Brian's Sermons

Matthew 22:35-40 Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together. One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question: “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” Jesus replied, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”   One of Zambia’s biggest problems is poverty. Any NGO or service operation will tell you this. We all know this. Nobody can say any differently, because we can all look around and see poverty. And we can see poverty in our own lives. The West would like you to think that poverty is all about money, or the lack of money. They say that all you need is money, which will solve your poverty problems.   The problem with this approach is that it never addresses the root cause of poverty. Nor d...

When I was a little boy, I learned at church that the plan of salvation included recognizing our sin, confessing, repenting, being baptized, and living the Christian life. It was presented as something easy, and for the most part, it looked to me like the adult Christians around me never struggled. We even sang a song that went “I’m in-right, out-right, up-right, down-right happy all the time. Since Jesus Christ came in and cleansed my heard from sin, I’m in-right, out-right, up-right, down-right happy all the time.” I often wondered why living the Christian life was so much more difficult than I thought it would be.   Part of the problem, I found, was not a problem with the Christian life. The problem was within. We have been looking at the root causes of poverty. Poverty is not about not having enough money. Poverty is at its core, about broken relationship. Last week we looked at broken relationship with God. Today we are looking at another relationship, one that w...

Last week we introduced an important and difficult concept. Poverty. We often think of poverty only in financial terms, but in reality, poverty is based in broken relationship. Broken relationship with God, broken relationship in ourself, broken relationship with others, and broken relationship with all creation. In the beginning, God created humanity to be in perfect relationship with him. But very quickly, we find Adam and Eve disobeying God. The response, as found in Genesis 3:23-25 So the Lord God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken. After he drove the man out, he placed on the east side of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life . Now, instead of living in the Garden of Eden in perfect relationship with God, they have been banished, never to return. Never to walk together in the cool of the morning. Never again to speak face to face. Our relations...

Matthew 25:14-30 We are in the middle of Charge Conference season here in Lusaka. Sometimes it seems like the work we do in Charge Conference is pointless. We read reports and then we fight about them. We argue various points, sometimes completely off-topic. One thing we have seen in the first two Charge Conferences has been that the financial reports from all our churches have been poor, to say the least. We have voted to not accept them and to require a re-write. But that brings up a good point. Why do we spend so much time talking about money? Shouldn’t we spend our time and energy on evangelism?   Here in Zambia, we know that money is important. There’s a place near my home called Mountain of God, and I go there sometimes. I’ve found prayer requests, written and folded up. Most of the requests deal with money — God’s provision, getting a job, school fees, and so on. We all know that money is important. And, more appropriately, Jesus thinks it is important....

Exodus 20:13: You shall not murder. Through the past weeks, we have been looking in depth into the Ten Commandments, God’s rules for living. We started with God’s introduction — the commandments come only in the context of who God is. After God’s people had disobeyed God and experienced the consequences of disobedience, we read God’s response as recorded in Isaiah 48:17-18: Thus says the LORD, your redeemer, the Holy One of Israel: I am the LORD your God, who teaches you for your own good, who leads you in the way you should go. O that you had paid attention to my commandments! Then your prosperity would have been like a river, and your success like the waters of the sea.   There are rewards for following God’s will, and there are consequences for not . God gave us the Ten Commandments, not to beat us into submission, but to teach us how to live in right relationship with Him and in harmony with one another.   Last week we shifted from the first commandme...

Exodus 20:8-11 “Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your male or female servant, nor your animals, nor any foreigner residing in your towns. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy. Once I led a game with the young people of the church. They were really excited about the game, but there was one thing I didn’t do. I did not tell them the rules. There was really no way anyone could win without knowing the rules. God doesn’t just give us rules to help us “win” but to point us toward him. God, in his power and love, gave us the boundaries that will help us be in right relationship...

We live in a church-saturated culture. There are all kinds of churches in all kinds of denominations. In fact, we have three churches on our block, all of different denominations! Many people have good reasons why they are in a certain denomination, but for many, it is more circumstantial than anything else. For example, Roy Gilliland (a well-known member of our local church) tells the story of becoming Methodist – when he was a boy, the Methodist church had heat. Others became Methodist because their parents or grandparents were Methodist or because they started dating a Methodist or married a Methodist. So a good question to ask is “Why United Methodist?” The sermon series we are starting today will explore some of the distinctive features of United Methodism, a denomination so varied that it includes 4George W. Bush and Hillary Clinton! I became a United Methodist after seminary, and it was all John Wesley’s fault. Truly to know what a United Methodist is, you have to s...

Sermon on the Mount Intro Matthew 5:1-12 Around a decade ago, there was a Christian fad where we were asked to frame our lives and experiences around a question: “What Would Jesus Do?” So in any given situation, we were urged to ask that question and to behave as we would imagine Jesus would have behaved. That is a good practice and proves helpful in our interactions with others, but the reality is that there are times when it’s not as helpful – for example, if I am in the stern of a boat sleeping during a terrible storm, what would Jesus do? He would calm the storm. Since I can’t exactly do that, what do I do? Of course, asking the question What Would Jesus Do? is of no use if you don’t know who Jesus is or what Jesus did! Now, most of us have known someone who lives by the saying, “Do as I say, not as I do.” Part of the beauty of what Jesus said is that not only did he say it, but he lived it as well. He talked the talk and walked the walk. There are sometimes, however...

Luke 2:1-20 The Christmas story is a familiar one – so familiar that we can lose sight of how radical it is. Looking at the historical big picture should show us that Rome is in control. This is when the Roman Empire was on the rise, annexing or conquering everyone around. Augustus Caesar is the emperor of the most mighty nation/empire known to man. What Caesar says, goes. So Caesar decides to flex his muscles and count his subjects. Just an aside, it is never a good idea to count how awesome you are, whether it is counting your subjects, as Caesar is doing, or counting your fighting men, as King David did in 2 Samuel 24. Why is this a problem? Listen to Psalm 20:7. Some trust in chariots some in and horses, but we trust in the name of the Lord our God. There is a reason why God chose this exact time for the birth of the Messiah – it was when Caesar was counting how powerful he had become. Before you nod your head in agreement, remember this when you start counting your money...