http://westpresburbank.org Audio sermons from Westminster Presbyterian Church in Burbank, California. Thu, 12 Jan 2012 06:48:22 GMT ListGarden Program 1.3.1 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Date: 1-1-12 <br>Title: What kind of a year has it been? <br>Text: Jer. 29:11 <br>Theme: My annual end of the year review Sun, 01 Jan 2012 18:30:00 GMT The Whole Family <br>Westminster Presbyterian Church <br>Rev. Paul Clairville <br>December 25, 2011 Sun, 25 Dec 2011 18:30:00 GMT You Are The Man <br>Westminster Presbyterian Church <br>Rev. Paul Clairville <br>December 18, 2011 Sun, 18 Dec 2011 18:30:00 GMT God Of The Outsider <br>Westminster Presbyterian Church <br>Intern Joel Drenckpohl <br>December 11, 2011 Sun, 11 Dec 2011 18:30:00 GMT Date: 12-4-11 2nd Sunday of Advent <br>Title: A Fargo style of sin <br>Text: Genesis 38; Matt. 1:1-15 <br> <br>We are talking about the legacy of the people who figuratively sat around Jesus’ family dinner table looking at his genealogy recorded in Matthew 1:1-15. These were the people who informed the humanity of Jesus about his family lineage. Most of us have never heard of Judah. Remember him from Sunday school? No? There’s a reason for that, this isn’t a G-rated story. But it is a story containing important lessons from Judah and his daughter-in-law Tamar both of who make it into Matthew’s genealogy and who demonstrate both what not to do and the great nature of grace. Sun, 04 Dec 2011 18:30:00 GMT Date: 11-27-11 1st Sunday of Advent <br>Title: My dinner with Jesus <br>Text: Matt. 1:1-15 <br> <br>This sermon is for the first Sunday in Advent. Like Lent, Advent is a time of waiting, a time to consider who God is as “God with us,” what we call “Emmanuel” and what it means for us to be his people. This Advent I would like to figuratively spend some time at the Josephson’s family dinner table. <br> <br>Jesus was raised in a real home, with real people who were nurtured in a linage and who impacted his life. While we rightly confess Jesus as both God and man taking that confession seriously means not only taking his godhood seriously but also his humanity. The genealogy of Jesus in Matthew 1:1-15 talks about real people who lived real lives and who were part of the life situation in Jesus’ family. <br> <br>The people we will look at in this time are Abraham and Sarah. Sun, 27 Nov 2011 18:30:00 GMT Date: 11-20-11 <br>Title: “A Tale of Two Kingdoms" <br>Text: Matthew 2:1-12; Philippians 4:4-7 <br> <br>Introduction <br>We live lives that are controlled by the kingdoms of fear and worry. This keeps us from truly living the life that God intended for us and keeps us from having dominion over the future. Although our temporal circumstances in life are not promised to change, our perspective can. In Jesus, we follow a King, and are a part of a kingdom, where fear and worry do not reign supreme. We follow the King who is above every other King; the King of kings and Lord of lords. With this truth we can fully live in the present and boldly move into the future. Sun, 20 Nov 2011 18:30:00 GMT Date: 11-13-11 <br>Title: "Well the best things in life are free..." <br>Text: Ex. 20:1-17; Lk. 12:13-21; 2 Cor 9:1-7 <br> <br>Introduction <br>The dominion of money is important because money has “instant power” and thus therein lays huge potential for misuse. The “antidote” to this is letting God do his joyful work of redeeming money for his use in community; the appropriation of that is accomplished through stewardship or the dominion of money. Letting God have power over it not vise versa and having a openness about it. Sun, 13 Nov 2011 18:30:00 GMT Date: 11-6-11 <br>Title: Hello Dali <br>Text: Gen. 1:1; Ps. 98:1-9; John 1:1-14 <br> <br>The discipline of stewardship helps us consider the “whys” of things. This too is true of art. The Bible is filled with art and artistic language: its language is art, the parables and most of the images we’re given is artistic in nature, much great art has found its birthing room somewhere between its pages. Sun, 06 Nov 2011 18:30:00 GMT Date: 9-4-11 <br>Title: Prayer: Always on <br>Text: 1 Thess. 5:17 <br> <br> <br>In 1st Thess. 5:17 Paul writes... “Pray without ceasing.” This is the Bible’s version of “always on.” We are not supposed to spend our lives on our knees, but we are to be just as connected to God as we are to ATT Verizon or Sprint. Sun, 04 Sep 2011 18:30:00 GMT Date: 8-28-11 <br>Title: Ceasing to be eye-servants <br>Text: Eph 6:5-9 <br> <br>We’ve been ruminating of late how our faith grandparents deepened their faith by using the GPS of ancient practices. From earliest time God has promised us paths leading in his good way so we can walk with him and find rest for our souls; our trouble is our refusal to do so, (Jer. 6:16). <br> <br>Today we come to the stepping stone of service which is the use of what we have: physically, spiritually, emotionally for the active encouragement of what is good and for the cause of God. Sun, 28 Aug 2011 18:30:00 GMT Date: 8-14-11 <br>Title: Expectation as a verb <br>Text: Isaiah 6 <br> <br>Introduction <br>We’ve been discussing the way our faith grandparents deepened their faith and began walking closer with Jesus through ancient practices such as S solitude, silence, fasting, chastity, frugality and secrecy, study, worship, celebration, service, prayer, fellowship, confession and submission. <br> <br>From ancient times God has promised us paths leading toward his good way so we can walk with him and find rest for our souls; the trouble is our refusal to do so, (Jer. 6:16). <br> <br>Worship <br>Last week we talked about the discipline of study, which is the engaging of our mind in relationship to God. Today, we arrive at the eighth stepping stone and the second discipline of engagement worship. If study is engaging the head, worship is engaging the heart. Sun, 14 Aug 2011 18:30:00 GMT Date: 5-8-11 Mother’s Day <br>Title: Everything new is old again <br>Text: 2 Cor. 5:17 <br> <br>Today, we unpack a huge precursor of participating in the God-life: the newness of life we receive in the grace of God given in Christ bought for us in his death upon the cross. Sun, 08 May 2011 18:30:00 GMT Date: 10-30-11 <br>Title: Tradition <br>Text: Ps. 77:1-3; 11-15; 2 Peter 1:3-15 <br> <br>Tradition is a marker of the past, a tool to remember the path taken, a reminder. But it should never be confused with right relationship or belief about God. There are several reasons to honor the past: because those who forget will repeat mistakes; because remembering roots us in reality. But we should never mistake tradition for God. God doesn’t remain rooted in tradition God is rooted in truth. Tradition can freeze people into cartoon characters of who God desires us to be. Sun, 30 Oct 2011 18:30:00 GMT Date: 10-23-11 <br>Title: Heigh Ho, Heigh Ho <br>Text: Ps. 107:23-25; 1 Thess. 5 <br> <br>The stewardship of work which can be just as much a gift of God as any other created thing. Sun, 23 Oct 2011 18:30:00 GMT Date: 10-16-11 <br>Title: The monkey on my back has a gun <br>Text: Eph. 5&amp;6 <br> <br>Stewardship is closely tied to the Hebrew concept of dominion which is the power and responsibility we're given to use creation: As I've said previously God creates the grapes, we make the wine; he makes the animals, we name and domesticate them; he creates the world, we create from the world. <br> <br>As we begin this series I'd like to look into that most horrible of all created things of God... our families and relationships. Sun, 16 Oct 2011 18:30:00 GMT The Will and the Wine <br>Westminster Presbyterian Church <br>Intern Cathy Kelley <br>October 9, 2011 Sun, 09 Oct 2011 18:30:00 GMT Date: 9-18-11 <br>Title: Fellowship, confession and submission: Good for the soul, bad for the rep <br>Text: Acts 2:46; James 5:16; Phil. 2:1 – 18 <br> <br>Today we arrive at the end of our study of the ancient paths our faith-grandparents were led by God as they sought to live lives closer to him and his way, the stepping stones we're going to look at today are deeply connected: fellowship, confession and submission. <br> <br>Each of these pavers leads to the other: if you're not in fellowship you're not going to care enough to confess, it's easy to live an unrepentant life if you're not involved in others lives. But if you're not involved in the lives of others you'll be duller and duller. Sun, 18 Sep 2011 18:30:00 GMT Date: 9-11-11 The 10th Anniversary of 9-11 <br>Title: The Rising <br>Text: 1 Cor. 13 <br> <br>This service is both a remembrance from the people of WestPres of that awful day and a call to not allow Nationalism to get in the way of the love of God who calls us to love everyone with the sacrificial love of Christ. Sun, 11 Sep 2011 18:30:00 GMT Date: 8-21-11 <br>Title: Celebration: More joy in one ethnic wedding <br>Text: Ecc. 5:18-20; John 2:1-11 <br> <br>Celebration <br>Today we come to another important stepping stone: celebration. Celebration as a discipline is probably confusing. You're probably thinking, "Isn't celebration a superfluous act that certainly needs to be curtailed in these hard economic times?" <br> <br>No. <br> <br>Celebration is the dénouement of the discipline of worship because it explains the essential plot point of life which is dwelling on the greatness of God demonstrated in his goodness to us. Sun, 21 Aug 2011 18:30:00 GMT Date: 8-7-11 <br>Title: Solvitur ambulando <br>Text: 2 Tim. 2:15 <br> <br>We've been discussing the way our faith grandparents deepened their faith and began walking closer with Jesus through ancient practices such as solitude, silence, fasting, chastity, frugality and secrecy, study, worship, celebration, service, prayer, fellowship, confession and submission. From ancient times God has promised us paths leading toward his good way so we can walk with him and find rest for our souls; the trouble is our refusal to do so (Jer. 6:16). <br> <br>Study <br>Today, we arrive at study, the seventh stepping stone and the first in the second section which deals with the discipline of engagement. A term I believe too be a rather good image of the reason study is Solvitur ambulando, "it is solved by walking," problems are unraveled by "practical experiment." Intellectual study is an important piece of the Christian faith. We need to use both our of head and our heart; we need both. Sun, 07 Aug 2011 18:30:00 GMT Title: Shhh... <br>Text: Matthew 6:1-4 <br>Date: 7-31-11 <br> <br>Recently we've been discussing the way our faith grandparents deepened their faith and began walking closer with Jesus through ancient practices such as solitude, silence, fasting, chastity, frugality, secrecy and sacrifice, study, worship, celebration, service, prayer, fellowship, confession and submission. <br> <br>God has promised to us from ancient times paths leading toward the good way so we can walk it and find rest for our souls. The trouble is our refusal to walk it, (Jer. 6:16). <br> <br>Secrecy <br>The sixth stepping stone is something most of us probably think we shouldn't do . . . secrecy. Doing good things in secrecy begins to remove our masks of theatrical righteousness. When we don't get the credit we realize we don't need to get the credit and we grow more comfortable in our skin; realizing it’s not always about us leads to a healthier less narcissistic Godlier person. Sun, 31 Jul 2011 18:30:00 GMT Date: 7-17-11 <br>Title: Affluenza <br>Text: Jer. 6:16; James 5:1-5 <br> <br>The fifth discipline of the Christian Church I want to lift up is that of being frugal with our money. Frugality isn’t a biblical word. It actually comes from a Latin word which means the proper honest and economical use of your fruit or produce. The closest biblical word to frugality would be dominion, (Gen. 1:26), or what we today call stewardship. The meaning is the same. Frugality is the proper use of money or goods which are at our disposal; not using them in ways that merely gratify our desires or our hunger for status, glamour, or luxury. It’s staying within the bounds of what general good judgment would designate as necessary for the kind of life to which God has led us. <br> <br>This idea of frugality is one of the core principles of the Presbyterian Church. In our Book of Order under the section that describes the faith of the Reformed Tradition it lists the theme of... "A faithful stewardship that shuns ostentation and seek proper use of the gifts of God’s creation," (BOO, G-2.0500.3). <br> <br>The use of God’s good gifts for God’s purposes and not just our own is a huge theme of the Bible. When Jim Wallis the founder and pastor of the justice ministry organization called Sojourners was in seminary he and some of his classmates conducted an experiment. They culled through the Bible underlining every verse that dealt with poverty, wealth, justice and oppression. Later the Poverty and Justice Bible put the count at almost two-thousand verses. <br> <br>Then with a pair of scissors Jim and his friends cut each of those verses out of the Bible. The result was a Bible of tatters that barely held together, a holey Bible. <br> <br>When I was in collage I heard Jim speak at a Youth Specialties Conference in San Diego, he held up his ragged holey Bible and said... "This is our American Bible; it is full of holes. Each one of us might as well take our Bibles, a pair of scissors and begin cutting out all the scriptures we pay no attention to, all the biblical texts that we just ignore." <br> <br>Two-thousand verses that tell us God cares about issues of justice, the oppressed and the down trodden and that we will be held accountable for our misuse of our resources. Sun, 17 Jul 2011 18:30:00 GMT Date: 7-10-11 <br>Title: The Third Rail of Christianity <br>Text: Jer. 6:16; 1 Cor. 6:12-20 <br> <br>From ancient times God has paved his path with stepping stones to direct our journey... our problem is our refusal to do so... and no discipline is more misunderstood than chastity which is the discipline of purposefully turning away, for a season, from dwelling on or engaging in the sexual dimensions of our relationships so that we can understand how sex has taken us away from a vital relationship with God. Sun, 10 Jul 2011 18:30:00 GMT Date: 7-3-11 <br>Title: No Wine So Wonderful as Thirst <br>Text: Jeremiah 6:16 <br> <br>The past few weeks we’ve been discussing the ancient practices of our faith grandparents through which they deepened their faith and began walking closer with Jesus using disciplines such as solitude, silence, fasting, chastity, frugality, secrecy and sacrifice, study, worship, celebration, service, prayer, fellowship, confession and submission. Today we’ll look at the third practice of the discipline of abstinence fasting a discipline of what goes into us as we abstain from something, normally but not necessarily, food and or drink for a given period of time for the purpose of giving thought to what we put into our bodies and how those might be taking the place of God. Sun, 03 Jul 2011 18:30:00 GMT Date: 6-26-11 <br>Title: Twenty Times More the Amphetamine <br>Text: Jeremiah 6:16 <br> <br>Today we begin a study of a GPS of ancient paths the operating system is gleaned from the book I mentioned last week called The Spirit of the Disciplines by Dallas Willard encompasses two categories of discipline: disciplines of abstinence: solitude, silence, fasting, frugality, chastity, secrecy and sacrifice. And disciplines of engagement: study, worship, celebration, service, prayer, fellowship, confession and submission. Today we examine solitude and silence. Sun, 26 Jun 2011 18:30:00 GMT Date: June 12, 2011 <br>Title: More than S &amp; H Green Stamps <br>Text: Luke 8:26-39 <br> <br>Jesus' life was a constancy of ministry, with even the stops along the way being filled with new opportunities for miraculous healings. The demoniac, one of society's many unlovables, is not so unlike the outcasts of today. Who was the demoniac, and where is he in our midst? How is God calling you? Sun, 12 Jun 2011 18:30:00 GMT Date: 6-5-11 <br>Title: Sucking in orderliness <br>Text: John 12:25 <br> <br>The sayings of Jesus are often mistaken as a Theremin filled expression of some otherworldly truth for crazy religious folk; but in actuality they’re grounded observations about how life works. Jesus rarely makes statements about what we ought to do, he make statements about how things are. Sun, 05 Jun 2011 18:30:00 GMT Date: 5-29-11 Memorial Day <br>Title: An indication of our greatness, for all our dustiness <br>Text: Gen. 1:26-28; 2:7; Ps. 8 <br> <br>Why are we here? What is our purpose? One way to answer that question is to look at our beginnings; the beginnings in the Bible, Genesis one and two tell us five things about our creation: we were made in the Image of God; we were made to have responsibility for the creation; we were all created to share this responsibility; we were not created to be comfortable but to live life on the edge of adventure and we were created to be in community. These five aspects provide a clue to our purpose. Sun, 29 May 2011 18:30:00 GMT In A Spiderhole <br>05/15/2011 <br>Intern Cathy Kelley <br>Westminster Presbyterian Church Sun, 15 May 2011 18:30:00 GMT May – Finding our way again: The ancient practices: In constant prayer <br>Date: 5-1-11 <br>Title: Neurosis Is Always A Substitute For Legitimate Suffering <br>Text: Matt. 11:28-30 <br> <br>Neurosis is different from psychological brokenness; it is a mild psychiatric disorder characterized by anxiety, depression (not clinical depression) and often manifested in getting sick. Most neurosis comes not from worrying, but from not worrying about the right things. We’re going to have things to worry about; but do we worry about the right things? Are we expending our energy on the right things? Are we worrying about what Jesus worries about, or, are we worrying about what his fallen creation worries about? Sun, 01 May 2011 18:30:00 GMT Date: 4-24-11 Resurrection Sunday <br>Title: We Need Some Light <br>Text: John 20:1-18 <br> <br>When we reduce the meaning of Easter to chocolate eggs and bunnies, or when we think that today is more about heaven than it is about what we do with the life God has given us, when we don’t allow Christ to slowly, gracefully inhabit and even invade every corner of our lives, when we don’t celebrate the resurrection of Christ every day of our lives we are guilty of living lives that are less than real and I assure you God wants us to live real lives. Sun, 24 Apr 2011 18:30:00 GMT Date: 4-17-11 Palm Sunday <br>Title: Sometimes When You Stare Into The Abyss The Abyss Stares Back <br>Text: Zech. 9:9; Matt. 5:5, 21:5; Gal. 5:22 <br> <br>Today, we’re going to tackle two fruit that have gotten a bum rap: gentleness (praotes) which means “mildness” or “meekness” in dealing with people, and self-control (egkrateia) which stands in opposition to over-indulgence and selfishness. Sun, 17 Apr 2011 18:30:00 GMT Date: 4-10-11 <br>Title: The Faith of Abraham <br>Text: Gal. 5 <br>Speaker: Intern Cathy Kelley Sun, 10 Apr 2011 18:30:00 GMT Date: 4-3-11 <br>Title: Sam, Sam, He's Our Man <br>Text: Gal. 5:22 <br>Speaker: Intern Cathy Kelley Sun, 03 Apr 2011 18:30:00 GMT Date: 3-27-11 <br>Title: Hospice <br>Text: Gal. 5:22-23 <br> <br>Kindness is frequently used by the classical writers to mean “excellence” in reference to things and “goodness” or “honesty” when referring to persons. The word Paul uses (chrēstotēs) means “benevolence to humanity in spite of ingratitude.” Benevolence is a French word: bene “well” and volentem “wishing” well-wishing: moral goodness and integrity, which means “entire” or firm principles. <br> <br>Kindness is different from goodness (agathosune) which Cathy will unpack for us next week, in that there’s more of a moral component than an active component which you see in kindness. <br> <br>Old wine was referred to as kind, or mellow which unpacks another sense of the word: to excel in kindness you have to have a few years under your feet, you have to have the edges worn down and not be racing about: you need to have love enough to let God grow the fruit in you, to have joy in simple things, to have peace of fighting things through rather than running away, to have the patience to know that its not all about you, to have faith enough to know God’s in charge. Sun, 27 Mar 2011 18:30:00 GMT Date: 3-20-11 <br>Title: Long Anger <br>Text: Matt. 5:10-12; Gal. 5:22-23 <br> <br>Patience (makrothumia) appears rarely in non-Jewish Greek writings. When it does it always means “steadfast,” or “long-suffering in the face of provocation and persecution.” The Biblical word comes from a confluence of two words, “macro,” or “long,” and “thumos” “anger.” It literally means to have a “long view of anger,” a “long view of suffering.” It’s knowing “all this shall pass” and patiently enduring wrong without responding in anger or taking vengeance. As with all the fruit patience utilizes peace, love, joy and so on as a concatenation for living life with God. Sun, 20 Mar 2011 18:30:00 GMT Date: 3-13-11 <br>Title: No One Leaves Serenity; You Just Learn To Live There <br>Text: Matt. 5:9; Gal. 5:22-23 <br> <br>Although it’s defined differently in various philosophies and cultures peace is a universal quest of humanity. First century Greeks sought “serenity,” or “tranquility” (atarazia) through self-sufficient independence from all that caused trouble seeking an absence of pain. <br> <br>The New Testament writers thought differently, for them peace (eirene) was informed by the Jewish understanding of Shalom. Rather than being typified by the absence of conflict, Shalom means, in part, the working out of relationships in whatever circumstances. Shalom isn’t an absence of opposition, difficulties, or pain, but beneficial relationships fought for through the pain. Sun, 13 Mar 2011 18:30:00 GMT Date: 3-6-11 <br>Title: Transposing life into a higher key <br>Text: Gal. 5:22-23; James 1:2-8 <br> <br>Biblically joy (chara) is described as a characteristic of quiet confidence that comes from God’s saving power. It is the sure and certain hope that God is able. It isn’t the joy that comes from earthly things, but the realization through religious practice: through the reading of scripture, the hearing of our common stories, the viewing of examples, the living of community and the learned muscle memory of practices that deepen our joy. There’s nothing intrinsically wrong with a joy that it part of our friends, family, or even our home or possessions; the trouble begins when they are the source or determiner of our joy because they are going to go away. Sun, 06 Mar 2011 18:30:00 GMT Oscar Sunday Service <br>Rev. Paul Clairville Sun, 27 Feb 2011 18:30:00 GMT Date: 2-20-11 <br>Title: Theotokos <br>Text: Gal. 5:22-23 <br>Theme: Love <br> <br>For the next few weeks Cathy and I are going to lead us deeper into discipleship territory by discussing the nine fruit of the Spirit: Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, goodness, faithfulness and self-control. These nine aspects of Christian character are a concatenation of life in the Spirit: each is dependent on the other; love supports goodness, self-control supports kindness and so on. If you don’t have ALL the fruit, you don’t have ANY of the fruit. So we need to understand these with an eye toward integrating them into our lives like a woman carrying a baby. Sun, 20 Feb 2011 18:30:00 GMT Date: 2-13-11 Evolution Sunday <br>Title: Do, be, do, be, do <br>Text: Deut. 6:4-9; <br>Theme: The virtuous circle: Practice <br> <br>I’m challenging us all to walk closer with Christ than when the clock struck midnight on December 31st 2010. Toward that end we’re seeking to understand virtue, moral excellence, or Christian Character. In Christ God loves us just as we are, we are saved by Jesus not by our works. But as a grateful people what then do we do between accepting Jesus and waking up dead? A partial answer is we practice virtue. <br> <br>The virtuous circle: community <br>As we’ve discussed the past few weeks an illustration of how we achieve virtue is found in N.T. Wright’s circle consisting of five arcs: scripture, story, example, community and practices. <br> <br>Today, I want to examine the final arc of this circle: practice. The practices of a community are what we do, how we connect with God. They’re called practices because they’re the manner through which we practice the development of our spiritual heart and mind. Sun, 13 Feb 2011 18:30:00 GMT Date: 2-6-11 Super Bowl Sunday <br>Title: Professional pedestal divers <br>Text: Heb. 10:24 <br>Theme: The virtuous circle: community <br> <br>Introduction <br>This year I’m challenging us all to walk closer with Christ than we were when the clock struck midnight on December 31st 2010. Toward that end we’re seeking to understand what the ancient philosophers called virtue: moral excellence; which we might more easily call Christian Character. In Christ God loves us just as we are, we are saved by Jesus not by our works but as the grateful what do we do between accepting Jesus as our Lord and savior and waking up dead? <br> <br>The virtuous circle: community <br>As an illustration of this we’ve introduced N.T. Wright’s virtuous circle consisting of five arcs: scripture, story, example, community and practices. <br> <br>This teaching will examine the fourth arc which is arguably one of the most overused words in Christian vocabulary . . . community. Community, or fellowship comes from the Greek koinenia and can be found some 19 times in the Bible. In many ways the most profound use is Acts 2:42 . . . They . . . that is the new Christians or more accurately the new followers of the Way . . . devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. <br> <br>Koinenia is tied to the whole of relationship in a deepening journey with Jesus of need and strength training: we become a part of the community by starting with Jesus: giving our lives to him. Then we begin to deepen our connection with Christ in the sacrament of communion and a deepening prayer life. As that happens there is a concatenation through which God speaks into our lives so the community, his church, become his hands and feet and the good and bad demonstration of holiness. Sun, 06 Feb 2011 18:30:00 GMT Date: 1-30-11 <br>Title: We’re looking for people who like to draw! <br>Text: 1 Peter 2:21 <br>Theme: The virtuous circle: Example <br> <br>This year I’m challenging us to be different people, closer to Christ, than we were when the clock struck midnight on December 31st 2010. New Years is an arbitrary date but we’ve got to start somewhere else we’ll wake up dead one day very sad we didn’t put desire into action. <br> <br>With this teaching I want to examine the third arc: example. 1 Peter 2:21 says... For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you should follow in his steps. The word we translate as "example" is the Greek word hupogrammos from hupo, under and grapho, "writing," which makes this mean "writing under" or tracing. The meaning which floats to the surface is... "Christ suffered for you, leaving a tracing of him for you to follow." Sun, 30 Jan 2011 18:30:00 GMT Once Upon A Time <br>01/23/2011 <br>Westminster Presbyterian Church Sun, 23 Jan 2011 18:30:00 GMT Date: 1-16-11 <br>Title: I want to ride my bicycle <br>Text: Dan. 6:10 <br>Theme: The virtuous circle: Scripture <br> <br>This Sunday I want to talk about the points on what N. T. Wright calls the circle of virtue: scripture, stories, examples, community and practices. This Sunday we’ll discuss our common stories that come from scripture; those pieces of our common history that help form the balance of knowing that we are sinners and yet still going forward. <br> <br>The particular scripture I want to highlight is Daniel 6:10 . . . Although Daniel knew that the document had been signed, he continued to go to his house, which had windows in its upper room open towards Jerusalem, and to get down on his knees three times a day to pray to his God and praise him, just as he had done previously. <br> <br>This text is part of our communal balance, just as Daniel when things get tough we don’t go over the edge, we don’t necessarily protest the evil (although there is a place for that) we continue to worship God and know that he is above all the crap with which we have to deal. Sun, 16 Jan 2011 18:30:00 GMT 2011 Sermon Series - Virtue <br>Date: 1-9-11 <br>Title: But enough about me . . . what do YOU think about me? <br>Text: Luke 18:18-23 <br> <br>As we place our feet firmly down on this New Year I’d like to challenge us to step out of our comfort zone so that we’re different people in January of 2012 than now. Toward that end I’d like us to contemplate something ancient writers called virtue. We equate virtue with "goodness" but that isn’t its strict meaning: Virtue is what happens when we’ve made a thousand small choices to do something right and good, something which requires effort and concentration but which doesn’t come naturally. Sun, 09 Jan 2011 18:30:00 GMT Date: 1-2-11 <br>Title: What kind of a year has it been? <br>Text: Jer. 29:11 <br> <br>Every year at this time I take a moment look back at the road we've traveled as a way of attempting to see where we're going. While Soren Kierkegaard's famous dictum of, “Life must be lived forwards, but understood backwards,” is a non-negotiable fact, we who belong to the Lord imbue our lives with meaning as we are in process with God. As the first question of the Westminster Shorter Catechism asks and answers: What is the chief end of man: To enjoy God and to glorify him forever. <br> <br>We believe that God is walking with us on this journey, so as we look back we look forward knowing that God has a plan for us, as Jeremiah 29:11 says... "For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." <br> <br>The Hebrew word for plans (makhashawbah) means the “texture” of something, the pattern that has been laid down. It is where we get the English word machinations, which carries the sense of a secret plan, in this case known to those who receive the free gift of knowing and walking with Christ so this talk will focus on where we have been in 2010. Sun, 02 Jan 2011 18:30:00 GMT Date: 12-26-10 <br>Title: I feel so much better, now that I’ve given up hope <br>Text: Gal. 5:16-18; 23-25; Heb. 11:1 <br> <br>Theme: <br>Hope is wishing for something in expectation of its fulfillment. This Christmas past you may have hoped for a certain thing: perhaps an item, a reunion, a feeling. Now that Christmas is past you are either basking in the fulfillment of that hope or you are suffering its demise. <br> <br>I would like to suggest to you today that both hope’s fulfillment and its demise are important to growth because they help you hone in on how you grow. Sun, 26 Dec 2010 18:30:00 GMT Date: 12-24-10 Christmas Eve <br>Title: Vicit Angus Noster Eum Sequamur – Our Lamb has conquered, him let us follow <br>Text: Ex. 12; Rev. 5; 17:14; 19 <br> <br>This Advent season we’ve been exploring the seeming paradoxes of the God-life which are actually as J.I. Packer informs us apparent contradictions, what are called antinomy, not an actual but apparent contradiction: like light being both a particle and a wave; we just don’t have the wisdom to figure it out. <br> <br>With this teaching we arrive at the manger, all of us together: another year, another Christmas Eve and tonight I’d like to remind us of the power behind all this which we who walk with Jesus possess. Fri, 24 Dec 2010 18:30:00 GMT Date: 12-19-10 4th Sunday of Advent <br>Title: Closing escrow <br>Text: Jer. 31:33 <br> <br>In the writing of the prophet Jeremiah we find these words... “But this is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.” We’ve heard the term covenant before but what does it mean that God will “put the law within us?” What does it mean to walk so closely to God that you just know the way to go? Sun, 19 Dec 2010 18:30:00 GMT Date: 12-12-10 3rd Sunday of Advent <br>Title: Living on a latte and a prayer <br>Text: Col. 1:15-20 <br> <br>Last week we discussed the magnificent disappointment that accompanies the God-life: that it’s never as we think it’s going to be. Today, I want to talk about how that never as we think is better than we thought... if you get my drift. <br> <br>A side-bar to this sermon is that we need to beware of a closet speciesism in this sort of discussion. The biblical call on humanity is that of the biblical concept of “dominion” not usury. With dominion comes responsibility for care. Not only that but there is some amazing research being done right now with primate research especially with an endangered species of ape from the Congo called Bonobos that blurs the human animal line. Check out this link on some fairly mind blowing research going on in Des Moines Iowa. http://www.greatapetrust.org/media-center/news-releases/great-ape-trust-bonobos-on-cnn-s-anderson-cooper-360 Sun, 12 Dec 2010 18:30:00 GMT Date: 12-5-10 2nd Sunday of Advent <br>Title: Magnificent disappointment <br>Text: Isa. 7:14; 9; 42:6; 53:7; John 1:1 <br> <br>The celebration of the Incarnation, Christmas, is the celebration of God with us; not overtly as the mighty King of all that is or ever will be but as the child who came... to die; something far from our thoughts as we admire the sweet manger scene on our mantle. God met us in the manger... with cradle cap, and diaper rash: before Desitin. God walked with us through the messiness of life, real life, to the cross. That’s why the cross needs to be bonded to the incarnation at the cellular level. Sun, 05 Dec 2010 18:30:00 GMT Date: 11-28-10 1st Sunday of Advent <br>Title: God always shows up, but never early <br>Text: Gen. 3:Lev. 26:12; Isa. 7:14, 9:1-7; Zech 3:9; Matt. 1:22, 23 <br> <br>If we wind the clock back we know that the best available measurements as of this date suggest that the initial conditions which were favorable for what we popularly call the Big Bang occurred between 13.3 and 13.9 billion years ago we find that the record of humans only covers some 5,000 years of those millennia. Yet those first human ancestors were, I am certain, just as narcissistically out for them as were the dinosaurs or whatever other thing crawled the earth. If our observations have taught us anything it is that we are out for us. Like the story of nature herself, the human story is red in tooth and claw. <br> <br>The biblical word for this condition story is sin. The antidote is the baby born in the manger to die. Sun, 28 Nov 2010 18:30:00 GMT Date: 11-14-10 <br>Title: The Holey Bible <br>Text: Matt. 28:16; Luke 10:25-37 <br> <br>This month, we’re examining the nature of both holiness and sin exposed as we listen, or don’t, to Jesus’ call in the Great Commission “bullet-pointed” by Jesus as: loving God, and our neighbor as our self. These bullet-points, first given in the Old Testament and found in Matthew, Mark and Luke concludes in Luke with the parable of the Good Samaritan, a parable within which Jesus makes it quite clear that on the level we’re able we are to care for all people. <br> <br>Last week we examined the nature of sin when it points to everyone... but us. Today, I’d like to continue by looking at how we sin by avoiding the needs of the poor. Sun, 14 Nov 2010 18:30:00 GMT Date: 11-7-10 <br>Title: Amplify everything, hear nothing <br>Text: Matt. 28:16; Luke 10:25-28 <br> <br>Today we arrive at the last statement of the Great Commission: Teaching people to keep absolutely all that (Jesus) commanded. Earlier in the Gospels we discover the answer to that question is... Love God fully and our neighbor as ourselves. <br> <br>Interesting Jesus doesn’t name any of the things we might: give your money, practice heterosexuality; don’t gossip; don’t cheat on your spouse. While those are part of a life of holiness, they grow out of a life of love flowing from God to us to others. Biblical theology always seeks to illumine reality, pointing first to us, how we do what is right which illumines what we do that’s wrong. Sun, 07 Nov 2010 18:30:00 GMT Brian's goodbye sermon teaches us about love, the resurrection, and zombies. Sun, 31 Oct 2010 18:30:00 GMT Date: 10-24-10 <br>Title: Gettin’ washed up <br>Text: Baptizing them into the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. <br> <br>In baptism we're playing dress up in Christ’s righteousness. But we're also in some mysterious way changed. When we're playing dress up we're, hopefully, deeply loved by our parents. When we're baptized we're laying hold of a promise that's already taken place. Christ has gone before us, he has “sealed” us for his purposes, he has done this because he too deeply loves us. Sun, 24 Oct 2010 18:30:00 GMT Christian faith is never to be nationalistic, never for self. That’s why in the Lord’s Prayer we pray OUR Father, not MY Father; give US, not give ME, OUR not MY daily bread, forgive US not forgive ME. God makes all things new, and he uses us to be the doers of that new thing. So let’s get off our butts and make it so. Sun, 17 Oct 2010 18:30:00 GMT 10/10/2010 <br>Dave Barry Preaching <br>Westminster Presbyterian Church Sun, 10 Oct 2010 18:30:00 GMT Date: 10-3-10 <br>Title: “PHENOMENAL COSMIC POWERS! . . .Itty-bitty living space!” <br>Text: And Jesus stepped forward and spoke to them saying . . . All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. <br> <br>When we miss the relatable power of Jesus we miss our connection with God. When we miss our connection with God we miss having the power of the one who spoke the world into being also being the one who redeemed us and who is living inside us giving us the power to be made whole: whole people, real people, honest people in Christ working for the kingdom not some day but every day. Sun, 03 Oct 2010 18:30:00 GMT Date: 9-26-10 <br>Title: Faded credulity <br>Text: though some had their doubts. <br> <br>Today, we’re going to examine doubt, thought they . . . worshiped him, some had their doubts . . . This is a much debated text. Some people have a hard time believing that worshipping people can be doubting people: they’ve obviously never spent time with real people. Some commentators render this as they had doubted, but now they’re better, or that some doubted but certainly not the disciples. But the language of the text leaves wide open the linguistic possibility that the disciples were real people who had their doubts: even after the crucifixion and the resurrection, even after Thomas . . . common sense leaves open the possibility that all of us will have our doubts. Sun, 26 Sep 2010 18:30:00 GMT Title: A Limping Church <br>Text: Now the eleven disciples came to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus commanded them, and when they saw him they worshiped him. <br>Date: 9-19-10 <br> <br>Introduction <br>For the better part of the year we’ve been looking at how the church of the 21st century isn’t really all that different than the church of the 1st: we’re a group living for Jesus: transforming secular space, living as community, serving with generosity, welcoming the stranger and so on. <br> <br>Now we’re spending time in some conceptual source material as we examine Jesus’ message found in the 28th chapter of the Gospel of Matthew which we call the Great Commission. When the “church” arrives in Galilee in verse 16 the number of disciples is incomplete. They’ve lost Judas. These weren’t 12 perfect people: Saint this, Icon that, they were just like us: they’re “eleven-ish,” imperfect, fallible, a limping church. How do we today deal with that limp? Sun, 19 Sep 2010 18:30:00 GMT Text: Matthew 4:1-11 <br> <br>There's more to the temptations than just turning rocks into bread. Sun, 12 Sep 2010 18:30:00 GMT Date: 9-5-10 <br>Title: We begin at the end <br> <br>And look! I myself am right here with you all the days, to the consummation of history. <br>Part of the power of the text we call the Great Commission comes from Jesus’ concluding statement. Today I am beginning a nine week series on this text which is found in Matthew 28:16-20 and as we begin I want to start at the end because it’s the conclusion of what Jesus says that makes the rest of the mandate real and possible ... And look! I myself am right here with you all the days, to the consummation of history. <br> <br>Jesus is with us. Sun, 05 Sep 2010 18:30:00 GMT Date: 8-29-10 <br>Title: A long obedience in the same direction <br>Text: Psalm 84 <br> <br>What do we do when we find ourselves in the midst of struggle, what today’s text calls our weeping places. I want to broach the question of how we both survive and enlarge our souls in that broken place. It’s important, in our places of weeping, to make choices of obedience to God and since we stand or fall together, as the called body of Christ this is what Eugene Peterson calls a long obedience in the same direction. Sun, 29 Aug 2010 18:30:00 GMT Date: 8-22-10 <br>Title: I do what the voice tells me to do <br>Text: The whole of the Bible <br> <br>How do we hear God? Systematically, this question falls under the doctrine of Scripture inspired by the Holy Spirit, or the self-disclosure of God, revelation. Sun, 22 Aug 2010 18:30:00 GMT Date: 8-15-10 <br>Title: Welcome to Our Benevolent, Multi-headed Dictatorship <br>Text: Acts 2:42 <br> <br>Tom Wright says . . . “The Christianly virtuous person is not thinking about his or her own moral performance. He or she is thinking of Jesus Christ, and of how best to love the person next door,” (After You Believe, pg. 240). It is this balance of Christ and others which grounds us in God’s purpose. The question for all of us is: how can I love both of them more? Sun, 15 Aug 2010 18:30:00 GMT Date: 8-8-10 <br>Title: This is our story: Dorothy Gale... Evangelist! <br>Text: 1 Cor. 12:12-20 <br> <br>So, last week I compared the church to the TV program Diners Drive-ins and Dives. This week, my comparison is the Wizard of Oz. Consider this: each of the characters we meet in OZ has a need: The Tin Man needs a heart, the Cowardly Lion needs courage, and the Scarecrow needs a brain. Each has lived in OZ with these needs for an undetermined period of time and each is given direction to fulfill that need by the “call” of Dorothy Gale who herself receives her call out of her need. Dorothy isn’t an expert, neither is the Tin Man, or the Scarecrow or the Cowardly Lion . . . (spoiler alert) even the Wizard isn’t who he appears to be which is where my analogy falls apart. Yet they are all seeking wholeness and working together to find their healing. Sun, 08 Aug 2010 18:30:00 GMT Date: 8-1-10 <br>Title: This is our story: The McDonaldization of the church <br>Text: Ps. 139:13-16; Eph. 2:10 <br>Theme: Creating as created beings <br> <br>An important aspect of the church is that we are all called by God to participate as producers of what we’re about. There’s no us and them, no hierarchy per se; yes certainly there are officers who are called for a season to serve in a particular role for a particular time. But ideally we all work to produce what we do here. Sun, 01 Aug 2010 18:30:00 GMT Date: 7-25-10 Bill Motz teaching <br>Title: The Book of Me <br>Text: Philemon <br> <br>The hoped for grace that emerges from the book of Philemon is indicative of the foolishness of the Gospel which not only brings the lost back, but also restores what has run away; it is a story that includes us between its pages as we see what God is writing in the narrative of our lives. Sun, 25 Jul 2010 18:30:00 GMT Date: 7-18-10 <br>Title: This is our story <br>Text: John 3:16; Luke 8:13; Acts 2:42 <br>Theme: How do we approach our faith life in the midst of crisis? <br> <br>For the past 52 years of our life, nearly 30 years of marriage, 26 years of professional ministry, four kids, one we lost, five congregations, four youth groups, one apartment, one duplex, one double-wide trailer, five houses, only one of which we bought, five dogs and who knows how many cats rats and mice my wife Carol and I have grown through the crisis moments of life. We’ve done it successfully and with sorrowful defeat. But I think in the main we’ve weathered both the good and the bad successfully and for that we’d like to tell you our story, how we do what we do. That’s what this teaching is all about. Sun, 18 Jul 2010 18:30:00 GMT Money is an issue for all of us. As WestPres deals with the arrival of our own version of the economic downturn (we’re SO excited that it’s finally arrived) we are seeking to know the will of God in prayer. The purpose of this teaching is give our prayer a biblical foundation. I want to try and dispel the lies of bad preaching, the prosperity gospel and fear and attempt to arrive at the heart of what we’re about as Christ’s-ones as far as money. Sun, 11 Jul 2010 18:30:00 GMT We are walking a fine line in this service. Celebrating the birth of our nation, in the context of a worship service, probably makes some of you nervous. Anytime we put together religion and politics any thinking person holds their breath. However, there is a rich tradition in doing what we are about. It’s unfortunate that the extremes of partisan politics have created a rift between church and state the framers never intended to exist. The term, “separation of church and state doesn’t exist in the constitution of the United States of America. The pertinent passage is: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” To separate faith from a nation, to rip from history the line of faith that has served as the defining map for those who came before us, is to leave us lost in a desert of history. With no pattern from which to learn and extrapolate into the future. <br> <br>Yet it is completely understandable why we have thrown out the roadmap which faith provides. Religion has been greatly abused by both extremes of belief. So when many of us hear the church having anything to do with government a wave of concern runs over us, rightfully so. <br> <br>It’s important to know that while commerce was a huge motivating factor in the events leading to the “discovery” of America, faith was the motivator for many of those who populated this nation. While we are not a theocracy, we are also not an atheistic nation. While we do not believe that America is the new Jerusalem, we do believe that God has used our nation a force for good, so that it is impossible to comprehend that He is not in someway powerfully working in America. <br> <br>I invite you now to abandon worries of partisanship and celebrate what we have been given. I invite you to thank God for the precious, tenacious freedom we enjoy and to consider, as all worship services should make us do, how we can do, what we do better. Sun, 04 Jul 2010 18:30:00 GMT Date: June 27, 2010 <br>Title: An REM of the Soul <br>Text: Ps. 84; Col. 4:2-6 <br> <br>Stewardship is the responsible use of one of the most precious "things" we've been given in the case of this teaching time and finding our rest within it. Time is just like any other created "thing" of God. God created it, we get to use it. And as with any other created thing, time too must be cared for in concert with God. Sun, 27 Jun 2010 18:30:00 GMT Date: 6-20-10 Father’s Day <br>Title: Participating as Producers <br>Text: Ps. 91:1; Acts 6:1-7 <br> <br>A mark of the church of Jesus Christ is when her people see themselves as called and gifted by God, seek to serve in their gifts participate as "producers" of the "product" of church and rest in appropriate measure. Sun, 20 Jun 2010 18:30:00 GMT Calling All Sinners - Let's Party <br>06/13/2010 <br>Rev. Paul Clairville <br>10:30 AM Service Sun, 13 Jun 2010 18:30:00 GMT "So You Think You've Got Talent?" <br>Matthew 25:14-30 <br>We've all got talents, it's how we use our talents as we serve God that matters. Sun, 06 Jun 2010 18:30:00 GMT WestPres - Now In Living Color <br>05/30/2010 <br>Rev. Paul Clairville <br>10:30 AM Service Sun, 30 May 2010 18:30:00 GMT Date: 5-23-10 <br>Title: Picnicking with the homeless <br>Scripture: Matt. 25:34-40 <br> <br>We need to learn to pray the dangerous prayer that Christ will give us a heart for others, for the needy, for the homeless. The other day someone told me that they saw a bumper sticker outside a church that said "Work harder, millions on welfare are depending on you". All humor aside I don't think this was exactly what Matthew 25 is getting at. That is not what the Church of Jesus Christ should be known for. The Church of Jesus Christ should be known for rejecting the economic rules which are so prevalent in our culture. This is how Jesus served. Sun, 23 May 2010 18:30:00 GMT Date: 5-16-10 <br>Title: Parties for prostitutes <br>Text: Matt. 9:9-13 <br>So too in the whole of scripture there is welcome for the sinner, but there’s also discipleship. In our text for today, chapter nine of Matthew we find what could be called stories of the miracles of grace for sinners which are boundaried by "discipleship stories." The broken state of the sinner is never debated, in fact it is enlarged: Jesus says we all are "sick," we're all sinners and we're supposed to welcome fellow sinners into fellowship and discipleship. Sun, 16 May 2010 18:30:00 GMT Date: 5-9-10 <br>Title: What is the sin of Arizona? <br>Text: Ex. 20:8-11; Rom. 12:9-16; Heb. 13:2 <br> <br>Hospitality is a core ethic of the Judeo-Christian faith. The word hospitality is another one of those hybrid Greek words I’m so fond of and seek to bore you with far too often, philos which means "love" as in brotherly love, or family love and xenia which means "stranger” or "foreigners." At our foundation we are a people who are to care for those outside. Sun, 09 May 2010 18:30:00 GMT