Denver Community Church

September 2, 2012: When Small is Big – Michael Hidalgo

There is something about religion that is almost competitive. We all seem to want to appear good, right, attractive, and “holy” in our own way. This is often the result of submitting ourselves to “group think” or accepted collective thinking. This is what Jesus points out about the “religious” in his day. As soon as the words leave his lips, an illustration happens right in front of them. Two offerings: one big but small and one small but big.

Many immediately want to contrast this woman’s faithfulness in giving all she had. And we should, for Jesus points to her faith. But some suggest a dark side to this story given Jesus’ declaration about the religious “devouring widows’ houses.” There is a sense that there is something wrong with the system of religion that leads her to act this way. 

August 26, 2012: The Anatomy of Evil – Dave Neuhausel

August 12, 2012: Jesus and Women – Michael Hidalgo

Throughout the gospel of Mark Jesus is constantly interacting with women, and heralding them as examples of a devoted disciple. This was scandalous in his day, and sadly is still scandalous for many today. How should we then, follow Jesus’ example and continue to honor and empower women? What would it look like in our day to empower the lowliest, and those without a place in our society and our world? What we see in Jesus is a radical new direction in his vision of women and the place they play in the Kingdom.

August 5, 2012: Kingdom Come – Michael Hidalgo

Jesus’ sermons almost always involved the kingdom of heaven. So just what is this Kingdom that he speaks so much about?

In his 2008 book titled, The Great Awakening Jim Wallis writes, “In all my growing-up years in our evangelical church, I never heard a sermon on the Sermon on the Mount …But after leaving the church and reading all the revolutionaries, I encountered the Sermon on the Mount afresh, as more revolutionary than anything I had found in Karl Marx, Che Guevara, or Ho Chi Minh” (Page 63). 

This perspective of Wallis is nothing new, ten years before in his book titled, The Divine Conspiracy, Dallas Willard quotes several evangelical leaders, from the previous twenty years, who point to the fact that the presence of Jesus’ central message about his Kingdom was absent. He quotes Peter Wagner, a leading figure in the “church growth movement” who said, “… I honestly cannot remember any pastor whose ministry I have been under actually preaching a sermon on the Kingdom of God.”

It is surprising, perhaps even disheartening, to hear evangelical leaders speak about how teaching on the Sermon on the Mount and the Kingdom of God have been absent from the church. However, surprising this may be, the necessity of recapturing the words of Jesus cannot be understated. 

To date, much of what has been written, specifically in regard to the Sermon on the Mount, has been removed from the cultural, historical, and revolutionary context of the First Century in which Jesus taught. Writers and commentators continually spiritualize and privatize the most radical of Jesus’ teachings boiling them down to clever, spiritual maxims that end up bring printed on a book mark or a refrigerator magnet.

July 29, 2012: Hope in the Lord – Daniel White Hodge

July 22, 2012: Proposing Jesus – Jim Liske

July 15, 2012: Healing Shame – Mike Tucker

July 8, 2012: A Prayer for the City – Jeff Johnson

July 1, 2012: Surfing For God – Michael Cusick

June 24, 2012: It's No Secret – Michael Hidalgo

Throughout the book of Mark Jesus continually told people to “Not say anything.” This is in regard to healings, miracles, or about his true identity as Messiah. The reader of the gospel is forced to wrestle through this seemingly “cryptic” command. Over the centuries scholars and theologians have referred to this theme in the book as the “Markan Secret.”

In the last verses of the book Jesus, who had been crucified, raises from the dead. Three women discover the empty tomb and are greeted by an angel who tells them what has happened. Finally we see the words “go, tell …” At last! Everyone will know who Jesus is … yet Mark finishes his gospel on a devastating note. “They said nothing to anyone, because they were afraid. 

This is the final statement for us to consider together. Asking ourselves the question – “Will we go and tell?”