Category: Sermons

Preached at First Presbyterian Church of Rolla. Based on Malachi 3:1-4 and Luke 3:1-6. Podcast linked below. YouTube archive: Before we talk about John the Baptist, I’d like us to take a whirlwind tour through the history of Israel, as recounted in the Bible. It all started with Abraham. God chose him to be the…

Preached at First Presbyterian Church of Rolla. Based on Hebrews 10:11-25. Podcast linked below. YouTube archive: It’s been a few weeks, so I want to once again remind you about the nature and context of Hebrews. It’s essentially a sermon transcript. In medieval times, it was used to support anti-Semitism and supersessionism, that is, the…

Preached at First Presbyterian Church of Rolla. Based on Hebrews 7:18-28; Mark 10:46-52. Podcast linked below. YouTube archive: https://youtu.be/iEYINTFTadg?t=1822 A couple weeks ago, I introduced the book of Hebrews. Let me just take a few moments to remind you of some key ideas. Hebrews is not so much a letter to a particular group like…

Based on Hebrews 4:12-16. Preached at First Presbyterian Church of Rolla. Unfortunately, video is not available, but the audio (podcast) is linked below. I will be preaching three times on the book of Hebrews, so before I begin today, I’d like to give you a little background and perspective on it. It has elements of…

Preached at First Presbyterian Church of Rolla. Based on Mark 9:38-50. The YouTube link (click on the image) should take you directly to the sermon. Why do we make the choices we make? Seems like a simple enough question, right? Since the Enlightenment, we have thought of ourselves as rational creatures who mentally tally up…

Preached on September 12, 2021, at First Presbyterian Church of Rolla. Podcast linked below. Archived recording of live stream available: Yesterday was the 20th anniversary of the attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Do you remember where you were? I sure do. At the time, I was working for Baldor and living…

Preached at First Presbyterian Church of Rolla. Based on Ephesians 5:15-20; John 6:47-58; Proverbs 9:1-6. Dan Brown wrote a series of books about Robert Langdon, a fictional Harvard University professor of religious iconology and symbology. In The Lost Symbol, Langdon tells his class, “Don’t tell anyone, but on the pagan day of the sun god…

Preached at First Presbyterian Church of Rolla. Based on 2 Samuel 6:1-5, 12b-19; Ephesians 1:3-14. For as long as humans have owned material goods, we have been concerned about passing them on to our children. We see the next generation as a continuation of the work we have done in the world and hope that what…

Preached at First Presbyterian Church of Rolla. Based on John 15:26-16:15, Acts 2:1-21. When I was in grad school, I took a course one semester titled, “A Differential Geometric Approach to Nonlinear Control.” The course started with a discussion of manifolds, diffeomorphisms, Lie brackets and Lie derivatives, and so forth. For about six weeks, I…