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...

The Seventh Word: “Father, into your hands, I commit my spirit!” (Luke 23:46) Easter Sunday (Luke 23:44-49) 44  It was now about noon, and darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon,  45  for the sun stopped shining. And the curtain of the temple was torn in two.  46  Jesus called out with a loud voice, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.” When he had said this, he breathed his last. 47  The centurion, seeing what had happened, praised God and said, “Surely this was a righteous man.”  48  When all the people who had gathered to witness this sight saw what took place, they beat their breasts and went away.  49  But all those who knew him, including the women who had followed him from Galilee, stood at a distance, watching these things. All week, we have been looking at Jesus’ words from the cross. We are reminded that while God had a plan all along, a plan of resurrec...

Philippians 2:19-30, 3:1-11 I don’t think we can adequately understand how hard it was on Paul, waiting to receive news about his loved ones, when we are bombarded with news. If my mom hasn’t gotten a Facebook update from me in a couple of days, she gets frantic ( sorry for picking on you mom, and please know that this is hyperbole ). We have Facebook and cellphones and Skype and stuff I don’t even know about. Instead of all of that, Paul has Timothy. We already discussed Timothy very briefly when we looked at the introduction and back in January I had a sermon series about Paul which included a sermon about Timothy, Paul’s  “beloved son in the Lord” (2 Corinthians 4:17), his “true son in the faith” (1 Timothy 1:2). As we’ve gotten this far in Paul’s letter to the church in Philippi, we have seen that Paul is calling the Philippians to have a Christ-like attitude, one that values others over self, but did you notice Paul’s attitude? Paul is in prison, where Timothy and Ep...

John 20:24-29 Every year around this time, back in Millersport, the local newspaper was always interesting to read. They would go to every length to write an April Fools’ Day cover story that would be both believable and audacious at the same time. One year they wrote a story claiming that Buckeye Lake was being sold and marketed as a party lake with floating bars everywhere and even the possibility of a new “clothing optional” island being built ( http://buckeyelakebeacon/news/2009-03-28/front_page/001.html ). NBC4 out of Columbus picked up on the story and gave it more credence by doing a live spot on location. Now, if you read the whole article, it got more and more unbelievable, to the point where, at the end of the article, they publicized a town-hall meeting at a non-existent middle school where they were offering “free beer.” Yet there were some who fell for the joke, hook, line, and sinker. “This can’t be true! But I read it in the paper, so it must be true…” Aside from...

Everybody Wants to Go to Heaven, But Nobody Wants to Die There’s an old song that says “Everybody wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to die,” and nowhere is that more true than in our own culture. We don’t even talk about death; when someone we like dies, we say they “passed away” or “went to be with Jesus,” or for someone else, well, they might have “kicked the bucket” or they might be “pushing up daisies.” Death seems to be the one big enemy, the one that we will all succumb to at some point or another. Sometimes we ignore the fact that every day of life is another day closer to death, but it is inevitable. We are not immortal. In Romans 8:13, the phrase that the NIV translates “the sinful nature” is in Greek “the flesh.” The mortal life, the flesh, is bound for death. Though that is bad news, it’s not new; it’s almost as old as the earth itself. When Adam and Eve sinned against God in the Garden of Eden, the punishment was death, and we’ve lived in death’s sha...

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...