Brian's Sermons

Malachi 3:8-10: “Will a mere mortal rob God? Yet you rob me. “But you ask, ‘How are we robbing you?’ “In tithes and offerings. You are under a curse—your whole nation—because you are robbing me.  Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this,” says the Lord Almighty, “and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that there will not be room enough to store it . Over the past two weeks, we have been looking at the biblical foundation for giving. We acknowledge first that Psalm 24:1: The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it . Remember that God has given us dominion over it all — the command in Genesis was for humanity to work the land and rule over it. Last week we looked at John Wesley’s rules On the Use of Money: gain all you can, save all you can, give all you can. Today ...

Exodus 20:15  You shall not steal. When I first came to Zambia for a visit, we were driven through Central Market on a Saturday. It was crowded and packed with people, cars, shoppers, vendors. Suddenly as we were stuck in traffic, a man came running through the crowds. He was being pursued by several other men, one of whom had a large club. When they reached our car, they caught the first man and began beating him. Blood was everywhere. In fact, when we reached New Hope Church, our DS remained behind to wash the blood off the car. Rev. Kilembo later explained to us that this man was a thief. He had stolen in the market, and the punishment was a terrible beating. We recognize that stealing is wrong. But here is the fact: stealing is normal in Zambia. If you take your car to a mechanic, you must watch the mechanic like a hawk or he will steal good parts from your car and replace them with poor quality parts. Our DS had most of the parts from his car stolen by a mech...

Today is the Day to Choose… Joshua 24:1-24 It was the Fall of 1985; I was 14 years old, it was halftime of the last soccer game of the season, and we were tied.  I can remember the scene vividly, how our coach gave us a rousing pep talk. I can still remember the words he said to us, but they’re not really appropriate for a Sunday morning talk!  We went on to preserve the tie, the only game that season that we didn’t lose.  The halftime speech did what it was intended to do. What makes a good halftime pep talk?  A reminder of who the team is – their history, maybe even their past failures as well as their successes.  A reminder of what has brought them there; what hardships they’ve overcome to get there and what has defined them as a team.  Do you think the New Orleans Saints mentioned Hurricane Katrina before or during the Super Bowl? During times of transition or difficulty, it is always important to be reminded of what’s most important and of who you ...