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Sunday Sermon

Watching God Isaiah 60:4 “Look around you. People are gathering and coming to you. Your sons are coming from far away, and your daughters are coming with them. Growing up my dad was an excavator and during the summer his three sons helped in his work. We all learned how to use a shovel properly and became very proficient in the use of that tool. Building things takes a degree of precision and so we learned how to keep the hole we were working in on grade. Those days were filled with hard work but it was worth it because we learned things and we helped in the process of building something. To this day there are buildings that I pass by that I can say I had a part in building that place and it is a good feeling. When I think how I feel about being a part of the building process it makes me think of how God feels about creation and what it means to Him. Our God is a God who builds which is such powerful thing. Often we do not spend much time thinking about creating things but th...
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Sunday Sermon

  Shine Like a Light Isaiah 60:2 Darkness now covers the earth; deep darkness covers her people. But the Lord shines on you, and people see his glory around you. One of the things that God calls people to and be and I think that in popular culture the enemy has built a lie around is to be discriminating. We have a God who is discriminating and that means God looks at things and says yes this is good and that is bad. This is called judgement and having good judgement used to be a good thing. To be able to distinguish between what is healthy and what is unhealthy is not a bad thing but a very positive thing and we as believers in the living God hang our hope in a God who has good judgement. I do have to admit that I used to fear God’s judgement and it scared me to think that I was not what I should be but my mind has changed on the subject. God’s judgement is the greatest hope we have and we should embrace God’s discernment because we are lost people if we don’t. Thinking abo...
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Sunday Sermon

  The Nature of God Isaiah 59:17 He covered himself with goodness like armor. He put the helmet of salvation on his head. He put on his clothes for punishing and wrapped himself in the coat of his strong love. One of the struggles we have as believers in the living God is understanding what our faith is all about. It is so easy to make our faith about religious practices because we can do those and then move on but our faith is so much more then a religion. At the same time if we get our faith right religious practices can help us in our worship and service of God. So I don’t want to reject religious acts, I just want them in the right place. Faith in God is also not centered on obedience. Don’t get me wrong God teaches us about the concepts and ideas of how the universe works and when we reject those things our faith will not be what it should be but obedience is a result of our faith not the thing that makes our faith. Our hope in Jesus flows from the nature of God and s...
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Sunday Sermon

  The State of Man Isaiah 59:10 We are like the blind feeling our way along a wall. We feel our way as if we had no eyes. In the brightness of day we trip as if it were night. We are like dead men among the strong. My five-year-old granddaughter has become horse crazy. For her birthday Debbie and I bought her horse toys and she loved it. Because of my hobby I have lots of horse models and this little one has discovered them. One day she and I went through every box of figures I own to look for any horses and we found dozens. She was so pleased to know I had all of these figures and now she comes down to play with my horse figures and she wants to build more and even paint some. I love that I get to spend time with her doing something we both enjoy but she does not know that I am also using this time with her to teach her. Of course we do math and we work on reading but I also speak to her about faith and what it means. It is important that she lean how to become a woman ...
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Sunday Sermon

  God is Sad Isaiah 59:8 They don’t know how to live in peace, and there is no fairness in their lives. They are dishonest. Anyone who lives as they live will never have peace. The current book of the Bible that has caught my attention is the book of Jonah because it speaks to how God works in people’s lives to bring healing. It really frustrates me that people only think of this book because of the big fish and they do not grasp what a powerful and wonderful book it is. God tells Jonah to go and tell the city of Nineveh that God has decided to destroy the city because of how evil it is. We need to know that this judgement by God is right. Nineveh is the capital city of the Assyrian Empire and that empire has built its wealth and power by stealing other people riches and leaving people to starve and die. For some reason, we are not told Jonah holds a level of anger for Nineveh that is not healthy. Because of this anger God calls Jonah to go and to tell the judgement of God....
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Seige Towers

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Suinday Sermon

  Evil Isaiah 59:1-2 1 Surely the Lord’s power is enough to save you. He can hear you when you ask him for help. 2 It is your evil that has separated you from your God. Your sins cause him to turn away from you, so he does not hear you. The greatest event in all of history is the entry of Jesus Christ into the world. There is nothing that compares to this single moment in time. Jesus is both God and human at that same time and so we have God who lives a fully human life knowing the joy of human life and the suffering. I have talked about how the birth of Jesus has a sad side effect for me that we do not think about very often but nags at me on a regular basis because I know that Jesus has come to deal with my sin. It breaks me that God has to die because of my sin but that also makes me aware of my sin and my need for God to save me. Jesus dying on the cross is the most tragic event in history but is also the greatest statement about who God is and how God works. As power...
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