Somerset Church of Christ

March 17, 2026

The measuring stick (how we judge vs love)

Measuring sticks are very important and they need to be meticulously calibrated. In Matthew 7:1-2 Jesus said, “Judge not, that you be not judged. For with the judgement you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured you.” In other words, don’t dish it out if you can’t take it yourself. There are lots of examples of measuring sticks gone wrong. The Mars Climate Orbiter, for example, was a $125 million loss when it burned up in the Martian atmosphere. One engineering team used imperial units while another used metric units.

Jesus continued by asking how you see the speck in your brother’s eye when you have a log in your own. He concluded, “You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye” (vs. 5). Luke adds a component: “Judge not, and you will not be judged; condemn not, and you will not be condemned; forgive, and you will be forgiven; give, and it will be given to you. Good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap. For with the measure you use it will be measured back to you” (Luke 6:37-38).

The point is not that we can never judge. It’s that we better be extremely careful how we view other people. Do we nitpick (use a false measurement) or do we first treat people with kindness, mercy, and forgiveness? If we miscalculate, we could end up becoming like the “too big French trains”–Railway engineers famously ordered over 2,000 new regional trains that were too wide for the platforms at 1,300 stations because they failed to measure the infrastructure.

March 11, 2026

The truth will set you free

man wearing grey shirt standing on elevated surface

In the gospel of John, Jesus is constantly confronted by antagonizers who are trying their hardest to catch him blaspheming. Jesus spent a long time telling groups of people that he is the light of the world and anyone who follows him will no longer walk in darkness. Then he told them, “If you abide in my word, you truly are my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” (John 8:31-32).

They argued with Jesus, saying that they’re offspring of Abraham and have never been enslaved to anyone. Jesus said, “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin” (vs. 34). He said that the slave doesn’t remain in the house forever, but the son does. Therefore, if he sets them free (from their sins), they are free indeed.

Jesus acknowledged that they were offspring of Abraham, “yet you seek to kill me because my word finds no place in you” (vs. 37). They refused to abide in Jesus’ word, which is the truth. If fact, they couldn’t because his word finds no place in them. Until they accept the word of Jesus, there can be no truth. As long as there is no truth, they listen to the lies of Satan. But thank God that we have access to the word of Jesus. As long as we abide in it, we are his disciples and the truth sets us free from our sins!

March 3, 2026

Surrendering to God

Jesus said to his disciples very plainly, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me” (Matthew 16:24). He continued, “For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what shall a man give in return for his soul?” (vs. 25-26).

Obviously Jesus is asking rhetorical questions so that his disciples really understand that we can’t sell out our souls. Put another way, “why sell your soul to the devil?” Your soul is worth so much more than earthly riches. If anyone really wants to be a disciple of Jesus, he must deny himself, take up his cross (be willing to suffer) and follow Christ. This is the true definition of surrender.

Yet millions of people struggle with surrendering to God. People usually don’t admit it, but they surrender every day to lots of other worldly things. They surrender their time to vanity, chasing after nicer things, and workaholism to pay for those things. Jesus gives us a better way. In fact, he is the way, the truth and the life. There is no other path to salvation. There are no other doors. If we miss the Jesus boat, we miss it altogether. There are no second chances once we die. We must surrender to God.

February 25, 2026

Broken cisterns

Jeremiah, known as “the weeping prophet,” witnessed some of the greatest atrocities the Israelites had ever committed. They were doomed, on a clear path of self-destruction that was very plain to see. Despite his best efforts of warning them, the Israelites were dedicated to their path, even mocking Jeremiah along the way. At one point, Jeremiah warned them directly from God: “For my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water” (Jeremiah 2:13).

First, they rejected God as the fountain of living waters. Remember when Jesus met the Samaritan woman at the well? He offered her living water and, not understanding what he said, she questioned him. Jesus replied, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life” (John 4: 13-14). Of course, she came to believe that Jesus was the Savior and pretty soon nearly the whole village did as well.

Ironically, the Israelites who rejected God later on threw Jeremiah into a cistern that belonged to the king’s son. It was empty, proving Jeremiah’s point. Jeremiah was literally thrown into the metaphor that he was preaching about. They rejected God, the fountain of living waters, and they built their own broken cisterns. They were spiritually bankrupt. God is, and always has been, the source of living water. Jesus is our source of living water. The question is, are we tapping into Jesus as our source or are we building broken cisterns?

February 11, 2026

The gift of identity

A lot of Christians struggle with their identity in Christ. When they don’t know who they are, they don’t know what to do. When they don’t know what to do, they don’t know how to behave. So we have a world that is quite a mixed bag. But Peter gives both our identity and our purpose: “But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light” (1 Peter 2:9).

Peter says this definitively. There is zero question who the Christians are. They are a chosen race. A royal priesthood. A holy nation. A people for his own possession. That identity is written in stone. Because of that, Christians’ purpose is to proclaim the excellencies of him who called them from darkness into his marvelous light. We all were sinners, lost and driven by our dark ways. But now we entered the saving light of Jesus our Savior.

This guides our actions and determines how we treat others. Paul said, “But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 6:22). Our identity now is in Christ, and in him alone. We belong to him. We’ve entered his light and now proclaim the excellencies of him who called us from darkness into that light!

February 4, 2026

The gift of rest

Jesus was often cornered by people who wanted to trap him on his views of the Sabbath. He healed people on the Sabbath, which infuriated his opponents. When his disciples were plucking grain from a field and eating it on the Sabbath, the Pharisees criticized him. Jesus concluded, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath, so the Son of Man is lord even of the Sabbath” (Mark 2:27-28). In addition to correcting their wrong view of Sabbath, Jesus often spoke about and demonstrated rest (apart from Sabbath rest).

He demonstrated three types of rest–physical (replenishing with food and sleep), relational (often withrew to lonely places to pray to God), and spiritual (those who are weary and heavy laden come to Jesus and he will give rest). Mark 4 is perhaps the most interesting example of Jesus resting that we have. As a huge storm emerged on the Sea of Galilee, Jesus was asleep on a cusion.

He was physically tired and desperately needed rest. His disciples woke him and said, “Teacher, don’t you care that we’re perishing?” (Mark 4:38). Jesus rebuked the wind and then rebuked his disciples, “Why are you so afraid? Have you still no faith?” (vs. 40). Jesus was teaching them to trust God even in the storm. God grants us rest as a gift. We need to have the discipline to rest–physically, relationally, and spiritually.

January 21, 2026

The gift of grace

Our theme is the giving heart: a journey to radical love. Jesus, who was very poor, was incredibly giving and God, as we know, is love. Jesus called his disciples to radically love others. We can’t love others when we are into ourselves. Paul emphasized this when he said that we all once followed the prince of the power of the air. He said, “among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, lie the rest of mankind” (Ephesians 2:3).

Like the world who doesn’t know God, we carried out the desires of the body and mind–living for ourselves and not caring for others. But God. God had different plans: “But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ” (vs. 4-5). God calls us to repentance and showered us with his mercy and saved us by his grace. Not only this, but he “seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus” (vs. 6). We literally have a seat at the table with God through Christ!

Paul is crystal clear that this is not of our own doing. Our salvation by grace through faith is the gift of God. We were created for good works but those works are not what save us. We do good works because we are saved. This is what sets us apart from the world. We should work every day to outpace the world in our giving. Our good works matter to others and they matter to God.