Sermon Video - Judas: The Hopeless Sinner, Matthew 27:1-10

Peter disowned Jesus, repented of his failure with bitter tears, saw the empty tomb and believed, and was finally restored by Jesus and made useful again for the kingdom.  Judas betrayed Jesus, was remorseful and admitted his guilt, despaired of the future, and killed himself.  Have you ever wondered, why Peter's outcome was so different from that of Judas?  In the Gospel of Matthew, these two episodes are consecutive, highlighting the commonalities of the failure of these two disciples of Jesus.  In the end, the attempted repentance of Judas, for all we can tell sincere, failed because he didn't seek mercy and forgiveness from God, instead giving in to hopelessness and committing suicide. 
Hopelessness is a major issue in our world, it always has been, the numbers of suicides annually are staggering.  So many people without hope, and yet, the Church has hope, we have been given hope through the Holy Spirit and can therefore share that hope with those around us in desperate need.  The priests turned Judas away when he expressed his remorse saying, "What is that to us?"  May the people of God, his Church here on earth, not make the same mistake.  It is our solemn duty to make it easier, not harder, for the Lost to find Christ, helping those living in darkness to see the light.

To watch the video, click on the link below:

Sermon Video: Peter Disowns Jesus - Matthew 26:69-75

In a well known and dramatic trio of confrontations, the Apostle Peter, formerly the most vocal and brash of Jesus' disciples, fails to acknowledge Jesus as his friend, rabbi, or Lord, when challenged by bystanders during Jesus' sham trial before the Sanhedrin.  Each of Peter's denials increases in their fervency, from his initial attempt at pretending to not understand the question, to a denial containing an oath, and then finally a denial backed up with the calling down of a curse if he should be lying.  In many ways, the experience of Peter parallels that of so many people who have followed a road of temptation into sin, each step of the way increasing the severity of the rebellion against God and the eventual guilt.  The Gospel of Matthew doesn't mention Peter again, but fortunately for Peter and for us, his story doesn't end with Peter outside weeping bitterly.  The Gospel of John contains the fullest account before Peter's central role in the book of Acts, in it Jesus repeats to Peter three times, "Do you love me?" as a means of restoring Peter's confidence that he was not permanently damaged by his failure, that passage ends with Jesus sharing with Peter a command filled with both love and service, "Follow me!".  Peter didn't fail his Lord in the future, he served the church faithfully for about thirty years, eventually affirming his faith in Jesus during Nero's anti-Christian purge, and in the end, dying for the Savior he had once denied.

To watch the video, click on the link below:

Sermon Video: Jesus Fortifies himself with prayer - Matthew 28:36-46

With his own final trial less than twenty-four hours away, Jesus purposefully leads his disciples from the room where they had just finished celebrating the Passover, outside of Jerusalem to a garden where he intends to spend time in fervent prayer.  Before the humiliation, physical pain, and spiritual turmoil began, Jesus chose to spend time with both his friends and his Heavenly Father.  Prayer would fortify Jesus each step of the way from the Gethsemane to Calvary, a path he would walk alone, but one he prepared himself for with those he loved.

We all pray when in a crisis, and we should, but what we ought to be doing as well is praying before we're faced with trouble.  We will, as Christians, face things in our lives that will test us to our limits, our faith will be put to the test, the question for us is: What will we do to strengthen that faith beforehand?  For Jesus, the answer was clear: Prayer with the Father.  Even though Jesus came into the world for the very day that was beginning, the prospect of bearing the world's sin upon his should must have been excruciating, not to mention the torture of a crucifixion itself.  It was necessary, then, for Jesus to use prayer to strengthen his resolve to conform to his Father's will.  If Jesus himself considered prayer to be a necessity, should not we as well?

To watch the video, click on the link below:

If I say anything about guns...

As a minister of the Gospel, if I say anything about guns, whichever side I take, half of you will no longer listen to my proclamation of the Word of God.  You will dismiss me as either a socialist or a fascist, and allow your opinion about guns to taint what I say about anything else.  The same danger exists if I say anything about abortion, taxes, immigration, gay marriage, or whichever hot button issue next consumes our political consciousness.  As a minister of the Gospel, I take my oath to proclaim the saving grace of God in Jesus Christ seriously, very seriously, it is the most important idea that I could share with anyone, anywhere.  That being said, I've made no secret of my own decision to self-limit my public comments upon the political/culture war issues, precisely because I don't want to allow anything else to affect the ability of others to hear the Gospel.  There are limited exceptions, when a public issue impinges upon the Church itself, or the discussion at hand is what the Bible itself teaches about an issue, I have no issue with weighing in; hopefully in a constructive and God-honoring way.

Last March I saw firsthand the danger of treading close to this political read line when I wrote a post entitled, "God loves you too much to ignore your sexuality".  In that post, I wrote about God's perspective on human sexuality, not about American laws or politics, focusing upon sexual sin as defined in God's Word in both its heterosexual and homosexual forms, but one comment that I saw in response to my post was, "I used to respect this pastor until I read this..."  Although I was able through conversation to repair that impression, and I think keep that individual from ignoring my words in the future, it pointed to the grave danger facing pastors and Christian apologists all over America today, when we involve ourselves in anything remotely political, half of the audience are hearing our words with their own political rose colored glasses, and the other half are plugging up their ears in disgust.

What does it say of Christians, and those purporting to be Christians, that so many of them are willing to place their devotion to political issues above the Gospel, the Word of God, and the men and women called by God to proclaim it?  It says we're in grave danger as a Church.  There is no such thing as a Republican Church and a Democrat Church, but we've fooled ourselves into thinking that God's Church is really so limited, that God is on our side, whichever one that is, and against their side, that the issues advocated by our politicians are 100% Christian, and those advocated by their politicians are inspired by the devil.  We've cheapened the Church, cheapened the Gospel, and fooled ourselves into thinking Christ died only for people like us.  I say we have done this because it is so widespread in the Church today, I hope that I and my church are free of this disease; I've striven to keep my own mind free of it, and to keep such partisanship out of our congregation, but I'm not proud enough or naive enough to think that it could not infect my own mind or my church in the future.

When Pope Francis spoke out against the danger of the love of money and the need for God's people to have compassion upon the poor, he was branded a communist by loud-mouthed political pundits, and that antipathy toward the Pope was cheered by many Christians.  The problem here is, the Bible absolutely says that the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil and demands of God's people that they show compassion to those in need.  The only way to justify condemning such concerns from Pope Francis is through either anti-Catholic bias (i.e. condemn the message because we hate the messenger) or a rejection of what the Church, and Israel before it, have preached (if not always followed) for the past 3,500 years.  

We should not be overly surprised by such things, however, when Jesus declined to choose sides in the contentious issue of his day regarding the paying of taxes to Rome, it only angered further those who wanted to use him for their own narrow purposes, or condemn him based upon his politics.  Throughout the Gospels, Jesus remained focused upon his mission, the one thing that he needed to do that nobody else could, not allowing himself to be distracted by today's issues when eternity was at stake.

If I tell you what I think should be done about school shootings and other gun violence, half of you will no longer listen when I proclaim the Gospel.

If I tell you what I think America's immigration policy should be, half of you will no longer hear me when I proclaim the Word of God.

And so I hold back, not because I don't have the right to my opinions, not because I can't ground my opinions in Christian theology and a Christian worldview, but for your sake because you NEED to hear the Gospel from God's Word far more than you need to hear my political opinions, whether you agree with them or not.

The Church in America has lost Billy Graham, but doesn't seem to have a replacement

The man who preached in person to 100 million people the straightforward message of the Gospel during his 99 years has passed on to his reward, Billy Graham is no longer here, and it seems like the Church has nobody to replace him.  The combination of bedrock Gospel presentation with an apolitical attitude has gone out of favor among most of the preachers that you've heard of today.  Some have abandoned the Gospel of the Apostles, favoring either a version that demotes Jesus from being the Son of God and thus robs the message of its transforming power, or a version that distracts from Jesus with a focus upon wealth and prosperity, once again robbing the message of its trans-formative power.  Other preachers have retained their preaching of the Gospel, but have wedded that presentation so closely with the culture wars and their own support for (even unabashed support for, and excusing of, non-repentant sinners as "Christian leaders") politicians and political causes that they're only preaching to the choir, no longer able to be heard by the half or more of America that disagrees with the political party they've anointed as God's own.  Sadly, even Billy Graham's own son, Franklin, has fallen victim to this trend, having become a political cheerleader whose presentation of the Gospel is now weighed alongside his political pronouncements by those who need to hear the undiluted message of the Cross.

Can you imagine a popular preacher today who has the courage to maintain and defend the Gospel AND the kindness of heart and humility to minister to both Republican and Democratic presidents, or even just Republican and Democratic members of a congregation?  It may be a while before we see another preacher like Billy Graham, but our nation sure could use that voice sooner rather than later.