Jesus stands at the end of life’s road for all of us. In the end there can be no middle ground.
Text: Matthew 2:1-6The Christian walk is synonymous with innocent suffering and pain, through which Christ our Lord suffered and died. He left us all an example of how to follow him in this. A Christian’s call to this behavior goes against the grain of his human tendencies: to suffer unjust treatment without retaliation, trusting only that God would be the judge of things ultimately. Jesus lived the sacrificial life to which he calls all his believers. It is a life that leads to the cross, and he has modeled how to live this sacrificial life for us. When we suffer unjustly, we share in a tiny portion of what happened to him. When we are mistreated, we are to turn the other check, bless those who curse us, and return good for evil. We are not to retaliate, not to threaten, not to get even. Jesus showed us how to live, and he showed us how to die. This response is a miracle in itself and is under girded and made possible only by the gift of grace from God.
Text: 1 Peter 2:21-25This is the final message in the series on the Apostles’ Creed. When we started in January, there was snow […]
Text: II Corinthians 5:8“I believe in Jesus Christ — who suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried.” The Apostles’ Creed […]
Text: Leviticus 16When Jesus died on the cross, he took our place, bore our punishment, and the paid the price for our sins so that we might be saved. Without his death, we could never be saved.
Text: Hebrews 9-10This has been a week unlike any other in my lifetime. Last Wednesday the new movie by Mel Gibson, “The […]
Text: Isaiah 53This sermon gives the history of how the Apostles’ Creed came about and explains the importance it has in the Christian church throughout history as well as in our individual lives. The Apostles’ Creed is a declaration of faith recognized by all branches of true Christianity. For 2,000 years the Apostles’ Creed has served as a succinct statement of the irreducible minimum of the Christian faith. It is the common heritage of the true Christian church. It offers a broad survey of Christian doctrine, that focuses all on God as the object of the faith, and what he has done for believers. In this declaration of beliefs, the God of the Christian church is sharply distinguished from the gods of other religions by what he has done for his believers. The authority of these statements of belief embodied in the Apostles’ Creed lies entirely on the Word, that is the Bible, and not on any personal or private interpretations. It follows then that a person who professes to be a Christian must therefore subscribe or believe in everything stated in this creed, at the very least, as a start of what the Christian must believe. The Creed reminds us that truth is not optional. There are boundaries to the Christian faith. Not everything is negotiable. Some things must be believed if you are to call yourself a Christian. You can choose to live outside those boundaries, but if you do, you aren’t a Christian and you shouldn’t call yourself one.
Text: Romans 1:16“We do, however, speak a message of wisdom among the mature, but not the wisdom of this age or of […]
Text: I Corinthians 2:6-9This is the first message in a five-part series called “The Healing Power of Forgiveness.” You are never more like Jesus than when you forgive. And you will never be set free until you forgive.
Text: Matthew 18:21-35The first word is sometimes as important as the last word. Seven weeks had passed since the resurrection of Jesus. […]
Text: Acts 2:24