Langdon Palmer

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 between Christianity and Culture.

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 same time? In this talk, Pastor Langdon Palmer goes to some pretty strange sources including Snow White, Donkey Kong, Despair.com, and the source of all inspiration – the shower. But we think you will find a fresh new way to understand the roles of faith and science which will free you to pursue both with passion and joy.

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.

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 intended for your blessing. But in a broken world, families get broken too. Today we get wisdom from God's word and are reminded that no matter how broken our biological family may be, we can be members of the family of God.

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.

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 ? 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 http://levpres.org/wp2/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Leverington-Handout.pdf

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/Covey-article.pdf

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.

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 misery and self-forgetful joy. Today we focus on the second list, the amazing, beautiful fruits of the Spirit and find out that we can't manufacture them ourselves, but we can be the farmers that till the soil so they can grow.

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 them because they are like a black hole or a land mine - hidden from our sight, yet deadly. What if it is not so much that the Bible is old fashioned, but rather it is like a pair of x-ray glasses that reveals dangers we just cant see even though they are right in front of us ?

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 turns out that it takes effort to hold on to your freedom and it is easy to drift away from it. We tend to drift away in one of two directions - either towards self-indulgent sins or towards self-righteous rule keeping - both of which end up in bondage. Today we look at one of the most amazing scriptures we have for understanding the promise of the gospel - Galatians 5:1 - "It was for freedom that Christ set you free..." Come join us on a journey that begins with the best cork screw ever invent

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 knowledge of the scripture and the fact that they were "Abraham's Sons." Paul effectively says "If you really knew the scriptures, you would know that Abraham had two sons - and they ended up in two very different places. Which son are you... really ?"

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 Christ.

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 promise. Or as our longest sermon title ever puts it: ""That condescending sense of superiority - dies right here... and The joy-full gift of freedom and honor – is born right here.”

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 relationship of the law to the gospel. This is not easy stuff - it requires careful thinking. But we are not interested in Hallmark Card Christianity, short simple pithy statements. We want the real thing. Join us as we go through Paul's argument step by step and end up at the other end with an image that can permanently help us understand the relationship between the free gift of the gospel and the covenant of right behavior that the ten commandments call us to.

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 together ? Today we take a fun walk through the science fiction thriller "The Martian" and find an incredibly helpful way to understand the story of Abraham and the story of our own lives as Human Beings who are called both to strive with passion for knowledge and survival - and to have deep faith in the promises of God - all at the same time.

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 think about the word "Tolerance."

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!

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. On the other hand, Christians believe we live in an open system - there is more going on here than can be measured with instruments. This physical world is not all there is. The world of science and politics and stuff is very real, but only a part of reality. What happened on the first Easter ? Was it just one more political event ? Or was it a singularity in human history, when the Maker of Heaven and Earth broke into the world of politics and made a way where there was no way - when he revealed once and for

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 pornography use works like a drug on the brain- actually changing the brain physically, and setting us up for miserable, lonely, unfulfilling sex lives. If you struggle in this area, there is hope for you - things you can do to make a real change. And best of all, we worship the God of second chances, the God who created sex to be rich, sensual, delicious and the celebration feast of true love.