Author: Pastor Rich Lusk
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Lenten Exhortations (2024) and Other Notes
A couple of recent exhortations….. Lent is the season of the church year that highlights spiritual warfare. Jesus came as a great warrior. He fought our battles for us. He won the victory over Satan and his temptations in the wilderness. He won the victory over sin and death at the cross. He has trampled…
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Lord’s Day Exhortation: Turning Anxiety into Prayer and Peace (1/21/24)
We live in chaotic, tumultuous times. I don’t think anyone paying attention can deny that. It’s like the proverbial Chinese curse: “May you live in interesting times!” These are interesting times indeed. We live in clown world. It seems like the world if falling apart and going insane. It is easy to be anxious —…
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Celebrating a Patriarchal Eucharist
This article was first published the Fight Laugh Feast magazine. It’s been said that in the Lord’s Supper, the church practices life the way it really ought to be lived. When we do the Lord’s Supper right, we do life right. When the church is what she is supposed to be, gathered around the Lord’s…
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Lenten Meditation (Revised)
Jesus said the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath (Mk. 2:27). If the God-ordained Sabbath was instituted for the sake of human needs, this is all the more true of the church’s calendar, which does not derive from divine ordinance, but from the church’s reflection on God’s redemptive work in history…
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Shrove Tuesday and Ash Wednesday (Revised)
What is Shrove Tuesday? To be frank, Shrove Tuesday is just an excuse for a church party — after all, pancakes need no theological justification! But it does have a long and venerable history. Shrove Tuesday is an 800+ year old tradition in English speaking churches. It marks the end of the festive season of…
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Baptismal Exhortation: Infants and the Exodus
We have the great privilege today of witnessing a baptism. I say “witnessing” because anytime you see a pastor baptize someone, Jesus himself is truly the baptizer. When a pastor baptizes someone one, young or old, Jesus is the one who actually performs the act. Sometimes it is said that there are no examples of…
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Looking Back on 2023
The new year is well underway, but I always like to look back in the work I did in the previous year that I think was most significant. My most important sermons were probably this one on LGBTQ+ “Pride” month and this one on Judges 2, preached at our church plant in Columbus, GA and which could serve as…
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Two Baptismal Exhortations
Welcome to the baptismal service of T. It is Christmas and during the season of Christmas, we celebrate a birth. We celebrate an infant. Christmas is a pro-child holiday because it’s about the coming of The Child into our world. It’s no surprise children love Christmas so much because Christmas is about a very special…
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Quotebook #5
John Stott, reminding us what Jesus did: He was misunderstood and misrepresented, and became the victim of men’s prejudices and vested interests. He was despised and rejected by his own people, and deserted by his own friends. He gave his back to be flogged, his face to be spat upon, his head to be crowned…
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The True Humanism: Being Christian Is Natural
The New Testament presents the church as God’s new humanity. The Dutch theologian A. A. Van Ruler put it this way: “We become Christians in order that we may become truly and fully human.” Being Christian is not unnatural. There is nothing more natural than living for God’s glory in Christ Jesus. It’s what we were…
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