"Featured" Tagged Sermons (Page 14)
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Dead Bones that Live
Judah was in a truly desperate situation—exiled in Babylon with no hope of ever getting home (from a human perspective, at least). To illustrate their situation, God takes Ezekiel and by the Spirit puts him in a valley of dry bones. There was no sign of life in them, representing Judah’s hopeless existence. But then God breathed new life into them, and he told Ezekiel what this vision meant. God would breathe new life into his people and restore them…
Let the little children come to me
In the month of May, we’re having a “Train up a Child” campaign—we’re hoping to be able to fill all of our children’s Bible class rotations with teachers through May 2019. In conjunction with this emphasis, we studied the text above. We discussed how children weren’t highly valued in the world of antiquity for different reasons, which may explain why the disciples discouraged people from bringing them to Jesus. The disciples also probably had an inflated sense of their own…
The Tree of Life
One of the most amazing things about the Bible is its beautiful unity and cohesiveness . . . It tells one over-arching story about what God is doing in the world. One remarkable symbol of that is the Tree of Life, which is mentioned first in the creation narrative of Genesis 1-2. Then, after the Fall, God casts humanity out of the Garden of Eden and away from the Tree. But it’s interesting that we find subtle references to the Tree…
Do you love me more than these?
Our 2018 theme is “Love God. Love People. Change the World,” and this Sunday we’re going to continue this emphasis by studying Jesus’ post-resurrection interaction with Peter. Just a few weeks earlier Peter had infamously denied any connection to Jesus and had almost certainly been dealing with overwhelming guilt and regret since then. Corresponding to Peter’s denial of Jesus three times, Jesus asked Peter if he loved him three times. We’re going to focus primarily on the first question: “Do…
He Was Raised
Today is Easter and millions of people around the world commemorated the resurrection of Christ. Of all the events in Jesus’ life, none is more significant or more life-changing than the empty tomb. He died on Friday, but that death would have been meaningless had his tomb remained occupied early Sunday morning. When the apostles preached, they emphasized the resurrection more than anything else. We studied 1 Corinthians 15, probably the earliest account of the resurrection in the New Testament.…
Trust Changes Everything
The more I read the Bible and try to follow Jesus, the more I realize that the basis of our relationship with God—at least on our part—is learning to trust him completely and unreservedly. Most of us struggle at times with doubt, anxiety, fear, and uncertainty. We don’t obey God as fully or consistently as we should. Sometimes (often?) we make choices based on what WE think is best rather than trusting that God’s way is best. Why is that?…
Atonement: Covered by the Cross
Brief summary (what’s the point of this text/sermon?): This was the last sermon in a four-part series on biblical words/themes that help us understand the overall Story of Scripture. The first three were Glory, Holiness, and Covenant, and Sunday’s sermon was on Atonement. “Atonement” is based on a Hebrew word group that has “cover” as one of its root meanings — you can see how this might be related to sin with the idea that God “covers” (atones for) our…
Love God. Love People. But How?
As you know, our theme for 2018 is Love God. Love People. Change the World. That’s easy enough to say, and it’s so obviously taught in Scripture that none of us would argue against its importance. But still, this question remains: we want to do it, but where do we find the motivation? We want to love God, but how do we? We want to love people, but sometimes that’s really hard, so how can we? In other words, how…