Brian's Sermons

This summer after the storms, a guy went down to the hardware store early one morning and asked for a saw. The salesman took a chain saw from the shelf and commented that it was their “newest model, with the latest in technology, guaranteed to cut ten cords of firewood a day.” The customer thought that sounded pretty good, so he bought it on the spot.          The next day the customer returned, looking somewhat exhausted. “Something must be wrong with this saw,” he moaned. “I worked as hard as I could and only barely managed to cut up one of the trees from my lawn. I could have done it easier with my old-fashioned saw.” Looking confused, the salesman said, “Here, let me try it out back on some wood we keep there.”         They went to the woodpile, the salesman pulled the cord, and as the motor went vvvrooommmm. The customer leaped back and exclaimed, “What’s that noise??” In my experience, the Chri...

2nd in the series: Putting the Pieces Together: a Journey Towa rd Mature Discipleship* Last week, we began our search for the missing piece of the puzzle: emotional health. We established that God made us emotional beings and He did it on purpose. Jesus, being fully human, experienced the full range of emotions. Thus it isn’t possible to be spiritually mature while remaining emotionally unhealthy. We were reminded that we need to address emotional issues in order to love God and others, and that evangelism flows naturally from emotionally healthy people. Today we’re going to start digging beneath the surface, because in emotionally healthy churches, people take a deep, hard look inside their hearts, asking, "What is going on that Jesus Christ is trying to change?" The image I want to use today is an iceberg. When the Titanic ran into one, their big issue (besides thinking their ship was unsinkable) was neglecting the fact that when you see an iceberg, you only see the 10% tha...