ISSUES in "Jesus' Criticisms Are Not Always Welcome":
  • Jesus is willing to say what needs saying.
  • Jesus wants us living the kind of life that will prepare us to enjoy The Kingdom instead of being terminally uncomfortable there.
  • A crucial way to avoid religious hypocrisy is to give the Lord frequent and unrestricted access to our own hearts - our own interior lives.

[Click "Read more" to see the Scripture and the bulletin outline for this sermon.]

ISSUES in "Take Care of the Light You Have":
  • Metaphor is an important tool in human communication - and thus also in Scripture.
  • The True Light (Christ) is actually all around every one of us - perhaps especially those who bother to go to Christian worship.
  • Some of Jesus' original hearers did not want his Light permeating their lives.
  • It is possible and very unwise to try to keep the Light but also keep it limited to a small part of your life.
  • The benefits of the Light penetrating your entire life are awesome.

[Click "Read more" to see the Scripture and the bulletin outline for this sermon.]

ISSUES in "Getting Into the God-and-Jesus Thing":
  • Humility, prayer, change of life - these things will help greatly in your relationship with God.
  • And God will help where those things are present.
  • Jesus actually told his followers to teach the ones they recruited to "do everything" Jesus had taught them to do.
  • Do we even know what Jesus "commanded"? Do we care? Should we care?
  • Hypocrisy is telling others they must believe in Jesus when we don't even trust him enough to care about his guidance for life.

[Click "Read more" to see the Scripture and the bulletin outline for this sermon.]

ISSUES in "Our New Good News T-Shirts":
  • There are some serious, broad-scale threats to human life on Earth today - just as there were sometimes very serious threats to life in the "Holy Land" in the years after Solomon.
  • God is ready and eager to help us in such times if we will only respond with humility, prayer, and repentance to our own real-life situations.
  • God's promises here show a very great graciousness and eagerness to see things go well for us!

[Click "Read more" to see the Scripture and the bulletin outline for this sermon.]

ISSUES in "At Peace With God and With People":
  • Five Psalms per day will take you through the book of Psalms in a month.
  • Personal peace and peace in relationships are a major responsibility and achievement of good motherhood.
  • If you are not in practice it can be quite difficult to sit quiely for a time in God's presence. But it is very rewarding to do so!
  • God "commands" a blessing on groups of people - churches for example - where the people are choosing and learning to dwell together in unity.

[Click "Read more" to see the Scripture and the bulletin outline for this sermon.]