All the Sermons

Matthew chapters 5-7 Key Verse: Now when He saw the crowds, He went up on a mountainside and sat down.  His disciples came to Him, and He began to teach them saying: Matthew 5:1-2 Just for today, let your imagination take control.  Pretend that you are sitting on a grassy hill or low mountainside in the country.  It is late spring and the flowers are in bloom.  The sky is blue, the sun is warm and a gentle breeze is swaying the treetops and, maybe tussling your hair, just a little.  You are in a small group of intimate friends.  You are all looking at, and listening to Jesus as He quietly speaks these words.  You have just been chosen as part of a select group.  Class has begun.  Your teacher, or Rabbi, is Jesus Himself.  Don't try to analyze today.  We will have time for that in the days to come.  For today, just kick off your sandals and try to absorb this sermon in its entirety.  Have you ever read this passage in one sitting before? Just let these words wash o

  Matthew 10:1-4   Mark 3:13-19 , Luke 6:12-16   Key Verse: On one of those days Jesus went out to a mountainside to pray, and spent the night praying to God.  When morning came, He called His disciples to Him and chose twelve of them, whom He also designated apostles. Luke 6:12-13 Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to stick with Jesus through thick and thin.  You will be sent out, by Jesus, to preach.  You will be given authority over demons.  You will be expected to advance and proclaim the Kingdom of God.  Bathe every moment, every decision in prayer, as your Master did when He chose you and obey Him to death and beyond! We all know how Judas died, hanging himself in remorse for betraying Jesus for 30 pieces of silver. He was not a martyr and did not die for his fath. But what about the rest of the apostles: how did they die for their faith?  There are actually some differing versions of the way the apostles died. They, after all, lived at a time when c

Matthew 12:9-14 , Luke 6:6-11 & Mark 3:1-6 Key Verse:  Then Jesus said to them, “I ask you, is it lawful on the Sabbath: to do good or to do evil, to save life or to destroy it?”  Luke 6:9 What does your faith do for you?  Does it make you more caring, or critical?  Is your worship just a matter of singing songs, saying a prayer, perhaps listening to a sermon and an offering, or does it include serving others?  Once again, Jesus provides the religious people with another opportunity to criticize Him.  Each of the texts mentions that they were “looking for a reason to accuse Him.”  What must it have been like to live under such constant scrutiny?  For His critics, once again, Jesus was working on the Sabbath, however, Jesus, for His part, was performing an act of worship by setting someone free. His arm must have been damaged sometime in the past either by a stroke or work related injury.  Without proper medical care, his arm had probably atrophied and was probabl

Deuteronomy 23:24-25 , 1 Samuel 21:1-6 , Matthew 12:1-8 , Luke 6:1-5 , & Mark 2:23-28 Key verse: Then Jesus said to them, "The Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.”  Luke 6:5 What an incredible situation!  Here are these religious leaders, in all of their pomp and piety, telling the law giver Himself, that, once again, He is breaking the rules.  The situation seems preposterous on the face of it, but there you have it; humans, telling God how He should behave.  What were they doing wrong this time?  Well, the disciples probably thought that they were just taking a few grains of wheat or barley to stave off hunger until they reached their destination.  After all, in Deuteronomy, God instructs the people, "If you enter your neighbor’s grain field, you may pick kernels with your hands, but you must not put a sickle to his standing grain.”  (Deut.  23:25)  That's all the disciples were doing.  They were cutting through the field and plucking some grain to munc

Matthew 9:14-17 , Mark 2:18-22 , Luke 5:33-39 , & 2Corinthians 5:17 Key Verse: Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!  2 Corinthians 5:17 Has Christ made a difference in your worship?  There was something different about Jesus and His disciples.  They didn't worship the way that other religious people did.  It was different enough that it was noticed by others.  The disciples of John the Baptist and the Pharisees, took their religious observances seriously.  They fasted and prayed and grieved over the sad state of affairs.  They honored the traditions that had been passed on for many generations in an attempt to keep themselves pure and to please God.  In contrast, Jesus' disciples seemed to be having a party.  They ate and drank without a care in the world.  The observers, including the disciples of John and the Pharisees were incredulous.  They wanted to know "WHY!" "Why?" Perh

Matthew 9:9-13 , Mark 2:13-17 , Luke 5:27-32 Key Verse:  "I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance." Luke 5:32 Levi was another man who was not just what he appeared to be on the surface.  We are told that his tax collecting booth was near the lake, where the men, Jesus' disciples, fished.  The disciples, and most of the other people, who were at the lake that day to hear Jesus saw Levi as a crook, or at least as an unnecessary evil, the way many view the IRS today.  Levi was probably located near the lake to ensure that the taxes would be paid on the catch of the day.  Tax collectors were in a class all by themselves anyway.  They were usually rich.  They became that way by over charging the commoner for their taxes and then pocketing the difference.  There was no accountability.  As long as Rome received what it was due it really didn't matter to the authorities whether the tax collectors were on the up and up or not.  Tax colle

Matthew 9:1-8 , Mark 2:1-12 , & Luke 5:17-26 Key verse:  “But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins, …” He said to the paralytic, “Get up, take your mat and go home.” Matthew 9:6, Mark 2:10-11, & Luke 5:24 This episode in the life of Jesus serves as a good example of faith and determination to get to God no matter what the perceived circumstances.  The friends were motivated by their faith that Jesus could heal.  We don’t know anything about the faith of the paralyzed man.  He may have asked his friends to help him out, or he may have thought that the cause was hopeless.  He did, however, display faith in them.  Imagine being hoisted on a flimsy mat to the roof of a house, knowing that there would be little you could do to protect yourself if you were to fall.  Imagine the planning and discipline required by the friends to pull this off!  How about their audacity, removing roof tiles to accomplish their goal?  Talk about tresp

Leviticus 14:1-32 , Matthew 8:1-4 , Mark 1:40-45 , & Luke 5:12-16 Key Verse: “See that you don’t tell this to anyone.  But go, show yourself to the priest and offer the sacrifices that Moses commanded for your cleansing, as a testimony to them.” Mark 1:44 He came on his knees.  We have no idea what this man’s original station in life was, but we know what disease had reduced him to.  He was an outcast, an untouchable.  He knew that he was not where he belonged, but he was also desperate.  We get that way when we have no other hope.  This man had no other hope.  So he came, in humility; a broken man, finally willing to submit to the will of God.  He was not making demands or bargaining, just simply presenting himself and letting God have his way.  Then there is Jesus, giver of the Law, yet willing to go beyond the Law to reach out and touch a helpless man.  He didn’t scold or lecture the man about the fact that he wasn’t where he was supposed to be, on the fringe of th

Mark 1:35-39 , Luke 4:42-44 , Key Verse:  Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went to a solitary place where He prayed.  Mark 1:35 If Jesus couldn't do it without time alone to commune with the Father, what makes us think that we can?  Jesus had a busy Sabbath and evening the day before.  Yet, instead of resting up, or rewarding Himself with a break from ministry, He got up early and went off to pray, which is often hard work!  He took the time to center again on His purpose for coming.  Contrast Jesus' quietness with the frenzied behavior of the disciples.  Where was the master?  Didn't He know that there were more sick people needing healing?  The appointment calendar is filling up!  Where could He be? Their plan was to open up shop right there in Capernaum.  Jesus could just stay put at Peter's house and heal people all day long!  They had it all worked out, just like we do with our planners and progr

Isaiah 53:4A , Matthew 8:16-17 , Mark 1:32-34 , Luke 4:40-41 Key Verse: Surely he took up our iniquities and carried our sorrows.  Isaiah 53:4a When evening came, or, when the Sabbath had ended so that the people could move about freely again, the sick and the hurting were brought to Jesus, and Jesus cared for them.  Jesus was willing to heal on the Sabbath.  He had healed Peter's mother-in-law on the Sabbath, but the people had too much fear of man.  Their lack of understanding of God, prevented them from throwing off restraint, no matter how severe the need, to come to Jesus before the sun set, signaling the end of the Sabbath.  In Judaism, a 24 hour day is measured from sunset to sunset.  Sabbath begins on Friday evening and continues until sun down of, what we would call Saturday evening.  In the past history of Judah, the people had not done a very good job of keeping the Sabbath.  After the Babylonian exile, however, in which the people had been punished for not

Matthew 8:14-15 , Mark 1:29-31 , Luke 4:38-39 , Key Verse: So He went to her, took her hand and helped her up.  The fever left her and she began to wait on them.  Mark 1:31 It's hard for us, today, in the age of antibiotics to appreciate the seriousness of this situation.  When we have a fever we usually just go to bed and sleep it off or call the doctor and get a prescription for penicillin and keep on going.  A little bug isn't about to keep us from our responsibilities.  We only need look back, however to our grandparent's generation to understand how serious this fever may have been.  I'm thinking of the flu epidemic of 1918-19 that spread world-wide in which many people died.  When we remember that George Washington died from a strep throat, do we really need to look any further?  Infections, childhood diseases, bad drinking water, were all threats to life itself.  We forget that in our age of modern medicine, but travel to a third world country and w

Mark 1:21-28 , Luke 4:31-37 Key Verse:  The people were amazed at his teaching, because He taught them as one who had authority, not as the teachers of the law.  Mark 1:22 It was another Sabbath.  Jesus had left his own home town after his bad reception and returned to the home of his fishermen disciples, where he was better received, where the people were amazed by His authority.  Of course Jesus had authority.  It was His law to begin with!!  He knew what He meant when He spoke all of creation, and its rules into existence at the beginning.  He knew what He meant and He knew how to use what He knew to bless and not just curse the people with more behavioral codes that would weigh them down even more.  Even satan knew the difference.  How long had that man attended synagogue, week after week, while the demons within tormented him, feeling unthreatened by the authority of man.  Had the others around him even known of his struggle?  Man, by himself, is powerless to tru

Leviticus 25:8-13 , Isaiah 61:1-3 & Luke 4:16-30 Key Verse: He began by saying to them, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.” Luke 4:21 This story begins by saying that Jesus “found the place where it is written.” (Luke 4:17B) Actually, in the Synagogue, the readings were assigned, similar to the many churches that preach from the lectionary on Sundays today.  There is a set, systematic order for reading Scripture so that every significant passage is addressed over a certain period of time.   Therefore, we would probably understand this passage better if it were to say, “Jesus found His place, and it just so happened that He read where it is written…Isaiah 61:1-3.” Jesus was standing to read out of respect, but also for practical reasons.  Remember, He was reading from a scroll, not a book.  It had to be unrolled and rolled.  Holding it in the lap would be very difficult.  He wouldn’t be able to just turn the page.  It was typically unrolled across a d

John 4:46-54 Key Verse: Jesus replied, "You may go.  Your son will live."  The man took Jesus at his word and departed.  John 4:50 Jesus was back in Cana.  Word of the miraculous wine must have gotten around.  Now, even a desperate father of means is willing to test just how far these powers of Jesus can go.  Amazing, when you think about it, to notice how desperation can level the playing field of life so quickly.  Hunger can make beggars of all.  Natural disasters can make us all equal immediately in our struggle for survival.  You can't stop a tornado with a $100 bill.  You can't buy bread if there is none to be found.  This man's son was ill.  We don't know what disease plagued him.  We know that he had a fever, which was a very threatening situation in a day with no antibiotics.  We know that the boy was at death's door and that the man, with all his wealth, could do nothing to stop the inevitable.  He had already spent much on physicia

Isaiah 55:6-13 , 1 Cor.   3:1-9 , & John 4:31-42 Key Verse: They said to the woman, “We no longer believe just because of what you said; now we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this man really is the savior of the world.” - John 4:42 “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways.” - Isaiah 55:8 Well, weren’t the disciples in for a surprise when they returned from buying food in the village? Jesus was talking to a woman, and a Samaritan at that! The disciples had so much to learn. On this day, it would be their opportunity to learn how not to be practical.  Just as the shepherds had done at Jesus’ birth, this woman could not keep her excitement to herself. After the disciples came back to Jesus, she was off to share with her neighbors what she had just experienced. “Come see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Christ?” (John 4:29) Their curiosity drove them to find out for themselves. “He talked to her, even thou

Isaiah 55:1-5 , John 4:1-30 Key verse: "Come see a man who told me everything I ever did.  Could this be the Christ?" John 4:29 He knew it all, and yet He talked with her.  He knew of her reputation, yet He asked her to serve Him.  He knew of her marriages, the adultery.  He knew that her, being seen with yet another man, and that one a Jew, might start the tongues of gossip wagging anew with fresh tidbits of delight.  Isn't that why she was at the well in the middle of the day in the first place, instead the usual morning time, to avoid such chatter?  Yet, He pursued her, the half breed Samaritan woman, because He knew that she needed what He had to offer and He loved her and had come for even the likes of "HER!".  He was not concerned about His reputation if He were seen with her.  He wasn't impressed with the foolish divisions that humanity is so good at creating.  He had created her and He loved her, and now He was calling out to her soul. 

John 3:22-36 , Romans 12:1-2 Key verse: "He must become greater; I must become less." John 3:30 As we've already said, John was a cousin of Jesus.  Like Jesus, John also had a miraculous story to be shared concerning his birth.  John's family was of the priesthood.  Both of his parents were descended from Aaron himself.  (Luke 1:5) John could have become one of the great and powerful leaders of the temple.  Before John was born, John's Father had been chosen, by the casting of the lot, to burn incense before the Lord on the Day of Atonement, a rare privilege indeed.  (Luke 1:8-10 ) By worldly standards, and by Jewish religious standards, John had many reasons to be proud of who he was.  John, however, unlike so many of us, remembered who he was and kept his perspective intact.  His followers were becoming concerned and possibly jealous of this upstart, Jesus, a carpenter's son, who was getting some of the attention that they thought John deserved