First Community Church 10.20.24 Glen Miles -Sermon Series The Bible Tells Me So

This Sunday, I begin a new sermon series, The Bible Tells Me So: Reframing and Refreshing Sacred Scripture for Today. The series is inspired by various sources, all of which call on us to pay attention to the words and actions of Jesus. The Bible has often been treated as an answer book or a template for rules for living your life. Read through it sometime, though, and you will find it is anything but these things. Instead, the Bible serves as an invitation to live wisely, recognizing that our lives and experiences evolve and change sometimes dramatically, just as the Bible does! The first sermon in the series, "The Truth Will Make You Free (But Not Before You're Mad as Heck"), is based on John 8:32 and Jesus' well-known statement, "The truth will make you free." These days, we are desperate in the USA for truth-telling. Jesus' wise statement calls on us to approach our culture with a deep respect for the truth and a desire for wisdom. In Psalm 25, an ancient psalmist calls on God for help, saying, "Lead me in your truth and teach me." Clearly, truth matters! Speaking the truth and facing up to it is not always easy, as my sermon title says, but truth sets us on the pathway to freedom. That is a journey worth taking.