Second on the Mount

"Chaos, Passion, and Pause" – Job 42:1-6, 10-17
Sermon by Dr. George C. Anderson from Sunday, October 27, 2024. "God responds [to Job] out of the calm center of a chaotic whirlwind. In the middle of the storm of chaos, in the stillness of its eye, there is a pause. What a gift a pause can be in the middle of chaotic conversations. . . . What the pause can give you is perspective. Not answers. Not explanations. Not resolution. Perspective."
Read the manuscript on our website: https://www.spres.org/chaos-passion-and-pause/ 

"What Story Are You Telling" – Job 38:1-7, 34-41
Sermon by the Rev. Ben Brannan from Sunday, October 20, 2024. "So, what story are you telling? To your children? To yourself? 
"Beloved, may the story you tell be one of God’s vast and mysterious love, a love that has been with you and has held you since the beginning of time! And may you believe the story of God’s love to be true for you, as well."
Read the manuscript on our website: https://www.spres.org/what-story-are-you-telling/ 

"The Witness of Hope" – Romans 8:24-25, Matthew 13:24-30Part V of the Sermon Series "Invest in Hope"
Sermon by Dr. George C. Anderson from Commitment Sunday, October 13, 2024. "Wheat among weeds is what Jesus wants Second Presbyterian Church to be. . . . Our calling is to bear witness to the hope that God’s grace is real and shows itself when we resist what is unjust, work to mend what is broken, and heal what is hurt... when we show evidence that lives can be lived with purpose, meaning and joy."
Read the manuscript on our website: https://www.spres.org/invest-in-hope-the-witness-of-hope/ 

"Hope for the World" – Matthew 5:38-48Part IV of the Sermon Series "Invest in Hope"
Sermon by the Rev. Elizabeth N.H. Link from World Communion Sunday, October 6, 2024. "Violence persists in this world, and so what are we, the Body of Christ, to do?
"In our passage, Jesus is trying to tell his disciples—Jesus is trying to tell us what to do. We get this piece of wisdom in Matthew 5 about loving our enemies because Jesus cares deeply how we, disciples then and now, practice this thing he calls the 'kingdom of heaven.' This sermon of his is about bending, bending, bending that arc towards justice, all while pointing to a new heaven and a new earth made possible through the hope of Jesus Christ. "
Read the manuscript on our website: https://www.spres.org/invest-in-hope-hope-for-the-world/ 

"Hope in Action" – Matthew 5:14Part III of the Sermon Series "Invest in Hope"
Sermon by Dr. George C. Anderson from Sunday, September 29, 2024. "• When we feed the hungry, house the homeless, provide help to those who need medical care, but hunger, homelessness and the untreated sick remain...• When we try to help with addiction and mental illness, but half of what we try doesn’t work, and half of what does work helps only for a while...• When we try to address those collective illnesses of the soul—those “isms” like classism, racism, nationalism—ways that the vulnerable are manipulated and the weak are dominated, and those sins remain, or return, or, like adaptive viruses, find new ways to spread...
"we can’t think that what we do doesn’t matter because we failed to be God and save the world.  
"No. We are not saviors, we’re servants. What we do matters because we are expressing our faith, we are showing our love, we are witnessing to the grace of God. God is using us to witness to hope… ultimately the hope of the resurrection."
Read the manuscript on our website: https://www.spres.org/invest-in-hope-hope-in-action/ 

"Lived Hope" – Acts 1:1-11Part II of the Sermon Series "Invest in Hope"
Sermon by Dr. George C. Anderson from Sunday, September 22, 2024. "Actively wait. Invest yourself in a community of those who will wait with you. Be open. Listen. Try things. And since I’m talking about the church, I’ll add worship, learn, pray, be there for others, and meet needs when you can. You see, so often the direction one is looking for is not found in isolation. It is found in being a part of a community of people seeking direction together while waiting for the Holy Spirit to provide it. It is so often in relationship with others, and with God, that life finds its purpose and hope. "
Read the manuscript on our website: https://www.spres.org/invest-in-hope-lived-hope/

"Hope in Christ" – Romans 8:18-25Part I of the Sermon Series "Invest in Hope"
Sermon by the Rev. Elizabeth N.H. Link from Sunday, September 15, 2024. "Given the high rate of despair, one could make the argument that we, as Americans, aren’t placing our hope in the right things. In fact, one could argue that the problem is that we are placing our hope in things. The Apostle Paul might say we are placing our hope in the kinds of people or things that are in fact perishable, subject to corruption, and depreciation of value—when what we really need is a hope that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading. 
"What we need, is the kind of hope that is grounded on something beyond this present world and time. What we need is a living hope, grounded on the grace of our triune God."
Read the manuscript on our website: https://www.spres.org/invest-in-hope-hope-in-christ/ 

"Getting to Know Jesus" – Luke 24:13-35
Sermon by Dr. George C. Anderson from Sunday, September 8, 2024. "This is the God that sees us for all that we are capable of being—the best and the worst of us—and who loves us anyway. With this God in our lives, we can be and do better because this God’s love meets us at our very worst. This is the God of the cross, where his son who is dying asks that God forgive the world that is doing this to him."
Read the manuscript on our website: https://www.spres.org/getting-to-know-jesus/ 

"The How of Jesus" – Matthew 10:1-4, 22:15-22
Sermon by Dr. George C. Anderson from Sunday, September 1, 2024. "In a way, Jesus is forming his own party, but here is how he goes about doing it. He doesn’t start with ideology. He starts with the person. He starts with making a relationship with the person in front of him: Jew or Gentile, Samaritan or Roman, somebody or nobody, acceptable or unacceptable. Jesus gets to know the one in front of him. Then through meals, through conversation, through study and prayer with them and through other spiritual practices, he builds a community around him. He embraces debate among them as they try to figure out together what it means to keep the command of God to love God and others. They do not ignore the issues or the needs of the day. Of course they don’t. But it is on the basis of relationships and as a community that they do so. It is not ideology first. It is not issue first. It is relationship first."
Read the manuscript on our website: https://www.spres.org/the-how-of-jesus/ 

"Stay in the Boat" – Matthew 14:22-33
Sermon by the Rev. Ben Brannan from Sunday, August 11, 2024. "Faith isn’t about performing miracles or achieving the impossible on our own. Faith is seeing the boat for what it is: a shared experience in community, where we lean on one another, find support, and face adversity together, all while trusting that God is with us."
Read the manuscript on our website: https://www.spres.org/stay-in-the-boat/