Word of Life Church Podcast

In a culture of consumerism worship is an act of holy rebellion. Worship is gloriously impractical—a royal wast of time. Because contemporary models of worship involve a band, a stage, and popular music, we are tempted to confuse worship with entertainment. Worship is not entertainment! Entertainment is evaluated on the basis of did we personally find it enjoyable. Worship is evaluated on the basi...

April 8, 1966—fifty years ago today—Time magazine published its most iconic cover, asking the question that haunts modern man: “Is God Dead?” After the horrors of the Holocaust and Hiroshima should we concede that Nietzsche was right in his provocative prophesy about Western civilization? Is God dead? This sermon is on the "Doubting Thomas" story. In his commitment to empiricism and the doubt it e...

On the evening of the resurrection Jesus appeared to his frightened disciples as they were hiding in the upper room. He spoke peace to them, breathed the holy spirit upon them, and sent them into the world. From that locked room on that first Easter the gospel message of Jesus has traveled around the world and down through the centuries launching billions of spiritual journeys.

The expression “the scales fell from my eyes” is an idiom for a sudden epiphany. Something that had blinded us is suddenly removed so that now we see the truth. This idiom has its origin in the story of Saul/Paul’s Damascus Road conversion. “Damascus Road” has also become an idiom for a sudden change. But the Damascus Road event and the scales falling from Saul’s eyes are not exactly the same thin...

The first person to see the risen Christ was Mary Magdalene. When Mary first saw Jesus in the garden she thought he was the gardener. A logical mistake. Or maybe a prophetic mistake. Or maybe not a mistake at all. As the first seed of resurrection raised, Jesus is now the gardener of resurrection, cultivating new life in all who believe.

With the burial of Jesus the new tomb has become a new womb. On Holy Saturday we have nothing to do—nothing to do but to wait. Sometimes it’s a good thing to come to the end of all our striving and enter into a holy Sabbath. A Sabbath of waiting…resting…waiting. When the work is done and the seed is sown, there’s nothing more to do, but to rest and wait...and see what tomorrow will bring.

The conquering king on a majestic horse has become a universal symbol of power. The king astride the warhorse is an equivalent symbol to the king upon his throne. Which is why to this day in every capital city there’s always some dude on a horse. But Jesus did not ride a warhorse into Jerusalem. Jesus rode a donkey…a little donkey. The one who rode the little donkey in humility, peace, and gentlen...

The book of Job is a test in how well the reader can resist scapegoating a blameless victim. The key to the whole book is found in the first verse. Job was blameless. But most readers fail the test and end up at some point agreeing with Job's three "miserable comforters" and the most vicious accuser of all, Elihu. But Job was BLAMELESS! Can the reader remember this all the way through? Most reader...

Mary’s anointing of Jesus at Bethany should restrain us from being too quick to judge some act of artistic worship as an unwarranted extravagance. In an age of secular pragmatism all prayer and worship is seen as an extravagant waste, the greatest of all wastes—the waste of time. The secular pragmatist says, “time is money.” But the worshiper knows better. The worshiper knows that time is a gift f...

The tenth station in the Scriptural Stations of the Cross ends with this prayer, "We love you Jesus; by your wounds heal us." The wounded of Jesus indicates that the way of Jesus includes suffering. Jesus suffered to leave us an example and on the cross he bore our sins, suffering so we could die to sin and live the life of justice. The cross is the center of our faith. The cross is where we see G...

Jesus' parable of the Prodigal Son recast in a contemporary setting and told from three different perspectives. Robert's story, Mike's Story, and Lloyd's story.

Christ above me...Divine Christ below me...Incarnation Christ before me...When Seen Christ behind me...When Unseen Christ at my right hand...When I’m Strong Christ on my left...When I’m Weak Christ all around me...Cosmic Christ Christ within me...Formed within me

The way of Jesus is the way of peace and mercy. It’s what Jesus taught us in the Sermon on the Mount. It’s what Jesus lived all the way to Calvary. It’s the practice of enemy-love and radical forgiveness. This road is demanding, but it’s the narrow path that leads to abundant life. The question we face today is this: Do we believe in Jesus enough to follow him in the narrow way that leads to life?...

G.K. Chesterton suggested that Saint Francis walked the world like the pardon of God. It’s an apt summary of the saint’s life. Francis embodied the grace of God as he walked the hills of Umbria barefoot in his patched brown habit and simple rope belt, preaching to birds and bishops. His life was a kind of performance art protest against the pervasive sins of thirteenth-century Italy — pride, avari...

Perhaps the most misunderstood and misused teaching of Jesus is his Olivet Discourse -- the teaching Jesus gave to his to his disciples on the Mount of Olives regarding the signs of "the end." The end of which Jesus is speaking is not the end of the world, but the the end of the Temple age. While the Temple establishment was plotting the end of Jesus, Jesus was prophesying the end of the Temple, t...

Patience is the heart of wisdom. Impatience is the essence of foolishness. When we demand “results” on our own timetable, we will most likely find ourselves out of step with the patient pace of historic Christianity. Impatient saints don’t exist. The saints have learned the secret of being patient with the world, with themselves, and even with God.

When we trust in Jesus, it does not guarantee that nothing bad will ever happen in our life. Evil, the destroyer of worlds is present in our World, but so is God, the savior of the worlds. In midst of suffering, we often have many questions about the goodness of God and the power of evil. What do we do with Evil? How do we respond when everything comes crashing down. Is there any hope to hold on t...

Jesus prayed that we would not be taken out of the world, but that we would be set apart while in the world. In answer to Jesus prayer, the tradition of Lent allows us to be present in, but separate from, the world. We practice traditions like Lent and Ash Wednesday not because we are commanded to by Bible, but because we are invited to by the church. As we practice Lent, we find that it invites u...

On the Mount of Transfiguration Moses and Elijah appeared to Jesus and talked with him about the "exodus" he would soon accomplish in Jerusalem. This exodus is more than a euphemism for death. Just as Moses led Israel out of the empire of Egypt through a divine exodus, Jesus' cross opens the door for our exodus out of the empire of sin and death.

In announcing that God’s jubilee of liberation, amnesty, and pardon was arriving with what he was doing, Jesus omitted any reference to God exacting vengeance on Israel’s enemies. In claiming that Isaiah’s prophecy had been fulfilled in their hearing, Jesus is claiming to be Jubilee in person. But the scandalous suggestion is that this Jubilee is to be for everybody…even Israel’s enemies. Jesus ha...

Ours is an angry and vociferous age. We’re constantly subjected to the noise of charged political rhetoric — the wearying din of the culture wars. Too often Sunday morning can be little more than a religious echo of this same noise. But shouldn’t Sunday be a Christian Sabbath, a time to quiet our souls and receive the gift of silence? What if, instead of being another contributor to this clatter,...

When God gave Israel the Law, God also gave Israel a calendar. Included in Israel's sacred calendar was the year of Jubilee when debts were canceled, slaves were freed, and property inheritance was restored. The Jubilee was a divine liberation from debt, slavery, and eviction. During Israel's exile Isaiah prophesied of a Spirit anointed person who would announce the restitution of Jubilee. Six cen...

"Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace. Those four words seemed prescient. I don’t want to make too much of what was probably just a happy coincidence, but those four words did speak to me. Echoes, silence, patience, and grace. These were things I needed. I needed to hear echoes from the past. I needed to practice more silence in the present. I needed patience with the future. I needed grace to tie it...

Why would the pastor of a large and successful church risk everything in a quest to find a richer, deeper, fuller Christianity? In Water To Wine Pastor Brian tells his story of disenchantment with pop Christianity and his search for a more substantive faith. “I was halfway to ninety—midway through life—and I had reached a full-blown crisis. Call it garden variety mid-life crisis if you want, but i...