Soma Spokane Sermons

In Acts, Luke continues the narrative of the work of Jesus. The tomb is empty, Jesus is alive, and as he ascends to his throne in heaven, he gives clear direction about how his followers are to continue his work. His ongoing mission in the world depends on this community of failures. Everything Jesus came to do is now being entrusted to his Church. But, here’s the catch, the disciples can’t seem t...

The gospel according to Luke ends with the Risen King Jesus showing up among his perplexed, fearful, and anxious community of disciples. In Acts - which is Luke's Volume 2 of the Jesus Story! - Luke tells us Jesus spent 40 days with this community, teaching them about the Kingdom of God. In this week's text we get a sample of what Jesus taught. First, he wanted them to know him in all his resurrec...

"He is not here, but has risen." With those words, the world shifts. Jesus is the center of history, and his resurrection is the hinge point. Yet, when the angels announce the resurrection, nobody understands it, and nobody believes it! But by the end of the story, the whole community of disciples is saying together, "He is risen, indeed!" That’s what Easter is all about: The facts of the resurrec...

None of the Gospel writers spend much time describing the actual crucifixion of Jesus. There are very few gory details, though crucifixion was brutal, shameful, and excruciating. Two details almost all the writers include are the darkening of the day and the tearing of the temple curtain. Both carry a great deal of theological weight, helping us to understand exactly what is happening in the final...

As Jesus appears before the last person who can spare him from being tormented on the cross, he refuses to plead for his life. Why? Because he WANTS to go to the cross. And when they nail him to the beam and hang him up to die, and they hurl insults at him, he holds no grudge. Instead he prays "Father, forgive them." The sins of mankind (including yours and mine) meant that the cross was necessary...

The story of Judas' betrayal is infamous: One of Jesus' closes companions conspires with the Religious power brokers to destroy Jesus, working in conjunction with Satan himself. For Judas, Jesus was a means to an end, and in this moment he sells Jesus out for a bit of cash. Loyalty, the opposite of betrayal, is being true to someone despite attractive alternatives. While it is easy to point finger...

We throw the word glory around but really, what does it mean? A glow, a radiance, or the Holiness of God? We may typically think of being in awe while looking at His image. The Bible seems to give a much fuller picture of the glory of God. One of his character, His benevolent rule, and of the goodness and blessing He spreads. And on top of a fuller picture, the Bible again and again gives examples...

In ch. 20, Luke gives us 6 stories illustrating the rising tension between Jesus and his religious enemies. At the center of the debate is the authority of Jesus -- who he is and how he can claim to speak and act in the name of God. This is the central question of the gospels and the whole reason Luke has written: What will we do with Jesus? Resistance to Jesus' authority isn't a 1st Century probl...

As Jesus finally arrives in Jerusalem, he deliberately fulfills Zechariah's prophecy regarding God's anointed King arriving on a colt. His disciples rejoice and the religious leaders grumble (again). But Jesus? He weeps. The tears of the King. What makes the Lord weep is human hard-heartedness, the refusal to welcome Jesus and his reign of grace into our broken hearts, broken lives, and broken wor...

When Jesus said in Luke 18 that "no one is good except God alone", he meant it! But for all of human history, people like the Pharisees and the Rich Ruler (and you and me!) have tried to find peace with God through their own good deeds and self-righteous acts. While the world applauds those who "try harder and do better", the truth is that self-righteousness is just another way of rejecting Jesus...

Jesus calls us and saves us personally as individuals, but his aim is to form a new kind of community built on faith in His mercy. In Luke 17.1-10, he describes a handful of key aspects of his community, offering a vision for life together as disciples. The community of Jesus is not immune from sin, so it requires a sober self-awareness and an eagerness to confess sin and find forgiveness. It also...

In our parable of the gracious and giving land owner and the manager who finds grace, there are two primary characters. One is the gracious and generous landowner who holds the kingdom. The other is the manager who is found out to be wasting and stealing the resources of the master. The manager is about to be kicked out but instead makes a move that trusts all in the character and honor of the gen...

Do you ever feel like you’re on the outside? Like you just don’t fit the religious mold? Or perhaps you’re quite comfortable in the church. What you’re concerned about is the culture, the economy, politics. Wherever you are Jesus wants to show you how to approach him. Whether you feel like you’re on the outside or the inside, like the younger or older brother, God has something profound he wants t...

As Jesus continues his journey toward Jerusalem, he is shaping in his disciples a true vision of the Kingdom of God and how to live in it now. One of the biblical images for the Kingdom of God was the Feast, and Jesus tells a parable about who will be wanted and welcomed at the feast. Shockingly, those who are invited to the feast reject it, and the master of the Feast sends his Servant to collect...

As Jesus travels to Jerusalem, with a clear vision of what the next part of his mission is, his confrontation with the religious elites increases. He frequently comes toe-to-toe with them, maneuvering through their traps with wisdom, calling out their hypocrisy with boldness, and avoiding their distractions with clarity. The Gospel of Luke uses the word “repent” nine times, and all of those times...

In Part 3 of our study in the Gospel according to Luke, we're going to explore a handful of key practices that help us live into the Way of Jesus. Jesus is intent on forming his way of thinking, believing, and living into those who follow him, expecting that everyone who wants to be his disciple must "take up their cross daily" and learn from him how to live the upside down nature of life in his k...

We wrap up our three-part Advent series this week with the arrival of Jesus in the little town of Bethlehem. In chapter 1 of Luke, we saw God come near to Elizabeth & Zechariah with generosity. In their barrenness, God came to the unable. Last week, we looked at Mary’s story and saw that God came to the unexpectant and invited partnership. This week, in Luke 2, we’ll see how God came to the undese...

JRR Tolkien, CS Lewis, and their friends coined the phrase, “Jesus is the true myth”. He is the better, truer story. He is the author of all other stories. Whether we recognize his penmanship or not, he is carefully crafting a far better narrative than we could ever come up with on our own. That is why he chooses to disrupt the story of humanity. In our text this week, we see God surprisingly visi...

The Old Testament ends in a dramatic sunset, followed by a dark 400-year night, kept alive with a theological pulse of expectation - will the sun rise again on God’s people? Where we pick up the story, in the first chapter of Luke, is during that dark moment before the sun comes. That hour often feels like the coldest, darkest, point of the night. During that darkness, there is simply no indicatio...

The world is broken, frayed at the edges — but the King has come, Anointed by Spirit, with healing in his hands! In his life and ministry, Jesus gathers up all this old, sin-tarnished, shame-tattered, sick and dying world in arms, eventually bearing it all in his body on the cross. He takes it all into the grave with him, walking out 3 days later, alive and new, and pulling the world through with...

Every character in Luke 9 seems to have the same basic question: who exactly is Jesus? Is he a revolutionary? Is he the Messiah? A circus act? A reincarnation of Moses or Elijah? But when heaven breaks open and the answer is given, his disciples must reckon with Jesus being much more than they imagined... and much more demanding of them. But they will discover that there is more for them as they g...

The further we go in Luke, the more we see Jesus inviting people in: He is preaching and demonstrating the Kingdom of God, but ultimately he’s looking for people who will really hear him and join him. He isn’t interested in large crowds. He doesn’t want to just upend religion and question the status quo. He wants to build a family — a spiritual family of brothers and sisters — who will be with him...

Luke continues his message of crystallizing the kingdom and here he gives some great pictures of those who get the blessing and those who miss out. The key to God’s kingdom has always been faith. I believe who God says He is and that He is going to accomplish the redemptive restoration that He said He would. The opposite of faith is to be offended and make ourselves autonomous from the need for Go...

Jesus came to fulfill the law and reconstitute Israel. He did this by perfectly obeying the law, pushing up against the extra legalistic weight of their rules, and restoring the spirit behind the letter of the law. Jesus also came to bring peace and life to humanity. He did this by perfectly entering into humanity's suffering, pushing against the rules that keep us bound, and restoring life. In th...

Jesus is a conundrum: He simply doesn’t fit our preconceived ideas. In Luke 5, we see 4 vignettes of Jesus’ engagement with people, and through them we see the multifaceted ministry of Jesus. In Jesus, salvation is personal, disrupting our sense of self and rearranging our priorities in life. Salvation is also communal, as it restores us to community, connection, and relationship. Salvation is als...