Words of Welcome

Micah 6:1-8 Don’t let the sermon title fool you. This is not a sermon about the famous Charles Dicken’s novel that some of you read during high school, but which I seem to have avoided. Nevertheless, according to Scripture, God has placed great expectations on God’s people. God is gracious and merciful, but God also sets a high bar for us. Here in the sixth chapter of Micah, an eighth-century prophet who lived outside Jerusalem, reveals God’s Great Expectations.  The words we find in the eighth verse of this chapter are well known to us. They tell us what is good and what God requires of us. According to Micah, God would have us “do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God.” We hear these words in the context of a divine lawsuit that God brings against the people. The jury for this case is the mountains and the hills. Nature itself will hear and decide God’s case against Israel. When God stands before this jury, God asks the people,...

Hebrews 4:12-16 We all have a few skeletons in your closet. There are things, secret things,  that we’d rather others not know about.   And, some things are best left unsaid.   Of course, it’s getting more difficult to keep secrets.  After all, as politicians are discovering, you never know who is recording your words and movements. But sometimes we, ourselves, put out in public things that come back to haunt us. You have to be really careful about what you post on Facebook and Twitter. You may think it’s just your “friends,” who see that picture or that comment, but there’s a whole lot of other people who just might see it as well.  So, as a rule of thumb, if you don’t want the world knowing your business, then don’t make it public record on social media.  You might also remember these three letters:  TMI or Too Much Information! Because I blog and am on Facebook, Linked-In, and Twitter, I’ve left a bit of a trail.  I’ve tried n...