Sermons by Chuck Webster (Page 19)
Renew Our Days
Our theme for 2021 is RENEW, and we’re focusing on a different aspect of renewal on the first Sunday of each month (because so many of our folks were at the retreat last weekend, I moved it to the second Sunday for May). I read straight through Lamentations earlier this week, and I was struck by a couple of things: it’s a bit discouraging, especially if you focus on what seems to feelings of hopelessness within Jeremiah. But this is…
God in the Furnace
Where is God when we go into the furnace? Babylon, in some ways, was similar to many pluralistic nations today. Its leaders recognized the wisdom of tolerating all sorts of different deities in the private sphere, as long as everyone’s allegiance in public–at least nominally–was to the Babylonian gods. In other words, “Worship whatever God or gods you want to on your own time and in your own place, but when you’re in public, be willing to give homage to…
Forgive
Jesus said a lot about his expectations that his followers forgive people who sin against us, seemingly going so far as to say that God’s forgiveness of us hinges on our forgiving others. It’s embedded in the Lord’s Prayer (“Forgive us, as we forgive those who sin against us.”), and in the story above, the forgiven servant who withholds forgiveness from his servant finds himself being punished severely. And yet many people–even Christians–still harbor bitterness in their hearts from offenses…