Julian's Sermons

  On November 5, 2017, I was invited to preach at Freedom as a pastoral candidate. I began explaining my strange accent. Then, we looked at God’s love for us in Mal 1:2–5. A lot has happened since then. In my personal journey, I have written a 275 page dissertation on these verses. I have grown in knowledge, but more importantly, I experienced something that only happens in community. Being part of this church community, learning together, hearing your stories, sometimes disagreeing passionately with you, I know that God has worked in my life and yours so that we love him more and we love each other more than we did three years ago. When I compare my old and new sermons, I see more love and affection in the content as I have gotten to know you. I have become less concerned about sharing fun facts about the Bible and more concerned that we treasure God more and love all people because of God’s gift to us in Christ’s death and resurrection. I want to end at Freedom on the same note w...

  1 Peter was written to “ elect exiles .” This means Christians are chosen by God to live for him in a place that is not home. We are not home yet, but we are here on a mission. We disciple: we grow in our own faith, we equip others to grow in faith so that we are equipped to bless others and share the gospel that other would enjoy eternal life! Because we are not at home, this letter assumes hardship. Joy, anger, sadness, suffering, and peace are all part of the Christian experience. We do not all have to come to church with a smile. It’s okay to not be okay. In fact, if we are honest about our health, world news, our family dynamics, our struggles with sin, we can expect to feel a combination of joy, anger, sadness, suffering, and peace at any time. The Christian life is not one of ignoring problems. In fact, if we choose to be honest with ourselves and truly reflect on and work through our pain and sorrow, we will heal and learn to care for those who have suffered as we have. S...

  Biblical teaching on submission is often abused, so we need to get it right. This passage calls us to submit to the government, in the workplace, and at home. Using these texts to abuse others in God’s name is a horrendous sin. One key for understanding biblical submission are the phrases in the passage, “ for the Lord’s sake ” (1 Pet 2:13), or while being “ mindful of God ” (1 Pet 2:18), or like Jesus, we submit by “ entrusting ourselves to God ” (1 Pet 2:23). The right foundation for submission is the belief that God has the absolute right to rule our lives. Abuse of the biblical teaching of submission happens when we quote verses out of context and confuse human authority with God’s authority. SIOS: In light of Christ’s submission for the forgiveness of our sins, we submit to the government, in the workplace, and at home. We will see that without submission, there is no gospel. We will look at submission to human institutions, in the workplace, and at home. We will condemn ab...