Dwell in the Word: Psalm 5
When we think of the Psalms, what do we normally think of? We think of Psalms of praise, right? The idea of praising God because this is a Book of Praise. It's a Book of prayers. That's what we expect. But we really haven't seen much of that yet, have we? Sure, there is ascribing of glory and honor to God, but we have seen a lot of crying out to God, haven't we? We see that here in this Psalm as well. The Psalmist asks for God to hear and consider his groaning, to give attention to the sound of his cry. The Psalmist, and we see here that it is David, he is experiencing very negative things, and he is going to God each day, calling out to him and asking for help.
Dwell in the Word: Psalm 4
Landing in the fourth chapter of the psalter, we once again see the psalmist calling out for help. He expects God to come and to rescue him. We see this right away in verse 1, Answer me when I call, O God, of my righteousness. He understands who God is. He calls out to him, understanding that this God is the God of his righteousness. He doesn't have this on his own. He needs God. And he also acknowledges what has happened in the past. You have given me relief. When I was in distress, you have answered me before, so I am trusting you to answer me again. And there is this cry here, Be gracious to me and hear my prayer. In other words, the Psalmist knows that it is a gracious act of God that he hears the prayers of his people. We don't deserve an Almighty, righteous God to hear us, but creatures of the dirt who were in rebellion against him, but we know that he is gracious and he will listen because he has listened in the past. And we see also in verse 3 that we can know that God has a particular people that he cares for, that he looks after, that he does something special with.
Dwell in the Word: Psalm 3
As we come now to Psalm chapter three, we are getting a little bit different taste than we had in Psalm one and two. In the first Psalm, we saw that there was the blessed one, and we saw how that pointed to the Lord Jesus Christ. Then we saw the futility of opposing the anointed one of God. Now we are seeing that David is experiencing some very difficult situations, and he is calling out to God. We see here in the notes that this Psalm is about when David fled from Absalom. Well, that was a terrible situation. There was a lot of bad things going on in the life of David there, but what is his strength? What is he looking to? He is not looking to himself. He is seeing all that is going on around him, and he is realizing his hope is in God. And in fact, as we read this chapter, we see that there are so many foes that are coming after him, and they're scoffing him. They're saying there's no salvation for him and God. The idea here is that God does not seem to be on his side, that there is an opposition to David, and so he must not be the anointed one of God.
June 4 Sermon: Who Is Like the Lord?
There are some things that we find really hard to describe. The world is packed with all kind of things that can leave us speechless. We could struggle to find words because what we have witnessed is incredible and you struggle to believe what you have seen. Maybe it is because you feel that you can’t do what you have seen justice and so you stumble over your words in an attempt to plumb the depths of your vocabulary to get the right words. Or perhaps you can’t find the words because you and the person you are trying to explain it to don’t have categories to frame what you are trying to explain, and you just can’t get on the same page to really describe it well.
Dwell in the Word: Psalm 2
As we come to Psalm 2 today, it's important that we remember Psalm 1, this idea of the blessed one. We understood that the blessed one spoken of there is ultimately pointing us to Jesus, and he unlocks the Psalms for us. We can see that not only in Psalm one, we see that theme continuing here as we come to Psalm two. This Psalm starts out with a question, and it's a great question.
Why do the nation's rage in the people's plot in vain? In other words, why would the people set themselves up against God, against the blessed one, against the Messiah. Why would they go against Him? Why would people go up against God?
Dwell in the Word: Psalm 1
We come to Psalm 1 today and begin our journey through the psalter, and we see this description of the blessed man, the one who walks not in the council of the wicked nor stands in the way of sinners and doesn't sit in the seat of scoffers. As we look at this and if we stopped at that first verse, our idea here would be that this blessed man is blessed because of what he avoids. Yes, that is absolutely true. We want to avoid the wicked and sinners, and we want to make sure that we are not those who scoff. But at the same time, there is an active element to this. The one who is blessed delights in the law of the Lord.
Held By God
A while back, I needed to make two visits in Sioux Falls. One visit was to someone in the hospital in the morning and another visit to pray with someone before surgery. There was about a three hour window of time that I needed to fill. I went to a coffee shop, got a little caffeine, and did a little work on my tablet. Before I went to do the afternoon visit I decided to go to the mall to see if I could find a good price on some clothes that I was in need of. I parked near the food court entrance and spent roughly 30 minutes looking for a dress clothes. On the way out I was observing how little activity there was at the mall compared to times past. The handful of cars in the parking lot reflected how few people were moving around the interior of the mall. The activity in the mall was nothing like I knew when I was younger, even on a slow day.
March 19 Sermon: Speaking the Truth
This week we look at the importance of truthfulness and how it is rooted in the character of God. We consider the consequences of lying, both for the person being deceived and the one telling the lie. The commandment against bearing false witness reflects God's truthfulness. We apply the ninth commandment by seeking and advocating for truth in all aspects of life. Living in truth reflects the character of God and provides an opportunity for the people of God to share the gospel.
March 12 Sermon: God Provides
I can remember the first time that I heard about someone that I know violating the Eighth Commandment. A friend of mine and I were playing outside, and he invited me in to hear a little bit of gossip. I guess I was violating the ninth commandment too. But anyway, he invited me in to hear this gossip regarding his older brother. Now, of course, my four or five-year-old ears wanted to hear something bad about what his brother has done. He was a couple of years older than us, and he didn't treat us nice all the time, so I wanted the dirt on this kid. I was excited. Well, when I told my friend that I wanted to hear about this, he let me know what he had done, and I learned about the great Eminem heist of Worthing South Dakota. It was a big deal. That's right. His older brother had taken the five-finger discount of a bag of Eminens at our little grocery store there in town.
March 5 Sermon: God is Pure
So, we arrive today at the seventh commandment. And unsurprisingly, this is the commandment that more people than any of the other commandments have given me a little ribbing about. When you see something coming up in the text, particularly on this topic, anything involving sexuality, you're wondering, how is that guy going to handle that? And for the record, this guy wonders the same thing. You end up thinking about it a lot. You go through it in your head, what do you want to say? It's a sensitive topic because it's something that is persistently in front of us in our culture. You can't avoid it. Our culture is obsessed with the topic of sex. To preach on it then requires that we have to find some balance. You don't want to be soft on sin. You don't want to sound permissive. Well, then you want to be straightforward, but you don't want to risk maybe sounding vulgar or too blunt. You want to be sure that people understand that there's grace and that there's forgiveness for all sin, and that includes sexual sin.
February 26 Sermon: God is Life
So, as we've been making our way through the Ten Commandments, we find ourselves now to the Sixth Commandment. Now, each of the commandments are very serious, very serious, because if we violate them, we are violating the commands of a holy God. We're acting in rebellion against Him. But as we come to the Six Commandment, there's almost a new gravity to it, isn't there? Because the first table of the law, the first four commandments are very much something that we don't physically see the results of our breaking them. As serious as it is, the most serious commandment is to only serve the Lord God. The first commandment. That is the most serious commandment. But if I don't do that, I'm not really seeing my disobedience and my rebellion in a way that manifests itself. And, even as we were in the first table of the law two weeks ago, and we had honor your father and your mother, definitely a command directed toward somebody. My lack of honor toward somebody is more an internal thing.
A Sacrificial Love
Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her. - Ephesians 5:25
The idea of love is always in front of us. Stop and think about how love is the primary theme in a lot of the content that we absorb in the popular culture. I am not aware of much popular music but I come across enough of it to know that the majority of songs talk about love. Most of the time television shows focus on some sort of romantic element. It is no wonder that Valentine's Day is such a big holiday. Romance is presented as the ideal and if you don't have this, well, then you better find it.
January 22 Sermon: How We Worship
We find ourselves on the second commandment today. Imagine that the number two comes after number one. I'm no math wizard, but even I got that one sorted out. But we're here at the second commandment, and you might be thinking, this commandment doesn't seem that much different than the first. Well, you're not the first person to think that. In fact, if you look at the way some different Christian groups, some of our brothers and sisters in Christ, the way they actually number the commandments in the way that they sort out the commandments in the order or the way they number them, they actually group the first and the second commandment together. Instead of, You shall have no other gods before me, and you should not make for yourself an idol. Then the third command, you should not take the Lord's name in vain. They put one and two together, and everything after the, what we would call the first commandment, is instructions on the second commandment. Then they would have the third commandment, you should not take the name in vain.
January 8 Sermon: God Spoke
In the midst of all of the other things that we have going on this morning, here we are starting off to look at the 10 Commandments. This is a perfect opportunity for us to be looking at the introduction to the 10 Commandments because we do have so much else going on. Now, the sermon is going to be a little bit shorter. Here's the deal. You got to promise not to be extra grumpy this afternoon because your nap was shorter. But we do have work to do. We do have to proclaim the word of God. We have to look at what holy scripture has to tell us here. Now, as we come to the Ten Commandments, we are going to be taking a look at what it is that these commands are. What is it that we have as an expectation in the commands of Holy scripture and in the commands of the Ten Commandments? Well, we have decided, or I have decided, that what we're going to be looking at today is this theme that God spoke.
October 21 Sermon: Treasured
There is a great attraction to know what people used to look like. I can remember television shows from years back where they would do features on celebrities and what they looked like and what they did before they became the famous people we knew them as. This phenomenon is obviously not something that has gone away because now you can hardly navigate a website without some sort of “what did so and so look like before they were famous” click bait article staring you in the face. And the proof of the allure of this information is the fact that you have to click through dozens of pages laden with ads to see them. They are banking that after you see a picture of what one celebrity used to look like, you’ll just have to see more.
November 14 Sermon: Light for Revelation to the Gentiles
One of the things that is overwhelming the first time you become a parent is everything that is involved in the process. When we had our first child, I worked at Toys R Us as a manager and when I had first started with the company four years prior, I was surprised to find out how much of the business of the store was baby stuff. I’m not talking baby toys here. I’m talking all the stuff that you need when you have a newborn. It’s more than diapers. You needed an infant car seat. You needed a stroller that the infant car seat would clip into. You needed extra bases for the infant car seat to clip into in your second car. You needed bottles and pacifiers and onesies.
May 30 Sermon: Gathered to His People
From the time I was a child one of my favorite movies has been The Empire Strikes Back. This middle film in the original Star Wars trilogy is unique in that it’s plot line really leads to the bad guys winning the film. It starts with the good guys running for their lives from the attacks of the oppressive Empire’s army. Our favorite heroes are chased all over the galaxy and captured. The new hope we met in the first film is being trained by Jedi master Yoda but he leaves without completing the training to attempt to rescue his friends. And the conclusion of the movie leaves us hanging wondering if it is really true that the hero is the son of the most evil man in the galaxy. How many movies do you know of where the bad guys win? I won’t give you too much time to mentally answer that question because there aren’t too many. In fact, you might not be able to think of any other than the one I have just described.
May 2 Sermon: Equipped with Everything Good
We all know how important it is to have the right equipment. Whether it is the tool to do a job that you have been tasked with or needing the right equipment to participate in a sporting event there are certain things that you need to perform a task correctly. I think we’ve all been in the middle of a project and discovered that we are either missing an essential part or a helpful tool. Perhaps you are a parent who got to spring baseball or softball season and discovered that your child has grown more than you realized and now not only are you needing to buy new cleats but also a new glove too.
April 25 Sermon: Seeking the City to Come
One of the greatest temptations that we face as believers is to desire approval from the world. We like to think that if we could soften up the hard edges of the message of scripture then more people would believe. Our motives are good we want people to believe. We want churches that are full. We want more people to hear about who God is. There is an issue that comes from this though. If we start to whittle away at the some of the harder parts of scripture we will find that what we create will no longer look like the original. The Christian faith is not a renovation project. We are not trying to remodel it and make some of it more user friendly. The Christian faith is founded on the revelation of God in his holy word and we are to desire to hold fast to what we have received, not warp it into what we desire it to be.
April 18 Sermon: A Kingdom That Cannot Be Shaken
Have you ever felt the earth move? In some parts of the world that question would be answered in the affirmative by nearly everyone. For us folks who reside in the upper midwest, it is something that we have never felt and likely never will feel. I’ve never experienced an earthquake but roughly 20 years ago I was meandering through an Office Max building in Sandusky, OH. I had made the trip across town to get some office supplies for the church office and while I was making my way through the store, I literally felt the ground under my feet move. It freaked me out.