Brian's Sermons

The Third Word: “Dear woman, here is your son.” (John 19:25-27) We have been looking at Jesus’ seven words from the cross. His first word was a word of forgiveness. He told his followers to love their enemies and pray for those who persecute them, and even while he is being tortured to death, his heart is for those who caused his suffering. While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. The second word was a word of salvation. He told the criminal on the cross “Truly, today you will be with me in paradise.” He opens the door to heaven to those who will in faith accept him. Today we come to Jesus’ third word. While Jesus suffers on the cross, he is not the only one who suffers. He recognizes that there are others who are suffering along with him. What will happen to those who he leaves behind? What will happen to his disciples? Will they be able to carry on his work, or will they end up as he has? What will happen to his mother? In Jesus’ time, a woman was given her worth...

The Second Word: “Very Truly, today you will be with me in paradise.” (Luke 23:43) We are part of a culture who says one thing but does something else. Zambia is a Christian nation, but daily, we all see corruption, abuse of power, abuse of women and children, misuse of money, stealing, lying, and all sorts of other sinful behavior. Our politicians promise us heaven but don’t deliver. People attend church, or at least claim allegiance to a church, but their lives do not demonstrate the Fruit of the Spirit. We are just like the people to whom Isaiah prophesied when he said, The Lord says: “These people come near to me with their mouth and honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Their worship of me is based on merely human rules they have been taught.” (Isaiah 29:13) As Jesus hung on the cross, he was mocked by the religious leaders and the soldiers. He hung between two criminals, and one of them, even while being crucified himself, also mocked Jes...

“Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” Luke 23:34 [ Before we get started, I want to acknowledge several things. First of all, it is an honor to be invited to come and preach as a guest preacher. It is a distinct honor to be trusted with the Word of God, even though we have had little or no interaction before. This week as we worship together, I hope to get to know you better and for you to get to know me as well. The second thing I’d like to acknowledge is that it is hard to preach to people I don’t know. I don’t know your names, I don’t know what you’ve struggled with, and I don’t even know your language. I apologize for needing to use a translator, but I thank you for the chance to bring God’s Word to you. ] I also admit that I am not fluent in your culture. There are things that are perfectly normal here in Lusaka that are completely foreign to me as an American. There are things that I do that you would find completely crazy, but they happen...

1 Kings 19:1-18 Have you ever heard of the phrase “mountaintop experience?” The idea is that there are some experiences that take us to the mountaintop. These are the best experiences of life, and when they are over, you just don’t want to go back to your everyday life. Church camp was often, for me, a mountaintop experience. I would go to camp every summer and by the end of camp, I was on fire! I was ready to win my entire school for Christ. There’s a problem with the mountaintop experience, however, and that is simply that we don’t live on the mountaintop. At some point, we have to come back down. In scripture, one notable mountaintop experience was when Jesus went up on the mountain with Peter, James, and John, and was transfigured before them. His face shone like the sun, and he was joined there by Elijah and Moses! Peter, maybe even recognizing the amazing experience, suggested that they build shelters, one each for Jesus, Elijah, and Moses. But Jesus rebuked him and Jesu...

1 Kings 18:`-39 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 we catch up with our normal guy Elijah, he has had quite the adventure in trusting and obeying God and accepting God’s provision. When God told him to leave the king’s court and go hide in the ravine and be fed by ravens and drink from the brook, Elijah went. When the brook ran dry, God sent him to a widow in Zaraphath, where God miraculously multiplied her meager flour and oil supply, feeding him, her and her family until God once again brought rain. To finish up that passage (and I apologize for not being able to get everything in – time is short), her son died, but God, through Elijah, brought him back to life! So in the third year of the famine, God tells Elijah he’s going to send rain once more. So Elijah, led by God (a...

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...

Exodus 3:1-6 1 Samuel 3:1-10 Isaiah 6:1-8 Jeremiah 1:4-10 I read you four call stories from the Bible: Moses, Samuel, Isaiah, and Jeremiah. They are amazing stories. Moses already had an awesome start to life, being saved from death by his mother putting him in a basket in the reeds in the Nile, and he was saved by the Pharaoh’s daughter, of all people. But here he is, years later, toiling away in Midian, tending sheep, when God speaks to him through a burning bush. Then there is Samuel, whose mother prayed fervently for a child, and when her child was born, she brought him into the sanctuary of the Lord to be raised there. Though the word of the Lord was rare in those times and people just weren’t having visions, God spoke to the boy Samuel in an audible voice. Isaiah had an awesome vision in which God spoke to him, asking, “Whom shall I send?” and Isaiah answered, “Here I am, send me.” And as for Jeremiah, we simply read that “the word of the Lord came to...