From childhood, most of us have learned to love games. The excitement, the cheering, even the competition creates a rush of adrenalin that’s hard to find anywhere else. And on the playing field of life—even life with God—we can find excitement too. But living your...
The church can be described as a body, a family, an army. It’s a movement of influence—one that seeks to bring glory to God and point people toward the Savior. On the night Jesus was betrayed and arrested, He initiated the movement with a meal. He chose food and drink...
God is gracious and that is a very good thing, and, normally, we consider it a good thing. But what happens when God shows His grace to those who have hurt us or others? All of a sudden we're not so certain anymore. When God gives grace to the undeserving it raises...
Money is strange. You need it to live, yet it can squeeze the life right out of you. We shouldn’t find it surprising that God has a lot to say about money and our possessions. Far from being an off-limits conversation even in the church, your view of money reveals...
We generally associate Christmas as being a season of joy and celebration, but many of us experience deep feelings of grief and loneliness during Christmas. That grief and loneliness grows as we tell ourselves we should be feeling positive emotions instead. If that’s...
Becoming a Christian and living as one are two different things. God refers to one as justification and the other as sanctification. We might also understand these two distinctions as finding Jesus and following Jesus. Blur this distinction between salvation and...
Salvation is often viewed as a singular “event” or moment in our lives. By God’s grace, we receive salvation by believing in the death and resurrection of Jesus to save us. There is a sense in which this is absolutely true, from the moment of belief we are saved...
God reminds us in the Bible that He gave an Old Covenant and a New Covenant. Confuse the two and you’re in for a confusing and inconsistent attempt at living for Jesus. It’s not an exaggeration to suggest that the church across the world is mired in legalistic...
Family involves many times and seasons of life. Our roles within our family change, but each role and each season is part of God's plan for family. If we're fortunate, one day we'll find ourselves in the last season - Old Age. While this is a season some of us would...
The last week of Jesus’ life began with a parade of celebration and hope. He would be dead by the end of that week. What happened? Even in darkness, God is at work; it just doesn’t feel like it sometimes. And even though there is no darkness in God, He’s never opposed...
Life is full of extraordinary challenges: wars, injustice, and politics just to name a few. When faced with these extraordinary challenges, we can look for a miracle that is just as extraordinary. But life also has its ordinary challenges: stressful emails or losing...
Near the beginning of His ministry, Jesus stood up in the synagogue and said, "The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to...
When we believe, Jesus invites us to follow Him and live with Him as apprentices of His way. This is an invitation to come and die to ourselves in order to follow Him into a new life with the Father. To die to our sin, our brokenness, our plans to save ourselves, and...
Jesus never insists that we clean up our lives before we can be rescued and redeemed. Thank God. Jesus, instead, invites us to take a closer look. To listen to the whispers of our curiosity. To come and see who He really is. Jesus is still inviting people to draw...
Seems like there’s plenty to be upset about in our world. We can even get personally offended by the actions and comments of others around us. Here’s a radical, relational idea: What if you can become unoffendable? That’s right—unoffendable. It’s rare but possible....
Our society puts great emphasis on being well invested financially. There is no end to the programs and podcasts about how to invest wisely in real estate, IRA’s, 401K’s and the like, but how do we become well invested relationally? As in all investments, each of has...
This modern take on the Prodigal Son parable told by Jesus in Luke 15 was used as the sermon opener for the Prodigal series. Related Sermons