Brian's Sermons

Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy. Matthew 5:7 As we have been discussing Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, something should be clear – we can’t do things the way culture dictates we do them. It’s back to the broad road and the narrow road – the broad one leads to death, and many are on it, while the narrow one leads to life, and few find it. It should also be clear that becoming the ones who Jesus pronounces “blessed” is not something that just happens by accident or by osmosis. It doesn’t happen because your parents were in church or even just because you come to services every Sunday! It all starts with being poor in spirit – realizing that we are absolutely powerless to save ourselves, that what we bring to the table is worthless for salvation. And so we empty ourselves for God to fill us. We mourn our sinfulness and through Jesus Christ’s sacrifice and through the gift of the Holy Spirit, God gives us comfort. We hold our power under control and are given ...

While Jesus told his followers that they would be known by their fruit, Jude calls these troublemakers “fruitless.”   He says they are useless, even a burden on the church.  In the face of destructive false teaching, Jude warns the church to build their faith and pray in the Holy Spirit.  We looked at that briefly last week, but I want to reiterate it because there was so much in last week’s message that this part might have slipped by you.  Building yourself up in your most holy faith is extremely important.  Don’t just accept someone else’s faith – not my faith, not your parents’ faith, but build up your own faith.  Did any of you share your faith stories this past week?  How did it go?  Did any of you listen to anyone else’s story? If you were here for the Baccalaureate service, you got to hear some powerful stories of faith from our grads. Faith is rarely built when it isn’t tested.  One of my friends recently complained that his ru...

Do you write a Christmas letter?  I have one friend who always (only?) includes all of the year’s low points.  Death and illness and tragedy make for a really upbeat Christmas letter.  Another family friend used to have glowing overbearing praise for one of their children and a one-sentence update about the other child.  We have written a satirical letter, a real update, a one-sentence-per-family- member update, and just “Merry Christmas from the Vinsons.” The big question is: What do you include in the letter?  What makes the cut?  Jude set out, eager to write about their shared salvation.  That’s a really great subject – salvation.  Salvation is a huge topic for conversation, and we could spend all day today speaking on it, but let’s look at it quickly.  In the Roman Empire, the title “Savior” was given to the Emperor.  So when you see “Savior” spoken of, it’s often in direct response to Rome, making sure everyone knows that salva...

Last week we started Jude’s letter to the church – we got all the way through the first verse, the “who wrote it” and “who was it written to” of Jude.  Today we continue with his introduction.   Jude continues with the introduction to his letter: Mercy, peace, and love be yours in abundance.  I like the way the New Living Translation puts it: May God give you more and more mercy, peace, and love. The concept of mercy is rooted in God himself.  In Exodus 33, Moses asked God to show him His glory.  And the Lord said, “I will cause all my goodness to pass in front of you, and I will proclaim my name, the Lord, in your presence. I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.” Do you think it’s fair for God to say “I’ll have mercy and compassion on whoever I want to have mercy on”? What do you think?  Let’s push on this for a moment. Does this mean God plays favorites?  To this I ask: does G...

As we get started today, I want to give you a little background.  First of all, I’ve preached in different ways for different times.  My first experience preaching was simply to pick a scripture and go with it.  Do all the research, write a sermon, each one standing alone.  Then I preached from the Revised Common Lectionary.  The Lectionary is a three-year plan of scriptures, four per week, and the idea is that if you use all four scriptures, you’ll get parts of the whole Bible in three years (or, if you only use one scripture, you’ll hit it in 12 years).  As an associate pastor, I was once handed a sermon to preach on a particular Sunday (which I found out later had been plagiarized to begin with).  More recently, I have been doing a “series” style of preaching, where we follow a certain topic (we’ve done such series as the Lord’s Prayer, Emotional Health, the armor of God, signs and wonders from the book of John, the Fruit of the Spirit).  But I...