Brian's Sermons

Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. After we give God the proper respect, Jesus instructs us to pray for our daily bread, remembering that we rely on God for everything. This is a prayer for our physical needs as well as spiritual, remembering that Jesus said, “I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never go thirsty.” (John 6:35)  We continue today, asking for God’s intervention. Today we will begin looking at forgiveness. Forgiveness means freeing someone from guilt and its consequences, including punishment, usually as a act of compassion or love, with the aim of restoring a broken relationship. Forgiveness can involve the cancellation of both punishment and debt. Manser, M. H. (2009). Dictionary of Bible Themes: The Accessible and Comprehensive Tool for Topical Studies. London: Martin Manser. We ask God to forgive our trespasses. Now, I don’t know how it works going from ...

A quote attributed to Zig Ziglar says, “If you aim at nothing, you’ll hit it every time.” As Christians, we have an unfortunate problem that sometimes, in our attempt to be (as the Apostle Paul put it) “all things for all people,” we end up aiming at nothing and thus that’s what we hit. In its roots, the Methodist movement has always had holiness as its goal. Last week we looked at the difficulty for us; holiness is not so easily achieved because of our sin problem. We have so corrupted God’s image within us that we cannot even approach him… Thankfully, because of God’s character, he bestows grace upon us when we least deserve it. The Holy Spirit extends Prevenient Grace, the grace that goes before us, and woos us, calls us, invites us to him. But if this was where God’s grace stopped, we would be in trouble. It would get us to the door but no farther. It would be cruel, for God to show us our sin but to leave us in it. But that’s not what God does. God finds us in our sin and...

You can’t go on a journey without stepping through the door. Last week we started our preparation for the Journey, recognizing the Holy Spirit’s voice calling us before we ever called to the Spirit. We wouldn’t even know that there’s a journey to go on were it not for the Spirit, who calls us to Himself.   We call this “Prevenient Grace” – the Holy Spirit calling us to Himself, awakening the image of God in us. One of our most important recognitions is that we are helpless on our own. In our sinful state, we cannot even think of going on a journey toward perfection. The best we could hope for would be “good enough” and, to be frank, “good enough” isn’t good enough. Without God’s direct intervention, we are doomed. In Matthew 5:48, Jesus makes a radical command: Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect . Think about it: if the aim is perfection, unless you’ve already been perfect for all of your life, that goal is unattainable. Think of a baseball pitcher: supp...

I have to start out this morning by acknowledging that many of you made significant decisions last week as we decided together that “We will serve the LORD our God and obey him.” This is important as we enter into this time of our Christian calendar – if you’re not familiar with the Christian year, we started Lent this week, a 40 day period where we focus on holiness, repentance, fasting, prayer, and preparation for Jesus’ death, resurrection, and return. This year during Lent I will be leading a series called Vital Signs. we will be looking at the signs and miracles Jesus performed as recorded in the Gospel according to John.  Understand as we go into this that these aren’t Jesus’ only miracles.  John himself reported that Jesus did many other things as well.  If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written. (John 21:25).  But the signs that John reported are important for us for t...

Once you were dead because of your disobedience and your many sins. You used to live in sin, just like the rest of the world, obeying the devil—the commander of the powers in the unseen world. He is the spirit at work in the hearts of those who refuse to obey God. All of us used to live that way, following the passionate desires and inclinations of our sinful nature. By our very nature we were subject to God’s anger, just like everyone else. But God is so rich in mercy, and he loved us so much, that even though we were dead because of our sins, he gave us life when he raised Christ from the dead. (It is only by God’s grace that you have been saved!) For he raised us from the dead along with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms because we are united with Christ Jesus. So God can point to us in all future ages as examples of the incredible wealth of his grace and kindness toward us, as shown in all he has done for us who are united with Christ Jesus. God saved you by his ...