"Featured" Tagged Sermons
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Who can forgive sins?
In Mark 2, Jesus is confronted with a man whose most obvious need is physical healing. Carried by four determined friends, the paralytic is lowered through the roof into the presence of Jesus. Everyone in the room expects one thing: healing. Instead, Jesus does something shocking. He looks at the man and says, “Son, your sins are forgiven.” This moment reveals something essential about who Jesus is and what he came to do. Jesus identifies our deepest need before addressing…
Life Under the King
In Mark 1, we get one of the clearest early pictures of who Jesus is. He arrives announcing the kingdom of God, then immediately begins to embody that message. He calls disciples, teaches with authority, confronts evil, and brings healing. In other words, the kingdom is not just a message he preaches. It’s a reality that shows up wherever the King is present. Thissermon centers on four simple truths: the King has come, the King saves, the King rules, and…
When Following Jesus Costs Something
Over the past two weeks, we’ve been thinking carefully about moving forward in faith in the new year. From Isaiah 43, we were reminded that God is doing a new thing. From Hebrews 11, we saw what a faithful life looks like in the present while God’s promises are still unfolding. Tomorrow, Jesus presses the question further and makes it personal. Luke 14 is not a comfortable passage. Jesus speaks to large, enthusiastic crowds and refuses to let their admiration…
Living by Faith in the Promise
Scripture Reading: Hebrews 11:13-16 (ESV) These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. If they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return. But as it is, they desire a better…
YHWH-Shammah (lesson 3 of 3): The Last Word
Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people,…
The Great Reversal
Mary’s song is tender, but it’s anything but tame. She sees what almost no one else sees–that God is overturning the world’s assumptions. He lifts up the humble and brings down the self-assured. He keeps his promises fully, beautifully, and in ways no one expects. Her voice becomes the first proclamation of the great reversal that Jesus will embody in his birth, life, death, and resurrection. A lot of people in our church family walk feeling small, unseen, anxious, or…
God Came Near
John says the Word became flesh. Not a philosophy, not a program, not advice from a distance. God stepped into real human life with hunger, tears, vulnerability, and joy. He moved into our neighborhood. He drew near enough to be seen, heard, touched, rejected, and trusted. The birth of Jesus is not about God sending information. It’s about God giving presence. Jesus reveals what God is actually like, not through spectacle but through compassion, humility, and self-giving love. And he…
When Heaven Opens
Then I looked, and I heard around the throne and the living creatures and the elders the voice of many angels, numbering myriads of myriads and thousands of thousands, saying with a loud voice, “Worthy is the Lamb who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing!” And I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea, and all that is in them,…
Another King, Jesus
When Paul and Silas preached in Thessalonica, their message caused an uproar. The people accused them of “turning the world upside down” by proclaiming another King—Jesus. They were right. The gospel they preached was not simply advice about how to be forgiven; it was an announcement that the true King had come. In Acts 17, Paul isn’t inviting people to make Jesus part of their lives. He’s declaring that Jesus already reigns. His resurrection proves that God’s kingdom has broken…
Studies in Revelation: Standing Against Compromise
The temptation to assimilate to one’s culture has always been strong, hasn’t it? God’s most frequent warning to Israel as they approached Canaan was for them to take drastic measures to avoid embracing the idol worship of the inhabitants of the land (a warning they largely ignored). And the church is no different. So many times over the years the church has looked more like its surrounding culture than it’s been what God called it to be: “a chosen race, a…
Studies in Revelation: Faithful Unto Death
I’ve often wondered what it would say if we had the privilege of reading a letter that Paul, John, or Peter wrote to our congregation. Even more interesting, though, would be reading a letter from Jesus. It would likely include elements of the letters that he sent to seven churches in Asia Minor (modern day Turkey) near the end of the first century, and recorded in the second and third chapters of Revelation. Probably, what these churches were doing poorly and what…
Studies in Revelation: Your First Love
I’ve often wondered what it would say if we had the privilege of reading a letter that the apostle Paul wrote to our congregation. Even more interesting, though, would be reading a letter from Jesus. It would likely include elements of the letters that he sent to seven churches in Asia Minor (modern day Turkey) near the end of the first century, and recorded in the second and third chapters of Revelation. Probably, what these churches were doing poorly and what they…