Brian's Sermons

The Ten Commandments: Exodus 20:1-17 20  And God spoke all these words, saying,   2 “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.   3 “You shall have no other gods before me.   Last week we started a new series on the Ten Commandments. We recognize the Ten Commandments as the basis for Jewish and Christian laws, but also as the baseline for Christian behavior. The first five tell how to interact with God, while the last five tell how to interact with one another. The introduction reminded us who gives us the Ten Commandments — that they come from Yahweh, our God, the all-powerful God who relates to His creation as Father to son.   And it because of who God is that the first commandment can be: You shall have no other gods before me . It is important to know who this God is — Yahweh, I am who I am, or “I will be who I will be.” God is the God who is .   Our God is Elohim...

Luke 18:35-43 One of the worst feelings in the world is when you can’t find something – you know you just had it, but now you can’t find it. What’s worse is when it is right in front of you and you still can’t find it. About 20 years ago, there was a fad – 3D hidden pictures. The idea was if you looked hard enough at the right angle, then you would see a hidden picture. Honestly, I could almost never see the picture and I always wondered if there really was one. The idea that someone else could see what I couldn’t always drove me nuts. But it’s a mainstay in Jesus’ ministry; sometimes it seems like the least likely were the ones who saw things the most clearly. In the passage immediately before the one I read today, (Luke 18:31-34) Jesus took the Twelve aside and told them, “We are going up to Jerusalem, and everything that is written by the Prophets about the Son of Man will be fulfilled. He will be handed over to the Gentiles. They will mock him, insult him, spit on him, flo...

John 5:1-9a   Some time later, Jesus went up to Jerusalem for a feast of the Jews. Now there is in Jerusalem near the Sheep Gate a pool, which in Aramaic is called Bethesda and which is surrounded by five covered colonnades. Here a great number of disabled people used to lie—the blind, the lame, the paralyzed. One who was there had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, he asked him, "Do you want to get well?" "Sir," the invalid replied, "I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me."  Then Jesus said to him, "Get up! Pick up your mat and walk." At once the man was cured; he picked up his mat and walked. I was in college in an upper-level German class, it was exam day, and I was stuck .   I loved German language and literature, but this was essentially a political...

John 4:46-54 Today we’re continuing our series Vital Signs, where we are looking at Jesus’ miracles as recorded in the Gospel according to John.  As the Scripture stated, this is the second miraculous sign Jesus performed.  But before we start, let’s pray. I was a junior in high school, I was at church camp, and I was in love (for those reading this and not just hearing it, you’ve got to read that in the most sarcastic, sappy voice you can muster) . There was this young lady there at camp who I thought was fantastic looking.  She was just my type.  I was determined to make my move on her.  Through the week I tried to get to know her, not really successfully.  But then my sister, who shared a cabin with this young lady, told me about one morning, when the young lady in question had gotten dressed.  She was apparently admiring herself in the mirror, saying, “My shoes are brown, my pants are brown, my shirt is brown, my socks are brown, my hair is brown...