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The Testimony! -- John 1:19-28 By Pastor Lee Hemen September 28, 2014 Did you ever witness something you had a hard time explaining? I have. We were headed home from camping and the night sky filed with a brilliant light that flashed across the starlit darkness. At first we thought it was a UFO, but we knew they did not exist and so then we wondered where in the world the streaking light was coming from. We then realized that we were near Vandenberg Air Force Base. It is a United States Air Force Base located 9.2 miles northwest of Lompoc, California. It is under the jurisdiction of the 30th Space Wing, Air Force Space Command. And then we understood immediately what the strange light was, a rocket fired from Vandenberg. A person’s testimony is simply them trying to explain to others what they have experienced and witnessed. Here in John’s gospel we are discovering what he experienced and witnessed concerning Jesus. Sometimes it was difficult for him to do so, but John persisted in his...

The Incarnation! – John 1:14-18 By Pastor Lee Hemen September 14, 2014 Joan Rivers made no apologies for all the plastic surgeries she had over the years. Sometimes we can look in the mirror and not like what we see. When you look in the mirror what do you see? What do you think it would feel like to be a different person? Vernon Grounds writes that “You will never know. You may modify your body by exercise and diet. You may change your mind and your behavior. You may even resort to surgery. But you and I will forever be the unique individuals God created us to be. Regardless of how much we may try, we can’t actually experience what it is to be another person.” He continues by relating, “What was it like, then, for God to take on our human nature and live as a man who was despised and misunderstood on this fallen planet? He already knew exactly what sinful people go through. After all, He is all-knowing. Yet He voluntarily came… That’s what the incarnation is all about.” Yet, how does ...

The witness! -- John 1:6-13 By Pastor Lee Hemen September 7, 2014 Testimony is built not only upon what people think they saw but also on the forensic, that is the physical tangible material evidence as well. Dennis Fisher writes in RBC about a young boy Yves Congar. He was just 10 years old when World War I began and the French town where he lived was invaded by the German army. His mother encouraged him to keep a diary, and what resulted was a clear description of a military occupation, complete with written narrative and colored sketches. His diary recorded a disaster from a child’s perspective. He was a personal witness to what occurred. His witness had such a deep effect on him that he felt called to share Christ with others. The other day the news interviewed several people concerning a shooting and they soon discovered that while each one saw it occur, each person had a different perspective. In fact, each one brought into it their eyewitness testimony their own version of the e...

The Light! -- John 1:1-5 By Pastor Lee Hemen August 31, 2014 In the strictest sense this Gospel has no author named like Paul’s letters do. It is anonymous. In fact, none of the four Gospel authors identify themselves by name. There is a good reason for this, they are not meant to be private letters to specific churches or individuals, except perhaps Luke’s Gospel. Yet we discover that often the writer reveals himself through his writing and we discover that church history can often reveal who the authors were. Putting all of these facts together makes a good case for the author of the Fourth Gospel having been John, one of the sons of a fisherman named Zebedee. The date for the writing of the Gospel of John was probably between 85 and 95 AD, however, there is good evidence that it could have been written as early as 45 and 65 AD before the destruction of the Temple. And, John himself tells us why he wrote his gospel, “But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ...

The Confessed Life! -- James 5:12-20 By Pastor Lee Hemen August 24, 2014 What would you like your last words to be to those you leave behind before you die? Perhaps you would want to leave behind some good advice for those you are leaving or maybe you would want to just say, “so long”?  The comedian Bob Hope, to his wife Delores after she asked him where he wanted to be buried, replied, “Surprise me.” W. C. Fields, when he was asked why he was reading the Bible on his death bed, responded, “I’m looking for loop holes!” King David related with his last words that “When one rules over men in righteousness, when he rules in the fear of God, he is like the light of morning at sunrise on a cloudless morning, like the brightness after rain that brings the grass from the earth. (2 Samuel 23:3-4 NIV)” How cool is that! James tried to fit into his final words all that he could so his readers would gain as much wisdom from his teaching as possible. For James it all boiled down to a simple li...

The Patient Life! -- James 5:7-11 By Pastor Lee Hemen August 17, 2014 When things did not turn out the way the little five-year-old girl wanted, she sat down in a huff and cried. Her father, trying to be sympathetic, told her that she just needed to be patient and that good things come to those who wait. She lamented back, “I am patient I just want it now!” That kind of sums up a lot of us; we want to be patient, but being so is a lot harder than we often anticipate. Someone once said that “If patience is a virtue, many of us aren’t very virtuous!” James realized that a lot of the struggles his readers were going through were of their own making simply because they wanted all of the blessings of God without any of the hardship involved. Now, doesn’t that sound familiar? While we can grin at the fact that folks haven’t changed a whole lot since James’ day, we should be ashamed and stunned that we haven’t changed. James’ answer for the fact that too many believers are indifferent t...

The Rich Life! – James 5:1-6 By Pastor Lee Hemen August 10, 2014 In the movie Little Orphan Annie the bad guys sing a song called “Easy Street.” They sing about a pie-in-the-sky place they think only rich folks enjoy. They blame all of their hard times on their not getting rich quick and how the wealthy keep them from doing so. Social Democrats have used class envy since the Great Depression. However, this is nothing new. There are several false theologies regarding distribution of wealth that are rampant in today’s world. One comes from the days of Jesus and James whereby folks incorrectly thought that if you were well off, then you were being blessed by God. This false doctrine still exists in the teachings on so-called Christian television. They teach that financial blessing is the will of God for Christians, and that faith, positive speech, and donations to their ministries will always increase one's material wealth and health. It has been called health and wealth, name-it-...

The Lived Life! -- The James 4:11-17 By Pastor Lee Hemen August 3, 2014 Brothers, do not slander one another. Anyone who speaks against his brother or judges him speaks against the law and judges it. When you judge the law, you are not keeping it, but sitting in judgment on it. There is only one Lawgiver and Judge, the one who is able to save and destroy. But you--who are you to judge your neighbor? Now listen, you who say, "Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money." Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, "If it is the Lord's will, we will live and do this or that." As it is, you boast and brag. All such boasting is evil. Anyone, then, who knows the good he ought to do and doesn't do it, sins. (James 4:11-17 NIV) God sees no distinctions and as we live our lives in him...

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 ...