Biographies of Faith: Elizabeth Fry

Posted on October 27, 2009 by Roland De Vries

A sermon in my continuing, brief series on biographies of faith.

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We continue, this morning, with our short series – biographies of faith.

We have all-too briefly explored the life of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who gave us a sense of costly grace – of what it means to stand firm for Jesus Christ and his church; an individual who was martyred by the Nazi regime in 1945.

We have all-too briefly explored the life of Joni Eareckson, who gave us a sense of what it means to follow Jesus Christ in the midst of our suffering – who reminded us of our freedom to be honest with God; who reminded u Elizabeth Fry s also of our resurrection hope. Our hope for a world made new.

This morning we reach a little further back into history in order to answer those questions we have taken up – What does it look like when someone is following Jesus. What does a genuinely Christian life look like? And that equally vital question: What does it look like when I am following Jesus. Continue reading →

Biographies of Faith: Joni

Posted on October 18, 2009 by Roland De Vries

A sermon in my series on ‘biographies of faith’.
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A couple of weeks ago we began a short series on biographies of faith. Over these few weeks I am doing something just a little different in my sermons as we consider the lives of women and men who are for us examples of the Christian life. As we sketch out these portraits of lives lived, we are answering this question:

What does it look like when someone is following Jesus?

And we are answering that most important question for ourselves:

How do we learn to really follow Jesus, to live a genuinely Christian life?

Two weeks ago we considered the life of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who died as a martyr at the hands of the Nazis in 1945. This morning we turn to another biography of faith – to the story of a woman who is our contemporary. Continue reading →

Biography of Faith: Bonhoeffer

Posted on October 7, 2009 by Roland De Vries

The first sermon in a series of four that explore the lives of men and women who are models for us of what it means to be a follower of Jesus Christ. For this sermon I relied in part on the biographical piece by Burton, in the Cambridge Companion to Bonhoeffer – particularly on the question of his conversion.

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Let me ask a couple of questions as we begin this morning:

What does it look like when someone is following Jesus?

What does a genuinely Christian life look like?

And then another question that flows from these – perhaps a more important question:

How do we learn to really follow Jesus, to live a genuinely Christian life?

These are fundamental questions for us. They are fundamental questions for those who claim to be Christian. What does it look like when someone is following Jesus? What does a truly Christian life look like? And, does my life look that way?

Continue reading →