Sermon #352 I can think of no better message to kick off the eighth season of Guerrilla Christianity than this message which was preached at the Pitman Grove Camp Meeting in 2019. Very few Christians today share their faith in Jesus Christ, and perhaps it is because we have no idea who Jesus is. The writer of the book of Hebrews offers us the found…

Sermon #613 Without a doubt, the greatest figure in the history of Israel was Moses. He was the one who led the people out of slavery. He was the one to whom God gave the law. He was the leader of the Hebrews in the wilderness for 40 years. And yet, the writer of Hebrews insists that we ought to consider Jesus as greater than Moses. After all, Mose…

Sermon #454 Often in scripture, David is referred to as a man after God's own heart. We see that in today's reading as David expresses a desire to build a temple for God in Jerusalem. His desire is to put down roots for the nation of Israel, to establish the spiritual center of the family of Abraham. Yet God, in a play on words, says through the pr…

July 21, 2024 Old Testament: 2 Samuel 7:1-14a Psalter: Psalm 89:20-37 Epistle Lesson: Ephesians 2:11-22 Gospel Lesson: Mark 6:30-34, 53-56 Scripture quotations from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. S…

Sermon #291 It is easy for us to slip quietly past this affirmation, but that would be a mistake. We are told so much in the Gospels about the earthly ministry of Christ and very little about the forty days after the resurrection, and less about the actual ascension (only Luke records his account in his Gospel and in the book of Acts). Yet the Asce…

Sermon #612 One of the primary motivating factors in life is, ironically, death, or rather the fear of death. The evolutionist would tell us that the two things that drive every species on the planet is the desire to survive and the desire to reproduce. In reality, God made us without death in the world, yet we brought death into the world when we …

Sermon #611 As the writer of Hebrews begins to unpack the Psalms to identify the extraordinary nature of the Son of God (who has not yet been named in the epistle), he reminds us that we ought to pay attention to what is said, lest we drift away in our faith. The language used suggests mooring a ship to a dock lest it slide past the safety of the h…

July 14, 2024 Old Testament: 2 Samuel 6:1-5, 12b-19 Psalter: Psalm 24 Epistle Lesson: Ephesians 1:3-14 Gospel Lesson: Mark 6:14-29 Scripture quotations from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. S.D.G.…

Sermon #453 What should worship look like? Nowadays Christians are divided in their desire to worship the Lord in certain ways. Some prefer high church; some prefer a less rigid but still traditional service with a choir and pipe organ. Some prefer gospel music; some prefer contemporary christian music. Some prefer no music at all. When it comes do…

Sermon #290 We come to the pivotal point in the Christology of the Apostles' Creed, and, as some might say, it's all uphill from here. Now, in the message today I make a strong assertion that to believe in the resurrection is nothing less than necessary for our salvation, and I stand by that statement (and back it up with Biblical text). Yet there …

Sermon #610 Having laid down some extraordinary claims about the Son of God, through whom God has spoken in these last days, the writer of Hebrews now turns to the Hebrew Scriptures - specifically the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Old Testament rendered in the Third Century B.C. - to make his case that Jesus (who thus far is unnamed in t…

Sermon #452 On the day in which we celebrate our independence here in America (this message was recorded July 4, 2021), we reflect on the foundation of Israel as a united kingdom under David after the death of Saul and the conquest of Jerusalem. There are some parallels to our formation as a nation and Israel's. For one thing, the entire nation ass…

July 7, 2024 Old Testament: 2 Samuel 5:1-5, 9-10 Psalter: Psalm 48 Epistle Lesson: 2 Corinthians 12:2-10 Gospel Lesson: Mark 6:1-13 Scripture quotations from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. S.D.G.…

Sermon #289 To say that Jesus descended to the dead seems like a redundant statement after affirming that he was crucified, dead, and buried. To say that Jesus descended to hell (another translation of the Greek version of the Apostles' Creed) seems like a theological conundrum. How could Jesus, the Son of God, sinless and holy, descend to the plac…

Sermon #609 Welcome to the 12th season of Guerrilla Christianity! In this introductory sermon to the expositional series on Hebrews, we look at several things about this epistle in general, and then the opening four verses. First, we look at some of the theories surrounding authorship, concluding that we do not know conclusively who the author of H…

Sermon #451 The death of Saul and Jonathan is one that affected David deeply. On the one hand, Saul had been trying for several years to kill David, seeing him as a threat to his own rule over Israel. On the other hand, David was very close friends with Saul's son, Jonathan, and certainly his death would have devastated David. Yet even though Saul …

June 30, 2024 Old Testament: 2 Samuel 1:1, 17-27 Psalter: Psalm 130 Epistle Lesson: 2 Corinthians 8:7-15 Gospel Lesson: Mark 5:21-43 Scripture quotations from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. S.D.G.…

Sermon #287 Two major considerations face us today as we continue our examination of the Apostles' Creed. First, what is the point of mentioning Pontius Pilate? When Jesus was betrayed by so many - the crowds, the Sanhedrin, Judas Iscariot - why do we affirm that he "suffered under Pontius Pilate?" Next, we look at the dual nature of Christ and tha…

S11E47: The Trinity in the Cross (Trinity Sunday 2024) Sermon #608 On this Trinity Sunday (the first Sunday after Pentecost) we look at the work of all three persons of the Godhead in salvation at the cross of Jesus Christ. At the heart of the doctrine of the Trinity is the relationship between the three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The F…

Sermon #450 The story of David and Goliath is a very familiar story to anyone who was raised in the church. It is one of the first stories we learn in Sunday school. And because of its familiarity, as adults sometimes we can gloss over the greater meaning of the story. David was a shepherd, not particularly exceptional and decidedly not a battle-ha…