Ephesians 3:14-22 (MSG) My response is to get down on my knees before the Father, this magnificent Father who parcels out all heaven and earth. I ask him to strengthen you by his Spiritónot a brute strength but a glorious inner strengthóthat Christ will live in you as you open the door and invite him in. And I ask him that with both feet planted firmly on love, youíll be able to take in with all followers of Jesus the extravagant dimensions of Christís love. Reach out and experience the breadth! Test its length! Plumb the depths! Rise to the heights! Live full lives, full in the fullness of God. God can do anything, you knowófar more than you could ever imagine or guess or request in your wildest dreams! He does it not by pushing us around but by working within us, his Spirit deeply and gently within us.   Glory to God in the church! Glory to God in the Messiah, in Jesus! Glory down all the generations! Glory through all millennia! Oh, yes!

Ephesians 2:11-22 (MSG) But don't take any of this for granted. It was only yesterday that you outsiders to God's ways had no idea of any of this, didnít know the first thing about the way God works, hadn't the faintest idea of Christ. You knew nothing of that rich history of God's covenants and promises in Israel, hadn't a clue about what God was doing in the world at large. Now because of Christ - dying that death, shedding that blood - you who were once out of it altogether are in on everything.   The Messiah has made things up between us so that we're now together on this, both non-Jewish outsiders and Jewish insiders. He tore down the wall we used to keep each other at a distance. He repealed the law code that had become so clogged with fine print and footnotes that it hindered more than it helped. Then he started over. Instead of continuing with two groups of people separated by centuries of animosity and suspicion, he created a new kind of human being, a fresh start for everybody.   Christ brought us together through his death on the cross. The Cross got us to embrace, and that was the end of the hostility. Christ came and preached peace to you outsiders and peace to us insiders. He treated us as equals, and so made us equals. Through him we both share the same Spirit and have equal access to the Father.   That's plain enough, isn't it? You're no longer wandering exiles. This kingdom of faith is now your home country. You're no longer strangers or outsiders. You belong here, with as much right to the name Christian as anyone. God is building a home. He's using us all-irrespective of how we got here-in what he is building. He used the apostles and prophets for the foundation. Now he's using you, fitting you in brick by brick, stone by stone, with Christ Jesus as the cornerstone that holds all the parts together. We see it taking shape day after day-a holy temple built by God, all of us built into it, a temple in which God is quite at home.

Ephesians 1:15-23 (MSG) That's why, when I heard of the solid trust you have in the Master Jesus and your outpouring of love to all the followers of Jesus, I couldn't stop thanking God for you - every time I prayed, I'd think of you and give thanks. But I do more than thank. I ask - ask the God of our Master, Jesus Christ, the God of glory - to make you intelligent and discerning in knowing him personally, your eyes focused and clear, so that you can see exactly what it is he is calling you to do, grasp the immensity of this glorious way of life he has for his followers, oh, the utter extravagance of his work in us who trust him - endless energy, boundless strength!   All this energy issues from Christ: God raised him from death and set him on a throne in deep heaven, in charge of running the universe, everything from galaxies to governments, no name and no power exempt from his rule. And not just for the time being, but forever. He is in charge of it all, has the final word on everything. At the center of all this, Christ rules the church. The church, you see, is not peripheral to the world; the world is peripheral to the church. The church is Christ's body, in which he speaks and acts, by which he fills everything with his presence.

"Love Is Stronger Than Death" - Rev. Andrew Chappell's Easter message   Mark 16:1-8

Mark 11:1-11   When they were approaching Jerusalem, at Bethphage and Bethany, near the Mount of Olives, he sent two of his disciples and said to them, "Go into the village ahead of you, and immediately as you enter it, you will find tied there a colt that has never been ridden; untie it and bring it. If anyone says to you, 'Why are you doing this?' just say this, 'The Lord needs it and will send it back here immediately.'" They went away and found a colt tied near a door, outside in the street. As they were untying it, some of the bystanders said to them, "What are you doing, untying the colt?" They told them what Jesus had said; and they allowed them to take it. Then they brought the colt to Jesus and threw their cloaks on it; and he sat on it. Many people spread their cloaks on the road, and others spread leafy branches that they had cut in the fields. Then those who went ahead and those who followed were shouting,   "Hosanna! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord! Blessed is the coming kingdom of our ancestor David! Hosanna in the highest heaven!"   Then he entered Jerusalem and went into the temple; and when he had looked around at everything, as it was already late, he went out to Bethany with the twelve.

Matthew 10:16-31   16 “I am sending you out like sheep among wolves. Therefore be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves. 17 Be on your guard; you will be handed over to the local councils and be flogged in the synagogues. 18 On my account you will be brought before governors and kings as witnesses to them and to the Gentiles. 19 But when they arrest you, do not worry about what to say or how to say it. At that time you will be given what to say, 20 for it will not be you speaking, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you. 21 “Brother will betray brother to death, and a father his child; children will rebel against their parents and have them put to death. 22 You will be hated by everyone because of me, but the one who stands firm to the end will be saved. 23 When you are persecuted in one place, flee to another. Truly I tell you, you will not finish going through the towns of Israel before the Son of Man comes. 24 “The student is not above the teacher, nor a servant above his master. 25 It is enough for students to be like their teachers, and servants like their masters. If the head of the house has been called Beelzebul, how much more the members of his household! 26 “So do not be afraid of them, for there is nothing concealed that will not be disclosed, or hidden that will not be made known. 27 What I tell you in the dark, speak in the daylight; what is whispered in your ear, proclaim from the roofs. 28 Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell. 29 Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground outside your Father’s care.[a] 30 And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. 31 So don’t be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.

John 3:14-21 | Confirmation Sunday   It’s not just about believing God is who God says God is. It’s about believing and trusting and having confidence that God can do what God says God can do.    Movie Quote Trivia. If you don’t know this about me, I’m a big movie fan. For some reason, I can remember movie lines better than a lot of other things. Often, I can remember movie lines after seeing a movie once better than I can remember what my wife just said to me ten times this morning. (Something about the trash.)    But I love movies, I love movie quotes. I love good lines. And growing up, my family loved to play movie quote trivia. And all that is, is simply, in the middle of a conversation, you could be doing anything, and something makes you think of a quote from a movie, and you just call out: Movie Quote Trivia! And then follow with the movie quote, seeing who might name the movie it comes from first. That’s it. It’s not much of a game. But for anyone who loves a game, or trivia, or sudden interruptions…it’s great.    Let’s try it… see if you can get a few.    Movie Quote Trivia: Some people are worth melting for. (Frozen) Movie Quote Trivia: If you build it, he will come. (Field of Dreams) Movie Quote Trivia: To infinity and beyond (Toy Story) Movie Quote Trivia: There’s no crying in baseball. (A League Of Their Own). Movie Quote Trivia: Remember who you are. (The Lion King) Movie Quote Trivia: Show me the money (Jerry Maguire) Movie Quote Trivia: When life gets you down, you know what you gotta do? Just keep swimming. (Finding Nemo)   Some of those are pretty easy. Others may be more difficult for you. And I think if the Bible were a movie, John 3:16 would be one of those easy ones, one of those unforgettable lines. Most could get it, right?   AND, if I were to yell… BIBLE QUOTE TRIVIA: “The time is surely coming…when the one who plows shall catch up with the one who reaps and the treader of grapes with the one who sows the seed”...that’s harder isn’t it? Because not a lot of folks read the book of Amos.   How about, BIBLE QUOTE TRIVIA: “Like a city breached, without walls, is one who lacks self-control.” Maybe a little easier, because it sounds like it would come from PROVERBS.   But if I were to yell out  BIBLE QUOTE TRIVIA: For God so loved the world… I think many of you could name it: John 3:16.   Those words were a part of my growing up. That was probably the first verse I ever memorized (other than John 11:35 - Jesus wept). John 3:16 is the most famous verse of scripture, the most popular, and I’m sure many of you could quote it.    Harder to recall though are the details surrounding that verse. Who Jesus is talking to, and what the subject of the conversation is. And until recently, I had no memory about the snake thing that we just read.  What is that??? What is Jesus talking about there?    A Snake in the Wilderness.  (Well confirmands, I’m glad you asked!)  Jesus is in the middle of one of his more famous back-and-forths, in which he tells the Pharisee Nicodemus that he must be born again, not literally, but reborn by water and the Spirit. His inward, his Spirit has to be transformed. And Jesus reprimands Nicodemus for being a teacher of Israel and not knowing this. And then Jesus makes a weird reference to Moses.   Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, so that everyone who believes in him won’t perish but will have eternal life.    And to any of us who don’t know Moses or the stories from the Torah – the first five books of the OT – this is a bizarre reference. And one that we often don’t even remember.    I felt that way a few years ago when I traveled to the country of Jordan, and I visited Mt. Nebo, where Moses is said to have looked out onto the promised land. And in present day, at the lookout point, placed by the historical society, is a huge bronze statue of a snake on a stick. And as I got my picture next to it (because how often do you see that?!), I remember thinking, I do NOT remember this from seminary. (Probably because trying to study and cram the book of Numbers at 11pm at night is not the best way to read that book).   In the book of Numbers, Moses and the people of Israel are wandering on the road, and the people get angry at both God and Moses for continuing to allow them to wander and not enter the promised land.    They yell at God and Moses (I don’t know if you’ve ever yelled at God – don’t worry God can take it)...they yell at God and Moses:    Why did you bring us up from Egypt to kill us in the desert, where there is no food or water. All we have is this awful bread to eat.   And all of a sudden, in the midst of their complaining, a bunch of poisonous snakes appear and start biting people. Isn’t that a wild way to deal with complaining people? Send a couple of cobras on em? Hide a couple of rattlesnakes in their shoes?    (Makes me think of a little MOVIE QUOTE TRIVIA: “Why’d it have to be snakes?” -Indiana Jones)   So the snakes appear. And the snakes are biting people and people are dying. And so the people come to Moses and say, “Will you ask God to get rid of the snakes. We’ve sinned. Ask for God to save us?” So he does.    And God tells Moses, “Here’s what you’re gonna do. Make a poisonous snake and place it on a pole. If someone is bitten, all they have to do is look at the snake on the pole and they will live!” So Moses makes a bronze snake and puts it on a pole. And so when a snake bit somebody, they would look at the snake that Moses raised up on the pole, and they were saved from the snakes’ poison.   And the point of that story seems to be that the snake that was raised up was the method by which God chose to save the Israelites in that moment. In other words, in a sort of cooperative moment, God gave them a manner by which to be saved and the people BELIEVED that God could save them in that manner. So when they looked at it, they were saved from the poison.   Back to John.  Now–for years, after their wandering in the desert, and throughout the OT, the Hebrew people asked God for salvation from various things, from sins, from empires, from suffering…    Perhaps you’ve prayed a prayer asking God to help you or save you from something. I remember in middle and high school I always had a save-me-from-this-test-prayer: “Dear God, if there is a way for the teacher to push this test to another day, that would be great. I really don’t want to take a test today.”    Maybe you’ve prayed a prayer like that. OR Maybe there are other things you’ve asked God to save you from. Things like pain. Regret. Sadness. Busy work. Sickness. Something scary. Snakes…(Maybe even death).   The people of Israel asked for salvation from a lot of things – from Rome, from corruption, from exile.   And concerning their salvation, in John 3:14, Jesus says that similar to the event of Moses and the bronze snake, where Moses lifted up a snake and the people were saved from painful snake bites when they LOOKED at the statue, Jesus too will be lifted up on a cross as the method of God’s saving action for the world, and any who look to him (like the snake on the pole), and any who believe that God can save through that action of sacrifice will be saved.    Except this time, salvation is not from poisonous snake bites or the Roman Empire, it is from ourselves, from our selfishness, from our ability to alienate ourselves from one another, from our sin.   The founder of the Methodist movement (you remember confirmands?) John Wesley referred to sin as a sickness. An illness. And the less we do to acknowledge it, the more it works itself into our system and into our systems. It’s not just an individual thing, it’s a systemic thing too. And the more it sickens us. The worse we get. Kind of like that poison from the snake in the wilderness. If we do nothing when we are bitten, sooner or later, it isn’t going to end well. The same is with sin. If left untreated, we turn into people that God did not intend.    But we also (and Wesley too) believe in an antidote to that toxin, we believe there is a holy medicine to our sickness. And THAT medicine is the one that was raised TO SAVE US. Like the snake on the pole. But better.    And John says, just like the Israelites who believed that they could be saved by simply looking at the statue, we need to believe.    Belief. The Greek for belief is a word that means to have faith in, to trust, to affirm, to have confidence in. And in the most famous verse of Scripture (John 3:16-17), Jesus explains what he means:   For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him (who affirms, trusts, has confidence in him) may not perish but have eternal life. Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world but in order that the world might be saved through him.    I love that verse. I really do. But what does it mean to believe, to trust in, to have confidence in Jesus? Well, according to Jesus, and according to the comparison he is making to the snake pole, part of what it means to believe in Jesus is to trust that God can actually DO God’s saving work through Jesus!   Like the snake on the stick, the Israelites believed/trusted God that to look upon the statue was indeed the antidote to the poison that they needed. So it is for us. Jesus is inviting us to believe, to trust, to have confidence that God can actually use the torture, the sacrifice, the criminal’s sentence of crucifixion to save humanity.    It’s not just about believing God is who God says he is.  It’s about trusting that God can do what God says he can do.    But it’s also deeper than THAT.   John 3:16 says that the intention of God’s cosmic saving act on earth is love. “Go SO LOVED the world. God SO LOVED you. God SO LOVED me. That God raised up Jesus, himself, a manner by which we might be saved from the toxic sin that alienates us from one another and from God. And God invites us to believe, to have confidence in, to trust that God actually LOVES us that much.”    In our ladies Bible study on Wednesday mornings, (a few weeks ago) we were talking about capital punishment and the massive amount of people in prison and incarcerated. And someone in there made the comment about how many people in those situations have never heard someone tell them “I love you,” have never known from the beginning that they are loved.    Jesus invites us to believe that God so loves us. AND Jesus also invites us to trust that God’s love is enough to save us…from ourselves, from our sins, from our wandering, even from snakes…   Wesley at Aldersgate. I talked about this a few weeks ago, and I’ve mentioned this a number of times from up here. (And many of you confirmands heard this story in the fall I think.) John Wesley knew Scripture, he knew how to pray, he knew how to care for the poor and imprisoned. He knew HOW to follow Jesus. He knew the right things to DO.    And then one night, when he was particularly low, he went to a prayer meeting, and something was said there, something happened, and because of it, he felt different. JW would later write that he KNEW (in that moment) that God loved him. Even him. He knew it. He trusted it. He had a new confidence in it. He believed that God SO LOVED him. He believed that God’s love was enough to save him. And out of that feeling, he wanted nothing more than to love GOD back. And he responded by letting his actions morph and transform, his inward life had been so affected by this love of God that it HAD to shape his outward life!   In John 3:20-21, Jesus says (MSG), “Everyone who practices evil, addicted to self-denial and illusion, hates the light and won’t come near it, [for fear of] painful exposure. But anyone working and living in truth and reality welcomes the light so the work can be seen for the God-work that it is.” That’s just another way of saying what Wesley experienced. Having a confidence in and a trust that God loves you causes you to want to work, to do, to live that love in such a way as to respond to God’s love with a simple, “I love you too.”   And ultimately, Paul would tell a church in Colossae, that this is what it means to be “in Christ.” The term Christian rarely appears in the Bible. People are more often referred to as ones who live “in Christ.”  What does that mean?    Eugene Peterson says, “‘In Christ’ means that [we] are those who have heard the call of God’s love and grace, responded to it, and consequently entered into a union of fellowship with God.” We are no longer spectators. We are players. And “[We] are [now] in the arena of God’s working love, redeeming grace, and delivering power. [We] are in Christ.”   And when we are IN CHRIST,  we develop and pursue a trust…   1-that God truly SO LOVES us 2-that God could ACTUALLY used a cross and an empty tomb to save the world   And (3), when we are IN CHRIST, we seek to love God back in the way we live our lives.   Confirmation Introduction. Today, in the life of the church, is Confirmation Sunday. What that means is that for 13 students, they have been working together all year with Paul and others to better understand faith in Jesus and the vows of membership in the United Methodist Church (and these vows are how we love God back).   Confirmation is something that occurs in conjunction with baptism. For some of our students today and for many of us, we were baptized as infants. Other students will be baptized today!   For any who are baptized (whether today or years ago) through the sacrament of baptism we are initiated into the church. We are incorporated into God’s mighty acts of salvation and given new birth through water and the Spirit. And this gift comes without price. In baptism, God essentially embraces us, gives us a hug, and says to us, “I SO LOVE you.”   And in confirmation, we renew the covenant declared at our baptism, and we acknowledge what God is doing for us (that God is working in us, sanctifying us, and we affirm our commitment to Christ’s holy church (essentially saying, “We’re in!”)). And if baptism is God’s embrace of us, giving us a hug, telling us “I love you,” Confirmation is my decision to embrace God back, hug God back, to respond to God’s “I love you,” with our own, “I love you too.”    This is an embrace, a partnership. God wants us to know that we are SO LOVED…and God desires for us to join in on his work in the world. And if we believe, have faith, set our feet in the direction of God, then our LIVES truly will show the evidence of our heart.    The confirmands will make some promises, parts of a covenant, that don’t just focus on our heart, on our belief. They focus on the DOs and DONTs, our actions. They focus on the HOW of loving God back.     QUESTIONS LIKE: Do you repent? Do you accept the freedom God gives you to battle evil and injustice and oppression?   BUT after THOSE questions, THEN comes the confession of Jesus as savior and in our UMC Hymnal, faith/belief is characterized as TRUST in his GRACE.    In the end, what we do is important, but it cannot eclipse who God says that we are. And who does God say that we are? SO LOVED.    And for many, the question soon becomes, “How could I not want to love a God like that? How could I not want to be a partner in that? So that others might know that they too are SO loved.”   John Wesley: “What is salvation? The salvation which is here spoken of is not what is frequently understood by that word, the going to heaven, eternal happiness. …It is not a blessing which lies on the other side of death…it is a present thing…[it] might be extended to the entire work of God, from the first dawning of grace in the soul till it is consummated in glory.” And it all stems from the fact that GOD SO LOVED YOU. AND GOD SO LOVED ME.    How could I not let that LOVE flow from me into the world?   Amen.

We welcomed Reverend Karen Kagiyama to Newnan First United Methodist Church on Sunday, March 3. She preached on the Gospel of John 2:13-22. Rev. Kagiyama is the O. Wayne Rollins Director of Pastoral Care at Wesley Woods Senior Living. A graduate of Emory University and the Candler School of Theology at Emory, Karen is an ordained elder in the North Georgia Conference of The United Methodist Church. For more than thirty years, Karen has served churches in Colorado, North Carolina and Georgia and was also the Wesley Foundation Director at The University of West Georgia. She is married to David Newton, a professor of English at The University of West Georgia, and they have two children: Kelcy, a graduate of Georgia Tech, and Caroline, a graduate of The University of Georgia. Born in Japan, with roots in Hawaii, Karen enjoys gardening, hiking, reading, and music.   John 2:13-22 The Passover of the Jews was near, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. In the temple he found people selling cattle, sheep, and doves, and the money changers seated at their tables. Making a whip of cords, he drove all of them out of the temple, both the sheep and the cattle. He also poured out the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. He told those who were selling the doves, “Take these things out of here! Stop making my Father’s house a marketplace!” His disciples remembered that it was written, “Zeal for your house will consume me.” The Jews then said to him, “What sign can you show us for doing this?” Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” The Jews then said, “This temple has been under construction for forty-six years, and will you raise it up in three days?” But he was speaking of the temple of his body. After he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this; and they believed the scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken.

Today is DENSE. But it’s not my fault, it’s Paul’s fault.   Romans 4:13-25 For the promise that he would inherit the world did not come to Abraham or to his descendants through the law but through the righteousness of faith. For if it is the adherents of the law who are to be the heirs, faith is null and the promise is void. For the law brings wrath, but where there is no law, neither is there transgression. For this reason the promise depends on faith, in order that it may rest on grace, so that it may be guaranteed to all his descendants, not only to the adherents of the law but also to those who share the faith of Abraham (who is the father of all of us, as it is written, “I have made you the father of many nations”), in the presence of the God in whom he believed, who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist.    Hoping against hope, he believed that he would become “the father of many nations,” according to what was said, “So shall your descendants be.” He did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body, which was already as good as dead (for he was about a hundred years old), and the barrenness of Sarah’s womb. No distrust made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, being fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised.    Therefore “it was reckoned to him as righteousness.” Now the words, “it was reckoned to him,” were written not for his sake alone but for ours also. It will be reckoned to us who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead, who was handed over for our trespasses and was raised for our justification.   This is the word of God for the people of God.   A Change of Heart.  One of my favorite Jesus movies is a movie called Mary Magdalene. The movie stars real life husband and wife Rooney Mara and Joaquin Phoenix as Mary Magdalene and Jesus of Nazareth. The movie follows the ministry of Jesus through the eyes of Mary, and of course, the movie takes a lot of creative license throughout, but it does some things really well.    In one of its greatest scenes (I showed this to our women’s wednesday morning bible study), Jesus and his disciples are shown entering Jerusalem and the Temple during a festival week. The crowd is enormous. Money is being exchanged for animals and then the animals are taken for slaughter, as a means of forgiveness from God per the ritual.   You know this scene from scripture. It is in every gospel. It is typically referred to as the Cleansing of the Temple.    And the camera shows the crowd and the sacrifice, but its main focus is on Jesus, watching all of this happen. And you can tell he is getting frustrated and angry. He begins a conversation with one of the priests. And if you remember, in the gospel of Mark, this scene is short, with Jesus quoting scripture:    “My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations’? But you have made it a den of robbers.”   But the screenwriters of this movie have done their best to add additional dialogue to the scene to give it greater weight and to really show you what is going on in Jesus’ heart. Jesus questions the sacrificial practice, he questions everything that has been built around this temple ritual, the way of life and the application of this religion, and Jesus – and as he looks around at all the people purchasing and buying their forgiveness,  he asks the priest this question, “(Is this how people show true repentance?) Have their hearts been altered when they leave this place?”   I think that the screenwriters capture the heart of Jesus well in that question. After all, throughout the gospels, that seems to be Jesus’ overarching concern. It’s not the practice of religion. It’s the heart. And if your religion is not affecting and altering your heart, what good is it?   Have their hearts been altered when they leave this place…?   I wonder that about this place, about us, about what we do here, day in and day out, about this body of believers. I wonder if through fellowship through relationship, through music and tradition and reading and singing, I truly wonder, “Have OUR hearts been altered when we leave this place? Or are we merely paying lip-service to some sense of duty that we feel we have?” Is there still a spark? Or has the fire died?    Have our hearts been altered? To me, that is the central question of Paul in Romans. In his last and longest letter, written to a community he never got to know well, he is curious about the work that God is doing in their hearts. In fact, he’s written a letter to care for their hearts. Because he’s heard that there may be conflict…   The conflict is (a little bit) the result of powers beyond their control. Before Emperor Nero, who would be responsible for Paul’s death, Emperor Claudius was in charge. And during his reign, while the fledgling Roman church was in its early stages, Claudius apparently expelled some Jews from Rome because of some social disturbances. Because of the expulsion of the Jewish population, it seems that the Roman Christian community became very Gentile. And because of that, when the Jews were allowed back, they came back to a very different church.   Remember, the Christian movement was first, a Jewish movement. And as it moved into the Gentile world, there was tension. Because the Jews are a people of the Torah, of the Law. They have tradition and dogma that is very important to them…and as the church grew and began reaching out to Gentiles, some of the Jewish Christians fully expected any and all Gentile converts to adopt THEIR ways.   But a theme of Paul’s ministry is telling folks that Gentiles don’t HAVE to adhere to all the Jewish laws. This Jesus stuff is actually a whole new ball game.    And so after the return of these Jewish Christians, Paul writes this letter to help this “ethnically mixed community…knit itself back together, both practically and religiously.” He’s trying to glue this community of conservative Jews and liberal Gentiles back together.    Now we wouldn’t know anything about that today would we?  There are no conservative/liberal struggles in the 21 century! There are no fights over differing ideas and struggles for unity today…   This Roman church conflict is one of a kind! (But in all seriousness) Romans is (sort of) a treatise on how to stick together. On how to find the simplest common ground, that we might all be one. And at its very center is a deep concern for the heart.   What is Paul Doing? Now if you read Romans, it is dense. In fact, I recommend you use The Message translation to help. Seriously. It is hard to read.    And of course it is. Because while Paul is trying to break everything down, he has to do a lot of explaining to get there. He is trying to simplify and explain what it is that Jesus has done for us and what we are to do with that knowledge now!   Paul calls what God has done: “God’s powerful plan to rescue everyone who trusts him” (Romans 1, MSG). I love that. God’s powerful rescue plan. And it is open to any who trust God.   And throughout the letter, while Paul does in fact talk about the importance of FAITH, he does so with some interesting language. You see, for Paul, belief or faith is really TRUST and EMBRACE of the way of God. You see those words a lot in the first few chapters. TRUST. EMBRACE.   And through those words, Paul is already foreshadowing where he is going, because he is using “heart” language. Embrace. Trust. And he wants the community to share in that embrace of God together.    But in order to do that, he’s gotta tear them to pieces first. He has to point out just how silly they’ve been. He has to show them how wonky their priorities have become.   And he goes after the Gentiles a little bit, but he REALLY goes after the Jewish Christians. He says to the Jewish Christians, “Being a Jew won’t give you an automatic stamp of approval” (Romans 2, MSG). “Don’t assume that you can lean back in the arms of your religion and take it easy…(you insiders).” Did you know that “God prefers outsiders who keep God’s ways over the insiders who don’t.” Indeed, God is the God of outsider non-Jews as well as insider Jews…God sets right all who welcome his action and enter into it, both those who follow our religious system and those who have never heard of our religion” (Romans 3, MSG).   You see what Paul is doing right? He is deconstructing the importance of the institution and the material parts of religion. In the Message paraphrase of this letter, Eugene Peterson gives this section the following title: Religion Can’t Save You. And that’s what Paul is saying. He’s telling the people of the church of Rome that religious practice is no longer the main uniting force of our faith. There is something greater at work.    Chapter Four. And in chapter four, Paul anticipates some of the Jewish Christians arguing back with questions like: “What about our being the chosen people of Abraham? What about the promise to Abraham? You can’t just do away with our religious traditions like that. Aren’t we God’s people? Aren’t we special?”   And Paul says, “Yes and no. You are indeed the people of Abraham, but it isn’t just you anymore…Because, ‘what we read in Scripture is, “Abraham entered into what God was doing for him, and THAT was the turning point. He TRUSTED God to set him right instead of trying to be right on his own”’” (Romans 4, MSG).    What Abraham received was “sheer gift.” And Paul says, “Do you think for a minute that this blessing is only pronounced over those of us who keep our religious ways and are circumcised? Or do you think it possible that the blessing could be given to those who never even heard of our ways, who were never brought up in [our disciplines, in our traditions]?...It was by embracing what God did for him that Abraham was declared fit before God...[Indeed] Abraham is father of ALL people who EMBRACE what God does for them…   Abraham…[TRUSTED] God and his way, and then simply EMBRACED GOD and what he did [and what he does]” (Romans 4, MSG).    (I told you it was dense didn’t I)   So this is Paul’s point to the Jewish Christians: “Abraham is indeed your father (feels like Star Wars).   Abraham is your father. But not just yours. Because this is not a human or racial thing, not a Jewish or Gentile thing. This is a faith thing. It’s a spiritual thing. Abraham is OUR father (Gentile AND Jew) because: “When everything was hopeless, Abraham believed anyway, deciding to live not on the basis of what he saw he COULDN’T do but on what God said he WOULD do…   THAT is the faith of Abraham. It is a heart-filled embrace and trust of God – that even in the darkness, in the wilderness, God will do something. GOD WILL SAVE. That’s the thing that saved and changed Abraham. It was God’s work in the heart. And it altered the trajectory of all time.   And Paul says, “But it’s not just Abraham; it’s also us! The same thing gets said about us when we EMBRACE (and TRUST) the One who brought Jesus to life when the conditions were equally hopeless” (Romans 4, MSG).    When we have the same faith, the same reckless trust and embrace of the God who does impossible things, we are to be considered children of Abraham as well. There’s nothing WE can do to earn the love and favor and mercy and grace of God. It is only what GOD does.   Ash Wednesday. A few weeks ago, as I was preparing for our Ash Wednesday service, I knew we were down a clergy with Connor out on paternity leave, but I thought for sure that there wouldn’t be that many folks here. So I decided to have just one station for ashes. Just me.    Sure enough, there were more people here for Ash Wednesday than we’d had in a LONG time. Both aisles were backed up to the ends, people waiting to have a cross marked on their foreheads in the shape of a cross. And why? It’s not like having an ashen cross mark on your head is going to do anything. Of course not. No, people showed up to remind themselves that life is short, death is coming for us all, from dust we come and to dust we return. And that there is nothing that we can do to change that. There is nothing we can do without the grace of God.   Pete Holmes. Comedian Pete Holmes says, “Water can’t help but get you wet. And God can’t help but love you…There’s nothing you can do to increase or decrease the infinite love of God, but there are things you can do to increase or decrease your awareness of that love.”   And that’s the point of this moment in Romans: that there are some Jewish customs and traditions and things that no longer matter. They no longer keep the fire alive. And to heap them on new Gentile Christians is a mistake. And how do you know if these customs are helping or hindering?    Perhaps a question might be asked, something like: Have their hearts been altered when they leave this place? Are the customs we are obeying altering our hearts? Or are they making it harder for us to understand and access God?   It immediately makes me think of the season of Lent. We are in that season, a season where we traditionally give up something. I’ve learned recently that if you have a baby around the same time, the baby takes care of that for you. In fact, I think I’ve given up enough for the next few lents.    BUT here’s the question: if the practice of giving up something for lent does not affect your HEART, does not bring you closer to the divine, then what good is it?   If what we do in here, if the rituals and the creeds and the hymns and the standing and sitting, and the sermons, if all that is not working to alter our hearts, to spark something bright within us, then what good is it?   Circumcision of the Heart. In one of John Wesley’s most famous sermons, titled “Circumcision of the Heart,” a 30 year old John Wesley tackles Romans and this very thing. And in that sermon he says, “the distinguishing mark of a true follower of [Jesus], of one who is in a state of acceptance with God, is not either outward circumcision, or baptism, or any other outward form [of religion], but [rather] a right state of soul, a mind and spirit [and heart] renewed after the image of Him that created it…”   As an 87 year old, Wesley would agree with his younger self when he said, “I believe the merciful God regards lives and tempers of men [and women] more than their ideas. I believe [God] respects the goodness of the heart rather than the clearness of the head; and that if the heart of a man [or woman] be filled with the humble, gentle, patient love of God and [humanity],” God will certainly not cast them out.   That comes from a man who surely knows what God can do in the heart. After all, it was at a prayer meeting, while reading Martin Luther’s preface to the book of Romans, that a 35 year old Wesley, broken and discouraged, felt God reach into his heart and warm it in a way that made him sure that God loved him and forgave him and had some things for him to do. And his heart was surely altered that night. And for the rest of his ministry, Wesley sought to be used by God to foster a change in the heart.    A Letter to Jack. Last week, we honored and remembered Jack Jackson. Jack and Patsy have been members here a while, and their daughter Nancy has been our preschool director for 27 years, we’ve baptized their kids here and grandkids.   Jack was a renaissance man who had interests all over the place. He was a good man. A man who knew who he was and he was good with that. Jack spent his career as a teacher. He taught history and he also developed the Drivers Ed program at his school.   Just before the service began, a lady came up and asked if I could read a letter in front of the congregation, a letter she had written to Jack. I’ve never had that happen before. Nancy told me to go ahead and do it.    So I did, many of you were there. The letter was from a student of Jack’s named Linda. The letter reads like this:   Dear Mr. Jackson,   Your passing has left a hole in all our hearts, especially for me. I will miss your laugh and your bow tie and that you never seem to age. I was one of your driver’s ed students. And through the years, you taught so many of us how to drive. To this day, I can still hear you saying slow down—you're in a construction zone.   I wanted to write to you to tell you that in high school, I didn't get to drive a lot like most other kids. I really only got to drive in your class. And I loved your class. I couldn't wait for Drivers Ed. And countless times you would skip your lunch period and take me out driving so I could get some extra time behind the wheel. And that meant so much to me.    I remember, I didn’t get a car until I left home. I was 18 years old. I bought a ‘73 Ford Maverick even though I still didn’t have a license yet. I couldn't even drive it off the lot. A friend drove it off the lot for me to my apartment complex where it sat all weekend. I could only look at my new car. But as soon as I got my license, I couldn't wait to drive to school to show you my car before anyone else.   I write all this to say thank you for everything you did for me and to tell you how I turned out. I was a shy and isolated kid in high school, but you were certainly a bright spot. And I became a police officer for 32 years and I did get into a couple of chases in my career, which you never covered in your class!   Mr. Jackson, teachers are very special people and SOME touch lives and hearts beyond words. You were one of those teachers.   The mold has now been broken. God bless you and keep you,   Linda.   Sounds to me like Linda’s heart was altered, because of Jack! Something was sparked in her long ago because her teacher recognized that what mattered most was the heart. And friends, when the heart is altered, anything is possible. Lives change. Goodness is found.    Conclusion. In Romans 5, Paul says that when our hearts EMBRACE and TRUST God’s ability to change us, to alter us, to make the impossible possible, “We throw open our doors to God and discover at the same moment that he has already thrown open his door to us…[When] we have actually [receive] this amazing friendship with God, we are no longer content to simply say it in plodding prose. We sing and shout our praises to God through Jesus, the Messiah!” (Romans 5, MSG). In other words, it affects our hearts. Our hearts are altered!   Barbara Brown Taylor - “What if the real test of our success as God’s servants is not what we do but how we do it? What if the real measure of our extraordinariness as Christians is not our thoughtfulness or our friendliness and our busyness” or our worship style or our rules or our dogmas or our creeds “but our spark.”   Has your heart been altered? Has it been warmed? Has your heart embraced the possibilities with God? If not, what’s hindering you? What’s stopping you?   Amen.   Benediction. There are lots of reasons to be divided lately. There are lots of reasons to be un-united. The world is hurting. And I think more than ever, this world needs to know that no matter what anyone does, they are loved beyond measure. That is a message that could truly produce a unity that might be unbreakable. But a message like that truly needs to begin in our hearts.    May you seek God with all your heart. And may your hearts be truly altered by the God who seeks to transform this whole world.

Galatians 6:11-18 See what large letters I make when I am writing in my own hand! It is those who want to make a good showing in the flesh that try to compel you to be circumcised—only that they may not be persecuted for the cross of Christ. Even the circumcised do not themselves obey the law, but they want you to be circumcised so that they may boast about your flesh. May I never boast of anything except the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world. For neither circumcision nor uncircumcision is anything; but a new creation is everything! As for those who will follow this rule—peace be upon them, and mercy, and upon the Israel of God. From now on, let no one make trouble for me; for I carry the marks of Jesus branded on my body. May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit, brothers and sisters. Amen.

Transfiguration Sunday | Mark 9: 2-9    Rev. Andrew Chappell asks this of his congregation: Are you prepared to allow God to change you in such important and intense ways that he might be able to use you for peace?  Are you ready to allow God to transfigure your life?  Are you ready to live a life of dynamic faith?   The Transfiguration. I’ve always viewed the transfiguration of Jesus as this weird, hard to fathom thing. When I think of the idea of transfiguration, I immediately think of the moment in Beauty and the Beast, when the beast transfigures back into a human…OR in Harry Potter’s Transfiguration class, when he transfigures animals into goblets. I have memories when I was young of asking my father (who is a pastor) what the transfiguration meant…and he didn’t say it was magic or that it involved anything to do with Disney. He just said this: “It’s a mystery. No one really knows what this scene is or what Jesus became at that moment. But we do know that it was a response to a protest and a glimpse into the future.” Let me explain. Answer to a Question. In chapter 8, after Jesus feeds four thousand with a few fish and heals a blind man, he goes to Caesarea Philippi (on the northern end of present day Israel) and asks his disciples, “Who do you say that I am?”  Of course, Peter is the one to respond (confidently, as he often does), “I’ll tell you who you are…you are the Christ, the Messiah.”  And then Jesus goes on to tell them about the suffering and death that is in store for him. He shares word for word what is coming his way. And Peter, always a hot head, grabs Jesus and protests, “This can’t be! We won’t let you go this way! Don’t talk like this! We will protect you!”  That’s when Jesus exclaims, “Get behind me Satan.” And he then calls out to the crowd, but we all know he’s saying these things to Peter, “If you are going to follow me, then follow me! And let me lead! Indeed the kingdom is coming…the day is coming when the world shall see what I’m talking about, the world shall witness true glory, the splendor of God, an army of angels, the Son of Man…” And not a week later, Mark says, they SEE a glimpse of what Jesus is talking about. And all of it occurs when they climb the mountain and three disciples have this mountain top experience. Mountain Tops Have you ever experienced something like that? A mountain top experience I mean? An moment between you and God that changed you? And it is seared into your brain? It’s interesting, in film and literature, in our cultural stories, whenever there is a mountain, something big is happening, something that will change the course of the story. (My favorite marvel movie is Iron Man, and if you remember that story)...Weapons manufacturer Tony Stark (after being injured by his own weapons), creates his first prototype of the Iron Man suit and begins a deep philosophical change of how he sees his life in the mountains of Afghanistan. The mountains are present in the Lord of the Rings as well. Throughout and at the end of the story, Frodo Baggins contends with the destruction of evil, which has to occur at Mt. Doom, in the mountains of Mordor, and such an experience transforms Frodo in the process. In Frozen, Elsa sings Let it Go and finally allows herself to become who she is in the mountains of Arendell. Authors and filmmakers love to have big moments set near or on or in the mountains. Scripture is no different. The authors of Scripture continually depict God as someone who loves the mountain top. Exodus 19-20 - God descends on Mount Sinai in fire and thunder to meet Moses and share ten commandments.  1 Kings 19 - God meets Elijah on Mount Horeb in a gentle whisper and offers renewal and strength. Zechariah 14 - Zechariah is given a prophecy that one day, God will descend upon the Mount of Olives and establish justice and the reign of God’s kingdom. (Which is why you see graves on the Mount of Olives today - people want to be close to the action). God loves a mountain top…and more often than not, mountain top moments are transitional experiences. They are important moments in which God introduces a change that has consequences for the future. The Transfiguration Jesus and his three friends go up to the mountain top, and we are told that while there, Jesus is transfigured before their very eyes. The Greek there is metamorphoo - where we get the word metamorphosis.  What does that mean? It means Jesus looks different. It means his form changes. His clothes shimmer, they glisten white. In Luke’s, the appearance of his face is altered. And not only that, but Moses of the Torah and Elijah of the prophets appear too. Jesus and these two legendary figures of the Hebrew faith are there, right before their eyes! And the disciples are amazed. They cannot believe what is occurring, what they are being allowed to see. Talk about a mountain top experience.  And naturally, what happens? Whenever we experience something amazing and wondrous, whenever human beings have a mountain top experience, we want to figure out how to keep that feeling, don’t we? We try to figure out how to experience that same thing again. That’s exactly what Peter wants to do here. He wants to build them each a place on the ground, to keep them physically present, to maintain that amazing experience… Poet Jan Richardson writes about the desires of Peter and the others in her poem “Dazzling”:  We could build walls Around this blessing, Put a roof over it. We could bring in  A table, chairs,  Have the most amazing meals. We could make a home. We could stay. I’m reminded of the title of the band Nickel Creek’s second album,  “Why Should the fire die?” Peter doesn’t want the fire to die. He wants to nail down this experience, so that he can experience it again! But it doesn’t happen. And then, responding to Peter’s previous protest from chapter eight, in which Jesus demonstrates that the end is coming, the glory of God is near…a voice from the cloud echoes onto the mountain top, “This is my Son, marked by my love. Listen to him!” (MSG).  In other words, God says, “This IS the Christ. The kingdom IS coming. This is my guy. Hear him when he says this stuff. Don’t brush it off. Trust me. Elijah and Moses are here, but he is greater than they. So you disciples (and Peter). Listen to him. And trust him.” But the transfiguration is not simply an answer to a dialogue between Jesus and Peter. It is much more than that. The Transfiguration Stuff Because for me, the climax of the story is not when God speaks. It’s the transfiguration part. It’s the metamorphosis, the actual change in form that Jesus undergoes.  Now…this story is so wild, it’s so weird, some scholars think that Mark accidentally put this story in the wrong spot. Some think that this actually happened after the resurrection, and Mark just forgot where it needed to go. Why? Because the Jesus we find here is a lot like the post-resurrection Jesus. I mean it sort of makes sense on one level. Jesus WAS different after the resurrection. His form was not as it was before. It was new. It was different. And it’s true that transfiguration Jesus and post-resurrection Jesus have a lot in common.  But I think it’s in the right place, because it seems to have a pre-resurrection purpose. And its purpose is to give us a glimpse of what the future form/glory will look like.  My favorite scholar and preacher of the 20th century, Leslie Weatherhead (you’ve heard me quote him all the time) used to get questions about Jesus’ divinity and humanity. Someone would ask, “How can Jesus be fully human and fully divine?” Remember, that is essential Christian doctrine, and has been for a very long time. But it is hard to explain and understand. And Weatherhead would answer like this: “Jesus contained as much of God as can be poured into a man without disrupting his humanity (and making him a monstrosity).” I’ve always liked that.  You see, in the transfiguration, I believe that God gives us a glimpse, a vision of the fully realized Christ, on full display. This is a vision of the future Christ of glory, of wonder and splendor, this is sitting-on-the-throne Jesus. And Jesus does this, he transfigures, he changes, I think, to show us what the end will be like. And in seeing the end, his purpose becomes clear. HOPE.  AFTER ALL, Peterson, Hope is the activity of love that reaches into the future. That to me is the deeper meaning of the transfiguration, the metamorphosis, the change of Jesus of Nazareth to Jesus the Christ. It is that he already has the future in his hands. He already knows the end result. And he’s willing to show us a glimpse, he’s willing to transfigure, to transform, to change. To give us hope. In all aspects of our lives. Hope that the end is not the end, that the hardship will not win, that suffering will have meaning, that though we may go through hell, we will bring something back with us, that death cannot ultimately be stronger than love. HOPE. Our Future There is, I think, one more thing to be gained from this story. Because Jesus is doing more than just responding to Peter. He is doing more than simply giving us a glimpse into HIS future, with the purpose of granting hope. I think Jesus, in this magnificent transformation and change is giving us a glimpse into OUR future.  I think Jesus is sharing with us that we too will be transfigured, that we too will undergo a metamorphosis of sorts, that we too will change. In fact, I believe that he is already in the process of changing us. If you are seeking to follow closely behind Jesus today, you are being transfigured. You are being changed! Wesley called it sanctifying grace - the process by which God is working to renew the image of God in you that has been there since the beginning.  Paul confirms it when he writes in his second letter to the church in Corinth, (MSG) “And so we are transfigured much like the Messiah, our lives gradually becoming brighter and more beautiful as God enters our lives and we become like him.” It seems that in the end, Jesus is not the only one who changes…we change too.  But I’m not sure our change process will be as sudden and abrupt. Rather I think it will likely occur over time, over experience, over life, over trials, over joys, over suffering, in low valleys and in mountain top experiences. Change Is Hard  Gardener and poet Luci Shaw says it like this in her book Water My Soul. She says:  …I've been…astonished at how [God] can transmute experiences that we can only look at with revulsion or disappointment into good use. He allows us to learn from our mistakes; just because we stumble and fall, God doesn't disqualify us from further enterprises. Though we often have to live with the consequences of our choices, those consequences are illuminating, providing us with the wisdom and experience for future decisions. On occasion, the Lord has had to let me hit rock bottom, in enough despair that life seemed to hold nothing of value for me any more. But distressing as this was, it had a clarifying effect. In the pit of desperation I could see that many of the minor issues that had so obsessed me were just that-minor. That out of the grave where I had to die to those things, God was going to resurrect me, purged clean and more prepared to face his priorities for me. Do you know what Luci Shaw is talking about?  She’s talking about transfiguration.  She’s talking about transformation.  She’s talking about sanctification.  She’s talking about God’s incredible ability to reach into our lives and invite us to CHANGE. And change is hard. Change is difficult and painful. When I think of the change that God invites us into, I think of Scrooge’s response to the ghost of Jacob Marley, who when invited on a journey that will inevitably lead to change, Scrooge’s reply is simply: “I think I’d rather not.” And if I am honest, (maybe it’s just me) but I think sometimes I’d rather not. And I don’t think I’m the only one! I think that sometimes we Christians can be known more for our immovable nature than our desire to be changed. Sometimes I think that as a faith group we would rather check the box next to Christ-follower than truly be transformed. I see the evidence all the time, in myself, in others, and in an American church that occasionally seems more concerned with being wrapped up and soaked in the partisan political games of our nation, rather than seeking to be transfigured by the grace and love and forgiveness of Jesus Christ. And all the while, the world is in need now more than ever. And do you know what the world needs? I think the world needs a savior. I think the world needs hope and healing. I think the world needs care and compassion. I think the world needs to know that our cultural or political identifiers are surface level compared to our original identifier, that each of us is first and foremost a child of the living God.  And I hope that anyone who walks in those doors finds exactly what they need. I hope that anyone who is in here today finds a community ready to offer those things. I hope that anyone who walks in here meets a group of people willing to say, “We don’t have it all together, but we sure are open and willing and ready for God’s Holy Spirit to shift and change and transform and transfigure us so that we might continue to look a little more like Jesus every day.”  That’s what a life of faith is. A life of faith, of following Jesus, a life lived under the Lordship of Christ is one of growth, it’s one of shedding old parts and gaining new parts. A life of faith is all about not conforming to the patterns of this world, but rather being transfigured, being transformed, being changed by the renewing of our minds. And we certainly don’t do the changing. As LaDon Denham told me this past week, “Only God can do that.” And that’s true. But we can certainly open ourselves up to the Spirit, to God, we can unclench our fists and hold loosely the non essentials, and have willing hearts and minds, willing to let God guide and direct and do some transfiguring work within us for the sake of Jesus Christ in the world.  Leadership Morning A few weekends ago, we held a leadership retreat on a Saturday morning for all of our folks that are on administrative committees of our church. We had a room of about 60 of our church leaders. And we spent the morning dreaming about the future of the church. It was a pretty mountain top-y experience for me at least.  At the end of the morning, I asked everyone in the room to take a sticky note and write a one word prayer. {explain I used to do this with youth} After we were done I went through the prayers that next week. Here is some of what was written down, here are some of the one-word prayers that the leadership of this church prayed for you and for Newnan First UMC:  Unity Growth Relationships Wisdom Guidance Joy Strength Health Inclusion Stay United Thankfulness Passion Grace Peace Hope I’m so proud of the words our leadership offered to God on behalf of this church. What An amazing group of folks. And I think those are great prayers, necessary prayers. God knows we need peace in our communities, unity in our churches, wisdom in our states, grace in our nations, and guidance in our world.  But if we really want to pray for those things, I wonder, then do we know who God’s instruments of peace on earth are going to be? Do you know who God will use to be the peace-makers? Do you know who he will call to be the hope-bringers, and the unity-sewers, and the grace-givers and the includers and the strengtheners and the growers? You. And me. And if you and I really want to be a community that exhibits those things, I wonder today what might need to change in us, that God might be able to do some of that work THROUGH us. I’ll finish with a question: Are you prepared to allow God to change you in such important and intense ways that he might be able to use you for peace?  Are you ready to allow God to transfigure your life?  Are you ready to live a life of dynamic faith? After all, a life of dynamic faith is a life filled with change. Amen.

Mark 1:29-39  |  Dynamics of Faith: Caring Community | Rev. Jeff Rogers

Mark 1:21-28 | Dynamics of Faith: One Step At A Time | Rev. Andrew Chappell

Mark 1:14-20 | Immediately He Called Them | Rev. Connor Bell

John 1:43-51 | Dynamics of Faith: What Faith is Not | Rev. Andrew Chappell

Mark 1:4-11 | By Water and The Spirit | Rev. Connor Bell

Matthew 2:1-12 | Herod and the Magi | Rev. Connor Bell

Luke 2:1-20 | Christmas Eve | Rev. Andrew Chappell

Luke 1:26-38, 46-56 | The World is About to Turn: Mary | Rev. Connor Bell

Matthew 1:18-25 | The World is About to Turn: Joseph | Rev. Connor Bell