Each week, we offer daily Scripture readings and thoughts in our

Grow • Pray • Study (GPS) Guide. 

Come back on Mondays for the weekly GPS, and

spend time in study and prayer daily! 

You matter to God. 

Anything Good?

St. Paul’s UMC

GPS: Grow, Pray Study Guide for the week of

January 17 – 23, 2021

Destination: 

To gain a deeper understanding of what it means to be a deeply committed follower of God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit.  To be able to recognize your experiences of God and to discover God in new and different ways.

 Let me encourage you to be in deep prayer this week. Pray for our country to find ways to unite, to work together to be respectful of one another. Find a quiet place to pray John Wesley’s prayer every day.

I am no longer my own, but thine. Put me to what thou will, rank me with whom thou will.

Put me to doing, put me to suffering. Let me be employed by thee or laid aside for thee, exalted for thee or brought low for thee.

Let me be full, let me be empty. Let me have all things, let me have nothing. I freely and heartily yield all things to thy pleasure and disposal.

And now, O glorious and blessed God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, thou art mine, and I am thine. So be it. And the covenant which I have made on earth, let it be ratified in heaven. Amen

After you have prayed John Wesley’s prayer…spend several minutes in silence listening for God to reveal, to give you an epiphany of the one step God wants you to take to be in closer relationship with God and with your neighbor. 

Anything Good?

January 17, 2021

John 1:43-51 CEB

Reverend Nancy Amos

Scripture:

⁴³ The next day Jesus wanted to go into Galilee, and he found Philip. Jesus said to him, “Follow me.” ⁴⁴ Philip was from Bethsaida, the hometown of Andrew and    Peter. ⁴⁵ Philip found Nathanael and said to him, “We have found the one Moses wrote about in the Law and the Prophets: Jesus, Joseph’s son, from Nazareth.” ⁴⁶ Nathanael responded, “Can anything from Nazareth be good?” Philip said, “Come and see.”

⁴⁷ Jesus saw Nathanael coming toward him and said about him, “Here is a genuine Israelite in whom there is no deceit.” ⁴⁸ Nathanael asked him, “How do you know me?” Jesus answered, “Before Philip called you, I saw you under the fig tree.” ⁴⁹ Nathanael replied, “Rabbi, you are God’s Son. You are the king of Israel.” ⁵⁰ Jesus answered, “Do you believe because I told you that I saw you under the fig tree? You will see greater things than these! ⁵¹ I assure you that you will see heaven open and God’s angels going up to heaven and down to earth on the Human One.”

John 1:43-51 CEB

Sermon Notes:

Can anything good come from Nazareth? Come and see.

Fred Craddock was a Distinguished Professor of Preaching and New Testament Emeritus in the Candler School of Theology at Emory University. Mr. Craddock has observed that the “biblical word central to the Season of Epiphany is ‘revelation, for this is the time we celebrate the revealing of the Son of God. But the companion word to revelation is ‘witness, for revelation in the biblical sense is never open and obvious to everyone, interested or not, believer or not.”

As Epiphany is the “moment” of God’s self-revelation to the world, the season following prompts us to ask: How will we witness? How will we reveal that which has been revealed to us?

The church that Jesus and Paul instruct us to be is a church of community and connection. Learning to live together even in the midst of disagreements, working on breaking down limitations and walls that we erect against one another.

Steps of Faith:

•  Ask Jesus to reveal to you the limits that you place on people. Don’t assume you know them, ask for a revelation.
•  What is the one thing you can do this week to take one step closer to Jesus? What is Philip asking you to come and see?
•  In a country divided between political parties, who wears a mask and who doesn’t, be a beacon of God’s light to love your neighbor who doesn’t look like you or believe like you.

Resources: Bible by God, UMC Lectionary resources, John Commentary