Derry Presbyterian Church

05/26/2026

Sermon from the Derry Presbyterian Church for Sunday, May 24th - Rev. Larry Armstrong

What Pentecost Did
1 Corinthians 12:3-11 (NRSVue)

If you were there, you’d be standing on holy ground, a time when the air trembles, the room is charged, and you know God isn’t far off.
This is Pentecost, a holy ground moment. A warm wind rushes through a trembling room. Flames rest on hesitant heads. A taste of awe settles on every tongue. Ordinary people become vessels of extraordinary grace.
Writing years later to the Corinthians, Paul wanted them to understand what Pentecost did. What it means. What it creates. What it awakens in God’s people.

The Foremost Spiritual Gift
Paul began with the most fundamental gift: “No one can say ‘Jesus is Lord’ except by the Holy Spirit.”
Before the gifts of tongues, prophecy, healing, and miracles, Pentecost gave us the gift of faith. The Holy Spirit opens the eyes of your heart. He softens what was stone. He loosens your tongue to confess what it couldn’t confess: Jesus is Lord.
This is no small thing. It’s the miracle beneath every miracle. If you whisper “Jesus is Lord” during the night, his Spirit works in you. If you cling to Christ when life shakes you, his Spirit sustains you with his power. If you trust Jesus when you cannot track his presence, his Holy Spirit plants your feet firmly, lifts your chin, and brings a breath that squares your shoulders.
Pentecost didn’t begin with fireworks. It began with faith.

The Other Spiritual Gifts
Paul didn’t stop there. He reminded the Christians of Corinth that the Spirit who gives faith also gives other gifts—diverse and surprising gifts.
“There are varieties of gifts but the same Spirit…varieties of services but the same Lord…varieties of activities, but the same God who activates all of them in everyone.”
Pentecost didn’t create a church of clones. It created a church of differences, a church of diversity, where the Spirit delights in the uniqueness of each believer.
You know God’s presence when you serve behind the scenes. You receive the Spirit’s fire when you teach or pray with another. You speak with wisdom, a lantern in someone’s storm. Or you bring hope by sitting down beside someone and staying.
This holy day means you don’t have to be someone else for God to use you. The Spirit activates gifts for everyone—not the bold, the loud, or the talented. For every Christian.

The Reason for Spiritual Gifts
Paul gives us the reason, the aim, the heartbeat behind Pentecost: “To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.”
The Spirit doesn’t give gifts so we admire ourselves. He gives gifts so we build up one another. The Spirit’s work isn’t personal power. It’s communal transformation.
Your gift isn’t for your glory. Not for your platform. Not for your ego. Your gift is for the common good. You strengthen the weary, comfort the broken, guide the confused, lift the discouraged, heal the wounded, and witness with the entire church. You steady trembling shoulders with a firm touch that reminds people they’re not standing alone.
Pentecost turns self-focused people into Christ shaped servants.
So What Did Pentecost Do?
Pentecost gave us faith. It gave us gifts. It gave us purpose. It made the church a living body—breathing, moving, serving, loving—animated by the Spirit of the living God.
And today, the same Spirit moves. Stirs. Gives gifts. Calls. And empowers.
You’re small, but the Spirit isn’t small within you. You’re uncertain, but the Spirit isn’t uncertain of you. You’re empty, but the Spirit delights to fill empty vessels.

So breathe deeply, church.
Let the wind of Pentecost fill your lungs.
Let its flame warm your courage.
Let its voice rise in your heart until you say with joy and confidence, “Jesus is Lord.”
For the Spirit who came in fire still burns.
The Spirit who came in wind still moves.
The Spirit who came in power still empowers.
And the Spirit who came for the common good is still shaping you for the blessing of a world God loves.
Amen

All scripture text is from the NRSVue translation
Copyright © 2021
By the National Council of Churches of Christ
Copyright © 2026
by Larry L. Armstrong
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

05/21/2026

***Use code SHIPDEAL at checkout to receive $5.00 off shipping on orders over $35.00**** (expires 7/31/26)
We are conducting an Online Order Only Rada Cutlery fundraiser to support our church. Please click on the link below to place your order. All proceeds will go towards our "Church Major Repairs Fund" for funds to help repair our historic church and the need for other repairs to continue the ministry in the Derry Area.
Listed as DERRY PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH…..Zip code is 15627..
Thank you for supporting the Derry Presbyterian Church "Church Major Repairs Fund" - God Bless!

Rada Cutlery Fundraising features 100% Made in the USA kitchen products – kitchen knives, utensils, gift sets (also cookbooks, stoneware, and quick mixes).

05/19/2026

Sermon from the Derry Presbyterian Church for Sunday, May 17th - Rev. Larry Armstrong

Life in the Spirit
Galatians 5:16–26 (NRSVue)

A farmer’s orchard didn’t produce well last year. So this spring he spread fertilizer in the grove. He went out every morning and talked to the trees. Every evening he sang. On weekends, he played music for his trees. While he was in church, he prayed for them.
But the apple blossoms came and went. The apples were tiny things. They barely grew from day to week to month. Finally, in September the apples were ready to harvest.
Yet the farmer couldn’t understand why his efforts didn’t produce quicker growth. His conclusion? “God must want apples to produce only in September.”
Some Christians approach living as Jesus lived with the same eager effort, and they wonder why Christian life matures so slowly.
The apostle Paul knew the tension of living with the eagerness to please God and the daily struggle to do it. But he learned a truth that helped him, and he explained it to the Galatian Christians. “Live by the Spirit,” he wrote, “and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.”
This is the good news of Christian living: God doesn’t command us to walk in holiness. God empowers us to walk in holiness.

The Conflict Within
Paul speaks of the “flesh” and the “Spirit,” not as two equal forces, but as two competing directions for the human heart. The “flesh” isn’t your body; it’s your self‑centeredness. It’s the gravitational pull toward a life curved inward. It makes you want to be your own lord, your judge, your source of meaning. The flesh is selfish.
Paul makes it clear: the works of the flesh are obvious. Strife. Jealousy. Anger. Rivalries. They break relationships. They distort desires. They turn you inward until you can’t see God or neighbor.
But the Holy Spirit is God’s presence within us, curving us outward. He draws us toward God, toward neighbors, toward the life we were made to live. The Spirit releases us to love.
Yet Paul doesn’t scold the Galatians into holiness. Instead, he lifts their eyes to the Spirit’s work.
Do you see the Holy Spirit working inside your life?

The Fruit the Spirit Grows
“The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self‑control.”
Paul does not say “the fruits,” as if we could pick our blessings. He says the fruit—one fruit, one life, one character, one Christ‑shaped way of living. His Spirit grows in us.
And another truth: fruit isn’t manufactured. Fruit is grown. Fruit happens when the life of the tree flows into the branch where the fruit lives.
Christian living isn’t about straining harder. It’s about rooting deeper.
The Spirit grows love in us when we’d rather withdraw.
He grows joy in us when our vigor thins out.
The Spirit grows kindness in us when the world’s harsh.
He grows generosity when fear whispers “hold back.”
The Spirit grows gentleness when anger flows easily.
He grows self‑control when temptation presses.
This isn’t self‑improvement. It’s Spirit‑transformation.

The Spirit’s Deeper Work
“Those who belong to Christ Jesus,” said Paul, “have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.” Strong language. The old way of life was nailed to a cross. The Spirit doesn’t patch the old self; he raises a new one.
The Spirit does it so quietly we don’t see it in ourselves.
I remember being impatient in traffic and recalling Jesus didn’t act the way I was. I recall fear about my finances and a calmness that said, “God provides.” I remember an act of kindness that was so gratefully received that I also remembered, “God loves a cheerful giver.”
How’s the Spirit teaching you Christian virtue?
Paul doesn’t stop at crucifixion. He moves to a life that’s resurrected: “If we live by the Spirit, let us also be guided by the Spirit.”
The Spirit gives life. You give attention.
The Spirit empowers. You yield.
The Spirit leads. You follow.
Walking in the Spirit is the gift. Following the Spirit is your response.
Amen

All scripture text is from the NRSVue translation
Copyright © 2021
By the National Council of Churches of Christ
Copyright © 2026
by Larry L. Armstrong
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

05/12/2026

Sermon from the Derry Presbyterian Church for Sunday, May 10th - Rev. Larry Armstrong

A Mother’s Last Glance
Acts 1:6-11 (NRSVue)

Mary walked with the others up the slope, her steps slow. Her body sensed what her mind didn’t yet name. The air cooled on a morning that should’ve been ordinary, but nothing was ordinary since the stone rolled away.
She kept her eyes on her son, trying to memorize the way sunlight touched his hair, the brush on her elbow as he passed her, the way his shoulders moved as he walked. His scent of outdoor freshness. She learned long ago that moments with him were never guaranteed.
The disciples clustered around him, voices eager, questions tumbling. They asked of kingdoms, timing, and restoration. Mary listened, but her attention was on his face. They loved him, but they didn’t know the layers she knew. They hadn’t held him as an infant when he whimpered in his sleep. They hadn’t watched him take his first steps across a dirt floor. They didn’t understand the weight of knowing he belonged to God.
The weight was there again—familiar, heavy, holy.
When they reached the top of the hill, Jesus turned. The wind lifted the hem of his robe, and for a heartbeat Mary saw the boy he’d been, running through Nazareth with scraped knees and a grin that undid her. Now he raised his hands, and the scars burned red in the sunlight. Her breath stiffened. The wounds were callouses that remade the world. Yet they were wounds on her son’s hands.
“You’ll receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you,” he said. His voice was steady and warm. He comforted them, preparing them for his departure. “You’ll be my witnesses to the ends of the earth.”
The word settled inside Mary. Witnesses. She’d been a witness since the angel spoke her name. She saw his birth, heard his teaching, witnessed his suffering, and his rising. And now—this.
She thought her eyes played tricks. His feet lifted. Even the earth was reluctant to release him. He rose higher and higher still. She tasted a cleanness in the air. His robe fluttered around him, a banner caught in a gentle wind. Mary’s heart lurched. She wanted to reach out, to hold him close one last time, to smell his cheek against hers. But she didn’t move. She knew this was a moment only to behold.
His face shone with a peace she’d seen one time—the morning he stepped out of the tomb. His face belonged to someone going home.
A cloud gathered around him, bright and soft, wrapping light around him. Then he was hidden from her sight.
A warm tear traced along her cheek and made her lips salty.
The disciples stood frozen, staring upward, their faces pale with wonder and confusion. Mary kept her gaze on the place where he disappeared, her hands trembling at her sides. She lost him once to his death. Now she lost him to his glory. The ache was sharp, but beneath it a deep current of joy flowed. He returned to his Father. He took his rightful place.
Two figures appeared beside them—angels, though they looked human. “Why do you stand looking to heaven?” they asked. “This Jesus will return as you saw him go.”
Mary held those words as a mother holds an exciting hope. Joy filled her! He isn’t gone forever.
She and the disciples walked back toward Jerusalem, whispering to one another, making sense of what they’d seen.
Mary walked in silence. Inside her, sorrow and elation wove together as threads of a cloth. She gave him life, and she surrendered him. She watched him die, and she watched him rise. Now she watched him ascend.
And yet, she wasn’t abandoned.
He’d promised the Holy Spirit. He entrusted them with his mission. He left, yes, but he left something with her. A purpose, a calling, a presence that won’t fade.
When they reached the city, Mary lifted her face toward the sky. The ache in her chest remained, but it was not a wound. It was a doorway that poured joy into the morning light.
Her son had ascended.
But his love had descended into every corner of her life.
She knew in the place where a mother’s hope never dies that this wasn’t the end. It was her last chance to see him with her eyes, but not her last chance to belong to him.
He’d return.
And until then, she’d wait. She’d pray. She’d witness.
She’d carry him, not in her arms, but in her life.
Amen

All scripture text is from the NRSVue translation
Copyright © 2021
By the National Council of Churches of Christ
Copyright © 2026
by Larry L. Armstrong
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

05/05/2026

Sermon from the Derry Presbyterian Church for Sunday, May 3rd - Rev. Larry Armstrong

Near By and Far Off
Jeremiah 23:23–24 (NRSVue)

You wake at two in the morning, and the room’s dark. No sound. Nothing moves. Your skin prickles. Your heart pounds, and a hollow loneliness envelops you.
But God speaks of your lonesome awakening. What he says startles and changes everything.

A God You Cannot Outrun
Through Jeremiah, God asks three questions that land like stones: “Am I a God nearby, and not a God far off? Who can hide in secret places so that I cannot see them? Do I not fill heaven and earth?”
These aren’t gentle questions. God says, “There’s no place I am not. No corner of the earth, no depth of the sea, no locked room, no private thought.” God sees through stone. Jesus’ eyes reach into every shadow. The Holy Spirit hears through silence.
Even those who don’t believe in God sense this. Thinkers across centuries have said, “If a god exists, he has to be everywhere at once. Otherwise, something in the universe escapes him. Then he’s not God.” The logic holds. A god with limits isn’t God.
Jeremiah declares what God says. You cannot outrun God. You cannot disappear from him. That truth frightens —or it shelters you.
A God Who Fills Without Being Everything
Here’s an important thought. When God says he fills heaven and earth, he doesn’t mean he “is” heaven and earth. Are trees and sky and oceans pieces of God? No. That’s pantheism—an ancient idea, but not the Bible’s. Scripture tells us God made the world; he isn’t the world.
Think of it this way. Andrea Bocelli’s voice fills a room. Your chest vibrates. It touches every corner. But the hall isn’t Bocelli’s voice. They’re different, yet his voice is fully present everywhere in the concert hall.
That’s closer to what God means. He’s everywhere—real, personal, active—but he isn’t the world, and the world isn’t him. He made it. He fills it. He holds it together. But God stands apart from the world, above it, beyond it. Creation is his handiwork, but not his body.

A God Who Meets You Where You Are
Here’s where the mystery deepens. God’s presence isn’t the same everywhere. He’s present during a hurricane and keeps it from swallowing Tampa. He’s present in the courtroom where the guilty trembles. He’s present in the hospital, where one hand holds another in the dark.
The sun bakes the desert and warms your cool face. Same sun—different touch. God’s like that. He presses into every situation differently, the way a father’s hand feels one way on your shoulder when he comforts you and a different way when he pulls you from harm’s path.
When you grieve, the Spirit’s nearby with comfort, a snug coat pulled around you. When you wander from him, God’s near with the nearness of a father watching for a returning child, scanning the road, unwilling to look away. When you worship, Jesus bends close with a closeness that makes the hair rise and the heart go quiet.
God tastes your tears. He hears you when your lips call him. He smells the fear when you awake with a shudder. He’s already with you.

You Cannot Go Where God Is Not
So come back to the dark room at two in the morning.
The quiet is real. The fear is real. But so is this: the God who fills heaven and earth fills your room. He fills the space between your rapid heartbeats. He hears the breath you haven’t taken yet. The darkness isn’t empty. It never was. God is always there.
You aren’t alone. You never have been. You cannot find a place where you’d ever be alone. There’s no such place.
The God who asks, “Who can hide from me?” asks it not to threaten, but to assure you. He’s near. He isn’t far. He isn’t distracted. He isn’t tired of you.
The Father, Son and Holy Spirit fill everything.
The darkness isn’t empty. It never was.
Why be afraid in the dark?
Amen

All scripture text is from the NRSVue translation
Copyright © 2021
By the National Council of Churches of Christ
Copyright © 2026
by Larry L. Armstrong
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED