Tag Archives: Decisions

Sermons and Preaching

The Matter of Amalek

Read Exodus 17: 8-16 and 1 Samuel 15: 1-8 to start.

How often has it happened to you that you are assigned a task that you don’t really want to do? That probably happens a fair amount for most of us. At home, I tell my kids to empty the dishwasher, or load the dishwasher, or empty the dish rack, or other things that may not even involve dishes, and no one is jumping with joy because they were really hoping to do that. At work I ask people to do things, I assign them tasks, some more welcome than others, and I likewise am frequently asked to do various tasks, some of which are ‘sure, no problem, I’ll get right on that,’ and others are more of  is there an option to apply a cheese grater to my face instead of doing that, because that would be preferable?

How do you respond when given an assignment, in particular one that is unpleasant, unwelcome, or one that might seem to be nigh impossible? Do you undertake it willingly, eagerly, or with great reluctance and delay, because if you do it too slow, or too poorly, maybe it will go away, and you won’t have to do it after all?

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Sermons and Preaching

Choosing Daily

Read John 14:21-31 to start.

At work I have a tendency to put on background music on Spotify, because my family all wanted get the premium version of that, and if I’m going to be paying for it, I’m going to get my money’s worth. This can be very random at times, because I’m picking music every day, and I like to keep it varied. Besides, often I’m away from my desk so lots of it I don’t even hear.

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Sermons and Preaching

Walk Before You Run

Read Isaiah 40: 28-31 and Ephesians 4: 17-32 to start.

Last month was the 20th annual PEI Marathon. It’s grown to be a rather large event, with more than 2000 participants this year. I’m pleased to report that I have maintained my perfect record of not participating. That’s right, 20 years of marathons in PEI, and I haven’t competed in a single one. With sufficient planning and enough training, and this might be tough, but I’m hoping to stretch that out to 21 next year.

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Sermons and Preaching

Four Small Things

Read Proverbs 30:24-28 to start.

Who here has had a splinter? Not looking for a show of hands or anything, but I’m willing to bet that most of you have at one time or another. If you haven’t, then you must have thicker skin than I do, or you never come into contact with wood. The other week I had a splinter on the side of my finger, and I managed to get it out with tweezers. I recall one time earlier this year, I had a splinter for a couple of days that I could not get rid of, and when I was in the hospital visiting my father, I convinced one of the ICU nurses, well, I just asked her nicely, to remove it, and it took her a bit of effort to get rid of the thing. Splinters are unpleasant. But they are a normal thing that we experience from time to time.

Splinters are also very, very, small. If you’ve ever removed one and taken a look at it afterwards, it was likely only a few millimetres long, and not even one millimetre wide. A tiny and insignificant thing by any measure, other than the amount of discomfort it can cause.

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Sermons and Preaching

But . . .

Read Genesis 2: 15-17

There are many words in the English language, something like 250,000 thousand, depending on how technical you want to get. Of those words, most adults know in the range of 25,000 to 30,000 on average, and children as young as four know roughly 5000 words. That’s a lot of words. This morning, though, there is one key word that I want to look at. It’s a common word, we use it every day. It’s only three letters long. The word is but. Continue reading But . . . →

Sermons and Preaching

Finishing Well

Read Genesis 49:29-33, 50:22-26.

Is everyone familiar with The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe? Even if you’ve never actually read it, or if it’s been many years since you have, it is of course a very well known book. It is the best known book from The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis, which is a series of seven books about people from this world who travel into a different dimension, into a land called Narnia. Perhaps you’ve read only the first book, or just a couple of them. Perhaps you’ve read them all. They come highly recommended.

I would give you a cautionary note, though, about the last book, entitled The Last Battle. It’s, how can I say it, it’s odd. I remember reading it when I was much younger, and finding it dark, somewhat disconnected with the other stories, and frankly, dissatisfying. While the Narnia books are allegorical fiction, and certainly not a text for Biblical instruction, The Last Battle also implies some rather questionable theology. It is not a strong end to an otherwise superb series. Continue reading Finishing Well →

Sermons and Preaching

Binary States

This morning I’d like to talk about binary states. No, we are not going to have a lesson in technology, although you would be entirely within reason to think that. Computers use binary code in order to store information. That’s how computer storage works, it’s all ones and zeroes. Every piece of data on your computer, on your phone, on the entire internet, in fact, it is all stored as ones and zeroes. A bit is a one or a zero, and from that single piece of information, from millions and billions of ones and zeros, we store information.

But that’s not what I want to talk about. A binary state is something that is an either/or condition. Ones are zeroes are hardly the only examples. Look at the lights above you. Those are all LED bulbs, they are either on or off. These bulbs don’t dim, but even if they did, they are still on or off, because on-but-dim is still one. The windows on either wall, those are either open or closed. They’re closed right now, but if it was summer the windows would probably be open. A window might be open a little or a lot, but it’s still either open or closed.

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Sermons and Preaching

Cups and Choices

Psalm 23. 1 The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want. 2 He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters. 3 He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake. 4 Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me. 5 Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over. 6 Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the LORD for ever.

The passage we just read is of course one of the best loved and best known of all the Psalms, indeed in all of scripture. It is a passage that I would expect most of us here know by heart. I know Laura had her Sunday school class learn it last year, and I believe they all got to the point so they could recite it from memory. You’ve probably heard it preached on in the past, probably more than once. So I’m not actually going to preach on the 23rd Psalm today. Yes, I know that we read it a moment ago, and that does seem like a bait and switch to read something and then not speak on it. Well, I didn’t just read because I like it, I am going to speak on one verse, actually one phrase from one verse, at least in a way of introduction. That phrase is from verse 5: my cup runneth over.

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Sermons and Preaching

Back to the Garden

Read portions of Genesis 2:7-3:24 to start.

In 1969, there was a large music festival held near the town of Bethel, New York. This was of course the Woodstock festival, which was the biggest music festival that had ever happened up to that point, and remains easily the most famous gathering of that type in history. Dozens of musicians and hundreds of thousands of people attended, and it is considered a watershed moment of an entire generation.

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Sermons and Preaching

Evaluation and Condemnation

Read Matthew 7:1-20 to start.

When I was younger, there was a topic that many of my friends and I were frequently concerned with. It kept coming up, and was never adequately resolved, because some people took a firm stance on one side, and some on the other side. Some people did not care either way, and some said that it was too difficult to really tell the difference. I recall once actually testing some friends to see if their imagined preferences actually lined up with reality, and could they tell the difference.

This is not some great and important spiritual or philosophical matter. This is not about right versus wrong. This is about Coke versus Pepsi.

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