2022 January

First Mission: Be a Doer of the Word

First Mission: Be a Doer of the Word

This sermon is based on James 1:19-27. You can also view each week's sermon/worship service on our YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5ncsq_QNvCv61bIwKUpP5A SERIES OVERVIEW: Imagine it’s 50 AD, and you are riding your camel. You’re headed up to Jerusalem from Galilee, and you’ve lost all your favorite Galilean radio stations. It’s a long ride without tunes, and so you flip the dial to see what you can find. Suddenly, a station comes in loud and clear. . . . “It’s 10 o’clock, and you’re listening to FM 108, ‘all James all the time—all wisdom all the time—all Messiah all the time.’ You might even say, ‘all Sermon on the Mount—all the time.’ And you’re not just listening to some Johnny-come-lately station either. We were the very first. On the air since the mid 40’s. We were there from the beginning to get you to where you want to go. So, sit back

Starting Points

Starting Points

Roger Ebert once said, “It’s not what a movie is about, it’s how it is about it.” Well, this is how it is. Few movies in my childhood affected me more than the classic, The Incredible Shrinking Man. You will never guess what it is about! While out on a boat, a man gets drenched by a mysterious sea mist; and then, as (bad) luck would have it, a few days later he gets sprayed by some insecticide. As a result, he starts shrinking . . . incredibly. First, his clothes don’t fit; then, he is living in a dollhouse; then, he ends up in an epic life-and-death duel with a spider (he ends up stabbing it with a pin that he uses as a sword). And in the end, he shrinks into nothingness. But even as he shrunk into oblivion, he had a religious epiphany. The quote of the

First Mission: Find Joy in Trials

First Mission: Find Joy in Trials

This sermon is based on James 1:2-18. You can also view each week's sermon/worship service on our YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5ncsq_QNvCv61bIwKUpP5A SERIES OVERVIEW: Imagine it’s 50 AD, and you are riding your camel. You’re headed up to Jerusalem from Galilee, and you’ve lost all your favorite Galilean radio stations. It’s a long ride without tunes, and so you flip the dial to see what you can find. Suddenly, a station comes in loud and clear. . . . “It’s 10 o’clock, and you’re listening to FM 108, ‘all James all the time—all wisdom all the time—all Messiah all the time.’ You might even say, ‘all Sermon on the Mount—all the time.’ And you’re not just listening to some Johnny-come-lately station either. We were the very first. On the air since the mid 40’s. We were there from the beginning to get you to where you want to go. So, sit back

No Easy Task

No Easy Task

For my birthday last year, Jo gave me a great gift. She volunteered me to help Sherlock Holmes, which I gladly did. And you can, too. When you subscribe to “DearHolmes.com,” Sherlock will send you a letter each week from someone in need. Your job is to find the clues in the correspondence and solve the mystery. At the end of every month, Sherlock himself writes to the victim and reveals who did what and why so that you can check your suspicions. I solved three cases. I caught the vacuum cleaner crook, closed the case of the abducted attaché case, and discovered why desperadoes were digging in the dining room. It was great fun, but I like deciphering what clues mean, solving problems and understanding how things fit together. Perhaps, that is why I am so driven to talk about how to interpret and “piece together” the Bible’s meaning.

The Story of James

The Story of James

This sermon introduces our series and is based on James 1:1-12. You can also view each week's sermon/worship service on our YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5ncsq_QNvCv61bIwKUpP5A SERIES OVERVIEW: Imagine it’s 50 AD, and you are riding your camel. You’re headed up to Jerusalem from Galilee, and you’ve lost all your favorite Galilean radio stations. It’s a long ride without tunes, and so you flip the dial to see what you can find. Suddenly, a station comes in loud and clear. . . . “It’s 10 o’clock, and you’re listening to FM 108, ‘all James all the time—all wisdom all the time—all Messiah all the time.’ You might even say, ‘all Sermon on the Mount—all the time.’ And you’re not just listening to some Johnny-come-lately station either. We were the very first. On the air since the mid 40’s. We were there from the beginning to get you to where you want to

Sola Scriptura

Sola Scriptura

Today’s topic: things that sounded great until afterwards. Here are some actual newspaper headlines that meant well, but went badly. Diana Was Still Alive Hours Before She Died Police Say Man with No Arms and No Legs is Armed and on the Run Bugs Flying Around with Wings are Flying Bugs Homicide Victims Rarely Talk to Police Statistics Show that Teen Pregnancy Drops off Significantly After Age 25 Federal Agents Raid Gun Shop, Find Weapons One of the great doctrines of the Reformation was Sola Scriptura. It sounded like such a good doctrine, but then something went askew. Sola Scriptura says that we are bound, not to councils, traditions or any opinions of men, but only to Scripture. Hence, Sola Scriptura, Scripture Alone. The Westminster Confession of Faith (1:6) says it this way (I’ve underlines the important parts): The whole counsel of God concerning all things necessary for His own

Perspicuity Could Be Clearer

Perspicuity Could Be Clearer

Let me be clear, comedian Steven Wright is either very clear or very confusing. At least, I think so. But maybe you better decide for yourself. Here are some well-known Steven Wright questions/queries that I think are clearly important. For instance: “Why isn’t the word ‘phonetically’ spelled with an ‘F’?” “What’s another word for ‘Thesaurus’?” “If people from Poland are called Poles, why aren’t people from Holland called Holes?” “Do Lipton employees take coffee breaks?” “Why are there five syllables in the word monosyllabic?” “How come abbreviated is such a long word?” Let me be clear, The Westminster Confession of Faith’s doctrine of Scripture is either very clear or very confusing. You decide. Here is the Confession’s statement in 1:7: “All things in Scripture are not alike plain in themselves, nor alike clear unto all. Yet, those things that are necessary to be known, believed, and observed for salvation are

The Unexpected Promise

The Unexpected Promise

This sermon concludes our series and is based on Jeremiah 31:23-34. You can also view each week's sermon/worship service on our YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5ncsq_QNvCv61bIwKUpP5A SERIES OVERVIEW: Predictable, predictable, predictable—Christmas has become way too predictable. You’re going to run around too much, spend too much and eat too much. There are going to be Christmas cookies (never enough), Christmas carols (just right) and ugly Christmas sweaters (way, way too many). You’re going to watch at least one Christmas movie (“Merry Christmas, you wonderful old Building and Loan!”) and one Christmas special (“Maybe Christmas doesn’t come from a store. Maybe Christmas means a little bit more.”). And I could go on, but you get the point. Christmas has become predictable, predictable, predictable—which is odd because the first Christmas was anything but predictable. In fact, it was totally unexpected in almost every way (let’s be honest, it was more than that, it was