Sermons from St. George's

"Prayer is a mystery; an inexplicable fact. It was John Wesley/St. Augustine who said "without God, man cannot, and without man, God cannot." Wesley also says that it appears as if God cannot intervene in human history without prayers from humans. Prayer has effects and bears marks on the one who prays. The effects of prayer are positive changes in the atmosphere, environment and human lives withi...

“When Jesus taught his disciples how to approach God, he wanted them to know that despite God’s power and perfect holiness, he loves us tenderly and personally and gently.” Sermon from the 10:00am service on 7/28/19

“You see, the problem with distractions is that we cannot cultivate a contemplative life—one established securely in Christ, like Mary—if we are not present to the world as it is right in front of us. If I am always itching to be somewhere that more nearly matches my own desires, then I simply reinforce what is going on internally, and I don’t have a relationship to what is going on externally in...

God has an extraordinary purpose for us in these times: to be as the Good Samaritan to those near us, to help heal the wounds in our fractured society. More than ever, we are called to the places that we can actually influence – the people God has physically placed around us, next door and across the street, literally! – such that isolation gives way to neighborliness, loneliness gives way to frie...

How is it that Jesus is calling to you, “Come, follow me?” He loves you, and so surely he is calling you to come closer to him. And how is he calling you, “Go forth for me?” The world needs you – it needs the healing, the binding up, the setting free, the new life that your words and your life can bring. Sermon from the 10:00am service on 7/7/19.

The power of God’s kingdom is so amazing, so life-transforming, Jesus is saying, “Do not let anything stand in your way of being a part of it.” Jesus is calling us to leave behind our old lives and follow him to a new life. What’s standing in your way? For this new life, what is Jesus challenging you to do – to give up – to leave behind? Sermon from the 10:00am service on 6/30/19.

The deep irony is that when we become free in God, we become free for others. Our job is no longer our salvation. Our kids are not our messiah. Our body is not our greatest hope. Our prestige is not where our identity is found. Sermon from The Table on 6/30/19.

“Ultimately the call of the Christian is not merely to sit all day at the feet of Jesus, but to be sent out—like the healed demoniac—to bear witness to what we have seen and heard, to speak unambiguously about how God is making us new.” From Clint's sermon at the 10:00am service 6/23/19

"The place to live out your relationship with Christ is not “out there” in some idealized new life. . . The best place to look for the power of God at work in your life is to your right and to your left, across the table from you, in the bed with you, under your roof with you, next door to you, in your office with you, and here in the church. Jesus says, 'Go home, and tell what God has done for yo...

"I wonder if the opposite of joy is not sorrow as we may assume. I wonder if the opposite of joy is a failure to join life where it is really happening; to sit out the dynamic life of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit." Sermon from the 10:00am service on 6/16/19

"Who God is, is a relationship. And it’s a relationship that God wants us to be a part of – this relationship marked by the love the Father, and Son, and Holy Spirit have for one another and live-out together in a joyful dance. And through Christ, by the power of the Holy Spirit, it is this life, this joy, this love into which God is drawing us ever deeper. The joyful life of love that Father, Son...

The witness of Scripture is that the Holy Spirit is power given to us so we can respond to God’s response to us - God’s response in Christ to our voids and darkness and scattered souls, to our sin and death. To respond to that is the work of the Holy Spirit. Sermon from the 10:00am service on 6/9/19.

The gravity of the grace of the Gospel pulls us towards unity—not a false uniformity, but a spirit empowered community where God’s Spirit unites what the world never can. Sermon from The Table on 6/9/19.

"We are called to witness to the world by the quality of our life together, so that the world may know that God loves the world even as much as he loves his Son, Jesus Christ." Sermon from The Table service on 6/2/19

“Christianity has always created upheaval by declaring that Jesus incarnated himself into our world of space and time; he entered the story he was writing as a character and lived, died and rose again, and has ascended in that same body. This is a rock of truth that cannot be mythologized away; like blood it is not a metaphor. One can either build upon it or break against it, but it will not go aw...

Are you willing to die to anything that prevents you from real, genuine, loving relationships? Are you willing to die to any or all of that? Get up. The path may seem hard or daunting, but Jesus shows us the way. And is there anyone’s promise that is more trustworthy than his? After this there was a festival of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. Now in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate there is a...

Jesus reminds us today that those who keep his words, he and the Father will come and make their home in them. How will he do this? By the presence of the Holy Spirit in us. How wonderful it is for us to be the home of God. How many of us are truly experiencing our bodies as the home of God? When we allow the Holy Spirit to make our bodies the home of God by allowing Him to control our lives and d...

Dante Alighieri depicted heaven in nine spheres of planetary worlds, each hosting specific category of peoples, Saints, Angels and God. The Apostle John in Revelation described a different New Heaven(sky) and New Earth, which replaces this old (present) ones that are passing away because of sin, corruption, violence and pollution. The saints, like a glorious city indwelt by God himself, shining br...

We’re not called to observe what Jesus does but to receive what he gives us. The latter requires that we actually encounter Jesus’ love for us, ourselves: a matter of the heart, not the head. Sermon from the 11:15am service on 5/19/19.

In an age like this one with reasons abounding for deep concern about our society’s prospects, can there be any better time to make great investment in strengthening our community for the sake of others, as those who hear the voice of the Good Shepherd, and turn again to him… and into our future? Sermon from the 8:45am service on 5/12/19.

The relationship between the shepherd and the sheep is almost symbiotic — the shepherd knows the sheep and what they need, perhaps even before they realize they need it, and the sheep respond to the shepherd. They know and trust his voice, responding to his glance or the intake of breath, perhaps even without realizing how intimately they follow. This kind of intimacy, this kind of daily mutual co...

This is the work that Jesus is inviting us all into. In the midst of our confusion and doubts and wanderings, in the midst of guilt and shame that keeps us alienated from the fullness of life and all that God is calling us into — in the midst of all that — the resurrected Christ comes to us, tenderly meeting us with his knowing gaze of love. And though we sometimes fear what he might say or ask us...

The Rev. Billy Cerveny is the founder and Executive Director of Redbird and a long-time Nashville resident. Billy preaches, teaches and offers pastoral care to individuals, couples, and groups. His sermon is from The Table on 5/5/19.

God takes what is broken and puts it back together in ways beyond our imagination. Sermon from The Table on 4/28/19.

When we experience Good Fridays in our lives, Christ is still working behind the scenes to bring a new Easter for us – even when we know nothing about it. We are sealed and marked as one of Christ’s own forever. There is not one crown of thorns that can keep Easter from coming. Not a scar, not a nail, not a sin, not a failing that can keep Christ from being the Lord of your life. From the 8:45am s...