“To God alone the glory.”

A sermon for the Seventh Sunday of Easter

There is a phrase, “To God alone the Glory.” It is sometimes used as a motto. We see it on buildings. We ask ourselves: “Where’s the glory?” We are not talking about pictures where there is a halo or a nimbus. There’s a girl’s name: Gloria. But where is the glory? We have hymns with glory in them: “Mine eyes have seen the glory!” That raises the question: Where is the glory? Where is it operative?

It is easier in the Old Testament. In the Book of Numbers the pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night went with them. And when the temple was built, 1 Kings 8:10-11 says that “the glory of the Lord” filled the temple.

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Jesus is Lord for you and me

John 14:1-6

A sermon for the Sixth Sunday of Easter

Hope is a flimsy word. We say: “I hope so…” and we mean: “Well, who knows?” We say: “hopefully” and mean “probably not.”

You recall the story of Pandora’s box: When she opened that box, all the evils of the world flew out but there was one thing left: Hope. The question was: Was that good or evil?

What is the basis for our hope, since the word itself can be so flimsy?

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The Church’s One Foundation

Acts 7:55-60

A sermon for the Fifth Sunday of Easter

Several weeks ago we looked the problem of being a second generation disciple. We learned that we’re all second generation Christians. We are tempted to think if we had only been there and had a visual, hands-on experience, then we would believe. But that wasn’t true for them or us. Even for them there was no private miracle because it is always by faith in him.

We have often looked at the history of the church and realized we can’t stand on the claim that “history proves” Christianity is right. The history of the church does not do that. It doesn’t work for the history of our lives, too, when we face what life has really been.

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