Or had the wrong color skin? Or belonged to the wrong political party? Or were shown the door because they were divorced or remarried? Or were single parents? Or drank too much, or smoked, or swore, or… well, you get the idea.

When God condemned Israel in the story we read from Jeremiah, his condemnation wasn’t for any of those things. God’s condemnation was for the church people who forgot how to do good and couldn’t stop doing evil. Instead, what Jesus is trying to teach us is that the people we need to spend our time, talent, and resources on, are those lost children that we so easily overlook or condemn because they don’t go to our church, or don’t look like us, or talk like us, or vote like us, or move in the same social circles as us.

Bear in mind that Jesus never told sinners that it was okay to keep on sinning. But Jesus most certainly did say that sinners should always be made to feel welcome in his house so that they could hear… and feel, the message of love, rescue, and transformation that is contained in the gospel message. Our mission isn’t to keep out the riffraff. Our mission is to save the lost, to welcome the riffraff, the outsiders, and the outcasts so that we can be agents of rescue, restoration, and reconciliation.

But in order to accomplish our mission, in order for us to do what Jesus has called us to do, requires us to do what Jesus did.

And that… is to make sure that sinners are welcome.

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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 references are from the New International Version unless otherwise noted.

Pastor Partridge

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