Courage in the Chaos - Esther's Story

What do we do when our fear isn't irrational - when it's based on real threats to our communities? Drawing from Esther's story and featuring insights from W. Kamau Bell's recent show at the Kennedy Center, this sermon explores how to move forward when the stakes are life-and-death.

Courage is not the absence of fear, but the choice to act despite it. From Frodo's conversation with Gandalf to Esther's "if I perish, I perish," discover how sacred stories and modern examples show us how to: -Name our fears honestly
-Find our unique "lane" of influence
-Support each other in scary times
-Move forward even while trembling

This is for anyone feeling powerless in the face of systemic threats to their community.

Before the Bible Was the Bible - Week 5

What if the Bible wasn't finished? What if we were still adding books today? In this final installment of our series, we explore how the Bible actually came together - not through secret meetings or papal decrees, but through communities discovering which texts truly spoke God's truth to their lives.

From Marcion's edited Bible to Thomas Jefferson's cut-and-paste version, we examine how people have tried to shape scripture to their preferences. But the real story is more fascinating: how early Christian communities organically recognized which writings carried divine authority, and how even their blind spots (like patriarchy) affected what was included.

Before the Bible Was the Bible - Week 4

What do you do when the Bible doesn't directly address modern issues like social media, AI, or gender identity? In this sermon, we explore how the early church - particularly Paul - tackled their own "new" questions that Jesus never addressed. Through examining Paul's creative problem-solving (think spiritual MacGyver!), and his own cultural biases, we discover a model for faithfully addressing contemporary challenges while staying true to Jesus' core message.

Before the Bible was the Bible - Week 3

The truth of the gospels comes through different voices.

The Bible Before It was the Bible - Week 2

The Old Testament was put into the form we know today by scribes in ancient Israel who took the stories they inherited, retold them and added their own. Likewise, today we don't just inherit the stories of scripture, we re-interpret and retell them.

Before the Bible Was the Bible - Week 1

The Bible wasn't dropped from heaven leather-bound, red-lettered, and ready to go. Understanding how our sacred texts came to be can help us engage them more honestly and deeply today. Learn how God has worked through human hearts and minds over the centuries to share meaning and love.

Why Christians Should Use Inclusive and Expansive Language for God

Transcript of the sermon preached by Pastor Shawn Coons on June 11, 2023

We're spending a couple weeks at the beginning of June on welcomed, included, embraced, how our call is to reflect God's inclusive love as individuals and as a church. And there's this morning we're going to be talking about something and I don't know that I've ever, in my almost 21 years of ministry preach directly on this. I've tried to model it. Mostly we're going to talk about inclusive language. What do we mean when we say inclusive language? It's using gender-neutral or sometimes what we call gender expansive language specifically for God and for faith. Most often you and I, we refer to God as he and exclusively as he and gender-neutral language would be referring to God as simply God or creator or some other gender-neutral term, gender expansive language would be using he or she, his or her for God.

We're going to start with a scripture lesson that kind of gets at some of why we might want to do this and we're going to begin with Paul this morning, the writings of Paul and some people may say, "Okay, we're talking about gender-neutral, gender expansive language in our faith, we're talking about gender and we're going to go to Paul." Paul is not often the most friendly person, some people think. When it comes to writings and scripture, particularly regards to women and sometimes in regards also to people who are LGBTQ plus, but we heard last week that we can't simply just take one isolated piece of scripture. We take the witness of scripture, we take the principles behind it, learn what scripture is like in its context, but also what it's like in other contexts like us today. We need to do that with Paul's writings as well.

And if you look at the whole of Paul's writings, you're going to see some strong themes come through and one of those themes is the radical love and grace of God that Paul found personally. Undeserved love, undeserved grace. If you remember Paul's story when you first meet Paul, he's called Saul. He is a Pharisee, he is a Jew and he is vehement, merciless in his ... I hate it when I do that. He is merciless in his persecution of the followers of Jesus, even to being kind of a cohort in the stoning of Stephen in Acts chapter eight, I believe it is.

Shortly after that Paul meets Jesus on the road to Damascus and he has this experience of God calling him, of God calling him even though he's done these awful, awful things and that radical acceptance of Paul, by God, that grace that was shown to Paul by God shapes his ministry and he preaches that the grace of God is a gift for everybody regardless of anything we have done, anything we've left undone. And so if we hear Paul's writings with that underlying principle, we get a little bit different perspective on some of his writings. I can't excuse them all, but that's another sermon. Anyway, this morning we're going to read from First Corinthians chapter nine, starting with verse 19.

Paul writes, "For though I am free with respect to all, I've made myself a slave to all so that I might win more of them. To the Jews I became as a Jew in order to win Jews. To those under the law I became as one under the law. Though I myself am not under the law so that I might win those under the law to those outside the law, I became as one outside the law though I am not free from God's law, but I'm under Christ's law so that I might win those outside the law. To the weak I became weak so that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all people so that I might by any means save some. I do it all for the sake of the gospel so that I may share in its blessings.

Do you know that in a race the runners all compete but only one receives the prize run in such a way that you may win it? Athletes exercise, self-control, in all things. They do it to receive a perishable garland, but we an imperishable one. So I do not run aimlessly nor do I box as though beating the air, but I punish my body and enslave it so that after proclaiming to others, I myself should not be disqualified." Says the word of the Lord. So Paul writes, "I have become all things to all people." Usually when we say something like that, we say just the opposite. You can't be all things to all people. And when we think of someone who is all things to all people, oftentimes, if you're like me, you think of a politician who is trying to please everybody. And when they're speaking to this group of people, they're representing their views and they're saying, "Oh yes, I'm I'm fully on your side." And then they speak to a completely different group of people maybe with competing views or priorities and say, "Yes, I'm a hundred percent with you, your priorities are my priorities."

We think of that sometimes when someone's trying to be all things to all people and they end up kind of if you stand for everything you end up standing for nothing kind of thing. But this is not exactly what Paul is talking about here. Paul is talking about having a larger purpose in mind and with that larger purpose in mind, everything else doesn't matter. Everything else can be malleable, everything else can be flexible. Paul is talking and somewhat by kind of following customs and trying to fit in with people. When I was reading this, I was reminded of my family's recent trip to Ethiopia where when we visited folks, when we visited people and had they had us in their home, we followed their customs. Sometimes we'd remove our shoes. We visited a cathedral in Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia and we were supposed to remove our shoes as a sign of respect as we were walked in. So we did.

My daughter and my wife don't normally wear dresses, but that was the custom when visiting people so they wore dresses at that point. I remember in seminary I took a class of school down the road. It was a historically Black college, Virginia Union University, and I remember walking across the campus with Reggie one day, one of the students there and we were just kind of walking in their quad, in their courtyard and I was about to kind of walk through the middle of it and there was this kind of logo in the center of it, kind of an emblem of the school and Reggie me to walk around it said, "We don't walk across that as a sign of respect." And so of course I did that. When we are with other people, we try and follow their customs. When in Rome you do as the Romans. That is what Paul is talking about here is respecting other people so that when you have something important to say, they can listen to you.

Paul was willing to meet people where they are because he cared for them. Paul was willing to meet people where they are because he loved them and he wanted more importantly for them to experience the love of God. The last thing Paul wanted was for something he did that really didn't matter to get in the way between someone else and the love of God. And so this is the attitude, this is the posture that you and I should have. And so as we talk about the language we use about God, the language we use about our faith, I want you to keep that in mind because language is tricky, it's personal and we have a tendency to get defensive when someone says, "Maybe you should use different language." So I want you to keep in mind this attitude that what's important is showing God's love.

We know that language is powerful. We know that the words we use shape our perception of reality. There was a study I read about this week where they took two groups of people and they had gave them an article about crime and in one article they described crime as a beast that that's tearing up the city. In another article that the other group had, they described crime as a virus that's hurting the city and then they gave each group a survey and they measured kind of their attitudes and the group that had crime described to them as a beast were much more in favor of having more police on the streets, more having more law enforcement than the group that was described as a virus and they were more prone to say, "Well, let's try and address the systemic causes of crime." Words shape our perception of reality.

Another example of this, they took German speakers and Spanish speakers and they asked them, "Describe different kinds of objects." And one of those objects was a bridge. The German speakers associated bridges with adjectives like pretty and elegant and peaceful and slender. Spanish speakers used adjectives to describe a bridge like tall and long and powerful. Now in German it's a gendered language and so objects have gender bridge is feminine and so they used feminine kind of characteristics more than masculine. While Spanish bridge is a masculine word and so they use more masculine terms, but here's my favorite that I thought is really interesting. There's this aboriginal tribe in Australia, the Punthamara and they don't use right and left as their kind of measure of where things are. They use cardinal directions, north and south and east and west. So they will say, "That microphone's not to the right of me, it is to the west of me."

Sorry I had to face north to figure out where I was. But that's kind of the thing. This tribe, they don't have to do that. They always kind of know where they are. They know the direction they're facing. Because their language requires them to know, they have this awareness of their position, they have this awareness of their reality about where they are and it's really kind of interesting. When asked to put images in chronological order, you and I who speak English, we will probably put them from left to right because that's the way our language goes, right? If you're a Hebrew speaker that goes right to left. And so if you're putting images in chronological order, you might put the first one on the right side and then go to the left. The Punthamara tribe, when they are asked to put images of chronological order, they go from east to west. And so here's east, there's west, and if they're facing this way and you put them in chronological order, they're going to put them this way.

If they're facing this way, they're still going to put them east to west. No matter which way they're kind of seated and oriented, they're always going to put those images east to west. The language we use shapes how we think. It shapes how we see the world. The language we use shapes our faith. It shapes our image of God. I want you to do an exercise with me. I want you to picture the Garden of Eden right now. We heard from the first creation story in Genesis one. Now we're going to go to the second creation story in Genesis two. Picture that biblical Garden of Eden. Picture how it looks, maybe the lush vegetation, maybe lots of fruit around, picture the sounds, maybe the wind going through the leaves, birds and animals, the smells maybe of the earth and the trees and picture Adam and Eve in the garden and you can picture the fig leaf or not. That's up to you. And picture God. I mean in Genesis chapter two, God comes and speaks with Adam and Eve. Picture God walking alongside Adam and Eve. Hear God speaking to Adam and Eve.

And I want you to think. What was God like in your image? What was God like? Chances are for the majority of us, God took a male form. Chances are when God spoke, we heard a male voice. Maybe it's that kind of classic Michelangelo white beard, almost Zeus looking figure of God walking there in the garden. But God is not a man. I mean the Bible uses male language to refer to God and so it shapes it that way for certain, but God is not a man. In Genesis chapter one, we heard Steph Reed that we were created in the image of God, male and female. Didn't say man was created in the image of God and, "Oh, God also created woman." That God created us in God's image, male and female.

God is beyond gender. God is beyond our human limitations. And intellectually I think you and I, we know that. If we're asked point blank, "Is God a man?" We're going to say no. God is beyond gender. God is beyond our human categories, but probably we can't help default to that sort of thinking of it. And this may not seem like much of a problem, it's very typical. But there are people who find exclusively masculine language about God problematic, who have a hard time hearing about the message of God if God is always referred to as a male.

Some people may have had a difficult relationship with a father and so to hear God called father all the time may bring up really bad associations and they don't have good associations with that. Others will find that this exclusive use of masculine language reinforces kind of a patriarchy, reinforces a sexism in our society. It makes women seem less godlike over time, that men are more godly somehow and women are not. And I would argue that in many Christian traditions over time and still today with the role that women play in leadership or in the life of the church, that that patriarchy is built into certain Christian traditions and, to some extent, our Christian tradition as well.

For other people, just calling God he or father is just too limiting it. It's not big enough for God. It ignores biblical aspects, scriptural aspects of God that we find in the Bible that we find in Christian tradition. One of the themes that we find in scripture, especially in the Old Testament, especially in that first part of the Old Testament, is the prohibition against idolatry. That's making an idol of God, a carved image of God, a visible statue or something right there, you can see, "This is our God, this is who we're going to worship." The Hebrew and Israelite people are told over and over again, "Don't reduce God to an idol. Don't reduce God to an image." The danger of idolatry is that you've limited God to just what you see before you.

I think that our language can be an idol if we limit ourselves to any small set of language about God, whether that that's masculine or feminine or maybe some people think of God only as a judge, only as a strict disciplinarian and they have that kind of idol of God or other people think of God is simply just the loving person who accepts everything no matter what and never has a bad word to say and never asks anything of you, that can be an idol. But when we also say God is only masculine and that that's all I'm going to speak about God, we're limiting God a little bit and we sort of make an idol of our language.

God is bigger than that. God is bigger than any language we can use. Let's admit that first. But the Bible has many feminine images of God. First one we'll highlight this morning, Deuteronomy 32:18. "You were unmindful of the rock that bore you. You forgot the God who gave you birth." It is women who give birth, not men. Isaiah 66:13. "As a mother comforts her child, so I will comfort you. You shall be comforted in Jerusalem." Luke 13:34. These are Jesus words. "How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hand gathers her brood under her wings?"

Our first hymn this morning spoke of wisdom and it's this from Proverbs and it personifies wisdom as a woman and many people will hear echoes of the Holy Spirit described in that verse of Proverbs. So when we expand our language about God beyond just masculine language, we're not only honoring this larger biblical witness about who God is, we are making it so that some people will be able to hear us more, will be able to hear about God more, about God's love more. We are doing what Paul did. To someone who has difficulty with masculine exclusive language about God, we are meeting them where they are.

This goes beyond gender language if we're talking about inclusive language. One of the things that I became aware of kind of midway through my career and I've tried to honor it a little bit more is there is language in our faith. There's language in the Bible that talks about light and darkness and almost exclusively light is good. Think of images as white as snow. We're made white as snow, we're purified. That's good. And the language of darkness is bad. In our society today, I mean that goes beyond faith. And there there's many examples where dark is bad and light or white is good and we have to be careful about that language. Similar, we have to be careful with language about disability. We have traditionally in scripture, in the Bible, in our faith, in our hymns, we've traditionally linked being blind and deaf, crippled or lame as less desirable, as less than whole. As something is wrong with you, you have any of those conditions and you need to be made better or whole.

All these things are learning. All these things are ... There's not hard and fast rules, but it is to be aware of our language that is to be loving. And maybe this is a good place, it's just a little segue, but I think it's appropriate. It's a good place to mention that we love through our language in many different ways. And one of those ways is by using someone's preferred pronouns, by using someone's preferred name. There is a lot to be said about this, but I just want to say this, what harm does it do us to call someone how they want to be called?

We do know it does harm to mis-gender someone, to misname someone or dead-name someone. I mean do you this with other people? Someone comes to you and they say, "Hi, my name is Jen." You say, "Well, I'm sorry your name is Jennifer and I'm not going to call you Jen." We don't do that. And I would guess, well, I know many of you are grandmothers and grandfathers, but how many of you are a grandma, a grandpa, a Mee-maw, a mamma, a Gigi, a nana? We want to be called what we want to be called, right? And that's okay. Being aware of our language and its potential to exclude even when we mean well, if we pay attention to this, if we are aware of that, we can make someone feel loved. We can help someone to feel God's love.

I remember a simple example of this in Florida. I was asked one time to give a prayer at the Chamber of Commerce breakfast and I gave a prayer knowing that it was probably mostly people identified as of faith. It's probably a Christian faith, but I knew it could be beyond that. It wasn't explicitly Christian group. And so I made more of a general prayer and I had a rabbi come up to me who was there and she said, "Just really appreciate that I felt included in your prayer." And I'm like, "Well, yeah, that's kind of what we do."

Our language matters. One other person I remember that, and I don't know what she thinks today. When I was in my first church in Michigan, I kind of took from someone in seminary when I closed every one of my sermons and I've sometimes done it at the benediction here, I would say, "The name of God, the Father, son and Holy Spirit, one God, mother of us all." And I'm trying to use that gender expansive language of using both images. And so we're talking one night in youth group about our language about God or whether God's male or female. And Jessica, who is one of the kids in the youth group says, "Well, how we often say the father, son and Holy Spirit, one God, mother of us all?" And for Jessica that was something the church often says. I guarantee I was the only one Jessica ever heard say that. But when we model it, it becomes kind of normal and people get used to it and especially for younger generations, they're going to hear and they're going to be able to speak differently about God and more inclusively.

So I realized, as we kind of draw to a close here, language about God is personal, language about faith is personal. And as I said before, it's very easy to get defensive. And so if I've offended you, if I've made you feel defensive, that wasn't my intent. I'm not going to say that anyone needs to change their language about God, but I want you to consider it. I want you to be aware of how you speak about God, how you speak in your faith. Going back to Paul, does any of us want to get in the way? Does any of us want to get in between someone and the love of God?

Paul said, "As long as I get to tell someone about God's love, as long as I get to show someone God's love, I'm willing to accommodate myself to them. I've got one goal, one goal in mind. I've got one prize, I'm running forward. Everything else doesn't matter. I'll do whatever it takes to achieve that." Our goal is to love. Our goal is to respect. Our goal is to include, our goal is to welcome and embrace. And if that means being aware of our language, then let's do that. If it means changing our language, shouldn't we do that?

I know it's hard and we're not asking that we're going to give up all of our gendered language about God. We're going to hear music today that has gendered language about God and there's nothing wrong with that, but we should be aware and we should try and be as inclusive and expansive as possible. And if it's too much to change your language right now, then just be aware. Just think about it. Just notice how you speak. Take note. I want to close this morning with a short little, I guess poem, but it's actually, it's from a piece of music by Brian Renn. It's from a libretto, from the song of the Three Children. "God is not a she, God is not a he. God is not an it or a maybe. God is a moving, loving, doing, knowing, growing mystery."

A Christian Foundation for Fully Affirming Those Who Are LGBTQ+

Transcript of the sermon preached by Pastor Shawn Coons on June 4, 2023

For the next two weeks, we're going to hear messages on the general theme of, "Welcomed, Included, Embraced: How We are Called to Reflect the Inclusive Love of God." And it is no coincidence that this coincides with Pride month, a very appropriate message for this month as we celebrate Pride, and everyone being able to express who they truly are. Part of this celebration for us in the church is acknowledging that we have not, as a whole, always done right by folks who are LGBTQ+. Certainly as a whole, I think for the most part things are getting better, churches are getting better. We're able to reflect the inclusive love of God much more than we have in the past.

But I think it's important for us, especially as churches, we have a number of years ago declared ourself a welcoming church, and wanted to be very intentional and very public about that. But it's important for us to know why. I mean, it may just feel right and that's great, and it's great that we do it, but often as Christians, we want to have a good, solid, biblical and theological reason for why we do what we do.

And being a welcoming church, being a welcoming person in this way is solidly Christian, is solidly biblical, and it's great to have a further understanding of why that is. So we're going to explore today the Christian foundation for inclusion of all people, including folks who are LGBTQ+. We're going to look at this, what I'm going to call and others have called the arc of inclusion that we see in the Bible, and then we see beyond the Bible in Christian tradition.

And we're doing so through a story this morning from Acts 15, which Terry began just a moment ago. And it's a story of inclusion. It's a story of inclusion in the early church of the Gentiles, Gentiles being those who were non-Jewish.

And it is good for us as Christians to be reminded that the Bible, even the New Testament, is a very Jewish book in some ways. It is the story of Jewish people, almost more than it is the story of Christians. Jesus was a Jew. Jesus' followers were Jewish. The people, largely, that Jesus came and preached with and did ministry with were Jewish. The early church in Acts was Jewish. The early church leaders were Jewish.

So the first reading that Terry did is talking about Paul and Barnabas, and they're doing good work. Paul was a solid Jew. His title he gives himself was a Jew among Jews, a Pharisee among Pharisees, which is a Jewish leader. And Paul and Barnabas are doing good work spreading the gospel, but they're also trying to spread the gospel to Gentiles. And Gentiles were certainly welcome into the church from early on.

But at this point in the history of the Book of Acts, it's thought that, okay, yes, Gentiles can be followers of Jesus, but they're going to have to follow Jewish law. They're essentially going to have to be Jewish as well. Because many people saw Christianity at that point, not as a separate religion, but just as a kind of a sub-sect of Judaism. And Paul and Barnabas are trying to seek to be as welcoming, to be as inclusive as possible. And so they're pushing back against some of these rules and these laws that are trying to be put on these folks who are not Jewish.

And so they come back to Jerusalem after doing some of their work. After wonderful results, they come back and they start to meet with some of the Jewish leaders or the Christian leaders at that point, who many of them were the apostles of Jesus. And that's where we're going to pick up in Acts chapter 15, verse 12.

They've met, they've talked, and now we're getting to the result of what's going to happen.

The whole assembly kept silence and listened to Barnabas and Paul. They told of all the signs and the wonders that God had done through them among the Gentiles. After they finished speaking, James replied, "My brothers, listen to me. Simeon has related how God first looked favorably on the Gentiles, to take from among them a people for his name. And this agrees with the words of the prophets, as it is written, 'After this, I will return and I will rebuild the dwelling of David, which has fallen from its ruins. I will rebuild it, and I will set it up, so that all other peoples may seek the Lord. Even all the Gentiles over whom my name has been called.' Thus says the Lord who's been making these things known for long ago.

"Therefore I have reached the decision that we should not trouble those Gentiles who are turning to God. Well, we should write to them to abstain only from things polluted by idols, from fornication, from whatever has been strangled, and from blood, for in every city, for generations past, Moses has had those who proclaim him, for he has been read aloud for every Sabbath in the synagogues," says the word of the Lord.

So this passage begins with Barnabas, with Paul kind of making their case, and they're basically saying, "Look at what God is already doing. Look at all the good works that we have done. And it's not through our own efforts, it's through God's effort among the Gentiles." And James, who is representing the leadership here of the early church, announces a compromised deal, if you will, between what some were wanting and what others are wanting. There's kind of this middle ground they arrive at.

They say, "Okay, no, they don't have to follow all the Jewish laws. They don't have to be circumcised. We are going to ask that everybody follow these particular four laws." And then that's where they talk about things polluted by idols, the fornication, not partaking of anything strangled or of blood. Out of all the Jewish laws to lift up, those seem kind of like an odd four to lift up.

But a lot of this has to do with the situation that's going on in Israel and surrounding areas at this point. Under the Roman Empire, there's a lot of temple worship, a lot of Greco-Roman temple worship. And these particular practices were things that were going on within those temples. And so they're kind of saying, "Okay, all these kind of worshiping other gods in various ways that are all around you, that you walk down the street and you see them, you may be tempted by them. Don't do those. Keep your public witness up, as separate from that."

So it seems odd to us today, but at that point it was a daily occurrence. They saw it all around them, and just basically said, "Stick on your course, stay with God, not with these other gods."

So we see once again this kind of compromise here, and it's kind of broadening the circle of the church, welcoming more people in. And we're going to paraphrase Martin Luther King here. The arc of God's story bends toward inclusion. The arc bends toward inclusion. But here's the thing, this is not the beginning of inclusion in God's story, and it's not the end of inclusion in God's story.

There's this ever-expanding embrace that we see from God. So let's go back to the beginning. In the beginning, the very beginning of Genesis, actually Genesis chapter two, where the biblical story starts, let's say small, with two people, with Adam and Eve. And if you read the narrative of Genesis for that time, we are following just Adam and Eve for a while, and then Adam and Eve's family, and then their descendants. And so God starts real small with just a handful of people, but then the story expands, and there's more generations of people. And we hear the story of God beginning to deal, not just with one family but with multiple families, in this one small area of the world.

But eventually we go through Noah, and we have a reset, and then we get to what the heart of Genesis is, it's Abraham, Abraham and Sarah and their family. And for a while, for many chapters, we get the story of Abraham and Sarah, their sons, and it's just this one family, although it's a big family, we get several generations of it. And there's a dozen sons at one point, but then Genesis ends with this family, with one particular son of this family, Joseph.

And if you remember the story of Joseph, the end of story of Joseph, he is in Egypt, and he's reunited with his family in Egypt. And that's where Genesis ends. And where Exodus picks up is, now we are with, several generations later, we are with the Hebrew people, all the descendants of this one family, and they number thousands.

And these are the slaves who are in Egypt. The story has just gotten bigger. We're not just with one family anymore, but a people, the Hebrew people. Moses leads them out of Egypt, they wander for a while, and then we get to Israel and they start to become a nation. Although they're kind of a quasi nation. They're 12 tribes now, descended from the 12 sons of Jacob, but eventually they come to be a nation, a nation of people. Now, God's embrace has expanded beyond just this one family, beyond just this groups of family, into this nation of people.

And eventually we even go beyond the nation of Israel. We're still kind of in the Jewish family here, but there's Jews, not just in Israel. There's Jews all over. There's this Jewish diaspora that is part of God's story.

And then we get to Jesus. And Jesus goes beyond just the good Jewish people, and he starts to include the bad Jews as well. There's tax collectors in there, there's prostitutes, there's sinners. And then he even goes beyond that. And so there's a few Samaritans that are thrown in there as well, lepers, and people who were kind of traditionally seen as outside the good Jewish circle. That arc of inclusion keeps expanding.

And that's when we get to our scripture for today, where, okay, yes, we've expanded it to pretty much still mostly include the Jews and those Gentiles who are willing to become Jews as well. And then the doors are blown wide open, with this compromise that we get from James.

So we see this arc of inclusion continually surprising people. All along there were those, and good Jews and good folks in God's eyes who said, "We know where the boundaries are, we know who is in and who is out." And then God says, "You thought you knew." And that circle widens, and that's where we are again today.

We can continue to see this throughout the history of the Christian Church, with the one time understanding of slavery. Slavery seems to be okay in the Bible. It was okay for the majority of the Christian world, for thousands of years. We see this with the inclusion of women in ministry, at least in our tradition, and we see this with inclusion of folks who are LGBTQ+.

But then we have to go back and say, "Well, doesn't Paul write about homosexuality? Doesn't Paul say homosexuality is wrong? Not according to God's plan? And looking at those verses would be several more sermons, but the short answer is, "Different time, different contexts." Paul and the biblical writers knew nothing about what we know today, as relationships among people who are gay, among people who are straight, that there are gay relationships that are loving, that are monogamous, that are respectful.

That was not seen back in Paul's day, or at least that's not what Paul was writing about. Paul was writing about temple practices. Paul was writing about power differences. Paul was writing about temple prostitution. Very specific examples that have nothing to do with whether it's same gender or not. It just has to do with the power dynamics, with the abuse that may be going on, about promiscuity. The principles Paul was addressing were monogamy, was love, was respect, healthy loving relationships. And we know today that any two people can form these healthy loving relationships. It doesn't matter what their gender are.

So in all these cases of expanding this arc of inclusivity, including Acts 15, there are changes that we make in who we see as in and who as out, but the principles behind them don't change. And that's what we need to rest on.

The principles don't change. Love, respect, justice, building each other up, healthy relationships. For many people, and we know in society our perspectives have changed, just as a society, somewhat dramatically over the last five to 15 years, let's say. For many of those people, it happened when someone they knew came out to them. Someone they knew, someone they loved, and it became personal. And for many Christians, it really was driven home when they met someone, when they knew someone, and they saw how their identity played out with their faith.

I remember reading a book, it's called God's Yes to Homosexuality, or I think it's The Bible's Yes to Homosexuality, and I can't think of the name of the author, but he describes in it how he was certain that the Bible did not approve of homosexuality. But then he knew gay Christians, and he saw what denying their identity did to them. He saw that when they tried to follow the Bible as he understood it, they were miserable, they were depressed, they were suicidal. He saw when they embraced who they were and lived, they became better people. They became better Christians. They were able to do more with their lives and honor God more.

Peter in Acts chapter 15, in a portion we skipped, said, "God, who knows the heart, showed that they, the Gentiles, were accepted by giving the Holy Spirit to them, just as the Holy Spirit was given to us." Peter looked at what was going on in the life of the Gentiles, and he said, "I see God at work there, and if God is at work there, how can I put limits on that? How can I say God is at work in your life, but the Bible doesn't say it is, so God really can't be at work in your life."

And that's what happened with a lot of folks, with people they knew who were gay. They saw God at work in their lives as they embraced all of who they are. And they said, "If God is doing all these great things in their life, how can God not approve of who they are?"

If good things are happening and those good things are from God, then who are we to get in the way of that? I mean, Jesus even says that, says, "We will be known by our fruits, by the fruits we produce."

Paul and Peter are showing the good fruit that is growing in the Gentiles. They're essentially saying, "God has already accepted the Gentiles, whether the church has or not. God has already included them." And the question is, will the church catch up and include those who God has already included? And that is the question that many churches are facing, many churches have faced. God has already included those who are LGBTQ+. When is the church going to catch up to God?

We'll be known by our fruits, by the good and the love we produce and share. Often the church has produced spoiled fruit in this area. We need to change that. We have a lot of ground to cover as a whole, before we catch up to God's loving and inclusive embrace.

I want to close with a song we'll watch in just a moment. It's from Spencer LaJoye who learned, unfortunately, the ground that the church has to cover. They're a musician who grew up as a closeted Queer student at a conservative Christian college. Spencer wrote a song called A Plowshare Prayer, using the imagery of swords to plowshares from the Book of Isaiah, turning weapons into instruments of creation. The premise of Spencer's song is simple. What would a prayer sound like, if it was used as a balm rather than a weapon, a plowshare instead of a sword? They had been on the receiving end of prayers that had been used as weapons, and so they poured their heart into this song about God's loving and inclusive welcome. I think it is the perfect way for us to be challenged, the perfect way for us to be moved to widen our embrace and our hearts as well.

Love the Sinner, Hate the Sin - Half-Truths

Transcript of the sermon preached by Rev. Shawn Coons on May 28, 2023

We’re on our final week of our Half-Truths series. This series is based on a book by Rev. Adam Hamilton called Half-Truths. In this series we are looking at common sayings that are often associated with Christianity and said by many Christians. And at first, they may sound OK, and we often mean well when we say them. But when we look a little closer we realize that these sayings aren’t as true or as Christian as we first might have thought. The final saying we are looking at today is “Love the sinner. Hate the sin.”

Love the sinner. Hate the sin. It sounds Ok, on first read. How can it be bad to love anybody? And doesn’t it sound really Christ-like to love sinners? And shouldn’t we hate sin? Especially if we think of sin as things that we do that hurt ourselves, others, or hurt God.

The phrase is not in the Bible, though. It is thought to have originated with St. Augustine several hundred years after Jesus. In one of his letters he called for early Christians to have a “love for mankind and a hatred of sins.” Over the ages, this saying has appeared in various forms, but they all mean basically the same thing. If we know of someone who is sinning, we should continue to love them as a sinner, but hate and condemn the sinful actions they do. And this does sound true, right?

Never stop loving someone no matter what horrible things they’ve done. But here’s the catch. Rarely, are we ever able to contain our hatred only to the sin. Ghandi once spoke about this saying:

‘Hate the sin and not the sinner’ is a precept which, though easy enough to understand, is rarely practiced, and that is why the poison of hatred spreads in the world.

Love the sinner. Hate the sin. If we practice this, we end up focusing much more on sin and the label of sinner, much more than we focus on love. Jesus never said love the sinner. Jesus said love your neighbor. Jesus knew that if he commanded people to love the sinner, they would begin looking people more as sinners than neighbor.

Think about it. If I said to you right now, I want you to love everyone sitting here in the congregation today, especially those who have been recently diagnosed with a highly contagious form of smallpox. Are you going to focus on loving your neighbor, or on who looks a little under the weather today?

Love the sinner. Hate the sin, doesn’t lead us to love, instead it leads us immediately to a place of judging who is a sinner and what sins are they guilty of. Love the sinner. Hate the sin, is often used as code for saying “I judge you. You are a sinner, you should be ashamed that you do _____, but even though I am better than you, I will love you anyway.”

This is a good time to read our second scripture this morning. Because it addresses this very topic.

Luke 18: 9 He also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and regarded others with contempt: 10‘Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax-collector. 11The Pharisee, standing by himself, was praying thus, “God, I thank you that I am not like other people: thieves, rogues, adulterers, or even like this tax-collector. 12I fast twice a week; I give a tenth of all my income.”13But the tax-collector, standing far off, would not even look up to heaven, but was beating his breast and saying, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner!” 14I tell you, this man went down to his home justified rather than the other; for all who exalt themselves will be humbled, but all who humble themselves will be exalted.’

In Jesus day, the Pharisees were certain Jewish scholars and authorities, who by all accounts, should be considered as righteous. They strictly lived their lives according to proper Jewish laws. And to many who first head Jesus tell this story, they would probably agree with the Pharisee’s self-assessment. He was a righteous man, especially when compared with the tax-collector. The tax-collector would have even agreed that the Pharisee was more righteous than he was.

But in a twist at the end of the story it is the tax collector who is justified by God, and not the righteous Pharisee. Seminary professor, David Lose says this about the story:

“Here is the essential contrast. One makes a claim to righteousness based on his own accomplishments, while the other relies entirely upon the Lord's benevolence. Rather than be grateful for his blessings, the Pharisee appears smug to the point of despising others. In his mind there are two kinds of people: the righteous and the immoral, and he is grateful that he has placed himself among the righteous. The tax collector, on the other hand, isn't so much humble as desperate. He is too overwhelmed by his plight to take time to divide humanity into sides. All he recognizes as he stands near the Temple is his own great need. He therefore stakes his hopes and claims not on anything he has done or deserved but entirely on the mercy of God.”

What matters to God in this story, and in our own lives, is not who is righteous, but who is judgmental and who is not. Not who lives a so-called perfect life, but who realizes their dependence on God and that righteousness is a gift from God and not our own doing.

So coming back to Love the sinner. Hate the sin. The problem with this saying is that it focuses us on the sins of others, on judgment of others, rather than on our own sin and being honest about where we are with God. Love the Sinner. Hate the sin, at its heart focuses on the sins of others and our judgment of them.

In the Half-Truths book, Adam Hamilton tells this story about Billy Graham:

Some time ago I read an interview with Billy Graham’s eldest daughter, Gigi. She was her father’s date to Time magazine’s seventy-fifth anniversary party, a banquet in Washington, DC. President Bill Clinton spoke at the event. He had just been impeached by the House of Representatives for perjury and obstruction of justice. The charge of perjury involved what President Clinton had said, under oath, about his relationship with White House intern Monica Lewinsky. At the banquet, her father sat with President and Mrs. Clinton. He was warm and gracious to them. After the dinner ended and Graham and Gigi were riding back to their hotel, the two discussed difficulties the president and First Lady were going through with so many people gossiping and judging. Gigi said her father’s simple comment was, “It’s the Holy Spirit’s job to convict; it’s God’s job to judge; and it’s our job to love.”

It is our job to love. Not to judge. It is our job to love. When we label someone as sinner, we stop seeing the person and we start seeing the sin. Our job is not to convict but to love.

Should we keep silent about the problem of sin? Of course not. There are absolutely times when Christians must stand up and name sin and evil for what it is. We’ve lived through many moments in the life of our country when we are called to name the evil before us. We must name hatred, racism, white supremacy, and the failure to condemn them, as sin. Any Christian who engages in actions or rhetoric motivated by hate or racism, has ceased to represent Christ. Any Christian who remains silent in the face of racism, homophobia, and hatred, will have to answer to God for their complicity.

But we must resist the urge to judge, label, and dismiss those who perpetuate this evil simply as sinners or to think of them as lesser people. And that’s hard. But our job is not to convict but to love. In fact, Adam Hamilton says:

The truth in “Love the sinner, hate the sin” stops with the first word: Love.

Let me ask you this. Where have you most often heard the phrase Love the Sinner, hate the sin, used? I have most often heard it used in terms of homosexuality. For those Christians, who believe that Bible says that homosexuality is sinful, this verse has been used to explain how someone can condemn a large part of someone’s identity while still claiming to love that person. Ask someone who is gay, ask someone who is transgender, ask them if they feel loved by people who say love the sinner, hate the sin.

When we use this saying we are first and foremost defining that person as a sinner, rather than as someone we love. In Matthew, Jesus says that we should not be judging other people, we have enough sin in our own lives that makes us liable to judgement. The only person we should label as sinner is ourselves. Love the sinner, hate the sin should be rewritten and we should instead be saying, I love you, even despite the fact that I am a sinner. Or as Mark Lowry says:

Love the sinner, hate the sin? How about: Love the sinner, hate your own sin! I don't have time to hate your sin. There are too many of you! Hating my sin is a full-time job. How about you hate your sin, I'll hate my sin and let's just love each other!

Pentecost – a day of expanding the church beyond what people then thought possible

Including more and more people, that’s the arc of the story of God. We will hear more about that in the next 2 weeks

• Everything happens for a reason.

• God helps those who help themselves.

• God wont’ give you more than you can handle.

• Love the sinner. Hate the sin.

Four half-truths. So if I have done my math correctly, that makes 2 whole truths. And isn’t that better than no truth? If there is some truth to these why do we really need to be worried about saying these things? If we mean well, isn’t that enough. Unfortunately, that’s not enough. The reality is these half-truths can hurt people who need hope and healing. These half-truths can be destructive to someone in a time of need. These half-truths can discourage people and turn people away from God and Christianity.

And even more importantly, why would we give someone a half-truth when we could give them the whole truth of a God who loves them and is there to support and guide them every step of the way.

I am indebted to Rev. Adam Hamilton and his Church in Kansas that made the inspiration for this sermon series available to other churches and preachers, and so I’d like to close with his words today:

I’d like remind you of the “whole truths” we found behind the half truths we have rejected. We reject the idea that everything that happens is God’s will. Instead we say that whatever happens, God is able to able to work through it, to redeem it, and to bring good from it.

We reject the idea that God only helps those who help themselves. We recognize that God expects us to do what we can to help ourselves. We pray and we work. But ultimately the very definition of grace and mercy is that God helps those who cannot help themselves.

We reject the idea that God won’t give us more than we can handle. This is partly because we reject the idea that whatever adversity we face is given to us by God. What we do believe is that God will help us handle all the adversity life will give us.

We reject the idea that every verse of Scripture should be read, out of context, as the literal words of God. Instead we recognize that the biblical authors were people, influenced by God but not merely stenographers. Like all of us they were shaped by, and responded to, the historical circumstances in which they lived. And thus we believe that, when they are rightly interpreted, God speaks through the words of Scripture in order to teach, guide, shape, and encourage us.

Finally, we reject the notion that God calls upon Christians to “love the sinner, hate the sin.” When we choose to focus on the sins of others and speak of hating their sin, we violate the words and spirit of Jesus. Paul calls us to hate our sins, and Jesus calls us to love our neighbors, all of whom are sinners. When we demonstrate love and not judgment, we draw people to Christ rather than repel them from him.

God Won't Give You More Than You Can Handle - Half-Truths

Transcript of the sermon preached by Pastor Shawn Coons on May 21, 2023

We're going to dive right into our second scripture lesson this morning, and it's from Luke chapter 11, beginning with verse nine. And these are Jesus' words to the gathered crowd. And he said to them, "Suppose one of you has a friend, and you go to him at midnight and say to him, 'Friend, lend me three loaves of bread. For a friend of mine has arrived, I have nothing to set before him.' And he answers from within, 'Do not bother me. The door's already been locked. My children are with me in bed. I cannot get up and give you anything.'"

"I tell you, even though he will not get up and give him anything because he's his friend, at least because of his persistence, he will get up and give him whatever he needs. So I say to you, ask, and it will be given you, search and you will find, knock and the door will be opened for you. For everyone who asks, receives, and everyone who searches, finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened. Is there any among you if your child asks for a fish will give a snake instead of a fish? Or if the child asks for an egg will give a scorpion? If you then who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will Heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him?" Says the word of the Lord.

Thanks be to God.

So on week three of our series of half-truths, looking at sayings that Christians, we as Christians, often say. Many we think we can find in the Bible, but when we look a little bit closer, we find they're maybe not quite as true or don't mean exactly what we're trying to convey. The series is based on a book by Reverend Adam Hamilton called Half Truths. So far, we've talked about everything happens for a reason. We've talked about God helps those who help themselves. And this week, we are tackling God won't give you more than you can handle.

With each of these sayings, we acknowledge that many of us have said these things before. And when we've said them, we mean well. Often we might say "God won't give you more than you can handle" to someone who's dealing with a lot of adversity, with too much problem in their life, one hardship piled on top of another. And so when we say this, "God won't give you more than you can handle," what we're really trying to say is, "You are strong. You got this. You're tough. I know you feel overwhelmed, but you're going to make it. You'll get through this." All wonderful things to say.

There's nothing wrong with wanting to be encouraging. There's nothing wrong with wanting to give someone hope when they're going through tough times. It's very natural to say, "This isn't going to defeat you. This won't overwhelm you. God is still with you, and God loves you and won't allow you to be defeated by this." And we can even find support for this kind of outlook in scripture. If we look at 1 Corinthians 10, verse 13, "No testing has overtaken you that is not common to everyone. God is faithful and he will not let you be tested beyond your strength. With the testing he will also provide the way out so you may be able to endure it."

So Paul writes, "God is faithful and will not let you be tested beyond your strength." And that sounds very similar to "God won't give you more than you can handle." But there are some differences. There's some nuances that I think are important. So let's explore this verse first little bit written by the Apostle Paul to the Christian Church in Corinth in the first century, just a couple decades after Jesus' death and resurrection. Corinth was a crossroads. Corinth was kind of on an isthmus, and there was even kind of a little dry canal there that they would sometimes pull ships from one sea to the other. So it was a very cosmopolitan place. It was a place with lots of different people from lots of different places, lot of activity.

The folks there for the most part would've been labeled pagans by our New Testament church, simply meaning they weren't Jews and they weren't Christians, and they would've worshiped, as many did in that region, a variety of gods and goddesses, especially of the Greek and Roman pantheon. And they would've worshiped them in a number of different ways. There would've been idols. Sometimes there would've been raucous celebrations with drunkenness. There were temple prostitutes. There were feasts. But it's these pagans that make up that church in Corinth. And in following Jesus, they were giving up their former religious practices that they might have done in these various temples.

The problem for them is that they were tempted. Just by being in Corinth, just by walking around their town, they saw the temples, they saw what was going on, saw where all of these practices were still happening. And so these particular group of Christians in Corinth struggled with these temptations to revert back to their ways in those temples, to the immorality, to the gluttony, to the drunkenness. And so this is what Paul is writing to. He's writing to this group of Christians who are surrounded by temptation where they walk. Reverend Hamilton in his book, Half Truth, writes about this passage. The context in this verse is self-discipline in the face of temptation with the hope of avoiding sin, particularly the sins of sexual immorality and idolatry. Paul is telling the Corinthian Christians their experiences not unique. Just as the Israelites were tempted, so too the Corinthians will be tempted. In fact, we'll all be tempted. Jesus himself experienced temptation.

This passage is not about God deciding to give you more burdens in your life than you can handle. It is about God helping you when you are tempted. And temptation is indeed a test of your resolve, your character and your faith. And that's what Paul was talking about here, not about adversity and the difficult circumstances that come into life at some point. So we do need to make this distinction between temptation and the adversity that happens in our life. There are things that tempt us to do things against God's will, to do things that hurt ourselves, hurt God, hurt others. Then there's adversity in life. There's tragedy in life. There's things that overwhelm us that may have nothing to do with temptation.

What Paul is saying here, at least two things he's saying, he's not addressing these tragic circumstances, the hardship we face, the loss, the pain, the suffering. He's addressing temptation to former practices that led us into bad places. And Paul is not saying that God is the author of all hardship and all tragedy and all temptation, that God makes bad things happen to you, that God puts things in your path to test you. To go back to one of our earlier things, Paul is not saying that everything happens for a reason and that reason is God.

When I was in middle school, in high school, I was very active in my church youth group in my Presbyterian church, and it formed me in some very important ways and some very positive ways. But in this particular tradition that my youth group kind of embraced of Christianity, I received some messages about Christian faith that weren't so helpful. And one of these messages is that that God uses, God causes, trials and tribulations in our life to strengthen us, to refine us, to make us tough. The image is like a blacksmith who purifies metal by heating it up, putting it in the fire and taking the big old blacksmith hammer and hammering it until it's strong and in the shape it needs to be. And I was told that the hardships we sometimes face may be God just strengthening us, testing us, toughening us up.

I think there's several problems with that as I reflect on it now, but let's just say that metal doesn't suffer. Metal doesn't feel pain, and God doesn't treat us like objects with no feelings. Paul is saying that temptation is real. We are tempted to do things that are not good for us or for others, often for both. But those aren't tests from God. Those aren't from God, and often they're usually kind of from ourselves, of our own doing.

Really simple example, which is almost trivial, when I go grocery shopping, I don't like to go grocery shopping, so I like to reward myself. I don't know if anyone else does that as well. A candy bar, a cookie, a bag of chips, and there's nothing wrong with that. Often though I'm tempted to do maybe more than just a candy bar. Oh look, there's a eight-pack of brown sugar cinnamon Pop-Tarts, something for my childhood that I really love. Cheese Pringles. Let me get a whole can of cheese Pringles. And I will tell you, I am the target consumer. You know how Oreo puts out these new flavors, like five a week? I am a target for every single one of those. I look at it go, "Oh, that would be really good." And of course you can't buy just an Oreo to try it. You have to buy the whole pack. So I go there and I see Swedish Fish flavored Oreos, and I'm like, "Yes, please." They were good. I'll tell you that.

But I'm also telling you, God didn't put Swedish Fish Oreos into my life to test me. God wasn't sitting around saying, "Well, there's war, there's poverty, there's racism, there's greed. What should I do now? Shawn's going shopping. Let's get the new Oreos out." I was the author of my temptation there, or maybe Nabisco was the author of my temptation. And God had actually already given me what I needed to deal with it. As I said, that's a very small trivial temptation. But unfortunately at one time another, we are all prone to giving into those bigger temptations, those bigger temptations that lead to hurt for ourselves, for others. Maybe we're tempted into drug or alcohol use, unhealthy practices at home, cheating at school, self-harm, infidelity, dishonesty at work, silence or apathy in the face of injustice.

When we are tempted to these destructive choices, we hear in scripture that God provides us assistance in those moments of temptation. Paul is saying we're not on our own in those moments. Even it doesn't feel like, we have a choice and we have the strength to get through it. There are times when we do seem powerless to choose what's healthy for us, and that the destructive choice is just too strong. But even in those moments, God gives us an alternative. If we feel no, we can't deal with this on our own, sometimes the only choice we have is to ask for help, is to admit our powerlessness and say, "Yes, I need your help. I need someone to help me," to admit that we cannot help ourselves and that we need God and we need others in our lives.

This asking for help is often portrayed as a weakness. We want to be seen as self-sufficient, pulling ourselves up by our own bootstraps. But there are times in our life when asking for help is the bravest thing that we can do. If you go to any Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, Narcotics Anonymous, Gamblers Anonymous, every person there begins their road to recovery by admitting their need for help, that they cannot do it on their own. In our scripture lesson from Luke, Jesus says, "Ask and it will be given to you. Everyone who asks shall receive."

And we heard the story right before that about a man who needs something late at night and he goes to his neighbor's house, he bangs on his door, and the neighbor doesn't want to help him at that late hour. The scripture says he's not going to help him because they're friends. He's going to help him because the guy keeps banging on the door. He's persistent. The guy helps him not out of altruistic motives but out of selfish motives. But he still gets what he's asking for. And Jesus says, "Even if this guy can help grudgingly, what about God who loves you?" What about God who loves you is the ultimate good. Surely God's going to take care of you more than this neighbor. We all need help at various times in our life, and God wants us to ask for help. God wants us to cry out in prayer. God wants us to turn towards each other. We are here as God's answers to prayer. We are here to help one another.

I received a phone call here at the church once from a woman who was in some pretty hard straits and as I listened to her, I could tell that she probably needed more help than I could give. I said, "I'm happy to listen, but I think you might benefit from talking to a therapist, a mental health professional." She replied, she didn't need that because she had God. And so I asked her, if God's help was all she needed, why was she calling me? She realized she needed help, but it was just harder to take even one more step. But we've been put here for one another from the very beginning.

In that second creation story in Genesis 2, God makes Adam out of dust, breathes life into him, and then says, "It's not good, Adam, for you to be alone." It is not good for any of us to be alone. We are created to help each other. God doesn't give us more than we can handle, but that doesn't mean... Well, we say God doesn't give us more than we can handle, but sometimes we get more than we can handle even though it doesn't come from God.

Adam Hamilton writes in his book, Half Truths, about a conversation on this subject, the woman, and she said, "For years this statement helped me when I was facing difficult things. I kept telling myself that God wouldn't give me more than I could handle, and it reassured me that somehow I was going to make it through. Then one day I was at my therapist's office and I mentioned it to him and he laughed. And he said, 'Are you kidding me? Surely you don't really believe that. I can tell you plenty of stories about people who had more than they could handle. In fact, my profession consists of helping just such people.'"

The counselor reminded the woman that in her own case, she had come to him because the emotional pain and difficulty she was facing had been more than she could handle. In addition, the woman's mother had committed suicide because life had become more difficult than she could handle. Now, first, the one was angry that her therapist had called her belief into question, but the more she reflected, the more she concluded he was right. We will face adversity in our lives and we will experience hardships. We or someone we love may face terminal illness. We may struggle with debilitating depression, suicidal thoughts, grief so heavy we'll feel we'll suffocate. We may walk through financial circumstances where it seems there's no way out. We are like every human being. At some point, we will absolutely face things that are more than we can handle.

And the promise of scripture is not that we won't go through hard times. What scripture does promise is that all times good or bad, God wants to be our help and our strength. It's not that God won't give you more than you can handle, but that God will help you handle all that you've been given. That's the message. That's the important message. It's not that God won't give you more than you can handle, but that God will help you handle all that you've been given.

One last word I'd like to give you. It's possible someone is sitting here today and they absolutely feel like they have more than they can handle. If that's you, if you are facing a challenge that has overwhelmed you, addiction, financial difficulties, relationship challenges, depression, mental health issues, grief, pain, whatever it is, please ask for help. You can start this moment by asking God for help, but don't stop there. Talk to someone. Talk to a friend here, talk to me. Talk to a teacher, a family member, a therapist. God has already put people in your life that can help you. It's not that you have been given more than you can handle... No, sorry, it's not that God won't give you more than you can handle, but that God will help you handle all that you've been given.