Andy Talks

In this Wednesday reflection on Second John, the short letter is read in full and unpacked around its central warning: many deceivers have gone out into the world who do not confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh. John's call to love one another is clarified — love here is not emotion but obedience, commitment, and self-sacrifice — and his instruction not to welcome false teachers in...

In this Tuesday reflection that closes out First John, three threads from the final passage come together. The promise that God grants what we ask according to his will is clarified: it's not that God gives us whatever we want, but that he aligns our desires with his own — so that a heart truly surrendered to him begins to want what he wants. The closing command to keep away from idols gets p...

In this Monday reflection on 1 John 5:6–12, John's three witnesses — the Spirit, the water, and the blood — are unpacked through the lens of Wesleyan theology to show how each one gives unified testimony to the same truth: eternal life is found in Jesus, and only in Jesus. The Spirit is the agent of prevenient grace, always going before us, calling, convicting, justifying, and sanctifying. Th...

In our Sunday sermon from April 26, 2026, Andy shares with us from John 10: 1-10.  Jesus doesn't just call us to live, but to abundant life. That abundant life is how we will win the world for Jesus. 

In this Friday reflection on 1 John 5:1–5, John's simple declaration — everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God — becomes the starting point for a pastoral word about primary and secondary issues of faith. Doctrinal and denominational differences are real and important; the preacher is a convinced Wesleyan and isn't pretending otherwise. But historically, the b...

In this Thursday reflection on 1 John 4:7–21, three beloved verses anchor the whole passage. First, John's pointed challenge — how can you claim to love a God you've never seen while hating your neighbor standing right in front of you? — is sharpened by Dorothy Day's searching line: you only love God as much as you love the person you love the least. Our love for God and love for ne...

In this Wednesday reflection on 1 John 4:1–6, the familiar verse — greater is he who is in you than he who is in the world— anchors a practical and pastoral call to discernment in a noisy world. We serve a mighty God who doesn't need us to defend him; the gates of hell will not prevail, and nothing will thwart his plan. But that confidence in God's strength is paired with a real responsi...

In this Tuesday reflection on 1 John 3:11–24, the passage's command to love one another is grounded in the defining act of love itself — Christ laying down his life — and extended outward: love not just in word, but in truth and action, and not just toward fellow believers, but toward neighbors and enemies too, because the whole of Scripture leaves no room for a narrow definition of who deser...

In this Monday reflection on 1 John 2:29–3:10, a passage full of beloved verses — the Father's lavish love in calling us his children, the funeral liturgy promise that when he is revealed we will be like him, and the declaration that the Son of God came to destroy the works of the devil — John also presents an apparent tension: if we say we have no sin we deceive ourselves, yet those born of...

In this Friday reflection on 1 John 2:18–28, John's warning about "the antichrist" gets reframed in a way that's far more practically useful than the endless game of identifying one singular villain — whether that's Mikhail Gorbachev's birthmark in the '80s or whoever's being cast in that role today. John's real concern is the plural: many antichrists,...

In this Thursday reflection on 1 John 2:7–17, John's "old-but-new" commandment turns out to be exactly what we talked about yesterday: love. And love, John argues, is the most reliable marker of whether we're actually walking in the light — because you can't claim to be in the light while hating your brother or sister. Actions don't save us, but they do reveal us, the...

In this Wednesday reflection on 1 John 2:1–6, the phrase "the love of God has reached perfection" becomes a springboard for a pastoral tour through one of Methodism's most distinctive — and most misunderstood — doctrines: Christian perfection. The passage holds the same honest tension as the previous chapter: we are going to sin, Christ has atoned for it, and we have an advocate. Bu...

In this Tuesday reflection on 1 John 1:5–10, the light-and-darkness imagery that runs through John's Gospel flows directly into the letter — God is light, and walking in fellowship with him means being called continually out of the dark. The key distinction John makes is not between sinning and not sinning — we all sin, and to claim otherwise is to make God a liar — but between remaining in d...

In this Monday reflection opening a new series through First John, the focus falls on the letter's opening declaration: we tell you what we have seen, heard, and touched — which John frames as the foundation of Christian fellowship and the source of complete joy. Drawing on the Southern tradition of testimony and Revelation 12:11, the reflection makes the case that our testimony is one of the...

In our Traditional message from April 12, Andy shares with us from John 20: 19-31. We see the story of "Doubting" Thomas.  We all have our doubts, and we serve a God who has overcome the grave itself.  He can handle our questions.

In this Friday reflection on Luke 24:1–12, three threads from the resurrection account are woven together into a single pastoral encouragement. The angel's question — "Why do you look for the living among the dead?" — becomes a call to move beyond a faith that is merely routine or historical and into one that is truly alive and built around Jesus. The moment when the women "rem...

In this Thursday reflection on Matthew 28:16–20, the Great Commission is unpacked through one central question: what does it actually mean to make disciples? Drawing on Matthew's deeply Jewish framing — including the parallel between the disciples going to "the mountain Jesus directed them to" and the Old Testament pattern of God calling his people to mountains he would show them —...

In this Wednesday morning reflection on Matthew 28:11–15, the focus turns to the guards who witnessed the resurrection firsthand and then accepted a bribe from the chief priests to spread a cover story — that the disciples had stolen Jesus's body. Using this often-overlooked post-Easter passage as a jumping-off point, the reflection asks a pointed question: what is your integrity worth? While...

In the Gospel of Mark 16:9–20, even with its textual complexity, we see a clear message: Jesus Christ is risen, He appears to His followers, and He sends them out with both a mission and His power. While the passage includes signs that may feel unusual, the heart of it is that there is authority in Jesus’ name over fear, evil, and anything that tries to hold us captive. Because of the resurrection...

On this Monday after Easter, we begin living in the reality of the resurrection by reflecting on the Gospel of Mark 16:1–8, where the women are the first to discover the empty tomb and carry the good news of Jesus Christ’s resurrection—reminding us that God often uses unexpected people who are simply willing. Like them, we live in a world of both “terror and amazement,” where life can feel overwhe...

In our Easter message, Andy shares with us from Matthew 28: 1-10. We see that we sin, death, and the grave are liars. We are not defined by them.  We are free. But that freedom can be scary. What will we do with the hope that we have?

In our Maundy Thursday sermon, Andy looks at 1 Corinthians 11: 23-26. Every time we take communion, we retell our family story. We are forgiven. We are loved. But never forget what it cost. 

On Good Friday, we remember that while the day was not “good” for Jesus Christ, it is good for us because of what was accomplished on the cross. This is where Jesus atoned for our sin—taking on all the brokenness of humanity and making us right with God—while the resurrection to come will defeat the consequence of that sin, which is death. As described in Book of Isaiah 53, He was “pierced for our...

On Maundy Thursday, we remember both the command and the example given by Jesus Christ in Gospel of John 13: to love one another as He has loved us and to live that love out through humble service. In washing the disciples’ feet—a task reserved for the lowest servant—Jesus shows that true love is not about status or appearance, but about self-giving care for others. This day, marked by communion a...

On Holy Wednesday, often called “Spy Wednesday,” we see a quiet but pivotal moment in Holy Week where Judas Iscariot agrees to betray Jesus Christ, set alongside the beautiful act of a woman anointing Jesus with costly ointment in Gospel of Matthew 26. While the disciples focus on practicality and missed opportunity, Jesus highlights the deeper meaning of her act—an expression of love and preparat...