Jordan Rimmer Sermons

October 31, 2017 marks a monumental moment for the church and the world. It was on that day 500 years ago that Martin Luther posted his 95 Theses to door at Wittenberg.  This is typically noted as the beginning of the Protestant Reformation. It was a moment that sparked a movement that continues to influence not only the Christian faith but also daily life. To celebrate, I am planning to do a whole month of worship and preaching around Martin Luther. In this sermon, I take a look at Luther's marriage to Katharina von Bora and how it changed his view not just of marraige, but of the Christian faith and Christian community.   

October 31, 2017 marks a monumental moment for the church and the world. It was on that day 500 years ago that Martin Luther posted his 95 Theses to door at Wittenberg.  This is typically noted as the beginning of the Protestant Reformation. It was a moment that sparked a movement that continues to influence not only the Christian faith but also daily life. To celebrate, I am planning to do a whole month of worship and preaching around Martin Luther. This sermon continues the series, as I look at the theology of the church at the time and how Luther critiqued it. I am also clear in the sermon that the Catholic Church of today is not the same as the church 500 years ago. The painting I refer to in the sermon can be seen at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Haywain_Triptych.

October 31, 2017 marks a monumental moment for the church and the world. It was on that day 500 years ago that Martin Luther posted his 95 Theses to door at Wittenberg.  This is typically noted as the beginning of the Protestant Reformation. It was a moment that sparked a movement that continues to influence not only the Christian faith but also daily life. To celebrate, I am planning to do a whole month of worship and preaching around Martin Luther. This sermon started the series. I did a biography of Martin Luther's life and why he wrote the 95 Theses.  

In this sermon, I walk through the Lord's Prayer not as a prayer that we should pray all the time but as an outline for prayer that Jesus used to teach his disciples how to pray. 

In this longer sermon I give a crash course on how to read and study the Bible. I also talk along the way about the tools you need for good Bible study. There is also a handout for this sermon in pictures below.  

In this sermon, I continue to talk about the need to put faith in practice by talking about the Bible. I argue that it is not an instruction book, but a library of people's relationships with God. I use the story of Jonah to show how arguing about it can often lead us to miss the point.

In this series, I am taking a look at how we practice our faith, particularly in Bible study and prayer. In this starting sermon, I take a look at how we make a mistake by defining our faith as a belief system instead of a relationship to which we belong and behaviors to support that belonging. Our theology/beliefs give language to our experiences of God, and trying to talk of our beliefs without an actual experience of God is harmful to our faith. I am indebted to Diana Butler Bass and her book Christianity After Religion for the concept of the reversale of Belong, Behave, and Believe.

I end this sermon series which I have enjoyed so much by one of my favorite Bible stories. It is the conversion of Paul. It has so much to teach us about the gospel and about how to listen to and follow God's calling in our lives.

  Here I take a look at the call of Timothy, which is not a spectacular story. He was trained in the faith by his mother and grandmother and annointed by the elders of his congregation. Paul writes to Timothy to encourage him as Timothy seems to be fading in his zeal. This is a lot like us--a more normal call and trouble persisting.

This sermon looks at the story of Esther, particularly the political intrigue that provides the context of the story and Mordecai’s calling of Esther to action. The prayer at the end of my sermon was written by by Richard Einerson, and published in Prayers of the People. I found it at: https://re-worship.blogspot.com/2012/09/pastoral-prayer-esther.html

Here I take a look at the call of Isaiah from Isaiah 6. How does Isaiah react to God's presence, and how does his response lead to his response to God's call? We must all walk the road from "Woe is me" to "Here I am."  

This is a continuation of my series of the great call stories of the Bible, but this story is not typically thought of as a call story. It is really a re-call story as God calls Elijah away from Elijah's plans and back to God's plans. Two notes: 1. This was an outdoor service and I did not have a sound system. I was projecting my voice a lot and walking around. 2. I am indebted to a great sermon that Timothy Keller did on this passage that you can download at http://www.gospelinlife.com/the-still-small-voice-9091.

Sermon series on the great stories of God's call from the Bible. In this one I take a look at Moses and the Burning Bush. Why is the symbolism of the desert, the bush, and the staff so significan to his call?

This is a new series titled "Call Stories." I will take a look at a few of the great call stories of the Bible. I want to help us reflect on how God calls us in our lives and as a church. It is interesting that all these call stories are different. God calls his people to different things in different ways. Further, the responses of his people are equally diverse. So looking at these stories provides us some insights into how we should respond to God’s leading. In this sermon I take a look at the call story of Abraham and what it means for us today.  

This sermon was given to address some anxiety my church is going through as we get low on our savings and try to discern what that might mean for us having a full-time pastor in the future. The first part of the sermon is a bit of a state of the church address, but I then get into the need to trust God when feel anxious and how we do that.

Special sermon inspired by the Fourth of July looking at what the Bible means by Freedom and how we so often choose to return to slavery.  

Jesus seemed late sometimes. He was "long expected" at his birth and procrastinated with Jairus' daughter and his friend Lazarus' death. But Jesus is never late, he just doesn't run on our time.  This sermon is part of a series called "The Bad Habits of Jesus." We are not looking at Jesus as sinful, but rather how Jesus often broke social norms and expectations because he lived in a different kingdom. The series is inspired by a book by my teacher Leonard Sweet of the same name.

Jesus was at parties all the time with the wrong sorts of people. He had a reputation as a glutton and a drunkard, and was criticized for his party guests. We should learn from him.   This sermon is part of a series called "The Bad Habits of Jesus." We are not looking at Jesus as sinful, but rather how Jesus often broke social norms and expectations because he lived in a different kingdom. The series is inspired by a book by my teacher Leonard Sweet of the same name.

This sermon is part of a series called "The Bad Habits of Jesus." We are not looking at Jesus as sinful, but rather how Jesus often broke social norms and expectations because he lived in a different kingdom. The series is inspired by a book by my teacher Leonard Sweet of the same name. This sermon takes a look at how Jesus, in his actions and his stories, appears wasteful. He makes too much wine, too good of wine, the sowers wastes the seed, the father wastes the fatted calf, and Jesus lets Mary waste money on ointment to wash his feet. Why does Jesus appear so wasteful?  

Spitting is a bad habit, yet Jesus spit in three of his mracles. In fact, Jesus may have even healed with a wet-Willy.   This sermon is part of a series called "The Bad Habits of Jesus." We are not looking at Jesus as sinful, but rather how Jesus often broke social norms and expectations because he lived in a different kingdom. The series is inspired by a book by my teacher Leonard Sweet of the same name.