Sermons by Chuck Webster (Page 25)
A Prophet like Moses
For centuries the Jewish people had been looking for “the Prophet,” the one Moses said was coming in our reading for tomorrow. It seems that at least some of them were looking for both a Prophet and a King/Messiah–two different people. Apparently they didn’t understand that the One who was to come would be a Prophet-King-Messiah. Traditionally, we’ve focused a lot on Jesus being the fulfillment of the OT’s prediction of a coming King from the lineage of David, but…
Truth Matters
Pilate’s question makes it sound like he would fit quite well in our post-truth society. Asking “What is truth?” with a tone of skepticism is fairly common these days. As we studied a couple of weeks ago when our emphasis was on Scripture, most folks are comfortable with “truths” but not “Truth.” They’re even less comfortable with the idea of the Truth being a Person. For whatever reason, Jesus wasn’t squishy on truth. Standing before the person who–from a human…
Breathed Out by God
You’ve probably heard talk about our living in a “post-truth” world, one characterized by news outlets that prevent different versions of events, all proclaiming to be “the truth.” Of all the characteristics of postmodernism, one of the most alarming is the lack of trust in institutions/people/religions to be purveyors of truth. In other words, we’ve become a society that has no absolute standard of Truth. We’ve got “truths” but no Truth. We don’t trust the government, we don’t trust the…
Buried with Him in Baptism
hat do you say about baptism to a Church of Christ that hasn’t been said many, many times before? After all, we’re known in the religious world for being obsessed with baptism. But of course, the point isn’t to say something new or different, but to emphasize once again the basic biblical truths about baptism . . .that beautiful moment when a person follows Jesus into the water in order to identify with his death, burial, and resurrection in a…
We Confess
In some ways, confession is quite simple. A person stands before a church or before his family and friends and states that he believes in Jesus as God’s Son. But of course, it’s not that simple, or at least it shouldn’t be. Imagine what that confession meant for the people who made it in the first century . . . they were publicly identifying themselves with Jesus Christ and a burgeoning movement that had no social capital. In fact, depending…
The Kingdom of God Has Come Near
“Kingdom” is the emphasis for our One Word devotional book reading for the upcoming week, so I plan to focus on that theme Sunday. Kingdom is a hugely significant theme in the Bible–it’s used more than 200 times in the Old Testament alone–but sometimes we’re a bit vague on exactly what it means. Sometimes people think of kingdom as synonymous with the church, but that doesn’t come close to explaining the nuances and implications of kingdom thought in the Bible. Sometimes people…