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Salt and light – Matthew 5:13-16 By Pastor Lee Hemen February 24, 2019 What would you consider the absolute necessities of life after food and water? For some it might be their cell phone, big screen TV, clothes or shoes. One of things that help put perspective on what you value in life is to do an extensive list of your top 50 priorities. It can show you in a very real way what you value in life and what you focus on or not. In Jesus’ day a couple of absolute necessities were two things we often take for granted, salt and light. Salt was used for many things from seasoning, preservative, sterilization of wounds, and as currency. It was considered an absolute staple for everyday life. Light was a means of continuing to work later, see your way, keep warm and keep out the darkness of night and long winters. Jesus understood the dependence and importance folks of his day placed on these two things; let’s discover how he uses salt and light this morning… READ: Matthew 5:13-16 According to...

Happiness is… - Matthew 5:1-12 By Pastor Lee Hemen February 17, 2019 Folks look for happiness in many ways in our day and age. Some use exercise, sports, food, money, recreation or other activities in order to find happiness while others may look to spirituality, religion, or philosophy to try to find personal happiness. The Bible teaches us that happiness in life is not truly found until one first finds God and develops a relationship with him. People in Jesus’ day were not much different from us except they lived more of a day to day existence. Daily food and water, safety and personal health were of the foremost concerns of their lives. Most individuals did not live past their late 40s and just about any illness could be disastrous. Purchasing or growing food and getting clean water were also daily concerns; much of their happiness in life centered on these simple things. And all of it revolved around their relationship with God. So in the following teachings of Jesus we discover wh...

The message, the men, and the masses – Matthew 4:12-25 By Pastor Lee Hemen February 10, 2019 In the gospels we discover not only the mystical but the mundane as well. Life is made up of both and if you do not discover this fact you will miss out on some of the shear wonderment of life itself. This is why it is so distressing for me to see the ungodliness of socialism in our nation. When individuals do away with the sacred and try to replace it with feelings it leads to society based on emotionalism instead of the holy. Mankind is reduced to animal stature and God becomes nonexistent. This is one reason why Jesus came – to display for us the sacred. God became man and walked among us. We know much about the everyday life of Jesus because the gospels are full of narratives concerning it. In Matthew’s gospel we discover some of the details of Jesus’ early ministry. He begins to relate the message he has for Israel and mankind, he begins to put together those who would continue the ministr...

Jesus and the Temptations – Matthew 4:1-11 By Pastor Lee Hemen February 3, 2019 Sin is nothing to sing about and yet the world today takes a pretty casual view of it. I believe this is because many folks have swallowed the lies and deception of Satan. They either think that they were wrongly held accountable for the ungodly choices they made and they want the freedom to do whatever they want whenever they want or there are those who think that evil, sin, and the Devil do not exist. And they incorrectly think that if they simply ignore it or relegate it to “myth” status then it isn’t true. They’ve become too sophisticated and scientific to believe in “fairy tales”. Sadly, evil, sin, and the Devil do indeed exist and are very real and is nothing to sing about. Mankind does not have the capability to be good on its own. We are sinners by nature and choice. From the first disobedient behavior and decision by Adam and Eve to the present day predicament the world finds itself today we find t...