Brian's Sermons

John 21:15-19 Last week we looked at Nehemiah 1, and admitted that we are largely a people with broken walls and ruined gates. That Satan has attacked and attacked, and at times it feels overwhelming. In Nehemiah 2, Nehemiah has gone to Jerusalem to inspect the walls and comes to a conclusion: Then I said to them [the officials of Jerusalem], “You see the trouble we are in: Jerusalem lies in ruins, and its gates have been burned with fire. Come, let us rebuild the wall of Jerusalem, and we will no longer be in disgrace.” Nehemiah 2:17 We just need to exchange “Jerusalem” for “Millersport UMC” and remember that the walls we are rebuilding are spiritual. Come, let us rebuild the wall. Would you take a moment and pray Psalm 139:23-24 with me? Let’s pray this prayer aloud together: Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting. Now take a moment and if God has re...

Nehemiah 1 Just before Easter, we were celebrating the Seder meal, and it was such a fantastic reminder of how important the Exodus from Egyptian slavery still is to the Jewish people. God stepped down into the world and showed his power through mighty plagues and empowered Moses to lead his people out of Egypt. When they needed Him most, God showed up in power and might. And this happens again and again throughout the history of God’s people. But unfortunately, soon after God shows His power and love, His people stray. They begin to follow their own ways and stray from God’s will. As this happens over and over, God gives His people words of warning. He raises up judges to minister to and lead His people. He sends prophets to preach truth, to point His people in the right direction. If they refuse to listen, God’s enemies overrun His people. How many of us have had to hit rock bottom before we stop and return to God? To get to Nehemiah, you’ve got to go back a bit. Over one h...

Death has a good way of putting life into perspective. We generally accept the myth that we’re immortal until we have a brush with death. When you come face-to-face with death, things come clearly into focus, and priorities are re-evaluated. Followers – unlike fans – are  dying  to live.  Fans who refuse to die to sin and self are stuck trying  to live, but end up frustrated and defeated.   There are those among us who are very committed sports fans. Some of you have Buckeye Rooms in your houses. You watch every game, and attend as many games as you can – of course all the home games; you wouldn’t want those season tickets to go to waste. You paint your face. You bleed scarlet and gray. Your heart was broken last week when the Buckeyes lost to Kansas. But the problem is, there comes a point when you realize that a fan is just a fan. You see, the fan is just a committed enthusiast. The fan isn’t in the game. And often, when the going gets tough, the fa...

This week we will be kicking off a Lenten Sermon series, using Kyle Idleman's Not a Fan . Because I am using his sermons for this series, I will not be posting them to the sermon blog or the church website. If you want more information about the series, go to  http://www.notafan.com/ .

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 ...

John 13:34-35 As young adults, my brother and sister and I invented a new card game that we always liked to play at family gatherings. The notable feature of this game was that whenever you won a hand, you got to create a new rule. Sometimes the new rules made the game more fun, and other times you’d hope to win a hand so you could overrule the old rule with a new one. We would usually have to write down all of the rules so we could keep straight what to do when a particular card was played. Whenever there are new rules, there are bound to be rule breakers. Sometimes it’s just because of plain ignorance of the rules, but other times it’s because people just don’t like the new rules. Someone does not necessarily have to be a rule-breaker to not like new rules – it sometimes just happens. Jesus had just served the Last Supper to his disciples, and Judas had gone to betray Jesus. Jesus was telling the remaining eleven that the time had come for God to glorify Him, and that h...

Isaiah 65:17-25  Have you ever had an experience where you thought you knew what you were getting into because you had done something similar before, yet when you got there, it was a whole lot different than you had ever expected? I was a picky eater as a kid but I found out that I was missing out on a lot of good stuff by being so picky. But the fact is, we are only used to the things that we are used to, and we tend to see things in terms of what we know. As we talked about the desert last week, it became clear that many of us are way-too-familiar with the desert. It got me thinking about the Israelites who left Egypt – could they really have been so short-sighted that they really forgot how bad the slavery in Egypt, or did they have expectations that their trip out of Egypt would be instantaneous? Did they think that immediately after they walked through the dry Red Sea, that they would be all set? Instead they found a place of testing and purification.  If ...