Sermons on Old Testament
The Fig Leaf Fashion Show
A couple weeks back we looked at how our view of God changed in Genesis 3. Instead of seeing God as One to relate to and be in communion with, we started seeing him as One to fear and hide from. We lost something else too. Adam and Eve ate the fruit, and the very next thing that changed was the way they perceived themselves . . . they realized they were naked and tried to cover up. Tyler Staton…
The Bible Jesus Read
A few months ago a famous, extremely influential megachurch pastor preached a sermon in which he said Christians needed to “unhitch from the Old Testament.” He’s been roundly criticized by people all over the world, including quite a few in the Church of Christ. Though most of us wouldn’t say what he said out loud, we might’ve thought it. The Old Testament, to put it bluntly, makes us uncomfortable. Bad things happen, sometimes with God’s approval, it seems, and at…
Walking with Abraham: Are You Serious?
It had been almost a quarter of a century since God promised Abraham that he would be the father of a great nation. Now he’s 99 years old, and (one would think) he’s pretty much given up hope. What 99-year-old man and 89-year-old woman are able to bring a child into the world? But of course God’s timetable is different from ours, and for reasons only he knows he decides now is the time for the long-awaited promised son to…
Walking with Abraham: Faith, Not Sight
Broadly speaking, we look at the world in two ways: by sight and by faith. Looking by sight is viewing the world around us in an unspiritual way–the way most of the world looks at things. So we make decisions based on what makes us most comfortable, what’s the easiest, what will bring the most immediate and greatest pleasures, etc. Looking by faith is looking at the world through a spiritual lens. We look beneath the surface to the true…
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…
God’s Covenant With You
At the end of 2017, I preached two sermons on key concepts that help us see the Bible’s storyline more clearly. The first focused on holiness and the second on glory. In this sermon, we will study a third idea: covenant. In one sense, a covenant is easy to understand—it’s similar to a contract that two parties make with each other, each agreeing to fulfill his side of the agreement. In biblical contexts, though, it’s different, and significantly more important.…