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The LONG Goodbye! - Romans 16:1-27 May 20, 2007 AM By Pastor Lee Hemen Saying good-bye can either be a great experience or one that you wish would end quickly. When our youth group went to Nebraska on a mission trip several years ago, we visited Signature Rock near the Wyoming and Nebraska boarder. There, many settlers scratched their names into the soft rock to record their passing through the area on the Oregon Trail. What once would have been considered graffiti is now a National Historic Site. I guess everyone wants their names preserved in some way. Here in the last chapter of Romans we read a list of names that have become a part of Scripture for us today. I am sure these folks had no idea that their names, recorded by the Apostle Paul, would become famous and we would be reading about them 2,000 years later. Talk about a long good-bye! Nowhere else in all of Paul’s writing do we find such a long list of personal greetings. Yet in this list and in his final remarks we find Paul r...

The Comfort of Knowing God - Psalm 131 By Pastor Lee Hemen May 13, 2007 AM As loving parents we desire to raise our children with certain concepts of humility, peace, and hope that will be the guides for their lives. It is these essentials of character that will long outlive any of us as parents if they are found active in the lives of our children long after we are gone. While my mother and father were not necessarily “perfect” parents, they did try to instill in each of us the same kind of character qualities found in David’s Psalm. It is here, in the teaching of these characteristics, that true motherhood is found. It is found in David’s description in the comfort of knowing God. To paraphrase Martin Luther who wrote concerning this little Psalm of David, “It is one of the shortest Psalms to read, but one of the longest to learn.” It speaks to us if it were the voice of a young child, but it contains the experience of a man in Christ. Lowliness and humility are seen here in connect...

Paul’s Personal Plans - Romans 15:14-33 By Pastor Lee Hemen May 6, 2007 AM Have you ever met someone who was completely sold-out to what they were doing and had no question that it was their life’s calling? It can be hard for some of us in this day and age, where we often plan “escape routes” for jobs we do not like, relationships we are in, marriage, education, and other areas of our lives we may want out of. This is why many people today are not only surprised but embarrassed to find anyone who knows exactly what they believe and why. We have been sold a bill of goods wrapped up in the blanket of mediocrity where no one is to keep score, do better than the next person, or to be completely sure of what they believe in. However, Paul knew exactly what he believed and why. He reflected his core beliefs in how he personally planned his life. Life did not dictate for Paul how he would respond, rather what he knew about his relationship with Jesus did. We all would like to think we can pla...