"Featured" Tagged Sermons
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Parenting With a Purpose: Shaping Your Child’s Heart
When you have children, you have ideas about what you want them to be like as they grow up. Depending on what’s important to you–or in some cases, unfulfilled dreams in your own life–you point them in certain directions. You might hope that they’ll be a gifted, dedicated athlete who gets a full ride to college. Or you want them to be brilliant academically, breezing through school with a perfect GPA and high test scores and the consequent college acceptance letters.…
Parenting With a Purpose: Obedience, Discipline, and Instruction
We’ve all witnessed a child’s atrocious behavior in a public place and thought critical thoughts about his parents’ lack of ability to “control their child.” And, to be honest, we’ve all probably been the parents of a child who publicly (and embarrassingly) acts as if she has never learned what “no” means (though we’ve taught her many, many times . . .). How do parents get their children to behave? How do we teach them to respect boundaries, control their…
The Problem of Others: “The Woman You Gave Me”
A few weeks back we looked at how our view of God changed in Genesis 3, and a week later we reflected on how our view of self changed. But that’s not all. In Adam’s “defense” to God in the Scripture reading above, you see a hint of how our view of others changed as well. “The woman you gave me . . .” No longer are they allies and partners; now she’s the “other,” the enemy, the one to blame. It’s…
Born Again
The phrase “born-again Christian” has become a fairly common phrase in the English-speaking world, particularly in America. It’s often used pejoratively to describe a particular flavor of Christianity . . . one characterized by emotional conversion experiences and usually accompanied by an especially conservative outlook on life. A “born-again Christian,” in other words, is someone outside the mainstream of “normal” American culture. For Jesus, the phrase itself would be confusing. For him, if you’re born again, you’re a Christian, and…
The Word Became Flesh
This is the last of three messages that I’m sharing about John’s incredibly beautiful Prologue (John 1:1-18), one of the most enriching descriptions of the Incarnate Son of God to be found anywhere in Scripture. Tomorrow we’ll study the culmination of John’s Christological message: “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, . . .” We’ve spent a fair amount of time over the last two weeks discussing what John meant when he described Jesus as “the Word” (i.e.,…
In Him Was Life
We’re spending a couple of weeks on John’s incredibly beautiful Prologue (John 1:1-18), one of the most enriching descriptions of the Incarnate Son of God to be found anywhere in Scripture. Tomorrow we’ll study what John tells us about Jesus as the “life” and “light.” Notice John’s wording: it’s not just that Jesus *gives* life and *brings* light . . . he *is* life, and he *is* light. Consequently, we’re raised from our deadness because we become partakers of his…
Let All the Earth Keep Silence
Habakkuk’s struggle is a classic one: where is God when wicked people and evil nations flaunt his ways through oppression, violence, and arrogance? God answers with a series of “Woes” that he puts into the mouths of the nations Babylon was oppressing. He says a lot, but his message could be distilled to this: Evil will not have the last say (if you have time, read the whole passage: Habakkuk 2:4-20). We’ll talk about that some tomorrow, but because that…
How Long?
I guess most of God’s sons and daughters have at some point cried out, as Habakkuk did, “O Lord, how long shall I cry for help, and you will not hear?” It could be some personal calamity–a child’s rebellious ways, the sickness of someone we love–or perhaps more of a national or universal one–economic uncertainty or declining interest in spiritual things in the society surrounding us. Habakkuk’s words are pretty strong; in fact, Hebrew scholars suggest that our English translations…
The Temptation of Christ
There’s an obvious connection with Israel’s temptation in the wilderness in this story. Israel experienced “baptism” in the Red Sea, then went into the wilderness for 40 years, while Jesus was baptized by John then went into the wilderness for 40 days. Jesus’ response to the devil with each temptation was to quote from Deuteronomy, the book of the Torah that in many ways summarizes and completes Israel’s wilderness experience. Israel failed, while Jesus did not. That, in itself, helps us…
Surprised on Judgment Day
This is a familiar story to most Christians, and it’s been preached many times over the years to help people realize how much Jesus cares about our attitude toward those who are disadvantaged. And that’s certainly a needed emphasis. Tomorrow I plan to focus on an interesting nuance in the text, something that I’ve never thought that much about. For the most part, I’m going to ignore the last part of the story–about the ones who ignored the needs of…
