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Sermons and Articles

From November 11th, 2007 forward, all sermons have been recorded and uploaded to the Good Shepherd podcast site: the Shepherdscast. You can listen to all future sermons by following the link above

Zaccheaus Was a Wee Little Man (Part 1) November 4th, 2007

This sermon is also availible on audio podcast here

Your will is the thing inside of you that determines what you actually do. Your will is that thing that, in a marriage, when, periodically, the feeling is gone and the passion is gone, says, I made a promise to this man or to this woman and I’m going to keep it. When the bible talks about loving Jesus or wanting to know Jesus; when the bible speaks of loving other people; it’s speaking about your will not your feelings. It does not compute, from a biblical standpoint to say I want to know Jesus and then to let your emotions determine your time with him in prayer or your worship or your study or your fellowship. The attitude of the heart that says “I’ll pray when I feel like it or read the bible when I have time or go to bible study if I have time after I’m finished doing everything else that I like better, or I’ll go to church when the music is more to my liking or the sermons are better or we’re studying a better book” points to a heart that is centered on the self and pleasing the self, rather than on knowing Christ. To “love” and to “want” as these words are used in the bible are not feeling words but action words. To want to know who Jesus is, biblically speaking, is necessarily to employ the means he’s given us, bible, prayer, church, fellowship, for the purpose of drawing close to him whether your feelings are there or not; whether the passion is there or not. You make the decision, daily, to see who Jesus is and nothing gets in your way.

The Tax Collector and the Pharisee October 28th, 2007

This sermon is also availible on audio podcast here

here is a link to our podcast page

Think about what a contemporary mental health care professional might say to these two men. Let's say they don't go to the Temple, but to the therapist. The Pharisee comes in, chest out, nice suit, sits down, says, “My life is going great. I'm successful, honest, faithful to my wife, I recycle, I'm spiritual, I give a lot of money to charity and I watch my diet.” The average therapist would say “You've got self esteem and confidence, you find strength within yourself. You've got a healthy self-image, you're okay” The tax collector shuffles in afterwards, plops down on the couch, “I'm not doing well at all. I mean, I just keep messing up. I know what's right, I know what I should do and I don't do it. I keep failing.” The therapist would say. “Don't be so hard on yourself. You just need a healthier self image. You need to work on finding your inner light. You need a self esteem coach.” That's the sort of junk our society's been fed for the last thirty or so years. Jesus would say, you're in great shape. That's exactly where you need to be. Now I can work with you. I can't do anything with that Pharisee because he won't get honest with me or honest with himself.

The Rich Man in Torment October 14th 2007 (Part 3 of a series on Luke 16:19-31)

Honestly seeking God ultimately means acknowledging the existence and nature of God, as Paul says, and that means relinquishing your personal autonomy; it means recognizing that there's a power above and beyond you to whom you must give account. It means acknowledging that your life is subject to a law that you do not make and cannot change and, ultimately, that you cannot live up to and facing all of this is a sort of torment. If you've come to Christ you've had to face all of that and fall down before Christ at the foot of his cross seeking his grace and mercy and trusting in him alone and you've been embraced by God and raised up and forgiven and made right with the Father. But apart from God's grace, human beings are unwilling to accept that and so they purposefully and willingly suppress the truth, trying vainly and desperately to shut God out of their vision. They'll use wealth and pleasure and family and business and scholarly skepticism and constant television and golf and entertainment to keep themselves from facing what they know to be true in order to live out their lives as they see fit and in accordance with the law of their own desires and decisions.

The Beggar in Heaven October 7th, 2007 (Part 2 of a series on Luke 16:19-31: The Rich Man and Lazarus)

The world sees in Lazarus, the death of a poor beggar who was despised and rejected by men. God sees his child carried to Christ with whom and in whom he will live forever in comfort and in luxury far exceeding anything the rich man could ever buy. You see the end of a relationship, the loss of a job, a sudden death, a long, lingering painful death, poverty, suffering continuing and sometimes even getting worse despite your prayers and despite your tears and you think to yourself how could God let this happen and you begin to doubt God and his promises and we forget that the greatest promise you are given in Christ is that at the end of your life you'll be carried through the gates of heaven into his presence and that will be your place for eternity. Both the pain and the provision of this life is passing and transient and of no account when compared with what you'll do and see and touch and feel and know forever in the presence of Christ in heaven.

Two Hearts Laid Bare October 1st 2007 (Part 1 of a series on Luke 16:19-31: The Rich Man and Lazarus)

The story of the rich man and Lazarus has been portrayed as a tale about the virtue of poverty and wickedness of wealth, but that's not it. This is a story about the God who sees straight through you, who sees straight through all the facades, sees directly into the core of your being and knows you as you are. God is not a man to be fooled by outward appearances. God is not deceived by titles or large houses or cars. God sees you fully, completely, perfectly, every thought and disposition of your heart is laid bear before him. That's what happens in this story. Two men are laid bear.

Forsaking All Others...(September 9th, 2007)

A note about interpretation: when you run into two passages in tension with each other, you're going to be tempted to ignore one passage, the one you don't like, in favor of the other, the one you like. Don't do that. Work out the problem. Those who are interested in tearing down God's Word rather than obeying the God who inspired it, use these apparent contradictions to cast doubt on the authority of scripture. The bible, they'll say, cannot be trusted. It cannot be inspired, infallible, and inerrant because it contradicts itself and both sides of a real contradiction cannot be true. They're right about that last part. If there are real contradictions in the bible, then we're left with an interesting book that may be inspired in places but not the infallible Word of God. The truth, however, is that every single “apparent” contradiction, and I've been confronted by almost all of them, turns out, upon close study, not to be a contradiction at all but only seems so as the result of sloppy or lazy scholarship. But often because critics and skeptics sound so educated and erudite when they bring charges of contradiction against God's Word, Christians, believers, fall prey to them. We roll over. Our own attention to the text is so fleeting and our study is so shallow and our time in God's Word is so brief, that we have nothing to say in response.

Hard Truths and the Real God: Part 2 of a 2 Part Series on Luke 12:49-53 (September 2nd, 2007)

Do you wonder why some people, for no reason, feel uncomfortable around you? Do you know why our decision to follow the Word of God in this church has caused some to leave and not return? Do you wonder why the unbelieving people in your own family just can't understand you? Having surrendered to Christ you're no longer at peace with a world that is at war with him. It's the gospel. The Gospel brings division. People won't articulate that. They'll never, or at least rarely, say, “I'm uncomfortable with you because you're Christian.” They may not know why they're uncomfortable. But they are. Those who submit to the Gospel put themselves at enmity with the world and those who make peace with the world make war against God.

Hard Truths and the Real God: Part 1 of a 2 Part Series on Luke 12:49-53 (August 26th, 2007)

The best test or to measure your understanding of God, is to hold up your god next to God as he has revealed himself in the bible. This is especially true when you come to hard texts like the one we heard this morning where Jesus says that he's come to bring fire and division to the earth. How do those words hit you? Do you come away saying to yourself: “My Jesus wouldn't say that”? If so, you're probably right. He wouldn't. And that's the problem. Imagined gods are a lot like imaginary friends. They only do what you want them to do and say what you want them to say because they're yours. But real friends and the real God often make us uncomfortable.

The Church God Gathers Part 7 of a Sermon Series on Acts 2 (July 15th, 2007)

if you like the church to be a comfortable place where people share your interests and hobbies and look like you and have your same background then for goodness sake, don't preach the gospel. Because when you do God adds who he wants to add...Now, when churches loose or neglect their primary commitment to proclaim Christ and to promote the gospel far and wide, when they loose the heart of Christ for the lost, they devolve into clubs designed attract like people. Some churches become liturgy clubs. If you like fancy vestments and high mass with choral music you fit in, if you don't you don't. Or they can become music clubs; contemporary music clubs or traditional music clubs. Or they become gatherings of the rich or the poor or the in-between. When a church gets stuck on itself rather than on Christ the only people who come and stay are people just like the ones already there.

The Promise of Salvation and the Warning of Hell Part 6 of a Sermon Series on Acts 2 (July 8th 2007)

Peter not only warns his listeners, he pleads with them. He wasn't just standing back disinterested, with no emotion, no heart, no feeling. He wasn't cold, relishing in his own salvation and the demise of others. I've heard Christians do that before: speak in tones and with a voice that seems to communicate a kind of disinterested superiority, a kind of “well, I'm going to heaven who cares about anyone else.” Peter didn't do that. Christ's deep, deep love for his people working in Peter through the Spirit, wouldn't let him speak that way. There's affection and desperation and sorrow in his warning. We know this feeling. I know it when I talk with people I love who do not, who will not, repent and believe. We plead with them and plead with God to turn their heart. That desperate pleading urgency for the salvation of other people does not arise from Peter's own goodness, or if you know the feeling, from your own goodness, it's the Spirit of Christ working pleading through you.

The First Sermon: Cutting to the Heart Part 5 of a Sermon Series on Acts 2 (July 1st, 2007)

So when Peter looks out at the crowd and says, “you killed the Christ, you killed God's son” he's also looking straight into my eyes and my heart and yours. We killed the Christ, just as surely as the people in that crowd. I killed him. Every hateful word, every lustful thought or deed, every time I'm selfish or rude or uncaring, I participate in the crucifixion of Jesus Christ.

June 2007

The Priority of Worship Part 4 of a Sermon Series on Acts 2 (June 24th, 2007)

The disciples were gathered in one room worshipping in verse 1 before the Spirit came. Then the Spirit came filling them with divine power to speak in other tongues, in order to do what? To worship; to declare the wonders of God. So what does that tell us about God's purposes? It tells us, once again, and I'll bet you're tired of me laboring this point but don't blame me, blame the scriptures, that God's priority for the church and for each individual is worship. Worship comes first. He erased the barrier of language for the sake of worship. Worshipping God is the primary reason you are on this planet and so to the extent that you allow anything else to take precedence or priority over regular heartfelt sincere loving worship of the living God, your life is out of whack. People don't understand this. And so they neglect it. People come to me for counseling and their life is in shambles, and the first thing I do is check priorities. Are you praying daily, are you studying the bible, are you at bible study, are you going to church, I haven't seen you…always the answer is no. And people wonder why their lives are spinning out of control. God's priority for the Church and for every human being is worship.

Are you Filled and Indwelled by the Holy Spirit? Part 3 of a Sermon Series on Acts 2 (June 7th 2007)

God can fill anyone with his Spirit for a time. God can do amazing and miraculous things through you by his Spirit, but that is not a sure sign of salvation. It is possible to experience God, to feel moved by the Spirit, and to speak his Word and have a warm sense of God's presence and power, but not be in Christ, not have eternal life. This is why Jesus warns in Matthew 7, “Not everyone who says to me Lord Lord will enter the kingdom of heaven…Many will say to me on that day, Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out many demons, and perform many miracles? Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me you evildoers.'” You can say “Lord” You can play the Christian game. It can make you feel like a good person. God may work through you or in your life, you may feel the Spirit. But in the end you must face the question. “Am I living for Christ or am I living for me? Does my life revolve around Jesus or is Jesus a part time deal?

He Comes with Fire and Wind Part 2 of a Sermon Series on Acts 2 (June 7th 2007) When a group of Christians commit to Christ, to proclaim the Gospel of salvation, to teach his Word and live out his commands, in other words, gathered in his name, the Holy Spirit comes and makes his home and same things happen there, in the gathered body, that happen in an individual who comes to faith. The Spirit indwells. The Spirit comes in accordance with Christ's promise and the wind and the fire of the Spirit is brought to bear. Things happen. A church goes from being a place where people are focused on themselves to a place where people are focused on Christ. From a place where people are worried about the building or the various guilds or the service times or the coffee hour, or the color of the carpet, a tired comfortable sleepy old place where people say walk around saying: this is our church, this how we do things at our church we want our church to be this way or that way, to a church that recognizes the fact, this is not our church at all. This is Christ's Church. We are here for Christ, to be about Christ, to proclaim Christ to seek Christ and to Worship Christ and everything that hinders that must go.

May 2007

Why Should I Go To Church? Part 1 of a Sermon Series on Acts 2 (5/31/07)

Who here has heard of the term church hopping? It's fairly self explanatory. George starts off at the local Baptist Church. He likes it there. The music is good. The people are friendly. The service is just about the right length. But the pastor's sermons are just a bit too dry, not boring, just not the best he's heard. So, George heads down the road to the Lutheran church. There he finds a great preacher, one of the best he's heard. But the service is long and the music is old and everyone prays out of a book. So George stays there a few Sundays and then he heads down the road to the Presbyterian church. And things are just about right...

What Mothers Teach Us About Christ (5/13/07)

I was born when men weren't permitted in the delivery room. But now it's standard for dads to be there the whole time. I remember, before Emma was born, how much I dreaded the idea of the delivery room. And still, we're on our 4 th kid, I'm not the kind of guy who wants to video-tape the event. I wish a doctor would come along and say, “Mr. Kennedy, its time for you to go smoke cigars with your friends and watch TV in the waiting room” because it takes a lot of pain and suffering to bring a baby into the world. Anne has a tough time of it too. Rowan was born in July of last year and we were planning to use whatever drugs were necessary during the delivery. But by the third baby, things go faster than they do the first time around and there's a much smaller window to get an epidural if you want one. The nurse missed the window. I remember how horrified I was that Anne was going to have to give birth naturally, but she was calm. Her face was set. She was ready to do what needed to be done. And she did. I almost didn't make it. She was fine...

Jesus Commands, “Love One Another.” How Are We Doing? (5/6/07)

I asked Fr. John from St. John's Catholic whether his parking lot would be free for the Life and Witness Course Mondays and he told me, this was about three weeks ago, that it would. Turns out that Fr. John has my gift for scheduling. St. John's had a school play Monday and their parking lot was packed. Fred and Tom did a great job of redirecting traffic getting everyone parked in time. But during the process, there was a confrontation. The president of the fraternity next door walked up to the wire fence, cell phone in hand, and said that unless we cleared his parking lot...

April 2007

The Resurrection: Believing the Evidence (Easter Day 2007)

The fact is, the account from Luke that you heard this morning supported by Matthew, Mark, John, Peter, Paul and James and the 500 other NT witnesses has never been overturned. In fact, no other historical evidence has ever been produced to even challenge the NT evidence that on the first day of the week Jesus rose up from his grave alive and in the flesh.

You can certainly choose to believe the other stories, but you believe them despite the only evidence we have. And that takes a whole a lot of blind faith. You just have to close your eyes and believe by sheer will-power that the New Testament is not true. Good Luck. I don't have that much faith. I'm sticking with the evidence.

March 2007

February 2007

January 2007

The Body of Christ: It's Not About You (1/28/07)

When you surrendered your life to Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit filled you with gifts for ministry to pour out on the church . He set you down in a body of believers to learn to love and sacrifice for other people in the same way that Jesus loves us and sacrificed himself for you. You cannot do that if you're not in a church, bound to specific group of people. You won't do it. You'll go to church when you feel like it and hang out with the people you like, and never learn that core, crucial, vital lesson, the first principle of faith, "its not about you." It's not about me. We come to church to exalt and glorify and praise God, to put him high up and first, to offer our whole selves to him in prayer and song and study. We come to church to put others first and to put the needs of the community above our own. We come to pour out what God has given us for the glory of God, to show what God has done and can do through and for the benefit of our brothers and sisters. God uses this body to shape and form you into a living sacrifice; someone who lives to give, first to God then to others and then to self, just like Jesus.

The Body of Christ Grows and Changes (1/21/07)

So as the body grows and incorporates more members it necessarily changes. God built change into the body. This doesn't mean everything changes. God's Word, his truth, will never change, but so long as we are in it and preaching and teaching it and living it, we will grow and because we grow we will change. Churches die when they reverse that order. Dying churches elevate non-essentials and devalue essentials. Tradition, decorum, words, bells, smells, ritual actions, cliques', and in-groups and power-plays become more important than Jesus Christ, the Word of God, and the message of salvation. Dying churches fight about bells and vestments and service times while lost people outside their walls die in their sins. Dead churches never change. Everything stays the same; the same people, doing the same things, in the same way, year in and year out never concerning themselves with the Word of God or the great commission. Thank God Good Shepherd is not like that.

Leaving Your Anxiety With Jesus (1/14/07)

I don't know about you, but the worst time to be a human male in my house is when we're preparing for a dinner party. A side of Anne comes out that she cleverly hid away while we were dating. Our home is temporarily reduced to martial law and I go from head of the house to cheap labor. Anne gets stressed out . And no matter what I say, she can't relax until the house is clean, the table set, and roast in the oven. This was a shock. Before we got married, my idea of hospitality was to order pizza and clear a path from the front door to the couch. Now I know...

December 2006

The Savoir Nobody Expected (12/24/06)

If I'd lived at the time, and didn't know anything about Jesus, I would've wanted a king like Caesar Augustus. Too humble to call himself god, he preferred the title “son of god.” He was, after all, the adopted son of the late Julius Caesar who, by this time, the Romans considered divine. Augustus had, by his wise and audacious exercise of Roman might, extended the boundaries of the Empire to encompass almost all the known world. No one could stand before Rome, no power, no kingdom. But Augustus was not a cruel or ruthless king, he was benevolent. He used his power to impose peace on the earth. The world had never before seen peace and freedom to the extent that it existed under Roman rule. For the first time you could travel from town to town, region to region, country to country not only fast, because Rome had constructed roads throughout the empire, but in relative safety. “Pax Romana,” the peace of Rome, descended over the land and the people of every nation prospered because of it. For that reason Augustus was called a savior...

Trust in the Middle of Tragedy(12/10/06)

If you've ever been betrayed by someone you love then maybe you can understand how Joseph felt. I can imagine few things more painful to a young man who, over the course of a long engagement, has remained pure and honored the purity of his betrothed, than to hear the news Mary bore on the day she told Joseph that she was “with child”, that she was pregnant.

How Can I be Sure? Zechariah and the Angel of the Lord (12/3/06) Have you ever felt that tingling sensation when you walk into a room and feel like you're not alone? For Zechariah it wasn't just a feeling. “Then,” Luke says, “an angel of the Lord appeared to him standing at the right side of the altar.” Now, an Angel of the Lord isn't like the cute naked baby angles with golden trumpets you see floating about on Christmas decorations. It isn't like the wispy angels with flowing gowns popular in the New Age section of Barnes and Nobles. An Angel of the Lord bears the mighty power and piercing glory of Heaven. Zechariah wasn't filled with warm gooey feelings of peace and joy. Zechariah was “gripped with fear." The natural response of fallen creatures when confronted by the glory of heaven is fear. Zechariah was gripped, his body frozen, his face ashen, unable to speak or move.

November 2006

With God There is Always Enough (11/12/06)

Good morning. I've been watching the food channel all week.In half hour increments all day for the last five days,I have learned everything there is to know about turkey—and stuffing, cranberry sauce, potatoes, everything.And then, when I haven't been watching food on TV,

Matt has been cooking.He cooks when he's stressed out,the more stressed the better the food.

Last night he made chicken with capers andwhite wine and lightly diced tomato...

Two Paths to Righteousness (11/5/06)

If you have come to Good Shepherd for any length of time then you know that one thing we proclaim here as bedrock solid biblical truth is that faith in Jesus Christ is the only way that anyone can have eternal life with the Father. Well, today I have to admit that this is not the whole truth. Today's gospel demonstrates that there is not just one path to salvation. There are two. One path is through faith in Jesus Christ. The other is to live a life of righteousness.

October 2006

Giving God Your Best Not the Rest...(10/29/06)

Contrary to popular belief, tithing is not a topic that preachers enjoy. It plays into the stereotype that the church only wants your money. False teachers focus on tithing because they know the fastest way to get rich is to tell people that Jesus wants their cash. Others focus on money because they truly believe that God wants everyone to be wealthy and healthy and if you're not, they'll say, then you don't have enough faith. If you want a Mercedes, name it, claim it in Jesus' name, and then wait for God to bring it. Name it, claim it, and its yours. That is, of course, so long as you send a check. You send 200 dollars God will give you 2000 Dollars. This ‘prosperity gospel' is a serious distortion of the Word of God. Jesus never says “give to get.” He says give because God has given to you. Give for the love and the glory of God. And while God doesn't promise profit, he does promise to provide...

Punishment That Brought Us Peace (10/22/06)

One thing that used to concern me about Christianity before I became a Christian was the idea of human sacrifice. In college I learned about the Aztecs who lived in Mexico before the Spanish drove them out. Human sacrifice was a major part of Aztec religion. The rising of the sun depended, for Aztecs, on the blood of human sacrifices. The sun god demanded blood as payment for giving light and heat. But it wasn't just the Sun god. When the Aztecs angered any god in any way, human blood was necessary to make up for the offense...

Nothing is Impossible with God (10/15/06)

I think Matt mentioned it in an update a few weeks ago, but we've recently taken it upon ourselves to teach the 10 commandments to our toddlers...

"What Does Jesus Say About Divorce?" (10/8/06) On Video courtesy Anglican TV

September 2006

Marriage in the Modern World Part 5: "For the Husband is the Head of the Wife..." (9/24/06) As a father and husband, what you do has an incredible influence on the faith of your family. This is not an accident. God has designed it this way. Ephesians 5:23 says you are the head. You just are, whether you live it out or live up to it or not, you are the head. What you do and say is vital to the health and wellbeing of your family. So what does God want you to do with that influence? Build godly homes, produce godly offspring. And the only way to do that is by conforming yourself to his Son.

Marriage in the Modern World Part 4: Wives Submit to Your Husbands..." (9/17/06)

Submission, dictionarily speaking, means to yield or surrender to the will or authority of another. It comes from Latin meaning ‘to set under'. And, given that the husband is the Head of the wife, just as Christ is the Head of the church, we have the double pleasure of a word that provides the image or goal of marriage and the means of getting there. Christ, as Head, cares for, protects, leads, guides, and loves the Church. The Church honors, glorifies and serves Christ. The husband cares for, protects, leads, guides and loves his wife and children.

Marriage in the Modern World Part 3: "For the Husband is the Head of the Wife..." (9/10/06)

As believers, God has given us priorities. The first priority is God. We are to love him first and foremost with an active love, not just a feeling love. The second priority is your wife. If anyone or anything in this world comes before your wife and stays, then your marriage is headed for trouble. You've got to put your wife ahead of yourself. You might think this is a recipe for a miserable life. But that's just because we've bought the lie that the way to find self-fulfillment is to pursue self-fulfillment. But Jesus says, if you want a life, you have to lose it. You only find the joy you're looking for when you stop looking for it and follow Jesus. You have to give yourself up to find yourself. And God has designed it so that to find joy in marriage, men have to meet their wives needs, not their own.

Marriage in the Modern World Part 2: "Wives Submit to Your Husbands..." by the Rev. Anne Kennedy (9/3/06) There is one moment in Jesus' life that makes this obedience, this submission, explicit—Jesus, the evening before his trial and execution, suffering in the garden. He knows what he is facing. He knows he is going to die. And he doesn't want to. His friends are sleeping. He is lonely and troubled. He enters into deep in prayer with his Father and he lays it on the line. Father, he says, I don't want to do this. I don't want to suffer and die. If there is anything you can think of, any other way to accomplish your purpose, please, please, please let me off the hook. And what happens? Right, his Father says no. There isn't any other way. I love these people so much, I want them back enough to carry through on this. And what does Jesus do? Does he stand up and dance around and say, No, me me me, my will? No, he says, your will be done. The two acted in concert, in one mind. Christ gave himself fully to the will of his Father, his head, in perfect love, perfect obedience, perfect hope. And, God, his Father, accomplished, through him, the salvation of the whole world. We wouldn't be here this morning if the Son had not perfectly submitted himself to the perfect will of the Father.

August 2006

Marriage in the "Modern" World Part 1: "For the Husband is the Head of the Wife..." (8/27/06) Recently there was an Italian Ocean liner full of tourists that ran into rough seas off the southern tip of Africa . The waters there are the roughest in the world, but on this day they were especially so. As the liner rounded the cape, it was struck broadside by a very large rogue wave, nearly causing her to capsize. The ship managed to stay afloat but the wave did enough damage that the captain was forced to call for the passengers to abandon ship. Fortunately for them, they were relatively close to land. Unfortunately, the seas were so rough it was impossible to pilot a lifeboat safely. The only way to get off the ship was by helicopter. The South African Navy started to work that evening and by the next day the entire ship had been evacuated and not one person was lost. However, there was one person missing. The captain. It turns out that soon after he had radioed for help the captain and some of his crew boarded the first Navy helicopter and flew ashore, leaving the women, children behind to fend for themselves. For the next 24 hours the captain sat on the beach wrapped in a blanket and watched as Navy pilots and swimmers risked their lives to rescue the people he left behind. As captain, as leader, he was responsible for every soul on board. He was the head, but he abandoned his ship and all the passengers under his care when they needed him most. This story, discouraging as it is, I think it stands as a metaphor for the failure of married men in the west, America in particular, to live up to their divinely ordained role and responsibility as leader of the family.

Don't Supersize Me (8/20/06) And yet because we think what feels good and what gives immediate gratification is what we need, we forego the real food, the real bread of life, and feed on everything else. You find yourself with a good home and wonderful friends and family, well provided for, you have everything you want but you still want more and you're not sure where to look. So you think, maybe I need to play more golf. Maybe I need to have more time in front of the television. Maybe I need to read more. Others turn to drugs or alcohol. It feels good. It takes the edge off. You feel satisfied. But it doesn't last. The next day, the next hour, the next moment, you're still hungry. Some people never get it. They think the answer is to keep feeding on the things around them going from one thing to the next trying to find the manna that works.

The Good News and the Bad News (8/13/06) If all roads lead to God and all religions are the same, Jesus makes absolutely no sense today. Look down at verse 40 “For it is my Father's will that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.“ There's both an explicit promise and an implicit call implied in this sentence. The promise is that everyone who believes in the Son, will live forever and be raised with Jesus on the last day. The implicit call is for those who do not believe; to believe; to turn from whatever faith they profess and believe in Jesus. This implicit call is made explicit both later in this chapter where Jesus says in verse 53: “unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you will have no life in you.” and again in John 14:6, where Jesus, “No one can come to the father except through me.”

July 2006

The Wind and Waves of False Teaching (7/30/06) For sermon-prep this week I spent time reading about hot-air balloons. I've never wanted to ride in a hot-air balloon because they seem so out of control. They just kind of float up there with nothing to give them direction. After some reading I discovered that they seem out of control because they are out of control.. You cannot steer a hot air balloon. You can control the height of the balloon by controlling the amount of hot air you fire into it or the amount of weight you carry, but that's it. Your direction is determined by the wind. Once you cut the rope that ties you to the ground you go wherever the wind takes you. In 1999 Bertrand Piccard and Brian Jones were the first to pilot a hot air balloon around the world. They left from Switzerland, got up into the jet stream and after a 20 day trip wound up landing in Africa, thousands of miles south of where they hoped to land. The only way to keep a balloon from being blown this way or that by the wind is to keep it tethered to a rope. Now I could probably talk to you about hot air balloons all day long. But I won‘t. I brought them up for a reason and that reason has to do with the problem Paul takes up in Ephesians today.

Loving Each other Whether we Like It or Not (7/23/06) Now don't get me wrong. There's a popular teaching prevalent in churches today that says that churches should stop teaching biblical morality because God accepts everybody without any conditions or restrictions. That is a lie. God loves everyone and wants everyone to come to him, that‘s why he died. His arms are open. But there are conditions. You don't come to God on your terms, you come willing to accept his. Everyone who comes to him must come willing to let go of their lives, let go of their habits, let go of their addictions, let go of everything and surrender to Jesus. That's what it means to accept him as your Lord. It means making the decision to let God's will rule over your heart, asking Jesus to come live inside of you make your heart an outpost of his kingdom. Once you make that commitment, then the Holy Spirit indwells you and starts to make that commitment a reality and you become part of the family.

Speaking and Hearing God's Truth (7/9/06) But there is more to it. We must also be willing to defend this truth when confronted with lies. This is where truth telling becomes difficult because our world, even our denomination, has succumbed to many lies: lies about sexuality, lies about life, lies about the bible, lies about marriage, lies about children. Like the people of Jerusalem, many have persuaded themselves that God's Word spoken through the prophets and apostles is not really God's Word and the more difficult times become in the world and in thr church, the thicker and more impenetrable the lies grow. All is well, they say. What we have done and what we are doing is right and good. All is not well. There is no peace. God will not be mocked. His word is true. This is what God has called us to say. This is the truth God has called Good Shepherd to speak. And we will speak it, whether they listen or fail to listen, whether they hear or refuse to hear.

There Should be No Poor Among You (7/2/06) The Old Covenant says that every 7 years you cancel debts owed to you by fellow Israelites. Jesus says always be willing to cancel the debts owed you by everyone, even your enemies. It's okay to lend and expect to be paid back, but always be willing not to be paid back. Why? How much do you owe God? Not only do we owe him life and breath, but each of us owes him absolute perfect obedience. How many have paid back God what you owe him? God himself has paid your full debt on the cross. He paid it all off in blood. Since our enormous debt has been forgiven who are we to demand what we are owed by others? We give freely because we have received freely.

June 2006

I was at General Convention in Columbus OH from Sunday the 11th of June until near the end of the month. My first sermon when I returned was preached without a text and included summary of the events that took place at GC. I read bishop Robert Duncan's pastoral letter to all Network parishes.

God Made Him Who Had No Sin to Be Sin For You (6/11/06) Let's not get confused. “Believing” in Jesus is not simply believing what the bible teaches about him. “Believe” in Jesus, means commit your whole life to him; become his man or his woman for life and for eternity; It means your whole life changes in purpose and direction. The way you spend your time. The way you spend your money. The way you use your gifts. Believing in Jesus is the same sort of commitment you make when you get married. The ceremony establishes the relationship, but your life demonstrates whether the vows you made were sincere or false. If you commit your life to Jesus and then go back to living the way you used to live, its like walking into a singles bar without your wedding ring. There's reason to believe that the ceremony meant nothing. Believing means turning your whole life over to Jesus, not just by saying a few words, but by living for and with him every day.

May 2006

Love in Action (5/14/06) You are the parent of a teenage girl. This girl is dating a boy who knows how to talk. He's smooth. He tells her how beautiful she is, how much his heart pounds when he's around her and aches when he's not. He tells her he loves her. The more he talks the more your daughter falls for him. He's all she talks about, thinks about, dreams about. Soon she's thinking about wedding dresses and bridesmaids. You get a little worried. Your worry increases as you notice that as she becomes more infatuated with him, he becomes more of a jerk. He tells her what to do. He makes crude jokes. He doesn't open the door for her. He treats her like a servant and, increasingly, it becomes obvious that his ultimate goal with your daughter is the ultimate goal many teenage boys have when it comes to girls. So you sit your daughter down and you say, “I don't think this guy really loves you.” “Why?” she says “He tells me he loves me all the time”. “Well, I know what he says, but if he really loved you, he would… ” and you describe the kind of actions real love inspires in young men.

April 2006

Convicted but not Condemned (4/30/06) Conviction happens throughout your Christian walk. The more you expose yourself to the light: study the bible, pray, come to church, listen to sermons, take communion, hang out with Christian friends, the deeper the Holy Spirit shines his light into the dark recesses of your mind and heart, revealing more and more stuff. It happens to me all the time. This week I was reading about Peter who just before denying Christ three times bragged that he would never fall, never deny Jesus and I thought, “Man that Peter sure was full of himself.” and right then, the Spirit flipped on a light showed me something I'm really prideful about. That's conviction.

Believing the Evidence (4/23/06) It's totally understandable to doubt and question. But sometimes “questioning” can be used as an excuse not to see something you know is true because when you acknowledge it's true, you know you'll have to follow it. The world has all of the evidence it needs to believe beyond a reasonable doubt that Jesus rose from the dead body and soul. But to believe that means, as we said last week, believing that Jesus is who he said he is and that all his laws, words, and promises are absolutely true.

Jesus Died for My Sins (Good Friday 2006) So now it seems like God has a problem? His perfect justice demands that sin be punished to the full extent of the law. But God's love demands that the relationship between him and his people, you and me be restored. How can God act toward humanity with perfect justice and with perfect love? Wouldn't his justice require our punishment and his love require our forgiveness?

Letting Jesus have His Way (4/9/06) Jesus peels away layers of darkness. He peers into the depths of your heart. He finds the hard spot; the dark spot and that's where he starts to work. He works your circumstances so that you come face to face with situations that bring the hardness and darkness to the surface and he says, “Chose me or chose it; you can't have both.”

March 2006

Bread Everlasting (3/26/06) Think of two half full glasses of water. One glass is the husband and one is the wife. They both look to each other to be filled. When one spouse begins to run out of water, he or she looks to the other. But what's the problem? Between the two them, there's simply not enough water to fill both. So if they are all they have they'll both eventually run dry. There's not enough. When that happens there's either a divorce or a separation or an affair or they just go on living together sharing the same address but both running on empty.

January 2006

Hearing the Voice of God: Part 3 (1/29/06)

Our understanding of God's voice is imperfect because our understanding of God is imperfect. When Anne and I met for the first time we didn't immediately and automatically know each others thoughts and feelings. We had to express ourselves verbally first and then over time on our ability to communicate nonverbally increased. The same is true with God. When you first give yourself to God he comes to live in your heart. But you still have to get to know him. It's not automatic. It takes time and commitment. Anne had to tell me about herself before I could know her thoughts and feelings nonverbally. What about God? God tells us about himself primarily in the bible.

Hearing the Voice of God: Part 2 (1/22/06) Have you ever been out of town and run into a friend unexpectedly? When that happens to me it generally takes the other person several tries to get my attention because I'm not expecting to see anyone I know. How many of us read the bible, pray, attend church and go through life as if we're in a strange city, not expecting our friend Jesus to speak? If you read your bible like a textbook, you won't hear God's voice to you. Every time you come to the bible. Every time you pray, every time you listen to a sermon or come to worship, every time a door opens or closes in your life, expect to hear the voice of God. He is speaking to you.

Hearing the Voice of God: Part 1 (1/15/06) During Epiphany the church celebrates God's revealing his saving will to the World. So we're going to use Epiphany to learn to recognize when God reveals his will directly and personally to you. We've done a series on this before, but this time we‘re taking it up a notch. Then we discovered that God speaks through his Word. This time we'll learn how to hear it. Then we discovered God speaks through the church, this time we'll learn to recognize it. Last time we said God speaks to your heart in prayer, how does he do this and how do you know?

Every Tongue Confess (1/1/06) You can bend the knee now and live in accordance with the principles of the coming kingdom or you can bend the knee then, when the kingdom comes. If you bend the knee now, if you bow to his authority in your life today, you become not just a servant but a beloved child in his kingdom and when he returns he promises that his kingdom will also be your kingdom. You'll reign with him. You become an heir and an inheritor of the world. If you follow the way of the world, choosing to see Jesus as just one good teacher among many or one spiritual path or one way to choose but not the way. If you decide to accept and bow to the gods of this world; pleasure, money, power, relativism and deny the supremacy of the name of Jesus, the lordship of the King of Kings, you may do that, you have the freedom, but when he returns, when his kingdom comes, you will bend the knee before him and face judgment. One way or another every knee will bend and every tongue will confess that he is King and God and Lord, to the Glory of the father!

December 2005

The Answer (Christmas Eve 2005)
People spend a lot of money, a lot of time, a lot of energy trying to figure the answer out. People like Dr. Phil and Oprah are so successful because they've tapped into this basic human need to find meaning and purpose. New Age cults, neo-paganism, the current popularity of witchcraft and the obsession with astrology and fortune-telling, all of it, I think, stems directly from the human desire for meaning, the desire to answer the question, “why am I on this planet?”

Don't Worry; Be Joyful! (12/11/05) So, worry is a useless and exhaustive exercise that gets us nowhere and accomplishes nothing because it mostly concerns circumstances beyond our control. Nevertheless, I know that I'll walk out of here and most likely worry about whether you liked this sermon and you'll walk out of here and start to worry about Christmas preparations or the fact that your in-laws are coming in town or final exams or your health or whatever else there is out there that you're worried about.

God is Patient on Purpose (12/04/05) by the Rev. Anne Kennedy
This year I've had a hard time getting into the spirit of things— no good excuses, but reading all the old familiar Advent texts have not gotten me all excited about waiting. Waiting for what? The sky to fall. A lot of new stuff? Jesus to come back? We've been waiting for a couple of thousand years and he hasn't done it yet. Why be all excited and hopeful this time? This has been my mood this season. But that's not how God feels. God doesn't mind waiting, and waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting. Because he's not just waiting to wow us all with smoke and clouds and fire and angle wings. He's waiting so that maybe one more of us will scramble our blind muddled stubborn way back to him.

November 2005

Gatekeepers (11/27/05) Men, what kind of movies do you watch? What kind of magazines do you look at? Are you keeping watch over the gateway of your eyes. Where do you go on the internet? Women, what kind of books are you reading? What kind of soap opera's are you watching on TV? What sort of things do you listen too? Are they good things? If Jesus were to return today and see what you see and hear what you hear would he be pleased?

October 2005

Love the Lord your God (10-25-05) The word heart in Jesus day, didn't refer to the organ that pumps blood. Nor did it refer to feelings. When we say, “follow your heart,” we usually mean, “follow your feelings.” But when a person in Jesus' day spoke of his heart he was speaking of that part of the self that wills, that makes decisions. Your heart determines how you live and what you do. If you have two choices in front of you, let's say to do your homework for bible study or watch television, your heart, your will is what determines that choice.

Tummy Worship (10-9-05) Whereas the authentic believer's life centers on worship and seeking to know Christ more and more, the Tummy worshiper's life tolerates church only in so far as it pleases Tummy. The idea of sitting here in church and surrendering all desires, all wants and needs to Jesus and praising him for an hour and 15 minutes is totally foreign. Sure Tummy comes on Sunday morning sometimes, when it‘s not too nice outside, but when the service goes too long or the sermon's too boring or the music is not how Tummy would like it to be then Tummy's not happy. Tummy has wasted Tummy's whole morning. Church, like everything else, is not about God. It is about Tummy.

The Son of the Vineyard Owner (10-2-05) by the Rev. Anne Kennedy Anytime I think that any of this is mine to use as I wish, that I can act without consequences because God is so removed, surely he doesn't care; anytime I treat someone else as an end to my own means; anytime I harbor anger, bitterness, resentment in my heart; anytime I am stingy with what I have been given, thinking its mine, it is as though I myself am in the vineyard killing the prophets and rejecting the Master's Son.

September 2005

Feelings versus Doings (9-25-05) If someone, going just by your actions, were to judge the priorities in your life by what you do in a given week, would that person say...“Gosh, you really put God first in your life! I can tell that you do by the way you spend your time.” Or would the television be your priority? Or the computer? Or your work? Or a car or a boat or golf or something else? We always find the time to do the things we love to do don't we? NO matter how busy or hurried we get, we always find time to do what we love. So when you say you love God and yet spend all of your week doing something else, what does that say?
It is Enough to have Enough (9-18-05) I know sometimes we like to point to our stuff, puff out our chest, and say look what I did. Look how much I've accomplished. Look how much I have. But we would have none of it, if God had not first given us the mind, hands, body, and skills to do what we've done, not to mention the very breath in our lungs. So everything we have is directly attributable to God. Everything. He didn't have to give you these things, but he did, because before you were in your mother's womb he loved you.

Building on the One Foundation (fall '05 newsletter article) Last year at this time,Good Shepherd was in a state of crisis. Our decision to stand firm against the tide of false teaching sweeping through the national church following the tragic decisions of General Convention of 2003, led to significant financial and numerical losses. At the time we chose to remain true to Good Shepherd's claim of being "rooted in the Word" no matter what the cost. We believed that God would bless our stand and provide for us in our time of need. Ever faithful, our Lord heard and answered our prayers and blessed Good Shepherd in ways beyond all we could at the time ask or imagine.

August 2005

A Living Sacrifice (8-28-2005)...you were saved from sin, not to sin. And, if your faith was/is sincere, you won't want to just keep on living as if nothing happened. You were saved for a purpose, to take part in God's resurrected world and something in your heart, the Spirit, knows that and wants to live differently. What do you do?

July 2005

Sermons for June, July, and August have not been posted due to technical difficulties encountered during those months. The missing sermons will be posted as soon as possible.

June 2005

Why Forgive Those Who Sin Against You? (6-12-05) So humanity in general and you and I in particular are really a lot like that man in the story Jesus told. We owe God and enormous debt that we can’t even begin to repay. Even if we lived obedient lives of faithfulness from now until the day we died, we would not be able to pay back the debt we have racked up in our past. We are broke and bankrupt. That’s the situation God faced when he considered what to do with the people he created. By rights, God could have condemned us all. And yet what does Paul say? “While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

May 2005

People with a Purpose part 6: Summary (5-29-2005) Often when people give of themselves to their church they have the attitude that what they have is theirs and they're graciously giving it to God out of the beneficence of their generous hearts. And they expect to be recognized and praised and to have their names put on special little plaques. And some people even expect, and this is really fun, to be able to tell the leadership what to do based on how much money they give.

The Desire of Jesus' Heart (5-22-05) My instructor was of the opinion that there is no hell, only heaven, and our only role as care-givers was to make people feel happy on their way there. Any attempt to introduce someone to Jesus Christ or share the gospel was considered a sign of intolerance. He called the idea that Christianity was in some way more true than other faiths, Christo-centrism, and he ranked it alongside racism and sexism.

True Love (wedding sermon 5-21-05) While being in love is wonderful and I hope everyone here has the opportunity to feel it, I have to say that it makes a pretty poor foundation for a marriage. When we say we are in love we are describing a feeling. A deep feeling to be sure, but a feeling nonetheless. Being in love is primarily an emotion. What's wrong with that? Absolutely nothing! If you've been in love you know just how wonderful it is and if you haven't I hope that you do one day. But because being in love is primarily a feeling, an emotion, it will behave like any other emotion. And if you know anything at all about emotions, you know that they come and they go.

"Into the World" by Anne Kennedy+ (5-15-05) You'll notice here, that they are all gathered together in a room by themselves. They aren't out knocking on doors trying to find people to tell about Jesus. Who knows whether they would have thought of doing this on their own, even after many weeks. Probably they would have just stuck it out on their own, saving the wonderful news of Jesus, maybe for their kids, but not much beyond that. So, here, the Holy Spirit is first mobilizing and empowering the disciples to do what they normally wouldn't do—share the good news of Jesus.

People with a Purpose part 5: The Prayers (5-8-05) Church is not a show that we put on for an audience. If you come here every Sunday morning and sit in the pew and listen to the prayers and then listen to the readings and the sermon and then listen to the music and then go get your bread and wine and then go home, you’ve missed the whole point. You don’t come to listen to me pray or Anne pray, you come to pray, and you don’t come to listen to the choir sing praises to God, you come to sing praises to God. You don‘t come to just let the readings kind of wash over you, you come to hear the Word of God to you on this very day and then hear, during the sermon, how you can take God’s Word and apply it to your life. You’re not an audience, sitting back on the couch with your TV clicker, you’re a participant and God has given you this time and these prayers to participate. So if you’re bored, well, how can I put this nicely, it’s your own fault. There’s plenty to do!

People with a Purpose part 4: The Fellowship (5-1-05) God intends for the church to be the place where individuals and whole families are interconnected into relationships with each other and with the entire family of God on a level that transcends, that means rises above, blood relationship.

April 2005

People with a Purpose part 3: The Apostles' Teaching(4-24-05)
Every single book in the New Testament was either written by an apostle directly or read and approved by an apostle and because of that we can know that we are holding in our hands the complete and infallible teaching of Christ given to his church by virtue of the Holy Spirit. You not only hear Matthew Mark Luke and John, Peter, James, Jude and Paul, you hear the voice of the Shepherd Jesus Christ.

People with a Purpose part 2: The Day After (4-17-05) We're not God. We don't bring salvation. Our word is not The Word. We simply make God known by passing on clearly and effectively what we have received. We don't change it, or add to it or take from it in any way. We pass it on to hungry believers.

People with a Purpose part 1: Proclaiming the Gospel (4-9-05) How many of you were listening or watching the coverage this week of the death of Pope John Paul II? This pope was a great man and a courageous man who stood for the truth of the Christian faith. When it comes moral issues the John Paul II was a rock. And, as you've probably heard in the news coverage this week, his courage and faithfulness in proclaiming the timeless moral teachings of the bible won him many critics.

March

Thirsting for Jesus by the Rev. Anne Kennedy (Easter Morning 05) As Mary is weeping, she stoops to look in the tomb one more time. Knowing there is nothing there, she looks anyway—one last ditch hope.

The Son Also Rises (Easter Vigil 05) Jesus of Nazareth having been dead for three days walked out of the stone tomb where he had been laid, alive. He was not a ghost. He was not a spirit. He was not a figment of an overactive imagination. He did not rise from the tomb figuratively or metaphorically or "so to speak." He rose alive, flesh and blood, body and soul, whole, complete, real and true.

Why did He Die? (Good Friday, 3-25-05) "This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe." This saving righteousness is available to everyone, but it can only come to you if you believe, if you place your faith in Jesus Christ. Jesus died for the sins of the whole world, but there is only one way for his death to mean anything at all for you and that is if you personally give your life to him and trust in him alone for your salvation.

The Messiah Nobody Wanted (Palm Sunday, 3-20-05) Talk about a bad week. Jesus entered Jerusalem on Sunday a King, adored by the crowds and loved by his disciples. By Friday was leaving Jerusalem. This time carrying a cross over his shoulders; the crowds now clamoring for his death, his disciples scattered. What happened?

No Such Thing as 'Cheap Grace' (3-13-05) Salvation is a free gift that is accepted by faith. It is by grace that we are saved and not by works and there is nothing we can do to earn our way in. But while the gift is not earned, while your works, good or bad, don’t determine whether or not you’re saved, the character of your life, the way you live, your attitude toward God and toward sin makes manifest, demonstrates whose servant you really are.

February

The First Temptations of Christ part 3 (2-25-05) That is the beauty and the strength of a people grounded and rooted in the Bible. No lie of the devil, no deceit of the flesh, no way of the world will ever move them out of the arms of the God who loves them and who gave them his word as a light to their feet and a guide to their path. That's why it is so vital for you all here at this church to know and study your bibles

The First Temptations of Christ part 2 (2-18-05)

The First Temptations of Christ (2-11-05) You and I and everyone who believes in Jesus Christ are called to live our lives based on the model of Jesus' life as it is given to us in the bible. So when we come across an account of Jesus being tested and tempted by things that we are tempted by every day (and, as we'll see, the tempations he faces here are quite familiar) we should pay special attention to the what he does and how he handles the situation so we can take what he models and apply it when we are faced with similar tests.

What to Give Up for Lent (article 2-9-2005) Your Lenten discipline should not be arbitrary. If you have a problem with lust, don't give up chocolate. Give up whatever it is that leads you into lustful behavior. And don't just give it up for Lent, use Lent to give it up forever.

There is No Greater Thing (2-6-2005) We talk so regularly about beginning and sustaining a personal relationship with God because that's why we're here, that's the point of all this. We were created to know God, to be in a relationship with him, to be known by him. It's our purpose, our reason for existing

January

Why Christians Suffer: Part 5 (1-23-2005) This morning I want to lay out the fourth principle. This one is going to be the most counterintuitive of the four. In fact, it defies logic. But the scriptures and the experience of countless believers, some of us in this room included, tell us that it's true: Suffering in the life of the believer is designed and intended by God to produce joy.

"Why the God-Man?" (Feast of the Presentation 1-30-05) Today we're celebrating the Feast of the Presentation which has ironical been an occasion for great rejoicing in the Church. I say ironically for two reasons: First, The presentation is the day that Mary and Joseph, in keeping with the law that God gave Moses, brought Jesus, who was only eight days old, to the Temple in Jerusalem and presented him to the priests who circumcised him. This may then be a happy day for the church but I'll bet it was not such a happy day for Jesus.

December

The Land of the Lost (Christmas Eve 2005) The world has it all wrong. It searches for happiness, meaning and peace and does not find it because it does not know where to look. It doesn’t know where to look because it’s lost; so lost that it‘s even forgotten what it is that’s missing. It’s not the Buddha, not Mohamed, not Shiva or Vishnu. It’s not yoga or meditation or losing that extra 15 pounds. It’s not money, sex, drugs or rock and roll. Its not even job or family. It’s Jesus Christ, the living Word, The Son of God made man.
"Why Christians Suffer: Part 4" (12-3-2004) For all his faults, Wenzel knew every players' potential. He saw that we could be better players than we thought we had the strength to be and he worked us until each of us realized that potential. He trained us to be the best we could be by daily putting us in situations that demanded our best efforts and as time went on our best got better and better. Through suffering he made us players. What Coach Wenzel did in the world of sports is called training. In the Christian world it's called discipleship.

November

"Why Christians Suffer: Part 3" (11-21-2004)

"Why Christians Suffer: Part 2" (11-14-2004)

October