Reformation of the Heart | Reformation Sunday

Scripture: Jeremiah 31:31-34; Psalm 46; Romans 3:19-28; John 8:31-36

More than 500 years ago, Martin Luther challenged a church that had lost sight of God's grace. But the Reformation was about more than changing religious teachings. In this sermon, Pastor TJ Johnson explores the symbolism of Luther's Rose and God's promise to write the divine law upon our hearts. True reformation happens as the Holy Spirit transforms us from within, moving us from a transactional understanding of religion to a deep, childlike trust in God's unconditional love—a love that sustains us through suffering and inspires us to share God's tenderness, peace, and hope with others.

Unfathomable Peace — Philippians 4:4-9

What does it mean to receive “the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding”? In this sermon, Pastor TJ Johnson explores Paul’s promise of a peace we cannot manufacture but can receive from the Spirit of God. Through his grandmother’s simple wisdom—“Count your blessings”—Psalm 23’s image of the Good Shepherd, and the powerful story behind the hymn It Is Well with My Soul, TJ reflects on gratitude, trust, and the mysterious peace that can remain with us even in grief, anxiety, and circumstances we cannot understand.

What if creation isn’t something we possess, but something entrusted to our care?

Jesus said, “Look at the birds of the air.” St. Francis took him seriously.

The birds, flowers, animals, forests—even the creatures we find inconvenient—invite us to pay attention to the love of the Creator woven through creation.

And perhaps Francis gives us an important reminder:

Each life has worth beyond its usefulness to us.

God’s love is bigger than humanity. It embraces every created thing.

Jonah 3:10–4:11; Matthew 20:1-16

What happens when our scarcity-shaped imagination collides with the infinite mercy of God? Through Jonah, Jesus’ parable of the workers in the vineyard, and a personal story about the surprising way love expands, Pastor TJ explores a grace that refuses to keep score. God’s love is not something that must be divided—there is more than enough mercy, forgiveness, belonging, and love to go around.

Description

In Matthew 18:15-20, Jesus offers more than a step-by-step approach to conflict. He invites us into relationships marked by honesty, courage, tenderness, and reconciliation. In this sermon, Pastor TJ Johnson explores what it means to become a “sacred companion”: someone who cares enough to tell the truth in love, listens without rushing to judgment, and seeks to regain a relationship rather than win an argument.

Jesus reminds us that the person matters, the relationship matters, and even in the difficult work of reconciliation, Christ is there among us.

What is your soul worth—and what are you tempted to trade it for?

In this sermon on Matthew 16:21-28, Pastor TJ reflects on Jesus’ challenging words about denying ourselves, taking up the cross, and not gaining the whole world at the cost of our souls. Drawing on insights from Richard Rohr and Meister Eckhart, he explores the difference between the smaller identities we construct and the deeper self already known and loved by God.

A personal story about classical guitar becomes a picture of what happens when something we love begins to consume us—and why sometimes the path to freedom is simply to put it down.

The sermon ends with a gospel reversal of Jesus' question: What are our souls worth to God? The cross gives the answer.

More Than Crumbs Matthew 15:21–28; Isaiah 56:1, 6–8

A Canaanite woman refuses to believe that God’s grace is scarce. When others see an outsider, she sees an abundant God—and Jesus praises her faith. In this sermon, we reflect on the danger of imagining God’s mercy too narrowly and the surprising wideness of the Lord’s Table, where there is always room for one more hungry soul to be fed.