Brian's Sermons

Matthew 7:24-29 It is our final installment in the Sermon on the Mount, and Jesus starts out this section with a “therefore.” I learned as a kid that whenever your verse starts with a “therefore” you’ve got to go back and see what the “therefore” is there for. Immediately before this section was the section about false prophets and about those who say, “Lord, Lord, I did all this in your name!” but to whom Jesus says, “I don’t even know you.” Jesus is making it clear that those who truly are his disciples are those who are all his – inside and out. Not the hypocrite who makes sure to follow the letter of the Law but ignores its intent. Not the one who makes a big show of their so-called righteous acts. Not the one who chases after the things of this world. And not the one who purports to speak for God but speaks on their own authority. These are those to whom Jesus proclaims, “Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’ (Matthew 7:23) ...

Matthew 7:15-23 Last week we finished 2013 with Jesus’ words: ask, seek, and knock, for whoever asks, receives, whoever seeks, finds, and whoever knocks will have the door opened. This should be our top priority for 2014: communicate with God. God is never bothered when we communicate our desires to him. Sometimes we’ll end up wrestling with God, but that is a good thing. Spoiler alert: God always wins those wrestling matches! If you are reading along at home, the next passage is the one in which Jesus differentiates between the narrow road and the broad road and the wide and small gates  – the weird and the culturally normal. We went into great depth on that concept and into that passage in the series “Weird” based on Craig Groeschel’s book. Because we spent seven weeks on this passage and what it means in our lives, I’m skipping it this time, and we’re going straight into Matthew 7:15-23. “Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inward...

What Do You Really Want? Back in August, we embarked on a study of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. We started with the section that is commonly known as the “Beatitudes” – the “blessed are” statements where Jesus pronounces blessings or abundant life, on those who would follow him wholeheartedly. He lets his followers in on a secret: God isn’t all about those who look the part; God is most interested in the heart and the motives of those who would be His people. So it is possible to look “religious” and completely miss the mark. We took a break from the Sermon on the Mount for Advent, where we focused on preparation for Christmas and for Christ’s return. We looked at the four words of Advent: Hope, Love, Joy, and Peace, and on Christmas Eve we celebrated Jesus who is the fulfillment of each of those words. He is our Hope. He is Love. He is Joy, and He is Peace. Today we dive back into the Sermon on the Mount with Matthew 7:7-12. “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and y...

Throughout Advent, as we have been preparing for Christmas and for Christ’s return, we have been focusing on the four words of the Advent candles: Hope, Love, Joy, and Peace. Today, as we celebrate Christmas Eve, we lit the most important candle, the Christ candle. And as we light the Christ candle, it is only fitting that we would focus on Christ and his place within this wreath. Jesus Christ is not only the center candle for his obvious central role in the Christmas story, but his spot in the center of the wreath is because he is the fulfillment of all of the candles. We began Advent with hope. Fitting, that Hope Church would focus on hope. For a people caught in the “in between” times, Micah’s prophecy includes these words of hope: But as for me, I watch in hope for the Lord, I wait for God my Savior; my God will hear me. (Micah 7:7) In the Old Testament, when you find the word “hope” it is almost always characterized not simply as “hope” b...

When we started lighting the Advent candles three weeks ago, we started with Hope. We then lit the candle of Love, and last week we lit the candle of Joy. The fourth candle of our Advent wreath is the candle of Peace. It might be a shock to some of you to be reminded that our country is a country at war. Operation Enduring Freedom, or the war in Afghanistan, has been going on for over twelve years (since October 7, 2001) with an American death toll of 1098 with an additional 2379 wounded. Yet we can be blissfully ignorant of this fact as we go about our lives. We can even pretend to live at peace, all the while having no peace in our lives. I don’t have the time to cover this topic completely this morning, but please understand that peace is not simply the absence of conflict. Just because you’re not at war doesn’t mean you have peace. And, in fact, Jesus comes, bringing peace in the face of war. The world says: peace is when we stop fighting. Jesus says, in John 14:27 “Pe...

What brings you joy? This time of year is often associated with joy – people experience joy in Christmas. Advertisers would like you to believe that only if you buy their products will your joy – or the joy of your loved ones – be complete. This is the third week in Advent. We started with hope: the hope of Christ’s birth and Christ’s return. Last week we focused on love: love came down at Christmas in the Person of Jesus Christ, and love lives within us, in the Person of the Holy Spirit, allowing us to love other people, even the unlovely. Today our focus is joy. Joy is one of those Bible words that in some ways has lost its meaning, partially because there are many words that we translate to joy, and they vary in their intensity. Just like we can say we “love” all kinds of things, from our favorite sports team to our favorite food to our spouse, “joy” can also carry different weight. It’s one of those things where we know we want it, but we don’t necessarily know how to defi...