Sunday Morning Podcast | The Moody Church

Jesus was a force for disruption during his ministry. At Passover he cleared the temple, sent livestock and moneychangers running, and acted like he owned the place. He started baptizing in the Judean countryside, becoming even more popular than John the Baptist. Jesus healed an invalid at pool of Bethesda on the Sabbath, and the religious leaders said you can’t heal on the Sabbath. It drove the religious leaders crazy.   They asked, "Who does he think he is!?"   In response, Jesus gives his first extended discourse in John 5:18-47. Jesus tells us just who he thinks he is…and holds nothing back. This sermon explores the resume of Jesus—experiences, qualifications, and references—that forms that basis for the extravagant claims of deity that he made during His ministry. Is Jesus really the Messiah, the Son of God?   After exploring these claims and Jesus' response, the resounding answer is YES! Our take-aways are two-fold: Jesus is the only one really able to help us. He can, with a word, make us aliv

If you hang around Jesus long enough, you'll realize that He isn't interested in a popularity contest. He's not a politician, and He doesn't play by their games. It’s one of the things that enraged the religious leaders. No matter how much pressure they put on Him, He wouldn’t back down.   In fact, this passage has a shocking ending: “This was why the Jews were seeking all the more to kill him…” What pushed them over the edge? These four shocking elements: The intractability of the disease The controversy of the Sabbath The superficiality of the healing The audacity of the Son   The intractability of the disease: Jesus comes upon a man with a disease by the pool of Bethesda. The man asks not for healing, but to be brought to the healing pool. And instead of bringing him to the healing, Jesus brings the healing to him. Jesus commands him, “Get up, take up your bed, and walk.” Not only does the man stand, he hoists his bed and walks. Jesus is once more wielding the power of the Messianic Age, becau

Jesus is always surprising us. He doesn’t fit neatly into our preconceived human categories – He's always challenging our assumptions, realigning our expectations, and defying our limitations. Just when we think we have Him all figured out, He comes along and blows the doors off our limited understanding. That’s one of the ways we know we’re encountering the living and divine Jesus. If Jesus is God in the flesh, He should surprise us.   We know we’ve created god in our own image when he begins to look suspiciously like us and when he no longer surprises our souls. But with Jesus, we never have that problem. In this passage from John 4:43-54, Jesus gives us four surprises.   1) Surprising Rebuke: When Jesus enters Galilee, the crowd welcomes Him in an odd way. Then an official asks Jesus to heal his son. Jesus’ response: unless you [plural] see signs and wonders, you will not believe. Jesus is not a circus performer, and the crowd exhibits no real faith or belief. There’s a huge difference between pursuing

In this passage, Jesus has a conversation with the woman at the well. She’s a Samaritan woman from nowhere - overlooked, shamed, insignificant, on the margins of society. Most would assume in her time that she’s on the margins of God’s blessings. But as He so often does, Jesus is about to turn those assumptions on their heads. And in a tender and personalized way, He brings the Gospel to this irreligious woman.   Through this story, we find three glimpses fo Jesus as the one who ultimately satisfies:   1) Jesus is the seeker of the lost, and we're never beyond His reach. No matter what we’ve done. No matter who we’ve become. No matter what’s been done to us. Jesus loves us and is pursuing us. There’s no barrier he won’t break through, no chasm he won’t cross over, no distance he won’t reach; there’s no place we can wander where Jesus will not pursue us in His love.   2) Jesus is the satisfier of the soul, and we're never beyond his redemption. There’s a connection between satisfaction and worship. Satis

Do you know how it feels to be upstaged by someone? John the Baptist knew the feeling. For at time, he was the big shot, the prophetic voice calling out in the wilderness. But then one day Jesus showed up, and people began flocking to Jesus and not to John.   And for John that was just fine, because he recognized that Jesus deserved center stage. In this message, we see four reasons why Jesus deserves center stage and why we're better off with Him at the center of our lives.   Jesus sees more than we ever could. We get lost in the maze of life; the longer we insist on going our own way, the longer we stay stuck and lost. The sooner we yield to Jesus, the sooner we’ll find our way. And that’s what it means to put Jesus at the center, to let His perspective outrank our own instincts. Jesus deserves center stage by virtue of His position from above.   Jesus knows more than we ever could. He is an expert witness, a master of ultimate cosmic reality. His knowledge is comprehensive; His wisdom is supreme;

What does it mean to be born again? Let’s set aside all the cultural clutter of what we think it means and try to hear Jesus afresh. Because as we’ll see, to be born again into this new birth, to be regenerated by God, is at the very heart of why Jesus came.   In this passage, we see an existential conversation between Nicodemus and Jesus about the pathway to eternal life. As we explore this concept of New Birth, we’re going to answer six questions:   Who needs it? From the most religious and moral to the very least, we all must be born again. If Nicodemus needs to be born again, we all do. What is it? To be born again is to have a brand-new recreated spiritual life. Jesus is telling Nicodemus that to see the Kingdom, to enter into it, you need this new life. Your resumé won’t get you in. You need to be born again. Who does it? New birth is the work of the Spirit alone and it is totally beyond our control. Jesus is telling Nicodemus that the one thing you need is the one thing you have no control ov

What is God like? It’s interesting that when God chose to reveal himself most fully, finally – unmistakably – with crystal clarity, He didn’t drop a systematic theology from Heaven, or a lot of core doctrines to memorize. No, that approach is too abstract, too impersonal. Nor did He launch a political campaign, with fundraisers and marketing to get the word out. No, that would be too self-promoting, too pushy.   When God wanted to reveal Himself to mankind, He sent his Son Jesus, in a manner of revelation that was inconspicuous and incognito. The refrain was "come and see" who Jesus is, what He is doing, and all that He has to offer. We have to get close, and we will discover who He is over time.   In this passage from John 2, we see three glimpses of who Jesus is and how we relate to Him.   In the story about Jesus' first miracle, John portrays Jesus as the true and greater Bridegroom whose faithfulness is everlasting and whose wine never runs out.   When Jesus cleanses the market in the temple, John

Neuroscience tells us we’re constantly imitating others. When we observe someone else doing something, our neurons fire a sequence in our brain that is the exact sequence used when we then do the very same action ourselves. In seeing it, our brain experiences it, and then we do it ourselves. We are constantly mirroring what we see, and we tend to mirror each other’s posture. This is especially true of people we admire or see regularly. Whether we realize it or not, we’re all mirroring, patterning, and imitating… we’re all following someone. Or to use the Bible’s language, we’re all disciples of someone. We don’t get to choose if we want to be disciples, we can’t help it, but we do get to choose who we’ll be disciples of.   Whoever gets our admiration, attention, affections, that’s who we’ll mirror, pattern, imitate, and follow. In this passage, we glean three reasons why Jesus is someone worth following.   1) Jesus knows life. Jesus’ life is one of wholeness, completeness. He brings together in unity trai

In this series, we’re asking what it means to find our identity in being loved by Jesus. But before we can know His love we must first know Him. Last week we focused on who Jesus is; this week we focus on why Jesus came.   The passage (John 1:19-34) highlights the person and ministry of John the Baptist, who proclaims about Jesus, "This is he who baptizes with the Holy Spirit!" The contrast between John and Jesus in this portion of Scripture is clear: John’s baptism is just washing you on the outside, while Jesus will wash you on the inside; John is calling you to turn from self-righteous religion to God, while Jesus calls you from spiritual deadness into eternal life; John urges you to keep the Old Covenant, while Jesus ushers you into the New Covenant. In the story we see this dawning of the New Covenant beautifully portrayed as the Holy Spirit descends upon Jesus during His baptism by John. What we were unable to do under the Old Covenant, the Spirit now makes possible under the New Covenant.   But how

Jesus loves me, this I know... What if that’s actually the key to an identity so free, so abundantly full of life, so solid and lasting that all other identities fade into insignificance?   For John, his most defining, grounding, and meaningful identity was found in the simple fact that he was and always would be loved by Jesus. In the end, nothing else mattered. All his accomplishments, connections, titles, writings, and even his very life faded in comparison to the blazing reality that he was loved by Jesus. That's the kind of love that changed John forever. What if the secret to finding ourselves is to be deeply and profoundly loved by Jesus? This series is an invitation to, like John, experience the identity-transforming, life-giving love of Jesus; to discover this Jesus who turned John’s world upside-down and right-side-up.   We all want to be pursued, wanted, and loved. Do you realize that the God of the universe loves you; He desires you; He rejoices over you; He is reaching out to you and for you.

What does it mean to be the church in the midst of a pandemic? How do we be the church when there’s not a church we can be? In our minds, particularly in the west, we often confuse people and place, or “ecclesia” (Greek) and “kirche” (German), when it comes to thinking about church.   As designed by Jesus in scripture, the church is a people, not a place. The people of God have two important missions: The Great Commission, to go and make disciples of all nations; and The Great Commandment, to love God and to love people. So, Jesus’ design for His church is to make disciples who love God and love others.   When we look throughout scripture, there is a pattern of both gathering and scattering. We gather to imbibe God’s word together, and we scatter for impact through our outreach. These aren't competing elements; God uses both of these to build His church. And who knows? Maybe this current scattering is the beginning of an explosion of gospel progress and this is God’s way of pushing us out of the nest.  

If you read the Bible, you will find numerous stories where in God’s goodness despair is turned to deliverance, misery is turned to majesty, brokenness is turned to beauty, and grief is turned to glory. These stories are not here to stoke our wishful thinking. These stories show us, in compressed form, the redemption God is weaving into our stories as well.   The same God who was working all along to bring redemption into Ruth and Naomi’s stories, is the same God who is right now working redemption in your story and mine. The problem is, we’re often too close to the action and so we usually don’t see it.   God is weaving an intricate tapestry of redemption. Boaz and Ruth had no idea what their stories would one day mean, how redemption would turn out to be the story of the universe in Jesus. Naomi had no idea her loss and grief and bitterness could be turned to such joy, not only for her, but for the world.     And yet, without their knowing, or their permission, God’s mercies were operating in the sha

The Bible is a masterpiece with a central message, from beginning to end, about Jesus and the redemption that He brings to humanity. And this is true of the Old Testament story of Ruth, as well, as it foreshadows the redeeming love of Jesus. As the story unfold, we see five aspects of Boaz’s redemption of Ruth that foreshadow Jesus. We learn that Boaz's redemption is a voluntary redemption (John 10:18), a covenantal redemption (Matthew 26:27–29), a substitutionary redemption (2 Corinthians 5:21), a sacrificial redemption (Mark 10:45), and a transformative redemption (1 Corinthians 15:21–22). All of these acts point our hearts to the redemption that’s ultimately found in Jesus.   Ruth 4:1-12

Sometimes doing the right thing is the last thing we want to do. Anyone can do the right thing when there’s no pressure. But doing the right thing when the pressure’s on, that takes character.   In this passage, we find four bold moves of obedience that change the trajectory of potentially tragic circumstances for Boaz, Ruth, and Naomis towards goodness. We see these characters do the right thing even when it's tough. Ruth does the right thing in asking Boaz for marriage, even when it raised the stakes of being rejected. Boaz does the right thing in honoring Ruth as a daughter, even when temptation was so readily available. They both do the right thing in honoring this next-of-kin, even when it threatened their hope and happiness. All three do the right thing in waiting on God, even when being still and surrendered is hard.   Ruth 3:8-18

Hope is a beautiful thing. It gives us a reason to get up in the morning, to press through all the anguish and the sorrow of this life to something beyond, something bright, fresh, redeeming. Hope carries us through the darkness to the dawn.   Our story continues with Naomi having a sightline to redemptive hope from God. But she becomes frustrated in waiting for it all to play out and tries move along God's plan. What do we do when we have a line of sight to the redemption of God, and yet God has us waiting? It's so easy in this moment to take matters into our own hands to to forgo God's perfect timing.   In this sermon, we find three warnings against manipulating the timeline of God's grace: 1) We can pursue the right thing at the wrong time. Takeaway: Wait upon God’s perfect timing. 2) We can pursue the right thing in the wrong way. Takeaway: Submit to God’s perfect will. 3) We can pursue the right thing with the wrong heart. Takeaway: Rest in God’s perfect sufficiency.   Ruth 3:1–8   To watch th

Grief is the price of love. To love deeply is to grieve deeply when love is bereft. And if you’ve ever grieved deeply, you know how hard it is to avoid becoming bitter. Where does our hope come from, and will there be mercies along our journey? That’s where our story about Naomi and Ruth picks up.   In this sermon, we find four wonders—glimmers of hope—about how God leads us in mercies through the darkness.  We learn that grief is only a chapter, mercies are everywhere, God is right here with us, and God’s kindness has just begun.   Ruth 2:17–23

In this sermon, Rev. Stephen Farish shares with us the qualities of a faith at which Jesus marvels.

Every Christian experiences fear during our lifetime. If we are to overcome our fears, we need courage. How can we have biblical courage to face our fears? In this message, Pastor Bill shares three points about the necessity of courage in the life of the Christian.   Courage is acting out of confidence in God, not out of fear of your circumstances. In our walk with the Lord, we learn that obedience to God requires courage.   Numbers 13-14, Deuteronomy 1, Joshua 14

One of the things that makes grief and loss so difficult is the sense of helplessness. We often feel so powerless, and nothing we can say or do that will make any difference. It's easy to fall into a victim mentality, to feel helpless, disempowered, angry, and bitter. The story of Ruth grapples with all of these emotions.   In this passage, Pastor Philip shows three powerful realities that Ruth experienced that helped her move forward even as she was grieving: 1) The Power of Agency: In grief, we can’t wait until inspiration strikes, and we can’t wait until everything’s in order. All we can do is the next right thing, and move forward one step at a time. 2) The Power of Providence: We live in the care of our Father, not the chaos of chance. We need to learn to trust the unseen hand of God. 3) The Power of Justice: We are conduits of mercy, not merely consumers. Our best course of action is to let mercies flow freely.   Takeaway: Through the events of our lives, we'll find that God is shepherding us int

Grief is messy and leads us through a painful journey. The way out of the darkness is often found through the faithful love of someone in our lives who walks with us towards the dawn. In Ruth’s story, that kind of love is called "Hesed". It means loving selflessness, enduring faithfulness, and forbearing graciousness. God provides hesed love for Ruth in the story, and He offers it to all of us too.   But here's where it gets real: Hesed is not just the kind of love God extends to us, it is also the kind of love God calls us to extend to one another. We incarnate hesed for one another, because Jesus incarnated hesed for us.   Ruth 1:6-22