Shepherd's Garage

James condemns favortism in chapter two of his letter.  We all agree with the danger of favortism but at the same time we all struglle with it.  Yet it truly is an evil in church as well as society.

Ecclesiastes 9:1-6.  Question will you be a cat or dog?  It matters.

God plants and He prunes.  This sermon is based on the passage from John 15 where Jesus says that the way to grow is to abide in him and then the father will be sure to prune us in the ways that make us produce good fruit.

Be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to anger.  Yeo, true.  Is it really possible?

Paul in Romans 12:10 asks us to "Be devoted to ane another in brotherly love and to honor one another above oursleves."  How can we do this?  This morning the focus is on the honoring one another.  We do this several ways so let's explore.

Ecclesiastes 8:10-17 speaks the truth but it is an ugly truth.  Sometimes the wicked get what the righteous deserve and the righteous get what the wicked deserve.  How do we make sense of this and live with any sense of joy?

Romans 12:10 tells us to love each other as a family loves and to outdo each other in showing respect.  This is direction for the church, but wouldn't it make this world a better place as well?

James 1:2-18 reminds us that life is hard.  We know that.  So to work it out, we need wisdom from God.  We can ask for it but must then do it.  Part of the wisdom we seek is this.  What in my life do I need to stick with, even though it is tough, and what in my life do I need to quit trying to do because it is not worth it.  Let's explore.

School starts this week so it's time to talk about back to school.  Emphasis on the importance of character.

Patience is one of those things that no one thinks they have enough of.  Patience is needed for lots of things.  Doing good is one of those things we need patience for.  It is not easy doing the right thing and often causes you more problems, but we must be patient in doing good.

Ecclesiastes chapter 8 has some advice on how to make your face shine.  You do it by living wisely.  You will not see lots of wisdom lived out in the world, but that does not mean you have to join in.  Living wisely matters because it is making you into the person you really should be.

Jesus loves the church.  How can we love as he does?

Want to meet a man in love?  This sermon looks at Nehemiah and how he loves the Lord and wants to make sure He is glorified.

As we continue the series, "he other Christian trinity," (faith, hope, love) we turn our attention to love.  God is not concerned with our feelings so much as our actions when he commands us to love one another.  How can we do this?  

Hope has several elements but learning to he a good "waiter" is important.  So is integrity.  Hope depends on our integrity.

Hope.  Christian hope is not wishful thinking.  It is grouded in God and His faithfulness.  Hope is also not a feeling.  Sometimes hope is still moving forward when you do not feel like it.  Think of hope this way:  Hope is making heaven happen here.

The steadfast love of the Lord sounds good to our ears.  However, have you noticed the context in which those words are written.  It was a time of lost hope.  Yet it speaks of hope so beautifully.  Hope is hard.  Hope is not some emotion we have it's a commitment that God is merciful and will keep his word.

Faith is belief, trust and obedience but is there another word we could use besides faith.  Matthew Bates has suggested that the word allegiance may be a better word to use in understading the Biblical idea of faith.

When reading Hebrews 11 there are at least three elements to faith.  Belief, trust and obedience.  Focus for today is on trust.

Faith is certainly belief but it also is a recognition of the authority of Jesus and obedience to him.

What is the gospel and what does it mean that Jesus is messiah?  The gospel is so much more than Jesus died for our sins.  Messiah may be better understood as king.  

"Without faith it is impossible to please God."  But we do need to be sure that we have good sense of what Biblical faith is.

We want to be wise and do the right thing and yet we will still find ourselves struggling to be wise.  How do we resolve this?  Ecclesiastes 7:19-29 has some answers for us.  There is one righteous one who never sinned,  That makes all the difference.  Give it a listen and see what you think.

As we study through Joshua and Judges we keep running into the problem of idolatry.  It is easy to dismiss this as a problem they had but we do not struggle with.  We have our idols and we keep them for a number of reasons.  One reason we keep them around is that we stay focued on what we want instead of what we need.  God is more interested in what we need than what we want.  So when He does not...

Just like the Israelites had a territory to conqueor in Joshua and Judges, we have one as well.  Ourselves.  That is the hardest thing we will have to conqueor in this life.  There are lots of things we can look at and learn from the story of Joshua and Judges but maybe the prime one is this.  The last verse of Judges sums up the problem.  "Everyone did what was right in his own eyes."  Strive to...