As I have written previously, I am against simply posting a sermon as a blog post. I think it is a cheap way to sqeeze out a post (yeah, that's right - I'm talking to you preacher-boy). However, I am not against posting thoughts that are part of the forming of a sermon. This is't completely cheap, only half cheap. Below are my very own personal thoughts about the sermon I am preaching on 8-8-10. Feel free to offer any thoughts, etc. as always (come on, preacher-boy, what do you got?).
MAIN IDEA – faith is about the journey and the destination / faith means we are going towards something real, something promised. We may not get there, we may not see it, but we have the substance of the promise and we have the proof of belief that fuels all of our actions. Faith is not stationary, but active.
One of the reasons I entered into the ministry is because I see the pain of the world and I believe the church is the way to address that pain. I could have been a social worker, a politician, or a doctor, but I am a pastor because I believe the grace of God is the balm we all need individually and socially.
Holy God, remind me again and again of your promises. Remind me that you promise to guide me and lead me. Remind me that you promise to be with me and that through the cross I know that you promise to love me no matter what. On this day may I remember and embrace the hope that I am heading somewhere in my faith and my life. On this day may I embrace the hope that all that I am doing, with my vocation, with my studies, and with my family are ways of moving closer to you individually and collectively. May that be the vision that I can embrace in this message, that you are working with us, that you are guiding us and our lives and our work is not in vain.
Amen
THEOLOGICAL IDEA – realized eschatology, i.e. we are working with God in realizing the Kingdom. Faith – believing in something promised. This is not the same as grace, but instead is something that we claim. Grace is offered by God; it is God’s actions. Faith is something that we do, we believe in the promises and the presence and the person of Christ and God. This is similar to hope as Multmann suggests it. Hope, in the Christian context, is a belief in something that is promised to happen, it is not a wish. Faith has that future orientation, but at the same time has a present orientation. The substance of faith is the reality of the promise that helps us in the here and now with assurance in what we are doing as Christians.
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