LOVE

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June 2019

“Souls Full of Troubles”/Psalm 88:1-5, 8-13/Luke 8:26-39/Rev. Rodger Allen/6-23-19 

By |June 25th, 2019|Sermons|

The man in the tombs was, most likely, afflicted with a mental illness. After Jesus’ healing, we are told in verse 35, the man is found sitting at the feet of Jesus, “clothed and in his right mind” – while before he had been unclothed and not in his right mind. He had had a mental illness; his brain had been sick. To borrow a phrase from our Psalm this morning, he had had a “soul full of troubles” – a troubled soul. […]

“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. […]

April 2019

“A Brief History of Time: 5. Tomorrow: New Life”/Ezekiel 37: 1-14; John 11:11-15, 17-20, 23-26, 34-45; Romans 8:6-11 (NJB)/Rev. Rodger Allen/4-14-19 

By |April 18th, 2019|Sermons|

Today’s sermon concludes our series called  “A Brief History of Time.” The title of the series, as explained before, was borrowed from Stephen Hawking’s book by that name, but while he looked at the physical history of the universe, things like big bang theories and expanding galaxies, we’ve looked at what can be called “salvation history” – a history of God’s relationship with humanity. For three weeks we looked at the Past: the creation of humanity at the beginning; humanity’s insistence on sinning, which became obvious very shortly after the beginning; and God’s act in the life and death of Jesus Christ to reconcile God and people, to bring us together, in spite of that sin. Last week’s topic was labelled “Today,” or the Present: How do we respond to God’s love? And today’s topic is labelled, very loosely, the Future, or “Tomorrow”: what will be the outcome of a relationship with God? […]

“A Brief History of Time: 4. Today: We Respond to God”/Eph. 5: 8-15, 19-20; John 9: 1-41, selected verses/Rev. Rodger Allen/4-7-19 

By |April 16th, 2019|Sermons|

In Part One of our “brief history,” God created us. Male and female, with certain responsibilities to carry out together. In Part Two, we responded . . . by messing up. We reviewed the fact that all human beings, from the very beginning, stray from that which God intends for us. In Part Three, God responded – by reaching out, through Jesus Christ, so that human beings might be reconciled to God in spite of their sin. This did not happen because we deserve it, or because God owes us, but because God loves us and chooses to act on our behalf. Now in Part Four of our series, it’s our turn to respond again: how shall we respond to the love God has shown to us? […]

“A Brief History of Time:/3. God Responds”/Rom. 5:1-11; Gen. 11:27-12:8/Rev. Rodger Allen/3-31-19

By |April 4th, 2019|Sermons|

Some of you may have noticed that there are a lot of books in this building. There are shelves of books in the Koinonia Kafe, available to be borrowed and read. There are books in the Pastor’s Office, which Laurie and I brought here with us. There’s a wonderful collection downstairs, a Children’s Library, available for you. Plus the Bibles and hymnals in the pews – lots of books. As I was rooting around through some of the books one day, I came across two books that have some very interesting stories in them, and I thought I might tell you some of those stories today. The odd thing about both books, however, is that they each seem to have some pages missing, because it appears that the whole stories aren’t in there, just pieces. And it gets frustrating, because they’re good stories, and we want to know the rest; we’d like to hear the whole thing. […]