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Ramblings from Retirement – Stand Firm By Lee Hemen, Retired Pastor March 26, 2021 I like watching the wild birds that come to our feeders in our yard. Their music is sweet to listen to as is their antics. Some are very protective of their feeding grounds and chase other birds away while other seem oblivious and just enjoy the fellowship of the other varieties of birds that show up to feed. Some seem extremely skittish and flit from here to there at any sound. In Peter’s letter he writes, “Humble yourselves, therefore, under God's mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time. Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you. Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that your brothers throughout the world are undergoing the same kind of sufferings. And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered ...

Tripped up by pride! -- 2 Kings 20:1-19 By Pastor Lee Hemen November 18. 2018 A religious leader was talking to a group of people who were about to enter a new phase in their lives. They had been poor and restricted in opportunities and were headed for lives of unparalleled prosperity. These people also had made recent commitments to the Lord. The leader warned they would face new temptations of pride when they became successful and began to accumulate material things. They would congratulate themselves on their abilities and forget the Lord. The speaker Moses proved to be correct. Most of the Hebrew people in their pride forgot God. These verses show how King Hezekiah responded to God’s miracle of healing in his life. Instead of remaining humble and grateful to God, he became filled with pride and focused on his possessions and his prestige. What occurred with Hezekiah can happen to any of us when we forget that what we enjoy in life is graciously given to us by the Lord God. Le...

Humility! - Philippians 2:1-11 By Pastor Lee Hemen July 1, 2018 There was an old Country/Western song that stated, “Oh Lord it's hard to be humble, when you're perfect in every way” but of course it was a parody on how the singer viewed himself. However if you listen to some of the folks in today’s headlines you would wonder if some of them need to take a reality pill. Sadly it has infected Christianity to the point where we have begun to arrogantly think that everything about Jesus revolves around us instead of his eternal plan. Paul knew that each believer was part of God’s plan for the spreading of his gospel. He understood this because it was what he had dedicated his life to. Because of Paul’s adamant belief in the saving grace of Jesus and his single-minded focus there were those who thought he was arrogant. This can happen to someone who is totally focused in life as Paul was. Needless to say this kind of irked Paul and so he did not want others to think this was t...

The selflessness of Christ - Philippians 2:14-18 By Pastor Lee Hemen March 6, 2016 With every weed pulled I grumbled, "Why did I have to do this today? It's Saturday, I want to go play with my friends. This stinks! I hate weeding!" My father overheard me and reminded me that I should willingly give up a part of my Saturday to do the work because my mother needed it done. By weeding I was helping her use her time better and it displayed a selfless act. Of course being eight-years-old I didn't care about being selfless; selfishness is an eight-year-old's creed! Sadly, it seems the eight-year-old credo has infected many adult Christians as well. If we are to truly understand what Jesus did on the cross, we have to understand Jesus himself. Last week we discussed Jesus' humility and his being God. We also talked about how our attitude is to be the same as that of Jesus. Here in the next few verses we discover just how unselfish Jesus was and we come to reali...

Setting aside! - 2 Corinthians 4:5-7; Philippians 2:1-11 By Pastor Lee Hemen January 10, 2016 Paul shared with his friend and mentor Timothy what he expected of those who wanted to become leaders within the church by telling him that they "must be above reproach, the husband of but one wife, temperate, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, not given to drunkenness, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money. He must manage his own family well and see that his children obey him with proper respect. (If anyone does not know how to manage his own family, how can he take care of God's church?) He must not be a recent convert, or he may become conceited and fall under the same judgment as the devil. He must also have a good reputation with outsiders, so that he will not fall into disgrace and into the devil's trap." (1 Timothy 3:2-7 NIV) All of these were in the present tense meaning that this is how they were to be at the moment of th...

Who's without sin? - John 8:1-11 By Pastor Lee Hemen April 26, 2015 Self-righteousness can express itself in many different forms. We often think of it as the overtly bigoted religious persona depicted by the media, movies, or television. However it can take the form of someone who thinks they are spiritually okay when in fact they know next to nothing about God, his Son, or the Bible. They self-righteously equate their good intentions, actions, or attitudes as more that good enough for God. And in fact, their intent becomes God's for them. They do not see themselves as a sinner in need of a Savior. This is the millennial mindset of much of America today. It is not new. We discover that even the hyper-religious bureaucrats of Jesus' day fell into this self-inflicted trap, thinking they were far better off spiritually than the common man or in this case woman. Here in John we find an interesting account of Jesus rescuing a sinful woman from her wrongful accusers. In doing so...

The Submissive Life! -- James 4:6-10 By Pastor Lee Hemen July 27, 2014 But he gives us more grace. That is why Scripture says: “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up. (James 4:6-10 NIV) In God’s mercy, he extends to us more grace. Sometimes I wonder if we do not take advantage of the love of God in our lives. What I mean is that we can forget what the grace of God is all about. It is his unmerited love for us. We did not earn it, we could not buy it, nor could we be good enough for it. God freely gave it through the sacrifice of his Son Jesus. We still have the desires and lusts of our natural lives and our prayers are often the result of ...

The Compassionate Life! – James 2:1-10 By Pastor Lee Hemen May 25, 2014 President Bill Clinton in response to AIDS activist Bob Rafsky at the Laura Belle nightclub in Manhattan, related, “I feel your pain.” It has become the quintessential “touchy-feely” comment of many and the laughing stock of others. There are those who think that humanity has the capability to develop compassion through shear will or a “shift in consciousness”. The Dalai Lama writes, “To be happy, we should devote ourselves to developing our own peace of mind; the more we care for the happiness of others, the greater our own peace of mind. Therefore, we must develop compassion for others in order to be truly happy.” There is one gigantic problem to this faulty thinking, “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God”! (Romans 3:23 NIV) and “If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.” (1 John 1:8 NIV) We cannot simply delude ourselves into thinking, “Everyday, in every w...

The Humble Life! -- James 1:9-15 By Pastor Lee Hemen May 4, 2014 AM I was just wondering about how we have sold our souls to the societal notion of Christianity. We no longer have a clue what it means to be humble before the Lord. At Age 32, Elizabeth Gilbert faced a life crisis of personal conscience – she did not want to be married anymore to her devoted husband or to have his children. Locking herself in the bathroom of her upscale home she began to pray over and over, “I don’t want to be married anymore. I don’t want to be married anymore. I don’t want to live in this big house. I don’t want to have this baby.” A voice, her own, answers her and tells her to go back to bed. Thus, begins her own self-focused “spiritual” journey. She goes through a dreadful divorce, moves in with an uncaring lover, and begins a self-ingratiating spiritual quest. Her final theological epiphany ends the way it began, from hearing her own voice speaking to her she concludes her highest religious dogm...

What God Requires! - Micah 6:6-8 by Pastor Lee Hemen 04-13-14 AM Jesus was preparing to go to the cross and He only had a few days left to impart some last instructions to His disciples. Already He had planned how He would celebrate His last Passover meal with them. He already knew the significance of the bread and the wine He would share. He also knew what He had to do to provoke the Jewish leadership by going to the temple and driving out their wretched money changers. But before all that He would have to make His entrance into the City of David. He knew that some in the crowds that cheered Him today would cry for His crucifixion in a few days. Neither the leadership nor the common crowd understood just how far they had wandered from God and how He would provide a way back to Him. They did not understand what God required. The same could be said of what Micah teaches concerning Israel's wandering from the Lord and how they needed to return to Him. Israel misunderstoo...