HRPC Office

Matthew 6:19-24

Jesus is not afraid to talk about money. He talks about taxes, he talks about investments, he talks about repaying (or not repaying) debts. As a matter of fact, he talks about money so much that you could even say, is he talking about money AGAIN? You see, money matters, and Jesus knows it. And money matters seem fairly unavoidable in our thinking and in our daily life. It seems that we pay an inordinate amount of attention to money, how much we make, how much we you spend, how much we owe, how much we wish we had. Even so, money can be a touchy subject for conversation in general, and especially in church. As a general rule, Jesus doesn’t seem to be afraid of touchy subjects. Continue reading “Sermon: Money Matters” →

Matthew 5:21-42

In Jesus’ neighborhood, most people had very dark hair until it turned grey or white, usually due to old age. There were no barber shops or beauty salons to get your hair colored any one of a myriad of colors—blond, red, auburn, brown, black, gray, white, much less purple or blue or green! There was no sense in wishing your hair were black if it was white or white if it was black because there simply was no human ability to change the color of hair. Jesus uses this one little human limitation as an illustration of how little power we really do have, and points out that we really have no business making oaths in our names, as if we could guarantee that we will or will not do something. We are fooling ourselves, we who can not even change our hair color. Continue reading “Sermon: The Power of Hair Color” →