Knox Presbyterian Church Podcast

Worth Sharing: God's Story & Your Story

God has a story. The church has a story. And you have a story too. We were all born someplace, had a family, grew up, maybe got married or maybe didn’t, and so and so on. Even if we never sit down to write our autobiography, we all have a narrative we keep in our head about who we are and where we came from: a story about significant events, crucial decisions, values and commitments that shaped us. 
And here’s the thing: God’s story has interesting ways of intersecting with our own story. Christians are people who can look at their own life story and trace God’s handiwork. Christians are people who look at their own life and speak not only of their own activity, but God’s. They don’t just look at their story and say ‘I decided to do this,’ but ‘God did that.’ They can say, ‘God taught me, God empowered me, God rescued me,’ or whatever it may be.
We have a story. And somewhere in that story, God is at work. Somewhere, your story intersects with God’s story about the redemption of the world. Now, what that looks like will be different for everyone. Some of you have a story that’s a u-turn like Paul’s. Some of you have a story that’s a straight line: you’ve been following Jesus for as long as you can recall. All our stories are different, but in each of our stories, God is at work somewhere. Part of sharing the gospel with others is being able to spell out the difference Jesus has made for you, in your life.
1 Corinthians 15:3-10

Worth Sharing: Evangelism is Good News (Seriously!)

We are, by nature, evangelistic people. When we love something, we can’t help but want to share it. We’ve just kind of forgotten that Jesus is worth sharing too. So we want see if we can change our thinking around evangelism. Evangelism is not telling people that they’re going to hell, that they’re bad people or really anything bad at all. Evangelism, when it’s done right is simply…
Sharing the faith we love with people we love. 
Sharing the Jesus we love with the people we love.
Sharing this church that we love with the people we love. 
And, as the Holy Spirit empowers us, it’s inviting the people we love to love our faith, to love our Jesus, and to love our church too. Over the course of the next four weeks, we are going to talk about our faith that is WORTH SHARING! And we’re going to talk about who to share it with, what you might share, how you share and why.
Matthew 28:16-20
Acts 1:8

Upside Down Kingdom: Good News for Sinners

Special Guest: Reverend Peter Park
Luke 18:9-14

Upside Down Kingdom: Good News for Ethnic and Religious Minorities

A teacher of the law wants to test Jesus. He asks him, what must I do to inherit eternal life? Jesus turns the question back on him: well, you know the Torah. What does it say? The lawyer cites the Bible from memory: I need to love God and love your neighbor. That’s it, says Jesus! 
Then the lawyer takes a second pass. ‘But who is my neighbor?’ Luke tells us that the lawyer ‘wanted to vindicate [or justify] himself’ by asking that question. He wants to show that he is in the right—and by extension that Jesus is in the wrong. 
Jesus responds by telling a story. It’s the parable of the Good Samaritan, and may be familiar to some of us. A man on a long journey gets beaten up, robbed, and left for dead on the side of the road. Two Jewish religious leaders, a priest and a Levite, come walking by. They see him and his dire need, but do not intervene. A third man approaches, a Samaritan, a member of a religious sect at odds with the Jewish mainstream. At great personal expense and inconvenience, the Samaritan takes care of the man. Jesus asks, who was that man’s neighbor? ‘The third guy,’ says the lawyer. Well, go and do likewise, says Jesus. 
To hear this story in all its power, we need to see how stunning it would have been for Jesus’ audience, how much it reverses their expectations. To understand why, you have to learn something about Samaritans
Luke 10:25-37

Upside Down Kingdom: Good News for the Untouchable

We’re continuing our series on the Gospel of Luke, focusing on the Upside-Down nature of the Kingdom Jesus came to bring. 
In Jesus’ upside-down kingdom, the poor are blessed; those who are low are lifted up; the blind see; the oppressed are set free. And as we will see in our story today, the untouchable are touched, are healed, by the gracious touch of Jesus’ hand.
Luke 8:40-56

Upside Down Kingdom: Good News for Women

Throughout the gospel of Luke, when Jesus proclaims and demonstrates the kingdom, he often does so an eye on women. He shows compassion to this sinful woman who would be rejected by the Pharisees. He heals a woman whose issue of blood had rendered her ritually unclean for years, restoring her body as well as her place in the community (Luke 8). He heals a women physically bent into a position of inferiority (Luke 13), and he praises the generosity of a poor widow (Luke 21). Most of all, in today's remarkable passage, Jesus includes women in his ministry. Joanna, Susanna, and Mary Magdalene not only believe in Jesus, but accompany the disciples as they go from town to town proclaiming the gospel.
And let’s not forget that the entire gospel of Luke is book-ended by the faithfulness of women. Jesus is brought into this world by the courageous obedience of his mother Mary, who says yes to God when she could have said no. And on Easter morning, the disciples who discover the empty tomb are ‘the women.’ It’s simply no accident that women play such an essential role in this gospel. Luke is telling us something about how the kingdom of God works.
Luke 7:36-50

Upside Down Kingdom: Good News for the Poor

Jesus’ blessings and woes are an illustration of life in his kingdom, where things are upside down, where they run quite counter to what we think is ordinary and usual. In Jesus’ day, people saw wealth as a sign of divine favor. In our day, people aren’t all that different: sure, they might not put it exactly that way, but we do tend to regard wealth as an unambiguously good thing. And we see poverty as unambiguously bad. What Jesus is trying to do is turn that upside down. In particular, he’s trying to draw our attention to the spiritual danger of wealth, and the spiritual openness of poverty.
Luke 6:20-26

Upside Down Kingdom: Ordinary People

Upside Down Kingdom: The Good News according to Luke 
Jesus is for everybody.
Jesus is for the rich and the poor. Jesus is for men and for women. Jesus is for sinners and for saints.Jesus is for insiders and outsiders.
Jesus is for everybody.
And the way that Luke lets us clearly know just how “for everybody” Jesus really is, is his emphasison how Jesus treats those who would otherwise think Jesus could never be for them. The lowly, themarginalized, the broken, the picked on and the pushed around. Those who had always been toldthat they’re a nobody, Luke makes clear that they are right in the center of everybody.
And Jesus is for everybody.It’s important to me, that from the outset of this series, that you understand this. That Jesus is forEVERYbody.
Because throughout this series, we are going to focus in on the ways that Luke really does emphasizethe upside-down nature of Jesus’ message and ministry. Those who were low are lifted up. Thosewho were out are brought in.
But for those of us who are here, who are “in” (so to speak)- we’re here, in church, in the room,doing the Jesus thing- sometimes we hear that and think, “Well, then is Jesus for me?”
Friends, if that’s you (even just a little bit), hear this word of comfort from our friend Luke: Jesus isfor everybody. That means that Jesus is for YOU.
Scripture: Luke 5:1-11

Help. Thanks. Wow. WHAT?! - Psalm 8

Help. Thanks. Wow. WHAT?! - Psalm 133

Psalm 133