Brian's Sermons

When I was a little boy, we learned that the way of salvation involved confession, repentance, baptism, and a final step, live-the-Christian-life. I don’t think this was intentional, but the way I heard it, it seemed like adults never had any trouble with this last step. It sounded like living out the Christian life was easy. Last week, as we looked at the Methodist way of salvation, we specifically looked at the end goal of Christianity, which is holiness, Christ-likeness, or Christian perfection. The last two weeks I have made the comparison of living the Christian life with riding the GoBus from Athens to Cincinnati. We have the choice to get off the bus at any time. But how do we stay on the bus? How do we live the Christian life? John Wesley was very methodical; this is where the term “Methodist” came from. He and his Holy Club figured out what helped keep them “on the Go Bus” and regularly, even religiously did it. From studying the Bible to fasting to caring for the hu...

Then Jesus came to them and said, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in(to) the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age." Matthew 28:18-20 Over the past couple of weeks, we’ve talked about the honor we have of being God’s people, the church. Everything we do is motivated and led by Christ, our Head. We discussed, therefore, that what Jesus said carries special weight. Many people have died for causes they believed in, but Jesus did something utterly unique: not only did he die for a cause, but he also defied history by his resurrection. Is it any wonder that when his disciples came to him that some doubted? After all, their worldview didn’t include someone physically rising from the dead, yet here was Jesus, who had done so. Now his words held even more ...