?A Refining Fire

April 19, 2009 ?Second Sunday After Easter Acts 4:32-35 A good definition of grace is "treating others better than they deserve to be treated." We talk about grace a lot, using expressions like, "Only by the grace of God did I find the strength to carry on after my wife died." Or, "There but for the grace of God, go I." Grace is used in a lot of different ways. There's an interesting usage in this morning's text. Luke writes, "With great power the apostles continued to testify to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and much grace was upon them all." Just how did that grace manifest itself? The portrait of the early church that Luke paints in these verses is a description of God's grace at work in a congregation.

???The Most Important Day Ever

April 12, 2009 ?Easter 1 Corinthians 15:1-11 Some years ago, the distinguished publishing house of Grosset & Dunlap brought together a panel of 28 educators and historians and asked them to select the 100 most significant events of history, then list those events in order of importance. After months of labor, the panel reported that they considered the most significant event of history to be the discovery of America. In second place was the invention of movable type by Gutenberg. Eleven different events tied for third place, and five events tied for fourth place. The events tying for fourth were the writing of the Constitution of our country, the development of ether, the development of the x-ray, the discovery of the airplane and the life of Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus tied for fourth.

?The Word That Sustains the Weary

April 5, 2009 ?Palm Sunday Isaiah 50:4-9a On that first Palm Sunday, Jesus mounted a donkey and rode down the Mount of Olives, across the Kidron Valley and up through the Eastern Gate. The crowds hailed Him as their conquering Messiah. Sadly, they did not know that Jesus was not to be the kind of Messiah they expected. On this Palm Sunday we ask, "Are we to be happy for Jesus' acclamation by the crowds? Do we join in and acknowledge His messiahship?" Or, is it a time for us to be sorrowful? After all, we now know what Jesus suffered and why He suffered during His passion.