Heaven in Ordinary Podcast

The Rev. Dr. Craig Sanders
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Subscribe for theological reflections, an introduction to Anglican identity, and prayer guides from the Rev. Dr. Craig Sanders. csanders.substack.com

  1. 1d ago

    All Saints’ Day: A Multitude Beyond Number

    What’s easier: to count your blessings or to count your losses? When you find yourself faced with trials and tribulation, stretched beyond your limit, and it seems that everything is unraveling and avalanching all at the same time. Whether it’s your physical health and you’re feeling useless and unsure of your identity, or you’re caring for a loved one as they age—maybe both at the same time. Or sandwiched between caring for your parents and your children. Are you facing challenges in the workplace because of your allegiance to King Jesus, rejection and ridicule among friends and family when you insist that Jesus is the only path to salvation? And it doesn’t help when you hear the news about the state of the world and your emotions are in the dumps. Sometimes it feels as if the stars have fallen from the sky and darkness is closing in. Like John and the churches in Revelation, the sorry state of affairs we often face seems in conflict with the proclamation that Jesus is on the throne. John and his fellow Christians were isolated and persecuted, and even though they confessed Jesus is Lord it appeared that Caesar, or the forces of darkness pulling the strings, had the upper hand. As John sees the mounting tribulation and the evil that is overwhelming his vision, he cries out at the end of Revelation 6, “Who can stand?” Who can survive the tribulation? The answer: Those redeemed by the blood of the Lamb. And the reason this book is called Revelation is because it pulls back the curtain. It unveils the triumph of Jesus Christ on his eternal throne, revealing what we cannot see with our eyes when the evidence of our present circumstances suggests that evil prevails. The ultimate reality that the Lamb of God reigns over all things, and that his sovereign power surrounds evil even now and declares victory. You will endure tribulation and distress, but where the forces of darkness see despair and weakness and foolishness and death, Jesus declares victory through his suffering and he gives that victory to you now and forevermore. The picture John sees in Revelation chapter 7 is stunning. After the cataclysmic darkness of stars falling from the sky at the end of chapter 6 and darkness mounts, what does John see? A heavenly multitude that no one could number, from every nation, tribe, people, and language, standing before the throne and worshiping the King day and night without ceasing. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit csanders.substack.com

    All Saints’ Day: A Multitude Beyond Number

  2. Oct 12

    Always and In Everything

    It’s the favorite Bible verse for athletes. “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” Gators fans will remember Tim Tebow wearing the verse on his eye black. Even featured on the cover of Sports Illustrated. The best shooter in NBA history, Steph Curry, famously writes the verse on his shoe. “I can do all things…” Dot dot dot?! He left out the most important part… So is this Bible verse taken out of context on the football field or in the arena? Does God really care what happens during a game? Yes, God does care, because as we learn today Christ is sufficient in every circumstance. For athletes, I would say yes, you can do all things through Christ who strengthens you. But not just when you win the national championship or the NBA Finals. What else can you do? You can lose with dignity and grace, you can rejoice and trust in God when you get cut from the team, you can have peace when you’re recovering from an injury. Paul says today in our reading from Philippians 4 that joy and peace is something the Christian has always and in everything. But you know what I think about when it comes to joy and peace in every circumstance? The excellent and praiseworthy things the God of peace draws to mind? The woman in the nursing home who often told me, “This is my mission field.” The cancer patient with a defiant joy in the face of suffering. The young parents who experience contentment even when struggling to make ends meet. Because Christ gave them that strength. Maybe you can look back at those seasons of need, when you were brought low, and see evidence of spiritual abundance as God drew near to you. On the one hand you couldn’t wait to be delivered out of that circumstance, but now you can also look back on it with fondness because of how God strengthened your relationship with him. It could be today that you’re in a low place, and all of this sounds out of touch with reality, a slap in the face to those who are hurting. What do you know? How can you possibly understand what I’m going through? Have you worried and struggled with the hamster wheel of anxiety that’s on my mind? This does not apply to my situation. But Paul’s letter to the Philippians is not written from the ivory tower of a philosopher or the golden couch of a billionaire. Paul is writing from prison. And this is his message to us: Rejoice and know God’s peace always and in everything. How is that possible? Because Christ is sufficient and reigns on the throne for all time and over every circumstance. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit csanders.substack.com

  3. Sep 28

    The Servant, Rescuing, and Universal King

    What do you think makes someone a good king? Can you think of what kind character, some important values, a good king should have? In Paul’s letter to the Philippians, we find a song that tells us the kind of king Jesus is. In Philippians 2:1-13, Paul tells us that Jesus is the king who comes down to lift us up. And if there is one value that Paul says defines Jesus’s character, in Philippians 2:6-8, what might that be? Humility. King Jesus is humble. Thanks for reading Heaven in Ordinary! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work. Maybe it would help us to understand what kind of king Jesus is, by thinking about a picture of a king that represents the opposite of humility: pride. In the movie The Lion King, Simba wants to be in charge when he is little, and he sings, “I Just Can’t Wait to Be King.” For young Simba, being a king means no one gets to tell him where to go or what to do. Instead, he could be “Free to run around all day, free to do it my own way.” He wanted to be his own boss and do only what made him happy. Then there is Simba’s uncle Scar. He’s green with envy, and he wants to be king so bad that he will play tricks and lie and kill his brother and steal the throne. Both young Simba and Scar have what the Apostle Paul calls “selfish ambition.” They want power and control so they can do what they want, only to help themselves without thinking about others. But Jesus shows us a much different picture of a king because he is humble. And so what kind of king is Jesus? Jesus is a Servant King, a Rescuing King, and a Universal King. Servant King (verses 6-7) Jesus “emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant.” Jesus is God. Jesus has always been equal with God the Father, from before time began, but he was willing to humble himself and become a servant. See, unlike Simba and Scar, Jesus didn’t need to snatch or steal the throne to be king, he already had that power and status, but he did not cling to it so that he could do whatever he wanted. Instead, Jesus is the King who comes down. He left heaven and came down to earth, to be like us and serve us. He was strong enough to have all that power and still put our interests, our needs, above his own. Why? Because Jesus is a… Rescuing King (verse 9) Jesus didn’t come down to be a servant just to show us a good example of how to be humble. No, Jesus came to rescue us from sin and death. From the brokenness that makes us hold on to selfish ambition, the desire to be king for ourselves. See, the truth about Simba and Scar in The Lion King is that we are all like that. We want to be king instead of Jesus, we want to determine our own way. The 3 Circles is a way of telling the story about how Jesus came to rescue us. First, you have the heart, showing God’s good design: God is the King who created you and me to live with him in loving friendship. The second circle shows sin and brokenness: we run away from God and try to be our own kings, and then we make a mess of things and can’t get back to God on our own. And then we have the third circle, which shows us what Paul tells us: Jesus came down, died on the cross to free us from sin, and rose from the dead. And now he is exalted as King forever and for everyone. We can’t stop being selfish on our own, no matter how hard we try. Jesus rescues us so that we can have new hearts and follow him as our King. And he’s not just our King. Jesus is the Universal King The king who was humble and obedient to die on the cross is now exalted as king over the whole universe. Jesus isn’t just a king. He is THE King of the whole world. “At the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.” That’s not just you and me, but every creature everywhere and for all of eternity. So if Jesus is that kind of king, then what kind people should we be if we follow him? Because Jesus is the Universal King… Everyone needs to know about him. We tell everyone about Jesus. Even people we don’t like, whether they look or think different, or treat us meanly, or act selfishly. Every person needs to know Jesus. Because Jesus is the Rescuing King… We don’t have to work so hard to be our king anymore. Jesus left the glory of heaven to be a servant so that he could set us free. When we are trapped with selfish ambition to do it our own way, trying to steal and control God’s throne, it’s exhausting, and we can never be satisfied. Jesus sets us free to be in a relationship with him, to have the new life that changes direction and follows Jesus as king. Because Jesus is the Servant King… We can become servants too. When we’re no longer snatching for our own spotlight to get all the attention, we can be free to look to serve others and seek their good. In the beginning of our passage, Paul isn’t saying, “Try harder to be humble.” No, he’s saying that Jesus lifts us up to a new way of life, with a clean heart, so that we can follow him and be like him. So that we can serve others and lift them up too. Maybe that looks like visiting our church family in the hospital, or calling them if we haven’t seem them in awhile to pray with them, or even thanking them when they serve as volunteers on Sunday. When we’re not the center of attention, we can celebrate what Jesus is doing in the lives of our brothers and sisters in Christ. Jesus is the Servant, Rescuing, and Universal King. And he came down to lift us up. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit csanders.substack.com

  4. Sep 21

    No Fair!

    No fair! What image comes to mind when you hear those words? A child crossing their arms, sticking out their bottom lip, and pouting? That’s how I imagine Jonah. Or maybe you can recall a time when you threw your hands up in frustration over a workplace injustice, like the laborers in the vineyard from Jesus’s parable in Matthew 20:1-16. In both these passages, there is a self-righteous anger directed toward God. Why? Because God’s compassion and generosity seemed to reward those who did not earn it. And it raises the question: Is God’s forgiveness fair? Jonah had a doomsday clock. He lit the fuse and waited for the bomb of God’s judgment to go off. “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!” And then he raced far enough away from the city that he thought he’d be out of the danger zone and eagerly waited for their destruction. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit csanders.substack.com

  5. Sep 7

    Forgiveness: Love’s Victory Over Conflict

    Forgiveness. What does it mean? How do we do it? Why should we? “Forgive and forget” is something you’ve probably been told to do if you’ve been wronged. So long as that means you must bury the pain, make excuses for the offender, release your anger, and move on, then Jesus doesn’t give us this option in Matthew 18. So we’ll call this option the “cheap-grace” model of forgiveness. On the other hand, you may think that forgiveness is a fairy tale. That’s a predominant attitude in our secular therapeutic culture: forgiveness is harmful to your desires, to your personal sense of self. If someone has offended you, it’s impossible for them to change and you need to learn to live with your feelings of hostility. Both of these cultural attitudes—that you should forget and move on or that forgiveness is unrealistic and impossible—expose a fundamental misunderstanding about forgiveness that God’s Word corrects in our Scripture readings from Matthew 18 and Romans 12. Here’s a definition of forgiveness that I want to explore: Forgiveness is sacrificial love that enters into conflict to restore relationship. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit csanders.substack.com

    Forgiveness: Love’s Victory Over Conflict

  6. Aug 31

    Guess How Much God Loves You

    The Bible tells us about a prophet named Jeremiah. A prophet is someone who God calls to share his message with others, a message to remind them of how much God loves them. And that what God wants most of all is for us to love him with all our heart, with all our soul, and with all our mind. When Jeremiah was a young boy, God gave him a message to tell everyone that they were going the wrong way—they were running away from God instead of toward him. And God told Jeremiah, Don’t be afraid that you are young, because I am with you and I will protect you. I will give you the words to say. So Jeremiah took God’s words, and in our reading today, Jeremiah says: “Your words were found, and I ate them, and your words became to me a joy, and the delight of my heart” (Jeremiah 15:16). Jeremiah shows us what it looks like to love God when we know that God loves us first. God told Jeremiah that before he was born, God loved him (Jeremiah 1:5). And Jeremiah says that he enjoys hearing God’s Word. Jeremiah reminds of what our Psalm says today, “I have loved the habitation of your house” (Psalm 26:8). Because Jeremiah enjoyed spending time with God and telling others about the great things God has done for them. Well, even though he loves hearing God’s Word and sharing God’s message with others, no one is listening to him. And so Jeremiah in our reading today is hurt, and sad, and angry. Why is that? Because the people are standing there and they don’t believe him: “There’s no problem, Jeremiah, everything is fine.” And then they hurt him when they make fun of him and say mean things to Jeremiah for following God instead of following them. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit csanders.substack.com

  7. Aug 10

    A Lesson in Prayer from the Belly of the Fish

    Have you ever had a wake-up call? One of those moments where you felt in over your head, out of your depth, or on uncharted waters? You lost a job, or you faced unexpected challenges as a new parent, or you were navigating a medical emergency. Or maybe it was a season where it seemed like there was one crisis on top of another and there was no way out on your own. You might call that experience rock bottom. But you may have found it’s also the place where the illusion that you can save yourself finally falls apart. As Tim Keller once put it, “You never realize that Jesus is all you need until Jesus is all you have.” When you hit rock bottom and realize that your own plans or abilities aren’t enough to make a way out, you discover something that is true no matter the circumstance. You need God all the time. And that’s where we find both Jonah and Peter in our Scripture readings today. As Jonah calls out to God from the depths and Peter cries out as he sinks, they point us to the same truth: No matter how deep or how far we fall, God alone has the power to save. Because salvation belongs to the Lord. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit csanders.substack.com

  8. Aug 3

    Love's Overwhelming Victory (Romans 8, Part 5)

    Here at the pinnacle of Romans 8, Paul stares suffering and death in the face and declares the invincible love of Christ for us is overwhelmingly victorious. Paul does not deny the reality of pain, suffering, and tragedy, but he encourages us to confront it with the anchor of Christ’s love. And while we may not encounter the extent of Paul’s own tribulation that led to his execution, every one of us experiences suffering. How many of you have been here in person, for all 5 weeks we’ve been walking through Romans 8? It’s a small number. And I know many of the reasons you were absent were not pleasant: infections, surgeries, hospital visits, sleepless nights, family situations, or just Florida in July. The arena of our suffering may look different for each of us, but the promise remains the same. For those who belong to Christ, the overwhelming victory of God’s love prevails in every circumstance. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit csanders.substack.com

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Subscribe for theological reflections, an introduction to Anglican identity, and prayer guides from the Rev. Dr. Craig Sanders. csanders.substack.com

Information

  • Creator
    The Rev. Dr. Craig Sanders
  • Years Active
    2026
  • Episodes
    89
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Craig Sanders
  • Show Website
    Heaven in Ordinary Podcast