Series: “Jesus’ Message: You Are The Conduit”

“Being A Restorer of Relationships”

Acts 10:44-48

John 15:9-17

In the late 1940s, Charles Templeton was a close friend and preaching associate of Billy Graham. Over time, however, Templeton developed intellectual doubts. He questioned the authority of Scripture and other core Christian beliefs. Templeton abandoned his faith. He resigned as a preaching associate of Billy Graham and became a novelist and news commentator. Templeton also wrote a critique of the Christian faith, Farewell to God: My Reasons for Rejecting the Christian Faith.

Lee Strobel interviewed Charles Templeton for his book, The Case for Faith. Templeton was 83. In the interview, Templeton revealed some of the reasons he left the faith: “I started considering the plagues that sweep across parts of the planet and indiscriminately kill, more often than not, painfully, all kinds of people, the ordinary, the decent, and the rotten…it is not possible for an intelligent person to believe that there is a deity who loves.” Strobel then asked Templeton about Jesus. Templeton remarked: “He was the greatest human being who has ever lived. He was a moral genius. His ethical sense was unique… Everything good I know, everything decent I know, everything pure I know, I learned from Jesus. He is the most important human being who has ever existed. And if I may put it this way, I miss Him.”^[1]

Acts 10:44-48 and John 15:9-17 clearly announce that Jesus lays down his life for the benefit of everyone, every day. Jesus shows us the way to participate with him in restoring broken and hurtful relationships. Jesus encourages us to live the resurrection belief that by demonstrating love and hospitality to one another and others, polarized relationships heal one life at a time.

In Acts 10:44-48, the Holy Spirit interrupted Peter’s preaching. The message was going to break out of its singular focus on the Jews and go to the Gentile world. Noel Leo Erskine writes, “The new revelation made possible by the inbreaking of the Holy One was clear: The Gentile believers belong as much to the household of God as Jewish believers. Gentiles do not have to become Jews. God accepts them as they are.”^[2] Peter was confronted with his exclusivism. That is, Peter’s bias was wanting to reach the Jews, and if he had to, make Gentiles as much like faithful Jews as possible, by enforcing specific Jewish traditions. By the power of the Holy Spirit, God comes to us over and over again as Emmanuel, God with us. We participate with Jesus in salvation, literally and spiritually, in the lives of others.

John 15:9-17 focuses our attention on the reality of the Holy Spirit empowering each follower of Jesus to love one another and others with a love that is continuous and unconditional. If we keep Jesus’ commandments then we will do as Jesus did. The Gospel of John depicts an alternative world, one that is rooted in an all-inclusive love which transcends anti-Judaism. Jesus’ call to love one another is not exclusive to the community of faith. No! The call to love is to love beyond the community reaching those outside it. Therein lies the significance of the impact of our lives on others.

Some traditions are helpful. Others are not. Gathering family together for birthdays and other celebrations is important. Hazing in fraternities not so much. Tailgate parties for our favorite college football games is a favorable tradition. But deciding who is the “right kind” of person for the group not so much. We need to break out of traditions which exclude and have eyes for “the other,” those who at first glance, just don’t fit in. In Peter’s case, as one biblical commentator notes, “The Holy Spirit was working a powerful transformation among the early Christians. Their perspective of who was “in” and who was “out” was being changed not by their own doing, but by the intervention of the Holy Spirit. The boundaries of the ‘inner circle’ kept widening to the point that the assumed boundaries were no longer legitimate.”[3] Friends, being the presence of Christ, being the church takes us beyond our walls, loving all.[4]

God is our teacher. We are God’s pupils. We are “wired” to love God and others. Brennan Manning in The Importance of Being Foolish: How to Think Like Jesus writes,

Compassion for others and joy over their repentance reign in the mind of Christ…Jesus’s gentleness with sinners flowed from his ability to read their hearts and to detect the sincerity and essential goodness there. Behind people’s grumpiest poses or most puzzling defense mechanisms, behind their dignified airs, coarseness, or sneers, behind their silence or their curses, Jesus saw a little child who had ceased growing because those around him had ceased believing in him.^[5]

Let’s love one another and others as God loves. As we are being good neighbors, evidence of God at work overflows. You are the conduit for Jesus’ love, in your words and deeds, to restore broken and hurtful relationships. Christ is risen. He is risen indeed. Alleluia, Amen. Alleluia, Amen.

This sermon was preached on the Sixth Sunday of Easter, 5 May 2024 by the Rev. Dr. Steven M. Marsh

in the Sanctuary at Grace Presbyterian Church in Wichita, Kansas

Copyright © 2024

Steven M. Marsh

All rights reserved.

[1]Much in this paragraph has been adapted from Lee Strobel, The Case for Faith (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Publishing House, 2000), 7-23. 

[2]Noel Leo Erskine in David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor, editors, Feasting on the Word, Year B, Volume 2, 482.

[3]Jeffrey D. Peterson-Davis in David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor, editors, Feasting on the Word, Year B, Volume 2, 480.

[4]In the four paragraphs of textual analysis above, I have benefited from the thinking of Jin Young Choi, Mihee Kim-Kort, Rhodora E. Beaton, Steven J. Kraftchick, Lindsey S. Jodrey, Deirdre Good, and Rodger Y. Nishioka in Joel B. Green, Thomas G. Long, Luke A. Powery, Cynthia L. Rigby and Carolyn J. Sharp, editors, Connections, Year B, Volume 2 (Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster John Knox Press, 2020), 265-267, 267-269, 270-271, 272-273, 274-275, 276-277, and 278-279.

[5]Brennan Manning, The Importance of Being Foolish: How to Think Like Jesus (New York City, New York: HarperCollins, 2005), 100-101.

Series: “Jesus’ Message: You Are The Conduit”

“Being A Righter of Wrongs”

Acts 8:26-40

John 15:1-8

Evidence is important, particularly when it comes to the claims we make about Jesus and his importance in our lives. Dr. Jerry Root, Professor of Evangelism and Director of the Wheaton Evangelism Initiative, Billy Graham Center, relates the following story:

While my flight was delayed, I met a woman in the Vienna airport. She was wearing a lanyard with a name tag and carrying a clipboard and obviously taking a survey for the airport. When she came to me, I asked what her name was. “Allegra,” she replied. “Allegra, are you from Vienna?” She answered, “No, I grew up in southern Austria.” With that answer came the permission to ask, “What brought you to Vienna?” She said she was a student. This opened the door to more questions. Where did she go to school? What was she studying? After 20 minutes or so I knew [Allegra’s] mother abandoned the family to go to Canada with her lover, her father’s bitterness was toxic, and her brother also attended the University of Vienna, but that they were estranged. When I expressed my sadness for what seemed to be a good deal of estrangement from the people closest to her, she said it was far worse than she confided. She told me she had a boyfriend who went to study art in Florence for six months. He asked her to wait for him, and she did so. Her boyfriend returned the very day before I met Allegra only to inform her, he met somebody better in Florence. I knew where God was wooing her…and the deep felt need where Allegra was likely to hear the gospel. [To this point] she had not asked me one question. I said to her that I knew she had a survey to fill out but that I had been sent to tell her something. She wondered if I was a plant, put there by the airport, to see if she was doing her job. I assured her it was nothing like that, but I had something to say to her once she finished her survey questions. She rushed through the airport’s survey, looked me in the eye, and eagerly asked, “What were you supposed to tell me?” Knowing that Allegra felt abandoned and betrayed, I said to her, “Allegra, the God of the universe knows you and loves you; He would never abandon you or forsake you.” I said it to her again: “Allegra, he loves you!” Sometimes, it takes three times before the words sink in, so I said it again: “Allegra, he loves you!” After the third time she burst into loud sobs…Through her tears, Allegra blurted out, “But I’ve done so many bad things in my life!” I responded, “Allegra, God knows all about it and that’s why he sent Jesus to die on the Cross for all of your sins and to bring you forgiveness and hope.” I was explaining the gospel to ears willing to hear and a heart willing to receive.[1]

Do we live our lives with the confidence that God is already at work in every person’s life? Like Dr. Jerry Root, God will use your witness, your words and deeds, to right the wrongs in someone’s life.

Acts 8:26-40 and John 15:1-8 set forth this principle for our consideration: it is

the Holy Spirit who makes the gospel freely move forward. It is the Holy Spirit that advances the gospel across cultural, societal, geographical, and economic boundaries. Because we abide in Christ, what we ask and desire will resemble what Jesus asks and desires. And what is that? Justice and righteousness for all creation.

In Acts 8: 26-40, it is the Spirit “moved” Philip to act and teach the good news. Philip stopped what he was doing and went down from Jerusalem to Gaza. On arrival, Philip sees the Ethiopian eunuch who was reading, aloud, a passage in Isaiah 53. Philip asks the Ethiopian eunuch if he understands it. Philip resists the temptation to avoid being involved. Eunuchs were neutered male human beings. They were castrated at a young age to perform social functions for royalty and not ever be compromised with female members of the royal house. Eunuchs were given lower sociological status, because they were “…seen as scarred, defective men, unable to be fruitful and multiply. Israelites who held strictly to Deuteronomic and Levitical law permitted eunuchs only marginal participation.”[2] Philip engaged the Ethiopian eunuch and led him to the good news. He told the Ethiopian eunuch that the prophecies in Isaiah are true. The Ethiopian eunuch wanted to be baptized. He saw water, stopped the chariot, went into the water, and Philip baptized him. The Spirit “snatched Philip away” and deposited him in Azotus. The Ethiopian eunuch went on his way rejoicing. Philip preached good news everywhere he could. God, through Philip’s faithfulness, righted the wrongs in the Ethiopian eunuch’s life.

In John 15:1-8, God, as the master gardener, has a better plan for our lives than we do. Growing up in the central valley of California and working in the grape fields one summer, I learned the ins and outs of tending a vineyard. The best grapes were always on branches closest to the vine. Distant branches were cut away. The same principle applies to gardening. Take pansies for example. Pansies grow better and are more beautiful when a plant is “deadheaded.” Pinching the first flowers produced by pansies will produce fuller plants. More blossoms will occur. I watched my mom do this practice every season. The point of this lesson in horticulture is that Jesus wants disciples to stay close to him. We will only bear fruit when we abide in, that is stay close to, Jesus.[3]

As we repent, that is prune sin from our lives, we experience God’s healing, and know that we are included in God’s family. We are to encourage others by affirming that the good news of God in Jesus Christ is real. Brennan Manning, in The Importance of Being Foolish: How to Think Like Jesus, writes,

Of course, in our human condition we aren’t always able to put our minds and hearts on the path of Christ. But we know that these ripples on the surface of our souls cannot become tidal waves when we descend into the inner sanctum of our graced selves and enter into the prayer of listening to our God, who reminds us, “Quiet your heart and be still. I am with you. Do not be afraid. I hold you in the palm of my hand. All is well.”^[4]

The power to love God and others is our birthright, having been reborn in the Spirit of Jesus.[5] Let’s move out into God’s world, bearing the image of God.

As we are being good neighbors, evidence of God at work overflows. Citing William Blake, “The thankful receiver bears a plentiful harvest.”[6] Jesus provides joy in the crucible. Ask for anything on the basis of your relationship with Jesus that is rooted in dependence on and trust in Jesus. Abide in Jesus. Jesus abides in you. You are the conduit of Jesus’ message. Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Christ is risen! Alleluia! Amen.

This sermon was preached on the Fifth Sunday of Easter, 28 April 2024 by the Rev. Dr. Steven M. Marsh

in the Great Room and the Sanctuary at Grace Presbyterian Church in Wichita, Kansas

Copyright © 2024

Steven M. Marsh

All rights reserved.

[1]Adapted from Dr. Jerry Root, “When Evangelism Really Isn’t That Hard” as found in Christianity Today (2-17-17). This story can be found at preachingtoday.com.

[2]Karen Baker-Fletcher in David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor, editors, Feasting on the Word, Year B, Volume 2 (Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster John Knox Press, 2008), 458.

[3]Some ideas in this paragraph were gleaned from Nancy R. Blakely in David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor, editors, Feasting on the Word, Year B, Volume 2, 472, 474, 476.

[4]Brennan Manning, The Importance of Being Foolish: How to Think Like Jesus (New York City, New York: HarperCollins, 2005), 94.

[5]In the four paragraphs of textual analysis above, I have benefited from the thinking of Jin Young Choi, Mihee Kim-Kort, Rhodora E. Beaton, Steven J. Kraftchick, Lindsey S. Jodrey, Deirdre Good, and Rodger Y. Nishioka in Joel B. Green, Thomas G. Long, Luke A. Powery, Cynthia L. Rigby and Carolyn J. Sharp, editors, Connections, Year B, Volume 2 (Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster John Knox Press, 2020), 249-251, 251-253, 254-255, 256-258, 258-259, 260-262, and 262-264.

[6]As seen in Forbes, March 31, 2018.

Series: “Jesus’ Message: You Are The Conduit”

“Being For The Oppressed”

Psalm 23

John 10:11-18

Either the church is able to point to signs of healing power at work in the world because of what has happened in Jesus Christ or the community is without evidence for its claims. In a 2008 report,

Researchers for Pew’s U.S. Religious Landscape Survey analyzed the religious practices of more than 35,000 U.S. adults and found that they generally embrace their own faith while respecting—and sometimes even practicing—aspects of other religions. “Many religions—maybe even most—can be perceived as having an exclusivity clause: We’re right and therefore everybody else is wrong,” said John Green, a senior fellow with the Pew Forum. “What we’ve found is that many Americans apparently don’t invoke the exclusivity clause.” Researchers did not track which other faiths people might say lead to salvation, so a Protestant or Catholic might be thinking of, for example, fellow Christians like the Eastern Orthodox, or non-Christians like Jews or Muslims. Either way, respondents seemed more focused on pragmatism than conversion. “While Americans may have firm religious commitments, they are unwilling to impose them on other people,” Green said. “It may be a kind of attitude that works very well on a practical level in a society that is as diverse religiously as the United States.”[1]

A focus on pragmatism rather than conversion will not leave evidence that God is at work. Yes, being about conversion is being for the poor. You see, conversion from being poor to being free is a salvific act just as the internal work of one’s life becoming more like Jesus.

Psalm 23 and John 10:11-18 make the following point. There is salvation for eternal life to come and abundant life now in no one else but the Good Shepherd, Jesus Christ. There is no other name under heaven given humans by which healing/conversion/salvation can happen.

Acts 4:5-12, one of the lectionary texts for today not read, sets an important context for the message today. After spending the night in prison, Peter and John were brought before the Sanhedrin. The Sanhedrin, the supreme court of the Jewish nation, consisted of seventy-one elders, including the high priest. John and Peter had been arrested for speaking about the power of the resurrection of Jesus. They had performed a healing. The small band of disciples at the time of Jesus expanded to 120, then 3,000, and to 5,000 at the time of Peter’s examination by the Sanhedrin. The healing of the crippled man and the preaching of Peter threatened pragmatism. The question, “By what power or by what name did you do this?” is reminiscent of the question the high priest and elders had asked Jesus, “By what authority are you doing these things, and who gave you this authority?”[2] In Judaism, there was no higher earthly authority than the high priest and Sanhedrin. Peter spoke with authority when he told the Sanhedrin that the crippled man is in good health because he was healed by the name of Jesus. He did not fear death. Peter knew that he must, this time, not deny truth, but proclaim it. There is power in the name of Jesus. The name of God brings healing/conversion/salvation. The Greek word sozo, from soteria, means salvation. Peter challenges the Sanhedrin’s pragmatism. Evidence that the Christian faith adds value to life is important.[3]

Psalm 23 asserts that God continues to bring healing/conversion/salvation through human words and deeds that are undertaken in “the name of Jesus.”

John 10 indicates that Jesus exists for the “other” sheep too. There is one flock. “Others” are the poor; those on the margins of society; those practicing Judaism, Islam, and Hinduism; the rejected; the unchurched; the dechurched; the spiritually sensitive; and the incarcerated. We might struggle accepting the “others,” but it is true. They too could recognize Jesus’ voice. Like sheep, we wander and go astray. Jesus, using the words “I am,” meshes his mission with the purposes of God. “I am” is the name of God. We must listen to the voice of Jesus, the good shepherd. As the good shepherd, Jesus’ voice does and will bring order, truth, competence, faithfulness, and evidence of God at work to our experience. Jesus, the good shepherd, gathers the flock.[4]

You are the conduit for healing/conversion/salvation in the world. A missional church is one where “bearing witness” is the heart of the church’s ministry. Jesus knows your name. “Bearing witness” is all about being the best Jesus. That is, followers of Jesus are engaged, not withdrawn when it comes to life’s greatest challenges. We engage the challenges of poverty, immigration, and homelessness. We see the needs of others as a priority. We understand the need for interfaith dialogue.

As followers of Jesus, we are called by God to be people focused on loving God and loving others. Connecting with God and others in true Christian behavior, which is all God’s doing, not ours, produces evidence, because it brings about resurrection. The evidence bears witness, in words and actions that demonstrate healing/conversion/salvation. Brennan Manning in his book The Importance of Being Foolish: How to Think Like Jesus writes, “Life driven by our desire for security, pleasure, and power dims the Light within us and introduces unnecessary mental and emotional sufferings, which are often misconstrued as spiritual trials or the inevitable growth pains of life in the Spirit. This is erroneous discernment. They are born of our will, not the will of God.”^[5] Pragmatism can be a dead end to growth as a follower of Jesus.

Engage, do not withdraw from, “others.” Therein lies the context for words and actions of healing/conversion/salvation to occur. When you speak and act lovingly, the love of Jesus permeates your words and actions. Evidence is indicative of being the best Jesus someone sees.

Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! True Christian behavior demonstrates resurrection in that death never has the last word. Exercise watchfulness and continual care for one another. Exercise watchfulness and continual care for others in your sphere of influence. Christ is risen! Alleluia amen! Alleluia! Amen! 

This sermon was preached on the Fourth Sunday of Easter, 21 April 2024 by

the Rev. Dr. Steven M. Marsh in the Great Room and Sanctuary at

Grace Presbyterian Church in Wichita, Kansas

Copyright © 2024

Steven M. Marsh

All rights reserved.

[1]Adapted from a preachingtoday.com post citing an article by Adelle M. Banks, “Pew Report Shows Americans Are Religious in Unpredictable Ways,” Religion News Service, posted on www.christianitytoday.com (6-23-08).

[2]Matthew 21:23.

[3]Insight gained from Karen Baker-Fletcher, Thomas G. Long, Paul W. Walaskay, and Barbara Brown Taylor in David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor, editors, Feasting on the Word, Year B, Volume 2 (Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster John Knox Press, 2008), 430-435.

[4]In the four paragraphs of textual analysis above, I have benefited from the thinking of Jin Young Choi, Mihee Kim-Kort, Rhodora E. Beaton, Steven J. Kraftchick, Lindsey S. Jodrey, Deirdre Good, and Rodger Y. Nishioka in Joel B. Green, Thomas G. Long, Luke A. Powery, Cynthia L. Rigby and Carolyn J. Sharp, editors, Connections, Year B, Volume 2 (Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster John Knox Press, 2020), 234-236, 236-237, 238-239, 240-242, 242-244, 245-246, and 247-248.

[5]Brennan Manning, The Importance of Being Foolish: How to Think Like Jesus (New York City, New York: HarperCollins, 2005), 77.