Brian's Sermons

Good Friday Community Service Everything started exactly right. Adam and Eve, in the Garden of Eden, with God as their God and friend. But you know the story; they sinned, and the entire world felt the sting. Separation from God ensued. The God of the Universe pursued His creation, created from nobody a people, a people He would bless to be a blessing to the world. The Lord would be their God and they would be His people. God led Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Later, God called Moses to lead His people out of Egyptian captivity – leading Israel in a cloud during the day and a pillar of fire at night. But in the last five chapters of the book of Judges, three times we find the phrase: “in those days Israel had no king.” This is an important designation, because a king was not simply the ruler of his people. In the Ancient Near East, a king didn’t function quite like a king or ruler might function today. It was the universal understanding that the king was not the top dog – the deity w...

Matthew 21:1-11 Today is Palm Sunday, and with Palm Sunday, we begin Holy Week, when we recognize the immense sacrifice that Jesus made for us. But Holy Week doesn’t start with resurrection; neither does it start with crucifixion. Holy Week starts with coronation. I will get more into this on Friday at our Lenten service at noon. But as we look at this text, the first thing that stands out to me is that this is a story of obedience . Jesus told the disciples to do something, and instead of asking questions like, “Did you already clear this with the owner of the donkey?” they simply obeyed. I love the verse that says, “The disciples went and did as Jesus had instructed them.” When I’m talking with church people, one thing I hear a lot is “I don’t really know the Bible all that well.” While I agree that our culture is almost entirely biblically illiterate, this is usually a cop-out. Here’s an example: Jesus commanded (not asked) his followers to “ go and make disciples of a...

When I was a little boy growing up in church, we learned the steps to becoming a Christian. We learned that we first had to realize that we were sinners, confess our sin, repent of our sin, get baptized, and live-the-Christian-life. The last step was always said as almost an afterthought; the focus was to get us in the door. I left children’s church thinking that it would be easy to live the Christian life. If you’ve been here for long, especially if you attend our 11 service, you have doubtlessly heard Jesus’ words repeated: “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. ” (Matthew 11:28). These are words from Jesus himself, and they are true, and they go hand in hand with my early understanding that it was easy for adults to live the Christian life. Some of you are new along this journey and you might still be under the illusion that it’s easy for the rest of us. After all, you might only know us all from Sunday mornings, when we all look our best and wh...

Last week we started Jude’s letter to the church – we got all the way through the first verse, the “who wrote it” and “who was it written to” of Jude.  Today we continue with his introduction.   Jude continues with the introduction to his letter: Mercy, peace, and love be yours in abundance.  I like the way the New Living Translation puts it: May God give you more and more mercy, peace, and love. The concept of mercy is rooted in God himself.  In Exodus 33, Moses asked God to show him His glory.  And the Lord said, “I will cause all my goodness to pass in front of you, and I will proclaim my name, the Lord, in your presence. I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.” Do you think it’s fair for God to say “I’ll have mercy and compassion on whoever I want to have mercy on”? What do you think?  Let’s push on this for a moment. Does this mean God plays favorites?  To this I ask: does G...

6th message in our series: Putting the Pieces Together: a Journey toward mature discipleship*. The next day the great crowd that had come for the Feast heard that Jesus was on his way to Jerusalem. They took palm branches and went out to meet him, shouting, "Hosanna!" "Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!" "Blessed is the King of Israel!" Jesus found a young donkey and sat upon it, as it is written, "Do not be afraid, O Daughter of Zion; see, your king is coming, seated on a donkey's colt." At first his disciples did not understand all this. Only after Jesus was glorified did they realize that these things had been written about him and that they had done these things to him. John 12:12-16 It is a fantastic scene: Jesus coming into Jerusalem triumphantly: for as humble as it may seem, this was the answer to prophecy from Zechariah 9:9 Rejoice greatly, O Daughter of Zion! Shout, daughter of Jerusalem! See...