Who Am I?

Yesterday was the Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost.  The Scripture lessons for the day included Exodus 3:1-15; Psalm 105:1-6, 23-26, 45c; Romans 12:9-21; and Matthew 16:21-28.  I preached from the Old Testament passage which tells the story of Moses' encounter with God at the burning bush.

The Lord moved among us and blessed the reading and proclamation of the Word.  The audio of the sermon, Who Am I?, can be found here.  -  I pray that God might use it to encourage and challenge you!

(The Scripture lessons for next Sunday are: Exodus 12:1-14; Psalm 148 & 149; Romans 13:8-14; Matthew 18:15-20)

God in Dark Days

This past Sunday, the Eleventh Sunday After Pentecost, I preached from the Old Testament lesson, Genesis 45:1-15.  It was the latter part of the Joseph story.  My sermon title was "God in Dark Days."  You can listen to the audio of the sermon preached at Heartland Church of the Nazarene by clicking, here.

(Other audio, and some video, recordings of sermons can be found on that same page.)

Perfect People Welcome!

I'm sure that many of you have heard the slogan, just as I have.  In fact, just the other day, again, I was looking at a church that we were thinking about attending during our upcoming vacation, and there it was; that slogan:  "No Perfect People Allowed."

Well, a few weeks ago, I was preaching from Jesus' Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5:39-48.  And in this sermon, I take issue with that slogan.  You see, it's not a slogan that fits with the good news of the Gospel, and it certainly ought not be found in any Wesleyan/Methodist Church.

Since, I'm just discovering how to move one of our sermon videos from the Heartland Church to my blog (I'm not very tech savvy!), I thought this would be a good place to start.  -  In the future, I may try to post my weekly sermons, and perhaps even go back to include some that I have preached in the recent past.  (Perhaps the one on Baptism of the Lord Sunday would fit this blog's emphasis, well.)  -  In any case, I hope that this sermon ministers to you!  -  "Perfect People Welcome!"

Still A Holiness Preacher

Way back in August of 1992 (on the 22nd, to be exact), during our wedding ceremony, one of the pastors officiating the ceremony commented to my bride, "You're marrying a holiness preacher."  (For those not familiar with that kind of terminology, I was, at that time, a licensed minister and in seminary studying to be a pastor in the Church of the Nazarene.  The Church of the Nazarene was born in the "Holiness Movement" within Methodism and is the largest of the Wesleyan-holiness denominations.)

Several years have come and gone since that day.  I am now pastoring Centenary United Methodist Church in New Albany, IN.  (My elders orders are still in the Church of the Nazarene.)  And my wife is still married to "a holiness preacher."

There is much more to preaching "holiness" than just focusing on the doctrine and experience of Entire Sanctification or Christian Perfection.  Nevertheless, that is an important aspect of it.  And this past Sunday, the lectionary passage for the Gospel provided a great opportunity to preach on that very subject. The passage comes from Matthew 5:43-48, which ends with Jesus saying, "Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect."

This is one of my favorite "holiness passages" to preach from.  (It is actually the text that I preached from when I won the Corlett Holiness Sermon Award as a Senior at Nazarene Theological Seminary, way back in 1994.)

To go along with the sermon, we opened with (and then included, again, after the sermon with the Prayers of the People) the Collect of Purity:  "Almighty God, unto whom all hearts are open, all desires known, and from whom no secrets are hid; cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of thy Holy Spirit, that we may perfectly love thee, and worthily magnify thy holy Name, through Christ our Lord.  Amen."

That prayer truly encapselates the "holiness message."  In fact, I believe it was P.F. Bresee (the primary founder of the Church of the Nazarene) who once said to some Episcopalians (something like), "Why do you consider it strange that we, Nazarenes, claim that God actually hears and answers the prayer that you pray every Sunday?"

We also sang Charles Wesley's, "Love Divine, All Loves Excelling" and a chorus titled, "A Perfect Heart."  We concluded with Wesley's, "Jesus Thine All-victorious Love," and St. Paul's benediction in 1 Thessalonians 5:23-24.

My sermon title was, "Nobody's Perfect . . . Are They?"  For those interested, you can listen to it at our church's website, here.

(Let me say that, when I first start, a person in the congregation corrects me on the particular movie that I am about to reference.  Also, we had a problem with the microphone in the midst of the sermon.  I do not know if that caused a problem in the recording.)