Sermons

The Israelites stand at the base of Mt. Sinai as God continues to arrest their attention with shocking sights and sounds. There is thunder and lighting. There is fire and smoke. There are many sounds of loud trumpet blasts. The mountain is quaking...and the people are quaking too. In that intimidating and impressive environment, God articulates His righteous ten commandments. These commandments ou...

The wilderness journey continues as God's people move on from Rephidim and settle at the base of Mt. Sinai. It is a large, impressive, and intimidating mountain. There is thunder, lighting, quaking, and the loud blasting of trumpets. In that awe-inspiring and fear-inducing environment, God will meet with Moses and begin setting forth the conditions of the Old Covenant. If His people will obey Him,...

In Luke 12:13–34, Jesus shows that covetousness and anxiety often grow from the same root: the desire to secure our own lives. We clutch possessions, plans, and temporary things because we fear we may not have enough, but Jesus redirects our attention to the faithful care of our Heavenly Father. He feeds the birds, clothes the grass, knows exactly what His children need, and delights to give them...

The Israelites have survived one life-threatening challenge after another. They are now entering a quieter season in which they will enjoy a semblance of relief from the surrounding threats. They have food; they have water; and they are not currently under attack. For a time, all too brief, they celebrate the goodness of God to them in providing for their needs and protecting them from their enemi...

The journey continues for God's people as He meets their basic needs and guides them forward through the desert. While they have what they need, they are not thriving nor amassing power. They are not settling down, or building cities, or developing a powerful army. They are impoverished and vulnerable. And, once again, they face a hostile foe and another threat of death, as the Amalekites look on...

The Israelites proceed forward through the rugged desert wilderness and experience life-threatening thirst once again. God has been faithfully providing for them along the way, but the Israelites have suffered; they have felt their weakening bodies and their grumbling souls. Every time they show themselves faithless, God shows Himself faithful. In this scene, it plays out the same way as God mirac...

As they wander through the wilderness, deprived of normal sources of water and food, the Israelites continue wrestling with God and His plan for them. This is not the liberated existence they envisioned. Feeling the frailty of their bodies and the uncertainty of their future, they repeatedly grumble and complain against Moses and against the Lord. And God repeatedly and distinctly provides for the...

When we left off, the Israelites were on top of the world. God had rescued them from certain death by parting the Red Sea, ushering them through, and drowning all their enemies. In celebration of this miraculous victory, they sang a song of salvation to their God. What a triumphant moment! If we were writing the story, many of us would have stopped it right there. The words "The End" would come up...

In one quick and decisive act, God ushered His people from danger to safety, from death to life, and from slavery to freedom. Miraculously, He parted the Red Sea and brought the Israelites through on dry ground. Then, once the last Israelite was safely on the other side, and once the last Egyptians soldier had entered the Red Sea floor, he brought the waters back in upon them and drowned every one...

God is fighting for His people. They could not fight for themselves, and they could not free themselves. If they were to be rescued, it would have to be God's work, in God's way, and in God's time. He had already unleashed the 10 deadly plagues and had begun pursuading Pharaoh to let the people go. Now, He will lead them out of Egypt...but direcly into a trap. They will be penned in with mountains...

God has begun the work of setting His people free, by unleashing ten deadly plagues on the Egyptians. The tenth and final plague is the most devastating of all as God sends His angel of death to kill the first-born sons and animals of every household. There is only one way to avoid certain destruction: A spotless lamb must be killed and its blood applied to the doorway. For those households, the a...

In Luke 4:14–30, Jesus publicly reveals Himself as the Spirit-anointed Messiah promised by God through the prophets. As He announces the arrival of God's Kingdom, He offers forgiveness, freedom, healing, and restoration to those who recognize their need. Yet many who heard Him were impressed by His words without embracing Him as their Savior. This passage reminds us that Jesus is not merely a grea...

Pharaoh has no intentions of letting the Israelites go. He will not cut them loose; he cannot let them be free. The status of his reputation and the advancement of his kingdom depend upon their slavery. If it were up to the Israelites, they would be stuck, completely incapable of liberating themselves. They have no resources and no strength to make their way out. God must intervene...And He will....

In hearing that the Israelites wished to break from their labors in order to worship their God, Pharaoh was incensed. Rarther than granting them freedom, he turned up the heat even more. Not only would they need to keep fulfilling their quota of work, going forward they would also have to gather their own supplies. He wouldn't let them go; instead, he commanded them to "Work harder!" The desperate...

The eagerly anticipated time has come for a showdown with Pharaoh. In Exodus 5, Moses and Aaron approach Pharaoh to request permission to go into the wilderness for a feast unto their God. He immediately denies their request. He does not know their God and He will not allow his work force to be depleted for the Israelite people to have a holiday. Not a chance! He won't allow them to rest; they mus...

As Moses stands in the dust with God before the burning bush, he is vulnerable and exposed. In their interaction, God is revealing to Moses what he believes about himself, i.e. who he thinks he is, and what he believes about God, i.e. who he thinks God is. As the conversation proceeds, it becomes increasingly clear that Moses has some major misconceptions about Who God is and who he is. One of the...

Since there is a God, nothing is more important than Who He is and What He is like. In this part of Exodus, He introduces Himself to Moses personally as the great "I Am." He is the true God, the living God, the everlasting God, the One who always has been and always will be. He is the God who loves His people and is committed to their freedom. As Moses stands vulnerable and exposed before Him at t...

God met Moses in the dirt, where he stood with uncovered feet and an exposed heart. From a miraculously burning-and-yet-not-consumed bush, God spoke to Moses, declaring His faithfulness and plan to rescue His Hebrew people from Egyptian bondage. Moses had spent 40 years in obscurity in a place called Midian. Previously, in his younger days, he felt destined for a life of significance. He believed...

What do you have in common with Pharaoh? There is probably more than you realize. As he ruled over Egypt there were many things that had to go his way, or else! He was the most powerful man in the kingdom, but he was also the most insecure. He was the scariest and the most scared at the same time. We all have ways we want things to go in this world. If we're honest, we often believe we need things...

"We begin our Exodus series with a message entitled, ""Finding Your Place in God's Story."" We humans love stories. We love movies and books and plays. We are drawn to characters and plotlines. We are captivated by all different kinds of stories, war stories, love stories, funny stories, and even tragic stories. It is part of our being created in the image of God, the preeminant story teller. Huma...

This morning, the sermon was entitled Pressed Into Comfort (2 Corinthians 1:3–11), we saw that God—who is the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort—does not remove pressure from our lives but uses it to transform us. Through seasons of deep distress and even despair, God exposes our self-reliance and presses us to depend on Him, the One who raises the dead. True comfort is not found in esca...

Because Jesus Christ has risen from the dead, the deepest search of every human heart—for meaning, satisfaction, and life—is brought to an end in Him. While people pursue countless lesser “saviors” that promise relief but ultimately fall short, the resurrection proves that Jesus alone fulfills what we are truly longing for and accomplishes the salvation we actually need. This gospel was not unexpe...

This morning we observed Palm Sunday by considering the “Triumphal Entry” of Jesus, where He entered Jerusalem surrounded by excited onlookers, hailing Him as King. It was a sort of royal coronation as, in that moment, the people recognized His right to the throne of Israel. They shouted out with great enthusiams, “Hosanna to the Son of David; Blessed is He who comes in the name of the LORD; Hosan...

In a world filled with conflict, there is no shortage of blame. Each person is convinced of their own righteousness, yet only God is perfectly righteous and pure in His motives. While God may use human agents to accomplish His purposes, wherever people are involved, sin, selfishness, and brokenness are present. In such a world, the book of Jeremiah offers a wise approach to life: live life freely...