Author: Timothy Ensworth

What’s next?

What’s next? (Click on the sermon title for a .pdf copy)
1 Peter 1:1-9
April 27, 2014

But what comes next?

It was an exhilarating, exhausting, excruciating, and euphoric week.  Not this week, but the preceding week, the week that began on Palm Sunday and ended on Easter Sunday.  If you paid close attention, if you followed Jesus every step of the way, if you opened your eyes and your ears to the horrors of what was done to him and the wonders of what was done by him, you were surely left limp, physically spent, emotionally drained. … Continue reading ...

And …

And … (Click on the sermon title for a .pdf copy)
1 Peter 1:17-23
May 4, 2014

This is Christ’s gracious offer, not continuation, but transformation.

What’s the difference?

This is Christ’s gracious offer, not resuscitation, but resurrection.

What’s the difference?

What would it mean for you?  To be transformed?  To be resurrected?  Not merely extending or stretching out your life as it is, but transforming your life, changing it, setting it in a new direction, filling it with new vitality, giving you a new life, giving you eternal life? … Continue reading ...

Priests

Priests (Click on the sermon title for a .pdf copy)
1 Peter 2:4-10
May 18, 2014

“Dear Amy …”

It’s a newspaper column, like “Dear Abby,” only it’s “Dear Amy.”  Dick Grimm shared it with me this week, and now I am sharing it with you.

Dear Amy,

Every fall, my sister, cousins and a cousin’s sister-in-law have a weekend shopping excursion in our home city. … Continue reading ...

Comma

Comma (Click on the sermon title for a .pdf copy)
1 Peter 3:13-22
May 25, 2014

Do you know any of these people?

She can’t keep a job.  She doesn’t have a job now.  She always starts out with good intentions, but then distractions or boredom or weak willpower or just plain laziness get in the way.  She can’t seem to follow through, can’t seem to be able to see the big picture, won’t buckle down, won’t grow up. … Continue reading ...

You have to go outside

You have to go outside (Click on the sermon title for a .pdf copy)
Genesis 1:1 – 2:4
June 15, 2014

(Play excerpt from Dan Gibson, “Land of the Loons”)

Welcome to my world …

Lakes, cold and deep and blue, sometimes still, sometimes raging, dense forests of long-needled pine and aromatic cedar and glistening birch.

The haunting call of a loon, the deliberate and unruffled movements of a moose raising itself from the water onto the lakeshore, swimming beaver and soaring eagle and stealthy walleye.… Continue reading ...

Ishmael

Ishmael (Click on the sermon title for a .pdf copy)
Genesis 16:1-16, 21:1-21
June 22, 2014

Most people come to church, I think, for one of two reasons: to find answers or to find help.

Some of us come to church to find answers.  We come from a life overfilled with ambiguity and uncertainty and conflict.  We want to be able to sort it all out, to make sense of it. … Continue reading ...

May the Lord spare you an untested faith

May the Lord spare you an untested faith (Click on the sermon title for a .pdf copy)
Genesis 22:1-14
June 29, 2014

Some time later God tested Abraham …

God tested Abraham?  Why?  Hasn’t he been tested enough already?

Asked to leave home, family, everything that was familiar, to go to a new land that God would show him …

Made a promise of many descendants, but waiting and waiting, waiting until he was a very old man before Isaac, the son of the promise, was born …

Already having to give up one son, already losing Ishmael …

Why test Abraham again?… Continue reading ...

Getting there

Getting there (Click on the sermon title for a .pdf copy)
Romans 12:1-6
August 24, 2014

Katahdin is an impressive mountain.  It is actually a massif, a massive, horseshoe-shaped ridge comprised of six distinct summits rising abruptly from the forests and lakes and streams of the northern Maine woods.  The six summits are North Howe, South Howe, Hamlin, Baxter Peak, South Peak and Pamola. … Continue reading ...

I am nobody

I am nobody (Click on the sermon title for a .pdf copy)
Exodus 3:1-15
August 31, 2014

I am nobody …

Have you ever said it?  Have you ever felt it?

Sometimes, it’s a sigh of despair: I am nobody.  I feel like my life doesn’t amount to anything.  I feel like if I just disappeared off the face of the earth, I wouldn’t be missed, at least not for long. … Continue reading ...

Leaving jealousy behind

Leaving jealousy behind (Click on the sermon title for a .pdf copy)
Romans 13:8-14
September 7, 2014

In seventeen days, on September 24, our church will celebrate its 158th anniversary.  Our congregation has a long history in Waterloo, virtually as long as the history of the town itself.  It is your church, it is our church, but it is a church we have inherited, with a long-established tradition of worship and ministry and mission in Waterloo and the Cedar Valley.… Continue reading ...