All the Sermons

John 5:1-15 Have you ever wondered why God doesn’t answer all our prayers the same way? Or when Jesus was walking around in Judea, healing many diseases, why didn’t he heal all of them? Take the story of the man at the pool of Bethesda. It was a gathering place where a great number of disabled people used to hang around—the blind, the lame, the paralyzed. But Jesus only spoke to the one man. Nothing is said about the others in the crowd being healed. Why does grace seem so arbitrary? Here at the pool of Bethesda, Jesus singled out one man and approached him for a conversation. The man was laying on a simple mat. He must have been weak and frail. His legs pretty much wasted away from lack of use. He had been in that condition for a long time, approximately 38 years. Most interesting is the fact that Jesus initiated this healing. The man hadn’t called out to Jesus in any special way or made a unique appeal. Jesus had His own reasons. He just moved forward and began talking with the ...

Even Me?’ Scripture John 4:1-26 Do you ever wonder if God really loves you? Do you have some big mistakes or grievous sins in your past that keep nagging you with an unresolved guilt, or a fear that all your sins aren’t really forgiven? Or perhaps you are here in church trying your best to make up for past sins and still haven’t really grasped the fact that forgiveness is a gift, and justice is satisfied at the cross. It’s even possible that you don’t really believe God could or would do that for you and you are in church for religious reasons, or trying to pretend that you are better than what you know to be true inside. Or if you don’t worry about that, do you ever wonder if you really love other people the way God wants you to? How do you respond to the guy on the corner with the cardboard sign that asks for money? What if the guy’s sign says, “Will work for food.” Do you believe that? I think a lot of people just give him money anyway, because that’s easier than helping him...

John 3:1-21 Is it possible to believe in God, but live as if he doesn’t exist? The Biblical answer is, yes. Consider Titus 1:16. “They claim to know God, but by their actions they deny him. They are detestable, disobedient and unfit for anything.” Here is another way of looking at it, if you believe that Jesus is risen from the dead, that means he is alive today, right now, and because he is God he is nearby each one of us all the time. Jesus said in Revelation 3:20, “Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me.” But do we live as if we really believe that? Do we acknowledge his presence by consciously seeking to spend time with him? Or do we live as if the life of Christ is a fond memory of a person who lived long ago, the way many people remember their deceased loved ones. Do we hold him in our hearts and speak with imaginatively on our way to the grocery store without ever really expectin...

The Greatest Commandment Matthew 22:34-40 34 Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together. 35 One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question: 36 “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” 37 Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” I have given this message the title: Relative Truth. In today’s world, the message is that all truth is relative. This means that there is no such thing as absolute truth. One problem with that thinking is that it is illogical and self-defeating to try to assert that it is absolutely true that there is no such thing as absolute truth. What I want to say to you today is that from a Biblical standpoint the truth is that all truth is about relatives. The...