"Featured" Tagged Sermons (Page 8)
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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…
Some (Really) Good News
It’s an understatement to suggest that these are strange, chaotic, and difficult times. The pandemic alone interrupted “normal” lives in ways that we couldn’t have foreseen, and then racial tension boiled over in the last two weeks, of course. Tensions are high, and people are hurting and angry. Your Twitter feed has probably been filled with bad news for quite awhile, and other social media outlets are no better. Which leads us to this question: Where is the good news?…
Self-Control and the Christian Walk
Our One Word for the upcoming week is Self-Control, and it’s in the section of our devotional reading that has to do with Christian Character. In other words, Christians ought to be characterized by self-control. Everyone wants it, right? Or at least we want more of it. We want the ability to resist the slice of cheesecake after dinner, or to resist vegging out in front of Netflix for a couple of hours, or to stay away from mindless internet surfing, or whatever. But of…
As I Have Loved You
Our One Word for the upcoming week is Love, and it’s in the section of our devotional reading that has to do with Christian Character. In other words, Christians ought to be characterized by love. Of all the gospels, John has the lengthiest discussion of what Jesus said and did on the eve of his crucifixion. In this part of Jesus’s life, there’s a consistent emphasis. After the Last Supper, Jesus washed the disciples’ feet, then he connected this action with what he was…
The Word That I Have Spoken
And Jesus cried out and said, “Whoever believes in me, believes not in me but in him who sent me. And whoever sees me sees him who sent me. I have come into the world as light, so that whoever believes in me may not remain in darkness. If anyone hears my words and does not keep them, I do not judge him; for I did not come to judge the world but to save the world. The one who…
Your Heart
Last week we introduced our theme for 2020: “Focus on what matters: ‘This one thing I do.’” I think probably everyone in our congregation realizes the importance of priorities, and we know that we have the tendency to get them out of order. The “one thing” that we know ought to get our focus sometimes gets relegated to a lesser position, even though we know it shouldn’t. And so we try to do better. We make resolutions and commitments. We…