God Has Spoken in His Son
Back in 2018 I decided that I was going to try a new approach to studying the Bible. I was going to pick a shorter book in the New Testament and read it every weekday from beginning to end. I would then read a chapter from a commentary that I have in my library. I have always enjoyed the book of Hebrews and it can be read in about 20 minutes and so, I decided that this would be a good book to start with.
May 2 Sermon: Equipped with Everything Good
We all know how important it is to have the right equipment. Whether it is the tool to do a job that you have been tasked with or needing the right equipment to participate in a sporting event there are certain things that you need to perform a task correctly. I think we’ve all been in the middle of a project and discovered that we are either missing an essential part or a helpful tool. Perhaps you are a parent who got to spring baseball or softball season and discovered that your child has grown more than you realized and now not only are you needing to buy new cleats but also a new glove too.
April 25 Sermon: Seeking the City to Come
One of the greatest temptations that we face as believers is to desire approval from the world. We like to think that if we could soften up the hard edges of the message of scripture then more people would believe. Our motives are good we want people to believe. We want churches that are full. We want more people to hear about who God is. There is an issue that comes from this though. If we start to whittle away at the some of the harder parts of scripture we will find that what we create will no longer look like the original. The Christian faith is not a renovation project. We are not trying to remodel it and make some of it more user friendly. The Christian faith is founded on the revelation of God in his holy word and we are to desire to hold fast to what we have received, not warp it into what we desire it to be.
April 18 Sermon: A Kingdom That Cannot Be Shaken
Have you ever felt the earth move? In some parts of the world that question would be answered in the affirmative by nearly everyone. For us folks who reside in the upper midwest, it is something that we have never felt and likely never will feel. I’ve never experienced an earthquake but roughly 20 years ago I was meandering through an Office Max building in Sandusky, OH. I had made the trip across town to get some office supplies for the church office and while I was making my way through the store, I literally felt the ground under my feet move. It freaked me out.
April 11 Sermon: Yielding the Peaceful Fruit of Righteousness
Discipline. Just me saying the word likely brings strong images to your mind. You may remember a time where you misbehaved and your parents stepped in to correct you and try to keep you from doing the same thing again. Maybe the image that comes to mind for you is related to your time in school. You were caught misbehaving and formal steps had to be taken to correct you. It is likely that when you are reminded of these moments that you are transported back to them in your mind and maybe you even feel the same deep feeling in your gut of fear and uncertainty. Discipline is an important matter and I’m guessing in most cases you look back on the discipline that you have had in your life and you now understand the importance of it.
March 21 Sermon: Something Better
The stories that I find the most satisfying are the ones that have you wondering how all the separate plots and details have to do with each other. And then, at the end it all comes together and you find out why characters that seemed to be irrelevant suddenly have a crucial role to the underlying working of the plot. When we come to the Bible it can often seem like the stories are just thrown together. What does the crossing of the Red Sea have to do with David killing Goliath? How does the story of the walls of Jericho falling down connect to the story of three men stepping into a fiery furnace and not being burned? They might seem like a collection of stories as opposed to one big story with a unifying theme.
March 14 Sermon: From Afar
If some one were to come up to you and ask you to define faith what would you say? What thoughts would you express? Likely you would convey something about what you believe as a Christian but would there be a sense of certainty in your definition? I believe that often our idea of what faith is has more to do with a blind belief that a certainty. Mark Twain said that faith is believing something that you know ain’t true. That seems to be the idea that our culture has fallen for in regards to what faith is. It doesn’t matter if what you belief is true. If you have faith and it helps you feel better then go ahead. That’s how many view the idea of faith.
March 7 Sermon: Full Assurance
I have a great interest in useless information. I like random details about things that others don’t seem to care about that much. I kind of always knew this about myself but a little over 20 years ago when Who Wants to Be a Millionaire started airing on TV I was talking on the phone with my mother, and she asked me if I had watched the new quiz show. I believe my response was that I had seen the commercials but hadn’t taken the time sit down and view it. She informed me that it was basically a new format for a quiz show and that I should try to get on it. When I asked her why, she told me that she didn’t know anyone who knew more useless information than me.
February 28 Sermon: Once For All
Isn’t it amazing how clearly we see when we move on to the next phase of life? Aren’t we unbelievably wise when we’ve been through something and we can look back on it. I’m sure that wisdom is often annoying to those that we pontificate our knowledge to but it is a fact that it is much easier to look back on something and understand what was going on. Our experience gives us wisdom. We understand what is important about dating once we arrive at marriage. Maybe we get to college and suddenly we figure out what we should have done better in high school to be a better student. Chances are that I’ll experience the same thing when I move from being a parent to being a grandparent. We say hindsight 20/20 and while I doubt we have perfect vision on our pasts, we are able to understand things more clearly when we have moved on from them.
February 21 Sermon: Through the Blood of Jesus
One of the central ideas in the Christian faith is the idea of the power of the blood of Jesus. I don’t think it would take us long to come up with a list of well-known hymns that talk about the blood of Jesus, and we also know several verses from the Bible that express this important and powerful truth. If we think about it a little, unless you have a working knowledge of Christian doctrine these phrases might not make much sense. Being washed in the blood of the lamb doesn’t sound like it would be anything that would get you too clean, unless you know the foundational Christian teaching behind it. There’s power in the blood seems a bit strange unless you know that the idea is that the power of the blood is to pay for your sin.
July 12 Sermon: Our Great High Priest
There are several television shows that will help you to understand a job better. Everything from Undercover Boss to How to It’s Made gives you, insight into what it is really like on the ground doing some jobs that you’ve been curious about. Another show like this is Dirty Jobs. I think I’ve only ever watched one episode, but it was insightful. If I remember correctly there was an episode about a unique dirty job that was less than 20 miles from my home at the time and there was some talk about our area being featured and so I tuned in. On South Bass Island in Lake Erie the host of Dirty Jobs, Mike Roe, took on the role of Snake Researcher. On my list of desired jobs snake researcher would probably be on the bottom of the list. To do this dirty job he had to clean out seaweed in the harbor and then feed the water snakes.
November 11 Sermon: On Our Behalf
Have you ever had someone step in for you? Maybe you have been in a situation where you things were not going your way and a friend stepped to be an advocate for you. Perhaps you were in a tough spot financially and a friend or family member helped you out of a tight bind either with financial help or by lending their name to help your cause. These are things that we do not forget and my guess is whether it was a situation on the playground where someone stepped in to defend you or whether it was someone who co-signed a loan to help you get a business started you remember that event and you are very grateful for what has been done for you.
October 21 Sermon: A Great High Priest
Rest is something that is not only needed but it is something that is greatly desired. From a personal stand point we can all really relate to the need for it. Even when we believe that we can work all the time our bodies will let us know that we are delusional if we think that we can work all the time and go without rest.
As many of you know, I worked at Toys R Us as a manager for several years. From the middle of November until Christmas Eve I would work and work and work. Nearly every year my Christmas Day was miserable. I was sick or something else was wrong with me.