God’s Word

/Tag:God's Word
­

June 2019

“For Fathers and More: The Bible on Raising Children”/Exodus 13: 3-6, 8-10, 14; Mark 10:13-16; Ephesians 6:1-4/Rev. Rodger Allen/6-16-19

By |June 18th, 2019|Sermons|

The statistics—the numbers—that you are about to hear are a little dated, but newer sources that I read this week say that little has changed in the past ten years, so I’m going to go ahead and run them by you: A father in Japan . . . spends an average time each day with his children. . . of 17 minutes. 17 minutes per day. “That statistic,” said the original article, “which is printed on government-sponsored posters aimed at getting men to do more at home, touched off a round of finger-pointing between the sexes in Japan. (Another poster has the caption) ‘A man who does not help in child-rearing cannot be called a father.’ ‘That is not true,’ responds Noboru Yamada, a banker and father of two children. ‘We just don’t have time.’ When his children were young, he continues, he changed a diaper . . . about every six months, and spent more than a few minutes a day with his kids ‘once every ten days or two weeks.’” And that’s OK, in his mind. I wonder what kind of Father’s Day gifts he’ll be getting today. […]

Read More
 0

“Living Generously Begins with Trust”/Matt. 6: 19-21, 24; I Tim. 6: 17b; I Cor. 8:1-7/Rev. Rodger Allen/6-2-19

By |June 10th, 2019|Sermons|

             As our Stewardship Committee has  presented to you in the past, we have become convinced of the wisdom of a “year-round stewardship program,” as opposed to one or two Sundays in the Fall, talking about only pledge cards. Stewardship, of course, is about much more than pledge cards; it incorporates use of our talents, our time, our church building and other resources, care of creation . . . And we want to use all those responsibly throughout the year – so we don’t think about “stewardship,” here, only on each second Sunday of November. Our stewardship theme for this year, as readers of our church newsletter know, thanks to Steve Blair, is “Living Generously Begins with Trust”- yes, same as today’s sermon title. And the foundational Bible verse for this year is Second Corinthians 8:7: “But just as you excel in everything . . . in faith, in speech, in knowledge, in complete earnestness and in your love for us . . . see that you also excel in this grace of giving.” […]

Read More
 0

May 2019

“Growing in Faith”/Hebrews 5: 11-6:1Acts 16: 1-5/Rev. Rodger Allen/5-26-19

By |May 30th, 2019|Sermons|

Bible passages from the book of Acts are recommended for our consideration each year at this time. After Jesus’ resurrection on Easter and his ascension into heaven forty days later, his disciples started telling his story and sharing his teachings, to people in and beyond Jerusalem, eventually resulting in the formation of Christian churches. So on the Sundays following Easter, we often review the stories of their doing that – and those stories are found in the book of Acts. One thing the book of Acts emphasizes is that the early church grew, as the story of Jesus was told. It grew in numbers, and it grew in faith. “Growing in numbers” is a concept we pretty easily understand, though it’s not quite as easy a thing to actually do as we would like. “Growing in faith” is a little more ambiguous phrase: what all does it mean, to “grow in faith”? […]

Read More
 0

“God Loves Basket Cases”/Exodus 2:1-10; Acts 9: 20-25/Jeanette Levellie/5-19-19 

By |May 15th, 2019|Sermons|

My favorite prayer is “Help Me, Jesus!” The reason for this is that I often find myself in situations for which I have no answers, or my solutions aren’t working. I start to worry, or maybe I let myself get stressed, yielding to the lie that it’s all up to me to solve my problems. I become a Basket Case. The dictionary defines a basket case as “a person or thing regarded as useless or unable to cope; or someone that is in a completely hopeless situation.” The Urban dictionary says a person is a basket case when she has no solution to a problem she’s given. […]

Read More
 0

“What Do We Do with the Book of Revelation?/”Rev. 1:4-8; Rev. 21:1-5/Rev. Rodger Allen/5-12-19 

By |May 14th, 2019|Sermons|

We have mentioned a couple times  in the last couple weeks that, in the church, Easter is not a single day, but a season – a season of a few weeks in which we continue to consider the good news, and the implications, of Jesus’ resurrection. We often continue to look, as we did the last two Sundays, at Jesus’ post-resurrection appearances: Jesus’ coming to disciples, in between Easter morning and his ascension into heaven six weeks later. […]

Read More
 0

Archives