Sermon Video: Cain's descendants go their own way - Genesis 4:17-24

In the first of several explorations of the branches of Adam's family tree that do not lead to Abraham and the 12 sons of Jacob, Genesis takes a look at the descendants of Cain.  In the text they build a city, develops its culture, and even a form of case law.  All this to say, they do what mankind apart from a covenantal relationship is able to do and that's not a small thing because we are all made in God's image.  However, as Genesis will show again and again, the branches that are not a part of the upcoming covenant lack one key and insurmountable thing: a relationship with God.  Without God's grace, they lack the means of redemption, thus this passage serves as a reminder to us all of the necessity of God's grace.

Sermon Video: God is merciful, even to the murderer Cain - Genesis 4:8-16

It is well known that Cain killed his brother Abel, what is less well understood is that God showed incredible mercy to Cain when he confronted Cain afterwards. God could have struck Cain down in righteous wrath, ending his life right there, he had earned that punishment. Instead God chose to show mercy, an act of grace that reminds us that all of us who have come to know Christ as our Savior are the recipients of tremendous grace.

Sermon Video: Cain: "sin is crouching at your door" - Genesis 4:1-7

The story of God's involvement with humanity continues in Genesis with the children of Adam and Eve: Cain and Abel. Cain's experience is a powerful lesson on both the reality of sin's tempting power, AND the ability we have (with God's help) to overcome it. Cain could have taken God's correction to heart, he could have learned from his mistake, but he chose anger instead, he chose to indulge sin. We need not follow in his footsteps.

Sermon Video: The Fall: Consequences, Genesis 3:7-24

Following the decision by Eve and Adam to disobey God, the narrative of Genesis explains the multi-pronged consequences of that action, including: guilt, shame, fear, increased pain and toil in life, and ultimately the most damaging consequence in the loss of direct fellowship with God.  That things have changed, and can't be remedied by humanity, is illustrated by the removal of Adam and Eve from the Garden.

Sermon Video: The Fall: Temptation and Rebellion, Genesis 3:1-6

When consider the Fall, the more important thing the text of Genesis is not how it happened, but why.  The why is straight-forward: autonomy.  Adam and Eve could have remained as they were, serving God in sacred space in a priestly function as our representatives, they could have continued to receive from God life and wisdom, but they chose instead a faux-independence on the false premise that things would be better if they went their own way.

Every generation since Adam and Eve has confirmed this choice, humanity continues to choose autonomy over obedience, the path of death and self-destruction over the path of submission that leads to life.

Sermon Video: In the Garden of Eden - Genesis 2:4-17

A look at the Garden of Eden from the perspective of what it would have meant to the ancient Israelites (it owes much to Professor John's Walton's, The Lost World of Adam and Eve), it isn't the same as what most of us were taught.  Adam and Eve are real people, but are they the only people that were alive at the time?  Also, why is the Garden a paradise, what makes it that way, and what does this have to do with human mortality?  The answers offered are not dogmatic, simply an attempt to understand this text as it was originally intended.

Sermon Video: God Rest When His Work is Done - Genesis 2:1-3

What does it mean that God "rested" when his work of Creation was completed?  The idea of completion is key to understanding the idea of Sabbath.  God "rested" because the Temple of his Creation was fully formed and functioning thus setting the stage for God to sit upon the throne of heaven and begin his rule over what he had made.  It is in that vein that Jesus fulfills the Sabbath (and the whole Law of Moses) by completing God's work of redemption, after which he ascended at sat down at the right hand of the Father, thus also indicating that the final victory was forever won.

How do we "rest" by honoring God as Gentile Christians?  We let go of our own vain belief in our independence and accept that God is fully and completely in control, that his will for us is perfect, and that he will finish the work that he began in us on the other side of death.  In other words, we can rest any time of any day by fully trusting in God.

Sermon Video: We are made in God's image - Genesis 1:26-31

At the culmination of Genesis' Creation account, God pauses to explain that his creation of humanity will differ from all the other living things that have come before, for this living thing will be made in the very image of God.  What does this mean?  The implications are plentiful but they include: (1) We are intimately connected to God, (2) equal to every other human who has ever lived, (3) and qualitatively more important than all the other living things that we have been tasked with stewardship over.  In addition, we owe our creativity, delight in beauty, logic, and ethics to the way in which God created us.

Sermon Video: Creation is God's Temple - Genesis 1:3-25

The Creation narrative in Genesis 1 accomplishes two primary things, both for ancient Israel and for the Church today, it tells us who is responsible for everything, and why what was made was made.  The who is simple, the answer is God, nobody else is involved in the Creation account.  The why has a two-fold answer: (1) to be God's temple: his kingdom, abode, and resting place, and (2) to foster the relationship between God and man.  The second task is accomplished thanks to the wonder and awe associated with what God has made, a variety with purpose and beauty that causes us to ask, "Who was it that made it thus?"

Sermon Video: In the beginning God - Genesis 1:1-2

Why did Moses write Genesis 1-3, and why did the Holy Spirit inspire him to do so?  The answer to that question isn't to satisfy modern Western reader's desires to know how and when God created, but rather to speak to the Ancient Near Eastern culture's thirst for the answer to the questions of who and why.  In the end, that's what Genesis will give us because it is about the relationship between God and humanity, and ultimately between God and his chosen people.  For them, the who was the same God who had led them up out of Egypt to Sinai, and the why they already were experiencing as God laid forth his covenant with them, building on the covenant with Abraham.

Is the earth 6,000 years old or 6 billion?  That's not a question Genesis is trying to answer.  Did God use evolutionary processes or not?  That's not on its radar either.  What we do find in Genesis 1-3 is the foundation to answer the most important questions of life: Who am I?  Why am I here?

Sermon Video: With Jesus on the road to Emmaus - Luke 24:13-35

What did Jesus do on the afternoon of Easter Sunday?  As it turns out, he took a walk with two of his disciples and spent a few hours explaining to them how the Hebrew prophets of old had predicted everything that would happen to the Messiah, including his suffering and death.  As we celebrate Easter, let us remember our need to share this Good News with those who need it most.

Our video feed wasn't ended as usual when the sermon concluded, so this video also includes my prayer for Israel and Gaza and our final hymn.

Sermon Video - Jesus celebrates God's provision with his friends, Luke 22:14-15

What did Jesus seek out on the evening when his Passion was only hours away?   The company of his friends and devoted followers.  More specifically, their company while they celebrated together God's provision for his people in the past through the Passover, a reminder that God's power and purpose will not be thwarted.

Sermon Video: Jesus weeps over Jerusalem - Luke 19:41-44

On the very day of his triumphal entry into Jerusalem, with his own Passion less than a week away, Jesus pauses on the road to weep over the coming fate of Jerusalem.  The irony of Jesus' tears is that it didn't have to be this way, the path of peace was available to God's covenant people, if only they had recognized him as their Messiah and heeded his message.  This then offers a lesson for the Church today, reminding us of our need to hear God's voice and humbly accept correction (as needed).

Sermon Video: The cause of Peter's bitter tears, Luke 22:54-62

Peter's denial of Jesus is famous, in part because all 4 Gospel accounts cover this low-point of the Apostle's life. But what caused Peter to shed bitter tears? How did he get to that point, what were the steps along the way? Importantly, what can we learn from Peter's experience?

Sermon Video: The anguished prayer of Jesus before his Passion - Luke 22:39-46

In the hours before his Passion began, with less than a day before his agonizing death on the Cross, Jesus spent intentional time alone in prayer.  That he made this choice is a powerful example to us, as is what he prayed for: deliverance.  It wasn't going to come, it couldn't, for only Jesus could complete the plan of Redemption as the God/Man, but Jesus asked anyway.  Why?  Not because he was anything less than fully God, he asked because he was also fully human.  The wondrous mystery of the Incarnation here reminds us that Jesus felt the anxiety of the road ahead, as any person would, and yet his divinity ensured that this moment would also include an iron commitment to what was needed to save humanity.

Sermon Video: Ending Romans with a loud, "Amen!" - Romans 16:25-27

In the benediction to his letter to the church at Rome, the Apostle Paul reminds his readers of God's marvelous Gospel, of the grace given in this generation through the coming of Jesus Christ who brought salvation to all the people of the world by faith.

Sermon Video: Keep away from those who teach a false gospel - Romans 16:17-20

The Apostle Paul takes a brief tangent from his closing greetings to warn the church at Rome about the likelihood that divisive false teachers will tempt them with a gospel contrary to that which they had received.  Throughout Church History we have seen those who proclaim a gospel that differs from that which is proclaimed in God's Word, Paul's advice to the Roman Church of his day and to the Church today is the same: keep away from them.

This is not, however, a message of anxiety or fear from Paul, on the contrary his next sentence proclaims both his faith in the church and in God's impending victory.  This then gives us context as we guard against false teaching, we must do so with confident hope in the outcome, for God's message of salvation will never fail.

Sermon Video: The team of servants every church needs, Romans 16,1-16,21-23

The Apostle Paul shares the large team, highlighting the crucial role of numerous women, that helped him accomplish the task that the Lord had assigned to him of founding local churches and building them up in the image of Christ.  It is also encouraging to see how much affection that Paul feels toward these co-workers, for him they truly are friends.

The Church today can learn powerful lessons from Paul's experience, lessons about teamwork, mutual respect and affection, and friendship within the Christian community.

Sermon Video: Sharing spiritual and material blessings, Romans 15:25-33

To the church at Rome the Apostle Paul explains why he is on his way to Jerusalem with a gift designed to help relieve the poverty of the Jewish Christian in Judea that he had collected from the Gentile Christians of the churches he had founded.  Why did this matter so much to him?  Paul had hopes that he could keep the Church united around its shared Lord and squelch the divisions of ethnicity and culture.  Why were they willing to give?  Gratitude.  They knew how great the spiritual blessings they have received from God, given through the Jewish Christian community, really was, and these first generation Gentile Christians were glad to be able to give a material blessing in return.

Sermon Video: Paul prefers to boldly go where no one has gone before - Romans 15:17-24

After giving glory to God for the success of his ministry thus far, the Apostle Paul explains to the church in Rome that his previous hesitancy to visit them came from his own conviction that God wanted him to take the Gospel to places where Jesus was unknown.  After decades of doing this, now Paul is planning to visit the church at Rome on his way to another new frontier for the Gospel: Spain.