Brian's Sermons

According to the grace given to you, will you remain faithful members of Christ’s holy church and serve as Christ’s representatives in the world? An older couple came to me for marriage counseling. She told me, “I want a divorce. He doesn’t love me.” I turned to him and asked, “Is this true?” He replied, “We have been married for fifty years. At our wedding, the pastor asked if I loved her. I   As continue to we look at the membership vows of the United Methodist Church, we now turn to our responsibilities. We recognize again that our salvation is a gift of God’s grace. Remember that Grace is God’s unmerited favor. We didn’t do anything to deserve it; it’s all about what God did for us. While we were still sinners, Jesus died for us. That proves God’s love for us. There has often been raised the issue about our good works. In fact, there are some who seem to think that our good works are what save us. Apart from God’s grace, Isaiah 64:6 reminds us, that “when we d...

Judges 13:1-5 Again the Israelites did evil in the Lord’s sight, so the Lord handed them over to the Philistines, who oppressed them for forty years.  In those days a man named Manoah from the tribe of Dan lived in the town of Zorah. His wife was unable to become pregnant, and they had no children. The angel of the Lord appeared to Manoah’s wife and said, “Even though you have been unable to have children, you will soon become pregnant and give birth to a son. So be careful; you must not drink wine or any other alcoholic drink nor eat any forbidden food. You will become pregnant and give birth to a son, and his hair must never be cut. For he will be dedicated to God as a Nazirite from birth. He will begin to rescue Israel from the Philistines.”  Many of us know the story of Samson. It falls within the pre-king history of the people of Israel, during the time of the judges. You remember the pattern that the people fell into: when they had a good leader, things were good an...

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...

Ezekiel 36:22-32 At the end of last year, I preached a sermon called “Because of Jesus” and went through all of the things that are true because of Jesus. Because of Jesus, I am hopeful, I am found, I am free, I am able, I am loved, I am saved, and I am new. One comment I received after the final sermon was “there was so much in there – you could have preached a sermon on every one of those scriptures you used.” So ever since then, I have been preaching from the scriptures I used in that sermon. Kind of like a spin-off series. In Christ, we have the hope of heaven, where God makes all things new. This can give us comfort when we face sorrow and struggle in this life – we’ve seen plenty of that around here recently. We are told to set our hearts on things above; when we set our hearts on things above, when everything is Holy-Spirit oriented and initiated, we see transformation. But there are times when God’s people are God’s people in name only. When we are not known by our ...

Titus 2:11-15   Last week, Paul gave Titus some instructions for leading different groups of Christians on Crete. He called Titus to teach what is in accord with sound doctrine, which would enable them to stand against the prevailing culture. Remember that living a holy life, which is really counter-cultural, is not what makes God love us. It’s not what saves us. It, however, does provide us the opportunity to present Jesus Christ in the best possible light. We who are Christians already love and trust Him. That’s the context in which we surrender to Him.  But why should we expect a world that doesn’t know Him to turn over their entire lives to Him? This is why we have a duty to share Him accurately. Paul doesn’t want any of this accuracy left to chance, so he continues with a power-packed sentence. He wants to make it clear to his audience which God he is talking about, and, as has been his form in his letter to Titus, he proclaims a God who is in direct contrast to the c...

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...

(Judges 16:1-22) The book of Judges follows a pretty sad course. Israel starts out serving the Lord. Then they fall into sin and idol worship. They are then enslaved, and finally they cry out to the Lord. God raises up a judge who delivers them, and they serve the Lord again, for a time. Samson was one of those judges. In Judges 13, we read that an angel commanded that the boy would be a Nazirite, set aside for the Lord, as described in Numbers 6. Not every Bible hero is a priest or a king. Samson was a lay person, specially dedicated to God. The angel told Samson’s parents that he would become a Nazarite and would begin the deliverance of Israel from the hands of the Philistines (Judges 13:5b). The important characteristic of a Nazirite is that she or he is holy, set apart for God, marked for God’s service. Their vows required non-conformity from them; they were not supposed to act like the people around them. They totally abstained from wine – to the point that they wouldn’t ev...

I am starting a series on the distinctives of United Methodism, and this is the introductory sermon. You are coming to Christ, who is the living cornerstone of God’s temple. He was rejected by people, but he was chosen by God for great honor. And you are living stones that God is building into his spiritual temple. What’s more, you are his holy priests. Through the mediation of Jesus Christ, you offer spiritual sacrifices that please God. As the Scriptures say, I am placing a cornerstone in Jerusalem,chosen for great honor,and anyone who trusts in him will never be disgraced. Yes, you who trust him recognize the honor God has given him. But for those who reject him, The stone that the builders rejectedhas now become the cornerstone. And, He is the stone that makes people stumble,the rock that makes them fall. They stumble because they do not obey God’s word, and so they meet the fate that was planned for them. But you are not like that, for you are a chosen people. You are royal pries...