Gambling on God

Reading: Daniel 1:1-17; 3:1, 8-18

No sermon for last week, since Carey and I were away on vacation. This week, though, we began looking at a couple of the stories from the beginning of the book of Daniel.

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Preached on October 24, 2010 at PLWC.

Nations on the Brink

Reading: Amos 1:3-15; Isaiah 23:1-12

I got a little bit political this week, but hopefully not too political. At the very least, using the Old Testament "oracles to the nations" as the basis for analyzing our own national politics should be a pretty unique way of handling the issue.

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Preached on October 10, 2010 at PLWC.

You're Being Watched

Reading: 1 Timothy 3:1-4:16

Paul's instructions to Timothy on choosing mature Christians for leadership help us see that maturity in Christ should produce fruit in our lives. That being said, the fact that others should be able to see that fruit shouldn't make us think our goal is to appear perfect in spite of our flaws...

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Preached on October 3, 2010 at PLWC.

The Problem of Evil: Man vs. Wild

Reading: Job 38:1-21; Revelation 19:11-21

For our last sermon in this series focusing on the problem of evil, we looked at what I think are the really hard cases (and therefore the ones some people simply skip over). How can we claim to serve a loving, powerful God when innocent people die from diseases and natural disasters?

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Preached on September 26, 2010 at PLWC.

The Problem of Evil: The Easy Way Versus The Hard Way

Reading: 1 Samuel 8:1-22; Matthew 4:1-11

As we continue wrestling with the problem of evil, this week we upped the stakes: our focus was on larger-scale, impersonal evil, the sort of thing that comes from what Paul calls "powers."

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Preached on September 19, 2010 at PLWC.