Brian's Sermons

Luke 7:17-23 This news about Jesus spread throughout Judea and the surrounding country. John’s disciples told him about all these things. Calling two of them, he sent them to the Lord to ask, “Are you the one who is to come, or should we expect someone else?” When the men came to Jesus, they said, “John the Baptist sent us to you to ask, ‘Are you the one who is to come, or should we expect someone else?’” At that very time Jesus cured many who had diseases, sicknesses and evil spirits, and gave sight to many who were blind. So he replied to the messengers, “Go back and report to John what you have seen and heard: The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is proclaimed to the poor. Blessed is anyone who does not stumble on account of me.” What do you come expecting when you come to celebrate Christmas? What are your expectations? What are you celebrating? One of the themes as we p...

Before I get to today’s scripture, I want to read another one.  I want to start with James 5:17-18:  Elijah was a man just like us. He prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the land for three and a half years. Again he prayed, and the heavens gave rain, and the earth produced its crops. As I was preparing for the last five weeks I will be preaching here, I wanted to have a theme; I didn’t want to just preach five stand-alone sermons that don’t really have anything to do with one another. I wanted to find something that speaks to us today, no matter what we are doing. But I also didn’t want to go to my favorite, “pet passages” if you will. So I ended up with one of my favorite heroes of the Bible. Sometimes we can get caught up in the “hero” thoughts, thinking that this person or that person is so spiritual or so powerful or so whateverful that I could never do anything like this. This is the reason that I chose to read the passage from James be...

Have you ever had to wait and wait and wait? Can you remember when you were a little child, when it seemed like Christmas morning would never get here? The wait was endless. Or maybe you’ve had to wait for something more recently, like waiting for the doctor to come out to the waiting room to tell you that the surgery was successful… or waiting for a soldier to come home… or waiting for the call that says you’ve got the job. Then there are other kinds of waits. Is there anyone who doesn’t check to see which checkout lane is shortest? And that doesn’t mean just by numbers – you have to look at how stuffed the carts are.  Same thing with lines at tollbooths or even stop signs. And some of us will drive 40 miles out of our way to avoid a 10 minute traffic jam. We don’t like to wait. Why is it that we don’t like to wait? Part of it is that we just aren’t patient by nature, but another part is that we are often fearful about the results. It’s like why men don’t go to the d...