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Beliefs of the Heart

Beliefs of the Heart

Embracing Intimate Theology

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  • Home
  • About
    • About Beliefs of the Heart
    • Giving
    • Comment Policy
  • Articles
  • Books
    • Hearing God in Conversation
    • Is Sunday School Destroying Our Kids?
    • Study Guides
  • Resources
    • Podcasts
    • Sermons
    • Video Blogs
  • Speaking
    • Hearing God Online Course
  • Contact

Past Sermons

Modern Christian teachers and preachers often approach Scripture in a way God didn’t plan. The purpose of Scripture is to see God; it is God’s self-revelation.

We modern people tend to approach Scripture as though it’s about us: for our inspiration, or for our morals, or for our intellect. And of course Scripture has much to say about inspiration, behavior, and a new way of thinking. But Scripture’s primary purpose is to reveal to us the real God.

Listen to what great Christians have said about Scripture through the ages:

  • ‎”We come to Scripture not to learn a subject but to steep ourselves in a person.” (CS Lewis)
  •  “The test that you know the Bible is that you understand what it is driving at, it is expounding Christ, giving the exposition of what he is after.” (Oswald Chambers)
  • “The New Testament is concealed in the Old, and the Old is revealed in the New. A person touched by the Spirit of God suddenly says, ‘Now I see who Jesus is!’— that is the source of devotion.” (Augustine)
  • “Paul read the Psalms from a Christian perspective and saw Jesus. In this, he was following the lead already set by Jesus. Jesus himself was conscious that the Psalms anticipate his work.” (Tremper Longman)
  • “The Old Testament never fails to add new depths to my understanding of Jesus.” (Christopher Wright)
  • “Ignorance of the scriptures is ignorance of Christ.” (St. Jerome)

Scripture is about Jesus.

In the following sermons, my goal is to help us see Jesus; and in seeing Jesus, to worship.

Video Sermons

I’m adding past video sermons to the library. Click on the “Sam’s Sermons on Video” link below and you’ll see what is offered so far:

Click Here —-> Sam’s Sermons on Video

The sermons are about 30 minutes in length, but the videos are about 40 minutes because they include an introduction by the pastor and they conclude with a worship time. Feel free to skip any parts you don’t want to hear. (I have not stats that tell me what is watched or skipped 🙂 )

Suffering

A local church asked me to preach on suffering at the beginning of Lent, asking me to look at the opening chapter of Job to see if and how we can come to know Jesus even more in the midst of suffering.

Suffering is inevitable. You may know people who made it to the age of 30 without suffering, maybe born with a silver spoon in their mouths, but those people are few, and we always find those people insensitive to the sufferings of others (“Hey, what’s your problem; just do what I do.”)

And the inevitable suffering always is accompanied by our questions: Why? Why this? Why now? Why him? Why her? Why me? God loves to answer our questions, but never in the way we think we need; His ways are always better.

Listen now to:

The Questions of Suffering, Sam Williamson

Psalms

Most of us read the Psalms from the perspective of our own lives. But there is another way to read them; to read them from the perspective of Jesus. Jews in Jesus’ day read the psalms morning, noon, and night. Most Jews had the entire book of Psalms memorized. Imagine how Jesus would read them.

And let the Psalms teach you about God. We are learning who the real God is by the way he reveals  himself in the prayers that he wrote. Ps. 49:3-4 says it lik this,

My mouth shall speak wisdom; the meditation of my heart shall be understanding. I will solve my riddle to the music of the lyre. (Ps. 49:3-4)

We can solve the riddles of life through the reading of the Psalms.

Psalm 1 – The Secret to a Blessed Life

Psalm 88 – A Cry in the Dark — Hearing God in Suffering

Psalm 137 – A Psalm of Vengeance

God’s Love

Eavesdrop on any couple in love, and you will hear them say, “I will swim the deepest ocean, climb the highest mountain, and love you in sickness and health, and for better or worse. Because we are made for this kind of committed love, we are made for biblical hesed. We just need to remember His commitment to us, we need to remember.

These sermons are designed to see the God who loves us in so seeing, come to know his unending love.

The Curious Story of the Woman at the Well

Jacob, Leah, Rachael and the Love of God

The Treasure in a Field

Nakedness Fig Leaves Skins and Joy

Wedding Feast of Lamb

 Joy of Repentance

Identity Sickness and Health

The Doctrine of the Ascension

The Resurrection

We modern people have lost the power of the resurrection in our daily lives; we remember the cross (some of the time) but we fail the grasp the centrality of the resurrection, a life-changing power we can experience today.

When the plagues swept through the cities of the Roman empire, the citizens fled while the Christians picked up oozing bodies and cleaned and cared for them. Why did they do this? How could they do this? The power of the resurrection. And God says we can experience that power today.

The Nature of the Resurrection: When the Disciples Meet Jesus

Experiencing the Power of the Resurrection Today in Our Lives

The Hope of the Resurrection

The Hope of Glory

The Story of Joseph

Perhaps no other biographical story has struck me as much as the story of Joseph. He begins as a spoiled brat (let’s be honest), and he ends with a spiritual greatness that saves his family and forgives his brothers.

We can enter into that story, see God himself at work, and find a spiritual strength that forgives and brings life to those around us.

1 The Hiddenness of God

2 The Discipline of God

3 The Reconciliation of God

 The Glory of Your Life

We long to see God’s work in our lives, but we fear it may be too late. Listen to the plans of God, amidst successes and failures, fires and detours:

 Fires Detours and the Call of God

The Beauty of Questions

The Glory of your life

Beliefs of the Heart

Christian Practices

Even as I type this, the idea of “practicing” faith seems strange. But why is that? We learn to speak by practice (at least imitation), as we learn sports and musical instruments. Practice is an investment in a priority.

Christian practices have been with us since the early Christian church. They include meditation, forgiveness, “Practicing the Presence of God” and more. Here are a few, including a strange but moving one, the last:

01 Meditation

02 Practicing Presence of God

03 Doctrine of God

04 Psalm 23 Gods Rest

05 Forgiveness

Don’t be put off by the following title: understanding Hell will help us understand God’s love as much–and sometime more–than most topics.

06 Practicing the Doctrine of Hell

Essays on Knowing God’s Love

When Christians think of the parable of the Treasure in a Field, we normally think of it as an inspiring story (look at all we get for such a small price) or as a call to give up more. But this parable expresses something deep and rich, it shows us a picture of Christ that can change our heart.

Read this: The Treasure in a Field

I wonder, sometimes, how mixed up we can be when we think of what we need. We usually feel we need answers, or reprieve (or romance or success!); but I believe we most deeply need friendship.

Read this: Friendship

Repentance powers the process through which we restore relationships. And repentance in our relationship with God is important. But God has been teaching me about the confession before empowering repentance. God has been teaching me the value of pausing in the moment of confession.

Read this: Confession before Repentance: Pausing in the moment

After confession, we need repentance; and yet true, deep, lasting repentance seems elusive. We feel badly for a time, but our heart hasn’t changed. What do we need deep in our heart to bring deep life-giving change? God has been teaching me the riches of life change.

Read this: Repentance after Confession

How do we handle the wounds and troubles of our lives? Is there a hope we can own which transforms our lives and gives us inner strength to face the day? In this essay we can come to know a truth which can make the feeblest strong:

Read this: Judo Wounds and Glory

The world is filled with horrible, unspeakable injustice. And all of us, at one time or another, have been treated unfairly. How do we deal with the injustice of the world and with the bitterness we experience from personal injuries:

Read this: Our Heart Cry for Justice

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I write Beliefs of the Heart to grow our intimacy with God, to help us all examine our deepest heart-beliefs. I am an orthodox believer, meaning my theology is consistent with Christian beliefs through the centuries. In fact, I believe that our current cultural moment clouds our beliefs, so we must continually examine our current,

 fashionable beliefs–which are often unquestioned–in light of scriptural truth. I live in Brooklyn, MI, USA, with my wife. We have four grown children and an ever increasing number of grandchildren.

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