Langdon Palmer

Number 1 - No other gods

Did you ever look at some aspect of your life and think “This is a mess – how did it ever come to this ?” Did you ever wish you could start all over, clean everything off the table and begin again? But if you did wipe the table clean, if you did get a fresh start, what would be the first thing to put on that empty table ? Today we look at the first of the Ten Commandments and it turns out it is number one for a reason.

EASTER 2017 - Supernatural Miracle or Practical Real World Solution?

The New Testament basically says "Because the resurrection actually happened..., you should live this way..." Well, how should we live ? Where is the good life found ? Where can we find human flourishing ? What if the science of psychology is just now catching up with the revelation of God's word spoken 2000 years ago ? What if the supernatural miracle of Easter claimed by Christians actually creates a practical, real world solution for our lives here today?

Hebrews Chapter 9 - Palm Sunday and the Architecture of Reality...

The writer of the letter of Hebrews has no small goal – he wants to help us understand the architecture of reality! He want to help us take a look under the hood of what we can sense to show us how things that happen in the physical world are connected to what happens in the heavenly realms. It is deep stuff, but to the degree that we can glimpse the image he is painting, we will understand why people drop to their knees in worship and awe at how amazing God is. There is a wild connection...

Hebrews Chapters 10 & 11 - When both Faith and Doubt come knocking at your door...

Chapters 10 & 11 of the Book of Hebrews are filled with so many wonderful verses and insights that it is hard to know where to begin. This morning we focused on one main question from these two chapters : what exactly, does the word “Faith” really mean ? It is used to mean so many different things in our culture that we can miss out on what the bible is actually telling us if we have a faulty understanding of this simple word. What does it mean to have biblical faith, and how do you know i...

Hebrews Chapter 8 - A different furnace down in the basement...

Hebrews Chapter 8 uses some difficult language comparing the old covenant of the law with the new covenant Jesus brings. We look at a crazy home improvement project to understand the difference. Each of us has a default contract with life. Jesus stands at our door offering a totally different contract, a totally different way to see and justify ourselves. Join us as we hear his challenge.

Hebrews Chapter 7 - Out of Nowhere...

In Hebrews Chapter 7 we encounter the mysterious priest Melchizedek who appears out of nowhere. The story, history, and geography are fascinating, but wilder still is how this ancient priest helps us understand who and what Jesus is. Our nerd quota is complete as Pastor Palmer uses old school tractor feed printer paper to help us understand how we who are bound within time experience the One who was, and is, and shall be.

The Book of Hebrews Chapter 6 - My anchor still holds ...

Chapter 6 of Hebrews gives us an incredible insight into the very architecture of reality. Today we look the experiences of rock climbing and sailing as a ways to understand the profound truths this chapter reveals, and why we can have hope in a broken world full of broken dreams.

Hebrews Chapter 5 - Guest Preacher Heather Rice

Hebrews Chapter 4 - The Sabbath, The Sword, and the Savior

What is the bible really ? Is it something supernatural, or did a bunch of guys just make it up? Why try to apply something so old to today's culture ? Can hurried, scattered people like us actually experience true peace and rest in a hurried, scattered culture like ours ? I let people see my "presentable self", the part I want them to see. But how do I deal with my "dreaded self" - those parts of me that make me feel like a defective loser ? Chapter 4 of Hebrews helps us with all th...

The Book of Hebrews Chapter 3 - Turning away from turning away

We are constantly tempted to turn away from the very two people that the scriptures constantly urge us to turn towards - Jesus and our needy neighbors. It can get weary following Jesus when most of your culture looks at the effort as a sign of foolishness. Back in the 1800's Nietzsche said "What is now decisive against Christianity is our taste, no longer our reason." Like a great coach, the author of Hebrews takes us on a race away from Nietzsche and towards the Author of salvation.

The Book of Hebrews Chapter 2 - Passive Drift or Thankful Embrace ?

What if you had a spiritual coach who wasn't afraid to get in your face if he knew that was what was best for you ? The writer of Hebrews is such a coach and today he gives us his first warning - there is real danger in drifting away from the gospel. A clear sign of human sinfulness is the fact that for all us us, familiarity breeds contempt. We can be so familiar with the Good News that we begin to take it for granted, and then we become passive, and then we become ungrateful, and then...

The Book of Hebrews Chapter 1 - Your comfort zone versus where the magic happens...

#JourneyThroughTheBookOfHebrews What if we discovered an ancient manuscript that showed not only what the first Christians really thought Jesus was all about, but also gave us a glimpse into Heaven. We have. It is called the Book of Hebrews. Join us on this journey as we go chapter by chapter ending on Easter Sunday.

TED Talks #3 - If God is real, then why does God allow terrible things to happen ? Faith & Suffering

Our last FRED Talk deals with the hardest question of all: If God is all powerful and all loving, how could God possibly allow the horrible things that happen in this world ? Why doesn’t God stop them ? This talk looks at the various ways people have tried to understand this dilemma and comes to a conclusion that is brutally honest and realistic yet still full of real hope that comes from the Maker of Heaven and Earth. NOTE: The video we watched can be found here: http://www.cnn.com/2015...

TED Talks #2 - Faith and Culture

Is Religion what we need, or what we need to get rid of ? When people say “Religion is the reason we have wars and hatred and intolerance…” – are they right ? Does Religion set people free or does it oppress them ? Does religion cause human flourishing or stunt it ? As a Christian was does it mean to work for the common good and the flourishing of the city ? Today we look at these questions, a definition of Wisdom, and world history to come to an understanding of the relationship betwee...

TED Talks #1 - Faith and Science

If you want to hear some grumpy people, just go to a web site where they are debating Creation versus Evolution. The one side asks “How can you believe in the primitive myths of Religion when Science can show you what is actually true about the world ?” The other side asks “How can you be so blind and arrogant that you cannot recognize that this creation proves there is a creator ?” Who is right ? Is it rational and logical to be fully devoted to Science and fully devoted to God at the ...

Marriage - Is this as good as it gets ? take 2

There are two ways to ask that question - 1. You can be married to someone and wonder 'is this as good as it gets ?' or 2. You can wonder if Marriage is really the ultimate in relationships - the ideal we are all called to, God's best. Today we laugh and we cry as we take a look at a biblical understanding of both singleness and marriage and present some practical tools that can help couples love each other better.

Healthy Relationships #5 "Raising Your Parents"

We are sometimes tempted to look at other families who appear to have their act together and think - "Why can't my family be like that ?" Family Dynamics can feel as complicated than a Nuclear Reactor, and sometimes it is just not clear what we should do. Today we look at practical tips for raising babies, teenagers, and the challenges of caring for elderly parents in honoring ways. It turns out that the family unit is not one more possible group of people, but rather a gift that God inte...

Healthy Relationships #3 "I and Thou" - How Friendships Change Us

All of us want great friends, but as Emerson said, “If you want a good friend, be a good friend.” How do we do that ? And how do we know when friends are doing us more harm than good ? What does it mean to have healthy friendships that last ? We look at wisdom from the book of Proverbs and the ideas of Martin Buber to help us see other people as co-mysteries created in the image of God – rather than as a means to an ends.

Healthy Relationships #2 Dealing with Difficult People - Ephesians 4:1-3

What should you do when people drive you crazy ? What is the right way to deal with difficult people ? How do you dance with a porcupine ? Today we look at a practical set of exercises that can really help you deal with difficult people in a godly way. We study several images that can help us in the heat of an argument, and we turn to Ephesians 4 for a vision of who we are called to be in tough times. See the hand out for this sermon at What should you do when people drive you crazy...

Healthy Relationships #1 Stimulus versus Response - Proverbs 3:3-4

The first step to being able to improve any relationship is understanding the difference between Stimulus and Response. Do we have the ability to choose better ways of doing relationships ? Are we merely animals that respond to stimulus ? It turns out that we are, but we are also something much more - created in the image of God. Join us as we wrestle with the first foundation for great realationships. See the handout for this sermon at: http://levpres.org/wp2/wp-content/uploads/2016/09...

Psalm 90 "You are our dwelling place..."

Psalm 90 is the first of our "Living in the 90's" summer podcasts. Here is an intimate prayer whose gaze spans from the eternal glory of God to the fleeting frailty of a human life. Psalm 90 does a great job of re-booting our priorities and calling us to live afresh, to live now, to experience what it is like to have God as your home in the midst of barren and broken landscape.

Galatians 5:22-26 The Fruit of the Spirit...

Ever had a neighbor that drove you absolutely nuts ? It is said that there are two kinds of people in the world - our friends and our teachers. Believe it or not, that crazy neighbor can help teach you an important lesson about the book of Galatians! In Galatians, Paul contrasts two very different lists - a list of the acts of our sinful nature and a list of the fruit that the Spirit of God produces in us. The difference between those two lists is the difference between self-centered mis...

Galatians 5:13-21 What do you do when there is a black hole right in front of you - and you dont even know it ?

A black hole looks so much like nothing - it is so dense that even light can't escape its gravity - so when you look at it you see... nothing. Sin is a lot like a black hole - it doesn't look like much, but the further you go in, the harder it is to get out. Today Paul covers a list of sins - sins that a lot of us don't want to talk about, sins that frankly some of us don't think are all that bad. We don't see why they are even called sins in the New Testament. But what if we don't see t...

Galatians 5:1-11 Corkscrews, Building Blocks, and Practicing the Discipline of Freedom…

Many of us grew up thinking that a big part of being a Christian was being moral - obeying God's laws and trying to live a good, godly life. Then how can Paul say that living under the law actually leads to bondage and being cut off from God ? ! People have all kinds of theories about human nature and God's will, but most of them simply don't match what we actually see and experience in real life. Today Paul gives us realistic image of human behavior and what true freedom looks like. It...

Galatians 4:21-31 Sarah, Hagar, and the freedom that comes from desiring the presence of God

This podcast gives us both a technical biblical study and an experience of resting in God's presence for our own lives today. Many people struggle with this strange section of Galatians where Paul quotes a section of Genesis that ends with "Get rid of the slave woman and her son, for the slave woman's son will never share in the inheritance with the free woman's son." Doesn't sound exactly loving. What the heck is this all about ? The people Paul was talking too were very proud of their ...

Galatians 4:12-20 - The Wounds of a Friend...

If someone could you tell you a truth that was hard to hear, but it would help you grow into the person you are called to be - would you want to hear it ? We all have blind spots - character faults and lousy personality traits that stunt us and cripple us, and make us petty, small people. Today Paul challenges the Galatians with the question "Have I now become your enemy by telling you the truth?” We take a practical look at very practical step you can take to grow into the image of Ch...

Galatians 3:27 – 4:11 "That condescending sense of superiority dies right here... and that joy-full gift of freedom and honor is born right here."

Today we look at a very famous scripture where Paul says “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” What does that really mean ? Is it a political statement ? Does it mean there are no real differences between us ? In our polarized cultural moment, is there hope to be found here ? We believe this amazing piece of scripture when understood in context holds both a great challenge and a great p...

Galatians 3:15-25 Training Wheels...

Where is the good life found? For some people it is in being able to say "I lived by my principles, my code of ethics." For others it is in being able to say "I grabbed as much as I could and experienced most of what this life offers." In Galatians, Paul offers a third way. But it is a subtle path that easily gets overgrown with the weeds of simplistic thinking and therefore missed. In the complicated scripture we look at today, Paul makes a number of different arguments to explain the...

Galatians 3:1-14 The Gospel according to the movie THE MARTIAN

In Galatians 3:1-14, Paul uses a lot of very complicated arguements quoting from a wide range of Old Testament scriptures. What does it all mean ? He talks about faith, but what does it mean to have faith ? What does it mean to believe ? How would you know if you had enough faith or if you were a real believer ? To go a step further, how does trusting in God connect to Human innovation, reason, and science ? How do faith and human initiative go together ? How do belief and science go...

Galatians 1:6-11 Saint Paul meets the COEXIST bumper sticker

What do you think of the "COEXIST" bumper sticker seen in the image for this podcast ? There is one way to see it that is exactly what we need in this cultural moment, and there is another way to see it that is exactly the problem of this cultural moment. In our scripture for this morning Paul is about to say some pretty exclusive and politically incorrect things. If we are going to really understand what he is trying to say, we are first going to have to come to grips with how we should...

Galatians 1:1-5 Life out in the wide open

As we prepare to jump into a verse by verse study of the book of Galatians, we pause to ask a fundamental question - How do we know there really was a Paul or that he actually wrote this letter ? Even if he did, what we have today is a copy of a copy of a copy. How can we have any confidence that the version of the bible we have today has anything to do with the original version ? We take a serious look at these questions and then jump into the hope of Galatians!

Politics... or Easter ?

It turns out there are basically two ways to look at the world - the way of Politics and the Way of Easter. Materialists, like atheists and communists are those who say we live in a closed system - there is just matter, just stuff and that is it. There is no God, no supernatural, no spiritual realm - just the physical stuff that science can tell us about, and therefore people are nothing more than stuff too. In a world like that, politics is all you've got to try to make a better world....

LUST - Fire ...and ashes. - The Seven Deadly Sins #7

Some parts of the bible make sex sound amazing and joyful, other parts give warnings and set boundaries. Why? What's wrong with a little lust - what's wrong with looking as long as you don't touch ? Isn't sex the spice of life ? Aren't Christians overly uptight about Sex anyway ? By way of "The Church Lady", Burkas, and Cosmopolitan Magazine, we take an honest look at the last of the Deadly Sins, the one no one wants to talk about: Lust. New scientific research is revealing that pornogra...

GREED and GLUTTONY - I want it all - The Seven Deadly Sins #5 and #6

Is it wrong to want more money? How much food is too much ? Can you be skinny and eat tiny healthy meals and still be a glutton ? Can a child playing with dolls be more greedy than a Wall Street fat cat ? What are gluttony and greed and where do they come from? More importantly, how do I say no when they come knocking at my door? Join us as we face these two G's of the seven deadly vices with wisdom from the word of God.

WRATH - Rage against the machine - The Seven Deadly Sins #4

What do I do with this Anger? Many folks struggle with anger, and many Christians don't know what to do about it. Is it OK to be angry? If so, when? When does Anger turn evil? How can I handle it ? We look at Jesus and the wisdom of scripture and discover what it really means to Rage Against The Machine.

SLOTH - Slackers, Workaholics, and Relational Laziness - The Seven Deadly Sins #3

VAIN GLORY - When image is everything, and it's all about you - The Seven Deadly Sins #2

Do you have people in your life that no matter the topic of conversation, they are always able to turn it around to themselves, making themselves the center of attention ? Vainglory is an old fashioned word - but it means empty glory - the desperate seeking after attention. It is about life where image is everything, where "it's all about you." In a cultural moment filled with Selfies, we may be the most vulnerable generation yet to the insidious ways this sin shrinks and distorts our soul...

ENVY - Feeling bitter when others have it better - The Seven Deadly Sins #1

If you want to make sure you have a miserable life, pursue one or more of the Seven deadly sins. Each promises us happiness as it drives us further and further away from real happiness. The first of these deadly habits of thought is ENVY. Have you ever looked at someone else and compared their situation to yours and secretly thought "I wish our situations were reversed..." In other words have you ever found yourself getting bitter when others get it better ? These are hints that Envy is ...

Ring the Bells that still can ring

How should I live my life in this New Year ? Can I actually make a difference in this world ? What should I do when I am feeling tired and beaten down - and my perfect plans don't look so perfect any more ? The biblical books of Ecclesiastes and Colossians both tell us "Whatever you hand finds to do - do it with all your might..." - but they give very different reasons for why we ought to live this way. One gives us realistic wisdom and the other supernatural revelation. Join us for this e...

Psalm 2 - let's get political ! or... How should a Christian think about current social issues ?

In the past month there have been political decisions made about abortion, health care, and gay marriage. Meanwhile a white man just murdered nine black brothers and sisters in their church, raising again the issues of racism and gun rights. What stance should a Christian who is trying to follow Jesus take on all these issues ? This morning, we take a fresh look at foundational principles from scripture that can help us begin to think about these things. While it is important where we ...

John 2:1-11 Wine and Whip Part 1: Grace

Do you worship the God who brings wine to the party ? What are we to make of this miracle of the wedding at Cana ? What can it tell us about the nature of God ? Plenty !

john 1:35-54 Stairway to Heaven !

"Stairway to Heaven." Some of us recognize that as a song title, but it turns out that our wild scripture for today describes Jesus as the true Stairway to Heaven! It also calls us to "Come and see..." what he is all about. In the calling of the first disciples we find both natural followers and dramatic conversions. And we are given a pattern for what it means to follow Jesus and to share our faith with others in a natural, winsome way.

JOHN 1: 19-34 - The freedom that comes from the "R" word

JOHN 1: 1-18 When God moved into the neighborhood

EASTER 2015 - If the switch has been thrown - Matthew 28

Palm Sunday 2015 - For this fleeting moment... Rejoice! Matthew 21:1-16

The Apostles Creed 5 - The Holy Catholic Church - Ephesians 4:15, 1 Peter 2:1-10

The Apostles Creed 4 - The Holy Spirit - John 14:15-17, Mathew 3:16-4:11

Apostles Creed 3 - God the Son - Victorious - Stranger Than Fiction - Revelation 1:4-8 and Revelation 5:1-14

Why did Jesus have to die ? Why does the creed say "descended into hell ?" Is it OK for the church to use military metaphors when we talk about what Christ has accomplished ? Today we look into the amazing imagery of the book of Revelation to get a deeper understanding of the meaning of the phrase "He descended to Hell. The third day he rose again..."

Apostles Creed 2 - God the Son - Incarnate - Hebrews 1:1-3

What does it really mean when we say that Jesus is the son of God? Why is there such a gap in the Apostles' creed between the birth of Jesus and his death? Doesn't his life matter ? Of course it does, but the creed is focused on the question that comes first while we focus on the question that comes second. All religions have lists of morals and stories about their leaders. The creed is focused on what sets Jesus apart from all other leaders the world has ever known - and that begins with WH...