Brian's Sermons

Over the last days, we have been looking at some of the more important characters of Holy Week, looking in depth at Judas Iscariot and Simon Peter. Both were Jesus’ disciples, but Judas Iscariot betrayed Jesus and Simon Peter denied that he even knew Jesus. While both ministered alongside Jesus for three years, when Jesus was crucified, they, along with the other disciples, abandoned Jesus.   There are certainly other characters involved in Holy Week. Perhaps next time we could look at Pilate or Caiaphas. But none of these, nor Joseph of Arimathea, who gave his tomb to bury Jesus, nor the women who discovered the empty tomb, none of these are the central character to Holy Week. The main character in Holy Week is none other than Jesus. Remember in the Garden of Gethsemane, when Jesus was praying? He had a choice in the matter here. He could have said, “No, I’m not doing this.” But instead he prayed, “Father, if you are willing, take this cup from...

Rarely has there been a clearer villain. He was hand-picked by Jesus as a disciple, one of only twelve to be in Jesus’ inner circle of closest friends. Yet he betrayed Jesus to his death. It can be easy to simply dismiss Judas as the “bad guy” in the story, but as with everyone, his story is much deeper than simply the villain. As I reminded you yesterday, there was a reason Jesus chose Judas to be one of the Twelve. The Twelve regularly went on mission, healing the sick, driving out demons, preaching the Gospel, and there is nothing to indicate that Judas was not a part of this ministry. He was so much a part of the Twelve that John 13:29 indicates that he became their treasurer. Jesus saw him as a follower and a disciple and even among the disciples, Judas had a position of leadership. Unfortunately the Bible does not record Judas doing much more that we can call positive. In John 12:3-5, we see Mary taking a expensive bottle of perfume and anointing Jesus’ feet wit...

Death has a good way of putting life into perspective. We generally accept the myth that we’re immortal until we have a brush with death. When you come face-to-face with death, things come clearly into focus, and priorities are re-evaluated. Followers – unlike fans – are  dying  to live.  Fans who refuse to die to sin and self are stuck trying  to live, but end up frustrated and defeated.   There are those among us who are very committed sports fans. Some of you have Buckeye Rooms in your houses. You watch every game, and attend as many games as you can – of course all the home games; you wouldn’t want those season tickets to go to waste. You paint your face. You bleed scarlet and gray. Your heart was broken last week when the Buckeyes lost to Kansas. But the problem is, there comes a point when you realize that a fan is just a fan. You see, the fan is just a committed enthusiast. The fan isn’t in the game. And often, when the going gets tough, the fa...

Mark 16:1-8 Today is the day that we celebrate the empty tomb; Jesus is alive! Death can’t defeat him, and the grave can’t hold him. This is the reason we have church, because we serve a risen Christ! Over the past seven weeks, we have been studying through the Gospel According to Mark, specifically, we’ve been looking at how Mark looks at spiritual warfare. This series was conceived by my pastor cluster group, and we came up with the weekly scriptures and sermon titles and a Bible study to go with each week’s message. We called our series: Convinced because we have looked at it all with the reminder: I am convinced that nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus. We saw Jesus baptized in the Jordan and tempted by Satan in the wilderness. We saw Jesus casting out demons and empowering his disciples to do likewise. We were reminded that God is the source of all strength when dealing with spiritual warfare… or anything else. Through everything, we’ve been reminded th...

John 20:1-18 We all read them. Oh, don’t deny it. You know you do. We read them for different reasons, but it’s hard to skip them. I’m talking about the obituaries. I know several people who have told me that the first thing they do in the morning is check the paper for the obituaries. As long as they don’t find theirs, then they need to get up and go about their daily duties! A few years ago, a technical glitch on the CNN web site revealed obituaries for several famous but not-yet-dead people. Here’s the story, according to Snopes dot com , a web site for debunking urban legends and myths. It should come as no surprise to those who follow the media that most news outlets prepare obituaries for many prominent political and entertainment figures (especially those advanced in years or in poor health) well before their deaths. The passing of a famous personage is always big news, and nobody wants to get scooped by losing time scrambling to compile an obituary for someone who has di...