Sermons on Faith (Page 2)
Matthew 14:13-21, 15:29-39
The Feeding of the Nine Thousand (or Food Stamps and Faith) Introduction: We come this morning to two of the best known and best loved stories in the Bible–the feeding of the 5,000 and the feeding of the 4,000, found in two successive chapters of Matthew. Thus, the title of my sermon, but I could just as well have called it “The Feeding of the Twenty-seven Thousand,” because in both stories Matthew goes out of his way to tell us that he…
1 Thessalonians 1:1-10
How the Gospel Impacts the Church Those who know me well know I can be a very critical person. And I confess that there are times when I’m critical of this church. Some of you may have some criticisms of our church as well. After all, churches are composed of sinners. There is room for improvement in any church, but overall I think we have much to be thankful for at First Free. When the gospel has an obvious impact…
Acts 10, Matt 8
The Centurions: Does God Approve of Military Careers? Introduction: Today we come to the last message in our three-month series on The Ministry of the Market Place. I want to thank George Fooshee and Phil Thengvall for their excellent messages while I was in Israel. Next Sunday, Lord willing, we will begin a new series on the life of Christ. We will start, as is appropriate for Advent, with the nativity of Jesus, and then we will continue after the Christmas season by studying…
Luke 19:1-10
Zacchaeus: Can You Change Your Reputation at Work? Introduction: The question posed in my sermon title today is one that may not seem relevant to everyone here, because some of you don’t have a problem with your reputation at work. But some of you may. And all of you know people who do. It is my hope that this message will give you hope that people can change. Of course, it works both ways. We need to be aware also that one bad decision, one careless act…
Luke 7:36-50
Have You Miscalculated Your Indebtedness? Every one of us likes stories, and Jesus was a storyteller par excellence. It just so happens that the first parable I am going to tackle is a parable about two debtors, but that is where the connection with last Sunday stops. Missionary aviation is a field of service that for the past fifty years has enabled the gospel to penetrate the most remote areas of the third world. About six years ago I left the southernmost…
Hebrews 11:1-7
God’s Hall of Faith: The Gallery of the Ancients Note: This sermon was preached in St. Louis many years before the series in Wichita. The text was divided up differently, so this sermon is briefer than the others. Americans go in big for Halls of Fame. I’ve never visited one, but I have always wanted to go to Cooperstown. And I wouldn’t mind going to the Football Hall of Fame. But I didn’t realize just how prolific Halls of Fame are until the reference service at…
Hebrews 11:8-22
God’s Hall of Faith: The Gallery of the Patriarchs I have always loved to visit the great museums of the world. I once spent an entire week just going from one museum to another in Europe. It’s probably because I have always loved history, and it’s in museums that history has been preserved for posterity. In a sense Hebrews 11 is a museum of faith, or perhaps better, a Hall of Faith, which the believer is invited to explore. There are a number…
Hebrews 11:32-40
God’s Hall of Faith: The Gallery of Israel’s Golden Age, Captivity, and Dispersion In our journey through God’s Hall of Faith in Hebrews 11, we have walked through the Gallery of the Ancients, the Gallery of the Patriarchs, and the Gallery of the Exodus and the Conquest. But once Israel inherited the Promised Land, did the need for faith disappear? Not at all. It was still essential and still evident during Israel’s Golden Age, Captivity, and Dispersion. These are the final galleries of the…
James 1:1-12
When Troubles Pile Up Note: Most of this series was preached in Wichita; this sermon, however, was delivered in St. Louis. Introduction: For the next several months, Lord willing, we will be mining one of the mother lodes of practical Christianity, the Epistle of James. Some in the early church questioned whether this book was up to par with the rest of Scripture, and Martin Luther was quite sure it wasn’t, but the dominant view of the church has always been that while…
James 1:19-27
When Religion Is Worthless (or, I Believe in Christian Living) I have given two titles to my sermon today. The first is When Religion Is Worthless, the reason for which title will become clear as we go through the text. The second is I Believe in Christian Living. I want to explain where the second comes from. As you will recall, we did a two-month series in April and May on our proposed new EFCA Statement of Faith, called This We Believe. I took the eight major topics…
James 2:14-26
Faith Without Works Doesn’t Work! This is such a special Sunday that I purposely limited my preaching time to 25 minutes. Some of you don’t think I can do it. You’re probably right, but I’ll try. It has been so good to honor Trudy Burkholder this morning on the occasion of her retirement after forty years as our choir director. Pastor Tom Macy, Steve Blasdel and I have had the privilege of working with Trudy for a combined 42 years (some overlap there, of…
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