This will be my last post in this blog as I get ready to preach my last sermon at Valley Covenant Church this coming Sunday. I’ve created several new sermons over the past few weeks, offering a few thoughts of encouragement and thankfulness to our congregation as they enter the time transition to a new pastor. Yet as I contemplated this final message I kept coming up short for fresh words and inspiration. So, drawing on a three-decade deep reservoir of previous preaching, I’m sharing again a sermon I’ve offered two or three times in the past.
The text is Jeremiah 33:14-16, the great promise of a “righteous Branch” springing up from the root of David’s royal line. Both the Jewish people and Christians understand this as a promise for the Messiah, God’s Anointed One who brings salvation to His people. The Christian faith is that this promise was and is fulfilled in Jesus Christ, who brought salvation which is received by faith and bringing anyone who believes in Him into the company of God’s people.
Rather than a discursive discourse on the meaning of the text, like the previous paragraph here, this sermon is a fable-like narrative of story and image which reflects on how we as human beings have related to God and His grace throughout history. I hope it can be understood on multiple levels, as salvation history through the ages, both Jewish and Christian, both individual and corporate.
Refreshing this message in this season of my own life and in the life of our church, the repeated refrain in it, “There’s more to the Story,” feels especially appropriate. May the Lord bless this offering from my heart and lips and make it wonderfully true that He has so much more to bring about in our own stories.