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Brad's Sermons |
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| Author: | Brad Miller | Created: | 10/30/2007 2:53 AM |  | | Archive of BCC Sermons by Brad |
| Sunday June 29, 2008 "The Miracle of Bartimaeus" Mark 10: 46-52 | |
| By Brad Miller on6/30/2008 10:38 AM | |
| Sometimes I think our biggest problem as humans is that we don’t always say what we mean, or do what we say. I bet all of us have been on both sides of this conversation: “How are things going with you?” “Good, thanks, and you?” “Not bad.”
But how many times when greeted this way have you wanted to really lay out was what going on: how work was a pain, how the kids have been sick, how money is tight at the end of the month…? And who knows, it may be that the person on the other side of the conversation is not really coming clean, either.
Alright, alright, it’s just social convention. No one really wants to hear about all your little ailments and aches and pains and what a jerk your boss has been.
Once a few years ago I had a few minutes between appointments and so I decided to call my father. He answered and I asked, “How are you doin’?” And he started to tell me his problems…and c’mon, I was just being polite. I started to laugh, ... |  | |
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| | Sunday July 22, 2008 "The Miracle at Mt. Carmel" 1 Kings 18:20-40 | |
| By Brad Miller on6/25/2008 9:43 AM | |
| Last summer, traveling in Palestine and Israel with 18 pastors from around the United States, I was blessed to be able to visit many, many places of importance to our faith. All around Galilee, we were able to walk where Jesus walked, see with our own eyes the sites of some of Jesus greatest preaching, teaching and healing. In Bethlehem, we visited the church of the Nativity, the place of Jesus’ birth; in Jerusalem we visited the church of the holy sepluchre, site of Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection. We walked the Via de lo rosa, the way of the cross that Jesus walked toward his death. We sat on the beach where the resurrected Jesus made breakfast for his disciples and urged Peter to “feed my sheep.”
And we saw the places where miracles took place: the place where Mary was visited by the Angel Gabriel, where Jesus cured the Gerosene demoniac, where the paralytic man was cured by the pools of Bethsaida, where blind Bartemaias was given his sight.
So many pla ... | | |
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| | Sunday June 15, 2008 "The Miracle at Bethsaida" John 5:1-18 | |
| By Brad Miller on6/18/2008 11:11 AM | |
| What do you think the proper response to a miracle ought to be?
Well, I suppose there is no one perfect answer to that question, but in general, I would think that awe would be high up on the list. In my mind, it always seems to me that if I was to witness what I would consider to be an undeniable miracle, that I would be in awe of what God can do. And if it was a miracle that was beneficial to me, that changed my life in a positive way, I would think gratitude would be something that I would experience.
But it is not always the case.
It seems that there is sometimes a great burden to being the recipient of a miracle. Why was I saved? Why was my cancer cured? Why was I provided for in my darkest hour? What meaning do I draw from being the recipient of a miracle? What does it say about God that I was blessed in this way?
I bring this up today because on one level, the story of the Miracle at Bethsaida is a str ... | | |
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| | Sunday June 8, 2008 "The Miracle of Abundance" 1 Kings 4:1-7 | |
| By Brad Miller on6/9/2008 11:05 AM | |
| A few years ago I was having a discussion with my friend and colleague Rev. Bob Tyler. I was privileged to serve with Bob on the staff at Peachtree when I was Associate Pastor and Bob was the minister of Pastoral Care. For those of you who know Bob, you know that he is the very model of what it means to be a pastoral presence and I learned much from him.
Bob is a big man, about 6 feet 4 inches tall with a calming presence, a quick smile and a handshake that lets you know that he is glad to see you. He is a gregarious, extremely upbeat human being.
In his 50 plus years of ministry, I know that Bob has seen devastating personal loss, has dealt with hundreds of crises, is a life saving pastoral presence to many in their darkest hours, yet exudes an optimism and joy that belies the human hurt he has seen in his life in ministry.
It was that juxtaposition of grief and joy, pessimism and optimism, hopelessness and hope that intrigued me, an ... | | |
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| | Sunday May 25, 2008 "Changing Hearts" Acts 16:11-15 | |
| By Brad Miller on5/27/2008 8:22 AM | |
| All month long we have been concentrating on the Pentecost story in one way or another. The day we celebrate as Pentecost, the birthday of the church, conincides with the appearance of the Holy Spirit in Jerusalem. With that appearance, amazing things began to happen. The disciples suddenly began communicating in different languages, languages they did not know. And the important word here is communicating, because it was not just the ecstatic murmurings of people caught in the spell of the Holy Spirit, but real, true communication – communication of the gospel of Jesus Christ to those who had not heard.
Peter gave an amazing sermon that day, and 3000 people were said to have become followers of Christ right then and there.
The church was born that day, but like a newborn baby, many things had to fall into place so that it would be nurtured and grow strong and healthy. We know from the book of The Acts of the Apostles that those who initially were drawn to t ... | | |
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| | Sunday May 18, 2008 "Changing Sides" Acts 9:1-19 | |
| By Brad Miller on5/20/2008 12:50 PM | |
| Preaching about Paul is a tricky business. It’s tricky because we don’t always know what to make of him.
Here’s the first thing: he’s got two names! First, he’s Saul, then he’s Paul. C’mon, Abram and Sarai become Abraham and Sarah, Jacob becomes Israel, Simon becomes Peter, Saul becomes Paul. Enough already! For our purposes today, let’s all remember that Saul is the name before the incident on the road to Damascus and Paul is the name after the incident on the road. But I’m going to call him Paul, all the time, because, well, I’m easily confused.
Here are some of the other tricky things about Paul:
His letters to the various churches carry some of the most beautiful messages of encouragement we can imagine. Some of our best loved and lyrical passages are attributed to Paul’s hand. His role of mentor to Timothy and champion of Philemon inspire us to reach out to, to be guides to others.
But then there is what I call the “hostile” P ... | | |
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| | Sunday May 11, 2008 "Changing Course" Acts 2:1-42 | |
| By Brad Miller on5/12/2008 10:35 AM | |
| I sometimes wonder why we don’t do more with Pentecost. What I mean by that is, why isn’t Pentecost a bigger holiday? The civic culture here in the United States, Christian and non-Christian alike, has come to accept Christmas and Easter as worthy of extended celebration. At Christmas, government offices even shut down and take it as a national holiday.
I do understand that the birth and the resurrection of our savior are big, big events: but why isn’t the birth of our savior’s church a big event? It is after all, the continuation of his ministry. It is the advent of what Jesus promised his disciples, the coming of the Holy Spirit to comfort, to empower, to guide. Isn’t what happened on that first Pentecost worthy of more?
Sure, we decorate the sanctuary and we wear red, but do we really grasp all that happened that day so many years ago? If we did, I think we would anticipate Pentecost much like we do Christmas and Easter.
Let’s st ... | | |
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| | Sunday April 27, 2008 "Wrestling with God" Genesis 32:22-31 | |
| By Brad Miller on4/29/2008 4:25 AM | |
| At the very beginning of our service, we heard Crystal Evans read parts of the 46th Psalm to help us prepare our hearts for worship. It begins, “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear…” These have been words of great comfort to many, many generations of people of faith. They are also words that we sometimes have a hard time reconciling when our lives seem to have taken a turn for the worse, where anger or depression or fear or grief have overtaken us and God’s presence is hard to grasp.
When we are struggling with issues beyond our understanding, when the world seems to be spinning out of control, these are the times when we need to be assured that in fact, God will not leave us. But if we are truthful, those can be the times when we feel the most alone, the times when God does not seem near. And as much as we want to feel the loving touch of God with us, in our humanness, we cannot. The struggle within our own being can be tit ... | | |
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| | Sunday April 20, 2008 "Sacred Dreams" Genesis 28:10-22 | |
| By Brad Miller on4/21/2008 10:53 AM | |
| Scripture. Tradition. Experience.
These three are the hallmarks of our faith journey. Because in these three, God at work in the world is revealed to us. All are important, none can truly stand alone as God’s revelatory method, and none can be excluded if we are to truly understand how God is made known to us.
The scripture is the easiest one, and of course, it is the one that most Christian’s start with. We who are the legacy of Alexander Campbell and Barton Stone sometimes refer to ourselves as “people of the book,” because the studying of scripture was paramount to their way of thinking. In scripture we are able to connect up God’s movement in and among the various stories, poems, and history that make up this amazing book that we call the Holy Bible. In scripture, we are able to see how others understood God and how others reacted to God’s presence in their lives. In scripture, we see roads that run parallel and perpendicular to our own lives and see ... | | |
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| | Sunday March 30, 2008 "Can You Believe It?" Luke 24:13-35 | |
| By Brad Miller on3/31/2008 2:20 PM | |
| You knew this was going to take some time, didn’t you? I mean, let’s be serious: one unbelievable event after another had transpired. If you didn’t witness every single one of them, you would have a tough time taking it all in. No matter who you heard it from, no matter how much you trusted them, if you don’t witness something so remarkably surprising, it is hard to understand what really happened.
Of course, I am talking about the events surrounding the end of Jesus’ earthly ministry, his arrest, his trial, his death, his resurrection.
Think about this for a minute: suppose you are a follower of Jesus during those tumultuous days. You’re not one of the 12 disciples or the other close followers like Mary Magdalene, but you believe that Jesus is the one who the Hebrew scriptures have foretold. You believe he will deliver the Jews from their bondage, he will redeem them, he will show himself to be the Messiah that you have longed for.
Be ... | | |
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