What motivates God? - Romans 11:33-36 - Dec 6, 09

The Glory of God - that is what motivates God. Selfishly, we don't want to hear this. We want to hear about a God who is motivated by love (for us). We want this because we desire to be at the center of the universe (or at least our universe). This has led to a shift in the Christian Gospel. We have shifted from the Gospel of Jesus Christ, which is concerned with being connected to the most high God to "the gospel of forgiveness" which is mainly about dealing with our guilt and getting heaven. It's time to return to worshipping God, who deserves the glory.

Why Wait - Psalm 27 - November 29, 09

Yesterday's sermon was a hard one for me because I'm so bad at waiting. I like to rush through most of life, which makes the intentional waiting of Advent a very different way to go about life. I'm trying to grow in this area. The thought about stepping off of the timeline and taking a view of the whole was very helpful. It comes from Paula Gooder's book, "The Meaning is in the Waiting." It is a great devotional for this time of year.

The Faith to Give Everything - Mark 12:41-44 - November 1, 2009

I like what Truett Cathy the founder of Chik-fil-a says, "Its OK to have wealth. Just keep it in your hands and not in your heart." He doesn't just say it, he lives it. Every Chik-fil-a is closed all day every Sunday. Consultants have estimated that this costs the company 20% of their potential weekly revenues. So why do it? Because they believe this best honors God's instructions about the Sabbath. Does it cost them? Sure it does. Is it worth it? Depends on how you measure their business. I know this, they don't loose sleep at night about the decision. They are able to rest secure, because they are trying their best to please God. May the same be true of us as we handle our wealth.

Sex Sermon

If you go to the Little Falls home page, there is the text of a 5th sermon from my marriage series. It's pastoral advice on sex. Its amazing how prevalent sex is in our culture while missing or unsatisfying in many married people's lives. As Christians this should concern us a lot, because God set sex as the sign of marriage. In many ways having sex with a person is part of what makes you married to them. Thats why its so emotionally devastating to break up with someone you've been intimate with. Inside marriage sex is designed for fun and fulfillment, as well as procreation. Read the Song of Solomon in the Bible, it is a book about a couples love life. Warning: its a little graphic at times.

Love - 1 Corinthians 13 - October 25

Keller's new book Counterfeit Gods came out at just the right time. One of the points from this morning came right out of the book. But to be fair to myself - I had a very pedestrian and awkward way of saying the same thing! Thanks Tim - once again you are the man. The point was that if you are looking for the love that will fill your heart and soul, no person can deliver that kind of love.

"No one can live up to that. The inevitable result is bitter disillusionment."

When you realize that the people around you aren’t delivering the love you need, there are 4 possibilities. These come from Tim Keller’s new book:

1. You can blame the people around you who disappoint you and move on to better ones.

2. You can blame yourself and say, “I am a failure. There is something wrong with me.”

3. You can blame the world. “Curses on the entire opposite sex.”

4. You can reorient your entire life toward God.

Because He has the love that you desire and He’s amazingly generous with it. He has what you need and in order to be able to present it to you, He was willing to sacrifice his own flesh and blood. Jesus died so that you may have the love from God that your soul craves. That is what can save you – not romantic love.

If you want to truly love your spouse, let God be your God and your savior. Let him be their God and savior. Neither of you can be good gods. Then as each of you receive love from Him – you can reflect it to your spouse and all the other people in your world.

Praying together - Matthew 18:18-20 - October 18,2009

Since this blog isn't getting more comments, the posts are going to be a little shorter. If you actually read this, let me know and I'll beef it back up.

As per praying together as a couple. I feel like this sermon is like telling someone to have a will - everyone thinks its a good idea, yet far too few practice it. Practice is probably the key word. Dedicating yourself to trying to do this each day - even if its just 10 minutes - for 40 days will make a huge difference. You'll be amazed at how much your prayer life grows and how it becomes so much more natural to pray aloud. If you need additional help, I'm always here. There are also a host of books on this subject. Just type, "Praying together" into the search bar at Amazon.com.

Role Reversal - Ephesians 5:22-33 - October 11, 2009

In this week's sermon I mentioned the now classic book, The Five Love Languages. Its available on Amazon - just click here. Women as well as men need to figure out what language their mate speaks. Once again they are:

Words of Affirmation

Quality Time

Receiving Gifts

Acts of Service

Physical Touch

The passage is all about how to build up your mate - not demean one gender or the other. I hope and pray you will find freedom in it.

Hurry Home - Daniel 1:1-16 - October 4

The concept for my Hurry Home sermon came from Andy Stanley's book, Choosing to Cheat. He claims that when you look at everything that is expected from you at work, everything that is expected of you at home and everything that is expected of you with extended family and friends that their is just not enough time. When the choice is to cheat at home or cheat at work, most of us choose work. We'll stay a little later, because there will be something to show for our efforts. Go home earlier and you might play with your kids or talk to your wife for an extra half hour, but after its gone there is nothing tangible to see. So, we cheat the people we love the most for money. Ouch.

At home we can cheat our spouse by paying more attention to the kids than to them. Kids know how to give love very well and when we feel distant from our spouse, they can fill that void... kinda. But it sets in motion the destruction of our relationship. Neither this behavior or spending more time at work have any immediate consequences, but the long term result is deadly for our marriages.

If you're going to cheat (Andy says we all do) cheat at work, not at home.

The Providence of God - Isaiah 40 - Sept 27

I'm curious about what sticks out to you about this passage. It is a huge chapter with many points. For me its amazing to think of the God who knows the name of every star and my name. It shows his huge power and yet his intimacy.

September 20 - God's Invisibility - John 1:1-18

So many things in our world promise more than they deliver. The "fine print" always taints the really good offer. But not so with God. He keeps all of his promises and usually over-delivers. This makes his invisibility all the more impressive.

How many "leaders" do you know who can't really lead? Just because you have an important position doesn't mean that you always have the skills. I can think of a man who was mentored by Jack Welch who was named CEO of both Home Depot then Chrysler. Yet under his leadership neither company has performed well. He has had all the credentials and the fancy titles, yet that doesn't mean he can lead.

How often has "new and improved" turned out to be "newly packaged" and not improved?

God's invisibility should seem to be a hindrance, yet He still over-performs all the time. This quality of his has done great things to encourage my faith. I hope it encourages yours.

September 13: God's Immortality

There is this great disconnect that happens in my life. I know that God is bigger than the Universe and has existed since before you could say "existed since." Thinking about reality before time, makes my head hurt, but I get the point. But here is the disconnect - I act as if those things are not true at all. I try to solve my own problems. I believe my plans are the best plans - always (just ask Grace about that). I get frustrated when I can't see and control everything around me. In other words, I act as if I am God and ignore the real one. And yet my theological answers are all correct...

As I prepared this week's sermon, I have been meditating on the line, "In him (God) we live and move and have our being." Its such a great line - Paul thought so, so he borrowed it from a 6th century BC poet. But back to the line itself - what does it look like to live in God, to move within Him and his ways, to not exist except as it relates to him? What would that life be like for you?

* you can reply to this post (even if you want to deal with something from the sermon that isn't mentioned here.)