Good Shepherd Nashville

What We Worship Shapes Us | The Rev. Derek Axelson

Romans 1 – 2 with Dcn. Derek.
We cannot help but worship something, and what we worship shapes who we become. Through Paul's diagnosis of idolatry and the story of Eustace the dragon in C.S. Lewis's Voyage of the Dawn Treader, this sermon invites us to see that worship of the true God is the cure for our distorted hearts, and that God's love and wrath together reach to set us free.

I Am Not Ashamed | The Rev. Suzie Anderson

Romans 1:1 – 17 with Mtr. Suzie.
The gospel is the power of God for salvation. Through Paul's bold opening to the church in Rome, this sermon invites us to rediscover the gospel as the pardon of our sins, the healing of our brokenness, and the new world Jesus is bringing, and to live unashamed of the one we love.

Soli Deo Gloria: The Aim of Romans | The Rev. Art Going

The opening sermon of a seventeen-week summer series in Romans, anchored on the doxology of Romans 11:33–36. This section of Romans is the hinge between Paul's eleven chapters of doctrine and the practical chapters that follow. Drawing on how Romans found Augustine in a Milan garden, Luther in a tower, and Wesley on a London street, Fr. Art argues that Paul does not finish with summary but with worship: theology's real goal is doxology, not just information. 

"You Follow Me" | The Rev. Art Going

In this episode we explore John 21, where Jesus restores Peter by the charcoal fire and re-commissions him to feed the sheep. We reflect on repentance, grace, and the pattern of healing before sending. Fr. Art also examines Christian calling—both for the incoming rector and for every believer—emphasizing that our authority rests on the resurrection, our callings are unique, and we are sent to love and care for others. Finally, we are challenged to stop comparing ourselves to others, embrace our God-given uniqueness, and see people as the living, transformed by Christ.

Resurrection in the Land of the Living | The Rev. Art Going

A sermon on John 21:1-14. The disciples fish through the night and catch nothing. Jesus waits on the shore at dawn beside a fire he has already built. The fire and the meal arrive before any word does, before any failure gets named, before anyone asks who is on the beach. Grace runs ahead of us, belonging precedes purpose, and resurrection takes root in ordinary work. Fr. Art insists the risen Lord is already on our shore, and the fire is already lit.

An Unchanged Way of Seeing | The Rev. Derek Axelson

A sermon on John 20:24-29, the risen Jesus appearing to doubting Thomas. Thomas wants proof. Dcn. Derek reads the demand as the universal instinct to fit resurrection into the world we already understand. Drawing on David Brooks's How to Know a Person and the "invisible gorilla" experiment, Dcn. Derek argues that the Spirit Jesus breathed on the disciples was the gorilla Thomas could not yet see. Resurrection life runs on power, and faith is how we live from it.

The First Preacher | The Rev. Suzie Anderson

A sermon on John 20:1-18, the Easter morning encounter between Mary Magdalene and the risen Christ. Mary has watched Jesus die, anointed his body, and come to keep watch in the dark. Mtr. Suzie traces her journey from grief, through searching, to the moment Jesus says her name. On the cross Christ confronts a fracture that runs through all creation, including our failures, the world's violence, and death itself. Drawing on years of ministry among women in brothels, Mtr. Suzie insists the resurrection brings hope for now. Jesus chooses Mary as the first preacher of the gospel, a woman whose testimony would not have stood in any court. Mary weeps, turns, is sent. We are sent the same way.

Can These Bones Live? | The Rev. Art Going

A sermon on Ezekiel 37, the valley of dry bones, preached at the Easter Vigil. The Spirit carries Ezekiel into the valley, God asks whether the bones can live, and the prophet answers, "Sovereign Lord, you alone know." Fr. Art names the valleys we all know: a cold marriage, faith gone stale, grief that settled and stayed. And ours as a parish: In 2025 a leadership crisis and a resignation set us down in a valley we did not choose, and we have discovered the strength of our salvation. And the bones have begun to rattle. We still wait for Ruach, for spirit. The empty tomb is God's answer to Ezekiel's question and ours.

The Cross, The Throne | The Rev. Suzie Anderson

A Good Friday sermon on John 12 and the passion. Mtr. Suzie reads John against the modern instinct to dwell on physical suffering. John, in contrast, attends to what the cross accomplishes: judgment of the world, the ruler cast out, all people drawn to the lifted-up Christ. Working from the Immervard crucifix (Romanesque, c. 1150, in the Braunschweig cathedral where Suzie's ministry began), she revisits the first-millennium Christus Victor tradition visible in the crucifix: open eyes, priestly robe, erect posture, all pointing to the cross as Christ's throne. The Great Litany's petition "from the world, the flesh, and the devil, good Lord, deliver us" finds its answer at Calvary: the world unmasked, the accuser and the fear of death cast out, the striving flesh drawn into Christ. "It is finished" stands in the Greek perfect tense. We come as people beginning to understand what it means to be free.

From Dust, Not For Dust | The Rev. Derek Axelson

A sermon on John 13, the foot washing on Maundy Thursday. Dcn. Derek shares a memory from his time as a high school camp at the end of beach day, cleaning sand off first-grade boys' feet. Jesus washes the dust off the disciples' feet to undo Genesis 3's "dust to dust" curse, then commands them to wash one another's feet and pass that liberation on. He does both before the cross, preparing them to follow him there. Drawing on Romanian Orthodox theologian Dumitru Stăniloae, who spent years in a Stalinist prison and emerged delighting in sunlight and bread, the Dcn. Derek asks us to consider who Jesus is calling us to serve, the person we have been avoiding, the work we have left undone?