Guerrilla Christianity

Sermon #394

Maybe you've heard the old adage, "Many hands make light work." It's true that the more people who are involved in work, the easier the work becomes. It's the same way in ministry. In today's concluding message from our series, "What Are You Doing?" we look at our promise to faithfully participate in the ministries of the local church by our service. And we see how the early church struggled with this, and how a division of labor was needed to take on an important ministry need when it arose. We can learn from their example, and know that it is the responsibility of everyone to do something. But when only a few do everything, ultimately it all remains undone. So what are YOU doing for the local church?

Acts 6:1-7

Recorded at Hudson UMC on May 17, 2020 (Originally published May 19, 2020)

S.D.G.

May 14, 2023

First Lesson: Acts 17:22-31

Psalter: Psalm 66:8-20

Epistle Lesson: 1 Peter 3:13-22

Gospel Lesson: John 14:15-21

Scripture quotations from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

S.D.G.

Sermon #225

In our Communion liturgy in the United Methodist Church, we pray to God the Father to "Make us one with Christ, one with each other, and one in ministry to all the world." Our Awakening/Becoming series turns now to Becoming, based on these three petitions. We begin with the Upper Room Discourse as recorded in John's gospel, as Jesus calls his disciples to go with him to the place he prepares for them. And we look at the First Century wedding tradition and how Jesus' words compare us, his disciples, to his bride. Becoming one with Christ means being in the same will and spirit as Christ, to join with him in an everlasting covenant. It is an invitation that Christ extends to us even to this day.

John 14:1-14

Recorded at Ebenezer UMC on May 14, 2017 (Originally published May 6, 2020)

S.D.G.

Sermon #56

Postmodernism is a worldview that tells us that there is no absolute truth. Of course, that statement in itself is a contradiction. To declare there is no absolute truth is to put forth an absolute truth. When the world tells us that there are many truths and all of them are valid, we need to consider what that means. In reality, we cannot all be right, but we can, in fact, all be wrong. In today's reading from John 14, Jesus asserts that, in fact, HE is the truth, the only truth there is. He is the only way to the Father. While the world may condemn this exclusionary statement as only one of many truths, Jesus does not afford us that luxury. Either he is, or he is not. How do we decide? We follow the evidence of his works and the record of his words.

John 14:1-14

Recorded at Hudson UMC on May 18, 2014 (Originally Published May 15, 2020)

S.D.G.

Sermon #551

When we are building a house, we need to be sure of a few things.  First, we must make the foundation firm so that it will not sink into the ground and fall apart.  Next, we must make sure the walls are square and plumb so they do not collapse upon themselves.  Finally, we tie it all together with a roof that shelters the occupants within and keeps the damaging rain from the foundation.

Peter describes the church as a spiritual house, and its foundation is a living stone, the cornerstone Jesus Christ.  He quotes Isaiah 28:16 and Psalm 118:22 and points to Jesus as that very cornerstone.  A cornerstone is important because it gives bias to the entire structure.  However the cornerstone is laid, the rest of the building follows.  And so we who follow Christ orient ourselves with him.  In so doing we become brothers and sisters of Christ, adopted into the royal family of God and a priesthood of believers that ministers to a sinful world.

1 Peter 2:2-10

Recorded at Hudson UMC on May 7, 2023

S.D.G.

Sermon #393

The very first thing we promise to do as members of the local church is to pray for its ministries, but how many of us truly do that? We as Christians understand the importance of prayer, and yet so few of us spend time daily on our knees praying in the name of Jesus Christ for our local church. We can fully fund our ministries but if we do not begin with a foundation of prayer, then our ministries are doomed to fail. We need to seek God's will in prayer and make Christ our sure foundation before we do anything, and that is only accomplished by thorough and intercessory prayer. We are, after all, a royal priesthood.

1 Peter 2:2-10

Recorded at Ebenezer UMC on May 10, 2020 (Originally published May 11, 2020)

S.D.G.

May 7, 2023

First Lesson: Acts 7:55-60

Psalter: Psalm 31:1-5, 15-16

Epistle Lesson: 1 Peter 2:2-10

Gospel Lesson: John 14:1-14

Scripture quotations from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

S.D.G.

The text of Wesley's sermon was so incendiary, preached before the students and administration of Oxford, that when he published it as a pamphlet, he included the following disclaimer: "It was not my design, when I wrote, ever to print the latter part of the following Sermon: But the false and scurrilous accounts of it which have been published, almost in every corner of the nation, constrain me to publish the whole, just as it was preached; that men of reason may judge for themselves."  Indeed, Wesley points to the first century Church as the model of Christianity as recorded in the book of Acts, and then asks the question: Is there indeed any nation on earth that can call itself a Christian nation?  These words, though archaic in style, are just as relevant for our society today.  And so let this sermon serve as a call to righteousness, that we might once again learn the model of scriptural Christianity.

Edited anonymously at the Memorial University of Newfoundland with corrections and other modifications by Ryan Danker and George Lyons of Northwest Nazarene University.

Copyright 1999 by the Wesley Center for Applied Theology. Text may be freely used for personal or scholarly purposes or mirrored on other web sites, provided this notice is left intact. Any use of this material for commercial purposes of any kind is strictly forbidden without the express permission of the Wesley Center at Northwest Nazarene University, Nampa, ID 83686. Contact the Webmaster for permission.

Ezekiel 33:4; Acts 4:31

Recorded on April 18, 2023

Scriptural Christianity - Full Sermon Text

Commentary by Bob Kaylor on Wednesdays with Wesley

Sermon #224

Baptism is our entry into the Christian faith. It is often described as an outward sign of an inward reality, that we have died to Sin and are reborn in the Spirit. Though Baptism had been, since its earliest observance in the Christian church, sacramental in nature, after the Protestant Reformation it was often relegated to a ritual most commonly associated with the Catholic church, at least as far as the baptism of children is concerned. Yet Christ said that He is the gate (in our reading in John today), and that all who enter come through Him. So the sacramental nature of Baptism, the real presence of God through the Holy Spirit, has been largely restored at least in the Methodist church since the publishing of the 1964 Methodist Hymnal in which the ritual of Baptism is presented. Today we Methodists recognize the presence of God's Spirit in the act of Baptism and observe it as a holy sacrament.

John 10:1-10

Recorded at Hudson UMC on May 7, 2017 (Originally published May 6, 2020)

S.D.G.

Sermon #55

In this Mother's Day message from 2014, we take a look at the mothers and the mother-figures in our lives. From our earliest development, the first voice we hear is our mother's voice (in the womb). When we are born and brand-new, we know our mother's voice because that is what we heard. And we are comforted because we know that this voice we can trust to care for us. In the same way, Jesus tells us from the passage in John that the sheep know his voice and vollow him. All the other religions of the world tell us what we must do for God (or gods) but only Christianity demonstrates God's love toward us in what He has done for us in Jesus Christ. We hear His voice and we follow Him because we trust in Him. We do not follow the voice of strangers. And ultimately it is He that gives us life abundantly, because of His great love for us.

John 10:1-10

Recorded at Ebenezer UMC on May 11, 2014 (Originally published May 8, 2020).

S.D.G.