Sermons by Rev. Joel Lynn

                   The other day I stumbled across the Facebook page of a megachurch from a few states away, and a few things struck me. The first was, “Where are all the old people?” Nearly every picture featured people in their 40s and younger. As I kept scrolling and digging and searching, I was able to see just a couple scattered faces in the pictures there of people who may have been in their 50s or 60s, but it was rare. And I saw none in their 80s or 90s.                 Now, this is a question you don’t hear asked very often. No one is asking, “Where are the old people?” Because, by and large, the church has done a much better job retaining membership and belief among older adults. The question on everyone’s mind is thus, “Where are the young people? How can we get them back in church?” And so, the megachurch, that statistically is likely to have 70% of i...

  In our town’s newspaper this past week an article was published from a member of the ministerial alliance, of which I am a part, that said that if you believe in evolution or that the earth is older than 6000 years, you are disbelieving God’s word and picking and choosing what you want to believe or disbelieve from the Bible. While I have much respect for this person, I disagree theologically. And I want to list a few reasons why, because I am concerned that some might read the article and think, “Well, science on the old age of the earth is pretty convincing to me (between the fossil record, the carbon dating and radiometric dating, and so forth), so I guess I can’t believe the Bible. I guess I have to pick and choose between either accepting the Bible or science.” Basically, I’m concerned the article will be more likely to push people away from thinking they can believe in God than draw any in to think that belief in God could be rational and logical. Can we hold to both bibl...

            Today is Maundy Thursday, a day that commemorates all the events that happened the day before Jesus was crucified. And a lot happened that day: Jesus washed his disciples feet, Jesus taught about the need to be servants and to love one another, Jesus led the disciples in celebrating the last supper together, Jesus prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus was arrested through the betrayal of Judas, Jesus was interrogated by the high priest, and Peter denied Jesus three times; all of this happened on Thursday before morning of the next day when Jesus was brought before Pontius Pilate of Rome.             So there are a lot of different events that one could focus on today. But I want to begin by focusing on the betrayal of Jesus that happened this day. And he was betrayed in diverse and varied ways. First, he was betrayed by the religious officials of Israel and J...

  Blaise Pascal, the French philosopher, mathematician, inventor, and theologian, he believes that most men are in a near constant state of trying to shield their thoughts from the reality of death. And you can probably imagine some reasons why. It’s not the happiest of things to think about. We often joke that you aren’t supposed to talk politics or religion with other people, but I think you can probably add death to that list of impolite subjects of conversation. It is too sad to contemplate, too gloomy to discuss.             Pascal believes that the specter of death looms over us, hangs over us. Because even if we are happy now, well we want to be happy forever, and so we do not wish to dwell on the fact that things cannot always continue as they now are, we do not wish to dwell on the possibility of loss. But, as we know, death is inevitable. And that inescapable destiny gloomily reminds us that all we have now is tempo...

             Today we’re finishing our series in the book of Daniel. And so far in this series we’ve talked a lot about King Nebuchadnezzar, and the ways that he came to eventually see that God was the true God and learned humility. Yes, God revealed his power to him multiple times as Nebuchadnezzar relied on Daniel to interpret dreams for him, as he saw Rack, Shack, and Benny saved from the fiery furnace, and as he was reduced by God into an inhuman, animal like state until he learned humility and had his kingdom restored to him. And now the book of Daniel jumps ahead a bit in the story to King Belshazzar who was the grandson of Nebuchadnezzar. Our bible translation said Nebuchadnezzar was the father, but a better translation is likely ancestor based on what we know from extrabiblical historical records, and indeed the Hebrew word here is used to refer to ancestors more broadly both in Ezra and Daniel in other places. Yes, history tells us that Nebuch...

               Today we’re continuing in the book of Daniel. And Daniel chapter 4 shares a lot of similarities to Daniel chapter 2. In both the king dreams a dream the needs interpretation. And both times none of the king’s wise men, magicians, enchanters, or diviners could interpret the dream, but Daniel could. As we said before, there are questions about this world that none of our wise men can answer, not scientists, not phds, some answers can only be answered by God and those God speaks through. And then this dream also is similar in that it is trying to teach King Nebuchadnezzar that his kingdom is not as great and glorious as he thinks. The first dream showed that the empire of Babylon would one day fall and be replaced by other kingdoms. But this dream was a little more pointed, it focused in on how Nebuchadnezzar’s own reign was about to be taken from him, at least for a time. And we’re going to be focusing a lot today on the type of punis...

               Today we’re continuing in the book of Daniel. Last week we looked at King Nebuchadnezzar who continually failed to learn his lessons in humility despite being witness to God’s miracles and power. Today we’re focusing further in on some of the Israelites who were living within Babylon, specifically Shadrach, Meschach, and Abednego, or as Veggietales cleverly shortened for us: Rack, Shack, and Benny. And we want to look at how they are responding to Nebuchadnezzar’s command of trying to force all peoples to bow down and worship his golden idol.             And their response is simple: we will not bow down. A simple response, but a profound, countercultural response. For there are so many who bow down to the idols of their age. Some bow down because they are ignorant. They somehow fail to see the ways in which the values of the age in which they live contradict the values of the...