Often, when we find ourselves overcome by fear, it’s because we have placed our fear in the wrong thing. The disciples in the boat with Jesus when the storm blew in had their fear in the wrong thing, and so they were terrified! If we fear only God, we have nothing to fear from the circumstances that surround us. Listen below to my Sunday morning sermon on the subject:
The Problem with Misplaced Fear – Sermon by the Rev. Charlie Holt from The Church of St John the Divine on Vimeo.
Watch my sermon from last Sunday on Mark 3:20-25. I call it a Mark “sandwich.” The two pieces of “bread” are the segments where Jesus’ family are afraid He is crazy: verses 20-21 and verses 31-35. The “meat” in the middle of the sandwich is where the teachers of the law accuse Him of being in league with Satan: verses 22-30. Jesus’ response in these verses tell us that He is not afraid of being called crazy or evil, because He is confident of what is true, and He knows where His power truly comes from. Examine your own heart and see where your confidence lies. Are you worried that people think you are crazy or wrong? Or are you standing firm in confidence that the power of the Holy Spirit in you is absolutely all that matters?
Crazy with Jesus – Sermon by the Rev. Charlie Holt from The Church of St John the Divine on Vimeo.
Meditations on the call of the prophet Isaiah.
Call of the Prophet – Sermon by Charlie Holt from The Church of St John the Divine on Vimeo.
My thoughts about the day of Pentecost and its connection to the Tower of Babel in a Sunday morning sermon at St. John the Divine church.
Found in Translation – Sermon by the Rev. Charlie Holt from The Church of St John the Divine on Vimeo.
My sermon on Sunday was about the New Temple, and it reminded me of the below blog post that I originally wrote in 2014. Find the sermon video at the bottom.
There is a little children’s rhyme that we all learned as children. It uses hands to creatively teach about the church:
Here is the Church
And Here is the Steeple
Open the Doors
And see all the People!
The childhood rhyme is Biblically incorrect! While we often call the physical building and place of worship for the people of God, a Church, that is a misnomer. I go so far to call it a little lie. Little lies like this have been taught to us as children, and they have done great damage. Subtly and powerfully, they shape our vocabulary and thus our thinking and values as the people of God. The Church is NOT a physical building with a steeple and doors. Yet, we persist in using the word with that reference and meaning.
The institutional church itself has reinforced the vocabulary. A couple of years ago, the Bishop corrected me when I referred to my church’s worship space as “the Sanctuary.” He said, “Properly, the sanctuary is the space behind the altar rails and building should be referred to as ‘the church’.” From a technical architectural vocabulary perspective, he was not wrong.
The reforming instinct in me cannot accept his correction. I have worked hard to never refer to a physical building as “The Church” because of the misaligned priorities on buildings, programs and institutions.
In the New Testament parlance, the Church is the gathered worshiping People of God. Rather than the building, the Church would be what you see when you open the doors and look inside the physical building. Monday through Saturday, the Church has left the building! Without the resurrected People of God gathered, the building stands vacant like an empty tomb!
As the angel who told the women looking for Jesus inside the rock-hewn tomb, “Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here, he is risen!” Yes, there are many beautiful “church” buildings built around the world, with wonderful architectural features and gorgeous stain glass windows. They are built to the Glory of God! However, without a vibrant Holy Spirit filled, worshiping body of Christ, they are empty albeit beautiful sepulchers.
Whenever the New Testament uses the term “church”, it is always referring to the redeemed and holy people of God. It does describe church in terms of building and structure but always as a building made with living stones on the divinely appointed cornerstone.
Biblically, we should not say we go to church as so many of us are apt to say, but rather we should say we are the church! The church is a community of people whose lives are completely centered on Jesus, living stones built into the precious cornerstone.
Paul used this same imagery in his letter to the Ephesians. He says,
“You are being built into a holy temple, one stone placed upon another, incorporated with Jesus Christ as the chief cornerstone. In him, the whole building is joined together and rises to become a Holy Temple in the Lord. In him, you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.”
So does that mean that we should not build physical buildings for the church? Not at all! Yet, the institutional tools and structures that we have created with human hands out of wood, metal, bricks and mortar are merely tools and institutional supports for the spiritual living Church, the body of Christ. This is an incredibly important distinction for us. Why? Our primary focus is properly on the living organic Temple of the Lord.
The resurrected life is centered on the Person of Jesus Christ and the community and people that have been incorporated into the New Temple that is his Body. As in times of the Old Testament, the People of God find themselves serving worldly physical and institutional structures, rather than the physical and institutional structures supporting the people of God.
This was the corruption of the political, religious and economic systems which Jesus confronted in his day when he overturned the tables of the money changers in the old Temple.
The challenge in our day is to renew our emphasis on the True Church, the Living Stones, the New Spiritual Temple, The Body of Christ. The people of this world value the physical stones, but the Lord values the living stones. As the Apostle Peter writes, they are chosen by God and “precious to him.”
New Temple: Life in the Presence – Sermon by the Rev. Charlie Holt from The Church of St John the Divine on Vimeo.
Question for thought and discussion: Do you agree that the people of this world place more value on worldly structures and institutions than people? Do you see this happening even with the Church? How do we get back to the right emphases?
Here is my final sermon to the beloved St. Peter’s Episcopal Church, Lake Mary, FL where I have served for the last 16 years.
The scriptures here are offered by the Lord as encouragement to stay strong and brave even in the face of the new realities and thresholds that the Lord challenges us to cross.
God’s promises transfer across the thresholds of life and leadership. He challenges us to stay true to His Word. We have nothing to fear, because the Lord is with us always. Be Strong and Courageous!
Brooke’s remarks at St., Peter’s
At the conclusion of the sermon you will hear the remarks and congregational prayers, by Brooke Holt (my wife), John Ricci, (Senior Warden) and The Rev. Canon Justin Holcomb (representing Bishop Gregory O. Brewer).
Joshua 1:5b-9
“Just as I was with Moses, so I will be with you. I will not leave you or forsake you. 6 Be strong and courageous, for you shall cause this people to inherit the land that I swore to their fathers to give them. 7 Only be strong and very courageous, being careful to do according to all the law that Moses my servant commanded you.
Do not turn from it to the right hand or to the left, that you may have good success wherever you go. 8 This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success. 9 Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.”
When Jesus was in the Garden of Gethsemane, He prayed to His Heavenly Father: “If there be any other way, make it possible.” And yet, Jesus submitted obediently to His Father’s will and took the cup that the Father would have for Him. As Jesus wrestled with the most agonizing submission of His life, all of his disciples failed to support Him. Three times he asked them for support through intercessory prayer.
“My soul is very sorrowful, even to death; remain here, and watch with me.” And going a little farther he fell on his face and prayed, saying, “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will.”
And he came to the disciples and found them sleeping. And he said to Peter, “So, could you not watch with me one hour? Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.”
Again, for the second time, he went away and prayed, “My Father, if this cannot pass unless I drink it, your will be done.” And again he came and found them sleeping, for their eyes were heavy. So, leaving them again, he went away and prayed for the third time, saying the same words again.
Then he came to the disciples and said to them, “Sleep and take your rest later on. See, the hour is at hand, and the Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. –Matthew 26:38-45
Three times his closest friends and confidantes failed Him because of their own weakness and flesh. He desperately pleaded with them to sit with Him, to watch and pray with Him. But, they were overcome by sleep.
At His most desperate hour, Jesus was left to wrestle in agony with the will of His Father—all alone. The feelings of abandonment would be compounded on the Cross when he asked:
My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
The will of God can be a lonely personal fulfillment. There are times where we may even question whether God is with us. If Jesus asked that, so might we. At the end of the Apostle Paul’s life, he was facing the certain moment of his own martyrdom for the sake of the Gospel and the Name of Jesus. Paul discovered the lonely garden of the Father’s will:
At my first defense no one came to stand by me, but all deserted me. May it not be charged against them! –2 Timothy 4:16
Notice the word “all”—“all deserted me.” Faithfulness to God’s call is often a lonely, lonely business. However, Paul lived faithfully on this side of the Cross of his Lord. While his human confidantes and friends abandoned him in his time of need, Paul knew that because of Jesus sufferings of abandonment, He would never abandon His people in their darkest hour. That is why Paul goes on to write:
But the Lord stood by me and strengthened me, so that through me the message might be fully proclaimed and all the Gentiles might hear it. So I was rescued from the lion’s mouth. The Lord will rescue me from every evil deed and bring me safely into his heavenly kingdom. –2 Timothy 4:17-18
Because Jesus was God forsaken on our behalf, God says to you “I will never leave or forsake you.” Even though we may feel times of distance from the Lord, or moments where the experience of His presence is lacking, He is always with his faithful people. The Cross guarantees this reality. No one put this truth more beautifully than the Apostle Paul:
What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. Who then is the one who condemns? No one. Christ Jesus who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written:
“For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”
No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Nothing can separate you from the love of God in Christ Jesus your Lord. Nothing!
The Cross proves it!
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