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Talking about the Gospel - Galatians 1:6-9, 11-12, 15-16; 2:1-6 By Pastor Lee Hemen July 21, 2013 AM One test of being a good student is to understand the instructions for an exam. Once in seminary, our class gathered for a final exam in a Greek language course. We received the test paper with its instructions. Unfortunately, several students misread the directions and translated the wrong Scripture passage. As an act of grace, the professor did not give the students failing grades or automatically lower their grades. Instead, he evaluated their work on the passage they mistakenly translated. He pointed out, however, that they did poorer than they probably would have done on the assigned passage. Their lack of a clear understanding of the instructions cost them. Without being aware of what they are doing, folks often reveal they do not clearly understand the gospel. They make such comments as, “I hope God will let me into heaven.” Or “I hope I'm good enough to get into...

2 John – Walking in the truth of God’s love! By Pastor Lee Hemen June 9, 2013 AM In some cultures, the elderly are venerated and are respected for their wisdom and long life. When I was younger, I thought all older adults were wise, moral, and never made mistakes. Imagine my surprise when I discovered that not all senior adults were wise, very moral, and in fact had wasted their lives in ungodly living! I discovered this to be true from a great uncle who drank like a fish, swore like a merchant marine, and no one liked him because of his constant anger. Yet, there are wonderful truths we can learn from godly senior adults in our church. We should listen to those among us who are older that exhibit a holy lifestyle. They can teach us a lot about walking in the truth of God’s love! The little letter of John that we will look at today is one of the shortest letters in the Bible, containing only 245 words in the Greek text. History, tradition, and the wording itself give testi...

Beware of False Piety! - Philippians 3:1-6 By Pastor Lee Hemen May 17, 2009 AM How often have you seen children at play and some little killjoy just has to retort, “That’s not how you are supposed to do that!” or “You’re not following the rules!” Could this be the first glimmers of legalism in the life of this juvenile Pharisee? How would you describe legalism? Where does it come from and why does it occur? I suspect that we begin to allow legalism to creep into our lives, and especially our theology, because we have an unfounded sense of self-doubt or guilt. We then find security in following a set of guidelines or rules. What one person says is living a holy life can be a way to try to get you to adhere to their preconceived piety and their own brand of legalism. Scripture teaches us to be aware of false piety. Paul would shout, “Beware of false piety!” because it often finds comfort in legalism. We discover that the Philippians had their legalistic detractors as well. They were a gr...

How Do We Display Godliness? - 1 Timothy 4:1-16 by Pastor Lee Hemen May 11, 2008 AM I can still hear my mother calling after us, “Boys, stay on the trail!” What? Did she think we would go and wander off and get lost? Please! We lived in the woods, we grew up in the woods, we ate and slept in the woods. We were the wild boys who owned the woods! ARGH! ARGH! ARGH! However, her concern was not so much that we would wander off and get lost, because that could have been a blessing in disguise for her, but rather we would fall, hurt ourselves, or that someone or something would grab us and haul us off and eat us. Then, she would have to clean up the mess or look for us, and she did not want to do either. I am not sure why, but when we were younger my mother was always worried about “wild animals” eating us while on picnics. Sadly, we read in the news today that there are many who wander off the trail and get lost, hurt, or eaten by “wild animals”! Maybe Mom was right after all? One reason Pa...

Why Do We Do Evangelism? -- 1 Timothy 1:3-7, 12-15; 2:1-7 by Pastor Lee Hemen April 27, 2008 AM Many people reject the concept of evangelism. They may think evangelistic efforts violate a person’s freedom. Others, though they believe in evangelism, refuse to take part in it for a variety of reasons. Time, effort, or the will to do it. They do not recognize that all Christians have a responsibility to participate in evangelism. God calls believers to do their part in evangelism. Today’s sermon encourages us to do our part in winning others to Christ. How and why we should do this is very important for us to understand anew for our world today. We live in a time when many misunderstandings exist about salvation. Believing that all truth is subjective, many do not acknowledge objective truth: That there can only be one truth. Therefore they resist efforts at evangelism because they do not believe that any single road leads to salvation. Others may believe that objective truth exists, but ...