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Luke 1:26-38 – Listen! By Pastor Lee Hemen December 4, 2022 One of my least favorite Christmas songs is “Do You Hear What I Hear?” Sorry if it is one of your favorites, but I’ve never liked it that much except for the last verse when the King commands, “Listen to what I say! Pray for peace, people everywhere! Listen to what I say! The Child, the Child, sleeping in the night He will bring us goodness and light, He will bring us goodness and light.” Now don’t get me wrong the message of the song is great, the night wind whispering to a little lamb about a “star with a tail as big as a kite.” The lamb asking a shepherd boy if he can hear the same song he hears, and the shepherd boy asking the mighty king, “Do you know what I know?” Now if you listen closely at the words, you will notice that each phrase is contingent upon one thing: listening! In our day and age where everything demands our immediate attention it is often hard to get people to simply listen. In the verses we will look at ...

Acts 1:1-14 – We have a mission! By Pastor Lee Hemen April 15, 2012 AM Do you remember that old TV program “Mission Impossible” and later they made several movies with Tom Cruise? How serious do you think Christians are today in carrying out the Great Commission? Do you think it is “Mission Impossible”? For some it is second nature to reach the world, yet for others they never give it a second’s thought. Why is that? I believe perhaps that some of us have lost sight of the mission Jesus commanded His followers to take up. In every Gospel and the Book of Acts we find Jesus challenging His followers to take up His mission to reach the world. Luke, the author of the Book of Acts and the Gospel took very seriously Jesus’ call to mission. Many Bible students believe the Gospel of Luke and the Book of Acts made up two parts of a single literary project. Both were written to his friend Theophilus (Luke 1:3). In the opening verses of Acts, Luke summarized his first narrative as a w...

Galatians 1:1-5 & 2:20-21 - God’s calling… September 4, 2011 AM By Pastor Lee Hemen My mother used to embarrass the tar out of me when she would call me in for dinner. She would stand out on our front porch and holler “Leeeeeeee Howard Heeeeemen, come home!” Not satisfied to do it once, she would repeat her siren call for several humiliating minutes. Just one time did I decide not to respond to my mother’s call to come immediately home. Afterwards, my father had a little talk with me and I came to the conclusion that it was best for my emotional and physical health, to answer quickly when my mother called. The Bible teaches us that God calls each of his followers to his service. Jesus individually called his disciples and Paul writes, “We know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the f...

Are We Deaf and Dumb? - Mark 7:31-37 By Pastor Lee Hemen April 11, 2010 AM When I was younger, I used to think that my folks suffered from a kind of a parental tone-deafness that all adults suffer from when they have children. Not only did they not hear me but also they did not understand me. Many of Christians tacitly believe this about God as well, that he does not hear or understand. In fact, we think it is so true that it has become ingrained in our spiritual psych and in how we relate to the gospel. Let me explain: The Israelites suffered from this malady during Isaiah’s time. They felt God was not listening to their constant cries and did not understand their particular predicament. Isaiah would remind them, “Do you not know? Have you not heard? The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary, and his understanding no one can fathom.” (Isaiah 40:28) God was not the one who was deaf and dumb, they were! Deafness an...