From The Pulpit To The Streets (stdavidsacna)

Seeing Jesus’ response in Mark 12:28-34 to being questioned about the greatest commandment points us back to God’s original intention for us to be His image-bearers, loving Him with all our heart, soul and might, and loving our neighbors as ourselves; by following Jesus and obeying God’s commands, we can glimpse our future as a new humanity redeemed and reconciled forever to God.

Perceiving in Luke’s gospel story of blind beggar Bartimeus calling out to Jesus for healing the bold faith it took for this man to recognize Jesus for who He truly was and to seek a miracle from Him no matter the cost; inspiring us today to always “listen” for God and grow our faith in Him even when we may not see the full picture around us, so that we too might live that bold faith in action, crying out to Jesus, allowing Him to heal us, and following Him always.

Sermon on Mark 9:38-48, identifying key challenges that Jesus’ Disciples both then and now face when it comes to accepting newcomers to the faith and working together toward common goals; revealing that we must not ever compare or judge the position of others or their ability to be used by God, but rather let HIM work in and through people while we simply serve, welcome, love, and pray for all those who

Focusing on the uncomfortable truth that the ways of God’s Kingdom appear “upside down” next to the ways of this world, where it’s in our fallen nature to seek our own gain; and it’s by Jesus’ teaching and example we see that the path to true greatness is the way of service, and humbly seeking to be last and servant to all in this life leads to a place of honor in the world to come.

Sermon based on Mark 7:31-37 seeks to understand the reasons behind Jesus’ sigh before He healed the deaf and mute man, revealing key insights into the nature and character of God and giving us a deeper understanding of the incredible, all-powerful, and compassionate love of Jesus for us, as He truly knows our painful and isolated condition and will always seek to reconcile us with the Father through His merciful healing and redemption.

Inviting us to ask "Who is Jesus?" and come to terms with the mysteries of how God works uniquely in each of our lives to wake our spirit through the power of his Holy Spirit--calling us to believe in his son Christ Jesus who died for the life of the world, and to follow him, that we might also be raised up on the last day to share in his love and life eternal.

Exploring the ways in which God provides for His people both physically and spiritually, pulling from Exodus 16, Mark 6, and John 6 examples which show how God gives us something more important to eat: the spiritual food that lasts for both this life and all eternity in the relationship He offers through His son, Jesus Christ, empowering us to live that spiritual life now and walk in the hope of His eternal promise.

Revealing in Mark’s Gospel story of Jesus walking on water while his Disciples in the boat were afraid of the terrible winds that our God always comes to us in His own perfect timing, showing the fullness of His glory and leaving us no doubt that it is He alone who rescues us; and by knowing who He truly is, we can take heart that His love is greater than our deepest fears and that our faith in His goodness will carry us through any of life’s storms.

Showing us how truly compassionate God is with examples from Chapter 6 of Mark’s Gospel and throughout the Bible, showing His true Kingly character as merciful, loving, protecting, and sacrificial; calling us to be like Jesus in seeing and meeting the needs of others before they can even ask, serving as living examples that point toward the true nature of the loving and compassionate God we worship.

Sermon asking several key questions about how Jesus sent out his Disciples and gave them authority in Mark Chapter 6, noting that the same instructions (found also in Matthew 10) still apply to his disciples today: following what Jesus himself had done, asking us to trust that God will provide all that’s needed to reach the lost, share our hope, and bring healing and restoration—all by the Father’s will and authority through the power of his Holy Spirit.

Taking note of the public nature of Jesus’ ministry in Mark’s Chapter 5 account of two totally opposite people taking advantage of His accessibility, sharing in common a bold courage driven by fear and desperation yet possessing a living hope in the Christ who with compassionate heart miraculously ministers to each of them, reminding us where our true hope lies—in all times of fear and desperation and even in the face of death, we can boldly approach Jesus, letting our fear collide with faith and pouring out our story, then watching and waiting for His saving grace.

Trinity Sunday Sermon urging us to see all the world as a reflection of the Triune God, perceiving and knowing the true reality of God and ourselves: that because of our baptism into Jesus’ death on the cross, we now bear the image of Christ, born again from above through the power of the Holy Spirit, and so are each a beloved child of the Father who looks at us always with the same great love with which He looks at His son in whom He is well pleased.

Tracing the connection between the rejection Jesus faced even from his own Disciples in John 14 and the rejection we will face in the world when we choose to call him Lord; as we too have received the Holy Spirit, we are called with an extraordinary mission to bear witness to Jesus, to go out and serve others at all costs, pointing them toward the God who alone can transform our hearts and truly give us new life.

Examining the final prayers of Jesus for his Disciples in John Chapter 17 and finds a model of Jesus' love for all his followers, as He and the Father seek to protect us, sanctify us, and see us filled with His all-surpassing heavenly joy, for which we are called to stand firm on the foundation of His Holy Word and to trust and obey His ways at all times.

Finding in Jesus’ farewell to his Disciples in John 15 the model for how to love one another as Christ has loved us: a picture of the boundless eternal love that the Son has always shared with his Father in Heaven as he remains ever faithful to His ways, and we will share in that same love when we surrender our own wills and walk by His strength in those same ways, able to truly love one another and experience lasting fulfillment in the real joy that comes only from abiding in God’s love.

Drawing from the rich text of John 12:20-36 and Jesus’ revelation that the time for his sacrificial death had finally come to illustrate how His disciples (and we) must be confronted with the reality of His sacrificial death which fully conquers sin’s curse and the truth that only by giving up our inward selfishness and dying to sin can we experience new life here on earth and an eternal way of living in the age to come.

Revealing in Chapter 2 of John’s Gospel and elsewhere in Scripture the importance of God confirming His Word through visible signs; encouraging us to look at the greatest of signs--the cross of Christ by which Jesus’ disciples believed, and to proclaim that true and good news that Jesus Christ is the son of God who died and was raised to life so that we could be saved and have eternal life by having faith in Him.

Asking us to reflect on whether we trust that the Lord will provide for us as He provided for Abraham’s sacrifice in Genesis Ch 22 – pointing the way toward God’s ultimate provision for us in the sacrifice of His own beloved Son on the cross, by which we know that we never have to face life’s challenges from our own strength alone: the good news is that in Christ Jesus we are already saved and accepted by God the Father as His beloved sons and daughters.

Affirming the truth so powerfully demonstrated through Jesus’ baptism in Mark 1:9-13 - that in Christ we are all God’s beloved sons and daughters, and this truth must be the foundation for our lives; so that even as we acknowledge our sins, we may not lose sight of who we really are and be overwhelmed by any false sense of shame and guilt, because in the victory of Christ on the cross we are forever the Beloved of God.

Sermon revealing in the story of Jesus’ Glorious Transfiguration in Mark Chapter 9 the foreshadowing of a New Exodus in Christ, where by his death and resurrection we have the hope that life will continue through Him, as he prepared the way for us to follow, with the promise that we will one day leave death and enter with joy into the eternal life of God’s Kingdom.