During the month of June, we are collecting peanut butter and jelly, donating half to the Covenant Presbyterian Church food pantry and half to the Salvation Army (Orchard location) food pantry. If possible, please make sure the jars are plastic. You are welcome to make a cash donation and note on the check that it is for the June Yellow Bag program. At the end of the month, we will buy peanut butter and jelly for distribution.
Being face-to-face with Jesus. Ponder that for a moment. When I think about being face-to-face with Jesus, I begin to yearn for a more personal and intimate relationship with Jesus Christ. The human face with its vices of anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language comes face-to-face with the face of Jesus with its virtues of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience. Our vulnerabilities and powerlessness are exposed. The outcomes of such a face-to-face encounter with Jesus causes a correction of beliefs and worldview which then demonstrates the practice of forbearance, forgiveness, love, unity, and the peace of Christ.
What is lacking in the life of many followers of Jesus and congregations is the power of the Holy Spirit. Without restoring a commitment to seek intimacy with God, whose power transforms the human heart and makes the people of God passionate to be his witnesses, through the power of the Holy Spirit, our efforts to change seem futile.
How can we get the power of God back? God is the one who gives “it”, the power. God seems to give “it” to those who want “it”; or more precisely, to those who want God and God’s will. We become distracted from a wholehearted pursuit of Jesus Christ.
Face-to-face with Jesus. Experiencing God’s love in Jesus Christ means experiencing that one has been unreservedly accepted, approved, and infinitely loved.
Let’s refocus on a face-to-face encounter with Jesus. Concentrate on two things: reading the Bible and praying. Let’s immerse ourselves in the Bible and believe that God speaks to us through the written page. Let’s pray more. We cannot live the Christian life without conversing with and listening to God. God hears our prayers and answers them. When we read the Bible and pray, we start to fall in love with Jesus again.
On the journey of Christian discipleship and spiritual formation with you, I remain faithfully yours,
Steve
The Rev. Dr. Steven M. Marsh
Interim Pastor
Children in grades one through six are invited to join Grace and five other neighborhood churches at Plymouth Congregational Church, June 17-21, for this year’s Vacation Bible School (VBS). The theme is “Just Like Me; Digging in and Growing Deeper.” This is an evening VBS with dinner at 5:30 pm and programs from 6:00—8:00 pm. There is no cost for children to attend. You can register your children or volunteer by following this link: https://www.plymouth-church.net/vacation-bible-school/. For questions, reach out to Charlene Randle or Kirk Anderson.
A Word From Our Interim Pastor
The Rev. Dr. Steven M. Marsh
On Sunday, January 21, 2024, I preached my first sermon as your Interim Pastor. That sermon began a series titled, Questions You and The Public Square May Have About Experiencing God. In that sermon, I stated that God was calling us to be the best Jesus someone would see in Wichita. How? By listening well to one another and others, regarding how one is or isn’t experiencing God. I encouraged each of us to engage the questions and begin the journey with one another and others that would sharpen our focus on what unites us is the love of God we know and experience through Jesus. I said that we will become the best Jesus someone sees, when we are known as friends with God and one another; known for seeking and living God’s best; known for proclaiming salvation in the name of Jesus Christ through our words and deeds; known for doing justice, and known for being involved in our community and serving the least of these in Wichita.
By definition, best means “of the most excellent or desirable type or quality.” In a biblical and Christian context, best can be defined and seen in the context of God’s redemptive will for humanity and creation. By definition, community means a group with common interests. In a biblical and Christian context, community can be defined and seen in the context of a group being instructed, guided, and living by God’s redemptive will for humanity and creation.
Every level of ministry in our church must encourage and equip people to lead. We are to be servant leaders after the very heart of Jesus Christ. As disciples of Jesus Christ, thus participants with God, we become servant leaders as Jesus was a servant leader. A servant leader is altruistic, empathetic, respectful, adaptable, patient, encouraging, yielding, honest, positive, responsible, a cheerleader, a learner, a listener, forgiving, humorous, tolerant, supportive, and enthusiastic. A servant leader wants others to know Jesus Christ as their Savior and Lord. A servant leader wants to know God’s best and to share God’s best with others.
This summer, the Grace pulpit will continue to address core practices we learn through examining the message of Jesus. Each of us is God’s presence and agents of change. Join me this summer as we examine what it means to be God’s presence in Wichita and participants with God in bringing about change.
On the journey of Christian discipleship and spiritual formation with you, I remain faithfully yours,
Steve
The Rev. Dr. Steven M. Marsh
Interim Pastor
Series: “Jesus’ Message: You Are God’s Presence”
“Filled With The Holy Spirit”
Isaiah 6:1-8
John 3:1-17
True north differs from magnetic north, which varies from place to place due to local magnetic anomalies. A magnetic compass almost never shows true north. To find true north from a magnetic compass you have to know the local magnetic variation and how it is varying over time. Finding true north is essential for accurate navigation. Hence the metaphor. In life’s journey we are often uncertain where we stand, where we are going and what is the right path for us personally. Knowing our true north would enable us to follow the right path.[1]
In the winter of 1968, Brennan Manning lived in a cave in the Zaragosa Desert in Spain. The cave was six thousand feet above the sea, and he never saw another human face or heard a human voice apart from Sunday mornings when a Franciscan brother would bring him food, water, and kerosene for his lamp. Brennan Manning in The Importance of Being Foolish: How to Think Like Jesus writes, “On the night of December 13, 1968, I heard Jesus say, ‘For love of you I left my Father’s side. I came to you who ran from me, who fled me, who did not want to hear my name. For love of you I was covered with spit, punched, and beaten, and fixed to the wood of the cross.’”[2] What a statement of God’s love for us and how resting in that love gives us true north direction, through the Holy Spirit, for our lives.
Isaiah saw God and heard the seraphs cry out “Holy, holy, holy is the LORD Almighty.” God had a vision for humanity…for Isaiah. King Uzziah had been a godly man until the latter years of his reign. He lost direction for his life and that of the kingdom. Following King Uzziah’s death, God gave Isaiah a vision for his life and the lives of the people of God. Isaiah was created in the image of God. The Holy Spirit resides in the image of God. Isaiah cried out to God, “Woe to me!” Isaiah confessed his sin to God. Self-awareness is not negative. A seraph came to him, touched his lips with a burning coal, declared to Isaiah that his guilt had been taken away, and that atonement had been made for his sin. God then asked, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” Isaiah responded, “Here am I; send me!”
John 3 addresses one’s recognition of being filled with the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit that is with us in the image of God. Being filled with the Holy Spirit is the beginning of conversion or what in John 3 is called being born again. Wayne Grudem defines born again as “the scriptural term referring to God’s work of regeneration by which he imparts new spiritual life to us.”[3] Nicodemus, a member of the Jewish ruling council came to Jesus by night. He said to Jesus in John 3:2-3, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God; for no one can do these signs that you do apart from the presence of God. Jesus answered him. ‘Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born from above.’” Nicodemus responded immediately to Jesus’ statement in John 3:4-6, “How can anyone be born having grown old? Can one enter a second time into the mother’s womb and be born?” Sensing Nicodemus’ urgency Jesus replied, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit. What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit.” By being born of the Spirit, we are a new creation. We receive this new life from the Spirit by faith. Jesus does not condemn us, but gives us life. Being born again is rooted in God’s love for God’s creation, not condemnation. God freely chose to love you and me, despite our sinful condition. It is by no merit of our own that caused God to love us. God freely chose to love you and me, despite our sinful condition. Being born of the Spirit negates death having the last word. Being filled with the Holy Spirit means we have freedom to love God and one another creating community that does not hold on to the spirit of this world.[4]
On this Trinity Sunday, let us not forget that God dwells within us. God is fully engaged as Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer of our lives…all of life…in all ways and at all times. Again, Manning writes,
How long have you been a Christian? How long have you been living in the Spirit? Do you know what it is to love Jesus Christ? Do you know what it is to have your love unsatisfied, endured in loneliness, and ready to burst your restless, ravenous heart? Do you know what it is to have the pain taken away, the hole filled up, to reach out and embrace this sacred Man and say sincerely, “I cannot let you go. In good times and bad, victory and defeat, my life has no meaning without you.” If this experience has not illuminated your life with its brilliance, then regardless of age, disposition, or state of life, you do not understand what it means to be a Christian.[5]
God’s eternal being as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is present in the world bringing about salvation through you. Wherever we see works of love, peace, and justice, we know God is at work. For God sent his Son into the world not to condemn, but to save.[6]
Like Nicodemus, be born again. The Holy Spirit is the Christian’s true north. Self-awareness is the beginning of clarifying true north for one’s life. Being filled with the Holy Spirit is necessary for accurate navigation in one’s life. Living in the Spirit, you are connected to God and others. Jesus loves you. Know God’s love for you. Rest in it. Be filled with the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit leads you to discern true north. Alleluia, Amen.
This sermon was preached on Trinity Sunday, 26 May 2024 by the Rev. Dr. Steven M. Marsh
at Grace Presbyterian Church in the Great Room and Sanctuary in Wichita, Kansas.
Copyright © 2024
Steven M. Marsh
All rights reserved.
[1]Webster’s Online.
[2]Brennan Manning, The Importance of Being Foolish: How to Think Like Jesus (New York City, New York: HarperCollins, 2005), 173.
[3]Wayne Grudem, Bible Doctrine (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Publishing House, 1999), 480.
[4]In the two paragraphs of textual analysis above, I have benefited from the thinking of J. Clinton McCann Jr., Robert A. Ratcliff, Joel Marcus Lemon, Erica A. Knisely, Claudio Carvalhaes, Renata Furst and Susan K. Olson in Joel B. Green, Thomas G. Long, Luke A. Powery, Cynthia L. Rigby and Carolyn J. Sharp, editors, Connections, Year B, Volume 3 (Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster John Knox Press, 2020), 2-4, 4-6, 7-9, 10- 11, 12-13, 14-16 and 16-18.
[5]Brennan Manning, The Importance of Being Foolish: How to Think Like Jesus, 174.
[6]Some ideas in this paragraph are gleaned from Donald K. McKim and Kristen Emery Saldine in David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor, editors, Feasting on the Word, Year B, Volume 3 (Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), 26-31.