Sermons from St. George's

How you think of God will directly impact how and if you pray. From The Table on 10/20/19.

So we don’t read the Bible primarily to gain knowledge, or wisdom, or life-coaching, or trivia and answers for life’s questions...we read the Bible to know Christ. The sacred words point us to the Word, and so it makes sense that we will feel disconnected from God in Christ, if we are never connected to the story of Scripture. If we do not know the Script, we will not know the script-writer. Sermon from the 8:45am service on 10/20/19.

To be saved means sensitivity to our diseases that only Jesus can heal. Sermon from The Table on 10/13/19.

Sermon from the 8:45am service on 10/13/19.

Overview Of Prophecy 4 (Dana Sherrard 10.8.19) by St. George's Nashville

It is one thing – and a very good thing – to want more faith. But I think the worst thing we can do is merely to despair that our faith is too small and will never change. From the 8:45am service on 10/6/19.

From The Table on 10/6/19.

How do we fail to notice the needs of our neighbors? Sermon from the 8:45am service on 9/29/19.

Sermon from 9/29/19 at The Table.

What is it to deliver a hard message of inevitable judgment when your heart aches with supreme compassion? Ask anyone who has ever truly loved an addict. From the 8:45am service on 9/22/19.

Sermon from The Table on 9/22/19.

Sermon from the Rev. Chris Royer, Executive Director for Anglican Frontier Missions. He was the guest preacher at The Table on 9/15/19.

Sermon from the 8:45am service on 9/15/19.

Sermon from The Table on 9/8/19.

It might be that for many of us, in order to take up our cross, we need to put down our phone. In order to take up our cross, we need to put down the cocktail glass. And yes, in order to take up our cross, we need to let go of our children, family or our friends. But if we do this in the way that God envisions, we will gain them back again, and more. They will not then be products of our making, but vessels of God’s divine providence, whom we have nourished and loved and discipled, to be sure, but for whom we have also modeled an ultimate allegiance to Jesus Christ, and the requisite humility and repentance when we fall short, which is inevitable (at least, for me). Sermon from 9/8/19 at 8:45am.

We are never closer to Christ than when we come before him stripped of pretense, confessing that our lives are filled with all kinds of waywardness, and trusting that this is precisely when we stand closest to the cross. Sermon from the 8:45am service on 9/1/19.

The call of the Church is rooted in the gracious hospitality of God the Father, who has invited us into his household of Faith, which has Christ as the chief cornerstone. This call especially takes on substance in our midst when we practice the theological virtue of hospitality — of welcoming the stranger. Sermon from The Table on 9/1/19.

We will be rightly excited and proud of what’s going on at St. George’s. Yet that does not give us a pass from humble obedience, persistent prayer, committed discipleship, and listening to what God wants us to do with this facility that God has given to us. Sermon from the 8:45am service on 8/25/19.

A worship service or liturgy is meant to connect worshipers to the spiritual dimension of the real presence of God. This is where communion takes place between mortals and the Immortal. Through communion with the Holy Spirit, miracles occur, the sick receive healing, the depressed and oppressed receive relief and freedom, and the demon-possessed receive liberation of their body and soul. Sermon from The Table on 8/25/19.

The ultimate measure of success will be this: a faithful local community that feels like family willingly, courageously, generously, lovingly, trustingly joining together with each other and with those who have gone before us, knowing there are those who must come after us; committing to this ministry for the sake of Christ, for the future of his church, for the future of God’s mission for the world, for the sake of the world. And I cannot think of anything more inspiring or more exciting than that. From 10:00am service on 8/18/19.

In light of a suicide epidemic, and a mental health crisis, and off the charts loneliness, we must recognize that we need each other! There is much to celebrate as we break ground today, but let’s commit also to breaking open the ground of our hearts. Let’s build a church that gives up on performance, and looks instead to Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of our faith. Sermon from The Table on 8/18/19.

Sermon from The Table on 8/11/19.

It pleases God to give us the infinite gift of the kingdom. But it does not always please us to accept this gift. To accept it, we know we must make room in our hearts. W.H. Auden once wrote that “The desires of the heart are as crooked as corkscrews.” As we push deeper into our hearts, we discover that what we desire spirals back and forth between God and the things that keep us from God. Sermon from the 10:00am service on 8/11/19. Micah Latimer-Dennis served as our 2019 summer intern.

The real failure of the Rich Foolish Farmer in all of us is that despite the big barns we have built for ourselves, despite the countless days devoted only to storing up figurative crops to secure our futures, we fail in thinking to take off our shoes, having forgotten we are always walking on holy ground, to trust the presence and provision and purposes of God in all of life. Sermon from the 10:00am service on 8/4/19.

The only way to be free in the present is to trust God, because God is our loving parent, from whom we came and to whom we will return. Sermon from The Table on 8/4/19 on Hosea 11:1-11.

"Prayer is a mystery; an inexplicable fact. It was John Wesley/St. Augustine who said "without God, man cannot, and without man, God cannot." Wesley also says that it appears as if God cannot intervene in human history without prayers from humans. Prayer has effects and bears marks on the one who prays. The effects of prayer are positive changes in the atmosphere, environment and human lives within the vicinity of prayer. The marks of prayer are positive changes in the character of the one who prays. They develop peace, patience, self control, love, joy, endurance and faithfulness. A simple form of prayer is 'The Lord's Prayer' - "Our Father." A simple format of prayer is the acrostic ACTS - A = Adoration of God (worship); C = Confession to God for our sins to be forgiven; T = Thanksgiving to God for his blessings; S = Supplication to God for our needs to be met." Sermon from The Table on 07/28/19

“When Jesus taught his disciples how to approach God, he wanted them to know that despite God’s power and perfect holiness, he loves us tenderly and personally and gently.” Sermon from the 10:00am service on 7/28/19

“You see, the problem with distractions is that we cannot cultivate a contemplative life—one established securely in Christ, like Mary—if we are not present to the world as it is right in front of us. If I am always itching to be somewhere that more nearly matches my own desires, then I simply reinforce what is going on internally, and I don’t have a relationship to what is going on externally in my immediate surroundings. Distractions play into our unsettled hearts. A restless and relentless extension of superficially new experiences actually stunts our maturation and mires us in a kind of perpetual childishness.” Sermon from the 10:00am service on 7/21/19

God has an extraordinary purpose for us in these times: to be as the Good Samaritan to those near us, to help heal the wounds in our fractured society. More than ever, we are called to the places that we can actually influence – the people God has physically placed around us, next door and across the street, literally! – such that isolation gives way to neighborliness, loneliness gives way to friendship, and habitual absence gives way to faithful presence. Sermon from The Table and the 10:00am service on 7/14/19.

How is it that Jesus is calling to you, “Come, follow me?” He loves you, and so surely he is calling you to come closer to him. And how is he calling you, “Go forth for me?” The world needs you – it needs the healing, the binding up, the setting free, the new life that your words and your life can bring. Sermon from the 10:00am service on 7/7/19.

The power of God’s kingdom is so amazing, so life-transforming, Jesus is saying, “Do not let anything stand in your way of being a part of it.” Jesus is calling us to leave behind our old lives and follow him to a new life. What’s standing in your way? For this new life, what is Jesus challenging you to do – to give up – to leave behind? Sermon from the 10:00am service on 6/30/19.

The deep irony is that when we become free in God, we become free for others. Our job is no longer our salvation. Our kids are not our messiah. Our body is not our greatest hope. Our prestige is not where our identity is found. Sermon from The Table on 6/30/19.

“Ultimately the call of the Christian is not merely to sit all day at the feet of Jesus, but to be sent out—like the healed demoniac—to bear witness to what we have seen and heard, to speak unambiguously about how God is making us new.” From Clint's sermon at the 10:00am service 6/23/19

"The place to live out your relationship with Christ is not “out there” in some idealized new life. . . The best place to look for the power of God at work in your life is to your right and to your left, across the table from you, in the bed with you, under your roof with you, next door to you, in your office with you, and here in the church. Jesus says, 'Go home, and tell what God has done for you.'" From Leigh's sermon at The Table service on 6/23/19

"I wonder if the opposite of joy is not sorrow as we may assume. I wonder if the opposite of joy is a failure to join life where it is really happening; to sit out the dynamic life of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit." Sermon from the 10:00am service on 6/16/19

"Who God is, is a relationship. And it’s a relationship that God wants us to be a part of – this relationship marked by the love the Father, and Son, and Holy Spirit have for one another and live-out together in a joyful dance. And through Christ, by the power of the Holy Spirit, it is this life, this joy, this love into which God is drawing us ever deeper. The joyful life of love that Father, Son, and Holy Spirit share – this is the life that truly is life. " Sermon from The Table on 6/16/19

The witness of Scripture is that the Holy Spirit is power given to us so we can respond to God’s response to us - God’s response in Christ to our voids and darkness and scattered souls, to our sin and death. To respond to that is the work of the Holy Spirit. Sermon from the 10:00am service on 6/9/19.

The gravity of the grace of the Gospel pulls us towards unity—not a false uniformity, but a spirit empowered community where God’s Spirit unites what the world never can. Sermon from The Table on 6/9/19.

"We are called to witness to the world by the quality of our life together, so that the world may know that God loves the world even as much as he loves his Son, Jesus Christ." Sermon from The Table service on 6/2/19

“Christianity has always created upheaval by declaring that Jesus incarnated himself into our world of space and time; he entered the story he was writing as a character and lived, died and rose again, and has ascended in that same body. This is a rock of truth that cannot be mythologized away; like blood it is not a metaphor. One can either build upon it or break against it, but it will not go away.” Sermon from the 10:00am service on 6/2/19

Are you willing to die to anything that prevents you from real, genuine, loving relationships? Are you willing to die to any or all of that? Get up. The path may seem hard or daunting, but Jesus shows us the way. And is there anyone’s promise that is more trustworthy than his? After this there was a festival of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. Now in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate there is a pool, called in Hebrew Beth-zatha, which has five porticoes. In these lay many invalids—blind, lame, and paralyzed. One man was there who had been ill for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had been there a long time, he said to him, “Do you want to be made well?” The sick man answered him, “Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up; and while I am making my way, someone else steps down ahead of me.” Jesus said to him, “Stand up, take your mat and walk.” At once the man was made well, and he took up his mat and began to walk. (John 5:1-9) From The Table on 5/26/19.

Jesus reminds us today that those who keep his words, he and the Father will come and make their home in them. How will he do this? By the presence of the Holy Spirit in us. How wonderful it is for us to be the home of God. How many of us are truly experiencing our bodies as the home of God? When we allow the Holy Spirit to make our bodies the home of God by allowing Him to control our lives and direct our desires, our choices, our decisions and our actions, we will find true peace even in the midst of a world of turbulence and troubles. From the 10:00am sermon on 5/26/19.

Dante Alighieri depicted heaven in nine spheres of planetary worlds, each hosting specific category of peoples, Saints, Angels and God. The Apostle John in Revelation described a different New Heaven(sky) and New Earth, which replaces this old (present) ones that are passing away because of sin, corruption, violence and pollution. The saints, like a glorious city indwelt by God himself, shining bright and coming down from heaven to the New Heaven(sky) and New Earth as their permanent home. A New World with no sea, sorrow, sickness, pain or death. Are we preparing for that New World? Our repentance and commitment to Christ, and contributions towards the furtherance of his gospel on earth show how well we are preparing for that New World of Christ, and determine our place in it. Sermon from The Table on 5/19/19.

We’re not called to observe what Jesus does but to receive what he gives us. The latter requires that we actually encounter Jesus’ love for us, ourselves: a matter of the heart, not the head. Sermon from the 11:15am service on 5/19/19.

In an age like this one with reasons abounding for deep concern about our society’s prospects, can there be any better time to make great investment in strengthening our community for the sake of others, as those who hear the voice of the Good Shepherd, and turn again to him… and into our future? Sermon from the 8:45am service on 5/12/19.

The relationship between the shepherd and the sheep is almost symbiotic — the shepherd knows the sheep and what they need, perhaps even before they realize they need it, and the sheep respond to the shepherd. They know and trust his voice, responding to his glance or the intake of breath, perhaps even without realizing how intimately they follow. This kind of intimacy, this kind of daily mutual connection and responsiveness, this is the way God means it to be between himself and us. It is God’s design and dear desire that we will hear his voice, that we will be known by him and trust him, and that we will follow him. Sermon from The Table on 5/12/19.

This is the work that Jesus is inviting us all into. In the midst of our confusion and doubts and wanderings, in the midst of guilt and shame that keeps us alienated from the fullness of life and all that God is calling us into — in the midst of all that — the resurrected Christ comes to us, tenderly meeting us with his knowing gaze of love. And though we sometimes fear what he might say or ask us, we can also trust that he knows what we most need, and he delights to draw us deeper into his abundant life. Sermon from the 8:45am service on 5/5/19.

The Rev. Billy Cerveny is the founder and Executive Director of Redbird and a long-time Nashville resident. Billy preaches, teaches and offers pastoral care to individuals, couples, and groups. His sermon is from The Table on 5/5/19.

God takes what is broken and puts it back together in ways beyond our imagination. Sermon from The Table on 4/28/19.

When we experience Good Fridays in our lives, Christ is still working behind the scenes to bring a new Easter for us – even when we know nothing about it. We are sealed and marked as one of Christ’s own forever. There is not one crown of thorns that can keep Easter from coming. Not a scar, not a nail, not a sin, not a failing that can keep Christ from being the Lord of your life. From the 8:45am service on 4/28/19, during which we celebrated the relationship with St. George's and Church of the Resurrection, where the Rev. Canon Chad Jones is Priest-in-Charge.