Sermon from Sunday, June 27, 2021. Summer Road Trip (Part 3). Acts 15:1-11. Pastor Bryant Anderson preaching. Paul joins a council of church leaders in Jerusalem to decide under what conditions Gentiles are permitted to be a part of the family of faith. The result - an erasure of the boundaries that we create between us and others - cuts right to the heart of the nature of the Gospel the apostles are sent out to proclaim.

Milford Presbyterian Church Sermons

Latecomers Welcome

Sermon from Sunday, June 20, 2021. Summer Road Trip (Part 2). 1 Corinthians 1:10-15 & Acts 14:8-20. Pastor Bryant Anderson preaching. Paul and Barnabas are mistaken for deities when they heal a man who could not walk. It is not really surprising that people reacted this way after witnessing a miracle; what is truly surprising is that the Apostles refuse to be deified. This tells us a lot about the gospel they preached.

Cult of Personality

Sermon from Sunday, June 13, 2021. Summer Road Trip (Part 1). Acts 13:4-12. The Apostle Paul confronts a magician who is attempting to turn people away from the truth of the gospel. The very idea of truth has grown increasingly complicated in our pluralistic world, so how can Christians embrace the truth of the gospel without presuming to be its sole possessor?

The Gospel Truth

Sermon from Sunday, May 30, 2021. Spirit of God (Part 4). Genesis 8:6-12, 20-22 & Matthew 3:13-17. Pastor Bryant Anderson preaching. The fourth and final biblical metaphor of the Holy Spirit is the dove. When we connect the dove that descended upon Jesus at his baptism with the dove from the story of Noah, we discover God's spirit at work in bringing about something new in this world and in us.

Spirit of God: Dove

Sermon from Sunday, May 23, 2021, the Day of Pentecost. Spirit of God (Part 3). Malachi 3:1-6 & Acts 2:1-13. Pastor Bryant Anderson preaching. The Holy Spirit descends as tongues of fire on the Day of Pentecost and the church is born. Fire reveals something important about the working of God's spirit, and it has everything to do with the gospel and the fledgling movement that began to share it.

Spirit of God: Fire

Sermon from Sunday, May 16, 2021. Spirit of God (Part 2). Genesis 1:1-2 & John 3:1-9. Pastor Bryant Anderson preaching. God's spirit shows up at times in scripture as WIND. When we imagine the movement of God in the world as wind, we embrace unpredictability, discomfort, and mystery. The wind of God surrounds us, spooks us, and stirs us up.

Spirit of God: Wind

Sermon from Sunday, May 9, 2021. Spirit of God (Part 1). Genesis 2:4b-7; Ezekiel 37:1-10; John 20:19-22. Pastor Bryant Anderson preaching. One important metaphor for God's spirit in scripture is BREATH. This breath shows up at a few key moments in the biblical story, and these moments reveal to us the foundational nature of the work of God's spirit for the life of faith.

Spirit of God: Breath

Sermon from Sunday, May 2, 2021. Nothing Less (Part 5). Romans 8:18-25. Pastor Bryant Anderson preaching. Is there a limit to hope? Does hope dwindle to nothing in the face of the truly hopeless? Or can hope be maintained even when there's no good reason left for hope? Hoping for the impossible - hoping against hope - proves to be the ultimate test case for the power of hope.

Hope Against Hope

Sermon from Sunday, April 25, 2021. Nothing Less (Part 4). Matthew 25:31-46. Pastor Bryant Anderson preaching. Hope is not just something we cast out into an uncertain future; hope is something that has - or at least ought to have - a profound impact on who we are and how we live today. And when we live hope-shaped lives, we help bring hope to others.

Live into Hope

Sermon from Sunday, April 18, 2021. Nothing Less (Part 3). Isaiah 65:17-25 & Revelation 21:1-5a. Pastor Bryant Anderson preaching. It is not uncommon for Christians to assume that ultimately, in the end, God plans to toss this broken world on the trash heap (minus the faithful, of course). But this assumption ignores the consistent through-line in scripture of God's unwavering hope for the world and all that is in it.

Hope of the World

Sermon from Sunday, April 11, 2021. Nothing Less (Part 2). Hebrews 6:13-20. Pastor Bryant Anderson preaching. The character of hope is determined by its foundation. Hope that is founded upon ephemeral things - ambition, success, approval, comfort - will itself be fleeting. But when our hope is rooted in God's unchanging purpose for the world, our hope will never be shaken.

My Hope Is Built on Nothing Less

Sermon from Easter Sunday, April 4, 2021. Nothing Less (Part 1). Isaiah 25:6-9 & Mark 16:1-8. Mark's telling of the Easter story is a strange mixture of fear and hope, which is a fitting depiction of life in the world: hope and fear intermingled, inextricably tied together. But this is no ordinary hope; the hope we discover at the empty tomb is eternal, unending, undying hope.

Hope Springs Eternal

Sermon from Maundy Thursday, April 1, 2021. Exodus 12:1-4, 11-14; 1 Corinthians 11:23-26. Pastor Bryant Anderson preaching. It is an odd thing that the Passover meal memorializes the moment before Israel's liberation, rather than the celebration after its completion. It is equally odd that the Christian sacrament of Communion memorializes the darkness of Holy Week, rather than the victory of Easter. But life is lived on this side of triumph, and we need to be trained to remember that God is with us even as we wait for the celebration to come.

A Meal in Motion

Sermon from Sunday, March 28, 2021. Exiles (Part 6). Jonah 3:1 - 4:1; 1 Peter 4:1-11. Pastor Bryant Anderson preaching. At the end of the day, the life of a Christian exile is oriented in a very particular direction: toward the world. In the story of Jonah and some of the closing remarks of 1 Peter, this orientation becomes inescapably clear.

Stewards of Grace

Sermon from Sunday, March 21, 2021. Exiles (Part 5). 1 Peter 3:13-22. Exiles who are called to a distinctive way of life are also instructed to be prepared to answer for their distinctiveness - to make a defense of their hope. In a world so often characterized by thin and misplaced hopes, our readiness as the church to declare our unique hope is critical to our witness and essential to faithfulness.

Ready to Answer

Sermons from worship at Milford Presbyterian Church, a church of the Presbyterian Church (USA) in Milford, Michigan.