Brian's Sermons

John 5:1-9a   Some time later, Jesus went up to Jerusalem for a feast of the Jews. Now there is in Jerusalem near the Sheep Gate a pool, which in Aramaic is called Bethesda and which is surrounded by five covered colonnades. Here a great number of disabled people used to lie—the blind, the lame, the paralyzed. One who was there had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, he asked him, "Do you want to get well?" "Sir," the invalid replied, "I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me."  Then Jesus said to him, "Get up! Pick up your mat and walk." At once the man was cured; he picked up his mat and walked. I was in college in an upper-level German class, it was exam day, and I was stuck .   I loved German language and literature, but this was essentially a political

*see below for a note on source   James 4:13-17 Now listen, you who say, "Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money." Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, "If it is the Lord's will, we will live and do this or that." As it is, you boast and brag. All such boasting is evil. Anyone, then, who knows the good he ought to do and doesn't do it, sins. Today we are reaping the harvest of the seeds we sowed yesterday.   What does that mean for you?   For me it means that I am in the midst of experiencing the harvest of the commitment I made in 1992, the commitment to make Jesus really the Lord of my life.   I had already professed my faith publicly, but it wasn’t until I was out on my own that I actually made my faith my own.   I decided I wouldn’t live a double life anymore

*see below for a note on source James 4:7-10 There is an economic cloud hovering over us these days, yet there is a silver lining to this cloud: economic challenges cause us to re-examine our financial priorities and practices and rebalance our life investments.  If we’re willing, hard times can help us figure out what is really important in all of life and how to invest more wisely in our relationships, careers, and purpose, as well as our finances. Godly wisdom from the Proverbs indicates that God cares about financial matters.  Proverbs 28:19: He who works his land will have abundant food, but the one who chases fantasies will have his fill of poverty. Proverbs 13:11 Dishonest money dwindles away, but he who gathers money little by little makes it grow. Proverbs 22:26-27 Do not be a man who strikes hands in pledge or puts up security for debts; if you lack the means to pay, your very bed will be snatched from under you. Psalm 37:21 The wicked borrow and do not repay, but the