02/11/2025
The Shepherd, the King, and the Rescuer
God has got a long list of names, but some of those names are better than others. There is a small child who thought God’s name was Harold since the Lord’s Prayer includes the phrase “Hallowed be thy name.” When you think of all the scriptures that are most likely to be memorized you would have to include Psalm 23, The Lord’s Prayer, and John 3:16. The danger for us is our tendency to focus on the wrong thing.
We are likely to fall in love with the poetry of the 23rd Psalm and ignore the shepherd that poetry describes.
We focus on the King James English which we use in our version of the Lord’s Prayer and forget the King of Kings whose Kingdom is coming soon.
We focus on being rescued from ‘perishing’ and overlook the one who has gone to such great lengths to rescue us.
If the 6th chapter of Matthew’s gospel teaches us anything, it teaches us that our God loves us with the intimacy and unconditional love of a Father or Mother; that God is not yet done with setting this world in order because God’s kingdom is not yet present here as it is there in heaven; God provides for his children; God gives us what we need to resist temptation and avoid evil; and that God is God and we are lucky enough to reflect his glory in all that we do and say.
The Lord’s Prayer is meant to be prayed, of course. But it is also meant to be a statement of faith in who God is and what God wants for God’s children. Find a copy of Matthew 6:5-15 that is simple and plain and make it a part of your daily quiet time. With each line say, “This, O Lord, I believe.” And when you are done, “and this, O Lord, is how I plan to live out my life.”
Archived Posts
One More Piece of Unsolicited Advice
I had one too many examples yesterday. Here’s the "Ask Pastor Tim" scenario that didn’t make the cut for Sunday’s sermon: (read more)
Not If, But When, the Crisis Comes
One of the best Bible commentators alive today is N.T. Wright or Tom Wright. When reflecting on the parable of the wise and foolish maidens, he wrote this:...
What I wanted to say
but ran out of time this Sunday
Here is the benediction I was going to use before discovering the excellent MLK Jr. video.
The Storm that Comes To Us as Helplessness
I want to share with you a small portion of my conversation with Artificial Intelligence online. Some of you know, I use Chat-GPT as a thoughtful sounding board for the questions and insights I’m working with on whatever scriptures I’m studying each week. What follows is an example of those discussions...
One Final Scene About Scrooge
There was one more scene in Dickens’s novel that reveals something of what has happened to Scrooge over the years. I did not have time to share it on Sunday, but I believe it reveals a great deal about the regrets in Scrooge’s life....
What Jacob Marley Would Do,
If He Could Do It…
I thought about using the following for a benediction—since Jacob Marley was warning Scrooge about the danger of loving money and what it could buy. Ends up with the Cantata and everything else going on, I didn’t have the time. So here is what you might have heard if the sermon itself was 5 minutes shorter!
A Confirming Word on Old King Herod
I just want to echo what Rick said in his fine sermon yesterday (Nov. 23). Herod was a ruthless tyrant and skilled politician. When the Magi don’t report back to him, he decides to kill all the male children of Bethlehem under the age of 2. That’s one paranoid dude.