Disillusionment and abandoned dreams make the heart sick. We see this in Nehemiah as he hears of a ravaged Jerusalem. However, the Lord opens a surprising door to hope and restoration. Today, offer the Lord your own disappointments and hear of the grace he offers to the downhearted. This sermon was given on Sunday, March…
Zechariah’s remarkable prophecy of a triumphant king mounted on a donkey has become so familiar that we can forget just how radical of an image this was. It would have been nearly unprecedented in the ancient world. And yet, it is just one of countless examples of the radical grace that makes the gospel unparalleled…
Today we once again celebrate Sanctity of Life Sunday. This is a Sunday where we look beyond our hysterical culture wars to what God himself says about human life – its beginning, its meaning, and its end. This morning we will explore the challenges of life when it is not easy to live, and where…
Ezekiel 37 records one of the most dramatic prophetic visions in all of the Bible, a valley full of human bones. Flowing from this vision it also records a remarkably challenging and incisive question from God, ‘Can these bones live?’ Today we will explore why God asks this unusual question, and what it means for…
What does true repentance actually look like? Not theoretically, not theologically, but practically? The 1970 movie ‘Love Story’ offers a possible answer in its famous line, ‘Love means never having to say you’re sorry.’ If only it were so! Today we will explore God’s own recipe for making things right, looking to 2 Chronicles 34,…
Why do bad things happen to good people? There’s often a mystery, but sometimes there’s not. Idolatry is one of the chief ways we demolish our lives and the lives of our loved ones. Tragically, we often don’t even realize what we’re doing. Today we will examine the ‘idol factory’ that is the human heart,…
The prophet Jonah is a fascinating case study. With a flair for the dramatic he boldly says and does things that we often do only subtly and with some embarrassment. Today’s chapter is a case in point: Jonah stridently voices his displeasure with God’s grace, and in so doing reveals a common condition of the…
1 Kings 11 is one of the greatest whiplash chapters in the Bible. It goes from the high point of Solomon’s majestic reign (quite possibly the high point in all of the Old Testament),to the beginning of the end of the kingdom of Israel. What happens? Today we will look at the slippery slope that…
We all have giants in our lives, formidable challenges that seem insurmountable. What challenges are you too scared to confront? What obstacles leave you a’trembling? And yet, when we resign ourselves to the fear and make peace with the status quo, we miss out on the promised land the Lord is calling us to, the…
After the wise men leave Bethlehem, we come to one of the most tragic episodes in scripture, Herod’s massacre of the children. It is an unthinkable scene, one we might want to skip over, and yet it shapes our Lord’s early years in a dramatic way, driving the holy family into Egypt. Furthermore, it also…