Denver Community Church

April 12, 2015: Not For You – Landon Lynch

Tribes. In the Ancient Near East the center for living was your tribe. It was your family, bloodline, home, identity – it meant everything – and without it you were nothing. You worked for the well being of your tribe, accumulated possessions, fought battles, made alliances, to preserve the tribe. And it was this way for everyone in the known world at that time.

And with one word God blew all of that up. He spoke to Abram and said what the gods had said to others before Abram, “I will bless you.” But he did not stop there. He then told Abram, “all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.”

Wait, What?

This is new. Nothing like this had happened before. A tribe existing to bless other tribes? This call is not just for Abram, it is also the call for his descendants, namely the people of Israel. God chose them to be the people through whom he would redeem the world. And it is in this call, this blessing, this promise that the story of Jesus begins.

April 5, 2015: A Light in the Darkness – Michael Hidalgo

Resurrection is not resuscitation. When Jesus came out of the grave he did not just come back to life. He ushered in a brand new reality! This is what is meant by the words, “Behold I make all things new!” So what does this mean for us? What hope can this bring to us here and now today? How can this inform our brokenness?

The resurrection teaches us that God doesn’t just fix things up. He creates something totally and completely new. The resurrected Jesus is the mystery of this good news. He comes out of the grave – still bearing the marks of death and darkness, yet those very wounds are transformed into marks of life and light. And this is the good news – we can be made new.

March 29, 2015: Signs of Darkness – Michael Hidalgo

Jesus told his “unbelieving generation” they would only ever be given one sign from him. Namely, the sign of Jonah. And what is that sign? Spending three days in the belly of a fish – which is a dark place. Jesus, of course, spoke about spending three days in the grave which is also a dark place. But the story doesn’t end in the fish or in the grave. It ends in a new thing happening. This is what we learn about darkness – it is pregnant with creative possibilities. 

Seeds begin their growth in the ground where it is dark. Human life begins in the womb where it is dark. In the Jewish tradition a new day begins at sunset – in darkness – and then comes the light of the morning opening up to us something new. So what if we recognized that it is precisely in the darkness that new life begins … perhaps during Holy Week this is what we can dwell upon. For we now begin the walk with Jesus toward death and darkness. And that is where the new thing God is doing will begin.

March 29, 2015: Signs of Darkness – Landon Lynch

Jesus told his “unbelieving generation” they would only ever be given one sign from him. Namely, the sign of Jonah. And what is that sign? Spending three days in the belly of a fish – which is a dark place. Jesus, of course, spoke about spending three days in the grave which is also a dark place. But the story doesn’t end in the fish or in the grave. It ends in a new thing happening. This is what we learn about darkness – it is pregnant with creative possibilities. 

Seeds begin their growth in the ground where it is dark. Human life begins in the womb where it is dark. In the Jewish tradition a new day begins at sunset – in darkness – and then comes the light of the morning opening up to us something new. So what if we recognized that it is precisely in the darkness that new life begins … perhaps during Holy Week this is what we can dwell upon. For we now begin the walk with Jesus toward death and darkness. And that is where the new thing God is doing will begin.

March 22, 2015: Dark Night of the Soul – Scott Oppliger

What do we do when things seem bleak? Can we can say with the Psalmist “darkness is my closest friend”? Let’s be honest these times come to us. Times when it is too dark to see anything, and hope is a distant memory. Even the best verse from Scripture or the company of a friend or a sliver of light do not seem to be enough to move beyond how we are feeling.

In those moments what we must first remember is we need to give voice to this. Like the Psalmist, we need to cry out and be honest. We need to recognize that we are people of the light, and yet at times in our lives things can be and will be dark. However, in the midst of that darkness, no matter how intense or how much we are immersed in it – the darkness need not be in us. 

March 22, 2015: Dark Night of the Soul – Landon Lynch

What do we do when things seem bleak? Can we can say with the Psalmist “darkness is my closest friend”? Let’s be honest these times come to us. Times when it is too dark to see anything, and hope is a distant memory. Even the best verse from Scripture or the company of a friend or a sliver of light do not seem to be enough to move beyond how we are feeling.

In those moments what we must first remember is we need to give voice to this. Like the Psalmist, we need to cry out and be honest. We need to recognize that we are people of the light, and yet at times in our lives things can be and will be dark. However, in the midst of that darkness, no matter how intense or how much we are immersed in it – the darkness need not be in us. 

March 15, 2015: Artificial Light – Michael Hidalgo

In our world today we are immersed in artificial light – light bulbs, smart phones, phone chargers, television, little LED lights on our power cords … it is everywhere. And we want it. But what we fail to see is artificial light has an adverse effect on us as humans. We see it as a cure for the dark, but it is not as great as we might think ... because nothing can do what the sun does. Which makes me think about one who masquerades as light. One who tries to appear as though he is one who does what the True Light does … but he doesn’t.

How often do we, in an attempt to flee the darkness, run after artificial light. It’s become so easy for us we just flip a switch. What we fail to see is that artificial light can and does have detrimental effects on us as human beings. It messes with our rhythms, our “bio-clock” and even effects our endocrine systems. Because we weren’t meant to live by this kind of light – we were made to live in a rhythm of both light and dark.

March 15, 2015: Artificial Light – Dave Neuhausel

In our world today we are immersed in artificial light – light bulbs, smart phones, phone chargers, television, little LED lights on our power cords … it is everywhere. And we want it. But what we fail to see is artificial light has an adverse effect on us as humans. We see it as a cure for the dark, but it is not as great as we might think ... because nothing can do what the sun does. Which makes me think about one who masquerades as light. One who tries to appear as though he is one who does what the True Light does … but he doesn’t.

How often do we, in an attempt to flee the darkness, run after artificial light. It’s become so easy for us we just flip a switch. What we fail to see is that artificial light can and does have detrimental effects on us as human beings. It messes with our rhythms, our “bio-clock” and even effects our endocrine systems. Because we weren’t meant to live by this kind of light – we were made to live in a rhythm of both light and dark.

March 8, 2015: What We Know We Don’t Know – Michael Hidalgo

With every bit of revelation we receive from God, with everything that is made known there are also some things that remain hidden in the dark. We see this when God comes to his people Israel when they are at the base of Mt. Siani. At no other time in their life had God revealed himself so completely, and yet there was darkness.

The writer of Exodus tells us plainly after God had spoken the Ten Words, “The people remained at a distance, while Moses approached the thick darkness where God was” (Exodus 20.21). This specific Hebrew word araphel speaks of a darkness reserved for God. One that reveals and conceals. Which, if this teaches us anything it is this – even the darkness can reveal God to us.

As the anonymous writer of The Cloud of Unknowing teaches us, “… set yourself to rest in this darkness as long as you can, always crying out after him whom you love. For if you are to experience him or to see him at all, insofar as it is possible here, it must always be in this cloud and in this darkness.”

March 8, 2015: What We Know We Don’t Know – Landon Lynch

With every bit of revelation we receive from God, with everything that is made known there are also some things that remain hidden in the dark. We see this when God comes to his people Israel when they are at the base of Mt. Siani. At no other time in their life had God revealed himself so completely, and yet there was darkness.

The writer of Exodus tells us plainly after God had spoken the Ten Words, “The people remained at a distance, while Moses approached the thick darkness where God was” (Exodus 20.21). This specific Hebrew word araphel speaks of a darkness reserved for God. One that reveals and conceals. Which, if this teaches us anything it is this – even the darkness can reveal God to us.

As the anonymous writer of The Cloud of Unknowing teaches us, “… set yourself to rest in this darkness as long as you can, always crying out after him whom you love. For if you are to experience him or to see him at all, insofar as it is possible here, it must always be in this cloud and in this darkness.”