the Cross Orlando

A Lenten sermon on Psalm 118:1-13, examining the psalm's liturgical refrain that the Lord is good and his steadfast love endures forever, and how this bedrock truth of God's goodness sustains faith through any circumstance.

An Ash Wednesday message opening the season of Lent, using Joel 2:12-13's call to return to a gracious God, to consider why salvation must come through death, the parts of us that cannot simply be willed into change, and our need for a Savior.

Concluding the series on the role of the church in the life of Jesus before Lent, this message focuses on Luke 11, where Jesus teaches his disciples the Lord's Prayer, reflecting on the fact that the incarnate God himself prayed and needed what prayer offers.

Continuing the series on the role of the church in the life of Jesus, this message turns to Matthew 16 at Caesarea Philippi, where Jesus asks the disciples who people say he is and Peter confesses him as the Christ, setting up the transfiguration.

Continuing the series on the role of the church in the life of Jesus, this message examines his conflicts with the Pharisees over the Sabbath in Matthew 12, where the disciples pluck grain and Jesus declares himself Lord of the Sabbath, desiring mercy not sacrifice.

Continuing the series on the role of the church in the life of Jesus, this message follows Luke 4 from Jesus's temptation in the desert to his return to the synagogue in Nazareth, noting that worshiping weekly was his custom.

Continuing the series on the role of the church in the life of Jesus, this message turns to Matthew 3 and John the Baptist, setting the scene of first-century Judaism with its 613 laws and the guilt and shame surrounding them.

Continuing the series on the role of the church in the life of Jesus leading toward Lent, this message turns to Luke 2:41-52, the boy Jesus at the temple in Jerusalem, where his family went every year for the festival.

Beginning a new-year series on the role of church in the life of Jesus leading toward Lent, this message starts in Luke 2 with the infant Jesus's circumcision and traces the covenant with Abraham in Genesis 17 to explain circumcision's significance.

The Sunday after Christmas, this message turns to Luke 2:22-38, the presentation of the infant Jesus at the temple and the story of Simeon and Anna, beginning with reflections on Jesus's circumcision and naming as signs of God's initiating covenant love.

A Christmas Eve message retelling the birth of Jesus from Luke 2, with the shepherds and angels, and reflecting on the magi drawn from the east in Matthew, showing how the newborn Christ was relevant to all sorts of people across cultures.

Continuing the Advent series, this message reflects on Romans 16:25-27 and "the mystery kept secret for long ages" now revealed in Christ, exploring questions of how God can be just and good and whether we are left alone, answered in Jesus as Emmanuel, God with us.

Continuing the Advent series, this message focuses on the theme of love, drawing on 1 Thessalonians, a letter of the Apostle Paul to the church he founded in Thessalonica, and the church's hope that the Christ who came once will come again.

An Advent message on Isaiah 40:1-5, where God tells the exiled people their warfare is ended and iniquity pardoned, tracing the prophecy's three fulfillments (Cyrus, John the Baptist, and Christ's awaited return) and urging listeners to receive God's comfort and pardon now.

A guest speaker opens the Advent season on its first Sunday, themed around hope and expectant waiting, reflecting on Isaiah 64's cry for God to come down, amid the weariness of waiting through the pandemic year.

On the last Sunday of the church year, continuing the series on God moving first, this message turns to Matthew 19 and the rich young ruler who asks what good deed he must do to inherit eternal life, set against Jesus's call to receive the kingdom like a child.

Continuing the series on God moving toward us first, this message turns to Acts 9 and Saul's conversion on the road to Damascus, where Christ confronts the church's chief persecutor, showing that God's initiating grace comes by his prerogative, not ours.

Continuing the series on God moving first, this message wrestles with Matthew 26 and the woman anointing Jesus with costly perfume at Bethany ("you will always have the poor with you"), reflecting on how God consistently works through weakness rather than power.

Continuing the series on God moving toward us first, this message connects Exodus 19 (God carrying Israel on eagles' wings) with Mark 5, the intertwined healings of Jairus's daughter and the woman with the issue of blood, both of whom come to Jesus in desperation.

Beginning a series on God moving toward us first, this message returns to Exodus 3 and the burning bush, tracing how God's initiating love provided for Moses throughout his life, and reflecting that God calls us out of nothing simply because he loves us.

A guest speaker (a therapist) reflects on our culture's obsession with immediate, visible results, healing, and progress, using a personal gardening story and Kate Bowler's book "Everything Happens for a Reason and Other Lies I've Loved" to challenge how we measure ourselves.

Drawing on Cistercian monk Thomas Keating's "The Human Condition," this message describes humanity's deep needs for security, affection, and power, and uses Matthew 16:24-26 to call hearers to lay down their self-made systems and find those needs grounded in God.

Continuing the heroes-of-the-faith series, this message pairs civil rights leader Fannie Lou Hamer with Zerubbabel's temple rebuilding in Zechariah 4:6 to show that being the church against overwhelming obstacles comes "not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit."

Drawing on 1 John 3:11-18, which defines love as self-sacrifice modeled on the cross, this message tells the story of Archbishop Oscar Romero of El Salvador, who was converted by the poor and martyred at the altar, as a model for being the church.

Shifting from God as shepherd to human "sub-shepherds" or role models, this message turns to 1 Kings 19 and the prophet Elijah, set against Israel's demand for kings and its drift from God, as an example of a leader worth following.