Sermons & Worship (Page 25)
Wilderness Days
Scripture: Deuteronomy 30:11-18; Psalm 40:1-3; Matthew 4:1-11 This account of the wilderness experience of Jesus is different from any other account in the Gospels. It is different because Jesus was the only one who was present except for the adversary. It occurs straightaway after His baptism by John the Baptizer and immediately after the heavens had been opened to him and he heard the voice of God saying, “This is My beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.” Alone,…
From Carpenter Shop to Cross
Scripture: 1 Chronicles 16:8-11; Psalm 29:1-2 (Psalms Now); Mark 1:4-11 For each one of us there are those “ah ha” moments that happen, those events that happen, those insights that come to us, those decisions that we make, that have the possibility of changing the direction of our lives forever. We have an epiphany; we make a great discovery about ourselves or about our goals in life. Maybe it was about where you are going to live. Maybe it was…
Letters from Prison
Scripture: Amos 5:21-24; Micah 6:6-8; Psalm 92:1-4; Philippians 1:27-29 Justice, justice! Where there is no justice there is no peace. Where there is no justice, the people perish. Generation after generation after generation finds individuals whom God calls out to speak words of truth to the generation in which they live. Those who bring the message of the displeasure of God about how the people or the society is acting are often martyred for their unpopular message. We might just…
A Holy Visitation
Scripture: Isaiah 60:1-9; Psalm 19:1-4; Matthew 2:1-12 January 6 is the observance of the Day of Epiphany, the Day of Discovery, on the Christian calendar when the Magi came to Bethlehem to worship Jesus. Today we celebrate with the rest of the Christian Church on the Sunday closest to that date. Matthew recorded the events of that visit for all who would read his Gospel writing, but the prophet Isaiah foretold what would happen some 600 years earlier. Matthew validated…
The Last One
Scripture: I Corinthians 3:5-9 One of the exercises that ministers often use when they get writer’s block is to try to imagine that the sermon they are working on is the last sermon they will ever preach. Supposedly this exercise helps us to clear out all of our extraneous distracting thoughts and get right to the heart of our message driving our writing through a sense of urgency. I find, however, that knowing this is the last sermon I am…
That’s Just the Kind of God I Am
Scripture: I John 4:7-12 The title of my sermon is “That’s Just the Kind of God I Am,” and what I am about to preach is the foundation for everything that I have said to you over the last 38 years. So if you haven’t been listened to any of the rest of my sermons, listen now. In the early 1900’s, the Austrian philosopher and social reformer, Rudolf Steiner, founded the Waldorf school, a new approach to education…
Gaudete
Scripture: Zephaniah 3:14-18; Luke 2:10-11 When I was a child, my church didn’t celebrate Advent. We were Baptists and at the time, Advent was considered something that only high liturgical churches did and there was the feeling that if we celebrated Advent, the next thing you knew, we’d be burning incense and chanting psalms in Latin. By the time I was a teenager, however, my church had decided that recognizing Advent might be a way of saving Christmas from the materialism…
The Prince of Peace
Scripture: Isaiah 9:2-7 “For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given… And he shall be called ‘Prince of peace.’” As most of you know, I studied Biology as an undergraduate student but after receiving my Bachelor degree, I changed course and went into seminary for my graduate studies. It was 1980 and I was the tender age of 22 when I entered Colgate Rochester Divinity School and most of my classmates were also fresh out of…
The Realm of Hoping
Scripture: Isaiah 2:1-5; Romans 8:24-25 Today is the beginning of Advent and one of my annual Advent traditions is to read The Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. There are now enough televised versions of it that in a busy year, I will cheat and watch it instead of reading it but none of the televised versions capture the full liveliness of Dicken’s writing, such as this wonderful passage early in the story when Ebenezer Scrooge expresses his sentiments about the…
All is Safely Gathered In
Scripture: Revelation 1:4-9 Every year, as Thanksgiving approaches, the refrain “All is safely gathered in,” runs constantly through my brain. Beginning in October, I start checking off the items on my winter preparation list: the snowblower must get its tune-up, my car must have snow tires; I have to compost the pond plants and replace them with a small heater to keep my goldfish from freezing solid in January; there are lawn chairs to put away, gardens to tidy up,…