Livestream

Sermon Title: The Word Made Flesh
Sermon Text: 2 Samuel 12.1-14; Matthew 3.1-3
Delivered by: Pastor TJ Campo
Delivered at Park Road Presbyterian Church

A Reflection Before the Service
No doubt I now grew very pale; but I talked more fluently, and with a heightened voice. Yet the sound increased and what could I do? It was a low, dull, quick sound much such a sound as a watch makes when enveloped in cotton. I gasped for breath and yet the officers heard it not. I talked more quickly more vehemently; but the noise steadily increased. I arose and argued about trifles, in a high key and with violent gesticulations; but the noise steadily increased. Why would they not be gone? I paced the floor to and fro with heavy strides, as if excited to fury by the observations of the men but the noise steadily increased. Oh God! what could I do? I foamed I raved I swore! I swung the chair upon which I had been sitting, and grated it upon the boards, but the noise arose over all and continually increased. It grew louder louder louder! And still the men chatted pleasantly, and smiled. Was it possible they heard not? Almighty God! no, no! They heard! they suspected! they knew! they were making a mockery of my horror! this I thought, and this I think. But anything was better than this agony! Anything was more tolerable than this derision! I could bear those hypocritical smiles no longer! I felt that I must scream or die! and now again! hark! louder! louder! louder! louder!

"Villains!" I shrieked , "dissemble no more! I admit the deed - tear up the planks! - here here! - its the beating of his hideous heart!"

-Edgar Allan Poe, The Tell-Tale Heart (1843; closing lines)

The Call To Worship
Oh, that You would rend the heavens and come down, that the mountains might quake at Your presence -- as fire kindles the brushwood, as fire causes water to boil-- to make Your Name known to Your adversaries, that the nations may tremble at Your presence! When You did awesome things which we did not expect, You came down, the mountains quaked at Your presence. For from days of old they have not heard or perceived by ear, nor has the eye seen a God besides You, who acts in behalf of the one who waits for Him.

-Isaiah 64:1-4
(Prayer)

This Week’s Bulletin:
https://parkroadpres.org/bulletins/

Keeping in Touch:
https://parkroadpres.org/contact/

Giving:
https://tithe.ly/give_new/www/#/tithely/give-one-time/57354

Church Website:
https://parkroadpres.org/

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Sermon Title: The Word Made Flesh
Sermon Text: 2 Samuel 12.1-14; Matthew 3.1-3
Delivered by: Pastor TJ Campo
Delivered at Park Road Presbyterian Church

“Prepare ye the way of the Lord!” This was, of course, the message of that last great prophet, John the Baptizer, who urged people to greet this soon-to-be-revealed Christ with repentant hearts.
And since we’ve been working up to one of the most notorious sins in the Bible …followed by an equally well-known repentance, so for the next few weeks, leading up to Christmas, we hope to look at David’s repentance as a pattern or paradigm of this practice that… some people think of as outdated or primitive or even psychologically unhealthy or at least undignified.
But we hope to see that this practice or remedy as actually “good for what ails ya’” and is most often a doorway into deeper psychological/spiritual health.
Truth is: without it, one cannot become a Christian and without it, one cannot continue in that life. Today, we begin to consider repentance starting with:
1) A Hindrance to the Remedy
2) The Feel of the Remedy
3) The Results of the Remedy

A Reflection Before the Service
No doubt I now grew very pale; but I talked more fluently, and with a heightened voice. Yet the sound increased and what could I do? It was a low, dull, quick sound much such a sound as a watch makes when enveloped in cotton. I gasped for breath and yet the officers heard it not. I talked more quickly more vehemently, but the noise steadily increased. I arose and argued about trifles, in a high key and with violent gesticulations; but the noise steadily increased. Why would they not be gone? I paced the floor to and fro with heavy strides, as if excited to fury by the observations of the men but the noise steadily increased. Oh God! what could I do? I foamed I raved I swore! I swung the chair upon which I had been sitting, and grated it upon the boards, but the noise arose over all and continually increased. It grew louder louder louder! And still the men chatted pleasantly, and smiled. Was it possible they heard not? Almighty God! no, no! They heard! they suspected! they knew! they were making a mockery of my horror! this I thought, and this I think. But anything was better than this agony! Anything was more tolerable than this derision! I could bear those hypocritical smiles no longer! I felt that I must scream or die! and now again! hark! louder! louder! louder! louder!

"Villains!" I shrieked , "dissemble no more! I admit the deed - tear up the planks! - here here! - its the beating of his hideous heart!"

-Edgar Allan Poe, The Tell-Tale Heart (1843; closing lines)

The Call To Worship
Oh, that You would rend the heavens and come down, that the mountains might quake at Your presence -- as fire kindles the brushwood, as fire causes water to boil-- to make Your Name known to Your adversaries, that the nations may tremble at Your presence! When You did awesome things which we did not expect, You came down, the mountains quaked at Your presence. For from days of old they have not heard or perceived by ear, nor has the eye seen a God besides You, Who acts in behalf of the one who waits for Him.

-Isaiah 64:1-4


This Week’s Bulletin:
https://parkroadpres.org/bulletins/

Keeping in Touch:
https://parkroadpres.org/contact/

Giving:
https://tithe.ly/give_new/www/#/tithely/give-one-time/57354

Church Website:
https://parkroadpres.org/

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At the root of David’s infamous failure is the question of self-concept, self-image: how does he think of himself in relation to others and in relation to God? “David, who do you think you are?”

As we analyze David’s sin (how’d you like someone to analyze YOUR sin?) to sort out this moral collapse let’s look at three issues:
1) A THEOLOGICAL issue
2) A PSYCHOLOGICAL issue
3) A POLITICAL issue

Sermon Title: The Sender
Sermon Text: 2 Samuel 11.1-12.1
Delivered by: Pastor T.J. Campo
Delivered at Park Road Presbyterian Church

A Reflection Before the Service
Hank worries Sarah with the supposed FBI agent coming through town in search of the plane
Sarah Mitchell: You've gotta remember how people see you. You're just a normal guy, a
nice, sweet, normal guy.
Hank Mitchell: They're gonna know.
Sarah Mitchell: No, they won't. Nobody would ever believe that you'd be capable of doing
what you've done.
[Hank and Sarah discuss whether keeping the money is a crime]
Hank Mitchell: Nobody gets hurt by us keeping it. I mean, that's what, that's what makes it
a crime, doesn't it? Somebody getting hurt?
Sarah Mitchell: What makes it a crime is it's against the law. It doesn't matter if somebody
gets hurt or they don't. If you get caught then you go to jail.
Hank Mitchell: Yeah, but nobody's gonna get caught. The money is the only evidence that we've done something wrong. We sit on it; we see what happens. If somebody comes searching for it, then we just burn it and that will be that. There's no risk. We'll always be in control.
- Bill Paxton (Hank) and Bridgette Fonda (Sarah) in A Simple Plan, the 1998 film directed by Sam Raimi

-
Q 82 Is any person able to perfectly keep the commandments of God? A: No mere human
since the Fall is able, in this life, perfectly to keep the commandments of God, but daily
breaks them in thought, word, and deed.
Q 83 Are all transgressions of the law equally wicked? A: Some sins in themselves, and by
reason of aggravating circumstances, are more wicked in the sight of God than others.
Q 84 What does every sin deserve? A: Every sin deserves God's wrath and curse, both in this
life, and that which is to come.

- The Westminster Shorter Catechism (1647, modernized)

This Week’s Bulletin:
https://parkroadpres.org/bulletins/

Keeping in Touch:
https://parkroadpres.org/contact/

Giving:
https://tithe.ly/give_new/www/#/tithely/give-one-time/57354

Church Website:
https://parkroadpres.org/

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At the root of David’s infamous failure is the question of self-concept, self-image: how does he think of himself in relation to others and in relation to God? “David, who do you think you are?”

As we analyze David’s sin (how’d you like someone to analyze YOUR sin?) to sort out this moral collapse let’s look at three issues:
1) A THEOLOGICAL issue
2) A PSYCHOLOGICAL issue
3) A POLITICAL issue

Sermon Title: The Sender
Sermon Text: 2 Samuel 11.1-12.1
Delivered by: Pastor T.J. Campo, Lead Pastor
Delivered at Park Road Presbyterian Church

A Reflection Before the Service
Hank worries Sarah with the supposed FBI agent coming through town in search of the plane
Sarah Mitchell: You've gotta remember how people see you. You're just a normal guy, a
nice, sweet, normal guy.
Hank Mitchell: They're gonna know.
Sarah Mitchell: No, they won't. Nobody would ever believe that you'd be capable of doing
what you've done.
[Hank and Sarah discuss whether keeping the money is a crime]
Hank Mitchell: Nobody gets hurt by us keeping it. I mean, that's what, that's what makes it
a crime, doesn't it? Somebody getting hurt?
Sarah Mitchell: What makes it a crime is it's against the law. It doesn't matter if somebody
gets hurt or they don't. If you get caught then you go to jail.
Hank Mitchell: Yeah, but nobody's gonna get caught. The money is the only evidence that we've done something wrong. We sit on it; we see what happens. If somebody comes searching for it, then we just burn it and that will be that. There's no risk. We'll always be in control.
- Bill Paxton (Hank) and Bridgette Fonda (Sarah) in A Simple Plan, the 1998 film directed by Sam Raimi

-
Q 82 Is any person able to perfectly keep the commandments of God? A: No mere human
since the Fall is able, in this life, perfectly to keep the commandments of God, but daily
breaks them in thought, word, and deed.
Q 83 Are all transgressions of the law equally wicked? A: Some sins in themselves and by
reason of aggravating circumstances are more wicked in the sight of God than others.
Q 84 What does every sin deserve? A: Every sin deserves God's wrath and curse, both in this
life, and that which is to come.

- The Westminster Shorter Catechism (1647, modernized)

This Week’s Bulletin:
https://parkroadpres.org/bulletins/

Keeping in Touch:
https://parkroadpres.org/contact/

Giving:
https://tithe.ly/give_new/www/#/tithely/give-one-time/57354

Church Website:
https://parkroadpres.org/

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Sermon Title: The Matter of Doing
Sermon Text: 2 Samuel 7
Delivered by: Pastor TJ Campo
Park Road Presbyterian Church
Today we meet another worship disorder and it has to do with the MATTER OF DOING – doing for God as an act of worship. On the one hand, God’s people are said to serve God (Rev 7.15, 22.3) but on the other hand we’re told that God doesn't need anything. You know like “what do you give the man who has everything?” In Psalm 50, “I own the cattle on a thousand hills…If I were hungry I wouldn’t tell you, for the world is Mine, and all it contains.” (vv. 10-12)

So, in what sense do we DO for God and in what sense is that wrong and even impossible? E.g. Do you see your parenting as being somehow FOR God…your daily work…your tithing/charitable-giving …your helping here at church – is it for God?

How does seeing the Big Idea of the Bible help you to stay at the center of this tension – giving to the God who doesn't need anything you have to give?

Let’s look at:
1) Forgetting the Big Idea
2) Getting BACK to the Big Idea
3) Living in Harmony With this Big Idea


A Reflection Before the Service
In town, Chaney had fallen to drink and cards and lost all his money. He got it into his head he was bein' cheated and went back to the boardin' house for his Henry rifle. When Papa tried intervene, Chaney shot him. Chaney fled. He could have walked his horse, for not a soul in that city could be bothered to give chase. No doubt Chaney fancied himself scot-free. But he was wrong. You must pay for everything in this world, one way and another. There is nothin' free, except the grace of God.

― 2010 film True Grit (directed by Joel and Ethan Cohen)-

Every faculty you have, your power of thinking or of moving your limbs from moment to moment, is given you by God. If you devoted every moment of your whole life exclusively to His service you could not give Him anything that was not in a sense his own already ... It is like a small child going to its father and saying, 'Daddy, give me sixpence to buy you a birthday present.' It is all very nice and proper, but only an idiot would think that the father is sixpence to the good on the transaction.

― C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity-

Every Christian would agree that a man's spiritual health is exactly proportional to his love for God. But man's love for God, from the very nature of the case, must always be

very largely, and must often be entirely, a Need-love. This is obvious when we implore forgiveness for our sins or support in our tribulations. But in the long run it is perhaps even more apparent in our growing for it ought to be growing awareness that our whole being by its very nature is one vast need; incomplete, preparatory, empty yet cluttered, crying out for Him who can untie things that are now knotted together and

A very strange corollary follows. Man approaches God most nearly when he is in one sense least like God. For what can be more unlike than fullness and need, sovereignty and humility, righteousness and penitence, limitless power and a cry for help? This paradox staggered me when I first ran into it; it also wrecked all my previous attempts to write about love.

― C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves (Introduction; emphasis added)

The Call To Worship
John 15:1-5
The Call to Worship: The Gospel According to St. John (15.1-5)-
I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit, He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit, He prunes it so that it may bear more fruit. You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you. Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me. I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing.

(Prayer)

This Week’s Bulletin:
https://parkroadpres.org/bulletins/

Keeping in Touch:
https://parkroadpres.org/contact/

Giving:
https://tithe.ly/give_new/www/#/tithely/give-one-time/57354

Church Website:
https://parkroadpres.org/

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Sermon Title: The Matter of Doing
Sermon Text: 2 Samuel 7
Delivered by: Pastor TJ Campo
Park Road Presbyterian Church

Today we meet another worship disorder and it has to do with the MATTER OF DOING – doing for God as an act of worship. On the one hand, God’s people are said to serve God (Rev 7.15, 22.3) but on the other hand we’re told that God doesn't need anything. You know like “what do you give the man who has everything?” In Psalm 50, “I own the cattle on a thousand hills…If I were hungry I wouldn’t tell you, for the world is Mine, and all it contains.” (vv. 10-12)

So, in what sense do we DO for God and in what sense is that wrong and even impossible? E.g. Do you see your parenting as being somehow FOR God…your daily work…your tithing/charitable-giving …your helping here at church – is it for God?

How does seeing the Big Idea of the Bible help you to stay at the center of this tension – giving to the God who doesn't need anything you have to give?

Let’s look at:
1) Forgetting the Big Idea
2) Getting BACK to the Big Idea
3) Living in Harmony With this Big Idea


A Reflection Before the Service
In town, Chaney had fallen to drink and cards and lost all his money. He got it into his head he was bein' cheated and went back to the boardin' house for his Henry rifle. When Papa tried intervene, Chaney shot him. Chaney fled. He could have walked his horse, for not a soul in that city could be bothered to give chase. No doubt Chaney fancied himself scot-free. But he was wrong. You must pay for everything in this world, one way and another. There is nothin' free, except the grace of God.

― 2010 film True Grit (directed by Joel and Ethan Cohen)-

Every faculty you have, your power of thinking or of moving your limbs from moment to moment, is given you by God. If you devoted every moment of your whole life exclusively to His service you could not give Him anything that was not in a sense his own already ... It is like a small child going to its father and saying, 'Daddy, give me sixpence to buy you a birthday present.' It is all very nice and proper, but only an idiot would think that the father is sixpence to the good on the transaction.

― C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity-

Every Christian would agree that a man's spiritual health is exactly proportional to his love for God. But man's love for God, from the very nature of the case, must always be very largely, and must often be entirely, a Need-love. This is obvious when we implore forgiveness for our sins or support in our tribulations. But in the long run it is perhaps even more apparent in our growing for it ought to be growing awareness that our whole being by its very nature is one vast need; incomplete, preparatory, empty yet cluttered, crying out for Him who can untie things that are now knotted together and

A very strange corollary follows. Man approaches God most nearly when he is in one sense least like God. For what can be more unlike than fullness and need, sovereignty and humility, righteousness and penitence, limitless power and a cry for help? This paradox staggered me when I first ran into it; it also wrecked all my previous attempts to write about love.

― C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves (Introduction; emphasis added)

The Call To Worship
John 15:1-5
The Call to Worship: The Gospel According to St. John (15.1-5)-
I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit, He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit, He prunes it so that it may bear more fruit. You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you. Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me. I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing.

This Week’s Bulletin:
https://parkroadpres.org/bulletins/

Keeping in Touch:
https://parkroadpres.org/contact/

Giving:
https://tithe.ly/give_new/www/#/tithely/give-one-time/57354

Church Website:
https://parkroadpres.org/

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Sermon Title: Worship & God's Holiness
Sermon Text: 2 Samuel 6
Delivered by Rev. T.J. Campo, lead pastor
Park Road Presbyterian Church

...the visible symbol of the Presence of God, the Ark of the Covenant had to be returned to the center of the nation.

As David goes to transport this emblem/symbol, he is understandably overjoyed until there’s a kind of accident, a death – from overjoyed to overwhelmed with grief and anger. And when the Ark of the Covenant is finally brought to Jerusalem, David is again, so ecstatic in his worship (forgets everything else) but his wife looks on and is disgusted.

In these scenes, we have opportunity to think about WORSHIP. Is it more important to be sincere in worship OR to be correct and orthodox? What is the place that emotion should (or shouldn't!) have in worship? Cold orthodoxy or fanaticism – if you HAD to choose…which one? If you had to choose, would you rather be emotionally engaged in worship OR correct in the way you go about it (but without emotion)? Passionate or proper: to which do you TEND? AND is it possible to have both?

1) Worship in Spirit
2) Worship in Truth
3) Worship In Spirit and In Truth

A Reflection Before the Service
In the middle of this madness I am dancing
Though I'm not sure why just now
I tried to be sober, tried to be logical
But I could not stop my feet
I know I have not turned off my mind
I know there's evil all around me
But for now, it's outside
And I am in my room
And joy is like a crashing tide
—Bob Bennett, “Madness Dancing” from the 1982 album, Matters of the Heart
Listen to song here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FK7yf0YdftQ

On the whole, I do not find Christians, outside of the catacombs, sufficiently sensible of conditions. Does anyone have the foggiest idea what sort of power we so blithely invoke? Or, as I suspect, does no one believe a word of it? The churches are children playing on the floor with their chemistry sets, mixing up a batch of TNT to kill a Sunday morning. It is madness to wear ladies’ straw hats and velvet hats to church; we should all be wearing crash helmets. Ushers should issue life preservers and signal flares; they should lash us to our pews. For the sleeping God may wake someday and take offense, or the waking God may draw us out to where we can never return.
—Annie Dillard in Teaching a Stone to Talk

The presumptuous sin of Uzzah was this: he assumed that his hands were less polluted than the dirt.
—R.C. Sproul

The Call To Worship
John 4.19-24 (NIV)

"Sir," the woman said, "I can see that you are a prophet. Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem."

"Woman," Jesus replied, "believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and His worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth."

This Week’s Bulletin:
https://parkroadpres.org/bulletins/

Keeping in Touch:
https://parkroadpres.org/contact/

Giving:
https://tithe.ly/give_new/www/#/tithely/give-one-time/57354

Church Website:
https://parkroadpres.org/

2 0

Sermon Title: Worship & God's Holiness
Sermon Text: 2 Samuel 6
Delivered by: Rev. T.J. Campo, lead pastor,
Park Road Presbyterian Church

...the visible symbol of the Presence of God, the Ark of the Covenant had to be returned to the center of the nation.

As David goes to transport this emblem/symbol, he is understandably overjoyed until there’s a kind of accident, a death – from overjoyed to overwhelmed with grief and anger. And when the Ark of the Covenant is finally brought to Jerusalem, David is again, so ecstatic in his worship (forgets everything else) but his wife looks on and is disgusted.

In these scenes, we have opportunity to think about WORSHIP. Is it more important to be sincere in worship OR to be correct and orthodox? What is the place that emotion should (or shouldn't!) have in worship? Cold orthodoxy or fanaticism – if you HAD to choose…which one? If you had to choose, would you rather be emotionally engaged in worship OR correct in the way you go about it (but without emotion)? Passionate or proper: to which do you TEND? AND is it possible to have both?

1) Worship in Spirit
2) Worship in Truth
3) Worship In Spirit and In Truth

A Reflection Before the Service
In the middle of this madness, I am dancing
Though I'm not sure why just now
I tried to be sober, tried to be logical
But I could not stop my feet
I know I have not turned off my mind
I know there's evil all around me
But for now, it's outside
And I am in my room
And joy is like a crashing tide
—Bob Bennett, “Madness Dancing” from the 1982 album, Matters of the Heart
Song Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FK7yf0YdftQ

On the whole, I do not find Christians, outside of the catacombs, sufficiently sensible of conditions. Does anyone have the foggiest idea what sort of power we so blithely invoke? Or, as I suspect, does no one believe a word of it? The churches are children playing on the floor with their chemistry sets, mixing up a batch of TNT to kill a Sunday morning. It is madness to wear ladies’ straw hats and velvet hats to church; we should all be wearing crash helmets. Ushers should issue life preservers and signal flares; they should lash us to our pews. For the sleeping God may wake someday and take offense, or the waking God may draw us out to where we can never return.
—Annie Dillard in Teaching a Stone to Talk

The presumptuous sin of Uzzah was this: he assumed that his hands were less polluted than the dirt.
—R.C. Sproul

The Call To Worship
John 4.19-24 (NIV)

"Sir," the woman said, "I can see that you are a prophet. Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem."

"Woman," Jesus replied, "believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and His worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth."

(Prayer)

This Week’s Bulletin:
https://parkroadpres.org/bulletins/

Keeping in Touch:
https://parkroadpres.org/contact/

Giving:
https://tithe.ly/give_new/www/#/tithely/give-one-time/57354

Church Website:
https://parkroadpres.org/

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Sermon Title: The Battle for Jerusalem
Sermon Text: 2 Samuel 5
Delivered by: Rev. T.J. Campo, Lead Pastor, Park Road Pres

Is your story with God progressing and are you moving toward that elusive point that we could call “maturity”. Our society is uncertain about this word; we’re ambivalent as to whether maturity is a good thing… “Modern Maturity” (sounds like a euphemism for old people) and YET, here is David, 30 years old and he is… in the best ways, a mature man.

So let’s consider, spiritual progress and maturity:
1) Rise and Reign
2) Greater and Greater and Greater
3) Younger and Older

A Reflection Before the Service
“If the world were merely seductive, that would be easy. If it were merely challenging, that would be no problem. But I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world and a desire to enjoy the world. This makes it hard to plan the day.”
― E.B. White

“Pleasure is the only thing one should live for, nothing ages like happiness.”
― Oscar Wilde

"Reflect upon your present blessings - of which every man has many - not on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some."
― Charles Dickens, 'A Christmas Carol And Other Christmas Writings'

This Week’s Bulletin:
https://parkroadpres.org/bulletins/

Keeping in Touch:
https://parkroadpres.org/contact/

Giving:
https://tithe.ly/give_new/www/#/tithely/give-one-time/57354

Church Website:
https://parkroadpres.org/

3 0