A Famine Not of Bread

Click here to listen to this sermon. Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ! Picture a society where the path to God is blocked by invisible barriers of ritual impurity, where even a slight touch can render someone unworthy to approach the divine. This was the burden imposed by the Law of Moses, which had evolved into a complex web of manmade traditions by Jesus’ time. As the Pharisees enforced these laws, their rigid adherence overshadowed the essence of God’s commandments and His message of grace and forgiveness. In our text from Mark 7, Jesus confronts this distortion head-on, revealing a more profound truth about what truly defiles us and how we can genuinely draw near to God. The Law of Moses contained a series of statutes about what could make a person “unclean.” This was not a question about sanitation or good personal hygiene but applied to ritual purity. Unclean things defiled a person so that he could not draw close to God without first purifying...

"Get Behind Me, Satan" by James Tissot Click here to listen to this sermon. And Jesus went on with His disciples to the villages of Caesarea Philippi. And on the way He asked His disciples, “Who do people say that I am?” And they told Him, “John the Baptist; and others say, Elijah; and others, one of the prophets.” And He asked them, “But who do you say that I am?” Peter answered Him, “You are the Christ.” And He strictly charged them to tell no one about Him. And He began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes and be killed, and after three days rise again. And He said this plainly. And Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke Him. But turning and seeing His disciples, He rebuked Peter and said, “Get behind Me, Satan! For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.” And He called to Him the crowd with His disciples and said to them, “If anyone would co...

Click here to listen to this sermon. And [Jesus] said, “What comes out of a person is what defiles him. For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person” (Mark 7:20-23). Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ! Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray is a thought provoking tale that plays on the difference between what is on the inside of a man versus what is seen on the outside. An artist named Basil Hallward meets a young man named Dorian Gray. Impressed by Gray’s beautiful physical appearance, Hallward paints a picture of him. A friend of Basil’s named Lord Henry Wotton promotes a worldview that beauty and sensual desire are the most important things in life. Falling under the influence of this philosophy, Dorian wrestles with the harsh reality t...

Click here to listen to this sermon. Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ! Just when you think our culture has sunk as low as it can get, another headline hits the news: “Racial Tensions Heat Up on One-Year Anniversary of Fatal Shooting in Ferguson, MO.” “The Supreme Court Legalizes Same-Sex Marriage,” “Planned Parenthood Sells Tissue from Aborted Babies.” Some would lay the blame for our declining morals on the doorsteps of filmmakers and TV producers. But the media aren’t to blame any more than bathroom mirrors cause our pimples and wrinkles. The entertainment industry simply reflects the moral climate of our age. No, the source of the problem is elsewhere. In the immortal words of the cartoon character Pogo: “We have met the enemy and he is us.” Too often we look to the world around us as the source of our moral problems. If we could just stamp out pornography, we think, we could get rid of sexual abuse. If we could clean up the lyrics to roc...

Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God the Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. If you look in the worship folder you’ll notice the sermon title listed as “Blame It on Your Lying, Cheating Heart,” a play on the lyrics of the Patty Loveless country hit from almost twenty years ago.   When Maxine asked me, that was the working theme I was using.   I’ve since had time to refine it.   Now it’s “Your Lying, Cheating, Cold Dead Beating, Two-timing, Double Dealing, Mean Mistreating, Unloving Heart.”   I know; it’s a pretty long title for a sermon.   But it seems fitting for our Gospel for today, where Jesus gives a rather extensive list of sins.   Beginning with sexual immorality, Jesus combines twelve kinds of evil thoughts and actions in a dreadful litany of vices.   The first six are in the plural form and describe behaviors.     The last six are in the singular and have more to do with attitudes.   These twelve vices leave ...