Good morning and welcome to you on this Pentecost morning. Pentecost is the Sunday in the church calendar where we remember the pouring out of the Holy Spirit upon the church. The name comes from the fact that it took place on the biblical feast of Pentecost, fifty days after the Passover. This morning, we…
Father, open our ears to hear your Word. Open our hearts to receive it. Open our mouths to speak it. In Jesus’ name, Amen. When I was sixteen, I went to church camp for a week during the summer. It was a camp I loved, the very place where a year before God had called…
Say these words after me: All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, reproof, correction, and training in righteousness. Again, All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, reproof, correction, and training in righteousness. In this passage, 2 Timothy 3:16, God proclaims that every word of Scripture is breathed of God and all…
Words go in and out of fashion like everything else, but there are some that we can be grateful that people do not use anymore. A long time ago, when I was a teenager, if you didn’t like something or thought it wasn’t too good, you might say that it was ‘whack.’ Yes, whack. W-H-A-C-K.…
A prayer on reading Micah 1 Sovereign Lord, we long for your coming, but we are not ready. You come in your mountain melting, valley splitting, holy presence, but we are unprepared. We, who gather weekly – daily – to praise your name find ourselves trembling before your majesty. We want you tame and docile, We…
[This sermon was originally preached on Sunday, December 13, 2015] This Advent, we are listening together to the message of John, son of Zechariah, better known as John the Baptist. Each of the four gospels begin with John – the message and the mission of the man crying out in the wilderness. Only after we…
But go tell his disciples and Peter, ‘He is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you. (Mark 16:7) It wasn’t until last night, sitting around a table studying this passage with fellow disciples of Jesus, that I noticed the angel’s phrase in this verse. ‘Go tell…
He [Peter] began to call down curses and he swore to them, “I don’t know this man you are talking about.” Immediately the rooster crowed the second time. Then Peter remembered the word Jesus had spoken to him, “Before the rooster crows twice, you will disown me three times.” And he broke down and wept.…
And he cried out, “Forty days more and Nineveh will be overthrown.” And the people of Nineveh believed God; they proclaimed a fast and everyone, great and small, put on sackcloth. (Jonah 3:4b-5) Jonah 3 is a reboot of the first chapter, but with one major variation: Jonah’s obedience. God told to Jonah to go…
