Guerrilla Christianity

Sermon #439

As Christians we have a temptation to say that we ought not to mourn in times of sadness.  Yet there is much biblical evidence that mourning is a proper response to sad events, such as the death of a loved one.  The disciples, who heard Jesus' teaching about his own death and resurrection, still mourned when he was killed on the cross.  But their mourning was turned to joy when they encountered the risen Christ.  What w...

Sermon #601

We're beginning a new series for the season of Easter based in the first general epistle of John.  The purpose of John's letter was to dispute the twin heresies of Docetism and Gnosticism that was rising in the First Century church.  Using statements that contrast dark and light, righteousness and sin, John systematically presents a case that shows that God is light and in him there is no darkness at all (1:5).  He also...

Sermon #441

What is hope?  The worldly definition is that hope is a desire for something as yet unfulfilled.  The Christian definition of hope is inextricably tied to the promises of God, that he has fulfilled those promises in the past and will fulfill them again in the future.  That is our hope, and it was the hope of the early disciples who continued to proclaim the resurrection of Jesus because they had seen it with their own e...

Sermon #438

Easter Sunday is the day when we celebrate the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ, and so it seems fitting to focus on the resurrection of Jesus throughout the Easter Season.  The resurrection is what gives our faith validity.  Without the resurrection, Jesus was merely a good teacher (although how good could he be, since he claimed to be the Son of God?).  The resurrection is the receipt for the debt that Jesus paid...

Sermon #600

Why were Jesus' followers so willing to die for the truth of the resurrection?  Why was the Christian Sabbath shifted from the seventh day to the first day of the week?  Why did Paul insist that believing in the resurrection was of utmost importance?  On this Easter Sunday (2024) we take a look at a letter that Paul wrote to the church in Corinth in 54 AD, and he stresses that the knowledge of the death and resurrection...

Each year on Good Friday, the churches of the Ministerium of Penns Grove, Carneys Point, and Pedricktown hold a joint worship service from Noon until 3 PM. The Seven Last Words of Christ on the Cross are presented, with worship music and sermon messages for each word. Each year for the last six years I have participated in this service, and each year I have preached on a different word. This year (2020) was to be my seventh year, b...

View Full Service on YouTube

Tenebrae is a Latin word that means "Darkness." The Tenebrae service is a reading of the Passion account from John's Gospel, broken down into 16 readings, and after each of the first fourteen readings a candle is extinguished until the entire sanctuary is clothed in darkness. This represents the light of Christ being extinguised on the cross, and it also represents the three hours of darkness that the p...

Sermon #598

When we look at the triumphal entry of Jesus into Jerusalem, we find a story that we know very well.  After all, we celebrate Palm Sunday every year; ever since we were kids in Sunday School we learned about how Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey and the people threw their cloaks and palm branches at his feet, crying "Hosanna!"  But it's that word, Hosanna, which always confused me as a child.  I thought it was a cry...

Sermon #437

Like so many other stories in the Bible, the account of the triumphal entry into Jerusalem is so familiar to us that we might just gloss over it's deeper meaning.  What we see in these eleven brief verses in Mark's gospel is that Jesus is who he says he is - the very Son of God, God of very God, and complete and utter master over time and space.  And what we might deem as human failure after such a great victory, God co...

Sermon #105

Jesus' ministry began with the Jews, God's chosen people whom he came to save.  But in today's text we see a group of non-Jews seeking to find Jesus, and to see what all the comotion is about.  Like the Greeks, we need to see Jesus revealed to us, not just as a great teacher, not just as a worker of miracles, but as the very Son of God who came to the world He created, to save it from sin and death.  So grab your Bible,...

Sermon #597

People often say it is impossible to know if there is a God, and if there is one, it is impossible to know anything about Him.  Two weeks ago we looked at the difference between General Revelation - the existence of God revealed in creation - and Special Revelation - God's specific attributes revealed in the inspired word of God, the Bible.  This week we dive deeper into how we can know God by reading His word.  God's w...

Sermon #596

What is your testimony?  The stories we tell others, particularly to non-believers, about how we were saved by God's grace are powerful in that they are undisputable.  They are OUR stories, and we lived them.  In today's reading in Psalms, we encounter four stories of how God rescued the people of Israel when they humbled themselves and repented, calling out to Him.  We see how our salvation is not dependent upon our fa...

Sermon #435

There is an odd story in the book of Numbers that involves venomous snakes biting the people (sent as a judgment by God for their disobedience).  Instead of removing the snakes, God instructs Moses to put a bronze serpent on a pole so that anyone who is bitten by a venomous snake can look at it and live.  Jesus tells us in John chapter 3 that the bronze serpent is a type of the cross, meaning that God was pointing to Je...