Andy Talks

As we dig into Amos these next few days, we are going to spend some time today first unpacking who he is. He was a shepherd. He was not trained. He was not powerful. He was not from the right place. He was a shepherd whom God laid a word upon.  God called him, and he spoke. God doesn’t just use who we think He will; God will use all of us. God can use you today for amazing things. For great things...

Joel, the prophets, and all of the scripture point us to God’s restoration.  We see in Joel that God will bring judgment against the ones who have persecuted His people. Justice will come. But for Judah, for Jerusalem, restoration will come. The streambeds will flow with water.  The Lord dwells in Zion, and He will bring forth life for all His people. Rejoice, for restoration will come. But we are...

After following Jesus during Holy Week, today we resume with Joel. When we were last here, we saw God promise a pouring out of His Spirit upon all. This is the passage that Peter used for Pentecost. In today’s passage, we see God remind the people that judgment will come. God sees how His people have been mistreated and abused; He sees how His people have been oppressed by the nations. One day, in...

In our Easter message from our Traditional service, Andy shares with us from Mark 16: 1-8. Easter is the dividing point between the old and the next. We have to imagine who God has called us to be and live remembering who that is.

Today, we see the cross and what our Lord endured for us out of His great love.  We see the ugliness, the brutality, the pain of the cross. We see sin placed upon our Lord and what He endured for our sake and for the sake of the world. Yes, Sunday is coming. But let us not be in such a rush to get to the empty grave that we do not stop and ponder what sin has done. He stretched out His arms of lov...

Jesus gives us two very hard things today.  He models for us how are are to serve. And not just generic service, but service that is hard. Service that is dehumanizing. More than holding open a door, but deeply hard service. Then He tells us how folks will know that we are HIs - that we love. To service and to love. Those are hard. Those are difficult. We can’t do them on our own, but it is only t...

Today in Holy Week, this is often called “Spy Wednesday.” This is the day that Judas begins the process of berating Jesus. But before we get to this, we see the religious leaders looking for a time and a place to arrest Jesus. We see the disciples angry at Jesus for being anointed with ointment and not selling it.  Could it be from this place of anger, this place of frustration, that the devil beg...

On Holy Tuesday, Jesus spends much time teaching.  Or perhaps you could say He spends much time correcting and speaking out against the religious leaders.  We are going to look at what is often called the “Seven Woes,” where Jesus condemns the religious leaders for their hypocrisy, for their self-righteousness, and for how they are actually keeping people from God. We see in the end that Jesus lon...

Many things happened to Jesus on Monday of Holy Week, but something that always catches my eye is His cursing of the fig tree. Why did He do that? What did that poor fig tree have to do with any of this?  We look at what happens in this moment, and in His teaching, we see something very important, something that can show us about our faith and the fruits we bear.  Join us for our daily reflections...

In our Palm Sunday message, Andy shares with us from Mark 11: 1-11.  We see that Jesus fulfilled His purpose. He was always headed to Jerusalem. The people expected earthly answers. He was offering spiritual ones.  It's the same for us today. Will we look for earthly answers to spiritual realities?

Joel had his prophecies hundreds of years before Jesus, hundreds of years before Pentecost Sunday. Today, we see the exact text that Peter preached from on Pentecost. Upon all flesh, God will pour out His Spirit on sons and daughters, young and old.  No longer is the Spirit just to fall upon the prophet, but it falls upon all persons.  Today, you have access to the Holy Spirit.  We position oursel...

Today, in Joel 2, we see the Lord’s response.  He will drive away the army, and He will do great things to restore and make all things beautiful.  He will repay for the years that the locusts have eaten.  The Lord can and will redeem and restore all things; there will be a new heaven and a new earth. God is not done with us yet. This does not mean that the pain we may have felt in the past is inva...

In Joel 2, we see that God’s day of judgment is far greater than the army of locusts we saw in Chapter 1. That is why we should always be careful when calling down for God’s great judgment; when He comes in judgment, none of us will be good enough. We see good news today, though; as great as judgment is, God’s grace is great.  God’s mercy comes running after us. He longs to forgive us. He loves us...

What is a prophet? What do they do?  What is their task?  As we begin our time together in the minor prophets, we start first with Joel.  We look to Joel, and we see great brokenness.  In the face of that, we cry out to God. There is a great plague of locusts that are destroying everything in Joel’s time, and that will bring great destruction. In the midst of that, all we can do is turn to  God ou...

Philemon is an interesting small book in the New Testament.  Normally, we see Paul appealing to his authority as an apostle, but he doesn’t do that in this letter. In fact, quite the opposite.  Paul appeals to love and relationships here as he encourages Philemon to receive Onesimus back. We talk a little about what these relationships look like, about the power of God to save and transform, and t...

Today, in our Traditional service, Andy shares with us from John: 12 20-33.  We see that we struggle with our greatest temptation - to make our lives completely about ourselves and not about God.  To find life, we must die to ourselves.  

In our Traditional message from March 10, 2024, we look at John 3: 14-21.  We are told that people love darkness more than light. We wrestle against the dark, every day, the darkness that tries to pull us down. But, in truth, darkness can never overcome the light. We have nothing to fear; we stand in the light of Jesus!

Paul reminds us today that we weren’t always a Christian. What does that reminder do for us?  It made me think of one of my favorite contemporary Christian songs from the 1990s by Steven Curtis Chapman - Remember Your Chains.  This song, like Paul’s words, is a reminder to remember that our salvation is not something we have earned, but it is a gift. And we should remember that and remember who we...

Paul continues to give Titus advice about how he should train the Christians in Crete.  One of the words he continues to give to Titus is self-control. This is mentioned several times in chapter two.  Why?  Why, for Paul, is this such a big deal?  We see that Paul is trying to teach Titus the importance of that self-controlled life, in contrast to the people of Crete, who seem to be doing whatever...

We meet Titus today.  He is a Gentile Christian leader, someone brought into the faith by Paul.  Paul trusted him to be the pastor of a church he loves - Corinth, and we see today that Paul left Titus in a very hard place for ministry. He left Titus in Crete.  Paul tells Titus to work on appointing leaders for the church there, and of all the things that Paul tells him to look for - look for this:...

We see Paul end this letter to Timothy with someone he does at the end of nearly every letter he writes - he thanks people. I sometimes call it his shoutouts. Romans 16 is my favorite example of this. But what he is doing is greeting and giving thanks to all the people who make his ministry possible. It is a reminder we walk together. We need each other. We do not walk alone.  Today, I need you. ...

One of my favorite prayers that I pray from the Morning Office says this - “For you, O Lord, are the God of those who repent, and in us you will show forth your goodness.”  Today in 2 Timothy Paul tells us that people will turn from the truth and turn to teachers who only tell them what they long to hear. We all want someone to tell us that we are “good” and they are “bad.” What we need to hear th...

In our Traditional message from March 3, 2024, Andy shares with us from  Mark 2: 13-22, where Jesus cleanses the temple.  Jesus was faithful to His mission no matter what others thought. For us to be faithful, we must wrestle daily with our pride.

We read these words today, “All scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, so that everyone who belongs to God may be proficient, equipped for every good work.”  But what does that mean? We’ve read this passage a million times.  But what does this mean?  What is scripture? What is its purpose?  Why does it matter? Why sh...

Today, Paul tells us that in the last days, things will not get better; in fact, they will get worse.  People will sin more; things will be harder and more challenging.  It won’t be easy.  Is working for good a hopeless task? Will we be able to accomplish anything worthwhile?  Is it even worth it to try?  We are reminded today that while we can’t change everything, every small act of faithfulness...