Go To Him

Psalm 24 As we heard last week, we are living Psalm 23 in the Saturday between Good Friday and Resurrection Sunday. Our life is also one of a long, slow climb toward our home. Sometimes we gain ground quickly, other times it seems like we roll backwards faster than we were climbing. Some days we crest a ridge and see our home gleaming far off , other days we are buried in a deep, dark ravine wonde...

Psalm 22  Good Friday is approaching.  The day Jesus is beaten beyond human recognition and nailed to the cross.  Despite the apparent triumph of evil and the end of God’s redemptive plan, Jesus teaches us as the Psalm does, God is not absent.  He has not abandoned us.  He is there.  His silence is not the silence of a jilted lover or an angry and vindictive being.  His silence is part of His perf...

Psalm 32: 6-7, 10-11 Life, as a child of God, should be lived in joy, gratitude, and obedience.  We are truly free, eternally secure, and infinitely loved by the God that brought us out of slavery and into the freedom of His presence.  Living redeemed means inhabiting this reality daily—acknowledging our freedom, embracing our new identity as God’s own, and allowing that transformation to reshape...

Psalm 32:5 Our topic today - repentance. It has far more reaching consequences than just being sorry we did something wrong or, as more often happens, we are sorry that we got caught. It means a total change of life, a total change of direction, a total reorienting of our lives according to God’s will not our own. Until that happens we will never experience true freedom because we will always be e...

Psalm 32:1-2  What does it mean to be redeemed?  Today we will see many examples of redemption both in the Old Testament and the New Testament.  There will be a plethora (a bunch) of theological terms I will define and explain.  (Each one could be one sermon if not a series in themselves.)  At the end, this is what I want us to remember -  Redemption is an act of God that restores us into relation...

Psalm 32: 3-4   With Psalm 32 as the background, we will focus on verses 3-4 today. We will ask the questions “What is sin?” and “How can I recognize sin in my life?” Though these are questions that apply to believers, it is THE question that must first be answered by an unbeliever before they can become a child of God. Unless they can recognize the sin in their life they will never get to the poi...

Matthew 18:1-5  What we see today is unless we completely and totally trust in God and depend on him, we cannot even enter His kingdom.  This is not a case of “You do your best and God will do the rest.”  No, this is a case of God is our only hope in every situation of life and we must depend on Him for everything.  We must humble ourselves and trust Him as his child in order to enter the Kingdom.

Matthew 17:1-13  Today we get a glimpse of Jesus in His glory and what we will become after His return. It’s a familiar story, one we have heard or read many times. While I do not have anything earth shattering to add, I think we need the reminder of who it is we believe in and worship and what this frail body of dust will become. That hope can carry us through our dark days of wanting to be so di...

Matthew 17:24-23  As we will learn today it is not the amount of our faith or the strength of our ability to generate faith.  Not quantity, but quality.  Who is the object of our faith and on whom do we depend for that faith? Even the smallest faith can move mountains when it is placed in the hands of Jesus.

Matthew 17:24-27  As children of God, we are called to live in a manner that honors Him, using our freedom not to indulge our desires, but to serve Him and serve others for His glory.

1 Peter 1:3-9 Heaven will come down one, last time.  God, the Father, has set a day when everything infected with sin is either renewed, saved to eternal joy, or sent to eternal punishment.  After that, Heaven and Earth will once more be open to each other and we will either live eternally with or without God.  That day begins with the return of Jesus from Heaven.

Luke 2:1-20 We can spend a lifetime finding all that the birth of Jesus, and his subsequent life, death, and resurrection, means to us and to the world.  We all know it means far more than trees and presents and food and fellowship and Christmas carols and “It’s a Wonderful Life.”  Today we focus on two meanings of God coming to Earth in Jesus.  One is of paramount importance - we now have forgive...

Matthew 16:21-28  Memento Mori - remember you must die.  It is not intended to be a morbid practice but one that forces us to confront our mortality and the type of life we live.  To live for ourselves is to die for eternity, to live for Jesus is to find life in God.

Matthew 16:1-12  People today are no different than the Pharisees, Sadducees, and disciples.  There are those, so many of those, that refuse to see and believe the evidence of Jesus as Savior.  They don’t want to admit they are a sinner justly condemned before a Holy God so they pretend there isn’t a God.  Or if there is one, we can’t know anything about him.  They don’t want to hear the only way...

Matthew 16:13-20 The living building of Jesus’s church, made up of those who have believed and proclaimed faith in Christ, and who now proclaim the Good News to the world have only done so through the foundational truths God has provided - the evidence of who Jesus is and the revelation of what He has done.

Matthew 15:21-28  True faith, small or large, is a persistent faith that perseveres through trials and tribulations.  While divine favor and breakthroughs don’t always come, or come when we expect, that kind of faith can only grow as we continually find ourselves in the presence of the one who loves us and sent his Son to save us.  Persistent and persevering faith keeps us in the presence of our G...

Matthew 15:29-39 Jesus's compassion knows no bounds - no borders, no boundaries, no ethnic divisions, no social divisions, no wealth divisions, no medical divisions - there is no beyond the compassion of Jesus.  That compassion leads not only to healing and preaching the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand but will eventually lead to salvation being made available to all people.  God is calling his...

Matthew 14:13-21  The well known passage about the feeding of the five thousand.  In this we learn there is no scarcity in God's economy.  He provides for those who are still His enemies.  He over-abundantly provides for those who belong to him.  

Matthew 14:22-36  Who is Jesus in your life?  He will either be Lord and Savior or King and conqueror - there is no other option.

Matthew 14:22-33  It is not the strength of our faith that sustains in the times of fear - it is the object of our faith that sustains us in times of fear.  We can have faith in the face of fear because our God is trustworthy and faithful.

Matthew 15:1-9  Are all traditions bad?  No.  Not even within the church.  Where they become stumbling blocks is when our man-made traditions take precedence over the word of God.  Are we hypocritically expecting others to live by man-made rules that we don't follow or are we following the commands of the God that saved us?

Matthew 15:10-20 Traditions can be good and useful if they point us to the God that loves us. Traditions can be harmful if they take our eyes away from God. Tradition, for the sake of tradition, only indicates the extent of the idol worshipping sin in our heart.  Take the time to take stock of the traditions in your life. If they are leading you to God, then continue to use them. If they are a hin...

Acts 1:12-14; Matthew 6:9-15; Luke 11:1-4 Our church is actively involved in the Regenesis program for revitalizing churches.  One of the most important pieces of that process is prayer - specifically the entire church body praying for renewal.  It is a long term process that requires prayer at every step.  We need to come together as the church family we are and pray for God's providence in...

Matthew 14:1-12 The death and legacy of John the Baptist as told by Jesus.  We, like John, must speak the truth boldly no matter the personal cost.

Matthew 13:53-58  It is one thing to know about Jesus or to assume you know him.  It is entirely another to know him personally as Lord and Savior.