Pastor Mike Matzek

Does the truth comfort or offend? Heal or reveal? In this passage Jesus speaks to what the truth does and the discomfort we have with it. 

Stewardship – Genesis is the story of God blessing people and people trying to figure out what to do with it. We’ll take a long look at Jacob and how he is given all these things, is a scoundrel, wrestles, and then repents. What do we wrestle with God for? What is the issue in our life that we can’t let go of?

This manifests itself particularly in money issues. What power does money have in your life? 

John likes to show Jesus using difficult to understand language – Bread of Life, Born Again, Living Water. What can we make of this profoundly different Jesus?

We’ll take a long look at Nicodemus. He grapples with what Jesus says, but isn’t quite sure what to make of it. In the end, he comes to follow Jesus and is there at the crucifixion and burial  of Jesus. 

https://s3-us-west-1.amazonaws.com/clcscvsermons2016/Aug_14.mp3

In Mark, we get the duality of Christ, how he’s fully human and fully divine. We need to shape our picture of Jesus to that reality. Too often, we reconstruct Jesus in our own image. What happens when we look at who he really is? 

Law and Gospel – In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus gives this tremendous weight of law on us. He expands all the commandments – murder, adultery, divorce, oaths. What do we do with this? How are we supposed to live under the crush of what we are supposed to do? 

How do we live as Christians and citizens? What does it mean to be a Christian living in a pluralistic society and how do make decisions on voting?

Devil prowls – setting the context of a spiritual battle – if we don’t understand that the Devil and evil is real, nothing else makes sense. 

Story I have heard more times than I can count: 

I left Catholic Church/Methodism/Judaism because of hypocrites

Whenever hear that, I always think the same thing — there is somebody out there telling the same story about us

Something happens –I’m furious  - go to bed mad, wake up livid, Siri reminds me to go to prayer meeting --  then sitting in Pastor’s prayer meeting — Listening to everyone pray for all these wonderful things — the city, the lost, each other, and I'm just sitting there mad.  – Am I a hypocrite?

1. The church is Here for you

• Care for the widows

2. Disagreements are ok

• Paul and Mark — 
• Sent away 15 
• Send him back  — 2 Tim 4:11

3. The Church is Not Here for You 

• Cornelius — Challenge to comfort
• For the Glory of God 
• Paul at the end – preaching to his last day