Category: Sermons HCE
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Sermon of November 20, 2011–“Embarassment of Riches”
Looking over St. Paul’s shoulder when he wrote Ephesians, we can see that he is impressed with the love, compassion and giftedness of the congregation. This basic insight caused me to ponder if Paul was intentionally comparing the ornate lifestyle of ancient Ephesus (one of the most amazing cities of the Roman Empire) with what…
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Sermon of November 13, 2011–“God’s Investment Banker”
Matthew 25:14-30:The Parable of the Talents I’ve always had trouble with this parable. Verse 29 seems especially harsh to me: “For to all those who have, more will be given, and they will have an abundance; but from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away.” As a child, this verse…
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Sermon of November 6, 2011
Matthew 25:1-13 ‘Then the kingdom of heaven will be like this. Ten bridesmaids took their lamps and went to meet the bridegroom. 2Five of them were foolish, and five were wise. 3When the foolish took their lamps, they took no oil with them; 4but the wise took flasks of oil with their lamps. 5As the…
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Reformation Day Sermon–“How to Get the Most out of Worshiping God”
Though the years, a lot of questions have been asked to me about worship. Probably more questions about worship than anything else–except the Bible. Here is my attempt to explain what we do and how we do it. This is not the only way to worship but it is one of the ways. Here’s the…
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Sermon of October 23th–Hanging Out the Wash
Matthew 22:34-40: 34 When the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together, 35and one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. 36‘Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?’ 37He said to him, ‘ “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with…
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Sermon of October 16th–“Echo”
This morning’s sermon was a pretty straightforward exegesis of 1 Thessalonians 1:1-8. At the end of the sermon, I got a little more free with the material. See if you can hear when it starts to go in a different direction: Echo “I, Paul, together here with Silas and Timothy, send greetings to the church…
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Sermon of Sunday, October 9, 2011–“Regrets Only”
This is a challenging parable of judgment. As with any parable, there’s probably more on the page than could ever be mined and it doesn’t always have to be internally consistent. Jesus often spoke in very broad terms–camels passing through the eye of the needle, people harvesting enormous amounts of grain, and so on. What…
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Sermon of October 2, 2011–“What Have You Lost?”
Paul starts sharing a few personal stories, and then moves into a great theological statement of praise. Unintentionally, I followed the first half of Paul’s formula (autobiography) pretty closely. How well I managed to finish with a great theme of praising God, well, you’ll have to judge for yourself. The sermon is here: What Have…
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Sermon of September 25, 2011–“Sweetening Sour Grapes”
Dear Friends of Emmanuel Church, Underlying this week’s sermon is the idea of our inter-connectedness. Ezekiel dealt with this in the following passage: The word of the Lord came to me: What do you mean by repeating this proverb concerning the land of Israel, ‘The parents have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are…
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Sermon of September 18–“Recipe for Your Life”
“Recipe for Your Life”: A sermon based on Exodus 16:2-15 This Sunday’s sermon was a little bit like a recipe. All the ingredients were there–the Word of God, a personal story or two, a reading of where the congregation is going. It was challenging, to say the least, to try and figure out how Quails…
Emmanuel Reformed Church of the United Church of Christ 