As we're cultivating the fruit of the Holy Spirit this summer at the church, we're learning that love requires action. Sometimes, the Lord gives us an opportunity to show how much we love Him and Jesus and the Bride of Jesus Christ, the Church.

Well, that opportunity is right here and right now.In January 2024, Temple Ohabei Shalom permanently fastened the latest iteration of the Pride Flag on the facade of their building, right next to the 10 commandments which expressly forbid Pride. 

We knew it was time to leave Egypt. The next promised land turned out to be 20 Chapel St., a ballroom to serve as a worship space where the church, the bride, can learn to follow the lead of Jesus, the Bridegroom.We signed a purchase and sale agreement with the seller for $2,800,000. The largest mortgage we can carry is $2,000,000. We have raised $345,000 from within our church body, praise be to God. We can dip into our church emergency fund, but even so, we must leave enough reserves to satisfy the lender.

Therefore, we're missing $200,000 to make the deal happen by September 15th. 

"I'm not religious; I'm spiritual." Have you heard someone say something along those lines? Over the years, I've met a lot of deeply spiritual people, and I've read books about many more. The most spiritual people never create this false dichotomy between religion and spirituality. To be truly spiritual, is to be filled with God Himself, with His Holy Spirit. To be filled with the Spirit, to be led by the Spirit, to walk in lock-step with the Spirit takes a lot of "religious" work, like prayer, fasting, Scripture meditation and memorization, devotion to the church. To be spiritual is to be devoted to God, and devotion to God demands sacrifice and self-denial. This is the idea behind the name of our sermon series through the fruit of the Holy Spirit: to produce a harvest of love, you must crucify the flesh and it's primarily self-oriented desires.

The esteemed French inventor and physicist Blaise Pascal writes in his Pensées, "All of humanity's problems stem from inability to sit quietly in a room alone."The longer I meditate on his words the more they resonate. Is this the case? Of course it is. When's the last time you spent an hour in a room by yourself, sitting in silence? Not so easy. But why? Why is this universally true? Because most people are not at peace with themselves. Thus, most people need a constant stream of distractions, so they don't have to think about the most important questions in life, such as: do I have peace with myself? If not, why not. 

After a bountifully fruitful season in the Gospel of Mark, discovering the secrets to establishing the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth, we turn to an 8 week sermon series called "Love by Death. Produce the fruit of the Holy Spirit." In this series we'll dig deep into each of the fruit of the Holy Spirit: "Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control."Why an 8 week sermon series, when there are 9 fruit of the Holy Spirit? Good question. It's because the word "fruit" is singular in Galatians 5:22, "But the fruit of the Spirit is love..." As 1 Corinthians 13:13 puts it, "So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love." Why is love the greatest? Because God is love. It’s His essence. All of His glorious attributes are an outworking of His love.As Donald G. Barnhouse puts it, "Love is the key. Joy is love singing. Peace is love resting. Patience is love enduring. Kindness is love's truth. Goodness is love's character. Faithfulness is love's habit. Gentleness is love's self-forgetfulness. Self-control is love holding the reins.”

400 years or so before Jesus, Plato in his Republic imagines what would happen to a man, a just man, who came from outside this world into this world. What would happen to such a just man?Plato writes, “What they will say is this: that such being his disposition, the just man will have to endure the lash, the rack, the chains, the branding-iron in his eyes, and finally, after every extremity of suffering, he will be crucified (impaled), and so will learn his lesson that not to be, but to seem just is what we ought to desire.”Plato might as well have been writing about Jesus Christ.

English poet George Herbert (1593-1633), wrote a long narrative poem, “The Sacrifice,” in which he beautifully captures the profound pain of betrayal Jesus endured at the hands of Judas.

Mine own Apostle, who the bag did bear,

Though he had all I had, did not forbear

To sell me also, and to put me there:

Was ever grief like mine?

For thirty pence he did my death devise,

Who at three hundred did the ointment prize,

Not half so sweet as my sweet sacrifice:

Was ever grief like mine?

One of the most compelling lines of evidence for the divine inspiration and authorship of the Bible, is how the Holy Scriptures portray the great heroes of the faith, the very pillars of the church, the 12 chosen Apostles of Christ. If the Bible were a mere human fabrication, written to establish a world religion, and psy-op the masses, it would never present the Apostles the way it does. No, the Apostles would be Saints. Honorable. Noble. Stable. Courageous. Steadfast. Strong. Men of undeniable faith. Men without glaring weaknesses and derailing blind spots.

If you could plan your last meal before your death, what would you eat?As we continue through the Passion narrative of our Lord Jesus Christ, we come to Jesus' last meal before his execution. As Jesus' death looms, for His last meal, He chose Passover dinner, during which He revealed Himself to be the substance to which the sign of Passover was pointing. Jesus is the Lamb of God. Jesus is the Passover Lamb, sacrificed for our sins. Jesus then does something profoundly momentous: He introduces the first Lord's Supper during Passover dinner. With the authority of God Himself, the Son of God then says: do this, not in remembrance of the Passover, but do this in remembrance of Me. 

As a church, we’re devoting these next two months, May and June, to immerse ourselves in the Passion Narrative, as it’s historically called. The Passion Narrative is the very heart of the Gospel of Mark, and contains all of the greatest secrets of the Kingdom of God. To help you prepare to enter the holy ground of the Scriptures, here is the preaching calendar for the next two months. May 5th = Mark 14:1-11May 12th = Mark 14:12-26May 19th = Mark 14:27-31May  26th = Mark 14:32-42June 2nd = Mark 14:43-52June 9th = Mark 14:53-65June 16th = Mark 14:66-72June 23rd = Mark 15:1-15June 30th = Mark 15:16-32