Brian's Sermons

I love history. I find it fascinating to go down to Buckeye Furnace and imagining what life was like back when this was a burgeoning iron production hub. I enjoy museums and historical sites. I even worked at a living history museum for two summers while I was in college. So when I went to Russia on a mission trip, I was really interested in the history of the city where we lived. Everything seemed to be named after someone named Minin, so I asked my roommate who he was. I found out later that he was a merchant, but he became famous for mustering a volunteer militia who expelled the Poles from Moscow, but my roommate couldn’t come up with that. He finally suggested that maybe he had been a famous warrior who had won a battle against France. I knew that wasn’t true, but I didn’t know his story. Finally, Oleg said authoritatively, “Minin was a great man.”  It’s funny that many people can live somewhere for a long time but they don’t know all that much about where they live. This...

Psalm 51:16-19 When I chose Psalm 51 for the scripture for my first Sunday back from vacation, I had no idea that it would be a three-part series. I thought I would cover Psalm 51 in one sermon. .. As it is, we are in our third week on Psalm 51 and the plan is to finish up today. Next Sunday we will celebrate Palm Sunday, and Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem, Thursday evening at 7 we will celebrate Communion and look into the lives of Jesus’ Twelve Disciples, and Friday at noon we will gather with the community churches next door at the Presbyterian Church and look at Jesus’ coronation ceremony. Then it will be Easter, time to celebrate the Resurrection of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ! We started in Psalm 51, looking at the human condition, selfish, unholy, and full of sin – we stand in desperate need for God’s intervention. Last week we looked into the celebration that happens when lost people come to Christ – and how we are saved so we can have an impact on their lives, so ...

Luke 15:1-10 It was “senior skip day” during my senior year of high school, and I was in Physics class, talking to my friend David. If you looked around the classroom, you would have seen six students present; two were sleeping, and the other four were engaged in various conversations. In front of the classroom, our teacher lectured. He had material he wanted to get through, and whether or not the few students who had not chosen to skip school wanted to listen was none of his worry. We simply weren’t listening. Today’s scripture follows immediately after Jesus’ words: “ He who has ears to hear, let him hear. ” (Luke 14:35b). The issue is that there are some who just are not listening to Jesus. The tax collectors and sinners are all gathering around to hear Jesus, but the Pharisees and the teachers of the law are complaining. In Jesus’ time a tax collector wasn’t just a despised IRS agent. Not only did a tax collector take your hard-earned money, but he did it for Rome. R...

Matthew 12:43-45 As the last message in our series “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly” a series in which we have looked at characters through the Bible, I decided to go a little different route. Instead of looking at an actual character, today’s person is fictional. He is an illustration created by Jesus to demonstrate a point. In the passage I read to you, the immediate context is some Pharisees and teachers of the law demanding that Jesus do a miracle. He calls them a wicked and adulterous generation who asks for a sign – but to whom none would be given. Except for his death and resurrection. After all, the people of Ninevah repented at Jonah’s preaching. Understand that the Pharisees were the holiness movement of their time. If you’ve been in this church for long, or if you’ve been a part of what goes on at Camp Sychar, you have heard calls to repent. One of the things I remember about church camp was a call to repent from listening to evil music (sometimes, but not always, acc...