TEACHING
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LENT 5, SUNDAY, MARCH 26, 2023
10:30 AM (kids! + communion) FIVE SHIFTS OF TRUE REVIVAL + REFORMATION A reformation is a period of recalibration and course-correction. Any community around for as long as the church will experience inevitable drift over time. Yet the Spirit has worked again and again throughout history to draw the church back toward its center. Key moments come when particular ideas and practices are rethought and core truths are rediscovered. Rapid cultural and technological change, clergy scandals, church divisions, and political turmoil have resulted in a period where “deconstruction” is the buzzword. Many Christians find themselves rethinking their faith, and many outside the church dismiss Christianity as having nothing true or relevant left to say to the world. THE JOURNEY TODAY: Discovering Shift One to One and ½: Jesus Glasses to On the Road With Jesus The reformation we need in the post-Christian, deconstructing North American church is Centering on Jesus. We unpack Luke 24 while we walk on the road to Emmaus with Jesus and the early disciples. Two big ideas give us five changes in how we do Christianity: “One: God always looks like Jesus, and Two: all scripture is properly read through him.” Hop in and ride along!
Pilgrim Church Vision: Love | Invite | Flourish | Root
We exist to love our city and to invite our neighbours to flourish by rooting our lives in the outrageous love and life of Jesus. [Jeremiah 29:7, 1 John 4:7-8, Ephesians 3:17, Col 1:17, Col. 1:28-29, John 13:34-35, John 3:16-17] Quotes: “God always looks like Jesus, and all scripture is properly read through him.” -Edem Morny John 2:22 says that Jesus had to die and be resurrected before his disciples understood him and how he read scripture. “Once Jesus’ disciples grasped the paradigm shifts produced by Jesus, they never viewed the Bible the same way again. The disciple’s views of God were permanently changed because Jesus became their primary way to understand God. And scripture became all about God as they understood how Jesus explained and modeled him.” -Edem Morny BIG IDEA: “(1)God always looks like Jesus, and (2)all scripture is properly read through him.” When a person needs to be resurrected before they can be understood, we are no longer in “ordinary” territory. Add onto this the fact that resurrection itself is not “ordinary,” and we may be dealing with something more radical than we’ve been taught to think. Once Jesus’ disciples grasped the paradigm shifts produced by Jesus, they never viewed the Bible the same way again. The disciples’ views of God were permanently changed because Jesus became their primary way to understand God. And scripture became all about God as they understood how Jesus explained and modeled him. (Col. 1:15, Luke 15:1-2; 24:13-35). REVIEW: Forgetting the Jesus Glasses... “...instead of viewing Jesus as the “pleasant side of God,” we should look at Jesus as the accurate picture of what God looks like.” -Edem Morny “The problem for many Christians might be that we think Jesus is too good to be true and need to supplement him with other portraits of God we see elsewhere, including in scriptures that seem in tension with his character.”
ON the Road: Luke 24:25-44 “For that we need to learn how to read the scriptures; and for that we need, as our teacher, the risen Lord Himself. This passage forms one of the most powerful encouragements to pray for His presence, and sense of guidance, whenever we study the Bible, individually, in pairs or in larger groups. We need to be prepared for him to rebuke our foolish and faithless readings, and to listen for his fresh interpretation. Only with him at our side will our hearts burn within us (V. 32), and lead us to the point where we see him face to face” (NT Wright, LFE, 295).
APPLICATION || Repenting And Next Steps
For Reflection and Discussion
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