List of Sermons
| Title |
Posted |
Abstract | Scripture Graphic | Scripture |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, and today, and forever | Sunday, August 29, 2010 - 6:20pm |
While Jesus was here with us, he lived a fearless life of love for humanity, and suffered and died because of that love, and was resurrected into a new life. And Jesus continues love us fearlessly, even as we live in fear. And Jesus calls out to us, especially when we are full of fear, to love one another fearlessly, as he loved us. Mutual love is not just God’s love for us and our love for God, that magnificent vertical love that reaches from heaven to earth, and from earth to heaven, but mutual love is also horizontal, And it’s the vertical love, God’s love reaching down to us, that then makes our love for one another, that horizontal love, possible.
1 The writer of Hebrews reminds us that we are to hold in mutual love the stranger. This list can sound like a list of impossible challenges, a utopian dream. How can we possibly do these things? But the writer of Hebrews answers us, quoting from Psalm 118— “The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid What can anyone do to me?” Even when we are full of fear, we must remember that the Lord IS our helper, so that instead of acting out of fear, we can act out of love. The autobiography of Jacques Lusseyran is one I turn to time and time again when I find that I am lacking in love and I’m feeling full of fear. |
 |
Hebrews 13:1-8, 15-16, (Psalm 118) |
| Sabbath and Healing | Monday, August 23, 2010 - 1:31pm |
God asks us to be intentional about coming together in community and to put aside, for this one day of the week, our own interests, our own pressing affairs, and to spend the day together delighting in the Lord.
Isaiah gives us four specific things that we must do if we want to open ourselves to God’s guidance. And these four specific things also tell us how God wants us to be together in community.
The first is to refrain from gossip, blaming one another, accusing one another.
The second is to feed the poor.
The third is to satisfy the needs of the afflicted.
The fourth is to honor the Sabbath.
In other words, God expects us to respect one another and to care for one another, to put one another first rather than putting ourselves first, because we know that we are all one in God’s love.
And in being intentional about opening ourselves to God, we then find the true power of Christian community, not just for one hour on Sunday, but all day every day. The true power of Christian community is that we can become the channel of God’s healing power for one another. |
 |
Isaiah 58:9b-14, Psalm 103:1-8; Hebrews 12:18-20; Luke 13:10-17 |
| Jesus Brings Fire | Sunday, August 15, 2010 - 6:00pm |
Jesus came to bring light, not only into the darkness of a sinful world, but also to bring light into the darkness of our own sinful hearts. Jesus not only comforts us, but he also confronts us. He confronts us, confronts us with the fact that we DO have to choose. Jesus confronts us with the fact that he is here to purify us, to subject each one of us to this raging, purifying fire of his, to burn away our sins, because each and every one of us here today is a sinner And I pray that at last, after that purifying fire has burned our self-centeredness to ashes, that we too, will rise into new lives with Jesus and with one another, To live as if we ourselves are on fire, our hearts burning within us, not with a self centered love, but with a burning love for Jesus, for one another, and for all of God’s creation |
 |
Luke 12:49-56 |
| Baptism - God Has Promised Us an Inheritance | Sunday, August 8, 2010 - 4:00pm |
God has promised us an inheritance And all of us are journeying with that great multitude who have died in faith before God’s kingdom came on earth, but who could still imagine that kingdom So in faith, along with the communion of saints, we continue to seek God’s kingdom, that vision of a heavenly city with its great rushing river of heavenly healing water, the water of life, that flows from the throne of God and through the Lamb, we seek God’s final kingdom of love and healing. We hear God’s call, and so we journey as if we have already arrived,walking in love with one another, |
 |
Hebrews 11:1-3, 8-16; Luke 12: 32-40 ;Revelation 22:1-5 |
| God, Do You Really Care? | Sunday, August 1, 2010 - 4:00pm |
I challenge you to take your worries, anxieties, and despair into God’s presence through prayer—to make an appointment each day, write it on your calendar, to go to God and to hand those things over to God. Give God a chance to care for you. I challenge you to search your hearts, and to open up that space where God wants to dwell. Enter that space, and welcome God in. Be rich toward God, and toward one another. |
 |
Ecclesiastes 1:2, 12-14, 2:18-23 |
| Christmas Eve Sermon 2009 | Thursday, December 24, 2009 - 11:00am |
The joy and inspiration as it came upon the Shepherds at Jesus' birth |
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Luke 2:1-20 |