Bent Oak Church

In our opening to the book of Ezra, we take a look at the background of the book and how God stirred the hearts of both secular rulers and everyday believers to fulfill his promises. Israel would return to their homeland to rebuild their nation and worship. God was stirring the hearts of people to go and take up the task.

On this Easter Sunday, we take a look at the way Jesus's resurrection impacts how we live in the days that follow Easter. 

Jesus's entrance into Jerusalem was one of the high points of his ministry. The disciples expected rejection, but he was welcomed as king. Jesus wasn't so quickly impressed. He warned the crowds, as he often did, that to be a true faller would mean rejection, suffering, and death to self. This Easter we are reminded that to follow Christ often requires stepping away from the crowd and taking up our own cross.

In our final sermon of the serious, we look at Jesus's unwillingness to offend a tax collector and consider how Jesus calls us to avoid offending others. We are called to be stewards of his offense. Willing to risk the offense of the cross but never allow ourselves or our rights to become the obstacle of offense. 

The night Jesus was betrayed, he warned his disciples that they would stumble because of him. They would see his cross and be offended by it. The cross is the central offense of human history, for in the cross we are forced to see our own need and his call to take up that cross and follow. Jesus had been using offense to prepare his disciples. He told the about the suffering to come so that they would not be offended by it. 

Jesus's disciples were concerned he had offended the pharisee leaders from Jerusalem. The Pharisees feared Jesus was not keeping proper traditions of appearance and cleanliness. In the middle of their dispute, Jesus spoke one of his most difficult words to a gentile Canaanite woman. But in the midst of the conflicts, she possessed what the others couldn't. She had great faith and easily avoided christ's obstacle to display it. Jesus honored her above all the respectable and recognized leaders of the day. 

Jesus's first miracle was quietly done to save a social embarrassment at a friend's wedding. At the center of that first miracle was a strange conversation with his own mother.  A conversation that risked offense. Jesus often risked offense when talking about family and relationships. He pushed his followers to recognize that he must come first and only then could they steward the relationships of earth. 

The rich young man that came to Jesus had everything we respect: youth, wealth, influence, and morality. He came with a deeply spiritual question. But Jesus saw through it. The young man collected good works like he collected possessions. He could not follow Christ without abandoning his need for control. It was an obstacle he couldn't overcome and he left grieving. 

That Jesus would talk privately with a Samaritan woman at a well shocked not only his disciples but also the Samaritan woman. Immediately she brought up the divisions that separated them. he was a Jewish man, and she was a Samaritan woman. But Jesus didn't take up her language. He never used the world's labels. Instead, he pushed her to ask a different question. Who was he? It was Jesus's identity that mattered. To follow him, she would have to set down the identities of this world.

That Jesus would speak one of his harshest words to one of his closest disciples is a surprise. But Jesus recognized that Peter had shifted his eyes to things of this world and it had pulled him out of his position as a disciple. It's a reminder to all of us to fix our eyes on Jesus and his willingness to correct those he calls. 

Jesus came to judge. Those were his words but most of us don't understand them. The judgment of God is a revelation. Jesus described that he would make the blind to see and those who see blind. Jesus's judgment is an act of revelation, for in his judgment, Jesus exposes what is true. Jesus exposes our hearts. One of the tools Jesus used to reveal was his words of offense. If we are willing to hear them, offense can be a clarifying word of revelation. For what offends us often reveals what is most important to us. 

When our idols fail us, we usually look for someone to blame or we look for someone to encourage us and reaffirm our desire. We want people who will tell us what we want to hear. That has long been a temptation for people and the church. Increasingly we trust our feelings as the measure of truth and collect teachers to affirm us. But the church must steward the full revelation of Christ, even when it is a word of challenge. 

As we each pursue our desires hoping they will solve our insecurity, the consequences grow worse. Not only do we become more insecure, but a spirit of accusation turns us against one another. There is nothing like a finger pointed at someone else to draw our attention away from ourselves. When our idols fail us, we go looking for someone else to blame. We take a closer look at the conflict that emerged from the garden and how Satan's tactic of accusation is still at work today.

Our insecurities always cause us to fixate on a solution. Imagining some idol as the salvation of our fears, we awaken new desires in our hearts. We take a closer look at the emergence of desire in the temptation of Eve and see how trusting our heart's desires has become our culture's guide to truth. Christ risks offending us to offer us a better truth than desire. 

As we continue our look at the Biblical topic of offense, we investigate how insecurity can lead us to feel offended. Before the serpent could tempt Adam and Eve to eat the fruit and divide the world into conflict, he first sought to awaken in them a sense of need. The serpent created insecurity and by that insecurity led them into sin. It's true for us as well, beneath our feelings of anger, outrage, and offense are lurking fears of insecurity which most of us live blind to.

In our first week of this new series, we take a closer look at how our culture has become increasingly obsessed with and sensitive to offense. But we ask a question rarely asked in our culture. Why? Why do we now find ourselves so easily offended, and what does the Bible have to say about the feeling of offense? 

Daniel wraps up our Immanuel series by sharing about how God changes our hearts and leads us into acts of humility and self-sacrifice. 

Todd Tolbert continues our Immanuel series by discussing God's grace and how he disciplines those he loves toward greater sanctification and joy. 

As is our tradition, we'll spend the Advent season hearing from members of our congregation. Each share how God has been with them through challenges and seasons of life. This week, Elizabeth Lombardi described the challenges she's faced and how through it all, there is reason to worship. 

As we finish up our series on the Bible, we take a closer look at how the word of God always moves us to worship. We have not fully experienced God's word if it has not done its work on both the head and heart. The Bible is fundamentally the story of what God has done for us, and our rightful response is gratitude and worship.