New Life (Part 2)Colossian 3:1-17Sunday, April 21, 2024We're asking the question of what it means to have new life in Christ, and it may seem a bit simplistic to say that it means we have been called to a new way of life. But there's nothing simple about changing the way we live. There's nothing easy or straightforward about changing course and following a new path. But this is the transformation that is intended for us: nothing less than a new way of living.Bryant Anderson preaching.Referenced in this sermon:Wendell Berry, The Mad Farmer Poems (2008)Wendell Berry, "The Mad Farmer, Flying the Flag of Rough Branch, Secedes from the Union"

New Life (Part 1)Jeremiah 29:1, 4-14 & Hebrews 6:10-20Sunday, April 14, 2024The hope that we have in Christ is not merely wish casting or positive thinking. This Easter hope grows out of the knowledge that God has a plan for us and for this world, and it transforms our experience of even the most difficult challenges.Beverly Dempsey preaching.Referenced in this sermon:Karen Armstrong, The Spiral Staircase: My Climb Out of Darkness (2005)

Easter SundayMatthew 28:1-10Sunday, March 31, 2024Easter is a story of expectations radically altered. Women went to the tomb with clear expectations of what they would find there, founded upon the bedrock certainty that dead people stay dead. They went expecting to find death and found life instead. We often go through our days expecting to find death, but Easter reminds us that life is always ready to turn our expectations upside down.Bryant Anderson preaching.Referenced in this sermon:N.T. Wright, "The Bible's Most Misunderstood Verse," Time (October 20, 2023).

The Greatest Commandments (Part 5)Matthew 5:43-48Sunday, March 24, 2024Jesus commands a very special kind of love: love for those who can't (or won't) return the favor. His reason? This is how God loves. But this is an unbelievably difficult sort of love for us to live out in practice. People can be so hard to understand—and even harder to love—especially when they see the world differently than we do. The world needs a whole lot more of this sort of love.Bryant Anderson preaching.Referenced in this sermon:David Brooks, How to Know a Person (2023)

The Greatest Commandments (Part 4)Romans 12:1-2Sunday, March 17, 2024God created us with physical bodies to inhabit a physical world. It cannot possibly be the case that our love of God resides solely in the invisible spaces within and does not extend to how we make use of our physicality. We are commanded to love God with—among other things—all of our strength. How does love find its embodied expression in us and through us?Bryant Anderson preaching.Referenced in this sermon:John Maynard Keynes, "Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren" (1930)Andy Crouch, The Life We're Looking For (2022)

Guest preacher Dr. Andrew RootSunday, March 10, 2024Andrew Root (Ph.D., Princeton Theological Seminary) is the Carrie Olson Baalson professor of youth and family ministry at Luther Seminary in St. Paul, Minnesota, and joins Palms Presbyterian as our visiting theologian for the weekend.Dr. Root writes and researches in areas of theology, ministry, culture and younger generations.  His most recent books are Churches and the Crisis of Decline (Baker, 2022), The Congregation in a Secular Age (Baker, 2021), The End of Youth Ministry? (Baker, 2020), The Pastor in a Secular Age: Ministry to People Who No Longer Need God (Baker, 2019), Faith Formation in a Secular Age (Baker, 2017), and Exploding Stars, Dead Dinosaurs, and Zombies: Youth Ministry in the Age of Science (Fortress Press, 2018).To learn more, visit andrewroot.org.

The Greatest Commandments (Part 3)Philippians 4:4-8March 3, 2024To love the Lord with all our mind entails making the important choice of where we will direct our focus.Bill Wildey preaching.

The Greatest Commandments (Part 2)Psalm 139:1-6, 13-18February 25, 2024We have a very muddled concept of the soul. We might imagine it as our spiritual essence, our core identity, or as something rendered totally irrelevant by modern advances in biology and neuroscience. Regardless of our view, it is not entirely clear what it means to use our soul to love God. Taking a careful look at our nature might help the answer to this question come into sharper focus.Bryant Anderson preaching.Referenced in this sermon:"Revelation" by Flannery O'Connor (1964)A Generous Orthodoxy by Brian McLaren (2004)

The Greatest Commandments (Part 1)Isaiah 44:9-20Sunday, February 18, 2024In the Bible, the heart has directionality: we point our hearts at the object(s) of our love and devotion. This is the meaning of worship and it is also the meaning of idolatry, the only difference being the nature of the object toward which our hearts are directed. When our hearts are divided and our loves misdirected, we fail to keep the greatest commandment: we fail to love God with our whole heart.Bryant Anderson preaching.

Losing My Religion (Part 6)Galatians 5:22 - 6:10The point of religion is not to make us more religious, it is to make us fruitful. Which is to say, the point of religion is to lead us toward bearing the fruit of the Spirit in the world: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, patience, gentleness, and self-control. If we're not bearing good fruit, we're missing the point.Bryant Anderson preaching.Referenced in this sermon:The Road to Character by David Brooks (2016)

Losing My Religion (Part 5)Galatians 5:1-15Sunday, February 4, 2024What the Galatians don't seem to grasp is that in Christ they have been offered freedom. Despite this gift, they seem intent upon remaining captive to their old worldview. Freedom can be frightening when it means setting aside things that bring us comfort and clarity. But a new kind of freedom is on offer in Christ—the kind of freedom that has the power to transform us and the world.Bryant Anderson preaching.

Losing My Religion (Part 4)Galatians 3:19-29The law once provided the comfort of clarity: it drew clear boundaries around God's people and gave concrete instructions for faithfulness. Paul speaks of this clarity as a kind of prison, something which stifles faith and closes us off from life. The good news is that in Christ we have been set free from that prison. The bad news, however, is that we lose that clarity, and we have to completely reimagine what it means to belong to the family of God.Bryant Anderson preaching.Referenced in this sermon:Mirror to the Church by Emmanuel Katongole (2009)

Losing My Religion (Part 3)Galatians 3:1-14Sunday, January 21, 2024It is in our nature to try to preserve good things—to guard them so that we can feel certain that they will endure. But there are things which simply cannot be possessed; things which, if they are to have any hope of lasting, must be shared. Paul reminds the church that the blessing of God—long imagined to be the church's birthright—was never intended to belong to one people; it was always meant to be shared with the world.Bryant Anderson preaching.

Losing My Religion (Part 2)Galatians 2:11-21Sunday, January 14, 2024We don't change easily. The gravitational pull of our "old ways" is incredibly strong. Paul is trying to convince the Galatians that something central has changed for them in Christ, but they keep wanting to layer Christ right overtop of their old ideas and practices and call that faithfulness. But Paul wants them—and us—to know: there are some things that need to be torn down for good.Bryant Anderson preaching.Referenced in this sermon:What Would Jesus Deconstruct? by John D. Caputo (2007)

Losing My Religion (Part 1)Galatians 1:1-12Sunday, January 7, 2024Paul has a very clear purpose in writing this particular letter to the Christian community in Galatia: they have drifted away from the gospel. Their religious background proves to be a hindrance to their ability to accept the good news that Paul has tried to share with them. In short, if they want to embrace the gospel, they might just have to lose their religion first.Bryant Anderson preaching.