Brian's Sermons

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...

Mark 9:14-29 It was shortly after midnight, New Year’s morning, 1994, and we were broken down on the shoulder of I74 between Champaign and Danville, IL. We were on our way home from Urbana 1993, an amazing missions conference, where we had been for the past several days. The songs from the amazing New Year’s Communion service we had just celebrated were still dancing in our ears, the amazement of God’s tangible presence in the midst of 17,000 college students, all celebrating Communion together. Cars, vans, and buses rumbled by endlessly, all of them coming from the same incredible missions conference we had attended, and nobody stopped. As I walked to the next exit, the wind gave way to a rainy snow, and still nobody stopped. We spent the rest of a sleepless night at a truck stop, waiting for my dad to pick us up. In a few short hours, I went from an incredible mountaintop experience to the valley. The same happened in today’s scripture. Immediately before what I read today, Jesus ...

Mark 8:27-38 Today is the fifth Sunday in Lent, and we are continuing our series: Convinced. My clergy cluster group (Tim Reeves, Blaine Keene, Becky Piatt, Wendy Lybarger, Rob Turner, and Ryan Bash) decided to look at spiritual warfare through the book of Mark with the reminder that God wins; we don’t have to get all worried about how strong the devil is, because as Christians, we have God Himself, in the Person of the Holy Spirit, living within us, and God gives us victory. And I am convinced that there is nothing that can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus! Isn’t that a comforting thought? No matter what you’re going through, no matter where you’ve been, no matter what you’ve done, no matter what you’re up against, you can count on God’s love. Today we see, however, that sacrifice is required. The setting itself in today’s scripture is important. Caesarea Philippi was a city famous for its pagan god worship. A cave near the city is supposed to be where Greek god Pan ...