Friday, April 30, 2010

Chained for Good: John the B

It's been awhile since there's been time to write here, but we're in the middle of a 7 part sermon series about biblical characters who were imprisoned.   I have to mention, before I write anything else, that I absolutely KNOW you're going to love the video intro to this week's message.  If you've been in worship, you know that each message in this series starts with a story about an unusual prison.  This week's is one of the best - really fun (which isn't the way you might normally describe prison stuff).  But I don't want to spoil it for you, so you'll have to show up if you want to see the prison story I'm going to share this week.  It's great!

Anyway, this is week three in the Chained for Good series, and we're taking a look at John the Baptist who is an interesting guy.  (Matthew 11:1-19)


John's ministry is fairly short-lived and yet Jesus describes him as the greatest of all the prophets.  He has an amazing ministry of proclaiming the coming of the Messiah and getting people to look at their lives.  But soon after Jesus comes on the scene, John gets tossed in jail for daring to tell Herod that he was an adulterer.  Instead of being rescued as some of Jesus' disciples were later, he comes to a grisly end when his head is lopped off to please a bratty dancer (makes a nice painting though, doesn't it?).  

If you've ever believed that a radically faithful life lived for God will lead to success and comfort, this guy torpedos that idea.  What does John have to teach us then?  That's what we'll discover Sunday.
- Curtis

3 comments:

  1. Many of us have been imprisoned by criticism. Critical judgments are usually just misplaced blame from unfulfilled expectations. We get hurt or wounded because we expected others would have responded to us from a place of love, but instead they used their mantle of influence to put us down. Influence that is wrongly used can be deadly. I'd rather weigh in on the side of grace than on the side of judgment, because "mercy triumphs over judgment."

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  2. Good, insightful words. Thanks for sharing them. - Curtis

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  3. Surrounded by amazing freedoms, fortunately I'm clueless about any kind of prison. but am looking forward to seeing that video.

    It seems to me, however, the kind of mental prison described above is limited to the value of the critic, thus the phrase "consider the source".

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Thanks for posting!