Brian's Sermons

Do you confess Jesus Christ as your Savior, put your whole trust in his grace, and promise to serve him as your Lord, in union with the church which Christ has opened to people of all ages, nations, and races? Matthew 16:13-17  When Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say the Son of Man is?” They replied, “Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” “But what about you?” he asked. “Who do you say I am?” Simon Peter answered, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” Jesus replied, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by flesh and blood, but by my Father in heaven.   I love reading mystery books. I have some personal rules about mystery books. One is that the bad guy can’t be someone newly introduced at the end of the book; there have to be clues all along.   My biggest ru...

When I was a little boy, we learned that the way of salvation involved confession, repentance, baptism, and a final step, live-the-Christian-life. I don’t think this was intentional, but the way I heard it, it seemed like adults never had any trouble with this last step. It sounded like living out the Christian life was easy. Last week, as we looked at the Methodist way of salvation, we specifically looked at the end goal of Christianity, which is holiness, Christ-likeness, or Christian perfection. The last two weeks I have made the comparison of living the Christian life with riding the GoBus from Athens to Cincinnati. We have the choice to get off the bus at any time. But how do we stay on the bus? How do we live the Christian life? John Wesley was very methodical; this is where the term “Methodist” came from. He and his Holy Club figured out what helped keep them “on the Go Bus” and regularly, even religiously did it. From studying the Bible to fasting to caring for the hu...

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...

Philippians 1:1-2 Paul and Timothy, servants of Christ Jesus, To all of God’s holy people in Christ Jesus at Philippi, together with the overseers and deacons; Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. When I was a senior in high school, I received a strange letter in the mail. Those were the days when mail carriers still brought something other than bills and circulars and announcements that “you are pre-approved” for “our plan to drive you into deeper debt” and other such junk mail. The thing that made this letter strange was that I recognized the writing on the envelope, but I couldn’t place it. There was no return address, but the writing was so familiar that I just knew I had seen it before. I just wondered: Who is this letter from?* When we read Greco-Roman letters, they make this matter a little easier; the writer identifies himself at the outset of the letter. So we know that Paul and Timothy wrote it. Paul was Timothy’s mentor ...

Luke 15:11-32 In last week’s message, the religious leaders of Jesus’ time were grumbling because Jesus “ Welcomes sinners and eats with them ” (Luke 15:2). To them, Jesus told three lost and found stories: the lost sheep, in which a wealthy land owner lost one of his one hundred sheep and dutifully sought it out, bringing it home to great celebration; the lost coin, in which a poor woman lost one of her ten coins and turned her home upside-down to find it, at which point she celebrated with her friends and neighbors. Today, the stakes are elevated even higher. It is not merely a sheep that is lost, nor a coin. Now it is a son. Jesus puts a face on “the lost.” There was a man with two sons, and things go all wrong. The scene that Jesus presents is as horrible as it gets for a parent. An inheritance is meant to be something given to the children after their parents’ death, but by demanding it now, the younger son is in essence telling his father, “I wish you were dead.” The yo...

On the Journey: Sanctification As we continue in week 3 of “The Journey” I want to share with you something that happens every year at Annual Conference. In the course of Ordination in the United Methodist Church, every candidate must go before the assembled Annual Conference and answer what are known as “The Historical Questions.” There’s always a nervous laugh at one of the questions: “Are you in debt so as to embarrass you in your work?” But the first four questions we are asked are as follows: 1.       Have you faith in Christ? 2.       Are you going on to perfection? 3.       Do you expect to be made perfect in love in this life? 4.       Are you honestly striving after perfection in love? The first one is an obvious but unfortunately necessary question; faith in Christ is necessary for new birth; as we discussed last week, it’s the one condition of justification, which is when Go...