Resurrection Philadelphia Sermons

James 2:1-13

James 1:19-27

James 1:9-18

James 1:1-8

Ephesians 4:1-16; John 21:15-19

2 Cor 13:11-13; Matt 28:16-20

Acts 2:1-11; John 16:4b-15

1 John 4:7-21; John 15:9-17

Romans 8:18-27; Matthew 5:1-16 The fullness of the resurrection requires more than a day to unpack. The Easter season is a fifty-day celebration that ends on Pentecost Sunday (the Greek word pentekoste means “fiftieth”). The Easter season is a time to let the implications of the resurrection sink in deeper, inviting us to realign our worldview and conform our living to the reality that we have bee...

John 14:25-28 God’s very character is one of justice, and he has given us Jesus as the manifestation of his justice both now and for eternity. God is the one who reveals the justice calling upon our lives, because God is the source of justice. - Bethany Hanke Hoang and Kristen Deede Johnson, The Justice Calling

Rom 12:1-8; Luke 24:28-35 Very often we feel restricted in our situation, our family, or our surroundings. But maybe the real problem lies elsewhere: in our hearts. There we are restricted, and that is the root of our lack of freedom. - Jacques Philippe, Interior Freedom

2 Cor 5:11-21; John 21:15-19 "As there can be no above without a below, no before without an after, so there can be no...history of salvation between God and humanity without its reflection and repetition in a history between one person and another. [But this] can take place only as those who are loved by God and love Him in return enjoy and make use of the freedom to love one another. If it is ev...

Ephesians 4:14-25; John 14:1-12 Christian faith isn't a general religious awareness. Nor is it the ability to believe several unlikely propositions. It is certainly not a kind of gullibility which would put us out of touch with any genuine reality. It is the faith which hears the story of Jesus, including the announcement that he is the world's true Lord, and responds from the heart with a surge o...

Ephesians 1:15-23; Mark 16:1-8

Mark 11:1-11 "I do not know You God because I am in the way." - Flannery O'Connor, A Prayer Journal

Genesis 11:1-9; John 1:1–14 In the silence surrounding his death, Jesus became the best possible companion for those whose prayers are not answered, who would give anything just to hear God call them by name. Him too. - Barbara Brown Taylor, When God Is Silent

Genesis 6:11-22 There are no sacred and unsacred places; there are only sacred and desecrated places. - Wendell Berry

Genesis 4:1-16 When you lament in good faith, opening yourself to God honestly and fully - no matter what you have to say - then you are beginning to clear the way for praise. You are straining toward the time when God will turn your tears into laughter. When you lament, you are asking God to create the conditions in which it will become possible for you to offer praise - conditions, it turns out,...

Genesis 4:1-16 When you lament in good faith, opening yourself to God honestly and fully - no matter what you have to say - then you are beginning to clear the way for praise. You are straining toward the time when God will turn your tears into laughter. When you lament, you are asking God to create the conditions in which it will become possible for you to offer praise - conditions, it turns out,...

Genesis 3:1-7 Be attentive to yourself, that is, observe yourself carefully from every side. Let the eye of your soul be sleepless to guard yourself. You walk in the midst of snares. Hidden traps have been set by the enemy in many places. Therefore, observe everything, "that you may be saved like a gazelle from traps and like a bird from snares" (Proverbs 6:5). - St. Basil of Caesarea, On the Huma...

Ruth 4:13-22 The great narrative, to which Christians are called to be faithful, begins at the beginning of all things and ends at the end of all things, and within the arc of it civilizations blossom and flourish, wither and perish. This would seem a great extravagance, all the beautiful children of earth lying down in a final darkness. But no, there is that wondrous love to assure us that the wo...

Ruth 4:1-12 The reason I can continue watching and waiting, even as the world is shrouded in darkness, is because the things I long for are not rooted in wishful thinking or religious ritual but are as solid as a stone rolled away. - Tish Harrison Warren, Prayer in the Night

Ruth 3:1-18 I do not at all understand the mystery of grace - only that it meets us where we are but does not leave us where it found us. It can be received gladly or grudgingly, in big gulps or in tiny tastes, like a deer at the salt. - Anne Lamott, Traveling Mercies

Ruth 2:1-23 The best testimony to the truth of the gospel is the quality of our life together. Jesus risked his reputation and the credibility of his story by tying them to how his followers live and care for one another in community.... How we live together is the most persuasive sermon we'll ever get to preach. - Christine Pohl, Living Into Community

Ruth 1:15-22 We cannot save ourselves. We cannot do life on our own. God does not ask us to have it all together. Quite the contrary, he invites us to admit our weakness, confess our sin, and receive his strength and salvation. He invites us to acknowledge our insufficiencies and allow others to carry our burdens with us. - Eliza Huie and Esther Smith, The Whole Life