
Author Archives: Pastor Andrew Ruth
POST: Why We Party On Easter
Think of the times we party. Now think of the times we absolutely lose our mind in celebration. When Carolina wins a National Title, there is a riot on Franklin Street with trash fires and flipped cars. When Duke wins, students dance around huge bonfires built from all the wooden benches on campus. When Philly wins a Super Bowl no one and no street lamp is safe. When the Allies defeated Germany and Japan, the streets flooded with strangers kissing and dancing together.
We party on Easter, because Easter is the greatest day in history.
Greater than National Championships or even National Victories. Jesus defeated more than Germany, he defeated the actual Axis of Evil. Jesus stomped out more than the Blue Devils, he crushed the actual Devil. He defeated Death and Sin and Hell. All our enemies have been conquered and they now fight a retreating, losing, guerilla battle against God’s Elect.
We party because Jesus wins. The day Jesus died was the worst day in history – God came close enough for us to hug him or hurt him, and we nailed him to a tree, and yet we now call the day “Good Friday” and wear miniature versions of the torture device as jewelry. Why? Because God transformed the worst moment in human history into the best moment – the moment our salvation was accomplished and our sin – the very sin of nailing Jesus – was forgiven.
Easter proves it. Our sin is forgiven, our sentence served, our debt is paid and the empty tomb proves the super abundance of God’s provision. Sin does not win. The devil will not win in your life or your marriage. Brokenness is not final. Pain is not pointless. All crosses, both the ones we suffer and the ones we built, will end in resurrection. That is the point of our art projects, which transform trash into treasure. We built beauty from all recycled materials to remind us that our brokenness too will be transformed.
So we party. And maybe, must one day, our children, our youth, and ourselves will wake up after years away from church, in the midst of immense spiritual agony, and remember a little brick church that parties every Easter, because Jesus is alive, and there is hope for all broken people. Our children may not remember Sunday School lessons or sermons, but hopefully they remember art projects and shouts of victory.
Party on Children. Party on.
BLOG – Anything is Possible
The following is from the February 2019 Acorn.
Dear Oakland,
My December was overwhelmed with a single thought and a single life changing encounter. You’ve heard it before, but do you really believe them?
ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE WITH GOD.
THE LOCAL CHURCH IS THE HOPE OF THE WORLD.
The Monday after we canceled church for snow, I ran into Joe David, Joy, and Brittany at Ugly Mug Coffee Shop. Joy and Brittany are both educators, so our conversation turned to difficult children in school.
As a special needs teacher, Brittany explained how she’s learned to love difficult children even when they hurt her, push her away, and curse her. She’s seen that if she can love them more than they fight her, love will change them, soften them, and transform them. Love will overcome their fear, anger, and poor coping mechanisms.
Love that loves even when I fight back. Love that keeps loving even when it is rejected. Love that keeps coming even if it involves being rejected, despised, and injured. Love that risks rejection for the sake of redemption. THAT SOUNDS LIKE JESUS DOESN’T IT?!
In the church, we call that kind of undeserved, unconditional love, “GRACE, AMAZING GRACE,” and we are given grace upon grace in Jesus who chases us down while we kick, bite, scream, pout, and crucify to get our own way.
Brittany has learned to replicate Jesus’ grace even though she’s only been following Jesus in church for a little over a year. It’s so cool, how the Holy Spirit has been teaching her GRACE and using her to give GRACE for years. Grace before I know what Grace is, is called “Prevenient Grace” by theologians.
Brittany told me about this specific boy who cusses her and attacks her and other kids when he doesn’t get his way. Still, her relentless GRACE is changing him. Then she said, “It just makes me so sad, cause you know he’s learned that behavior from somewhere. Gotta be from mom and dad cause he’s not learning it at school.”
And my heart broke. It broke because you’ve taught me to empathize like Jesus rather than judge like the old me always did.
I almost cried as I said, “Brittany, I’m so thankful God put you in that little boy’s life to GRACE him as he learns a different way to communicate and a different way to get his needs met. But what about his mom and dad. Where do they learn this stuff? That boy can go to school and be changed by GRACE, but what about his mom and dad, where can they go to learn how to communicate, to love, to forgive, to be moms and dads, to be husbands, and to adult? Where they can go even where they’ll be GRACED and LOVED even while they still cuss and fight back and resent? Where can they go? Where will they learn how to love and be loved?”
Joe and Joy and Brittany all looked at each other trying to think about where in this world grown people can go to learn honesty, integrity, spirituality, forgiveness, gentleness, love, joy, peace, self-control. Where can they go to be liberated from harmful habits and unhelpful coping mechanisms? Where can their character defects be removed and lives redeemed?
There are only 2 places I can think of, and the second grew out of the first. The Second is Alcoholics Anonymous and the 12 Step Groups like it.
The first is the Church. A place for difficult people to be loved over and over again. Even when they try to push us away, we keep loving them. Even when they curse us, we bless. Even when they sin, we forgive. A place where train wrecks are welcome and loved even as they are transformed. A place where the only requirement is a desire to know God and let God change you. A desire not a dress code or decorum or diploma or accomplishment is the only requirement. A mustard seed of faith in God and hope for healing.
The Church is the only such place. The Church is the only hope for such families and such people. They didn’t learn it from their parents, they didn’t learn it in the Army, or on the job. They won’t learn grace and be transformed by grace by watching TV or going to counseling, but by following Jesus with other sinners. The church is the only place where the transformative power of grace can reach them FOR FREE. The only place so wonderfully, gracefully stubborn enough to put up with difficult, needy people until God’s love transforms them.

It is the only hope for them because it is the only hope for me.
It is the only hope for them because it is the only hope for me. I am one of those unlovely people who came into a church with a pile of regret and a suitcase of resentments. I owned suits and spoke refined English, but I was full of deceit, cowardice, people-pleasing, selfishness, and fear not to mention covetousness, lust, and anger. Where am I going to learn to trust Jesus not just with my eternal salvation, but my daily life and my inner character. Where am I going to learn gentleness, forgiveness, honesty, empathy, and grace? Friends, the only hope for my marriage, for my parenting, for my character defects, for my past sins, for my future failures is a real connection with Jesus and Jesus’ people because I cannot figure out how to follow Jesus without you. You are the ones teaching me how to listen to my wife, to settle disagreements civility, to subjugate my wants to others’ needs, and so much more.
the only hope for my marriage, for my parenting, for my character defects, for my past sins, for my future failures is a real connection with Jesus and Jesus’ people because I cannot figure out how to follow Jesus without you.
Church is where the prideful learn humility, where the vindictive learn forgiveness, where the greedy learn generosity. This is where the person with no friends learns to make friends, the person who has never been loved learns to be loved, the person who’s always right learns to be a sinner, the person who’s never been good enough learns to belong, the person with cancer learns to persevere, the person with an unplanned child learns to parent, where emotionally absent dads learn to be present, where the spoiled learn to serve, where the shy learn to talk to strangers, and where the blabbermouths learn to shut up.
The encounter reinvigorated my whole ministry. It reminded me and convinced me practically.
Anything is possible at Oakland, because anything is possible with God.
Oakland is the hope of the world.
In God’s Church, in Oakland, transformation is always possible. No one is too far gone to repent, too unlovely to be loved, too broken to be mended, too rebellious to be the prodigal, too drunk to get sober, too sick to get healed, too lost to be found, too addicted to be liberated, too deceived to get honest, too cynical to meet Jesus, because OAKLAND is a place to meet Jesus and learn to follow him, because Oakland is a place where the grace of God must be as tangible and visible as the wind in the trees and the sun on our skin. If we always point to Jesus and love one another like Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE.
We are the hope of the world. Not government, not PBS, not better education, not better rules. ONLY JESUS AND HIS CHURCH. Only the church. Only the church can teach people not to blame, hide, lie, or practice self-righteousness, but to surrender their wills and lives to the care of God, who has proved his love by sending Jesus to save us.
BLOG – A House Blessing
This week, I was asked to bless a new home. It was awesome. Claire and I have prayed over every single house we’ve lived in. We’ve walked room by room through an empty house and prayed for the people who would inhabit that particular room or the things we hoped would happen there. We prayed for the ministry we’d do and the people we’d host.
In another friend’s house, we wrote on the sub flooring before carpet went down. We wrote permanent prayers for the children on their bedroom and the kitchen under the tile. It was awesome.
Where we live is holy, and Jesus cares deeply. He spent many nights and hours and meals in people’s homes. Your house is holy. It is a ministry center and a mission outpost for Jesus’ Kingdom. He wants to use it to love, bless, and evangelize people in your life. Do you think about it that way? Does Jesus’ mission to seek and save that which was lost, to host those who are cast out, and to heal the divisions of this sinful world define your home more than the latest fashions on HGTV? I pray you tap into Jesus’ dreams for your homes even as you thoughtfully decorate and purchase and enjoy your home.
“From one man he made all the people of the world. Now they live all over the earth. He decided exactly when they should live. And he decided exactly where they should live.” Acts 17:26 NIrV
As I prepared to go bless this person’s home, I found the following liturgy. I loved the guidance it provided as you move through your home. Why not pray over each room this week?
Leader: “Peace be to this house and: to all who dwell here, in the name of the Lord. All: Blessed be God forever.
Leader: When Christ took flesh through the Blessed Virgin Mary, he made his home with us. Let us now pray that he will enter this home and bless it with his presence. May he always be here among us; may he nurture our love for each other, share in our joys, comfort us in our sorrows. Inspired by his teachings and example, let us seek to make our home before all else a dwelling place of love, diffusing far and wide the goodness of Christ.
Reader: A reading from the letter of Paul to the Colossians
You are God’s chosen race, his saints; He loves you, and you should be clothed in sincere compassion, in kindness and humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with one another; forgive each other as soon as a quarrel begins. The Lord has forgiven you; now you must do the same. Over all these clothes, to keep them together and complete them, put on love. And may the peace of Christ reign in your hearts, because it is for this that you were called together as parts of one body. Always be thankful. Let the message of Christ, in all its richness, find a home with you. Teach each other, and advise each other, in all wisdom. With gratitude in your hearts sing psalms and hymns and inspired songs to God; And never say or do anything except in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him. The word of the Lord.All: Thanks be to God.
After the scripture reading, all go from room to room, offering prayers of intercession and sprinkling holy water, if desired. Some of the following prayers may be used.
At the entrance:
Leader: O God, protect our going out and our coming in; Let us share the hospitality of this home with all who visit us, that those who enter here may know your love and peace. Grant this through Christ our Lord.All: Amen.
In the living room:
Leader: O God, give your blessings to all who share this room, that we may be knit together in companionship. Grant this through Christ our Lord.All: Amen.
In the kitchen:
Leader: O God, you fill the hungry with good things. Send your blessing on us, as we work in this kitchen, and make us ever thankful for our daily bread. Grant this through Christ our Lord. All: Amen.In the dining room:
Leader: Blessed are you, Lord of heaven and earth, for you give us food and drink to sustain our lives and make our hearts glad. Help us to be grateful for all your mercies, and mindful of the needs of others. Grant this through Christ our Lord.All: Amen.
In the bedrooms:
Leader: Protect us, Lord, as we stay awake; watch over us as we sleep, that awake we may keep watchwith Christ, and asleep, we may rest in his peace. Grant this through Christ our Lord. All: Amen.
In the bathroom:
Leader: Blessed are you, Lord of heaven and earth. You formed us in wisdom and love. Refresh us in body and in spirit, and keep us in good health that we might serve you. Grant this through Christ our Lord
All: Amen.
Leader: Let us pray the prayer that our savior taught us.
All: Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed by thy name; thy kingdom come; thy willbe done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread; and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us; and lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil.
Leader: Be our shelter, Lord, when we are at home, our companion when we are away, and our welcome guest when we return and at last receive us into the dwelling place you have prepared for us in your Father’s house, where you live forever and ever.
All: Amen.
Leader: May the peace of Christ rule in our hearts (+), and may the word of Christ in all its richness dwell in us, so that whatever we do in word and in work, we will do in the name of the Lord. All: Amen.
BLOG – Why We Sing Hebrews
The author of Hebrews knows his Bible better than all of us. He has learned it through study and sermons, but also through singing. We can see this immediately in Hebrews. Based on its singsong yet technical language, Hebrews 1:3 very likely quotes an early Christian hymn about Jesus. Then in Hebrws 1:5-14, he stacks up 7 different quotations from the Old Testament, and what is amazing is that 5 of them are from the Psalms and 1 of them is from the Song of Moses. So 6 of 7 quotations are lyrics in Biblical songs.
These Biblical Songs were compiled together in the Greek Psalter or Hymnal. You see, in their Greek speaking synagogues, the Jewish Hymnal was made up of the Psalms plus several other songs from the Old Testament including the Song of Moses. Greek speaking Jews all over the Mediterranean and Middle East sang these songs Saturday after Saturday. After they became Jesus’ disciples, Christians took up these songs in their own Sunday worship.
So, the Preacher knows these words, and the Hebrew Church knows these words because they sing them week after week. That is why singing is so important. Fortunately or unfortunately, we get most of our theology from the songs we sing, and so Hebrews stacks up these songs to explain who Jesus is. This is why we sing every week. This is why we carefully choose the songs we sing each week.
You may well remember my sermon, and you might even quote my sermon, but I’d bet good money, you aren’t going to thoughtlessly start singing it when you get anxious or excited. But there is a lot more chance that you will hum “Amazing Grace” or sing into the despair, “I’m no longer a slave to fear, I am a child of God.” This is why we all know the words to “Amazing Grace,” but none of us can quote a single sermon from the same century.
So what are you singing these days? What songs tell you who you are and whose you are? Personally, I love music, and I love country music (except modern country, it’s an abomination), but there is a big problem when “A Country Boy Can Survive” forms more of my identity than “Jesus Loves Me This I Know.”
Don’t miss the opportunity to hide truth in your heart, so that when you reach for a song to explain your experience or combat your fears or express your joy, Scripture is on your lips.
Here are some resources to listen to Scripture:
Shane and Shane – Psalms and Psalms II – These are my favorites. Two guys with strong voices and excellent harmony.
Sandra McCracken – Psalms – This is Claire’s favorite.
April 7 – BBQ & BIDS Mission Trip Fundraiser
To donate Auction Items or Cash, contact secretary@oaklandpresbyterianchurch.org.




















