Johnny Kurcina Archives - Page 5 of 22

Christmas is meant to be a magical time. Snow, presents, time with your family. As an adult though, the pressure to make every Christmas perfect is exhausting. What’s meant to be magical is stressful. It’s exhausting. This exhaustion and stress is a much better picture of what the first Christmas was really like for Mary and Joseph. It was a time of fear and anxiety. Herod wanted to kill their baby. Joseph thought he had to figure out a way to quietly separate from his fiance. Into this stress and anxiety is when Jesus is born. God became human during a time of stress and fear, when the powerless were up against the powerful and fleeing for their lives. And though Jesus appeared powerless throughout his whole life, it’s his kingdom, not the kingdom of the Romans, that is still standing today. The kingdom of the gentle, self-sacrificial servant outlived Herod by thousands of years and counting.

[During the upload, the podcast audio for this episode was cut off. It has been re-uploaded here. Apologies for the inconvenience!]

Christmas is meant to be a time of great joy, but everyone reaches a point when they realize Christmas morning can never be all it was cracked up to be. People move away, you grow older, or maybe you see the idealized version of Christmas on TV and just wish you had that for yourself. Advent allows us to view Christmas from the perspective of eternity- there will be a day that exceeds every possible expectation in the world. No matter what love you’re missing this Christmas, God will give us every ounce and kind of love we could ever need.

Christians need encouragement, and we can’t do that on our own. It’s a modern-day lie that you don’t need anyone or that you should do it all by yourself. Instead, Christian fellowship is essential to enduring the hardships of life. The Hebrews Paul is writing to were persecuted by the Romans, and his question was whether their shared testimony and community would be enough to keep them firm in their faith. As Americans, we do not qualify as persecuted in the biblical sense, but there’s a growing sentiment that we’re in the way of culture. Without a firm community to keep us strong, we can get caught in the flow of culture and drift away from our faith until it’s no longer in our lives at all.

Paul’s climactic hymn in his letter to the Philippians calls them to a life of other-centeredness–of humility and generosity. To live out their gospel identity and approach one another as Jesus did: not using his power for his own advantage, but emptying himself in obedience to the Father and for the good of the world.

For Paul, the mystery of Christ isn’t just the forgiveness and redemption. It isn’t that you go to heaven when you die. It’s that, for the first time, the Gentiles are included as full and equal members of the covenant. Jesus isn’t just saving the Gentiles who are far away and keeping them separate, he’s joining the Jews and Gentiles together into one new people for Him. When Jesus is joined to the Church as a bridegroom to a bride, the bride is one body– not divided by race or any other significant identity marker. In Christianity, whatever makes you unique is secondary to your identity in Christ. We’re all Christians first, and so we all share our most significant trait in common.

[Unfortunately, the audio file of this sermon was corrupted, a lower quality audio was able to be produced from the Facebook Livestream. We apologize for the inconvenience.]

In the book of Romans, Paul makes a distinction between those whom he sees as spiritually weak and spiritually strong. Specifically, it had to do with whether or not their consciences were still concerned with dietary laws for Jewish Christians, and food sacrificed to idols for Gentile Christians. The weak felt that meat couldn’t be eaten, and the strong knew that all things are lawful to eat. In both cases, Paul exhorts the church not to correct or tease them, but to love them. In the same way, modern-day Christians have scruples and disagreements over non-critical points of faith. In such cases, the stronger is called to make the necessary adjustments to make the weak feel comfortable. Sacrificial love can mean restricting yourself to help the consciences of those around you.

Continuing the themes of last week, Johnny picks up again that Jesus did not come for individual salvation, but for the salvation of a whole people. In forming his new community, Jesus grants authority to the church in Matthew 16 through Peter.

One of Christ Church Vienna’s founding principles is becoming an extended family. Jesus tells his earthy family in Mark 3:35 that his real family is whoever does God’s will. Exploring the ancient world’s conception of family and contrasting it with modern ideas, Johnny explains how Christians are called to be different in how we view who our real family is, and how we should love them.

We are called to love one another in 1 John. But to do so, we must first come to know and believe–to abide in–God’s love for us. Love is defined by what God has done for us in Jesus Christ and his atoning death for our sins; this is the gospel. We need gospel, and the greatness of God’s love, to push deep into our hearts and our lives.

John call the church to love one another as Christ has loved us.

On this Easter Sunday, lead pastor Johnny K. shares about the hope, joy, peace and love that only a resurrected Jesus can provide.

The day after his Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem, Jesus is confronted by the religious authorities who have conspired to trap and eliminate him. “Should we pay the tax to Ceasar?” they demand. But really they are asking if Jesus is the Messiah, a revolutionary. He is. But as his response reveals, he is not at all the type of revolutionary and messiah that they imagine.

Just after Jesus has foretold his suffering death for a third time, James & John request seats of honor when Jesus comes into his “glory.” But Jesus’ kingdom is a different sort than they are thinking and overturns every culture’s vision of greatness. He calls them, and all his followers, to be servants of all, for even the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve and give his life as a ransom (Mark 10:45).

In Mark 8, Jesus reveals that he will suffer, be rejected, killed and rise from the dead. And he calls all of his disciples to deny their self, take up the cross, and follow him.