God’s Acre on the Go

Why does God give us rules in the first place?

In Exodus 20, God gives the Ten Commandments to a newly liberated people learning how to live in relationship with God and with one another. Some prohibitions exist because they protect something precious. The commandments protect relationships that God deeply values. Pasted markdown

Centuries later, when Jesus is asked to identify the greatest commandment, he reaches back into the Hebrew Scriptures. From Deuteronomy: love God with all your heart, soul, and mind. From Leviticus: love your neighbor as yourself. Jesus does not introduce love into an otherwise loveless Old Testament. He reveals the love that was there all along. Pasted markdown

But biblical love is more than affection. It involves loyalty, faithfulness, commitment, and action. That makes Jesus’ rule wonderfully simple—and extraordinarily demanding. In difficult meetings, family arguments, disappointments, financial decisions, political disagreements, and encounters with people we simply do not like, we can ask one question:

What does love require of me now?

We may not need to memorize hundreds of laws. Jesus gives us two commands demanding enough to occupy an entire lifetime: Love God. Love your neighbor. 

What if the thing you fear might destroy you could somehow become the place where healing begins?

In Numbers 21:4–9, the Israelites are attacked by poisonous snakes in the wilderness. God gives Moses a strange instruction: make an image of the very creature they fear, raise it on a pole, and tell the people to look at it. Those who look toward the serpent live.

Centuries later, Jesus draws upon this disturbing story in John 3:14–17: “Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up.” The cross—an instrument of humiliation, suffering, and death—becomes Christianity’s great symbol of salvation and life.

Chapin explores the unsettling Christian conviction that sometimes something within us must die before we can become fully alive. Not because suffering is good, but because God can work even through loss, failure, disappointment, and the things we most fear. Resentments can die. False identities can be shed. Old ambitions can loosen their grip. We can become freer to love, forgive, reconcile, and give thanks.

And the invitation is surprisingly simple: Look to Jesus. We do not need to understand everything before healing begins. We turn our gaze toward the One who was lifted up—and trust that God can bring life even from the places that look like death.

In Exodus 16:2–36, the Israelites have escaped slavery in Egypt only to find themselves hungry in the wilderness. God responds by providing manna, bread from heaven that appears each morning. But the manna comes with unusual instructions: gather only what you need for today, trust that more will come tomorrow, and when the Sabbath arrives, rest.

God is doing more than feeding Israel. God is forming a people.

After generations of living according to Pharaoh’s demands, the Israelites must learn a new way of life. They must discover that the God who liberated them can be trusted to provide. But the manna also raises another, more surprising question: Can God trust them?

That question reaches us as well. Can we trust God when tomorrow is uncertain? And can God count on us to love, forgive, share, welcome, tell the truth, seek reconciliation, and use what we have been given for the sake of others?

The Christian life becomes a sacred rhythm: God provides; we trust. God instructs; we obey. Grace and response. Provision and command. Trust and obedience—two simple ingredients in a relationship with God that can sustain us through every wilderness.

In Exodus 14:10–25, the Israelites find themselves trapped between Pharaoh’s approaching army and the sea. There is no apparent way forward, and going backward is impossible. Into their fear, Moses speaks an extraordinary word: “The Lord will fight for you, and you have only to keep still.”

Stillness can be especially difficult for competent people. We are accustomed to identifying problems, making plans, and finding solutions. Those abilities are gifts—but they can also tempt us to believe that every problem is ours to solve.

Sacred Stillness explores another dimension of faith: learning when to stop trying to create an opening and instead watch for what God may be doing. Sacred stillness is not passivity. The Israelites could not part the sea, but once God opened the path, they had to walk through it.

From the Red Sea to the silence of Holy Saturday and the empty tomb of Easter morning, Scripture tells of a God who makes a way when human possibilities have been exhausted. Sometimes faith means acting. Sometimes it means waiting. Wisdom is learning the difference.

What good is faith if it never changes what we do? That is the question James presses in James 2:14–18. When someone is hungry or without adequate clothing, kind words are not enough. For James, faith is not simply something we hold or profess; it becomes visible in the choices we make and the ways we respond to the needs of others.

 

In “Love in an Open Field,” Kelly Antonson reflects on returning to Mission Waco and remembering an earlier visit to the land that would become Creekside Community Village. At the time, it was simply an open field. But Mission Waco had listened carefully to people experiencing homelessness, learned what was actually needed, and allowed what they believed to shape what they built. The story of Tisha offers another expression of the same kind of faith: paying attention to the people around us and doing what we can with what we have.

 

James does not ask us to solve every problem or meet every need. He asks whether the faith we claim is changing how we live. The invitation is to notice where need comes close, to listen well enough to understand it, and to allow our faith to move us from good intentions toward faithful action.

 

In Matthew 13:1–9, 18–23, Jesus tells the parable of a farmer scattering seed. The same seed falls everywhere, but it produces very different results depending upon the soil. Some never takes root. Some springs up quickly and withers. Some is crowded out by thorns. But seed that falls on good soil produces an extraordinary harvest.

The problem isn’t the seed. The problem is the soil.

But how does hard soil become good soil? This sermon suggests an answer every farmer understands: tilling. Before the harvest, the ground must sometimes be broken open and turned over. Our hearts can be like that too. Disappointment, change, loss, and unexpected experiences can unsettle us, but they can also open places within us that have become hard or crowded.

Reflecting on a summer serving refugee children in Berlin, this message explores how God can use experiences we never expected to deepen gratitude, expose assumptions, and soften our hearts. And sometimes God invites us to participate in that work ourselves through prayer, service, gratitude, and small acts of obedience.

If your life feels unsettled, don’t assume God has abandoned the field. What feels like disruption may actually be preparation. The Great Farmer may still be turning the soil, preparing a harvest you cannot yet see.

The parable of the Prodigal Son may be named for the younger brother, but Jesus leaves us at the end of the story with the older one—standing outside a celebration he cannot bring himself to join.

In Luke 15, Jesus tells three stories about what has been lost being found. But when the younger son returns and the father celebrates, his older brother begins comparing. He has remained faithful, worked hard, and obeyed his father. Why should his irresponsible brother receive a party? Comparison turns someone else’s joy into his resentment.

In this message, Annie Nichols explores Jesus’ invitation to step out of comparison and “join the party.” Someone else’s success, possessions, opportunities, or experience of grace does not diminish our place in God’s kingdom. And even amid grief, disappointment, or circumstances we would never choose, there can remain a pocket of joy worth recognizing.

Jesus never tells us whether the older brother goes inside. Perhaps that is intentional. The Father’s invitation remains open—and the choice belongs to us.

What if wisdom isn't about having all the answers?

 

In Proverbs 9:1–6, Wisdom prepares a feast and sends out an invitation, not to the smartest or most accomplished people, but to those willing to remain open and teachable. This ancient image challenges many of our assumptions about success, knowledge, and what it means to live well.

 

In this sermon, we explore the Bible's understanding of wisdom as something deeper than information. Wisdom is understanding. It is the ability to see what truly matters and to respond with compassion, humility, and courage. The message connects Proverbs' portrait of Wisdom with the life of Jesus, who embodies God's wisdom through acts of healing, generosity, and love.

 

Along the way, a story from a mission trip to Kenya offers a vivid example of wisdom taking shape in everyday life through an unexpected act of kindness. The sermon invites us to consider how God's wisdom continues to call us beyond accumulating knowledge and toward becoming people whose lives reflect compassion in action.

 

What might happen if we approached God, our neighbors, and our daily lives with greater openness? Wisdom's invitation still stands: come, eat, live, and walk in the way of insight.

In Matthew 20:1–16, Jesus tells a strange story about a vineyard owner who pays workers hired at the end of the day exactly what he pays those who worked from morning until evening. It doesn’t seem fair—and that is precisely the point.

In this message, Dylan Rees explores the difference between fairness and grace. In God’s economy, we do not simply receive what we have earned or what we deserve. We receive according to God’s generosity. As Dylan puts it, luck is unearned and unintended; grace is unearned but intended.

The workers hired first begin the day grateful simply to have been chosen. Their resentment only begins when they compare what they received with what others were given. That same temptation toward comparison can quietly rob us of gratitude.

Jesus offers another way: trust God’s generosity, recognize the grace already present in our lives, and learn to celebrate when others receive unexpected goodness. Because the good news is not that God gives us exactly what we deserve. The good news is that all of us have received far more than we deserve.

Jacob has spent much of his life running from the consequences of his choices and grasping for the future he wants. On the night before he must face Esau, Jacob is left alone beside the Jabbok River, where he wrestles with God until daybreak.

Jacob cannot overpower or outmaneuver God. Wounded and unable to rely upon his old strength, he can only remain in the struggle and hold on. There, God asks Jacob to name himself honestly and then gives him a new name before reconciliation is complete. Jacob leaves Peniel without an explanation, but with a blessing, a limp, and the assurance that his past does not determine who he is becoming.

This sermon reflects on the courage to stop running, remain with God through uncertainty, and take the next faithful step before we feel fully ready. Like Jacob, we may not be able to control what waits on the other side of the river, but we can trust that God’s grace has already met us in the night.