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Sermons

Dreams from The Holy: A Dream of the Future (Is. 40:1-31)

In Is. 39:5-6 Isaiah delivers bad news: 5 Then Isaiah said to Hezekiah, “Hear the word of the LORD Almighty: 6 The time will surely come when everything in your palace, and all that your predecessors have stored up until this day, will be carried off to Babylon. Nothing will be left, says the LORD. (Is. 39:5-6 TNIV).  Isaiah the prophet had to tell Hezekiah the king that tough times were coming—the city of Jerusalem would be attacked and its possessions and people dragged off to Babylon.  Tough times were coming.  Times of great struggle.  Times of great weakness.

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Dreams from The Holy: A Dream Born (Is. 9:2-7)

Darkness is my closest friend (Ps. 88:18 TNIV).  This line comes from the most painful poem in the Bible.  It is written by someone who feels he is in the presence of the absence of God.  “Day and night” the poet cries out to God.  But day and night heaven is silent.  So, the poet laments: Darkness is my closest friend.  When the authors of the Bible describe what it’s like to experience the presence of the absence of God, they use the metaphor of darkness.

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Dreams from The Holy: The Dream of Inclusion (Is. 56:1-8)

Earlier this month a photo was taken at the White House.  In it a white man and a black man sit in high back chairs in the Oval Office.  The white man is President George W. Bush.  The black man is President-elect Barak Obama.  It is the first time that a black President-elect has ever been in the Oval Office.  And this January, it will be the first time a black President takes up residence in the White House.

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Do Pray-Part 2 (Matt. 6:5-15)

During the recent presidential campaign some argued that we should not elect someone who is elite—more highly trained and experienced than most—but should instead elect someone who is ordinary—able to relate to the average man or woman.  One author wrote this:[1] There is simply no other walk of life in which extraordinary talent and rigorous training are denigrated. We want elite pilots to fly our planes, elite troops to undertake our most critical missions, elite athletes to represent us in competition and elite scientists to devote the most productive years of their lives to curing our diseases. And yet, when it comes time to vest people with even greater responsibilities, we consider it a virtue to shun any and all standards of excellence. When it comes to choosing the people whose thoughts and actions will decide the fates of millions, then we suddenly want someone just like us, someone fit to have a beer with, someone down-to-earth—in fact, almost anyone, provided that he or she doesn’t seem too intelligent or well educated.  This author argues that we need people in the White House who are elite, who are at the top rung in terms of experience, education, and insight.  Others however, were arguing that that we need people in the White House who are not elite, people who are more like the rest of us.

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