The message of the Gospel is first and foremost a message of radical undeserved love. We can not draw people to Jesus with anything but the radical love of a good Father for a broken and errant son or daughter. Walking with Jesus this week can be a time of close examination of your own heart and own life. I encourage you to come to the services, carve out time in your life to come to church often. This week is one of the holiest weeks because we get to be in church over and over and we get to encounter the living God and watch him work in our lives.
View SermonIsaiah
Sent and Sending
The word “mission” comes from the Latin word mittere which means “to send.” We see the word “sent” or “send” in most of our readings today. For example, in the Gospel of John (20:21) Jesus says “As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you.” Just like Jesus, we are sent into the world with a mission.
View SermonBehold, My Servant
At the end of “the Beauty and the Beast” the spell is broken and the true nature of the beast is revealed. You might call this a manifestation, a sign that shows something clearly. The season of Epiphany is all about manifestations that reveal the true nature of Jesus as both fully God and fully man. As the old hymn says “God in man made manifest.” Today we see such a manifestation just after Jesus is baptized in the Jordan river.
View SermonUnfolding the Master Plan
The Ulm Minster is the tallest church in the world (530 ft). It was planned and begun by Heinrich Parler in 1377, but it was not completed until 1890. That’s 513 years of construction! In the beginning, God had a clear plan for the heavens and the earth, for the garden, and for Adam and Eve. Unlike Ulm Minster, which had many architects and builders along with way, God has overseen the development of his plan over thousands of years.
View SermonTruth in Christ
Where there is Jesus, there is truth, where there is Jesus there is life, even life eternal. Scripture reminds us that Jesus is the Way the Truth and the Life.
View SermonPalm Sunday
It is in the nature of God to profoundly love us even though we are broken, lost, and often make bad decisions. It was profound love for you, me, and all of humanity that Jesus took upon the cross so many years ago so that we might know the way to the Father. Jesus’ gift of being willing to suffer so traumatically for all of us was meant to set us free from our brokenness and free from our addictions and free from our thoughts of worthlessness. Come and see that the Lord is good this Holy Week.
View SermonRose-Colored Glasses
Sometimes we see our lives through rose-colored glasses. We see all of the ways that we consider ourselves to be “good Christian people” when the reality is that we could all use a little (or a lot!) of work. Today is a day to admit our wrong-doings and the impurities of our hearts.
View SermonHow Does God’s Kingdom Come?
The Kingdom of God is not a place, it is not the same thing as any of the nations of the world, it is not even precisely the same as the Church. The Kingdom of God is wherever Jesus reigns as King, chiefly in the hearts of believers. In a post-Christendom world we are to do what we should have been doing all along, focus on bearing the light of Christ.
View SermonMeet the Word
John designed his Gospel to introduce people to Jesus and to help them “believe that [he] is the Christ, the Son of God” so that they can “have life in his name” (John 20:31). To really know someone, you have to know their story. How do you introduce yourself to someone you have never met before? What do you say about yourself? What do you want to know about that new person? What is their name? Where do they come from? Who are their people? What are their interests? The prologue to the Gospel of John answers these kinds of questions as it introduces us to Jesus, the Word.
View SermonThe Weary World Rejoices!
When things feel hopeless, we need a source of hope. I don’t mean simply saying, “I wish things were better.” Rather, we need something that makes us say “things will be better.” We can find this hope in something that has happened which points to something that will happen. One night, more than 2,000 years ago, hope entered the world in the form of a baby.
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