Brian's Sermons

Luke 12:13-34 I think that the hardest things for pastors to preach about are sin and money.  It’s hard to preach on sin because it hits too close to home.  Jesus had a unique standing when preaching about sin, because he never sinned, but the rest of us speak as participants.  Yes, cleansed from sin by the grace of God and the gift of Jesus on the cross, but participants nonetheless.  And it’s hard to preach on money because I don’t know if there’s anything else that we take so personally – maybe music.  But when someone else has the audacity to “suggest” what we are supposed to do with “our” hard-earned money, it’s just downright offensive. That said, Jesus talked a lot about money.  In fact, he talked more about money than he did heaven or hell.  There must be something to it if Jesus thought it was worth his time to talk about.  So today we’re going to talk about money.  Here’s the big picture: anything that gets in the way of our ...

One thing that makes humans unique is our ability to dream.  No, I’m not talking about the kind of recurring dream where you’re at school and you can’t remember your locker combination or you look down and figure out you forgot to put on clothes…  I’m talking about the dreams where you think of the future, your plans, and where you’d like to be in five years, ten years…  I remember sitting in a hot tub with my best friend – talking about the future, about where we’d be.  Lucrative jobs, money flowing in, fast cars…  Guess what?  Neither of us is living that dream.  I’ve talked to a bunch of brides who don’t have any affiliation with a church (or, for that matter, a real belief system at all), but they want to have a “church wedding” because they’ve always dreamed of walking down that aisle. Many of us have dreams. What kind of dreams do you have?  What is your goal?  Where are you heading?  Now understand that the reason we have d...

Do those words from the Psalmist hit home for you? Oh, that I had the wings of a dove! I would fly away and be at rest; I would flee far away and stay in the desert; I would hurry to my place of shelter, far from the tempest and storm. (Psalm 55:6-7). We are wired to respond to acute stress by “fight or flight” in which we either meet our problems head on or we run from them.  Not only am I a runner physically, but I am naturally a runner when it comes to conflict, too.  I would rather have everyone just be happy and get along together.  I don’t like conflict! I would rather run! But the truth is that God calls us as Christians to do hard things .  We are not called to run away from trouble.  Last week I mentioned the “faith hall of fame” in Hebrews 11, and how all of these heroes of the Bible lived by faith.  They lived by faith even to the point of death, and they were still living by faith when they died.  They did not receive the things...

Living in exile.  Life isn’t what it was supposed to be.  Apart from the ones you love.  Though you live here, your heart is somewhere else.  Life is hard, and you’ve found yourself waiting.  Still waiting.  It feels like you are living in exile.  This isn’t how you’d envisioned that your life would turn out.  Life is hard in exile, no matter how things got that way.  It’s even harder when you know things aren’t right.  This was the story for God’s people.  God’s original plan was that God would live face-to-face with his people, in perfect unity and community.  But once Adam and Eve sinned, that ruined this plan, and they were banished from the Garden of Eden.  Then God said he would bless all people on earth through Abraham. God told him “I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you and whoever curses you I will c...