Brian's Sermons

Matthew 12:43-45 As the last message in our series “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly” a series in which we have looked at characters through the Bible, I decided to go a little different route. Instead of looking at an actual character, today’s person is fictional. He is an illustration created by Jesus to demonstrate a point. In the passage I read to you, the immediate context is some Pharisees and teachers of the law demanding that Jesus do a miracle. He calls them a wicked and adulterous generation who asks for a sign – but to whom none would be given. Except for his death and resurrection. After all, the people of Ninevah repented at Jonah’s preaching. Understand that the Pharisees were the holiness movement of their time. If you’ve been in this church for long, or if you’ve been a part of what goes on at Camp Sychar, you have heard calls to repent. One of the things I remember about church camp was a call to repent from listening to evil music (sometimes, but not always, acc...

1 Samuel 3:1-10 Back when Tara was pregnant with Jonathan, she was traveling a lot to play her violin. Because she would be gone for extended periods of time, we bought a prepaid cell phone. Unfortunately for us, most of the places she traveled were in southern Ohio and West Virginia, where cell phone reception was spotty at best, ruining the whole purpose for having gotten that phone. Then we moved to New Knoxville, where our particular carrier didn’t have reception either. I got pretty annoyed at that guy who would go around on commercials asking, “Can you hear me now?” As hard as it is to believe in this 3G world, there are times and places where we don’t get cell phone reception. It’s really amazing not only how helpful these things are, but also how addicting they are and how upset we sometimes get when someone isn’t answering their cell phone. I remember when I was the associate pastor at Stonybrook UMC; pretty much weekly I would go back to the senior pastor’s office and we ...

1 Samuel 1:1-28 Have you ever made a deal with God? It’s a pretty funny scene, really, making a deal with God. What makes us think that we, God’s creation, can deal with the Almighty? Yet we do it all the time. I remember making deals with God when I was in junior high, specifically when I was running long distance races. I would ask God to get me through the race and there were all sorts of things I would do for Him once I got finished (secretly I think that me being in ministry now is part of the payback). Sometimes we can be tempted to make deals with God over little, insignificant things. Then we generally sound like a toddler trying to extend bedtime with a “one more book, please, and I promise I’ll go right to sleep!” But usually the “let’s make a deal” mentality doesn’t set in until the stakes are huge. God, if I get this job, then I’ll… God, if you can get me through this, I’ll… God, if only you’ll spare his life, then I’ll… Have you ever bargained with God like that? ...

(Judges 16:1-22) The book of Judges follows a pretty sad course. Israel starts out serving the Lord. Then they fall into sin and idol worship. They are then enslaved, and finally they cry out to the Lord. God raises up a judge who delivers them, and they serve the Lord again, for a time. Samson was one of those judges. In Judges 13, we read that an angel commanded that the boy would be a Nazirite, set aside for the Lord, as described in Numbers 6. Not every Bible hero is a priest or a king. Samson was a lay person, specially dedicated to God. The angel told Samson’s parents that he would become a Nazarite and would begin the deliverance of Israel from the hands of the Philistines (Judges 13:5b). The important characteristic of a Nazirite is that she or he is holy, set apart for God, marked for God’s service. Their vows required non-conformity from them; they were not supposed to act like the people around them. They totally abstained from wine – to the point that they wouldn’t ev...

John 20:24-29 What is your reputation? When did you get that reputation? How long have you had it? One day I found out what mine was. In a college German class, I had an assignment to interview a randomly selected classmate and give a speech about them. One of my soccer teammates drew my name, and the day of the presentation, he finally called me. I told him, “Mike, you know me well enough. We’ve played soccer together for three years. I trust you to tell the class about me.” He told the class that I was loud, arrogant, brash, and hot-tempered, and that I was someone you didn’t want to mess with. The class wondered who this guy was that Mike was talking about. I didn’t usually exhibit those attributes in German class – but he assured them that these were good traits for a college goalkeeper! Today we are looking at a Bible character who brings the reputation with him. " Doubting Thomas. " We first meet Thomas in Matthew 10:3, Mark 3:18, and Luke 6:15, where he is ...