Category Archives: Sermons & Studies

Various sermons and studies

Voyage of the Dawn Treader: Temptation’s Spell

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Temptation – it’s tricky business, that’s for sure.

Last week we began our series on temptation looking at just what temptation is. Our definition that we settled on was this, “The enticing of Satan to draw us off course from the path that God has for us.” And, again because I like the quote from Oswalt Chambers, “[Temptation is a] suggested shortcut… [towards] not what I understand as evil, but towards what I understand as good.” We mentioned that our desires are not temptations, but how we handle those desires may lead us astray. I had a young lady send me a note on facebook and she summarized it well – Temptation is the opportunity to sin. To resist temptation we do not need to suppress our feelings or cravings, because they are not sin, rather we need to say no to opportunities to satisfy them in ways that do not honor God. Well said.

So this week I want to focus on one of the biggest struggles we have with temptation and that is that temptation is a lie. No, I don’t mean that all this ‘resist temptation’ talk is a lie, but rather that temptation is built on a foundation of lies. We are deceived and enticed into sin because Satan lies to us. And that’s his nature – Satan is a liar. Continue reading →

Voyage of the Dawn Treader: Dark Island

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“Dark Island…the place where evil lurks, taking any form and making the darkest of dreams come true… it seeks to corrupt all goodness, stealing the light from the world.”

I just love C.S. Lewis and the Chronicles of Narnia. In fact, Krystal and I are reading the entire series with our daughter this summer, though at the pace that Krystal devours them it may be more like this month than this summer.

“To defeat the darkness out there, you must defeat the darkness inside yourself.” Continue reading →

Fruit of the Spirit – Patience

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Ok, let’s get this out of the way.  On the count of 3, let’s all pray the prayer that’s on the screen –

Lord, give me patience, and give it to me now!

Isn’t that our prayer?  If we are honest with ourselves, all of us want to have more patience with life, but if we are REALLY honest with ourselves, we have to admit that we want that patience NOW.  We don’t want to wait.  We don’t want to work for it.  We want more patience, and we want it now.

Before we get into the how to of growing in patience, let’s first talk about what patience actually is.   Continue reading →

Introduction to Wesley’s 52

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The Book of Discipline, the ‘rule book’ of the United Methodist church, places very high emphasis on the “Standard Sermons” of John Wesley as an integral part of understanding the theology of the United Methodist church.  These sermons, along with the articles of religion and  the confession, mark the theological basis for Methodist belief, but, as anyone who has read  them will tell you, they are difficult on the modern reader.  I’m setting out, therefore, to create a modern ‘translation’ of Wesley’s standard 52 sermons.  As a basis, I am using the version of the sermons presented in Wesley’s 52 Standard Sermons by Schmul Publishing (ISBN 0-88019-231-3).

By Wesley’s own notes and admissions in his preface:

  1. These are intended to share the essentials of true religion, but are not to be a complete theology.
  2. They are supposed to be simple and easy to understand, so don’t look for deep meanings that are not there.
  3. Don’t look for fancy words, because these are meant for the regular reader, not for theologians.
  4. Don’t look for lots of references.  These are meant to be a simple explanation of faith.
  5. These sermons come from the heart and are written out of a love for scripture.
  6. These sermons are written so people can come to understand the way of salvation and eternal life.
  7. They are divided up and he  (Wesley) has written notes about a number of them.  I will share them as applicable.
  8. Wesley (and I myself) am open to learning more – these are to be points of discussion as well as sermons.
  9. Any challenge to the messages needs to be based in scripture.
  10. Any discussion needs to be done in love, because anger will do none of us any good.

I look forward to this journey through Wesley’s sermons!  I hope you will gain as much from them as I do from writing them!