Mcf Sermon Podcast

Kevin ends this Lenten series on our potential by delving into the area of forgiveness.  He is clear that he is preaching to himself. As we listen in, we learn that our liberation to be fully living in and from our potential is directly related to our capacity to forgive.

Pastor Kevin talks about the flow of grace and what that has to do with what positive psychologists call "flow state."  Great love opens the flow of grace.  Greed stops it.  Flow is where we want to live if we want to experience a life of meaning, potential, and purpose.

Are you a sinner or a saint?  Are you ashamed or proud?  Do you have a slave mentality or grace mentality?  Jesus once told a beautifully subversive story about two sons which challenges our status quo thinking.  Pastor Kevin unpacks that story today and paints a picture of a church filled with both "sinners" and "saints" because, truth is, we are all a mysterious mix of both in need of grace.  He ends with a rare altar call, but not one for "sinners," but for "saints."   

We live in a cut down culture and are headed in the wrong direction.  Jesus' call to repent is a call to turn around and follow His way of grace, compassion, and life giving.  We need to listen to that call to repent more than ever.

Jesus chose a very unlikely animal to illustrate what God is like. While we may think we want God to be more like a crafty fox, could God really be more like a mother hen? 

Pastor Kevin kicks off a new 6 week sermon series for Lent entitled, "Potential."  On this first Sunday in Lent three lies are exposed.  These lies cause us to chase after things which we think will unleash our potential.  However, the unleashing of our potential is based in a truth which we don't have to chase.  Once we can rest secure in that truth, we begin to live into our full potential naturally.

We like to pitch our tents on what we think we know.  But God tends to come along and plop down "No Camping" signs when we do that.  God often has to move us from our certainty into uncertainty so that we grow into the sacrificial love of Christ.

A revenge fantasy may be fun to entertain, but is revenge the best way to deal with an enemy?  Jesus takes a different approach.  He calls us to love our enemies.  It sounds impossible.  That could be because it takes a different level of consciousness to do it.  Why would we want to love our enemies and how can we even begin to think about doing that?  

Pastor Ruben gives an overview of the Sunday lectionary readings to share how our hope and our trust can remain firmly planted in God no matter the circumstance.

Enlightening encounters with the Divine are transformative.  They are intended to teach us that every encounter can be an enlightening one. 

Pastor Kevin talks about the most profound chapter in the Bible known as the "Love Chapter."  It enlightens us about real love.  To be enlightened about the true nature of love is also to be enlightened about the nature of God because God is Love.  Prior to the sermon, Julio Hanson sings, "Tell Him" by Lauryn Hill.

Good news that brings freedom is a growth in unity and love in which we each play our part in lightening each other's loads.

We can be involved in the endless religious pursuit of trying to clean ourselves up, or we can allow ourselves to be transformed by Christ.  

Pastor Kevin begins a new sermon series entitled, "enLIGHTENment".  He begins with the defining words spoken over Jesus at His baptism.  "You are my son, the beloved, in whom I am well pleased."  These same defining words are meant to define us as well.  The truest thing we could say about ourselves is that we are God's beloved children in whom God is well pleased.  Baptism is a naming.  It is a claiming of our true identity.  And it is a defiant act in which we refuse to be labeled any longer in anyway other than what God says is true of us.  The sermon ends with a video by Rachel Held Evans.