Sermons

Sermons are listed below with the most recent sermons first. Sermons may be browsed by date, books of the Bible, speaker, and more. Check back often for updates.

Save All You Can

Dreaming the Future is a four-week stewardship series built on Earn. Save. Give.: Wesley’s Simple Rules for Money by James A. Harnish and Enough: Discovering Joy Through Simplicity and Generosity by Adam Hamilton. As United Methodists, we promise to support the ministries of the church with our prayers, presence, gifts, service, and witness, and how we save is part of keeping that promise. We save for a home, a family, or a rainy day. Who are we saving for, and…

Earn All You Can

“Dreaming the Future” is a four-week stewardship series at La Jolla UMC. As United Methodists, we promise to support the ministries of the church with our prayers, presence, gifts, service, and witness, and John Wesley’s first rule about money is “gain all you can” (or as we might say today, “earn all you can”). Our days are filled with work: jobs, classrooms, households, volunteer shifts. Jesus tells his disciples a story about a manager who’s about to lose his job.…

We Don’t Need More Money

“Dreaming the Future” is a four-week stewardship series built on “Earn. Save. Give.: Wesley’s Simple Rules for Money” by James A. Harnish and “Enough: Discovering Joy Through Simplicity and Generosity” by Adam Hamilton. As United Methodists, we promise to support the church with our prayers, presence, gifts, service, and witness, and that is the whole of stewardship. Questions about money often start with amounts: how much we earn, how much we owe, how much would be enough. Scripture: Proverbs 3:13-18;…

Growing in Grace

This is the final week of our fall series, six weeks drawn from Rev. Dr. Laceye Warner’s book Knowing Who We Are. Methodists speak of going on to perfection, growing in grace across a lifetime. That growth is slow, and much of what forms us happens through repetition, in work that seldom feels like formation at the time. This week we consider how our own work and God’s work within us belong together. Scripture: Philippians 2:1-13; Matthew 21:23-32 (CEB)

Texts That Shape Us

We’re nearing the end of our series, drawn from Knowing Who We Are by Rev. Dr. Laceye Warner. This week we turn to the texts that inform and shape us, examining how sacred text can bring us relief, wisdom, and understanding, and what it means to read for the sake of salvation. Scripture: Nehemiah 8:1-10 (CEB), Psalm 119:97-104 (NRSVue)

Local and Connexional

Methodist churches have never operated alone. A congregation in La Jolla is tied to congregations across California and to congregations on the other side of the world, and that tie shows on ordinary Sunday mornings more than you might expect. In worship this week, we ask what it means to be cared for by people we did not choose, and to be counted on by those same people in return. Scripture: Romans 12:9-21 (NRSVUE)

Finding Grace

This Sunday begins “Knowing Who We Are,” a six-week series in our year of considering what it means to be United Methodist. We begin with grace: God loves us first, makes peace possible, and continues to work in us. Jesus calls disciples who worship and doubt at the same time, then promises to remain with them. We explore how receiving God’s grace prepares us to join the work God is already doing. Scripture: Romans 5:1-5; Matthew 28:16-20 (CEB)

Believe

This is the final Sunday of “Our Baptismal Vows.” We’ve renounced wickedness, accepted our role in resisting injustice and oppression, confessed Jesus as our Savior, and promised to nurture one another. As we conclude our series, we profess our faith openly and remember our baptism. Scripture: Romans 10:5-15; Matthew 14:22-33 (CEB)

Nurture

Our series on the vows we make at baptism continues with the fourth promise, and this one belongs to the congregation rather than to the person being baptized: to nurture one another in the Christian faith and life, and to include in our care the people standing before us. Most of us were formed by someone who made that promise about us, a Sunday school teacher, a choir director, a neighbor. Few of us think of ourselves as the ones…