Nathan E. Lewis

January 1, 2012
Isaiah 1:1-20
“The King Confronts his Covenant People”

God gave to his people, Israel, the covenant, describing how they were to live in relationship to him as their one, true God. The law of the covenant established for them the rules for life. As the nation of Israel developed according to the covenant, God established three offices to serve his people: the office of prophet, the office of priest, and the office of king. God designed these offices to work together, to represent his authority, presence and control in the midst of his people. The prophet’s role was to deliver the word of God in any given situation at the command of God. The covenant law strictly, under the penalty of death, prohibited the prophet from speaking any words but the words of God as he executed his office.

The nation of Israel divided into two kingdoms after Solomon. The northern kingdom took the name Israel and the southern kingdom took the name Judah. Israel from the outset practiced idolatry in every imaginable form. Judah slowly slipped into idolatry, maintaining the outward forms of worship in the temple in Jerusalem. Isaiah served as prophet in Judah during the reign of four kings and may have served in his office for as many as 64 years. Isaiah along with the other prophets who served during the divided kingdoms functioned as God’s prosecuting attorneys of his covenant law. They declared to the people their infractions of the law and the penalties deserved. God’s covenant law is punctuated with the language: If you obey my law then I will bless you but if you break my law I will curse you.” Isaiah declares the coming curses of God upon his people for breaking his law. He also proclaims God’s gracious provision of covenant blessings flowing to his undeserving people through their Messiah, the covenant keeper, coming to share the blessings with God’s people. Continue reading »

Nathan E. Lewis, Pastor of Evergreen Presbyterian Church in Beaverton, Oregon, preached an Advent sermon series in 2011 titled, “What’s the Big Deal about Adam, Eve, and Jesus?” Through the Beaverton Religion Forum, hosted by Evergreen, Nathan along with church members have interacted regularly with secular humanists, agnostics, and atheists, most of who believe that the recent DNA genome research proves that an actual Adam and Eve did not exist. In the forums several people have said: “No Adam and Eve; no fall into sin; no need for substitutionary atonement; no need for Jesus as Savior; no need for faith in Christ.” And so, Nathan prepared these sermons to help his congregation as apologists and evangelists to interact with their neighbors.

Read Nathan’s Sermons

This past 2011 Eric Costa and I preached through the Gospel of Mark. I printed the transcripts of my sermons from Mark 13 - The End is Near!

(A sermon series, Advent 2010: Nathan Lewis preaching at Evergreen Presbyterian Church in Beaverton, Oregon)

First Sunday of Advent
Angels & Demons from Eden to Sinai
In 1998 Frank Peretti’s best-seller, “This Present Darkness,” offered the world a supernatural thriller of angels & demons at war in the fictitious town of Ashton, which every Oregonian quickly recognizes as Ashland. Do angels and demons exist? Is there actually a spiritual war raging? In 2000 Dan Brown’s best-seller, “Angels & Demons,” a mystery thriller reached an even wider audience with its story of the illuminati waging war against the Vatican, presenting angels & demons as mere human beings. Needless to say, our world is full of interesting ideas and beliefs when it comes to angels & demons. Even among Christians who study their Bibles, there is a variance in view concerning angels & demons.
The English Puritan, John Owen in his commentary on Hebrews described the height of human ingratitude as our disinterest in angels who help us to worship God. He writes: “Great is the privilege, manifold are the blessings and benefits that we are made partakers of, by this ministry of angels. What shall we render for them, and to them? Shall we go and bow ourselves down to angels themselves, and pay our homage of obedience to them? They all cry with one accord, “See you do it not; we are you fellow servants.” What shall we then do? “Why!” they say, “worship God!” Glorify and praise Him, who is the God of all angels; who sends them unto whom they minister in all that they do for us. Let us bless God, I say, for the ministry of angels.” Continue reading »

Jesus of Nazareth possesses a dual nature: he is simultaneously fully divine and fully human. As a man Jesus needed his rest like any of us. He also needed solitude to renew his spirit exhausted from interpersonal interaction and spiritual confrontation. Mark’s Gospel supplies us with a sample of Jesus’ schedule. At sundown in Capernaum, Jesus begins to heal the sick and to cast out the demons. Mark notes that the entire city gathered around Jesus. Archaeologists estimate Capernaum to have been home to 1,500 residents in Jesus’ day. And so, Jesus could have been busy healing and casting out demons for several hours into the night. After an exhausting evening, Jesus rises early in the morning while it is still dark to pray in a desolate place. He prayed until the disciple’s search party found him. His sweet moment of solitude and prayer is broken by Peter saying, “Everyone is looking for you.” In the late morning, Jesus transitions from prayer to leadership announcing that he and his disciples are departing Capernaum to preach extensively throughout the region of Galilee.
Much has been recommended regarding early morning prayer in the Christian tradition. Many of us have read Martin Luther’s quote: “If I fail to spend two hours in prayer each morning, the devil gets the victory through the day. I have so much business I cannot get on without spending three hours daily in prayer.” Continue reading »

Our text this morning is structurally part of the preceding text. Mark writes of Jesus expelling the demon from the man in the Capernaum synagogue, and then he tells us of his healing of Peter’s mother-in-law, finally reporting that he healed many of the sick in Capernaum casting out many demons. Mark writes his gospel to showcase the Son of Man coming into this world with visible and powerful authority over the spiritual and material realms. He not only combats the devil and his minions but he also eradicates the consequences of the common curse. Continue reading »

Contend for the Faith
Jude 1-4
(written and preached by Nathan Lewis at Ascension PCA and Evergreen PCA in Beaverton, Oregon - audio sermons)

The Epistle of Jude is an urgent message to the church. Jude not only rallies the church to combat false teaching, but also presents merciful pastoral support of the church. As Dick Lucas writes, “The believers are to ‘contend’ for the truth, and the verb here is unusually strong. They are to ‘fight’ for the faith…. Jude, however, is no mere polemicist, spoiling for a fight, seeking any excuse for a controversy. He too has a pastor’s heart. It is wise to link verse 3 with verse 20a.” (3) calls us to contend for the faith and (20) calls us to have mercy toward restoration. Continue reading »

Running from God (January 10 ,2010) (audio sermons)
Jonah 1

The book of Jonah is one of the more beautifully constructed stories in the Bible and in all ancient literature. Its language is terse and the opening and concluding sentences in each of the four chapters are a fine lesson for aspiring writers. These sentences serve as pointers and keys as well as hooks to capture the attention and imagination of the reader.
A remarkable feature of this book is its candor, that is, its honesty and directness whether refreshing or distasteful. Though it is written in the third person, I suspect that the author may have well been Jonah. And if this is the case, then its candor is all the more remarkable. Continue reading »

November 29
First Sunday of Advent
“The Promised Seed”
Genesis 3:15; 12:7 and Galatians 3:16

The Bible is a collection of 66 books written over a span of 1,600 years by 40 different authors. Its cohesion is what we call redemptive history, the story of God redeeming his people. Everything written in the Bible supports this grand theme. One of the central expressions of this theme is the seed, not the seed of the garden but the seed of conception. The seed refers to the ultimate promised Son, Jesus Christ and then, secondarily to all those who are united to him by faith. Continue reading »

Nathan Lewis preached this sermon on November 22 at Ascension PCA and Evergreen PCA in Beaverton, Oregon
Exodus 17: 8-16, “The Staff and the Sword: Our Church Planting Mission in Oregon” Continue reading »