Kuna United Methodist Church Sermons

The Ninth Commandment tells us, "Do not testify falsely against your neighbor." While God is commanding us to be honest, there's more to to consider. This week, Pastor Mia explains the meaning is twofold. Don't falsely accuse others of wrongdoing and don't back up false accusations.

When God revealed the Ten Commandments to Moses, the Israelites lacked the necessary structure for learning how live with one another. After being freed from slavery, they needed a court system to deal with disputes almost instantly. The Ninth Commandment is a reminder that both truth and dishonesty have power. At...

Being unfaithful in marriage is not an option for Jesus followers. God tells us, "You must not commit adultery" in the 7th Commandment. When couples are married, they promise to be loyal to one another. In others words, no affairs, no infidelity, and no sexual intercourse with another person.

Adultery was a problem in the ancient world and, despite declining for decades, it continues to be a problem. Adultery is not limited to sexual relationships outside of marriage. Non-physical affairs, pornagraphy addiction, and virtual relationsnips are all unfaithful. Adultery isn't limited to marriage. It occurs in committed...

Now that we've gone through the first four commandments about our posture toward God, we turn to God's commandments about how we are to live with one another, beginning with "Honor your father and your mother."

Honoring ancestors is an ancient tradition that extends beyond cultures and peoples. In Jesus time, people had come up with human rules that people were using to dismiss caring for their parents in their old age, and Jesus did not approve. Honor matters.

Honoring loving parents is easy and looks different than honoring abusive parents, even abusive parents who...

God has a response to the craziness in life, "Remember the Sabbath day and treat it as holy." In the Fourth Commandment, God tells us rest is not optional.

With so many things going on, we ignore the rest and renewal that God commands and then we suffer. The consequnce of neglecting the spiritual garden leads to literal and figurative death in the form of burnout, health problems, and broken relationships. God's commandment to rest once a week is important and it's a first. Before the Fourth Commandment, no other god, deity, or ruler had ever ordered...

Don't cuss! That's one typical childhood interpretation of the Third Commandment. Of course, we shouldn't mix God's name in with a string of nasty language. However, the use of naughty words isn't the primary meaning of "Do not use the Lord your God's name as if it were of no significance."

One purpose of the Third Commandment is to stress the importance of keeping promises and telling the truth, epscially when using God's name. Think about the oath witnesses take in the American court system. They swear to "Tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but...

This week, Pastor Mia shares the final lessons learned during a pilgrimage on the Camino de Santiago in Spain. In pilgrimage, the journey is the point and the destination matters. The Gospel of James teaches us this wisdom, telling us to stand firm and be patient as we wait for the coming of the Lord.

There is a correlation between backpacking on a physical trail and the spiritual journey. After walking mile after mile on a trail, exhaustion sets in. Spiritual life is like that too. We want it to be thrilling. We want to put forth...

Every year thousands of pilgrims travel the Camino de Santiago, a route in Spain that leads to the burial site of St. James. This week, Pastor Mia explains how walking a path such as the Camino is a reflection of the spiritual journey. By making a physical journey we learn that our way is made by others.

The Camino de Santiago was built by others. Some people dedicated their lives to developing the route. Others posted signs marking the route for pilgrims. Others laid pavers to show which way to walk when there was a fork in...

Pilgrimage — both the physical journey of walking the Camino de Santiago and the spiritual journey each of us takes toward God — is different for each of us. Our backgrounds, burdens, and hopes shape the way we travel. Some of us come with strength, others with wounds or worries, and still others with questions about belonging or purpose. Yet, what unites us is not sameness of thought or experience, but hearts bound together in Christ.

Pastor Mia shows how wisdom is essential for the journey. Wisdom is not just knowledge, but faithful discernment — knowing when to push forward, when t...

A pilgrimage trail in Northern Spain attracts thousands of walkers each year. Their destination is the Santiago de Compostella where, according to tradition, the bones of St. James the Apostle are buried. For the next four weeks, Pastor Mia shares some of her experiences and lessons learned as she and two companions walked the last 73 miles of the Camino de Santiago.

Pilgrimage to sacred destinations has long been a religious practice. Pilgrimage is holy, physical, and spiritual. Reaching the destination at the end of a pilgrimage is exhilarating, but that’s not the point. It’s the jour...

We live in a world saturated with voices—media, culture, influencers, even well-meaning friends and family—all shaping our beliefs and perceptions. Sometimes, these voices distort the truth, just as the serpent did in Eden, or as false prophets did in Jeremiah’s day. We must be discerning, recognizing that not every voice speaks truth, and that even our own understanding is filtered through years of cultural influence. The challenge is to seek the “wheat” and not the “straw”—to hunger for what truly satisfies, even as we acknowledge that we will sometimes get it wrong.

Seminarian Mary Riedl bring...

Trusting God is not always easy, especially when life feels uncertain or promises seem delayed. Belief is just the beginning—trust is what transforms our lives Pastor Mia shares stories of Abraham and Jesus to illustrate how trusting God's promises, even when they seem impossible, leads to abundant life and spiritual growth. She encourages us to practice spiritual disciplines like worship and community, which help us stay alert and open to God's work in our lives. Ultimately, trusting in God's care allows us to live with confidence, readiness, and joy, knowing that God shows up for us always.

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In the Parable of the Rich Fool, Jesus warns us to "Be on your guard against all kinds of greed" (Luke 12: 13-21). Greed, like all sin, is sneaky. We don't decide to be greedy. We slide into it with justifications.

We want things and money, often because we believe they'll provide security. However, things and money aren't the problem. The problem is within us. We allow things and money to get in the way of being rich toward God. Greed isn't an ecomonic issue. Both poor and rich can be greedy, and both poor and rich can...

The sin in the city of Sodom angered God. Because violence, pride, and the failure to care for the poor was rampant, God planned to destroy the city (read about it Genesis ch. 20)

Although God’s servant Abraham was aware of Sodom’s sin, he pleaded with God on behalf of the innocent people there. Abraham asked, what if there are 50 or 45 or 40 or 30 or 20 or 10 innocent people? Abraham actually kept badgering God!

In Abraham’s exchange with God, he prays with boldness and confidence as he advocates for the vulnerable. Abraham persists, not to pressu...

An animated movie and the baptism of Jesus have something in common. Both are about change. The film "Inside Out" portrays the emotions of a young girl who moves to a new city, and Jesus's baptism was the beginning of a transformation that prepared people for the change of the coming Messiah.

Dealing with change is difficult and uncomfortable. Change can cause some of the emotions portyed by the characters "Inside Out" movies, including sadness, fear, and anger. When we change, we trade the certainty of how things are now for the uncertainty of what will be...

The one constant in the universe is change. This week, Pastor Mia helps us understand how we were made for change. God created us to be moldable, like clay, to be shaped and reshaped. Neuroplasticity, the ability to rework our brains by building new neural connections, makes spiritual growth possible.

Change is constant, and so is God. As God molds and shapes us, we change but God remains the same. This theory is fundamental to understanding how prayer works. When we pray, we don’t convince God to do what we want. Instead, God has given us th...

On Pentecost Sunday, we celebrate the beginning of the human community called the church. This journey started when Jesus’s apprentices, the disciples, were filled with the Holy Spirit and became the apostles who went out to preach.

Today, the journey continues with us and the places we will go. Despite the rewards, faith journeys aren’t always without challenges. One of the difficulties is the realization that the destination constantly seems out of reach. The more we learn about God, the more we realize the day we know it all is never going to happen in this...

Mark’s Gospel tells the story of four people tearing a hole in the roof of a crowded building so they could lower a paralytic down to Jesus for healing. They didn’t do the healing, however, they were essential to the story.

Healing for the paralytic was an urgent matter for the four . They couldn’t wait for Jesus to finish preaching to the crowd—they needed to get the paralytic to Jesus immediately. Their faith and creativity caught Jesus’s attention. He forgave the paralytic’s sins and gave the order to, “take your mat and go home.”<...

Carrying a rock on the Camino de Santiago became a powerful symbol of letting go—of burdens, grief, or sin. As I journeyed, I realized the rock I needed to release was my hyper-vigilance, a habit born from years of living in an unsafe home environment. Though it once served a purpose, it had become damaging, and God made it clear it was time to lay it down. Letting go is never easy, even when we know it’s necessary. It requires deep trust that God will be present and faithful as we step into the unknown.

The...

When Jesus rose from the dead, the whole world changed and there was no going back. The disciples who followed Jesus knew things would never be the same after the crucifixion, but they didn’t see the future clearly. When they encountered a stranger on the road to Emmaus, their eyes were opened. At that moment, the disciples discovered Jesus is Lord.

This week, Pastor Mia highlights the ways in which the disciples’ journey to Emmaus mirrors our faith journey. The disciples prayed together, and today Christians practice faith in community at Sunday worship, Bible study, and sing...

Mary Riedl, guest preacher, takes us into the difficulty of leaving comfortable places. It's difficult for butterflies, and it's difficult for us. But we are made for it. Leaving comfortable places is where we find life. What safe grave do you need to leave?

Wombs, tombs, and cocoons. In this message about emergence and transformation, Pastor Mia reminds us that Easter is God’s invitation to new life.

The transformation to new life begins in the dark. Sometimes the darkness is a place of pain or sorrow—a tomb. And sometimes the darkness is a place of safety and warmth—a womb. Emerging from the darkness is challenging, especially when it’s comfortable, because we aren’t sure about the new life promised.

Like Jesus and like caterpillars, we have an instinct to move toward transformation. However, emerging to that new l...

The crowds who followed Jesus lived under violent and repressive Roman occupation. They needed to be saved and couldn’t do it themselves. Because they witnessed Jesus’s teaching and healing, they believed Jesus was the new king would give them the victory. And so, when Jesus arrived in Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, they welcomed him with a parade.

The victory those crowds anticipated was a military defeat of their Roman rulers, not the moral victory that Jesus delivered. After the Crucifixion, Rome was still in charge, and so where the Pharisees and Herod and the temple lead...

All relationships have problems. Failed relationships aren’t necessarily caused by big issues like abuse. More likely, failed relationships are the accumulation of many little things brought on by neglect and disconnection.

We’ve all neglected our relationship with God. We don’t keep the sabbath, we worship the idols of consumerism and materialism, and we fail to help the needy. You could say, God is like that friend should call but you never get around to it.

Jesus, however, got around to dealing with the disconnect. He died on the cross so God could be clo...

We all have something we're powerless against. Death is one. The other is the collection of things that get in between us and God. When we admit we are powerless and finally turn to God, Jesus washes away the things that suppress us from living in full relationship with the Lord.

When Jesus makes us clean, he's not washing dirt off our bodies. Instead, he's cleansing us from another type of grime, the captivity of sin and death that make us feel spritually dirty. In this context, clean means life and unclean means death. When we're tainted...

In this third Sunday of Lent, we explore the profound ways Jesus is our Savior, focusing on Jesus as a moral example. Jesus teaches us to live a life of love, integrity, and selflessness. Jesus' life is a testament to kingdom living, calling us to shift from self-centeredness to self-giving. Through actions and teachings, Jesus provides a model for moral and ethical living, inspiring us to embody the image of God within us.

Jesus' life inspires us to live with love and integrity, challenging us to reflect God's character in our daily lives.We are reminded of...

John the Baptist proclaimed Jesus is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, but how? This week guest speaker Pastor Steve Tollefson wrestles with the question, how did Jesus set us free from sin?

When we try to understand how Jesus’s death on a cross makes it possible for sins to be forgiven, the thing we’re trying to understand is atonement. Atonement is the reconciliation of God and people through the sacrifice of Jesus dying on the cross.

Scholars have worked to understand atonement by developing various theories. They...

God became human to save us, but what was God saving us from? On this first Sunday of Lent, Pastor Mia takes on that question.

God's covenant with the Israelites included rules intended to help the people live their lives with order and decency. The Israelites, however, disobeyed God's commandments by continually worshipping idols and neglecting to keep the Sabbath. Because of the people's failures, the covenent was broken.

You'd likely expect punishment for the Isralites when they broke God's covenvent, but punishment wasn't God's remedy. After all, God is love and a loving God...

The Transfiguration of Jesus was a pivotal moment, providing a glimpse at the divine nature of Christ. It is when Jesus, accompanied by Peter, James, and John, ascends a mountain and is transformed, his appearance becoming flashes white like lightening.

The disciples' reaction to this event is one of awe and confusion, as they struggle to comprehend the full significance of what they have witnessed. This mirrors our own spiritual journeys, where we encounter moments that challenge our understanding and push us to see beyond the immediate and the tangible. Pastor Mia helps us notice the way...

How does resurrection work? The Apostle Paul took a shot at answering that question in his first letter to the Corinthians. In his explanation, Paul says a physical body dies and is raised as a spiritual body. Because we have physical bodies, we understand how they work. But what are the spiritual bodies Paul is talking about?

Paul attempts to explain the connection between physical and spiritual bodies with the analogy of seeds and plants. Seeds are bare and dry, and plants are lush and green. Therefore, it’s not obvious that plants come from seeds. In ot...

Pastor Mia concludes the series, The Walk: Essential Practices of the Christian Life with a look at the weekly rythmn between work and rest. A pendulum swinging back and forth can help us visualize the movement between work and rest.

We're created to work, and God epxects us to work. Working provides a sense of purpose and it lets us experience the joy of contribution, but rest is important too. The Book of Genesis tells us God rested after spending six days creating the world and everything in it.

The Sabbath is for you too...

As we move further along in the Walk: Essential Practices for the Christian Life, Pastor Mia helps us understand the significance of deeper relationships.

Christian living includes three relationship dimensions: Up, In, and Out:

Jesus maintained the three relationship dimensions by constantly praying “up” to God, his father. Jesus spent time with his “in” people, the disciples and women including Mary Magdalene, Susanna, and Joanna. The crowds were Jesus’ “out” people. He didn’t wait for the crowds t...

The journey into the Kingdom of God doesn’t follow a linear path. Discipleship is a cyclical process of observation, reflection, discussion, planing, accountability, and action.

As Pastor Mia continues guiding us through The Walk: Essential Practices of Christian Life, we learn Kairos moments can prompt us to enter the discipleship circle. Kairos moments are events of higher emotion when time slows down. Kairos moments can be beautiful or painful. They can also be personal or something shared.

Kairos moments are opportunities for growth. When we enter the discipleship circle, we move through a process of...

Pastor Mia continues guiding us through The Walk: Essential practices of the Christian Life. This week, she helps us make sense of habits for being Christlike.

In Christian living, we move continuously through a set of four quadrants that help us cultivate the practices of Christian living. The quadrants are worship, community, serving, and sharing. We can navigate these spaces by loving God and loving people, pouring out and filling up, and being in unity with God and others.

Jesus was in balance of all four quadrants. We, however, tend to get stuck by favoring...

One definition of discipleship is being and doing like the one we follow. But how do you know if your attempts to be more like Jesus look right?

We all have fundamental questions about faith. “Why do I exist?” “How does God work?” “How do I live?” These questions matter. We want to understand the expectations of Christian living, but those expectations often feel vague.

This week, Pastor Mia helps us take the first step of The Walk: Essential practices of the Christian Life. To begin this journey, we’ll focus is on three core teachings: lov...

God's light conquers all darkness, and yet we still struggle with fear. Actually, most everyone struggles with fear, including many in the Bible. This week Pastor Mia shows us how looking at God within us eliminates the fear that holds us back.

God comes into every darkness — the darkness of evil that we humans create and the darkness of grieve and despair that we all experience — and shouts "let there be light!"

At the Candlelight Christmas Eve service, Pastor Mia tells the Christmas story with light, walks us through the threads of Scripture that show how God began bringing light into every darkness and God still brings light into every darkness.

During Advent, we get ready for Christ’s birth and we look forward to Christ’s second coming. In the 21st chapter of the Book of Revelation, John shares his vision that “the home of God is among the mortals.”

God is the Living One who understands all parts of our lives. As Jesus, God lived as a human among humans. Jesus was fully human and fully God. However, recognizing God as living challenges our thinking.

We don’t think of God as the Living One. We treat God as a wish granter or a judge. We...

The people of Israel never learned. Despite God saving them multiple times and leading them to the promised land, they refused to depend on God. They worshipped idols, they stopped keeping the Sabbath, and they stopped obeying God.

To address the problem, God tried raising judges. God also tried sending prophets. The people of Israel refused to break the sin cycle themselves, so God decided on a face-to-face approach. Instead of using phenomenal powers, God took on the form of a human baby.

God could’ve destroyed all of the idols and forced us into be...

This week, guest preacher Pastor Brian Thie helps us navigate the connection between hope and John Wesley's Three Simple Rules. Wesley preached, "Do no harm, do good, and stay in love with God."

In addition to Wesley's three simple rules, Pastor Brian says are three sizes of hope: lower case hope, mixed case Hope, and all caps HOPE. However, seeing and experiencing war, suicide, and broken relationships make having all caps HOPE difficult. This is the place where Wesley's Three Simple Rules come into play.

When you lose hope, you do harm to yourself and...

Advent, the season of preparing for the birth of Our Lord Jesus Christ is underway. This time of waiting for the arrival of our Savior includes retelling the words of the prophets. These messengers who spoke on God's behalf continually told hard truths to the people of Israel as they repeated the cycle of sinfulness, conequences, and redemption.

Although the prophets regularly predicted consequences, they also shared a message of hope. They proclaimed God would send an annointed one, the Messiah, to save humanity.

This week, guest preacher Patrick Meisan explains the specialness of giving...