Brian's Sermons

Matthew 6:9-13 “This, then, is how you should pray: “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.Give us today our daily bread. Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.” Last week we looked at motivation for praying. If our goal is to impress others or to impress God, then our motivation is wrong and we’ve received our reward in full. Please understand that this does not mean we shouldn’t pray out loud. It’s only about motivation. Today we are looking at a familiar passage, but I want to take it piece by piece. After all, this is how Jesus instructed his disciples to pray. If we want to live like Jesus, if we want Christlikeness, we need to learn to pray like Jesus. When Jesus says, “ This is how you should pray ” he does not necessarily mean that we should always or only use these same words. We can “say” the Lord’s P...

Acts 9:31: The Church was strengthened; and encouraged by the Holy Spirit, it grew in numbers, living in the fear of the Lord. For the last several weeks, we have been looking at the Holy Spirit, not just to know more about Him, but to get to know Him better. Our goal is never just to know more about God; we can know all about Him without ever knowing Him. I hope this series on the Holy Spirit has at least made you interested in Him, but a sermon series won’t cause you to be filled with the Spirit. The Bible says that the way to receive God is to seek Him with your whole heart. In Jeremiah 29:13, God says, “You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.” What is it like to seek God with your whole heart? If you’ve ever been deep in the water where you aren’t sure if you’re going to make it to the surface in time to breathe, your desire for air is what God is talking about. The Psalmist puts it this way: As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul...

One day some parents brought their children to Jesus so he could touch and bless them. But the disciples scolded the parents for bothering him. When Jesus saw what was happening, he was angry with his disciples. He said to them, “Let the children come to me. Don’t stop them! For the Kingdom of God belongs to those who are like these children. I tell you the truth, anyone who doesn’t receive the Kingdom of God like a child will never enter it.” Then he took the children in his arms and placed his hands on their heads and blessed them. Mark 10:13-16 When is a child not a child? No, I’m not asking when a child becomes an adult. I’m asking when a child is not a child. You see, we are so immersed in our own culture that we miss the weight of Jesus’ words in this passage. When we miss the weight of his words, we thus miss out on what they mean, and in this case, he’s talking about the Kingdom of God; we risk missing out on the Kingdom altogether when we superimpose our 21st century ideas ...