Trinity Church of Lake Nona

Have you ever wondered: Why do we give gifts on Christmas?  Christmas is the only holiday we celebrate by giving gifts to others.  We don’t do that on Halloween or Thanksgiving or the Fourth of July, or Labor Day. Why? We celebrate birthdays by being given gifts, but not giving them.   The Hobbits had it right.…

Last week, we asked the question: How healthy is your heart?  We saw that of all the opportunities and challenges you will face, of all of the conditions and circumstances you will expereince, the condition of your heart is the most important.  Your heart is the center of your physical, emotional, intellectual, and moral activities.  Everything…

Last week Cynthia and I received a letter from AARP.  I am sure they had the wrong address…but they asked me an important question: How healthy is your heart?  They let me know that heart disease is the leading cause of death for people over the age of 45 — and Americans spend, on average, 240…

God has called his people to seek his face in worship, grow in his grace, and serve his people. One of the primary ways we seek his face and grow in his grace is through Jesus’ ministry of teaching.  With school kicking off this week, it is a good time to remind ourselves how important…

Hearing Dale Peacock, Will Romualdo, and Dan Maloy preach these past 3 weeks has been such a blessing! This Sunday, we are excited to wrap up our Mission’s Month with Peter Willis preaching. “The Sustaining Power & Presence of Christ”  based on Mark 4:35-41. I invite you to read over this passage to prepare your heart. In…

This Sunday we are excited to hear from Will Romualdo! Will, together with his wife Debora and son Nathan (6), are joining Mission Aviation Fellowship (MAF) next year.  Tomorrow he will share with us the history of MAF, how and why it started, and the story of Nate Saint.  He will also share their testimony of how God called…

We are asking the Lord to encourage and strengthen our hearts as we hear from our very own missionaries at Trinity about what God is doing and how He is advancing His gospel throughout the globe. This week, we welcome Dale Peacock! Dale works with Wycliffe Bible Translators, and he and his beautiful wife Miranda…

This Psalm will be our theme all of August, so this Sunday will be an appetizer for what is to come.  Psalm 27 begins in fear and ends in betrayal, and in the middle, there is…beauty? Huh? How does David get here?   Developmental psychologist Jerry Colonna says there arethree primal things every human needs:  And in…

Truth: Our joy and value are not in our life performances but in the grace poured in us by Jesus Christ. Text: Philippians 3 Outline: 

Be Strengthened by Your Community of Faith. Truth: The Community of Faith is strengthened by Jesus’ headship as the church displays God’s glory and power. Ephesians 2:20-22 I.  Community of faith of called people. II. Community of faith built on grace. III.Community of faith sent by Jesus.

We are excited to introduce you to Edwardo Rivera. Edwardo is a church planting resident with the Orlando Church Planting Network. OCPN is a network of churches working together to saturate our city with healthy, Gospel-centered churches. For more about OCPN, click here. And he will be preaching for the next three weeks.   He has served in the…

This week we are wrapping up our series on Ezra and Nehemiah.  The story of Ezra and Nehemiah is epic, if it was adapted to a screenplay, the obvious place to end would be found in Nehemiah chapter 10.  The camera would pan out as the entire community boldly promises: “We will not neglect the house of our…

The ancient Greeks had a saying: cabbage served twice is death. Leftover cabbage was hard to revive. But stale cabbage is not the only thing had to revive.  Our souls can grow stale. Our prayers can stall out. Our spiritual vitality can decay.  All of us, if we are honest, know the experience of lifelessness that can…

Nehemiah 8-10 tells us about one of the more remarkable times of revival in all of history. Throughout the long, dark days of exile, days of longing and languishing, Nehemiah’s ambition and Ezra’s calling is not simply to reconstruct the city’s defenses but to revitalize the spiritual community. And chapters 8-10 show how that revitalization can happen. God’s…

As we make our way through Ezra and Nehemiah, we are finally introduced to our title character: Ezra.  This week we will meet Ezra, the man, and his mission.  His pedigree is impressive, tracing all the way back to Aaron, the first High Priest. He is a skillful expert in the Bible and a first-rate…

Life can be hard. Even the best life is filled with discouragement. Ezra 4 and Nehemiah 4 teach us how to battle discouragement, especially when it comes to those who are committed to doing good.  Ezra 4 is about the discouragement that comes through persecution. It is persecution that is public and political. It chronicles…

The big idea for the week: Worship is central to life with God. In worship, we are called to look beyond our present difficulties, celebrate what Jesus has done for us in the past, and look forward with hope to what he will do for us in the future.  The Bible says that when Christian’s come…

Why is it so easy to miss the main thing?  In February of 2008, an email was leaked from Starbucks headquarters. It was sent from Howard Shultz, who was transitioning back into the CEO role after an eight-year absence, to the current CEO, Jim Donald: “as we prepare for the 2008 strategic planning process, I want to…

Matthew 27:62-28:18 Did This Happen? Does This Matter?

As we prepare for Holy Week, we will examine Matthew’s crucifixion account. 

Matthew gives us very little information about the physical sufferings of Jesus. There is little about blood, beatings, or flayed flesh. We can imagine it, but Matthew’s focus is elsewhere. He focuses primarily on the mockery Jesus endured. And the primary way he…

The Lord’s prayer paints a vision of life in God’s family. That life has three parts: a life of devotion, a life of dependence, and a life of danger.  Jesus teaches us to pray daily that we will be delivered from evil. This is a plea for protection. But in our comfortable routines of life, we do…

Jesus began his public ministry with one of the most famous sermons ever delivered: the Sermon on the Mount. And here, beginning in chapter 23 is Jesus’ final sermon. As I study this section, I am amazed at the beautiful balance of Matthew’s gospel. This final sermon is almost exactly the same length as the…

Matthew 23 / The Most “Un-Christian” chapter in the Bible?  Matthew 23 is a challenging chapter. In this chapter, Jesus, God’s mighty prophet, calls down seven woes upon the religious leaders of his day. They were diverting people from Jesus and keeping people from the kingdom of God. The “pitch” of Jesus’s prophetic critique is…

Four big questions arise in Matthew 22:15-46.  Three are asked of Jesus and one is asked by Jesus.  The three questions asked of Jesus are meant to trip him up and trap him.   But what they meant for evil, God uses for good.  The questions are:  It is amazing how timely these questions are. …