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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*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.™

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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It’s All for Me!

August 3, 2025 PastorPartridge Sermon Alliance, Broadway, Christ, church, concubine, faith, God, greed, happiness, influence, Jesus, Jesus Christ, John Partridge, lust, meaning, meaningless, Methodist, mortality, Ohio, Paul, pleasure, power, purpose, sex, Solomon, wealth

It’s All for Me!

August 03, 2025*

By Pastor John Partridge

Ecclesiastes 1:2, 12-14; 2:17-23 Luke 12:13-21 Colossians 3:1-11

When children have siblings, it seems like one of the first ten words that they learn is the word “Mine!” It reminds me of the scene from Finding Nemo, when the seagulls think that they have found food, and all of them are mobbing the beach shouting, “Mine! Mine! Mine!” And, I think for many of us, part of the humor in that scene of the movie is found in how much the seagulls remind us of children or, if we’re honest, some of the adults that we know. But it is exactly that mindset that we see on display, discussed, and critiqued in today’s scriptures. The first among these was written by King Solomon, one of history’s wealthiest kings, a man who had everything that money and power could bring, and yet, found that wealth wasn’t everything that we might imagine it to be. We begin by reading from Ecclesiastes 1:2, 12-14; 2:17-23

^1:1 The words of the Teacher, son of David, king in Jerusalem:

²“Meaningless! Meaningless!”
says the Teacher.
“Utterly meaningless!
Everything is meaningless.”

¹²I, the Teacher, was king over Israel in Jerusalem. ¹³I applied my mind to study and to explore by wisdom all that is done under the heavens. What a heavy burden God has laid on mankind! ¹⁴I have seen all the things that are done under the sun; all of them are meaningless, a chasing after the wind.

^2:17So I hated life, because the work that is done under the sun was grievous to me. All of it is meaningless, a chasing after the wind. ¹⁸I hated all the things I had toiled for under the sun, because I must leave them to the one who comes after me. ¹⁹And who knows whether that person will be wise or foolish? Yet they will have control over all the fruit of my toil into which I have poured my effort and skill under the sun. This too is meaningless. ²⁰So my heart began to despair over all my toilsome labor under the sun. ²¹For a person may labor with wisdom, knowledge, and skill, and then they must leave all they own to another who has not toiled for it. This too is meaningless and a great misfortune. ²²What do people get for all the toil and anxious striving with which they labor under the sun? ²³All their days their work is grief and pain; even at night their minds do not rest. This too is meaningless.

Solomon says that he gave himself to the study of wisdom, and what wisdom was taught under many nations of the world, and what he found was that the life of humanity was burdensome and difficult. Despite all that he had seen, and all his wealth, women, power, and other things available to him, he could not find any meaning in his life and began to hate everything that he had and everything for which he had worked. After all his study and all his labor, he knew that in the end he would die and leave it all behind to someone who didn’t understand what he had done and who had not done any work to get it. And so, Solomon finds that study, work, labor, wealth, power, pleasure, and even weariness, grief, and pain were all meaningless.

To be fair, these words are not the end of Solomon’s writings and ultimately Solomon’s opinion is not as dark and pessimistic as this passage might suggest. But clearly, Solomon felt that wealth and power were not the answer to finding a life of meaning, purpose, or happiness. And Jesus echoes this line of thinking as we read the story of Luke 12:13-21, where we hear a man who is unhappy with the way that his father has chosen to distribute his inheritance.

¹³Someone in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.”

¹⁴Jesus replied, “Man, who appointed me a judge or an arbiter between you?” ¹⁵Then he said to them, “Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; life does not consist in an abundance of possessions.”

¹⁶And he told them this parable: “The ground of a certain rich man yielded an abundant harvest. ¹⁷He thought to himself, ‘What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops.’

¹⁸“Then he said, ‘This is what I’ll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store my surplus grain. ¹⁹And I’ll say to myself, “You have plenty of grain laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry.”’

²⁰“But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?’

²¹“This is how it will be with whoever stores up things for themselves but is not rich toward God.”

However much this man’s father had left him in his inheritance, he clearly thought that it wasn’t enough and that his brother ought to share some of what he had gotten. But Jesus warns that it isn’t money or possessions that make life worth living. Greed, and the constant lust for more, isn’t the thing that makes life better. And to add emphasis to that idea, Jesus tells a parable about a man who was already wealthy, but when faced with a bumper crop, decided to build bigger barns rather than share his bounty with others, because, in his mind, “All this is for me!” You can almost hear the seagulls crying, “Mine! Mine! Mine!” But before he could even make the deposit on the construction of his new barns, his life was forfeited and, as Solomon had noted, all his money was passed on to someone else.

And Jesus said the moral of the story that we should remember, is that wealth that isn’t shared abundantly with God can all be taken away. Now, I am certain that Jesus isn’t saying that being rich toward God means that we must give the lions share of our wealth to the church, but rather that we must use what God has given us to do the work of God on earth. Rather than crying out for what is mine, mine, mine, we are to share what we have with the church, with the poor, the hungry, the naked, the abused, the disadvantaged, and anyone else who might not have the things that we have been given.

We find a bit more guidance along this line of thinking in Paul’s letter to the church in Colossae as we read Colossians 3:1-11 where he says:

^3:1 Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. ²Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. ³For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. ⁴When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.

⁵Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires, and greed, which is idolatry. ⁶Because of these, the wrath of God is coming.⁷You used to walk in these ways; in the life you once lived. ⁸But now you must also rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips. ⁹Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices ¹⁰and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator. ¹¹Here there is no Gentile or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all.

Paul tell us that because we have been raised to a new life in Jesus Christ, we should find purpose in doing the work of God and of God’s kingdom rather than in the things in which our culture finds value, such as wealth, power, pleasure, and the accumulation of possessions and other earthly pleasures. Instead, we should set aside, or “put to death’ our earthly nature that craves sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires, and greed because all these things are forms of idolatry. Paul says that those are the things that we used to do before we chose to follow Jesus, and, as they say in the infomercials on television, “but that’s not all” because now that we follow Jesus, we must also rid ourselves of anger, rage, malice, slander, filthy language, and lying to one another. As the body of Christ, we put aside all things that divide us and see one another as equal in value before God because Jesus is everything to us, and lives inside of all of us who believe.

I hope that you see the connections between these scriptures, but just to be sure, let’s connect the dots. Solomon had everything that anyone could possibly ask for, and more. He was fabulously wealthy, had hundreds of wives, consorts, and concubines, and ruled over what was one of the most powerful kingdoms of its time. He could have had, and did have, anything that he could ask for. And yet, despite all his wealth and power, Solomon grieved at the meaningless of life because his mortality meant that everything that he had would pass to someone else when he died. Jesus reinforces this same idea saying that we should avoid any and all kinds of greed because we will not find meaning or purpose in life by pursuing wealth, power, pleasure, or possessions. Instead, Jesus says, we will find purpose when we share what we have with God and use our wealth and possessions for the mission and vision of the kingdom of God.

But Paul expands on what it means to avoid greed and live for God, saying that because we have chosen to follow Jesus, have died with him, and have been raised to a new life, then we must turn our hearts toward God and find meaning and purpose by doing the things of God and pursuing the advancement of God’s kingdom. But to do that, Paul says, we must not live the way that our culture teaches us to live. Greed isn’t the only thing that we are called to leave behind with our old life but also sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires, anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language, as well as greed. In total, in exchange for a life that is filled with meaning and purpose, God calls us to live differently than the people around us so that they can catch a glimpse of a world in which there is no Jew or Gentile, slave or free, cultured or barbarian, citizen or foreigner, black or white, or any other division, but instead a world where all are equal, all contribute, all participate, and where everyone belongs.

My friends, that is a world that is worth fighting for, worth working towards, and worth making every effort to model and show to the people around us.

Children of an Annoying God

July 27, 2025 PastorPartridge Sermon Alliance, annoy, annoying, Broadway, Christ, church, Colossae, Colossians, faith, God, Hosea, Jesus, Jesus Christ, John Partridge, Luke, Methodist, Ohio, Street

Children of an Annoying God

July 27, 2025*

By Pastor John Partridge

Hosea 1:2-10 Luke 11:1-13 Colossians 2:6-19

Any of you that have siblings will know that they are often uniquely equipped to annoy you. In part, this is true because they have spent so much time in the same room, or at least in the same house with you, but also because, having spent many years in the same household together, they know more about you, and the family stories, and your personal history, than almost anyone else. Next in line, in their ability to push your buttons, get on your nerves, and be annoying when they want to do so, are your closest friends. Those friends from high school or college with whom you spent hours, every day, for four years, in class, out of class, in the weight room, on the practice field, in the library, and elsewhere… together. They too, know so much about you, that when they want to yank on your chain and annoy you, they know things about you that few other people know and can say words that can get under your skin but mean little or nothing to other people in the room. For these same reasons, these are the people who can often speak wisdom and advice into your life when you aren’t willing to listen to anyone else simply because you have shared so much of your lives with one another.

This is what we find God doing, and teaching, in all three of our scriptures this morning. We begin by reading the words of the prophet Hosea, where we find God deliberately taunting and annoying the nation of Israel by reminding them of their failures and shortcomings, and pointing out how those failures have damaged their relationship with the God that they claim to worship. Reading from Hosea 1:2-10, we hear this:

²When the Lord began to speak through Hosea, the Lord said to him, “Go, marry a promiscuous woman and have children with her, for like an adulterous wife this land is guilty of unfaithfulness to the Lord.” ³So he married Gomer daughter of Diblaim, and she conceived and bore him a son.

⁴Then the Lord said to Hosea, “Call him Jezreel, because I will soon punish the house of Jehu for the massacre at Jezreel, and I will put an end to the kingdom of Israel. ⁵In that day I will break Israel’s bow in the Valley of Jezreel.”

⁶Gomer conceived again and gave birth to a daughter. Then the Lord said to Hosea, “Call her Lo-Ruhamah (which means “not loved”), for I will no longer show love to Israel, that I should at all forgive them. ⁷Yet I will show love to Judah; and I will save them—not by bow, sword, or battle, or by horses and horsemen, but I, the Lord their God, will save them.”

⁸After she had weaned Lo-Ruhamah, Gomer had another son. ⁹Then the Lord said, “Call him Lo-Ammi (which means “not my people”), for you are not my people, and I am not your God.

¹⁰“Yet the Israelites will be like the sand on the seashore, which cannot be measured or counted. In the place where it was said to them, ‘You are not my people,’ they will be called ‘children of the living God.’

First, God asks Hosea, a highly visible public figure, to marry a woman, Gomer, who is known to be an unfaithful cheater. Some translations label her as a prostitute, but ‘repeat offender” or “serial cheater” is probably more accurate. In any case, the reason is that the relationship between Hosea and Gomer is meant to be a model for Israel’s relationship with God, as repeat offenders who are serial cheaters with other gods. Next, through the names of Hosea’s children, God reminds Israel that their king is only on the throne because he murdered the son of the previous king, and through the next two children, reminds them that God will no longer show his love to Israel and that they have been so unfaithful that they can no longer call themselves God’s people.

Imagine, seeing Hosea, a public figure, especially in Jerusalem and the halls of power, every day for years, and every time you heard the gossip about his cheating wife, you were reminded of Israel’s infidelity with God. Or that every time you heard the names of Hosea’s children, just speaking, or hearing their names reminded everyone of Israel’s failures to obey God. Whenever we read this story, there can be no doubt that when it comes to annoying his people to make a point, God plays a long game over years and even decades and plays on an entirely different level than our friends and siblings.

In our next scripture, Jesus teaches that sometimes it is good to be annoying. And we hear that story in Luke 11:1-13 as the disciples ask Jesus to teach them to pray.

^11:1 One day Jesus was praying in a certain place. When he finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples.”

²He said to them, “When you pray, say:

“‘Father,
hallowed be your name,
your kingdom come.
³Give us each day our daily bread.
⁴Forgive us our sins,
for we also forgive everyone who sins against us.
And lead us not into temptation.’”

⁵Then Jesus said to them, “Suppose you have a friend, and you go to him at midnight and say, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves of bread; ⁶a friend of mine on a journey has come to me, and I have no food to offer him.’ ⁷And suppose the one inside answers, ‘Don’t bother me. The door is already locked, and my children and I are in bed. I can’t get up and give you anything.’ ⁸I tell you, even though he will not get up and give you the bread because of friendship, yet because of your shameless audacity he will surely get up and give you as much as you need.

⁹“So, I say to you: Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. ¹⁰For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.

¹¹“Which of you fathers, if your son asks fora fish, will give him a snake instead? ¹²Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? ¹³If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”

While we are all familiar with the prayer that Jesus teaches, what we don’t often discuss is how Jesus teaches his disciples to use it. Jesus teaches them a prayer but immediately tells them that they should never be afraid to be a bother, but to annoy God freely and deliberately with their prayers. The examples that Jesus gives are annoying a friend who has already gone to bed until he answers the door and gives you some bread and how a parent, even an evil parent, knows how to give good gifts to his or her children. If God is good, how much more will God do for us than we would do for our friends or for our children? Jesus encourages us to annoy God and to pound on the gates of heaven with our prayers and not to be shy in asking for fear that we might be a bother to God. At the same time, as we read Paul’s letter to the church in Colossae, he hear as he encourages the church to be so confident in what they have, and the gifts that God has given to them, that they, and we, do not wander from what Jesus has taught just because the people and the culture might annoy us. In Colossians 2:6-19, Paul says:

⁶So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live your lives in him, ⁷rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness.

⁸See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the elemental spiritual forcesof this world rather than on Christ.

⁹For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form, ¹⁰and in Christ you have been brought to fullness. He is the head over every power and authority. ¹¹In him you were also circumcised with a circumcision not performed by human hands. Your whole self-ruled by the flesh was put off when you were circumcised by Christ, ¹²having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through your faith in the working of God, who raised him from the dead.

¹³When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, ¹⁴having canceled the charge of our legal indebtedness, which stood against us and condemned us; he has taken it away, nailing it to the cross. ¹⁵And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.

¹⁶Therefore do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a religious festival, a New Moon celebration, or a Sabbath day. ¹⁷These are a shadow of the things that were to come; the reality, however, is found in Christ. ¹⁸Do not let anyone who delights in false humility and the worship of angels disqualify you. Such a person also goes into great detail about what they have seen; they are puffed up with idle notions by their unspiritual mind. ¹⁹They have lost connection with the head, from whom the whole body, supported and held together by its ligaments and sinews, grows as God causes it to grow.

Paul says that once we choose to follow Jesus, we should be confident in living our lives the way that he taught us to live. We should not be persuaded by weak philosophy, corrupt traditions, or the vaguely spiritual culture around us that encourages a vague faith in nature, or the universe, or some other impersonal god. Instead, we must remember that Jesus is the God who came to earth, was born and lived as one of us, and who now lives and rules over all creation. When we chose to follow Jesus, we were set apart from the rest of the world and, through our baptism, are buried and raised to a new life of faith. Because of that we should not allow others to judge us for living differently than the people around us if our conscience guides us to eat differently, live differently, or worship differently than they do. Paul warns, and this is just as applicable today as it has ever been, that many of the people around us have become “disconnected from the head” which he means disconnected from God, but would likely not be wrong to also think of as being disconnected from their brains. Instead, we are to live, together, as one body, supporting and encouraging one another, and working together with God as the head.

In the end, we must remember that we worship a God who freely annoys his people and his church to remind them, to remind us, of who we are supposed to be and how we are supposed to act. But we are also taught that we should not worry about being a bother to God, but to pray unceasingly, to annoy God by pounding on the gates of heaven until he answers our prayers. And all of this is because God is a loving father who seeks to do what is best for us, and desires to give us gifts that will allow us to do his work, to be a blessing to the people around us, and to change the world.

We worship an annoying God who encourages us to annoy him in return, and to have the courage to ignore others who would try to annoy us away from God’s teaching. May our persistence in living like Jesus annoy the people around us into seeing God and hearing his call.

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Greed, Death, and Finding Purpose

July 20, 2025July 20, 2025 PastorPartridge Sermon A, abuse, Alliance, Amos, Broadway, Christ, church, death, faith, God, greed, Jesus, Jesus Christ, John, John Partridge, Methodist, Ohio, Paul, punishment, purpose

Greed, Death, and Finding Purpose

July 20, 2025*

By Pastor John Partridge

Amos 8:1-12 Luke 10:38-42 Colossians 1:15-28

Every language has its own quirks, and English is known to go through the pockets of other languages to collect those quirks. But one thing that is common to every language is words and phrases that originate from agriculture. Sometimes these phrases, known as idioms, are difficult to translate because they can be borrowed from their original contexts and used in other places in ways that have other meanings. For example, saying that your mortgage or your car loan is “underwater” had nothing to do with being underwater, but means that your home or car is currently less valuable than the amount that you owe on the loan. Similarly, we understand that when Jesus says that the fields are “ripe for harvest,” he means that the people are ready to hear the gospel message. But, in English, the phrase saying that people are “ripe for the picking” often means that those people are gullible and ready to be hoodwinked and defrauded in some way. However, if the people at the orchard say that the apples are “ripe for the picking” it means something entirely different and completely what you would expect it to mean.

Can you see why these things can be difficult for translators?

But it is this kind of phrase that we encounter as we read the first of our scriptures for today and as we read, we will need to think a little bit about what it is that God, and Amos, and the bible translators intend for us to understand. And so, we rejoin the story of Israel, recorded in the book of Amos, as God describes his people as a basket of fruit in Amos 8:1-12 where we hear this:

^8:1 This is what the Sovereign Lord showed me: a basket of ripe fruit. ²“What do you see, Amos?” he asked.

“A basket of ripe fruit,” I answered.

Then the Lord said to me, “The time is ripe for my people Israel; I will spare them no longer.

³“In that day,” declares the Sovereign Lord, “the songs in the temple will turn to wailing. Many, many bodies—flung everywhere! Silence!”

⁴Hear this, you who trample the needy
and do away with the poor of the land,

⁵saying,

“When will the New Moon be over
    that we may sell grain,
and the Sabbath be ended
    that we may market wheat?”—
skimping on the measure,
    boosting the price
    and cheating with dishonest scales,
⁶buying the poor with silver
    and the needy for a pair of sandals,
    selling even the sweepings with the wheat.

⁷The Lord has sworn by himself, the Pride of Jacob: “I will never forget anything they have done.

⁸“Will not the land tremble for this,
    and all who live in it mourn?
The whole land will rise like the Nile;
    it will be stirred up and then sink
    like the river of Egypt.

⁹“In that day,” declares the Sovereign Lord,

“I will make the sun go down at noon
    and darken the earth in broad daylight.
¹⁰I will turn your religious festivals into mourning
    and all your singing into weeping.
I will make all of you wear sackcloth
    and shave your heads.
I will make that time like mourning for an only son
    and the end of it like a bitter day.

¹¹“The days are coming,” declares the Sovereign Lord,
    “when I will send a famine through the land—
not a famine of food or a thirst for water,
    but a famine of hearing the words of the Lord.
¹²People will stagger from sea to sea
    and wander from north to east,
searching for the word of the Lord,
    but they will not find it.

God points Amos to a basket of fruit and compares it to the nation of Israel saying that Israel is “ripe for the picking” or that the “time is ripe.” But what God means is that just as the orchard manager waits until the fruit is ripe before going out to pick it from the trees, God has waited until this time to bring his judgment upon his people. Israel has trampled the needy and chased the poor from their land. They have defrauded their customers in the marketplace and used their profits to defraud the poor even further. God declares that he will never forget the harm that has been done to the poor and intends to turn Israel’s greed into sadness, bitterness, and death. Just as the wealthy have tormented the poor and the needy, God intends to make even the wealthy and powerful suffer in many of the same ways that they have made others suffer.

But even if we make better choices than the leaders of ancient Israel, and even if we do a respectable job following Jesus and doing the things that he has taught us to do, we still must recognize that not all choices are equal. As we read in Luke 10:38-42, we see that some choices are better than others.

³⁸As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him. ³⁹She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet listening to what he said. ⁴⁰But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!”

⁴¹“Martha, Martha,” the Lord answered, “you are worried and upset about many things, ⁴²but few things are needed—or indeed only one. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.”

I want to be sure that everyone understands that no one made a bad choice, and no one did anything wrong. Martha saw Jesus and a house full of guests and shifted into her role playing the part of a good host. But Martha expected that her sister Mary, who also lived in their home, would also focus on the tasks and preparations of hosting. But Mary did something different. Rather than do the work of preparing for, and serving guests, Mary stopped what she was doing and listened to what Jesus was teaching. Meanwhile, Martha was upset that Mary did not comply with her expectations and complained to Jesus that Mary should be helping her to prepare food and serve their guests. But Jesus says that while both choices were good, Mary’s choice was better. Jesus doesn’t suggest that Martha was wrong in choosing to function as host, simply that Mary’s choice to take a break from legitimate work and responsibility was the better of the two options. As such, this story of Mary and Martha’s interactions with Jesus reminds us all that while it’s often acceptable for us to focus on what we think needs to be done, or the things that our culture tells us we should be focusing on, sometimes it is the better choice to temporarily ignore our responsibilities so that we can focus on something even better.

And that brings us, once again, to Paul’s letter to the church in Colossae where Paul reminds us that sometimes the best choices may take us to unlikely, and even uncomfortable destinations where we may have experiences that appear to be bad, and even disastrous. Reading from Colossians 1:15-28, we hear this:

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 the 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.

²¹Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of^[g] your evil behavior. ²²But now he has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation— ²³if you continue in your faith, established and firm, and do not move from the hope held out in the gospel. This is the gospel that you heard and that has been proclaimed to every creature under heaven, and of which I, Paul, have become a servant.

²⁴Now I rejoice in what I am suffering for you, and I fill up in my flesh what is still lacking in regard to Christ’s afflictions, for the sake of his body, which is the church. ²⁵I have become its servant by the commission God gave me to present to you the word of God in its fullness— ²⁶the mystery that has been kept hidden for ages and generations but is now disclosed to the Lord’s people. ²⁷To them God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.

²⁸He is the one we proclaim, admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom, so that we may present everyone fully mature in Christ.

Paul begins this passage by declaring that Jesus is the image of God, the firstborn of all creation, the creator of all that exists, and the power that holds the universe together. If you hear modern folks say things like, “The disciples didn’t think that Jesus was God,” or “The New Testament doesn’t claim that Jesus is God,” this is just one of many passages that you can go to that unequivocally makes that claim.

But having made that point, Paul reminds the church that it was Jesus that, through his life, death, and resurrection, made it possible for us to have a relationship with God. Because of Jesus’ sacrifice, we are brought back into a relationship, reconciled, with God after being alienated from him because of our sin. But Paul also notes that because of the choice that he made to follow Jesus, he is has suffered for the sake of the church so that he could make God known to the Gentiles (and that’s us), by telling them about Jesus. Paul has made the better choice, but that choice has not always been pleasant. He could have gone back to his life of studying the Torah and enjoying the wealth and privilege of his family, but instead chose to follow Jesus, and share the message of the Gospel with the Gentiles. But even though that choice often led Paul to be afflicted, whipped, beaten, and imprisoned, Paul knows that he is doing the work that God has called him to do and is changing the world, one life at a time as he points people to reconciliation with God and a new life in Jesus Christ.

More importantly, Paul says that this is not his calling alone, but the calling of the whole church. It is the whole church who is called to proclaim, admonish, and teach so that we may present everyone around us to God as mature disciples of Jesus Christ.

At one time the ancient leaders of Israel chose to abuse the poor and focus on their greed, and those choices led God to bring about punishment that caused them to suffer in the same way that they had made others suffer. But even when we make good choices, like Martha did, we may still have the option, such as that we saw in Mary, of making an even better choice to listen to Jesus and learn from him. But like Paul, and like the church in Colossae, we may also choose to obey the call of Jesus so that we may proclaim, admonish, and teach the people around us so that on the day of judgment we do not arrive at the throne of grace alone but instead, surrounded by all those to whom we have witnessed and who we present to God as mature disciples of Jesus Christ.

I pray that each of us will make the better choice, and that God will be at work in us so that we may have the faith, commitment, and courage to pursue God’s mission, vision, and purpose for our lives.

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Assumptions of the Powerful

July 6, 2025 PastorPartridge Sermon Alliance, Aram, assumption, Broadway, Christ, church, Elisha, faith, God, humility, Israel, Jesus, Jesus Christ, John Partridge, King, leper, Methodist, Naaman, obedience, Ohio, power, prophet, wealth

Assumptions of the Powerful

July 06, 2025*

By Pastor John Partridge

2 Kings 5:1-14 Luke 10:1-11, 16-20

For anyone who has taken the Bridges Out of Poverty class, or who has done any reading about poverty, or the disparities of wealth, one of the things that we discover, is that people from different socio-economic classes simply think differently and operate throughout their lives with a different set of assumptions. These disparities are not new to our generation or even new to modernity, but have existed throughout recorded history, and since the beginning of what we might think of as wealth and power. We often see these differences as we read the stories of history, and we see them in scripture as well as in writings from the period such as the books of Josephus and other first century writers.

Our first scripture for today is found in 2 Kings 5:1-14, much earlier than the first century, somewhere between 500 to 600 years before the birth of Jesus. There, we hear the story of how Naaman, a wealthy and powerful leader of the nation of Aram, a major military and economic power, contracts an incurable disease and travels to Israel in search of healing at the hands of the prophet of Israel’s God. But, even before Naaman and the prophet Elisha can meet, we witness the confusion caused by the assumptions made from his position of wealth and power.

^5:1 Now Naaman was commander of the army of the king of Aram. He was a great man in the sight of his master and highly regarded, because through him the Lord had given victory to Aram. He was a valiant soldier, but he had leprosy.

²Now bands of raiders from Aram had gone out and had taken captive a young girl from Israel, and she served Naaman’s wife. ³She said to her mistress, “If only my master would see the prophet who is in Samaria! He would cure him of his leprosy.”

⁴Naaman went to his master and told him what the girl from Israel had said. ⁵“By all means, go,” the king of Aram replied. “I will send a letter to the king of Israel.” So Naaman left, taking with him ten talents of silver, six thousand shekels of gold and ten sets of clothing. ⁶The letter that he took to the king of Israel read: “With this letter I am sending my servant Naaman to you so that you may cure him of his leprosy.”

⁷As soon as the king of Israel read the letter, he tore his robes and said, “Am I God? Can I kill and bring back to life? Why does this fellow send someone to me to be cured of his leprosy? See how he is trying to pick a quarrel with me!”

⁸When Elisha the man of God heard that the king of Israel had torn his robes, he sent him this message: “Why have you torn your robes? Have the man come to me and he will know that there is a prophet in Israel.” ⁹So Naaman went with his horses and chariots and stopped at the door of Elisha’s house. ¹⁰Elisha sent a messenger to say to him, “Go, wash yourself seven times in the Jordan, and your flesh will be restored, and you will be cleansed.”

¹¹But Naaman went away angry and said, “I thought that he would surely come out to me and stand and call on the name of the Lord his God, wave his hand over the spot and cure me of my leprosy. ¹²Are not Abana and Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? Couldn’t I wash in them and be cleansed?” So, he turned and went off in a rage.

¹³Naaman’s servants went to him and said, “My father, if the prophet had told you to do some great thing, would you not have done it? How much more, then, when he tells you, ‘Wash and be cleansed’!” ¹⁴So he went down and dipped himself in the Jordan seven times, as the man of God had told him, and his flesh was restored and became clean like that of a young boy.

I want to remind you that Naaman is the second most powerful person in one of the most powerful, wealthy, and influential nations in the entire region. He is a person of great power, intellect, wealth, and influence. He is so important, that when he is discovered to have an incurable disease that would normally cause him to be cast out of society and become an unclean pariah, the king of Aram helps him to hide his disease and sends him to Israel, along with 75 pounds of silver (roughly $325,000 US), 1,860 ounces of gold (about $6.2 million), and ten complete sets of clothing, which we will assume are the finest silks or embroidered outfits that would be worn by the king or others in the halls of power in Aram. Historically, we know that some of those sorts of outfits would take a skilled artisan a year, or several years, to make and so, each was worth several years salary of a skilled laborer and thus both rare and highly prized.

Additionally, the king of Aram sends along a letter of introduction to the king of Israel but, this is where the assumptions become apparent. First, it is assumed by the wealthy and powerful that miracles from the prophet of God can be bought. Second, it is assumed that the agent that can command such a miracle is the king of Israel. Despite the power of Naaman and Aram’s king, they do not, in any way, understand how the God of Israel works. Despite being told, by an Israeli servant that they must meet the prophet in Samaria, Naaman travels instead to the capitol of Israel, which would have been in Samaria, and not to Jerusalem, which was capitol of Judah. But even so, the King of Aram says nothing about meeting the prophet of God in Israel and the underlying assumption, as it is understood by both the reader of scripture and by Joram, the king of Israel, is that Israel’s king would be able to order Naaman’s healing in exchange for the payment that had been sent.

Even when that assumption is corrected, still Naaman travels to see Elisha with his entire entourage of horses and chariots assuming that he would need to impress the prophet with his wealth and power. Further, he gets angry when he doesn’t even get to meet Elisha face-to-face and finds that what is required of him is not something difficult, expensive, or otherwise impressive. Instead, what God demands of Naaman is not wealth, power, or influence, but instead is simply obedience and humility.

We see this same upheaval of our own assumptions about wealth and power in Luke 10:1-11, 16-20, where we find Jesus sending out seventy-two of his followers to preach the message of the gospel.

^10:1 After this the Lord appointed seventy-two others and sent them two by two ahead of him to every town and place where he was about to go. ²He told them, “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field. ³Go! I am sending you out like lambs among wolves. ⁴Do not take a purse or bag or sandals; and do not greet anyone on the road.

⁵“When you enter a house, first say, ‘Peace to this house.’ ⁶If someone who promotes peace is there, your peace will rest on them; if not, it will return to you. ⁷Stay there, eating and drinking whatever they give you, for the worker deserves his wages. Do not move around from house to house.

⁸“When you enter a town and are welcomed, eat what is offered to you. ⁹Heal the sick who are there and tell them, ‘The kingdom of God has come near to you.’ ¹⁰But when you enter a town and are not welcomed, go into its streets and say, ¹¹‘Even the dust of your town we wipe from our feet as a warning to you. Yet be sure of this: The kingdom of God has come near.’ ¹²I tell you, it will be more bearable on that day for Sodom than for that town.

¹⁶“Whoever listens to you listens to me; whoever rejects you rejects me; but whoever rejects me rejects him who sent me.”

¹⁷The seventy-two returned with joy and said, “Lord, even the demons submit to us in your name.”

¹⁸He replied, “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. ¹⁹I have given you authority to trample on snakes and scorpions and to overcome all the power of the enemy; nothing will harm you. ²⁰However, do not rejoice that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.”

As he sent out seventy itinerant missionaries to the villages and communities ahead of him, Jesus’ instructions are to leave behind everything that might possibly be of assistance to them so that whatever work they did, whatever results that they had, would belong to God and only to God. Further, by requiring these disciples to travel without a change of clothes, or a warm jacket, or money, or water, or even shoes, Jesus forces them to rely upon God for the things that they needed, not only to accomplish the mission and ministry to which they had been sent, but for their very survival.

In addition, Jesus instructs them to stay in one place and eat only what is offered there rather than moving from house to house so that they can get a more generous meal every day. Rather than trying to live better, their goal was to be humble and trust in God’s provision.

As citizens of one of the wealthiest and most powerful nations that has ever existed, even the average among us is influenced by the culture in which we live. And as such, as we are immersed in it, we absorb the assumptions and attitudes that are common to wealth and power. When the king of Aram sent Naaman to be healed, he assumed that the miraculous would be governed by the wealthy and powerful of Israel. Both the king and Naaman assumed that miracles could be bought for the right price. And not only did Naaman assume that he could impress the Elisha, the prophet of God, by his display of strength, his ego was wounded and he was angry that by refusing to meet face-to-face, Elisha did not treat him with the deference that he felt that he deserved, and he was confused that accomplishing Elisha’s instructions would not require wealth, power, strength, or great intellect.

As Jesus sent out his disciple-missionaries into the communities ahead of him, he forced his followers to set aside their own assumptions and the things upon which they were often dependent. They took nothing with them upon which they could rely. No money, no extra clothing, no food, no water, and no weapons. They took only faithfulness, trust, obedience, and the humility to rest in God’s ability to enable, empower, and accomplish their mission.

Two thousand years later, scripture speaks to us just as it did to the citizens of Israel and the great empires of Mesopotamia, Egypt, and Rome and message remains just as clear as it has throughout the ages. When we seek to do the work of the church and the kingdom of God, the things that we need to accomplish the mission set before us is not more money, more power, more influence, more strength, more talent, more equipment, more people, or more of anything else. Those are the assumptions of the wealthy and the powerful. Instead, we must set aside the assumptions of our culture and rely instead upon obedience, faithfulness, trust, and the humility to fully rely upon God.

The recipe is easy.

As Naaman and the disciples of Jesus discovered, it can sometimes be a struggle for us to get past our assumptions long enough to do the things that God asks. But when we do, we can witness the miraculous power of our God as work.

May we, as the followers of Jesus Christ, and as the church, have the humility to trust.

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Focus

June 26, 2025 PastorPartridge Blogs Bible, Christ, christianity, church, disability, faith, focus, forgotten, Gospel, inclusion, Jesus, John, John Partridge, neglected, overlooked, United Methodist

Focus

July 2025

by John Partridge

I was forgotten at Annual Conference… again.

It wasn’t the first time.

What happened was that despite a lot of talk about accessibility, our conference staff has, more than once, forgotten that wheelchairs and walkers aren’t the only disability. As a result, while significant efforts are usually made to ensure that the facilities that we use have ramps, elevators, and golf carts to shuttle delegates to and fro, the facilities that are used do not have assistive listening devices or, if they do, no one knows how to use them. The result was that I heard only a handful of words during the entirety of the half-day clergy session on Wednesday. The regular session on Thursday, likewise, did not have any assistive listening systems, but the sound system was significantly better. This was especially surprising since the Thursday venue was held in the indoor track facility at the College of Wooster. The improved sound quality, combined with my use of a voice transcription app on my cell phone, enabled me to keep up reasonably well (though still imperfectly) with the business of our conference.

I don’t mean to beat up on our conference staff. I know many of them personally, they’re great people and they aren’t mean, or particularly forgetful. I know that my exclusion wasn’t deliberate. But neither was my experience at Annual Conference unique. It happens at churches, lecture halls, and businesses everywhere. And, as I think about such things, the problem is one of focus.

It happens to all of us.

We’re busy.

And, because we’re busy, we focus on what’s in front of us. We focus on work. We focus on our families. We focus on our hobbies. We focus on the causes that we support. We focus on the things that are important to us. And all that focus causes us to miss what is going on outside of our focus. Our architecture reminds us that handicap accessibility was not in focus for previous generations. People unable to climb stairs simply could not go to church, or to the post office, or many other places. But now that we are doing better at remembering to include accessibility in our planning, we still have a way to go. It is easy to remember to include wheelchair ramps, elevators, and golf carts into our planning when, every week, we go to church alongside folks that need those things. But disabilities like hearing and vision are less noticeable and so churches with braille or large print bulletins, assistive listening systems, or sign language interpreters are far less common because they are easier to overlook.

These disabilities remain outside of our focus.

But that means something for our ministry to the world and I’m not talking about disabilities (although that’s a part of it). It is common for us to “stay in our lane,” pay attention to the things that are inside of our focus and ignore most of the things outside of it. Unintentionally and without any malice, we neglect to include people with disabilities, but the middle class finds it easy to ignore both the poor and the rich. We notice what is happening locally, but it’s easy for us to ignore hunger, violence, and natural disasters that are hundreds, or thousands, of miles away. We notice what happens to people to look like us, think like us, act like us, and vote like us, but it’s easy to ignore the people that don’t.

But that is not the call of Jesus.

The message of the gospel is to include the excluded and to invite the outsiders to come in and join our family. My experience this week was inconvenient, but it is a reminder of how easy it is to focus too narrowly on the things in front of us. If we are to do the work of the church, the work that Jesus has called us to do, we need to consciously widen our focus. We need to pay attention to the needs of the people around us, to notice the people who don’t look like us or think like us and worry about the problems of people who live far away.

Yes, there are pressing matters in front of us and focus is important, but the call of Jesus, the message of the gospel, and the work of the church requires us to step back from time to time and make sure that we haven’t narrowed our focus and forgotten the people that Jesus wants us to include, invite, and welcome.

Focus is important.

Where is yours?

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Made Known

June 8, 2025 PastorPartridge Sermon Alliance, behavior, believe, Bible, Broadway, Christ, christianity, church, faith, God, Jesus, Jesus Christ, John Partridge, known, Methodist, Ohio, water, witness

Made Known

(Seventh Sunday after Easter)

June 08, 2025*

By Pastor John Partridge

John 17:20-26 Acts 16:16-34 Revelation 22:12-17, 20-21

What do you do if you know something that is incredibly important, but few, if anyone else, knows about it?

Let’s use some well-used movie plots as examples. What do you do if you are an astronomer that discovers that there is an imminent alien invasion or a giant asteroid that will soon destroy much of our planet? Or a volcanologist that sees that there will soon be a major eruption of the Yellowstone super volcano? Or a scientist that discovers a cure for a new disease that is killing millions of people around the world? In the movies, these scientists are often shunned, disregarded, or otherwise ignored but what they all try to do is to tell the world what they have found, to warn people of the coming destruction, or to give them hope by telling them that a cure is available.

It seems obvious that if you have information that can save the lives of millions of people, you cannot, and should not, keep it to yourself. The struggle in the movies is that there is always some kind of reason that no one wants to believe the scientists. Either they have been discredited, have proposed and supported crazy ideas, become something of a hermit, been fired, or divorced, had a substance abuse problem, or something else, but even when no one wants to believe them, the scientists in the movies do what we would hope that they would, and keep on banging on doors and persist in finding ways to get the word out. And that is exactly what we find in our scriptures for today. The only difference in these messages is in the language that is used. Rather than saying that they want to “tell the world,” or that they want to “get the word out,” scripture uses the phrase, “Make known,” as in, “Our news is so important that we must make it known” or, “This important news must be made known.” We find this language as we hear Jesus pray for his followers, including us, and he describes to his father what he has done in John 17:20-26 where Jesus says:

²⁰“My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, ²¹that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. ²²I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one – ²³I in them and you in me – so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.

²⁴“Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world.

²⁵“Righteous Father, though the world does not know you, I know you, and they know that you have sent me. ²⁶I have made youknown to them, and will continue to make you known in order that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them.”

Jesus prays that those who believe in him might be one with God just as Jesus is in God and God is in Jesus. In other words, he prays that we might have the same sort of relationship with God that he has. But the reason for Jesus’ desire to have oneness with God is so that the world might see us, see our behavior, and see our relationship with God and with one another, and by seeing these things, they might come to believe in God. Jesus says that the world will know that God has sent him and that God has loved us because of what the world sees in us. Jesus says that the whole point of being sent to earth by God was so that God would be made known to those who believed in him, and that they, in turn, would make God known to the entire world.

Luke provides an unusual and unexpected way that God was made known in Acts 16:16-34 where he tells us of a time when Paul and Silas were arrested and thrown into prison. Luke says:

¹⁶Once when we were going to the place of prayer, we were met by a female slave who had a spirit by which she predicted the future. She earned a great deal of money for her owners by fortune-telling. ¹⁷She followed Paul and the rest of us, shouting, “These men are servants of the Most High God, who are telling you the way to be saved.” ¹⁸She kept this up for many days. Finally, Paul became so annoyed that he turned around and said to the spirit, “In the name of Jesus Christ I command you to come out of her!” At that moment, the spirit left her.

¹⁹When her owners realized that their hope of making money was gone, they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them into the marketplace to face the authorities. ²⁰They brought them before the magistrates and said, “These men are Jews, and are throwing our city into an uproar ²¹by advocating customs unlawful for us Romans to accept or practice.”

²²The crowd joined in the attack against Paul and Silas, and the magistrates ordered them to be stripped and beaten with rods. ²³After they had been severely flogged, they were thrown into prison, and the jailer was commanded to guard them carefully. ²⁴When he received these orders, he put them in the inner cell and fastened their feet in the stocks.

²⁵About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the other prisoners were listening to them. ²⁶Suddenly there was such a violent earthquake that the foundations of the prison were shaken. At once all the prison doors flew open, and everyone’s chains came loose. ²⁷The jailer woke up, and when he saw the prison doors open, he drew his sword and was about to kill himself because he thought the prisoners had escaped. ²⁸But Paul shouted, “Don’t harm yourself! We are all here!”

²⁹The jailer called for lights, rushed in, and fell trembling before Paul and Silas. ³⁰He then brought them out and asked, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?”

³¹They replied, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved—you and your household.” ³²Then they spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all the others in his house. ³³At that hour of the night the jailer took them and washed their wounds; then immediately he and all his household were baptized. ³⁴The jailer brought them into his house and set a meal before them; he was filled with joy because he had come to believe in God—he and his whole household.

The owners of the slave girl charge Paul and his companions with “advocating customs” that were unlawful to Romans and, while it is technically possible to construe that to be true, that isn’t at all why they were angry. The owners of the slave girl made a lot of money from her fortunetelling, and they were really peeved that Paul had cast out the demon that had made it all possible. In any case, it was the imprisonment of Paul and Silas that made it possible for God to be made known and not the slave girl who was telling everyone within earshot.

When the jailer discovered that the prison doors were open, he knew that his life was over. Under Roman law, the penalty for allowing prisoners to escape was death and so the jailer calculated that suicide was a better option than being tortured to death. But, before he can stab himself, fall on his sword, cut his wrists, or whatever he had planned to do, Paul shouts that no one has escaped and that everyone is right where they should be. The jailer quickly realizes that something miraculous has happened. Not only has his physical life been saved, but he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that it is not normal for a prison with open doors to retain its prisoners. No one was missing. Not one person ran out the door, and into the streets and escaped into the countryside in the dark of night. And so, the jailer understood that the god that Paul and Silas worshipped was real, chose to follow Jesus, and he, and his entire household, were baptized. Because of the imprisonment of Paul and Silas, and because of their behavior, their actions, and their witness, God was made known.

And to emphasize the importance of making God known, and to explain one last time why we need to do so, John shares the words of Jesus in Revelation 22:12-17, 20-21 where he says:

¹²“Look, I am coming soon! My reward is with me, and I will give to each person according to what they have done. ¹³I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End. ¹⁴“Blessed are those who wash their robes, that they may have the right to the tree of life and may go through the gates into the city. ¹⁵Outside are the dogs, those who practice magic arts, the sexually immoral, the murderers, the idolaters and everyone who loves and practices falsehood.

¹⁶“I, Jesus, have sent my angel to give youthis testimony for the churches. I am the Root and the Offspring of David, and the bright Morning Star.”

¹⁷The Spirit and the bride say, “Come!” And let the one who hears say, “Come!” Let the one who is thirsty come; and let the one who wishes take the free gift of the water of life.

²⁰He who testifies to these things says, “Yes, I am coming soon.”

Amen. Come, Lord Jesus.

²¹The grace of the Lord Jesus be with God’s people. Amen.

Jesus says that he will soon return to the earth and will give gifts to those who have followed him, rewarding each person for the things that they have done. Those who have chosen to follow Jesus will be invited into God’s city. But Jesus warns that not everyone will get in and those who do not get in, will not share in God’s blessings or in the wonders of his home. But Jesus repeats his invitation to follow him and to join God’s family. Jesus says that both the Spirit and the bride, and we know that the bride is the church, call the world to come and be a part of God’s family. The Spirit of God and the church must invite all the world to come so that all who are thirsty may share the free gift of the water of life.

Jesus says that the whole point of his mission on earth was to make God known.

When Jesus ascended into heaven, he left that work to those that followed him and we see those examples in the book of Acts and beyond in the lives of Paul, the disciples, and others. As it has been since Jesus rose from the dead and ascended into heaven, the mission of the Spirit of God and of the church is to make God known to the world so that all who are thirsty can share the gift of the water of life.

When Jesus returns, only those who follow him will be rewarded and our rewards will be given according to what we have done.

May each of us go out from this place, and busy ourselves by making God known to everyone around us and inviting them to come and share the water of life.

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How Are You Finishing?

June 3, 2025 PastorPartridge Blogs Alliance, Bible, Broadway, Christ, christianity, church, death, faith, finishing, God, Jesus, John Partridge, Methodist, Ohio, plans, prepare, retire, transition, undone, United Methodist

How Are You Finishing?

June 2025

by John Partridge

At least twice (and probably more like ten times) in the last few weeks I have been asked about my retirement. Most notably, when I had my annual consultation with our district superintendent, Rev. Edgar Brady, we discussed my plans, whether I wanted to continue for another year at Christ Church, and my thoughts about my eventual retirement. I assured him, as I have for the last six years, that Patti and I are happy at Christ Church and, if Christ Church is happy for us to stay, then we are in no hurry to retire. After that, we spent some time discussing how long it might be until we decided to make such a change. I had a few thoughts on that subject, but no specific plans, and he noted that he was turning seventy and thought that he still had a few good years left, especially since he will begin a new pastoral appointment in July.

The second most notable instance was during my semi-annual meeting with our financial advisor. In the middle of our discussion, I mentioned something general about retirement, possibly as we discussed our search for a house in which to live. It was at that point that he looked at me and pointedly asked, “Why haven’t you retired yet?” My answer was the same as the one I gave to Edgar, “I’m not finished yet.”

But these questions got me to thinking. I’m not ready to retire because I have some things that I’d like to do first. I want to finish my doctoral thesis, we need to find a house that we like that will accommodate all the stuff we want to do at home for the next couple of decades, and I have a few more things that I’d like to accomplish at Christ Church. But those things led me down a train of thought that eventually led me to think more generally about how we are finishing. Regardless of age, when we transition from one thing to another, we finish the first thing before we can get started on the next one. We wind down our projects, we wrap up details, and we prepare for the next chapter. Our inability to do these things is one reason that being suddenly laid off or fired can be so painful, and the same is true for divorce, or the death of a family member.

And that train of thought started me thinking about how all of us are managing our transition from this life to the next. We know that it is coming, though for some of us that transition will be sooner than for others. But how are we preparing for it? If we were planning a camping trip, as our scouts are preparing for summer camp, we would have a list of things that need to be done. Food must be purchased, tents mended, fees collected, service hours recorded, wood collected, physical forms signed by family doctors and turned in, rank advancement done, clothing packed, practice swimming for the camp swim test, and so on.

But as we consider our eventual transition from this life into the next, even if that day is quite far off, we should consider how we are preparing for it. One day we will stand before the throne of God on the day of judgement, and we might imagine being asked “What have you done with my son, Jesus?” How will we answer? How have we prepared? What have we done? With what things have we filled our lives?

I have things that I want to do before I retire, and more things that I want to do afterwards. And just as our scouts are preparing for summer camp, all of us have some time to prepare for our eventual transition from this life into the next. It is my hope that when that day comes, we will be able to say, as Paul did, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith” (2 Timothy 4:7). Likewise, we hope that upon our arrival, we might hear God say, “Well done, good and faithful servant! (Matthew 25:21)

But until that day comes, we should consider how we spend our time, and with what things we fill our lives.

How are you finishing?

The Future and Fear

June 1, 2025 PastorPartridge Sermon Alliance, Broadway, Christ, church, faith, fear, future, God, Jesus, Jesus Christ, John Partridge, Methodist, Ohio, Paul, safe, safe place, safety, United, United Methodist

The Future and Fear

(Sixth Sunday after Easter)

June 01, 2025*

By Pastor John Partridge

John 14:23-29 Acts 16:9-15 Revelation 21:10, 22 – 22:5

Where is your “safe place?”

Many creatures, including humans, have a safe place to which they retreat when they are frightened or stressed. Our cats can usually be found in predictable places, our dogs vary a little but, depending on the dog, it might be in their crate, or under the bed, under our feet in the living room, or on the sofa pressed as close to Patti’s lap as possible. Horses will often head for the barn, birds will huddle in their nests, rabbits in their underground warrens. For us humans, our safe place is usually somewhere at home, but it might also be in a boat out on the water, hiking in the woods, somewhere out on the golf course, or somewhere else. For each if us it’s the place where we retreat from the world, put our problems and fears behind us, and where we can just be comfortable being ourselves.

The trouble is that our safe places of retreat from the world do not protect us from our fears of the future. When we retreat to our bedroom, close the door, and hide under the covers of our bed, we still cannot shut out our fears of homelessness, financial ruin, sickness, violence, and other concerns. But what if there was such a place where our fears could be erased? What if there was a way to put our concerns and fears aside and know that our future was going to be okay after all?

The good news for today, and always, is that scripture tells us that there is such a place, and there is a way to know the future. We begin this morning reading the words of Jesus found in John 14:23-29 where John tells us this:

²³Jesus replied, “Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching. My Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them. ²⁴Anyone who does not love me will not obey my teaching. These words you hear are not my own; they belong to the Father who sent me.

²⁵“All this I have spoken while still with you. ²⁶But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you. ²⁷Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.

²⁸“You heard me say, ‘I am going away and I am coming back to you.’ If you loved me, you would be glad that I am going to the Father, for the Father is greater than I. ²⁹I have told you now before it happens, so that when it does happen you will believe.

Jesus begins by describing an “if-then” transaction, if you love me, then you will obey my teaching. But, if you love me and obey me, then God will love you, his spirit will enter into you and make his home with you. And the gift that we receive when the Holy Spirit comes to live in us is a gift of peace, and a heart free from worry, concern, and fear. My friends, we worship a God who goes before us and prepares a way for us. An example of how God goes before us can be found in Acts 16:9-15 in which God calls Paul and his companions to travel to Macedonia. Paul doesn’t know how he will get there, who he will meet, how he will find them, where he will stay, what he will eat, or anything else that we would normally worry about, and yet, God has it all covered.

⁹During the night Paul had a vision of a man of Macedonia standing and begging him, “Come over to Macedonia and help us.” ¹⁰After Paul had seen the vision, we got ready at once to leave for Macedonia, concluding that God had called us to preach the gospel to them.

¹¹From Troas we put out to sea and sailed straight for Samothrace, and the next day we went on to Neapolis. ¹²From there we traveled to Philippi, a Roman colony and the leading city of that districtof Macedonia. And we stayed there several days.

¹³On the Sabbath we went outside the city gate to the river, where we expected to find a place of prayer. We sat down and began to speak to the women who had gathered there. ¹⁴One of those listening was a woman from the city of Thyatira named Lydia, a dealer in purple cloth. She was a worshiper of God. The Lord opened her heart to respond to Paul’s message. ¹⁵When she and the members of her household were baptized, she invited us to her home. “If you consider me a believer in the Lord,” she said, “come and stay at my house.” And she persuaded us.

In this example, Paul’s primary concern is obedience to God, but we remember the message that we just read in John where Jesus says, if they obey by teaching, then God will love them, and the Holy Spirit will go with them. Paul receives a call from God and sets out to obey. I am certain that he still had questions about where he was going but he goes anyway. They eventually arrive, spend a few days in the district of Macedonia and then find their way to river to pray on the Sabbath. Because it was the practice of the Jews to bathe, if possible, in living water, or moving water, as a means of purification, it was common for the followers of God in distant places to gather by rivers and other streams of water. And so, on the Sabbath, Paul and his companions find their way to the river to worship and pray, and to seek out any others in that place who might also share their faith in God. And so it is that they meet Lydia, a businesswoman, and as they share the gospel message of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection, Lydia believes, and she, and her entire household, are baptized. And, having done so, Lydia invites Paul, and his companions, to stay in her home and to eat her food while they are in Macedonia.

Paul heard God’s call and was obedient even though he had no idea what he would do, where he would live, or much of anything else. But even before God called him, God was already preparing a way for Paul and his companions and, by the time Paul arrived, there was a heart that was open to hear, a place to stay, and food to eat. The example of scripture tells us that we can trust God if only we have the faith to be obedient to his calling on our lives. But what about the future? What can we know about our eternal destination? In the end, God isn’t just calling us to ministry in Macedonia, but to a lifetime of faithfulness. Jesus promises us a life of peace without fear, but death, and what lies beyond the veil of death is a source of fear for many people and our worry about what comes next can destroy our peace. So, what can we know about what awaits us on the distant shore of eternal life? In Revelation 21:10, 22 – 22:5, John was able to see our future home and he described his experience this way:

¹⁰And he carried me away in the Spirit to a mountain great and high, and showed me the Holy City, Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God.

²²I did not see a temple in the city, because the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple. ²³The city does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and the Lamb is its lamp. ²⁴The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their splendor into it. ²⁵On no day will its gates ever be shut, for there will be no night there. ²⁶The glory and honor of the nations will be brought into it. ²⁷Nothing impure will ever enter it, nor will anyone who does what is shameful or deceitful, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb’s book of life.

^22:1 Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb ²down the middle of the great street of the city. On each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month. And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations. ³No longer will there be any curse. The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in the city, and his servants will serve him. ⁴They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. ⁵There will be no more night. They will not need the light of a lamp or the light of the sun, for the Lord God will give them light. And they will reign for ever and ever.

Every city that has been built with walls for protection has included gates that could be closed to prevent the enemies of the people from entering. It was common, even normal, for the gates to be closed after dark when the guards were unable to see well enough to defend them properly. But John says that the gates of the new Jerusalem will never be shut because the light of God’s glory illuminates the city so well that it is always in daylight. Moreover, it is always safe in God’s city, no enemy, no impurity, no shame, deceit, or anything else will never enter it so that all who dwell within its walls will always live in peace and safety.

But John also tells us that the source of the river of life, which we heard about last week when Jesus said that all who are thirsty will drink the water of life. The source of life, John says, flows out from the throne of God and, as the river flows through the center of the street, the food from the tree of life grows abundantly, the leaves of the trees are able to heal the nations so that all may live together in peace, all curses are removed, and God’s people will be purified, forgiven, fed, healed, and blessed so that they can live without fear in safety and freedom for all time as they serve God.

Jesus said, “Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching.” And, anyone who is obedient, will be blessed by God, in both this life and in the next. God will dwell within us, prepare a way for us in this life, and prepare a home without fear for us in the next. We need not have any fear for our future; we only need to listen for God’s voice and obey his call on our lives.

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Pastor Partridge

Sermons, blogs and other things from Pastor John Partridge

John Partridge

Hospitality: Curse or Blessing?

Hospitality: Curse or Blessing?

August 31, 2025*

The Danger of ‘No’

The Danger of “No”

August 24, 2025*

It’s All for Me!

It’s All for Me!

August 03, 2025*

Children of an Annoying God

Children of an Annoying God

July 27, 2025*

Greed, Death, and Finding Purpose

Greed, Death, and Finding Purpose

July 20, 2025*

Assumptions of the Powerful

Assumptions of the Powerful

July 06, 2025*

Focus

Focus

July 2025

Made Known

Made Known

(Seventh Sunday after Easter)

How Are You Finishing?

How Are You Finishing?

June 2025

The Future and Fear

The Future and Fear

(Sixth Sunday after Easter)

June 01, 2025*