Renew Covenant Church Sermons

In a culture where people are more prone to listen to music on their own with airpods on, it is rare to hear people sing aloud together or recite something together unless alcohol is involved or there is some sort of strange cultic practice involved. And yet, when we gather we sing and we read psalms together and to one another. Why? Joyful singing, praise, and thanksgiving is an outpouring of the Spirit. We encourage and strengthen one another in song, and confirm with one another what is true about God.

Paul chastises the more well-off in the church for being selfish and insensitive to those who were poor. Some were getting drunk and indulging, while there were members in the community in hunger. Paul reiterates that a vital identifier of Christ’s body is how it eats together as Christ commanded. Christ’s table is a table of unity. We are to wait for one another when we eat.

John 13:14 14 Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet.

Jesus is tired and famished. So are the disciples. He asks the woman for a drink. Jesus is the Living Water given for this woman. He speaks to landscapes in her soul that are already shaped for worship. She is activated. How are you parched? Who are the thirsty around us? Who are the people not yet activated in our churches?

God rejects the reductive paths by which society allows these women to gain value (physical beauty and childbearing) and instead says that both women are loved, valuable and seen.

We take another look at women and the Apostle Paul.

We look at Deborah, as well as the 'Proverbs 31 woman', to break apart some common extra-Biblical perceptions of what it means to be 'feminine.'

Traditional and popular cultural interpretations of Eve make her out to be a subordinate ‘helper’ and afterthought to Adam, as well as the seductive temptress that caused humanity’s Fall. Can we take a 2nd look at the Scripture and discover an alternate narrative or fuller vision for God’s intent for Adam and Eve?

Ezekiel 36:26-27 New International Version 26 I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. 27 And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws.

Genesis 1:26 Common English Bible 26 Then God said, “Let us make humanity in our image to resemble us so that they may take charge of the fish of the sea, the birds in the sky, the livestock, all the earth, and all the crawling things on earth.”

Romans 8:12-17 Common English Bible 12 So then, brothers and sisters, we have an obligation, but it isn’t an obligation to ourselves to live our lives on the basis of selfishness. 13 If you live on the basis of selfishness, you are going to die. But if by the Spirit you put to death the actions of the body, you will live. 14 All who are led by God’s Spirit are God’s sons and daughters. 15 You didn’t receive a spirit of slavery to lead you back again into fear, but you received a Spirit that shows you are adopted as his children. With this Spirit, we cry, “Abba, Father.” 16 The same Spirit agrees with our spirit, that we are God’s children. 17 But if we are children, we are also heirs. We are God’s heirs and fellow heirs with Christ, if we really suffer with him so that we can also be glorified with him.

Chapter 61 begins with a proclamation by the prophet that they are anointed by the Spirit: "The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me . . . " This anointing is followed by good news for the poor; the broken-hearted; the captives, the prisoners; and those that mourn.

The Spirit moves within us to help us grow in times off rest/discernment. Just as yeast is used to transform dough before it is ready to bake, rest is necessary for growth before action.

Pastor Magdiel continues our Spirit-Led Series in Mark 7:24-30

At Babel in Genesis, God confused the language of the people and scattered them. Traditionally, this passage has often been mistakenly interpreted to imply that culture and languages is a curse put on people for their sin. But we must rather see it as the hidden blessing. After all, God’s command to humanity from creation was to “be fruitful and multiply” and to scatter and fill the land. Essentially–spread out! The temptation for humanity is to consolidate power however. Consolidate it into on person, one people, one ethnos. In Acts 2 we see not a reversal of Babel in Pentecost, but rather an affirming of languages and differences. But it is the power from above, that unites and empowers the community of differents.In the Spirit-Led church, social constructs of power are levelled and the body listens and affirms the diversity of voices and gifts in its midst.

In the liminal space, we are transformed. Moses is caught between two racial-cultural identities. This becomes a scary place for him and ultimately the place of exile. But it is in the liminal space in which God calls him to be the one to lead the people into the Exodus, it being a larger example of liminality between captivity and the promised homeland. mWe are called to be faithful in the liminal spaces, though we are afraid and uncertain. When we are practiced in the liminal we are able to see other bodies i. these spaces: the marginalized, the migrant, the refugee, the transitory

Elijah is on the run for his life. He’s an exile, a fugitive, a political and religious refugee. He is at wit’s end and lays down. God’s messenger tells him to get up and eat twice. He rests and restores his physical body for the journey ahead. Rest is an act of worship. We need it. Mind, Body, and Soul are all connected in our need for rest.

Jesus wept alongside Mary and Martha because he felt for their sorrow. Lament is an act of worship.

Jacob is fearful about meeting Esau again, the first time after having stolen Esau’s blessing. Surely Esau is out for blood. Instead, Esau runs to embrace him. This is an amazing picture of reconciliation, ending with Jacob’s statement: “seeing your face is like seeing the face of God.” This echoes the episode in the earlier chapter where Jacob wrestles with God and names the spot Peniel: “I saw God face to face, and yet my life was spared” Living Face to Face means living as reconcilers. Through grace and forgiveness we see God and we become the means by which others can see God. As reconcilers we are the embodiment of God.

This is the 3rd time Jesus appears in resurrected bodily form to his disciples. The disciples return to the very real task of fishing for their livelihoods. Echoing earlier passages in the Gospels (calling of the 12; feeding of the 5000; Peter's denials) this passage details the disciples nets being filled with fish, Peter jumping into the water, Jesus sharing a meal and ‘feeding’ his sheep, and Peter being restored and redeemed for his prior denials. Jesus’ command is to turn and feed his sheep. Jesus' ministry involved engaging people’s spiritual, emotional, social, and physical needs, and he passes the baton to this band, the precursor to the church.