March 10th Sermon

GIVING UP DEATH Well, we’ve made it! This is the seventh and last message in our Giving it Up series, so that means we are celebrating the joy of Easter Sunday or Resurrection Sunday! Hallelujah and praises to our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ! The same Jesus who has arisen from the dead and changed the dialogue about death forever. We no longer look at death as an ending but as a glorious beginning.     I am reminded about the story of the little six-year-old boy named David who was taking a walk one day with his grandmother. They decided to detour through the local graveyard. They stopped to read some of the tombstones and Grandma explained that the first date on the tombstones was the day the person was born and the second date was the day the person died. "Why do some tombstones only have one date?" little David asked. "Because those people haven't died yet," his grandmother explained. David was obviously stunned by his grandmother's exp...

GIVING UP POPULARITY One thing that all of us humans have in common is a desire to be popular. Granted, the apex of this desire generally occurs during our high school years, but even adults have someone or some group they desire to be popular with. Remember back to high school and the pain associated with trying to fit in? Dressing just so. Trying to get in with the popular kids. Coveting the friendship of those deemed “popular”. Maybe it was the cheerleaders or the top athletes, or those who got the best grades and always seemed to win every award. Whatever the measure of acceptance or popularity was and is today, we strive to be part of it. I had to change schools in seventh grade after my father passed away and seventh and eighth grades were very hard for me. I had no idea who anyone was, where they fit on the popularity scale or if I should associate with them. Luckily, I was a decent athlete, playing soccer, field hockey, basketball, and softball and fell into a very g...