Sermons August 1

As I finished with the day last week I was excited about the two sermons I heard and planned to blog on them first thing in the week. I could not decide which to do first. I thought about working on it Sunday night and then saving them.

You can see I did not. Now they are dim in my memory and I will have to look at notes to even have a chance to blog on them.

In the morning MP gave part three in a sermon series. This is called the Value of Hardship. I have not really figured out how the different sermons tie together.

His conclusion seems to be that we will have to risk to spread the gospel just as Paul had to risk. And there will of necessity be hardship, maybe not as much as Paul had but we can expect it to be hard. It will cost us something. He spoke of a couple in Turkey that has lost a lot because they were caught sharing the gospel. The courts charged them with a crime and after several years the case has not be resolved. An example closer to home was of a late night store clerk who was robbed at gunpoint. She responded by sharing the gospel with him and urging him not to do this. The robber admitted to being a Christian and decided to leave rather than force her. Both of these examples show risk taking in the name of the Lord God.

In the evening we are still going through the Apostle's Creed line by line. This is an interesting idea but the priests are having trouble actually sticking to one line. RC spoke this night. This night the line was "He ascended into heaven and sits on the right hand of God." Well something like that. But the preacher seemed more interested in the line that came before about descending into hell. He wanted to explain hell and talk about the difference between Sheol (Hebrew) and Hades (Greek) understandings. The priest last week also covered this. I guess it was harder to get a handle on today's line.

He did finally get to that line. Perhaps it was just me, I was not interested in what he said about it. I do have some notes here.

He had a cute joke at the beginning and a personal story at the end. He was asked recently why the Apostles Creed has more line about Jesus than about anything else. RC responded by saying maybe it was because Jesus was the first born. First borns always get all the attention. ;-)

RC has told us more than once how he came to move here. His contract at the previous church had run out and he had to find a new church. He asked God to make it easy on him to decide. He asked God to close all the doors but the right one. Then he sent out 24 resumes. God answered his prayer, only one church said yes they were interested and that is how he got here. But recently he was talking to his wife. He said, "I know I am a good priest. I should have gotten more interest than just one church. It was not because I am a bad priest, but because God was answering my prayer that I only received one offer." We were not told what his wife said. hehe ;-)