Timothy Paul Jones

Leadership, Family Ministry, Apologetics

Timothy Paul Jones

Sermon: The Wisdom that Comes from Peace

“Peace be with you.” Christians all around the world repeat these words every week—but what would our lives look like if peace really was woven into every part of our lives? The book of James provides us with a clue: “The fruit of righteousness is sown in peace,” James writes, “by those who cultivate peace” (James 3:18).

Seen from the Spirit-inspired perspective of James, peace produces a harvest of righteousness. What becomes clear throughout the rest of the epistle of James is that this harvest of righteousness is closely connected to wisdom—a true and authentic wisdom that comes “from above.”

So how do we live in this peace that produces wisdom? That’s what we explored together in this sermon, preached at the Midtown congregation of Sojourn Community Church, where I serve as one of the pastors.

Continue reading.

Sermon: The King Who Died with an Open Hand

img_1338In 2007, a movie starring Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman wove a new phrase into the vocabulary of Western culture. This new phrase also happened to be the name of the movie: The Bucket List. A bucket list is a series of experiences that you want to have before you “kick the bucket.” Near the end of the first book of Chronicles, we find the bucket list of Israel’s most revered king, David the son of Jesse—but it’s not the type of bucket list you might expect a king to keep. There was, in fact, only one item on David’s bucket list, and it was this: “It was in my heart to build a resting place for the ark of the covenant of the LORD” (1 Chronicles 28:2).

God, however, refused to allow David to fulfill that one item on his bucket list. Instead of building the temple that he had envisioned, David gave everything he possessed to build a resting place that his eyes would never see. David died with an open hand.

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Writing: If You Want to Remember It, Write It By Hand

Words and writing matter.

In the opening chapter of the Scriptures, God speaks, and a cosmos bursts into being (Genesis 1:3). When he constitutes Israel as his  people, God speaks and writes, and a covenant is born (Exodus 31:18). John described the incarnation of God in Christ by declaring, “the Word became flesh” (John 1:14). Continue reading.

Sermon: Learning to Live in Awe

“For this reason,” Paul declared in his letter to the Ephesians, “I fall to my knees before the Father” (3:14). When people fall to their knees in the Bible, we tend to assume that the primary purpose of their prostration is prayer—and that was indeed part of what Paul was expressing here. But that’s not all that Paul seems to have been saying here. Kneeling is, in this text, more than a convenient posture for prayer. This is Paul’s moment of surrender in response to something that had inspired deep awe in his soul.

So what was it in this text that caused Paul to fall to his knees in prayerful awe? It wasn’t a miraculous vision, and it wasn’t a voice from heaven. It was something that may seem quite mundane to many of us. It was something that is experienced today by billions of people around the globe.

Continue reading.

Sermon: The Cycle That Only A Cross Could End

“If only I could see God do something amazing, then it would be easier to follow him.” Has that thought ever occurred to you? It’s certainly crossed my mind from time to time! And yet, what we learn throughout the Scriptures is that, even when people did see God do something amazing, faithfulness wasn’t any easier for them.Continue reading.

Sermon: The Difficult Journey Toward Deep Diversity

“It is appalling,” Martin Luther King, Jr., once pointed out, “that the most segregated hour of Christian America is eleven o’clock on Sunday morning.” One of the primary reasons that churches remain segregated today is because white Christians failed to acknowledge the full humanity of their African-American sisters and brothers many years ago. For many African Americans, segregated churches functioned as a shelter from the systemic hypocrisy of church leaders who simultaneously claimed all people were created in God’s image and yet asserted supremacy over African Americans. The result is a lack of diversity that still persists in churches today.

The Midtown congregation of Sojourn Community Church—where I am blessed to serve as one of the pastors—is embedded in diverse neighborhoods. Yet the demographics of our congregation do not match the demographics of our neighborhood.

Not yet, anyway.Continue reading.

Leadership: When Your Church Has Issues

It happens in dating, and it happens in friendships and marriage.

You meet someone, and—for a while—this individual seems flawless. Sometimes it takes a few months, other times it only takes a few minutes—but, eventually, it happens. It becomes apparent that this person has issues. Chances are, they recognize the same truth about you.

It happens in churches too.Continue reading.

Sermon: That Awkward Text About Noah that No One Wants to Preach

In every Sunday School lesson and Bible storybook about Noah that I recall from my childhood, the ark-builder’s story ended in triumph. 

Noah saves the animals and sees the sign of God’s covenant—and, with that, the account of Noah comes to a close with the ark behind him, a sacrifice in front of him, and a rainbow above him. It’s a glorious scene, well-fitted for colorful full-page paintings in Bible story books.

But then, sometime in my late teenage years, I read the rest of Noah’s story. Continue reading.

Proclamation: The Search for a Shining Face

God sent a shining face from beyond the sun, the wisdom of God in human flesh. Solomon once asked, “Who is like the wise?” (Ecclesiastes 8:1). God’s answer in the New Testament is, “This one, the eternal wisdom of God in a virgin’s womb. Here he is.”

The Search for the Shining Face from Southern Seminary on Vimeo.

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