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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 20, 2010 "Deep Calls to Deep" Psalm 42 and Psalm 43 | |
| By Brad Miller on6/23/2010 3:08 PM | |
| “Deep calls to deep.”
I remember the first time I heard this phrase, and I was a little mystified. When I was a kid, before we asked the blessing and ate, someone read a devotional for the day which included a scripture and a short reflection. On this certain day, Psalm 42 was the scripture and I really didn’t know what it meant, this idea of “deep calls to deep.” I remember not wanting to ask right at that moment, mainly because I was hungry and wanted to get to dinner, but after the blessing and as we were eating I asked what it meant.
My brother said he thought it meant something “really heavy was going on.” Which wasn’t a lot of help. My father said he thought that it meant that when things start to go wrong, there is a tendency for us to let things go from bad to worse. My mother said she thought it meant that when things are going really, really wrong, when we are in the deepest pain, we call out to the deepest source of hope we know, God.
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| | Sunday May 30, 2010 "Many Things to Say" John 16: 12-16 | |
| By Brad Miller on6/2/2010 9:15 AM | |
| One of the friends I met in seminary, Drew Johnson, could always be counted on to sum things up succinctly and accurately. He was one of those people who didn’t always get the highest grade in the class, but it always seemed like he understood things better than anyone. I can still remember sitting in the lounge at Candler, discussing some of the more difficult issues that arose in our classes and how his take on it almost always illuminated my thinking.
After a weekday worship service where the preacher’s message was an exploration of the trinity and our understanding of it, we were on our way to lunch, both deep in thought. Drew broke the silence of our walk by asking, “You know why we only celebrate Trinity Sunday once a year, don’t you?” I responded that I did not. “Because,” he said, “if we spent any more time than that trying to figure out the trinity, our heads would explode.”
Well, it’s Trinity Sunday. And exploding heads or not, it is something tha ... | | |
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| | Sunday May 6, 2010 "Building on the Foundation" First Corinthians 3: 10-13 | |
| By Brad Miller on6/2/2010 9:12 AM | |
| How exactly did we get here?
There have been several times in my life when I have asked variations of that question. Sometimes, it was out of a sense of frustration as in, “How did I get myself into this mess?” Sometimes it has been out of sense of confusion and despair as in, “Why is this happening to me?” And sometimes, it has been with a sense of joy and wonder as in, “What did I do to deserve all of this?”
Today I ask that question out of that place of joy and wonder, but also, because I really want to understand what happened over the years that brought us to this day, in this place - this beautiful sanctuary - within this wonderful congregation, feeling God’s blessings all around.
So, how did we get here?
Many of us know the story: with the help of the Peachtree Christian Church, a small group of people gathered in a converted house on Colonial Drive on Mother’s Day 1948 and chartered a new church, a mission c ... | | |
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| | Sunday April 25, 2010 "The Easter Community" Acts 9: 36-42 | |
| By Brad Miller on5/4/2010 11:26 AM | |
| Have you been there? Have you been where the church at Joppa was? I have.
In this passage, the church at Joppa is experiencing a most profound grief. They have lost one of the best. They have lost a pillar of the church, a much loved woman named Dorcas. She was the example upon which many would have relied. Her ministry, we are told, is to care for the widows among the community. She made them clothes and found other ways which to serve them.
When I read this, I am suddenly filled with reminiscences of so many faithful people, people like Dorcas. Men and women who showed me what it means to serve God joyfully and completely. Men and women who were always there when they were needed. Men and women of integrity and compassion and grace. Men and women who, when they died, left a hole that could not be filled. Men and women that each and every one of us have known.
When I read this I can feel again the sense of loss that comes when ... | | |
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| | Sunday April 18, 2010 "The Easter Command" John 21: 1-19 | |
| By Brad Miller on4/21/2010 8:43 AM | |
| Over the years, I have found myself in situations where an important person in my life was suddenly absent. Someone to whom I looked for guidance, someone to whom I looked for direction, someone whose presence made it possible for me to persevere, someone who presence was simply comforting.
I think of silly examples of that, like the night my high school football coach suffered chest pains in the locker room minutes before a game and had to be taken to the hospital. I remember that one of the assistant coaches gathered us for a prayer and we headed out to the field, intent on winning one for our stricken coach.
I wish I could tell you it was a magnificent effort that pushed our opponents to their limit. But, it was not a magnificent effort. I wish I could say we gave the winning game ball to our recovering coach, but we did not, mainly because we lost by about 45 points.
We knew what we were supposed to do, but we just couldn’t get it to ... | | |
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| | Sunday April 11, 2010 "The Easter Life" Revelation 1:4-8 | |
| By Brad Miller on4/13/2010 1:28 PM | |
| The New Testament scholar, Lauren Winner reports that one Sunday when she was a child, noticed that there was a typo in the bulletin that got her to thinking. Got her thinking about her faith and how she was supposed to live it out. It got her thinking about the difference in simply living, and living what I would call, the Easter life.
During the celebration of communion in her faith tradition, there was a place in the liturgy for the congregation to respond in unison: “Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again.”
But on this Sunday, it said something different: on this Sunday, it said: “Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ HAS come again.”
She asked about it, fearing that she had missed something important since the last time they celebrated communion.
No, she was assured, it was a typo. It most certainly should say, “Christ will come again.”
She reports being a little sa ... | | |
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| | Easter Sunday April 4, 2010 "The Easter Response" John 20:108 | |
| By Brad Miller on4/13/2010 1:23 PM | |
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What a day! As winter turns into spring, our Lenten journey ends with the celebration of the miraculous events of Easter. It is a celebration that opens our eyes and breathes new life into our very being. A celebration that marks the most wonderful day that there could ever be: the day that Jesus rose from the dead and put an exclamation point next to all that he had been telling his disciples, his followers and the people of Israel and Palestine.
Oh, I’m sure the people who followed Jesus were faithful people who believed that God was with them, believed that God had guided them and their people from the very beginning. But there is a difference between believing in God and experiencing the reality of God personally.
And that is what was different for those folks closest to Jesus before that fateful day. The difference between belief and experience.
They had heard Jesus preach and even been able to question him about wha ... | | |
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| | Sunday March 28, 2010 "The End of the Beginning" Luke 19: 28-40 | |
| By Brad Miller on3/31/2010 10:17 AM | |
| | It was sometime between 2:30 and 3:00 in the morning when the phone rang. It’s never good news when the phone rings between 2:30 and 3:00 in the morning.Good news can wait at least a few hours, but bad news doesn’t wait.Before I answered the phone I knew who it was, and I was right. There was a pause and in a voice choked with emotion, my friend Linda said simply, “It’s time. Can you come to the hospital?” I said “Of course, I’ll be there as fast as I can.”As I made my way to the hospital, the last 3 years ran through my mind. Linda was the wife of a good friend of mine named Mike. Mike was an artist of national, even international, renown, but I didn’t know that when I first met him. He was simply a guy who came to the noon time Men’s Bible study I was facilitating at the church where I served. After the meeting, we sat and chatted for almost an hour. Mike had told the group that the day before, he had been diagnosed with cancer, and he was going back the next day to get the full rundown of what the doctors ... | | |
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| | Sunday March 21, 2010 "Press On" Philippians 3:4b - 14 | |
| By Brad Miller on3/22/2010 2:57 PM | |
| Sunday March 21, 2010
“Press On”
Philippians 3:4b -14
From the time I can really remember beginning to understand some of what is in the Bible, I wasn’t sure what to make of Paul. I wasn’t sure that I was ready to trust someone who did a 180 degree turn in their life like he did. He was the persecutor of the Christians, after all. He was responsible for imprisoning and possibly even executing those who were followers of Jesus, those who dared believe that Jesus was indeed the promised Messiah.
But I have come to understand that it is precisely because Paul did that 180 degree turn in his life that we need to listen to him. Because Paul knows of what he speaks: he knows what it means to change; he knows what it means to turn his life around. He has something very important to tell us.
Today’s passage is one of those times when I look at Paul and realize that he understands what it means to struggle with giving one ... | | |
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| | Sunday February 28, 2010 "Stand Firm" Philippians 3:17-41 | |
| By Brad Miller on3/1/2010 9:37 AM | |
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Lent can be very confusing.
Especially if you were brought up in the protestant church in America in the mid to late 20th century. And yes, that means that I am saying, Lent can be very confusing to me.
So, let’s take just a few minutes to see if we can’t resolve some of the confusion.
First, when is Lent? Lent is a period of 40 days that runs from Ash Wednesday to Easter Sunday. But of course, if you count the days from Ash Wednesday to Easter Sunday you get 46 days. The 6 extra days are the Sundays in that time period and Sundays are not counted as official parts of Lent. Hopefully, you will understand why that is in a few minutes.
Second, what is Lent? Lent is a time of introspection and preparation. We are called to look hard at who we are and at where we are in our faith walk. We do this in preparation for two things: first, so that we might be a stronger witness for God’s love and grace in the ... | | |
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